Sentinels of the Multiverse Definitive Edition: True heroes fire blast the bomb at City Hall.

[Kalir]

Hey! It's me again, the guy with the stuff. I'm gonna do more Sentinels of the Multiverse writeups.

Except this time, I'll be covering the new Definitive Edition. See, a few years ago, before the Pandemic, the guys what made SotM put out their Galactus-analogue expansion, the mode to end all modes, OblivAeon. And they also explicitly said "this is the end of the Multiverse and of the card game". A lot of people were kind of bittersweetly happy about it, except for where their wallets were concerned. As far as those go, they were happy, because buying loads of not-cheap expansions for a co-op card game is a tall ask, especially once storage issues come into play.

A few years later, Definitive Edition is announced. This edition promised cleaner rules, updated art that the artist doesn't hate out loud, and just generally being the same thing but better. This was... not completely well-received, since as established above, this whole thing was supposed to be a done deal. I wasn't even going to pick it up myself, the cards I have access to are actually jenkitchen's copy. And if you don't care for having to buy the game a second time, good! More power to you. From my experience, though, Definitive Edition has enough changes to it that it's definitely worth playing. I guess the closest analogue would be comparing D&D editions.

Anyway, enough about that. I'm still totally gonna do me writeups of the heroes, villains, and environments in each set as I gain access to them. To that end, I'll be using this first post to codify both the general changes brought about by DE, as well as the properties I'll cover in my writeup posts. Let's get started!

First, generic changes to the ruleset in DE:

• Equipment cards are renamed to Item cards but are otherwise unchanged.
• Decksearch options now have specific keywords they use to clean up the language surrounding them. Off the top of my had, there's Discover (reveal from the top until you hit the requirement, play 'em all, shuffle everything else back in), Summon (play it from deck or trash), Collect (put it in your hand from deck), Salvage (put it in your hand from trash) and technically I guess Bury (put it on the bottom of the deck in question). Villain and Environment decks can Summon, Discover or Bury, as well.
• Environment decks now have Ongoing as a keyword for most things that hang out. As a result, there are a lot fewer Environment destruction effects, making Environment targets a lot more of a threat than they used to be. Similarly, the Environment deck also now has One-Shots.
• Some cards, as of Rook City Renegades, possess a new keyword: Suddenly! Those of you who played Void Guard Idealist in the earlier edition might recognize this as something from her Monster of Id card. Is a Suddenly! card in your hand? Answer: no, it isn't, it's in play now. (You can't start the game with Suddenly! cards in hand, mulligan them back in.) This is mostly meant to represent heroes that have some aspect of their powers that's out of their control.
• Instances of self-damage are now called "fixed". This means they cannot be increased, decreased, or redirected. This is mostly to prevent heroes from cheesing the sustain costs of some of their more aggressive cards, although there are other forms of fixed damage (usually relating to environment cards punishing players for ignoring them).
• There is a new Reaction mechanic, not unlike pre-existing Powers. Basically, whenever a non-Hero target would deal a Hero some damage, they may activate one of their Reactions they have not yet used in the current round first. If that Reaction would cause the damage to not be dealt (because you clobbered the guy doing the damage), then great! Most of the Reactions are basic counterattacks, but there's also damage reduction or even card draw/play.
• As a rule, deck control is now a LOT softer. It is no longer possible to dictate what the villain does each turn. Sure, there aren't many deck control specialists in the core set, but if the changes to the deck control methods currently in are any indication, I doubt we'll have anything as busted good as Parse's old Extrasensory Awareness.
• One-shots that applied stat changes (like Hypersonic Assault Dash) are now Ongoing cards that do their effect when they enter play, and destroy themselves during Start Phase.
• Some support abilities, particularly those used by Legacy, specify "ally" cards. Allies are basically "any Hero card not belonging to you".
• Every hero in the core set comes with a "First Appearance" variant.
• Incapacitated abilities that used to say, for example, "one hero plays a card" now instruct one hero to take the relevant phase. In practice, this makes these abilities stronger on heroes that have more advantage during those phases for whatever reason (like repeat uses, or effects that trigger during that phase).
• Villains, instead of variants, now have Events. These represent specific major points in the Sentinel Comics lore, and come with either minor rules changes or a single-side Critical Event fight (like Mad Bomber Blade). Winning a non-critical Event adds it to your Collection, where the abilities on it can be used once per game against future events, as indicated by that event's Collection Limit. Every villain in the core set comes with one normal Event and one Critical Event.

Got it? Cool.

Next up: the writeups! Here's the basics of what I'm going to cover.

Checklist:
The Checklist section will indicate some basic elements of what the hero can do, especially as pertains to teamwork with other heroes in a fight. Not every hero can do the same thing, although it's entirely possible to win virtually any matchup in the game (with varying levels of difficulty). I'll also give a brief explanation as to my ruling. So, here's the checklist:

• Reliable Damage: Basically: can you trust this hero to just hit a guy on their turn? Reliable damage doesn't have to be very high, even a simple 2 damage base power will suffice in most instances. The important part is being able to do it without interrupting your gameflow.
• Ongoing Destruction: Not every hero has a method of destroying Ongoing cards in their deck! And against some villains or environments, there are enough scary Ongoing cards that you really want to have some way of getting rid of them as soon as you can. Highlighting which heroes actually have ways to do that is very important in your team lineup.
• Emergency Defenses: Sometimes you're going to be on the receiving end of altogether too much damage on your turn, and you just need some way of buying yourself a reprieve for the turn. Heroes with cards that can provide damage immunity, prevent enemies from doing damage, or even just have huge amounts of reduction and redirect fit in here.
• Deck Control: As mentioned above, it's a lot harder to control what cards you'll be facing in Definitive Edition. Regardless, there are heroes who can mitigate the worst of what the villain and environment decks have to offer. Any tools they have for that are indicated here.
• Ally Acceleration: Whether it's damage boosts or action economy, it's always handy to know what sorts of cheating you can grant to your team. Many heroes have a bit of a slow start on their own, after all, so anything you can do to make your team get their big guns out faster is always great.
• Healing: I'm kinda loathe to put this category here, but there really is no denying that it's important to be able to refill your blood at a moment's notice. Anyway, if you want a character who can do the healing, look over here.
• Big-Ass Attack Option: Name says it all. Whether it's a big smashy AOE or a single-target damage spike in the double-digits, sometimes you just need enough damage to solve the situation right here and now before it gets any worse. Collateral damage is no concern here.

Main Strength:
This section will highlight why in particular you should pick this particular costumed vigilante for your team. Yes, heroes can do a lot of things, and do them well, but there's always some specialty they each have, even if that is that they can do a bit of everything. I may also mention additional advantages to playing this hero that set them apart from other heroes with a similar bent here.

Main Weakness:
Similarly, no hero is able to completely do everything on their own. They all have significant flaws to their kit, flaws which require either another hero to help them or simply careful play and observation to work around. I will highlight both the weakness and the counterplay (if possible) here.

Variant Strategies:
Even in the core set, heroes are going to come with variants attached to each box. I'll track all of those variants in here. Simple enough.

Patch Notes:
And finally, the section meant specifically for people who already played the earlier edition extensively and just want to know why, if anything, they ought to grab this new box. This will have the most detail out of all the sections here. Remember, I want this to be approachable for new players who want to know more about the heroes in each set!

 

[Kalir]

Ra

For this one, as before, I'm going in difficulty/complexity/peril order for decks, which means our first hero we're covering is Ra, god of the sun. As you all know, the chief export of the sun is fire. As such, Ra's job in any given fight is to shoot things with the fire until they fall down. An extremely straightforward hero, and fittingly a mere complexity 1 out of 10. Let's break their stuff down!

Checklist:

• Reliable Damage: Yes. Ra is perhaps the most reliable damage hero in the game. Unless the environment or villain is throwing so much fire damage you have to use Flesh of the Sun God to not die, Ra WILL be doing damage, every turn, and frequently a lot.
• Ongoing Destruction: No. The closest you can get is Scorched Earth, which destroys an Environment card. Not bad per se, but Ongoings are more relevant to destroy as a rule.
• Emergency Defenses: Yes, but only if the thing you need to defend against is fire damage. If it is, Flesh of the Sun God protects everyone easily. If not, Ra will never help you here, unless he maybe times Blazing Barrier exactly right to kill an area attacker.
• Deck Control: No. Technically, Excavation CAN bury cards from the Environment trash, but the instances where that deck control is worth fiending for as Ra are few and far between.
• Ally Acceleration: No. Ra is there for other heroes to accelerate, not the other way around.
• Healing: No. Even the self-heal from the Staff of Ra has been removed as of Definitive Edition. Let's be real, nobody really misses it that much.
• Big-Ass Attack Option: Yes. Once Ra gets fully set up, you will have no trouble outputting double-digit damage every turn, and the new damage-doubling overload move the Staff of Ra has can take single instances and make them terrifying.

Main Strength:
Ra is here to do one thing and one thing only, and that is all the fire damage, all the time. You will almost always have a consistent damage booster out from the Staff of Ra, and its new ability to double any single instance of damage you deal in exchange for destroying the staff gives you amazing spike damage potential, to say nothing of the plethora of fiery oneshots you can attach to your turn. You also don't lack for area attacks either, with Inferno, Fiery Tornado, and Consuming Flame giving some nice easy ways to do that.

Main Weakness:
Putting aside the fact that Ra's pretty much only able to do damage (and even then, just fire damage): the most powerful damage boosters in his deck all come with some form of sacrifice. I already mentioned the Staff's damage doubling ability, but there's also the self-damage of Solar Flare basically requiring healing support to keep it sustained, or Blazing Tornado's discard-to-maintain effect (and Ra, while he has some card draw, isn't exactly a beast at it). Measure your options carefully to really get the most of your damage.

Variant Strategies:

Spoiler

First Appearance: Ra
The base Pyre power is your standard "hit a guy for 2" move. The First Appearance variant simply reduces that to 1, but allows you to either salvage an Ongoing card or play a card. Honestly, I think losing a bit of damage on your base power, especially considering you have a better version of your base power in Ignite, is well worth it. The ability to salvage also helps against disruption-heavy foes, or to cycle Blazing Barrier in and out for strong Reaction damage. And, of course, if people like the idea of playing as Ra but wish he was a little more technical, this helps to wiggle those brain atoms, too.

Backdraft Ra
Another fundamentally simple variant for Ra... at first glance. An area attack to 4 targets with a Hero draw sounds fun at first until you realize: Fight Fire With Fire is not an "up to 4" attack. If you use it, you need to hit at least four targets with it, which will very likely include your own team. Against villains that field lots of threats to pepper down, who cares, just pop the minions and be done with it. When facing solo contenders, or worse, enemies with targets you don't want to hit (hello, Spite) leave Backdraft Ra in the box.

Patch Notes:

Spoiler

Removed: Wrathful Gaze, Imbued Fire, Drawn to the Flame.
Renamed:
  Summon Staff -> By Flame Reformed!
  Blazing Tornado -> Ignite
  Flame Barrier -> Blazing Barrier
Changes:
  Incapacitated effects:
    Ongoing destroy replaced with destroying 1 target with 2 or fewer HP.
  The Staff of Ra:
    No longer heals Ra on play.
    Power removed.
    After you would deal damage (counting all existing modifiers) you may double that damage. If so, destroy the staff.
  Excavation:
    Instead of drawing, now discover X Relic and/or Ongoing cards.
  Scorched Earth:
    Now destroys 1 Environment card.
    Damage is now 1, rather than scaling to Environment cards.
  Solar Flare:
    Damage boost no longer limited to fire.
    Self-damage cost now 5 fixed psychic.
  Inferno:
    Secondary attack changed to attack all non-Hero targets.
  Living Conflagration:
    Complete rework. Grants a Start Phase attack (1 fire to up to 3 targets), an attack when destroyed (3 fire to 1 target and draw 2 cards), and a Power that destroys the card.
  Blazing Barrier
    Now uses a reaction to activate.
    Damage increased to 3, but destroys itself after dealing damage.
  By Flame Reformed!:
    Now summons instead of collects.
    Draw occurs before summon rather than after.
Added:
  Consuming Flame
    One-Shot. Deals up to 3 targets 2 fire each. Grants a card draw for each target destroyed.
  Fiery Tornado
    Ongoing, Limited. Attacks (1 fire to 1 target) after using any power. At Start Phase, you either discard 2 cards or destroy the card. Grants an End Phase attack (1 fire to up to 3 targets).

 

[Kalir]

Legacy

Weird to not start with the clear flagship Superman analogue hero, but eh, I didn't make the rules. No big deal. Anyway, Legacy is a stout and stalwart flying brick and inspiration to all who fight alongside him, as was his father and his father's father and et cetera. While he can fight, his biggest strength is in his leadership, which is to say, in buffing his team and taking hits for them. He is very much intended as a basic support hero, and while he's not flashy, he's extremely good at his job.

Checklist:

• Reliable Damage: Yes, but it takes some setup to do. Motivational Charge is a fine basic attack, but your base power is so strong, you'll most likely not use this as a way to fight until after you get the Legacy Ring out as well.
• Ongoing Destruction: No. Legacy has no way to destroy Ongoing cards.
• Emergency Defenses: Yes. Heroic Interception remains as solid an option as ever, and even outside of that, you can no-sell instances of heavy spike damage with the combo of Lead From the Front and Dauntless Durability.
• Deck Control: Yes, but only in small amounts. Take Down got even better at shutting down vicious cards, but it's rare and might have to be spent on countering a disruption card. Similarly, while Keen Vision CAN check the villain or environment decks, it's better used on allies.
• Ally Acceleration: Yes. This is pretty much Legacy's specialty. Major damage boosts for his team, plus card draws, plays, and power uses. And for those of you used to base Legacy, some of that might be a real surprise, but it's there!
• Healing: Yes. While not exactly the strongest healer in the game, Legacy has Motivational Charge as a combo attack/heal card, plus the on-play effect of Inspiring Presence and the new A True Hero one-shot. So yeah, dude can heal.
• Big-Ass Attack Option: No. Legacy's highest damage is on "Thokk!" at 5. Other heroes will beat that without trying, especially seeing as they're in a game with Legacy.

Main Strength:
Legacy is one of the most straightforward buffbot characters in the game. His base Galvanize power, while slightly nerfed from the earlier edition, remains an extremely powerful way to ratchet up your entire team's damage output, and he excels at giving them the extra room to stretch that boost. The pre-existing defensive measures, with the exception of the now-removed Next Evolution, are as strong as ever, and he has a lot of new toys to let other heroes get extra actions as well. Any team with Legacy on it will be even stronger merely by his presence.

Main Weakness:
As mentioned, Legacy doesn't really do direct offense much, if ever. He CAN, but it's usually better to let another hero really do the work. Furthermore, he is extremely vulnerable with regards to disruption, having only a single Item, the Legacy Ring, in his deck, which is extremely valuable and which is hard to get. A fully set-up Legacy can carry teams, and he can do okay from the start, but it's just not as FUN that way, or as effective. Finally: his best ways of saving the team from a game-ending threat tend to involve some self-sacrifice, so you need to be extra careful with taking on more heat than you can handle.

Variant Strategies:

Spoiler

First Appearance: Legacy
Kind of surprised that only now in Definitive Edition do we have a Legacy variant that inverses the stats on his base power. And honestly, that's a really strong benefit! Damage reducers remain valuable no matter which foe you face, and you can still boost ally damage with Inspiring Presence as needed. It also takes the heat off of playing stuff like Heroic Interception (very welcome with the lower max HP), or of needing your base power if your team is unable or unwilling to use the damage boost from the default variant.

Patch Notes:

Spoiler

Removed: Back-Fist Strike, Next Evolution, Surge of Strength
Renamed:
  Fortitude -> Bulletproof Skin
  Superhuman Durability -> Dauntless Durability
Changes:
  Base Power (Galvanize):
    Damage boost now affects allies instead of all hero targets.
  Incapacitated effects:
    Bonus draw phase replaced with discovering 1 Hero Ongoing.
    Environment damage reduction now applies only to targets.
  "Thokk!":
    Damage increased to 5.
    Card draw removed.
  Heroic Interception:
    Self-damage is now fixed.
  Motivational Charge:
    Damage increased to 3.
    Healing now affects allies instead of all hero targets.
  Dauntless Durability:
    Now prevents the damage instance that triggers it outright, destroying the card in the process.
    Self-heals for 2 when destroyed.
  Take Down:
    Slightly reworked. Instead of blocking card plays, can instead discard a villain card that would be played. If you do so, the Villain with highest health deals Legacy 2 energy and destroys this card.
  Inspiring Presence:
    Heal and damage boost now affects allies instead of all hero targets.
  Danger Sense:
    Power added. Buries 1 Environment card in play, and then destroys the card.
    Now specifies Environment targets rather than cards for damage immunity.
  Bolster Allies:
    After the card draw, a hero other than Legacy plays a card.
Added:
  A True Hero
    One-Shot. Draw 2 cards, and heals allies for 1 HP.
  The Ol' One-Two
    One-Shot. Deals 1 target 2 melee, then plays a card.
  Keen Vision
    Ongoing. Grants a power that reveals and replaces the top card of any deck. If used on an ally deck, they may draw a card or use a power.

 

[Kalir]

Tachyon

That's right! Everyone's favorite speedster lesbian is now lower in complexity than previous complexity 1 heroes! Anyway, Tachyon, like the two preceding heroes, handles more or less the same as her previous incarnation, save for some rough corners being sanded down. She maintains that delicious theme/mechanics integration of playing lots of cards really fast because she's the fast one, damn it all. Just chuck 'em out as fast as you can and don't worry if individual card effects are weak because you have MORE

Checklist:

• Reliable Damage: No. If Tachyon does damage, it's either because she has a spare one-shot that happens to do damage. or because she's about to drop Sonic Vortex or Lightspeed Barrage and change the game state. Either way, she's not a brawler.
• Ongoing Destruction: Yes. Three copies of Blinding Speed in a 40 card deck might not seem like much, but you'll get to those cards sooner rather than later, and you won't even have to slow down your turn to play them.
• Emergency Defenses: Yes. Hypersonic Dash works as well as it ever did (barring some edge cases with disruption effects). Synaptic Interrupt may have gotten a rework that prevents you cheesing OblivAeon or whatever, but hey, counterspelling with a Lightspeed Barrage is almost as good, right?
• Deck Control: No. Controlling the villain turn like that is a slow process, and we don't have time for slow. We only have time for fast.
• Ally Acceleration: Yes, but only due to Fleet of Foot, which is solely card draw for her team. It's effectively free card draw, so you'll play it the second it enters your hand, if not faster, but that's really about all you can do to help them.
• Healing: No. That sounds like something you'd do to stall the game out, and that sounds like a COWARD'S MOVE.
• Big-Ass Attack Option: Yes. The rework might have prevented Tachyon from chaining multiple Lightspeed Barrages together in one turn, but in exchange, the damage ceiling for playing a single one went up. That's right, you heard me: Lightspeed Barrage hits harder now.

Main Strength:
As I've been saying, Tachyon's entire thing is speed, which translates to playing as many cards as you can manage on one turn. HUD Goggles just passively gives you an extra card play while out, Pushing the Limits somewhat less passively does that as well while also amplifying card draw. And you have Expedited Efficiency and Fleet of Foot to keep things moving throughout your turn! Furthermore, her assorted oneshots, while still weak, got some nice buffs to make even the weaker ones worth playing, like Sucker Punch. And, as ever, Tachyon needs very little out to keep her engine running, making her fairly resistant to disruption.

Main Weakness:
If you don't have cards to play, Tachyon will not be able to help the team. As of this point, I have yet to see (remember off the top of my head) any effects that outright block card plays, but discard effects are still there, and Tachyon's improved card draw might not be enough to keep things going. And, as ever, the fact that you get to play so many cards is diluted by the fact that most of those cards just aren't very strong.

Variant Strategies:

Spoiler

First Appearance: Tachyon
Historically, base Tachyon has had a weak base power, which future variants then completely disregarded, wildly throwing her character balance out of whack. Fortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case with the First Appearance power. Granting a single hero a card draw, and yourself a card play if you don't give yourself the draw? That's good, that's strong, that's entirely in keeping with the power level of Testing, especially factoring in the slightly lowered max HP. It's nice to give your buddies a bit more support and yourself more card play, although you will lose out on being able to sauce up Lightspeed Barrage as quickly.

Patch Notes:

Spoiler

Removed: Supersonic Response, Burst keyword
Renamed:
  Hypersonic Assault -> Hypersonic Dash
  Lightning Reflexes -> Expedited Efficiency
  Synaptic Interruption -> Synaptic Interrupt
  Base power (Rapid Recon) -> Testing
Changes:
  Base Power (Testing):
    You may now draw the card revealed instead of replacing it.
  Incapacitated effects:
    Bonus draw phase replaced with collecting 1 Hero One-shot.
    Salvage now only works on Items.
  Lightspeed Barrage:
    Damage now scales to trash size.
    Shuffles trash into deck after dealing damage.
  Blinding Speed:
    Can no longer destroy Environment cards.
  Nimble Strike:
    Damage increased to 2.
  Sucker Punch:
    Deals the target 1 melee before checking the destroy threshold.
  Sonic Vortex:
    Targets selected now scale to trash size.
  Pushing the Limits:
    Start phase damage is now 2 fixed fire and is mandatory.
    Start phase destroy condition removed.
    Power added. Deals 1 target 3 melee and destroys the card.
  HUD Goggles:
    Now renders damage dealt by Tachyon irreducible.
  Research Grant:
    Card draw is now up to 3.
  Expedited Efficiency:
    Now draws 1 card before playing.
  Hypersonic Dash:
    Now an Ongoing card that deals damage upon entering play, and destroys the card at start phase.
  Synaptic Interrupt:
    Limited keyword added.
    Completely reworked. Now grants a reaction that either draws or plays a card, destroying the card if a card is played.

 

[Mogri]

You buried the lede on the HUD Goggles. That's quite the extra effect!

 

[Kalir]

The Wraith

Finally, we get to the rookie favorite. The Wraith might be up to complexity 4, but that's no reason she can't be used as a starter character, and she's still a very reliable jack-of-all-trades character. Better yet, her vastly-uneven one-shots have gotten a much-needed balance pass, and she's phased out some old pieces of kit that didn't work very well for some new and exciting toys. You certainly won't lack for options when playing as her, that's for sure.

Checklist:

• Reliable Damage: Yes. Razor Ordnance and Throwing Knives are both fine ways to contribute damage on the regular, especially with the Micro Targeting Computer amping them up. If you're okay with doing it in smaller portions, Stun Bolt can work as well, while also keeping the heat off of your team.
• Ongoing Destruction: Yes. As with Tachyon, the Wraith's Grappling Hook is only a one-shot, so it's not a guarantee. Also as with Tachyon, the Wraith will go through her deck very quickly with her obscene amounts of card draw, so you'll have it on hand very quickly.
• Emergency Defenses: Yes, but they're not very strong defenses. Smoke Bombs are great if you're set up (especially to boost your own damage) but -1 damage isn't a lot in the long run, even if stacked with Stun Bolt. And your new Flashbang Projector or Sonic Neutralizer can buy you time against single cards, but not for long.
• Deck Control: Yes. The fact that deck control got nerfed as a rule in Definitive Edition doesn't keep the Wraith from having one of the best tools for it with the Infrared Eyepiece. I mean, it got nerfed too, but you know what I mean.
• Ally Acceleration: Yes, but you're either going to need some setup, some support, or some luck to make it work. Abduct and Interrogate is a VERY strong card, but only if you're able to find a target weak enough to pick off with it.
• Healing: Yes, but only self-healing, and even then not good self-healing. Suture Self's healing effect even got nerfed (but that's okay because it has Item salvage now).
• Big-Ass Attack Option: Yes. Inventory Barrage is now a much stronger tool since it no longer requires you to destroy the setup you've worked all game to get. If anything, it's even easier to use now, since all your stuff is limited and your card draw is ridiculous, so you're gonna have a bunch of spares taking up space in your hand anyway.

Main Strength:
As the checklist clearly points out, the Wraith's main strength is that she can do a little bit of everything, and very often can do these things really well. You're a little at the mercy of your deck giving you the tools you want for the situation, but not even by that much, thanks to the nerfed-but-still-strong Impromptu Invention, the reworked-and-really-strong Leverage, and the didn't-need-a-buff-but-hey-why-not Utility Belt. Get yourself the kit you need to complement your team and handle the villain or environment you're up against and go to town on them.

Main Weakness:
The Wraith's kit is extremely strong, but if and only if you get the items you need. And while many heroes have multiple copies of their most important bits of gear, you only have two copies of the bulk of your items, and you can't always guarantee getting the ones you want. Oftentimes, you'll be forced to make do with a suboptimal toolkit, and have to try to use the square peg on a round hole. And if one of your copies of a key piece of gear gets destroyed, you're stuck waiting for the other copy or Suture Self to get it back.

Variant Strategies:

Spoiler

First Appearance: The Wraith
I guess the Wraith just gets to be the deck control specialist in base set now that the Visionary is out for a while. In any case, the base power on this variant isn't really deck control per se so much as scanning, and getting some benefits out of it depending on the result. If the top card is a target, you discover an Item, otherwise you draw a card. Naturally, this means that if you're playing this variant, you'll want to be early in the turn order, so later heroes can capitalize on that info as much as possible.

Detective Wraith
Hello again, Rook City Wraith. Still very much the variant you play if you want to control decks, but where the Infrared Eyepiece got nerfed, Sleuth actually got buffed??? It can now target ANY deck, and can either replace, bury, or play whatever card you look at. That aside, she's still the same variant you're all used to (albeit with sharply reduced max HP) and will be a fundamental part of any overly cautious players' toolkits, not least because this can be stacked with the Infrared Eyepiece and Utility Belt to ensure as much deck control as you can get your hands on.

Patch Notes:

Spoiler

Removed: Throat Jab, Mega Computer
Renamed:
  Trust Fund -> Leverage
  Combat Stance -> Combat Prowess
  Rook City Wraith -> Detective Wraith
Changes:
  Base power (Stealth):
    Damage reduction lowered to 1.
    Damage reduction now persists until your next start phase, rather than being single-shot.
  Detective variant HP reduced to 24.
  Detective variant power (Sleuth):
    Now usable on any deck.
    Now capable of replacing or burying the revealed card, instead of discarding it.
  Detective incapacitated effects:
    Completely reworked. Now either grants 1 hero their draw phase, discards the top card of 1 deck, or discovers 1 target from the villain deck and sets its HP to 1.
  Grappling Hook:
    Can no longer destroy Environment cards.
    May now play a card instead of drawing a card.
  Impromptu Invention:
    Now discovers 1 Item card, rather than either summoning or collecting.
  Inventory Barrage:
    Now discards any number of Items, instead of destroying all Items, and uses the number discarded times 2 for damage.
  Suture Self:
    Healing lowered to 2.
    Now salvages 1 Item card.
  Infrared Eyepiece:
    Limited keyword added.
    Now reveals only one card from the villain deck, which can either be replaced or discarded.
  Smoke Bombs:
    Completely reworked. Provides -1 damage dealt to hero targets, and +1 damage dealt by the Wraith. Destroys itself at start phase.
  Stun Bolt:
    Limited keyword added.
    Damage type changed to lightning.
  Utility Belt:
    Power added. Allows you to either draw 2 or play 1 Item.
  Combat Prowess:
    Now uses a reaction to activate.
    Effect changed to -2 to the activating damage, and granting a card play if that prevents any damage from occurring.
  Leverage:
    Now collects 1 instead of discarding 2.
Added:
  Abduct and Interrogate:
    One-Shot. Deals 1 non-hero target 1 toxic. If that target is destroyed, reveals the top card of each deck, discards any of them, and plays the rest.
  Sonic Neutralizer:
    Item, Limited. Grants a power that removes all text from an environment card in play until your start phase.
  Flashbang Projector:
    Item, Limited. Grants a power that puts a non-character Villain target in play on top of the Villain deck, and then destroys the card.

 

[Kalir]

Haka

Okay, we've seen some of the changes this edition is putting on characters, and they're fine and all, but you ain't seen nothing yet. Haka is the first character that's seen a drastic redesign in terms of what their character can do, with the end result feeling like an entirely new experience. Yeah, he's still the Big Guy who hits hard and takes a lot of damage, but this version just feels so much better with a whole lot of how they handle.

To start with, his Haka cards (now given a keyword to indicate them as such). These used to be one-shots that immediately dumped cards from your hand for a big effect. Now, though, they're Ongoings that provide a stat boost while out, and then do a big effect off of discards at your next start phase. Functionally it's not very different, but it has a lot better feel, like you're taking the time do actually do the haka needed rather than just going "and then I hit the guy for 20".

Checklist:

• Reliable Damage: Yes. Haka's power uses are almost always going to be something along the lines of hitting a dude in the face, unless you're trying to do something extra goofy with Dance in the Fray.
• Ongoing Destruction: Yes, but it requires the foresight to have the Taiaha out, and the willingness to destroy it to achieve that end. Neither one is really a guarantee given how Haka plays, but it's an option if you really need it.
• Emergency Defenses: Yes. Ground Pound got removed, but in its place we have a strong damage reduction/redirect combo: with Tā Moko and Dance in the Fray out, you can play Tiaki Defender with your play phase, Haka of Recovery with your power phase, and then use the self-heal of Haka of Recovery after weathering the damage to basically negate a full villain offensive!
• Deck Control: No. Haka's playstyle tends to be a little more direct than that.
• Ally Acceleration: No. You can't provide even so much as a single point of boosted damage or a single card draw. Any support Haka offers to his team is all defense.
• Healing: Yes, but only self-healing. Not that it's bad self-healing, it's actually pretty good, but it's mostly the kind of thing you need to self-sustain with if you're doing aggressive tanking.
• Big-Ass Attack Option: Yes. Literally exactly what two of your three Hakas are for, not to mention the panic button that is Rampage. Haka doesn't always swing for the fences, but when he does, people tend to notice.

Main Strength:
Haka is definitely the bulkiest hero in the core set, no questions asked. With reliable consistent punching damage, the highest base health in the game, and loads of defenses and self-heal, he's the rock the rest of the team can rely on even in the toughest of times. While his strongest Haka effects all require lots of cards to be discarded, he has some of the best card draw in the core set as well, allowing him to easily keep up with the costs those Hakas invoke.

Main Weakness:
Haka has exactly two things he's good at: hitting guys, and taking their hits in turn. That lack of versatility can really hurt if you need to do something else. What's more, you're dependent on your card draw to really get your game underway, and while that doesn't sound scary at first, it can be a lot harder if your card draw options get disrupted. Without that card draw, he's neither as good a damage dealer nor a tank as you'd really want him to be.

Variant Strategies:

Spoiler

First Appearance: Haka
Ooh, this is a weird one. Aranga destroys a target with 3 or fewer HP and then heals Haka for 3. On the surface, that sounds fine for a tanking build, even with the lower max HP. There's a problem, though: that destroy is NOT optional and does NOT specify a type of target. If the only target you can destroy is a critically injured Argent Adept, then you best hold off on using this power and let them play a healing song for you instead! Not to say this is a bad power (although it can be awkward with a target-heavy hero like Unity), just, y'know, check your targets with it.

Werewolf Haka
Haha what. Apparently being a werewolf means you get to be the most setup-focused Haka in the game. First: you now have the Werewolf keyword, which means things in conjunction with certain decks (most notably Apex). Second, The Mightiest changes in capability based on whether you're the highest health out of your team or not, giving strong card draw if you are, and a handy-dandy Haka summon if not. Pretty straightforward gameplan there: just start the game with even better card draw than Haka already has, flexing to self-recovery when necessary, to just be the biggest and beefiest on the squad.

Patch Notes:

Spoiler

Removed: Savage Mana, Punish the Weak, Enduring Intercession, Ground Pound, Vitality Surge, Dominion, Haka of Shielding
Renamed:
  Elbow Smash -> Surge of Ihi
  Haka of Restoration -> Haka of Recovery
  Base Power (Crush) -> Riri
Changes:
  Incapacitated effects:
    Damage reduction lowered to 1, but now applies to all Hero targets.
    Damage reduction now persists until your next start phase, rather than being single-shot.
  Tā Moko:
    Grants an extra draw during draw phase.
  Rampage:
    Grants a card draw whenever a target is destroyed by this card.
  Mere:
    Damage increased to 3.
  Taiaha:
    Now can destroy an Ongoing card at start phase, destroying itself if you do.
  Haka of Recovery:
    Haka keyword added.
    Completely reworked. Now an Ongoing that reduces your damage taken by 1, and has a start phase discard of any amount of cards to heal for X times 2, then destroys the card.
  Haka of Battle:
    Haka keyword added.
    Completely reworked. Now an Ongoing that increases your damage dealt by 1, and has a start phase discard of any amount of cards to attack (X+2 melee to 1 target), then destroys the card.
  Surge of Ihi:
    Damage reduced to 2.
    Draws 2 after dealing damage.
Added:
  Tiaki Defender:
    Ongoing, Limited. Allows you to redirect damage dealt by non-hero targets to allies towards Haka. Destroys itself during start phase.
  Knock Heads:
    Ongoing. Attacks (2 melee to 2 targets) and reduces damage from those targets by 1. Destroys itself during start phase.
  Haka of Frenzy:
    Ongoing, Haka. Renders damage dealt by Haka irreducible. Has a start phase discard of any amount of cards to attack (3 melee to X+1 targets), then destroys the card.
  Dance in the Fray:
    Ongoing, Limited. Grants an attack (2 melee to 1 target) after any of your Ongoings are destroyed. Grants a power that draws 1 and plays 1.
  Taonga Mana:
    Ongoing, Limited. Lets you draw 1 after destroying any non-Hero target. Can draw 3 cards at start phase, destroying itself if you do.
  Sudden Utu:
    Ongoing, Limited. Grants a reaction that deals the attacker 2 melee.

 

[Kalir]

Bunker

We're not even close to done yet. Next up is Bunker, a hero who... was pretty bad in the original, truth be told. About as setup-dependent as the Wraith, but with none of the absurd speed setup options, and with a bunch of Mode cards that really didn't synergize well with the deck, or each other. Sure, he had his advantages, but nothing you couldn't achieve more easily with another hero. Now, though? You've got a hero who not only holds his own compared to the rest of the cast, but has a completely new feel to him, one that really makes him stand out as a character.

For starters, the aforementioned Mode cards got some buffs that kept them from being such a hindrance to how you play the character, as well as drastically buffing the advantages they afford. For another, all of Bunker's Ordnance weapons got a keyword and a rework, where they now load cards into them at start phase, and then fire off those cards when you use the power they have (much like how Omni-Cannon used to work and still works). This leads to a lot of managing what weapons you have available and firing them as their ammo supply dictates. Pay attention to your options and you'll find yourself with one of the best damage outputs in the game.

Checklist:

• Reliable Damage: Yes, but you need your weapons out and loaded for that. Once that's done, hell yeah he is shootin'. But in most cases, you have to spend at least one or two turns of setup each game for that to happen. So early on, you might need an ally to cover the slack for you. You'll pay them back in spades, trust me.
• Ongoing Destruction: No. Bunker cannot destroy any Ongoings he doesn't already own.
• Emergency Defenses: No. The first version of Bunker was kinda sorta flavored to be a damage sponge, but he wasn't really much good at it, and even if you got him set up that way, he basically just sat there doing nothing but drawing his deck, which is hardly any fun at all.
• Deck Control: Yes. Instead, new Bunker found himself some new toys. Not only do you keep the ever-useful Adhesive Foam Grenade, you now have LIDAR Intel to scan any deck you damn well please as a power use! Yeah they made Bunker a deck control character for some reason!
• Ally Acceleration: Yes, but only sparingly. You're borrowing Parse's Between the Lines with the new Tactical Command one-shot, and LIDAR Intel can also scan teammate decks, but this really isn't your main focus by a long shot.
• Healing: Yes, but this one really is a technicality, even compared to the Wraith. If you use the Emergency Shielding to block a hard hit or as disruption fodder, it'll heal you reactively for 2. That's it.
• Big-Ass Attack Option: Yes. Though the vast majority of Bunker's deck has changed drastically, you can always rely on the good ol' Omni-Cannon to charge up and just delete whatever you point it at. We love you, Omni-Cannon.

Main Strength:
Once set up, Bunker can output a constant stream of damage that can take down single targets or crowds of foes with equal efficacy. And even outside of setup, Bunker has some new ways to help out the team even without that setup, whether that's deck scanning with LIDAR Intel, stalling the environment with Adhesive Foam Grenade, or using Tactical Command to give your teammates precise power uses. And with the new Upgrade Mode and Expendable Power Bank, your setup doesn't take anywhere NEAR as long as it used to. Some games, Bunker wouldn't even get to play before they ended. Now, you have maybe one or two turns of warmup, and then you're in business.

Main Weakness:
That said, Bunker is still a setup-focused hero and needs to be able to build their suite of gear to get running. Each Ordnance you play needs a turn or two to get primed and ready, and if they get disrupted, all that ammo and prep time you spent on them is wasted. Even with his very welcome changes, Bunker remains one of the characters weakest to disruption in the core set. You've got enough health and Emergency Shielding that you can take some pain on the way to your setup, but it's not going to be an easy road if you get your stuff broken.

Variant Strategies:

Spoiler

First Appearance: Bunker
A big problem that Bunker used to have is just not getting to play the game until you get your setup even partway there, and in the disruption meta of the old core set, that wasn't gonna last long. This Bunker variant, in exchange for some max HP, now can just punch people directly! That's right, he's finally got a "hit a guy for 2" base power! I'm so proud of you, Tyler! Better yet, you can instead salvage an Item if you so desire. Easily the most disruption-resistant version of Bunker I have ever seen or will see in the future.

Stealth Suit Bunker
At the other end, the Stealth Suit gives Bunker some nice ways to get set up more quickly, with the ability to collect Ongoing cards and then play them with Silent Running. Fast setup on Bunker is a good thing. Downside is, this is also the most frail Bunker model yet, at a mere 25 max HP, so you BETTER set up fast, or you will get caught out and it will hurt a lot. Also: as fun as the fast setup is, it only works for Ongoing cards, i.e. your Modes and support options. Not a bad thing at all, of course, but since it's only collect, you'll want a friend to help you get some trash recovery every so often.

Patch Notes:

Spoiler

Removed: Decommissioned Hardware, External Combustion, Ammo Drop, Heavy Plating, Maintenance Unit
Renamed:
  Auxiliary Power Source -> Expendable Power Bank
Changes:
  Max HP increased to 30.
  Base power (Initialize):
    Can put the top card of your deck under Ordnance in play instead of drawing.
  Incapacitated effects:
    Damage reduction now persists until your next start phase, rather than being single-shot.
  Grenade Launcher:
    Ordnance keyword added.
    Puts a card from your deck under it during start phase.
    Power slightly reworked. Now destroys up to 2 cards under itself, attacking (2 fire to 3 targets) each time you do.
  Gatling Gun:
    Ordnance keyword added.
    Puts a card from your deck under it during start phase. Start phase attack removed.
    End phase completely reworked. Now destroys up to 3 cards under itself, attacking (1 projectile to 1 target) each time you do.
  Flak Cannon:
    Ordnance keyword added.
    Puts a card from your deck under it during start phase.
    Power slightly reworked. Now destroys up to 2 cards under itself, attacking (3 projectile to 1 target) each time you do.
  Omni-Cannon:
    Ordnance keyword added. Limited keyword removed.
    Start phase card loading changed to the top card of your deck and capped at 1.
  Upgrade Mode:
    Limited keyword added. No longer destroys other Mode cards upon entering play.
    Summons 1 Item after being played.
    Start phase destroy is now mandatory.
    Extra card play moved to end phase and increased to 2.
  Turret Mode:
    Limited keyword added. No longer destroys other Mode cards upon entering play.
    Start phase destroy is now mandatory.
    No longer prevents card draw or card play.
    Increased extra power uses to 2.
  Recharge Mode:
    Limited keyword added. No longer destroys other Mode cards upon entering play.
    Start phase destroy is now mandatory.
    No longer prevents card play.
    Increased extra card draw to 4.
    Added end phase ability to put any cards from hand under Ordnance in play.
  Adhesive Foam Grenade:
    Now an Ongoing card, which destroys itself during start phase.
  Expendable Power Bank:
    Limited keyword added.
    Completely reworked. Now allows you, during play phase, to put a card from trash under Ordnance in play, putting itself under Ordnance in play if you do. Puts the top card of deck under Ordnance in play during end phase.
Added:
  Piston Punch:
    One-Shot. Attacks (3 melee to 1 target) and puts itself under Ordnance in play if it destroys a target.
  Mounted AP Gun:
    Item, Ordnance, Limited. Puts a card from your deck under it during start phase. Grants a power that destroys 2 cards under itself, attacking (6 irreducible projectile to 1 target) if you do.
  Emergency Shielding:
    Item, Limited. Heals Bunker for 2 when destroyed. Grants a reaction that reduces the damage dealt by 2, destroying itself if damage is still dealt.
  LIDAR Intel:
    Ongoing. Draws 1 after a non-Hero target is played. Grants a power that reveals and replaces the top card of a deck, then draws 1.
  Tactical Command:
    One-Shot. Grants an ally a power usage, converting damage dealt by that power to irreducible.

 

[Kalir]

Fanatic

In the first iteration, Fanatic was a hero with a lot of really strong powers, but with a lot of heavy costs to them that made them hard to maintain. And if you couldn't foot those costs, she was just a damage dealer hold-the-damage. She's still got a lot of that identity in Definitive Edition, but it's been fine-tuned a lot, with her more unintuitive or outdated mechanics gone and a more unifying mechanical theme to her abilities. Namely: a lot of her abilities get stronger if she's at 10 or fewer HP. Like, drastically stronger. By a lot.

Checklist:

• Reliable Damage: Yes, but it won't be for very much until you get lower on health or get Absolution out. Because Exorcism is two instances of damage, it's affected a lot more by damage modifiers, good or bad, so any foe with damage reduction is off the table for a while.
• Ongoing Destruction: Yes, but only in the form of the Consecrated Ground one-shot and End of Days. Fanatic doesn't have enough card draw to make the former card reliable, and End of Days, uh... has Issues.
• Emergency Defenses: Yes. Granted, most of those defenses are for her rather than allies, especially the Aegis of Resurrection and Undaunted, but you can't deny that Brutal Censure is great at dealing with a dangerous foe until your team can deal with it.
• Deck Control: No. The only knowledge Fanatic has about the workings of evildoers is how good she can stab 'em.
• Ally Acceleration: Yes, but it takes some upkeep to maintain. Anoint Allies is a card you will want to have out often, doubly so if you can get both copies of it, but you won't sustain it for long without some emergency healing.
• Healing: Yes. While most of it is self-healing, designed to keep Fanatic at exactly 10 health and no higher, she does have Holy Nova to spread the love around a bit.
• Big-Ass Attack Option: Yes, but both Wrathful Retribution and End of Days both take some time to rev up. They definitely make an impact once they land, though: Wrathful Retribution is a nice delete button for single targets, and End of Days can completely clear a field that's too hot to handle.

Main Strength:
Before she drops to the magical threshold of 10 HP, Fanatic is a perfectly competent, if not great, generalist. She's got some nice control and support effects and some reasonable offense. Once she drops that low, she starts swinging terrifying amounts of damage and effects that will end fights faster than the villains are even close to ready for. More than anyone, she's built to handle the new design of the villains where they beat you to a pulp early on, but then you turn it around and hit back even harder.

Main Weakness:
If you haven't guessed it by now, I'll just spell it out. When played optimally, Fanatic effectively has a max HP of 10. Aegis of Resurrection or no, you're extremely vulnerable at that low health total, especially if your team goes down as fast as you do. And if you're not getting down to that health total, you're just kind of a weaker version of the Wraith. You need to have the finesse to play the game as Danger Mario, because neither alternative is great for you.

Variant Strategies:

Spoiler

First Appearance: Fanatic
Ordinarily, Fanatic has very little in the way of speedy setup. You're either using Prayer of Desperation or just kind of winging it and hoping for the best. This alternate version trades a point of max HP (and technically the damage of your base power) away for the ability to discover a Relic for a simple 2 fixed psychic self-damage. And honestly, for Fanatic? That's half a feature than a cost. Regardless, your Relics are very much the core of your kit, and the faster you get the three of them out, the better.

Haunted Fanatic
Haha sorry did I say "effectively" 10 max HP? Yeah not anymore. Haunted Fanatic enters the game with 10 max HP and deal with it. The advantages are obvious: you always get the threshold effects on all your cards, and your base power, Wholly Unholy, summons relics. The downside is that you start with 10 HP. To prevent you getting jobbed before you get a turn, one of your incapacitated effects lets you revive as another Fanatic variant at 15 HP, but it costs all other active heroes a card and 1 fixed infernal to do, to say nothing of starting at half health on another character. Do not ever use this against a villain that starts the game dealing way too much damage unless you like not playing the game.

Patch Notes:

Spoiler

Removed: Embolden, Chastise, Zealous Offense, Divine Focus
Changes:
  Base power (Exorcism):
    Deals Fanatic 1 fixed psychic after the other damage.
  Incapacitated effects:
    Damage boost replaced with allowing a hero to self-damage for 2 fixed psychic, allowing a follow-up attack (4 radiant to 1 target) if they do.
  End of Days:
    Now activates at start phase instead of environment start phase.
  Aegis of Resurrection:
    Slightly reworked. Now prevents the damage that would drop Fanatic to 0 HP and destroys itself. Now restores 10 HP no matter how it's destroyed.
  Absolution:
    No longer self-heals when played.
    Power slightly reworked. Initial damage must be melee, but grants a second attack (2 fire and 2 radiant to 1 target) if Fanatic is at 10 or fewer HP.
  Consecrated Ground:
    Can no longer destroy Environment cards.
  Smite the Transgressor:
    Now requires Fanatic to be at 10 or fewer HP for extra power use.
    Power uses increased to 2.
  Undaunted:
    Now reduces the damage dealt if 1 damage would be dealt, instead of preventing it.
    Spike damage reduction increased to 3, but only applies if Fanatic is at 10 or fewer HP.
  Sacrosanct Martyr:
    Self-damage cap reduced to 3.
    Damage scaling now checks all damage instead of only radiant damage.
  Divine Sacrifice:
    Completely reworked. Now deals Fanatic up to 3 radiant, then attacks (3 radiant to [amount of damage taken this turn] targets).
  Wrathful Retribution:
    Now an Ongoing card, which deals damage and then buries itself at start phase.
    No longer requires discards to activate.
  Sanctifying Strike:
    Damage increased to 2.
    Self-heal increased to 2.
  Holy Nova:
    Adds an attack (2 radiant to 3 targets) if Fanatic is at 10 or fewer HP.
  Prayer of Desperation:
    Completely reworked. Now reveals the top 4 cards of your deck, collecting any Item or Ongoing cards revealed and discarding the rest, then granting 2 card plays if Fanatic is at 10 or fewer HP.
  Brutal Censure:
    Completely reworked. Now an Ongoing that, when played, removes game text from a non-character target. Either destroys itself or forces Fanatic to self-damage for 3 fixed psychic at start phase.
Added:
  Righteous Rebuke:
    Ongoing, Limited. Grants a power that attacks (2 radiant to 1 target), and if Fanatic is at 10 or fewer HP, attacks again (2 radiant to up to 3) and self-heals for 2.
  Rosary of the Mysteries:
    Item, Relic, Limited. Grants a power that shuffles your trash into deck, discards 5, draws 5, and if Fanatic is at 10 or fewer HP, self-heals for up to 5.
  Anoint Allies:
    Ongoing. Increases ally damage dealt by 1. If Fanatic has 10 or fewer HP, increases her damage dealt by 1. Either destroys itself or forces Fanatic to self-damage for 3 fixed psychic at start phase.

 

[Kalir]

Unity

Perhaps the least changed hero out of the entire core set, Unity still plays pretty much exactly how you expect her to, save for a few rough edges being sanded down as ever. She is still going to make a bunch of little robot guys who do loads of damage to the enemies, and is still going to have some issues keeping them all intact while the enemies do their big damage to everyone. You love to see it.

For those of you who aren't familiar with earlier editions, Unity's whole thing is that she makes Mechanical Golems that attack independently of her. They can't be played during her play phase, so you either have to use powers or get assistance from allies to put them out. Additionally, they count as separate hero targets, which means they can eat single-target attacks for the team easily, and die in droves to enemy area attacks. Plan your turns accordingly!

Checklist:

• Reliable Damage: Yes, but only as long as you can maintain the Mechanical Golems needed for that damage. Still, Platform Bot and Arsenal Bot, at the very least, are hardy and have solid output, and Champion Bot only makes that better.
• Ongoing Destruction: Yes, but Bee Bot is as likely as not to die before an Ongoing comes out if played too early, and it still needs to take damage before the destroy happens. So you might end up having to direct an ally attack towards it just to ensure you actually get the Ongoing destroyed.
• Emergency Defenses: Yes, but Stealth Bot isn't nearly as busted as it used to be. The redirect effect and damage reduction are both still strong, but now solely apply to Unity and her Mechanical Golems. And Stealth Bot doesn't have enough health to weather a heavy offensive for long.
• Deck Control: No. Not even close to Unity's purview.
• Ally Acceleration: Yes, but solely with the Hasty Augmentation one-shot. That said, it's a GOOD one-shot. Any damage-dealing power, especially those that attack multiple times, are always strong options for Hasty Augmentation.
• Healing: No. Strictly speaking, you can heal your Mechanical Golems, which is nice and all, but when it comes to the heroes, no, Unity is incapable of healing them.
• Big-Ass Attack Option: Yes. Disregarding that a fully set up Unity does this every turn, you still have Powered Shock Wave as an amazing area attack, even with only two or so Mechanical Golems out. And if you have a lot more than that and actually wipe the field with Powered Shock Wave, all your other high-power attacks get directed right at the main villain.

Main Strength:
Pound for pound, Unity's deck has some of the highest damage-per-round potential in the game. Many of her bots do a basic attack, some do a lot more than a basic attack (Raptor Bot), and Unity herself is no slouch for attacking if she's got the one-shots for it. And if there's a villain that likes to pick on your weakest hero, the bots are also great for running interference there. Best of all, Unity doesn't need most of her stuff around nearly as much as other high-setup characters do!

Main Weakness:
There's two big problems with Unity. First and most importantly: you need Mechanical Golems out to do something, but you can't play them during play phase. A hand full of Mechanical Golems as an opener is going to need team support to see the light of day. And second (and also most importantly): any area attack may as well count as a disruption effect for Unity. Because that means every single bot in your play area is taking that hit, not just you. You'll need allies extra willing to go for their defenses to maintain your robot army.

Variant Strategies:

Spoiler

First Appearance: Unity
Oooh, this one's fun. A basic 1 lightning attack and a topdeck can vary sharply in power depending on who does it, and in Unity's hands, it's pretty dang strong. There's virtually no cards that are bad for her to play (barring maybe Powered Shock Wave with sensitive targets around, but you're playing Unity anyway, those targets are probably gonna get chewed on), and while 1 damage isn't really a lot on its own, it can manually trip Bee Bot if you really need some extra ongoing destruction. Of course, this means a slower and less controlled output of Mechanical Golems, so it's got its drawbacks.

Scavenger Unity
Tired of milling for Robot Reclamation every time an area attack happens? Here, go full anarchist with Scavenger Unity and get the ability to play Mechanical Golems or Items from your trash. You can also use One Man's Trash to give yourself two cards and discard 1, which both helps to set up later uses of the ability and lets you put the right cards in your trash as a second hand. This is obviously very strong with Unity's strong Items that get destroyed after use, like Scrap Metal or Construction Pylon. This variant does have some pretty low max HP though, so don't go too power-mad.

Patch Notes:

Spoiler

Renamed:
  Turret Bot -> Arsenal Bot
Changes:
  Base power (BotHack):
    Can now discover a Mechanical Golem instead of playing.
  Incapacitated effects:
    Bonus draw phase replaced with salvaging 1 Hero Item.
    Healing increased to 3.
  Scrap Metal:
    End phase effect removed.
    Can now put a Mechanical Golem in hand when it gets destroyed, destroying this card if you do.
  Brainstorm:
    Card draw increased to 3.
  Modular Workbench:
    Limited keyword added.
    Power slightly reworked. Now plays 1 card, and grants a card draw if that card was not a Mechanical Golem.
  Inspired Repair:
    Card play now occurs after healing.
  Powered Shock Wave:
    Now targets non-Hero targets.
    Damage reduced to X.
  Robot Reclamation:
    Slightly reworked. Now salvages up to 3 Mechanical Golems. No longer grants card draw.
  Flash Forge:
    Completely reworked. Now an Ongoing, Limited. Grants a power that does 1 fixed psychic self-damage, heals each Mechanical Golem for 1, and then either discovers a Mechanical Golem or an Item.
  Bee Bot:
    Can no longer destroy Environment cards.
    Damage now occurs after Ongoing destruction.
  Raptor Bot:
    Damage reduced to X.
  Stealth Bot:
    Damage redirection can only be used on Unity or Mechanical Golems.
  Arsenal Bot:
    Attack is now end phase and does 2 projectile to up to 2 targets.
  Cryo Bot:
    Counterattack now only keys off of fire damage, and now deals 1 target the same amount of damage Cryo Bot was dealt.
    Gained an end phase attack (1 cold to up to 3 targets).

 

[Kalir]

Tempest

Speaking of complexity swings, Tempest has rocketed all the way up from 1 out of 3 to 6 out of 10. They're still very much the wizard of the base set, armed with a bunch of different options for dealing with foes with a slight focus on area damage. Easily comparable to the Wraith as a generalist who fits on any team with few major weaknesses, but there's a little more nuance to how they play compared to their earlier incarnation.

The main difference is a bigger emphasis on Weather cards. The slow setup of old Tempest is gone, but it's replaced with a little more unpredictability, as you have a lot of Discover cards that output all sorts of Weather, but they don't give you much control for how it happens. Fortunately, some of your effects scale off of how many Weather cards are out, regardless of whether it's the Weather you wanted or not.

Checklist:

• Reliable Damage: Yes, but Tempest's focus is on area attacks. The more Weather cards you can (and should) sustain, the better your offense, as well. Plus, hey, you start out with an area attack of 1, that's not bad. On the other hand, any environments or villains with targets you don't want to hit? Those are really annoying for you.
• Ongoing Destruction: Yes. Ball Lightning got nerfed, but it can still eat a single ongoing without much issue, no problem. What's more, Flash Flood Warning gives you a rare instance of environment card destruction as well!
• Emergency Defenses: Yes, but you need to have lots of Weather cards out for Shielding Winds to be worth the play. On its own, you're getting a single point of damage reduction for the team. What's more, the amount of discover Tempest relies on for setup might mean this comes out at a time where you can't really make use of it.
• Deck Control: Yes. The new Maerynian Aquaculturalist power lets Tempest make use of the Infrared Eyepiece, but for the environment deck instead of the villain deck. It also gives you Haka-level card draw so that's fun.
• Ally Acceleration: Yes. Two one-shots that provide either salvage or card draw with a chance of play? We take those, yes we do.
• Healing: Yes. Gift of Val'Maera got a nerf, but let's be real, it needed a nerf. It now only heals characters, but at the same time, it's still a team heal on a power card, hell yes you're gonna use that.
• Big-Ass Attack Option: Yes, but all of Tempest's big damage options are area attacks. Against single foes, their damage is sorely lacking compared to other damage dealers. This goes double now that the Gene-Bound Shackles were removed from their deck, but honestly, I'm fine with that! They were ridiculous!

Main Strength:
Tempest is going to have a lot of area attacks available with all of their powerful Weather cards out doing assorted shenanigans, but better than that, they can also support their team with a wide variety of one-shots and powers that can do a little bit of everything. Tempest is about equally strong as a support character compared to their damage potential, even if their full setup is less controllable and harder to sustain.

Main Weakness:
Tempest can get a lot of cards in hand and in play, but they don't have a lot of control over what cards come out, and you'll feel a bit overwhelmed with your one card play that you get for your turn. Furthermore, maintaining the cards you do have out tends to have some costs, with very few Weather cards being permanently available with no strings attached. What's more, by far your weakest ability is your single target damage, more or less capping out with using the Atlantean StormBlade to fight things, and that destroys your Weather cards that you'll likely prefer to have out. And sometimes, you don't want to hit literally every target on the field! Sometimes you like those guys or don't want to bother them!

Variant Strategies:

Spoiler

First Appearance: Tempest
Historically, Tempest's variants have had issues competing with the base power of "just hit them, wise guy" by trying to do orthogonal means of quick setup that never really worked out how they should. This one seems to be a much cleaner version of Freedom Six Tempest, which destroys 1 Weather card and then plays the top card of your deck whether that happened or not. Really good for quick setup after a wipe, and nice for some controlled detonations of Thunderclap if you want to keep it out for one of your attacking one-shots. A little lower on the max HP, but ehhhh that's fiiiiine.

Patch Notes:

Spoiler

Removed: Aquatic Correspondence, Into the Stratosphere, Otherworldly Resilience, Elemental Subwave Inducer, Gene-Bound Shackles, Vicious Cyclone
Renamed:
  Cleansing Downpour -> Gift of Val'Maera
  Flash Flood -> Flash Flood Warning
Changes:
  Incapacitated effects:
    Damage immunity replaced with reducing damage of the chosen type by 1.
  Localized Hurricane:
    Weather and Limited keywords added.
    Completely reworked. Now attacks (3 projectile to up to 4 targets) at start phase, and either destroys itself or attacks (1 fixed projectile to 2 highest HP hero targets) at end phase.
  Shielding Winds:
    Weather keyword added.
    Slightly reworked. Now provides damage reduction regardless of incoming damage, which scales to amount of Weather cards in play. Now destroys itself at start phase.
  Electrical Storm:
    Weather keyword added.
    Increases Tempest's lightning damage dealt by 1.
    Start phase attack reworked. Now hits up to 3 targets, and then either discards 1 or destroys the card.
  Lightning Slash:
    Now discovers 1 Weather card before doing damage.
    Damage is now X+1, where X is the number of Weather cards in play.
  Chain Lightning:
    Now discovers 1 Weather card before doing damage.
    Attack slightly reworked. Now deals 3 lightning damage to [number of Weather cards]+1 targets.
  Reclaim from the Deep:
    Slightly reworked. Now grants each hero an Ongoing/Item salvage, and Tempest an Ongoing/Item collect.
  Ball Lightning:
    Ongoings destroyed reduced to 1.
    Damage reduced to 3, and now occurs after Ongoing destruction.
  Gift of Val'Maera:
    Weather and Limited keywords added.
    Now targets hero characters rather than targets.
  Flash Flood Warning:
    Slightly reworked. Now an Ongoing, Weather, Limited that activates at start phase, and destroys itself if it destroys any Environment cards.
Added:
  Displaced Ambassador:
    One-Shot. Reveals the top card of each Hero deck, playing any Items revealed this way and replacing the rest, then each hero draws 1.
  Maerynian Aquaculturalist:
    Ongoing, Limited. Grants a card draw after playing any Weather card. Grants a power that reveals the top card of the environment deck, then replaces or discards it and draws 1.
  Atlantean StormBlade:
    Item, Relic, Limited. Grants an attack (1 lightning to 1 target) whenever a Weather card is destroyed. Grants a power that attacks (3 irreducible lightning to 1 target) and then destroys 1 Weather card.
  Thunderclap:
    Ongoing, Weather. Attacks (3 lightning to 1 target) when played. Attacks (2 sonic to up to 3 targets) when destroyed. May destroy itself during start phase.
  Rolling Fog:
    Ongoing, Weather, Limited. Destroys up to 2 targets with 2 or fewer HP at end phase, drawing a card for each target destroyed. Either discards a card or destroys itself at start phase.
  Alien Weather Patterns:
    One-Shot. May shuffle trash into deck. Discover 3 Weather cards.

 

[Kalir]

Captain Cosmic

So, Captain Cosmic is the "newest" hero in the core set of Definitive Edition, coming out in the Wrath of the Cosmos set of the earlier edition, well after *checks notes* virtually every other expansion except Villains of the Multiverse and OblivAeon. So you'd expect his kit to be the least changed out of everyone in the set, since by that point the devs have already got things figured out and polished as much as they can, right? Well... actually no. This version of Captain Cosmic is an amazing amount of improvement over his base iteration, to a degree I honestly didn't think possible.

As with Unity, Captain Cosmic relies on a bunch of auxiliary targets in his deck to do his stuff, in the form of hard-light Constructs. Unlike Unity, these Constructs are uniform in health total and almost strictly geared towards support, rather than damage. You'll place each Construct next to a target that you feel isn't cheating hard enough, and that lucky winner will get those much-needed cheats they need to overcome any foe.

Checklist:

• Reliable Damage: Yes, but not for him. Well, it can be, if you give him the Cosmic Weapon, but that tends to be better suited to heroes who have an excess of power uses and no reliable attack of their own, such as Absolute Zero, Bunker or Argent Adept when they're not set up.
• Ongoing Destruction: No. Captain Cosmic's more focused on helping the team rather than disrupting the enemy.
• Emergency Defenses: No. If anything, Captain Cosmic has the opposite of emergency defenses, thanks to Destructive Response no longer having a cap for how many times a turn it can activate. At most, you'll halt an offensive by blowing up so much of your stuff and tripping a bunch of reactions that whatever was doing a big area attack doesn't get to anymore.
• Deck Control: No. See my comments on Ongoing Destruction.
• Ally Acceleration: Yes. Literally the entire reason you take Captain Cosmic is to dole out a bunch of single-target buffs with incredible strength. Dynamic Siphon and Augmented Ally, for power uses, Autonomous Blade and Cosmic Weapon for damage, and the new Heart of Gold for some serious card draw.
• Healing: Yes. Vitality Conduit got a major buff that allows it to apply at start phase for however long it stays out. The longer you and your team can sustain your Constructs, the stronger your healing gets!
• Big-Ass Attack Option: Yes. The newly reworked Construct Cataclysm takes a little while to get going, but excels at either single-target deletion (far more so now!) or area attacks galore. And unlike Tachyon, you can chain multiple Construct Cataclysms with no real issues.

Main Strength:
Captain Cosmic chucks out a bunch of buffs like candy from a piñata, granting all the heroes on his team a bunch of ways to extend their capabilities. Like Unity, these buffs are all targets rather than the usual Ongoings or Items, so they completely dodge conventional disruption effects, and can take hits that would otherwise be directed at heroes in critical condition. And despite still being mostly reliant on Constructs for this role, Captain Cosmic is more than capable of swinging for the fences if the chips are down.

Main Weakness:
Every weakness I stated about Unity's Mechanical Golems' survivability applies just as much to Captain Cosmic, except even more so. His Constructs have 4 health across the board, and the sole way you have to extend that is Unflagging Animation, which has some upkeep to it. You also need to be smart about allocating your Constructs to where they'll do the most good, since the only way you can move them is if they get destroyed and then played again.

Variant Strategies:

Spoiler

First Appearance: Captain Cosmic
Hey, that's neat. First variant with a max HP boost! But that usually means a weaker power, and that's the case here. Being able to spotheal a construct isn't something easily available to Captain Cosmic after the rework to Cosmic Crest, so a new power that grants one of them a heal is really nice! Also that Construct then gets to hammer something for 4. That's really good! Make SURE you get that Unflagging Animation out and sustained, because you're gonna need to make sure your constructs survive long enough to deal out those meaty hits. After all: no Constructs, no healing, and no damage. Which means no base power.

Patch Notes:

Spoiler

Removed: Sustained Influence
Changes:
  Incapacitated effects:
    Damage reduction increased to 2.
  Construct Cataclysm:
    Now destroys any number of Constructs, rather than all of them.
    Damage now scales to Construct cards in trash after destroying.
  Harsh Offense:
    Completely reworked. Now attacks (3 energy to 1 target) and draws 2 if that target is still in play.
  Potent Disruption:
    Damage changed to 5 irreducible, no longer scales to Construct health.
  Conservation of Energy:
    Completely reworked. Now an Ongoing card that lets you draw 1 whenever a Construct is destroyed, and lets you play a Construct from trash during start phase, destroying itself if you do.
  Destructive Response:
    No longer limited to acting once a turn.
  Unflagging Animation:
    Completely reworked. Now reduces damage dealt to Constructs by 1, heals 2 to the lowest health Construct at end phase, and either discards 1 or destroys itself at start phase.
  Wounding Buffer:
    Slightly reworked. Now grants the hero it's next to a reaction that deals the attacker 3 energy.
  Vitality Conduit:
    Healing is now automatic at start phase rather than when attacked.
  Augmented Ally:
    Discard and extra power use now happen during power phase instead of start phase.
  Dynamic Siphon:
    Slightly reworked. Now grants the hero it's next to a reaction that grants a power use.
  Energy Bracer:
    Now playable next to hero targets, not just character cards.
  Cosmic Crest:
    Slightly reworked. Now reduces damage dealt to Captain Cosmic by 1, and grants a power that plays or discovers 1 Construct card.
Added:
  Heart of Gold:
    Ongoing, Limited. Grants a power that discards up to 3 cards, then lets 1 hero draw X and lets you play up to X Construct cards, where X is discards this phase.

 

[Kalir]

Absolute Zero

Oh man, it's one of my favorites! Like Unity, Absolute Zero had a very strong identity right out of the gate even in his early incarnations, but was hamstrung by some unfortunate issues with setup that made it hard to get his entire kit running and stay running through a game. Especially given the disruption of the core set, you'd frequently have games where you just wouldn't feel like you got to do anything. Not so anymore! If anything, Absolute Zero may well have the fastest setup in the core set now, with card play for setup reasons to rival the speed of Tachyon. And once set up? Healtanking and massive damage barrages, all at your command... if you know how to do them right.

Checklist:

• Reliable Damage: No. You need setup to perform your basic attacks, and even then it comes with some self-damage built in.
• Ongoing Destruction: Yes. Fueled Freeze is currently the only way to destroy multiple Ongoing cards in one go, which makes it worth mentioning right off the bat.
• Emergency Defenses: Yes. While it's single-target only, the new Still Life and Ice Shield cards are amazing ways to ensure that no, the villain or environment won't take down a vulnerable target any time soon. Plus, you get start phase draw/play when they expire, and that's awesome.
• Deck Control: No. Sub-Zero Atmosphere was removed, which is great because you never wanted to play it anyway.
• Ally Acceleration: No. Absolute Zero tends to be too focused on his own mechanics to worry about helping others with theirs.
• Healing: Yes, but only self-healing. Like Haka, the self-healing is actually pretty good, thanks to your constant sources of cold damage giving the Null-Point Calibration Unit loads of room to work.
• Big-Ass Attack Option: Yes. As long as you can take the heat of self-damage from your own cards, there really isn't a damage ceiling that Absolute Zero can't hit. The more willing you are to burn your HP away, the more you can completely dunk on foes with lethal levels of cold.

Main Strength:
There's two main ways to play Absolute Zero. The first is as a healtank, using cold self-damage to keep your health high and your damage-blocking ongoings to protect others from cheap shots that don't hit the highest health hero exclusively. The other way is as a balls-to-the-wall damage dealer, using fire self-damage to freeze everything in your path. The best part of it all is, as long as you can maintain your gear (which isn't hard considering your lightning-quick setup and recovery) you can switch between these two playstyles more or less at will!

Main Weakness:
In order to function, let alone be at full potential, Absolute Zero needs his items out, especially the Isothermic Transducer and the Null-Point Calibration Unit. The more often those get disrupted, the less you will be able to contribute to the fight without burning yourself alive merely by existing. And while your ability to get those Items out is very, very strong, it won't help you if the disruption the villain throws gets too consistent to keep up with. Additionally, you're extremely reliant on being able to damage yourself, so if the damage you take would be reduced, that just tampers with your engine, something that's rarely, if ever, an issue for most heroes.

Variant Strategies:

Spoiler

First Appearance: Absolute Zero
I really have enjoyed every single iteration of Absolute Zero's variants for how much they mess around with the function of the character, and the First Appearance's new power is no exception. A two-target attack for 1 isn't ordinarily a lot, but it helps Absolute Zero rack up recoil damage from Thermal Shockwave. It also comes with some recoil, which isn't that bad in practice. One of those damage instances will almost always be aimed at yourself for some healing, and the other can be freely aimed at whichever Hero target you want to hit. Most of the time, it's whoever can easily mitigate that damage, or something like Bee Bot.

Patch Notes:

Spoiler

Removed: Glacial Structure, Impale, Sub-Zero Atmosphere, Module keyword
Renamed:
  Cryo Chamber -> Cryo-Field Generator
  Modular Realignment -> Modular Repair
  Onboard Module Installation -> Conductive Installation
Changes:
  Incapacitated effects:
    Destroy HP threshold increased to 2.
    Damage boost lowered to 1.
    Damage reduction now persists until your next start phase, rather than being single-shot.
  Coolant Blast:
    Limited keyword added.
    Damage now limited to damage dealt during your turn.
  Fueled Freeze:
    Attack changed to hit X targets for 3 cold each.
  Cold Snap:
    Completely reworked. Now a One-Shot self-damages for 3 fire, then attacks (1 cold to each non-Hero target).
  Isothermic Transducer:
    Now grants a card play after being played.
  Null-Point Calibration Unit:
    Now grants a card play after being played.
  Conductive Installation:
    Now collects an Item instead of a Module.
  Modular Repair:
    Trash recovery reworked to salvage 1 Item and you may play 1.
  Cryo-Field Generator:
    Power moved to a mandatory start phase effect.
    Damage lowered to 3 fixed.
Added:
  Still Life:
    Ongoing. Selects a target when played, which cannot deal damage. Grants a card draw and play when destroyed. Destroys itself at start phase.
  Ice Shield
    Ongoing. Selects a target when played, which is immune to damage. Grants a card draw and play when destroyed. Destroys itself at start phase.
  High-Yield Coolant Tanks:
    Item, Limited. Grants either a power use or card draw at end phase.
  Desperate Deployment:
    One-Shot. Summons 1 Item, then self-damages for 1 fire and 1 cold.

 

[Kalir]

The Argent Adept

The most complex hero in the core set, clocking in at a 10 out of 10, is the Argent Adept, a dedicated support hero who can string together a veritable symphony of effects together on their turns to aid their team. You need to have a sharp mind and a lot of table space to play the Argent Adept to full effectiveness, but if you have those, you will not find a more engaging support character in the game. Extremely strong healing, damage modifiers, action economy, powerful destroy effects, and more are all at your fingertips, but it's not easy to get them flowing together cleanly.

How he works is that you have three kinds of Ongoings: Melodies, Rhythms, and Harmonies. These have Perform and Accompany effects you can activate, but only with the powers from your Instrument cards. Unlike Powers, which are restricted to once per turn, Perform and Accompany effects on the same card can be tripped with separate power uses. So if you don't have another hero in dire need of power uses, you can chain self-targeted power boosts to activate more and more effects for your team. Different Instruments work on different songs, so you'll need to keep an eye on what your setup really calls for.

Checklist:

• Reliable Damage: Yes. Scherzo of Frost and Flame even got slightly buffed! Now, will you actually USE it as Argent Adept compared to your plethora of support options? Ehhhhh maybe. Probably not. But maybe.
• Ongoing Destruction: Yes. Sarabande of Destruction is still there and still does things real good.
• Emergency Defenses: No. The Argent Adept is the squishiest hero in the base set and extremely vulnerable to destruction. If anything, you'll need to emergency defend him! At most, you can throw people a little bit of defense with Counterpoint Bulwark, which isn't much.
• Deck Control: Yes, but solely for hero decks, which is hardly ideal. Still, Inventive Preparation can help filter past dud cards that other heroes would draw quickly enough, and that's certainly nice.
• Ally Acceleration: Yes. Even though you'll still likely chain power uses on yourself, you can still throw other heroes a ton of boosts to whatever they really need to function. Card plays, card draws, damage boosts, power uses if you have some to spare, just go for it champ.
• Healing: Yes. Tempest is no longer the best healer in base set! Rhapsody of Vigor got a buff, you can have two copies of it out and easily activate them both with the Pipes out, and you STILL have Vernal Sonata for some extra!
• Big-Ass Attack Option: Yes, but it depends on how you define "attack". Cedistic Dissonant is still a highly unconditional instakill that can reduce anything that isn't indestructible or a character card to rubble in seconds. It doesn't do damage, but that still can't really be overlooked.

Main Strength:
Properly played, the Argent Adept has enough support and auxiliary options available to get teams through even the hardest of fights, without question. In fact, you really don't have a setup ceiling you can hit during a conventional game. Every other hero usually reaches a point where they have all the pieces of their kit lined up in front of them and just run their engine to its finest. That never really happens to the Argent Adept: despite how much you're helping out your team, there is always MORE you can add to your repertoire.

Main Weakness:
The Argent Adept remains the most setup-intensive hero in the game, even moreso than characters like the Wraith or Bunker. Your ability to affect the field is dependent on both your songs and your Instruments, and you only have so much control over which of those you can get up and running during a game. Furthermore, you don't have the pseudo-luxury of other heroes in specializing in one of Ongoings or Items. You need both of yours to contribute fully, and suffer a lot if hit with mixed disruption effects.

Variant Strategies:

Spoiler

First Appearance: The Argent Adept
Wait hold up. This is just the Prime Wardens variant but with a slight twist and a MASSIVE hit to max HP. And, uh, it goes off the top of your deck and has a mandatory effect. Not that this is a bad thing. Far from it, it's honestly much more reliable to get this to work in your favor, since Inventive Preparation can also get that to work instead of just Arcane Cadence (although it's a little trickier since you have to chain a power use with a Rhythm Perform). Anyway, it's a good variant to get things moving faster for your setup, if less predictably, and as we all know, any fast setup for the Argent Adept is great.

Patch Notes:

Spoiler

Renamed:
  Polyphoric Flare -> Polyphonic Flare
Changes:
  Incapacitated effects:
    Healing increased to 2 and no longer limited to hero targets.
  Vernal Sonata:
    Restriction on copies of Vernal Sonata removed.
  Instrumental Conjuration:
    Now plays a card instead of drawing.
  Arcane Cadence:
    Discard occurs before bury.
  Sarabande of Destruction:
    Can now destroy 1 target with 2 or fewer HP.
    Can no longer destroy Environment cards.
  Rhapsody of Vigor:
    Healing increased to 2.
  Scherzo of Frost and Flame:
    Both damage instances increased to 2.
    Damage instances must aim at different targets.
  Counterpoint Bulwark:
    Perform can now target up to 3 for its effect.
    Accompany can now grant up to 3 heroes a draw.
  Syncopated Onslaught:
    Perform can now target up to 3 for its effect.
    Accompany damage is now irreducible.
  Inventive Preparation:
    Now grants 1 hero 2 draws after revealing.
    Accompany reworked. Now discovers 1 Ongoing.
  Cedistic Dissonant:
    Accompany reworked. Now grants 1 ally a card play.
  Alacritous Subdominant:
    Accompany now puts the card on top of your deck instead of destroying itself.
  Drake's Pipes:
    Slightly reworked. Power now grants 1 Melody Perform and 1 other Perform.
  Eysidar's Horn:
    Accompany may now be of any type.
  Akpunku's Drum:
    Perform changed to Rhythm.
  Telamon's Lyra:
    Can now instead activate 1 Rhythm Perform and 1 Harmony Accompany.
  Xu's Bell:
    Slightly reworked. Power now either activates 1 Perform, or up to two different Accompanies.
  Polyphonic Flare:
    Self-damage is fixed and no longer required to activate the rest of the card.
    Can now draw 2 instead of using a power.

 

[Kalir]

Since villains are what I'm going to cover next, I'd like to go over how I'll be formatting their posts as well.

Danger Levels:
Unlike the heroes, where the important thing to know is what notes they can hit for a team, villains are more important to recognize the ways in which they pose a threat to you. So I'm going to use this area to give a loose expectation of what to expect when you're throwing down with a villain.

• Minions: How often will the villain in question rely on auxiliaries to do their dirty work, and how effective they are at that work. When facing a villain who has this as a threat, consider bringing heroes with wide-scale attacks.
• Direct Offense: How often will the villain step up to deliver a smackdown to you personally? Villains that like to fight head-on are ideally faced with heroes that have strong single-target damage mitigation.
• Disruption: How often will the villain break your stuff and curtail your actions, either with soft or hard control? Bring disruption-resistant heroes for this one, who don't need a protracted setup period to function in a fight.
• Defenses: How much punishment the villain can take, especially if they have another way to run out the clock and win the fight. Any heroes with irreducible damage, or ways to destroy or bury especially tenacious cards, are valuable in these fights.
• Ongoings: Will the villain spend time saucing themselves up or harrying you with mean debuff effects? The answer to this one is obvious: bring heroes that can destroy ongoing cards, against villains who use ongoing cards a lot.
• Surprises: There's no such thing as a good villain card, but some villains might have some really vicious cards in their deck you never want to see played. Deck control characters are your main way of handling villains who have those kinds of sucker punches.

Character Card:
Unlike Heroes, Villain character cards have a lot of detail about how they play, and can even flip between the two sides! So I'll be using this space to indicate exactly what to expect from each side, including their Advanced text, and a brief bit of advice on how to deal with it. I'll also indicate their Nemesis here and what you can expect from that interaction, if it's especially vital.

Ideal Strategies:
Here, I'll lightly go over what the best approach to a villain will be. Anything not really covered in the danger levels or character card detailed above that really needs mentioning, or specific interactions with heroes or environments that warrant mention, will be mentioned here as well.

Things to Avoid:
I like to believe that in any well-balanced game, you can take your favorite weapon or class or character or whatever into any challenge you feel like and still come out on top with enough practice. That said, there's no denying that some matchups against villains really do not favor certain heroes for whatever reason. I'll use this space to indicate what sorts of heroes might find a lot more trouble than they bargained for.

Event Strategies:
You thought hero variants were exciting? Oh my dogg you have not seen a thing yet. In this space, I will cover all of the new Event cards you're going to find with the villain here. Remember, there's two kinds of Events: simple ones that only provide a single Advanced-level rules change and add to your Collection after, or single-sided Critical Events that really turn the villain you know and love on their head, resulting in almost an entirely new kind of fight!

Patch Notes:
To be honest, I don't know how likely it is that this section will be here for every villain. Some of them got reworks so drastic they make the heroes look immutable by comparison. I will, however, do my level best with each villain as they arise to catalogue any changes they've gotten.

 

[Kalir]

Baron Blade

Right, that about covers the heroes. Now we move on to their assorted foes! Baron Blade is the least fearsome of the villains in core set, with not only a difficulty of 1 out of 10, but a pre-shuffled deck when you open the box to get new players acclimated to how the game is played! As is befitting your classic mad scientist, he'll mostly sit back, biding his time and cackling maniacally, giving the heroes a lot of room to figure out the game and wreck his plans.

Danger Levels:

• Minions: Moderate. Baron Blade puts out a fair amount of targets, and I won't exactly say they're pushovers, but his output isn't nearly as deadly as it is for a more spam-focused villain. Nothing with a health total above 8 aside from the Mobile Defense Platform, easily within range of a focused effort to bring down.
• Direct Offense: Low. Baron Blade doesn't actively attack the heroes outside of one-shots until he flips. He's far too busy with his genius plans to handle the heroes head-on. Plus they have, like, super strength and stuff. He just has a lab.
• Disruption: High. Most of the disruption in the base set meta got a much-needed nerf, but Devious Disruption, even with its nerfs, is still a viciously mean card to face lategame. You can still counter it if you block Baron Blade's damage, but if not, be ready to either junk your entire kit or take a world of pain to the face.
• Defenses: High. On his first side, Baron Blade's entire MO is to turtle behind damage immunity and mill through his deck for the instant win. He also has a fair few devices and ongoings to stall out even further. Any chance you get to bap him is a good one.
• Ongoings: Low. On the one hand, he does have some ongoings that can make the fight more uphill than it needs to be. On the other hand, he destroys them all for you when he flips, and "Consider the Price of Victory!" is basically a one-shot with a single-turn warmup. I wouldn't sweat it here if you don't have ways to destroy ongoings.
• Surprises: Moderate. As mentioned above, Devious Disruption is a really mean card to take, enough so that I can't deny that deck controlling it out of the way is always worth it. He also has a few ways to accelerate his deck, but I wouldn't really call them critical to dodge, honestly.

Impulsion Beam Inventor:
Nemesis: Legacy
To start with, Baron Blade is pretty much a punching bag, disregarding him starting with the Mobile Defense Platform (and thankfully there is only one now) in play. The only thing he does is flip when he would be destroyed, and check to see if you instantly lose the game at Start Phase owing to him doing that thing from Majora's Mask. Long as you keep taking the time to hit him as well as his minions and devices, you really shouldn't have much trouble with this guy. Or, if you have the means and it's somehow easier than just hitting him, you can take cards from his trash to make sure he doesn't hit the lethal number of 15.

Advanced: This becomes a hell of a lot more urgent here, where he gets an End Phase mill for H-2. Anything that doesn't take Baron Blade down as fast as possible on Advanced should be reconsidered in favor of something that does. Anything that discards from his deck is right the hell out.

Armored Mad Scientist:
When you DO take him down, he just flips and goes into his power armor. No more Impulsion Beam to worry about, but he does now start fighting you directly, with equal parts heavy attacks for your highest health target and weak area attacks for everyone. Still, by now, you should have a nice clean setup to work with, not to mention your spike damage options are probably primed and ready to burn past that meager 30 HP before he knows what hit him. He also destroys all his Ongoings when flipping to this side, which is nice of him.

Advanced: Flat reducing all damage he takes by 2 does make this side of the fight much more tricky, especially given how fast you've had to flip to this side whether you're ready or not. Any kind of irreducible damage you can field for this phase is very powerful, and it goes without saying that -2 damage doesn't mean a lot when faced with a Lightspeed Barrage, Wrathful Retribution, or fully charged Omni-Cannon.

Ideal Strategies:
Okay, hear me out: what if you just, like, hit the guy really hard?

That's it, that's the strategy. No need to go building up a giant fully complete engine (and Devious Disruption is basically a hard counter to that anyway). The only thing you really need to do in this fight is just swing for the fences against him. Most of his biggest threats are auxiliary targets that will fold to a dedicated turn of damage from most characters. His Ongoings help his stall game out a little bit but don't really compare once your big hits start hitting the field. I guess if you really need the extra time, anything that can bury cards in the villain trash or whatever can help, but seriously? Just hit him.

Things to Avoid:
This flows so naturally from the above point that it's almost painfully obvious, but I suggest not going for a high setup ceiling in this fight. Not only will you spend a lot of time building an engine that could be time spent hitting him in the face, there's Devious Disruption to watch out for that could spell an early end to your entire game and kit if not curtailed somehow. If you know it's coming, you can find a way to negate the hits, but there aren't many heroes capable of easily doing that. Probably your safest bet is Legacy's Take Down, since it's custom built to no-sell those scary cards.

Event Strategies:

Spoiler

Moonfall

• Collection Limit: 0
• Collection Effects: Dangerous Disruption OR Timestream Tampering

My Life for Mordengrad!
The default event you are expected to try out first, after you've gotten used to fighting the basic villains. Giving Baron Blade the ability to pull Minions from the top of the deck to facetank hits for him is scary at first, but quickly runs out of steam once all the minions have already gotten played, and tends to dilute the impact of the ordinarily-scary Blade Battalion. That said, by that time, he will have accelerated his deck a little more than you're usually comfortable with, so you will want to be aggressive from the get go. After all, whether it's going to bait minions out or not, you DO need to hit Baron Blade in the face, repeatedly.

Mad Bomber Blade

• Collection Limit: 1
• Critical Event: Mad Bomber Baron Blade

Deranged Demolitionist
Not a surprise that the Mad Bomber is now a Critical Event, seeing as these are full-on alternate character cards for the villains. Only the one side to worry about, but that's honestly fine, that's all Baron Blade needs with this event. Remember how Akash'Thriya could shuffle her cards into the environment deck to then be used in the heroes' favor? That's how the bombs work in this form now. Any time the top card of the Environment deck is a villain card, it explodes, hitting every non-Villain for 2 projectile and 2 fire, and then goes under Baron Blade's card. This gives him another alternate win condition; after 12-H bombs have gone off, too much damage has been dealt to the city and his goals of villainy and anarchy have been achieved, so you just Lose. Furthermore, any targets he plays get shuffled in instead, plus there's an end phase shuffle of his top card and a few extras thrown in during setup.

Definitely an interesting twist on the villain, and one that rewards any way of keeping the environment deck slowed down OR curtailing the damage the Baron himself can do. Baron Blade's only way of accelerating the environment deck is a single card mill at start phase, so you're very likely ahead of the game on that one. Even so, there's going to be a LOT of bombs in there, which can and will chain together for some heavy area damage, so your core strategy of relentlessly attacking Baron Blade is unchanged. It's more that now it's a damage race than a punching bag.

Advanced: What's that? You missed him flipping to a Death Ray wielding side? Don't worry, this has you covered. The Advanced text brings back the death ray as an attack of [bombs exploded]+1 irreducible cold damage to the highest health hero. Easy (and lore appropriate) for Absolute Zero to weather, but a hell of a lot scarier for anyone else.

Patch Notes:

Spoiler

Removed: Elemental Redistributor, Flesh-Repair Nanites, Slash and Burn
Renamed:
  TerraLunar Impulsion Beam Inventor -> Impulsion Beam Inventor
  Vengeful Mad Scientist -> Armored Mad Scientist
  Powered Remote Turret -> Powered Turret
  Backlash Field -> Backlash Field Generator
Changes:
  Armored Mad Scientist:
    No longer shuffles the villain trash into the deck or removes Mobile Defense Platform when flipping.
    Now destroys all Villain Ongoings when flipping.
    Gained an extra end phase attack (1 energy to each Hero target) after the first attack.
    Advanced damage reduction increased to 2.
  Mobile Defense Platform:
    Now reveals the top card of the villain deck at end phase, playing it if it's a Minion or discarding it otherwise.
    Max HP increased to 12.
  Devious Disruption:
    Damage now scales individually to each hero based on Ongoings/Items in their play area.
    Attack now only targets hero characters.
  "Consider the Price of Victory!":
    Completely reworked. Now an Ongoing that reduces damage dealt by hero targets by 1. At start phase, each hero discards 1, Baron Blade attacks (1 sonic to each Hero target), discard H-1 from the villain deck, and destroy this card.
  Backlash Field Generator:
    Slightly reworked. Now a 6 HP Device that counters any damage from a Hero target to a Villain target other than itself.
    Damage lowered to 2.
  Powered Turret:
    Damage lowered to 1.
    Damage type changed to energy.
    Damage boost now checks for other Devices rather than Mobile Defense Platforms.
  Living Force-Field:
    Now heals Baron Blade for H-1 at end phase.
Added:
  Jet-Jump Battalion:
    Minion, 4 HP. After being played, reveals the top card of the villain deck, playing it if it's a Device or discarding it otherwise. Attacks (2 energy to H-2 Hero targets with highest HP) at end phase.
  Remote Walking Tank:
    Device, 5 HP. Reduces damage dealt to it by 1. Attacks (H energy to Hero target with highest HP) at end phase.

 

[Kalir]

Akash'Bhuta

Like the heroes, the villains in the core set have seen some additions from later in the series development, and Akash'Bhuta was a natural fit as the primary nemesis for the second team in the core set, the Prime Wardens. Also, she's just a really fun concept all around. A lot of people like to think of Mother Earth as a kind, caring, benevolent spirit that protects all on her domain. Akash'Bhuta is, if you ask me, a lot more accurate to the "spirit" of Earth: an ancient and destructive force, just as able to bring life to its surroundings as it is able to bring catastrophe, with nary a concern for the people that inhabit it. So yeah, fight the earth itself if you're pro enough.

Danger Levels:

• Minions: Moderate. Akash'Bhuta doesn't exactly have underlings, so much as extensions of herself, in the form of Primeval Limbs. Destroying these directly impacts Akash'Bhuta's health total (unless you prevented them from doing damage somehow). So even though they're chunky and pretty threatening, it's more rewarding than average to fight them.
• Direct Offense: Moderate. Ordinarily, Akash'Bhuta only fights you on her flipped side, like Baron Blade. Unlike Baron Blade, she's likely to get to that other side a fair bit faster and stay there for longer (if only due to a massive HP total).
• Disruption: Moderate. Her one-shots that destroy your stuff still exist, but they were nerfed in potency and Akash'Bhuta doesn't chain card plays nearly as hard as she used to. However, she has the new Entropic Fungi to pick up the slack for her, so stay on your toes.
• Defenses: Moderate. On paper, Akash'Bhuta has the highest base HP in the core set and probably the whole game, and has cards that reduce the damage she takes. But when each of her destroyed targets also contributes towards damaging her, it goes by faster than you'd expect, especially with big area attacks.
• Ongoings: Moderate. She only has one kind of ongoing available, Harsh Renewal. But it's a mean one, quickly accelerating the rate at which she gets Primeval Limbs out, while denying you the satisfaction of destroying the ones she does play.
• Surprises: Moderate. Any of Akash'Bhuta's oneshots, or the aforementioned Harsh Renewal, are definitely more threatening than an average turn of just putting out a Primeval Limb or two. They're not "we can't ever afford to let this card hit the table" dangerous, but they are worth watching out for.

Chaos-Bound Creator:
Nemesis: The Argent Adept
Akash'Bhuta hits the field with a whopping 200 HP, twice the amount of the next chunkiest villain in the set and well above the average. Fortunately, every single Primeval Limb she outputs effectively borrows from that health total, repaying it back in recoil damage when destroyed. With a few of them already out and an end phase discover of another one, the order of the day is simple enough: area attacks, lots of them. More targets to hit with the same health total is some good good. Additionally, as an aspect of the earth, Akash'Bhuta is closely linked to the Environment deck, discarding from it as non-Hero cards come out and flipping/healing when it reshuffles. She doesn't, say, get a free card play for every time you play from the Environment deck, though. That would be silly.

Advanced: If you're disappointed that there isn't enough deck acceleration here, Advanced mode ought to do it for you. It accelerates the Environment deck, though, while also milling from it, thus speeding up how quickly Akash'Bhuta flips to her more aggressive side. Nothing super fancy, but if you want the Environment to be more active in your games (you probably don't) it's an option.

Avatar of Destruction:
This side isn't especially different from the other, honestly. The Environment mill now comes from destroying non-Hero targets, and the end phase action is now an area attack for 2 fire, so she's more aggressive in this form but won't have as many Primeval Limbs out. Makes it a good time to pull out your single-target spike damage moves if you have 'em, but she'll still have a lot of Primeval Limbs for you to deal with no matter what, so aside from maybe stepping up your defenses (which ought to be in place by now anyway) your strategy for this side shouldn't change too much.

Advanced: You'll REALLY need those defenses for Advanced mode, though. Not just for the new attack that also hits heroes with half the recoil damage of destroying a Primeval Limb, but from how you'll get to this phase a lot faster, and likely stay on it for longer since spike damage of up to 7 is a really scary threat. There's no shame in turtling through this phase until you get back to the other side and can start attacking multiple targets in relative peace. Oh, and Harsh Renewal gets to make those attacks to you even though it protects Akash'Bhuta. So that sucks too!

Ideal Strategies:
Every single point of damage to a Primeval Limb gets paid forward to Akash'Bhuta when it's destroyed (barring Harsh Renewal). Therefore, the order of the day for fighting her is area attacks by the truckload. Tempest is one of the best heroes for the job in the core set, but anyone who can hit each Villain or non-Hero target effectively puts all that damage towards Akash'Bhuta after it's all said and done. Once you get past that, Akash'Bhuta is almost aggressively average in any other way, resulting in a good honest slugfest of a fight that lets heroes really play to their strengths. It's a nice natural step up from Baron Blade, at difficulty 4.

Things to Avoid:
Now, I'm not gonna say that single target spike damage is a bad plan. Far from it, hitting a chunky Primeval Limb for exactly its max HP is a fine use of your time. But it's still broadly more efficient to spread out your damage among multiple targets... unless Harsh Renewal is in play. When that happens, I suggest pivoting to single-target attacks if you lack a way to destroy Ongoings. After all, it'll still harmlessly destroy the lowest health Primeval Limb at start phase. Would you prefer that to be a fresh target, or one you've been whaling on but not quite yet toppled?

Event Strategies:

Spoiler

Mother Earth

• Collection Limit: 1
• Collection Effects: Bloviating Academic OR Primordial Power

Heart of the Island
If you really missed that synergy with environment targets that Akash'Bhuta used to have, this event can bring a little bit of that back for you. Any time an Environment card is destroyed, you get an area spray of 2 fire from Akash'Bhuta. It's not NEARLY as potent as infinite card plays, but it is something to keep an eye out for. Any hero that makes use of multiple targets will find this version of the fight a lot harder, while heroes with wide-scale damage reduction, either directly aimed at Akash'Bhuta, spread out over the team, or on themselves coupled with redirect, will have a much easier time. And of course, you have Ra and Absolute Zero who are champs at taking fire damage to the face.

Earth, Inc.

• Collection Limit: 2
• Critical Event: Akash'Mecha

Orderly Power Overcome By Chaos
Nemesis: The Naturalist
No, I'm not kidding. EVERY Villain gets a Critical Event, so now we're looking at villain variants we've never seen before. Akash'Mecha tells the story of that time she reverse-engineered a Revocorp geosiphon, turning into a natural killer cyborg! Despite her max HP being dropped down to the frankly anemic [checks notes] 165, she's more dangerous than ever this way, since her Primeval Limbs no longer damage her when destroyed, but instead get absorbed to charge up her start phase lightning attack! The good news, rare though it is, is that she's got less control over those limbs, since her end phase attack now hits every target that isn't her, and provokes a follow-up from each non-Hero target for 1 fixed melee. The more of those targets you can keep out, the better for you, especially since there is NO way to clear cards out from under her.

Remember how you're supposed to do area attacks to fight Akash'Bhuta? Yeah, stop that, right now. Single-target attacks are the order of the day here. Unlike the old version, not only will destroying Primeval Limbs NOT pay it forward, that's them not attacking Akash'Mecha for you, and her start phase attack getting stronger. Honestly, if you have a way to heal up some of the less offensive Primeval Limbs (Arboreal Phalanges in particular), consider it. That aside, you'll definitely want some strong single-target defenses for when her attack DOES land a hit. Things like Dauntless Durability or Haka of Recovery can go a long way here.

Advanced: It's not enough that she charges up with each Primeval Limb destroyed, oh no. Now she also gets to absorb the Environment deck at end phase, H-2 cards at a time. Remember, cards under Akash'Mecha do not go away! That's a permanent boost to her main attack each time her turn rolls around, and a very significant one!

Patch Notes:

Spoiler

Removed: Entomb, Allies of the Earth
Renamed:
  Mountainous Carapace -> Interposing Stalagmites
  Rejuvenating Entropy -> Return to the Earth
Changes:
  Chaos-Bound Creator:
    Discovers H-1 Primeval Limbs during setup.
    No longer plays Villain cards after Environment targets are played.
    Environment discard now occurs after any non-Hero target is played.
    Now heals for H when flipping. Flipping no longer capped to once per turn.
    Discovers 1 Primeval Limb at end phase.
    Advanced text reworked. Now discards, then plays, the top cards of the Environment deck at end phase.
  Avatar of Destruction:
    No longer plays Villain cards after Environment targets are destroyed.
    Environment discard now occurs after any non-Hero targets are destroyed.
    Now heals for H when flipping. Flipping no longer capped to once per turn.
    Attacks (2 fire to each non-Villain target) at end phase.
    Advanced text reworked. Now counters ([HP of destroyed card divided by 2] melee to hero target with highest HP) after any Primeval Limb is destroyed.
  Earth's Sacrifice:
    Ongoings destroyed reduced to H-1.
  Primeval Eruption:
    Slightly reworked. Now discovers H-1 Primeval Limbs, then discards the top H+1 cards of the Environment deck.
  Disrupt the Field:
    Environment play now occurs before villain play.
  Return to the Earth:
    Items destroyed reduced to H-1.
  Arboreal Phalanges:
    Max HP and damage when destroyed increased to 14.
    Damage to Akash'Bhuta now fixed.
    End phase damage increased to H.
  Living Rockslide:
    Damage to Akash'Bhuta now fixed.
    End phase damage changed to 2.
  Ensnaring Brambles:
    Max HP and damage when destroyed decreased to 8.
    Damage to Akash'Bhuta now fixed.
    End phase effect now lowers damage dealt by its target by 2, instead of blocking damage completely.
  Interposing Stalagmites:
    Max HP and damage when destroyed increased to 12.
    Damage to Akash'Bhuta now fixed.
    Gained an end phase attack (2 melee to non-Villain target with lowest HP).
Added:
  Harsh Renewal:
    Ongoing. At start phase, destroys the Primeval Limb with lowest HP, preventing the damage dealt on destroying it, then shuffles the villain trash into its deck and discovers H-2 Primeval Limbs.
  Entropic Fungi:
    Primeval Limb, 6 HP. Deals Akash'Bhuta 6 fixed energy when destroyed. Attacks (2 toxic to each target in Hero play area with most cards in play), then destroys 1 Ongoing and 1 Item in target's play area at end phase.

 

[Kalir]

Citizen Dawn

The difficulties of the original four core villains have seen some shuffling, such that Citizen Dawn is now the easiest after Baron Blade, at a 5. Not to say she's an easy fight, far from it. She's still the same vicious leader of an army of superpowered people as ever. She still has the classic Devastating Aurora that every player has to watch out for. She still has a super turbo mode she can go into, which can still be skipped. Honestly, her deck and mechanics are nearly as unchanged as those of Unity. Mostly it's the disruption combos of her Citizens that got nerfed, so you don't get disabled from doing anything for the entire game.

Danger Levels:

• Minions: High. Although individual Citizens aren't usually too hard to take down, they have a lot of attacks and can support one another. And with Citizen Dawn's turbo mode as a sitting threat, they're as like as not to get their team synergy effects up and running during any given fight.
• Direct Offense: Low. Not saying Citizen Dawn's a weak character, quite the opposite, but she doesn't really do a whole lot of attacks herself, and what attacks she does have are easily withstood.
• Disruption: High. Even with the reworks from Definitive Edition, Citizen Dawn remains the champ of the disruption game in core set, with more than a few Citizens capable of breaking your stuff, to say nothing of Devastating Aurora's field wipe.
• Defenses: Low. Only two Citizens can bolster the defense of the rest, and all the rest of the defenses are healing and revival. Any strong defenses Citizen Dawn has are hard to sustain and reasonably quick to dispel, even with her Apotheosis of the Sun's Power side.
• Ongoings: Moderate. The only reason I don't list this as High is because Devastating Aurora is now indiscriminate in which Ongoings it deletes. Citizen Dawn's Ongoings are all nasty, but her deck now gives a built-in way of destroying them (but probably do it yourself if you can).
• Surprises: High. Not just because of Devastating Aurora, although it's still there and still terrifying. There's also the danger of Citizen Dawn flipping at an inopportune time and completely ruining your chances of skipping her iframes. Definitely plan for the worst in this fight.

First Among Citizens of the Sun:
Nemesis: Expatriette
Much like the rest of the villains in the core set, Citizen Dawn doesn't do much with her side here during her turns. She gets a few Citizens out, and then mostly makes tolerable attacks at end phase and threatens to flip if you're too hasty to field wipe them. Her big threat comes from her deck, whether it's oneshots, ongoings, or her assortment of dangerous Citizens, each of which can join their forces with others to perform formidable combo attacks. As far as her villain card is concerned, she's a target with a lot of HP and not much else.

Advanced: Real straightforward, this one. Citizens, including Dawn herself, just do more damage. This makes it a lot harder to weather the assault long enough to skip her turbo mode, but you might not want to skip the turbo mode if you need time to lick your wounds. Think about it.

Apotheosis of the Sun's Power:
As before, once enough Citizens go down, Dawn does a once-per-game flip to her invincible side, which will swiftly output Citizens and not flip back until she starts her turn with enough of them active. Which means you not only have to slow your roll and build up for a while, you ALSO have to contend with disruption effects that the villains might put out, OR the environment not caring that Citizen Dawn is invincible and destroying Citizens anyway. The good news? You can still skip this phase! Just make sure Citizen Dawn has H other Citizens out when she flips and you're set!

Advanced: If you don't skip this phase, get ready for a world of hurt. Not only does Citizen Dawn attack everyone for 1 energy, she attacks EVERYONE. Including her own Citizens. Which means the longer this phase goes on, the more momentum she'll get, the longer it'll last, and the lower your chances of victory fall.

Ideal Strategies:
Like it or not, you will always have to be ready for Devastating Aurora to enter the field, and you will have to be ready for Citizen Dawn's flip to danger mode. It's important to play a measured approach, hold onto backups of key cards, and make use of what deck control options you have to know what's going on. Any character that excels at controlling the battlefield, like the Wraith, will be a good fit for this fight, especially if they have ways to deal with Citizen Dawn's Ongoings as they come up.

Things to Avoid:
Any hero that needs a large amount of setup, especially with Ongoings since Citizens are better at fighting those, is going to find this fight to be an uphill one. All well and good to have a vast array of options ahead of you, but only so long as you can survive the offenses of Citizen Autumn, Citizen Sweat, or, of course, a Devastating Aurora. Additionally, while Citizen Dawn CAN destroy her own ongoings with Devastating Aurora, that's really not something you should rely on. Bring at least one hero capable of dealing with those, if possible.

Event Strategies:

Spoiler

Wayward Sun

• Collection Limit: 1
• Collection Effects: Power to the Powerless OR Dark Twistings

Alien Influence
Damage type immunities are always a tricky beast, but hardly impossible to deal with. The main way to handle a threat like that is simple: just don't stack the same kind of damage type with all of your heroes. The biggest threat there is melee damage, since that's the type most commonly dealt by heroes. Fire and energy are also pretty commonly seen, but not to a degree where that might be all your team can wield. Really, just avoid stacking damage types in your offense, or worse, leaving all your damage needs to a single monotype attacker (like Ra or Absolute Zero).

Sunrise

• Collection Limit: 2
• Critical Event: Sunrise Citizen Dawn

Merged with the Solar Eclipse
Citizen Dawn has always been a dangerous villain, but what she really needed to have was vastly accelerated card play and indestructible ongoings. In this version, not only does she havs higher max HP, she starts with Channel the Eclipse in play and a flat invulnerability to all villain ongoings. What's more, in the event that the turn starts with no Villain Ongoings, whoops, can't have that, go discover one. The good news is that her Ongoings get buried whenever a Citizen is destroyed, and she gets to both discover Citizens and amp up her end phase attack with each Citizen that's out. Wait, no, not good. The other thing. Bad.

Amusingly, this version shifts the style of combat against her to be even simpler. Area attacks, and lots of them, not only destroy the horde of Citizens she's got around (and which will grow in number every turn), but also gets rid of the many, many ongoing cards that build up and that you don't want around. Far moreso than conventional Citizen Dawn, this fight is a straight up slugfest. You still want heroes who can handle a bit of disruption, of course, but mostly just bring big smashy moves by the truckload.

Advanced: Gaining another area attack for 2 radiant when a villain Ongoing is played is scary, but like... what are you gonna do? NOT destroy the Citizens and bury the Ongoings she's throwing out? Pretty much just have to deal with the fact that you're gonna be in a world of hurt and there's nothing you can do about it (that you weren't already doing).

Patch Notes:

Spoiler

Renamed:
  Leader of the Citizens of the Sun -> First Among Citizens of the Sun
  Merged with the Sun -> Apotheosis of the Sun's Power
Changes:
  First Among Citizens of the Sun:
    Flip requirement is now H.
  Apotheosis of the Sun's Power:
    Flip requirement is now H.
    End phase now discovers 1 Citizen card instead of playing a Villain card.
    Advanced text reworked. Now grants an end phase attack (1 energy to each target).
  Citizen Battery:
    Max HP decreased to 6.
  Citizen Anvil:
    Max HP decreased to 6.
  Citizen Hammer:
    Max HP increased to 4.
    Reduces damage taken by 1 if Citizen Anvil is in play.
  Citizen Truth:
    Citizen Dare entry attack replaced with healing each Citizen for 2.
    Citizen Dare entry now buries this card instead of destroying it.
  Citizen Dare:
    Citizen Truth entry attack changed to 1 irreducible psychic to each Hero target.
    Citizen Truth entry now buries this card instead of destroying it.
    Now available to be discovered as one of the Citizens during setup.
  Citizen Spring:
    Gained a start phase heal of 2 HP for Citizens Summer, Autumn, and Winter.
  Citizen Summer:
    Gained a start phase effect, granting Citizens Autumn, Winter, and Spring each an attack (1 fire to the Hero target with highest HP).
  Citizen Autumn:
    Gained a start phase effect, allowing Citizens Winter, Spring, and Summer to destroy 1 Environment card each.
  Citizen Winter:
    Gained a start phase effect, allowing Citizens Spring, Summer, and Autumn to destroy 1 Hero Ongoing card each.
  Citizen Blood:
    Damage type changed to infernal.
    Citizen Sweat synergy effect changed, now self-heals for 4.
    Citizen Tears synergy effect changed, now forces a hero to discard 1.
  Citizen Sweat:
    Citizen Blood synergy effect changed, now destroys 1 Hero Ongoing.
    Citizen Tears synergy effect changed, now grants her an attack (1 melee to each Hero target).
  Citizen Tears:
    Citizen Blood synergy effect changed, now grants him an attack (2 infernal to the Hero target with highest HP).
    Citizen Sweat synergy effect changed, now grants her an attack (2 fire to the Hero target with lowest HP).
  Channel the Eclipse:
    End phase attack changed to 2 energy to each non-Villain target.
  Luminous Leadership:
    Completely reworked. Now increases damage dealt by Citizens by 1, and grants a start phase discover of 1 Citizen if Citizen Dawn is the only Citizen in play.
  Return With The Dawn:
    Slightly reworked. Now plays H-2 Citizens with the lowest HP from the villain trash at start phase.
  Blinding Blast:
    Discard reduced to 1.
  Devastating Aurora:
    Now destroys all Ongoings instead of just Hero Ongoings.
    Self-damages for 5 cold after destroying.

 

[Kalir]

Omnitron

So far, the villains we've seen have more or less stuck to their old ways. Baron Blade attempts to stall out for the instawin, Akash'Bhuta is a huge environment-interwoven threat where every attack factors into her max HP, and Citizen Dawn relies on her superpowered allies and goes sicko mode if you wipe them indiscriminately. Omnitron, in the original incarnation, was very swingy due to the incredible disparity of their deck: either they coughed up weak drones you could kill in one turn without trying, or they wiped the field with one of their one-shots or an Electro-Pulse Explosive. Hardly an entertaining fight, when the main reason you won is because the deck let you.

Definitive Edition gave Omnitron a complete rework that resulted in a villain that's not only a lot more fair (even for a 6 out of 10 villain), BUT is also a lot more predictable, fitting for a giant killer robot. As before, Omnitron flips between two sides, but now those sides have different keywords they activate depending on each side. So you'll either have the Self-Aware Robotics Factory assembling itself and other Devices during Fabricate mode, or a deadly Rampaging Robot going full-on Exterminate mode. This is the Omnitron we should've had initially, and I absolutely love this design.

Danger Levels:

• Minions: High. Omnitron's Devices all fight hard and mean, whether that's vicious damage output in Exterminate mode, or overclocking their overseer during Fabricate mode. Bring area attacks by the truckload, you're gonna need them.
• Direct Offense: Moderate. Omnitron only attacks once every other turn, so you'r not going to be relentlessly ground into paste. When it does go to Exterminate mode, though, its attacks HURT.
• Disruption: Low. Gone are the days of the old one-shots of Omnitron, which wiped all your stuff and also did way too much damage. Those cards have been reworked into Ongoings, and even then they don't destroy a lot.
• Defenses: Moderate. If in Fabricate mode, Omnitron will have access to counterattacks, damage reduction, and even reactive immunity, based on the stuff that's out. If not, no defenses to worry about whatsoever.
• Ongoings: High. Omnitron will output a ton of ongoings that give them extra attacks and form the core of its disruption game. While it'll be pretty much impossible to take all of them out, any you can remove, you should. Note that the core offensive ongoings tend to keep the others in check once they hit a certain number!
• Surprises: Low. Omnitron, much to my delight, has leapt from being one of the most unpredictable and swingy fights in the game to one of the most predictable ones, hands down. Yeah, they play so many cards that deck control is useless, but only actually attacking once every other turn is a HUGE benefit to your tempo, letting some heroes stall more or less forever!

Self-Aware Robotics Factory:
Nemesis: Omnitron-X
Omnitron flips every turn at play phase, changing from offense to defense with clockwork regularity. On the starting side, Omnitron opens up with a Device discover, outputting more robots, and after flipping back to this side, it activates all Fabricate texts on Villain cards. Every card in its deck has both a Fabricate and an Exterminate text, with the Fabricate texts being geared far more towards defense, support, and disruption. As such, when you're dealing with this side on your turns, you should focus on setting up to weather the offensive for the next turn when it flips.

Advanced: What's that? Not enough robots for you? Sorry, can't hear you arguing otherwise, building MORE ROBOTS!!! And each of those robots still gets to activate their Fabricate text, which means more card plays, more healing, more defenses, just... UGH. The worst. Definitely get your big area attacks set up next turn as well as your defenses.

Rampaging Robot:
For the side Omnitron actually starts on, you'll have to deal with the Exterminate text for every single card that's out, plus another Ongoing card popping out before Omnitron flips. The only cards that don't attack in Exterminate mode are the Protomatter Converter (which messes with the Environment) and the S-85 Repair Drones, which change from healing everyone to focusing on the most damaged Devices. Any ways you have of reducing or blocking damage, especially on a wide scale, need to be set up right before any turn where Omnitron changes to this side.

Advanced: Doubly true here, where every Device gets extra damage. Not only does this apply to the several attacks Omnitron will make with its Ongoings, but each and every one of its attacking Devices as well. That's a lot of instances of damage getting boosted!

Ideal Strategies:
Winning a fight against Omnitron is all about flowing with the tempo of the fight. There's so many cards it outputs and you'll rarely, if ever, clear the field when facing them, but by virtue of their actions being almost perfectly predictable, you can easily handle the worst they have to offer regardless of phase. When they're in Rampaging Robot form, you need to throw as much damage towards their play area as possible, with all of their defenses dropped. While they're in Self-Aware Robotics Factory form, set up your defenses and engine so that you'll take the worst that the coming offense will throw your way without breaking a sweat.

Things to Avoid:
This does mean, sad to say, that strategies outside of that simple purview fall by the wayside, and quite a bit. Attacking during the defensive phase, or building defenses after the big attacks have gone through, is a waste of time. Additionally, deck control will not only rarely be useful, it'll barely even be functional given the start phase discover they do every turn. Any deck control methods you do have should be directed at the environment wherever possible, to get even more of the tempo on your side.

Event Strategies:

Spoiler

Singularity

• Collection Limit: 1
• Collection Effects: Refactored Code OR Reverse Engineered Virus

Pervasive Omnicode
Oooh, this one's very silly. Turning all your items into hostile Devices that attack the heroes is a neat concept, and I'd like to explore the ways to counter it (aside from, y'know, using heroes not dependent on items in the slightest, like Captain Cosmic, Tempest, or Haka). First off, you can use wide-scale damage reduction, even in small amounts like the Smoke Bombs, to keep your team from feeling the heat. Second: don't be afraid to destroy your own Items, either for their own effects or to absorb disruption from the Singularity Projector. Hell, you might even want to leave that particular bit of kit out if you haven't got a way to break your own stuff. Just, um... probably don't play heroes that are super item-heavy, like the Wraith.

Deus Ex Machina

• Collection Limit: 3
• Critical Event: Cosmic Omnitron

Awakened Intelligence
This fight is hardly even recognizable compared to its first iteration, even considering the deck rework. In this form, Omnitron doesn't bother switching between Fabricate and Exterminate, it just does them during start and end phase, respectively, every turn. The good news is that it'll also absorb Devices into itself when they come out, turning them into accelerating self-healing and charging up its end phase attacks. The bad news is that this also accelerates card play, and those cards under it don't get cleared out until they surpass H by its start phase. So in short: now you have basically a single target to fight that dual wields the deck's mechanics, at the expense of not having an army of auxiliaries to cover for it in terms of defense.

This also means that any heroes with solid single-target damage output are much better suited to fighting Cosmic Omnitron than its normal form. While Cosmic Omnitron has respectable regeneration, that's a far cry from all the 7 health targets that would frequently dissuade you from hitting them or provide even more healing you'd ordinarily have to deal with. If you think about it, even the amount they heal for isn't as much as the 7 damage you'd have to ordinarily throw straight at them. Naturally, this also means that area attackers, who formerly would've had a field day with a swarm of robots, now have to contend with weaker overall damage output.

Advanced: The base attack during Cosmic Omnitron's end phase is ordinarily X (the number of cards under it) to the highest HP hero target. This can get to a high number if Omnitron "plays" a lot of Devices, but broadly speaking, it won't be a lot to worry about. Now, if you add the follow-up attack you get from Advanced mode, which hits the non-Villain with the second-highest HP for X times 2... wait, no yeah, that's right. I read that right. That's terrifying.

Patch Notes:

Spoiler

Removed: Interpolation Beam, Terraforming, Technological Singularity, Sedative Flechettes, Component keyword, Drone keyword
Renamed:
  S-83 Assault Drone -> S-83 Assault Drones
  S-84 Automaton Drone -> S-84 Automaton Drones
  S-85 Repair Drone -> S-85 Repair Drones
Changes:
  Self-Aware Robotics Factory:
    Now discovers 1 Device and 1 Ongoing during setup.
    Indestructible keyword gained.
    Victory condition changed. Now requires Omnitron to both be the only Device out and to have 0 HP.
    Now discovers 1 Device at start phase.
    Flip moved to play phase.
    End phase reworked. Now activates all Fabricate texts on Villain cards.
    Advanced text reworked. Now shuffles the Villain trash into its deck and discovers H-1 Devices at end phase.
  Rampaging Robot:
    Indestructible keyword gained.
    Victory condition changed. Now requires Omnitron to both be the only Device out and to have 0 HP.
    Now discovers 1 Ongoing at start phase.
    Flip moved to play phase.
    End phase reworked. Now activates all Exterminate texts on Villain cards.
    Advanced text now increases damage dealt by Devices by 1, instead of reducing damage taken.
  Adaptive Plating Subroutine:
    Effect moved to Fabricate text.
    Damage immunity now lasts only for the turn it was gained.
    Damage immunities can stack.
    Exterminate text added. Grants Omnitron an attack (1 lightning, 1 energy, and 1 toxic to H hero targets with highest HP).
  Electro-Magnetic Railgun:
    No longer destroyed by dealing Omnitron damage.
    Attack moved to Exterminate text.
    Damage increased to H.
    Fabricate text added. Destroys a Villain Ongoing if there are more than H in play, forcing each hero to discard 1 if it does.
  Disintegration Ray:
    No longer destroyed by dealing Omnitron damage.
    Attack moved to Exterminate text.
    Attack reworked. Now attacks (H energy to hero target with lowest HP).
    Fabricate text added. Destroys a Villain Ongoing if there are more than H in play, burying the top card of each hero trash if it does.
  Electro-Pulse Explosive:
    Max HP reduced to 7.
    Attack moved to Exterminate text.
    Attack reworked. Now attacks (3 lightning to H hero targets with highest HP).
    Fabricate text added. Reduces damage to Device cards by 1, until the Villain start phase.
  S-83 Assault Drones:
    Max HP increased to 7.
    Attack moved to Exterminate text.
    Attack reworked. Now attacks (H-1 melee to 2 hero targets with lowest HP).
    Fabricate text added. Allows this card to counter (2 melee) any damage from a Hero target to any Device, until the Villain start phase.
  S-84 Automaton Drones:
    Max HP increased to 7.
    Attack moved to Exterminate text.
    Attack reworked. Now attacks (H-1 energy to 3 Hero targets with highest HP).
    Fabricate text added. Discovers 1 Device.
  S-85 Repair Drones:
    Max HP increased to 7.
    Slightly reworked. Now has Exterminate text that heals (3 to the H-1 Device cards with the lowest HP), and Fabricate text that heals (1 to each Device card) and shuffles the Villain trash into its deck.
Added:
  Protomatter Converter:
    Ongoing. Grants an Exterminate text that destroys 1 Environment card and plays 1 from the Environment deck. Grants a Fabricate text that plays 1 from the Villain deck.
  Singularity Projector:
    Ongoing. Grants an Exterminate text that attacks ([Item cards in target play area+1] lightning to the hero character with the highest HP). Grants a Fabricate text that destroys H-2 Items.
  Flechette Launcher:
    Ongoing. Grants an Exterminate text that attacks ([Ongoing cards in target play area+1] toxic to the hero character with the highest HP). Grants a Fabricate text that destroys H-2 Hero Ongoings.

 

[Kalir]

The Matriarch

Apparently, lore-wise the Matriarch had a very short stint as a villain before becoming a hero, but due to how the earlier edition's releases went that didn't really pan out. So now, we're throwing the Matriarch in the core set as a villain so the Harpy can become a hero real quicklike in Rook City Renegades. While a lot of her stuff has seen some tweaking, fundamentally the fight is still the same: she's going to minion-spam the hell out of you. All the birds, very angry, pecking your eyes out, forever. Not exactly a super tricky fight to understand, but damn if that isn't some scary waves of damage you have to deal with.

Danger Levels:

• Minions: High. Each individual Fowl card has exactly 1 HP and does very little damage. That's not the problem. The problem is that they're all effectively free card plays for the Matriarch. You're never up against just one Fowl card. And if the Mask of the Matriarch is out, making that damage irreducible? Oh no.
• Direct Offense: High. The Matriarch mostly relies on her Fowl cards to do damage, but she's plenty capable of hitting you directly if the situation calls for it. This is especially true if the Mask was destroyed and then returned to play. Hope you have damage immunity!
• Disruption: Low. The only form of disruption she's got is Horrid Cacophony, which mostly is dangerous by virtue of how often she'll get to play it. The actual disruption effect is weak.
• Defenses: Low. The Matriarch herself has strictly average villain HP, no healing, and is entirely dependent on Huginn for defense. If you can survive long enough to get your spike damage going, you can burst her down faster than you'd expect.
• Ongoings: Moderate. The Carrion Fields are effectively just a way to summon the Cohorts, or some extra damage if they're already out. The best way to deal with them is to just, y'know, destroy the Cohorts when they pop up.
• Surprises: Low. It's not that the Matriarch has no scary cards in her deck. It's that she's going to play so many cards that you really can't control what you're going to see at all, short of blocking villain card plays. The only real variable is how many Fowl cards precede whatever mean trick she's gonna pull.

Her Avian Majesty:
Nemesis: Tachyon
The Matriarch's most drastic changes to how she plays aren't in her deck, but on her character card. Namely: she will no longer actively counterattack whenever her Fowl cards are destroyed. (That property was instead given to the reworked Muninn.) That, right there, means that the playstyle is no longer to first build up your tank to withstand the eight thousand instances of damage heading your way (but that's still a good idea), but to simply spend every turn you've got area attacking at least once. Doesn't have to be for much, because you need to clear out as many Fowl cards as you can, and they just have 1 health. Once that's done, the Matriarch herself has no big tricks except for flipping once the Mask is destroyed (which you want to do anyway).

Advanced: If you miss the old threat of not being free to mess up Fowl cards ad infinitum, Advanced Matriarch just jacks up her Cohorts by 2 points of damage, and they get a LOT of damage instances if you let them. Counterplay here is pretty simple: make sure those large birds don't stick around!

Ruler of the Flock:
Good, you destroyed the Mask. Don't get too comfortable, though: this side has the Matriarch attacking much more aggressively. And remember: if she flips back because she played Darken the Sky, she gets to combo right into her end phase attack on Her Avian Majesty side, which can hurt a LOT if Muninn is out. If you have your damage reduction up... well, the attacks still hit for 3 so I won't say it's effortless, but at the very least you'll be able to take her own attacks head-on without then being whittled down by fifty-kajillion birds. Really, the flip mechanic isn't the big deal in the fight, it's the Fowl cards.

Advanced: Oh dear. Indestructible Cohorts. Which in turn means damage modifiers against you that won't go away until the Mask comes out, and even more damage instances you can't do anything about but take it on the chin. Remember kids: you can still damage indestructible targets, they just don't get destroyed when they hit 0... unless they suddenly stop being indestructible!

Ideal Strategies:
As long as you have any kind of attack that hits every villain or non-hero target, you're in good hands. Beyond that, though, you shouldn't neglect your single target damage! Far from it, the Matriarch's surprisingly easy to burst down if you have the spike damage for it. What's more, her auxiliary targets are bulky enough that you can't just splash them down, and high priority enough that you'll want to focus on them whenever they turn up. And, of course, with all the targets throwing around damage, any kind of defensive measures you can procure are worth their weight in gold, even with the Mask of the Matriarch making Fowl damage irreducible.

Things to Avoid:
Remember, you're going to be facing a LOT of instances of 1 or 2 damage every turn. Most heroes are fine with going a little glass cannon if that means winning faster, but you REALLY need to watch out for your defenses. Any hero that sacrifices defense for offense will find themselves facing nearly double damage against the Matriarch, and her damage output is high enough that you may not get a chance to correct that mistake. Furthermore, while defenses are good, I wouldn't rely solely on damage reduction for this fight, seeing as the Mask of the Matriarch turns the bulk of those damage instances irreducible. Damage immunity or prevention are far more worthwhile if you can get them.

Event Strategies:

Spoiler

Night's Plutonian Shore

• Collection Limit: 2
• Collection Effects: Focus and Control OR Overreaction

Pestilent Corvids
You never really lack for reasons to focus down the Cohorts, so this event just gives you one: some of the highest single instances the Matriarch deck can put out, at uh... 4 toxic to highest HP if you're unlucky. That's still more damage for an extremely aggressive villain, so I wouldn't exactly call it easy, but uh... what exactly do you expect me to tell you for tips here? Everything I've already been recommending you still stands for this event.

A Murder Most Fowl

• Collection Limit: 2
• Critical Event: The Mocktriarch

Convincing Conniving Clone
Well, that's one way to make a villain-turned-hero still have a Critical Event: just have Biomancer make a fleshchild version, it's fiiiiine. Anyway, this fight is neat, because while the Mocktriarch has more health and attacks and the Mask of the Matriarch is technically indestructible, there's actually a lot going in your favor for this fight! First off: if you "destroy" the Mask of the Matriarch, which is HARD unless you bring irreducible damage, congrats, it's out of the game for good. Second, you have even more incentive to destroy the mask, because Huginn and Muninn know this Mocktriarch isn't the real deal, and if you destroy the Mask that's suppressing them, they'll join you in the fight, lending you the stat buffs and their many, many damage instances all getting redirected to the Mocktriarch!

The overall strategy here isn't too different, you still want lightweight damage that hits everything to clear out Fowl cards. The unique new interplay with the Mask of the Matriarch is game-defining, though. Since it is indestructible and reduces all damage dealt to 1, ordinarily you would need to hit it ten separate times to remove it from the game. Again, though, irreducible damage hits for the same value that it ever did. Got a good stockpile of Constructs to fuel a Construct Cataclysm? Congrats, you can one-shot the Mask! Also: consider bringing healing that doesn't specify hero targets, since the Mocktriarch will actively attack the Cohorts, limiting how long they stay out.

Advanced: Oh dear, that's a damage boost if the Mask of the Matriarch is gone. Suddenly it's not quite as nice that it gets removed from the game when it's destroyed... actually no that's still fine. Which is probably why she has an end phase heal on top of that, now.

Patch Notes:

Spoiler

Changes:
  Her Avian Majesty:
    No longer counterattacks upon destroying a Fowl card.
    Flip condition is now a start phase check if the Mask of the Matriarch is in play.
    Fowl bonus card play moved to Fowl cards instead of character card.
    Gained an end phase attack (1 projectile to each Hero target).
    Advanced text changed. Now increases damage dealt by Cohort cards by 2.
  Ruler of the Flock:
    Completely reworked. Now grants an end phase attack (3 psychic to the H-2 Hero targets with highest HP) and then flips if the Mask of the Matriarch is in play. All other effects removed.
    Advanced text changed. Now renders Cohort cards indestructible.
  Fowl cards:
    Attack moved to end phase.
    Fowl bonus card play moved to Fowl cards instead of character card.
  Muninn:
    Max HP increased to 8.
    Completely reworked. Now increases damage dealt by the Matriarch and Cohort cards by 1, and attacks (1 projectile to the Hero target with highest HP) after any Fowl card is destroyed.
  Huginn:
    Max HP increased to 8.
    Completely reworked. Now decreases damage dealt to the Matriarch and Cohort cards by 1, and attacks (1 psychic to the Hero target with second highest HP) after any Fowl card is played.
  Mask of the Matriarch:
    Max HP increased to 10.
    Healing removed.
    Now makes damage dealt by Fowl cards irreducible.
  Carrion Fields:
    Completely reworked. Now an Ongoing that, at start phase, discovers a Cohort card unless they're both out, destroying itself if a Cohort is played this way. Grants an end phase attack to each Cohort (1 toxic to each Hero target).
  Horrid Cacophony:
    Attack now occurs before disruption.
    Attack changed. Now does 2 sonic damage, and targets H-1 Hero targets with highest HP.
    Disruption changed. Now destroys H-2 Hero Ongoing and/or Item cards.
  Darken the Sky:
    No longer plays all Fowl from the trash.
    After summoning, shuffles all Fowl cards in the trash into the deck, then attacks (H psychic to the Hero target with highest HP).

 

[Kalir]

Grand Warlord Voss

I'd make the argument that of the core set villains from the previous edition, Grand Warlord Voss was the fight that held up the best as the lifespan of the game went on. Their disruption was the weakest of the core set, which is to say he couldn't wipe your entire setup whenever he wanted. His minions were threatening, but not insurmountable. The new version isn't really changed that much aside from some cleaning up of mechanics that were a little awkward earlier. That and, uh, Grand Warlord Voss is now unquestionaly the hardest villain in the base set, at 8 difficulty out of 10. The few changes he did get only made the fight way scarier than it was before. Don't expect to just hop in and start wrecking face like you might have before, he is no joke.

Danger Levels:

• Minions: High. He hits the ground with loads of Gene-Bound, they're all decently chunky and hit for non-ignorable damage, and they're the weakest of his forces. Expect him to output a lot of scary targets every turn, assuming that he doesn't instantly win the game first.
• Direct Offense: Moderate. He has a new Ruthless Approach one-shot that lets him just hit you in the face, and he still is able to hit lowest HP hero targets with his attacks. That said, he won't attack you by default in his Conquering Alien Warlord phase, so you can at least get a LITTLE breathing room to start.
• Disruption: Moderate. Not only has the disruption of the Thorathian Conquering Fleet been increased, he's added a new subordinate to his ranks. Gene-Doctor Kronz summons even more Gene-Bound, and then he breaks your stuff! That's rude as hell!
• Defenses: High. Every Gene-Bound that's out gives Voss some hearty damage reduction on his Conquering Alien Warlord side, and there's a LOT of targets you need to pour damage into. That, plus Voss' above average health total, means you're in this fight for the long haul.
• Ongoings: Low. Forced Deployment is still there and still scary. It's also the only Ongoing card in his deck, and on the whole, it's less terrifying than Protective Detail or any of the Devices he could put out. And finally: destroying it just trips it earlier. Honestly, just treat this as a one-shot with a time delay.
• Surprises: High. Seriously though. Protective Detail or a Device is a worst-case scenario from his deck, and due to him filtering his deck of (relatively) weak Gene-Bound all the damn time, they'll come up sooner rather than later. Stay frosty.

Conquering Alien Warlord:
Nemesis: Tempest
Grand Warlord Voss instantly wins if he has a lot of villain targets out at the start of his turn, and he has a solid head start with all the Gene-Bound he summons to start. And what's more, you effectively can't hurt him while he has Gene-Bound out, since they each reduce the damage he takes. Gameplan here sounds simple at first, and in practice it remains simple: beat the hell out of all those Gene-Bound so you can fight the dude head-on! Returning players ought to note that the instant win is no longer limited to just Gene-Bound being out. There's a reason for that: there's only one copy of each Gene-Bound in his deck! He makes up for it with the ability to discover more of them at a near constant rate.

Advanced: With the huge amount of enemies to deal with at any given time, Grand Warlord Voss is already a formidable foe. He becomes even more so in Advanced mode, where every single Villain target gets a flat damage boost. Just saying, don't come crying to me if you start your first turn with a hero already incapacitated on Advanced mode.

Super-Thorathian Warrior:
Once you take down all the Gene-Bound ahead of you, Voss hitches a ride on the first Device he discovers to come deliver military-grade cans of whoop-ass directly to your doorstep. No more damage reduction, but he plays cards faster and fights aggressively, hitting both the highest HP and lowest HP hero targets with each end phase. Either bring some spare targets to absorb those extra hits, or some good tanking measures to protect your more fragile allies.

Advanced: What's that? You still think Voss' disruption game is weak? Hohoh, you are a silly person. Anyway here, he'll break some stuff for you, no extra charge. You're welcome.

Ideal Strategies:
This fight is a slugfest in its purest form, to be perfectly honest. There are a ton of foes you're gonna have to fight, each of which is non-trivial to bring down, and they're not going to stay down for very long at all. You're going to take a lot of damage, sometimes in barrages of small hits, and sometimes in major dunks. Probably the biggest shortcut you can possibly do on this fight is using irreducible damage to hit Voss directly before he flips, so you spend as little time as possible on his more dangerous Super-Thorathian Warrior phase. That's about the only way you can even get close to "cheesing" this fight. Stay on your toes, protect your weak characters, choose your targets wisely with your spike damage... basically, do all the things you'd expect to have to do in any fight, but with even less room for mistakes.

Things to Avoid:
Because Voss has both area attacks and attacks that specifically aim at the lowest health hero, you need to be extremely careful about characters that are fragile, whether they simply lack defenses or are incentivized to increase risk to themselves in favor of sicko mode. Auxiliary targets like Unity or Captain Cosmic can output can help a little, but again, there's area attacks as much as low-health targets, so they're no guarantee. Additionally, while it's usually a safe bet to destroy villain ongoings on sight... Forced Deployment isn't a great idea to destroy unless you have everything you need to wipe every single Gene-Bound that it'll throw out. Maybe just save those for Environment Ongoings or whatever.

Event Strategies:

Spoiler

Invasion of Earth

• Collection Limit: 2
• Collection Effects: Smarter Devices OR Unwavering Order

Warlord's Tactics
Some mean damage modifiers on this one. As long as any Gene-Bound are in play, all Thorathians take 1 less damage, which can and does stack with the modifier from the Grunt Guards, but otherwise isn't too scary? You're probably bringing some irreducible damage anyway to snipe the Grand Warlord with. If they're all gone, though, those Thorathians (and all the other Villain targets) get +1 to their damage output! That makes Voss, Vyktor, and any of the spaceships extremely scary foes, and given the tempo of this fight, there's no real answer to that except to take them all down. (Tamar can't leverage her swarm combo with this event, and Kronz switches it back to defense just by existing.)

Strike Force Invasion

• Collection Limit: 3
• Critical Event: Censor

Pin-Point Accurate Combatant
Now for the cool part. There's a lot of characters in the lore of Sentinel Comics, and some of them, while still important and cool, just aren't big enough to merit their own full decks. Enter Critical Events, which introduce characters like the commando Jalton Kav'lon, AKA Censor! And this guy makes a hell of an entrance, too. Only 30 health, and he doesn't get all the Gene-Bound cards that Voss had, but any time you would play one? Whoops, free toxic damage from him to your lowest health heroes. He also provides a damage reducer to all Thorathians, and starts play with one of them and a Device out. Oh, and any time he WOULD be hit, he mills a card from the deck, playing it if it's a Thorathian, or healing himself for 1 if it isn't. He might not have any powers, but he's a tough customer and no mistake.

Irreducible damage is still the way to go for this fight, but now more than ever, you need your spike damage up and running as soon as you can get it. Furthermore, damage reduction or blocking is extremely king in this fight, given how many attacks Censor can make on any given turn. Either do something to stem the barrage of attacks headed your way, or get your big kill blast revved up as fast as possible. Fight the other Thorathians and Devices at your peril: if you're stuck with lots of small attacks and no irreducible damage, Devices are great for those, but otherwise, you'll want to keep swinging at Censor as much as possible.

Advanced: Not enough defense on this guy yet? Okay, cool. Now he's invincible as long as any other Thorathian is in play. And not only does he start with one out, there's that dang ol' Protective Detail lurking in his deck, complete with trash shuffle. It's VERY hard to get a window to hit him with this rule up, so you need to make damn sure you're primed to seize the opening when you get it.

Patch Notes:

Spoiler

Renamed:
  Minion keyword -> Gene-Bound keyword
  Gene-Bound Banshee -> Reso-Banshees
  Gene-Bound Shock Infantry -> Shock Infantry
  Gene-Bound Bionaut -> Bionauts
  Gene-Bound Ion-Lancer -> Ion-Lancers
  Gene-Bound Frosthound -> Frosthounds
  Gene-Bound Guard -> Grunt Guards
  Gene-Bound Soldier -> Advance Soldiers
  Gene-Bound Psi-Weaver -> Psi-Weavers
  Gene-Bound Firesworn -> Firesworn
  TCF Stalwart -> TCF "Stalwart"
  TCF Conqueror -> Thorathian Conquering Fleet
  Field Lieutenant Tamar -> Field Marshal Tamar
Changes:
  Conquering Alien Warlord:
    Instant loss condition now checks for Villain targets instead of Gene-Bound.
    Advanced text changed. Now increases damage dealt by Villain targets by 1.
  Super-Thorathian Warrior:
    Damage reduction removed.
    Now discovers 1 Device upon flipping to this side.
    Start phase ability added. Reveals the top card of the villain deck, playing it if it's a Gene-Bound card and replacing it otherwise.
    Advanced text changed. Now destroys H-2 Hero Ongoing and/or Item cards.
  Gene-Bound cards:
    Max HP increased to 6.
  Grunt Guards:
    Melee damage immunity added.
  Forced Deployment:
    Slightly reworked. Now shuffles the villain trash into its deck, then discovers H Gene-Bound cards.
  First Lieutenant Vyktor:
    Max HP increased to 9.
    Completely reworked. Now attacks (H energy to the Hero target with most cards in play) and grants every Device an attack (1 energy to each Hero target) at end phase.
  Field Marshal Tamar:
    Max HP increased to 9.
    Completely reworked. Now attacks (H-2 melee to the Hero target with highest HP) and grants every Gene-Bound an attack (1 melee to the previous Hero target) at end phase.
  Quark-Drive Translocator:
    Completely reworked. Now plays the top Villain card at start phase, and attacks (1 energy to the Hero target with lowest HP) at end phase.
  TCF "Stalwart":
    Max HP decreased to 15.
    Flagship keyword changed to Device.
    Melee damage immunity removed.
    Slightly reworked. Now attacks (5 energy to the 2 non-Villain targets with highest HP) and then discovers 1 Gene-Bound or Thorathian card at end phase.
  Thorathian Conquering Fleet:
    Max HP increased to 20.
    Dreadnaught keyword changed to Device.
    Melee damage immunity removed.
    Slightly reworked. Now attacks (2 fire to each Hero target) and destroys H-2 Hero Ongoing and/or Item cards at end phase.
Added:
  Protective Detail:
    One-Shot. Shuffles the Villain trash into its deck, then discovers 1 Thorathian card and H-1 Gene-Bound cards.
  Ruthless Approach:
    One-Shot. Grants Grand Warlord Voss an attack (H melee to the Hero target with highest HP) and an attack (1 fire and 1 energy to each Hero target).
  Gene-Doctor Kronz:
    Thorathian, 9 HP. Destroys H-2 Hero Ongoing and/or Item cards, then discovers 1 Gene-Bound card at end phase.

 

[Kalir]

Oh, and since environments will need their own formatting, uhhhh

Checklist:
Since environments are arguably-neutral in the big battle, we'll hit a checklist of what kinds of things you can expect from them, the same as heroes. Some environments will have good things, some will have bad things, most will have a little bit of both. Likewise, this checklist will indicate the presence of both beneficial and not-so-beneficial things. As a result, I'll use my fancy color-coded answers to indicate whether it favors the heroes, the villain, or neither, if it's not a simple yes or no.

• Hero Support: Does this environment have any cards that just straight-up help the heroes in it? Great, we'll note that here. This includes anything that accelerates the team, or that fights the villains exclusively.
• Hero Disruption: Similarly, sometimes the environment can break the heroes' stuff, which is more than capable of compounding with the villain's disruption game of destroying all your stuff. I'll note that here as well.
• Field Modifiers: There's plenty of environment cards that can modify things for the entire table, whether that's damage, healing, or even some other weird keywords. Anything that alters the properties of everyone's actions goes here.
• Villain Acceleration: Sometimes, the environment wants to jack up what the villain can do. Always, you hate when it does that. So I'll throw you a warning about that here.
• Ongoings: Remember how Environment decks and destroy effects got a massive rework? Since a lot of Environment cards are now Ongoing cards, you'll probably want some of those effects to deal with some Environment cards as they come up. We'll indicate those here.
• Hostile Targets: Similarly, some environments have lots of targets that will just fight anyone, whether it's hero or villain. You'll want to be able to hold your own when fighting in these places, but a clever team can also have the villains take the rap here!

Ideal Strategies:
Environments don't have character cards, so that list above should cover most everything. Still, I'll have this section here for a general idea of what all you should aim for when fighting in this scenic location. Environments don't have quite the cheese potential they used to back in the day, but if something like that exists, here! Look here!

Things to Avoid:
Likewise, some environments are going to have some very bad ideas here. Things you just really shouldn't mess with. In particular, if an environment has an instant loss condition, this section is where I'll devote attention to that, since it's relatively uncommon, but critical enough to keep an eye out for.

Patch Notes:
Okay, now this one I REALLY can't promise. Some environments, like Magmaria, are virtually unchanged from their previous version. Some, like Wagner Mars Base, are so wildly different they're almost unidentifiable. But hey, I got through all the villains so far. I'll give it the ol' college try here.

 

[Kalir]

Freedom Tower

Starting off simple, in terms of reworks, mechanics, and peril, the new rating assigned to environments. As with Complexity for heroes and Difficulty for villains, environments go all the way from 1 to 10 as far as peril goes, representing their overall hazardous nature to both heroes and villains. Freedom Tower, as the heroes' homebase, is the least perilous environment in base set, at a comfy 1 out of 10. There's no enemies, just a bunch of rooms to help the heroes prepare. That same centralizing effect makes it a little dangerous if the villains get a foothold, though, so don't assume it'll be a cakewalk.

Checklist:

• Hero Support: Yes. I mean, it's the homebase of the Freedom Five. It's probably the most supportive environment there is. Loads of ways for heroes to get their engine set up at lightning speed, with some extra-cheeky self-synergy for that if Caspit's "Playground" is out.
• Hero Disruption: No. Your stuff is safe here, I promise.
• Field Modifiers: Neutral. While there's a lot of cool support stuff in the deck, there's just as many neutral effects that could go either way. The Medical Ward, Frost's Cryo Chamber, The Front Desk, and Caspit's "Playground" can be goodbad in a lot of situations.
• Villain Acceleration: Neutral. Entry Point sucks, but the only other card that actually accelerates the villains is the Training Simulator. And even then, while it's bad, you also get a free power use every time it activates. Is that worth summoning a new foe for you to deal with each turn? Prooobably not? But hey, it's nicer than just going "villains play a card lmao".
• Ongoings: Yes. There is exactly one target in the deck, the Freedom Security Staff. Everything else, including the stuff that accelerates the villains, is an Ongoing card. Bringing a hero or two who can deal with those effects is strongly encouraged.
• Hostile Targets: Favorable. The Freedom Security Staff not only exclusively target villains, they also let you destroy other environment cards that are getting to be a pain! Thanks guys! Too bad they die if a villain looks at them funny.

Ideal Strategies:
Because this environment is so heavily weighted towards helping the heroes, generally speaking it's in your best interest to leave it be. Just rack up those passive helpful effects, and save your Ongoing destruction effects for when Entry Point or Training Simulator pop up. What's more, since you're going to leave a lot of environment cards out, any villains that destroy one or two at a time can be helpfully aimed at some of the more annoying ones.

Things to Avoid:
While the deck does have environment destruction built in, it's attached to a weak 4 HP hero target, so it won't be reliable. Going into Freedom Tower without any ongoing destruction can end very poorly, if all the Entry Points and the Training Simulator end up in play. Odds are it won't be damning, but still, better safe than sorry.

Patch Notes:

Spoiler

Renamed:
  Security Station -> Freedom Security Staff
Changes:
  Room cards:
    Ongoing keyword added.
  Medical Ward:
    Healing moved to end phase.
  Mission Control:
    No longer discards Limited copies.
    No longer forces reveals in turn order.
  Frost's Cryo Chamber:
    Damage modifiers removed.
    Cold damage is now fixed self-damage.
    Now grants heroes a card draw after one of their Items is destroyed.
  Ironclad Maintenance Bay:
    Slightly reworked. End phase now allows each hero to salvage 1 Item.
  The Wraith's Arsenal:
    Card draw moved to end phase.
  Legacy's Landing Pad:
    Completely reworked. Now allows 1 Hero to collect 1 Ongoing at end phase.
  Training Simulator:
    Effect moved to end phase.
    Slightly reworked. Now discovers 1 target from the Villain deck at end phase, then grants a hero 1 power use.
  Entry Point:
    Ongoing keyword added.
    Now destroys 1 Room card when played, rather than covering an existing Room card up.
  Freedom Security Staff:
    Slightly reworked. Now a 4 HP Guards card that counts as a Hero target and is immune to Hero damage.
    Enviromnent destroy cost reduced to discarding 2.
    End phase attack added. Now attacks (2 lightning to the Villain target with highest HP).

 

[Kalir]

Megalopolis

In the earlier edition, Megalopolis was, in theory, the environment in the core set most intended to represent a "neutral" playing field, one where there's stuff that helps the heroes, but also stuff they have to watch out for. In practice, it had a massive number of effects that were just incredibly anti-fun. It was theoretically possible, with the wrong setup, to get into a situation where the heroes legitimately could not take any actions. Now, Megalopolis adheres much more closely to the position intended above, as a place that can help or hinder the heroes, flavored around watching out for the collateral damage and mundane perils of life in the big city.

Checklist:

• Hero Support: Yes. Police Backup is still in, and there's a new friend in the form of the Local Legal Expert. Now, will those two stick around for a long time with an aggressive villain in play? Probably not! But they're helpful anyway.
• Hero Disruption: Neutral. The assorted Emergencies can break your stuff, and Persistent Paparazzi applies soft control to power uses. However, many of these effects can be blunted or even avoided if you play smart about it. And Collateral Damage even helps with disrupting the villains!
• Field Modifiers: No. Gone are the days of Cramped Quarters Combat and Rooftop Combat. Megalopolis leaves your damage types alone, and it doesn't really amplify anything else while it's out, either.
• Villain Acceleration: Neutral. Bustling City tends to accelerate the heroes a lot more than it does the villain, and Bank Heist in Progress is pretty easy to stop if you have either a dedicated damage dealer or someone who doesn't mind skipping their turn.
• Ongoings: Yes, but there's not that many here in Megalopolis, just Persistent Paparazzi and Impending Casualty. And while they're both really annoying, they also have destroy conditions built in. You can still use ongoing destruction effects if you want, just don't feel beholden to them.
• Hostile Targets: Yes. Almost every Emergency out there is there specifically to say "DON'T LOOK AT THEM LOOK AT ME". Ignoring them can result in a lot of damage, and sometimes they'll ask a hero to take damage anyway just to deal with them!

Ideal Strategies:
If you're up against a villain who doesn't have targets you want to avoid hitting (not that the core set has any of those, but you never know), then area attacks are 100% the way to go for Megalopolis. Since every Emergency can be dealt with just by doing damage, and there won't ever be more than one at a time unless the environment gets accelerated, you can usually handle the worst of it just by spamming. That aside: I recommend bringing some healing as well. A lot of the damage Megalopolis does is fixed, so you can't just tank it and continue on your merry way. You'll want to mend up the cuts as they come. (And with the damage being self-inflicted psychic guilt for the collateral damage, you could flavor that healing as intended for the citizens, thus easing the burden on the heroes! Just thought of that!)

Things to Avoid:
You really have to be careful about letting those Emergencies go unchecked. None of them are game-ending, but you still never want those start of turn effects to go off (with the possible exception of the Plummeting Monorail, sometimes, maybe). If you haven't got the damage to spare, don't forget those alternate destroy conditions! Decide when they get played whether it's safer to chunk it at environment end phase or to just barrel in with the damage and solve it the punching way.

Patch Notes:

Spoiler

Removed: Cramped Quarters Combat, Rooftop Combat, Targeting Innocents, Traffic Pileup
Renamed:
  Paparazzi on the Scene -> Persistent Paparazzi
Changes:
  Plummeting Monorail:
    Max HP reduced to 6.
    Train keyword changed to Emergency.
    Now destroys itself after attacking.
    End phase effect added. Now allows a hero to deal themselves 2 fixed psychic and 2 fixed melee, destroying this card if they do.
  Hostage Situation:
    Completely reworked. Now a 6 HP Emergency card that forces each hero to destroy 1 of their Items and discard 1 at start phase, destroying itself after.
    Old destroy effect moved to end phase and changed to 1 Hero discarding 2 One-Shots.
  Persistent Paparazzi:
    Ongoing keyword added.
    Now forces heroes to self-damage for 1 fixed psychic after using a power, instead of blocking power uses outright.
  Impending Casualty:
    Ongoing keyword added.
    No longer allows heroes to avoid damage by destroying Ongoings.
    Damage is now hero character self-damage and fixed.
    Now destroys itself after doing damage.
    End phase effect added. Allows a hero to discard their hand and draw 2, destroying this card if they do.
  Police Backup:
    Slightly reworked. Now a 6 HP Supporter card that counts as a Hero target and is immune to Hero damage.
    Destroy condition removed.
Added:
  Local Legal Expert:
    Supporter, 6 HP. Grants each hero a card draw at end phase. Counts as a Hero target and is immune to Hero damage.
  Collateral Damage:
    One-Shot. Destroys 1 Villain Ongoing, 1 Hero Ongoing, and 1 Environment card, then forces each target to self-damage for 1 fixed psychic.
  Bustling City:
    One-Shot. Reveals the top card of each deck in turn order, discarding any One-Shots and playing the rest.
  Burning High Rise:
    Emergency, 6 HP. Attacks (2 fire to each Hero target), then forces Hero characters to self-damage for 2 fixed psychic and destroys itself at start phase. Allows heroes, at end phase, to discard any number of cards, destroying itself if H+2 cards are discarded this way.
  Bomb at City Hall:
    Emergency, 6 HP. Attacks (3 fire to each non-Environment target), then forces Hero characters to self-damage for 3 fixed psychic and discard 2 cards each, then destroys itself at start phase. Allows a hero, at end phase, to discard 2 Items, destroying itself if they do.
  Bank Heist in Progress:
    Emergency, 6 HP. Forces each hero to discard 1 and plays a Villain card at start phase, then destroys itself. Allows heroes, at their start phase, to skip to draw phase, destroying itself if they do.

 

[Kalir]

Magmaria

The other newcomer environment to the core set is, to everyone's surprise and my delight, Magmaria! Always did enjoy this environment for being a place where you actively work with the inhabitants to get extra benefits. Additionally, Magmaria might just be the least changed out of all the environments in the core set, even including Freedom Tower. The main thing is that it's a place with some big critters, and the native Magmarians are sometimes, but not always, willing to help the heroes out. They don't offer their services for free, though. As such, it sits at a just-barely-comfy 4 out of 10 Peril.

Checklist:

• Hero Support: Yes, but the Magmarians won't do it for free. They're still attacking targets while they're out, although they'll hit the villains as often as not, and they'll ask for Magma Crystals for their services, which aren't exactly effortless to get.
• Hero Disruption: Neutral. Fiery Crystallization is a mean way to disrupt items that everyone dislikes. But the disruption is softer than expected since it bounces items back to your hand, and allows you to use those items to get the Magmarians to do their stuff.
• Field Modifiers: No. Magmaria either rewards you for paying it, or just attacks, with no in-between.
• Villain Acceleration: No. Villains can't trade with the Magmarians.
• Ongoings: Yes. You really, really don't want Fiery Crystallization to persist for an extended amount of time if you're playing on a team without Ra, or a team with lots of item-dependent heroes. This is also the first environment deck to not give you a built-in way to deal with environment ongoings!
• Hostile Targets: Neutral. Strictly speaking, most of Magmaria is hostile targets. That said, they tend to not be picky about which side they fight, and will lean towards higher health targets, which usually means hitting the main villain and your hardiest heroes. Not bad, overall!

Ideal Strategies:
Well, putting aside the obvious strategy of "beat up the Magma Crystals and sell them", there's a lot to be said for running extremely Item-heavy characters in this environment. Fiery Crystallization is annoying, but if you're able to take the disruption effect (because you have tons of backups), you can do some pretty high-level cheating. Not just from the extra effects of the Magmarians, but from their attacks broadly favoring attacking the villains. After all, who tends to start each game with the highest health? That's right, the big card representing the villain. Even the Crystalloid Behemoth favors swinging at them!

Things to Avoid:
It's tempting to just let all the Magmarians stick around and be able to abuse their services any time, but I'd recommend against that. Fiery Crystallization and Magmarian Throng can get a little out of hand if you let them just pile up. If the villain isn't doing a lot of damage to the environment for whatever reason, you might have to fight off a few of the Magmarians yourself to keep things under control. Additionally, don't let Fiery Crystallization persist if you need your items and can't get them back quickly. Bring Ongoing destruction for sure, and try to save it for if things start going sideways.

Patch Notes:

Spoiler

Removed: Smoldering Crystal.
Changes:
  Magmarian cards:
    Fire immunity removed.
  Crystalloid Behemoth:
    Max HP increased to 12.
    Existing attacks removed.
	Start phase attack added. Now attacks (1 fire to every target except itself).
	End phase attack added. Now attacks (4 melee to the target other than itself with highest HP).
  Seismic Defender:
    End phase attack now targets Villain targets with highest HP.
	Start phase attack added. Now attacks (2 fire to the target with highest HP).
  Inner Core Tunneler:
    Max HP decreased to 9.
	Start phase attack added. Now attacks (1 fire to the 3 targets with highest HP).
  Stone Shaper:
    Max HP decreased to 8.
	Start phase attack added. Now attacks (1 fire to the 3 targets with highest HP).
  Crystal Collector:
    Max HP increased to 7.
    Start phase attack added. Now attacks (1 fire to the 3 targets with highest HP).
  Ember Shaman:
    Max HP increased to 6.
	Start phase attack added. Now attacks (1 fire to the 3 targets with highest HP).
  Magmarian Throng:
    One-Shot keyword added, destroy condition removed.
	Discover increased to 2.
	Now grants each Magmarian card an attack (1 fire to each non-Environment target).
  Fiery Crystallization:
    Ongoing keyword added.
	Attack now targets non-Environment targets.
	Items destroyed now return to their heroes' hands.
Added:
  Crystalloid Gremlins:
    Magma Crystal, 4 HP. Attacks (1 melee and 1 fire to the 3 non-Environment targets with lowest HP) at end phase. Added to a hero's hand when defeated, cannot be played from a hero's hand.

 

[Kalir]

Wagner Mars Base

Right here? This is the biggest makeover in the entire core set, hands down. The original Wagner Mars Base was, to put it nicely, incredibly broken. Strong disruption added onto the core set's already strong disruption, permanent invincibility if the villain can't disrupt the environment, and more? No thank you. Surprisingly, this newer version of Wagner Mars Base has a lot of the character of the older version, now with a unique Dome mechanic to simulate all the different parts of a space base that could help, or be at risk, during a conflict! Strictly speaking, the complexity of this one is at a 6 out of 10, but I'm mostly going to chalk that up to the newer, meaner Self-Destruct Sequence than anything else. I like it here.

Checklist:

• Hero Support: Yes. As long as you can keep the assorted Domes in play, you can make use of their services by spending cards from your hand. It's tricky to keep them all in, but even maintaining a few of them can make the fight a lot smoother.
• Hero Disruption: Yes. Red Dust Storm is still in. That's all I need to say.
• Field Modifiers: Favorable. Lots of the Domes provide passive modifiers to whatever's going on, and some of those are very easy for the heroes to abuse. The Medical Bay and Space Science Lab, in particular, are great for heroes.
• Villain Acceleration: Yes, but it's only the Security Station that provides it, and even then it only chucks Ongoings. Facing a villain who doesn't have many? Great! Facing a villain who does? Not great!
• Ongoings: Yes. The Self-Destruct Sequence no longer has a way to destroy it built in. You NEED Ongoing destruction effects to deal with it unless the villain does it for you. Or wait around for a Meteor Strike, that feels safe, right?
• Hostile Targets: None. Nobody here but us unarmed, unnamed scientists who don't know you and are going to flee the first chance we get.

Ideal Strategies:
As long as you have ways to deal with the Self-Destruct Sequence (Ongoing Destruction You Fool), Wagner Mars Base is honestly a pretty safe place to wait around in. The many, many Domes it has can be very helpful to the heroes, accelerating their plans in grand fashion, and you can even abuse the Decompression Protocol to hide from damage for a while. The fact that it has discover and collect built in for the heroes with the Space Science Lab and Hangar Bay only sweetens the pot. Most heroes don't even have those keywords in their DECK. It's amazing for heroes who need a crown jewel for their engine and always seem to have trouble getting it, like Legacy's ring.

Things to Avoid:
NEVER COME HERE WITHOUT ONGOING DESTRUCTION. The Self-Destruct Sequence will either eat a hero turn every round, or cost you the entire game because you weren't paying attention. The only way to deal with it built into the deck is to hope a Meteor Strike hits just right to destroy it, which is not even close to ideal. I'd also advise against bringing characters who need their setup to function here. Wagner Mars Base still has some really good disruption effects, and Red Dust Storm doesn't revive your stuff when it goes away because it's a one-shot now. High setup ceiling is fine, good even, but you need to be able to function if all your stuff is broken, or have really fast ways of getting back in shape. This goes double for Item-focused heroes.

Patch Notes:

Spoiler

Removed: Fire in the Biosphere, Maintenance Level, Villainous Weaponry
Renamed:
  Meteor Storm -> Decompression Protocol
  Pervasive Red Dust -> Red Dust Storm
Changes:
  Oxygen Leak:
    One-Shot keyword added, destroy condition removed.
	Completely reworked. Now forces the 3 targets with highest HP to self-damage for 3 fixed toxic, then destroys 1 Dome card.
  Self-Destruct Sequence:
    Ongoing keyword added.
    Completely reworked. Now allows heroes to place a card from their hand under it by skipping from start phase to power phase. At start phase, causes a game over if no cards are under it, and destroys 1 card under it otherwise.
  Red Dust Storm:
    One-Shot keyword added, destroy condition removed.
	Item destroy reduced to H-1.
	Now destroys 1 Dome card.
	No longer plays Items from trash.
  Decompression Protocol:
    Ongoing keyword added.
    Destroy condition now only forces a skip to draw phase.
	Start phase effect added. Destroys itself if 2 or more Dome cards are in play.
Added:
  Medical Bay:
    Ongoing, Dome. +1 to all HP recovery. Allows a hero, at start phase, to discard an Ongoing card, healing a Hero target for 3 if they do.
  Biosphere:
    Ongoing, Dome. Heals each Hero target for 1 when played. Allows a hero, at start phase, to discard an Item card, playing a card if they do.
  Hangar Bay:
    Ongoing, Dome. Forces each target to self-damage for 1 fixed psychic when destroyed. Allows a hero, at start phase, to discard an Item card, collecting 1 card if they do.
  Living Quarters:
    Ongoing, Dome. Grants each hero a card draw when played. Allows a hero, at start phase, to discard an Ongoing card, drawing 2 if they do.
  Space Science Lab:
    Ongoing, Dome. +1 to all salvaging. Allows a hero, at start phase, to discard a One-Shot card, discovering 1 Item or Ongoing card if they do.
  Power and Engineering:
    Ongoing, Dome. Destroys another Dome card when destroyed. Allows a hero, at start phase, to discard a card, playing a Dome card from the Environment trash if they do.
  Security Station:
    Ongoing, Dome. Allows a hero, at start phase, to discard a One-Shot card, attacking (3 energy to 1 target) if they do. At end phase, reveals the top cards of the Villain and Environment deck, playing Ongoings revealed and discarding the rest.
  Meteor Strike:
    One-Shot. Destroys 1 Villain Ongoing, 1 Hero Ongoing, 1 Environment Ongoing, and 1 Dome card.

 

[Kalir]

The Ruins of Atlantis

The Ruins of Atlantis are another core set environment with a cool concept (dangerous unchecked power for everyone!) that didn't really stick the landing when first released. This iteration, as with the rest, is a lot cleaner, with some of those sources of unstoppable power having some pretty good incentives for the heroes to drink deep of them. Just be careful, because the villains will just as happily make use of those same sources of power when they can, and I wouldn't exactly call Atlantis a safe place to stay. If you're gonna fight here, be ready for a fight that's off the walls. It's great.

Checklist:

• Hero Support: Yes, but most of the sources of hero support come with equal amounts of villain acceleration. The only one the villains can't use is the Ritual Sanctum (or technically Subaquatic Exploration), which I'd hesitate to call EASY to use. Definitely favors specific heroes.
• Hero Disruption: Yes, but again, anything here that would mess with hero stuff will just as happily mess with villain stuff. Granted, discards hurt heroes a lot more than villains, but at the very least it's nowhere near as aggressive here as it used to be.
• Field Modifiers: Neutral. Bonuses or penalties to damage, or bonuses to healing? Sure, why not.
• Villain Acceleration: Yes, but say it with me: happens at the same pace as it does for heroes.
• Ongoings: Yes. As fun as all this unstoppable cosmic power is, a lot of it doesn't provide the heroes with an easy out. Definitely bring an ongoing destroy effect or two.
• Hostile Targets: Yes. The Kraken is still here and has picked up some new tricks. For the most part, it's still easy to set on the villain, but you don't have a lot of room for error here.

Ideal Strategies:
The most important thing you can do to excel in Atlantis is to make sure your team has enough room to capitalize on the unstoppable power it offers. For the Pillars of Hercules, that means bringing characters who have incentive to play extra cards and use extra powers (and then have your last hero with a power that destroys ongoings just to bully the villain). For the Ritual Sanctum, that means heroes who actually use those magical-ish damage types regularly. Bring extra healing effects to abuse the Phosphorescent Chamber. This really is one of those places that can favor the heroes very strongly, if you know what you're doing there, but you can't expect to really get that sort of power just walking in with any old setup.

Things to Avoid:
Similarly, don't come in here expecting the place to completely offset the need for slow setup. The disruption in Atlantis is as strong as the support, and will hamstring you if you just go "haha Legacy setup speed go slightly faster now". Additionally, you can't disregard the Kraken's presence, which mostly means any character who sets up auxiliary targets has to keep an eye out, because odds are very, very good that the Kraken will just eat your toys. Far better to leave villain targets out for the Kraken to eat instead (and in fairness, auxiliary targets taking Kraken hits is way better than fragile heroes taking those hits).

Patch Notes:

Spoiler

Removed: Mystical Defenses, Toxic Seaweed
Renamed:
  The Kraken -> Flailing Kraken Limb
Changes:
  Atlantean Font of Power:
    Ongoing keyword added.
    Destroy effect now requires each active hero to discard 1.
    No longer checks for Limited cards.
  The Pillars of Hercules:
    Ongoing keyword added.
    Destroy condition removed.
    Villain card play increased to 2.
    Villain card play only occurs at environment start phase.
  Leaking Room:
    Ongoing keyword added.
    Destroy effect now requires a hero to discard 1 Item.
    Completely reworked. Now reduces all damage dealt by 1, and forces each hero to discard 1 and discards the top card of the villain deck at end phase.
  Phosphorescent Chamber:
    Ongoing keyword added.
    End phase removed.
  Hallway Collapse:
    One-Shot keyword added, destroy condition removed.
    Damage reduced to 2.
    Damage is now fixed self-damage.
  Flailing Kraken Limb:
    Max HP decreased to 9.
Added:
  Subaquatic Exploration:
    One-Shot. Discover 2 Ongoing cards, then each hero draws 1.
  The Crucible:
    Ongoing. Puts the top card of each deck under it when played. Randomly chooses a card under it at end phase, forcing each target from that deck to self damage for 3 fixed psychic, then plays the card.
  Mystically Defended Hall:
    Ongoing. Destroys all environment targets when played. Allows a hero, at start phase, to discard 2 Ongoing cards, destroying this card if they do. Destroys 1 Villain Ongoing and 1 Hero Ongoing at end phase.
  Ritual Sanctum:
    Ongoing. Gains a token after any hero deals fire/cold/lightning/infernal/radiant damage. At end phase, if it has at least 10 tokens, each hero draws 3 and uses a power, then destroys this card.
  Ravenous Kraken Maw:
    Beak, 13 HP. -1 damage dealt to this card. Attacks (3 melee and 3 toxic to the non-Environment target with highest HP) at end phase.

 

[Kalir]

Insula Primalis

What a change of pace, eh? Going from the least perilous environment in the core set to the most perilous, at 8 out of 10, we have none other than Insula Primalis, for when you just want to fight some birdosaurs! The change in difficulty is honestly more due to the global reworking of environments than anything: since ongoing destroy effects can't hit environment cards as often anymore, it stands to reason that environment targets suddenly become a lot more dangerous, and this deck is almost nothing BUT targets. Loads of dinosaurs, each more ornery than the last, and none of them are trivial foes. And that's not even getting into the other changes...

Checklist:

• Hero Support: No. You're in the Jurassic jungle, buddy. No pit stops for you.
• Hero Disruption: Yes, but it's just the Pterodactyl Thief, and WOW is it a lot easier to handle now. Honestly, you could even feed it items if you want it to attack the villain.
• Field Modifiers: No. The Obsidian Field was removed, so no more locking up the villain and abusing massive damage boosts to win the fight.
• Villain Acceleration: No. If there's nothing out here for the heroes to use, there's nothing for the villains to use either.
• Ongoings: No. You'd think the Imminent Eruption, at the very least, would count as an Ongoing. But no, the devs had a meaner idea in mind.
• Hostile Targets: Yes. In addition to the plethora of Dinosaurs here (who can now stampede you to deal massive fixed damage to everyone), the Imminent Eruption is here to soft-counter just spamming area attacks and calling the game solved. Be ready to fight Insula Primalis head-on.

Ideal Strategies:
If you're coming to Insula Primalis, come in ready for a fight. Loads of Dinosaurs here, and they fight hard and mean and don't give up easily. You'll want to field heroes who are equally dependable on offense and defense, and to play smart with your targets. Remember, the Dinosaurs are just as willing to fight the villains as the heroes, so if you can goad them into fighting the enemies for you, more power to you. Just be careful, because Dinosaur Stampedes and Imminent Eruption don't care who's on the field, and even the hardiest of heroes will have some trouble with fighting those forces.

Things to Avoid:
Any hero who trades longevity away for usefulness will regret that trade real quick in Insula Primalis. The Velociraptor Pack, Enraged T-Rex, and Primordial Plant Life all delight in attacking weak targets, to say nothing of the area attacks from the aforementioned Dinosaur Stampede and Imminent Eruption. Speaking of: if you're relying on area attacks to chip down dinos and villains alike, you should put a cork in that when the Imminent Eruption rolls around. Once it goes to below half health, it stops being Imminent and starts hitting EVERYONE for way too much. Unless you have a way to no-sell the damage it's dealing (like Ra's Flesh of the Sun God), it will kill you a hell of a lot faster than it will the villains.

Patch Notes:

Spoiler

Removed: Obsidian Field
Renamed:
  Volcanic Eruption -> Imminent Eruption
Changes:
  Velociraptor Pack:
    Max HP increased to 6.
	Damage reduced to 2.
	Now gains +2 damage per other Velociraptor Pack.
  Enraged T-Rex:
    Max HP decreased to 14.
	Now attacks the target other than itself with the second lowest HP.
  Pterodactyl Thief:
    Max HP increased to 8.
    Item destruction reduced to 1.
	No longer returns cards under it to players' hands.
	Attack moved to end phase.
	Damage increased by 1.
	Now attacks the target other than itself with highest HP.
  Primordial Plant Life:
    One-Shot keyword added, destroy condition removed.
	Completely reworked. Now heals each target for 1, then forces the non-Environment target with lowest HP to self-damage for 3 fixed toxic.
  River of Lava:
    One-Shot keyword added, destroy condition removed.
	Completely reworked. Now summons Imminent Eruption if it's not in play, then grants it an attack (2 fire damage to each target other than itself).
  Imminent Eruption:
    Volcano and Indestructible keywords added.
	Completely reworked. Now a 20 HP target that acts at end phase depending on health total: playing an Environment card if at 10 or more, attacking ([current HP] fire to each target other than itself) if at 9 or fewer, and shuffling back into the Environment deck at 0.
Added:
  Grazing Stegosaurus:
    Dinosaur, 12 HP. Grants the hero with the fewest cards in hand a card draw at start phase. Attacks (2 melee to the target other than itself with the second highest HP) at end phase.
  Cornered Ankylosaurus:
    Dinosaur, 10 HP. -1 damage dealt to this card. Attacks (3 melee to the 2 targets other than itself with highest HP) at end phase.
  Dinosaur Stampede:
    One-Shot. Shuffles the Environment trash into its deck, discovers 2 Dinosaurs, then grants each Dinosaur card an attack (1 fixed melee to each non-Environment target).

 

[Mogri]

Pterodactyl Thief is hero disruption, though

 

[Kalir]

Oh right I forgot that.

Anyway enjoy waiting for half a year or more until Rook City Renegades comes out because I'm done with core set wooooo!