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

Just wanted to express some excitement for your takes now that Disparition is finally starting to trickle out (and fingers crossed that Sentinel Comics in general will one day survive and continue to produce exciting new games).
 
Jen's copy will probably be here over the weekend. I'm... not sure how I feel about this situation, given that Christopher and Adam are no longer working at the company that's making this now, but at this point, our cash has already been exchanged, and I may as well give the set due diligence in posting it.
 
This was a depressing way to learn it was so; I'd been holding onto hope they might be, like... still attached when the intellectual property got sold, or something...
 
If nothing else, I'll try to leave that side of things out of it for now, as it seems to be both of their wishes at the moment that the issue not be brought up.

I also have been extremely busy on my side of things, so it might take a bit for write-ups to get going, but for now, I'll settle for the side content that's been added to this expansion. First up: Hero variants, which I'll be going through everyone's older posts to add and update if they came from older versions (like Freedom Six, for example).

Second: Principles! This optional rule, borrowing from the Sentinel Comics TTRPG, allows you to add a single modifier to how your hero plays, in conjunction with some manner of plot hook or flavor thing. I'll only provide a few examples, as there are way, WAY too many for me to go through and they don't individually have enough to require a whole post to themselves.

For example, one of the most complex ones in the deck is the Principle of Levity: You always have a positive outlook, and it's important to you to keep everyone's spirits high. You're always quick with a smile and a joke - no one's ever seen you frown. Good hook for a TTRPG character, but you can attach it to any hero in the game for some rules. First, after playing a card with a power on it from your hand, you can discard a card to use a power. Simple enough. However, if you play a card that doesn't have a power, mill 1, and if those cards share any keywords, heal each Hero character for 1, bury the card you were gonna play, and play the discarded one instead. You can see how that could be valuable for some heroes and absolutely infuriating for others, yes?

Or take the Principle of Self-Preservation. This grants you two reactions that allow you to redirect damage; one to any other Hero target, and one that deflects anywhere provided it's 3 or less (like the old Driving Mantis effect). However, any damage you do take from non-Hero targets is amplified by 1, so this becomes very strong if partnered with a tank and against a villain that makes few individual attacks, but will wear you down over time.

Sometimes they get REALLY wacky, like the Principle of the Sidekick. In exchange for shaving your max HP by 8, you choose another hero to be your Mentor. They get a reaction that lets you use a power, and you get a reaction to redirect the damage you'd take to your mentor. From where I'm sitting, that feels like a hardmode of sorts, but it's clever and cute, so whatever!
 
I might suggest that, rather than torturing yourself making a giant overview of all of them, you might just have a quick section on particularly powerful and synergistic principles as part of a hero overview, and or edit something like that into earlier entries.

But I also acknowledge that that would be more work and it’s already gonna be a lot of work.
 
That's not a bad idea, but I have a lot of stuff to do and am still pretty busy at present (note the Alchemists PBP game). I might come back to it later down the road.
 
K.N.Y.F.E.

It's been long enough, let's get to it! Disparation is the spiritual successor to the Shattered Timelines expansion, which means its full of heroes whose whole thing is exploring other timelines. We'll start with the simplest of the lot, originally from the Vengeance expansion. K.N.Y.F.E. is a brawler through and through, built to get right into the mix and hit things very hard, sometimes with energy spikes. She's also good at pushing herself a bit further in that regard than most other heroes, and isn't afraid of taking damage in the process. Her complexity's a 3 out of 10 now, which is pretty well in line with the previous expectation she had. Her deck's been revamped a decent amount while still keeping a lot of the same flavor as before, if perhaps not the same mechanics.

Checklist:
  • Reliable Damage: Yes. If K.N.Y.F.E. isn't dealing damage on her turn, something has gone terribly wrong. She also trends towards on-destroy benefits compared to most as well.
  • Ongoing Destruction: Yes, but only on her Infiltrate and Obfuscate One-Shot. She also has a different One-Shot for Environment cards, Wrecking Uppercut, but even with both of those, that's pretty dependent on card draws, and her decksearch isn't amazing.
  • Emergency Defenses: Yes, but they're generally only for herself with the Projected Energy Buckler. She CAN combo that with Taunting Boast now to protect the team, but that's expensive to maintain. Oh, and she doesn't have her old effects that let her do stuff when her things are destroyed. I'm not too broken up about this considering how common that kind of design is now, though.
  • Deck Control: No. K.N.Y.F.E. is a bit more straightforward than that.
  • Ally Acceleration: No. That's fine, that's not what you came to this deck for.
  • Healing: Yes, but say it with me: self-healing only. K.N.Y.F.E. is a lot better at this than she used to be, actually!
  • Big-Ass Attack Option: Yes. One-Shots are her main source of damage and can do a lot of damage with their damage. A lot of those One-Shots also can chain to more cards, and as mentioned, destroying targets (something she is very very good at) will give her even more benefits.

Main Strength:
K.N.Y.F.E. is as brawlerly a brawler as they come. She's tough enough to take a few hits here or there, but also has no problem spending her own HP to deal even more damage. More than that, though, she has a toolkit custom built for eliminating targets, making her excellent at taking out specific threats to the team. She also is pretty good at dealing with damage reduction or immunity, either with easy access to irreducible damage off of Kinetic Neutralizer, or her plethora of options that can destroy targets at low HP. In short: play as K.N.Y.F.E. if you want to never ever ever stop beating the hell out of the villains.

Main Weakness:
K.N.Y.F.E. is laser focused on punching her enemies, which means that any time a situation calls for a more subtle approach is a time she's going to be suffering. Her support moveset is limited to tanking (possible, but difficult to sustain for long) and destroying Ongoing or Environment cards (dependent on drawing specific cards). And that's not terrible, but again: that means other heroes have to plan around the fact that your turn, as K.N.Y.F.E., will be very inflexible. You'll also need to cooperate with other heroes a lot to leave certain targets for you, specifically, to eliminate, which can be harder with more indiscriminate attackers like Tempest or Alpha.

Variant Strategies:
First Appearance: K.N.Y.F.E.
Remember how K.N.Y.F.E. began her days as an agent of F.I.L.T.E.R.? Yeah? Cool, you get to have the Agent keyword here for funny interactions with the Block (and Sergeant Steel if/when he ever appears as a villain deck). You also get to use F.I.L.T.E.R. Tactics to boost your card draw and let your allies do some punching for you. Except... why would K.N.Y.F.E. delegate two 1 damage hits to her allies when she could just do a boatload more damage her damn self? Even if you were gonna assume someone else had loads more damage boosts or effects on damage than you do (Mr. Fixer, maybe), why would you not just punch them yourself? Weird.

K.N.Y.F.E.: Rogue Agent
Even the variant of K.N.Y.F.E. that has deck control has to earn it off of destroying a target now. Which is fine! 2 irreducible melee is a great basic damage button, and the deck control is pretty solid for DE: reveal the top cards of 3 decks, then discard a card from 1 deck (doesn't have to be the ones you looked at). Is it softer and not permitting of playing cards for allies? Yes. But that would be a hell of a power to just casually give to a brawler. Who do you think this is, Tabitha Taft?

Fighting Spirit K.N.Y.F.E.
And then there was that time she went to the Fey-Court and had a fight/fling with Lugh. In exchange for some self-damage, Fighting Spirit K.N.Y.F.E. gets to attack two targets at once, both with irreducible melee damage. Not a lot to say about that really, it's just nice good damage for damage's sake. The self-damage isn't a lot either, just 1 fixed toxic, but it can add up with the rest of K.N.Y.F.E.'s playstyle, so be cautious about it.

Patch Notes:
Code: 
Removed: Focusing Conduit-Blade, Prototype Servo-Gauntlet, Primed Punch, Incidental Contact, For The Greater Good, Overdo It
Renamed:
  Rogue Agent variant power (Infiltration) -> Break And Enter
  Kinetic Neutralizer -> Take Out The Trash
  Flawless Execution -> Flawless Executions
  Overcharged Null-Shield -> Projected Energy Buckler
Changes:
  Rogue Agent variant HP reduced to 28.
  Base power (Energy Lance):
    Now self-heals for 2 on destroying a target.
  Rogue Agent variant power (Break And Enter):
    Completely reworked. Now grants an attack (2 irreducible melee to 1 target), revealing the top card of 3 decks if that target is destroyed. Discards 1 card from the top of a deck.
  Incapacitated effects:
    Bonus play phase replaced with letting each hero discard 1 and draw 2.
	Ongoing destruction replaced with granting a target an attack (2 melee to 1 other target).
  Rogue Agent variant incapacitated effects:
    Bonus power phase replaced with bonus play phase.
	Healing replaced with destroying a target with 3 or fewer HP.
	Card reveal replaced with letting a hero discard 1 and draw 3.
  Flawless Executions:
    Destroy effect now works only on non-Heroes.
	Destroy threshold increased to 2 or fewer.
	End phase effect added. Grants an attack (1 energy to up to 3 targets).
  Take Out The Trash:
    Power added. Grants an attack (2 melee to 1 target), playing the top card of your deck if that target is destroyed.
  Energy Burn:
    Initial damage reduced to 2.
	Threshold for follow-up increased to 6 or more.
	Follow-up damage increased to 4.
  Wrecking Uppercut:
    Damage increased to 4.
	Discard replaced with optionally destroying 1 Environment card.
  Amplified Combatant:
    Completely reworked. Now grants an attack (1 melee to 1 target), another attack (1 energy to 1 target), then either a card draw or play.
  Battlefield Experience:
    Completely reworked. Now a One-Shot that grants an attack (2 melee to up to 2 targets), then reveals the top 2 cards of your deck, discarding 1 and playing 1.
  Infiltrate and Obfuscate:
    Completely reworked. Now a One-Shot that allows you to destroy 1 target with 3 or fewer HP, destroy 1 ongoing, and draw 2.
  Projected Energy Buckler:
    Item keyword replaced with Ongoing.
	Damage reduction is no longer conditional.
	Power replaced with a reaction that prevents the damage K.N.Y.F.E. would be dealt, then destroys this card.
Added:
  Kinetic Neutralizer:
    Ongoing, Limited. Damage dealt by K.N.Y.F.E. is irreducible. Draws 1 whenever K.N.Y.F.E. destroys a target.
  Ready To Rumble:
    One-Shot. Summons either Kinetic Neutralizer or Flawless Executions, then either draws 1 or plays 1.
  Taunting Boast:
    Ongoing, Limited. Whenever an ally would be dealt damage by a non-Hero, you may discard 1 to redirect it to K.N.Y.F.E. Grants a reaction that attacks (2 melee to the attacker). Either destroys itself or forces K.N.Y.F.E. to self-damage for 1 fixed toxic on start phase.
  Bide and Fecht:
    Ongoing, Limited. Whenever K.N.Y.F.E. would be reduced to 0 HP, attacks (4 melee to 1 non-Hero target), preventing the damage and setting K.N.Y.F.E.'s HP to 4 if that target is destroyed. Self-heals for 1 on end phase.
  Keep the Heid:
    Ongoing, Limited. Salvages 1 on play. Grants a power that self-heals for 2, then either draws 1 or plays 1, destroying itself if a card is played.
  All Part Of The Job:
    One-Shot. Attacks (3 energy to 1 target), then destroys that target if it has 4 or fewer HP.
  Brash Brawling:
    One-Shot. Attacks (2 melee to 1 target), grants the target an attack (3 melee to K.N.Y.F.E.), then attacks (3 melee to the same target).
 
Kalir said:
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, Blazing 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: 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:
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.

Ra: Horus of Two Horizons
Ra still has his weird self-engine focused version that trades immediate firepower for card draw... but it got weirder. The first thing Sunrise now does is discard your HAND. Which can be useful sometimes, don't get me wrong, and the after-the-fact card draw got boosted and you get a little self-heal too. But discarding your hand is not an easy choice to make unless you're going in expecting your hand to be empty. And if that's the case... would you not rather have someone else that can just give you card draw? Granted, you still can eventually get Ignite or whatever and just have this as a back pocket option, but it's still very jank. You'll know if you want it, though!

Patch Notes:
Code: 
Removed: Wrathful Gaze, Imbued Fire, Drawn to the Flame.
Renamed:
  Summon Staff -> By Flame Reformed!
  Blazing Tornado -> Ignite
Changes:
  Horus of Two Horizons variant HP reduced to 28.
  Horus of Two Horizons variant power (Sunrise):
    Discard comes before card draw and now discards your hand.
    Card draw increased to 4.
    Now self-heals for 2 after drawing.
  Horus of Two Horizons variant incapacitated effects:
    Bonus draw phase replaced with bonus power phase.
    Ongoing destroy replaced with letting 1 Hero discover 1 One-Shot.
    Villain deck manipulation replaced with letting 1 hero discard up to 6, then forcing 1 target to deal itself [cards discarded] fixed fire damage.
  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 you do, destroy this card.
  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 on-destroy attack (3 fire to 1 target and draw 2 cards), and a Power that destroys the card.
  By Flame Reformed!:
    Now summons instead of collects.
    Draw occurs before summon rather than after.
Added:
  Blazing Barrier
    Ongoing, Limited. Grants a Reaction that deals the attacker 3 damage, then destroys the card.
  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).
Click to expand...
I think his Backdraft variant got et and not replaced.

I’m very excited though!
 
Yeah, I also accidentally blew up Stealth Suit Bunker. I did notice that one because I like Bunker more than Ra, though. But anyway.

Chrono-Ranger

Next up, everyone's favorite Time Cowboy. His mechanics are all fairly unchanged compared to his prior iteration: he still shoots the gun a lot and staples bounties onto targets for better gunshooting. There are a few changes that will definitely feel awkward for returning players, most notably that his decksearch capability is more slanted towards Bounties than Items (but also he doesn't have as strong of a reliance on Items as he used to), but the vibes are about the same, as is the efficacy. And, of course, he's picked up a few new tricks that are certainly worth checking out.

His central mechanic is, as mentioned, Bounty cards. These cards, representing posted bounties by his operator CON, stick next to the marked target, providing some sort of benefit for Chrono-Ranger, either while the target is around or once they're defeated. Chrono-Ranger also has a good deal of cards that allow him to shuffle these around to new targets as the situation demands.

Checklist:
  • Reliable Damage: Yes, but Chrono-Ranger's base damage trends very low until he gets set up. He's also pretty limited on irreducible damage to balance that out, with the Masadah being his only real source. Once he's set up though, yeah, sure, he's got damage.
  • Ongoing Destruction: Yes, but solely off of Temporal Grenade, which returning players might remember as being a stopgap measure. However, Temporal Grenade also got buffed with a funny Reaction that lets you cancel One-Shots as well, so that's awesome.
  • Emergency Defenses: Yes, but single-target only, thanks to Wrangle. Oldheads might be thinking, what about the combo of the Neuro-Toxin Dart Thrower and "The Ultimate Target"? Sorry, the former got removed and the latter nerfed, now get on that bronco!
  • Deck Control: Yes, but it's all reactive. The new Temporal Grenade needs you to take damage first to no-sell a One-Shot, and "No Executions" can still prevent destroy effects, but that requires a target to be out that you don't want destroyed.
  • Ally Acceleration: Yes, but only off of the new Bounty, "Get It Done", letting every Hero draw for 1. Which isn't a problem if you're throwing it out a lot and proccing it often, but that's a lot more awkward than, say, an actual support hero just doing their thing.
  • Healing: Yes, but for heroes that aren't Chrono-Ranger, that's another feature of "Get It Done". For himself... he still has a little self-heal. Not much, but a little.
  • Big-Ass Attack Option: Yes. Even if the ultra-suicide of classic Hunter and Hunted isn't available anymore, Chrono-Ranger absolutely does not lack for spike damage setup once he lines up his Bounties and starts putting his other One-Shots to work.

Main Strength:
Chrono-Ranger's playstyle involves marking specific targets with Bounty cards, and then making use of his assortment of Items and damaging One-Shots to destroy them as fast as possible. Like Expatriette, though, he's a lot more flexible in how he approaches his targets, either with his strong decksearch that lets him get just what he needs for the job and keep it when things start breaking, or the assorted benefits of the Bounties themselves that let him circumvent the rules of the game in fun directions. In particular, the sheer amount of attacks he gets strongly rewards anyone who is throwing him damage boosts, and he has a few ways to give himself significant boosts for just that purpose.

Main Weakness:
For a bullet hose with a relatively fast setup speed, Chrono-Ranger really, REALLY needs that setup to do his job. His base damage is just too low to function right out of the gate. Complicating matters is the fact that most of his setup comes from Bounties, which are going to be removed from play almost constantly, forcing him to keep using his (admittedly strong) decksearch tools just to stay afloat. He still has Displaced Armory to get his Items out, but that's less accessible than his Bounties. And even once you set all of that aside: Chrono-Ranger is still focused first and foremost on damage, so while he does have funny toys to do other things, using them might mean sacrificing his damage output, which can be a rough ask depending on team composition.

Variant Strategies:
First Appearance: Chrono-Ranger
"Chrono-Ranger doesn't set up fast enough, I need MORE SETUP SPEED." Nobody has ever said this line, but for this strawman, I offer you the power of CON's Orders. Now you can just discover Bounties or Items as you see fit, and also have some self-heal why not. Naturally, this means you're going to be even slower getting damage out until that setup is well and proper done, but also you get faster setup speed, did we mention this? Build your engine, ya goober!

Chrono-Ranger: Tengu-Hunter
As we all know, cowboys were something of an itinerant warrior class from Meiji-era Texas. And what better way to drive that home than to have Jim Brooks go to the birthplace of the Meiji era? Or maybe an earlier era, we got time travel here. Anyway, this version comes packing a Ninjato Slash attack that hits for melee (useful enough since Chrono-Ranger benefits from both projectile and melee damage), then either discovers a One-Shot or does a follow-up shot for 1. Absolutely immaculate vibes for all your sword cowboy/gun samurai needs. Just mind the lower HP, and be very careful to keep your damage boosts in play to really make that low base damage work.

Chrono-Ranger: Wind-Walker
Oh, how about an alternate reality where Chrono-Ranger is a Native American woman? You here for that? Cuz I am. This version's also there for people that looked at the Removed line in the Patch Notes and went feral with rage, because guess what: we're playing cards all day every day. Temporal Trail Markers not only let you play a card, they also salvage up to 2 cards that aren't One-Shots, rewinding your setup to a previous state. That's some hella nice disruption resistance I tell you hwat. Again, slightly lower HP, but not even by that much.

Patch Notes:
Code: 
Removed: Jim's Hat, Compounded Bow, Neuro-Toxin Dart Thrower, "Just Doin' My Job", "The Whole Gang", Ranger's Mark
Renamed:
  Base Power (Quick Draw) -> Peacemaker
  Sudden Contract -> Reprioritize
  Danny-Boy -> Danny Boy
Changes:
  Base power (Peacemaker):
    Now either plays or discovers 1 Bounty after attacking.
  Incapacitated effects:
    Bonus play phase replaced with playing an Environment card.
	Attack replaced with discarding the top Villain card, forcing the highest HP Villain to attack (3 toxic to self) if that card is an Ongoing.
  Bounty cards:
    Destroy condition reworked. Now triggers if the card is ever not next to a target, and now at minimum grants Chrono-Ranger a draw of 1 and buries itself.
	On-play conditions slightly reworked. Now plays next to the non-Hero target with the fewest Bounties next to it.
  "By Any Means":
    Damage boost slightly reworked. Now increases damage by 2, but damage boost applies only against targets with 9 or fewer HP.
  "Dead Or Alive":
    Healing removed.
	Now increases damage dealt to the target by 1.
  "Kill On Sight":
    Card draw reduced to 1.
	Now increases projectile damage from Chrono-Ranger to the target by 2.
  "No Executions":
    Bury condition now triggers when the target is at 4 or fewer HP.
  "The Ultimate Target":
    Play condition ignores Bounties.
	Completely reworked. Now grants Chrono-Ranger an attack (1 fixed projectile to the target) after he deals damage to a non-Hero target other than the target next to this card. 
	Bury condition added, as above.
  Danny Boy:
    Now targets up to 3.
	Now grants a collect or salvage of 1 Bounty card if any targets were destroyed by the attack.
  The Masadah:
    Damage is now only irreducible against targets with Bounties next to them.
	Slightly reworked. Now discards up to 2 cards, then attacks ([cards discarded] + 2 energy to 1 target).
  Temporal Grenade:
    Damage increased to 2.
	Can no longer destroy Environment cards.
	Self-destroy changed to self-bury.
	Reaction added. Destroys 1 Ongoing or buries 1 One-Shot in the process of resolution, then self-buries.
  Bounty Board:
    Completely reworked. Now an Item, Limited that grants a power that either collects, salvages, or plays 1 Bounty, then attacks (1 projectile to 1 target next to a Bounty). Either draws 1 or plays 1 Bounty at end phase.
  Displaced Armory:
    May now salvage 1 instead of summoning.
	Attack replaced with granting 1 power use from an Item card.
  Eye on the Prize:
    Slightly reworked. Now only targets non-Heroes. Now either plays 1 Bounty or moves a Bounty in play next to the target before attacking.
	Card draw removed.
	May now use a power instead of playing a card.
  Terrible Tech-Strike:
    Melee attack now destroys the target afterwards if it has 3 or fewer HP.
	Projectile attack replaced with either collecting 1 Item or using a power.
  Reprioritize:
    Decksearch and play replaced with summon.
    Returns 1 Bounty in play to hand before summoning.
	May now play 1 Bounty rather than summon.
	Attack now limited to targets with Bounties next to them.
  Hunter and Hunted:
    Completely reworked. Now a One-Shot that can discover 1 Bounty, or draw [Bounties in play] cards, then attacks (2 projectile to 1 target next to a Bounty), then grants that target an attack (2 melee to Chrono-Ranger).
Added:
  Armed And Dangerous:
    Ongoing, Limited. Heals Chrono-Ranger for 1 after dealing melee damage to a target next to a Bounty. Grants a reaction that attacks (2 melee to the attacker).
  Drop Everything:
    One-Shot. Chooses a target and discovers 1 Bounty for it, then moves any number of Bounties in play to that target, then attacks (1 projectile to the chosen target).
  Fan The Hammer:
    One-Shot. Chooses a target and discards up to 6, attacking (1 projectile to the chosen target) each time you do.
  "Get It Done":
    Ongoing, Bounty. Plays next to the non-Hero target with the fewest Bounties next to it. When not adjacent to a target, grants each Hero 1 draw, heals each Hero target for 1, grants Chrono-Ranger 1 draw, then self-buries.
  Wrangle:
    Ongoing, Limited. Attacks (1 melee to 1 target) and reduces damage dealt by that target by 2. Whenever that target would deal damage, redirect it to Chrono-Ranger. Self-buries at start phase.
 
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Parse

Okay, now we get to the hard parts. After all, deck control in Definitive Edition was something severely nerfed (outside of Reporter Alpha for SOME REASON), and here in this set we have TWO deck control specialists. So how exactly did they survive the transition? Well, the golden rule was that deck control as a power needs to have a pretty hard cap on how good it is, because once you have that, you can spam it every turn. So everyone's favorite black autistic vigilante takes a different route as only she can. More on that in the summary, but honestly, I think they did a really good job of folding the character's feel into the balance of Definitive Edition.

Checklist:
  • Reliable Damage: Yes, but only on one of her Ongoings, really. She has damaging One-Shots and will be playing them, but it's not her main job in the party.
  • Ongoing Destruction: Yes. As before, comes in One-Shot and Ongoing forms for all your different needs!
  • Emergency Defenses: No. Parse is the one that scouts out the big attacks that need emergency defending, she cannot actually do it herself.
  • Deck Control: Yes. Parse still remains one of the big champs of deck control, especially with her new effects on every single Ongoing card that reveal a card from a deck and let you bury it. Just for fun, y'know?
  • Ally Acceleration: Yes. It's not exactly her main specialty, but Parse is more than capable of setting up teammates, either by facilitating Beeg Damage, or the more traditional styles of granting card draws, plays, and power uses.
  • Healing: No. Again, Parse's job is scouting and damage support. You have other heroes for this.
  • Big-Ass Attack Option: Yes. She got her own version of Lightspeed Barrage with Impossible Shot, and the new Critical Multiplier lets her double other heroes' big spike damage options like they were breaking the Staff of Ra. Expensive, but the results are inarguable.

Main Strength:
Parse has two primary jobs on whatever team she's on. Those jobs are damage support and deck control. For the first one, not only can she chip in some shots herself every so often, she also has ways to apply damage boosts to heroes, whether that's the reasonable mark of Exploit Vulnerability, the easy irreducible damage of Reveal the Flaws, or the absurd doubler of Critical Multiplier. For the second, she has a lot of cards that can look at other decks' top cards and mess with them in different ways. In fact, every single Ongoing she has lets you just do that for a deck immediately when you play it, which means she is always passively just influencing the decks of the game and giving your team information. And that's nice!

Main Weakness:
In her earlier iteration, Parse's big weakness was her deck's lopsided weight: sometimes you just didn't get the cards you needed to do either job properly. That's not the problem anymore, thankfully. No, the problem now is that a lot of her best effects require you to discard a metric buttload of cards from your hand to activate the effects in question, and her own innate card draw isn't especially strong. For most other heroes, card draw is simply Nice, but for Parse, even cards she can't play directly are valuable gamefuel, and in a vacuum, if only one hero on your team gets to draw a card, it should probably be Parse.

Variant Strategies:
First Appearance: Parse
If you missed being able to just basic shot for 2, good news! That variant is still in and very buffed! The damage is now irreducible, it grants card draw or play on destroy, and you even get a little more HP than you were used to! This is the power of upgrading Pinpoint Shot to Unerring Shot! You and I both love to see it. Nothing fancy here, doesn't have to be.

Spacefarer Parse
While Parse began her story in the gritty streets of Rook City, she's more known for her adventures in SPAAAAACE! Here, she can Seek And Question to filter through her own deck more clearly, by first looking at the bottom 3 cards of her deck, optionally putting one on top, discarding everything else, then either collecting or discovering an Ongoing. This variant is tailor made for players that were frustrated at earlier Parse's ungainly setup, and I hope they are happy with this and everything else they got when Extrasensory Awarness got turned into a One-Shot. (Don't lie to yourself, that was necessary.)

Terminarch Parse
Today's alternate reality version is the keeper of the Enclave of the Endlings! Y'know, all those funny space weirdos that are the last of their respective kinds? I guess Parse is keeping an eye on them this time, which means she's going to be meddling with everyone's decks a lot more than usual (and she does that lot). Paying for the new Curate power with a meager max HP of 20, Terminarch Parse gets to reveal the top card of everyone's deck except her own, and then play every card that matches a keyword she chooses, discarding the rest. This is, undeniably, an extremely strong card that leans much more towards the heroes... but it's also one that requires specific team compositions and matchups to get the most out of. Like... if you're playing a bunch of Ongoing focused heroes, and you're up against an Ongoing focused villain, that's trouble, yeah?

Patch Notes:
Code: 
Removed: Between The Lines, Data-Mining, Targeting Arrow, Updated Intel
Renamed:
  Base Power (Pinpoint Shot) -> Assess
Changes:
  HP reduced to 27.
  Base power (Assess):
    Completely reworked. Now reveals the top 2 cards of your deck, discards 1, and either draws or plays the other.
  Incapacitated effects:
    Trash shuffle replaced with letting 1 Hero collect 1 Ongoing.
	Reveal replaced with letting each Hero discard 1, then forcing a target to self-damage for [cards discarded] fixed psychic.
  Ongoing cards:
    Limited keyword added.
    Now reveal the top card of a deck when played, then either buries it, or replaces it and draw 1.
  Buffer Overflow:
    Card play now tied to the activation effect rather than the card destroy.
	Now reveals 3 cards and chooses one to play, discarding the other two.
  Critical Multiplier:
    Completely reworked. Now allows you to, when a Hero target damages a target, discard 5, doubling that damage after all other modifiers if you do.
  Exploit Vulnerability:
    Completely reworked. Now grants a power that either draws 2 or discards 1, increasing damage dealt to a selected target by 1 until your start phase if you discard.
  Gauge:
    Slightly reworked. Power now reveals the top card of 3 decks, discarding 1, replacing 1, and playing 1.
	Card draw removed.
  Reveal The Flaws:
    Destroy condition removed.
	Slightly reworked. Allows you to discard 2 cards at end phase to render damage to a selected target irreducible.
  Snap Decision:
    Card play occurs before costs.
	Discard increased to 2.
	May destroy this card rather than discarding.
  Quick Calculation:
    Completely reworked. Now an Ongoing, Limited that reveals the top card of a deck when played, then either buries it, or replaces it and draws 1. Grants a power that either collects 1 Ongoing, or discards 1 and destroys 1 Ongoing.
  Extrasensory Awareness:
    Slightly reworked. Now a One-Shot that grants the old power effect, instead of an Ongoing.
	Discard increased to up to 2.
	Shuffle removed.
	May reveal cards from the Environment deck instead.
	Grants 1 play or 1 power after reveal.
  Segmentation Fault:
    Completely reworked. Now a One-Shot that attacks (2 projectile to 1 target) and may destroy 1 Ongoing.
  Impossible Shot:
    Card draw removed.
	Attack reworked. Now discards any number of cards, then attacks ([cards discarded] + 2 fixed projectile to 1 target).
	May bury a target that would be destroyed by the attack instead.
  Recompile:
    May shuffle trash into deck before discard/draw.
	Discard/draw slightly reworked. Now discards your hand, then draws [cards discarded] + 1.
	Grants a Hero 1 power use after discard/draw.
  Syntactic Analysis:
    Completely reworked. Now draws 2, then allows 1 ally Hero to draw 1 or play 1.
Added:
  Line It Up:
    Ongoing, Limited. Reveals the top card of a deck when played, then either buries it, or replaces it and draws 1. Grants a power that attacks (1 irreducible projectile to up to 3 targets), then attacks (2 energy to 1 prior target).
  Optimize Efficiency:
    Ongoing, Limited. Reveals the top card of a deck when played, then either buries it, or replaces it and draws 1. Grants a power that lets an ally Hero draw 1, then you may discard 1 to let that Hero collect 1 One-Shot. Grants 1 power use or an ally Hero draw 2 at end phase.
  Parallel Processing:
    Ongoing, Limited. Reveals the top card of a deck when played, then either buries it, or replaces it and draws 1. Grants a reaction that attacks (2 melee to 1 target), then may attack (2 projectile to 1 other target).
  Ricochet:
    One-Shot. Attacks (2 projectile to 1 target), then may attack (2 projectile to 1 other target), then may attack (2 projectile to 1 target).
 
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The Visionary

And now, finally, two sets in, we get the last of the OG base set heroes. That time in the oven was very necessary though, as The Visionary was one of the... jankier heroes of Enhanced Edition, and a lot of her cool orthogonal tricks simply didn't work that well as the lifespan of the game went on. (Getting some distance from her literally just being Moon Dragon didn't hurt either but shhhhh.) Making her return in the same set as Parse is a good way to highlight the disparity between the two as well, but even better for that is the entirely new mechanic she comes with.

Veterans of the Multivers will, of course, recall that Vanessa Long came back in time with an evil version of herself hitchhiking through the timestream in her brain, yeah? Of course. Well, now that particular evil version has her own Dark side deck! That's right, we've got another Suddenly! hero that has much harder powers to control, and while the powers of Dark Visionary are certainly strong, they're also dangerous and unpredictable. That unparalleled control comes with costs, and it might not even be you that pays them.

Checklist:
  • Reliable Damage: No. Damage, yes. Reliable, absolutely not. Most of her best attacks come from the Dark side deck, which it goes without saying is not a predictable source. And most of that damage is for very low values, too.
  • Ongoing Destruction: Yes, but while she doesn't lack for options on it, most of her Ongoing destruction effects also mean Dark cards. If another hero has a cleaner way of dealing with it, it might be best for them to handle it. You might not have a cleaner way, though.
  • Emergency Defenses: Yes. The Telekinetic Cocoon is back, the Decoy Projection is back, and Mass Levitation even got reworked into a single turn guard against all damage, rather than a power that only blocks Environment damage. (And while I do miss that old effect, it was kind of ridiculous you gotta admit.)
  • Deck Control: Yes. This remains the Visionary's main specialty, with no shortage of ways to play with every deck on the field... except side decks. Turns out those are exempt from deck control unless specifically named by the effect in question, so your Dark side deck will remain the one thing you cannot predict.
  • Ally Acceleration: Yes, but almost every option the Visionary has for boosting allies comes with a cost, and usually a heavy one. Adding on to that is the dilemma of the fact that she will frequently be damaging or otherwise hampering other heroes if she goes Dark, which can even make her support in this regard a net zero.
  • Healing: Yes, but only self-healing, and that self-healing is extremely unreliable; coming as it does off of effects like Telekinetic Cocoon's autodestroy or the Dark side deck with the associated funny costs involved.
  • Big-Ass Attack Option: Yes, but those only appear in the Dark side deck, which means you can't control the exact flavor of massive attack you're going to fling out. In the right situations, you can clear the villain play area. In the wrong ones, you can possibly eliminate a hero.

Main Strength:
The Visionary is the best hero in the game for looking at other decks. Deck control is her first and second favorite flavor of ice cream, and she has loads of funny buttons to do it with, whether that's on powers like Precognition or Prophetic Vision (yeah those are powers now!) or One-Shots like Suggestion, she will find the best possible future and simply be there. And while the Dark side deck is definitely intimidating, it gives you a LOT of power for the costs involved. A player that's good at calculating the risks will definitely prefer the Visionary's brand of control (decks or otherwise) to, say, Parse or the Wraith's safer, more reliable, and WEAKER control games.

Main Weakness:
Everything comes with a cost. The Visionary has virtually no safe options to just do this or that effect, and even when you DO get offered choices, AND even if one of those options is safer, it's almost certainly weaker. Trying to avoid the power of the Dark side isn't in your best interests either, those cards can sometimes be extremely useful and save your neck, and frankly, you don't have a choice in the matter for playing them. Risk calculation is equal parts art and science, but the only losing move is not to play, especially as the Visionary. Oh, and of course the Visionary isn't a direct combatant and isn't very durable but whatever you were ready for that.

Variant Strategies:
First Appearance: The Visionary
Tired of not having a basic attack on the Visionary? That's a weird choice but okay. You can always take the option of Rend Spacetime if you want for a basic attack for 1 psychic for some reason. And if you don't want that, you can replace it with a Dark side card. Either way, you also get card draw, and it's not like you're ever hurting for that. I dunno, this option just feels kind of... there, even alongside a lot of First Appearance variants that also feel like that.

Dark Visionary
No, you don't get villain deck control as a base power anymore, but fortunately for evil lady fans across the multiverse, Dark Visionary has a unique advantage that still makes her a very strong contender. How does Complete Control over the Dark side deck sound? Because she has it! She can discard 2 cards and then just straight up DRAW Dark side cards into her hand to be deployed at the perfect moment. Hell, you can even chain that into a Dark card play from your hand if you topdeck the perfect toy! This is the best current way to manipulate the Dark side deck, fittingly enough, and it's very strong and good.

The Fishionary
Time for a homage to the longest running joke on the Letters Page. Hailing from the Animalverse, the Fishionary, in exchange for the lowest HP of all Visionary variants, can use the power of the Little Plastic Mind Castle to reveal the top card of both of her decks, choosing one to play. This not only gives you some handy filtration of the Dark side deck (without the discards necessary for Dark Visionary), it's also just good ol' reliable speed play of your decks, and everyone likes that. Maybe. You do still have to play one of those cards, which might mean choosing whether you play the Dark side card you just revealed, or TRADING IT ALL FOR WHAT'S IN THE LITTLE PLASTIC MIND CASTLE.

Patch Notes:
Code: 
Removed: Foresight
Renamed:
  Base Power (Enlighten) -> Motivating Mentalism
  Dark Visionary variant power (Turmoil) -> Complete Control
  Cerebral Hemorrhage -> Justify the Means
  Distortion keyword -> Manifestation keyword
Changes:
  HP reduced to 24.
  Dark Visionary HP reduced to 21.
  Base power (Motivating Mentalism):
    Plays a Dark side card if you drew cards yourself.
  Dark Visionary variant power (Complete Control):
    Completely reworked. Now discards 2, then draws 3 from the Dark side deck, then may play 1 Dark card from hand.
  Incapacitated effects:
    Target destroy replaced with bonus power phase.
	Environment destroy replaced with letting 1 Hero draw 3 and discard 2.
  Dark Visionary incapacitated effects:
    Healing replaced with forcing all targets to self-damage for 2 fixed psychic.
	Environment deck manipulation replaced with letting 1 Hero discard their hand, destroy all non-character Hero cards in their play area, draw 4, and play the top 2 cards of their deck.
  Decoy Projection:
    HP increased to 6.
	Redirect is now optional and no longer applies to psychic damage.
	Destroy effect added. Attacks (1 energy to up to 3 targets).
  Telekinetic Cocoon:
    Ongoing keyword replaced with Manifestation, Limited.
	Now a target with 6 HP.
	Power and card blocking replaced with preventing damage dealt.
	Start phase destroy is now mandatory, but heals the Visionary for 2 and draws 1 before destroying.
	Plays the top card of the Dark side deck when destroyed.
  Mass Levitation:
    Limited keyword added.
	Slightly reworked. Damage reduction no longer attached to a power, and now affects damage dealt to Hero targets.
	Damage reduction decreased to 2.
	Start phase effect added. Grants each Hero 1 card draw, then destroys itself.
  Mental Divergence:
    Limited keyword removed.
	Power slightly reworked. No longer able to pull Ongoings from hero trash, and plays the top card of the Dark side deck after destroying.
	New power added. Collects 1 Ongoing, then destroys itself.
  Wrest The Mind:
    Now selects a target on play, instead of playing next to a target. Destroy condition removed.
    Cost of redirect changed to discarding 1.
	Start phase effect added. Either plays the top card of the Dark side deck or self-damages for 1 fixed psychic, then destroys itself.
  Precognition:
    Slightly reworked. Now an Ongoing, Limited that grants a power that reveals the top 3 cards of 1 deck, replacing them in any order, then may discard the top card of 1 deck and play the top card of the Dark side deck.
  Prophetic Vision:
    Completely reworked. Now an Ongoing, Limited that grants a power that reveals the top 3 cards of the Villain deck, discarding 1, replacing 1, and playing 1, then reveals the top 3 cards of your deck, discarding 1, replacing 1, and playing 1.
	End phase effect added. Grants 1 draw or 1 power.
  Mind Spike:
    Damage is now irreducible.
	May now destroy 1 Ongoing after attacking, playing the top card of the Dark side deck if an Ongoing is destroyed.
  Justify the Means:
    Targets increased to up to 5.
	Secondary effect added. May now self-damage for 1 fixed psychic to attack (1 psychic to every target except herself), then play the top card of the Dark side deck.
  Suggestion:
    May now target any deck except your own.
	May now put a card from that deck's trash on top of the deck after the initial effect, playing the top card of the Dark side deck if you do.
  Brain Burn:
    Moved to the Dark side deck.
	Bury slightly reworked. Now buries up to 4 cards from the top of the either the Villain trash or the Villain deck.
	Self-damage replaced. Now either draws 2 and makes 1 ally Hero discard 2, or attacks (4 fixed psychic to 1 Hero and 1 non-Hero).
  Demoralize:
    Moved to the Dark side deck.
	Completely reworked. Now a One-Shot that attacks (1 fixed psychic to each target), then either destroys each target with 1 HP or destroys 1 target with 6 or fewer HP.
  Psychic Maelstrom:
    Moved to the Dark side deck.
	Attack targets reduced to 2.
	Secondary effect added. Now either discards 2 or attacks (1 fixed psychic to each target).
  Twist the Ether:
    Moved to the Dark side deck.
	Now selects a target on play, instead of playing next to a target. Destroy condition removed.
	Start phase effect added. Self-damages for 2 fixed psychic, then either discards 2 or destroys itself.
Added:
  Begin To Fray:
    Ongoing, Limited. Grants a reaction that either self-damages for 1 fixed psychic and grants 1 card play, or plays the top card of the Dark side deck.
  Memory Lapse:
    Ongoing. May prevent the discover of a card or cards from a non-Hero deck, destroying itself if you do. Grants a power that makes each ally Hero discard and draw 1, then may draw 2, playing the top card of the Dark side deck if you do.
  Falter:
    Suddenly!, One-Shot. Self-damages for 1 fixed psychic, draws 1, and plays the top card of the Dark side deck.
  Psychic Intrusion:
    One-Shot. Attacks (2 psychic to 1 target), then reveals the top 3 cards of a deck in tha target's play area, discarding, burying, and replacing those cards in any order.
  Skim the Surface:
    One-Shot. Reveals and replaced the top card of up to 3 decks, then discards the top card of 1 deck, then may collect 1 Ongoing or Manifestation, playing the top card of the Dark side deck if a card was collected.
  Side Deck: Dark
    Callous Disregard:
	  One-Shot. Each Hero discards 1, then the Visionary may discard any number of cards. Destroys 1 non-Hero target with [cards discarded] or fewer HP. Grants either 1 card draw to each ally Hero, or an attack (1 psychic to each non-Hero target).
	Forget What You Saw:
	  One-Shot. Discards the top card of each deck, self-damaging for 1 fixed psychic each time a target is discarded. Either draws 3 or discards the top 3 cards of 1 deck.
	Mass Psychosis:
	  One-Shot. Forces each target with 6 or more HP to self-damage for 3 fixed psychic, then either plays or destroys 1 Environment card.
	Mental Erasure:
	  One-Shot. Forces an active ally Hero to discard 2-4 cards, healing the Visionary for 2 and attacking (1 psychic to 3 targets) each time they do.
	Unrealized Phobia:
	  One-Shot. Chooses a keyword on a non-character target, then forces a target to attack ([targets with that keyword in play] psychic to itself). Self-damages for 1 fixed psychic.
	Psych-Snarl:
	  Manifestation, 6 HP. Attacks (3 psychic to lowest HP in its play area other than itself) at start phase. Forces the Visionary to self-damage for 1 fixed psychic and moves to another play area at end phase.
 
Omnitron-X

Speaking of drastic reworks, how do they handle the heroic version of perhaps the most drastically reworked villain yet? Turns out... not actually that complex a rework? Omnitron-X still plays more or less exactly the same as in their prior iteration. They effectively have two turns once fully set up: their usual play/power/draw trio everyone gets, and then the activation of all of their funny Components for a whole second extra turn. They even got to keep the Platings that work against different damage types.

The trick is that all those Components now work the way regular Omnitron does now. Each one has two effects, linked to either Exterminate or Fabricate text, and they don't activate unless and until another effect activates them. Good news on that front: you now get two Protocol cards that can activate those effects at end phase, and they have powers that can switch between the two! That's right, Omnitron-X isn't just a setup fiend, they're also a stance fighter now. Hell the damn yes.

Checklist:
  • Reliable Damage: Yes, but primarily off of Exterminate effects on Components. Not a problem if you have your Targeting Systems and at least 3 Components out, of course.
  • Ongoing Destruction: Yes, but only off of a single Component, Aerosol Dispenser, and even then only in Exterminate mode. And for returning players expecting to skate away safely with the Bio-Engineering Beam, sorry, that's been reworked severely into a new One-Shot.
  • Emergency Defenses: Yes, but only for themselves, with their three Plating cards providing a consistent -2 damage taken against the matching damage types. The ease with which you can set these up, and the strength they have against particular matchups with only a few damage types, can't be understated, though.
  • Deck Control: No. If Mr. Fixer's control of his own deck didn't count for this category, neither does Omnitron-X's. And Timeshift got removed too. Sorry not sorry.
  • Ally Acceleration: Yes, but primarily off of Fabricate effects on Components. This is basically the trend here, so don't expect it to change.
  • Healing: Yes, but say it with me: Fabricate effects on Components. Production Processes is the relevant Protocol here, and it even comes with some self-healing, so if you have that and some Aerosol Dispensers you're a party healer no problem.
  • Big-Ass Attack Option: Yes. Self-Sabotage is still in and still absurdly strong. In fact, now that it lets you activate Exterminate text on every Component it blows up, it's even stronger (and riskier in the Omnitron ditto).

Main Strength:
Omnitron-X is this set's jack of all trades setup hero, not unlike the Argent Adept (especially with the new Fabricate/Exterminate functions). Hitting their setup ceiling isn't very likely to happen in a game, and they don't even need all of their setup to keep developing new toys to play with, letting them affect the fight in lots of ways. Since each Component has two effects it can do, they're also pretty strong in terms of versatility, especially as Omnitron-X changes their Protocol and shifts between the heavy support of Production Process, or goes on the direct offensive with Targeting Systems. And unlike your average setup fiend, Omnitron-X is pretty durable with their three Platings to keep them in the game against certain damage types.

Main Weakness:
Omnitron-X, again like the Argent Adept, needs a lot of pieces in play to remain at full functionality, and suffers dearly against villains that destroy your belongings. In particular, your Protocols and Platings are the key pieces of your gear, and you should be ready and willing to sacrifice everything else to keep those around. To make things worse, the Protocols are among the very few Ongoings you have, making Omnitron-X uniquely vulnerable to Ongoing destruction in particular. You also might struggle to wield the full suite of your powers at once, since those Protocols cap out at only 3 different cards during end phase, which can certainly hurt compared to other setup-focused heroes that can do a whole lot of everything once fully set up.

Variant Strategies:
First Appearance: Omnitron-X
While the base variant of Omnitron-X is built to get your Protocols in play so you can properly stance up, two of the variants instead lean towards either Fabricate or Exterminate. The First Appearance, as the Start of Omnitron-X's journey, naturally favors Exterminate, with the power to discover a Component and then activate its Exterminate text. Not only does this make Omnitron-X a reliable attacker, it's also a pretty self-sufficient way to get a lot of Components up and running in short order. Curiously, this version also has the Device keyword, which can have some funny complications.

Omnitron-U
Meanwhile, this later Unity-repaired variant leans into Fabricate text. Not only can they Overclock to double-activate a Fabricate text and destroy that component (don't worry they replace it later with a discover), they also have the Mechanical Golem keyword now, just for that funny synergy with their bestie! Sure, you lose the awkward on-destroy counter that the first version had, but honestly, that was janky as hell and expected failure. I'm good with this version actually.

Omnii-Chan
Oooh, this is fun. Not only do we have a Super Fighting Robot here straight out of the Mangaverse, this variant also has a base power completely unconnected from Protocols or Fabricate/Exterminate text. All you gotta do is give a cheery shout of "Rocket Time!" and you're jet boosting off with a lightweight version of Legacy's Motivational Charge. And that's really strong as a hero base power! It's also not something I entirely expected from an Omnitron-X variant but honestly? It's a perfect fit. Omnii-Chan is perfect. I will fight people over this tiny blue robot friend.

Patch Notes:
Code: 
Removed: Bio-Engineering Beam, Defensive Blast, Disruptive Flechettes, Reset, Singularity
Renamed:
  Base Power (Timeshift) -> Operations Online
  Omnitron-U variant power (Volatile Wiring) -> Overclock
  Innervation Ray -> Aerosol Dispenser
  Temporal Shielding -> Paracausal Shielding
  Self Sabotage -> Self-Sabotage
Changes:
  Omnitron-U HP increased to 27.
  Mechanical Golem keyword added to Omnitron-U.
  Base power (Operations Online):
    Completely reworked. Now either discovers 1 Component or summons 1 Protocol.
  Omnitron-U variant power (Overclock):
    Completely reworked. Now activates 1 Fabricate up to 2 times, destroys the card activated, then discovers 1 Component.
  Incapacitated effects:
    Card play replaced with letting 1 Hero collect 1 Item.
	Damage reduction replaced with letting 1 Hero discard 2, play 1, and use 1 power.
  Omnitron-U incapacitated effects:
    Bonus play phase replaced with bonus power phase.
    Item destruction and attack replaced with revealing the top card of a Hero deck, discarding it or optionally playing it if it's an Ongoing.
	Item salvage replaced with Item discover.
  Component cards:
    Destroy effect removed.
	Now grants 1 draw after play if there are 3 or fewer Components in play.
  Plating cards:
    Reaction added. Grants an attack (1 of each reduced damage type to the attacker), then destroys itself.
  Electro-Deployment Unit:
    Existing effects removed.
	Exterminate text added. Destroys 1 target with 3 or fewer HP.
	Fabricate text added. Grants 1 Hero 1 Item collect.
  Focused Plasma Cannon:
    Attack moved to Exterminate text.
	Fabricate text added. Salvages 1 Item.
  Gaussian Coil Blaster:
    Damage type changed to projectile.
	Attack moved to Exterminate text.
    Fabricate text added. Grants up to 2 heroes 1 draw.
  Aerosol Dispenser:
    Healing no longer restricted to Hero targets.
	Healing moved to Fabricate text.
	Exterminate text added. Allows you to discard 1, destroying 1 Ongoing if you do.
  Reactive Plating Subroutine:
    Completely reworked. Now collects or salvages 1 Plating after play, summons 1 plating after destroy, and grants a reaction that either collects or plays 1 Plating.
  Slip Through Time:
    May now bury your trash on play.
	End phase slightly reworked. Now plays the bottom card of your deck.
	May now activate Exterminate or Fabricate text on up to 2 cards before destroying.
  Rocket Punch:
    Completely reworked. Now a One-Shot that attacks (3 projectile to 1 target), then discards up to 3, then attacks (2 fire to up to [cards discarded] targets).
  Self-Sabotage:
    Destroy slightly reworked. Now activates the Exterminate text on any number of cards in play, destroying it afterwards.
	Damage type changed to fire.
  Technological Advancement:
    Completely reworked. Now may destroy 1 Device or Environment target with 7 or fewer HP, then discovers 1 Component, then may activate 1 Exterminate text.
Added:
  Molecular Assembler:
    Item, Component. Draws 1 after play if there are 3 or fewer Components in play. Exterminate text grants an attack (1 melee and 1 energy to 1 target). Fabricate text lets 1 Hero play 1.
  Production Processes:
    Ongoing, Protocol. Destroys all other Protocols after play. Grants a power that self-heals for 3, then either discards 1 or summons Targeting Systems. Activates Fabricate text on up to 3 cards at end phase.
  Targeting Systems:
    Ongoing, Protocol. Destroys all other Protocols after play. Grants a power that attacks (3 energy to 1 target), then either discards 1 or summons Production Processes. Activates Exterminate text on up to 3 cards at end phase.
  Recalibration:
    One-Shot. Either discovers 1 Protocol or collects 1 item. May self-damage for 1 fixed energy up to 3 times, playing 1 Item each time you do. May activate 1 Fabricate text.
  Systems Iteration:
    One-Shot. Either collects 1 Ongoing or discovers 1 Component. May activate 1 Fabricate text, then may activate 1 Exterminate text.
 
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Darkstrife and Painstake

Our final hero for Disparation, and our new addition to the roster, is actually a hero duo! Imagine, if you will, a human born in the realm of evil hell demons, Æternus, at the exact same time a demon larva in the normal human realm is born to a normal human couple. These two beings end up with a linked soul due to all the coincidence, and now find themselves working together against evil while also wielding the power of Æternus through that connection! That's a pretty novel concept, yeah? It's also a cool way to explore the concept of multiple character cards before bringing the Southwest Sentinels back.

Also like the Southwest Sentinels, each hero has their role in the team, with Darkstrife the human doing the bulk of the damage and Painstake the demon functioning as a healer and tank. However, it's a little more complex than that, with every card in their deck having at least one of either the Æterna or Soul keywords. Æterna cards allow them to use their demonic powers to dish out the pain, while Soul cards attempt to channel their shared soul into beneficial and healing effects. A lot of those effects also work off of discarding cards with those keywords for extra efficacy, so managing the resources of your hand as fuel for existing cards rather than just as cards you can eventually play is vital to functioning as well. These two hold the highest complexity for this set's heroes at 9 out of 10, and they earn it.

Checklist:
  • Reliable Damage: Yes. Darkstrife has access to constant supplies of melee and infernal damage to huck at his foes, and even Painstake can get in on the action every so often, especially with her Demonic Form.
  • Ongoing Destruction: Yes, but only off of a single One-Shot, Harae Purification. It's not a very strong source, and of course, this deck being what it is, you might end up discarding it just to activate another effect.
  • Emergency Defenses: Yes, but even if you can combine the effects of Enthrall, Bone Barricade, Shared Torment, and Projected Fear to sharply reduce the damage you take, most of that is solely self-defense and doesn't help the team, and the others are single-target control. The lower HP totals spilt between two targets kinda cancel it out in my book anyway.
  • Deck Control: No. You have enough deck to manage with this duo already.
  • Ally Acceleration: No. Your flavor of support is in the following block.
  • Healing: Yes. Painstake may as well be this set's primary healer role, with lots of One-Shots and powers to keep everyone's health totals topped off as much as possible. Just be mindful of your Demonic Form, since that turns all of your healing instances into attacks instead!
  • Big-Ass Attack Option: No. Weird as it might sound, the demonic duo has no real payout attacks! Their form of damage is more of a death of a thousand cuts; they'll constantly be dealing damage and can even do a decent chunk of it if you spend on it, but individual damage instances trend no higher than 3 (4 if you have Demon Prince or Demonic Form going), and managing your offensive Ongoings usually takes a lot of upkeep.

Main Strength:
Darkstrife and Painstake have exactly two jobs to do in a fight: shoot lots of instances of damage, and heal the team. While individual instances of both damage and healing aren't very high, they'll throw so many of them out that quantity will simply beat out quality. Like the Southwest Sentinels before them, they combine these strengths with the nuance of dividing powers between two Hero character cards. Not only do you start with two powers, you also have two targets that can cover for one another, and even revive each other if things get really hairy with Æternal Bond. Also, unlike the Southwest Sentinels, Darkstrife and Painstake each have a different Nemesis icon, so in the event they're forced to damage each other, they won't deal extra damage. That's nice.

Main Weakness:
Having two Hero character cards is all well and good, but those hero targets also have lower max HP, and in the meta of Definitive Edition, that's a hell of a drawback. Against especially vicious villain openers, or villains with area attacks, expect to lose one or both of your heroes quickly. You have enough self-heal that you can survive the worst of it... if you have Soul cards. Remember, those Æterna and Soul cards in your hand aren't just there for their effects, but as resources you must carefully manage to keep yourself in the game and running hot. And those resources can compete, too. Lean too hard to one side or another, and you may lose the ability to do one of your two jobs for the team!

Notable Cards
  • Demonic Form: This Suddenly! card is the only one in the deck, and it transforms all instances of healing Painstake would provide the team into infernal attacks. That's not necessarily a bad thing, mind you, that's even more and more attacks to throw out if you're willing to throw caution to the wind. And the start phase destroy isn't really expensive if you want the healing. But you ARE going to have to accept that at some point, your healing will stop working for at least one turn.
  • Concordat of Pain and Strife: The crown jewel of your engine, with only a single copy in the deck. Note that it and Overwhelming Power have both the Æterna and Soul keywords, which means that if you discard them to fuel the respective effects, you get both! Please do not discard this card to do that though. This card is pure action economy for you, never leave home without it.
  • The Heartblade: This Item is Darkstrife's heaviest weapon, with a power that deals 2 melee with an optional follow-up for 3 infernal if you spend an Æterna card. And that's really good. However, you also want the damage boost of Demon Prince on this attack for best results, which self-destructs if you have no Æterna cards in hand at start phase. Hence, measuring out your hand and the types of cards you have is vital. How nice that they're helpfully color coded in this deck! Red for Æterna, blue for Soul, and a bit of both for the cards with both!

Variant Strategies:
First Appearance: Darkstrife
So, base Darkstrife's power is pretty simple: attack for 1 infernal, then discard an Æterna card to draw 1 and and do another attack for 2. Fine, cool, reasonable enough. Going back to his intro as the Princeling of Æternus comes with a slight HP boost in exchange for more reckless offense: self-damage for 1 fixed psychic, attack for 1 infernal, play a topdeck. The self-damage is a fairly ignorable cost given the whole "best healer in the set" thing, but playing the top card of the deck isn't quite as free for this team as it would be for others. Who knows whether you can pay the costs for best results?

Soulseeker Darkstrife
Apparently the main story for this duo was the Soulseekers series, which I have no idea what it's about at the moment but hey, don't worry about it. This version of Darkstrife calls back to his Demonic Upbringing, which lets him draw 1, play it if it's a Soul card, and attack a few guys for 1 infernal if it isn't. That's not half bad, trading your basic starter attack away for some faster setup, and the weaker damage isn't that big a deal once you get the Heartblade out. Problem is, lower max HP on Darkstrife is a very heavy cost, especially given this deck's reliance on healing as a defense. One bad turn can put you down, after all.

Prince Darkstrife
This version comes with the Prince keyword, which plays into the Ruler of Æternus villain in ways that will make sense once we get to it but let's ignore that for a sec. First of all, the Broken Crown lets you... self-damage for 2 fixed energy, up to 2 times. That plus the lower max HP makes this variant for true experts only. That said, each time you self-damage this way, you get to either draw or play 1, and there's a reason we haven't seen many variants lately that just do that. That reason is because raw action economy with cards is really really really really good. If you know what you're doing with your healing, Prince Darkstrife is a very powerful character card.

First Appearance: Painstake
Every Painstake character card also bears the Demon keyword, which mostly matters if fighting in Æternus or one of its associated villains. Base Painstake comes with a little card draw that you can convert to self-heal, and that's nice. If you go back here to The Devil Within, you get some immediate access to minor healing for other heroes, and the card draw becomes weaker. But you can also give up the card draw entirely to discard a Soul card and discover an Ongoing. It is, in short, a lot of small changes that are hard to codify towards this or that playstyle, but suffice it to say that the First Appearance leans a little more to speed setup rather than tanking.

Soulseeker Painstake
Painstake's Soulseeker story is about Seeking Redemption, which means leaning even more into the strength of healing... but in a chancy way. You discard the top card of your deck, and if that's a Soul card, hell yeah, heal 3 people of your choice for 2, that's awesome. If not... well, you still get to draw 2, that's nice. It's not often you see heroes that really incentivize controlling their own decks like that (Setback's probably the biggest example), but I also wouldn't stress out about it. Note that this variant has sharply reduced max HP, so if you aren't getting good topdecks on this power, you'll be suffering.

Painstake the Betrayer
Aren't you tired of being nice, Painstake? Don't you want to go apeshit? Eternal Regret lets her attack directly (albeit for 1 and it doesn't work on Demons for some reason). She can shoot Heroes with this damage to topdeck a card, which is, again, good but not as good as it would be on other decks. If she uses it normally to attack something that isn't a Hero, she draws 1 and heals someone for 1. That's all well and good, but like... you already have Demonic Form if you want to turn Painstake into a damage fiend. And it's not like using a power here for damage is that useful considering Darkstrife is right there.
 
Apostate

Moving onto the villains of Disparation. First up is a little unusual, in that we're cleaning out the last of the Infernal Relics holdouts... but not that unusual given how many Evil Hell Demon decks see their debut here. Anyway, Apostate saw a significant rework in that while he does have the same cards in general, his character card saw a very significant rework, which... was honestly for the best, the old one was weird and janky in rather unentertaining ways. He did pick up a new mechanic related to that, with his assortment of Lie cards! These persistent debuff effects hang out in the Hero play areas and make their lives subtly harder, and provide a layer of defense for Apostate himself. Clear enough of these Lies, and you'll flip him and the fight can really take off. There was also another slight rework to his mechanics but that can wait a bit.

Danger Levels:
  • Minions: Moderate. The assorted Demons and Relics are still a thing and still make this fight a significant headache... and yet, the defensive grid of old Apostate is largely out of the picture and Apostate doesn't have Profane Summons or any other rapid deployment options. Furthermore, when he flips, he just turns his Relics into makeshift One-Shots.
  • Direct Offense: High. Apostate retains his plethora of attacks, give or take a few adjustments here or there. He doesn't go full ham until he flips to his Culmination of Deception side, but either way he will sling plenty of damage your way.
  • Disruption: Moderate. The Imp Pilferer remains as the primary stuff-breaker, and a lot of his Lies and Relics have some soft disruption, primarily in terms of "discard unless you want More Damage". Apocalypse is out, fortunately.
  • Defenses: High. Even with his low health total of 66 HP, Apostate sports loads of damage reduction and self-heal, particularly on the starting Sowing Seeds of Untruth side where any heroes he's Lied to have a heavy -2 damage penalty. It's not quite as impenetrable as the old setup, but that's fine and thats okay.
  • Ongoings: None. Here's the plot twist. Not only does Apostate have absolutely no Ongoings in his deck...
  • Surprises: Low. He also has no One-Shots! Demons, Relics, and Lies, that's it! Which means that while he can accelerate his card play after he flips, he lacks the explosive punch that a lot of other villains have with their "avoid-at-all-costs" One-Shots that upend the field one way or another.

Sowing Seeds of Untruth:
Nemesis: Fanatic
Apostate originally handled like a basically villainous version of Fanatic, and that's still kind of his thing, but now, much more prevalently, he is known for being a deceiver. Which means now he gets to throw out Lie cards to your team that slightly hamper their capabilities, usually with either forced discards or a bit of friendly fire. Furthermore, if he's sold you on a Lie of his, you have a sharp damage penalty to actually hitting him, which is a problem because all of his Relics support him stalling out the game in his favor, and shaking the Lies off isn't exactly easy. Once you do, however, the fight really begins and he flips. Of course, in the meantime he's attacking you and favoring hitting lowest HP targets, and he's gradually building up a collection of dangerous Relics and Demons you need to fight through. And if you take too long and all of the Lies come out, he's getting his win condition, and by that I mean he's blasting everyone on the field for big psychic damage.

Advanced: Normally, Apostate's deployment speed is positively crawling by the standards of Definitive Edition. He'll output a lot of Lies but not much else. Don't worry, this fixes that problem for you.

Culmination of Deception:
Apostate summons his old reliable Condemnation and flips to this side as soon as H Lies are dispelled, and they go under his card. You can keep getting rid of Lies beyond this point and they don't come back (plus they deal free damage to Apostate now), but they DO make his endphase attack hit harder. Speaking of hitting harder, Apostate loses his defenses (aside from healing when a Demon is destroyed) but gains a bunch of new tricks. His End Phase attack gets heavier (scales with the cards under him), he gets a free card play at Start Phase, and his Relics immediately resolve their End Phase effect and then go away... wait, actually that last bit is nice. They'd still have their End Phase effect if they just stayed out, but they also provide passive effects that make the fight much harder for your team. But yeah, kind of another Baron Blade situation here, where he flips to the side you really start needing to go ham on, except this time he gets there much faster. Or at least I hope for your sake that he does.

Advanced: Damage redirection from Apostate to the Villain target with lowest HP is... frankly not that big of a deal? If you haven't already wiped them out by now, you really should. Don't worry, Relic Spirits got nerfed. You're safe now.

Ideal Strategies:
Apostate retains a lot of the flavor of his earlier iteration, but in practice he's nowhere near as weird and finicky as he used to be, not to mention losing his scariest "everything at once" cards. The new wrinkle of the Lie cards is certainly dangerous, but clearing them as quickly as possible isn't especially hard. As it stands, this fight feels like a version of Baron Blade that rewards defense over offense for the first phase. Certainly not an unusual style of play for a difficulty 3 villain, I'm just not used to seeing Apostate handle that way. In particular, damage reduction and sources of irreducible damage are your main toys here. Area damage isn't half bad either, with how many Relics and Demons you have to punch through and how much they can stack up.

Things to Avoid:
Due to the new weird and finicky elements of Apostate, he's a rare kind of villain in which deck control options are almost actively pointless. Remember, he has no One-Shots or Ongoings, just simple targets and his funny Lie cards, and he'll discover the latter quickly enough to make deck control while Sowing Seeds of Untruth secondary to his actual actions. And on his second phase, he plays two cards, so even if you were deathly afraid of a Tome of the Unknowable or whatever, he'll just play it eventually. Similarly, you aren't going to get much use out of Ongoing destruction against him for the obvious reason that he has none, so unless you're in an environment with scary Ongoings, you can skip that as well.

Event Strategies:
The Deceiver
  • Collection Limit: 2
  • Collection Effects: Clarity OR Shared Experience
Infernal Fodder
Oh, that's neat. Destroying Villain Demons also puts them under his card now. Which means he flips much faster, and his end phase attack on Culmination of Deception has an even higher ceiling (going from 6 to a crushing 14). OR, and hear me out: you can leave the Demons in play. Which is it gonna be: Apostate himself deals apocalyptic levels of damage, or you contend with a slew of Demons alongside him? There's not an easy answer, and it may depend on which forms of damage mitigation your team has to work with. And remember, Apostate can't deal 14 damage to you if he's defeated!

Extreme Hatred
  • Collection Limit: 3
  • Critical Event: Extremeverse Apostate
Master of Blood
I'm sorry, is having the literal deceiver and fallen angel with demonic minions not EXTREME enough for you? Fine then! It's time for the Extremeverse Apostate to shred into the fight! This guy is way too heavy metal to bother with the whole Lie mechanic and just chucks the whole lot under his card. He can then use them as ablatives against Hero damage, nullifying one instance of damage per card and destroying it in the process, and if he would end up playing one again, he just turns it back into shields and discovers a Relic instead. He also has more HP and wields Condemnation much more aggressively, throwing it into the play area of the highest HP hero and walloping them for H plus 3! Even destroying Condemnation is a stopgap, since while it does force 10 self-damage for Apostate, he also summons it during Start Phase. The upshot of all of this is that this is a full aggro version of Apostate that expects you to have a team of people capable of taking a hell of a beating and replying in turn. You need a strong direct offense and defense to keep up with this version of Apostate, so don't back down!

Advanced: The Relics all provide persistent Bad Effects, but what if they also granted Apostate yet another attack when played? What if that? This is another Advanced text where I don't have any real good answer for how to handle it, because anything you could do against it, you already are.

Patch Notes:
Code: 
Removed: Apocalypse, Fallen Angel, Profane Summons, Remorseless Provocation
Renamed:
  Infernal Emissary -> Sowing Seeds of Untruth
  Dark Corruptor -> Culmination of Deception
  "Condemnation" -> Condemnation
Changes:
  Sowing Seeds of Untruth:
    Max HP increased to 66.
	Setup changed. Now discovers 1 Relic, 1 Demon, and 1 Lie, playing the Lie to the play area of the Hero character with lowest HP.
	Destroy prevention removed.
	Specifies that Lie cards are played to the play area of the Hero character with the fewest Lies and lowest HP.
	Reduces damage dealt to Apostate by Hero targets with Lies in their play area by 2.
	Flip condition added. If there are H or more cards under this card, summons Condemnation, then flips.
	End phase effect changed. Now attacks (1 sonic and 1 psychic to the Hero character with lowest HP), then discovers H-2 Lie cards, attacking (3 psychic to each non-Villain) if no cards were played.
	Advanced text reworked. Now discovers H-2 targets at end phase.
  Culmination of Deception:
    Max HP increased to 66.
	Heal removed.
	Destroy prevention removed.
	Specifies that Lie cards are played to the play area of the Hero character with lowest HP.
	Start phase effect added. Plays a Villain card.
	Now self-damages for 6 fixed psychic when a card is put under this card.
	After playing a Villain Relic, activates its End Phase text and destroys it.
	After a Villain Demon is destroyed, heals for H.
	End phase attack reworked. Now attacks ([cards under this card] infernal to H-1 Hero targets with highest HP).
	Advanced text completely reworked. Now redirects all damage dealt to Apostate to the Villain target with lowest HP.
  Condemnation:
    Damage reduction removed.
	Attack now targets the non-Villain with lowest HP.
	Now heals Apostate and itself for 3 after attacking.
	Now heals Apostate for 6 after he destroys a target.
  Corrupted Effigy:
    HP increased to 9.
	Now reduces damage to Demons by 1.
	End phase completely reworked. Now discovers 1 Demon if there are H or fewer Demons in play.
  Gauntlet of Perdition:
    HP increased to 7.
    Completely reworked. Now increases damage from Apostate by 1.
	End phase added. Grants Apostate an attack (1 melee to H-1 Hero targets with lowest HP).
  Orb of Delirium:
    HP reduced to 7.
    Completely reworked. Now increases damage from Environment targets to Hero targets by 1.
	End phase added. Allows each Hero to discard up to 2, forcing each Hero character to self-damage for 3 fixed psychic if fewer than H cards were discarded.
  Periapt of Woe:
    HP increased to 5.
	Damage reduction slightly reworked. Now reduces damage to Relics by 1.
	Damage boost removed.
	End phase added. Now heals Apostate for H.
  Runes of Malediction:
    HP reduced to 5.
    Damage reduction slightly reworked. Now reduces damage to Apostate by 1.
	Destroy effect removed.
	End phase added. Destroys 1 Hero Ongoing from a Hero play area with a Lie card, granting Apostate an attack (H-1 infernal to Hero target with lowest HP) if no card was destroyed.
  Tome of the Unknowable:
    HP increased to 9.
	Completely reworked. Now reduces Hero target HP recovery by 1.
	End phase added. Forces the Hero target with highest HP to self-damage for [Ongoings in their play area + 1] fixed psychic.
  Fiendish Pugilist:
    HP increased to 10.
	Damage reduction removed.
  Imp Pilferer:
    HP increased to 6.
	Destroys reduced to 1.
	Now attacks (H-2 infernal to Hero target with second lowest HP) after destroying.
  Relic Spirit:
    HP reduced to 8.
	Healing slightly reworked. Now heals the Relic with the lowest HP for 3.
	Now reveals the top Villain card after healing, playing it if it's a Relic and discarding it otherwise.
	Destroy effect removed.
Added:
  You Will Bring Pain:
    Lie. Self-buries if no active Heroes are in its play area. Forces a Hero character in its play area to attack (1 energy to 2 other non-Villain targets) at end phase, moving itself under the Villain character card if no damage was dealt.
  Your Secrets Will Be Exposed:
    Lie. Self-buries if no active Heroes are in its play area. Forces 1 discard at end phase, forcing a Hero character in the play area to self-damage for 2 energy if the discard shares keywords with any cards in play, and moving itself under the Villain character card if no damage was dealt.
  Your World Is A Lie:
    Lie. Self-buries if no active Heroes are in its play area. Forces 1 discard at end phase from both hand and deck, moving itself under the Villain character card if the discards share at least 1 keyword.
  You're Not Who You Think You Are:
    Lie. Self-buries if no active Heroes are in its play area. Forces 1 discard at end phase from both hand and deck, moving itself under the Villain character card if the discards have at least 3 different keywords.
  Your Allies Betray You:
    Lie. Self-buries if no active Heroes are in its play area. Forces 1 discard from the top of 2 Hero decks at end phase, forcing a Hero character in the play area to self-damage for 2 psychic if any One-Shots were discarded this way, and moving itself under the Villain character card if no damage was dealt.
  You're Unworthy:
    Lie. Self-buries if no active Heroes are in its play area. Forces 1 bury from hand at end phase, then lets each ally Hero draw 1, then moves itself under the Villain character card if you have more cards in hand than each other Hero.
 
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The Dreamer

This villain's always been an interesting fight. After all, the challenge here isn't "beat the villian up until they stop doing evil", because the Dreamer is just a little girl whose psychic Nightmares are causing problems whether she knows it or not. Instead, the goal is to protect her from herself while you handle the constant storm of Nightmares. It's a cool concept, and it carries over nicely to the gameplay aspect of things, too! The Dreamer herself has only 6 HP, and depleting that is a loss, but defeating the Nightmares one by one will earn you progress towards an eventual victory.

Danger Levels:
  • Minions: High. In a bit of a twist, the minions themselves are more of a threat than the main villain, and you need ways to fight them all off. But there's exactly one target in the mix you can't afford to hit, so the usual standby of spray-and-pray isn't as safe a call as it could be.
  • Direct Offense: Low. By that same token, the Dreamer herself isn't actually going to attack you head-on outside of a few One-Shots or her eventual flip to Rousing From Slumber, and even then it's mostly just area attacks for 1 or 2.
  • Disruption: High. Most of the Nightmares have ways of destroying your stuff built in, and the Dreamer's got some cards of her own that can apply either soft or hard control to your setup. And yet, you will need setup to win the day; this isn't the kind of fight you can win with a speed-kill.
  • Defenses: Moderate. Individual Nightmares aren't too bad. They top out at 8 health, but a few of them have self-heal, so you do have to actually focus them down rather than relying on attrition and chip damage. But, as ever, you always have to check your fire for the Dreamer.
  • Ongoings: Low. There are two in the deck: one that applies soft control, and one that has a small benefit on play and a dangerous multi-discover on start phase. Both of them only last a turn, but you can always intercept them with ongoing destruction if you want.
  • Surprises: Moderate. There's a few One-Shots in there that can make things a little scary, enough to make deck control worth exploring as an option. Nothing as terrifying as, say, Citizen Dawn or Baron Blade's ult cards, but still.

The Dreamer Dreams:
Nemesis: None
Okay yeah technically this is a Visionary nemesis but it's not mechanically correct for the Dreamer to have the nemesis icon (and by that I mean we don't want a single Dark card losing the fight for you hee hee hoo). Anyway, the style is almost completely the same as it used to be here. The Dreamer will constantly discover Nightmares from her deck and you'll have to shoot them with your punches. However, the Dreamer being destroyed in any way loses the game for you. You do have an out of redirecting damage from her to Hero targets, that's not bad. The more Nightmares you take down, the more progress you make, but be ready for the Ongoing disruption that happens when you take out enough of them.

Advanced: Now the Dreamer can attack you too! Which is tricky to handle, because you can't just safely shoot her with a Stun Bolt or what have you and no-sell the damage. Your defenses kind of have to be focused on yourself more than the enemies.

Roused From Slumber:
The second half of this fight isn't quite as turbo mode as it used to be, but it does add extra damage to everyone and everything except for the Dreamer, and oddly enough, SLOWS the stream of Nightmares by only discovering 1. You'll still need to protect the Dreamer herself from damage, so the ultimate goal isn't changed at all, it's just a phase 2 in all senses that matter.

Advanced: Since the Dreamer already attacks normally here, we'll just give all the Nightmares attack boosts, just for fun. Y'know.

Ideal Strategies:
This is something of a marathon fight through a bunch of little guys, which definitely rewards certain playstyles. You'll want a lot of setup since this fight is going to last for a while, and you also have to fight through plenty of Ongoing/Item destruction. You also want a lot of wide-ranging damage options, but, and this is important, you also want control over that damage. One or two strays towards the Dreamer isn't too bad, you can always redirect them away, but it's better to just focus on making sure you don't need to do that, y'know? It might also be worth considering to have options for your heroes that don't involve attacks if you manage to clear the field, but if you're in that situation to begin with, you don't need my advice on this fight.

Things to Avoid:
Seriously though, you will definitely want to make sure your attacks can be controlled. In the event you actually run out of Nightmares in the field (rare but possible!) all those extra attacks you're forced to make will now be bounced right back at the heroes. If you absolutely insist on bringing Alpha or Unity to this fight, you might want to consider forms of healing and defense that can target non-Heroes, but honestly and really, just don't do that. Check your fire, ya lunatic.

Event Strategies:
Nightmare World
  • Collection Limit: 1
  • Collection Effects: High Mountain, Flowing Water OR Nightmare Logic
Sleepwalking
More attacks at end phase! The Dreamer hits someone for 2 melee, then that someone, whoever they are, hits back for 1 fixed melee. That is a very scary timer, because remember, fixed damage cannot be redirected. You will definitely need to bring a source of healing, because while Tend to the Child certainly helps, this timer almost certainly can't be beaten by playing the game normally. The extra attack isn't especially notable beyond that, fortunately: 2 melee to highest HP is entirely survivable, and it can even hit environment targets if you've been getting whupped.

Bump In The Night
  • Collection Limit: 2
  • Critical Event: Mister Jitters
Externalized Terror
Nemesis: The Harpy
But maybe you WANT to be able to hit the main villain in the Dreamer fight. Good news! Dark Watch has an antagonist with a very similar powerset, who weaponizes the fears of those he faces against themselves! So now you have a guy who can project those Nightmares directly into other play areas. Those Nightmares become opponents for that specific hero only, redirecting their damage to them while being immune to damage from any other play areas. In short, Mister Jitters partitions the heavy amounts of Nightmares to everyone, forcing each player to have at least some way to fight them all back. And, of course, you also have to fight the main man himself, and 70 HP isn't exactly free in a deck that formerly had HP totals capping at 8. Unlike most fights where you can usually get away with one and only one heavy damage specialist, everyone needs to be able to contribute damage against Mister Jitters, or risk being overrun by Nightmares they can never defeat. And of course, Mister Jitters himself can just attack you directly with a scalar hit for however many Nightmares you have, and if you don't take damage, well, clearly this means we need MORE NIGHTMARES. Good news is, other heroes are only prevented from damaging the other Nightmares. Nothing says they can't use funny low-health destroy effects!

Advanced: Oh, you think you're just gonna leave your Nightmares alone and win the fight directly? Not anymore, wise guy. Now Mister Jitters gets the Grand Warlord Voss Defensive Special. Gotta finish your meat and potatoes before dessert! And also Mister Jitters gets more attacks because why not.

Patch Notes:
Code: 
Removed: Illusory Demon
Renamed:
  Roused From Slumber -> Rousing From Slumber
  Projection keyword -> Nightmare keyword
  Macabre Specter -> Clattering Specter
  Grotesque Arachnoid -> Skittering Arachnoid
  Treacherous Ape -> The Treacherous Ape
Changes:
  The Dreamer Dreams:
    Nemesis icon removed.
	Setup discover reduced to H-2.
	Redirect now works on any damage and goes to any Hero target.
	Now moves destroyed Nightmares under this card.
	Flip condition slightly reworked. Now flips as soon as H*2 cards are under this card, shuffling all cards under this card into the Villain deck.
	End phase effect added. Discovers H-2 Nightmares.
	Advanced text completely reworked. Now attacks (2 irreducible psychic to the Hero target with highest HP) after a Nightmare is played.
  Rousing From Slumber:
    Nemesis icon removed.
	Redirect now works on any damage and goes to any Hero target.
	End phase attack reworked. Now attacks (1 psychic to every target except herself).
	End phase card play replaced with discovering 1 Nightmare.
	Advanced text damage bonus now applies to Nightmares only.
  Night Terrors:
    Now discovers 1 Nightmare before attacking if there are fewer than H Nightmares.
	Attack slightly reworked. Now grants the Villain target with highest HP an attack ([Nightmares in play] psychic to the Hero target with highest HP).
  Projected Paralysis:
    Completely reworked. Now an Ongoing that forces heroes to self-damage for 3 fixed energy after using a power. Destroys itself at start phase.
  Violent Nightmares:
    Discover reduced to 1.
	Now destroys 1 Environment, 1 Hero Ongoing, and 1 Item after discovering.
  Clattering Specter:
    HP increased to 6.
    Completely reworked. Now increases damage from Environment targets to Hero targets by 1.
	Heal removed.
	Attack reworked. Now attacks (1 infernal to the 4 non-Nightmares with highest HP), then self-heals for 1.
  Dark Hero:
    HP increased to 6.
	Damage reduction removed.
	Damage boost now only applies to Nightmares other than itself.
	End phase added. Now attacks (2 melee to the non-Nightmare with highest HP).
  Granite Oni:
    HP increased to 8.
    Damage reduction removed.
	Attack now targets non-Nightmares.
	Now self-heals for 2 after attacking.
  Skittering Arachnoid:
    HP reduced to 7.
	Targets reduced to 2.
	Now destroys the Environment target with lowest HP after attacking.
  Tooth Fairy:
    HP increased to 6.
	The Visionary nemesis icon added.
	Discard now only applies to the Hero with the most cards in hand.
	Damage reduced to 2.
	Now attacks each target belonging to the Hero with the fewest cards in hand.
  The Toy Master:
    HP increased to 8.
	The Visionary nemesis icon added.
	Start phase removed.
	End phase added. Now destroys 1 Hero Ongoing or Item, then attacks (2 toxic to each Hero target in the Hero play area with the most Ongoings/Items).
  The Treacherous Ape:
    HP increased to 7.
	The Visionary nemesis icon added.
	Existing effects removed.
	End phase added. Forces a Hero to discard 1, destroys 1 Hero Ongoing or Item, then heals each Nightmare for 1.
  Whipacorn:
    The Visionary nemesis icon added.
	Damage increased to 3.
	Now targets any target other than itself.
	Damage blocking replaced with destroying 1 Item in the targets play area if damage was dealt to a Hero character.
Added:
  Outer Demons:
    One-Shot. Shuffles the Villain trash into the deck, discovers 1 Nightmare, then attacks (2 psychic to each non-Villain target).
  Tend To The Child:
    Ongoing. Allows a hero to discard 1 when played, healing the Dreamer for 3 if they do. Discovers H-2 Nightmares and destroys itself at start phase.
  Bloated Businesstoad:
    Nightmare, 8 HP. The Visionary nemesis. At end phase, attacks (3 energy to the non-Nightmare with highest HP), then plays an Environment card if no Environment cards are in play.
 
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La Capitan

Hell yeah time pirates. La Capitan has always been a favorite fight of mine that was spicy enough for my tastes but not especially complex as far as villains go. She's sailed through the timestream to steal your stuff, now beat her and her crew up and get it back. This theft is represented by taking the cards she destroys from your side and putting it under her own card, and then flipping and using those stolen cards as shielding against your attacks. Pretty straightforward, and a little less jank than she used to be, at least.

Danger Levels:
  • Minions: High. La Capitan always begins with her ship, La Paradoja Magnifica, in play, and it will output Crew at a rapid speed, each of which is non-trivial to take down and which can act even further on the Captain's Orders. At least the Crew scalar moves are gone now.
  • Direct Offense: Low. La Capitan isn't afraid to get her hands dirty, but her personal attacks are pretty infrequent and not very heavy. At worst, she'll multitarget attacks while At One With The Timestream, but even then not that aggreassively.
  • Disruption: Moderate. While La Capitan and her crew can break your things directly to add cards to her stockpile, she usually prefers to take those cards straight from your deck, which is considerably tamer Note that some Crew combos, like Chiquito and Chip, can make this accelerate a little faster.
  • Defenses: Moderate. Frankly speaking, you're never going to cut your way through all of La Capitan's Crew, and almost certainly won't destroy La Paradoja Magnifica (and even if you do she can summon it back with A Fine Vessel). La Capitan herself, however, has only 70 HP and depends entirely on stolen cards for defense. That's nothing!
  • Ongoings: Moderate. As mentioned, Captain's Orders makes her Crew even stronger and we don't like that. There's also the looming threat of "Walk The Plank!" for accelerating her theft and capping it off with a big spike damage attack, and you will probably want both of those destroyed, but eh.
  • Surprises: Moderate. A Motley Crew and A Fine Vessel both bring out a bunch of the minions you've been working so hard to fight, with A Fine Vessel in particular letting La Paradoja Magnifica attack again if it's already in play. Dodging those cards couldn't hurt, but also... you probably aren't gonna be able to clear the field anyway without a lot of work, so saving deck control for exactly after you do that isn't very hard if you have a specialist around.

Temporal Pirate:
Nemesis: La Comodora
As mentioned, La Capitan is an incredibly straightforward fight. She has just enough HP to stick around for a bit and no shortage of potent allies to pepper you down with, and steals just enough of your things to make your life annoying. She also has an extremely bog-standard H-1 shot during her end phase, which in today's era barely registers as a threat. Again, the main danger from her is that you're going to be worn down by her never-ending assault from her Crew and her own escape into the timestream. Speaking of that, let's hit how that works. Any time during the Villain turn that a card is destroyed for whatever reason, it goes under her card. She has a lot of other cards in her deck that can also move cards under her. If she hits start phase with at least 5 cards under her, flip time!

Advanced: And if she gets to have the non-attack part of Temporal Raider every single turn, she'll steal your cards a lot faster.

At One With The Timestream:
Once she has your cards, she enters her supermode, turning every card she's stolen into a single instance of damage blocking. She burns through those cards automatically while also shredding through the Environment at double speed, destroying and playing cards from it at start phase. She also gets a bit of a chunky area attack for 3 energy, but curiously, it's to the H non-Villains with highest HP. That's actually not half bad if you've got auxiliary targets that can take the heat for you! She also doesn't actively steal destroyed cards anymore, but she can still use her other effects to add cards here. To get through this with minimal pain, quantity over quality is the way to go with your attacks. You can always use the spike damage button after she flips back, even if she gets to output Crew when she does so.

Advanced: Another attack, this one scaling to however many cards are under this card. This means that on the turn she flips, you're going to see the H-2 Heroes with highest HP take at least 4 damage. And since she gets to this side a lot faster, that offense starts to add up. You may want to bring appropriate defensive countermeasures for her in such a situation.

Ideal Strategies:
We love to see a villain that just gives you a bunch of targets and says to hit them all as hard as you can. You will never lack for extra targets to hit, so area attacks are always worth your time, especially since that means hitting La Capitan as well. You also want to be sure that your damage is spread out across multiple hits, so you have good ways to burst through the At One With The Timestream side of things. And, of course, the faster your setup, the better, because you will be faced with just enough disruption that you'll need a backup plan for when this or that critical piece of gear goes down at just the wrong time.

Things to Avoid:
I wouldn't say that neglecting your defense is ever really a good idea, but for this particular fight, I'd suggest focusing your defenses on reducing the damage you take, as opposed to reducing the damage enemies deal. You will be subject to many, many attacks, and damage reduction absolutely helps, but that damage comes from so many different targets that mitigating this or that target isn't usually as efficient as just destroying the most deadly threat on the field outright. Crew HP tops out at 10 on Battle-Forged, or 8 plus damage reduction on Siege-Breaker. That's easily within junking range of a damage dealer that's properly setup, or even one that isn't and has no problem with a little overspending.

Event Strategies:
Tides of Time
  • Collection Limit: 2
  • Collection Effects: Golden Age Flotsam OR Loop Residuum
Navigate the Timestream
This one adds a really mean end phase that provides a lot more defense to the crew. If the top card of the deck is a One-Shot, all of the Villains heal and that card goes under the Villain character... otherwise the card gets played HAHA IT'S ALSO ACCELERATION. That said, this naturally means that One-Shots will be filtered out of La Capitan's deck as a matter of course, and honestly I accept that tradeoff. You need to bring even more heat and ensure that whatever fights you pick with the Crew, you finish, but there could absolutely be meaner events.

Sliver of Creation
  • Collection Limit: 3
  • Critical Event: La Capitan: Sliver of Creation
Fractured By The Sliver of Creation
Nemesis: Freedom Five (Legacy, The Wraith, Bunker, Tachyon, Absolute Zero)
Ah, a classic premise. It's not the villain themselves you need to deal with, but rather the unstable cosmic power they've picked up. This version of La Capitan has only 20 HP, but like the Dreamer, causes a loss condition if defeated, as the Sliver of Creation gets out of anyone's control and does a little resonance cascading. And to represent this fiasco, there are two especial rules for the fight. The first is that you choose TWO Environment decks for the fight, shuffling the both of 'em together. The second is that you win by getting H*5 cards under La Capitan! This changes a lot about how the fight goes, but the first big change is that, as with the Dreamer, your big area attacks need a little more caution about how they target. Destroying Crew is still allowed and encouraged, as this puts a card from the Environment under La Capitan. The only effects that can destroy cards under there are her end phase that lets you spend them to heal her by 3, or A Fine Vessel, as usual. You'll also see the Crew come out constantly, as damaging La Capitan either pulls a Crew out or shuffles a trash into its deck, she buries her own trash and discovers Crew every start phase, and she plays twice the cards she usually does. There's a lot to track here that's hard to strategize for, but I strongly recommend familiarizing yourself with the chosen Environments and how they can interact with things, including, apparently, each other! Just keep up with fighting off the Crew and make sure you're keeping an eye on La Capitan's health total.

Advanced: Especially on Advanced! This version of La Capitan now gets to play Environment cards at end phase, which also attack every character for 1 fixed energy when played! Is there not enough for you to keep track of in any given game of Sentinels of the Multiverse? LET'S FIX THAT.

Patch Notes:
Code: 
Removed: "All Together Now!", Maria Helena's Revenge, Raiding Party
Renamed:
  La Capitán -> La Capitan
  Time Corsair -> Temporal Pirate
  Split Across Time -> At One With The Timestream
  Temporal Thief -> Temporal Raider
Changes:
  Temporal Pirate:
    HP reduced to 70.
	Nemesis icon changed to La Comodora.
	Setup now discovers H-2 Crew after summon.
	Flip condition increased to 5 or more.
	Now puts the top card of the deck from the Hero play area with most cards in play under this card at start phase if flip condition failed.
	Card movement slightly reworked. Now moves any non-Villain card not already under a card under this card if destroyed during the Villain turn.
	Advanced text completely reworked. Now reveals the top card of each Hero deck, discarding all One-Shots and putting other revealed cards under this card.
  At One With The Timestream:
    Nemesis icon changed to La Comodora.
	Heal removed.
	Start phase added. Now destroys 1 Environment, destroys 1 card under this card, plays 1 Environment. If no cards are under this card, shuffles Villain trash into deck, discovers H-2 Crew, then flips.
	End phase completely reworked. Now attacks (3 energy to H non-Villain targets with highest HP).
	Advanced text completely reworked. Now attacks ([cards under this card] projectile to H-2 Hero targets with highest HP) at end phase.
  La Paradoja Magnifica:
    HP increased to 20.
	Timeship keyword removed.
	Start phase removed.
	Now reduces damage taken by 2 if any Crew is in play.
	End phase completely reworked. Now discovers 1 Crew, then buries the Villain trash and attacks (2 projectile and 2 fire to Hero target with highest HP) if no card was discovered.
  The Amazing Mable:
    HP decreased to 5.
    Acrobat keyword removed.
    Projectile immunity added.
	Start phase removed.
  Battle-Forged:
    HP reduced to 10.
	Viking keyword removed.
	Card play removed.
	Now increases damage dealt by self by 1.
	Attack reworked. Now attacks (H-1 melee to non-Villain target with second highest HP).
  Chip:
    HP increased to 9.
	Flying Ace keyword removed.
	Start phase removed.
	Attack slightly reworked. Now attacks (H-2 projectile to 2 Hero targets with highest HP).
	Now discards top card of decks for Hero characters they damage.
  Final Breath:
    HP reduced to 7.
	Ronin keyword removed.
    Damage boost replaced with destroying targets with 2 or fewer HP after dealing toxic damage to them.
	Attack slightly reworked. Now attacks (H-2 toxic to 2 non-Villains with lowest HP).
  L'Épéiste:
    HP reduced to 6.
	Musketeer keyword removed.
	Attack moved to end phase.
	Attack slightly reworked. Now attacks (H-2 energy to Hero character with most cards in hand).
	Now forces 1 discard after damaging a Hero character.
  Siege-Breaker:
    HP reduced to 8.
    Cavaliere keyword removed.
	Damage is no longer irreducible.
  Trueshot:
    HP reduced to 4.
	Amazon keyword removed.
	Heal removed.
	Damage increased to H.
	Damage dealt by this card is irreducible.
  Captain's Orders:
    Attack slightly reworked. Now grants the lowest HP Villain an attack (H+1 melee to the Hero target with highest HP).
	Now puts a card from the targeted Hero's hand under La Capitan's card after attacking.
  "Walk The Plank!":
    Completely reworked. Now an Ongoing that, at end phase, puts the top card of the Hero character with highest HP's deck under La Capitan. If 4 or more cards are under her card after that, attacks (H melee to the Hero character of that deck), forces each Hero character to self-damage for 1 fixed psychic, then destroys itself.
  A Motley Crew:
    Discover slightly reworked. Now shuffles Crew cards from the Villain trash into deck, then discovers H-2 Crew.
	Card play removed.
  Plunder:
    Now puts the top card of the Environment deck under La Capitan before destroying.
    Destroy count changed to H-2.
	Heal removed.
  Temporal Raider:
    Now reveals all cards that would be moved, and discards One-Shots instead of moving them.
	Attack reworked. Now attacks (H irreducible energy to Hero target with highest HP).
Added:
  Chiquito:
    Crew, 3 HP. Moves Hero cards discarded during the Villain turn under La Capitan. Discards the top card of the Hero deck with the most cards in hand at end phase.
  A Fine Vessel:
    One-Shot. Grants La Paradoja Magnifica an attack (2 projectile and 2 fire to Hero target with highest HP). If La Paradoja Magnifica is not in play, destroys 2 cards under La Capitan and summons La Paradoja Magnifica.
  A Taste Of The Grape:
    One-Shot. Grants La Paradoja Magnifica an attack (2 projectile to each Hero target). Plays a Villain card if La Paradoja Magnifica is not in play.[/SPOILER]
 
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Miss Information

This fight is technically the same difficulty as La Capitan at a 5, but I think you might understand why I chose to cover a relatively straightforward brawl of a fight over the elaborate disguises and ruses of Miss Information. Because for this fight, you start out not with a Villain, but with the Freedom Five's trusted secretary, Aminia Twain, who's been around for ages and never been a dangerous threat to anyone. But loyalties can always change when you get instantly hit with the entire lived reality of an alternate timeline where the people you've given your life for chose not to save you. Could happen to anyone, really.

So, for this fight, the rules are a little different. In order to uncover and fight Miss Information directly, you first have to amass enough Clues in the form of Ongoings from her deck. While you do that, she'll send a parade of Distractions to mess things up (and cast suspicion on as many as eight other Villain decks for who's really causing the problems). And all the while, Aminia Twain herself is a viable target for the villains to hit, and if she gets destroyed, Bad Things Happen. It's not an instant loss, but it still hurts!

Danger Levels:
  • Minions: Moderate. The assorted Distractions will be a constant presence in the fight, and they'll be even more dangerous when Aminia Twain is out, but they're individually not very difficult to fight nor especially deadly. Miss Information doesn't output them nearly as constantly as some other minion-spammers do, either.
  • Direct Offense: Low. Aminia Twain doesn't actually attack, just summons Distractions and gives you card draw because she's an ever helpful Supporter of the heroes! Miss Information attacks a bit, but not by an outstanding amount.
  • Disruption: High. The Clues almost universally impart some kind of penalty to whichever Hero discovered them, and the Distractions get extra effects, including disruption, while Aminia Twain is around. And that's without even considering funnies like Mind Torn In Twain.
  • Defenses: High. You literally can't even hurt Aminia Twain before she flips and don't even want her to get hit, and when she does flip, you need to deal with the issues of scalar defenses and healing from all the Clues and Distractions that are around. Yeah, Miss Information only has 50 HP, but you can't even hit that HP pool to start.
  • Ongoings: Low. You actually want the Ongoings to accumulate for a bit, and individually they aren't that scary: you have an End Phase bit of soft control for exactly the Hero they're next to that forces fixed self-damage if you don't or can't do what it asks. That's fine, that's okay. Plus, once she does flip, she'll destroy the Clues even if you don't, and by then you'll have your Ongoing destruction options available, probly.
  • Surprises: Moderate. There's still a lot of scary One-Shots to deal with, including but not limited to Diversionary Tactics and Mind Torn In Twain. Not a bad idea to keep a specialist on hand to avoid those kinds of cards.

Administrative Assistant:
Nemesis: Parse
The setup side of Miss Information actually has a different name (Aminia Twain, obv) which means that the effects in her deck change depending on which side she's on! Any effect that targets or originates from Aminia Twain will not do the same for Miss Information, and vice versa. Similarly, Aminia Twain has the same kind of text (and keyword) as the Supporters from Megalopolis. Which means she's immune to Hero damage and even counts as a Hero target herself! This isn't necessarily a good thing, because it means the Distractions can and will swing at her if they get a chance. And there's two ways for her to flip: accumulating enough Clue cards, or her defeat. You don't want that second one, because this comes with discovering H Clues and forcing every Hero to self-damage for TEN fixed psychic. 10 damage is not a number you ever want to encounter! That's like old Omnitron levels of damage! Just play it safe, protect Aminia Twain, and build up your Clues by destroying the Distractions.

Advanced: A damage boost to Distractions! That's pretty bad. And not just for the damage you the Heroes would take, but for the damage that gets dealt to Aminia Twain, which will get you ever closer to the worse of her two flip conditions.

Revealed Saboteur:
Now the fight can begin properly! While she only has 50 HP, Miss Information also has damage reduction depending on how many Distractions are out, Grand Warlord Voss style, and heals at start phase with the number of Clues out. She'll also destroy those Clues for you, so that's nice. Her output of Distractions is pretty much exactly the same and she attacks directly now, but those Distractions aren't as scary now that she has revealed herself, and summarily lose their start phase actions. At this point, you're in for a much more standard slugfest of a Villain fight, except now you're both set up properly (less properly on your side with all the disruption of course).

Advanced: She's still not done playing against your weaknesses here. She gains an end phase mill from each Hero deck, healing for H*2 if an Ongoing or Item gets discarded (so setup-heavy heroes have to deal with healing) and just playing another card if that doesn't happen (so setup-light heroes face an accelerated villain). That's cool!

Ideal Strategies:
For this fight, setup is the way to go. You not only can't actually destroy the Villain early on outside of the Distractions, you also have plenty of disruption headed your way, but not a lot of damage. Setup also usually means healing, and healing can stall out the scarier flip condition by healing Aminia Twain, quite easily. Plus, this means that when she eventually does flip, you're all set to go sicko mode and burst through her defenses! Uncharacteristically for a fight like this, you also don't have to check your fire so much, since Aminia Twain is immune to Hero damage. As long as you aren't doing things like damaging each Hero target, go for it, swing wide and hard! Do auto attacks! Who cares!

Things to Avoid:
Setup is good, but setup speed is better. If your hero has slow setup speed, they will be outpaced by disruption and not get to keep their funny toys. Well, they might, if they're okay with self-damage. So you can always sub out slow setup speed for the ability to recover from chip damage. That's always an option. You also probably don't want to go ham on destroying the Ongoings too much before she flips, even if those disruption effects are scary. You do need them out and active to get the fight to a winnable state, and it's not worth keeping Aminia Twain unflipped for the exactly 1 card draw she provides when the risk is TEN SELF-DAMAGE FOR EVERYONE.

Event Strategies:
Administrative Assassin
  • Collection Limit: 2
  • Collection Effects: Missed Information OR Mass Information
Red Herrings
Extra self-damage whenever a Clue is destroyed? So... after Miss Information is revealed, in other words. It's not very much, only 2 fixed psychic to the H-2 Hero targets with highest HP. Basically just the same fight as ever with a little more spice. Y'know.

Secretary... Seized!
  • Collection Limit: 2
  • Critical Event: Aminia Twain
Kidnapped By Evildoers
Nemesis: None
Aminia Twain wasn't always a Villain, you know. This Critical Event goes back to the Golden Age and leaves her as a kidnapped target by some other villain. Which means for this fight, you also set up another Villain as usual and Aminia Twain becomes a side deck! This uses the rules from her normal Administrative Assistant side, save for that instead of flipping when destroyed, you just lose. It also means that you're facing a lot more Villain output, but there's some good news here. You can redirect damage from Aminia Twain to heroes by discovering Clues, and anyone that has Clues in their play area during Aminia Twain's end phase gets to use a power or play a card! That's a hell of a tradeoff to give every single hero a mini-turn at Villain end phase! It's interesting to see a Critical Event that gives the heroes such a strong advantage, and I'm kinda here for it, actually. Consider carefully the Villain that captures Aminia Twain, though. The more wide-scale damage they have, the scarier this event gets. For an easier fight, consider a villain that will be gentle to their hostage.

Advanced: Okay now we make the end phase scarier. You reveal H cards from her deck, play a Distraction if one is there, and destroy a Clue if one isn't. Which can mean you lose out on your funny drawback cards that give you more actions during the Villain turn. Stay on top of destroying those Distractions!

Patch Notes:
Code: 
Removed: Another Reality's Debt, Missing Resources, Insider Knowledge, Isolated Hero, Suspicious Malfunction, What Doesn't Kill You..., "Cat" Stuck In A Tree, "Diplomatic" Envoy, "Explosion" In The Lab, "Old Lady" In The Street, "Threat" To The President
Renamed:
  Miss Information: Demure Office Worker -> Aminia Twain: Administrative Assistant
  Diversion keyword -> Distraction keyword
Changes:
  Administrative Assistant:
    Now a target with 12 HP.
	Supporter keyword added.
	Considered a Hero target. Immune to damage from Hero targets.
	Clues required for flip increased to H or more.
	Flip now occurs as soon as requirement is met, rather than at start phase.
	Now shuffles trash into villain deck before flipping.
	When Aminia Twain would be destroyed, instead force each Hero character to self-damage for 10 fixed psychic, discover H Clues, then flip.
	Discovers 1 Clue after a Distraction is destroyed.
	End phase completely reworked. Now discovers 1 Distraction, then lets 1 Hero draw 1.
	Advanced text slightly reworked. Now increases damage dealt by Distractions by 1.
  Revealed Saboteur:
    HP increased to 50.
	Counterattack removed.
	Now heals for [Clues in play] before destroying.
	Attack on Clue destroy removed.
	Now forces 1 Hero to discard 1 if Clue destroy fails.
	End phase attack now targets Hero targets with highest HP.
	Now discovers 1 Distraction after end phase attack, shuffling Villain trash into the deck if no Distractions in play.
	Advanced text completely reworked. Now discards the top card of each Hero deck, healing for H*2 if an Ongoing or Item is discarded and playing a Villain card if not.
  Diversionary Tactics:
    Completely reworked. Now discovers H-2 Distractions, then heals Miss Information for [Distractions in play].
  Concealed Betrayal:
    Completely reworked. Now a One-Shot that forces each Hero to discard 1, destroys the Environment target with lowest HP, then discovers 1 Clue.
  Misplaced Memo:
    Completely reworked. Now reduces damage to Distractions and Miss Information by 1.
Added:
  Communications Scramble:
    Ongoing, Clue. Plays to the Hero play area with the most Hero Ongoings. At end phase, either destroys 1 Hero Ongoing in its play area or forces 1 Hero character in its play area to self-damage for 2 sonic.
  Faulty Wiring:
    Ongoing, Clue. Plays to the Hero play area with the most Items. At end phase, either destroys 1 Item in its play area or forces 1 Hero character in its play area to self-damage for 2 lightning.
  Midnight Alerts:
    Ongoing, Clue. Plays to the Hero play area with the lowest HP Hero character. At end phase, either forces a discard of 1 One-Shot or Item, or forces 1 Hero character in its play area to self-damage for 2 psychic.
  Tainted Coffee:
    Ongoing, Clue. Plays to the Hero play area with the most cards in hand. At end phase, either forces a discard of 1 One-Shot or Ongoing, or forces 1 Hero character in its play area to self-damage for 2 toxic.
  Mind Torn In Twain:
    One-Shot. Forces Miss Information to self-damage for 2 fixed psychic. Destroys H-2 Hero Ongoings. Shuffles the Villain trash into deck. Discovers 1 Clue.
  Secrets And Lies:
    One-Shot. Grants Miss Information an attack (2 psychic to each Hero character). Forces the Hero character with highest HP to self-damage for H fixed psychic. Discovers 1 Distraction if Aminia Twain is active.
  Blade Battalion Commandos:
    Distraction, Minion, 8 HP. Destroys 1 Hero Ongoing at start phase if Aminia Twain is active. Attacks (3 energy to Hero target with highest HP) at end phase, then attacks (2 sonic to each Hero target) if there are 10 or more cards in the Villain trash.
  Citizen Burn:
    Distraction, Citizen, 8 HP. Attacks (2 fire to Aminia Twain) at start phase. Attacks (H-2 fire to 2 Hero targets with highest HP) at end phase.
  Rebuilt S-77 Pursuer Drone:
    Distraction, Device, 8 HP. Attacks (2 lightning to 2 Hero targets with highest HP) at start phase if Aminia Twain is active. Attacks (2 irreducible lightning to Hero target with lowest HP) at end phase.
  Nyxian Scourge Kel'brak:
    Distraction, Thorathian, 8 HP. Attacks (H-1 melee to Hero target with second lowest HP) at start phase if Aminia Twain is active. Attacks (H-1 melee to Hero target with highest HP) at end phase.
  The Auditor:
    Distraction, Underboss, 8 HP. Forces each hero to discard 1 at start phase if Aminia Twain is active. Attacks (H-2 psychic to Hero character with highest HP) at end phase, then shuffles that Hero trash into deck.
  First Mate Davenport:
    Distraction, Crew, 8 HP. Destroys 1 Item at start phase if Aminia Twain is active. Attacks (1 energy to each non-Villain) at end phase.
  Kyng Javelinn:
    Distraction, Gladiator, 8 HP. Attacks (2 projectile to H-2 Hero targets with lowest HP) at start phase if Aminia Twain is active. Attacks (H-1 projectile to Hero target with highest HP) at end phase.
  Granogg:
    Distraction, Monster, 8 HP. Self-heals for H at start phase if Aminia Twain is active. Attacks (H-2 melee and H-2 fire to non-Villain target with highest HP) at end phase.[/SPOILER]
 
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The Ennead

Oh, this deck. This deck has always been an absolute mess trying to carry a concept that really didn't pan out properly. I don't think anyone will be surprised to find that this particular iteration of the bulk of the Egyptian pantheon is considerably more cleaned up that usual. You still have a full set of nine gods as villains, and they all come out to play one by one, and they each activate special effects depending on which kind of card is played (now helpfully codified as Sun, Hand, and Ankh text on the villain characters). And yes, because it actually matters here, Incapacitated effects are considerably more cleaned up as well. In short: this is a deck I'd actually bring to the table more than twice.

Danger Levels:
  • Minions: High. It's complicated, but the Ennead are now summoned off of their Relics, which are targets that give a buff to their wielder of some kind. And, of course, you have multiple character cards to deal with, so area attacks are still a great idea.
  • Direct Offense: Moderate. It kinda depends on which Villains are out, but they'll all be able to make attacks of some kind, and frequently a lot more if their texts are activated.
  • Disruption: Moderate. Weirdly, their disruption trends towards better as you progress, as the potent direct attacks of the Sun/Hand/Ankh moves get traded out for some lightweight disruption. And, of course, this all depends on having the right Villains out.
  • Defenses: Low. Each individual character is chunky enough, but they rely on numbers and their Relics to protect themselves, and that simply doesn't hold up to powerful area attacks.
  • Ongoings: None. They can't fit any more cards in here, not when each of the gods requires a signature Relic and copies of a One-Shot that checks for them.
  • Surprises: High. The value of any given card in the Ennead's deck varies sharply with whatever Villains are out. The best play is always a One-Shot that neither activates texts of Villains in play nor has the named Villain in play to do its stuff. Likewise, dodging the Relics that would summon more Villains is always a good plan. Not that this is easy with how quickly cards are played, mind.

The Temple of the Ennead:
Nemesis: Ra
Okay so the Temple itself isn't a Villain or even a nemesis of Ra, but it holds and deploys all the existing members of the Ennead as their relics come out, and they ARE villain characters and nemeses of Ra (and by that same token, each other, if you have a way to redirect damage). The temple itself largely serves as a rules reminder for how this fight operates: villain characters are flipped rather than destroyed, and you win as soon as there's no more Villain targets in play. Aside from that, all we have is an end phase check for whether every member of the Ennead has seen play or not, flipping if so and playing a card if not. The actual rules are on each individual villain, which each has one of Sun, Hand, or Ankh text that gets activated by the One-Shots in the deck as well as the respective Relic that summons them. This does mean two cards a turn, and in turn that means two series of text activations a turn, so figure out who is scariest and focus them down, or just shoot them all I guess.

Advanced: Not enough card plays for your taste? Good news, you can have more. All you gotta do is destroy a Villain Relic! Waow!

Eternal Fury:
Again, a simple rules reminder here, plus a minor change to the end phase effect. Now that all members of the Ennead have hit the field, the end phase changes from playing extra cards to activating all Sun, Hand, and Ankh effects. Which may actually be WORSE than playing a card, since that's effectively every single member of the Ennead activating their stuff at once whether they're incapacitated or not. Scary! But it doesn't actually change your plans much, if at all: just hit them all, preferably all at once.

Advanced: Sometimes you just need more attacks. This grants whichever Villain is highest health a free attack for 2 infernal to H-2 non-Villain targets, which adds up at this stage with how many attacks you're already dealing with. No way out but through, unfortunately.

Ideal Strategies:
Area attacks. That's it, that's the strat. Fundamentally, no targets here have more than 29 HP, and frequently they have much less. Sure, they can get damage reduction too, but that's tied to Relics that have only 9 HP, so you can remove that with a crazy little thing we call area attacks. This deck also rewards deck control characters a fair bit for a deck that plays two cards a turn: a turn that plays two Relics for Villains that aren't out yet is far, far worse than a turn that plays two One-Shots for Villains that aren't out yet. Not that focus fire is a bad thing, mind you: picking on a Villain that's better out than in (for example, Geb against a team that doesn't rely on Items but does rely on auxiliary targets) is allowed and encouraged.

Things to Avoid:
The only method of conventional control that really works here is deck control. They have no Ongoings, so focusing on destroying those is only useful for the Environment, and their attacks are split between up to nine different targets, so no-selling damage from a single one of them isn't especially helpful. Plus, if you're spending time on that kind of lightweight stuff, that's time not spent on doing big funny area damage, right? That's really about it, honestly: with a team as varied as the Ennead, odds are that a lot of approaches can be helpful in one way or another (but especially if those approaches involve area damage).

Event Strategies:
War Of Heliopolis
  • Collection Limit: 2
  • Collection Effects: Bastet's Regard OR Tebtunis Scroll
The Great Pesedjet
Two effects going on here. First, if there's only 3 Villain targets in play (this counts Relics and characters alike), you get a Relic discover, which means you're both getting more of the Ennead out faster and the incapacitated Relic effects will happen more often. Second, the Ennead main character card flips each turn as long as there's any members of the Ennead that have yet to hit the field, alternating between the double card play or the multi-text activation. Unless all of them are out already, in which case JUST DO BOTH SCREW IT. This is another by the numbers "do the same fight but More" Event that doesn't suggest any alternative strategies beyond what you already have in mind (did we mention area attacks yet).

Return Of An Old God
  • Collection Limit: 2
  • Critical Event: Sobek
The Might of the Nile
Did you think we used all of the Egyptian gods yet? Buddy I don't think we've even used half of them. Anyway, Sobek here turns the fight paradigm on its ear by being a proper main villain target with 90 health that subjugates three members of the Ennead at the start of the game. You can destroy those members of the Ennead and their Relics, but Sobek is your main target. Worse, he's treated as any member of the Ennead not already in play and comes with Sun, Hand, AND Ankh text, so every single card that comes out counts as his specialty! AND he gets two card plays a turn. Area attacks are still useful here since that can destroy his subordinates' Relics, and eliminating a member of the Ennead disables the extra effect of their matching One-Shot (inactive members are still in play, so Sobek can't steal their powers) but they're not as useful as single-target damage engines. In fact, if you're up against a relatively ignorable member of the Ennead for whatever reason (say, Atum when you have Ra with Flesh of the Sun God out), you might want to leave them alive, as they finish off the Villain turn by dealing Sobek 2 melee damage apiece. Similarly, Sobek doesn't especially care about whether his minions are alive and will happily attack them if they've outlived their usefulness, particularly with his sun and Hand attacks.

Advanced: Haha just kidding, you do have to deal with everyone else. Each Villain target is a point of damage reduction for Sobek. You can, of course, shortcut past this with irreducible damage, that's always nice, but it might just be easier to beat up the other Ennead guys.

Patch Notes:
Code: 
Removed: The Shrine of the Ennead, Death's Grasp, Mass Overheating, Rise To Power, Sun's Fury
Renamed:
  The Power of the Ennead -> The Temple of the Ennead
  The Ennead In Force -> Eternal Fury
  Matron of Magic -> Matriarch of Magic
  The Desert's Wrath -> Desert's Wrath
Changes:
  Sun, Hand, and Ankh keyword/symbols:
    No longer keywords on One-Shots, and no longer checked on entering the discard on Villain characters. Instead, Villain characters have Sun, Hand, or Ankh texts with game effects, activated in the first line of the matching One-Shots.
  The Tower of the Ennead:
    Character cards are now placed under this card.
	Setup slightly reworked. Now discovers H Relics, then summons the named characters in those Relics from under this card.
	Flip condition moved to end phase.
	Now plays a Villain card if flip condition is not met.
	Specifies that Villain characters that are destroyed flip to their Incapacitated side but otherwise remain in play.
	Advanced text reworked. Now plays a Villain card after a Villain Relic is destroyed.
  Eternal Fury:
    Heal replaced with activating all Sun, Hand, and Ankh text.
    Specifies that Villain characters that are destroyed flip to their Incapacitated side but otherwise remain in play.
	Advanced text completely reworked. Now grants the Villain character with highest HP an attack (2 infernal to H-2 non-Villain targets with highest HP) at end phase.
  Atum (World Finisher):
    HP reduced to 26.
	Ankh text removed.
	Sun text added. Grants an attack (H fire to the Hero character with highest HP).
  Atum (Incapacitated):
    Completely reworked. Now has Sun text that destroys 1 non-Villain target with 1 HP. Now, if the Bracer of Atum is in play at end phase, removes it from the game, then forces each Hero target to self-damage for 2 fixed fire.
  Geb (Earthquake Speaker):
    HP reduced to 29.
	Attack now targets each non-Villain.
  Geb (Incapacitated):
    Completely reworked. Now has Hand text that destroys 1 card. Now, if the Sickle of Geb is in play at end phase, removes it from the game, then destroy all Environment cards.
  Isis (Matriarch of Magic):
    HP reduced to 25.
	Hand text removed.
	Ankh text completely reworked. Now attacks (1 radiant and 2 infernal to H-2 Hero targets with highest HP).
  Isis (Incapacitated):
    Existing effects moved to Ankh text.
	Discard reduced to 2.
	End phase effect added. Now, if the Sun Disc of Isis is in play, removes it from the game, then forces each Hero target to self-damage for 2 fixed radiant.
  Nephthys (Life Warden):
    HP reduced to 24.
	Hand text removed.
	Ankh text completely reworked. Now forces H-1 non-Villains with lowest HP to self-damage for 1 fixed psychic, then heals H-1 Villain characters with lowest HP for 2.
  Nephthys (Incapacitated):
    Existing effects moved to Ankh text.
	Heal targets reduced to H Villain characters with lowest HP.
	End phase effect added. Now, if the Ankh of Nephthys is in play, removes it from the game, then flips 1 other Incapacitated Villain character and restores them to 9 HP.
  Nuit (She Who Protects):
    HP reduced to 27.
	Damage reduction removed.
	Heal slightly reworked. Now heals the Villain character with lowest HP for H.
  Nuit (Incapacitated):
    Completely reworked. Now has Sun text that heals each Environment target for 2. Now, if the Orb of Nuit is in play at end phase, removes it from the game, then heals each Villain character for H.
  Osiris (Lord of Silence):
    HP reduced to 23.
	Completely reworked. Now has Hand text that grants an attack (1 infernal to H-1 non-Villains with lowest HP).
  Osiris (Incapacitated):
    Completely reworked. Now has Hand text that forces H non-Villains with highest HP to self-damage for 1 fixed psychic. Now, if the Crook and Flail of Osiris is in play at end phase, removes it from the game, then flip and restore self to 9 HP.
  Set (God Of Storms):
    HP reduced to 22.
	Completely reworked. Now has Ankh text that grants an attack (1 lightning and 1 cold to H non-Villains with highest HP).
  Set (Incapacitated):
    Completely reworked. Now has Ankh text that plays an Environment card. Now, if the Typhonic Rod of Set is in play at end phase, removes it from the game, then plays an Environment cand and a Villain card.
  Shu (Breath Of The Wind):
    HP reduced to 21.
	Damage type immunities removed.
	Sun text removed.
	Hand text reworked. Now attacks (H-2 melee to Hero character with lowest HP).
  Shu (Incapacitated):
    Completely reworked. Now has Hand text that destroys 1 Ongoing. Now, if the Khopesh of Shu is in play at end phase, removes it from the game, then destroys H Hero Ongoing and/or Item cards.
  Tefnut (Warrior of the Flood):
    HP reduced to 28.
	Hand text removed.
	Sun text added. Now attacks (H-1 melee to Hero target with second highest HP).
  Tefnut (Incapacitated):
    Slightly reworked. Now only discards if the Shield of Tefnut is in play, removing it from the game first.
	Discard increased to 2.
	Discard moved to End phase.
	Sun text added. Forces 1 Hero to bury 1 card from hand.
  Ancient Magicks:
    Hand activation replaced with Ankh.
	Completely reworked. Now grants Isis an attack (2 energy to each non-Villain) if active, or grants the Villain character with lowest HP an attack (1 infernal to each Hero character) if not.
  Blast of Flame:
    Existing effect canceled if Atum is in play, instead granting Atum an attack (3 fire to H-1 non-Villain targets with highest HP).
    Attack slightly reworked. Now grants the Villain character with highest HP an attack (2 fire to non-Villain with highest HP).
  Desert's Wrath:
    Completely reworked. Now grants Geb an attack ([Environment cards in play] melee to Hero target with highest HP) if active, or grants the Villain character with highest HP an attack (2 melee to Hero target with highest HP) if not.
  Elemental Storm:
    Hand activation replaced with Ankh.
	Existing effect canceled if Set is in play, instead granting each Hero 1 draw, then playing a Villain card.
	Attack slightly reworked. Now grants the Villain character with lowest HP an attack (1 cold and 1 lightning to Hero target with highest HP).
  The Grave Beckons:
    Ankh activation replaced with Hand.
	Completely reworked. Now grants Osiris an attack (H energy to non-Villain target with lowest HP) if active, or forces H non-Villain targets with lowest HP to self-damage for 1 fixed psychic if not.
  Taste of Immortality:
    Sun activation added.
	Completely reworked. Now heals the Villain character with lowest HP for H if Nuit is active, or heals each Villain character for 1 and shuffles the Villain trash into the deck if not.
Added:
  The Ankh of Nephthys:
    Relic, 9 HP. Summons Nephthys from under The Ennead's character card when played, then activates her Ankh effect. Reduces damage to Nephthys by 1.
  The Bracer of Atum:
    Relic, 9 HP. Summons Atum from under The Ennead's character card when played, then activates his Sun effect. Increases damage dealt by Atum by 1.
  The Crook And Flail of Osiris:
    Relic, 9 HP. Summons Osiris from under The Ennead's character card when played, then activates his Hand effect. Reduces damage to Osiris by 1. Increases damage dealt by Osiris by 1.
  The Khopesh of Shu:
    Relic, 9 HP. Summons Shu from under The Ennead's character card when played, then activates his Hand effect. Grants Shu immunity to melee and projectile damage.
  The Orb of Nuit:
    Relic, 9 HP. Summons Nuit from under The Ennead's character card when played, then activates her Sun effect. Reduces damage to Villain characters other than Nuit by 1.
  The Shield of Tefnut:
    Relic, 9 HP. Summons Tefnut from under The Ennead's character card when played, then activates her Sun effect. Reduces damage to Tefnut by 2.
  The Sickle of Geb:
    Relic, 9 HP. Summons Geb from under The Ennead's character card when played, then activates his Hand effect. Renders damage from Geb irreducible.
  The Sun Disc of Isis:
    Relic, 9 HP. Summons Isis from under The Ennead's character card when played, then activates her Ankh effect. Renders damage from Isis irreducible.
  The Typhonic Rod of Set:
    Relic, 9 HP. Summons Set from under The Ennead's character card when played, then activates his Ankh effect. Increases damage dealt by Set by 1.
  Defender of the Waters:
    One-Shot. Activates all Sun effects. Destroys 1 Ongoing in each non-Villain play area if Tefnut is active, or grants the Villain character with lowest HP an attack (2 melee to non-Villain with highest HP) if not.
  Grasp of Life And Death:
    One-Shot. Activates all Ankh effects. Destroys H-2 Hero Ongoing and/or Item cards and shuffles the Villain trash into the deck if Nephthys is active, or heals each Villain character for 2 if not.
  Stolen Breath:
    One-Shot. Activates all Hand effects. Forces each non-Villain target to self-damage for 2 energy if Shu is active, or grants the Villain character with lowest HP an attack (H-1 infernal to Hero character with second lowest HP) if not.[/SPOILER]
 
Iron Legacy

Heroes are villains and villains are heroes! It's a topsy turvy world we live in! Wait, hold on... I'm receiving word that in this world, the greatest of heroes decided that he's just going to kill everyone that doesn't bend the knee to him rather than see a therapist, and he's powerful enough that this leaves no room for heroes OR villains apart from him. So uh yeah. Iron Legacy, the ultimate damage race, is back to kill you, Harold, specifically. And anyone else not named Harold. He's very strong, and very fast, and very American. Highest difficulty out of Disparation villains at an 8 out of 10 (tied with one we have yet to meet). You have been warned.

Danger Levels:
  • Minions: None. You have but a single 32 health target to deal with, just like the normal, less-traumatized Legacy. That's fine, right?
  • Direct Offense: High. Iron Legacy deals out a constant slew of high powered attacks, counters when hit, and mixes it up by targeting highest, lowest, or all heroes. If you forsake your defenses, you will be crushed without mercy.
  • Disruption: Moderate. Iron Legacy prefers to render himself indestructible and overpowered rather than preventing you from doing that, but he's got his ways of breaking your stuff. In particular, he tends to favor forcing heroes to discard.
  • Defenses: Moderate. Only the 32 health to deal with, so if you can get that spike damage hit in to save the day, you're golden. Except that he also has loads of damage reduction, healing, and even "screw your spike damage I can tech it" options. Plus, did we mention counters?
  • Ongoings: High. This guy is normally a buffbot for the heroes, but in this version, he simply applies all those buffs to himself, and if he's on his Ironclad Tyrant side, you aren't allowed to destroy them. Any Ongoings out are bad news.
  • Surprises: Low. It's not so much that the deck has no surprises as that every single card in here is bad, and once he flips to Desperate Measures, he simply outputs so many cards that you don't have a chance of controlling his deck anyway.

Ironclad Tyrant:
Nemesis: Young Legacy
He only has 32 HP, but it'd be beyond a rookie mistake to take that as a sign that he's an easy fight. Iron Legacy begins play with H-1 Ongoings, and as long as he's on this side, Villain Ongoings are indestructible. The best thing you can get on that front is that he buries one during his end phase attacks (yes, attacks, plural) if there's at least H out. He'll still keep getting more and they make him stronger, so you need to be ready to fight from frame 1. He'll also flip as soon as he takes 5 damage during a turn, and trying to cheese this out by making sure each Hero only does 4 damage a turn is simply not going to work before he kills you to pieces. About the only safety net you get is that he also buries an Ongoing when he does flip, but that's the funny thing...

Advanced: Iron Legacy already has damage counters and reactive healing built in, but how about reactive Ongoing deployment? It's not a discover, thankfully, just revealing a top card, playing it if it's an Ongoing, and healing for 2 if it isn't. Honestly the devs have gotten really good at advanced texts that just make the fight more of what it already was, thats refreshing.

Desperate Measures:
There's two flavors of how you get to this side, but both of them factor in the free damage reduction Iron Legacy gets just for being here. First up is if you flip him early and he weathers most of the damage, in which case he'll probably just flip back at his start phase and go back to his usual. That's as close to a warning shot as Iron Legacy gets, and a prime time to destroy whatever ongoings of his are causing you the most problems. If you drop him below 20 HP, though, the gloves come all the way off and he starts playing an extra card a turn. Oh, and discovering more Ongoings, self-healing, and shooting to kill with his end phase attack that focuses on the lowest HP character. There's no shame in backing off here if you don't think you can handle that kind of heat, but even the Ironclad Tyrant side is plenty spicy. You can't afford to be overcautious here.

Advanced: The natural response to seeing a beefy attack aimed at lowest health is to tank it out with a cool redirect. Unfortunately, this new attack is custom-built to scupper that, with a fairly lightweight attack to the highest HP target for 2 melee, and destroying a buttload of your stuff if that damage doesn't happen... which it probably won't with a proper tank in play. Sorry, you're in the damage race whether you like it or not.

Ideal Strategies:
As scary as all of this is to deal with, you always have to keep in mind that Iron Legacy is still just one guy with only 32 HP. Yes, he has defenses and healing and all sorts of things that can make your life worse and defeating him harder, but bellyaching about that doesn't change what you have to do. Hit him, as hard and fast as you can, before he destroys you. You also need to flip him if you want to take apart his massive suite of ongoings that buff him, and the only way to do that is, again, big damage. Anything else still helps, especially if you find ways to stall out his offense, but even that isn't a sure thing with his abilities to force self-damage, or just hit with irreducible damage.

Things to Avoid:
You don't have time for setup in this fight. If you can't contribute to the game state as soon as you draw your hand of 4 on setup, you are not going to win against Iron Legacy. Similarly, you can't rely on stalling him out even if you do setup quickly, because he'll just heal the damage you deal and punch through your defenses. This fight happens at his tempo, not yours, so match it. Certainly keep up whatever defenses you have, but you'll need more than defenses to win here.

Event Strategies:
The Final Legacy
  • Collection Limit: 1
  • Collection Effects: The Worst Timeline OR Last Stop
Freedom's End
More healing! MORE!!! Okay yeah it's only for H-2 after any Villain Ongoing gets buried or destroyed and that can add up. But it's more healing. Iron Legacy doesn't need more healing he has enough. And it's not like you have the option of NOT getting rid of his Ongoings, that's simply too many stat boosts and attacks and problems to let lie. Simply deal more damage.

An Inverse Reality
  • Collection Limit: 2
  • Critical Event: Legacy of Destruction
Mayhem And Chaos For All
We got more than just the one Legacy Gone Wrong, y'know. Legacy of Destruction comes from the Bizarro ER I MEAN Inversiverse, where villains are heroes and heroes are villains. It's actually kinda refreshing how straightforwardly hammy this one is: he literally just wants to destroy everything and everyone, classic scenery chewing to the max. That gets represented by the unique rules for the Environment here: Environment Ongoings have 6 HP like they got the old Imbued Vitality, and Legacy of Destruction both outputs more Environment cards at start phase and instantly wins if he's destroyed them all. Those cards all get removed from the game if dropped to 0 HP (outright destruction effects don't count) and the victory condition is if the start phase discover fails, so anything that discards potential targets from the Environment is bad news. Not that Legacy of Destruction himself is a pushover, mind you: while he doesn't have the raw aggro and setup speed of Iron Legacy, he DOES have a lot more health at 100 and gets a free hit on Environment targets whenever he damages a Hero target. And he'll also attack Environment targets at end phase. In fact, his villain character card doesn't have direct attacks to Hero targets! And if he can't damage you or the Environment, he can't really win. For this fight, you absolutely DO want to turtle it out by shuttering his offenses and protecting the Environment however you can. This fight can vary a LOT in terms of difficulty, depending on which Environment you fight in. The more Perilous it is, the riskier it gets for this fight.

Advanced: Oh hey he remembered to attack the Heroes too. He still wants to hit Environment targets here, but really as long as it's not a Villain target he's gaming.

Patch Notes:
Code: 
Removed: Beat Down, Iron Justice, Superhuman Redirection, Vigilance
Renamed:
  Motivated By Desperation -> Desperate Measures
  Armored Fortitude -> Iron Fortitude
  Vigilance -> Ever Vigilant
  Flying Assault -> Airborne Assault
  Iron-Fist Strike -> "Krakk!"
Changes:
  Ironclad Tyrant:
    Nemesis icon changed to Young Legacy.
    Setup discover reduced to H-1.
	Flip condition completely reworked. Now flips after taking at least 5 damage during a turn, burying the first Villain Ongoing in play first.
	Now gives Villain Ongoings the Indestructible keyword.
	No longer immune to Environment damage.
	End phase attack now only targets Hero characters.
	Now buries the first Villain Ongoing in play and attacks (H melee to Hero target with highest HP) if there are H or more Villain Ongoings in play after end phase attack.
	Advanced text completely reworked. Now reveals the top Villain card after the first instance of damage taken each turn, playing it if it's an Ongoing, and discarding it and healing 2 if not.
  Desperate Measures:
    Nemesis icon changed to Young Legacy.
	Flip condition threshold increased to 20 or more.
	Now plays a card if flip condition fails.
	End phase slightly reworked. Now discovers 1 Ongoing, self-heals for H, then attacks (H projectile to Hero character with lowest HP).
	Advanced text completely reworked. Now attacks (2 melee to Hero target with highest HP) at end phase, destroying H Hero Ongoing and/or Item cards if no damage was dealt.
  Demoralizing Presence:
    Damage boost replaced with granting Iron Legacy immunity to damage from Environment targets.
	End phase completely reworked. Now heals Iron Legacy for H, then forces H-2 Heroes with the most cards in hand to discard 1.
  Galvanized:
    Indestructible keyword removed.
	End phase attack added. Grants Iron Legacy an attack (2 irreducible melee to Hero target with highest HP).
  Iron Fortitude:
    Heal removed.
	Now forces Hero targets that damage Iron Legacy to self-damage for 1 fixed psychic afterwards.
  Ever Vigilant:
    Attack condition changed to after the first time a target other than Iron Legacy deals him damage.
	Damage type changed to melee.
	Now self-heals for 1 whenever a Villain Ongoing is buried or destroyed.
  Rule From The Front:
    Completely reworked. Now an Ongoing that prevents an instance of 8 or more damage that would be dealt to Iron Legacy, then buries itself. Destroys 1 Item at end phase, then shuffles each trash into its deck and discovers 1 Ongoing if no cards were destroyed.
  Airborne Assault:
    Completely reworked. Now attacks (H melee to Hero target with highest HP), then plays a card.
  Final Evolution:
    Completely reworked. Now a one-shot that self-heals for H, then discovers H-2 Ongoings.
  Former Allies:
    Card play removed.
	Now forces each Hero character to self-damage for 2 fixed psychic before discarding.
  "Krakk!":
    Damage increased to H+2.
	Ongoing destroy replaced with forcing each Hero target to self-damage for 1 fixed psychic.
Added:
  Furious Charge:
    Ongoing. Grants Iron Legacy an attack (H melee to Hero target with highest HP) at end phase, then self-heals for H.
  Grim Determination:
    Ongoing. Self-heals for 1 after Iron Legacy is damaged by a Hero target. At end phase, if Iron Legacy is at 8 or fewer HP, heals for 8, then buries itself.
  Iron Eye:
    Ongoing. Renders damage from Iron Legacy irreducible. At end phase, grants an attack (H-2 melee to Hero target with lowest HP).
  Heartless Haymaker:
    One-Shot. Attacks (2 melee and 2 projectile to H-1 Hero targets with highest HP), then destroys 1 Environment card.
  Heroic Termination:
    One-Shot. Discovers 1 Ongoing, then attacks ([Villain Ongoings in play] irreducible melee to Hero target with highest HP).
  The New Order:
    One-Shot. Destroys all Environment Ongoings, destroys 1 Hero Ongoing, shuffles the Villain trash into deck, then discovers H-2 Ongoings.
  No More Heroes:
    One-Shot. Destroys H Hero Ongoing and/or Item cards, then discovers 1 Ongoing.[/SPOILER]
 
Grimm

What did you expect from the first new villain of Disparation? Did you expect the Crypt-Keeper? I sure didn't! Grimm narrates the Tome of the Bizarre, an anthology of assorted weird stuff that was prevalent up through the late 80s or so, and he's grown a little tired of being merely a passive teller of tales. Now, he seeks to wield the power of stories themselves to enact his will on reality and the heroes! He'll give every Hero a Role they must play the Part of, and this can be a good thing that can help you, but adhere too closely to your Role and you may forget who you were beforehand! It's up to the Heroes to Resist their Roles and never lose sight of their ultimate goal to defeat Grimm.

Danger Levels:
  • Minions: Low. Strictly speaking, Grimm doesn't even have auxiliary targets in his deck, but he CAN discover targets from the Environment, which is close enough. What is a story without challenges to overcome?
  • Direct Offense: Low. Grimm prefers to go for his instant win conditions rather than just attacking the heroes. He CAN attack if he has the Role for it, but mostly he's dependent on the Environment or the Heroes' Roles doing that for him.
  • Disruption: Low. Like with offense, Grimm is dependent on Roles to make this happen, and he's way more involved with his own mechanics than with mucking around with yours.
  • Defenses: High. Grimm has a significant amount of health and TWO auto-win conditions that are very hard to outright prevent. He won't stop you from attacking outside of occasional Plot Armor, but you WILL need to keep the assault up as much as possible.
  • Ongoings: High. There's only a handful of Ongoings here, but they make the game state very dangerous and unpredictable, and with the aforementioned win conditions in play, you really don't want Grimm to pull a Fey-Court and topdeck lethal on you.
  • Surprises: High. The weight of Grimm's cards changes severely depending on the Roles and their progress. You do NOT want him to hit you with A Crooked Plan and throw a 5+ token Role to a Hero.

Humble Narrator:
Nemesis: Rambler
Grimm starts the story off by giving one of your Heroes a Role to play. As mentioned, that Role has two texts on it, a Part that automatically activates at End phase for the character in question, and a Resist that you... can't actually activate normally. Grimm will dole out the Roles he plays (which he gets to discover at end phase) to the Heroes until everyone has exactly one, and then the remainder of the Roles he will simply play himself. Any time a Role's Part activates, that Role gets a token, and Grimm instantly wins at start phase on this side if he has a Role with 7 tokens, representing total control of the story. Removing tokens isn't easy, and Grimm offers no way to influence those on this side, so for now just play the game normally by attacking him as hard as possible. His offense and disruption are pretty light; at worst, he'll throw out Environment targets to do that for him.

Advanced: Seriously, play the game. Grimm gets regen based on Roles in play at end phase (so treat it as H+variable). And if you decide not to do damage to him for some reason and he somehow heals to full off of this, he plays another card.

Diabolical Director:
Once the Heroes start leaning into their Roles, Grimm flips and changes his win condition to any Hero having 3 tokens on their Role. Note that Grimm's wincon check happens at start phase and his flip at end phase no matter what, so you'll never be forced to contend with both at once. Furthermore, on this side of things, the Heroes can now actively Resist playing their parts! Whenever you'd activate your Part, you can instead activate the Resist text, which is usually more detrimental but comes with a fun advantage of letting you burn a token off of a Hero Role! Grimm also starts fighting against deck control here; if the start phase win condition check fails, he discovers a One-Shot. That's all he does on the character card aside from checking conditions and pushing out his Roles that have the fewest tokens (they're not as important). Simple enough, really: use this time to keep your own Roles in check and stall out Grimm's clocks! You CAN still play the Part you have normally if you want, and considering Grimm flips if any hero has no tokens on their role, playing along might be to your benefit if Grimm's been stacking his own Role to the sky.

Advanced: Okay NOW Grimm knows how to attack. Specifically, any time a Hero Resists their Role, he hits them with the directorial vision of 4 infernal damage. That's still not too bad; sure, it's a lot of damage, but Grimm himself attacks infrequently enough that you can probably handle it, especially with proper defensive buddies.

Ideal Strategies:
What do we do against any Villain with low offenses and a way to run out the clock? That's right: hit them in the face, really hard. Grimm has no checks against raw damage output and precious few defenses aside from Plot Armor, so as far as the normal rules of the game go, he is simply a sack of 120 HP. Beyond that, deck control options are still your friend here (provided you're on his Humble Narrator side). Depending on the Roles and their different states, Grimm's cards can vary wildly in terms of threat level. Sometimes he'll topdeck A Crooked Plan and trade Roles with a Hero, forcing your team to drop everything and deal with the surplus of tokens there. Sometimes he'll play a Role for himself that immediately buries itself before activating its Part. You see what I mean, yeah?

Things to Avoid:
Unless the Environment being accelerated specifically demands it: don't bother with defenses here. A single heal-worthy support hero is frankly all you need to take on Grimm's offensive without breaking a sweat. Any cards that give you extra defenses are inherently inferior to MOAR DAMAEG in this fight and don't bother pretending otherwise. Remember, Grimm can win by running out the clock and you can't. You also might be tempted to play exclusively in Environments that don't have targets so Grimm can't accelerate it, but that's also not a wise idea: the Roles can force your Heroes to make attacks they'd rather not, so having the chaff from the Environment out to take hits is a better idea than not having it.

Notable Cards:
  • The Cursed: There's nine Roles in this deck and all of them have different threat levels depending on which character they're assigned to, but The Cursed is the worst of the lot no matter who gets it. Playing this Part forces you to attack the three lowest HP characters for 1 infernal and self-heals for 3, which is bad in a lot of ways (and especially if Grimm gets it). The Resist text isn't any better: discarding your hand and drawing 3 is a TERRIBLE tradeoff! In the unlikely event you have a choice to get rid of a Role, The Cursed should always top the list.
  • A Crooked Plan: Pound for pound, this is probably the scariest card in Grimm's deck. At start phase, it adds a token to each Role without one, which is fine whatever how often does that happen anyway. The real threat is at end phase, where Grimm trades his most advanced Role with the Hero whose Role is least developed. As a rule, Grimm's Roles are likely to be much more built up than yours, which means that on Diabolical Director, this can force a one-turn end with poor timing. In theory, you could also use this to keep his Humble Narrator side from doing its thing, but frankly, that's not a race you're winning, especially not with the start text on this.
  • Spin Straw Into Gold: This, on the other hand, is the card you want to see whenever possible. Forcing Resists isn't great on Humble Narrator, but it's really good on Diabolical Director, and even factoring that out, you can discard cards to remove tokens from each Role in play after that, making this the only practical way to remove tokens on Humble Narrator. That's good! That's real good! Who cares if Resisting hurts you, this stalls out the win condition of the guy who's fishing for those above all else play it play it play it!

Event Strategies:
Teller Of Tales
  • Collection Limit: 2
  • Collection Effects: Grimm Ex Machina OR Goblin Fruit
All The World's A Stage
What's that, more Environment acceleration? Sure! This one's weird: end phase giving more Environment plays isn't a bad thing, but there's a catch: it only plays targets or one-shots. Ongoings instead add a token to each Role, and I don't think I have to explain how that's bad. But really, why are you trying to cheese out Grimm with low-target Environments? Quit it, ya goober. Just fight the two decks head-on like you were always meant to do.

Home Of The Bizarre
  • Collection Limit: 2
  • Critical Event: Harvest Lord Grimm
Home Of The Bizarre
Nemesis: The Scholar
Okay fine we can make Grimm actually attack you now. This particular variant changes a lot about how things work, but the main thing is that it's now you, not Grimm, who has an alternate win condition. It's not an easy one, mind you: whenever a Hero chooses to Resist on their turn, they give Grimm himself a token, and once you hit H*5 tokens this way, you learn Grimm's true name and break his hold over you forever, instantly winning. Which means you no longer have to worry about competing with Grimm about your own tokens, at least. Still not good to have tokens on your Roles though; Grimm turns each one of those into HP on end phase! He also discovers more Roles than usual, and in the event there are no roles to discover, he whips the story out the window for 7 infernal to each Hero character and a complete Role wipe. Fighting him head-on is still allowed, mind you, but he has even more HP this go around, and starting him with a Role rather than you (and building up extra Roles for himself to give him more options) means he'll fight you more directly as the story goes on. Still, not an entirely different experience; you just need to gauge your characters and roles to figure out whether clobbering Grimm or pursuing his true name is the more reasonable of your two options.

Advanced: More self-buffs! Discover another Role, give it to Grimm. He's every character in the story at once and he's not afraid to show it!
 
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Necrosis

We also haven't had a good nemesis for the Naturalist yet. Which isn't surprising, he was a pretty late addition to the roster and nothing released after he came out really had a vibe that would work for him. So here's one! Necrosis used to be an affable energy researcher by the name of Dr. Benji Garner, whose outer introverted cheerfulness was tempered by an underlying fury at the damage humanity was doing to the environment. He ended up working for Conteh Energy after a time, whose cold capitalist ways eventually resulted in Dr. Garner's research harvesting life energy from things, turning them into husks. Eventually, they tried sacrificing Dr. Garner this way, but he ended up becoming far stronger than they ever could have expected, and far more evil. So yeah, a fun crossover between vampirism, the ethics of science, and 90's era pollution villains, all put together for a tragic villain that will stop at nothing to scour the world with his wrath!

Danger Levels:
  • Minions: Moderate. Necrosis creates a few Husks to attack for him, but they're very temporary, since they attack themselves as well as the Heroes. Fair warning, if a Husk destroys itself (or you destroy it with the damage type it deals), bad things happen, so mind your typings!
  • Direct Offense: High. As you fight, Necrosis will build up tokens on the Heroes, accumulating rot within you. This doesn't in and of itself deal damage, but a lot of effects, including his end phase attack on The Rot Within All Things, scale off of that number, and it's not unreasonable to see it get as high as 5 in the wrong circumstances. And it's not like he NEEDS those tokens to kill you.
  • Disruption: Low. There's a few disruption effects in here, but most of them require you to already have tokens built up on your heroes. You should have no trouble maintaining your kit until a few rounds in, and by then your engine should be built to have a little redundancy.
  • Defenses: Low. Only the 80 HP to deal with here, and the only defensive measure he's got is the lifesteal on Green Energy. He's simply too mad to bother with defense, y'know?
  • Ongoings: High. Necrosis has plenty of Ongoings, each of which adds some extra end phase attack for him. There's a bit of a check built-in on his Coalesced Blight side, but that check competes with clearing tokens off of heroes, which is a hard trade-off to make.
  • Surprises: Moderate. Aside from La Capitan, Necrosis is honestly the most straightforward villain in Disparation, and that carries over to his deck being kind of uniformly bad for the heroes. Deck control certainly helps, if you can force him to output Husks he'd naturally discover anyway rather than an especially scary Ongoing or One-Shot.

The Rot Within All Things:
Nemesis: The Naturalist
The main mechanic Necrosis does is, as mentioned, adding tokens to your Heroes. And this will happen a lot. As in, any time a Villain target damages a Hero character. And his end phase attack scales to however many tokens his target has, as do a lot of his existing cards, so as you might expect, more tokens bad. Necrosis also will constantly output Husks from his deck as a matter of course, and those add tokens when they attack too. This all keeps up until your tokens build up to H+5 among your roster, prompting a start phase Husk discover and flip. It'll just happen eventually, so no sense trying to bait or starve it out. There's no serious gotchas anywhere on this side: just a straightforward assault of your heroes versus Necrosis, all very by the book.

Advanced: By default, Necrosis focuses his efforts on the highest HP character at end phase. This adds an extra twist of a few extra tokens to whichever Hero character's got the fewest at present. As per usual, there's not really a lot you can do about this that you weren't committing to already.

Coalesced Blight:
Once enough tokens build up, Necrosis supercharges himself off of your elan vital and the rules of the fight change. First up: no more tokens added off of damage, so that's a breather. Second, you can now use the Husks against him: destroying one lets you either clear out one of his Ongoings that gives him extra attacks, or wipe the tokens from a Hero of your choice. Second, Necrosis stops bothering with picking one of your heroes for his scalar hit and simply hits all of them for their individual token values plus 1, then burns a token from each of you and outputs another Husk and Ongoing. This gives him more offense, split across his newly deployed cards, but also hands you the keys to control the game state a little bit. If you're fine with your existing token buildup, you can cull his cards easily by just taking down Husks, and unload your remaining damage towards him directly. If not, no biggie, destroy those Husks and shave tokens off as you like. Necrosis only flips away when everyone has at most 1 token per, so you have a pretty decent amount of control here!

Advanced: Token removal stops being a clean move here, though. Each token you remove becomes damage to the character and heal for Necrosis, further swinging the damage scale away from you. But at the same time, it's not like you can just leave the tokens there, y'know? Necrosis is still gonna use them to fuel his scalar attack on you.

Ideal Strategies:
A fight against Necrosis is a slugger's paradise. The best answers to any encounter with him involve you being able to both deal and withstand loads of damage. Targeting isn't a big problem either: outside of the Husks having on-destroy effects with their own damage type, you're rewarded for both clearing out small fries or unloading big damage on Necrosis directly. Support for other heroes also comes in handy, particularly amplifying your own damage or healing/reducing the damage headed towards you. Clearing Ongoings is always welcome, even if the Coalesced Blight side has a way to do it automatically; Necrosis gets a pretty decent set of Ongoings. And best of all, Necrosis doesn't have much in the way of disruption, so if you have the time to set up and do all of these, you're basically home free!

Things to Avoid:
I might paint a rosy picture above, but I do have to stress that Necrosis is constantly dealing damage. Sacrificing longevity for immediate effects is simply not a play worth pursuing in this fight. Given a chance, Necrosis WILL put down one of your Heroes through token buildup, and he doesn't need any help whatsoever doing that. That's really it: this is the kind of fight where there's not exactly a wrong way to approach it EXCEPT that. Go forth my heroes, I believe in you.

Notable Cards:
  • Green Energy: This is it, the entire defensive suite of Necrosis' normal defenses. An Ongoing that gives him an attack to highest HP for 3, then heals based on their tokens. That's it. There is nothing stopping you from punching Necrosis in the head until he falls over.
  • Decay Harnessed: The strongest disruption Necrosis has is... an Ongoing that grants an H-2 attack that destroys 1 Ongoing or Item if it hits. That's it. If you have a way to deal with an H-2 attack, you can no-sell Necrosis' best disruption. Everything else is conditional and more or less requires you to have tokens built up already. Necrosis ain't a disruption kind of villain.
  • Caustic Husk: The three Husks that Necrosis can call up are more or less interchangeable: 7 HP target, self-damages when it attacks, gets a flashy finisher when it dies to the type of damage it deals. The Caustic Husk is the most dangerous because A: its base damage is higher, and B: its toxic destroy effect hits 3 non-Villains for H, which is a LOT of damage that you can't afford to take. In a vacuum, take this one down first, and do it without toxic damage. Easy, right?

Event Strategies:
Atrophy Case
  • Collection Limit: 2
  • Collection Effects: Energy X OR Floralizer Bomb
Volatile Decay
More tokens! Many many more! At end phase, any Hero that has at least 2 tokens gets 2 more! That's so many tokens thats scary as hell! One bit of good news, though: if you only have 1 token on your hero, you get to get rid of it! Not that that's likely to happen until you start clearing the tokens yourself, mind. And until you do, Necrosis is going to flip to Coalesced Blight faster and all of his effects are going to be meaner. That's it that's the event. Necrosis, But More.

Death Begets Life
  • Collection Limit: 2
  • Critical Event: Smog-Husk Necrosis
Life Contaminated
And then there was that time Necrosis went full Hexxus. In addition to starting off every hero with a token, Smog-Husk Necrosis himself can get tokens, too! Specifically, he leaches them away whenever they're removed from Hero characters, and they build up power for him. At 5 or more, he gets +1 damage. At 10 or more, his damage becomes irreducible, and once he hits at least 20, he explodes at everything, dealing any non-Villains 5 toxic damage (he still has his damage boost and irreducible on that!) and clears the tokens. Beyond that, his turn's mechanics are pretty straightforward: he has a lot more HP and the Husk keyword (not that it matters), he takes all the tokens from whichever Hero has the most and baps them for H at start phase, and he does an AOE for 1 toxic at end phase. Pretty simple, right? This fight is all about timing, in a rather Omnitron sort of way; you need to prepare your best defenses (preferably turning off damage entirely, damage reduction alone obviously won't cut it) as Necrosis nears his nova threshold of 20 tokens. You also need even more Ongoing destruction than before, as Smog-Husk Necrosis offers no way to destroy them for you.

Advanced: This gets harder to predict when Necrosis reveals H-2 cards at end phase and plays any non-One-Shots from them! You'll now have to account for Husks and Ongoings doing extra damage, which means more tokens, which means faster cycling.
 
The Ruler of Æternus

Hey kid, ya wanna fight a satan?

Æternus is an environment we'll be checking out later, but it turns out it's got such a high amount of evil per square inch, the villains within can't help but tussle between one another in hopes of out-eviling everyone else to claim the throne! So we've got another deck like the Ennead, Kaargra Warfang, or Apex where there's a bunch of huge threats you have to deal with and singling out one or the other as The Boss isn't exactly easy. In fact, there isn't a boss to begin with! There isn't a specific Ruler of Æternus when the game begins, but there ARE multiple Princes who would very much love to hold the throne and all the power it affords. It's up to you which Prince is the least worst to have up there!

Danger Levels:
  • Minions: Moderate. It's less about this being a minion-spam deck (it's really not) and more about how sometimes one of those minions might stance up and Become your primary foe. And any given Prince has more than enough HP to stick around for a while. In fact, the different Princes even can make the deck slate more towards this or that playstyle: Ismodial the Lusty, for example, DOES make the fight a minion-spam one.
  • Direct Offense: Moderate. A lot of the attacks involving the Ruler of Æternus are divided between the heroes and the many targets of the deck itself: infighting is very, very common. As such, try to keep your defenses localized, rather than shutting down this or that threat. As before, this changes and becomes more of an issue if Abbados the Wrathful or Lusithar the Proud takes the throne.
  • Disruption: Moderate. Again: the deck itself doesn't do a lot of disruption (there's some, but not an oppressive amount). Seviathall the Envious and Mannock the Greedy, of course, add some fun to the mix here.
  • Defenses: Moderate. An individual Prince isn't exactly hard to whittle down (unless you're talking about Belagorr the Slothful or Greezigrax the Gluttonous). But the fact that they get damage reduction and a full heal on taking the Throne, plus the fact that you'll need to clear the field of everything to win, means you have to clean your plate to get anything done.
  • Ongoings: Low. There's exactly one Ongoing in this deck, An Age Of Torment, and it has a built-in destroy condition on Start Phase. Yeah, it's +1 damage from all Demons (including Painstake I guess) and forces self-damage to your healthiest teammate after every power use, but it's one card. You can handle that.
  • Surprises: High. A game that only manages to output Princes during setup is far, FAR easier than one that constantly throws them out willy-nilly. That's a difference of about 50 effective HP to 200 or so. Stopping Princes from coming out is always a good idea.

The Empty Throne:
Nemesis: Darkstrife, Painstake
So here's the cool part of this villain. When you start out, you have H-1 Princes squabbling for the Throne (each with a unique nemesis icon, with one each for Darkstrife, Painstake, Fanatic, NightMist, the Argent Adept, the Scholar, and Rambler) but the character card itself has no target. It starts empty, you see. However, once there's only a single Prince in play for whatever reason, they hop up to the Throne, flipping this card, which is simply going to happen at some point or another: even dealing lethal damage to multiple targets at once will have to choose an order in which they take the heat. And don't expect you can just turtle things out: the end phase attack here grants each Prince a hit to whoever else has highest HP, which isn't necessarily a Hero.

Advanced: What's that? Not enough Princes? Too bad. Now we play the top card of the deck if it's a target, or force non-Villains to self-damage for 1 if it isn't. It's effectively a slightly softer version of an extra card play, but not by that much: Princes are targets, so them coming out even faster is bad.

The "Chosen" of Æternus:
Upon claiming the Throne Space (as seen on the character card), whatever Prince has the highest HP hops on, heals to full, throws out a few Demons, gets a persistent -1 damage taken and nemesis icons for Darkstrife and Painstake if they didn't already have them, and is basically for all intents and purposes the actual Villain character Ruler of Æternus. Furthermore, every Demon in this deck has an Æ effect that becomes active when upon the Throne Space, giving them either extra damage modifier sauce or a new Start Phase button. In short: whatever Prince you save for last supercharges and becomes your primary foe. Your objective is still to take them down, but you need to eliminate all other Princes along the way or risk them succeeding to the throne right afterwards, with all the nonsense I just listed involved. You don't wanna go through all that more than once per game, right?

Advanced: Oh, and if you're relying on the non-throned Princes to chip the main one down for you, haha, no. -3 damage from Villains to the Ruler of Æternus. And individual instances don't trend high enough to pierce that. Outside of shenanigans like marking them for irreducible damage somehow, it just isn't gonna happen.

Ideal Strategies:
For this fight, the main thing to do is controlling your damage. Throning a new Ruler of Æternus should only, ideally, happen once a game, and the best way to do that is to ensure that they are the last Prince you take down. Because there are so many One-Shots that can cause the political turmoil we already expect from Æternus, it's certainly not a bad idea to bring a bit of the ol' deck control, especially as the Ruler of Æternus dips down in HP. And, of course, you'll want to make sure your defensive measures are more on your side of the field than theirs. Not only is it hard to control the damage from more than one or two villains at a time, you actually WANT their side of damage unfettered, so they can rough each other up a bit and speed things along. Better to do a tank than a shutdown debuffer, in other words.

Things to Avoid:
Considering how this deck works, you should also carefully consider which potential Prince you can really handle as the main Ruler of Æternus, as well. It's not just about their day-to-day attack at end phase, but whatever Æ effect they gain upon claiming the throne. To that end, it might be better to focus down a newly top-decked Prince at full health if you haven't throned one yet, rather than finish off whatever ones you'd already been dunking on. In fact, if there's a particular Prince you know for a fact you could handle with your team better than any other, you might even decide just not to hit them! They're still gonna take damage, but at least that way they'll be ahead of the pack, right? Plus, you don't want them to pull a Violent Uprising just as you were about to polish them off, do you?

Notable Cards:
  • Violent Uprising: This is the worst card you can see if you have the game almost won but still have a few low-health Princes to clean up. Not only does it spawn in H Demons, but every Demon in play immediately clobbers the Ruler of Æternus for 3. Even the boldest of Princes will be hard pressed to survive that kind of offensive, even with their damage reduction. On the other hand, it's also an incredibly funny card that can put any Demon in the deck on the Throne Space, even a smallfry like the Obsequious Impling, so that's how their Æ effects can be activated. (Or you can fight in the Æternus environment too. Don't do that though.)
  • Lusithar the Proud: Every one of the Princes is bad news, and as mentioned, choosing the right fight for the team you have is key, so it's kind of hard to label any specific Prince as the outright Worst to deal with. I choose to highlight Lusithar here for one specific reason: his area attack is very scary, but it also attacks everyone except himself, which turns out to not only be rather self-correcting if he takes the Throne Space, it's also very fitting! More than any other Prince, he'll naturally cull out the rest of the Villains in play for you. Just hope that you can withstand his barrage of attacks while he does.
  • Regime Change: The other card that can potentially force another Prince to hit the Throne. It not only outputs another Prince, but specifically destroys whichever Prince has lowest HP. This does not exclude the Prince on the throne! It will simply cull whichever is weakest, so make sure you're focusing on any existing Princes over the one currently there!

Event Strategies:
Dread Will... Manifested
  • Collection Limit: 2
  • Collection Effects: Rhyming Bargainer OR Torment-Forged Dagger
Vox Populi
Want those Æ effects on the weaker Demons on? Great cool, they're on now! And since you're such a fan, we'll also fish through the deck a little faster for those smaller Demons! This, naturally, means filtering out cards from the deck that are weak (ordinarily, a non-Prince Demon is an ideal topdeck) in favor of all the unpredictably painful ones. It also means even more attacks with even more deadliness headed your way. But it's not like you went into a fight with the Ruler of Æternus with no area attacks, right?

Hell On Earth
  • Collection Limit: 2
  • Critical Event: Æternus Incarnate
Torment Personified
Maybe you don't want to deal with a rotating cast of seven-deadly-sins-personifications and just want to fight a good ol' nondescript satan. We gotchu! We turned all of Sentinel Comics' answer to Hell into a single giant evil guy and now you get to punch all 100 of his HPs away! This obviously demands a level of power beyond the usual princely squabblings of the normal encounter, so this changes a few things. First, Violent Uprising and Regime Change are out. Second, Æternus Incarnate can put Princes directly under itself to just harness their Æ powers directly, as though they were part and parcel of the character card. Third, any non-Hero damage that would go to Æternus Incarnate? Nope, that goes to the Hero with the most HP now. Beyond that and getting an end phase attack for 1 infernal to H non-Villains with highest HP... honestly this fight is a lot more straightforward. Really is just about punching a really big satan with a rotating assortment of sin-flavored powers until either you or they bite the dust. Those Æ powers can really add up, so don't expect this to be a cakewalk, but at least it's just the one guy.

Advanced: Cards under Æternus Incarnate naturally filter out once too many are accumulated, burying once they get more than H out. Unless this is active. Then they go into play. That's pretty bad, Scoob.
 
Kalir said:
The Ruler of Æternus

Hey kid, ya wanna fight a satan?

Æternus is an environment we'll be checking out later, but it turns out it's got such a high amount of evil per square inch, the villains within can't help but tussle between one another in hopes of out-eviling everyone else to claim the throne! So we've got another deck like the Ennead, Kaargra Warfang, or Apex where there's a bunch of huge threats you have to deal with and singling out one or the other as The Boss isn't exactly easy. In fact, there isn't a boss to begin with! There isn't a specific Ruler of Æternus when the game begins, but there ARE multiple Princes who would very much love to hold the throne and all the power it affords. It's up to you which Prince is the least worst to have up there!

Danger Levels:
  • Minions: Moderate. It's less about this being a minion-spam deck (it's really not) and more about how sometimes one of those minions might stance up and Become your primary foe. And any given Prince has more than enough HP to stick around for a while. In fact, the different Princes even can make the deck slate more towards this or that playstyle: Ismodial the Lusty, for example, DOES make the fight a minion-spam one.
  • Direct Offense: Moderate. A lot of the attacks involving the Ruler of Æternus are divided between the heroes and the many targets of the deck itself: infighting is very, very common. As such, try to keep your defenses localized, rather than shutting down this or that threat. As before, this changes and becomes more of an issue if Abbados the Wrathful or Lusithar the Proud takes the throne.
  • Disruption: Moderate. Again: the deck itself doesn't do a lot of disruption (there's some, but not an oppressive amount). Seviathall the Envious and Mannock the Greedy, of course, add some fun to the mix here.
  • Defenses: Moderate. An individual Prince isn't exactly hard to whittle down (unless you're talking about Belagorr the Slothful or Greezigrax the Gluttonous). But the fact that they get damage reduction and a full heal on taking the Throne, plus the fact that you'll need to clear the field of everything to win, means you have to clean your plate to get anything done.
  • Ongoings: Low. There's exactly one Ongoing in this deck, An Age Of Torment, and it has a built-in destroy condition on Start Phase. Yeah, it's +1 damage from all Demons (including Painstake I guess) and forces self-damage to your healthiest teammate after every power use, but it's one card. You can handle that.
  • Surprises: High. A game that only manages to output Princes during setup is far, FAR easier than one that constantly throws them out willy-nilly. That's a difference of about 50 effective HP to 200 or so. Stopping Princes from coming out is always a good idea.

The Empty Throne:
Nemesis: Darkstrife, Painstake
So here's the cool part of this villain. When you start out, you have H-1 Princes squabbling for the Throne (each with a unique nemesis icon, with one each for Darkstrife, Painstake, Fanatic, NightMist, the Argent Adept, the Scholar, and Rambler) but the character card itself has no target. It starts empty, you see. However, once there's only a single Prince in play for whatever reason, they hop up to the Throne, flipping this card, which is simply going to happen at some point or another: even dealing lethal damage to multiple targets at once will have to choose an order in which they take the heat. And don't expect you can just turtle things out: the end phase attack here grants each Prince a hit to whoever else has highest HP, which isn't necessarily a Hero.

Advanced: What's that? Not enough Princes? Too bad. Now we play the top card of the deck if it's a target, or force non-Villains to self-damage for 1 if it isn't. It's effectively a slightly softer version of an extra card play, but not by that much: Princes are targets, so them coming out even faster is bad.

The "Chosen" of Æternus:
Upon claiming the Throne Space (as seen on the character card), whatever Prince has the highest HP hops on, heals to full, throws out a few Demons, gets a persistent -1 damage taken and nemesis icons for Darkstrife and Painstake if they didn't already have them, and is basically for all intents and purposes the actual Villain character Ruler of Æternus. Furthermore, every Demon in this deck has an Æ effect that becomes active when upon the Throne Space, giving them either extra damage modifier sauce or a new Start Phase button. In short: whatever Prince you save for last supercharges and becomes your primary foe. Your objective is still to take them down, but you need to eliminate all other Princes along the way or risk them succeeding to the throne right afterwards, with all the nonsense I just listed involved. You don't wanna go through all that more than once per game, right?

Advanced: Oh, and if you're relying on the non-throned Princes to chip the main one down for you, haha, no. -3 damage from Villains to the Ruler of Æternus. And individual instances don't trend high enough to pierce that. Outside of shenanigans like marking them for irreducible damage somehow, it just isn't gonna happen.

Ideal Strategies:
For this fight, the main thing to do is controlling your damage. Throning a new Ruler of Æternus should only, ideally, happen once a game, and the best way to do that is to ensure that they are the last Prince you take down. Because there are so many One-Shots that can cause the political turmoil we already expect from Æternus, it's certainly not a bad idea to bring a bit of the ol' deck control, especially as the Ruler of Æternus dips down in HP. And, of course, you'll want to make sure your defensive measures are more on your side of the field than theirs. Not only is it hard to control the damage from more than one or two villains at a time, you actually WANT their side of damage unfettered, so they can rough each other up a bit and speed things along. Better to do a tank than a shutdown debuffer, in other words.

Things to Avoid:
Considering how this deck works, you should also carefully consider which potential Prince you can really handle as the main Ruler of Æternus, as well. It's not just about their day-to-day attack at end phase, but whatever Æ effect they gain upon claiming the throne. To that end, it might be better to focus down a newly top-decked Prince at full health if you haven't throned one yet, rather than finish off whatever ones you'd already been dunking on. In fact, if there's a particular Prince you know for a fact you could handle with your team better than any other, you might even decide just not to hit them! They're still gonna take damage, but at least that way they'll be ahead of the pack, right? Plus, you don't want them to pull a Violent Uprising just as you were about to polish them off, do you?

Notable Cards:
  • Violent Uprising: This is the worst card you can see if you have the game almost won but still have a few low-health Princes to clean up. Not only does it spawn in H Demons, but every Demon in play immediately clobbers the Ruler of Æternus for 3. Even the boldest of Princes will be hard pressed to survive that kind of offensive, even with their damage reduction. On the other hand, it's also an incredibly funny card that can put any Demon in the deck on the Throne Space, even a smallfry like the Obsequious Impling, so that's how their Æ effects can be activated. (Or you can fight in the Æternus environment too. Don't do that though.)
  • Lusithar the Proud: Every one of the Princes is bad news, and as mentioned, choosing the right fight for the team you have is key, so it's kind of hard to label any specific Prince as the outright Worst to deal with. I choose to highlight Lusithar here for one specific reason: his area attack is very scary, but it also attacks everyone except himself, which turns out to not only be rather self-correcting if he takes the Throne Space, it's also very fitting! More than any other Prince, he'll naturally cull out the rest of the Villains in play for you. Just hope that you can withstand his barrage of attacks while he does.
  • Regime Change: The other card that can potentially force another Prince to hit the Throne. It not only outputs another Prince, but specifically destroys whichever Prince has lowest HP. This does not exclude the Prince on the throne! It will simply cull whichever is weakest, so make sure you're focusing on any existing Princes over the one currently there!

Event Strategies:
Dread Will... Manifested
  • Collection Limit: 2
  • Collection Effects: Rhyming Bargainer OR Torment-Forged Dagger
Vox Populi
Want those Æ effects on the weaker Demons on? Great cool, they're on now! And since you're such a fan, we'll also fish through the deck a little faster for those smaller Demons! This, naturally, means filtering out cards from the deck that are weak (ordinarily, a non-Prince Demon is an ideal topdeck) in favor of all the unpredictably painful ones. It also means even more attacks with even more deadliness headed your way. But it's not like you went into a fight with the Ruler of Æternus with no area attacks, right?

Hell On Earth
  • Collection Limit: 2
  • Critical Event: Æternus Incarnate
Torment Personified
Maybe you don't want to deal with a rotating cast of seven-deadly-sins-personifications and just want to fight a good ol' nondescript satan. We gotchu! We turned all of Sentinel Comics' answer to Hell into a single giant evil guy and now you get to punch all 100 of his HPs away! This obviously demands a level of power beyond the usual princely squabblings of the normal encounter, so this changes a few things. First, Violent Uprising and Regime Change are out. Second, Æternus Incarnate can put Princes directly under itself to just harness their Æ powers directly, as though they were part and parcel of the character card. Third, any non-Hero damage that would go to Æternus Incarnate? Nope, that goes to the Hero with the most HP now. Beyond that and getting an end phase attack for 1 infernal to H non-Villains with highest HP... honestly this fight is a lot more straightforward. Really is just about punching a really big satan with a rotating assortment of sin-flavored powers until either you or they bite the dust. Those Æ powers can really add up, so don't expect this to be a cakewalk, but at least it's just the one guy.

Advanced: Cards under Æternus Incarnate naturally filter out once too many are accumulated, burying once they get more than H out. Unless this is active. Then they go into play. That's pretty bad, Scoob.
Click to expand...
I am curious how this works for the one player character with the Prince keyword. It was intuitively pretty clear for werewolves under Apex, but does the party potentially have to cut down one of their own if he ends up the man in charge? Or is he at risk of being instantly destroyed by that one card I think they revealed during the Kickstarter?
 
Fortunately, any effects involving the Throne Space only ever specify Villains.
 
Silver Gulch, 1883

Right, let's move to Environments. As with Rook City Renegades, we have four returning environs and one entirely new one. Silver Gulch retains its identity as a "back to the Wild West" shootout with a bunch of unruly outlaws, and also the perils of time travel constantly lurking as a ticking time bomb. I actually really like how well everything involved with this environment has been tuned up, it's become one of my favorites in Disparation!

Checklist:
  • Hero Support: Yes. Sheriff Pratt is still around to lend some firepower, but he's also put out A Bounty On The Whole Gang, and it pays out handsomely. Plus, some of the Property cards provide a little extra fun for heroes.
  • Hero Disruption: No. The tech level here isn't quite advanced enough to shutter your own.
  • Field Modifiers: Neutral. The Saloon makes the Outlaws even rowdier than usual, but you can also grab a drink there yourself to enhance your own rowdiness, and that's always nice. The Villains have too many plans to bother.
  • Villain Acceleration: No. The Hayes boys have every bit of hostility in this deck solidly under their own control.
  • Ongoings: Yes. A Bounty On The Whole Gang is good, don't get me wrong, but Lost In The Past remains as deadly a threat as ever. You'll need a way to get back to your own time on hand.
  • Hostile Targets: Yes. The Hayes boys are still around doing their usual shenanigans, and they've plundered some new Anomalies that can pose even more of a threat. Get ready for a proper Showdown. Just mind your fire: nobody wants to be near the Explosives Wagon when it blows up.

Ideal Strategies:
Silver Gulch is a neat kind of environment because a lot of it is situationally good or bad, depending on how the cards shake out. It mostly consists of targets, so the best way to deal with the problems on a day-to-day is to just shoot them as they appear, simple as. The most hostile threats in here are the Outlaws, and they can use the Property here as cover, so you'll also want to have ways to deal with that on hand, be it irreducible damage or just multitarget attacks. If you can manage to take down all three Outlaws while A Bounty On The Whole Gang is out, this deck becomes far friendlier, so you're incentivized to collect that bounty as soon as possible! You might want to even wait on dealing with the Outlaws until the bounty comes out; why do the work for free?

Things to Avoid:
There's only two major gotchas in this deck. The first is, of course, Lost In The Past. That's an instant loss condition you have to work around, with no built in way to deal with it, which means you need a way to destroy Ongoing cards to handle it. Going in without any source of that means you'll have to bulldoze your way through Silver Gulch constantly, likely with the Reactor-Drive Mining Drill. The second is the Explosives Wagon: if you want to safely disarm it, you either need a bury effect or to do the effect it provides at start phase. Or one of those goofy cards that nullifies all game text on it, that lets you just clobber it to death normal-style. Those are the two biggest things to watch out for, though; everything else can more or less be handled on the fly.

Patch Notes:
Code: 
Removed: Prickly Cactus, Stout Barrel, Water Trough, Sustain The Portal
Renamed:
  Cover keyword -> Property keyword
  Gunman keyword -> Outlaw keyword
  The Law keyword -> Lawman keyword
  Time Portal keyword -> Anomaly keyword
  Temporal Event -> Temporal Calamity
Changes:
  Outlaw cards:
    Damage reduction capped at 1.
  Sheriff Pratt:
    Damage reduction capped at 1.
  Cyrus Hayes:
    HP decreased to 4.
	Attack completely reworked. Now attacks (2 projectile to H-1 non-Outlaws with lowest HP).
  Matthew Hayes:
    HP decreased to 5.
	Attack completely reworked. Now attacks (3 projectile to non-Outlaw with second highest HP).
  Tyler Hayes:
    HP decreased to 6.
	Damage reduced by 1.
  Lost In The Past:
    Ongoing keyword added.
	Discard increased to 4.
	Bury increased to 2.
	Instant loss condition moved to start phase.
	Bury moved to end phase.
	Now plays a card after burying.
  Temporal Calamity:
    One-Shot keyword added, destroy condition removed..
	Now shuffles the Environment trash into deck before discover.
	Now discards the top card of the Environment deck after discover.
  Explosives Wagon:
    HP reduced to 7.
	Damage boost removed.
	On-destroy attack slightly reworked. Now attacks (4 fire to each target).
	Start phase added. Allows up to 2 Heroes to discard any number of cards, self-burying if H or more cards are discarded this way.
	End phase added. Allows 1 Hero to discard 1, granting their character an attack (3 fire to 1 target) if they do.
Added:
  Reactor-Drive Mining Drill:
    Property, Anomaly, 9 HP. Discards the top cartd of the Environment deck when played. Attacks (1 energy to each target) and discards the top card of the Environment deck at end phase.
  Time-Lost Smoke Belcher:
    Property, Anomaly, 8 HP. Attacks (3 melee to H-1 Hero targets with highest HP) at start phase. Reveals the top card of the Environment if there are no Outlaws in play at end phase, playing it if it's an Outlaw and discarding it otherwise.
  The Saloon:
    Property, 10 HP. Increases damage dealt by Outlaws by 1. Allows 1 Hero character to self-damage for 2 fixed toxic at end phase, increasing their damage dealt by 1 until Environment start phase if they do.
  Waylaid By Outlaws:
    One-Shot. Discovers 1 Outlaw, grants each Outlaw an attack (1 projectile to the Hero target with highest HP), discovers 1 Ongoing. If no Outlaws are in play, heals each Hero target for 1.
  Showdown:
    One-Shot. Shuffles the Environment trash into the deck. Discovers 1 Outlaw, letting each Hero draw 1 if no cards were played. Summons Sheriff Pratt. Discards the top card of the Environment deck.
  A Bounty On The Whole Gang:
    Ongoing. Places destroyed Outlaws under itself. If it has 3 cards under itself, lets each Hero draw 3, then removes itself and all cards under it from the game. Reveals the top card of the Environment at end phase, playing it if it's an Outlaw and discarding it otherwise.
 
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The Block

This environment has always been a favorite of mine off of the vibes, but the earlier edition's incarnation was kind of an odd duck in that the vibes were immaculate, but the mechanics... kind of tripped over themselves far too much to be worth anything. Yes, it could go ham with Char and some Imprisoned Rogues, or a bunch of Agents in a Lock Down, but in practice it never got all of its pieces together until the eventual Prison Riot, and even then, not for long. This version of the Block still preserves the fight between two factions separate from the heroes and villains, but now manages to make that conflict run a little hotter.

Checklist:
  • Hero Support: No. Nothing you can make use of here, it's all already spoken for by someone else.
  • Hero Disruption: Yes, but only two Inmates, Kleptek and Hatch, will even try to mess with stealing your stuff, and they won't bother if they have Agents they can hassle instead.
  • Field Modifiers: Neutral. Agents can get stat boosts in either direction with Lockdown or the Armory Teleport Beacon (and Inmates can even use the latter), but unless you're fighting Sergeant Steel or playing as K.N.Y.F.E.'s First Appearance, that doesn't intersect with the heroes or villains at all.
  • Villain Acceleration: Yes, but only if the Inmates take control of the Block, and even then they'll only hijack the Lockdown and the Dimensional Gateway. Destroy those Ongoings before that happens, or fight off the Inmates, and you won't have a problem.
  • Ongoings: Yes. No matter which faction is in control, the Ongoings in this deck make them all more dangerous, whether that's the oppressive control of the Agents, or the violent chaos of the Inmates.
  • Hostile Targets: Neutral. Neither faction is your friend, but like as not, they'll fight each other more than they fight you. Just try not to let one faction get too big of a lead over the other.

Ideal Strategies:
The Block is, I feel, an excellent environment for having an entirely "neutral" feel to a fight that still carries a vibe of its own. I usually default to Megalopolis for most new players since that's a simple affair of "just hit whatever comes out until it dies" as a convenient check that you can always skip at end phase, but the Block presents a little more spice than just that. Sure, you can hit targets as they come out, but it's also entirely reasonable to play the environment soft, keeping the Agents and Inmates alike in check while generally leaving them to their own devices. The targets aren't that scary individually, although you do always gotta stay on your toes for a Prison Riot tipping the scales.

Things to Avoid:
This environment gets a lot more scary if either faction manages to take full control. Obviously, the Inmates will attack pretty indiscriminately, steal your stuff, and even help out the Villain every so often. But of course, we all know that All Agents Are Bastards, and if they end up in control, they'll form a cohesive and entrenched threat to everyone on the field as well. Fortunately, the checks for this are simple: don't let either side get control. If you have three of any faction on the field, that's a good sign for you to let up on the Villain for a bit (if time permits) and beat up some Environment targets for a while. Ongoing destruction for their buffs helps, but so too does raw damage; all those effects require targets to make use of them.

Patch Notes:
Code: 
Removed: Defensive Displacement, Char
Renamed:
  Lock Down -> Lockdown
  Imprisoned Rogue -> Hatch
  Time-Crazed Prisoner -> Free Radical
Changes:
  F.I.L.T.E.R. Officer:
    HP reduced to 6.
	End phase reworked. Now attacks (2 projectile to Inmate with lowest HP), then attacks (2 projectile to non-Agent with lowest HP).
  Block Guard:
    HP increased to 8.
	End phase completely reworked. Now attacks (1 melee and 1 lightning to 3 non-Agents with highest HP).
  Warden Hoefle:
    HP decreased to 10.
	Damage modifiers removed.
	Start phase completely reworked. Now discovers 1 Agent.
	End phase attack added. Now attacks (3 energy to non-Agent with second highest HP).
  Hatch:
    HP decreased to 5.
	Parse nemesis icon added.
	Damage boost removed.
	Destroy slightly reworked. Now targets the non-character Agent with lowest HP.
	Now forces each Hero to discard 1 if destroy fails.
	End phase added. Destroys 1 Environment Ongoing if 3 or more Inmates are in play, and discovers 1 Inmate if not.
  Free Radical:
    HP increased to 9.
	Omnitron-X nemesis icon added.
	Damage type changed to energy.
	End phase attack added. Now attacks (2 energy to non-Inmate with second lowest HP).
  Lockdown:
    Ongoing keyword added.
	Destroy now only affects Inmate with lowest HP.
	Damage boost replaced with reducing damage dealt by non-Agents by 1.
	End phase slightly reworked. Now only triggers if there are more Inmates than Agents in play, and plays a Villain card before destroying.
  Prison Riot:
    One-Shot keyword added, destroy condition removed.
	Effect now codified as a discover.
	Now destroys the non-character Agent with lowest HP and shuffles the Environment trash into deck before discover.
	Discover reduced to H-2.
Added:
  Kleptek:
    Inmate, 6 HP. Ra nemesis. Attacks (2 energy to Hero and Agent targets with highest HP) at start phase. Attacks (1 melee to non-Inmate with lowest HP) at end phase, destroying 1 Item if a Hero target was damaged.
  S.A.B.E.R.:
    Inmate, 7 HP. K.N.Y.F.E. nemesis. Attacks (2 energy to 2 non-Inmates with highest HP) at start phase. Attacks (2 energy to 2 non-Inmates with lowest HP) at end phase.
  Shredd:
    Inmate, 8 HP. The Visionary nemesis. Attacks (H-1 melee to non-Inmate with second highest HP) at start phase. Attacks (2 melee to non-Inmates in play area with most cards in play) at end phase.
  Armory Teleport Beacon:
    Ongoing. Increases damage dealt by Agents by 1. Renders Inmate damage irreducible if there are at least 2 Inmates in play. Grants 1 Agent an attack (2 energy to Inmate with lowest HP), then grants the Inmate with highest HP an attack (2 melee to non-Inmate with highest HP) at end phase.
  Dimensional Gateway:
    Ongoing. Plays a Villain card and destroys itself at start phase if 2 or more Inmates are in play. Reveals the top Environment card at end phase, discarding it if it's a One-Shot or Inmate and playing it otherwise.
 
The Tomb of Anubis

This is the set that brought the Ennead back, so of course we're also getting the Tomb of Anubis back as well. Nothing unusual here: it's the same Egyptian ruins you've come to know and love complete with deific powers guarded by dangerous Mummies and Trials, and if you are brave and cool enough you can claim those powers for yourself. There's also a Ra nemesis or two in here somewhere, which also means Ennead nemeses in here as well. Nothing especially fancy, you're getting exactly what you came for here.

Checklist:
  • Hero Support: Yes. For the Relics, you must first defeat whatever is set to guard the Relic you wish to claim. Those Relics also are now targets and thus easier to destroy, and you can't claim them if they didn't discover an appropriate challenge (which isn't very common but could happen). There's also some other sources of support from a few Mummies, or The Weight of a Feather, but they tend to have costs associated.
  • Hero Disruption: Opt-in. With the exception of Shamisé, every source of disruption the Tomb of Anubis has is simply a way for you to get some extra progress in on the Trials during start phase, so you can do as much or as little as you like.
  • Field Modifiers: None. Cast Into The Underworld is out, and it did not get a replacement.
  • Villain Acceleration: Yes, but only if Ammit specifically gets a kill. Granted, that's pretty likely, considering both the frequency and direction of her attacks, but it also means all you have to do to prevent that from happening is take her down.
  • Ongoings: None. Anything persistent from the Tomb of Anubis is a target and can therefore be clobbered, no Ongoing destruction required.
  • Hostile Targets: Neutral. The Tomb of Anubis is friend to no one; not the Heroes, and not the Villains. Everything here will treat any other deck's cards as a threat.

Ideal Strategies:
The Tomb of Anubis has a lot of things to offer the Heroes if they can survive its threats, so the best way to approach this deck is to see what kinds of threats come out, and what rewards you can get from them. As a general rule of thumb, damage reduction is always a safe bet here. Most of the threats here come from damage, and the only form that's irreducible in any way is the self-inflicted sort off of Swinging Blades. You'll also want plenty of damage-slingers or sources of Environment destruction yourself, so you can selectively take down the threats from the Tomb as quickly as possible. They don't exactly synergize with each other, but they also don't target each other and have plenty of healing, so pick and choose what's most dangerous at the time. You'll also want heroes that can get extra power uses or don't have much cause to use their existing powers, so they can wield the Relics you claim from here.

Things to Avoid:
It's certainly tempting to just sling area attacks indiscriminately and hope for the best. But remember: the Relics are targets now! If you try to destroy everything in the Tomb in one go, that could mean losing the powers of Anubis and Anput that you've worked so hard to get. You also need to be smart about what Villain targets you destroy or leave alive; Anubis and Ammit both thrive off of destroying other targets, either by healing the Environment or accelerating the Villain. And those are the two beefiest threats in the Tomb, and the One-Shots WILL pull them out before you're ready for them. Carefully choose your targets, lest your damage be healed up and your Relics destroyed.

Patch Notes:
Code: 
Removed: Akana, Cast Into The Underworld, Treasure keyword
Renamed:
  Judgement of Anubis -> The Entrance To Duat
  Shamise -> Shamisé
  Rod Of Anubis -> The Rod Of Anubis
  Idol Of Anput -> The Idol Of Anput
  The Challenge Of Fire -> Challenge Of Fire
Changes:
  Anubis:
    Damage immunity removed.
	Destroy attack completely reworked. Now self-heals for H after a non-Environment target is destroyed, rather than attacking.
	End phase attack added. Now attacks (H-2 infernal to 3 non-Environment targets with highest HP).
  Mdjai:
    HP reduced to 8.
	Damage reduction removed.
	Now attacks (3 melee to non-Environment target with highest HP) after playing.
  Nomti:
    HP increased to 10.
	Attack now targets non-Environment target with highest HP.
	Now attacks (2 melee to H-2 non-Environment targets with lowest HP) after playing.
  Shamisé:
    HP decreased to 4.
	Trial keyword removed.
	Summon replaced with attack (5 infernal to non-Environment target with second highest HP).
	End phase completely reworked. Now forces each Hero to discard and draw 1, healing Environment targets for H if any Ongoings were drawn.
  Urshe:
    End phase slightly reworked. Now discovers 1 Trial.
	Now grants each Hero 1 draw after playing.
	Start phase added. Heals each Trial for H.
  Challenge Of Fire:
    Now a target with 10 HP.
	End phase attack now targets H-2 non-Environment targets with highest HP.
	Destroy condition reworked. Now allows 1 Hero to discard any number of cards, forcing this card to self-damage for 3 fixed melee each time they do.
  Spike Trap:
    Now a target with 10 HP.
	Attack now only targets non-Environment targets and now occurs at end phase.
	Destroy condition reworked. Now occurs at start phase, and allows each Hero to destroy 1 Ongoing in their play area, forcing this card to self-damage for 5 fixed melee if done.
  Swarm Of Scarabs:
    HP increased to 10.
	Existing effects removed.
	Start phase added. Allows each Hero to destroy 1 Item in their play area, forcing this card to self-damage for 5 fixed melee if done.
	End phase added. Now attacks (3 melee to any character with Items, Devices, or Relics in their play area).
  Swinging Blades:
    Now a target with 10 HP.
	End phase attack slightly reworked. Now attacks (2 melee to each non-Environment target).
	Start phase slightly reworked. Now allows each Hero target to self-damage for 1 fixed melee, forcing this card to self-damage for 3 fixed melee each time one does.
  The Idol Of Anput:
    Now a target with 9 HP.
	Move condition reworked. Now discovers 1 Trial on play, and moves when that Trial is destroyed.
	Heal increased to 3.
	May now draw 3 after healing, destroying this card if you do.
  The Rod Of Anubis:
    Now a target with 9 HP.
	Move condition reworked. Now discovers 1 Mummy on play, and moves when that Mummy is destroyed.
	Damage increased to 5.
	Now either forces a discard of 2 or destroys itself after attack.
  The Entrance To Duat:
    One-Shot keyword added, destroy and attack removed.
	Now shuffles the Environment trash into the deck and plays an Environment card after summon.
Added:
  Ammit:
    Eater Of Souls, 13 HP. Ra nemesis. Plays a Villain card after the first time its damage destroys a target each turn. Attacks (1 infernal to each target except itself) at start phase. Attacks (2 energy to lowest HP except itself) at end phase.
  The Weight Of A Feather:
    One-Shot. Summons Ammit, then allows each Hero to collect 1 Item or Ongoing, granting Ammit an attack (1 infernal to Hero character with lowest HP) each time they do.
 
The Final Wasteland

Yeah we're not doing Time Cataclysm in this set! Weird! The Final Wasteland is a fine option though, as the Worst Future that awaits the end of all dead timelines. It retains the same kind of character that the environment had in the earlier edition as well: simply a constant slew of ten thousand Cryptids trying to eat you, with a side of some support. It's more the surrounding changes of Definitive Edition as a system that have tweaked how this environment works: since its main threat is the abundance of Cryptids that have health totals, destroying them usually means raw damage, what with how rare environment destruction is now.

Checklist:
  • Hero Support: Yes. CON's Bunker and the Ancient Library are still around, and still give plenty of benefits in exchange for also being something the Cryptids want to eat. Slightly tweaked in how they operate but not by that much really.
  • Hero Disruption: Yes, but only off of Endless Wastes, and even then it's all of a single discard from each Hero. Easy.
  • Field Modifiers: Hostile. Unforgiving Wasteland got reworked into a straightforward "Cryptids deal more damage" button, rather than its weird messed up effect that could break certain decks.
  • Villain Acceleration: No. Not even Villains want to come here.
  • Ongoings: Yes, but it's just Unforgiving Wasteland. Which you should destroy, don't get me wrong, but it's one Ongoing, in a deck that much more favors outputting targets, and which doesn't do anything if there's no Cryptids to amplify. Keep an Ongoing destroy in your back pocket if you want, but hitting things until they die is better.
  • Hostile Targets: Yes. This is what you came to the Final Wasteland for: to be eaten by horrible monsters. There are lots of them in here!

Ideal Strategies:
The best way to get through the Final Wasteland with minimal stress is simple: destroy the Cryptids as quickly and cleanly as you can. Each one will attack the field more or less indiscriminately, sometimes with area damage, sometimes with hard-to-predict attacks that make no distinction about which threat they go for. They tend to have just enough health to stick around and cause problems if ignored, with HP topping out at 15 on the Storming Thunderbird. However, any negative effects in this deck almost completely depend on Cryptids attacking you directly. No Cryptids, no problems! Simply clobber them as they crop up and you'll be fine. And if you do have Environment destruction effects... well, they're good on any Environment really, but especially nice here for those high health threats that might take a bit of focus fire otherwise.

Things to Avoid:
The two helpful structures in this deck are certainly beneficial to have around, but they're also points of vulnerability. Sure, they each have 20 health, but Cryptids WILL wear that health total down, and as soon as they go down, that's damage for you. And while there's technically a way in this deck to repair them if you can take down the Mongolian Death Worm before it retreats, it's hardly a reliable method. Oh, and there's no rule saying the Villain can't bust out an Environment destroy effect of their own to just destroy your favorite hideout in one move. Protect them to the best of your ability, but be ready for them to fall eventually.

Patch Notes:
Code: 
Removed: Abominable Snowman
Changes:
  Amphibious Chupacabra:
    HP increased to 7.
	Initial attack slightly reworked. Now attacks (H-2 melee to non-Cryptid with second lowest HP).
	Follow-up damage increased to 2.
	Now self-heals for 2 if follow-up attack occurs.
  Horrid Skunk Ape:
    Damage type changed to toxic.
  Mongolian Death Worm:
    HP increased to 13.
	Attack now occurs on play, rather than start phase.
	Attack now targets the target other than itself with second highest HP.
	Shuffle replaced with bury.
	Now heals up to 3 targets for 3 when destroyed.
  New Jersey Devil:
    HP increased to 9.
	Attack slightly reworked. Now attacks (3 fire to non-Cryptid with lowest HP).
  Rat Beast:
    HP increased to 11.
	Rat keyword added.
	Attack slightly reworked. Now attacks (2 melee and 1 toxic to non-Rat with second highest HP).
  Ancient Library:
    Completely reworked. Now a Relic with 20 HP that forces all Hero characters to self-damage for 2 fixed psychic when destroyed, grants each Cryptid an attack (1 melee to this card) at start phase, and allows 1 Hero to draw 2 and 1 Hero target to heal for 2 at end phase.
  CON's Bunker:
    Completely reworked. Now a Device with 20 HP that forces all Hero characters to self-damage for 2 fixed psychic when destroyed, grants each Cryptid an attack (1 melee to this card) at start phase, and allows each Hero character to heal for 1 and 1 Hero to draw 1 at end phase.
  Unforgiving Wasteland:
    Completely reworked. Now an Ongoing that discovers 1 Cryptid on play, increases damage dealt by Cryptids by 1, and renders damage dealt by Cryptids irreducible if at least 3 Cryptids are in play.
Added:
  Endless Wastes:
    One-Shot. Shuffles the Environment trash into the deck, discovers H-1 targets, then forces each Hero to discard 1.
  Storming Thunderbird:
    Cryptid, Fowl, 15 HP. Destroys the Cryptid other than itself with lowest HP at start phase, discovering 1 Cryptid if no card was destroyed. Attacks (2 lightning to each non-Fowl other than the target with highest HP) at end phase.
 
Æternus

Why bother picking and choosing whether a deck works better as an Environment or a Villain? Omnitron sure didn't. Anyway, if you don't strictly want to fight Evil Hell Demons but still want to fight in Evil Hell Demon Land, no worries, Æternus the environment has you covered. Wanna fight demons and be tormented every so often? That's what we've got here. Oddly, as far as environments go, I feel like this one isn't nearly as perilous as some others, but maybe I'm just getting better at the game, who knows. Gotta happen after this many years, right?

Checklist:
  • Hero Support: Yes, but it's off of a single, unpredictable Demon, the Shoulder "Advisor", and they'll also deal you damage, amplify the damage you take if Æternus Empowered is running, and can be destroyed pretty easily.
  • Hero Disruption: Yes, but it's just the Abandon Hope one-shot for the most part. Visage of Torments can do a little as well, but for a supposed realm of torment, Æternus isn't too focused on breaking your stuff. And hey, at least Abandon Hope buries a non-character target, which probably means a Demon!
  • Field Modifiers: Hostile. The most beneficial case possible is to have the Shoulder "Advisor" in the Villain play area while Æternus Empowered is out. This is also a case that has given the Villains a free card play. It's not worth it, Scoob.
  • Villain Acceleration: Yes, but only off of the above condition. They don't need Æternus Empowered for it, mind you, but it is there.
  • Ongoings: Hostile. This is probably the overall rudest part of this deck, with all of the Ongoings being almost exclusively bad for the Heroes in particular, and even Encroachment From The Grey's assorted weird nonsense that favors the Heroes balances itself out with self-damage.
  • Hostile Targets: Yes. We got Demons! Demons for days! They're not individually very scary, but they DO get plenty of benefits from the Ongoings, whether that's protection from the Villains or activating their Æ effects for even more pain.

Ideal Strategies:
Æternus is, weirdly enough, hard-pressed to output a lot of threats at once or a field-defining danger like, say, Insula Primalis. I dunno why the Torment Nexus is strictly midtier in terms of peril, but hey, I won't knock it. The slow deployment speed is Æternus' only real weakness, mind you. Any card that comes out of this deck is, like as not, something you'll want to remove from play as quickly as possible. Fortunately, the targets are pretty low in health, and the Ongoings... well, they do hurt, but also it can only really have one out at a time, so if you have the destruction to spare it's not a big deal to just junk it. Hell, the One-Shots in this deck even interrupt its own evils sometimes in exchange for all the other evils they do! That's nice.

Things to Avoid:
Do not let Æternus actually build itself up. Some environments, you can kind of afford to ignore the whole thing and let it do whatever while you dunk on the villains indiscriminately. That's not the case here. if Æternus is not kept in check, it will effectively extend itself into a vassal state for the villains, and you really don't need that kind of hassle in your life. It only outputs one card a turn, so look at what kind of evil that card is doing and figure out how best to mitigate it. Sometimes it might output a threat you have to stop at all odds, sometimes it'll just burp up a single Pustulent Wretch you can destroy on accident, but either way you shouldn't just let it do its own thing, because its own thing is making life harder for you. Oh, and of course, this environment heavily combos with the Ruler of Æternus environment, sharing the Demon keyword across all its targets and providing another way to activate Æ effects with Æternus Empowered.

Notable Cards:
  • Visage of Torments: This Demon is a lot like the Block's Time-Crazed Prisoner (now known as Free Radical) but their murdershot scales with the target's trash rather than its own. This can, of course, get very very scary when aimed at a Hero character lategame, to the tune of "kill you in one hit". The unpredictable targeting doesn't make matters easier, because that targeting means they'll probably ignore the Villain... but at the same time, if you CAN bait the Visage of Torments into targeting the villain, it's funny and awesome and you should do it. Just be careful, kay?
  • Realm of Demons: Both of the one-shots in this deck have an effect that also curtails the deck itself: this one destroys an Environment Ongoing (always a good thing), while Abandon Hope buries a target as mentioned above. This one does shuffle the environment trash back into the deck and discover some Demons, which isn't good if you already have more than 1 Ongoing out in this Environment, but if you do... why? Why did you let that happen? Don't do that.
  • Shoulder "Advisor": The most complex thing in this deck, which hops to another play area at end phase and gives that area a topdeck. It always goes for the character with the second lowest HP, which isn't easy to track but generally favors Heroes. This is a good thing: you do NOT want it to accelerate the Villains. It'll also attack the subject of its advice at start phase and amplify their damage taken if Æ effects are online, which is inconvenient. This can give the Heroes a lot of extra card plays if you're the sort to carefully manage HP totals, but if you're not feeling it... it's still a 5 HP target just hit it okay thanks.
 
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