Ep. 11: Difficult Villains with  

Is mine and Nelson's audio better or worse than usual? We recorded this a new way and I'd love to get some feedback!

HYPE!!!!! Thanks so much for having me. That was some of fun the most fun I’ve ever had talking about this game. I’m excited to try that Green Goblin matchup you suggested 🤮🤞🏻

Amazing listen as always!! ❤❤ thank you!

Great podcast! I totally support the idea of a "What if series" that another subscriber proposed. The possibilities are endless!

Just a note on difficult villains, and how certain variables can make them more challenging. We had a 3 player game vs Red Skull last night: when picking heroes, we had enough foresight to dissuade a player from trying Cable vs Red Skull, as it would be side scheme bonanza, but we forgot that Phoenix (who ended up with Dark Phoenix of course via standard three count down) included a permanent side scheme, giving Red Skull a permanent +1 attack. We *did* beat him in the end, but there was a point where he was swinging for 10 and things got pretty bleak.

I like to grab a hero deck (complete with aspect/basic cards etc) before pulling a random villain. IMO, if you get your villain 1st and then "specifically" build against them, then that kinda neuters "at least" half their' difficulty. Send you straight to Std2/Exp2 if you wanna do that! And even then... Villain decks are designed/set to take "any random comers", so make your hero deck to "bring on any comers"! 😃

Great podcast. As for difficulty, there are a few ways I like to increase it. For one, to prevent a specific tech-based counter build against a specific villain, I often take a given deck through a campaign. Recently, for efficiency, I have been doing what I call 'soft' campaigns, where I do each scenario in succession, without the added logistics of campaign-specific content. This can give a pretty good overview of a deck's capabilities and weaknesses. Secondly, I like to look at building a deck from the other way around, in that after building a hero deck, I will put them up against a villain and 'tech' in a modular set specifically to hurt the hero. And this, in my opinion, is where some modular sets truly shine, especially those bonus ones that came in hero packs. Some examples: - Your hero relying on attacking a lot (a la Iceman)? Throw in A Mess of Things, where stunning you is the name of Scorpion's game - Your hero lack piercing? Slot in Armadillo and suffer as your throw yourself against tough after tough statuses. - Chump blocking a lot? Print out the excellent Kree Fanatic set where Ronan aims to punish such strategies. This type of building I find tremendously enjoyable, and adds some real spice to the game. I also will try to limit a hero to an 'appropriately thematic' aspect (subjective generally, I know) and do my best to make them effective within that constraint. As for using S2 + Expert 2 to increase difficulty, although it certainly does that, I find the standard cards then entirely eclipse the villain's unique cards, and that feels not great, to me. As for villain I have the highest loss rate against, I think I found Mysterio to be brutal, bizarrely. 5+ encounter cards were common with him. I also detest the logistics of shuffling in encounter cards, especially as I tend to use different sleeves for encounter cards than for heroes. Anyway, great show, keep it up!

I loved this, fun podcast per usual. I actually really love the conversations about villains, difficulty levels etc. Excited you all cracked into Modulars abit too. Very curious to see your video on Modulars, as we have so many that we haven't even tried yet, so would love to see a ranking and little brief on all of them! Thanks again!

Thanks for reading my question! The Thanos match was an excellent idea, and it made me think of a possible series you could do. You should do a “What If…?” Series in which you combine other modular sets and create a narrative for the specific scenario. In this case Thanos and Mister Sinister’s modular set. Maybe we se Ultron with the Infinity Stones? The possibilities are endless. It is important to include a narrative though since there is kind of a disconnect when breaking theme. Maybe after 20 episodes you create a Tier list crowning the new Big Bad in the What If…? Universe! Sorry for rambling, but I think VillainTheory is on to something!

Very interesting video! Thanks both for the podcast!

Now that 'Villain Theory' has offered some great change-up ModSets, we need to see you guys play said changes in MPer online.

Great podcast as always. Hopefully more advice on changing up modulars is coming. @VillainTheory @webwarriorfanatic give Unlimited a go. If you like Lorcana and love Marvel Champions, there’s a good chance you’ll LOVE Unlimited. It is so much fun. Set 1 reprint is coming in a couple of months and set 2 looks bonkers. It’s not too late to get involved!

So I’ve only played Venom Goblin once, on normal difficulty, standard set, in campaign mode. He was difficult, but not too difficult. I was able to beat him first try with Justice Venom. Now I’m aware that I had some power ups from the campaign, like shield tech and the symbiote suit. I’m going to fight him next with a different hero outside of the campaign (no buffs) and see how it goes.

Oh, yes! LOVED the idea of going through all aspects for the next few episodes! That’ll be absolutely amazing! By the way, another great episode, guys!! Congrats!

Thanks for answering my question! Brilliant episode with best Champions podcasters together! (ok guys, it can be TACO 🤣)

Hello for me one of the most difficult scenario when you change mod set is Zola, each time a new box is coming I try to fight Zola with the new heroes and the most difficult heavy minion mod set. For instance Zola with Sentinels is very hard.

Love this podcast!

Green Goblin is a good villain to add Flight to. It really changes up the encounter, since his ability triggers off of damaging the player.

7:10 😱I definitly will be watching that. Just thinking outloud here, the solution I can think for this in 3 players would be: Iceman Protection, to lower those stats and defend. Cyclops or Cable leadership or Justice, to keep those schemes under control, Cyclops can maximize the damage, or Cable can hit hard later. A big hitter, Wolverne or Hulk. 🤔

Random rulings question with ronan. Cos the vaild target rule, their has to be a valid target to do some right. So in solo his first scheme only starts with 2 threat. It says exhaust the milano to remove 3 threat, is that legal to if it only has 2 threat

I think Standard Ronan and VG are too hard, but super hard villains in expert is fine. Ultron is really interesting. Even if you tech vs the drones, he still hits hard and stage 2 scheme piles threat fast. He also gets quite a bit harder at higher counts because many of his cards hit all players and he is vulnerable to statuses which is less effective in high counts. Opposite that is I actually find Loki to be most dangerous at solo and gets easier with higher counts as bursts of threat is way less of an issue. A couple others not mentioned is Hood, which similar to Nebula, is super high variance to the point where I don't blame you for blocking him out of mind. And Red Skull isn't thought of as hard, because his default sets are easy, but with hard mod sets particularly ones with hazard side schemes his difficulty shoots up a lot.

I am surprise that in a discussion about difficult villains you didn't mention Expert 2 and Heroic at all.

i might be late to give my opinion on this, but i myself lost a lot of interest in true solo after i beat expert-magneto with a leadership hulk deck that only used cards from cycles 1 and 2. And even when i tried playing him with the NIMROD modular, both big bads were discarded so they might as well have been bomb scare i think the biggest problem people have with difficult villains like ronan and VG is being unable to finish their campaign - a problem which can be solved by giving powerful campaign upgrades like they did in RORS (although they went a bit too far with those)

I'm gonna throw this out there and it's reallyyyy controversial. I'm not some mega pro player anything but I think certain heroes outright stomp Ronan and that's not true for Venom Goblin. So everything is always subjective and your mileage may vary but I think stun and cards like Frozen Solid shut down Ronan hard. I would put him at an A overall and S to impossible against other heroes.

Literally just beat expert ronan for the first time before I saw this.

I agree with Nelson: heroes like Nebula or Rocket con't win in expert mode (solo) vs Collector I...