Character Profile
Best Attack: Wrest the Mind
Best Team Support: Suggestion
Best Personal Support: Decoy Projection
Honorable Mention: Twist the Ether
Primary Damage Type: Psychic
Secondary Damage Type: Whatever’s handy.
Worst card: Foresight
The Visionary is amazingly powerful. Visionary is simply not playing the same game as the other heroes of the multiverse. She operates on a different level, controlling the flow of the game rather than just picking away at the villain like everybody else. Whether twisting the environment to your whims or stacking the villain deck to curb its effectiveness, Visionary is a hero with almost unlimited potential.
Attack
Visionary does indeed have a few cards that deal direct damage, and when things are otherwise controlled, or your damage is needed to neutralize a big threat, these certainly aren’t bad. Generally, however, I look to control first, and leave killing things to the heroes that are good at it. By the way, if you’re wondering why Cerebral Hemorrhage exists when Psychic Maelstrom affects all targets: sometimes, you really don’t want to kill all of the targets. You may want to protect the dinosaur who’s mind you are controlling, or spare a Citizen to keep Dawn from flipping.
The new printing grants Visionary an automatic villain-specific psychic attack in Demoralization. This helps to give Visionary a damage presence on the board. It has most of the same perils and advantages as Tempest’s Electrical Storm. It’s not much good against armor, really good with damage bonuses, and a potential liability if there are targets out that you don’t want to kill. It does not target environments, so you avoid the circumstance of hurting helpful environment cards.
As far as outright damage goes, Visionary’s MVP is Wrest the Mind. That card really turns the huge environment beasts (Plummeting Monorail, Enraged T-Rex, The Kraken) to your ends. The absolute juiciest target for Wrest the Mind is Omnitron’s Electro-Pulse Explosives. Don’t be ashamed to use it to dampen the effects of minions, either - the minion can, for instance, deal the damage to the boss, kill itself from the psychic feedback, and let Visionary get away without a scratch because Wrest the Mind is gone.
Support
Visionary excels at this aspect of the game. Twist the Ether is great on any hero for the damage bonus, and great on villain cards for damage reduction, but the potential doesn’t end there. Changing the damage type can be surprisingly strong in some situations. Get past damage immunities, change damage affecting Absolute Zero to whatever you want, cause the villain cards to deal fire damage to Ra, or just do all sorts of nifty things that might look minor, but could make a huge difference in play.
Mental Divergence is persistent ongoing destruction, but more than that, can bring important cards back. Legacy’s Take Down or Haka’s Ground Pound come to mind for extremely powerful options to play every other turn, but everybody has powerful ongoing cards they would love to see again.
Deck Manipulation
Visionary’s deck manipulation skills are top-notch, and this is probably the best way she makes things easier for her team. First, Enlighten is perhaps the best base power in the game. Boost Tachyon immensely, find a timely card, or just make sure everybody has plenty of options. You can expect this power to stay relevant throughout the whole game, every game.
Second, she has Suggestion. This is up there with the best cards in the game. The main purpose of this card is to choose the villain’s play next turn. Sometimes, you can make it so he accomplishes nothing with his turn - think Elemental Redistributor if you have no elemental heroes, or an Ongoing card that Visionary can kill with Mental Divergence. Second, it gets cards out of the villain trash. This is gold against villains like Dawn or Voss.
Precognition and Prophetic Vision both provide good control over the unknown, but the real gem is Brain Burn. This is a fantastic card that will help you murder Blade, Voss, Dawn, and the Chairman with very little drama. It’s situational or worthless against the rest of the villains, but the level of suppression it offers against the first four gives this card a solid rating anyway. Try to have a Decoy out first, to limit the pain.
Defense
Visionary gets two cards that make her into an unexpected tank. Decoy Projection usually boosts her hit points by five, but sometimes it bites it early to global damage. The card is now classified as a Distortion, which means it probably won’t live for long in the Realm of Discord.
Telekinetic Cocoon is Decoy Projection on steroids. It’s not useful every game, but many times have I waited out the game in a bubble, allowing the Volcano to kill the villain while I laugh maniacally. It can be a great last resort when the game comes down to the wire. Put it on, and wait for your time to strike. For instance, tank the damage to the highest hero every turn, protecting everybody else. Accumulate the boons of incapacitated heroes while the villain is stalled looking for a way through your armor. It’s simply another tool in the pack of a utility goddess.
Other Notes
Mass Levitation is surprisingly useful in a hostile environment. Conduct your dealings above Rook City instead of chancing it with the crooks. I don’t usually bother with Foresight - Enlighten is just better, and you can use it on other people. It is very nice if something says you can’t draw cards, though, so watch for it in Megalopolis.
Dark Visionary
Dark Visionary trades one hit point for Turmoil. This juicy power allows Visionary to stack a deck every turn. This is a powerful ability to use on the villain, but it can also be used on the environment, or even a hero deck in a pinch. (Though if you mean to help with hero decks, stick with Enlighten.) She becomes much less a team-player, and much more a control freak.
Precognition and Prophetic Vision take on a very powerful role for Dark Visionary, as she can tell everybody exactly what’s going to happen by checking both the villain and environment decks with a play and a power. It’s hard to stop using a power like that, so her other powers are more likely to go neglected. On the other hand, Foresight is no longer strictly worse than your base power, so it might see some use if you dare to neglect using Turmoil for a round.
Weaknesses
Visionary has some pronounced issues in the damage department. If she doesn’t have a decent target for Wrest the Mind, and you absolutely positively have to kill something, Visionary may not be all that helpful. In addition, Visionary can inflict a heap of damage on herself between Brain Burn and Wrest the Mind.
Visionary can feel sad as a hero when her control choices just don’t have as much of an impact. Against Spite in his Drug-Fueled Monstrosity form, for instance, she can hardly deal him any damage, and he doesn’t have any cards to manipulate. In situations like this, just look for a different way to impact the game - Twist the Ether on Spite, for instance, makes sure that he deals your team far less damage, and stacking the environment deck can still limit damage to the heroes, or even make it so he can’t use his environment-killing drug.
Visionary cannot outright destroy environment cards. She can capably dampen their effects, via Mass Levitation, or avoid them, via Prophetic Vision. If there’s one out there messing with your plans, though, somebody else will probably have to kill it.
Teamups
Visionary plays well with all heroes - her broad range of useful support effects allows her to help any hero in a clutch situation. I have a few particular interactions to call out. Enlighten is insanely useful for Tachyon and Absolute Zero to get them the things they need to get going. Twist the Ether is excellent if a hero is concerned with the kind of damage they deal or take. It creates awesome interactions with Absolute Zero, either on him or on something that deals him a lot of damage. Ra with Flesh of the Sun God or Legacy with Next Evolution and Lead from the Front has the potential to create an impressive amount of damage soaking if Twist the Ether is played on a target that deals a lot of damage. Finally, if she teams up with Tempest or Wraith, there is the strong potential to stop the villain’s progress cold by combining her deck manipulation suite with Into the Stratosphere and/or Infrared Eyepiece. This tactic is especially strong when using Dark Visionary.
