Do we know that the loss of drones is between 9 and 10? Or the size change? To me, the biggest question is what was version 9 like? It could already be very different than 1. Maybe it already stopped making drones earlier, because the common way to bit it was to severe the link. Maybe it already became smaller, because it was to big of a target, or it needed the humanoid shape for ease of mobility. Maybe the Empathy chip was an attempt at camouflage into human society. Maybe Omnitron was trying to become a cylon. Maybe 9 was Con, and Omnitron already moved from robos to human drones.
Is Baron Blade more powerful than Legacy?
Because in different lines he has killed three of them, and he is the reason Legacy forms the Freedom Four, because Legacy can't beat him alone.
So yeah, Baron Blade is more powerful than Legacy.
The Chairman's power isn't just what he himself can do, but also the full weight of his organization which includes informants, thieves, probably lawyers and politicians, he's more powerful than Omnitron, mostly because it is pretty easy to see Omnitron coming.
Not more powerful than Iron Legacy, but harder to fight, Iron Legacy will come right at you himself, the challenge is beating him. Chairman brings the full weight of a secret society/criminal organization at you, it's a nasty fight just getting to him. And he and the Operative are super human. Just no where near as super as Iron Legacy.
There is also the factor that it is much easier to destroy than to protect. Take Iron Legacy vs. Legacy, Iron Legacy isn't worried about killing the person he's fighting, Legacy tried to take people alive. Iron Legacy doesn't care what you are trying to do, he comes right at you, Legacy tries to stop villains plans then stop them. Most importantly collateral damage: Iron Legacy doesn't card if Joe the innocent bystander dies because he threw Bunker into him, the heroes are being careful not to harm innocents, there are punches being pulled. So in a vacuum he might not be greatly more powerful than his former self, but he is, because his resources are greater, and he isn't stopping himself from hurting people.
Maybe if we changed the term to more effective than more powerful people would be Okay with it?
It also doesn't look like we will ever get a different take on Sentinels than co-op games, snd if that is the case don't we at some point have to assume that that is how the Multiverse works? We have a game, a not out yet game, and a comic that show that it takes a team of heroes to defeat even an intro villain, we have nothing at all that says otherwise. I think it is pretty rational to treat the Multiverse as if the way it is portrayed to us is the way it is intended.
In the Iron Legacy timeline, does Legacy end up killing Baron Blade by himself in a fit of rage?
Yeah, Iron Legacy is more powerful than Baron Blade.
Baron Blade didn't even have time to write a note to past self telling him to kill The dad first.
Er, Tactics is competitive isn't it?
Not completley. It's semi co-op. Team of players vs another player(s). SotM and GSF are true Co-ops in that it is 100% Player vs the games card-based AI.
Is Vengeance Blade weaker that regular or Mad Bomber Blade then? Because those Blades could fight the Freedom team by themselves, whereas Vengeance Blade requires a team with him.
My basic understanding is that the battles we fight in the game are adaptations of battles that happened in the universe of the multiverse. Sometimes a villain's scheme requires a team to foil, sometimes it doesn't. Superman doesn't always need the Justice League to defeat Brainiac or Lex Luthor. It really varies with each issue and the story being told.
Sentinels of the Multiverse is a game first and a story second. None of the heroes can take on a villain alone because that's not how the game is designed.
To an extent, I can agree with the basic argument. In order for villains to be threats they generally have to be at least the same level of power that the hero is at, but in a long running story heroes and villains change overtime and a villain that may have taken everyone to defeat the first time he was introduced may not be so difficult the second time he comes around because the heroes understand how he works and how to defeat him.
Well, on his own he's probably weaker; he hasn't riddled the city with bombs, and he isn't pulling the moon into the earth. He does, however, have a team to back him up, making him a considerable force.
No no no. He is stronger individually now story wise. He perfected that serum he injected into himself remember. Physically he might almost rival legacy, but that's conjecture.
He's physically stronger, yes, but on his own you could probably solo him.
The original point was whether or not mechanics reflected the actual power difference between heroes and villains. Mechanically, yes, Vengeance Blade is probably weaker and you may be able to solo him, but the point is that he's supposed to be stronger and more dangerous than his earlier incarnations, but mechanically it clearly seems that he's not.
So, I guess that answers the question, doesn't it?
The first two fights the heroes are going after him. Getting through his defenses to stop the Impulsion Beam, and then surviving his attempt to kill you.
The second time he's blowing up the city and you are trying to stop him.
Now Blade is coming after the heroes with his own villains. It's a far different situation when you can run away, or somewhat dictate the terms of the fight.
When you have limited time to stop Blade from destroying the Earth that isn't the case. I personally love when you get Blade's damage cards out and you have to just take the beating because you can't afford to deviate from the main objective.
I'm not sure how much the heroes are able to dictate the terms of the fight or even run away given that one of the environments is the Freedom Tower. Baron Blade didn't become less intelligent with his serum and probably has lots of gadgets and devices to limit the heroes' effectiveness. In the Vengeance story arc he may have even come up with a long intricate plan on how to kill the heroes rather than just going, "Now we all attack at once, hit whoever you feel like."
The point is that Vengeance Blade does not seem to be less powerful or dangerous than Regular or Mad Bomber Blade despite not actually being able to fight the heroes on his own.
One of the statements was that sometimes it's not about how powerful the VILLAIN is, but how difficult their PLAN is to overcome. So while pretty much everything you said is absolutely true, something to take into consideration is that having teammates is PART OF THE PLAN. You can't take them out, or rob him of essential pieces of his strategy.
The point was that upon initial inspection of the mechanical difference between Vengeance Blade and Baron Blade, that Vengeance Blade would appear to be weaker than his earlier incarnations because of a reliance on a team. I didn't say that that's what I actually thought. My point was that mechanics can be a bit misleading when trying to compare a villain's power to a hero's and vice versa. V
engeance Blade is supposed to be a bigger, badder version of Baron Blade who is attempting his most fiendish plan of defeating the Freedom Five yet by coming up with a team of his own. Even if you could solo the deck on your own, that is not an accurate way to compare the power difference between the the incarnations.
Original Blade is a difficulty 1 Villain...pretty wimpy overall. I'm guessing that the Vengeful Five are a diff 4 all together, which means that individually they might amount to 0.8 difficulty each...but I don't know how they operate, it's entirely possible that they function enough like The Ennead (ie the team overall plays one card per turn, regardless of how many members are standing) that VengeBlade alone could still be a 4 even after his allies have fallen. So I don't find it too hard to believe that he could be more powerful in the game, to reflect being more powerful in the story. (Although a lot of his story power comes from his devices, which may not be portable enough to come with him when the VF attacks.)
Let's take ambuscade.
The weakest Villain in the game (maybe not rating wise, but he almost never wins, and rarely is a real threat), he would annihilate most heroes 1v1.
Why?
look at his deck. Ambuscade isn't on the run, or getting ambushed, he is hunting you. He can turn invisible and hunt you while you can't retaliate. Ambuscade isn't out there every day fighting good guys, he is setting up so that when he does strike it is a big deal.
That's why he's more powerful than Legacy when they fight, because Legacy wasn't sitting around for months gathering intel and tracking behavior patterns, he was busy doing other stuff. On the average Monday morning Legacy is way more powerful than Ambuscade, but when they actually fight it is a different story, and if Ambuscade could get the jump on an isolated Legacy he would likely win. Sadly for him that team is always near enough to help.
Vengeance Blade is personally more powerful, he may be using a team, but he didn't go alone before either.
Original Blade brings Mobile Defense platforms, turrets, serums, defense shields, force fields and Blade Battalions to fight the heroes. The second fight he brings a death ray and a ton of bombs that he is hiding all over the place.
Now he is bringing a team of super powered people with him.
It's a new mechanic, but it isn't like he was going 1v4 before now. It is probably his most powerful form, since the other team members are likely stronger than blade battalions and turrets. I am very curious to see if he brings some gadgets with him or if he tries to go mano y mano.
I doubt that Blade's deck will just be him; even with the super serum, that's just not his style. If I'm right, then mechanically he will be weaker than normal BB, despite being super strong and just as prepped.
Trying to extrapolate a particular villains "comic" strength from their "mechanical" difficulty is a pretty silly fools errand in its entirety. It flat out doesn't work that way. Apples/Oranges. Not a fair comparison. By that logic, we could argue say that DW Fixer is physically stronger than Legacy. Sounds like a pretty silly argument to me.