Custom Villain deck: Legacy of Destruction

liarliar · May 9, 2022, 5:08am

I haven’t done this before, but I re-listened to the Inversiverse episode of the Letters Page and it made me really want to try designing a deck for the Legacy of Destruction!
I think I’ve made something that’s reasonable - unfortunately, I don’t have the physical game, only digital, so playtesting will be…a challenge. So before I get into any of that:
People who have done this before, how does this look? Have I made any beginner mistakes that I can easily fix? I was aiming for about a low 2-difficulty on the old scale, does this look right for that? Is there anything here that looks particularly fun or particularly irritating?
I’d love to hear feedback from anyone who has tried making their own Sentinels stuff!

Character card
Legacy of Destruction [32] - Arrogant Anarchist
Setup:
At the start of the game, Legacy of Destruction enters play “Arrogant Anarchist” side up.
Reveal cards from the top of the deck until H-1 Cohorts and H-1 villain ongoing cards are revealed and put into play. Other revealed cards are shuffled back into the villain deck.

Game Play:
At the start of the villain turn if there are no villain ongoing cards in play, Legacy of Destruction flips.
Legacy of Destruction is immune to damage from non-hero targets.
Reduce damage to Legacy of Destruction by X, where X is the number of Villain Ongoing cards in play.
At the end of the villain turn, if there are fewer than H Villain Ongoing cards in play, play the top card of the Villain Deck.

Flip side:
Legacy of Destruction [32] - Maddened Malefactor

Game Play:
At the start of the villain turn, if there are H+1 or more villain ongoing cards in play, Legacy of Destruction flips.
Legacy of Destruction is immune to damage from villain targets. Reduce damage to Legacy of Destruction by 1.
At the end of the villain turn, play the top card of the villain deck. Then, Legacy of Destruction deals the Hero Target with the highest HP 3 melee damage, and regains H-1 HP.

One-Shot
Destructive Charge (x2): Destroy H Hero Ongoing or Equipment cards. Legacy of Destruction deals the hero target with the highest HP 3 energy damage. Destroy two villain ongoing cards.
Flavour text: “Nice toy. I think I’ll keep it.” - Legacy of Destruction, Disparation #68

Forceful Leadership (x2): Shuffle the villain trash into the deck. Reveal cards from the villain deck until you reveal a Cohort. Put it into play, and discard the other revealed cards. All villain targets regain H HP.
Flavour text: “Who are you more afraid of - her? Or me?” - Legacy of Destruction, Disparation #77

Smash Landing (x2): Legacy of Destruction deals the hero target with the highest HP 3 melee damage. Then, Legacy of Destruction deals each target 1 projectile damage. Destroy one villain ongoing card.
Flavour text: “Monitors show something approaching - and it’s coming in fast!” - Mordengrad Security Officer, Disparation #5

"Krakk!" (x3): Legacy of Destruction deals the two hero targets with the highest HP 3 melee damage. Targets dealt damage this way cannot deal damage until the start of the next villain turn. Destroy one villain ongoing card.
Flavour text: “You just bought yourself an express ticket to - whoa!” - Express, Disparation #82

Chaos and Devastation (x1): Destroy all environment targets. Each time a card is destroyed this way, Legacy of Destruction deals the hero target with the highest HP 2 projectile damage and 2 fire damage, then destroys a villain ongoing card.
Flavour text: “Heads up, heroes!” - Legacy of Destruction, Disparation #89

Ongoing
Terrifying Presence (x3): Increase damage dealt to hero targets by 1.
Flavour text: “Hello Princess. It’s been too long.” - Legacy of Destruction, Disparation #68

Implacable (x1): The first time each turn that a villain target would be dealt damage, reduce that damage to zero.
Flavour text: “Mon dieu! Ze bullets do nothing!” - Stuntman, Disparation #121

Relentless (x3): At the start of the villain turn, destroy 1 hero ongoing or equipment card. If no cards are destroyed this way, Legacy of Destruction deals the hero target with the highest HP 2 melee damage.
Flavour text: “You can’t run, and you can’t hide.” - Legacy of Destruction, Disparation #82

Constant Pressure (x2): At the end of the villain turn, each player must either discard a card, or their hero deals themself 2 psychic damage.
Flavour text: “Where is he? Did we lose him?” - Flashbulb, Disparation #81

Impossible Strength (x1): Damage dealt by Legacy of Destruction is irreducible.
Flavour text: “Enoch! No!” - Biomancer, Disparation #118

Cohort
White Wraith [8] (x1): The first time each turn that this card would be dealt damage, redirect that damage to the target with the highest HP.
At the end of the villain turn, this card deals the Hero Target with the lowest HP 3 infernal damage.
Flavour text: “I fear no living thing - but that monster? She scares me.” -Blank, Disparation #106

Terminal Velocity [5] (x1): During the villain play phase, play one additional card.
At the end of the villain turn, this card deals 1 sonic damage to each target.
Flavour text: “And you call yourself ‘Express’? Puh-lease.” - Terminal Velocity, Disparation #69

Black Frost [7] (x1): At the start of the villain turn, this card regains H+1 HP.
Every time a hero card is drawn, Black Frost deals that hero 1 cold damage.
Flavour text: “Sure, I thought about playing hero. But this pays better.” - Black Frost, Disparation #93

Rampart [6] (x1): Reduce damage dealt to villain targets by 1.
At the end of the villain turn, this card deals the H-1 Hero Targets with the highest HP 2 projectile damage.
Flavour text: “I can feel the hate radiating from him. Leave this monster to me!” - Peacemaker, Disparation #69

Singularity [4] (x1): Villain targets are immune to damage from environment cards.
At the start of the villain turn, play the top card of the environment deck.
At the end of the villain turn, Singularity deals the hero target with the highest HP X energy damage, where X is the number of environment cards in play.
Flavour text: “Until she is captured, we must consider all systems compromised. Nothing is safe.” -Luminary, Disparation #93

Thunderbird · May 9, 2022, 5:51pm

Cool idea, but IMHO this is waaaaaayyy more difficult than a 2!!! For instance, if you can’t deal irreducible damage consistently he will be basically invincible on that front side with all those Ongoings. And if his deck never self-destructs Ongoings and the heroes have no method to destroy them, he’ll never flip!

Also, five other villain targets with double digit HP?! And he starts with some of those and Ongoings?! I think you have created the most difficult villain there is. I really do like the concept, and I hope maybe DE Iron Legacy will get a critical event that represents Legacy of Destruction. I think this definitely could use some adjusting, especially if you’re aiming for low-to-mid difficulty.

liarliar · May 9, 2022, 7:42pm

Haha, thank you! Taking another look at it, you’re very right, it’s a bit harsh! Definitely need to drop the health on the Cohorts to a level similar to something like the Citizens, and probably give some of the Ongoings self-destruct options. I’m comfortable with him being de-facto invulnerable for a bit, but that does mean I need to give more options for cracking that vulnerability.
Thanks for the critique!

Thunderbird · May 9, 2022, 8:53pm

You could have the Setup be something like: Discover Ongoings OR Cohorts, rather than -1 of BOTH.

Possibly give some of the villain Ongoings Start Phase options to have the heroes discard/destroy/take fixed damage in order to eliminate them.

I get that the Fearful Five (I think that’s the inverse team name) are supposed to be a big threat, and being 20% of the deck is okay (I think you’re one short on the card count, though). Maybe they should be more like the 8-10 HP range where they’re not OHKO, but also not nearly half the main villain?

liarliar · May 10, 2022, 3:01am

I’ve had a bit of a look and a think, and I’ve:

Reduced the HP of the Fearsome Five down to 4-8 (Singularity and Terminal Velocity being the lowest, which I figured made sense with the lore - plus, having extra card plays from someone so tanky would be pretty mean)
Added ongoing self-destruction to all the one-shots except Forceful Leadership - one for Krakk and Smash Landing, two for Destructive Charge, and a clause in Chaos and Devastation to make it destroy a villain ongoing each time it deals damage. (the lore tie-in is that, as Legacy gets bored/frustrated he gets more into the mix, losing the command of the situation that’s represented by his ongoings)
Added an extra Krakk, making the totals 10 ongoing, 10 one-shot, and 5 targets. I figure that’s fairly balanced - the more ongoings that are out, the more likely one-shots are to come and destroy them. Might still be tricky to completely whittle them down, but now it can be done with either reliable ongoing destruction, or purely deck-control.
I think that might be slightly more reasonable now!

Thunderbird · May 10, 2022, 4:17am

Nice job! I guess you had Enhanced Edition rules in mind, because the only thing that would change about “Krakk!” would be to make it an Ongoing so the “cannot deal damage” text remains in play. It would still displace another Ongoing when it comes out, so it would just need a self-destruct clause at the start of next turn.

But hey, it’s your deck! If you wanna go by the old rules go right ahead! It does seem like a challenge, but not quite so impossible now!

liarliar · May 10, 2022, 9:16am

Oh yeah, definitely going by EE - I’ve only got digital, so that’s really my only frame of reference. Now I guess I need to see if I have the programming chops to build this in Workshop, and give it a playtest or two!