The Matriarch has had a few nerfs. Most notably, her retaliation damage has been moved to her cohorts - so once you knock them out you can destroy her birds with impunity - and her cohorts don’t resummon each other so they’re easier to get rid of. She also destroys your stuff less.
She’s still a tough fight, but she’s definitely easier than before, especially if you bring a hero who can tank her ping damage.
Argent Adept was high-complexity in EE, too. And his deck has very few changes, mostly fiddling with the Accompanies his instruments can trigger.
We played Voss the other day…his first card was Forced Deployment, and that went from his weakest first play to probably his strongest. He definitely feels more like a “big event” opponent; he has an easier time popping destroyed Gene-Bound into play and he has a few new tricks up his sleeve. We finally did win (after dinner early and mid game moments where the situation seemed pretty dire) with Tempest down and Wraith, Haka, and Ra in single digits. Definitely a strong, cosmic-level opponent! We were glad we won.
If you mastered playing Argent Adept in EE, you won’t have too much trouble adjusting to his Definitive version. Other than forgetting which instrument does what now. XD
Yeah, I never liked Argent.
Well he has his fans. I’m among them, though he’s not my very favorite or anything. (I’d be far more interested in his fully overpowered version that’s suitable for soloing whole villains.)
No surprises, yet. I’ve thumbed through the decks, but not played, yet. Love the new art. I have to say the “we have got to stop meeting like this” in Tachyon’s deck has a number of feels. I like the new mechanics for Bunker and Tempest, and can’t wait to play a few rounds.
The spinners are awesome. Tracking health was always a pain in the old edition.
Perhaps something like . . .
Power: Play, Draw, and/or Summon up to 3 cards. You may use each Power on an Instrument card now.
Designing solo-hero mechanics is probably going to take more thought than that. If I wanted to try it, I’d grab 2 random Incapacitated Heroes and just have them start the game in play, one before and one after Argent’s turn. But unless his EE deck is radically different, his damage output is so incredibly low that it’d be almost impossible for him to win games that way, so really it would take a whole new deck.
“Solo Mode” sounds interesting… I mean, I’m used to doing solo games on the apps, controlling 3-5 heroes, but having one hero cut loose could be interesting. It would definitely fit better with certain heroes (Legacy, Haka, and Mr Fixer, for instance) than others.
Perhaps taking inspiration from Oblivaeon’s Mission Deck would work for that. Just have the solo mode hero Have a certain number of Mission and/or other hero incap powers, and then adjust the scaling so that H is either 1+([mission/incap cards]/X). X is what would have to be playtested. I think either 1 or 2 (so each extra card is +1H or +.5H) would be a good start.
Another scaling could be having the solo hero start out with certain ongoings or items in play, but with the number of villains that have board wipes, that could be a bit of a gamble. Unless certain hero items are made indestructible (like Legacy’s ring).
Okay, may have to just make a new thread for this… Yeah, I’m used to house ruling stuff. An old gaming group modified D&D 3.5 a LOT… and then 80% of what we did ended up in Pathfinder 1e…
On an unrelated note: Captain Cosmic without a beard is terrifying.
Terrifying is a bit much. It just doesn’t seem right he could be so baby faced.
Edit: I’ll note I’ve gotten more used to it though.
Captain Cosmic with a mustache is awesome, though. Such Dad Power.
I feel like AA is a notch more complex. In EE, you didn’t really have to remember what instruments did what; you could just pull any two songs, and then find the single instrument that triggers the combination of both. Now, all the instruments have weird combinations.
It’s interesting how the villains have changed. I think the least changed is Akash. She was mostly refined and clarified, it seemed. Voss is… well, I guess the intent with him was to up his difficulty to reflect how big a deal he is. He’s nasty, but the general fight seems to be the same (I classified his stuff to an old WoW player as like the boss Patchwork; a beef gate and DPS test, no major swerves). Which is fine. I like the tough but straightforward slug-fest.
Omni’s new works is interesting. Can’t wait to play that one.
I’m looking forward to what the DE version of the Ennead will look like.
This actually blew my mind cause I think AZ is -so- much stronger in DE. Sets up faster, recovers faster, has a built in extra power in his deck so you can thermal shockwave and coolant blast.
The only DE hero i think is weaker then their EE counterpoint is Wraith, whose eyepiece and item acceleration card was OP in EE. And even if she is maybe a little weaker, i think her bag of tricks got much more interesting.
This might be a bad time to point out that Wraith was the first hero I ever played…
Copy just came in today, and I’ve spent a lot of time browsing through the cards but haven’t gotten a game in yet, so this is just a cursory glance.
I think the deck I’m most impressed with the changes is Captain Cosmic. He was my least favorite hero in the old edition, but it looks like all the little things about him that annoyed me have been changed for the better:
Destructive Response activates whenever a construct blows up, instead of just the first time.
Construct Cataclysm doesn’t force you to wipe out all your stuff if it’s played accidently. Its now deals damage based on the constructs in your trash, so you don’t need to feel as bad about your stuff getting destroyed constantly. It’s almost like the old Lightspeed Barrage.
Vitality Conduit and Dynamic Syphon now activate more reliably and don’t need to take damage to be used.
Wounding Buffer won’t hit the target their next to if they hurt themselves (or if their allies hit them).
Conservation of Energy now serves a totally different purpose instead of being a second “blow up all your stuff for some benefit”.
I can’t wait to actually try him out in a match.
Absolute Zero looks more reliable to me, being able to get all his vital equipment out in one turn is a huge boon. The one thing I didn’t like about it was Coolant Blast being nerfed while Thermal Shockwave remained unchanged, since TS was already considered better generally but CB could beat it with teamwork from other heroes using fire damage (especially with Termination AZ - I’ve gotten many 40+ damage CBs with that combo).
However, seeing the full deck now and that AZ can get 2 power uses, TS and CB now feed into each other instead of competing, so I’m not as annoyed by that loss anymore. Also looking forward to trying him out.
Given that X-metal’s preferred cards were Impale and Cold Snap, I get the impression they play AZ differently than you and I play him, which would definitely influence they’re perception of the two versions. 
Not intending anything negative by saying that, just acknowledging that there are a lot of ways to play the heroes, which I think says a lot about the game! 
Yeah, those card’s aren’t what AZ is about to me. But then, neither is Coolant Blast, a card I very rarely use. To me, playing AZ is all about getting all four of his equipment in play, or at least everything but the Cryo Chamber. Then, he just keeps healing and tanking blows until he has enough HP for Thermal Shockwave to be a safe offensive tool. If you know your equipment will be blown up, then either don’t be AZ that game, or be a sad panda and hope that Modular Realignment suffices.
My favorite cards used to be Impale and Cold Snap, too, but it was because AZ’s intended style of play was slow and fragile. Now that he actually works as intended, he doesn’t need them.
The weird thing is: I like playing AZ (or, at least, I did in EE) but I hate characters that have to damaged themselves to be useful which is part of the reason I hate playing Nightmist.