I have a regular gaming group and we usually player several games once a week. We have two players who generally always play the same two heroes: Scholar and Nightmist. I do not have a problem with the Nightmist player, his Nightmist has little impact on the game and will switch heroes ocasionally. My problem is the Scholar Player, he knows how to play Scholar. He knows how to play him damn well. I have only seen him die on Scholar if it was a complete wipe, since he can maintain two [Flesh to Iron]s pretty easily. He ONLY plays scholar, rarely have I seen him on other Heroes. He can play them, he just goes with Scholar.
Honestly, I don't think its worthwhile banning the Scholar because of this one player. I do want to mess with him to try to force him off of the Scholar. Our group is planning on fighting all of the Advanced villains in the next few weeks, we already beat (Advanced) La Captain in Rook City. I was wondering if I could get some suggestions about which set-ups hurt Scholar enough to actually be challenged. The La Captain fight was trivalised by a scarificial Omnitron X and Nightmist who allowed their ongoings to be destroyed.
So I was wondering, do you guys have any ideas on making it difficult for Scholar?
In my opinion, it removes a lot of the challenge for us.
Scholar has between: -2 and -6 damage taken
Scholar quickly goes through his deck to get all of his good cards ([Bring what you need], [Keep Moving] and [Know when to hold Fast])
Sits at full hp most of the time
Lets everyone top deck and use powers (with a cost.)
Draws 3 cards a turn, nullifying the cost of [Flesh to Iron]
When you apply this to villains: He sits at full HP (29) with -4 damage taken. Most of the damage I've seen gets dealt to the hero with the Highest Health, which then gets negated by 2x[Flesh to Iron]. Having someone absorb the big hits and boosts everyone else, trivialises a lot of the fights.
Advanced Iron Legacy's damage is irreducible on the front side. Deadline may also be a good fight. Or Wager Master if you don't want the decks to matter a ton.
RAndomize your setups, by that I mean use an actual randomizer to pick the heroes available. Barring that, villains with ongoing destruction like Miss Info, V5, etc, can mess with his setup or advanced IL who does irreducable damage
It is never a good idea to antagonize another player. He is playing something he enjoys, as everyone else in the world does. It is annoying you because you find it boring to see the same thing all the time. It sounds like this player is choosing Scholar less for any obsession with the Scholar's theme or play style, than with an obsession with winning. He believes the Scholar has the highest chance of winning, so plays him. If that's true, then choosing enemies that Scholar handles less well will have him playing a different deck... but only against those enemies. He'll still play the Scholar to win against all others. The success will be short lived.
Trying to change someone that doesn't want to change will only drive that person away from you.
The trick here is to find something else that this player likes. Target that second enjoyment, and promote him playing decks that satisfy the other urges. Scholar has multiple forms, but Naturalist and Sky-Skraper do multi-form a lot better. I don't know the guy... I don't know what else he might like. You'll have to find those other wants and find other decks that will fulfil those urges.
Sounds like a situation where you're going to have to use your own judgement both as to what is important and how to achieve it. If you're not enjoying yourself, seems like you'll need to do something about it. What? Depends on you and the other players. Maybe talking about it will help. Maybe you can all agree that you should find other people to game with. Maybe people's feelings will get hurt.
I hope you find a way for everyone to be happy. If you can't, I hope you stand up for yourself without stepping on anyone else's feelings. If that doesn't work out for some reason, well, you can only do your best. No use beating yourself up about it.
This, he believes that Scholar is overpowered (I am inclined to believe him based off of experience.) He'll pick Scholar into anything with that belief. The one time he died on Scholar in recent memory was against Miss Information in Megapolis. He survived 10+ turns by himself, and finally went down when cards like [Traffic Pile-Up] and [Paparazzi on the Scene] came into play, the incapasitated heroes didn't help much against them.
One thing that might potentially help is bringing a team that will help emphasize the scholar's other strategies.
I love liquid energy scholar, and he works very well with teams that can either give him off turn heals or small damage. (Liquid energy scholar is my term for the combo of the other two forms. Liquid form increases your healing, energy allows you to deal damage based on what you healed). If the problem is he is a static block, then making him a energetic damage dealer will help make things more exciting.
If you do pull some sort of "play something else" move though, bring that challenge to both scholar and nightmist. It's harder to feel targeted if you aren't the only one changing things up.
Play with a villain that destroys a bunch of Ongoins like Iron Legacy or Matriarch, or that deals irreducible like Advanced Plauge Rat, or that deals a bunch of AoE damage like Progeny.
I'll second the recommendation to use a randomizer. You get interesting matchups that you would never try if you're trying to pick the "best" team, and everyone gets exposed to new heroes and combos.
Like a few have said already, IL on advanced might make your friend move to another character...though it would probably only be for that fight. A randomizer is the safest bet as long as your friend doesn't think you are doing it simply to make him change characters.
This is a shame, if he can use the Scholar that well he can probably use other heroes just as well if he would change up his picks.
I actually know exactly how you feel. We have a person in my group that used to always use TLT and Tempest, and now Grandpa Legacy. Playing the same deck is not inherently a bad thing, and finding a character you truly enjoy is wonderful. What I then ask is: has this personTRIED the others out? I find myself rotating between my favorites as well, but I want to at least get a feel for each hero to increase game diversity and learning different strategies. I suppose if your friend isn't getting totally bored from using the same hero over and over, more power to them. But I think mixing it up helps each game feel fresher. And if he/she HAS played all the heroes and still becomes comfortable with Scholar, then I too suggest using a randomizer.
Scholar is by far one of my favorites as well, simply because he can mitigate SO much damage.
I know my group had some tendencies to play the same heroes over and over again. It wasn't bad except that new players often weren't encouraged to join in to our established group. It's hard to go on and on about the variety and options in this game when two or three of the decks are always going to be the same characters...
But that may involve your Nightmist and Scholar player's trying something new. It may help if you just said that you would love to see what other strategies can be implemented with different characters. I have had players who thought they had figured something out by playing heroes that consistently won games for us, but after a while a lot of our players just got tired of the same hero in every single game.
The results didn't always turn out positive, but it may help if you mention that having favorites is cool but you and/or your group would appreciate trying out a few diverse teams rather than having one to two slots always spoken for by the same team. Hopefully they will be flexible and try out new heroes sometimes. There's nothing wrong with favorites, but it can be somewhat stagnant for the table if you always know what half the team will be.
I don’t think there is anyone saying it’s “wrong” to play a single character over and over again. Just like it’s not wrong to only play against Gloomweaver, or never play any other environment than Rook City.
As long as everyone is having fun it’s the “right” way to play. But it sounds like someone playing the same character over and over again in this player’s playgroup is negatively impacting their fun on some level.
That being said, asking that player if the original poster could play The Scholar for a game is a great idea. Well said!