It all began innocuously enough last night, as I was brushing up on the flip sides for the Termi-Nation promos. I noticed that Bunker has the rather unique ability to move an entire deck into its trash - that seemed exotic and strange, and I immediately wondered whether anyone else could do something like that. To spare you all the suspense, they can't really, but in the process of thinking about, one thing led to another, and I ended up with a full list of Incapacitated abilities in order of how often they appear:
One Player May Draw A Card Now (30)
One Hero may use a power now. (25)
One player may play a card now. (22)
Destroy 1 ongoing card. (17)
Destroy 1 Environment Card (6)
Destroy a target with 1 HP (5)
One Hero regains 2 HP. (5)
One Hero Target Regains 1 HP (4)
Select a Hero. Increase the next damage dealt by that hero by 2. (3)
Select a Hero. Reduce the next damage dealt to that hero by 2. (3)
Discard the Top Card of Each Deck. (3)
One player may take a card from their trash into their hand. (2)
Select an Equipment card in a Hero trash. Put it into play. (2)
(I have lumped together abilities which heal any target 1-2 HP with those which specify a "Hero," on the logic that cases where that matters are quite uncommon.)
Then, of course, there are the 45 abilities which show up only once:
Environment Cards cannot be played until the start of your next turn (Elemental Wrath AZ)
Reduce all non-cold damage by 1 until the start of your next turn. (Termi-Nation AZ)
One Target deals itself 1 Cold Damage (Iron AZ)
Put a deck in its trash. (Termi-Nation Bunker)
One player discards 2 cards and draws 2 cards. (Termi-Nation Bunker)
Destroy 1 hero ongoing or equipment card. Play the top 2 cards of that hero's deck. (Termi-Nation Bunker)
One Player puts 1 card from their trash on top of their deck now. (Freedom Six Bunker)
Each Hero regains 1 HP. (Redeemer Fanatic)
Reduce all damage dealt by 2 until the start of your next turn (Eternal Haka)
Reduce damage dealt by Environment Cards by 2 until the start of your next turn. (Base Legacy)
Discard the top card of 1 Deck. (WWII Legacy)
Until the start of your next turn, increase damage dealt by Heroes by 1. (Young Legacy)
Put an Environment Card in play on the bottom of the Environment deck. (Base Ra)
Move a Villain Card from the Villain trash to the top of the Villain Deck. (Horus Ra)
Move the bottom card of a deck to the top of that deck now. (Science Tachyon)
Shuffle a trash into its associated deck. (Team Leader Tachyon)
Heroes are Immune to a damage type of your choice until the start of your next turn. (Base Tempest)
One player may take an Ongoing card from their trash into their hand. (Base Tempest)
Move one Card from the Villain or Environment Trash into Play. (Prime Tempest)
Move 1 Environment card from the Environment Trash to the top of the Environment Deck (Dark Visionary)
Put 1 Ongoing Card on top of its Associated Deck. (Freedom Wraith)
The next time that hero uses a power, that hero also deals 1 target 1 projectile damage. (Base ExPat)
Reduce the next damage dealt to a hero target by 1. (Dark Watch ExPat)
Put a Card in a Trash pile under its associated deck. (Dark Watch Fixer)
Select a damage type. Until the start of your next turn, increase all damage of that type dealt by Hero targets by 1. (Base Adept)
Redirect the next Damage Dealt to a Hero Target to Another Target (Prime Adept)
Destroy a target with 2 or fewer HP. (Kvothe)
Move the top card of a Trash Pile to the top of its associated deck. (Dark Watch Nightmist)
One Hero may deal 1 Target 1 Projectile Damage Now (Base Ranger)
Until the start of your next turn, at the start of each player's turn, they may discard 1 card to play 1 card. (Best Of Ranger)
Select a Target. Reduce Damage dealt to that target by 1 until the start of your next turn. (Omnitron-X)
Each Target Regains 1 HP Now. (Rogue KNYFE)
Reveal the Top Card of a Deck. Put it into Play or Discard it. (Rogue KNYFE)
Hero Targets are immune to damage from Environment Targets until the start of your Turn. (Base Naturalist)
The Environment Target with the highest HP deals each Non-Hero Target 2 Melee damage. (Hunted Naturalist)
One Player may Shuffle their Trash into their Deck now. (Parse)
Reveal the Top card of the Villain Deck, then Replace it. (Parse)
Reveal the top card of a deck. Discard it or put it on the bottom of that deck. (Dark Watch Setback)
Reduce Damage dealt by 1 until the Start of your next Turn. (Base Cosmic)
One Player may Discard 1 Card. If they do, they may Draw 3 Cards (Prime Cosmic)
Until the Start of your Next Turn, Treat this card as a 1 HP Indestructible Target. (Base Sky-Scraper: Giant)
The hero Target with the lowest HP regains 2 hp (Base Unity)
Reduce Damage Dealt to non-character cards by 2 until the start of your next turn. (Termi-Nation Unity)
Destroy a Non-Character Card Device Card (Golem Unity)
Up to 2 Hero Targets regain 1 HP each. (Scholar)
There's some really interesting things there, from the utterly game-defining (Dark Watch Nightmist locking down a villain who only plays 1 card per turn) to the inscrutably cornercase (how often do you REALLY want Dark Watch Fixer to put things on the bottom of a deck?), but here are the biggest ones which jumped out at me:
Has anyone ever used “discard the top card of each deck”? Why? I can't come up with a situation where that's good for the heroes – they're the ones who sometimes stack decks in their favor, not Villains/Environments. Yet it's shown up three times.
You gotta feel bad for Freedom Six Bunker – stuck with an Incap which is strictly worse than normal Bunker's incap (move a card from a Hero's Trash to their Hand/top of deck). Granted, the normal one (which Base Tachyon has, too) is totally absurd, but still.
All Legacies share ⅔ of their abilities: use a Power and draw a Card. The third ability is always unique. Cleverest Legacy fans, take note!
The Tachyons ALMOST duplicate this pattern with Draw a Card - Play a Card - Trash manipulation of some kind, but Super Science Tachyon gets Ongoing destruction instead of card draw. This irks me beyond all reason.
All of regular Visionary's incaps break things (as Dark Visionary cuts loose), and all of Dark Visionary's fix things (as the regular one fights back). That's really cool.
People aren't kidding about Parse's incap abilities – two unique ones, both awful, plus “Draw a card”.
Sky-Scraper is strange. It didn't occur to me until doing this that if she's about to die, she might change form specifically to have the right Incap – probably Large Form, for that lowest-HP tanking. On the other hand, maybe you think it's funnier to go with Normal Form, so that you can boast the one and only Incap side which follows turn sequence: Play, Power, Draw.
Why do two Unitys have an Incaps custom made to protect Golems? Don't they die when she does?
Guise's Incaps are written to be wordy, but are amazingly powerful. I did not include any of them in list (no risk of anyone else having those), but it bears mentioning.
Finally, I'll note that Incap abilities as a concept still strike an odd note with me. I totally respect the desire to let a player keep doing something should she be taken out of the game early, but ever since an early experiment where my friends and I tried to tive a three hero team an extra "half hero" by starting them with Incapacitated Visionary, I've been cautious - there are some Incaps which can totally change the nature of a game as they reliably happen every turn (literally nothing can prevent them outright), and though I've always abstained for flavor reasons, I do somethimes feel the wholly unthematic call to focus fire on one of the heroes in order to unlock a power Incap early on before riding it to victory.