Iron Legacy woes

Preface: This post got a lot longer than I was expecting it to. It started out as a simple question asking for strategy, then turned into a bit of analysis and possible houseruling. I hope it's worth the read.

Iron Legacy is maybe the most flavorful and compelling villain out there. Classic story of a hero turned bad, nearly every card referencing one of Legacy's classic cards, chock full of ongoings just like the original, flavor text that might just make you get a serious case of the feels . . .

But he's kind of broken.

If Iron Legacy was just hard, I could deal with it. What's the fun of a game like Sentinels if you never felt pushed to your absolute limits? My problem isn't just that he's difficult, it's that he's swingy. Basically, this is how every game of mine against him seems to go: Set up cards, draw heroes' hands. If he gets the wrong ongoings and you don't have proper destruction, you're going to be giblets on the sidewalk. If you get what you need right off the bat, his regime will be at an end rather speedily.

Of course, we're talking about a card game, so obviously randomness is always going to be a factor. But I can't shake the feeling when I'm playing him that I'm just playing out a foregone conclusion.

Here's a concrete example: Using Spiff's Randomizer, I ended up with a team of Absolute Zero, Bunker, and Wraith. All three are nemeses of the armored madman, so I already didn't have high hopes. IL draws two Armored Fortitude and one Final Evolution. None of the heroes end up with any ongoing destruction. That's pretty much game right there, but I ride it out. By the time Wraith gasped her last breath, I had only managed to destroy a single ongoing, and dealt 0 damage to Iron Legacy. Zero. Damage.

By contrast, in another game I had Tempest who had all the right things off the bat. Ball Lightning, an Into the Stratosphere or two, and Iron Legacy was locked down, rode hard, and put away wet.

I don't want this to turn into a thread about hero strengths and weaknesses. Obviously Bunker and AbZero are not "generally" considered top-tier heroes, and they both require a significant amount of setup that Iron Legacy will never let you have. Then again, I guess that might be a game design philosophy question: Theoretically, should any set of three to five heroes be able to defeat any villain? Even one who's a 4 difficulty? I don't know the answer to that.

From the stat sheets, Iron Legacy is far and away the most deadly of the villains. Only about a 50% win ratio. But again, that's not the problem for me. If every game was a hard-fought battle that only resulted in a win half of the time, I wouldn't mind that at all. It's the distinct feeling of inevitability one way or another.

What's the best way to deal with the issues I've laid out above? Obviously, starting him out with fewer ongoings would be a straight nerf and likely just result in a boring match. What about starting him with one less ongoing but doubling his hit points? Or starting him with a specific set of ongoings (damage increase, damage reduction, one other)? Or reducing his base power's damage and increasing his hitpoints so the game lasts longer?

What do you guys think? I'm definitely open to the idea that I'm just not playing well enough, or that I haven't played enough to get a good idea of how things really are. What are your experiences with Iron Legacy?

I don't think of Iron Legacy's game as broken.  While 95% of them will end swiftly, within about 3 to 5 turns tops, I think of that as a feature.  You can have a good, exciting, close game, and have it last less than 30 minutes, and it's a blast of raw power and exhilarating fun.  (Depending, I suppose, on how fun you find getting your skull smashed in... I love it.)

I think I could stack the decks to where any three heroes could beat Legacy, even on advanced.  Which means it is, at least theoretically, possible to beat him with any heroes.  I agree with something one of the designers said somewhere; Iron Legacy, the Chairman, and the Matriarch are all on a relatively even level of difficulty, pursuant to the hero combinations you have and the specific draws.  I think Iron Legacy's win rate might slow down a bit once people learn how to fight him, but you're right in that he's a little swingy.  I do not think every set of heroes can beat every draw.

It doesn't sound like you need strategy help, though.  Bring ongoing destruction, and smack him down hard and fast.  That's pretty much it.  If you left your ongoing destruction in your other hero pants, you're in for some trouble indeed.  If you're playing advanced, there's more nuance to it - basically, reduce him from 21 to 0 in one turn, and only let him flip if you need more time to accomplish this.  (He attacks fewer targets on his flip side.)

Best advice is the stall long enough to just crush him in one round. He is tough no doubt, but totally beatable. For instance, in the G+ hangout the other day, I hit IL for 34 damage with an Omni Cannon blast. Full health to dead (had some help from a meteor storm, but a wins a win). I mean even Baron Blade has his good games. Try and play more games with him see if you cant find some good tactics. Stalling works best for me.

And remember kids, if you dont bring ongoing destruction to fight Iron Legacy

Best advice is the stall long enough to just crush him in one round. He is tough no doubt, but totally beatable. For instance, in the G+ hangout the other day, I hit IL for 34 damage with an Omni Cannon blast. Full health to dead (had some help from a meteor storm, but a wins a win). I mean even Baron Blade has his good games. Try and play more games with him see if you cant find some good tactics. Stalling works best for me.

If you're gonna tell that story, tell it right. We were all below 5 hp and were gonna die (save visionary who cocooned) and the environment saved our butts hard. It took, what, 10 turns?

I kind of agree with Celette here. Last time I fought IR was in a G+ and we managed to defeat him in Rook City. Of course we were only able to do so with the help of Visionary's Twist the Ether and Absolute Zero Mumbo Jumbo, and Legacy's Next Evolution and Lead From the Front Razzmatazz. I feel that the only way to beat him is to exploit those combos. Sure, you feel clever for a while, but it feels less honorable. It also took a really long time, as we were stuck in a stalemate so we could destroy ongoings (Dark Visionary needed to scry the Villan deck).

 

Although Flamethrower has a point in that IR games usually are fast. I'm torn; part of me beleives that IR is supposed to be hard, and that's okay, but I also don't want to rely on broken combos to be the only way to beat him. Just my thoughts. This may go away if you play him on advaced though, perhaps. 

I think Angry Paul is probably my favorite of the Rank 4 villains. For one thing, games with him don't last a depressingly long amount of time. I also like him thematically, and so unlike the Matriarch, I'm never asking myself why this particular villain is so ridiculously hard. I like the Chairman, but there can be a lot of things to keep track of with the Organization. Angry Paul is just simple, fast paced brutality.

If you want to address the feeling that he is two swingy I have a few ideas:

1. You could start with one less random ongoing, and then add one of your choosing.

2.You could divide the ongoings into "Hard" and "Easy" catagories and take your start up randomly with and even amount from each.

 

This would still give a random set up but it would smooth out the starting situation.  Just a couple ideas.

For what it's worth, I remember a lot of playtesters testing Iron Legacy against the Freedom Six and saying that they felt he wasn't tough enough and wanted him to be harder.  I always found it strange that there was so much playtesting in a format that isn't technically supported by SotM, and less three-man Advanced mode fights against him with characters like Mister Fixer, Ra, Haka, or some other three-combo group that had little to no Ongoing destruction.

Thematically, I'm not that disappointed that Angry Paul is so tough.  I do think, however, that there are times he seems to get a bit silly.

See, I think there was also a lot of testing with a three-man advanced group with no ongoing destruction - it was the All-Legacy fight, which isn't supported either!

Anyway, I think he arrived at a good level of difficulty.  His fight wasn't intended to be anything other than a quick, brutal slugfest.  Taking advantage of broken combos simply isn't the only way to beat him.

Touche.  I definitely don't find him to be unreasonable given his thematic weight and incredible powerset, but I have had quite a few games where all of the heroes were downed except for poor Visionary, trembling in her TK Cocoon.

So, maybe writing a long post and then going on a weekend trip isn't the best way to have a real discussion. Whoops!

I guess maybe I'm focusing too much on the couple of games where I was literally incapable of doing anything other than watching my heroes drop one-by-one. I'm all for a fast slugfest that comes down to the wire and could go either way, but it's that feeling of ridiculous, overwhelming impotence that makes the game a lot less fun for me.

I had a similar thing happen with Advanced Voss (of all villains) where I randomized and ended up with CR and Fanatic and . . . someone else. Regardless, the DR basically neutered me from the beginning and I went down like a chump. Maybe I was more okay with that because it felt like a fluke, where with IL it happens a lot more often.

I think I'll give him a whirl with a standardized set of ongoings and see how that plays. Any suggestions on what would make a reasonably balanced start? I'm not trying to make it easy, just want to smooth out the bumps.

Chrono against advanced Voss? I just cringed so hard that my face might just stay that way

I just dug through the tracker to figure out who the third hero was. Yeah, it was AA. Might have been handy if he had his damage boosts, but as it was it just meant nobody was doing any damage whatsoever. Unpleasant.

Its not as bad as people say.  I had a CR vs Advanced Voss not long ago and he contributed plenty.  His free kill of a target with 4 or few hp was nice (more than once) and when Voss flipped it was go time.  He just can't be your ONLY damage dealer and he does fine.

Had a nasty game against Iron Legacy the other day, the first game we've ever had in which we just had to give up and not actually finish. Iron Lgacy started with one Demoralising Presence and two copies of Galvanised. He later got out a second Demoralising Presence (though I think this got destroyed), a Final Evolution, and two Superhuman Redirections. Two members of the team, Tempest and Team Leader Tachyon, unfortunately got smished into an unpleasant little pile of mess within a few rounds, leaving the only surviving hero, Eternal Haka, to...well, not do very much. He was surviving just fine, as he had a Ta Moko out (reducing the damage he'd deal himself from Demoralising Presence) and was getting melée immunity from the incapacitated Tempest. But he couldn't save up for a big whammy (Haka of Battle) because the Superhuman Redirection would have just redirected it to himself - he'd have been immune but Iron Legacy would have taken no damage either. The environment was no help as it was Rook City. Basically with no ongoing destruction (since the heroes who could do that had been taken down) and Haka's immunities the way they were, it was basically a stalemate. I suppose the environment might have eventually taken Haka down if we'd left it long enough (Toxic Sludge) but then, with his card draw and stuff like Haka of Restoration and Vitality Surge he could probably have continued to stay alive pretty easily.

I don’t know if anyone is still interested in this topic (this is pretty much the only search result that discussed it to any extent), but I’ve come up with a couple possible house rules.

  1. All of Iron Legacy’s ongoing cards are limited.
  2. Iron Legacy does one less damage than indicated.

I need to test it a bit more, but initial results look promising. Visionary, Ra, and Absolute Zero managed to beat him on Mars after a lengthy game. If I hadn’t gotten the cards I did (namely Twist the Ether and Flesh of the Sun God), he would have kicked my ass, but not as quickly. With the house rules, I needed luck of the draw AND strategy to beat him, and I think that makes him what he should be: A villain that’s hard to beat, not a swing.

If all of his ongoings are limited when a copy comes out during the villain turn is that just a null turn for him?  What about during his setup?