I've played Kismet a few times (all on advanced), but haven't lost. I like balanced games so I enjoy using house rules on weaker villains. (For example, I set H-1 traps in Ambuscade's deck before I start the game.) I realize I need to play her more before I call her weak, but I'd like to know any house rules ideas people have for Kismet. Any rules that playtesters threw out because they were too hard? Alex, (Kismet's designer) do you have any ideas that you wish had been used for her? People seem to get less upset about house ruling villains than heroes since villains already kind of have different difficulty settings. (should we play advanced or not) Thanks for the help.
I haven't lost to Kismet yet either, but I like her just fine. Her deck mechanics are consistent. How difficult she is really dependent on what kind of cards she draws, which is actually very appropriate. If you're not having fun with her, then by all means house rule her, but I don't need all my villains to be Iron Legacy and the Chairman. Just like it's not very fun for every villain to be too easy, if every villains was insanely difficult, the game might become more of a chore than a game. Kismet and Iron Legacy are actually my favorites of the new villains.
She's seemed a little toothless the two times I've fought her. Might have just been lucky draws though, I don't know. She's a 2, so I don't really expect a lot of face stomping. I feel like I need to play her a few more times to figure out if I feel like she's actually toothless *coughGloomweavercough* or if there are more combos I'm just not seeing come up in her cards.
I've actually have had two difficult games with her so far and only 1 of those have a lost. Karmic Disjunction is a really bad card when it comes out and reveals all Jinxes. Plus Lady Luck came into play and we could not get rid of it as a Lucky card was never revealed. I think she is more of Ambuscade level of difficulty rather than GloomWeaver, as Ambuscade can in fact be pretty difficult if he manages to get the right card combos out.
Encountered Lady Luck for the first time last night and that card DOES seem to be a big problem.
You know, had she found any more than one ongoing Jinx the entire game. The one that made a hero discard whenever they dealt damage. And I was the Scholar. So no Jinx, really.
I thought she was a little easy-mode too. I noticed that she never ever seemed to heal from drawing a Lucky card (there aren't that many Lucky cards in the deck) on her front side and was considering changing that to be that she healed for every card in play or something like that. Haven't tried it yet though.
Lady Luck is the card you don't want to see. It becomes very difficult to get rid of her jinxes. If you can't get rid of them, her front side gets very very nasty.
I had one game where I tried to destroy Lady Luck 7 different times. It stayed in play until the end.
she is mostly cake, but just like the Barron, every once in a while she just goes berserk
We've still only fought her once, and we lost. I seem to remember she just ended up with loads of Jinxes out and we never got hold of enough Ongoing destruction to be able to get rid of them.
Nielzabub,
I also don't need all my villains to be Iron Legacy or the Chairman, but it's nice for experienced players to be able to control the difficulty with Advanced. I don't get that with Kismet because when I get together with a group of experienced Sentinels normal mode Kismet is a guaranteed win.
However, I'm not trying to argue whether to house rule her or not because I've already decided to do so with my play group. What I want is suggestions. They don't have to be playtested, but they do have to be interesting.
Ronway,
I agree that she is harder than Gloomweaver and about the same as Ambuscade, but I use house rules for both of them.
Thanks for pointing out Lady Luck. I hadn't seen it except once as her last card.
I just played her on advanced with the house rule that Lady Luck was her first card played. It was really intense. It was exactly the kind of fight I was looking for from her. Visionary tried over and over to get rid of Lady Luck. 2 out of 4 heroes were incapacitated and Tempest only had 1HP left.
I'm not sure my house rule will be for Lady Luck to be her first card, but I think that whatever my group uses it will probably revolve around that card. Otherwise ongoing destruction wipes her out.
Chosing to play Lady Luck first is kind of a...*slowly removes sunglasses"...gamble
I played a 3 hero normal mode game with the house rule that Kismet starts with Lady Luck in play (instead of just being her first card). Once again it was really intense. I probably could have lasted another round or two, but the rule made it so she wasn't a pushover at all.
The first house rule I tried for Kismet was Setup: Reveal cards from the top of the villain deck until H-2 ongoing jinx cards are revealed. Put those into play and shuffle the rest of the revealed cards into the deck.
Kismet never seemed to get anything done without jinxes in play. Even her advanced trait has no effect if she doesn't flip an early jinx. My goal was to make her do far more damage while increasing the chances of playing an extra "lucky" card at the end of the turn. Worked beautifully.
I still won the next two games against this modified kismet (the second game I even tried starting with H-1 jinxes in play), but they felt much more difficult, and were much more rewarding.
That sounds pretty good.
We just fought Kismet again this afternoon…and again, she kicked our arses. I tried playing as EoW Bunker to try and destroy Jinxes…promptly got Jinxed twice within the first couple of rounds, and didn't draw a Mode card until we were all practically dead (in fact, one hero was dead…well, Incapacitated) and using my power would have resulted in my taking about five damage (Jinxes+Talisman in Kismet's possession). The other two heroes were Legacy and Redeemer Fanatic and while both of them managed to do a fair amount of damage to Kismet (she finished the game on about 45hp I think), it wasn't nearly enough to counter the total hammering she ended up giving us. I'm hoping we've just been getting unlucky (oh how appropriate ;)) against her and that at some point we will actually be able to wipe the floor with her. We're going to have a nice Ra-Legacy-whoever versus Akashbhuta-in-Insula-Primalis game later for the fun of actually being able to just destroy stuff without feeling too threatened ;).
I like your idea MalkChocolate. I am a little concerned that in a 5 player game she'll start with 3 in play and that gives her a +3 and with her advanced mode she'll just be insane. With your house rule on advanced on her first turn she'll deal all heroes 4 damage and 3 of the heroes 5 damage. That's a total of 35 damage. That's between a 20% and 25% of the total health of the heroes. That's too much. Then she'll play a card, then maybe play a lucky card, in addition to whatever nastiness the jinxes themselves do.
Okay maybe I've talked myself out of liking your idea. I do agree with you that she needs help with more jinxes in play. I think my official house rule will be she starts with Lady Luck in play. It makes it way harder for her jinxes to be destroyed.
Only game I played against her ended up with 6 jinxes on tempest. Irony is being able to play cards (or use powers) because your damage is so reduced you don't harm yourself tripping on two left feet. That game was a nightmare ongoing destruction just wouldn't come to our hands. We survived cause we kept her flipped and doing cold damage on AZ with twist the ether. Got as low as 4 hp with tempest.