Omnitron disappoints me. I like the concept, but the execution is really uneven, more so than any of the other villains to date. Most of the games I’ve seen Omnitron played, it gets crushed in short order. When it does win, it’s usually because of Electro-Pulse Explosive going boom, often right after Sedative Flechettes went off. Sometimes Technological Singularity subs for Sedative Flechettes if the gadget heroes are in play, but it’s always two of those three, never drones or components delivering the real damage. That’s not so good considering what most of the deck is made up of, and it’s pretty clear where the problems are:
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Drones aren’t good enough. They’re nasty in large numbers, yes, but they die like flies, and unlike Dawn’s citizens or Voss’ minions, there’s no mechanic encouraging you not to slaughter them as fast as possible. Omnitron will probably return one wreck to play ever few turns and play more at fair clip, but I’ve never seen more than three make it into play at one time, even after Terraforming flipped three cards. No villain plays cards faster, but they still don’t come out fast enough to benefit much from their collective boost abilities.
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Components are way too fragile. Doing a lousy seven points in an entire round destroys all of them at once, and damages the villain at the same time. The only one that generally gets to score damage is the Interpolation Beam, since none of the others can fire the turn they enter play. Worse, they increasingly clutter your trash, and having the factory rebuild one instead of a drone every other turn is an utter waste unless it’s an Interpolation Beam - and even those are no great prize.
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Electro-Pulse Explosive produces crazy swings in the game. Catch the heroes on a turn where they can’t produce much damage and it can easily hit everyone for 10 damage or more. That’s pretty awful, but what makes it nutty is the fact that the “explosive” doesn’t go away after use - you’ve still got to deal with next turn or it zaps you again. That’s not a bomb no matter what Wraith calls it.
A few suggestions for anyone else finding themselves similarly unhappy with Omnitron’s deck:
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Add the following text to all Drone cards: “When this card comes into play, draw the next card of the villain deck. If the card is a drone, put it into play, otherwise put it into the villain trash.” Drones are only effective in real numbers, and this change will help get them into play faster. It also fits the overall theme of the deck, which is speed, speed, speed when it comes to playing cards.
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Remove the “destroy this card” text block from all Component cards. Add the following text to both sides of Omnitron’s character card: “Destroy one component card each round that Omnitron takes 7 or more damage.” The heroes can only destroy one component card for “free” each round now - if they want to wreck more, they’ll have to use Ongoing-card destruction effects. They still may not get to fire very often, but they also won’t clutter the trash and block drone rebuilds as much, and keeping them from shooting should burn some hero cards.
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Add the following to the end of the text currently on Electro-Pulse Explosive: “Destroy this card.” It’s a freaking bomb. It only goes off once. Also add: “Any hero may skip their turn to deal 5 lightning damage to this card.” This gives the players a way to disarm the bomb even if they’re caught short on damage output - like the dreaded 1st turn E-PE flop. What kind of hero doesn’t know how to disarm a bomb? You’re still going to hate life if two of them come up at once, but it’s better than the current situation, where a whole team could lose 30 HP on villain turn two.
With these changes in play, I’d also advise doing the following relatively minor nerfs:
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Change Sedative Flechettes to damage 3 rather than 5. With drones and components working better, the extra damge just isn’t needed.
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Change Technological Singularity to damage X+1, where X = number of equipment cards destroyed by the card. This shafts the gadgeteers quite a bit less without reducing the damage for everyone else by much. They really just don’t deserve the abuse, especially with all those drones running around and all their damaging equipment falling into the singularity.
If you institute some or all of these, I think you’ll find you’re getting a better game experience. I know I’ve been happier with them. Try adopting the whole package at first, and then selectively dropping or modding anything that seems to work too badly.
