I learned a TON about playing the game from watching the videos from the previous tournaments, and the commentary was great! I'm hoping that there are plans for posting the videos from the PAX East tournament on Youtube.
Any idea when those videos might go up?
Thanks!
You can find them on the Twitch page. The long Saturday video is mistakenly marked as "PAX South" but it really is the first day from East.
Braithwhite does most of the commentary with Christopher on the Saturday video and you can see me for the first two games Saturday and the Finals match from Sunday
Thanks!!
They'll all be up on our YouTube channel soon, too!
I'm watching the PAX East finals, the third game. NEITHER Blade nor Omnitron were banned OR drafted?! Whoa.
It was an awesome finals match. You can bet that teams that do their homework will be looking for answers to Tachyon instead of Truth. Very excited for Gencon!
I'm glad to see with each tournament that the players are watching and growing, for the most part people arent playing defensively anymore and with each tournament people are coming up with great counters for the winning strategies of the last tournament.
Does the visionary ever see play at these tournaments (she never makes it to the stream table, granted I didn't see all of the newest tournament) or is she too much of a liability with her low hp like Unity was in the second finals match?
Also I love how quick that second finals match was.
Visionary was not used at all at PAX East to my knowledge. She requires a pretty specific strategy and team comp if you are going to attempt to use her. Given her low HP and the fact that she probably won't be scoring any incaps herself, youre pigeon-holed into probably taking Decoy and maybe one other die-manipulation power. The manipulation might come in handy once, but in a fast game you might only get one turn at bat (see the East finals) and you kinda have to make it count.
I'd likely take a team like Proletariat/Omnitron/Visionary to try and make her work. Pro can take advantage of her manipulation from almost anywhere because of his clones, and Omnitron would be used to block LoS to Visionary on the wide open map used from PAX East. Omnitron would be a debuffer, and Pro would run his standard 1 defense/overwhelm to set up chain hammers and hopefully be able to keep any kind of offense away from Visionary. It wouldn't be easy. Ambuscade will ruin your day pretty hard.
Visionary was used twice that I know of in PAX South.
Omnitron doesn't block line of sight to my knowledge.
Note that Wrest the Mind also only requires line of sight. Visionary can be an amazing back-field character on open maps. Just watch out for fast movers like Ambuscade, Tachyon, and Swift Bot.
Omnitron raises the "Hex" that he is on by 1 elevation. Yes, he can cause LoS blocks.
Stand corrected.
Well that makes it even worse for Visionary, as you can't ban Tachyon Wraith and Ambuscade all at once. One of them is going to own your face hard. Twist would help vs Tachyon but likely won't save you. Wrest the Mind has fairly very steep cost for how much it can backfire on you, and Foresight is only once per turn for one die (though you can possibly save someone from a big Aimed attack, but it depends on how many high dice they roll).
Decoy is almost a given if you don't wanna get ganked, so maybe you run Demoralize and Decoy? Maybe you run Twist and Foresight if you have Dawn +Truth on the team and take another heavy hitter like Ra or Wraith to debuff their big attackers.
The point is, you need a team built around Visionary and there are other characters that just own her in open space. You have to prop her up if you want her to help your team.
That doesn't block Line of Sight either. But sit down, you're spoiling the view.
Arg! You edited in actual salient points, now my funny line is ruined!
Giving Visionary cover protects against long-ranged Wraith attacks. And she isn't crazy squishy when she has decoy projection and the ability to manipulate die rolls.
She can manipulate a single die most of the time. Wrest the Mind costs a health point and the reroll could very well be worse for you than the one before making it a fairly large gamble.
Cover still doesn't protect you from Ambuscade/Tachyon.
And I agree she is far less squishy with Decoy, but if you must run with Decoy than her ability as a supporter becomes pretty limited considering thats the whole reason shes on the team.
I'm not saying shes bad mind you, but these are the types of considerations teams have to make when deciding who to use in a tournament. You have to build the whole team around her to make the best use of her. I think pairing her up with Truth can allow her to be very good though, but you give up a team spot for someone who could be driving for incaps and scores.
Remember, though, that Foresight removes one good die for the villains and gives one good die to her allies. It by itself can cause an attack to be completely negated. For example: Aimed Fission Blaster at range 6 with only 1 6. Or a dodge that didn't quite roll high enough gaining a 6. She IS squishy but in the games I have run here, she proved to be not nearly as squishy as she appears.
And if you want more control, go for Twist the Ether and be more up-front. Even with just it and Foresight she can be tanky.
You have to prop her up if you want her to help your team.
That is unfortunate, having the player rely on decoy projection and having to be supported by a specific setup to be able to support, I really hope someone can find a way to utilize her.
I would love to see someone try and GenCon. I believe she could be good, but you can't just plug Visionary in any team composition like you can with Dawn or Bunker for instance and expect to be competitive. I think Proletariat would be a great teamate for her
Actually, she's a lot more flexible than she appears, but is incredibly dependant on her team to really maximize everything. Foresight is incredible for ruining people's aimed blasts (or up-close and personal attacks). Levitation makes non-mobile teams happy (use with Proletariat and watch them fly across the mountains!) The decoy is a great defensive card for utterly frustrating anyone dependant on melee combat (against the Operative, the Visionary is probably the most frustrating opponent). Her Demoralize is great for setting opponents up to fail. Since the Maelstrom doesn't target allies (or require line of sight), you can lurk behind buildings and generally lure your opponents out.
Twist the Ether is fantastic for offense or defense, since it can be used for your allies as well as enemies.
Basically, Visionary can be used to wreck just about anyone's carefuly contructed plan and disrupt the field for her allies to follow up on. My favorite thing to do is to rock Foresight and Twist the Ether, and stay behind my allies. It adds up.
I'm pretty bummed no one played Proletariat in any of the videos. I've only used him once and died a horrible death (It was stupid; I had him Overwhelm an exploding Bot without remembering that the Bot was going to explode, and it hit two of his copies), but I really enjoyed his gameplay, and I'd love to see him played at a tournament level with commentary from Chris as to how he could best be played.
At least there was more variety in this tournament than in previous ones. People played Dawn with something other than Citizen Truth! And the Operative showed up! :)