Playing New Villians "Blind"

With the delivery of all the kickstarter goodies, I had a total of 16 new villians to face for the first time. I decided I would play each of them "blind" the first time.  That is to say, I would not look through their deck or at the flipped side of the card. I still have several yet to play, but I was curious if anyone else likes to do this. It feels more thematic to me as the heroes first face off against an unknown villian they shouldn't know anything about them. Most of my games are setup randomly so I have several times gotten completely wiped by an inept team of heroes ill-equipped for that villian (La Capitan, I am looking at you), but it has been pretty exciting to be suprised every round. 

Spiff has a great randomizer on his site, but I agree. I introduced the game to a new player tonight so I let him choose the villain and all characers for all players tonight, since he has no clue who is who and what they do. Randomness is pretty exciting although some of the high level characters do require some planning, so as long as you are ready to lose some games and call that a good time had by all (your group dont take everything personally) then it is for the best.

i never look through a deck before using it (or even after using it).  For example, it was some 20+ plays with Fanatic before I ever saw (or knew about!) her (whatever the name of that card was that does damage equal to the amount of damage she'd taken).

same with villains and environments, etc.  it adds to my own level of surprise and enjoyment and so that works for me.

 

I'm pretty much the exact opposite:  I'm a fiend for spoilers, and I read and flip through everything before playing.

For me, I get enjoyment out of reading the fluff, checking out all the neat things cards do on their own, and enjoying the art.  I don't really strategize or put together combos, as I have trouble visualizing that outside of play.  It took me numerous playthroughs (and reading the Flamethrower guides) to fully grok Fanatic and Absolute Zero, despite reading through their decks multiple times.

I generally sift through each deck while putting it into the box for the first time, mostly looking at the art and reading the quotes and issues on the bottom. Every so often, if I'm particularly piqued, I will read the actual game text, but I try not to read every card before actually playing the character or villain. Each deck should have some little surprise for me until they become a staple in my box. I try to read fewer hero cards than villain, mostly because I am more likely to use the same hero a few times in a night than to fight the same villain.

I have pretty much the same situation as Blossercubbles.  I was a somewhat late adopter so my first purchase was the EE kickstarter with both expansions.  I read through each of the hero decks, but my game text reading comprehension is apparently quite low and I don't really retain much unless I'm actually playing the cards.  I still haven't looked through the decks of any of the first 13 villains save Citizen Dawn which made for a few epic games this weekend against Apostate and Ambuscade when I had absolutely no idea what to expect.  Same goes for environment decks.

I read through all the ST decks as I unpacked them, but again I won't retain most of what I read until I play a few times.  The reason I like doing it this way is that the people I play with don't own the game and if I'm in the same boat as they are as far as what is coming up next, I don't have to feel like I need to assume a leadership role at the table just because I own the game.  It makes for a much better real-life group dynamic I feel, plus some of my gaming buddies know some hero decks better than I do giving them a sense of ownership over the characters.

P.S.  As I type this I'm just thinking how incredibly awesome this game is and what an exciting social experience it provides. 

i had made this topic thinking specifically about villains, but now that I think about it I never look at the hero or environment decks either. 

I like to play the hero, villain, and environments "blind" when I first get them.  I will flip through the decks to look at the artwork, but I try not to look at the text if possible.  To me, it's like playing a video game without a strategy guide.  I prefer that, I think it makes it more fun to try and figure things out on your own.  It also adds some difficulty and I see why some people would feel differently, but I think that variety is what makes gaming great. 

Although with a quick look at the statistics forum, maybe I need to do some reading up on Akash'bhuta.  She is statistically the easiest villain, yet I've only been able to beat her once in 5 plays, marking my third worst percentage behind the Chairman (only villain I haven't beaten) and the Matriarch.  I also use random select for all solo plays so I guess that adds some to the difficulty too.  Either way, great fun!

I look through the decks as I sleeve them, but I mostly focus on the art/thematic feel of the deck. I dont really read the actual game text on most cards, but i will read one if it has a type that is unique to the character (bunker's mode cards for example). I dont look for combo's, and i rarely retain much more then a general idea of a few concepts for the character. The environ cards I dont even look at until I play them, I sleeve them looking at the back side or have someone else do it. 

Being a playtester, it's impossible for me to avoid looking at gameplay text when it first comes out. So I go ahead and read the cards for the heroes so I can get a general strategy. I don't like the idea of actually playing as a character I know nothing about.

But I do play blind for the villains. When we get playtesting PDFs for the villains (and environments), I cut them out right away without looking and play them with no knowledge of their capabilities.

 

 

make sure you're remembering that its Environment /targets/ and villain /targets/ that her text triggers off of - IE the card has HP (in other words, for gods sake do not play her in The Final Wasteland!!!)  – i made the mistake in my first 2 solo games of thinking it said Environement /card/ and Villain /card/ so i had literally 3 or 4 cards being played every friggin turn. It was brutal.

I'm much the same as some other people here - when I was unwrapping the cards and putting them into the box for the first time I kind of had a cursory look at some of them, looking at the pics and, in some cases, the fluff text. But I didn't really read specifics - to me it's just a load of numbers and stuff until I actually get the card come up in a game and can translate it into "Okay, what happens now?". I like to keep stuff a surprise so I can't go "Ugh I don't want to fight this villain first - they have loads of stuff destruction" or whatever. Hero decks I learn as I play them. So I need to play Fanatic some more because I still don't even know the names of most of the cards in her deck :P.

 

This is how I play all the time…playing the villains "blind" as well as using the randomizer. When playing with friends we picked heroes and I was paralyzed because I never do that.

I wouldn't recommend Silver Gulch either. Won but barely. Did not know what I was in for playing that one. The joys of "blind" play. 

As I mentioned I try not to read through the villain deck before facing them. I fought Miss Information first. It was weird not having any targets to attack. We kind of hung out while she destroyed our stuff. Once she finally flipped we wailed on her. But, that was standard mode. Afterward I tried advanced on my own and she owned. It wasn't even close. I think her advanced mode makes sense since she knows the heroes attacks and so she knows how to avoid them.

Next I tried Kismet on advanced and I was wondering if she ever wins. It wasn't like Ms. Info where her advanced and a little luck helped. I felt like as long as we flipped Kismet each round she couldn't do anything.

Then we tried the Dreamer blind and the world came crashing down. Didn't even get past phase 1 (flipping her). Started the game with 2 Whipicorns and the Dark Legacy guy. We couldn't hit anything. The 2HP Treacherous Ape stayed out for like 5 turns.

Still haven't tried La Capitan or Iron Legacy. I'm still recovering from the Dreamer fight.

Lol...we got our arses handed to us on a plate by Kismet (think we had a bit of a lack of ongoing destruction, which didn't help), but have beaten the Dreamer with little major difficulty every time (think we've done her three times now). Miss Information has had her arse kicked twice, on neither occasion proving a particularly major hassle - neither she nor the Dreamer have beaten us so far. La Capitan we've faced once and beaten. Iron Legacy's been beaten once and has defeated us twice. Ambuscade, also new to us, has been faced and beaten twice.

So I have now faced each villain except for the promo Baron Blade and Omnitron and my record is 9-9.  We had Miss Information down to 1 HP before she KO'd our last hero, closest we've come to a win before losing.

 

Edit: Meant to say 9-9 when facing blind.

I usually look and read through the cards lore text and admire the art. Barely paying attention, and since by the time I play the villan I barely remember what its all about.

(ie. Looked through la Captain's deck and all I remember was it had a ton of crew.) Until I played I did not know how brutal it could be towards hero that require setup versus those that do not.

 

Though reading Iron Legacy's lore sort of gave an idea of what he did since a lot of the cards were similar.

 

TLDR. Basically reading each card by the themselves is simple, seeing them interact with each other is the interesting part.

Played La Capitan advanced blind. We won, but I could see how things could get out of hand fast. Even though I've been avoiding spoilers I did read somewhere that her oversize card has a typo. If played as written the oversized advanced La Capitan is nigh indestructible. We played the way her small cards say.

I've played all my heroes/villains/environments blind so far. Just the other day, I saw a new card in Realm of Discord that I've never encountered before. It was just awesome. Keeps the game fresh. For example, I thought Apostate was easy until I encountered Corrupted Effigy and Orb of Delirium together during my 3rd or 4th game.