The great thing about Super Scientific Tachyon’s power is that she wins either way: she gets to charge up her big attacks drastically faster than normal even if you don’t play the cards. If you do, well, that’s just more awesome!
My opinions on your opinions aside, I think this is quite a nice writeup you did Pulse.
But we need to chat about your rankings of Redeemer and DW Fixer… 
PW Fanatic takes a top 10 hero and turns her into a goddess of holy destruction.
To rank it below the "nun with a sword" Redeemer Fanatic shows you are clearly an agent of the Host.
Without it though, how often do you deck yourself? Granted, in long games, you might make it that long, but you shuffle everything back together anyways and you get to try again. Not only that SST works on any deck, so if Visionary just placed two cards on the bottom of a deck you really want out for some reason, you can do that. Or you can fish in someone else's deck who has been slow to get something out. In the worst case scenario, you send two cards to the graveyard that have dps potential if either of them are a burst, if you use it on herself.
Personal preference here, but I dislike SST Tachyon and PW Adept compared to their normal cards. Give me control over speed and recklessness.
Also, Greatest and Finest Legacy are easy to rate, the larger your team, and more damage instances you generate the better off you are with Finest Legacy. The smaller your team, and more gimicky your strategy, the better Greastest Legacy is.
Young beats both in my book.
I was waiting for Foote and Skippy to show up w/ their Fanatic debate (Redeemer is still better). Also, I know it seems squishy, but I have played a pretty sizable number of games with PW Tempest and it is just a straight up best base power (especially when you get a opening hand Otherworldly Resiliance). The thing about Tempest is he always has 3-4 cards you want to play on any given turn, especially when setting up, so even doing just one turn of this to get our OW/Hail Storm/Cleansing Downpour/Hurricane/Electrical Storm out. Throw in an Aquatic Correspondance in the chain and we've refilled our hand at the same time.
Also, I almost refuse to play Expat without SST at this point (thank, SOTM:TVG). SST has pretty replaced all other versions of Tachy for me at this point
Not very often, admittedly, but even if I'm putting more bursts into the trash, I still want to get use out of the cards – Blinding Speed, Fleet of Foot, Synaptic Interruption are all cards I would rather have in hand or in play than in the trash. Also, if you're sending cards to the trash then only one of them can be a Burst, the other is something you only get use out of if they're in play or in hand, like her goggles, Lightspeed Barrage, or Pushing the Limits. Having them go directly to trash is a waste, and without someone like Tempest around, they're going to stay there.
I prefer her base power for giving me a choice and letting me accelerate her card draw to another useful one. The only reason I use SST in the app is because it has a 'rewind' button, and even then, 9 times out of ten this just leads to me checking all seven decks and finding the power useless.
"waste going to the trash" -- They were on the bottom of the deck anyway, so they were never going to be useful.
"rather play them" -- Compared to her base power you get just as many cards in your draw/hand and this way you get more cards in your trash. Admittedly, you have a bit more selectivity over _which_ cards get in to your hand.
Tachyon, no matter which version, goes through her deck at least once in most of my games with her. So saying Tachyon would never make use of cards on the bottom of the deck seems like a load of balogna.
I also find all versions of Tachyon to be roughly equal. While SST can empty he deck faster than the other two, she runs the risk of incapping Heroes, destroying Hero Ongoing cards, dealing damage to something that the heroes were avoiding, playing early Light Speed Barrages, and discarding Light Speed Barrage.
Never may have been a wrong word choice, but anecdotal evidence is anecdotal. In the last four games I played with her I didn't get through her deck at all, but those happened to be the situations I was dealt. She does go through her deck quickly though, but if you get to the end of the game, and you have 14 cards left on the bottom, those cards are dead cards. Would they have triggered the use of putting them into play, or would they have been helpful? It depends, but with the high price on action economy I think it's more useful than people give it credit for.
You always have the option of milling another person's deck as well, or using another power if it's available. It's all dependant on the situation obviously, and losing out on a LSB or gibbing an allies ongoing might suck, but it's just as satisfying when you hit a bunch of voss villains with a point of damage and prevent them from dealing damage.
The only real, consistent use I can see for SST is on a hero like Unity, Bunker, AZ or Expatriette who can pull stuff from their trash, but even then, they can't pull all their cards, so that Equipment, Mode, Ongoing or Gun card is staying in the trash.
Tachyon gets the most benefit from having cards put into the trash, sure, but enough of her cards are useful to make SST's power risky at best.
A Lightspeed Barrage on the bottom of the deck is one that'll be used when her trash is full -- the best possible time to use it. A Lightspeed Barrage in the trash will stay in the trash until a reshuffle.
Only one hero deck has a better chance to get a match than Tachyon, which are The Sentinels. Also, very few heroes make use of their trash, so failure to get a match is underwhelming. Sure Research Grant could be used, but I have no reason to do so when there is a chance for something awesome to happen. And yes, it is possible to get some good luck with SST's power, i'm fully aware. My previously post was merely pointing out that I find all versions of Tachyon to be roughly equal, followed by reasons why I find SST to be on equal terms as the other two.
See? It's really not as simple as "this hero is better than that hero". If it was, we'd all be agreeing right now.
That’s not necessarily true either. Most people agree that Michael Jordan is the best basketball player to ever live, however you can make the argument for:
LeBron James
Magic Johnson
Wilt Chamberlain
So on and so forth. Just because people can’t agree on a clear victor, doesn’t mean that there aren’t better characters than others, or the discussion should or shouldn’t happen.
I agree it’s risky, but it all depends on how you value action economy. If you don’t mind taking a risk for free plays, than SST isn’t for you. However, the benefit of getting two turns (or one with her assuming she has Pushing the Limits or HUD Goggles out) is a huge advantage that is hard to pass up in my opinion.
But how do you define "best basketball player"? And how do you objectively assess "best SotM hero"?
I still insist that it depends on too many factors to be able to categorically state that this hero is better than that one.
Most people will ask “If you’re picking first in a fantasy draft of all the players, who do you take first?”. Of course, that is going to depend somewhat on personal preference, but generally you will get the same answer.
You can do these like judge action economy, win/loss percentages, the number of villains you would take them against, card advantage, damage output, damage mitigation, and probably a slew of other statistics to determine who you would take.
I’m not sure you can divide the total number of hero decks by any nice amount, but if a hero deck was taken and couldn’t be used by anyone else, and the said “You will be fighting 10 random villains, select your character”[*] you probably have some idea who you would take first. If you beat all 10 villains and you received a million dollars, would that change who you picked?
[*] This is assuming people are trying to get through all 10 villains and just not picking randos (although there is nothing wrong with that, I do it quite often and is my preferred playing style).
Of all the sports you could have picked, I'd argue that basketball is the worst example you could have used. The reason is that every player in basketball has effectively the same position. Some players might be better some aspects, and may speciallize, but they're all doing fundementally the same thing (compared with football, baseball, or soccer, where you have kickers and pitchers and goalies, etc). Whereas in SotM, each hero has their own unique abilities.
For every hero, there is at least one situation where you would prefer to have that hero above all others. That's not something you can say about every basketball player (even every professional basketball player). Which is why agreeing on hero rankings is so much more difficult than agreeing on basketball rankings.
Yeah, it's more like asking, "Who's the best hockey player, Scott Stevens or Martin Brodeur?"
It's still fun to read and debate on. Minding that we don't get into a straight up trolling situation.
1. So I'll limit replies to people who are actually talking about the list rather than debating the right of said list to exist. If you are that against this type of list, just don't read it. Very simple. And the point isn't agreement, it's perspective and discussion... on a message board.
2. Powerhound - I’ve never tried original Nightmist that way. I’ll give her a shot on game night this week. I get that heroes can die with TLT out, but they just tend not to. When heroes can optimize with that much extra card draw, villains are in trouble. I know Guise has cards that work around those issues, but, perhaps through variance, I just don’t see those enough. Master of Magic mitigates her own self-damage, but, in my experience, often leaves her behind on enemy damage. This is also the one card I don’t own (don’t ask), so I’ve played it least. I’ll try more on the ap. Parse could use a tank, I guess, but I very rarely feel the need for a tank. If everyone else works well enough, tanks tend to be extra not needed. We basically agree on the Wraiths.
3.Tachyon conversation. I don’t like base Tachyon. I love control and TLT allows me to best benefit the team. SST best allows me to play an individual game. Core Tachyon does neither of those as well, so I pretty much always now pick one of the other two. I think the huge team benefit of TLT makes her better than SST. It really is play style, but to those who think SST doesn't work, I strongly urge you to try her more.
4. Foote - Why should Redeemer or DW Fixer be higher? I like both a lot, but am fine with them where they are.
5. Skippy - I LOVE the PW as a group, but I feel I have to be a bit more careful in team construction with PW Fanatic than I like, since I really enjoy playing random. I also don’t think PW Adept is really random. He really has no cards he doesn’t want to play and that extra play really just gives him more options. Young is great, but I can usually get more than 3 bonus damage out of Core Legacy or set up an abusive combo with AG. That leaves Young a bit behind.
6. CMS - I don’t like PW Tempest. There are too many games where he doesn’t see another power quickly enough and I end up hitting myself a bunch more than is good. Tempest dies a lot as is, so this doesn’t help. Glad you like him though.