So, I've been thinking for quite some time about pairing a single hero with a villain at an appropriate location (or random if no location is really appropriate) with H = 1 to see which heroes can stand up to his villain on his own. I know many people say that H must be between 3 and 5, and having it assigned to anything else (or, anything less than 3) is equivilant to strangling a tiny kitten underwater. However, my two arguments are that it's a single hero, and only a single turn until that hero gets double teamed by two turns of both an environment and a villain, and that I'm not necessarily trying to balance a game, but rather I'm deriving fun out of researching what will happen. Some pairs might give the hero a small fighting chance with H as high as 4, but I'd say there are likely quite a few heroes when, by themselves, would still be an always loose with H as low as -4.
In any case, a couple weekends ago, I finally started this. I didn't record the nitty gritty details about what happened, but I decided to start with the obvious start. I had Legacy vs Baron Blade at Megalopolis. Also, the value of H almost doesn't matter, as only two different cards utilize it (Slash and Burn and Baron Blade, flipside). Also, Slash and Burn with H = 1 against a single hero nemesis at base is 6 points of damage, which is still rather harsh.
I ended up playing three games. First with Legacy, and second with Legacy promo. The third, I chose to team them up (while upping H to 2); however, given that I only have a single deck, I decided to share a single deck, play area, trash, and hand (more detail on how I had this work later, although I do feel now that is awfully over powered).
The first game was an embarrasing loss. While the quickness of the loss I chalk up to luck, I still don't think he's cut out to win. The definate loss was known with the first card being played was a second Mobile Defense Platform. Legacy, as himself, has very small amount of cards allowing himself to deal any actual damage, and with no split damage, powering through two defense platforms is nearly impossible. Galvanize is mostly useless when by himself, especially without the Legacy Ring. Really, it appears the best hope for Legacy is to hope for Motivational Charge on the first draw, an early legacy ring, and as many damaging one shots as possible. Best is to get Motivational Charge played before playing one shots (assuming you have Motivational Charge at the time) so that you can get the most use of the power phases you have, and it gives you some protection from the damage you'll take with it's 1 HP regain. The second thing that basically drew out the quick game over is the environment putting out the cards not allowing one to use powers, play cards, or draw cards, and most of the environment cards requiring a discard to remove. Falling Monorail actually becomes a nice bonus when Danger Sense is out.
The second game was a loss, but at least went down fighting. While Galvanize is rather useless with one hero, Atomic Glare is very good. Legacy ended up actually damaging Baron Blade, but I believe only half way before being defeated. I'd assume that playing quite a few games might actually turn out one victory.
The third game I had Legacy followed by Legacy Promo (taking advantage of Galvanize on the first round). I only had a single deck, so both characters shared all cards. Any one shots that mentioned Legacy doing something would only apply for the Legacy of that turn. Also, any lingering cards that mentioned Legacy when the card entered play would only apply for the Legacy of that turn. When a card already in play had it's power used, it also would only apply to that Legacy. Any card that altered stats (such as increasing or reducing damage dealt or taken) applied to both at all times. Any lingering card that had any reactions to an event involving a Legacy would, for the duration of that reaction, only apply to that Legacy, but would trigger for either Legacy. If a card required all players to discard cards, the same hand would have to discard cards for both heroes. (In most cases, it was all players discarding one card, this meant the single hand had to discard two cards to make up for the two heroes.) This also meant that when all players were to draw cards, the single hand would draw for both heroes as well. In this match up, H was increased to 2 for the team of two heroes. With the early draw of Motivational Charge and Legacy Ring, the typical play was for Legacy to play whatever card was best at the time, then Galvanize, and, when the Legacy Ring was in play, to use Motivational Charge, and then for Legacy promo to play a damage dealing one shot, use Atomic Glare, and, when Legacy Ring was in play, use Motivational Charge. This got the most efficiency in damage dealing, and worked fairly well. The environment became simple to deal with. Also, except for one round on Baron Blade flip side, H never came up. It was rather close though, with both Legacy at 4 HP or so remaining.
When I get around to it, I believe next I'll try Tempest vs Voss at Mars, followed then by Ra vs The Ennead at the Tomb (can Ra even survive at H > 1?).
(Also, a thought I had, especially for those who consider less than 3 H as pure blasphemy, instead of labeling H as being equal to the number of heroes playing the game, have H equal the number of hero turns per round. Thus, having two heroes who take to turns per round would have H = 4, and a single hero who takes three turns per round have H = 3. I'm not sure how balanced it is, but it might work.)
