Whether or not I can do that depends on what drugs come out in which order. I would say though that with Spite, the most satisfying victories are the ones where you kill him with SafeHouse damage. I also think Spite is easier with three or four heroes. When H equals three, damage reduction makes killing him before he flips much easier.
I still enjoy it.
Challenge Spite was cool, but then I don't seem to have much problem with Spite, probably small sample card luck, but he rarely flips for us, and when he does he doesn't last long. Of course we do a lot of (H)=3, and he seems to scale nastily.
That is exactly why I find Spite, Matriarch, and The Organization to be spectacularly disappointing villains.
“3/4ths of this expansion’s villains are really fun if you take the same hero in every game and keep two copies of one card in her deck on the field.”
Maybe just cut the need for DR and just make the villains deal less damage so you can have fun with more than Just The Wraith?
Forgive me if I seem to be engaging in histrionics or antagonism, but I truly do not understand the argument “This villain is fun with a very particular strategy offered by a small pool of heroes” being used to try to convey a villain’s design as fun, engaging, and successful.
Strategies to make victory easier are just that.
They aren't arguments that the villain is awesome, just ways to beat them.
Wraith is Spite's nemesis and it is pretty cool to play Wraith and just crush Spite. There are many more ways.
Mr. Fixer is awesome against Spite as well, and Ra, Parse, Tachyon, Scholar, Sky-Scraper, Cosmic, Unity, Expat, they all have ways to work together to crush Spite.
My favorite team for crushing Spite is Fanatic, Visionary, Ra. Frankly because he deserves to be judged and burned.
Out of the 27 currently released full villains, most of them have nothing to negate a double stun bolt beyond wiping out equipment. In fact, off the top of my head, Plague Rat is the only villain to deal irreducible damage on his base card.
Only one villain makes infrared eyepiece dangerous rather than just annoying.
Wraith is easy to use and can be OP, we get it.
Now we return to your regularly schedualled Spite hate.
Setback rocks vs. Spite with Wrong Time and Place and plenty of tokens.
I play Spite regularly, and I often beat him before he flips. Wraith helps, but is not necessary. While I disagree with the punishment for Heroic choices inherent in Spite's deck, I sometimes remind myself that this is a true serial killer and not our flying rat's mad nemesis. The dark nature of the assignment places the heroes in a moral quandry where saving the obvious and immediate victim may cause failure, and the long term threat to go on unabated.
There are a few things to note:
1) Do not bother with victims until he is close to flipping. Take Lost Child, for instance. Take H-1 damage to put under Safe House. Since the damage is done by Spite, Spite now heals H-1. If you just let her die, you take no damage and Spite Heals H, for a whopping 1 point of healing difference, but a lot less damage taken. Only a fool saves the Lost Child. The commonality of Forced Entry means saving anyone is highly questionable. This is non-heroic, but the game punishes choosing to be Heroic in this case. The moral choice for the heroes: save this one victim and let Spite flee the battlefield to kill dozens more while you seek him out again, or focus on the threat and accept that it is Spite that is killing her, not you?
2) Tachyon and others can make him fail to deal damage. Throat jab is not the only card for that purpose. Hoist Chain and Chrono-ranger can also reduce his damage dealt, and consequently his healing. Go with damage reduction heroes, and get that DR out there early. I know damage dealing gets a high priority sometimes, but this is a single target that does lots of instances of damage, so DR is much more effective than normal, especially DR that targets the source. You take less damage and Spite heals less. Time is generally on Spite's side, but some heroes must have a few rounds to get going. Yes, Wraith does this job best (having both "target Damage Reduction", "target deals no damage" cards in her deck as well as Stealth), but you can choose to set her aside and turn it over to those that do it less well.
3) Damage redirection. Spite hitting himself is net 0, but at least you're not dying. It would not be unreasonable to houserule that Spite only heals for damage dealt to hero targets or environment, so hitting himself would do real damage instead of net 0. I play him normal, but I agree with anyone choosing to change him this way.
4) Irreducible hero damage. Omnitron-X and Fixer are great choices. OX is also great due to his damage reduction and feedback damage, while Fixer can redirect. Chrono-ranger can deal irreducible, but he can't do that and reduce Spite's damage dealt at the same time, unless a specific Bounty is in play.
5) PL531 is a boon for some heroes. Omnitron-X loves replaying Slip Through Time. Tachyon can replay Pushing the Limits for no cost. I know Inspiring Presence is a popular one, but Legacy has lots of Ongoings to get into play, so that is often situational. Fixer can take his toolbox back to hand to protect other heroes from losses. Plan for this by choosing the right team, and work together to get the cards in play needed to handle it.
I know a lot of these are not available in the video game yet. Bunker, Omnicannon, Heavy Plating, and Recharge Mode. Consider it.
For those that dislike Spite's normal mode, play his Agent of Gloom promo. It gives good reason to save Victims as fast as you can at start of game. We threw in Rogue Agent Knyfe, who first Turn drew a victim off the bottom of his deck, flipping him with only one drug in a 3 player game, but I've faced 4 drugs at Flip, too. Victims go ignored after flip, since the Safe House punishes the players, so that same disatisfying punishment of Heroism continues as Spite's core theme. Still, you get to be Heroic for a few Rounds.
I like the cost for saving them (heroism isn't free), but it annoys me there's no real penalty for failure to save. A victim flipping should be a bad event period, but failing to save them after the flip ought to be the worst outcome. I simply can't play Spite and not save the victims, so I guess it doens't matter for me in the end.
But when you do save them, and he destroys the safe house and kills them anyway? >:( Then what's the point of saving them? And most of the time I try and save the Good Samaritan, Spite's card kills the Good Samaritan before he gets saved.
I'd love a revised Spite where he has a dedicated victim deck, and safe house loosed H-2 (or H-1) from the Safe House. His double play is one of his many mechnical problems, it's there to get victims out without costing him mayhem, but it doesn't work well.
By "victim flipping" do you mean "victim is put into play"?
Agreed. This is especially so when a victim comes out on the first card and then IMMEDIATELY gets killed by the second card, without the heroes having had any possibility of saving them.
It's especially heart breaking when it's Thiago that gets killed in the first turn. Couldn't even get my free draw.
Yes, as in "you flip over the top card on his deck and it's a victim". It shouldn't make you happy (as a player) to see the serial killer get a victim in his sights 
I just played a game against Spite, where the opening Victim was immediately eaten by On the Prowl, which of course brought out a second victim... which was immediately eaten by a second On the Prowl.
When H=5, If you can't destroy on the prowl, all the victims die.
You're thinking of Collateral Damage. On the Prowl is a one-shot.
Yes, you're correct.
"Flip" is a technical term in this game. It means taking a card that is in play and turning it to the other side of the card (Incap'ed side, second villain form, or to reveal the back typically). Character cards flip, both villain and hero. Wager Master's villain cards can flip. But putting the top card of a deck in play is not "flipping".
There are two ways a card can come into play from the top of a deck. "Play the top card of a deck" and "Reveal the top card of a deck and put into play". Neither of these are "flipping". I know this is pedantic, but using an already defined term for an action that has another defined term to describe it can lead to confusion. "Flipping a victim" does not happen, ever. Inventing terms is not confusing, but often needs clarification regardless of our intent as writers. I invented the term "Quality" in another thread. I did need to explain my specific invention at one point, since at least one person did not understand why I invented it or what I intended by it. Giving a defined term like "flip" a second definition is a different matter entirely. People try to resolve the known definition with the incorrect usage, which leads to confusion and misunderstanding, and a need for clarification. If you want to invent a term for playing a card off the top of the deck, that's fine, but "Flip" is already used for another purpose by the Official Rules and needs to be avoided.
Almost all Villain cards of any deck coming into play are bad for the heroes, with only the magnitude of the effect defining the concern, so a Victim coming into play is not inherently any worse than a Gene-bound Firesworn or Meteor Swarm. Most Victims, if their Safehouse effect is ignored, are just a "Heal Spite by H" card, which is not tragic in any way. Perhaps the designer intended it to mean something more, or maybe he didn't. Either way, it doesn't matter since Spite's deck is settled and this is all that they do.
While I understand the roleplaying aspect of the game, this is not about a child victim or a serial killer. They are just cards with text-based definitions and rules. If the designer wanted me to treat the Victim cards as important and vital in the way a true potential victim of a real murderer would be by the police forces of our real world, then he failed. The cards are not designed that way, and I will not treat them as if they were. I watch the Victim cards go to trash as they are destroyed and then Spite heals a little while i keep important cards in my hand and HP on my character card, and play the game as designed. We cannot, for certain, say anything other than that was intended by the designer, unless he chooses to inform us directly.