Is anyone else finding Thor to be terrible solo? He doesn’t hit as hard as you'd think Thor should hit. He seems like he is only viable in minion heavy scenarios which kind of sucks. Who wants a hero who you can only play against a couple of the villains you own?

His limited hand size is a huge handicap which isn’t offset by any of his abilities. And his cards are expensive for what they are, compounding how much his hand size hurts. Hammer throw for 3? Seems too much. (Especially since you have to pay for the hammer again next round). For Asgard should be free to be worth it.

defender of the nine realms tends to burn through the encounter deck leading to an early acceleration token. And then you bring out sandman or Loki or a frost giant which probably cost more resources to deal with than the / cards you got.

To top it off: he has Absolutely the hardest nemesis/scheme combo in the game. When family feud comes out it comes out with so much threat it’s unstoppable for a guy with one thwart. One game I had to swing at Loki 5 times to kill him.

at best he’s a decent support character which tells me the designers don’t know who Thor is in the comics. Captain America seems three times as powerful as Thor is in this game.

100% agree, I was so excited about an agro Thor deck...but wow what a let-down compared to other 4 heroes that I have played.

You are right on his card costs, with a small hand size and a higher card cost make him hard to enjoy out of the pack.

For solo and with no modification, he was not very good for me.

Yeah, I am in agreement with you. I think Thor needs a LOT of things to line up to make him playable. Specifically, he has to ramp up with Asgard and two God of Thunders to get his hand rolling comfortably. If you don't have well-timed minions or Defender of the Nine Realms, you may not have the time to spare playing those out, and fall fatally behind. I think he's probably ok in multiplayer (or maybe even great, there), but I haven't had a chance to try it yet.

I think he needed something more to make him tick. I would have liked to see his hammer have 'Action (attack): Exhaust, return this to your hand. Deal 1 damage to an enemy.' Maybe even in place of the +1 damage, if we want to just keep it a sidegrade. This would enable you to throw his hammer for more flexibility in playing out expensive cards when you need to, and give you more incentive to return to Odinson and 'recall' his hammer. Discarding the hammer for a resource and pulling it back to your hand is a great play with him, but you only get to do it once or twice in a game, because Hammer Throw is so hard to pull off (and still have something to play afterwards.) I also wouldn't mind if his God of Thunder wasn't just a Hero Resource. Cap's always Cap, Thor's always Thor even when he's relaxing in Asgard. I guess he does kind of 'power up' with dramatic lightning strikes when he's showing off, though.

Well, I might be a fool, because I quite disagree. Yes, he is probably the first hero you will choose after choosing your scenario, but that doesn't make him terrible, simply special. Yes, he is finicky, but he is great fun when he clicks -- when you play him right. Yes, he is less suited for solo gaming, but then don't play Aggression. Thor is what he is and if your baseline is Captain America, you are setting yourselves for eternal disappointment because no other heroes will play like Cap, who is the epitome of plug and play, so to speak, when you sit down and just be a badass without much thought. I for one don't want another hero like that. Different heroes allow for different styles of play. We're having an unfortunate dearth of scenarios right now, so this probably exacerbates Thor's idiosyncrasies, which will likely seem less suffocating with a bigger card pool in the future. But that does not make him unplayable right now.

In solo, you kind of need to run him as Justice.

He is very strong is multiplayer when he has a partner to handle thwarting. Once he gets setup with Asgard and God of Thunders, he can do a lot of dps. Lady Sif is imo, one of the best allies in game as she is strong and versatile.

I will admit, he is a lot more scenario dependent than I'd like.

I played in a four player Wrecking Crew game earlier this evening where I ran Leadership Cap and another person was running Aggression Thor (other two were Protection Miss Marvel and Justice Spidey) and he was able to use all three Hammer Throws in a single turn. Twice. Thor is definitely iffy solo, but he's insanely powerful once you get him set up. He's kind of like Iron Man that way.

I love the challenge. It's an antidote of sorts to all the complaints about the game's easiness.

@Ascarel really nailed it, IMO.

If you like thematic reasons for things: Thor is a busy guy. You don’t call him unless there’s a big enough problem, or nobody else available. When he arrives at the SHIELD facility that Rhino is robbing, he might do a really good job of beating up Rhino! But do you really expect him to notice that Rhino’s heist is wrapping up over there, while Rhino takes a beating over here?

Hulk will probably be in a somewhat similar boat, honestly. Beating things up really well at the cost of the villain’s schemes advancing too far means they just won’t be great solo, or they’ll be considerably pickier with which scenarios that works okay in. (The one good thing about aggression heroes solo is that they can often stay in Hero mode longer, avoiding scheming.)

Another silver lining is that we should, sooner or later, see another modular encounter set that brings in lots of minions. Currently the best options are Legions of Hydra (which is challenging considering the three Hydra Soldiers all deal an extra encounter card upon defeat), or Masters of Evil (who are all still Jill able with a Hammer Throw, but without as much overkill), but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a minion-centric module that’s on the easier end at some point.

If you really want to play Thor solo against villains without as much minion generation, I’d advise simply building your own modular set using minions from Nemesis sets or other villains.

(Now that I’m thinking about it though... Rhino, Klaw, Risky Business, and I assume Wrecking Crew (I haven’t seen them yet) are the less favorable villains to play him against? Ultron and Mutagen are the ideal scenarios? 2/6 scenarios really isn’t bad, and in no way indicates that 1/3 will continue to be the ratio of minion-heavy scenarios.)

2 hours ago, SpiderMana said:

If you really want to play Thor solo against villains without as much minion generation, I’d advise simply building your own modular set using minions from Nemesis sets or other villains.

Bingo.

But Ultron and Mutagen are indeed the best "vanilla" choices to play him right now, at least solo.

I lost the first 8 games I played with Thor, by that time I had adapted to playing him with a Justice deck that heavily featured Energy Resources. Once I got into the “groove” of Thor and how his deck works I started destroying enemies. I agree he’s a bit specialized, he takes enemies like Klaw, Ultron, and Mutagen Formula, which typically can be nightmares solo and with the right card draw he can decimate them. All in all, he’s definitely not a hero you just pick up and play (at least not in a solo game) and you really have to learn how his combos work but once you get it down I feel he’s a lot of fun.

As a solo player, I'm pretty disappointed with Thor. I haven't wanted to play him again since the day I got him, played a bunch of games and got stomped on.

I'm hoping Black Widow and Doctor Strange are much better for solo play, like Cap was.

1 hour ago, CaffeineAddict said:

As a solo player, I'm pretty disappointed with Thor. I haven't wanted to play him again since the day I got him, played a bunch of games and got stomped on.

I'm hoping Black Widow and Doctor Strange are much better for solo play, like Cap was.

Just don’t expect him to do well against the wrong scenario. Try him out against standard Ultron with his pre-made deck solo; it feels really good. (I think I tried Legions of Hydra with that one but you could do an easier one okay since drones help a lot with card draw.)

I’m 3/3 with Thor solo. First game was the pre-built deck against normal Ultron /w Under Attack. Was the closest game possible ending with 1 health left and 1 threat away from losing.

I then tweaked the deck a bit and played two games against Wrecking Crew (A). Again really, really close games.

He’s rough to play solo, BUT he’s also really interesting to figure out. I’ve had to really stop and think about different lines of play with him and I love that.

So, is he terrible? That depends; if you want a powerful hero deck that damages and thwarts without much brain effort, then yes, he’s horrible. If you want a hero that can hit like a truck, but has trouble with threat management, making games really interesting puzzles, he’s pretty awesome.

Can’t wait to try him multiplayer

I've had quite a bit of success with Leadership and Justice Thor, but I've won with all aspects. I actually won against the Wrecking Crew with Protection Thor. Having said that, I'm only about 30% win rate with him. He takes more work. Other heroes I'm at about 60 to 70% win rate (Captain America, more like 95%). People who complain about the game being too easy, Thor is your man. I usually take about 5 minutes to throw a deck together, Thor may actually need real deck building and testing. I was worried that Thor was going to be boring and OP, but I was wrong. He's different and interesting, you just have to think differently about how you play than any of the other heroes to date.

20 hours ago, Palpster said:

If you want a hero that can hit like a truck, but has trouble with threat management, making games really interesting puzzles, he’s pretty awesome.

In the games I've played so far, he's struggling to "hit like a truck"!

On 3/13/2020 at 8:45 PM, zeromage said:

Is anyone else finding Thor to be terrible solo? He doesn’t hit as hard as you'd think Thor should hit. He seems like he is only viable in minion heavy scenarios which kind of sucks. Who wants a hero who you can only play against a couple of the villains you own?

His limited hand size is a huge handicap which isn’t offset by any of his abilities. And his cards are expensive for what they are, compounding how much his hand size hurts. Hammer throw for 3? Seems too much. (Especially since you have to pay for the hammer again next round). For Asgard should be free to be worth it.

defender of the nine realms tends to burn through the encounter deck leading to an early acceleration token. And then you bring out sandman or Loki or a frost giant which probably cost more resources to deal with than the / cards you got.

To top it off: he has Absolutely the hardest nemesis/scheme combo in the game. When family feud comes out it comes out with so much threat it’s unstoppable for a guy with one thwart. One game I had to swing at Loki 5 times to kill him.

at best he’s a decent support character which tells me the designers don’t know who Thor is in the comics. Captain America seems three times as powerful as Thor is in this game.

For Asgard lets you draw directly into Asgard, which entirely mitigates his early reduced hand size, and that’s before the bonus 2/4 card draw for getting minions. Then he has two resource hero generators, making him able to deal 11 damage (3 basic attack + 8 overkill hammer throw) for one card cost.
That’s really pretty good.

As for the Frost Giants, that’s what Thor’s Lightning Strike is tailor made to counter, ignoring the Tough Status card when Aerial (when Mjolnir is equipped)

Assuming you get “For Asgard” early. But “for Asgard” costs one and then Asgard costs 3, likely costing you at least one turn. A steep early cost to just get equal with the average of other heroes

pulling a frost giant with defender of the nine realms is still a horrible price even with mjolnir and lightning strike. You get two cards....great. But now you use lightning strike and 4 more resources just get rid of the enemy you just drew. It’s a terribly designed card. Sure it deals damage to the villain too, but you also need to have that combo of cards in hand.

if they wanted to To make the game harder they should make harder scenarios, not weaker heroes.

Well, I won't argue that everything needs to be Captain America levels of strong. I don't really want that. But I do know that Ms Marvel never felt overpowered to me, and while she had some work to do to get set up, she never felt as aggressively un-fun to me as Thor has, for solo. At this rate I don't know when I'll play more multiplayer, but if he is fun to play in multi then I don't really mind the state he's in. A hero being niche multiplayer is probably just fine.

1 hour ago, zeromage said:

Assuming you get “For Asgard” early. But “for Asgard” costs one and then Asgard costs 3, likely costing you at least one turn. A steep early cost to just get equal with the average of other heroes

pulling a frost giant with defender of the nine realms is still a horrible price even with mjolnir and lightning strike. You get two cards....great. But now you use lightning strike and 4 more resources just get rid of the enemy you just drew. It’s a terribly designed card. Sure it deals damage to the villain too, but you also need to have that combo of cards in hand.

if they wanted to To make the game harder they should make harder scenarios, not weaker heroes.

Having Asgard in play also reduces your deck size by 1, giving you a leaner deck so that you can cycle into your heavy cards that much faster. Once that’s there, for Asgard let’s you go directly to those sweet sweet allies (Sif, Valkyrie, Heimdall) or other critical cards that maybe got cycled to pay for something else.

I mean, considering it hits the villain as well, it’s not just to get rid of that minion.

Thor just has too many anti-minion tools to make a frost giant anything but a minor road bump. Edit: If anything, getting those minions shuffled into the encounter deck is nothing but upside considering Thor’s deck makeup and hero power.

Solo is a skewed format with increased emphasis on thwarting and scheming. It is impossible to properly balance every hero for both solo and multiplayer. The high attack, low thwart heroes with heavy aggression synergy (Thor, She-Hulk, Hulk) are just naturally going to struggle in solo by nature.

Thor is just a Polarizing hero. Strong in multiplayer when others can cover but his weakness in thwarting makes him tough in solo. Hulk is going to be the exact same way.

The designers design primarily for multiplayer, so it is just going to happen sometimes.

7 hours ago, Deadwolf said:

Solo is a skewed format with increased emphasis on thwarting and scheming. It is impossible to properly balance every hero for both solo and multiplayer. The high attack, low thwart heroes with heavy aggression synergy (Thor, She-Hulk, Hulk) are just naturally going to struggle in solo by nature.

Thor is just a Polarizing hero. Strong in multiplayer when others can cover but his weakness in thwarting makes him tough in solo. Hulk is going to be the exact same way.

The designers design primarily for multiplayer, so it is just going to happen sometimes.

That's true - but I've played all heroes solo, through all aspects - and whilst some heroes do better in solo overall, and certainly better with certain aspects, Thor was particularly jarring in how bad he was solo.

2 hours ago, jonboyjon1990 said:

That's true - but I've played all heroes solo, through all aspects - and whilst some heroes do better in solo overall, and certainly better with certain aspects, Thor was particularly jarring in how bad he was solo.

How’d you do with Ms. Marvel in solo? I found that she required a real paradigm shift in how I prioritized play choices to succeed.

I’ve been enjoying the challenge of playing him solo - he’s much more interesting to play than Captain America, who is just so flexible he really doesn’t provide much of a challenge at all...

In multiplayer I think he’s very strong. Once you’ve set up it’s easy to push out some truly nasty Lightning Strikes, and he does hit incredibly hard.

22 hours ago, Deadwolf said:

Solo is a skewed format with increased emphasis on thwarting and scheming. It is impossible to properly balance every hero for both solo and multiplayer. The high attack, low thwart heroes with heavy aggression synergy (Thor, She-Hulk, Hulk) are just naturally going to struggle in solo by nature.

Thor is just a Polarizing hero. Strong in multiplayer when others can cover but his weakness in thwarting makes him tough in solo. Hulk is going to be the exact same way.

The designers design primarily for multiplayer, so it is just going to happen sometimes.

If you’re right it’s strange Application of theme in marvel game where Thor and hulk are weak on their own and need a teams help whiles Spider-Man can handle the toughest villains on his own.

5 hours ago, zeromage said:

If you’re right it’s strange Application of theme in marvel game where Thor and hulk are weak on their own and need a teams help whiles Spider-Man can handle the toughest villains on his own.

It's not their fault that the villains that they face their own are super schemers that advance half of their plot any time they change into their alter ego.

I agree, I don't think it is right that Thor and Hulk are weak in solo. But their character designs are thematic and Thor is strong in multiplayer so it is the Solo format itself that is flawed and is not properly balanced. Threat counts for more in solo than it does in in multiplayer (as I said, going into alter ego in solo advances the scheme by ~50% but in 2p, doing the same thing only advances it by ~25%) making the low thwart, high attack heroes weaker than they should be.

Player health doesn't scale, so that means that when the villain attacks you, it does the same amount of damage regardless of player count. So the consequences of the villain attacking is same across all player counts but the consequences of the villain scheming are worse, the fewer players in the game there are. This is why i don't think it is balanced and that high attack/thwart heroes are unfairly punished in solo.