I think this topic justifies having its own thread or at least not drowning it in my rules questions thread.

What i'd like to discuss here is something I've been reading here and there (on this forum or on Discord) and it is what some players do : personalising the encounter deck.

I've read many things : people just building the encounter deck with "common" encounter decks or even taking the nemesis decks from unplayed characters.

I'd say that I never imagined doing that (yup, not a free enough mind ^^).

So my question is for the people who practice this kind of customisation :

What kind of advice would you give me ?

How shall I start customise the villain deck ?

Because all of a sudden I realise it can be ton of fun and maybe unbalanced and game-breaking if we don't do it properly.

Are there examples ?

Thanks a lot :-)

Elrad

Hey Elrad!

Until we get more scenarios (in just over a month!) I can't say I find this too interesting, but I have looked at the possibilities with what we've got, and I have tried a couple different things.

Probably the most popular option that I know I've seen a lot of people suggest, is using the minions from the Green Goblin pack's modular sets to turn Rhino into a sort of Sinister Six deck. Since Rhino has Shocker and Sandman with him, you only need to add three more to get your 'Six. My preference is to take out the Hydra goons, since you're adding in other minions, then throw in Scorpion and Electro along with Vulture. If you want to just use those minion cards and add a different modular set, cool, or you can include either Electro's or Scorpion's set as your modular (or even Vulture's nemesis set!).

The other big option we have right now is to go all-out on a Hydra encounter which we'll call "Hordes of Hydra." This will get more interesting with actual Hydra villains, IMO, but for now it's essentially a glorified modular set. You can go several directions with this, but at it's base you take the Legions of Hydra modular encounter and add minions from Captain America's or Black Widow's nemesis set. Taskmaster and Zemo are of course the most interesting, but if you want to stick to faceless Hydra mooks, you can just include the Hydra Soldiers/Hydra Mercs. There are also a couple Hydra goons in Rhino's set that you could add in, regardless of which scenario you're actually facing. On top of that, you could add in your choice of Taskmaster's or Zemo's side schemes/treacheries. --I will say, the Hordes of Hydra style scenario/module does have the issue of potentially clogging up the encounter deck and making things a little easier for you, since your odds are better of being able to defeat minions before the Legions side scheme pops up. But I also wouldn't advise trying this on Heroic to counter the deck-clogging, unless you want a serious challenge. As it stands, the Hydra Soldiers are the best for keeping the deck from clogging up, since they deal an encounter card upon defeat, but you could try other ways of countering the deck-clog, like playing with Klaw as the villain and giving all Hydra minions a boost ability to enter play engaged with you (and taking the Weapons Runners out of the deck, in my opinion.) Or you can just limit the amount of extra Hydra minions you add to the deck, which will also keep it from getting clogged.

Whatever you do to tweak decks by adding/taking out certain minions will probably require some play-testing if you want to ensure it ends up being fun and balanced, so don't feel like one bad experience with it means you can't try again. And you can certainly mess with swapping out/mixing and matching side schemes and treacheries, too. I just find minions to be the most straight-forward, especially since side schemes and treacheries are more likely to interact with a specific villain.

Most importantly, it's a game, so just have fun!

2 hours ago, SpiderMana said:

Most importantly, it's a game, so just have fun!

:-) Thanks !

I like creativity but I am the kind of person who still need someone to tell them what to do or give suggestions.

I'll say You gave me a lot to think about.

But I had my eyes on a full Hydra deck but then you've got no Villain...how do you deal with it ? (or maybe I didn't read your post as thoroughly as I should have ?)

22 minutes ago, Elrad said:

But I had my eyes on a full Hydra deck but then you've got no Villain...how do you deal with it ? (or maybe I didn't read your post as thoroughly as I should have ?)

Sorry if that wasn't clear--the Hydra suggestion is to play with that as your modular set, so you could do it with any villain. I'll probably mess with doing something similar when we've got the Red Skull scenario, for the Ultimate Hydra Experience, but until then you've gotta beat up somebody else

What I do quite often is use nemesis encounter decks of heroes I'm not playing in place of the modular encounter sets. It sort of puts these nemesis characters in the spot light and can cause some interesting interactions with other characters. An example being Task Master coming out engaged with Iron Man.

7 hours ago, HirumaShigure said:

What I do quite often is use nemesis encounter decks of heroes I'm not playing in place of the modular encounter sets. It sort of puts these nemesis characters in the spot light and can cause some interesting interactions with other characters. An example being Task Master coming out engaged with Iron Man.

That, would literally, be the worst thing on earth! I mean, as a minion he can be taken care of easily, but as a boost, that's an instant kill.

On 7/26/2020 at 10:13 AM, SpiderMana said:

... Sinister Six deck. ..


Most importantly, it's a game, so just have fun!

Some interesting ideas. Sinister Six sounds fun. I could see taking out Shadows of the Past and just starting with of the extra side-schemes and treachery cards as well.

• Sandman
• Vulture
• Electro
• Shocker
• Hobgoblin

Plus Green Goblin, Rhino, Scorpion, or Tombstone would be the most iconic pairings for me ( sans Doc Oc, Mysterio, and Kraven).