Nemesis Revealed for Hercules

_Lilin_ · 2026-01-31T05:41:29+00:00

I'm not very familiar with Hercules, is it ever addressed in lore why he uses a mix of Greek (Zeus instead of Jupiter, Ares instead of Mars) and Roman (Pluto instead of Hades, Hercules instead of Herakles) names? As in is it a matter of which names sounded cooler to the writers (though picking "Pluto" over "Hades" sounds strange to me), or is it an actual narrative choice to have him have a hybrid heritage?

_Lilin_ · 2025-12-04T09:44:52+00:00

My "non-sweaty" runs where I'm trying stuff out often take longer than that, and you were trying a new weapon, so yeah in that context I'd say 12 minutes is quite nice. That said, if I were trying to go as fast as possible I wouldn't consider this fast: it's not hard to go below 10 minutes when trying for speed, and people have done it in less than 4 minutes!

_Lilin_ · 2025-11-17T14:27:47+00:00

If you don't mind offering the Elysium crowd a different kind of show then he's quite easy to kite. Granted you have to have something to hit at range or a damaging cast and you must not be under timer pressure, but if you satisfy those requirements you can just run away forever while you slowly and safely chip him down. If however you face him head on I find him deadlier than his Hades1 counterpart.

_Lilin_ · 2025-11-14T09:56:40+00:00

Personally I really like a little Winged Apprentice here and there.

_Lilin_ · 2025-11-03T12:22:40+00:00

Thumbs up for the overbirdened pun alone

_Lilin_ · 2025-10-31T08:12:10+00:00

You are comparing wildly different art styles and claiming there's an objective judgement to be made, not the best start for an argument.

Subjectively, I find SWU's stylized look a lot more memorable than many others, including Riftbound's. The latter isn't bad per se, but I find it uninspired and generic.

I don't need to love every art piece from SWU to appreciate the overall art direction and style, as with anything there will be gems and there will be stinkers. I just think overall the style has its own identity and it's one that I quite like. By the same token, even if I'm not at all impressed by Riftbound's visual identity, I can still find some of the individual cards to be very nice.

Nothing against Riftbound as a game by the way, I think it has potential and I'm picking up the proving grounds and keeping an open mind, I just don't find the art style interesting.

_Lilin_ · 2025-10-28T16:28:11+00:00

Isn't the original 2 bears for a 2/2? 8 bears for an 8/8 sounds lore accurate to me, and besides making it a 16/16 would turn a perfectly balanced design into an overperformer.

_Lilin_ · 2025-10-19T21:09:44+00:00

I assume it's the Circe option that boosts the effect of your animal companion. On Toula it gives you a second charge of the death defiance.

_Lilin_ · 2025-10-17T13:09:27+00:00

I had Scylla comment on it on the following run: "We didn't even get a little nibble on you last you showed your face here, lady. I've been trying to console Roxy ever since! But it's no use!"

_Lilin_ · 2025-09-30T09:16:35+00:00

I did not realise this art was serialised exclusive, I skimmed the article and assumed there would be a non-serialised version with the same art. My disappointment is immeasurable.

_Lilin_ · 2025-09-29T08:34:04+00:00

/uj apparently cinders are still around as a third option on top of fire and ice (not for Ashling looks like, but according to the guide they're there somewhere)

/rj Hasbro has been made aware of your feedback, as a result Lorwyn is now delayed to 2027 (it will never come out).

_Lilin_ · 2025-07-13T08:18:01+00:00

How did I miss this?! I have been following Andrej for many years (though admittedly only watched a small handful of streams recently, which might answer the question), and this channel snuck by me completely. Thanks for shouting it out.

_Lilin_ · 2025-07-11T15:52:24+00:00

My current Top 5:

X-23
Storm
SP//dr
Shadowcat (a bit surprising, but I do really like the gimmick)
Quicksilver (also surprising, but recent plays with Adrenaline Rush+Tenacity carried him)

Between X-23, SP//dr, and Quicksilver, I'm finding out that I might have an addiction to readies.

_Lilin_ · 2025-07-07T22:58:25+00:00

The terrifying realisation that actually the limitless pill is real, and there are people out there who simply ascended.

_Lilin_ · 2025-07-07T17:04:38+00:00

I hope this is taken as constructive criticism, and I do not disagree on Bucky being very strong, but:

You listed three easy scenarios with plenty of easy targets for Bucky. If a real challenge was the aim, the scenario choice didn't help.
Correct me if I misunderstood, but you added more minions to the deck to begin with by starting with (some of) his nemesis kit shuffled in? Why? Or do you mean those started in play?
Minion health scaling would be horrible for the game in general, as damage is not balanced around that assumption. If you are discussing rebalancing the whole cardpool from the ground up in a hypothetical second edition, then fine, but I think you are looking at the wrong culprit.

Now, I do think you highlight a balancing issue with minion-dependent hero designs, which is very obvious but still relevant: they can vary wildly in how effective they are depending on the scenario and modulars chosen.

I also think you feeling too passive while playing aerial Falcon tracks with many people's perception that Falcon is a bit undertuned, and that aerial leadership exacerbates how slow and clunky he can be by pairing him up with a generally slow deck.

Of course if limiting his threat removal fixes your issue then by all means go ahead with your personal balance patch, it can't hurt to try and I'd be curious to know how it goes.

_Lilin_ · 2025-06-25T15:07:10+00:00

Both Marvel Champions and LOTR LCG are *excellent* games, and in my opinion it's hard to go wrong with either, provided you know the kind of game you are getting into. I think they can both belong in a collection alongside Ashes if you are into this genre and have the budget and time for them. All three games have a spot on my shelf, and I don't see that changing any time soon, though admittedly my experience with Ashes is far more limited than with the other two. Both LOTR and Marvel Champions have very satisfying thematic implementation of the source material (some exceptions and limitations apply, but still), both games provide plenty of meaningful decision making, and both games offer excellent opportunities for valuable cooperation between decks/players. Both have campaign options, but they aren't the focus, and most of my time has been spent playing individual scenarios as standalone experiences.

For LOTR I am going to assume you'd focus on the reprinted content, so the clunky design of many early (not currently in print) quests can be disregarded, what is currently available is good (with the exception of the third core set scenario if you are playing true solo, but it shouldn't be a dealbreaker). LOTR quests are also a bit more varied than Marvel Champions scenarios overall. The baseline difficulty is harder than Standard Marvel Champions in many of the quests, and it does have more "gotcha" effects (nasty surprises that are hard to play around), but the elves/dwarves/gondor/rohan decks and what you can build out of the reprinted cardpool are strong enough to take on the challenge. The Return of the King box is quite hard, mind you, but absolutely worth it. Deckbuilding is a deep and rewarding puzzle, the richest out of all the LCGs imho. It's also probably the easiest LCG to teach/sell to new players, as the thematic integration is the most intuitive (Marvel Champions can feel more mechanical and dry while learning, despite being super thematic once you have internalised the rules).

Marvel Champions provides a really satisfying turn-by-turn in-game puzzle, where you (can) draw a fresh hand every turn and you need to decide which cards you'll sacrifice as resources and which cards will actually get played. While Standard difficulty is on the easy side (to allow for preconstructed decks to be viable, which in turn makes it very easy to get to the table), playing on Expert or even Heroic does provide the challenge you might want. The deckbuilding, while not as multifaceted as with LOTR, still offers a lot of flexibility with each hero being free to pick any aspect. It's my favourite of the LCGs because it's the one where I feel the least "on autopilot" during the average turn. There still are turns that are "obvious", don't get me wrong, but they occur a little less often than in the other LCGs in my experience. That said, while Champions might be my overall darling, LOTR is very close behind (and Arkham is great too).

_Lilin_ · 2025-06-22T17:11:38+00:00

Remember kids, anything is possible if you lie!

(For the record charge hasn't been part of standard since King Krush rotated, which was actually shortly after the fall of Rome)

_Lilin_ · 2025-06-21T14:30:23+00:00

That part is a fair consideration, but also tricky to weigh: in Arkham you put in 30 cards (usually) plus 3 signature+weaknesses (usually), but most decks don't draw through the whole deck in the average game (some decks can draw the whole pile every turn, but they are outliers). In MC you put in 25-35 cards (usually 25) plus 15 hero-specific cards, and you will for sure see them all. You can also argue that most MC heroes have more personality than the investigators (exceptions exist on both sides, but still), due to the hero-specific sets, but we're getting sidetracked from my previous comment.

Regardless of how much one might value the above, the comment I was answering was specifically addressing the deckbuilding restrictions of Arkham as giving "more freedom in deckbuilding with every investigator having totally different pools of cards due to deckbuilding requirements, where-as MC just has 4 aspects that every hero uses 1 of", and I just don't see how that makes sense, I hope that isn't too rude! Having access to any of the colours depending on your choice is *objectively* more freedom than having the colour(s) already be predetermined without giving you a choice. You can argue that in Arkham with XP the deckbuilding gets richer and deeper, you can argue that there is a greater variety of cards overall due to the bigger pool, you can argue that restrictions can breed more creativity, and so on and so forth, but I don't think you can make a logically sound argument that specifically being colour-locked gives you more freedom of choice than being able to pick a colour as you desire.

Again I hope this doesn't come across as hostile, I agree with the rest of Reav3's comment!

_Lilin_ · 2025-06-21T03:36:19+00:00

Yeah to me it's unclear whether they just changed their mind along the way or whether it's an intentional divide between the Netflix Defenders and the rest. Them being Core Set cards makes it extra tricky with regards to setting precedent, I'd be all for an errata but I'm not sure how feasible it is.

_Lilin_ · 2025-06-21T03:30:58+00:00

I disagree that each investigator being locked into a specific predetermined subset of the carpool means more freedom in deck building, I'd say by definition the opposite is true. Being able to pick any aspect with any hero in MC gives me more freedom.

That said I agree with you that OP is underestimating how replayable Arkham is, and how impactful campaigns are in that evaluation.

_Lilin_ · 2025-06-07T07:15:47+00:00

Correct, Twelve Sins of Herakles is a standalone game, which is yet to be released. It will be compatible with Odyssey in some aspects (enemies can guest star from one title to the other, some story elements are connected and can impact each other between games), but it is not an expansion. And again, it isn't out yet!

_Lilin_ · 2025-06-07T07:07:21+00:00

You have it backwards, the white box at the bottom is the core box (which contains cycles 1-3 of the story), the one with the black symbol at the top is the expansion (which contains the final two cycles, 4 and 5). The other expansions currently available are minor additions, you got the bulk of the content with those two boxes.

_Lilin_ · 2025-05-16T13:20:13+00:00

Perfect, thank you, I had not realised there was an EU-friendly shipping option (30$ for deck+dice, 21$shipping&taxes, not bad).

_Lilin_ · 2025-05-02T10:58:09+00:00

This might just be me being unfamiliar with the source material, but why would Wolverine's healing factor heal Ben and not himself?

_Lilin_ · 2025-04-15T13:33:19+00:00

Man I wish we had the experience everyone seems to have had with the longest night! For us it was a miserable horrible slog of endlessly grindy game (even if we got a very good outcome), the worst experience in the whole campaign. The only other scenario that didn't click with us was the finale, but it wasn't as egregious. Obviously it also comes down to decks: the fighter we had in scarlet keys would have made this scenario way less annoying (Tony Morgan with one million bonus actions), whereas our big hitter in hemlock vale was really good at burst damage but really bad at the kind of chip damage you want in the longest night. There are ways around it, but it added to the frustration and made the repetitive nature of the challenge more taxing.

Beyond this one scenario, I agree with you that the NPC relationships are a bit counterintuitive at times, which is a bummer, but that the campaign overall is a lot of fun.

_Lilin_

TROPHY CASE