Written by Sean Ballantyne
Featured in The OverPower Homebase, Issue #3
Joseph Gagnepain, of Lazarus Rising Games, reached out to me and asked me to write this article about my predictions on the forthcoming meta. I’ll confess a little secret, analyzing meta isn’t really my forte, and I expect to be just as surprised as the next guy by what comes – but nonetheless here are my thoughts on the possible shift in the meta after the Edgar Rice Burroughs set release!
I have no doubt that we’ll see draw decks featuring a combo of the Count of Monte Cristo, Deja Thoris, and/or Victory Harben. Drawing cards in and of itself has always been a powerful mechanic and these three each come loaded on top of that! Additionally, I imagine we’ll see tons of Baker Street decks given the plethora of cards that interact with the Baker Street inherent, and, appropriately enough Sherlock Holmes has 2 cards that interact with Baker Street. I wouldn’t be surprised if some big boy Brute Force decks with crunchy heavy attacks show up, especially since Hercules has an 8 AND comes with some global team defense as well. Oh, and don’t count out Intelligence either. While think-tank intelligence decks are woefully underrepresented in the legacy format… some of the options here like Sherlock Holmes (the first and so far ONLY 8 stat character to receive a negate in the history of overpower, AND he gets 2 different kinds at that!), the aforementioned Count of Monte Cristo, and Victory Harben will likely be making several regular appearances on teams.
A major concern for all players regardless of deck will be the Grim Reaper, formerly known as the Power Leech. This one card will undoubtedly affect the meta, as it’s a powerful tool that every deck will have access to. With the reduction of available negates, as well as defense in general, the Grim Reaper stands to hit more often than not, and it’s almost always a devastating blow that can be hard to recover from.
Baseline Any-Hero options will give a maximum of 3 actual defensive solutions to the Grim Reaper (Freya, Merlin’s Magic, and 1 of 2 possible defensive Cataclysm options – Heimdall or Fairy Protection). Consequently, it would not be unwise to build a team with a few extra cards that can keep the almighty Grim Reaper at bay. Captain Nemo, Carson of Venus, Deja Thoris, Dracula, Leonidas, Merlin, Mina Harker, Morgan Le Fay, Professor Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes, Sun Wu Kong, The Mummy, and Van Helsing are the only characters with some form of global defense that will protect the team against a Grim Reaper – so using any of these heroes together will hedge your bets. That’s 1/3rd of the available options. Not too bad, but it does leave a whole 2/3rds of the field without a global Reaper defense.
Secondarily, many characters have personal defense that will stop a Grim Reaper if they are targeted. Not as ideal, but better than nothing. Running a Legendary Escape in there to move a hit over to such a character is also worth considering, though you are relying on having both at the same time your opponent launches the Reaper.
As a possible tertiary option, it’s also worth considering using Dracula’s Armoury or The Spartan Training grounds to protect you against the Reaper by simply tanking the hit and discarding the cards placed to those homebases. The catch being that your opponent must call the icons on those cards. Losing some Basic Universe or Training cards is still better than losing more important cards placed to your team, or in your hand. Canny opponents will try to prevent this by calling the icons they don’t see under your Homebase… but that of course will be situational.
In short, look to see the effects of the Grim Reaper as a major consideration in upcoming deck builds.
All of that said, I am really looking forward to seeing the early, nebulous phase after the game is formally released. It’s the wild west, a new frontier for the first time in over two decades… and that in itself will arguably be the new meta as anything goes. The diminished availability of negates will certainly factor into things. Meaning cards which directly affect the opponent, as opposed to cards targeting a character, are more likely to succeed and take effect. Likewise, heavy attacks are going to be incredibly strong, as defense is more limited. As David McMillan likes to put it – There will be some real ‘Slobberknockers!’
So, what am I looking forward to trying? Having perused the cards and experimented with a few in mixed format games, I have a couple of things I can’t wait to unleash, but here’s my top pick:
Even before seeing an email from LRG asking play-testers to give it some extra attention, I wanted to try it – and I was not disappointed with it. In fact – it was probably a touch broken in its original iteration, and even with the nerfed update it is really strong.
Worth every penny of that 3 pt threat cost!
I employ a ‘Brawling’ playstyle. I often deliberately take hits in order to set up a devastating counterattack when my opponent has fewer chances to defend. The ability here to take a free shot as my opponent concedes lends well to a style I’ve been trying to perfect over almost 30 years of playing OverPower.
The 3 point threat cost isn’t super easy to work around, but there are a couple of options. Robin Hood and Billy the Kid being an inexpensive 18 and 17 respectively lets me cover that ground with space for two more 19s quite nicely. Or even a 20 and 18, or 21 and 17. (Hello Zorro and Deja Thoris or King Arthur and Lancelot! How about Leonidas and Korak?)
Mix the Land that Time Forgot with Legacy options and the sky’s the limit given the plethora of inexpensive and crunchy characters. I have a Zeus deck in a mixed format that hits hard, and has become a new favourite of mine.
Aside from that, I love the idea of the literary and mythological characters being added to the OverPower mix. Being a fan of Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series, adding these guys to Overpower is a real boon to me as it generates that feel of assembling my own League, which tickles an itch I didn’t even know I wanted to scratch.
A new era of Overpower looms… a new tournament circuit, new ideas, new players, new ideas by old players, and a whole new venture. Yeah, let’s get this thing rolling, and we’ll see you on the field of battle in the land that time will not forget!
Sean Ballantyne is a game enthusiast who has been playing OverPower since the 90s. His outbursts and streams of profanity when his decks crap out are well known among the community, and will likely continue to the foreseeable future, heh! Nevertheless, OverPower remains one of his favourite games, 2nd only to his lifelong love of D&D. If you’re a D&D fan, check out his YouTube channel – Mage’s Musings – wherein the Puppet Archmage Merlinstergandaldore talks shop and recaps games.
(Also note some appearances by none other than LRG’s Joe G., and the OP Goat Marcel L.)