% Red Skull (Reborn) %

ErikPeter

A clone of Captain America's nemesis, Johann Shmidt, a.k.a the Red Skull, emerged from stasis determined to "purify" the human race and win WWII once and for all. After gaining powerful telepathic abilities from the brain of Charles Xavier, the Red Skull began an anti-mutant campaign of terror and chaos, compelling innocent bystanders to attack nearby mutants on sight.

Red Skull (Reborn)

Match Damage priority Black/Red/Purple/4.0xnpxo

Domination 10 AP
Red Skull sets his devious plans into motion, causing worldwide chaos. Destroys all tiles of a random color; When the board settles, do it again.

(Passive) If your team has 0 Black AP at the end of a turn, gain 1 Black AP.
Level Upgrades

Level 2: If your team has 0 Red AP, gain 1. Level 3: If your team has 0 Blue AP, gain 1. Level 4: If your team has 0 Green AP, gain 1. Level 5: If your team has 0 Purple AP, gain 1.

Incite Hatred 10 AP
The Red Skull uses telepathy to placate his enemies and turn them on each other. Creates a Fortified 5-turn Red Countdown tile that deals 3640 damage to the target. While this tile is on the board enemy damage is reduced by 99%, and each time an enemy makes a match, a different random enemy takes 228 damage.
Level Upgrades

Level 2: 4222 damage. Enemy matches deal 260 damage. Level 3: 4766 damage. Enemy matches deal 294 damage. Level 4: 5386 damage. Enemy matches deal 326 damage. Level 5: 6086 damage. Enemy matches deal 391 damage.

Level 450

Level 3: 19,164 damage. Enemy matches deal 1182 damage. Level 4: 21,657 damage. Enemy matches deal 1310 damage. Level 5: 24,471 damage. Enemy matches deal 1572 damage.

Sinister Plan
(Passive) Red Skull trains his henchmen to gain the upper hand by any means necessary. When either team makes a Match-5, deals 1445 damage to a random enemy; then, if there are fewer than 12 Black tiles on the board, converts 6 basic tiles to Black.
Level Upgrades

Level 2: 1711 damage. Level 3: 1978 damage. Level 4: 2511 damage. Level 5: 3577 damage.

Level 450

Level 3: 7947 damage. Level 4: 10089 damage. Level 5: 14371 damage.

Notes:
I'm getting a lot more comfortable with designing in the 5-star space; plus I borrowed some of the damage numbers, but I think they look pretty good.

Another 5-star Villain, Red Skull has a lot of utility, but also can deal some damage. His Black power has an amazing board shake/cascade/crit potential: Voiding the board in almost 2 full colors might actually make it too easy to get crits, which would break thanks to great synergy with his Purple, but we'd have to test it to find out. A small AP bonus rounds out the power and ensures that it increases in value at each level.

Red offers amazing AI damage mitigation with some damage reflection, along with burst damage if you can protect the CD--Green Goblin can help him out there. If he fires this against you, you'll have to make some choices about how to deal with it without causing too much harm to yourself.

Purple is like ProfX's Blue passive, but evil. (I love that thematic link.) If there's fewer than 12 Black tiles on the board, it generates 6 more, possibly leading to another cascade and more damage. I think the 12 limit would keep it from triggering indefinitely, but again, testing would find a balance to make it exciting but not broken. Another fun counterplay aspect is that the enemy could capitalize on the black AP gain if it triggers on their turn--but if it triggers another 5-match they could end up eating a lot of damage. Would you purposefully match 5 against him, hoping for more black AP at the price of Health?

GundamY

Oh my god, I'm scared to face off against Red Skull if he does have your proposed build! But yeah, I can definitely see how he will use Professor X's brain for evil.

Hmm... Destroying two full colours on the board. That reminded me of the time when I made a boss character Onslaught. (Coincidentally, Onslaught is a fusion between Magneto and Professor X).

One quick question: Who else can Red Skull synergize with other than Green Goblin? Kingpin? The Hood?

The reason why I ask is because there aren't enough bad guys for MPQ. I really like designing villains because they're an excellent contrast to heroic characters and their strategies are far more interesting than the straightforward damage heroes make.

moss04

I really like it, especially purple. I would have to see how blacks actually plays too see if it cascades too strongly or synergizes with his purple too much.
Red is too strong. But... for comparison, look at spider-woman's similar black power (at 5 covers):

Resists 70% damage. If under 2570 damage is dealt, resists 100% damage

That power is 8 AP (instead of 10), and is a 4 turn countdown (instead of a 5 turn fortified countdown), and scales up in protection (rather than full % at 1 cover). And it doesn't do any damages (match reflect/thorns or for CD completion).

I would say keep his red at 10 AP, and the match reflect/thorns, and the CD completion dmg, and the max shield % at 1 cover but reduce it to 70% and turn the CD into a 4 turn CD that gains fortification at 3 covers. And also change the completion dmg so that it triggers if the CD is destroyed by any means.

ErikPeter

I'm not convinced it's OP. Well, yeah, it's flat out better than Jessica Drew, but... Yeah.

When first posted I didn't have the fortification in there. I added it on second thought as a way to create a bit more counterplay. As a normal, 5-turn CD, it might go off against the AI, but I imagine it would hardly ever last against a player unless it gets stuck in a corner. Fortified it has a better chance of going off, but maybe that should be worth a higher AP cost.

I considered making it trigger if the CD is destroyed, like you suggested, but it doesn't make sense thematically; I feel like matching away (or destroying) the CD is how you get around it. Almost every 5* has a way to deal with this tile: Phoenix or IM46 can make red tiles to match it off, Bolt can destroy some/all of the board, Natasha just neutralizes it, BSS can stun/kill him, Surfer has Singularity; trying to deal with the CD even gives Goblin a reason to ever choose "Green" for his pumpkin bombs.

Changing the percentage of damage reduced might work to tone it down, but again, thematically weird. Inspiring perfect loyalty is iconic and scary (he gets Thor on his side in like 2 seconds and uses him to "bucket o' blood" Wolverine). I'd rather not weaken it much. What if I changed it to reducing damage by 100%? That should prevent the AI from wasting AP on blasting you for no reason while the countdown exists.

Alternatively/additionally I could make Attack tiles disregard the effect, giving you a way to whittle him down while the power is in effect. I like that idea: it makes thematic sense, and is a further form of interesting counterplay, though right now only Banner makes attack tiles in 5* land. (Maybe where Madame Hydra would come in...) That change, plus maybe raising the cost by a few AP, are the ones I'd try first (IF it was determined to be OP.)