Legacy Part 3: The Good Cards, the Mediocre Cards and the Bad Card

The “Pretty Good” Cards

These cards are all rated 4 / 5.

• Backfist Strike: Dealing 4 damage with no strings attached is solid all-around. It’s not the best damage-dealing One-Shot out there, but it’s still pretty darn solid.

• Flying Smash: Legacy deals 1 less damage here than he does with “Back-Fist Strike,” but the trade-off is that he gets to attack more enemies. Determining when to use “Back-Fist Strike” over “Flying Smash” is a decision that has to be determined on a case-by-case basis.

• Thokk!: Thokk’s claim to fame is that it gives Legacy an extra card to draw. 3 damage is good and in some cases the extra card draw is more valuable than the extra damage provided by the other cards.

“Mixed Bags” & Moderately Decent Cards

The “Mixed Bag” Cards

Heroic Interception: The reason why this card is a “Mixed Bag” is because it has a decent list of pros and cons that need to be taken into consideration whenever a player is thinking about using this.

Pros

• Protects the rest of the team from villain and environment damage.

• This card also protects heroes from self-inflicted damage. This is important to note since other “damage prevention” cards from other heroes don’t usually have this benefit.

• Does not require Legacy to deal damage against villains which means that it’s just as useful against villains with damage reducing effects.

Cons

• Legacy is not protected from damage. If his HP drops to 0, then this card’s effect is no longer active.

• Vulnerable to villain cards that destroy Ongoings, which means that Legacy will have dealt himself some serious damage for nothing.

• Legacy deals himself a lot of damage. If Legacy’s damage got buffed then he’s dealing himself even more damage, which means that he’s even easier to kill than he was before he played the card.

The most damning criticism of this card is that multiple heroes have other damage prevention cards that can prevent damage better than this one can. I find those options (like “Hypersonic Assault”, “Ground Pound”, “Throat Jab” / “Offensive Transmutation”, etc.) preferable to this card. I only use “Heroic Interception” when I really need to prevent damage and no other “damage prevention” card is available. Still, the ability to prevent damage is a great effect that should not be taken lightly which is why it’s getting a 3.5 / 5 instead of a 2. 

There’s one more thing: The optimal way to play this card is to combine it with another card that redirects damage like Wraith’s “Smoke Bombs” or Scholar’s “Alchemical Redirection.” Those combos protect Legacy by redirecting any damage he would take, and the hero that would take the damage is protected by “Heroic Interception” so they take no damage. It’s a win-win scenario.

Rating: 3.5 / 5

• Next Evolution: “Next Evolution” is a card with merits I’ve come to begrudgingly accept. The idea is that you figure out which damage types a villain does and you nullify them with this card. According to a Legacy guide on Steam, over 90 % of all villains in the game deal at least 4 different types of damage which makes picking a damage type to negate damage from rather tricky. What that guide doesn’t tell you, though, is that these villains don’t always deal those damage types in equal amounts. So for example, there’s a villain named Skinwalker Gloomweaver who deals Toxic, Infernal, Fire, Melee and Psychic damage. However, the Skinwalker variant tends to deal “Infernal” damage far more often than the other types. So whenever I’m fighting against Skinwalker Gloomweaver, I can use “Next Evolution” to negate Infernal damage and that will keep Legacy safe from most of the damage that Skinwalker Gloomweaver will dish out.

                  Keep in mind that even in this example, “Next Evolution” doesn’t protect you from all types of damage. It also comes with an opportunity cost since you can only play this card during your power phase instead of Galvanize and Motivational Charge. When playing “Next Evolution” make sure you’re playing it alongside “Legacy Ring” so that you can use another power and “Lead From the Front”, a card that lets you redirect damage to Legacy, thus letting you take full advantage of “Next Evolution.”

Fun fact: “Next Evolution” isn’t Limited so you are allowed to bring out more than one of them at a time. It is possible to use two “Next Evolution” cards if you have “The Legacy Ring” out. Interesting idea, but I should point out that I’ve never needed to use this so it’s more of a strict hypothetical.

Rating: 3 / 5

Lead From the Front:

“Lead From the Front” is similar to “The Legacy Ring” in the sense that it’s not very useful on its own, but its worth tends to shine when combined with other cards. “Lead From the Front” is best played with “Next Evolution” so that you can take advantage of the damage nullification effect of “Next Evolution.” You can also combine it with “Fortitude” and “Superhuman Durability” so that you can turn Legacy into a super tank.

“Moderately Useful” Cards

Danger Sense: Legacy can ignore the environment. Um...yay? The reason why “Danger Sense” is rated under “Moderately Decent” is because it’s not an effective long-term solution to dealing with the environment. It’s always better to get rid of environment cards that are causing you trouble.

Another problem with “Danger Sense” is that it only protects Legacy and does nothing to help the rest of the team. “Danger Sense” is similar to “Heroic Interception” in the sense that other heroes have better options at their disposal to deal with the environment. Visionary has “Mass Levitation,” Wraith has “Mega Computer” and “Grappling Hook,” Tempest has “Flash Flood,” etc. Point is, “Danger Sense” is nice, but usually insufficient. If you’ve got nothing better to play then slap this card on, but if you’ve got better options available you need not feel guilty for passing this card up.

Rating: 3 / 5

Surge of Strength: This card normally gets crapped on in other “Sentinels of the Multiverse” Legacy guides. The main reason is because Legacy is not a primary damage dealer. I get why other people aren’t huge fans of this card, but I feel like some of the criticism is unfair. “Back-Fist Strike” and “Flying Smash” already do good amounts of damage so adding extra damage to them is a neat bonus. It also makes “Motivational Charge” do more damage. 

Rating: 3 / 5

Like the other cards in the “Moderately Useful” section, there are better options available, but I can think of cards that are worse. Speaking of which….

“Limited Usefulness”

Cards (or in this case just one card) in this section are rated a 2.5 / 5 or worse. This means that at best they’re situationally useful, as opposed to consistently useful. All of the cards in this section (or in this case just one card) have major drawbacks.

Superhuman Durability: The main problem with this card is that the majority of villain and environment cards don’t deal 5 or more damage in a single attack on a consistent basis to make this card worth your while. So most of the time it won’t actually protect Legacy.

There are a few villains who do consistently deal this much damage, like Iron Legacy or Cosmic Omnitron, but in those situations it’s always better to prevent the damage with cards like “Throat Jab” or even “Heroic Interception” then it is to merely reduce it. A - 3 helps, but it’s not a good long term solution, especially when other heroes have vastly superior options on the table.