Disney Villainous, Despicable Plots - Villain Review

Today we return to the world of Disney Villainous! Unleash your inner villain, as I review the various villains of Despicable Plots.

This is the sixth part in a series of reviews I’ve done for Disney Villainous, focusing on each character in turn. I’ve ranked the difficulty of each Villain, placing them as easy, medium, or hard. I’ve also outlined a basic strategy that I tend to follow when playing that villain, although it is by no means the definitive way to play. I’ll pick out my top 3 cards for each villain, although I’ll largely ignore those directly required for the villain to achieve victory – cards like the Crown and Trident for Ursula, Titans for Hades, the Magic Lamp for Jafar, and so on – unless I feel they contribute heavily to victory.

Despicable Plots introduces us to three new villains, Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, Horned King from The Black Cauldron, and Lady Tremaine from Cinderella. The Villains are varied in difficulty, making this great as an expansion for players with others from the Villainous range, but less good if you’re new to the game. For me, Despicable Plots is one of the weaker box sets, alongside Bigger and Badder, and I’d recommend picking up Wicked to the Core, Evil Comes Prepared, or Perfectly Wretched first, if you’re looking for new Villains to play.

You can see all my Disney Villain Reviews by clicking here.

Gaston

Gaston struggles against Lady Tremaine in this duel.

Difficulty: Medium

Gaston is a very strange Villain to play as. His goal isn’t that difficult to achieve – he has quite a few methods to remove Obstacles – but he has a fairly punishing Fate Deck, with plenty of cards that set you back in your goal. Generally, you’ll be wanting to discard cards to find those Obstacle removing cards, but you’ll also need to play some Allies for protection, and to make sure Belle doesn’t prevent you removing obstacles. Personally, I find Gaston’s playstyle very dull; it feels like something’s missing from the deck.

Top 3 Cards

Hunter’s Instinct is perfect for removing Heroes without relying on your Allies.

Wolves

The Mob is the strongest Ally in Gaston’s deck, yet with limited options for moving Allies, it can be easily outplayed by your opponents, or by use of Beast. On the other hand, Wolves can become as strong as the Mob, and with four of them, it’s not difficult to cover every location in your realm. I find these best used to defeat Beast after he’s come into play, or to protect key locations from Heroes.

Hunter’s Instinct

This is a really efficient way of removing Heroes (with the exception of Beast). As you have no Move an Ally spot, getting your Allies into the right place can be really challenging. With Hunter’s Instinct, you don’t have to worry about having Allies in your realm, or having to risk the possibility of getting their Strength reduced by Maurice’s Invention. Although you’ll mainly want to use it to remove Belle from your realm, if Belle’s been defeated, you can also use it to defeat other Heroes.

Beautiful As Me

Come Into the Light, Temper, and Get Out! are all essential cards for removing Obstacles. Unless you defeat Beast or Maurice, you’ll need both copies of Come Into the Light, and your copy of Temper and Get Out! to win the game. Unfortunately, without Beautiful as Me, you’ll struggle to remove Obstacles faster than your opponent can replace them. Beautiful as Me can be an easily achievable Condition card, as it relies on your opponent taking four or more actions on their turn. However, canny opponents may choose not to take their fourth action, especially if you’re close to victory, or they may not have four actions available to them, meaning you can’t use Beautiful as Me. It’s worth noting that you can win outside of your turn by using Beautiful as Me, which gives you an edge over most other Villains, who have to win either in their turn or at the start of their next turn.

Horned King

Horned King must get Cauldron Born at each location to win!

Difficulty: Hard

Horned King is a slow villain to play as. He’s in a similar position to Hades, being easy to learn, but hard to win with. His goal is relatively simple – have one Cauldron Born at each location – but getting there is the challenge. First you must claim, then activate, the Black Cauldron. You need to get lots of Power, to play Ancient Soldier and then turn them into Cauldron Born. Once the Cauldron Born are in play, Heroes are very easy to get rid of, but there are still very powerful cards in your Fate deck that can really set you back, such Fflewddur Fflam, Gurgi’s Sacrifice, and sometimes I Believe in You. Although it seems counter-intuitive to keep Heroes alive, once Fflewddur Fflam is in play, don’t defeat him. He’s one of the strongest cards in your Fate deck, and can really set you back from your goal, but Fflewddur’s ability only comes into effect when he’s played.

Top 3 Cards

Captured is perfect for helping you cycle through your deck - essential for achieving victory.

With a third of Horned King’s deck being Cauldron Born or Ancient Soldiers, this leaves far fewer choices for top 3 cards. As in my other reviews, I’ve tried to make these cards more than just that directly achieve victory, but cards that help you along the way.

Cauldron Born

Although part of your goal, Cauldron Born as also your strongest Allies, with a Strength of 6. Additionally, they aren’t discarded once they’ve been used to defeat a Hero, which means that any location with a Cauldron Born becomes a bad place for your opponents to place Heroes. As you want one of these at each location to win, spreading out your Cauldron Born becomes doubly useful, to both achieve your goal and protect yourself from being Fated.

Captured!

Captured! is a really useful card for getting through your deck and finding your Cauldron Born earlier. I find the most useful time to play this is when I can discard cards afterwards, because it makes it easier for you to find your Ancient Soldiers and Cauldron Born. Alternatively, if I can’t move to a location where I can discard cards (if I’m on Morva and Throne Room is covered), then playing this at Fair Folk Kingdom gives me more options to choose from. As Horned King, you need to cycle through your cards, and any ability that helps you do so is good.

Gwynthaints

This is a strange card to pick in a deck full of strong Allies, but I find it very useful in the early and mid-games. Most Heroes, except for the Witches of Morva, in Horned King’s Fate deck have a Strength of 1 or 2, meaning Gwynthaints can be used to defeat any of them. The biggest benefit of Gwynthaints is their ability to defeat Heroes at adjacent locations,

Special Mentions: Visions, Show Me the Black Cauldron, and Only Moments Away From Victory

These cards all have one thing in common, Power. Visions and Show Me the Black Cauldron both directly get you Power, which is especially useful for a Power-hungry Villain like Horned King. Show Me the Black Cauldron is also your easiest way of claiming the Black Cauldron, and should be used for that first. Only Moments Away from Victory is somewhat harder to play, requiring your opponents to play Items whilst you have a copy of this card and Ancient Soldiers in your hand, but it saves you 3 Power, and essentially gives you an additional play.

Lady Tremaine

In this game, Lady Tremaine must defeat Ball Gown Cinderella before she can win!

Difficulty: Easy

Lady Tremaine is a great character to play as. She doesn’t defeat Heroes in the usual sense, instead she can use Midnight to defeat all the Heroes, or You Little Thief! to defeat Cinderella. Lady Tremaine is a very strong villain, but she is very much a villain that requires the dominoes to fall one by one to achieve victory. For example, you need to play Anastasia or Drizella before you can play their counterparts, and you want to play Invitation from the King before Wedding Bells. Despite these obstacles, Lady Tremaine is very difficult to stop, as she has a lot of control over her Fate Deck, and over her Heroes.

Top 3 Cards

Lady Tremaine has two great Condition cards in her, which are practically guaranteed to be useful!

And One More Thing

Like some other Villains, Lady Tremaine has a big emphasis on discarding cards as quickly as possible to achieve victory. To help you do this, you have And One More Thing. This is a condition card that you can play whenever another player takes the Discard action. This allows you to discard cards from your hand and draw back up to four cards. You should play this as soon as you can, because even if you discard nothing, you still get to draw back up to four.

Vicious Practical Jokes

Vicious Practical Jokes is a great defensive, giving you some control over your Fate deck. It’s a condition card that relies on you being the target of a Fate action, which is guaranteed to happen at some point in the game. It can usually be used to nullify a Fate action, or severely reduced the impact of a Fate action; for example, playing Gus has significantly less impact than playing Fairy Godmother. However, if you’re in the early game, or if you’d just played I Never Go Back on My Word you may still wish to discard this to find other cards.

I Never go Back on My Word

I Never Go Back on My Word is another really strong card, allowing you to look and order the top four cards of your Fate. This would be strong in any Villain’s deck, as you have the potential to nullify one or both of the next two Fate actions against you, and works well with the previously mentioned Vicious Practical Jokes. It also synergises well with Invitation from the King, as you can potentially use it to discard cards from your Fate Deck such as Fairy Godmother and Jaq.

Midnight and You Little Thief! are Lady Tremaine’s only way of defeating Heroes.

Special Mention: Lucifer

Lucifer is a very good defensive card, capable of preventing Fate actions from causing you too much harm. Lucifer traps Heroes at his location, preventing their ability from taking effect. By placing Lucifer on the same location as all your Items, you prevent Jaq from being used to discard them. Lucifer also makes your opponents less willing to play Heroes to Lucifer’s location, as they’ll want the Heroes ability to come into effect.

Special Mention: Midnight and You Little Thief!

Midnight and You Little Thief! are Lady Tremaine’s only way of defeating Heroes. You Little Thief! is used for defeating Cinderella, but Midnight lets you defeat every Hero in play. You’ll want to save Midnight for when your opponent has played most if not all the Heroes in your Fate deck to get the most use out of it. I generally save Midnight for when Fairy Godmother has come into play, as she also plays Ball Gown Cinderella, both of which make it incredibly difficult or impossible to move Ball Gown Anastasia or Ball Gown Drizella into the Ballroom. In the early game, you may want to discard both Midnight and You Little Thief!, but later on hanging onto Midnight will be more useful.

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Thanks for reading!

Chris