Disney Villainous, The Worst Takes It All - Villain Review Part Two

Delve once more into the most evil minds of your childhood, as we explore the world of several Disney villains.

This is the second part in a series of reviews I’ll be doing for Disney Villainous, focusing on each character in turn. I’ll be ranking the difficulty of each Villain, placing them as easy, medium, or hard. I’ll also outline 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, Kuzco for Yzma, and so on – unless I feel they contribute heavily to victory.

You can see part one, focusing on Captain Hook, Prince John, and Jafar, here.

Maleficent

Maleficent begins by playing Curses to Forbidden Mountain’s and Briar Rose’s Cottage.

Difficulty: Medium

Maleficent is a great villain to play; she has a unique card type in her deck, Curses. Her goal is to play at least one Curse to each location. Each has a very good effect, but has a drawback, which can limit Maleficent. Placement of these is crucial, because one played in the wrong spot can severely limit your own game. I find the best place to play Green Fire is to start on the left hand side of the board, and work along, playing the first Green Fire at the Forbidden Mountains and the second at Briar Rose’s Cottage.

Maleficent is strangely easy to learn, her goal is simple, and she has very few unique cards – a general rule of thumb is to discard cards that aren’t Curses, although there will be times to keep other cards in your hand. Other than the Raven, Spinning Wheel, and Staff, she has at least two copies of her other cards, usually three. Her main weakness is her ability to play cards, as most of her cards have a high cost.

Top 3 Cards:

Cards which gain Maleficent extra Power are incredibly useful!

Raven

The Raven allows Maleficent to perform an additional action each turn, and can be used to do so even if the location is covered with Green Fire. This is incredibly strong, especially if played early. Early game, I find the Raven most useful hopping between Briar Rose’s Cottage and The Forest, gaining power at whichever location Maleficent currently isn’t at. Late game, I’ll use the Raven’s action to move Curses around or play extra cards, to optimise my turn.

Your opponents will try to Fate you once they see the Raven, as Prince Philip discards all allies at his location. Once they’ve been played, the Raven can be protected by Green Fire; as no Hero can be played to a location with Green Fire, this means Prince Philip can’t be used to discard the Raven.

Staff

Like the Raven, the Staff is one of the strongest cards in Maleficent’s deck, and will quickly pay for itself. It reduces the cost of Effects and Curses at Maleficent’s location, so is best played to The Forest, to optimise the number of uses you get from it. This helps offset the high cost of Maleficent’s other cards, and should never be discarded; like the Raven, playing this as soon as you can is key.

Spinning Wheel

This card is a perfect counter to Heroes, it will quickly pay for itself, and can force your opponents to think very carefully about where they play Heroes when they Fate you. Like the Staff and Raven, the Spinning Wheel helps Maleficent gain Power. It also balances the cost of any Allies used to defeat Heroes, as you quickly gain back the Power it cost to play them.

Special Mentions

Maleficent must play Curses to win, but each can be beneficial in different ways!

Curses

The Curses are unique to Maleficent, and each has its pros and cons. I find them most useful in directing the flow of Heroes, as both Green Fire and Forest of Thorns can prevent Heroes being played to their location. Green Fire completely stops Heroes being played to its location, but has the downside of preventing Maleficent moving to that location, unless you wish to lose the Curse. There is only one card in the Fate deck that can get rid of this, King Stefan. The Forest of Thorns prevents Heroes with a Strength of four or more being played to their location, in which case they can discard the Forest of Thorns. With four Heroes in your Fate deck that can get rid of this card, it's the easiest of the three Curses to get rid of, but it’s also the cheapest. I quite like to play a Dreamless Sleep to the same location, because any Hero played to get rid of Forest of Thorns can then be quickly taken care of, either using Allies or Dragon Form.

Queen of Hearts

Alice makes things difficult for Queen of Hearts.

Difficulty: Easy

The Queen of Hearts is unique in that, unlike all the other Villains, she doesn’t want to murder children or take over the world – she just wants to play Croquet! The Queen of Hearts is a great starting Villain for new players, as she’s simple to learn and a straightforward strategy; play Card Guards, convert them to Wickets, and Take the Shot! Against experienced players, Queen of Hearts will find herself the target of lots of Fate actions, as her goal is so straightforward.

Top 3 Cards:

Queen of Hearts has some very powerful Effects in her deck.

The King

If you get him early, playing Card Guards becomes significantly easier, and cheaper, meaning you can convert them into Wickets much faster. He’s also useful for killing annoying allies, like Alice, without having to use your Card Guards.

By Order of the Queen

This is a great card for converting Card Guards to Wickets, and the perfect counter to Cheshire Cat and White Rabbit – Cheshire Cat turns to Wickets back to Card Guards when played, and White Rabbit makes it more expensive to activate them. By Order of the Queen becomes more useful when a Hero has been played to Hedge Maze, as this stops you from using one of your Activates, in which case you’d be able to Activate one Card Guard every other turn. By Order of the Queen is the perfect card to sneak a win, when your opponent thinks they’re safe, you can play this to turn two Card Guards into Wickets, and potentially a third if you’re at Hedge Maze or White Rabbit’s House.

Off With Your Head!

This is Queen of Hearts’ main way of removing Heroes. As eight of the ten Allies in her deck are Card Guards, which Queen of Hearts needs to win, it can sometimes be tricky to remove Heroes without hampering Queen of Hearts Ability to win. Off With Your Head! is a great counter to this, as you can use it to defeat the majority of Heroes in her Fate deck, the only exceptions being Alice and Cheshire Cat. Although early on the high cost can be difficult to reach, later on Queen of Hearts should have lots of Power.

Special Mention

Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum

This is your perfect anti-Hero – it’s got a high cost, which stings early on, but later in the game Queen of Hearts should generate Power with ease. Also, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum doesn’t need to be discarded when used to vanquish a Hero. If you can attach Spears to them, they can become even stronger. As, most of the time, you don’t want to use your Card Guards to defeat Wickets, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum and the King become your main defence against the stronger Heroes: Alice and the Cheshire Cat, as you won’t want to use your Card Guards to defeat them. However, if Alice is in play, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum can become useless, if no Hero is played to her location, so it can be worth hanging onto this card until Alice is in play to make your game easier.

Ursula

Ursula must first defeat King Triton to claim the Trident from him.

Difficulty: Hard

For me, Ursula is all about timing and digging for specific cards. She needs the Crown and the Trident to win, so you really need to dig through your cards to find them. Other than King Triton (and sometimes Ariel), Ursula doesn’t have to kill the Heroes in her realm, and, as many of them have abilities that only come into effect when the Hero is played, I often find a better strategy is to just stack all the Heroes on one spot, usually Eric’s Ship. Keeping The Shore location clear of Heroes is really important – Ursula needs to discard cards, I find many of the cards in her deck are situational, so often just won’t end up getting played. If I have a play and don’t intend to do anything else I’ll play the items from Ursula’s deck, but for the most part I’ll discard them.

Top 3 Cards

Flotsam and Jetsam are incredibly helpful for move Heroes around the board.

Grow Giant

I love this card! Most of my games are two player, so I find this card great to play to give myself the opportunity to Fate my opponent an extra time. I don’t often find myself short of Power playing Ursula, so other than the occasional Move a Hero, I don’t see a lot of other use for this card – and, as far as I can remember, this is the only card that allows you to do extra actions without excluding the Fate action.

Binding Contract (Ursula’s Lair)

In my opinion, this card is key to killing Triton, and achieving victory. The best time to play this card is after Sebastian has been played, because he can take the Binding Contract from another Hero, or if you can kill Triton in the same turn as playing it, by moving him to Ursula’s Lair – provided Ariel has been played.

Flotsam and Jetsam

I found it incredibly hard to choose a third top card for Ursula, other than the Trident and the Crown, which are both needed for winning, I tend to discard most cards other than those mentioned here. This spot was a choice between Change Form and Flotsam and Jetsam. Most of the time, I’ll discard Change Form, unless I’ve got the Trident and/or Crown at Ursula’s lair and want to protect it from Ariel being played. For this reason, I choose Flotsam and Jetsam, who are functionally identical cards. Both can be activated to move a Hero from their location to an adjacent one; I find them most useful to be played to Eric’s Ship or the Shore. They give a little flexibility in moving Heroes, and, once in play, can’t be removed by your opponent, so can sometimes force their hand when they Fate you.

That’s all for today! Do you agree with what I’ve put? Let me know in the comments below! Next time I’ll be reviewing the villains from Evil Comes Prepared: Ratigan, Yzma, and Scar.

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Thanks for reading!

Chris