Most of the time when I play, it's using the "random" button in the app, and going with whatever it gives me (sometimes changing e.g. the villain if I don't feel like fighting the Chairman that day). And sometimes while playing, I find myself thinking, "I wish I'd rearranged the player order." Some specific examples:
- Stuntman's card that makes the game skip straight to his turn is awesome if he's first, and you use it right before the environment's turn. Skip the environment and the villain, hooray! But it's not so good when he's last. Hmmm, should I use this during the first player's turn, and skip everybody but me? No thanks.
- Unity benefits from extra card draws or free plays before her turn, so they activate during her turn. If she gets a free bot in play after her turn, it might get killed by the environment or villain before it does anything.
- It's nice to give Legacy, Haka, Guise, etc extra plays after their turn, since cards like Heroic Interception, Take Down, and Ground Pound disappear at the start of their turn. (But Haka can be nice to have later in player order, so other heroes can weaken targets, letting him finish them off to stash under Savage Mana).
- Most of La Comodora's cards have upkeep at the start of her turn, so you don't win either way -- except for Concordant Helm, which is nice to play any time out of turn.
I don't recall seeing any discussion of player order in the character guides or elsewhere (maybe there's something buried in the forum somewhere). So I'll ask the community: which characters are better in certain player order spots than others?
From what I've seen and heard, it basically goes:
Stuntman->support heroes->everyone else->Guise and La Comodora
I hear Guise likes being near the environment, anyway, and I find I prefer at least base La Comodora to go last so she has trash cards to pick through for her power.
But other than having your non-Comodora support heroes go before all your damage dealers so they can get the full use of their buffs over the course of the round, I haven't found too many other positioning benefits. Though having Dark Watch Mr. Fixer be first can be nice, to get a free use of his power with no downsides.
The stats project actually includes this data, because I thought it would matter. Turns out it doesn't, for the most part. Guise does slightly more poorly in the first position, and Stuntman oddly does worse in position #2, but the differences are small even then.
Sentinels Statistics Project -- Statistics updated daily!
Submit your games here!
Being a new player t the game, I like Legacy in first position (Galvanise). It makes no difference (except for the very first turn), but is easier for me to track when the effect expires.
Normal Stuntman wants to go first but Action Hero Stuntman would vastly prefer having people that get him more card draw go before him so he can keeps up his nova blasting.
Personally my prefered order is as follows. Normal stuntman->deck manipulators->support heroes->attackers with ongoing destruction->attackers without ongoing destruction->Unity/Guise/Base Comodora. Putting deck manipulators at the front lets you react to what is about to come out better.
I'll put things in here later.
I clearly need to learn Comodora better. Why does she like being last?
Hi. My name's Andy. Feel free to call me Andy, since, ya know, that's my name. (he/him/his)
If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If not now, when? If I am for myself alone, what am I? -- Hillel
On the first round, having La Comadora go last makes it more likely that there will be cards in hero trashes for her to shuffle with her base power. Otherwise, having heroes go before her can let the heroes set up 5HP targets for Brig Teleporter.
"Hey team, it's two 4 runes!"
I always face a debate in ordering Team Leader Tachyon, Legacy, and Argent Adept. TLT is great in first position, because she can set everyone up with the cards they need. Legacy is great first so he can boost everyone else, and play Take Down after his turn instead of before it (with AA). Argent Adept is helpful for setup, so is sometimes better earlier.
generally I don't see too much point in optimizing hero turns since it generally only affects the first round, but I have found Stuntman and Captain Cosmic to be the exceptions and a few hero combos as well (DW fixer before Guse, characters that give card plays before characters that use start of turn actions, characters that give powers after characters that need setup). I however, have no problem playing with sub optimal turn order because I enjoy handicapping myself sometimes.