How to Play Oogie Boogie – Disney Villainous Strategy Guide

Disney Villainous: Filled with Fright Guide

Disney Villainous’s Oogie Boogie playable villain has a lot going for it. It’s a fun character to play, and it’s also one of the strongest. That being said, there are certainly some nuances to playing this villain that bear thinking twice about.

With the right combination of strategy, trickery, and a little bit of luck, you’ll be well on your way to winning your next Disney Villainous matchup. Just follow this strategy guide.

Oogie Boogie Win Condition Explained

Oogie Boogie Strategy Guide — Ooogie Boogie Win Condition:

Defeat Jack Skellington

When it comes to playing Villainous, it helps to start at the end. The victory condition of any given character dictates how you are going to want to play the game. Usually, you are going to do better when playing the game if you lean heavy into what your character does best, and try to achieve the victory condition ASAP rather than taking a more defensive or conservative approach.

Oogie Boogie has a pretty straightforward objective: defeat Jack Skellington. But to do this, you first need to bring Jack Skellington into play. Doing that means playing four effect cards called “Imposter Sandy Claws.”

Once these cards are effectively played (they require a dice roll of 7 or more which we will get to into a minute) they go into a neat stack next to Santa Claus in Oogie Boogie’s Layer. If you reach four of these Imposter Sandy Claws in your pile, Jack Skellington arrives, replacing Sandy Claws in the layer.

Jack has a strength of 8, which normally would be a lot. However, defeating Jack isn’t very hard to do given Oogie’s convenient roster of henchman and allies.

Oogie’s Dice Mechanic Explained

One big departure from previous Disney Villainous games in this unprecedented expansion featuring a single playable villain is the new dice mechanic. That almost sounds funny to write that a regular pair of six sided dice is a “new mechanic,” but Villainous has never made use of dice before. It doesn’t hurt that these dice are super cool looking reproductions based on Oogie Boogie’s dice in the movie. They are the fundamental mechanic in playing Oogie Boogie.

The majority of Oogie’s key cards rely on achieving a certain dice roll. This is particularly important when it comes to playing Imposter Sandy Claws as the card itself can only actually be played if you achieve a roll of 7 or more.

Getting a 7 or higher on a two sided dice is not exactly an impossible to feat, however the odds aren’t in your favor.

Luckily, Oogie isn’t your typical, ethical gambling man. He has a few tricks up his sleeve. Namely, one.

Loaded Dice “Cheat Mechanic” is Broken

After playing Oogie Boogie only twice, it was clear to me that he was definitely one of the strongest villains in all of Disney Villainous. There are several reasons for this, but one of the big ones is the cheat card that was newly designed just for him. Unlike most cards that require you to have an available play a card action available at your location, Cheat can be played anytime you roll a dice. What it lets you do is simply choose one roll you didn’t like and re roll.

Suddenly, getting that 7 or higher on a dice roll doesn’t seem so impossible.

Save Cheat Cards for Playing Imposter Sandy Claws

I quickly realized when playing this new villain that the key to success as Oogie was actually pretty simple: never, ever play an Imposter Sandy Claws without a Cheat card in hand, if you can help it. After all, you do need four of them in play in order to get Jack into the game. You don’t want to leave that up to luck. If you do, you will likely have a very variable game.

The best kind of hand you can have (assuming you have the board setup you need with a few allies in play) is two cheats and two Imposter Sandy Claws. And, thanks to Oogie’s phenomenal draw support (best by far in the game), getting that kind of a hand ain’t hard.

Oogie Boogie has the Best Draw Support in All of Disney Villainous

Lastly, it’s worth mentioning one thing that makes Oogie Boogie really shine. He has phenomenal draw support, with many, many cards enabling you to discard cards and draw cards. This is necessary as you are going to need to get through cards quickly in order to stack up your hand with Imposter Sandy Claws and Cheat cards.

Discard Cards Often

Because Oogie relies on specific cards to win, you are going to want to take advantage of the discard cards action as often as you want (assuming you don’t have one of Oogie’s fabulous draw cards). The only cards you aren’t going to want to discard are The Imposter Sandy Claws Card and the Cheat Card. Those are literally all you need.

Otherwise, simply get Lock, Shock, and Barrel into play to handle the Jack Skellington problem.

Oogie’s Hero Deck Doesn’t Hurt Him Much

Unlike other powerful villains, Oogie Boogie’s Hero deck doesn’t hurt him much. The only exception to that being the powerful “Hello, Oogie!” card. This card follows your mover around like an item, and lowers your next dice roll.

But that is only a minor inconvenience, which you can discard pretty easily using one of Oogie’s many dice roll cards (don’t ever play an imposter Santa Claus while you have a Hello Oogie attached).

It’s Convenient for Oogie to Fate often

Lastly, one of the things that makes Oogie so powerful is his ability to fate early and often. Unlike other characters, Oogie doesn’t need a lot of power in order to win. Indeed, his victory condition can be achieved while expending a very low amount of power. To make things better (or worse depending on if you are playing as Oogie or against him), Oogie has a powerful condition card called Trick or Treat which enables you to steal power from other players, or gain power when they gain power.

Not to mention Oogie’s second Fate action happens to be located on one of his discard action spaces. As Oogie needs to draw a lot of cards to win, he’ll be spending a lot of time at that particular location, making it convenient for him to fate his opponents.

Phenomenal draw support, the unique and powerful cheat card, condition cards that supply power, and relatively low need for power in general combine to make Oogie one of the most deadly playable characters in all of Disney Villainous.

Checkout our review of this new expansion from Ravensburger as additional reading.