Sentinels of the Multiverse

[Firuthi Dragovic]

So what Sentinels is, is a card game where each character has a unique deck. You choose 3-5 hero decks, a villain deck, and an environment deck and your goal is to beat the villain. That's the classic mode, at least. There's also team mode where you've got 3-5 heroes against the same number of villains, and then there's an ultra-boss mode with its own villain deck where you select 5 environments to play.

My focus is going to be on the digital version - which uses the original rules for the cards (there's a re-release that changes quite a bit, such as with Legacy's deck). Why the digital? Well, I'm not around people who have interest in playing the physical edition (it's a miracle I can get them to play Catan - they are much more for games with ordinary decks of cards).

I'm not going to go over every single hero and villain here, nor will I discuss every variant unlock in the digital edition. One thing I WILL do, however, is describe any time I beat an Ultimate mode for a villain.

What is Ultimate mode? Well, on each villain, there's a set of Advanced rules to increase the challenge - such as Gloomweaver becoming immune to a couple damage types. Then the digital version includes Challenge rules - which make a given battle more difficult in another way (such as Gloomweaver's relics becoming indestructible, thus making his special hero victory condition a lot tougher). Ultimate mode is what happens when you use both the Advanced AND the Challenge rules.

 

[Firuthi Dragovic]

So, let's follow this up with the first Ultimate mode victory!

Villain: Baron Blade
Difficulty: 1
Nemesis: Legacy
Deck Gimmick: He has two phases. In his first phase (40 HP), if he starts his turn with 15 cards in his discard pile, the game is immediately over with a villain victory. The second phase (30 HP) does not have this time limit. Aside from that, there's a balance of ongoing cards, targets, one-shots, and a few devices - including one that makes him immune to damage until it's gone. One of those immunity devices is in play at the start of the game.
Advanced Mode: Cards get discarded at the end of every one of his turns. 1 card for a 3-hero game, 3 cards for 5 heroes.
Challenge Mode: That instant villain victory condition? Doesn't go away at the end of his first phase. That's for the whole battle. So you need to move a LOT faster and deplete all 70 HP before 15 cards are discarded.


My Team:

Legacy (complexity 1)
Play Style: The Legacy deck has a lot of options. A couple extra powers (including one that heals the whole team and deals damage at the same time), a good number of damaging one-shot cards, a little card draw... the biggest benefit here is Inspiring Presence, which increases the whole team's damage.
Variant?: I used Young Legacy for this battle. She swaps her father's Galvanize power (which makes the whole team deal extra damage) for Atomic Glare, which is a straight 3 energy damage. Galvanize will do more damage with more heroes and specific powers, but that would mean faster discards in the case of this challenge - I chose the higher immediate DPS with a small team to extend the damage race and its margin of error a bit more.

Tachyon (complexity 2)
Play Style: High-speed card draw and card play. A lot of the deck's got the "burst" keyword, which interacts with a couple high-powered cards... especially Lightspeed Barrage, which is her finishing attack. Aside from that, you've got full-field 1 damage attacks (one of which prevents anyone struck from dealing damage), and several forms of card draw - including one that affects the whole team.
Variant?: Freedom Six variant. Instead of looking at your top card and choosing whether to keep or discard it, now her power is Team Leader, which makes every hero draw a card. Even without a lot of card play, this gets absolutely and utterly insane - it's not unusual to have half the deck in your hand, or to run out of deck entirely, when this version of Tachyon takes the field. She works better with heroes that have extra card play.

Ra (complexity 1)
Play Style: Fire, fire, fire! No, seriously, Ra is all about damage and fire damage specifically. He has precisely one source of healing and one source of non-fire damage in the whole deck. He has a number of ongoings and his only team contributions are Flesh of the Sun God (normally makes him immune to fire, but if you use its power the whole TEAM is immune to fire for a turn) and Imbued Fire (now everyone does fire damage, and more of it at that - this actually comes in handy against a number of opponents).
Variant?: No variants this time. Sticking with the plain ol' 2 damage power. I didn't have Setting Sun unlocked yet and I don't need the card draw of Horus of Two Horizons.


Environment: Insula Primalis (difficulty 1)
Environment Gimmick: Dinosaur realm! Okay, not just that. There are enough dinos for sure, but there are also volcanoes, lava rivers, and the dreaded Obsidian Field (which boosts everyone's damage and I do mean EVERYONE's). This is overall not that hard of an environment to manage, but I would not call it the easiest one.


My Strategy:
As I said, this is a full DPS race. Legacy deck gets +1 damage dealt and received against Baron Blade, and only against Baron Blade (that will hold for every nemesis). So the turrets and Blade Battalion will not hurt more, but the Backlash Field will. This is all about how fast you can nuke a boss. I did have to deal with all three of the Mobile Defense Platform cards (the damage immunity device) though. By the time I dealt the last damage, I did not have much time to spare.


Would any other heroes work?: Yes, very much. Visionary has a means of shuffling villain trash back into their deck. This is one of a few villains that gets slammed hard by that power.

 

[Firuthi Dragovic]

Some of the unlocks are pulling major BS on me, so.... here comes the next Ultimate opponent!


Villain: Gloomweaver
Difficulty: 1
Nemesis: NightMist
Deck Gimmick: Zombies, cultists, and voodoo pins - this villain is a target-rich environment. It also has three special relics - one increases the power of the zombies, and the other two will damage you in different ways if you don't discard cards. He has by far been one of the biggest punching bags for me to complete the card variant unlocks.
Advanced Mode: Gloomweaver becomes immune to melee and projectile damage in his main phase. That makes several heroes almost completely unable to damage him.
Challenge Mode: The three special relics can't be destroyed - if taken to 0 HP they just keep going into negatives. One thing I failed to mention is that if all three relics are in the discard pile at the start of his turn, the heroes win the game instantly. But if all three are in play at once, that starts a DPS race where he does tons of damage to hero targets - even more if it's advanced mode. So for most heroes, challenge mode eliminates the instant win condition.


My Team:


The Scholar (complexity 3)
Play Style: He has huge amounts of card draw and healing... which is important in multiple ways, because his ongoing cards let him do damage every time he heals and block lots of incoming damage, but you have to discard cards every turn to keep them in play.
Variant?: No variant today. Standard "heals 1 HP" power.

Expatriette (complexity 2)
Play Style: Guns and ammo. Lots of guns and ammo. Most of her damage is Projectile, which you'd think would be a bad idea against this specific villain... but the ammo types can change it to others like fire or cold... or you can sweep the fodder.
Variant?: Nope, no variant. I went with the base "play a card" version.

Tempest (complexity 1)
Play Style: Tempest has a ton going for him. Damaging powers, high-octane one-shots, a healing power ongoing card, environment destruction, card draw and recovery, defense... and one of the game's few bounce effects to get a villain card out of the picture for a turn. With this much variety, he's a bit susceptible to not having what you need.
Variant?: I'm using his Prime Wardens variant. Instead of a 1-damage sweep attack, I can play multiple cards at once, at the risk of taking environment damage each time. With several ongoing cards granting powers, I have options and can simply use this power for fast setup. It's better if you have a dedicated healer on the team.


Environment: Silver Gulch 1883 (difficulty 2)
Environment Gimmick: A portal to the Old West. Gunmen and cover are the most common issues, but there's actually an instant-loss condition in the deck - if you let a specific card empty the environment discard pile, the portal closes and the heroes are lost in time, game over. Unless you're a complete dunce, it'll be a non-issue.


My strategy:
So Gloomweaver opens every game by summoning a bunch of zombies. First order of business, blast them to bits with an Assault Rifle from Expatriette. Scholar tanks, Tempest sets up and will be the main damage dealer to the villain, Expatriette... she's there to target the trash mobs until she gets some good ammo cards. Fun fact, all of the major relic damage stems from Gloomweaver specifically here, so Liquid Nitrogen Rounds go a long way in nerfing him. With all of that, the biggest threat was by far the environment - among the Cover cards, there are two Explosives Wagons that ramp up all damage. And when they explode, they deal tons of damage (half of it's fire and half of it's projectile, so this boss is less vulnerable to them) to everyone on the field - and that damage is also boosted. Two wagons blowing up at the same time almost one-shotted both Expatriette AND Tempest - so don't let that happen to you.

Due entirely to that blunder, I limped my way to the end of this fight, but everyone survived. Honestly, Gloomweaver is by far the easiest villain in the game unless you get all three relics immediately or get an absolutely stupid move like mass targeting against environment threats like I got.


Would any other heroes work?: Visionary, again, would utterly demolish this villain. Omnitron-X is even better, though - base power of "reveal a card in one deck, play or discard" could bypass the relic invulnerability. It really does not matter, however, because Gloomweaver does not have a base damage ability on his villain card in his first phase - so you can seriously take your time on this fight.