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.
I am going to be providing some progress lists as follows:
Absolute Zero
Bunker
Fanatic
Haka
Legacy
Ra
Tachyon
Tempest
Visionary
Wraith
Unity
Expatriette
Mister Fixer
Argent Adept
NightMist
The Scholar
Chrono-Ranger
Omnitron-X
Captain Cosmic
Sky-Scraper
Guise
K.N.Y.F.E.
The Naturalist
Parse
The Sentinels
Setback
Benchmark
Stuntman
Void Guard Dr. Medico
Void Guard Mainstay
Void Guard The Idealist
Void Guard Writhe
Akash'Thriya
La Comodora
The Harpy
Lifeline
Luminary
Baron Blade
Mad Bomber Baron Blade
Citizen Dawn
Grand Warlord Voss
Omnitron
Cosmic Omnitron
Ambuscade
The Chairman
The Matriarch
Plague Rat
Spite
Akash'Bhuta
Apostate
The Ennead
Gloomweaver
Spite: Agent of Gloom + Skinwalker Gloomweaver
Miss Information
La Capitan
The Dreamer
Iron Legacy
Kismet
Trickster Kismet
Deadline
Infinitor
Heroic Infinitor
Kaargra Warfang
Progeny
Wager Master
Chokepoint
Insula Primalis
Megalopolis
Ruins of Atlantis
Wagner Mars Base
Silver Gulch 1883
Pike Industrial Complex
Rook City
Realm of Discord
Tomb of Anubis
Final Wasteland
The Block
Time Cataclysm
Dok'Thorath Capital
Enclave of the Endlings
Omnitron-IV
Freedom Tower
Mobile Defense Platform
Court of Blood
Madame Mittermeier's Fantastical Festival of Conundrums and Curiosities
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.
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.
We have another Ultimate mode victory, and not against a Difficulty 1 villain this time!
Villain: Plague Rat Difficulty: 2 Nemesis: Chrono-Ranger Deck Gimmick: Toxin damage. Lots and lots of toxin damage. Actually, the larger gimmick is Infection - he will infect heroes regularly. Infected heroes will deal themselves toxin damage and once everyone's infected, Plague Rat flips to a berserker state. If you can't remove ongoings, there is still a way to remove Infection, but you'll take way more damage. The only other target in the deck is a Plague Locus that provides ongoing healing and increases the damage of Plague Rat and infected heroes. Advanced Mode: Infected heroes and Plague Rat deal more damage. Once everyone's infected, Plague Rat goes full-on wererat and heals for massive amounts every turn. Challenge Mode: Persisent toxin damage every turn. Just 1 per turn for the challenge itself, but combine it with the locus and Advanced mode... you need to move FAST.
My Team:
Bunker (complexity 2) Play Style: Bunker's basically an analogue to War Machine, so there's lots and lots of equipment related to the power suit involved in this deck. Mainly heavy firepower. There's also three different "mode" cards - Recharge mode to lock into card draws and defense, Upgrade mode to lock into card play, and Turret Mode once you have multiple powers out to ramp up the damage. Also passive damage with a gatling gun if you've got the card draw - and Bunker actually has a shot at it. Variant?: Despite having several of his variants unlocked, I chose to go with the base "draw a card" one. There's not enough damage reduction to bother with G.I. Bunker and the amount of setup needed for the other two variants is too slow for this particular villain.
Wraith (complexity 1) Play Style: She's basically a Batman expy. Lots of equipment - utility belt, stun bolts, smoke bombs, "razor ordinance" (with only a slight resemblance to Batarangs). Probably one of her biggest deals is her Infrared Eyepiece - she can scry the villain deck and get rid of a few of the nastier cards. There's also Throat Jab for when you just want to shut down a target for a turn - really effective here, as while there is a little self-damage, about 90% of the damage of this villain comes directly from Plague Rat. Variant?: Her base version reduces the next damage she takes by 2. That's tempting, but I chose to go with her Freedom Five variant - the power lets you draw a card, and for one turn you can essentially give your card draws to someone else.
Chrono-Ranger (complexity 2) Play Style: His equipment is various projectile weapons, all of his one-shots have an added instance of damage tacked on... but this guy's essentially a space cowboy, and that means bounties. Many of his cards are tied in some fashion to him having bounties out. There's six different bounties, and only a couple of them involve direct damage. Variant?: The variant lets you hit a second target with the bounties. There really is no second target with Plague Rat or this environment - the base version's damage-dealing is more important.
Setback (complexity 3) Play Style: The deck's entire gimmick revolves around an "unlucky pool". Basically a pile of tokens representing this hero's supernaturally-bad luck. You can spend that bad luck to get healing, draw lots of cards, redirect damage to or from him, make every other hero use a power, or even save yourself from being incapacitated. Beware of stocking too much bad luck or you'll likely take psychic damage. Variant?: Damage reduction from the Dark Watch variant is tempting, but that's only one shot of damage blocked. I need the base variant's extra card play and unlucky tokens with a villain this fast.
Environment: Wagner Mars Base (difficulty 2) Environment Gimmick: Fire damage, toxin damage, several cards that buff villain targets, and a self-destruct sequence that can cause an instant villain victory. Those are actually not the big threats for this particular team. No, the nastiest part of this deck is Pervasive Red Dust - destroying lots of equipment cards in one go. Three of my characters are very equipment-dependent.
My Strategy:
You thought Baron Blade was a DPS race? Oh, you have no damn clue. Plague Rat puts out so much damage that you can lose this battle before it's begun if you get a bad leadoff (like Ravage) and you really need to win in 3-4 rounds. Get Chrono-Ranger infected as soon as possible, but pray it's not from something like Ravage that'll infect a large number of heroes in one go. You actually want to leave the Plague Locus up. Pray Wraith gets an early Throat Jab, or even two. You want Chrono-Ranger's Compounded Bow for your main damage. Setback can use Uncharmed Life and Wrong Time and Place to take the edge off of Chrono-Ranger. Bunker has Adhesive Foam Grenade to get the environment out of the way - or you can pray for a Meteor Storm to block one of Plague Rat's big cards and then take it out with Wraith's Grappling Hook just before Chrono-Ranger's turn.
"By Any Means" and "The Ultimate Target" are your critical bounties for this one. I actually prefer to get them via Sudden Contract as that adds another damage instance.
So much has to line up for this win to work. You basically need Chrono-Ranger to shoot lots of boosted damage in order to have a chance at this one with this team. If he gets incapped before Plague Rat dips below 10 HP, you're cooked.
Would any other heroes work?:
This time, I'm not so convinced other heroes would do much good. You don't have enough time to set up Legacy's Lead From the Front + Next Evolution combo, you really want the Nemesis bonus and a lot of small hits so Tempest or Ra wouldn't quite cut it, Plague Rat is so single-minded towards damage-dealing cards that deck manipulation doesn't really pay off here... this is one of the most nerve-wracking battles with just how fast it goes. Plus, a good chunk of the damage is irreducible.
Probably the one person you can get away with replacing is Bunker. Swap him for someone who can give other heroes more cards or power uses.
If anyone has suggestions for the next Ultimate battle, I'm all ears. Tell me the villain, tell me the environment, and you get to nominate up to one hero in the team if you desire. I do not rematch a villain unless they have a variant, and I do not reuse an environment until I've used them all already. I am more willing to reuse heroes but not two matches in a row.
If you want more specifics on any of the cards I mention, also let me know and I'll be glad to explain.
So after analyzing the decks available, there's something I've learned:
There's more environments than solo villains. So I won't be using all the environments until we get to the team battles.
Also, I'm nearly done with the unlocks! The last few have some REALLY stupid requirements.
With that in mind, let's use up one of the dumber environments on this next Ultimate mode battle!
Villain: Deadline Difficulty: 2 Nemesis: The Naturalist Deck Gimmick: Aside from a single one-shot, there are two types of cards in this villain's deck - devices, and catastrophes. Catastrophes count as ongoing cards, and if there's more than a certain number of them in play, Deadline will expend them to remove cards in the environment deck from the game. If there is no environment deck left, it's an instant villain victory. This guy is a bit above Captain Planet's paygrade unfortunately, so it's up to us to stop him. Advanced Mode: Normally, you'd want to destroy catastrophes early. But in Advanced mode, if you do that, Deadline will pile on tons of Infernal damage to the whole team. When he does launch his catastrophes, the heroes will deal multiple instances of Psychic damage to themselves. The wording on that is important. Challenge Mode: There are four devices in this deck - a glaive that deals damage every turn, armor that blocks the first damage the villain takes each turn, a relic key that plays more villain cards when the environment gets a draw, and a relic sphere that deals damage and forces discards. Normally you can destroy these. Not in Challenge mode - these become indestructible.
My Team:
Haka (complexity 1) Play Style: It's hard to pin down what comic hero this guy represents. All of his damage is melee damage (okay, there is ONE source of Toxic but that requires some buildup and is more like a finisher), but he's got a lot of tricks up his sleeve. Weapons, the ability to keep environment damage off the rest of the team, card draw when environment cards get destroyed... his biggest deal is the "Haka" cards. You draw 2, discard as many as you want, and depending on the card you can heal yourself, reduce the next damage you take, or increase your next damage by the amount you discarded. Paired with a hero that can give tons of card draw, the Hakas are incredible. Variant?: Base version deals straight damage, Eternal variant can potentially give you tons of card draw, and XPW variant lets you redirect damage from one target each turn. I'm using the Prime Wardens variant here - you play a card, and if it's one of his "Haka" cards then you can choose who benefits. Not only is this extra card play, it's very handy for emergency healing with the Haka of Restoration.
Absolute Zero (complexity 3) Play Style: Imagine Iceman with some of the tribulations of Iron Man. This deck revolves around several pieces of equipment - one module that heals you if you receive cold damage, another module that lets you deal a cold damage attack if you take fire damage, and two non-module devices that increase cold damage. Many cold damage attacks in this deck also deal you fire damage. Variant?: Base variant can let you deal fire or cold damage to yourself, meaning you have more control over your device effects. Freedom Six version can deal straight damage to enemies, Termi-Nation variant ramps up all damage he deals and takes... but I'm going with the Freedom Five variant - you can only deal fire damage to yourself, but in exchange you can search your deck for ongoing cards to put into play. It gets you set up faster, but the vast majority of his cold damage specifies "non-hero" targets so you can't heal nearly as easily. You're basically reliant on someone else if you want to heal, as the two modules are normally designed for that but you don't have enough self-cold with the Freedom Five variant.
NightMist (complexity 3) Play Style: Lovecraftian spellcaster whose powers are all mist-themed. Every single one of her cards has a spell value from 1 to 4 on it. Most of her cards rely on that number for something related to its effect - but many one of them also deals NightMist more damage. However, she's also got a relic that lets you discard cards to redirect damage taken, and a relic that lets you discard cards at the end of turn to gain HP based on the spell value. Variant?: Out of everyone here, this is the only hero that's going in as the base version. Base version deals self-damage to draw more cards. Her Dark Watch variant lets her rearrange the first three cards of the deck every turn. Dark Watch version is better if you have ways to use powers out-of-turn as you can manipulate a card with a good spell value to be on top. With this team, the base is better.
The Naturalist (complexity 2) Play Style: An environment-defending shapeshifter. His deck revolves around three forms - gator, rhino, and gazelle. Gazelle provides card draw, rhino reduces damage, gator increases damage - but most of the cards in the deck have other effects depending on the current form. You can't have more than one form card out at a time. Variant?: His normal variant's power is to put one of the three Form cards in play. I'm using his Hunted variant instead, which lets you activate Form effects for a specific form - and gives extra card draw or play. The Hunted variant is straight-up better because the Form cards count as ongoings and can be destroyed easily.
The Sentinels (complexity 3) Play Style: So instead of just one standard hero here, you get four weaker ones - energy being Dr. Medico, the rough-and-tumble Mainstay, psychic superstar The Idealist, and shadow being Writhe. Each one has a Signature card specifically for them, but otherwise most of the cards take into account whether specific heroes are active or incapacitated. There are even cards to revive part of the team. All four must be incapacitated before this deck is considered "out". The catch is, you're also four targets, which is horrid for enemies with lots of team-hitting attacks. Your standard hero has at least 24 HP, all the way up to 35 (PW Haka) with one case of 50 (Akash'Thriya). The Sentinels individually don't go above 15 HP. They will melt FAST. Variant?: So this is one of those cases where neither the base version nor the Adamant variant is strictly better. Let's run down the differences. For Dr. Medico, base version can heal anyone for 3 HP where the Adamant version only heals The Sentinels for 1 each - but the Adamant version gives card draw at the same time. Base Mainstay can block damage for all the Sentinels whereas Adamant version has him deal damage and make the next attack irreducible. Idealist deals more damage in base form but reduces the damage dealt by the target in Adamant form. And Writhe has bottom-deck scrying in base form, but can put destroyed non-hero targets on the bottom of their deck in Adamant form. It's a toss-up, but ultimately I'm choosing the Adamant variant here.
Environment: Madame Mittermeier's Fantastical Festival of Conundrums and Curiosities (difficulty 3) Environment Gimmick: Welcome to the lower birth... the Greatest Show Unearthed! No seriously, this is one of the darkest carnivals there is, with many grim attractions. A lot of them deal widespread damage, but some affect both hero and villain. The carousel's horses are partly undead, and force discards. The fortune-teller can let you see the next card - and play it if it's a one-shot. The maze rebounds the first damage from any source back to itself. The freak show locks away the hero with the lowest health. The big risk is letting the attractions pile up - if you let too many attractions stay active, you run the risk of losing heroes completely. As in, they don't even get incapacitation abilities.
My Strategy:
So remember what I said about Advanced mode where if you destroy the catastrophes early, Deadline will deal lots of Infernal damage? And how proper destruction of the catastrophes results in the heroes doing damage to themselves? Yeah, that's really important because of Haka's Ground Pound - which states that non-hero targets can't do damage. So that's why Haka is going before everyone - NightMist, Absolute Zero, and The Naturalist all have cards that can destroy multiple ongoings in one shot... including Catastrophes. With Ground Pound in play, they can use those cards without worry for a turn - which can stop eco-destruction if Deadline gets 3 or more out at once.
One of the issues with this team is that there's not a lot of environment destruction (primarily NightMist), only ongoing destruction. The Naturalist actually has a card that completely eliminates environment damage to heroes - but he has to maintain the gazelle form effect to keep that bonus. When "Gone Without a Trace" (the card that can remove heroes completely if there's too many attractions) comes into play, its means of removing targets relies on self-damage so The Naturalist is ineffective at stopping it.
The base strategy thus becomes a race to prevent Deadline from getting a lot of Catastrophes out to begin with. With his double-dip on card draw, this is a DPS race in a similar vein to Baron Blade. NightMist can actually stop card draws from one deck for a turn, but we shouldn't be relying on that.
How Did it Go?:
I had to reset this fight once because he drew Unnatural Disaster right off the bat. If he draws Unnatural Disaster on his first turn, restart - you won't be able to recover from an annihilation that early. His environment annihilation is end-of-turn, so you might be able fix that with one of Absolute Zero's cards that forces those to the start of the turn.
In my case, Deadline pulled off two annihilations and removed half the environment deck. The Sentinels went down on the first one, Absolute Zero dropped on the second (it was going to be him or The Naturalist on that Restoration Haka, and I chose The Naturalist. A later Shielding Haka didn't cut it). NightMist would have dropped, except Mist Form blocked damage for several turns - I dropped it after the second annihilation and used a Haka-enhanced Oblivion (with a redirect from Amulet of the Elder Gods to make sure she could finish the spell) for the win.
I never actually had to worry about Gone Without a Trace this time around. I also got every one of this villain's devices in play EXCEPT the one that blocks the first damage taken each turn. I might not have won if he'd brought that one to bear.
Would any other heroes work?:
Tachyon or Wraith would also solve the issue with Advanced mode. As for someone like Visionary? Deck manipulation is... partially valuable here - the five types of catastrophes are not uniform in their effects, but 18 of this guy's 25 cards are catastrophe cards (he otherwise has the 4 devices and 3 copies of Unnatural Disaster, a one-shot that is about bringing out lots of catastrophes). However, with Challenge mode, the devices aren't going away - so your only recourse is for them to never be played in the first place.
Whoever you swap in, swap out The Sentinels - they won't survive a single round of environment annihilation in Challenge Mode even if you have Dr. Medico's signature card out.
Now, the self-damage from the catastrophes being destroyed makes Legacy a very bad idea for this opponent. Same for anyone that boosts their own damage for a whole turn (instead of just one attack like Haka does).
Now, for what's next in this series, there are several villains I want to take down early because they've got hero versions. Baron Blade and Deadline are two of them, believe it or not.
The remaining six that I want to prioritize are Ambuscade, Akash'Bhuta, La Capitan, The Matriarch, The Dreamer, and Omnitron. Ambuscade's a difficulty 1, Omnitron and Akash'Bhuta are 2, La Capitan and The Dreamer are 3, and The Matriarch's a 4. The Cosmic Omnitron variant is a 3 as well. And if I'm going this far, let's throw in Mad Bomber Baron Blade, another difficulty 2 villain.
So that sets me up for the next 8 episodes. I may actually deal with Mad Bomber Baron Blade first.
(Most of the villains don't have variants by the way. Only six of them do, and I will likely face the variants back-to-back with the originals... with one possible exception...)
So I'm planning on doing these battles one every couple of days from here on out. I've got about four unlocks left and the last one is extremely BS (I have to beat a weekly mission on the first try and fulfill very specific conditions with a specific character).
That is, with the exception of Tuesday. I plan on doing two battle reports on Tuesdays until we get to the dreaded OblivAeon battle - which is going to be the grand finale to the series. I'll discuss what to do with the team battles when we clear all classic mode battles.
EDIT: Turns out the villains are getting much, MUCH harder from here on out, so I'm not sticking to a schedule.
So... Ultimate battle of the Tuesday match starts now.
Villain: Mad Bomber Baron Blade Difficulty: 2 Nemesis: Legacy Deck Gimmick: This variant works much differently from the original villain. There's no hard time limit this time - instead, every target goes under his card and ramps up his full-team firebomb damage in phase 1. In phase 2, he picks up his death ray and deals single-target energy damage based on his discard pile - and any target goes to discards instead of going into play. Overall, you don't have to deal with his mobile defense platform or his time limit, but you still have to deal with his ongoings. Advanced Mode: At the end of his turn, more cards from the villain deck go under his card, which means his damage ramps up FAST. In phase 2, instead he plays an extra villain card each turn. Challenge Mode: All damage he takes is reduced by 2 due to nanobot armor. His measly 30 HP in phase 1 and 40 HP in phase 2 suddenly doesn't look so weak when he's shrugging off tons of blows. It also means that without serious boosts, Tachyon and Wraith can't nullify his damage.
My Team:
Legacy (complexity 1) Play Style: This Superman expy's deck's already been mentioned for its variety, but I've just noticed two things: his damage-dealing cards are all melee, and he has an overarching "take one for the team" theme to him. Variant?: This time I'm going with the America's Greatest Legacy variant. Instead of boosting damage, one hero gains 1 HP and can use a power immediately. Has its uses if you've got the right power for the job.
Tachyon (complexity 2) Play Style: One thing I didn't mention about her high-speed Flash-esque gameplay last time I used her: She has one of a number of "redirect" effects on the hero side, Synaptic Interruption. She decides who takes the blow but the card is used up. Variant?: This time I'm going with the Super-Scientific variant. Reveal the bottom two cards of a deck and put them into play if they share a keyword - or discard them otherwise. Better for specialized decks or building up her own burst pile for Lightspeed Barrage, but you can also churn out a villain deck if needed.
Ra (complexity 1) Play Style: There really isn't that much to add about this sun god's fire-based deck, except for the Excavation card - you can move environment cards from the discard to the bottom of the deck. Helps reduce randomness, and in this case you get card draw out of it. Variant?: Today it's going to be the Horus of Two Horizons variant. Extra card draw instead of straight damage. If I want damage, there's a couple options in the deck for that.
Parse (complexity 2) Play Style: Despite having a bow, she's not a good comparison for Green Arrow - Chrono-Ranger does that better. Instead, Parse is more of the computer hacker and information type. She's got a significant amount of deck manipulation and removing ongoing cards. That's not quite why she's in on this one, though... I brought her along specifically for two cards that make damage irreducible, as well as an ongoing that increases the next damage every time she discards a card - which this deck can do on its own. Variant?: Her normal version has straight projectile damage as a power. I've chosen to use her variant, Fugue State, which allows for playing the bottom card of the deck - and can let someone else do it too if she's discarded. The extra card play is very handy.
Environment: Mordengrad (difficulty 3) Environment Gimmick: I was tempted to do the Mobile Defense Platform as a callback to the first fight where Baron Blade started with one, but I'm saving that environment for a later challenge. I chose Mordengrad because it's essentially Baron Blade's home country. Imagine the stereotype of any authoritarian state and you have a good idea what this place is like. Lots of minions, combat devices, and engineers that will help the heroes if the battalion commander isn't around. No seriously, battalion commanders grant the "minion" keyword to any non-hero target within a certain HP threshold and the engineers have a hero-helping ability that specifies "if it does not have the minion keyword".
My Strategy:
On this one, Tachyon's in major trouble as not a lot of her deck can affect the Baron in Challenge mode. Legacy's few attacks can do some significant damage, and Ra puts out the kind of damage that can punch through Baron Blade's nanobot armor... but Parse is the real lynchpin of the strategy. She's there to enable others to pierce the nanobot armor (or do it herself with Impossible Shot) and also make sure Baron Blade only plays what we want him to. However, she and Ra are very reliant on Ongoing cards, so the most dangerous card isn't the Baron drawing more targets to increase his damage - it's Devious Disruption. Since that card's damage relies on hero Ongoings and Equipment cards, it will completely sink us without a hope for recovery if it's played at the wrong time. Now, I can work around this card if Legacy has both Lead from the Front and Next Evolution out, but I don't want to do that if I can help it.
Damage-wise, the Baron's got enough damage variety that I can't just stuff him with Legacy's aforementioned combo. However, the bulk of his damage in phase 1 is Fire, so Ra can shut it down with Flesh of the Sun God. In Phase 2, the key damage type to worry about is Energy - Legacy can stop that with the combo.
Either way, the first phase is the real danger here. Sure the damage in phase 2 ramps up, but his main damage in that phase is single-target. Phase 1 is mostly team damage.
How Did it Go?:
Well, this one's first phase went amazingly. Every use of Tachyon's power had cards put into play instead of trashed (barring exactly one attempt at that with Ra). Inspiring Presence was part of the initial draw, Ra got Imbued Fire (everyone deals boosted fire damage) and Living Conflagration (a damage dealing power that also allows card draw) very early, and Parse got to play two copies of Between The Lines (another hero uses a power, any damage from that power is irreducible). I got through his first phase in under two turns with this amount of firepower. However, he still got 6 cards under his character card during that time - that would have been 6 damage to everyone at the start of his next turn if I'd let that go, which should emphasize how fast you need to be in this fight.
Baron did get two copes of Slash and Burn very early, so I wasn't completely out of the woods, but the second phase started with me playing Take Down to shut down the Baron's card draw for a turn. Giving Tachyon's power over to Legacy had him draw Lead from the Front AND Next Evolution at the same time (both Ongoings), and I got a Targeting Arrow from using it on Parse. Meanwhile, bottom deck draws resulted in things like Reveal the Flaws (which turns every hero attack into irreducible damage for a round).
Tachyon wound up finishing the battle with a double Lightspeed Barrage for over 25 HP of damage total. No one dipped below 10 HP at ANY point through the battle and there wasn't even that much healing involved. And the environment didn't get much of a chance to factor into this fight because the battle didn't last long enough to build an army.
Honestly, I could not possibly have gotten better luck on this battle. But luck only played a minor part here. I wrote off Super-Scientific Tachyon at one point, but she may actually be more busted than the Freedom Six variant on some decks. Getting Lead from the Front and Next Evolution into play at the same time essentially shut down Baron Blade's threat in the second phase.
Would any other heroes work?:
Truth be told, I still think Ra's one of the best picks to shut down his early game. However, I think anyone with good deck manipulation or the ability to boost their damage can stop this incarnation of Baron Blade just fine. Despite the team damage, he is nowhere near as nerve-wracking as Plague Rat was.
I am very confident that bringing out Parse to help with this battle was a very necessary call. In addition to the irreducible damage gimmick, her bottom-deck draws were extremely powerful.
This strategy did not give Ra's Horus of Two Horizon's variant a chance to truly shine. I may try that one again someday.
This is one of those battles that is absolutely hostile to The Sentinels though, so don't bring them on this trip. I'd also say this version of Baron Blade is hostile to Unity or Captain Cosmic (more on them another day), who also have tons of targets in their decks.
Just so you all know, the Mobile Defense Platform also has targets with the "minion" keyword. Remember that keyword. It's going to be really, REALLY important in a later battle. (Yes, I'm insane enough to combine a specific villain with that platform.)
But not the next battle. I think it's time for a more unorthodox villain next episode...
EDIT:In retrospect, I should have known this next battle would be tremendously harder. I'm so close, but I've been at this battle for 3 hours trying to figure it out. So I'd planned on the next one being a second battle for Tuesday, but it will likely be pushed to Wednesday or even Thursday.
My originally planned second Ultimate battle for today has to be postponed for one matchup.
It was The Dreamer, in Realm of Discord, and I can't win against her with the team I had planned. Unity, Argent Adept, Guise, K.N.Y.F.E,... even Expatriette and Tempest... NOTHING is working due to just how aggravating this boss is. I REALLY need to bring in Legacy and/or Tachyon to handle this, so according to my rule of "no repeating heroes two matches in a row" I can't handle this one yet.
No, I will not "make this one easier" by giving her a different environment, and I am especially not wasting The Block on her when there's difficulty 4 villains to consider. I will have to give someone the Realm of Discord eventually and the environment isn't the problem here. It is 100% on the "villain" and her projections, and her Advanced mode especially (the Challenge mode isn't as big of an issue).
I've been trying this for FIVE. #$^!ING. HOURS. I'm now at THIRTY attempts, and I've gotten to phase 2 about 4 of those times now. I need a break, and a new villain so that I can call in the big guns on this one.
I am insistent on using every hero eventually, but some of them are just not effective in situations like this.
Whatever. Going to try an easier villain and give Unity, Argent Adept, and K.N.Y.F.E. someone that's actually within their weight class. (Guise can stay on the team that fights The Dreamer - he actually might be even more effective with Legacy.)
EDIT:Looking at these? There is a good chance I will have to abandon my rule of not repeating heroes twice in a row. I actually don't dread The Chairman as I've had to fight him several times in suboptimal conditions for unlocks. It's The Matriarch, Kaagra, and Iron Legacy that scare me.
Going to put Unity, Argent Adept, and K.N.Y.F.E. against someone much more their weight class. I'm still going to pair them up with a fourth hero.
I promise you, these four punch harder when they're not all on the same team.
Villain: Omnitron Difficulty: 2 Nemesis: Omnitron-X Deck Gimmick: A good solid representation of everyone's fears regarding AI. It flips each turn between an automated drone factory that brings back drones and components, and a rampaging robot that gets double card draw. The two main focuses of the deck are drones and components - drones can heal or deal damage, and components are all damage-dealing. There's one-shots to clear ongoing cards, equipment cards, and environment cards, as well as Adaptive Plating Subroutine - which requires you to vary your damage types as it becomes immune to the last damage you dealt to it. Finally, there's Electro-Pulse Explosive, which can deal upwards of 15 (!) damage to all your hero targets (which will literally two-shot most heroes and one-shot all of The Sentinels if you're using that deck) if you don't attack it to mitigate the damage. Destroying the villain is not quote enough in this scenario - you can't win until all devices are destroyed. That's ALL devices - if one of your heroes uses them, tough break. Advanced Mode: In robot factory mode, all devices deal extra damage. In rampaging robot mode, all devices take less damage. This is far, far less aggravating than The Dreamer's damage mitigation - especially because there's no other source of damage reduction in this deck. The devices are the villain itself, the drones, and the Electro-Pulse Explosive - basically every target in the deck. And all of the components' damage comes from Omnitron, so you could technically shut that down. Challenge Mode: So normally, you can destroy all of the components at once by dealing 7 or more damage to Omnitron in a single round. With this challenge, you only destroy one component when you deal that much. But... what I failed to mention about the components is that all of them count as Ongoings. So this challenge is a complete nothingburger if you have good ongoing destruction.
My Team:
Unity (complexity 3) Play Style: She can construct mechanical golems (cards' keyword, not my name for it) out of basically scraps. Her method is very vaguely like Magneto but she's a fair bit friendlier than he ever was. Anyways, the trick to this deck is that she can't play her mechanical golems during her normal card play phase. She has to use other methods that depend on her variant's power or other equipment she's got - destroying equipment on the field, playing a mechanical golem as a power and dealing damage to herself, discarding cards... or by far the easiest, having other heroes give her card play outside her turn. Almost all of her damage comes from these mechanical golems, and they're all targets - so area-effect will completely shut her down. Variant?: Her base version has her destroy equipment cards to get mechanical golems in play - this is what I used in those bad Dreamer games. Freedom Six variant lets her play them directly, but she takes 4 damage each time. I don't have nearly enough healing to support that with this team. Instead, I'm using her Termi-Nation variant, where she can put one of her mechanical golems in play back into the deck, and pull one back from the discards into play... and also draw a card.
Argent Adept (complexity 3) Play Style: Now this is a guy I've wanted to play on this series for a while. He's got three types of Ongoing cards - Melody, Rhythm, and Harmony. All three have Perform text - Rhythm and Harmony cards have Accompany text. You play these either with your character powers, or with instrument equipment that lets you use multiple card texts of specific types at the same time (depending on the instrument). The effects include buffing damage, reducing incoming damage, card play, card draw, scrying the top card of the deck, ongoing/environment destruction, extra power uses... but not a whole lot of actual damage. So Argent Adept is a supporter through and through. Variant?: Base version lets you activate a Perform text. Dark Conductor versuib lets you reveal the top card of 2 decks, play one and discard the other. Extreme Prime Wardens version gets a direct damage power, but if you target an ally with it they can draw a card and use a power right away. When I was playing those disastrous Dreamer games, I was using this XPW version. So this time, I'm using the normal Prime Wardens version - play the bottom card of the deck, and activate an Accompany text.
K.N.Y.F.E. (complexity 1) Play Style: A rogue special ops agent. The problem is, despite having wrist blades of energy, she really doesn't fit a Psylocke type. Too much tech. Anyways, she is much more of a straight damage dealer. Mainly melee and energy damage. She's also got an Ongoing that will still let her take out targets if she just barely misses the mark, and a couple damage-boosting pieces of equipment. But most of her cards pertain to direct damage. Variant?: So I could go with her base version's 2 damage power. But that's what I tried with the disaster of facing The Dreamer. So I'm trying her Rogue Agent variant - reveal the bottom card of a deck, and either play it or discard it. That has a lot of potential, especially with teams that need the card play like this one.
Void Guard The Idealist (complexity 3) Play Style: So later on in the initial game's lifecycle, they made individual decks for each member of The Sentinels. In the case of psionics-based The Idealist (who incidentally is a far better candidate as a Psylocke expy than K.N.Y.F.E. is - I still wouldn't pin her as one though), her deck revolves around the idea of "concepts" and "fragments". Fragments are your standard one-shots, but instead of discarding them after use, they're placed under concepts. Three of the four concepts available are "nuke" cards - one lets you get a massive amount of card draw, one can stab lots of targets with knives, and one calls in a karate robot for massive melee and psychic damage on a single target. The fourth concept boosts all damage, but slowly drains your fragments out from under your concepts - and if you can't do that, The Idealist starts taking tons of psychic damage. Variant?: Her base version lets her draw a card and put a fragment from her hand under a concept in play. That's normally pretty good, but The Idealist has monstrous card draw already. I'm instead using her Super Sentai variant, which lets her take a concept in play and all the cards under it, and instead turn it into a degrading direct attack power. And the amount of energy damage you can get out of this is psychotic.
Environment: Maerynian Refuge (difficulty 1) Environment Gimmick: This is basically the home turf of people like Tempest. Half the deck is weather effects and buildings. The other half are the Maerynians themselves... including three Stormspeakers that can cancel out the weather effects. So for the most part, this is a deck you can just worry about stopping the worse weather (there's multiple all-hitting cards in here). Just beware the Leviathan (a genetically-altered Maerynian) - he deals lots of damage to heroes specifically and it's irreducible. Plus, he actually has a nemesis icon (for Tempest, naturally) - you'll occasionally see that in the environment decks.
My Strategy:
So... two members of my team (Argent Adept and The Idealist) are completely dependent on ongoing cards to function, and a third (K.N.Y.F.E.) gains a lot of benefit from them. If Omnitron draws Sedative Flechettes (deals team damage and destroys all hero ongoings), that can potentially turn into an instant loss. Terraforming (destroy all environment cards, villain plays an equal number of cards) is also pretty bad as this is an environment where you usually leave everything going on its own. By contrast, I'm not nearly as affected by Technological Singularity (destroy all equipment cards and deal damage for each card destroyed) as my equipment needs are very low even with Unity.
On the other hand, the Advanced and Challenge mode limitations mean very little overall. K.N.Y.F.E. and The Idealist can put out enough damage to punch through the defense reduction, and if you destroy drones and components fast enough you won't have to worry about the increased damage. By the way, every hero here has a decent method of destroying ongoing cards (Unity's Bee Bots, Argent Adept's Sarabande of Destruction, K.N.Y.F.E.'s Prototype Servo-Gauntlet, and The Idealist's Giant Floaty Head), so the components will not be an issue this time.
Regarding The Idealist, most of her Concept cards are also Ongoing. Not Monster of Id (the one that boosts damage and drains out fragments) - there's only a few ways to bounce that one out of play, and I think half of them are in The Idealist's own deck (I think Setback and Luminary had options too, I'll have to check).
The Argent Adept ability that lets you get extra power uses is a Perform text, so we can't use that without an instrument. So are the ones that buff damage and reduce incoming damage - and the healing card is a Melody, which only has Perform text. Fortunately, the card draw and one of the card play options are Accompany text, so we've still got tons to work with here.
K.N.Y.F.E.'s Rogue Agent variant power can potentially single-handedly solve Unity's issues with playing the mechanical golems. I can't discount using it on everyone else though.
How Did it Go?:
Well, this is much more like it.
Omnitron drew multiple Components right off the bat. One of them was the Interpolation Beam, which deals damage every time a hero draws a card... so that was the first one to go as I have a huge card draw requirement. I did take quite a bit of damage removing Components from the field - and with this setup I find it's easier to go for direct destruction than try piling on the damage to Omnitron.
I did get Technological Singularity on a damage-increase turn, so that was bad. But overall it didn't matter too much - Super Sentai Idealist got enough card draw to power up to a 10 damage attack within 4 rounds. At that speed, even the Electro-Pulse Explosive did not stand a chance.
....up until a 4-card Terraforming got into play, comboing into Sedative Flechettes. That went very badly. In fact, both copies of Sedative Flechettes got into play at times where they destroyed 6 or more ongoings each, and losing that much power at once pretty much spelled the end of Unity and Argent Adept shortly after the second one. Lucky for me, three things happened at once:
The Squall-Guards (who attack every non-hero non-Maerynian for two 1 damage hits each turn) in this environment deck got a number of hits on Omnitron and the drones on a turn where damage reduction was not in effect.
Termi-Nation Unity's incapacitation powers include "destroy an ongoing card" which essentially shut down the Adaptive Plating Subroutine when it finally reared its ugly head.
Prime Wardens Argent Adept's incapacitation powers include "destroy an environment card" which means the Leviathan was pushed out of the way both times he showed up.
At that point K.N.Y.F.E. with the Servo-Gauntlet, and Idealist with a boosted damage power were able to take this one home. I limped to the end on this and got really lucky, but I only needed one try at this battle in order to accomplish it.
I swear these heroes are way better in a balanced team. Except maybe Idealist - the support helps her, but she's already crazy powerful on her own.
Would any other heroes work?:
Omnitron is one of those villains where you really want lots of area-effect damage. Tempest is well-suited to this guy, but NightMist may be even better. Omnitron-X himself might be viable on the defensive, using the Timeshift power to cancel out things like the Sedative Flechettes.
This one's not the same race against time as some other villains have been. You can actually afford to take this battle slowly, as long as you remember to pick off the Components as they come up. Just be wary of letting the environment build up with this one - a badly-timed Terraforming will ruin you because it can easily combo into the other two board sweep cards. Also for that reason, deck manipulation works wonders on Omnitron to get those disastrous one-shots out of there..
Now that Legacy is off cooldown, I'm going to try taking on The Dreamer again in the Realm of Discord. And I know who I'm packing on this one. Let's see if I do better this time...
Round 2 with the most unorthodox "villain" of the classic set. (OblivAeon is a whole thing.)
And what a difference the team composition makes.
Consider this demon conquered.
Villain: The Dreamer Difficulty: 3 Nemesis: Visionary Deck Gimmick: Okay, so this deck works completely differently to everyone else (barring one specific variant). Your main "villain" is a past version of another hero, and only has 6 HP. But if she goes down to 0 HP, you lose the game instantly. She's just a child! A child who summons a lot of nasty projections that can wreck you, but a child nonetheless. First goal while she's "dreaming" is to clear the field of projections. At that point she "awakes" and the projections come out faster, but destroy enough of them in this second phase and you win. By the way, if you're wondering about environment damage ruining this "villain", your lowest-HP hero can simply take the hit for her. Advanced Mode: In phase 1, all projections take less damage. In phase 2, they all deal more damage instead. Given that there are cards in the deck that mitigate damage for everyone, you really need irreducible damage, damage boosters, or really hard hits to make it through this one. Challenge Mode: The main "villain" takes 5 more damage from all attacks. Since the "villain" has only 6 HP, any stray damage is instant failure. You were already cautioned against "all target" and "each villain target" attacks in the base fight, but now you literally can't do them at all. Still, if you've got cards that hit 2 or 3 targets, this isn't a big concern. Especially because if one of your heroes tanks the environment damage, they do not have to worry about that 5 bonus damage. Only if it strikes The Dreamer.
My Team:
Legacy (complexity 1) Play Style: Third time you've seen this Superman expy. I've gone over some good combos with him, but it's worth noting that he does not have much in the way of direct damage. Without the Young Legacy variant, he's mainly a supporter - especially since he can shut down the villain deck and villain targets for a turn with two separate cards. Variant?: Out of all of his variants, this is a situation that calls for the good old increase to all damage of the base version. I need that kind of firepower to get through the defenses of this "villain".
Expatriette (complexity 2) Play Style: Not the first time I've fielded her - see the Gloomweaver episode to know how this Punisher expy plays. I didn't mention her exact gun list though - submachine gun, assault rifle, shotgun, and two pistols called "Pride" and "Prejudice". The pistols can be used together if you have both, and they can each load 2 types of special ammo at a time whereas the other guns can only do one each. Variant?: I'm using her Dark Watch variant this time. Instead of playing a card, you get +1 damage for her attacks until the end of her next turn. Any source of extra damage is good right now.
Guise (complexity 2 5/9) Play Style: This Deadpool expy focuses way more on the no-fourth-wall nature of the character (right up to having a card that lets you attack with the card structure the way Deadpool has an attack where he uses the health bar and super meter as weapons in one the fighting games). In the physical version there's some player actions tied to his cards - in the digital version, he's the only character with voice clips aside from Argent Adept's singing (and he has his own voiced sound effects if any of his cards mimic anything of Argent Adept's). Anyways, he's got cards to mimic the other heroes' ongoings or powers, and can even borrow their equipment for a turn. The real focus, however, is on a set of one-turn ongoing cards with powerful effects - card draw every time he takes damage, redirecting damage, card play on every turn and not just your own, damage at the end of every turn, boosted damage, irreducible damage that can't be redirected (nullifying redirection is fairly rare)... Guise can get fairly crazy, fairly fast. Variant?: Guise has a Completionist variant that lets you swap character variants as its power, but it's literally the last unlock you get and has some BS conditions to it. There's also a Santa variant that puts cards face-down in every hero's play area, to be opened later by another use of the power - you can potentially get 10+ cards at once if you let this go on long enough. I'm not doing either with a "villain" this delicate - I'm going with the base version that either plays or draws a card and does a 1 damage attack.
Environment: Realm of Discord (difficulty 2) Environment Gimmick: No, not that dragon-horse... whatever-he-is. Different series. Though I'm pretty sure he'd feel right at home here. This also isn't that messaging service. No, this is a realm of distortions that will readily mess with the heroes, as well as that of portal fiends and vortexes that can ruin your day. The negative energy field is the biggest issue here as you will take damage on every card play when it's the distortion in effect (it's actually based on highest HP, but with this "villain", that's you). There's also a positive energy field that will heal weak targets on every card play, as well as ones that limit turns to one action or allow for multiple card plays and draws (beware, villains also get the benefits of those last two).
My Strategy:
The Challenge mode doesn't mean a whole lot as most "hit all" attacks are actually kind of weak. The Advanced mode, on the other hand... that is what sunk me last time, especially when Dark Hero (villains deal 1 extra damage per attack and take 1 less damage per attack) comes into play. Getting through a defense of 2 on the main villain is bad enough, but on all the trash mobs? This is the entire reason Legacy came to save the day.
And with "I Can Do That, Too!" Guise can double it up. Suddenly, that defense of 2 goes back to just being base defense. None of the projections has double-digit HP so I am able to finally get somewhere with this setup.
Legacy does not have environment removal with this variant sadly - but Guise has Retcon and Expatriette has her rocket launcher, so I'm fine with that. Guise also has irreducible damage options - so suddenly that defense of 2 doesn't actually matter anymore.
For Expatriette, I have to watch not to use the Submachine Gun or the Shock Rounds as those are full area-of-effect. Assault Rifle is fine though. Shotgun's better of course.
Guise is at the end of the turn order to take the most advantage of Selling Out - discard one card after the environment turn, play 3 cards with a matching keyword. That can mean 3 of his powerful one-turn ongoings in play at once, or 3 one-shots at a time that let you build combos off of other heroes' powers.
How Did it Go?:
Even with a setup this good, I still needed two tries at this battle.
The problem is so many of her cards are problematic in and of themselves. Whipacorn can disable your highest-HP hero for a turn, Granite Oni takes less damage, Dark Hero increases villain damage and reduces hero damage, Macabre Specter hits the whole team, and let's not ignore the card destruction of Treacherous Ape and Illusory Demon.
Legacy did very little on the damage front until the end. The early game was all about Inspiring Presence and Galvanize.
Expatriette did not get a shotgun, or indeed anything more than one of the pistols, for a couple of rounds. Naturally, as soon as she got the shotgun, it became her weapon of choice. I did get two of the rocket launchers though, so I was able to blast away a few troublesome distortions and dispose of projections while I was at it.
The majority of the damage in the first phase and early part of the second phase actually came from Guise. I got a significant number of useful one-shots - including multiple copies of I Can Do That, Too!, which I played at the same time as Look What I Found! (the 3 damage attack where Guise uses the card art as a weapon) using the Selling Out card.
In phase 2, Guise went down after about 3-4 projections. But Flying Smash and the shotgun proved sufficient to take the battle the rest of the way. Beware, though - once you take out the required number of projections (twice the number of heroes - in this case, 6 is the magic number), you still have to survive to the start of the next villain turn! You can lose in the environment turn if you're too far into single digits. I got about that close.
Overall, the environment did play a factor - in the fact that it helped provide early targets for the rocket launcher. I cut it extremely close on this battle either way.
This is a very different kind of DPS race. You need to hurry and take out projections as fast as you can, keep the field as clean as possible. If you let them pile up for even a turn, you will get sunk fast.
Would not face this kid again.
Would any other heroes work?:
High-powered precision is the way to go for this one. Tempest and Ra have good one-shots for this purpose. However, the real issue is that you want to boost your damage to get through the damage reduction. If you really don't want to use Legacy for this, then Argent Adept might work - or Unity actually has a specific card that makes powers more potent. Making damage irreducible also works - so Parse or The Idealist or even Stuntman have options.
Due to a quirk of the Nemesis symbols, do NOT bring Visionary here. Only the main villain has the Nemesis symbol, when it really should be the projections that have it. I think they fixed that in a later card print (that didn't make it into the digital game).
Not sure who my next opponent's going to be. I'm actually considering taking on one of the last two core villains because I've got everything lined up to take him on.
I do need to remember to go back and add the music tracks to the thread - there's some good music compositions for the digital game for heroes, environments, and certain environment-based loss conditions.
Okay, now, here we finally have a fun battle. And a prime example of why having a bunch of game-breakers isn't a sure bet for victory. Study the villain's cards ahead of time if you're doing Ultimate mode!
Villain: Grand Warlord Voss Difficulty: 3 Nemesis: Tempest Deck Gimmick: Voss has two states. When there are minions in play, he's on his "warlord" side and you're basically not touching him unless you have irreducible damage. If he ever starts a turn without minions in play, he goes to his "warrior" side and you'll actually have a chance to hurt him normally, but he'll be dealing damage to your highest and lowest health heroes. Aside from that, this is an extremely target-rich environment with a huge number of attackers firing at you. The only card of his that isn't a minion, device, or target of some kind is 3 copies of Forced Deployment, which takes all the minions from his discard and puts them in play - destroying it early will just force the deployment early. This card is the worst thing in the deck, because if Voss ever starts the turn with 10 or more minions in play, he instantly wins. So yeah, you really need to burst down the minions and keep him on his warrior side as long as possible. Advanced Mode: When Voss is on his warlord side, you deal less damage on everything. When Voss is on his warrior side, he gets extra card draw. There are enough damage reduction sources in this deck that the fact that the minions only have 3 HP isn't as helpful as you'd think, and the warlord boost is going to be a problem. Challenge Mode: Every single time he switches between his warlord and warrior sides, he gets a free card draw. He still gets a little damage reduction when he has a single minion out but it can be beaten - the real danger of this is an extra chance at Forced Deployment.
My Team:
Tachyon (complexity 2) Play Style: Yes, I know most of her burst cards only deal minor damage that can easily be blocked by Voss's own Advanced warlord ability. Don't care. With the other heroes I have on the field, I don't need her to be a super-damage machine. I need card draw and a couple good finishers as well as the occasional ongoing/environment destruction, and Tachyon delivers there. Variant?: I'm deploying her Freedom Six variant today. Sure the extra card play from Super-Scientific is nice, but I need all the card draw I can get for the whole team.
Lifeline (complexity 2) Play Style: So do you all remember the villain Deadline, who I fought a few episodes ago? This is his hero variant. He is heavily reliant on Ongoing cards for his effects and while he has a few different damage options, the majority of his damage is either Infernal or Energy. He also boasts a lot of card draw and a good number of end-of-turn effects, but a lot of his cards deal self-damage. He has some sources of self-healing to offset this, but you can definitely deal more harm to yourself than you can heal back with this guy. And finally, there's Cosmic Immolation, which increases the damage he takes and deals tremendously. Is it all worth the price? He pays it gladly. The only reason he was a villain was because he was trying to avert a cosmic calamity. Variant?: His base version's "Extract Power" abilitiy lets you draw a card and then any player can draw a card. This can mean you draw 2, or you and someone else each draw one. Normally pretty good, but Lifeline is not shy on card draw naturally and we need a lot of area damage. So instead, I'm using his Blood Mage variant, which has "Vitae Strike" to deal himself and all villain targets infernal damage.
Void Guard Dr. Medico (complexity 3) Play Style: Okay, now this energy being is hilarious. Every single one of his cards, even his one direct attack card Flare Up, relates to healing or damage prevention in some fashion. And a lot of his cards cause himself damage - but he has enough ways to heal himself that he's basically a battery of health. He has a bunch of other support as well - including a damage buff in Prescription Strength and one of the few ways to prevent incapacitation in the game in From the Brink. There's also Experimental Medicine, which improves all the healing... but more importantly, makes all of his damage irreducible. ALL of it, even his self-damage. He kinda needs it as he is extremely lacking in direct damage options - Flare Up (which also does minor healing on himself and one other) and Second Opinion (which is really about turning heals of 3 HP or more into power uses, but Dr. Medico can expend it on his turn to deal 3 damage) are the entirety of it. Variant?: His base variant increases the next healing on a target by 2. This is... kinda underwhelming. Instead, I'm using his Malpractice variant - the first time he'd heal a hero each turn, he instead deals energy damage to a target. That actually gives Dr. Medico something credibly resembling offense - especially with Experimental Medicine making it irreducible.
Chrono-Ranger (complexity 2) Play Style: You've seen this guy against Plague Rat, but I need to correct myself - he's a TIME cowboy, not a SPACE cowboy. Also, I never went over his weaponry - Compounded Bow deals 2 instances of damage, Danny-Boy deals a number of instances of fire damage equal to the number of bounties in play, his dart-thrower reduces the damage a target deals, Temporal Grenades deal damage to 3 targets and are his only source of ongoing/environment removal, and the dreaded Masadah deal irreducible damage based on the number of bounties out. Variant?: I'm actually going to try his Best of Times variant on this one. You select a non-hero target and until Chrono-Ranger uses a power, all bounties also affect a second target. This is a target-rich environment that justifies it.
Parse (complexity 2) Play Style: This time I'm actually bringing this hacker for her ability to manipulate the villain deck. I need to keep those Forced Deployments off the table, I don't care if her presence means extra minions show up. Variant?: I've decided to deploy the Fugue State variant of her again. I desperately need the extra card play with the sheer number of minions that come out to play.
Environment: Mobile Defense Platform (difficulty 1) Environment Gimmick: Baron Blade's loaned out his defense platform for this battle. There's minion targets that deal damage, shield generators to protect them, a few different levels to the platform that have some minor effects... but you have to watch out for the propulsion systems! They're a target, and if they go to 0 HP, it's an instant loss. However, if they are destroyed by some non-HP means, you don't have to worry about the loss condition. Overall, there's not a lot to speak of under normal conditions.
My Strategy:
Grand Warlord Voss's instant victory condition specifies "minions". As a number of the targets in this particular deck are minions, this is one situation where we need to control the environment - because those count for his victory condition.
What you need to know about Voss's minions in particular is that many of them have immunity to a specific type of damage. If you count the warships, there are only two damage types that are not stopped by any minion: radiant and infernal. So these are your go-to sources of damage for a battle like this. Three of his minions reduce damage taken to all villain targets and there's also a field lieutenant that covers all minions and Thoratians (mostly Voss himself, but one of the other decks is Thoratian-based).
Then there's the two warships. Both are immune to melee and deal widespread damage. The Conqueror destroys one hero ongoing card each turn, whereas the Stalwart deploys minions every turn - from the villain discard. I need to destroy the Conqueror immediately if it shows up, but the Stalwart can wait a bit - there is the risk of Forced Deployment but time spent damaging the Stalwart is often time spent NOT damaging Voss or a minion.
The good news is that the Conqueror is the only thing that can destroy the sheer amount of Ongoing cards we need to deploy for all of these heroes, and neither Voss nor the environment can touch equipment. Tachyon's Blinding Speed can cover Ongoings and Environment, and Lifeline's Discharge Lifeforce works on the Environment especially if the Propulsion System comes into play, and frankly that's all we really need in this particular case.
I put Lifeline first because several of Dr. Medico's cards allow others to use powers. I can force a deployment early with Unnatural Upheaval and then repeatedly use area attacks to burn all the minions down. As for Voss himself? I have plenty of means of dealing irreducible damage - Dr. Medico with Experimental Medicine and his Malpractice variant's power, Chrono-Ranger with The Masadah, and Lifeline with Infernal Detonator, plus the options Parse brings to the table. If I have to use them, I'll have them available. They're actually more useful if the lieutenant or any of the Gene-Bound Guards come into play, as they're the extra sources of damage reduction.
Chrono-Ranger is admittedly an extra in this fight. If someone has to go down, he's the only one we can risk without completely tanking our strategy. If Lifeline buys it, we will soon be overwhelmed with minions - and if Dr. Medico falls then we lose a reliable source of irreducible damage and can't keep everyone else sustained. If Tachyon falls I don't get all the extra card draw I need to win. And if Parse falls? I can't keep Forced Deployment out of play.
Either way, this is yet another villain where you can't dawdle. You might get occasional breathers in the battle, but you need to always be on the offense and use any opportunity to hit Voss when you can.
How Did it Go?:
First try had both of the warships play extremely early. I couldn't outpace the damage and when a Gene-Bound Guard got in, it was over.
Second attempt I managed to draw Experimental Medicine right away, but a Gene-Bound Guard and the Conqueror also showed up immediately. A Forced Deployment spelled the end of that run.
Third try, I got Cosmic Immolation right off the bat. Unfortunately, bounties only count once on a target and you can't double them up with Chrono-Ranger's Best of Times variant's power. That early Cosmic Immolation was enough firepower to actually get Voss to flip to his warrior side. Too bad a Forced Deployment screwed all of that. A second Forced Deployment and the two Quark-Drive Translocators spelled defeat for me.
It's at this point that I added Parse to the team. I desperately needed to manipulate the deck. I reviewed Voss's minions and it turns out all of them deal fixed damage numbers, so I can bring a fifth and only worry about his own damage and the starting number of minions. With the amount of card draw I get out of Tachyon, I should be okay.
On try #4, one of the Forced Deployments was Voss's very first card draw so I could wipe it out with Tachyon's Blinding Speed without consequence. From there, all the extra card draw made a massive difference. I did get a Gene-Bound Guard and the Stalwart early, but I was able to manage threats more easily with Parse's Exploit Vulnerability (the first round a target is out, they take extra damage). From there, I was easily able to get a number of bounties on Voss and keep him in the warrior state, then remove the Propulsion Systems from the picture.
A late Forced Deployment that I didn't catch brought down Dr. Medico and almost brought down Chrono-Ranger with 10+ minions flooding the field, but I board-swept them with Tachyon's Hypersonic Assault combined with two Exploit Vulnerability. From there, I did a combination of two Alien Arcana (draw a card first time an ongoing enters Lifeline's play area each turn, 1 infernal damage to a target at end of turn) with two Cosmic Immolation (Lifeline deals +2 damage, takes +2 damage from non-hero sources, and you may draw a card each turn if you don't destroy it at the start of your turn) to do a ton of damage to Voss. Followed immediately by Chrono-Ranger's Compounded Bow with Hunter and Hunted (increase the damage Chrono-Ranger deals and takes by the number of bounties in play) and Parse's Between the Lines (hero uses a power now, damage is irreducible) with Chrono-Ranger's The Masadah for the win. To give you an idea, from Lifeline's turn to Parse's, that's 36 damage in a single round.
Overall? People tend to advise you to take on Voss with very few characters so you don't get a lot of minions out. On Ultimate mode, screw that advice - all of his minions deal fixed damage and you need all the firepower you can get. Even with all the healing and all the card draw, nobody came out of that one with 10 or more HP. Voss just deals too much damage to risk the slow and stealthy approach (to the point where I think I had time for a grand total of one use of Dr. Medico Malpractice's character power for the whole battle).
Would any other heroes work?:
Tempest himself is actually a really good choice for this battle. He's got the area effect needed to burst down minions (especially if you use the Elemental Subwave Inducer, which lets you set a damage type for all of his attacks for a turn) and single-target damage for Voss himself. NightMist might even be better for this job with her Oblivion card. Just be aware that with Advanced mode in effect, you'll need to boost their damage to ensure minion death.
Despite him only having the one non-target card, deck manipulation is worth its weight in gold in this fight - not just for keeping Forced Deployment or the warships off the field, but also the field lieutenant and any of the team-damage minions like the Psi-Weaver or Frosthound.
Also to give you an idea how critical it is to keep Forced Deployment off the field? That final turn Voss took with the deployment triggered, every hero took 15+ damage by the end of it. Forced Deployment will ruin you with this guy.
Some of this post was written weird, as I thought I could win without Parse and Tachyon so my strategies needed to be revised shortly after I started.
I'm taking a couple days off of this one. I've got some things to sort out with this before we take on the next villain. I'll probably use some of that time to insert the music tracks.
Maybe with the way Parse and Tachyon break the game so easily, I should consider taking on one of their nemeses....
Okay, so I've given the entire thread a major upgrade. Villains and environments come with their respective music tracks, and I've added a list to the first post with tallies for every hero, villain, and environment we've used.
It'll help guide me as to who I should be using next and who I should hold off on bringing in.
Now... I am going to do one more of these. Then I plan to leave off on this until Monday at earliest, possibly even Tuesday. This is quite a significant upgrade, I've done enough here.
We are now going to see if I can handle difficulty 4, especially without using the big heroes. This is the villain whose track made me decide "Hey, I should probably show these off."
And it's a villain I have never faced, ever. Brace yourselves - this is going to be a bumpy ride.
Villain: The Matriarch Difficulty: 4 Nemesis: Tachyon Deck Gimmick: We have a deck straight out of an Alfred Hitchcock film today. Being Tachyon's goth cousin, The Matriarch fights with a veritable swarm of 1 HP "Fowl" targets (15 of the 25 cards are one of 5 varieties of bird swarm) that kind of emulates her cousin's rapid-fire playstyle. Destroying the Fowl is easy as only one card in this deck grants damage reduction, and only to three very specific targets. However, when you destroy them, The Matriarch will also be doing instances of damage. This literally is "Death of a Thousand Pecks". Her other ten cards are a mask that further increases her card play and heals her every turn, three copies of a card that revives all Fowl from the discard and brings back that mask, two copies of a one-shot that destroys ongoings and deals sonic damage, two "Carrion Fields" that deal toxic damage every time a Fowl is destroyed, and her two cohorts. Huginn destroys ongoing and equipment cards, and Muninn reduces the damage The Matriarch and the two cohorts take - and increases the damage the Matriarch deals, too. She has a second phase where she heals every time a Fowl shows up, as well. Advanced Mode: Unless The Matriarch is in her healing phase, forget about destroying either Huginn or Muninn. Be very wary, though - all heroes take extra damage from everything while she's in the healing phase. This is really a test of your patience - indestructible does not mean its HP can't be reduced. Chip away at the cohorts when you can spare the time. Challenge Mode: Forget about destroying either of the Carrion Fields once they're out - they can't be destroyed at any point in Challenge mode. That means if you're reckless with your destruction, your entire team's taking huge amounts of Toxin damage.
My Team:
Tempest (complexity 1) Play Style: You've seen Tempest and his variety pack of area-effect chip damage. He's also got an Elemental Subwave Inducer for changing his damage type - and reducing the damage he takes from that type by 1. There's also Gene-Bound Shackles so he can damage The Matriarch more effectively. Consider this whole battle his "punishment" for not being able to assist in stopping The Dreamer. Variant?: You've seen his Prime Wardens variant with his insane card play - at risk of damage from the environment. His Freedom Six version lets you destroy one of your cards in play to draw 3 more. His Extreme Prime Wardens version can deal single-target damage and null out "end of turn" effects, which is useless against this villain given that none of her cards really work that way meaningfully. With the amount of ongoing destruction that The Matriarch is fielding, I really need to use his base version that has a 1-point area attack.
Void Guard Writhe (complexity 2) Play Style: Anything and everything about this deck revolves around one singular card - The Shadow Cloak. The cloak itself is damage-reduction equipment, so it's extremely handy right now just for that. But many of the cards have extra effects if the Shadow Cloak is destroyed, some have effects if it's in play, and some cards will even let you retrieve it and put it back in play. Without his Shadow Cloak, he's kind of ho-hum - so make sure you pick the right time to destroy it, because Writhe is also one of the most fragile heroes in the game (19 in his base version, 22 as Cosmic Inventor - that's lower than Argent Adept's base version at 24). Variant?: The base version is just you getting the Shadow Cloak back. I need something more than that this time. His Cosmic Inventor variant draws 2 cards and reduces the first damage a specific hero takes until Writhe's next turn. That is definitely useful here.
Mister Fixer (complexity 2) Play Style: Consider him an "old master" stereotype. I'm willing to go so far as to call him a Miyagi type, given Mister Fixer is an auto mechanic. There are two main persistent things with the deck - mechanic's tools, and martial arts styles. The tools can reduce enemy damage dealt, increase Mr. Fixer's damage, strike multiple targets, or give him an "execute" ability similar to what K.N.Y.F.E. has. There's not really much else to his deck, except for one epic card - Grease Gun, which nulls out all non-hero damage at the cost of using up the rest of Mr. Fixer's turn and preventing him from doing anything but play cards - even if someone else tries to help him. Variant?: You're really just deciding which type of strike power he's got. The base version just deals 1 damage. The Dark Watch version deals 3 damage, but you have to destroy a hero ongoing or equipment card afterward. Not worth it with this particular villain - I'm sticking with base.
Haka (complexity 1) Play Style: Why, you may ask, would I bring someone with very little in the way of area attacks? Because of Savage Mana. If I get a Rampage off while Savage Mana is in play, I can basically shut down a lot of The Matriarch's deck right off. Variant?: Extreme Prime Wardens variant. I can tank attacks aimed at a specific hero with it. Still can't do a thing against Carrion Fields, but that's what Ground Pound is for.
Environment: Court of Blood (difficulty 2) Environment Gimmick: So remember last episode where I mentioned Lifeline had a Blood Mage variant? He got that power from this place, a place run by vampires. In fact, by the head vampire - Blood Countess Bathory - who happens to have a nemesis icon for Fanatic. Anyways, this deck is your standard vampire territory - vampires, hunters, a special attack card that can "infect" someone into doing damage to all non-vampire targets... there's even a card that prevents healing and radiant damage, and boosts all Infernal damage. Oh, and don't forget the angry mobs that can deal lots of low-end damage.
My Strategy:
Ohhhhh boy, if you thought The Dreamer and Grand Warlord Voss were bad...
Ongoing and equipment destruction is for the birds (please, you knew that line was coming), as none of The Matriarch's cards have either keyword. This is also one case where manipulating the villain deck is utterly worthless, as it's not unlikely she'll play half her deck in one turn.
I'm also going to say relying too much on ongoing cards is a bad idea with this one, as she's got many ways to destroy them - including Horrid Cacophony, which destroys multiple ongoings and deals sonic damage on top of that. There are ways to destroy equipment too, but an equipment-heavy hero is going to fare a lot better than an ongoing-heavy one.
What you really need to do is reduce or prevent The Matriarch's damage. While you're clearing the Fowl, you will be taking a ton from her unless you use damage-reduction equipment or make her deal less damage. Her damage in her main phase is dependent on the number of heroes, too - so that is why I initially brought only three heroes this time. Her dominant damage types are Projectile (from the Fowl) and Psychic (from Matriarch herself) - with Toxin from the Carrion Fields, plus Sonic damage from one of the one-shots. So you're not nullifying her that way.
Environment destruction is still handy, and both Tempest and Writhe have that covered. Writhe also has an unusual ability specifically helpful for this villain - there's one card, Grasping Shadow-Cloth, that lets him destroy his Shadow Cloak to prevent a deck from playing any cards. So far, we've only seen that from Legacy's Take Down and NightMist's Mistbound.
How Did it Go?:
Carrion Fields and the two cohorts just come out way too fast for me to bring a measly 3 heroes to this one. There's also the matter of Darken the Sky, which revives all Fowl and the Mask. So I needed a fourth, and one that can shut down all of The Matriarch's damage. After a couple fights where I saw just how rapid-fire she was, I decided "screw this" and brought Haka on board.
I already mentioned the strategy with Haka. Savage Mana, then Rampage. Will shut down most of her deck right away. But there's still the matter of getting there. I couldn't get Savage Mana out on this one. So instead, my MVP for the first part of the fight was Writhe - Shadow Cloak (reduces damage taken by 1, deal 1 extra damage, can discard a card to nullify the first damage each turn), Umbral Siphon (equipment, deal 2 instances of 1 damage and prevent healing), and Nowhere to Hide (3 irreducible damage, and if the Shadow Cloak is in play then a whole round of irreducible damage) as a devastating combo. There were also a couple times I brought out Haka's Ground Pound to stop all the damage so Tempest could blitz the opposition.
I made some progress on the Matriarch herself with stuff like Lightning Slash until the villain deck ran out (her condition for flipping to her healing phase). At that point, I used Swallowed by Shadow to destroy Muninn (who'd been pretty weakened by now) in one shot (as that's possible only in this phase) and picked off Huginn shortly thereafter. With cohorts out of the way, I could nullify her healing with Umbral Siphon, nullify all her damage with Ground Pound, and go to town on her. Unhallowed Halls (non-vampires can't heal, no radiant damage, all infernal damage up by 1) played during that time, and Writhe's main damage source is Infernal, so now was my chance to just burn her. Tempest did go down during this phase sadly, but Writhe was able to carry me to a win.
So despite bringing in an experienced hero to stop this one, in the end it turned out that Writhe did almost all the work for this battle. Especially with Unhallowed Halls backing him up at the end. Mister Fixer didn't get to do much this time, I didn't get the Grease Gun and I was basically expending his styles and tools to stave off Huginn's wrath.
Overall, this is actually one of those difficulty 4 fights that I'd be willing to try again with a different team composition. She's actually kind of fun, if a little chaotic, and there's some potential for breaking strategies on her.
Would any other heroes work?:
Tachyon and Wraith will utterly mess up The Matriarch with their "can't deal damage" attacks. Absolute Zero can automatically shut down the bird swarm with Cold Snap, if the hero on the receiving end of The Matriarch's counterattack can reduce damage. The Scholar can tank all the damage with Alchemical Redirection and Flesh to Iron, but beware Huginn or Horrid Cacophony. The issue is not so much dealing damage on this one, as it is mitigating what you're taking.
In Advanced and Ultimate mode, you basically just need to weather the storm until she's about to run out of cards and flip. Nuke the flock right before she goes into healing phase (you basically need to see all three uses of Darken The Sky before you can do the nuke), then as soon as she flips you need to immediately dispose of Muninn and Huginn together (they'll revive each other if you don't take them at the same time). Keep that in mind with your team compositions.
Okay. No more episodes until Monday. I need a break from this.
Okay, so I'd planned on putting this off until Monday. But I will admit I didn't fully put the game down when I said I would. And I can say with confidence that I have all the unlocked variants of the Multiverse side, including Completionist Guise.
Getting Completionist Guise is a matter of getting all the other unlocks, then beating a weekly one-shot in one try with no rewinds (they gave me a difficulty 1 villain from the Earth-Prime set in Advanced mode this time), and fulfilling one of two conditions that requires Guise in the first slot. I used the Santa variant of Guise, which requires you to have 2 face-down cards in each play area (when I actually play Santa Guise, you'll understand) and have "Lemme See That" in play at the start of his turn. I'm told this is the easier way of getting the special form that you need.
I will rename the thread once it's time to bother with Earth-Prime (a crossover with Mutants and Masterminds, if I'm not mistaken), or if they release an enhanced digital edition of Multiverse.
But back to current matters. I have bad news for everyone - this is not a happy episode.
Sometimes the most vile villains aren't the alien superpowers. They aren't the ones with planet-spanning plots. Sometimes they're the crazed mortals, the ones out for their own thrills.
We're about to meet easily the most evil villain in the Sentinels franchise.
This is going to be one of the darkest episodes of this series. Viewer discretion is advised.
Villain: Spite Difficulty: 2 Nemesis: Wraith Deck Gimmick: We quite legitimately have a drug-addled serial killer on our hands this time. There are 5 drug cards in the deck that you can't manipulate out and are permanently in play once they're out on the field. One deals area-effect Infernal damage, one destroys environment cards and deals Psychic damage, one massively reduces the effects of the first hit Spite takes every turn, one does toxic damage and forces discards every time powers are used, and one boosts Spite's damage and forces ongoings and equipment cards back into players' hands. Aside from a couple Lab Raids that make getting his fix easier, there are also victims. Mercifully, the victims do not count as targets, so they can only be taken out by specific cards. If Spite destroys victims, he heals. There are conditions by which you can put victim cards in a special Safe House, but Spite's also got a one-shot that lets him breach that Safe House and force every victim back in play. Still, you want to get them to the Safe House because when all 5 drugs are in play, Spite flips to a burn phase - and takes a lot of damage based on how many victims were in the Safe House when he flipped. Advanced Mode: In his main phase, Spite heals every turn. When he goes to his second phase, he regains a massive amount of health (usually enough to offset the damage from the survivors in the Safe House) and he always takes reduced damage. Challenge Mode: Spite can go past his maximum of 80 HP when he heals. In plain Challenge mode, this makes it more imperative to save victims and prevent him from dealing much damage - in Ultimate, this means you need to start your offense immediately and be relentless about it.
My Team:
Wraith (complexity 1) Play Style: You've seen this Batman expy before in an early episode. I didn't mention back then that she had a Trust Fund, and its card form lets you draw 4 and then discard 2. I also didn't mention her Mega Computer that can neutralize damage from environment cards, or the fact that she's got 3 copies of it. From my experience these have been less of a factor in gameplay compared to the utility belt and Impromptu Invention (draw a card, get an equipment from your deck, and then play a card). Variant?: In addition to the base version with damage reduction and Freedom Five variant that can give away card draws, there's a Freedom Six variant that actually gives her a direct attack, and a Rook City variant that lets you reveal the top environment card and either discard it or play it. Rook City variant is what I'm playing this time, but for the most part her variants are not that important.
The Scholar (complexity 3) Play Style: The old alchemist returns for another go. Yeah, I didn't really analyze this guy last time - his card draws are centered around being a, well, old scholar. He also has a way to give everyone else power uses in Proverbs and Axioms, he has team card play in Don't Dismiss Anything... and I haven't even gotten to the real focus of his deck - elemental forms. He's got 3 forms with 3 copies of each - one that increases his healing received, one that reduces damage taken, and one that adds an energy damage attack onto every bit of healing he receives. All of these are fueled by the cards in your hand - discard at the start of every turn, or you lose them. You can comfortably sustain 1-2 with the right ongoings alone, but paired with a card-draw hero you can handle more at once. Variant?: In addition to his base version with healing, he has an Infinite version where he deals himself and an enemy damage based on how many cards he's discarded since his last turn. This synergizes very well with his massive card draw and his elemental forms, but it does mean you're a fair bit more limited in your healing. I've chosen to use the Infinite version this time.
Void Guard Mainstay (complexity 2) Play Style: The last member of the Void Guard takes on a motorcycle gang mindset. His 3 types of equipment are a vest, a motorcycle, and a void-enhanced length of chain. He has a lot of ways to forcibly take damage, including multiple redirect cards - to the point where he has more "take hits for the team" than Legacy does. And except for his one-shots, all of his cards have a boon when they're destroyed. One of his redirects, Headlock, is also a source of irreducible damage - at the cost of him always receiving irreducible damage from the target. This guy could use a persistent healer (like fellow Void Guard member Dr. Medico). Variant?: His base version deals 2 instances of damage. His Road Warrior version does retaliation damage. I don't think we have enough healing to truly fuel the Road Warrior version (I ought to put the whole Void Guard together one of these times), so base it is.
Visionary (complexity 2) Play Style: I have made several allusions to this fully psionics-based hero before, and now it's time for her to finally take the field. She's kind of limited in her raw damage potential, but she has ways of manipulating opponents that other heroes can only dream of. Putting the entire villain trash on the bottom of the deck with Brain Burn (not useful against Spite, but this completely breaks a couple villains) at the cost of massively hurting herself, drastically reducing environment damage by a lot with Mass Levitation, scrying the villain and environment decks with Precognition and Prophetic Vision respectively, putting a couple cards of villain trash back in the deck with Suggestion... but her most broken is Twist the Ether. With it, she can change a target's damage type and reduce or increase the damage they deal. She's only got two copies of the card, but that's more than enough for the villain and your main damage dealer. It's awesome with heroes that self-damage as she can null what they take and increase what they dish out. Variant?: She has a Dark Visionary variant that gives her an extra source of deck scrying, and an Unleashed variant that deals damage based on how many ongoing cards she's got out. I can think of some villains where the Unleashed variant can be busted, but Spite removes ongoings a lot - plus The Scholar's Infinite version benefits from discards, so I'm going with her base version where one hero draws 2 and discards 1.
Benchmark (complexity 3) Play Style: Meet the new standard! No seriously, this is what would happen if you had a corporate-sponsored cyborg (with "Meet the new standard!" actually being his corporate-mandated catchphrase!) as a hero. Almost everything in his deck is either ongoing or equipment. The key mechanic with the deck is "software" and "hardware". Most of your extra powers are going to come from software, but you need to maintain enough hardware to use it. If you don't, you draw a card and destroy 2 software. There's a lot that his cards can do, but two notable pieces of software are Ally Matrix (power does a discard in order for an ally to draw a card and use a power) and Tactical Communicator (power to make the next damage a target takes not only irreducible, but boosted by 2). Variant?: His base version draws a card and deals 1 energy damage. I'm instead using his Supply and Demand variant where he regains 1 HP and plays the top card of the deck. I need the extra card play against this villain.
Environment: Pike Industrial Complex (difficulty 2) Environment Gimmick: Chemical vats and lab rats. Probably the place where Plague Rat came from. The vats can heal everyone and reduce incoming damage (and I do mean for EVERYONE, villain included), deal cold damage on every hero card played and deal 3 instances of damage to everyone (again, EVERYONE, villain included) on the environment turn, turn all damage to toxic and increase it... or simply explode for gargantuan damage against everyone (say it with me, EVERYONE, villain included). The rats just gnaw away at the lowest-HP target, but they can mutate to deal more and take less. Overall, this environment is a double-edged sword.
My Strategy:
How to get each victim to the safe house:
Good Samaritan: On the environment turn, take the offer to play the top card of the villain deck. If he survives the card, he's in.
Innocent Bystander: One hero takes the offer to discard cards (number of players minus 2).
Lost Child: One hero takes the offer to take damage from Spite (number of players minus 1).
Potential Sidekick (Thiago): One player takes the offer to discard 3 cards. However, there's risk-reward with him - if he's destroyed by Spite everyone takes psychic damage, but on the villain's turn everyone draws 2 cards as long as he's alive. You may actually not want to remove him if you've got enough deck manipulation.
I forgot to mention, Spite has double card draw innately. So deck manipulation only goes so far.
All of the damage in this deck comes straight from Spite. As long as the Lost Child is not out on the field, it may be wise to use Wraith's Throat Jab to get a reprieve.
Mainstay's got ways of destroying his own ongoings and equipment, so I can still use his tricks against this villain despite the villain specifically returning ongoings and equipment to the owner's hand.
I actually decided to check the incapacitation effects of my heroes this time, and there's a lot of environment destruction. That, plus the Mega Computer and Mass Levitation, means that I have more than enough environment control. In fact, the best environment control in this combination is in stopping Lab Raid, which lets Spite destroy all environment cards to find his drugs. If he flips, you may be better off letting the vats go wild.
With this in mind, the strategy comes together. Wraith and Mainstay will be doing the bulk of the damage. Scholar's the tank, Benchmark supplies the ongoings and equipment, and Visionary supplies the card draw. And the environment? We may actually want to leave the chemical vats alone for a while, but the rats will need to be dealt with quickly.
How Did it Go?:
First try, Spite got multiple Lab Raids rapidly and just built up way too much HP, plus I got a very unlucky Forced Entry right before he flipped. I couldn't cut through 130+ HP especially with Mainstay going down right away (due to an ill-advised Headlock). However, in my attempt to do so, I found out The Scholar's Infinite variant can put out 40+ damage in a single turn if you use Know When to Turn Loose (discard hand, deal damage equal to discarded cards) followed by the variant's innate power. But you really only can use that combo once - you will leave The Scholar very weakened in that situation.
Second try, he drew the drugs naturally.
At this point, I knew I needed a fifth hero, and specifically either a damage dealer or someone that could get enough card play going to offset the removal of ongoing cards. Hence why I deployed Benchmark.
On attempt 3, I chose not to care about the Good Samaritans and only worry about saving the others. Extra villain draws proved way too risky for me. Anyways, an early Don't Dismiss Anything (every hero can either play their top card, or put one card from their discard on the top of the deck) got me plenty of cards to get up and running fast. I actually had much more control over this one - to the point where I was able to delay two of the Lab Raid cards.
Benchmark proves just how fast he can get into play and how fast he can get that ongoing and equipment up and running. Most of that was actually not from the Supply and Demand variant - most of that is innate to Benchmark's deck, with multiple copies of card-playing software and some hardware that increases power uses. With all of this, by the time the Lab Raids came into play and Spite had all 5 drugs, I was much more ready for him. Benchmark had half the deck out and The Scholar had Flesh to Iron (the elemental form that reduces all incoming damage by 2) ready - and I had enough cards in the Safe House to nullify his big Advanced mode heal. So this time, it was just 86 damage I had to work through in order to win.
With Twist the Ether (I described this up above) and Stun Bolt (equipment, power to deal 1 damage and reduce the target's damage by 1 for a round - unlike many effects of this nature, you don't need to successfully deal damage for the reduction effect) running constantly, Spite's damage was neutralized to the point where he could not effectively scratch anyone except maybe Wraith. Smoke Bombs (equipment, redirect damage the lowest-HP hero would take and give it to the highest-HP hero and then reduce the damage by 1) took care of that. From there, it was about chipping away with Mainstay's innate power and Benchmark's Inferno Missile Pod (put any discarded cards under it, each turn clear the pile and deal that many instances of fire damage) combined with Multi-Point HUD (software, power to increase Benchmark's damage per instance by 1 this turn) until I could get Spite in range of The Scholar's killshot.
This was mainly on Wraith using Stun Bolt, Scholar soaking up damage, and Mainstay and Benchmark being primary damage dealers. The Visionary did not truly get a chance to do much on this one due to Spite's ongoing-rejection abilities.
This is a villain I don't like, thematically and mechanically. Thematically, he's Bane without a single redeeming feature (at least Bane bothers to improve himself mentally - Spite puts all of his intellect towards his base impulses). Mechanically, he doesn't have a whole lot of counter-play - it's a brute force deck. Worse, we're not through with him yet. A few villains have variants, and he's one of them.
Would any other heroes work?:
So, uh, one of the drugs forces putting cards in your deck into the discard every time you use powers. Luminary powers his doomsday devices based on cards in the discard pile. It becomes hilariously easy to use the doomsday devices multiple times against this guy. Tachyon, as well, thrives on the discard pile.
On a more serious note, anyone who can nullify healing (like Writhe) does amazing here. That's honestly the approach I would recommend to most people trying this boss on Ultimate - instead of confronting him head-on, stop him from healing.
We need a bit of a breather after that last extremely heavy episode.
So how about we take on the other punching bag used for variant unlocks? And let's also take him on in one of the silliest possible environments available.
This will also give me a chance to debut a couple more heroes and maybe give another a proper chance...
Villain: Ambuscade Difficulty: 1 Nemesis: Haka Deck Gimmick: A French action movie star turned big-game bounty hunter. He didn't gain enmity with Haka because of hunting too many animals - no, Haka is one of the big-game targets Ambuscade set his sights on. Anyways, he mainly fights with devices but does have a couple direct damage options. His main damage type is Energy, but he does have options in Projectile, Fire, Melee, and Sonic damage. The devices are mostly damage dealers, except for Reactive Plating which reduces damage he takes (and reacts with an energy attack if you still manage to hurt Ambuscade) and Personal Cloaking Device which gives him damage immunity until the turn after it's destroyed. The other noteworthy cards are the trap cards - when he draws them, he puts them back in the deck face-up and they activate when they're the top card of the deck. Advanced Mode: When he's not cloaked, all villain targets take 1 less damage. If he is cloaked, all of his damage becomes irreducible. Suffice to say, nuke down that cloaking device any time it shows up - it's much more dangerous now. Challenge Mode: You've activated his trap card! In Challenge mode, all the trap cards start face-up in the deck, and will stay face-up in the deck when it's reshuffled. Plus, whenever he activates a trap, he gets an extra card play. This actually makes him a very dangerous threat with all the new damage he can output.
My Team:
Bunker (complexity 2) Play Style: I've played this War Machine expy before. Ammo Drop is handy for card draw because it works off of everyone and ignores the restrictions his modes bring. External Combustion is very risky if one of the Sonic Mines is out. Other than that, I'm actually more interested in the Maintenance Unit so I can keep healing Bunker through all the damage. Variant?: I'm going with G.I. Bunker this time around. I need the irreducible damage.
Lifeline (complexity 2) Play Style: I've discussed his general kit before. I didn't mention that one of his equipment cards actually counts as a Relic (which matters here given Fanatic's presence), or that one of his ongoings (Matter Manipulator) lets him turn card draw into extra power uses. Not to mention the two cards that involve him messing with ley-lines (Ley-Line Shift to discard the top card of each deck and play one of them, and Repair Ley-Line to give everyone card draw and let another hero use a power). He's got team options. Variant?: I used his Blood Mage all-damage variant last time. Let's use his base version that lets him and any hero draw cards.
The Sentinels (complexity 3) Play Style: So the last time I used these guys, Deadline stomped their faces in. This time, I'm using them against someone who's a little more susceptible to multi-target attacks. Hopefully things go much better - they've got some good area attacks especially if The Idealist can remain standing. Variant?: Base version this time. Adamant variant let me down because it doesn't have the blocking version of Mainstay.
Fanatic (complexity 2) Play Style: Yes, we have an honest-to-goodness angel on our side this time. While she has a couple options in Fire and Projectile damage, her main damage type is Radiant. This includes an irreducible option, but that puts all attacks on her. She also has a sword named "Absolution" (one of the Fire options - you can actually pick from Melee, Fire, and Radiant whenever you use it) and an Aegis of Resurrection armor that gives you back 10 HP when Fanatic would be incapacitated. She's also got some effects that let her take lesser targets out of the battle and one that lets a hero use more than one power a turn - but all of these require either self-damage or friendly fire. Finally, there's a board wipe in End of Days - the only thing it doesn't effect are the character cards and Relics (of which her sword and aegis both count as Relics) Variant?: Base version deals 1 melee and 1 radiant damage. With Ambuscade's Advanced mode or even just the Reactive Plating, this isn't enough punch. Redeemer variant regains HP and adds card draw. Prime Wardens variant deals self-damage for both a card play and allowing a hero to use a power. Extreme Prime Wardens variant deals radiant damage and forces the target to direct all damage onto Fanatic. Tough call, but I'm going to take the Prime Wardens variant because of Dr. Medico of the Sentinels being able to use that power play to heal someone.
Sky-Scraper (complexity 3) Play Style: A size-shifting Thoratian. Tempest had some hate for her thanks to Voss, who is also Thoratian - but Tempest and Sky-Scraper managed to work it out. Anyway, there's actually two gimmicks with Sky-Scraper. One is obviously the size stuff - she's got 3 character cards to represent her sizes, each with their own power. Several cards let her change size as part of their effects (often damage-dealing, but two of her cards going to Normal involve healing). But her second gimmick is something called "link" cards. They represent miniature devices (like, the size of USB flash drives) that give a one-shot effect and then stay on a target to be used as fuel for cards like Explosive Reveal (where you can blow them up for fire and projectile damage against multiple targets). Variant?: Base versions powers include widespread damage (Huge), major card draw (Normal), or rapidly playing link cards (Tiny). She also has an Extremist variant (where she's using upgraded tech from Luminary) that destroys environment cards for damage (Huge), plays or moves a link and plays the bottom card of the deck (Normal), or does irreducible toxic damage based on the number of links on a target (Tiny). I'm going to use the base version this time, but Extremist version has a ton of potential and we will see it eventually.
Environment: Enclave of the Endlings (difficulty 2) Environment Gimmick: Right here, we have the entire reason Lifeline's in this battle. Because he's technically an Endling defending his home. What is an Endling, I hear you ask? When a sapient race is about to go extinct, one worthy member is given the option of preserving the race's memories for all eternity. They take it up, they become the last of their kind. In Deadline/Lifeline's case, he's Tarogath, The Last Procitor (reptilian ley-line manipulators). It's worth noting that some of these Endlings are the direct result of Grand Warlord Voss conquering their people - if you're going to ask me how Spite is more evil than Voss after I said that, that's because Voss was originally a military and science paragon who was exiled by his people's leadership due to the nature of some of his experiments, and that was the catalyst for his tyrant takeover. Spite began as a petty thief and progressed to murder, and thus has no such excuse.
Anyways, due to the nature of the Enclave, all but two cards in the deck are unique creatures, and most of them strictly deal damage. There are a couple pacifists in the Enclave, though - Jansa Vi Dero, the Terminarch, runs the place and just buffs the Endlings' defense (not Lifeline's though - he bent the rules). Slamara, the Last Xarabian, puts more villain and hero cards into play. Immutus, the Last Fortrian, redirects ALL damage onto his 35 HP frame. Bloogo, the Last Aphan, will block for low-HP targets. As for the attackers, the only one we really have to watch out for is Baahsto, the Last Kabran - whatever he damages can't deal damage for a turn.
My Strategy:
Ambuscade's deck has major weaknesses - he has only one ongoing card (Charged Attacks, which increases his damage output and makes all devices explode for team damage when destroyed) and a couple cards that nullify damage (the Sonic Mines are a 1 HP target that hit the whole team when they're destroyed and prevent damage until Ambuscade's next turn, and then there's the Reactive Plating and the Personal Cloaking Device). So this is one of those fights where damage becomes your main focus. You'll still want ongoing destruction because you don't want his damage output going up.
Baahsto from the Enclave targets low-HP cards so he may defuse those Sonic Mines for you. Watch for that possibility and step aside if he gets the chance.
We have more than enough ongoing destruction in our team, and I'll probably leave that duty to Fanatic because her ongoing-destruction card (Consecrated Ground) also lets her deal damage to multiple targets. I'll worry about environment destruction if and when I need to care.
Ambuscade has no ways to actually destroy ongoings or equipment. Neither does the Enclave. So if there was ever a time to use heroes very reliant on either card type, now's the time.
I've used this guy as a punching bag so much that I have no fear of him. Let's see if this battle changes that.
How Did it Go?:
First Attempt:
Starting with Lifeline, The Sentinels, Fanatic, and Sky-Scraper.
Ambuscade started with his Explosive Launcher (deals 3 fire to all hero targets), which was bad news for the Sentinels, but thankfully no cloak to start. I used Ley-Line Shift and Repair Ley-Line in tandem on this one, and chose to have Sky-Scraper draw cards on this one. The Sentinels broke the Explosive Launcher with Fling into Darkness (3 melee damage, and if Writhe is active and the target's got 4 or less HP you destroy it) which took a ton of pressure off (he's only got the one).
Unfortunately, Ambuscade got a lot of area damage out early, so The Sentinels wound up on the back foot. I didn't have to use End of Days to clear the field thankfully - Lifeline's Harrow (deal himself and 3 targets 3 HP each) and Vitality Battery (equipment, when a non-hero target's destroyed on his turn either draw a card or gain 2 HP, you can blow it up as a power to deal 2 instances of 3 damage) were enough to clear the field and get us back on our feet and Sky-Scraper's Thoratian Monolith (switch to Huge, redirect all damage to Sky-Scraper for a turn and reduce each hit by 2) gave us a longer reprieve to recover.
Slamara of the Enclave got into play and as a result of getting Ley-Line Shift in the card plays, actually discarded Charged Attacks, the card of Ambuscade's that concerns me so much. But an untimely shuffle resulted in it getting into play anyways. And a single bad blow-up on a Sonic Mine with Charged Attacks active cascaded into a massive total-party kill because Charged Attacks' explosions affect EACH target - including Ambuscade's own devices!
Second Attempt:
Explosive Launcher and Personal Cloaking Device came up right away. Starting damage nearly took The Idealist out of play immediately. Blowing up a Sonic Mine with Divine Sacrifice (3 targets take 1 irreducible damage, redirect all their damage to Fanatic for a round) nearly took out Fanatic right away. Ambuscade just kept getting his explosives at that point and the run was unsalvageable.
Third Attempt:
Explosive Launcher AGAIN. This time I was able to get Lifeline's Terminarch's Casing (reduce damage by 1, either heal 1 HP or deal 1 lightning damage at end of turn) out immediately, as well as Sentinel Tactics (first time any Sentinel deals damage, the team may use a power) so I can keep Block (Mainstay's power, reduce damage dealt to The Sentinels by 1 for a round) up a lot more often. Unfortunately, I simply can't get that Explosive Launcher out of the way this time.
Fourth Attempt:
At this point, I've realized there's no time to clear Ambuscade's attack cards off the table like I'd been doing. I need to strike directly at this poacher and strike fast like it's a DPS race. It's time to break out Bunker. G.I. Bunker specifically so I can pierce Ambuscade's defenses with anyone.
Sadly, he drew both Explosive Launcher and Vanish right away, so I didn't get to open with tons of damage. Worse, Vanish came up right after I blew up the Personal Cloaking Device so it was a while before I could unleash the hurt. Finally I got a turn without Vanish (and without devices to stop me), and wound up dealing a total of 21 damage in one turn. I almost lost The Idealist but then Bloogo from the Enclave showed up to save her. Ambuscade didn't get the cloaking device this round, dealt another 18 damage before Fanatic's turn and used Wrathful Retribution (discard 3 cards, if you do Fanatic deals damage equal to her missing HP - in this case 18 more damage) for the win.
Ambuscade surprised me with just how much he powers up with his Advanced and Challenge modes - he upgrades from a slightly-annoying difficulty 1 to at least a difficulty 3 in Ultimate mode, possibly a full-blown difficulty 4. Play accordingly.
Not sure I'll try fighting him again. I got bored of his basic mode when I was doing unlocks.
Would any other heroes work?:
What I have concluded from these games is The Sentinels as a whole are very much a glass cannon. They have really solid damage potential and sustain, but only if you can keep all 4 of them alive at once. Nevertheless, I think they're too risky for me to try giving them another go - but if specifically requested, I will try them again.
Anyways, deck manipulation and irreducible damage shine here. Despite all the shuffles, you need to keep him from playing Vanish at all costs - you lose a round of damage if you let him get that cloaking device out. Also, this is not a place for weak hits - you need big ones, because you never know when his next use of the cloaking device will happen and you need to burst through 50 HP as fast as you can.
There's still several villains I need to play before we can bring out their hero variants. But I really, REALLY want to dispose of Spite so badly. I think I'll deal with his variant next so we don't have to stare at him anymore.
By the way, I know there's a guest watching this. Don't be shy, come on in!
