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A Hero's Guide to Absolute Zero

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Powerhound_2000
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I'd also note that more than ever you need to be careful about using Thermal Shockwave. 


Crush your enemies, drive them before you, and laminate their women! - Guise, Prime Wardens #31

 
Arcanist Lupus
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On the other hand, the rewards can be much greater. With Thermal Shockwave, AZ can deal the villain 18 damage (3 from one of the cold spikes, and 15 reflected fire) on the second turn with only two cards, which is pretty impressive, even if it requires 13 self damage.


"Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?"

- Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

Powerhound_2000
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Just don't use it on a turn where you have Cold Snap and Impale already dealing damage.   Those gets costly with the base version.  


Crush your enemies, drive them before you, and laminate their women! - Guise, Prime Wardens #31

 
The Burning Stickman
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Powerhound_2000 wrote:

Just don't use it on a turn where you have Cold Snap and Impale already dealing damage.   Those gets costly with the base version.  

Yeah, I can't tell you how many times I forgot that, double clicked the card and saw something like, "Absolute Zero has done 15 Cold Damage this turn."
TakeWalker
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The upshot is, Coolant Blast becomes, if nothing else, a fairly reliable 2 damage if you've got Violent Shivers in play. It's doubly-good for those turns when you've just played a self-damaging one-shot and don't want to VS for the next round.

Natediggadoggity
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I'm very interested in the even newer absolute zero variant, freedom 5, whose power is as follows:

Pilot Light: Absolute Zero deals himself 2 fire damage. If he takes damage this way, search your deck for an ongoing card and put it into play. Shuffle your deck.

This sounds like a great way to put impale, cold snap, and thermal shockwave into play quickly, while looking for your modules. How does it change his play in practice though?

The Burning Stickman
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It'd definitely make him quicker to set up and play -- most versions of AZ, you want the modules out first thing, so his Ongoings tend to be later plays. This would let him get those out and contribute to damage even as he's getting set up.

The one caveat seems to be that it's mandatory -- so I imagine it's possible to, for instance, use the power against Dreamer and be forced to put Cold Snap into play.

I can see the power making Glacial Structure a little more useful -- you could essentially get it out there as a free play and leave it as a decoy for destruction, or get the card draw without sacrificing a whole turn to it.

TakeWalker
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F5 Absolute Zero is a monster. You want to be able to get a Isothermic Transducer on your first turn, which isn't always possible, but being able to pull out Cold Snap and Impale immediately and consistently means he's pouring out the damage. In fact, with him, I usually find myself wanting for ongoings to play, because I'll get him set up so quickly!

And then you play him alongside Completionist Guise and switch him to Termi-Nation after he's all set up...

Natediggadoggity
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Thanks for that info, and on that note, how does he do against ongoing destruction? He's good at dealing with equipment destruction with his modular alignments, but since he can't pull his ongoings out of his trash, does that feel like a weakness?

Ronway
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Minorly so. If both Impales are destroyed it is a slight drag, but he can easily retrieve any other Ongoing due to having multiple copies within the deck. But not too many things destroy all Ongoings, so it's fairly easily to keep the Impales safe from mid-game destruction.

The Burning Stickman
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Plus, with the power mining his ongoings and his dedicated search cards for his Modules, you'll blow through the deck that much faster, so a reshuffle is only a matter of time.

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