Matriarch vs Unity, South West Sentinels, Americas Newest Legacy in Madam Mittimires Carnival of ect..
This was quite fun. There were moments where it was touch and go and as usual I struggled to deal with this environment, however, I can't complain because it did facilitate my win. Turns out its hard for Mainstay and Idealist to hurt themselves when they both have the lowest HP. Same with the rest of the team.
My main focus was on keeping the Mask out of play and it worked. Also found out if you have stealth bot out you avoid the painful parts of Legacy's major support cards which was nice.
Wouldn't call it a comfortable *Mint* but its what I got. Unity mid-teens, Legacy low twenties and the sentinels all over the shop
By making sure Dr Medico was the lowest and a timely play of heroic interception plus stealth bot , I managed to finish the game near full hp
Sapienta potentia est
Near Mint. Argh, I really do not like the Matriarch. Not simply because she's a difficult villain (though she is), but because the game can get very slow. Especially if I have to make decisions, like whether to engage a damage redirect card, for everything.
And Madame Mittermeier's just compounds the problem.
Near Mint, because the first time I had no idea what I was up to.
Tips:
Get damage redirection/mitigation out early. After a couple of turns, the Environment is going to start making its presence known in a big way. Be ready.
Speaking of, there's only one (well, three copies of one) Environment-destruction card in all three of the decks you're playing with, and Mme. M's deck has probably the most annoying card in the entire game. (Hall of Mirrors.) Be warned.
Don't even bother with the flock. See point 1 about the Environment.
Mainstay for MVP.
The rule that the four Sentinels count as each other's nemesis is really annoying, but not a big enough deal to make or break the game.
After a certain point, while you're technically fighting the villain, it's more like you're competing against her to survive the carnival.
Mint, through no help of my own. :| The strategy is basically "let the environment win", you're just along for the ride. God, I hate that place, it's the worst environment in the game.
Mint.
All sorts of crazy redirection.
This One-Shot screams for a button that says, "YES, Redirect ALL damage to Stealth Bot/Mainstay/whatever." I understand that isn't possible to do, but games like this one can get VERY tedious. In person, you'd just look at the board and say, "yep, nobody takes any damage." In this instance, the game asks me to answer 27 prompting questions to get the same result. Again, I know this topic has been covered before, and there's not really anything to do about it....I'm just reminded of it by this one-shot. :)
Anyway, Medico went down, but everyone else hung on to let the ferris wheels run roughshod over the birds.
Unity 6HP, Sentinels 0, 1, 1, 2HP and Legacy at 12HP.
*sigh*
This is such a slog.
Takedown ended up biting me in the ass, coming out immeditatly before MoM.
I need to stop for now. i'll pick it back up later.
"I'm Setback and I'm helping!"
Heartbreaker & Equity Kill the Sentinels Universe
Easy Mint, Unity and Legacy low 20s and Sentinels near their various max-hps. MVP Stealth-Bot by far for keeping Unity's bot swarm alive.
I thought Challenge Matriach would be worse just because Matraich (I usually ignore the Carrion Fields anyway, as I'd rather direct that 15 damage to Matriach/the Mask/the Cohorts), but wasn't too bad anyway.
Got out damage reduction asap as a 3H Matriach game, the heroes can tank a LOT of damage with even 1 DR. Got Bee-Bot to destroy Shooting gallery simply to stop the "Do you want to redirect damage?" checks not remembering I could just get out Hypocratic Oath and get Dr Medico to the lowest for heals, but oh well. Fortitude, Durasteel Chains, Block, Stealth Bot... Damage was a non-issue. Combined with a timed Heroic Interception before the environment could clear the birds out, and I didn't even have to "Do you want to redirect damage" as much.
Spent my turns beating the crap out of Matriach and ignored the birdies and environment because of ^. Took her down in around 5 rounds with a swarm of Raptor Bots noming her feathers off.
~Komori
Near mint because I got bored and bailed the first game.
The first time, I screwed up Unity's plays and didn't *immediately* fish BeeBot and Stealthbot out of her deck. Instead, I discarded the cards that did so. It took me over two hours of playtime before I could fish one out again.
Now Mainstay's Human Shield serves the same purpose as Stealthbot in damage protection, but it eats all the Sentinels' cards. And then when Maze of Mirrors came out and I couldn't get to BeeBot, I was in for a long long slog. By the time I got to BeeBot, The Matriarch had cycled through her deck twice, healed herself back up to full, and had both Munnin and Huggin out, who were eating all my on-goings. Since every turn was a bazillion clicks to select who was going to try and fail to hit me next or to redirect damage, I finally got fed up and quit.
The second time, Unity brought BeeBot and Stealthbot into her hand on the first turn. Stealthbot went into play, and as soon as Maze of Mirrors popped up, I got BeeBot out and took it out. Then I could beat on The Matriarch to my heart's content and it was pretty straightforward.
But gah... what a slog.
An uncomfortable mint.
I immediately fished Cryobot and Stealth Bot out of Unity’s deck with Flash Forge. With Challenge Matriarch and Carrior Fields out immediately, I knew I needed to tank a ton of 1 point damage. Cryobot I took because I thought I’d need him to do mass wipes of birds. Little did I know.
I missed the fact that the Sentinels had Human Shield in hand, but getting out Stealth Bot is important anyway because the Sentinels can’t sustain Human Shield long with the initial hand. I did play Human Shield immediately instead of waiting for more cards, because I knew I’d take a lot of 1 point hits immediately.
The environment kept drawing Unstable Midway. At one point I had 3 copies out, which meant it was doing 9 damage to all targets every turn, or 3 if you have 1 DR. It was more than Human Shield and Stealth Bot could handle - both Mainstay and Stealth bot went down, though I got Mainstay back via Dr. Medico.
This setup really is the carnival’s show. If you can absorb the damage to your heroes, the big top will handle everything else. Heroic Interception let me weather the turn after Stealth Bot went down, particularly since Ms. Legacy had Danger Sense in play and wasn’t taking any environment damage. I was going to play Human Shield again next turn, since Mainstay was back up, but I didn’t have to because the “all targets do themselves X psychic damage” environment card was enough to take down the Matriarch.
Comfortable mint the first time. Early play of stealth bot was the obvious win. Thought I could do better.
Second time, something I did differently resulted in hall of mirrors coming up and stalling the game. Wound up getting nibbled to death by the environment before I could win.
Third time through, got an ideal setup with inspiring presense, and got the environment to discard Muninn. Made sure I had a few sacrifical ongoings to throw at Cacophny, which shows up pretty early. Kept Medico at lowest, shooting gallery in play, and finished at full hit points.
PSA: Hugninn is second from the bottom. Once you've got Muninn in the trash, use two actions with Writhe to trash him. However, my second win was managed pre-flip anyhow, so before he would have shown up.
I thought deck control with the Matriarch was extremely problematic since most of the time you’ll get a bird, and putting a bird on top doesn’t delay nastier cards at all. Getting lucky and trashing Hugninn or Muninn can happen, but is so unlikely that you’re almost always wasting a card play (if it’s a card) or a power. With Hugninn and Muninn one of them has to be in the trash already to make it work - if you trash one and draw the other, discarding a cohort just made it easier for the Matriarch to play both at once.
Thus I didn’t try digging through the deck with Writhe at all. It’s the sort of thing that looks viable only if you have foreknowledge from a prior game, or you’ve got some combo power that lets you look at the bottom of the deck for cheap, like Updated Intel from Parse.
EDIT: I will say that I didn’t think of how beneficial Shooting Gallery could be if Medico has Hippocratic Oath out. That’s a great combo.
Yeah, uh, Sentinels + Environment for dual MVPs. Stealth Bot didn't last more than a round and a half for me, but by then I had Mainstay set up with 2 DR and Human Shield, with enough Ongoings out to soak Horrid Cacophony. I discarded a card at every opportunity for All-Seeing Alzrabar, and the Sentinels got a card play for free every time, which took Matriarch from 45 to KO'd in one round just as Maze of Mirrors came out.
That’s what I did with Alzrabar too. I think it’s the obvious play, since neither Unity nor Legacy are really about one-shots, and the Sentinels are mostly one-shot damage or one-shot goodies like Unique Abilities or Team Coordination. I didn’t do anything like 45 damage with that, I think the environment did more damage to the Matriarch than my heroes did.
I had a fairly different experience by the sounds. An easy though incredibly sloggy mint but I didn't see Maze of Mirrors at all.
I took Stealth and Swift first up, which meant the Bee Bots came quickly afterwards should I need it.
I never played Human Shield, since I couldn't sustain it and Stealth Bot did the job I needed anyway.
The environment was pesky for sure but I wouldn't say it took care of Lillian here...
Once I got two Raptor bots and 3 Platforms, it was all over very quickly, but took a VERY long time...
After 3 ragequits in a row, I got a fine which took all bloody day.
"I'm Setback and I'm helping!"
Heartbreaker & Equity Kill the Sentinels Universe
That’s one notable problem with The Matriarch. If you’re mitigating all those 1 damage hits, and there are so many of them between her own power and Carrion Fields that it’s important to do so if you can, you’re usually doing a lot of optional re-directs. Which means getting asked, over and over, if you want to send the 1 damage to Mainstay or Stealth Bot. So, yeah, games with The Matriarch tend to drag.
I think my least favorite was: environment kills a ton of birds, I take 0 damage over 20 minutes, Maze gets played, she plays a bunch and Darken the Skies, I use Dark Delusions to hit Writhe for 2, kill bee bot, and ALL the birds.
Longest. turn. ever.
"I'm Setback and I'm helping!"
Heartbreaker & Equity Kill the Sentinels Universe
Good, but on the second attempt - needed a big break after the first one. It was going very well - stealth bot tanking damage, I took out maze of mirrors with Bee Bot, but then Unstable Midway put it back into play and I had to dig for another Bee by which time things had got out of hand and you won’t believe your eyes beat me up before I could get much going...
Second attempt was a little dicey as Stealth Bot got taken out half way through, but I piled on the damage and cane through, but what a slog - so much damage redirection. I was very frustrated after the first loss due to the sheer time it had taken to get to that point...
For those having trouble with this one here is a guaranteed way to win although long.
In the beginning just focus on defense you don’t even have to deal damage.
Never deal damge to Carrion Fields and be careful that Unstable Midway does do get them below 1 HP before step 4
Step 1: Get Durasteel Chains out with Unique Capabilities and use block every turn.
Most importantly Muninn must not destroy Durasteel Chains. Use Unity equipment as fodder.
Step 2: As soon as Huginn comes out kill him. This is important because Muninn comes out right before the deck gets reshuffled.
Step 3: Get Muninn to exactly 1 HP and as many heroes as you can to below 5 HP.
Be careful of Unstable Midway dealing damage to Muninn. Use Bee Bot to protect him if necessary.
Step 4: Once Gone Without a Trace is active use it to remove Muninn from the game.
Step 5: Let all your heroes and sentinels other than Mainstay die.
Step 6: Wait for the environment to kill Matriarch for you.
With Muninn removed and Durasteel Chains out with block there is no damage except for self-inflicted environment damage that is more than 2 so Mainstay is immune. With Freak Show from the environment out and Mainstay at lowest of all hero targets he is immune to self-inflicted damage. Eventually You Won't Believe Your Eyes will kill Matriarch without you ever having to lay a finger on her.