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Almost cheating

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celette482
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Almost cheating

I enjoy a well-fought fight as much as the next person, but sometimes I like to pull a Batman and come into a fight fully prepared. Have you ever had a game where you just hit the villain's weaknesses SO well that you basically rendered them ineffective, so that it feels like you practically cheated?

 

Examples: using Meteor Storm against Iron Legacy (I have discussed this one before); using a DR/ next evolution combo on the Matriarch (she's so regular with her damage that NE is like the easiest thing ever); Imbued fire/ flesh of the sun god versus Plague Rat

 

Any others?


Drakossozh
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There is, of course, the perennial End of Days against Akash. Can you say, self destruct?

celette482
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End of Days can also be GREAT against the Dreamer, either to force the flip or win the game.

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celette482 wrote:

End of Days can also be GREAT against the Dreamer, either to force the flip or win the game.

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Using Haka against anyone with minions while having Savage Mana in play is an excellent combo, as it can screw the villian up pretty badly. Just have to watch out for Ongoing destruction.

 

With the introduction of Final Wasteland it can do it much better than Haka can as those pesky villains will be gone forever!

 

Edit: That's one reason why I play random, so that way I don't get tempted to stack my heroes in such a way that I could win any game.

celette482
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Depends on the kind of game I want to play. Again, I love a good knock-down, drag out fight as much as the next person. But sometimes it's fun to come in and go as far as you possibly can against a villain.

 

I usually do this after the villain beat me badly recently. I am not above revenge.

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1st edition Wraith against Spite. Stun Bolts used to reduce damage by 2, so he just didn't get to do damage after he flipped. It's still really good, but the backlash damage kills Wraith fast enough now that it doesn't feel like cheating anymore, it just feels like a strong counter.

Visionary + AZ against Apostate. Twist the Ether means all Apostate does is heal AZ and everybody else is free to break his toys at their leisure.

One time I used Team Leader Tachyon. It didn't counter the villain or anything, but it sure felt like cheating.


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boxwood
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Brainburning the chairman on the first turn always makes me feel like a bit of a cheater

Belteshazzar
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Cosmonaut Zero wrote:

One time I used Team Leader Tachyon. It didn't counter the villain or anything, but it sure felt like cheating.

The joke in our house is that using Legacy in any form is cheating :-p

When my group gets really beaten down by a villain, we'll put together a rescue team that's tailored against the villain (we usually do random champs the first time through).

celette482
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Twist the Ether in general feels like cheating.

 

Brainburn less so because you defintely pay a price for that card

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First time poster here.  I play with Belteshazzar and Sefirit.  They have usually already posted anything I would have to say by the time I get to the forums, so I've been slow to get my account created.  ;)

 

Cosmonaut Zero wrote:

...Visionary + AZ against Apostate. Twist the Ether means all Apostate does is heal AZ and everybody else is free to break his toys at their leisure.One time I used Team Leader Tachyon. It didn't counter the villain or anything, but it sure felt like cheating.

Man.  This here.  We had this exact scenario last night for the first time.  Visionary had an opening hand Twist the Ether, and AZ was just waiting on his gear to make use of it.  A slew of relics out?  Pfft, no problem.  Scholar was along for the ride and trying to figure out what the heck to do since he couldn't be the highest HP character and didn't need any of his elementals out. He basically just drew cards and let people flip over the top of their decks.  He played a lot like the art on his one card where he's in his lawn chair with a drink just kicking back and relaxing.

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Just last night I had a game where all decks were generated randomly and it gave us DV and AZ against Apostate.  Well DV had a turn 1 twits to put on Apostate and that was that.

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We once purposely attacked and killed Tempest so that we could use his incapacitated side immunity effect together with Next Evolution.

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I feel really guilty when I let Tempest die, as that immunity wins most games where it happens.  The only thing I flat out refuse to play, though, is Fanatic against Akash'Bhuta.  It was fun the first three times, but after that, I realized it's a bit of a foregone conclusion.

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Playing Smoke Bombs with Recharge Mode Bunker in Heavy Playing and all heroes at the same hp qualifies cheating for me. Same can be done with Flesh to Iron.

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It's a longshot getting all these out, but Legacy with 2 Next Evolutions, Lead from the Front, and Legacy Ring against the Chairman (and actually, just about every villain), and you can just pack it up. You're done, son.

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Until Devastating Aurora.

 


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Nielzabub wrote:

Until Devastating Aurora. 

I'm not sure I want to play against The Chairman if he gets Devastating Aurora... ;)

Drakossozh
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.....every Villain except Dawn. Or in some cases, Apostate. Still good against them while it lasts though :P

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Omnitronks feels like cheating. I've had turns where it put 4 cards into play. If the villain had some kind of AI, Omnitron-X would be breakable, but otherwise it's a beast.

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Drakossozh wrote:

It's a longshot getting all these out, but Legacy with 2 Next Evolutions, Lead from the Front, and Legacy Ring against the Chairman (and actually, just about every villain), and you can just pack it up. You're done, son.

This exactly thing actually happened to our group a while ago. Visionary, Grandpappy Legacy, and Haka against the Chairman. Everyone was ~1-5 HP when Visionary died, then Legacy got his second Next Evolution, activated NE and his base to allow him to heal a point and activate the second NE, and we didn't take another point of damage from the villain (Legacy also had environment immunity, and Haka played a Restoration, so he probably took a couple stray points from the environment, but we ended with Haka near full health and Legacy creeping up one point a turn :-p).

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Scholar + Wraith is feeling pretty cheaty. Smoke Bombs + Flesh to Iron is a hell of a lot of damage reduction.

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Ronway wrote:
Using Haka against anyone with minions while having Savage Mana in play is an excellent combo, as it can screw the villian up pretty badly.

 

Could someone confirm if this is a viable win condition assistance please.

Haka vs Dreamer (pre flip), Haka places destroyed projection targets under Savage Mana.

Dreamer flips

Haka uses savage mana 'destroy all cards beneath this card.' Dreamer states 'whenever a projection card is destroyed put it under this card.' So cards go straight toward win condition.

I decided to continue playing to see how many projections I could kill but I was wondering if that would be a shortcut to defeating the dreamer?

 

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I think you could do that. The Dreamer's rules on the front state that there can't be any projections in play, if they are under Savage Mana, they are not in play. You could then use Savage Mana to destroy them and put them under the Dreamer's character card.


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But don't cards under Savage Mana have no text? They only qualify as "villain cards" (or "cards belonging to the Dreamer's deck"), not as Projections because that's a keyword, ie card text. So destroying them would probably just put them into the trash, I think.


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Yep.

 

Ninjaed.


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Really? Was there a ruling for that?


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Yes, for stuff like the Matriarch's Fowl when under Savage Mana - they have no "Fowl" keyword so you don't get nuked by Lilian for vomiting them all back up in her face ;). I think the only times you can benefit from destroying cards under other cards are Bunker with Ammo Drop for every villain card re-destroyed by Savage Mana (because they are still villain cards - I think Haka's Dominion would work for environment cards in the same way but can't remember, off the top of my head, whether that only works on targets), and Freedom-6 Tempest destroying his own cards when they've been stolen by La Capitan (they are still his cards so he can destroy them from there).


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Also I believe cards under Savage Mana are in play, otherwise they would not be able to be destroyed.  I believe only Vengeful Baron Blade designates that cards underneath it are considered not in play.

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Pretty certain that (with Savage Mana) Anubis would trigger, and the Operative, as they refer to the cards themselves and not keywords on cards.

 

Lady Luck however, would cause horrible card draw/play issues if you tried to use Savage Mana (only really possible if Imbued Vitality had been around).


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Pydro
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On a related note, think what would gappen if the Final Wasteland ate one of Gloomy's relics.


Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
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phantaskippy
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Pydro wrote:

On a related note, think what would gappen if the Final Wasteland ate one of Gloomy's relics.

Game Over man, Game Over.

In all honesty you'd just kill Gloomy.  He can't flip and you can't win by three relics in trash, you'd just have to damage him.

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Pydro wrote:

On a related note, think what would gappen if the Final Wasteland ate one of Gloomy's relics.

You would have a very long game on your hands

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That would be an interesting challenge. Fight Gloomy on advanced in the Final Wasteland with characters that primarily do melee and projectile damage.


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One day at Arsenal we did just that (well, except for the Final Wasteland part).  The obvious goal was to try to pull the relics out.  However, only two relics were ever played as we had handily won by defeating GloomWeaver. The Wraith tended to stick to deck manipulation, while Expatriatte focused on minion cleanup, with the exception of the few ammo cards allowing damage to GloomWeaver.  Haka managed zombie control with Savage Mana, and that paired with Haka of Battle caused him to steal the win away from me (a trend for that player that night).  I can't really remember what Bunker did, but I do remember some Ammo Drops and Adhesive Foam Grenades.  Mister Fixer was definately the champion of that game, with a first turn Meditation to pull a Grease Monkey Fist.  I think at some time I did lose the card, but was able to get it back again quickly enough.

As far as I know, those are the only 5 heroes released thus far which are most restricted Melee/Projectile, in order from most restricted to least restricted as The Wraith, Bunker, Haka, Expatriette, and Mister Fixer.


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I'd put in Legacy instead of Mr. Fixer. Mr. Fixer has Grease Monkey which lets him use any damage type, whereas Legacy does only Projectile and Melee with no mechanic in his deck that lets him change his damage type.


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2 out of 3 times I've fought Gloomweaver, I killed him directly (and I still think that shouldn't even be possible).  Game 1 I had Scholar, Nightmist and Argent, so dealing non-physical damage was easy enough; game 2 I had Mr. Fixer and he did indeed get Grease Monkey fist, so even thought Wraith was relic-hunting as hard as she could, and could never hurt Gloomy directly, he still died just as the third relic came into play, it being easier to kill him than it.

I had been saving his second side to surprise myself with, but after that game I finally got impatient and peeked at it.  It...really didn't strike me as being worth how unlikely it is to come up.  I was expecting something on the order of "At the start of the villain turn, if Gloomweaver did not flip this turn, the heroes lose the game".  Paired with him being immune to all damage on his first side, that would really make him feel like a Call of Cthulhu villain - you simply do not "fight" such beings, you either thwart their cults or you roll up a new campaign world.  Very occasionally you can manage to dynamite the mine shaft that they're about to emerge from or something, hence the 1-turn grace period.


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If he were to auto-win at the start of his turn, he'd auto-win the moment he flipped, because that's also a start-of-turn action (just like Dawn can flip and immediately flip straight back if enough Citizens, including herself, are already in play). Mind you, if it was an end-of-turn action you'd still be buggered, just a few zombies or whatever might get to hit you first, lol.


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Ameena wrote:
If he were to auto-win at the start of his turn, he'd auto-win the moment he flipped

Envisioner wrote:
I was expecting something on the order of "At the start of the villain turn, if Gloomweaver did not flip this turn, the heroes lose the game".

"Is there beauty in a forest, if no creature stops and calls it lovely, now and then? Isn't that what 'sapience' is for?"
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Ahh oops, missed that, lol.


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Envisioner, if you could whip up a variant for Gloomy along those lines, I would be very interested... I kind of agree with you that killing Gloomy when he/she/it isn't even on this plane of existence is pretty silly, and with Gloomy being a demi-god of chaos and death and aaaaall that trouble to bring him/her/it into the world, that it should be pretty much one turn kill after a flip :O

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What about simply adding "At the start of the game, reveal cards until one Relic and Ophidia the Deceiver are revealed.  Put those two cards into play"?

That way, Gloomweaver has a force to be reckoned with already out to start the game, and it's more likely for him to hit the 3-Relic Ante. 

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I have to try this out, but I had this idea. Add the following line to Gloomy's card:

At the start-of-the-villain-turn put the X non-Zombie targets with the lowest hp from the villain trash into play. X = the number of relics in the villain trash.

 


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Pydro wrote:

I have to try this out, but I had this idea. Add the following line to Gloomy's card:At the start-of-the-villain-turn put the X targets with the lowest hp from the villain trash into play. X = the number of relics in the villain trash. 

Wouldn't that just pull zombies?

I would like to see Grave Beckons (is that the right name? the zombie ongoing is what I am going for) become indestructable or something. THAT would be real scary...

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Foote wrote:

 

Pydro wrote:
I have to try this out, but I had this idea. Add the following line to Gloomy's card:At the start-of-the-villain-turn put the X targets with the lowest hp from the villain trash into play. X = the number of relics in the villain trash. 

 

Wouldn't that just pull zombies?I would like to see Grave Beckons (is that the right name? the zombie ongoing is what I am going for) become indestructable or something. THAT would be real scary...

Yay, which is why I changed it. Even putting the Zombies hp ranged out of standard AoE damage range would make it significanlty harder.

EDIT: I was changing it as you posted. I was hoping nobody would see...

The idea is that Gloomy is trying to get them back. Also, each destroyed relic would automatically add an extra card play to his turn, and taking out the cultist from the trash would give vast following a greater chance of bringing back a relic.


Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
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Pydro wrote:

Yay, which is why I changed it. Even putting the Zombies hp ranged out of standard AoE damage range would make it significanlty harder.

EDIT: I was changing it as you posted. I was hoping nobody would see...The idea is that Gloomy is trying to get them back. Also, each destroyed relic would automatically add an extra card play to his turn, and taking out the cultist from the trash would give vast following a greater chance of bringing back a relic.

Ah! That would certainly give Gloomweaver more teeth. It also would actually make going for the alternative win condition a choice instead of a foregone conclusion. (Why would you ever waste time and damage on Gloomweaver when you can focus it elsewhere and still win?)

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Foote wrote:

(Why would you ever waste time and damage on Gloomweaver when you can focus it elsewhere and still win?)

I think that's part of the problem.

 

Going after Relics vs Gloomy

75 hp vs 90 hp

Destroys cards with effects vs doesn't remove any effects

 

While the cards can come back, there seems to be more pros with taking out the relics. Furthermore, advance mode encourages this strategy by making Gloomy harder to hit. Maybe advanced mode should have said that relics (and maybe zombies) are immmune to melee and projectile damage instead.


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Strength of the Grave is the zombie buff. I think "The Grave Beckons" is that one in the Ennead's deck which insta-kills targets with fewer than 3hp.


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I was actually thinking along the lines of a *major-ish* change of its card. I think we've derailed this enough though, so I'll try to go and make a new topic? :)

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I do a Gloomy variant with a second character in play

First side is a voodoo priest that throws voodoo pins at the heroes from the trash, or plays the top card if no pins are in the trash.  He also causes a hero with a pin attached to do -1 damage.

The Priest has 10 health, when he hits 0 health he flips to zombie lord side.

Zombie Lord side he reveals the trash and puts either strength of the grave or a zombie into play.  Strength of the grave is indestructible on that side.

 

Each side is nasty, and it adds to the game the strategy of when to flip the priest.

Envisioner
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Pydro wrote:
Foote wrote:
(Why would you ever waste time and damage on Gloomweaver when you can focus it elsewhere and still win?)

I think that's part of the problem.

Going after Relics vs Gloomy

75 hp vs 90 hp

Destroys cards with effects vs doesn't remove any effects

I think a far more relevant issue than either of those is Gloomy's "always exists to be beaten on" vs. the relics's "only available if you happen to draw them".  In two of my three games against him, he was well below 25 HP by the time the third relic showed up.  In one case, Wraith was even devoted wholeheartedly to fishing out his relics with Infrared Eyepiece (first she had to draw IREP, so she was playing a lot of Trust Funds and before that skipping her turn to draw 2), and she still didn't manage to find the third one before Gloomy was in pieces all over the floor.


"Is there beauty in a forest, if no creature stops and calls it lovely, now and then? Isn't that what 'sapience' is for?"
--David Brin, "Brightness Reef"

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