Weekly One Shot # 12: Frontier Justice

Near Mint. What made the difference for me second time round was prioritizing two Flesh to Irons.  Then prioritized card draw for Scholar so he could Know When to Turn Loose.  I thought I had calculated right - Iron Legacy had 12 HP, AA incap gave +1 Damage, Scholar had 11 other cards so I Turned Loose.  Forgot about IR's Damage Reduction, so he had 1 HP.  Then Sheriff Pratt came out and finished him for the win!  Mr. Fixer and AA incapped, Scholar at 28 HP.

Whew! Mint, but by FAR my closest one yet. I miscalculated the lightning damage by ONE POINT, so IL was left on one health (with The Scholar as my only hero standing, guaranteed to drop next turn.)

Fortunately, the Sheriff came out and hit Iron Legacy for two! SO CLOSE. Great game!

Bad luck lead to my first first near mint.  I had built up a hand to Turn Loose for the win the next turn with Scholar as the last hero standing at 2 HP.  There was 1 card left in the environment deck and it was a cactus so I figured if I shut down Iron Legacy's damage with Offensive Transmutation I'd be ok... wrong! He pulled Demolising Presence and I KO'd myself.  The second game was also interesting I got Solid to Liquid and 2 moral Forms and managed to reduce Iron Legacy to 1 HP before he took out my Ongoings.  Iron Legacy started healing and things were starting to look bad (I had no damaging cards) when an expolave wagon was destroyed dealing enough damage to take out Iron Legacy for the win.

I ended in a near-mint. The Scholar was the last one standing with 10 HP. The second time I went for double Flesh to Iron to help soak the damage, ended with a Know When to Turn Loose and Sheriff Pratt. Almost lost to Lost in the Past.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=640751702

I minted by turtling with Scholar until I could Turn Loose for 29 and almost lost to Lost in the Past.  I lost 2x Flesh to Iron at one point but was able to fake it with 1x Flesh until the end.  Expect the Worst saved by bacon twice.  Seems like it'd be really hard to win without hunkering down with Scholar - Argent just dies too fast and Fixer doesn't last too much longer

Mint despite a mistake I made. I played Proverbs and Axioms, used Strike, then tried to use Inspiring Supertonic to use Strike again; this mistake cost The Argent Adept his life. Mister Fixer fell in the round after that, but The Scholar utilized the last energy of his lost comrades to become Mister Scholar Adept! Expect the Worst became my best friend, together with Solid to Liquid and Mortal Form to Energy.

Here's a shameless plug, if it's ok! I stream these live to twitch.tv and upload the broadcast to YouTube soon after, in case anyone wanted to see someone do these. Here's this week's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w34Y8cP2gEc

Near Mint this time.  I just want to say, as an Argent Adept player, song math is really difficult when Angry Paul is busy punching your face in.  I seriously thought I was going to lose him at least three turns in a row.  I did lose Fixer, unfortunately, but was able to recover and defeat him on the turn the first Superhuman Redirection came out.  Almost didn't, but a timely Explosives Wagon saved the day and allowed Prattto get the kill shot.

Wasn't able to keep enough cards in hand to use Know When To Turn Loose, so I just hunkered down with Scholar and kept healing with Adept.

This One-shot should default with a grainy black-and-white film filter.

I got mint, though it was a close one.  I won by doing a bit of damage with Fixer (until he died), and stripping away ongoings with the Adept (until he died).  The Scholar was the star of the piece, though.  An early transmutation gave everyone a bit of breathing room, and I prioritized getting lots of cards and a flesh to iron early on. Once I had several "Keep Movings", I shifted to a more offensive stance with Solid to liquid and 2 mortal form to energy, and used the adept's incap power to up energy damage.  It was a near thing, but the arrival of the explosives wagon sealed the deal and let me take out Iron Legacy before I ran out of cards to fuel the Liquid/Energy engine (and heal myself through power naps).  

I just got the game last night for the first time (thanks to getting a new laptop after months without), and this is the first One-shot I have to come in on? Well, here we go!

And I'm guessing there's no way to access the previous one-shots. Darn, I feel like I missed out! Looking forward to more though.

Oh, darn. I'd love to have gotten all mint. Will I miss achievements for not having every one shot minted?

Also, would anyone say I should try and unlock the variants without spoilers? Or would that take a long time of trial and error?

I took a glance at the Bunker thread and yeah, sounds like I'd be working at it for a while on my own.

You have a great opportunity to do science here though. It seemed like someone was going to do so in the thread, but they went away.

Second Fine in a row...

Went into a panic when I thought the environment was going to reshuffle, and messed it up first time around. Second time around, tried to keep Mr Fixer and AA alive for an extra turn at the start with an extra Offensive Transmutation. That Silver Gulch to get out of hand.

Third time was a charm thanks to Bring What You Need twice a round.

Near Mint.  I didn't know when to Turn Loose, and spent a turn whittling Legs down rather than turtling or turning loose, and got eaten.  So I rewound back and Turned Loose instead, and that brought him down far enough to where Silver Gultch took him down hard.

I lost AA and Mr. Fixer quickly, and then spent most of the game in a half turtle with one Flesh to Iron building up to Turn Loose and doing random specks of damage to keep him from flipping back.  I don't know why I didn't use 2 Iron forms, but I didn't.

But yes, this was a game of Iron Legacy versus Iron Scholar.

I was worried about this one so I played a practice game and lost badly, then I played a second and lost badly again, then I played a third and finally won with everyone incapacitated except for the scholar and he finished at 3hp. The one shot setup seemed like it was no where near as hard as my three test games. still no walk in the park as the scholar was the only one standing in the end, but he was never in danger and I never played one flesh to iron the whole game. 

This combination is a real challenge and one I'd never choose myself... There's not enough ongoing destructions, and a lot of puny damage. Three times I've lost, never thought about doing a practice game....

I had a very amusing mint win here, in the beginning, I prioritized fixer doing irreducible dual crow bar damage, bouncing off the gunmen that turned up at the start towards legacy, while AA popped Legacy's ongoings. Scholar played offensive transmutation a second time after an arcane cadence let me play a verbal sonata that put it back to the top of his deck. The damage from dual galvanized Legacy eventually brought Argent adept in range to be taken out by the gunman and a sustain the portal card.

But i'm getting swamped in the details, MVP this game was Explosive wagon dealing exactly 4 damage towards flipped Iron Legacy, he forgot about his danger sense in his time of desperation. :D

Thanks to tons of help from Powerhound2000 I got Mint on both.
My local game was a success thanks to Explosive Wagon and the trough for that extra boost to lightning!

I have been trying to beat this one shot all day. I have tried it seven times now and lost every single time.

My advice:  Don't worry about keeping Mr. Fixer or AA alive.  Hole up with a double Flesh to Iron and start digging cards for Know When to Turn Loose.  Use Fixer's incap to destroy Legacy's ongoings, and AA's incap to double up Bring What You Need.  Drop other ongoings so that when when Legs destroys them you don't loose your protection.  Then, know when to turn loose!

I didn't use know when to turn loose--there are plenty of environment targets to make grace under fire and get out of the way (with 1-2 Mortal forms to Energy out) pay off pretty big.

I only used one Flesh to Iron.

Argent Adept and Mr. Fixer did die pretty quick. Though I did get a turn (maybe two?) out of irreducible crowbars.

Near Mint. First game I played Iron Scholar and died pretty hard. Second game I switched it up and went more offensive, ending the game with LLEEE and dealing like 20 damage to Legacy in a turn.

I'm going to give it a few more tries. At this point, I'm only going to be able to get Fine condition. I've gotten the hang of having Scholar go Mega-Tank and focus on drawing cards, but now I've run into the issue of getting Lost in Time every game.

You really shouldn't have to go mega tank every game. If I remember correctly my opening sequence was fixer style (irreducible damage), adept ongoing distruction, scholar - throat jab. Legacy forces discard (adept discard all but his deck management card. Then Fixer plays crowbars, ardent plays deck management and puts into play card allowing others to use a power, but does more ongoing destruction. Scholar plays the card that lets you choose to take 3 damage and use a power or heal. I had fixer take the 3 so he could then crowbar Legacy. Then he gets to use his power so crowbar the environment and legacy again. Other heal. From there I start to forget what happened, but Legacy starts to get low enough that the environment damages him and I left the environment cards in play to do just that. Used adept to power fixer for 2 crowbars a round (or ongoing control as needed) . Eventually everyone went down but the scholar, however the environment kept legacy in check enough and I got enough targets out that a heal/damage strategy worked. Hope that helps. 

I'll share how I got it today, because for the longest time I was trying to tank while building cards for KWTCL, and that just wasn't working.

Mortal Form to Energy is your friend. Get two out, then once your team goes down, get Solid to Liquid out, too. It seems like a lot, but with enough environment targets in play, Get Out of the Way becomes killer. Literally!

I thought this was a really cheap set up/stacked deck.   The one-shots have been hit or miss:  some weeks you can play with some flexibility; other weeks the deck seems stacked so that you can only win if you play one particular tactic. This one was the latter. I played about five or six practice matches, and ended up winning most of them through some combination of AA healing/destroying ongoings, Scholar tanking, and Fixer either redirecting damage or doing irreducible damage.  

So, I was pretty confident going into the actual one-shot, but with this rigged set-up--double Galvanizes to start, then both gunmen coming out in rapid succession, then the "Legacy hits hero with lowest HP,"  and not enough Don't Dismiss Anythings, or the songs that let AA get out extra cards/turns -- there is no way to keep AA alive long enough to get his cards out so he can start healing himself.   Based on reading the comments above, there seems to be one strategy that the vast majority of people are turning to:   AA/Fixer both die early, turtle Scholar, then wait for 10+ agonizing turns until you can get KWTCL.  What a boring game!  This lineup of heroes is challenging enough against Iron Legacy -- was it really necessary to stack the deck to (essentially) make AA and Fixer useless?

I play by the seat of my pants each week and Scholar is another character I'm just bad with but I figured out half-way through that I needed to win with Scholar's finisher... things looked bleak because I didn't double stack his defense, but I played the two Immune to Damage cards waiting for the good Environment cards to come out, hit Iron Legacy for a measley 13 with Scholar's finisher and let the Sheriff finish him off.  Scholar has 2 HP.

I'm not against some weekly challenges having a "best way" to win.  Months ago I lost to Miss Information because I stupidly ignored the Kraken as the obvious winning damage against MI, the trick here more than most of the others is that in some battle the heroes incap side is more useful than their deck, and to teach people which cards can double up. (I've played dozens of games of Sentinels at this point, not hundreds like most people here, and I'm still reading thi thread like "woah, Scholars cards don't say Limited?")

I'm okay with certain challenges being more puzzley than others.

As you can read in the thread here and on Steam, there are many ways to win. Some people follow group think, but it's not necessary.

This was in fact a rare time where I did not do anything deliberate to select the random seed. I just played the setup, and it was a good game so I recorded the random seed and used it for the one-shot. So much for stacking the decks!

This is amazing, because the way everything works out, it really seems like the decks are guiding you in one particular direction. Well, not one direction only, but there are very obvious "which path will you take?" choices that all have upsides and downsides. Everything's relevant to the situation at hand.

I'll turn it around -- has *anyone* managed to win this with (a) all three heroes alive and/or (b) something other than the environment or Scholar taking out IL?  I've somehow managed to keep AA alive, but I could only do that once, and can't even remember what sort of fluke play I used for it.  Even in that game, the path to victory was still the same old turtling Scholar, drawing cards, and waiting for Cut Loose.

I've now replayed this 5-6 times, but no matter what I try differently, I can't keep AA alive past Turn 6, when IL goes from a measly +2 damage to a whopping +4 (Demoralizing Presence and Explosives Wagon) -- I can't even figure out what I did to keep him alive on the one game I finally won.  This deck is "stacked" to (a) whack the hero with the lowest HP (which, after the unavoidable 9 points AA takes on the first turn, is nearly always him), (b) kill the equipment from two extremely equipment-dependent heroes, and (c) bring out lots of damaging environment cards that only the soon-to-die low-HP hero can destroy.  

Man, reading this, I'm starting to wonder whether I even want to try this week's.

Ended up getting the mint by tanking and healing -- had one of each of Scholar's Forms out for most of the game. AA went down before he could get much done (Inspiring Supertonic was too little, too late), and Fixer went down soon after. Scholar and the Sheriff had IL hovering around 19 HP while he built up cards/frantically searched for another KWTCL, having accidentally discarded it, then let rip once I was ready.

That was a pain in the ass. Ended up with a Fine rating after 4 or 5 tries - needed to flip IL as soon as possible. AA went down quickly - possibly even quicker than others, as he took 3 psychic damage in order to take out both Superhuman Fortitudes in round 1.

Found out later on that Dual Crowbars triggers off of damage Fixer does to himself, as well - using Proverbs to let him get another power use resulted in 8 damage to Iron Legacy instead of simply 3. AA's incap to let him use another power when he had Bloody Knuckles up helped, too.

Still barely took him down. He's a beast.

Holding off to try to build up as large of a "Know When to Cut Loose" to drop him in a round just didn't work. In order to fuel the Flesh to Irons needed to keep Scholar alive I had to discard as many, if not more cards than I was getting per round. It is what I finished him off with, though.

Wow, that sucked.

My fine streak continues,  2 out of 2 after 9 consecutive Mints.

Ugh. That took way too many attempts. My first fine.

10 mint, 1 near mint, 1 fine.

Bah, this would have been a Mint for me if I hadn't had to close up the tablet and return to the game days later. Blame the busy life of a new father.

In any event, lost AA first, Mr. Fixer shortly thereafter. In general, AA was destroying Ongoings in the beginning and Scholar was just getting set up. Two Flesh-to-Irons really is the key there, but having Truth Seeker out made the difference. Everything turned around when was able to both flip Iron Legacy and get Scholar's health higher, because then Matthew Hayes started pegging him on the environment turn. That made it all turn out okay. 

You can continue your game and still get Mint.

Well, I started the game Sunday morning, then finished it this morning. Came out as "Good." /shrug

For fun, I figured out how to win on the environment's third turn. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f_IdjB9N_M

Oh I see, I didn't realize you finished the game after the deadline. That would indeed count for just Good.

Wow, well done!  Never would have thought of Riveting Crane!