Weekly One-Shot #151 Thinking with Portals

Not-easy Mint. I think the final totals were 8 5 4 6 4.

He starts off with an indestructible Pouch of Bones! Zombies become really hard to kill! So use gratuitous No Executions, or just Brain Burn and get them all back into the deck so he doesn't heal off all the damage he takes! It's worth it not to have to take 15 damage at the end of each villain turn. Also, By Any Means on Gloomweaver + whittling down Explosive Bubbles to 1 HP = the most fun you've ever had in the Realm of Discord. Turning Gloomweaver's home turf against him was just immensely satisfying.

And don't forget, Ultimate also means Gloomy's immune to melee and projectile damage. Idealist does a lot of the former for a psychic (though large Karate Robots are still worth it), and Chrono-Ranger won't even be able to hit him until you summon some of his equipment!

Also not easy mint, Visionary on 7 due to a Cocoon, everyone else on 2. Actually a surprisingly good team. Nightmist brough crucial deck control towards the end, Visionary’s Twist The Ether on Idealist was huge, making Karate Robot twice as useful, Chrono Ranger did little until nearly the end but By Any Means probably sped things up enough to not give Gloomy an extra go, Argent Adept brought crucial stuff like Mistbound back into play a couple of times, and Idealist did the vast majority of the damage. Agree that the environment turning on GW was fun; I liked all ongoings/equipments having 6 HPs which meant at times they took environment damage instead of the characters!

Easy, if dicey at first, mint.

Killed Zombies.

Killed Cultists.

Killed Zombies again.

Made Nightmist into the tank, and she dealt the final blow while in mist form (Thanks, Ghostly Images!)

Once I got Twist on Idealist, it was all over for Gloomy. 

Got CR the Neurotoxin, since I had no Bounties.  The Masadah might have shaved a round off, as  Idid get a bounty in play soon after, but then again, he spent a bunch of turns unable to deal damage.

I ended with everyone in the high teens, but I'm not sure it qualifies as an easy mint as they wouldn't have been there without a ton of healing from positive energy field and a bit more from AA.  I took a beating early, but stabilized fairly quickly, and once PEF came out I was pretty sure I had it.  TtE on Idealist ftw.  I was really confllicted on whether to give it to her or chrono ranger, since it helps them both so much, both for the damage bonus and for avoiding GW's immunity.  In fact, at one point I almost used Mental Divergence to switch it over, but decided it wasn't worth the cost (a card draw, a card play, a power, and a round with it in play). Honestly I think it would have worked about as well either way.  Nightmist tanked a few turns in mist form, and Visionary one in Cocoon.  CR did what he could with Masada, but his constant pings were largely wasted when there wasn't a minion to kill.

Fairly straightforward mint once I stabilized. I used visionary as a tank early on to just soak zombie hits until she drew twist the ether which I promptly put on chrono ranger so he could do his thing. After which I switched to nightmist as max hp tank once she drew her healing amulet to get back up to the top. liberally used suggestions and vernal cadence to just keep zombies as the one play from gloomy and just beat him to death slowly. Honestly with the amount of damage that idealist was spreading around, she probably would've done net more with TtE, but I really wanted chronoranger to be able to play too. 

Mint. Nightmist 13, Idealist 10, Visionary 13, Adept 11, Chrono Ranger 11. Those HP totals were a lot lower during the midgame until I got to milk Positive Energy Field for a couple of rounds. Going in, I was worried about how I was going to deal with the infernal damage blackmail from Gloomweaver’s other relics. Thankfully they never came up, but having to eat enhanced zombie damage plus a turn from both Cursed Acolytes hurt a lot. I kept forgetting about Advanced GW’s immunities, so I didn’t put Twist the Ether on Idealist even though I was building up Karate Robot, which delayed my finishing move for a bit. But by that point I had control of the game thanks to Adept cycling Mistbound and Suggestion stacking the deck for the turns in between Mistbound plays, so that mistake was just a minor speed bump.

I was terrified of a turn of Cursed Acolyte wiping out my 6 HP tableau, so I got rid of Imbued Vitality immediately when it came out. Having the bubbles was fun until Positive Energy Field forced me to kill them off.

Mint with everyone 12-13

Took a while to stabilize, with everyone around 5 hp, but its Gloomweaver. The longer a game goes, the more set up everyone gets. Messed around for too long with the Zombies->Cultists->More Zombies etc, but Suggestion->Vernal Sonata->Repeat meant three turns of nothing but zombies, which wasn't terrible. Twist the Ether went right on to ChronoRanger. Fun fact, if you press and hold over the damage type selection or the increase/decrease selection, you can set it to do whatever you choose for the whole game!

Was getting a little worried until I got the above cycle stalling and then Positive Energy Field came out, then it was aaaallllll goooood maaaaan.... CR did his Hunter And Hunted thing and blew Gloomy away in two rounds

~Komori

Yep, pretty much my exact experience as well. Chrono Ranger + Hunter Hunted + Twist the Aether = One banished Demon God! :)

Near Mint.

First game, the heroes did not manage the Zombies nor Cultists well, and got pounded.

Second game, a bit more forethought went into it--the initial onslught is BRUTAL, but once things settled, and everyone recovered from hovering around 2HP, the Zombies were put back into the ground/earth/Discord/eyballs/whatever and Chrono-Ranger was able to rack up some big damage bursts from the Masadah to win.

Nightmist 10HP, Idealist 4HP, Visionary 5HP, Argent Adept 4HP and Chrono-Ranger 6HP.

Mint, with a long and careful play.

First 2 rounds wasted on re-burying zombies and cultists. Only after every hero reduced to 14 HP or less did I notice the common denominator - All zombies, most cultist and enviroments where going for the highest HP target/hero. And I already had Visionary's coccoon in hand. From there on, game was a lot easier. Did not care for cultists and zombies swarming in. When got another coccoon in hand, drop the first one long enough for Twist The Ether for Chrono ranger to do massive Gloom damage. 

The first time I felt I played well, and enjoyed, the Idealist was here. She was the true hammer here, cycling Fragments and Concepts and draws and powers and damage in a single turn. Sometimes multiplying it with the help of AA's base power. Respect to the young Ms.

Visionary for eradicating villian's damage, Idealist and Chrono for pounding the Gloom, AA for helping.. a little bit. Playing some music in the background, IDK..
OH and Nightmist for absolutly nothing! I honestly right now had to take 90 seconds to try and remember who was that last team member. I really need to learn how to play the Nightmist. Obviously my fault.

In all fairness, I have base Nightmist down pretty solidly.

I have STRUGGLES with DW Nightmist.

Mint.  Screwed up early on and went overly aggressive with Nightmist to wipe out the early wave of zombies.  Unfortunately, she paid with her life.  Fortunately, she has one of the game's most broken incaps (put the top card of a trash on top of its deck).  So Gloomweaver got to play a single zombie every round, which just beat on the Portal Fiend.  Idealist would kill the zombie and poke Gloomy with Id-empowered Knives and Chrono would unleash on Gloomy with a barrage of damage thanks to Twist the Ether, the +damage bounties, and Hunter and Hunted.  Then the Portal Fiend would poke the Pouch, rinse and repeat.  Left the Bubbles out at 2 HP so they'd beat up just Gloomy and the Pouch (until a Positive Energy Field healed them, then I took them out).  Pretty much an unbreakable loop and an inevitable victory.

Ditto.

Easy Mint, no one below 20.

We got down to like 4 each, but I made sure Positive Energy Field came out, and we went from losing to curb stomping him.

Mint lost idealist and took too long to mistform.  everone else was 2-3 hp, twist on chrono finished game off.

Wow, I'd have done a lot better if I'd thought to put Twist the Ether on Idealist. <.< I mean, it would have been faster.

Nightmist tanking was definitely the key to victory, though.

Mint, with same as everyone else. Like everyone, it took a while to set up and everyone was at 8-10 before the game got in hand.

Positive Energy field was a game changer, no doubt. Give that card the MVP, especially as Idealist played multiple cards thanks to Vivid Thoughts and Chrono-Ranger had 3 Eye on the Prize. (thanks to Vernal Sonata) At the end, everyone was hovering around 20.

Idealist only used Karate Robot once on a cultist. Otherwise, it was Giant Floaty Head to draw more cards and destroy environment cards. If not, then Stabby Knives or just playing Fragments. Visionary was doing 4 damage each round with her base power thanks to the ongoings that were out. She also did great deck control along with Nightmist. Argent Adept yelled at Chrono-Ranger all game which helped him get his bounties out, the most important one being the one that prevents a target from being destroyed, which went on the Pouch of Bones. The next best one being to draw 3 cards when the bounty target died. Argent Adept yelled at Chrono-Ranger who uses his base power to apply all the bounties to whatever cultist is out and then on CR's turn, he kills the cultist, avoids the zombie uprising, and draws 3 cards. It accelerated quickly after that. At the end, with 8 bounties out, CR finally put out Hunter and Hunted and ended the game.

This was also the way I went. I built up a big Karate robot for Idealist and waited to launch it all at once when I was ready for Visionary to pop out of her cocoon and give her Twist the Ether. 

Mint.

There are only 6 bounties

Huh? Don't know why I thought 8. I think it was because once Hunter and Hunted came out, I was getting 8 bonus damage.

Mint, though it was a struggle, and it looked pretty bad until Positive Energy Field healed everyone back up to 13.

Unlike some here, I had little trouble with zombies. Stabby Knives + Monster of Id killed them all. First round I used Rebel Yell to tell Idealist to kill off the remaining zombies from that initial draw.

I used Suggestion a few times to put zombies back in the deck. Sure, they heal Gloomy for 5, but I felt delaying any other relics was worth it. Vernal Sonata meant I could bring back Suggestion several times.

I used Twist the Aether on Chrono Ranger. Sure, it helps Karate Robot, but Chrono Ranger was doing little or nothing with all those 1 point projectile plinks, and Idealist was getting a lot of mileage out of Stabby Knives so I didn’t feel she needed it. The knives, despite being stabby, are still psychic damage.

Twist the Aether + the bow + Ultimate Target + Hunter and Hunted = 8 points of damage to Gloomy a turn. I never did get a second bounty, so Hunter and Hunted didn’t hurt Chrono Ranger too much.

Mint at 14/15/16/15/14, though I can't say I wasn't worried.  I noticed at the start that visonary had her coccon in hand so I just threw that out and had her tank the zombie hoard because I sure didn't want to mess with that!  Argent and Chrono flailed around a bit trying to get setup while doing chip damage to Gloomy one way or another (I grabbed the dart thrower at the first oppertunity) and only got setup in the final moments.  The real star was Idealist who just freaking wrecked everything, especially since she got the tiara, robot, knives, and monster out at great times.  The knifes were used a bit more than the robot since visonary was on tank duty and I often wanted to hit more than just gloomy, though once the zombies were buried and visonary was out Twist the Eather went right onto Idealist for extreme karate robot action!

...Oh yeah, DW Nightmist was there and was as usless as she usally is in that varient.

Mint, 14 / 11 / 25 / 10 / 9.

Nightmist wasn't useless at all for me - she comboed off Vernal Sonata to Heedless Lash (and bounce off herself) 4 at Gloomweaver twice, and bounced a couple other hits his way as well.

Idealist built up a Karate Robot and waited for Twist the Ether.

Visionary tanked until she had TTE and another Cocoon in hand, broke out of the Cocoon, played TTE on Idealist, then XPW Argent Adept hit her with his base power so she could turtle up immediately. She was regularly blocking 22 damage a round, minimum, from the 5 Zombies and the zombie-focused Cultist, all of which I completely ignored.

XPWAA hit Chrono-Ranger round 1 to cycle his cards faster, then mostly aimed his base power  at Gloomweaver for a relative lack of other things to do. Lots of Vernal Sonata to help out Nightmist, as I said.

Chrono-Ranger got out the Dart Thrower on round 1 (thanks, Argent Adept), then buried both Acolytes with No Executions. Eventually he got Ultimate Target out, but that just made the Dart Thrower do 2 instead of 1. 

Between the hits from Nightmist, plinks from XPWAA and Chrono-Ranger, and plinks from the environment's Bubbles, he was down around the low 40s when Idealist finally cut loose.

Mint, 9/3/6/6/6. Visionary spent most of the game Cocooned, and I never played Twist the Ether - for CR, I pulled out The Masadah (and then spent about half the game waiting for bounties).

This is why I pulled out the dart thrower first, I didn't want to gamble on a bad hand and settled for steady chip damage with decreasing Gloomy's power...though it turns out it wasn't nessisary since Gloomy never did the attack.

Gloomy is my favorite punching bag, so I've played this a few times.  In all cases, it can be dicey until Positive Energy Field comes out, after which life gets better. 

First game, I played Twist the Ether on Chrono-Ranger, and had Nightmist help him dig for bounties.  Also manipulated the environment deck to keep PEV out longer.  Arget Adept eventually managed to get some good stuff out.  Finished with everybody at 17 or 18.

Second game, I played TTE on Idealist.  Final HPs ranged from 11-18.

Third game, I put Visionary in her cocoon to tank and ignored zombies.  Finished at 15-18 HP.