Weekly One-Shot #159: Hello, World

Some how pulled off a Mint after a serious misplay in the opening rounds. I lost Absolute Zero, but used him to massively buff my damage output. I got lucky with a Meteor Storm that prevented Omnitron from wiping the team with Sedative Flechettes; I was able to wipe him out the following round. Legacy was MVP for absorbing all the energy damage with Lead From the Front and Next Evolution.

Ouch! I’ve only had one go at this so far, but it was pretty brutal. I did make some key miss plays however, but the damage here is just huge and you need to have a plan for it!

I feel like there's definitely something I missed here. Tried to sneak through with the Countdown/Heroic Interception cheat, but 9 damage to everyone is ridiculous and unsustainable. c.c Shoulda got Smoke Bombs out, I guess.

All I know is, if you play Bolster Allies turn 1 and take the damage, AZ will draw into Fueled Freeze and you can deal with a BUNCH of the crap on the board right away.

Near mint on the second go with 9/1/14/4/12. I used the game as a demo of Legacy's defensive potential and Tachyon's offensive potential. Legacy managed to stop a lot of Energy damage with Next Evolution/Lead from the Front while Tachyon charged up, tossed out Hypersonic Assaults, and dismantled Omnitron's platings. It was hard to make the others useful with the regular equipment wipes. Zero and Bunker provided a little damage and some random card plays. Wraith's funding was pretty clutch in giving Tachyon the right things at the right time.

Okay, got a near Mint on my second attempt. Was able to control the damage much better which allowed everyone to survive, but barely. He played Flechettes on his last turn - I’d luckily blocked the damage, but it wiped my ongoing completely - thankfully he was down to about health at that point and I was able to finish him off with a light speed barrage.

I blindly flailed my way to a mint with Tachyon at 6 HP while everyone else was at 0 and feeding her base power.

If I were to do it again I’d make AZ drop right away to boost damage. Tachyon + incapped AZ means you’re doing 3 damage per burst card. It took me WAY too long to see that potential. As long as Adaptive Plating isn’t out, that adds up quickly.

I really screwed up my first attempt. I used Legacy’s power to play Throat Jab out of turn, and for some reason I forgot that it would wear off when Wraith got to play. So when Omnitron flipped and played Sedative Flechettes right away everyone died.

That really ticked me off no end.

Challenge Cosmic Omnitron is really grotesque. You start with all the components in play, all doing double damage, so you take a fantastic amount of damage up front. Then when you flip him - which you really must, keeping those components around is suicide - he’s going to chain play drones and his worst cards, such as the flechettes.

I tried this and it didn’t work. I’m guessing you shuffled AZ’s deck somehow - onboard module installation maybe? - to get a different result.

I tried again and lost, and I’m not really seeing how it’s done. Yeah, Legacy can get Lead from the Front / Next Evolution out to negate Omnitron’s basic attacks and those energy-weapon drones, but when Omnitron  plays the 2nd Flechettes, that’s gone and everyone dies from the 11 damage per hero from the card, or the 9 energy damage per round if Omnitron’s throat-jabbed when it comes out. I can’t remotely do enough damage to take it out before then.

Tachyon can potentially do a lot of damage if you ever get rid of the 2x Adaptive Platings, but I only managed that the last round of the game, and didn’t remotely have enough damage available to end it before the Flechettes killed everyone.

I've come to the conclusion that Heroic Countdown just won't cut it. There's too much equipment and ongoing destruction. Gonna have to try again with the "kill AZ" tactic. At least he's good at doing that himself...

Mint, 8/7/19/15/10. I used TakeWalker's hint about Fueled Freeze (which actually requires Bolster Allies and then an Onboard Module Installation play to get it out in round 1), then I focused on giving Tachyon as many draws and plays as possible to let me pull Hypersonic Assaults and finish with a Lightspeed Barrage/Blitz combo, which I did in round 5 despite a bunch of misplays that I didn't want to take back in case I actually could pull off a Mint. I played three Hypersonic Assaults and one Throat Jab on rounds 1-4, so Omnitron never got to do damage after the first round and his EPEs never got to fire off. Thankfully his second Sedative Flechettes never came out; losing the +1 damage from Inspiring Presence might have caused me to lose the race.

If you can pull Fueled Freeze right away, the Adaptive Platings aren't an issue obviously since they both can be wiped on AZ's first turn.

Yes - I did the same - Bolster Allies turn 1, then played Onboard Module installation, then Fuelled Freeze taking out both platings and 1 of the damage draw cards. Everyone else makes sure you get the extra damage and you can have cleared his cards by his turn 2. Make sure you stop his damage first 2 turns with Wraith and Tacyhon and you can then have legacy set up to tank all energy damage. You need to watch out for the EMP lightning things, but I had the first one kill itself with Tacyhon’s defensive card and had enough damage to blast the second one down - I had him on the ropes by the time the second sedatives came out - lots of Absolute Zeros ongoings with Legacy’s damage buff.

Don’t worry too much about getting other Powers for Wraith - equipment doesn’t stick long enough to matter, but the extra card draw for Tacyhon meant she always had a good card to play.

Mint 3/0/5/13/8 

Did the bolster->onboard -> fueled start

messed up pretty hard by not using hypersonic on turn 2, but eventually built to a turn 5 triple lightspeed barage into blitz kill 

Finally got it on my 4th try, using the Bolster -> Onboard Module -> Fuel Freeze start. Feels like cheesing it, knowing that a particular sequence changes the card draw to get something important, but this has been so over the top brutal I don’t care.

Legacy really must play Next Evolution / Lead from the Front ASAP after the round 1 (and the first Flechette card). In game 3 I lost because I delayed that a round unintentionally. Other than that, this is all Tachyon’s show.

Wraith really needs to use her base power constantly to feed Tachyon card draws, even though she’s got stuff that’s normally more useful. Tachyon needs to draw Hypersonic Assault again, and that requires a lot of draws. Putting burst cards into Tachyon’s trash is the 2nd most important priority, higher than anything Absolute Zero, Wraith, or Bunker can do.

It’s also worth playing Research Grant and using it instead of Blitz, just because every burst card in her trash is 4-5 damage when it comes time to take down Omnitron. Once her trash burst count is Omnitron’s HP / 4, it’s time to unload with Lightspeed Barrages.

Tachyon’s Synapic Interruption is your only defense against Electropulse Explosives if she doesn’t have a Hypersonic Assault to play.

Part of the reason Wraith needn’t bother setting up is that 2x Technological Singularity is going to wipe equipment. Playing equipment is thus a low-priority task for her, something she should do only if there’s nothing else. She can freely discard equipment to feed Tachyon card draws because she’s not going to play most of it.

Bunker needs one weapon out, otherwise he shouldn’t bother with equipment either.

Absolute Zero can’t do much without the Transducer, so he has to play that. Beyond that it’s Cold Snap and Impales. The Null Point Calibration module only comes out if he’s doesn’t have one shots to play. I did do some self-healing with his cold damage instead of hitting Omnitron, just because I have a hard time letting heroes die. He did manage to make it to the end.

And I think a lot of it -- Inspiring Presence, using AZ's power at all -- requires waiting until after that Flechettes happens.

I don't think there's any problem with using AZ's power round 1. You're trading 2 of AZ's health for 2 damage to Omnitron. Which is pretty much standard for AZ, he frequently trades health 1:1 with villain cards, mainly because he can usually get his health back later. Sure, you lose whatever Ongoing you chose, but since it comes from your deck, not your hand, all you're doing is moving a card from your draw pile to your trash.

If you're aiming to incap AZ to use his incap power, the lost health is beneficial. I didn't play it that way, but you could.

But yeah, otherwise the only other ongoing you might want to play round 1 is Pushing the Limits. I regularly play that even if I don't intend to keep it, since it replaces itself. You get a card play and an extra card draw out of it even if you lose it immediately.

Mint 11/1/16/6.  With the Fueled Freeze start it worked nicely.  I flipped Omni turn 1 and throat jabbed him saving hypersonic assult for later rounds when there were more targets.  One bit of advise though, on the turn when red dust came out I used Legacy's turn to have Tachyon blinding speed it.  This got me AZ's Module, the Hud Goggles, and the Flack Cannon all back in play before they were missed, and I did serious damage that round.

Does Legacy's "put an environment card on the bottom" power not trigger the destruction effect? Though this may be the better play even if it does, since Omnitron has already played all his ongoings, and it puts a Burst card in Tachyon's trash.

It doesn’t - I did that in my first game and immediately regretted it.

"It's Tachyon's show" is probably the best advice you could give. Finally finished it, eesh.

Also, I'm pleased someone pointed out Research Grant is a good play for her. F5 Tachyon benefits from that card almost as much as her base version. :)

Freedom 5 Tachyon gets more out of Research Grant than basic Tachyon IMHO.

It’s true that F5 Tachyon will sometimes forgo Research Grant for Blitz because she needs damage now, or wants to finish off a target and is willing to burn Burst cards to do it. Basic Tachyon never uses Rapid Recon if she can use Research Grant.

However, F5 Tachyon gets more benefit from trashed Burst cards than basic Tachyon. Skipping Blitz one turn gives up 1 damage, plus any damage bonuses. A Burst card trashed by Research Grant is worth that same 1 damage in a later Blitz, plus a card draw, plus 1 damage to every Lightspeed Barrage.

OKAY!  GEEZ!  I GET IT NOW!  TACH CAN THOUSAND CUTS SOMEONE!  Super close call mint with bunker down and everyone else at 1 HP.

I used the freeze and tach strat as well, though Wraith and Bunker were doing their fair share of shooting.  The only thing that kept me from dying was tach's second hypersonic assault.  Careful with this one, there's two bombs back to back in the deck that will end you and wraith can't reall grab her eyepeice this time until late in the game.

Synaptic Interruption counters the electro-bombs. Choose Tachyon as the first target, and then redirect the blast back to the bomb, destroying it. If you’re making a point of feeding all of Wraith’s cards to Tachyon via her base power, you’ll draw the interruptions before the bombs hit.

While normally I’m a huge fan of the Infrared Eyepiece, I think it’s nigh useless against a flipped Cosmic Omnitron and actually harmful for this particular match. The problem is those chain drone plays. The strength of the eyepiece is delay, and putting a drone on top doesn’t delay anything. So often the eyepiece has you putting a drone on the bottom and accepting a strong villain card as the top card.

In this particular match the 2nd Flechettes card pretty much ends the game, and it’s buried nearly at the bottom of the deck. Every time you use the eyepiece you reduce the number of cards Omnitron has to play until it reaches it. I found this out the hard way.

What you really need is a card that lets you discard from the villain’s deck, like Parse’s Extrasensory Awareness or Buffer Overflow.

Mint for me. Negating Omnitron's damage seemed liked the order of the day, so I focused on going through Tachyon's deck to get Hypersonic Assaults. I saved Bolster Allies until the second turn so Wraith had used her power first. Wraith throat jabbed on turn 1. Tachyon used Hypersonic Assault on the next 3 turns. The only damage taken after turn 1 was when an S-84 Automaton Drone popped up.

Wraith used her power exclusively to give Tachyon card draws. I did play Infrared Eyepiece, but only to use alongside Utility Belt. This meant I could use her card drawing power an extra time every turn.

Legacy gave Tachyon the extra card play every turn except turn 2, where he got rid of the Self-Destruct Sequence.

Absolute Zero really just kept putting out equipment and doing extra damage when he could.

Bunker made sure he always had a gun out, which helps if you get Turret Mode out. Otherwise, he kept playing the cards off the top of Tachyon's deck and he did throw out an Adhesive Grenade.

Tachyon blazed through her deck, using Research Grant and Pushing the Limits liberally. By the time I ran out of Hypersonic Assaults, there were 18 burst cards in her discard, so 3 Lightning Barrages and her base power finished the job easily.

The only thing I would have done different was wait to play Legacy's Inspiring Presence until I was ready to use Tachyon's burst power. I also would have discarded Synaptic Interruption instead of her other bursts since I could get the other bursts into the discard pile by playing them.

This is the only strategy that worked for me. Preventing as much damage as possible, and giving tachyon ALL the cards with Legacy and Bunker. 

Essentially i fueled her and just let absolute zero die. Used his +1 damage to help with everything.

This was a very very hard game. 

Forgot to mention, the suggestion to get Legacy Leading from the Front early and setting him to energy damage is really important. Tachyon can deal with the EPEs on a one-for-one basis no problem, but all the (H)-based damage is energy. You need Legacy soaking that 45 damage per round, plus the occasional Android.

If I'm reading QuirkyDM's post correctly, he didn't do the Legacy Lead from the Front / Energy immunity thing. Instead he used Throat Jab / Hypersonic Assault x 3 / kill Omnitron in round 5. I'd have to experiment with that to see how that works out.

That's pretty much exactly what I did. I'm trying to think if I used Heroic Interruption, so that would be an extra turn. Electro Pulses were out, but they were kept quiet due to Hypersonic Assault. I ignored them. The only drone I focused on killing was the one repair drone.

I figure with Absolute Zero's incap power, Legacy pulls out Inspiring Presence, Tachyon can do Burst*6 + 9 damage on her turn. That means 15 bursts in the discard is 99 damage. And those Hypersonic Assaults are being used in the meantime, so you wouldn't even need that much. Omnitron was at 70 when I went to town with Tachyon, and I didn't have boosts from Legacy or AZ.

I'm also thinking that if you really focused, you could keep Omnitron on his front side by doing less than 7 damage per turn. With Throat Jab and Hypersonic Assault, you can ignore the components because all the damage comes from Omnitron.

Mint with HP 13 / 2 / 16 / 6 / 6. 

I'd intended to start getting AZ set up, but  when I drew Fueled Freeze, that was the end of that idea. From blowing up three Ongoings and having two ways to stop Omnitron's damage in hand at the start, I bet that if I went all-in on Tachyon card draw and damage, I'd kill him before he could do anything else. I was right. Never saw the third LSB, but I did enough damage to take him down on the same round the second EPE came out.

I mean I didn't lead from the front either and I...still...won...by the skin of my teeth...seriously everyone was at 1 HP except Bunker who was down.  Lemme tell you how scared I was for Omnitron to have its turn while everyone was at 1 HP, even with it hypersoniced.

I ended up with a ludicrous near-mint win, based on the following strategy:

Legacy gives Tachyon card plays, which she uses for her bursts that draw cards.

AZ does his thing and tries not to die.

Wraith goes in for maximum card draw, and uses her funding to funnel it all to Tachyon.

Bunker uses his power to give Tachyon extra top-decks.

Tachyon draws enough cards to use Hypersonic Assault literally every turn for the whole game.

I still almost died from late-played drones, but I pulled it off. 

I tried out the "rely entirely on Throat Jab / Hypersonic Assault" strategy, and yeah, it works.

Round 1 Throat Jab.

Round 2 Inspiring Presence, Hypersonic Assault.

Rounds 3-4 Hypersonic Assault.

Round 5, Tachyon has drawn her entire deck, 17 Burst cards in the trash, 2x Lightspeed Barrage is enough to finish Omnitron off. No need to use Blitz.

Clearly, while Tachyon does a lot of the damage, the other heroes piled on quite a bit since Omnitron is at about 30 HP at the start of round 5. An early Inspiring Presence helps, as does taking down the adaptive platings with 2x Blazing Speed.

I didn't draw Fueled Freeze this time, which is OK, since Tachyon playing Blazing Speed adds burst cards to her trash.

Rounds 1 and 2 I kept my overall damage low to avoid destroying the components and flipping Omnitron. Round 3 I found that I'd piled on enough damage that Hypersonic Assault was going to trigger it. This does delay Omnitron a little, so only one Tech Singularity comes out.

Bunker used his base power rounds 1-3, whereas in my earlier game he'd draw a cannon and fired away with it. This gave Tachyon a couple of plays (once I declined to play her card because it was an early Lightspeed Barrage).

Final HP was Legacy 13, Absolute Zero 2, Wraith 16, Tachyon 9, Bunker 11. Absolute Zero's health is low almost entirely because of self-harm. Tachyon took quite a few hits while drawing cards, prior to Throat Jab and in between Throat Jab and Hypersonic Assault.