Weekly One Shot #167 The Digital Age

Ow is right. Things were actually going well for a while, but all these heroes rely on Equipment, and you're gonna end up getting those Technological Singularities after a while.

Cleared a somewhat nail-biting Mint here with Unity at 7, Omni at 8, Benchmark at 9 and Bunker at 11. Took both technological singularities to the chin, but managed to soldier through, mainly thanks to Unity's bot-army which, amusingly enough, isn't affected at all by the Singularity :)

Probably by far the most important thing is this match-up, though, is to keep the environment under controll at ALL costs! Use every resource at your disposal to hold Omnitron IV in check (bee bots, adhesive grenades and all the discarding it may take) or you'll no doubt regret it!

Apparently Mr. Chomps got hungry and ate my post from earlier :(

Near Mint because ow. Second game I played to what I knew and did better, ending with Omni around 5 and Benchmark around 10, with Unity and Bunker down. Strategy below for those that need help, but spoilers.

Order of the nasty cards is Terraforming early, Singularity, Singularity, Flechettes, Flechettes, Terraforming. They are unfortunately fairly spaced out, so you can't just eat them all and rebuild. You need to build up enough to survive the drones but not too much to get destroyed by the Singularities.

My main strategy was stay defensive, with minimal Equipment out until both Singularities hit. Ongoings will be safe for some time, and Unity Bots are good environment fodder. Bunker Grenades and Omni Beam are pretty necessary to keep the environment down, and I used a couple of Bee Bots to kill persistent ongoings.

Be sure to keep enough Equipment out to control the drones though, as they can't hurt you if they're dead. After the second singularity hit, I built up as much Equipment as I could as quickly as I could to mitigate as much of the painful Flechettes as possible. I also brought out Stealth bot to eat one of the flechettes for Omni-U to keep him alive, though I lost Unity and Bunker to the second one.

Once the Singularities were gone, building up Benchmark became the priority. Reduced damage, increased healing, heal every turn + discard for healing make him extremely hard to bring down. After the second Flechettes, I could start the Software build up, including Intervening Path to keep Omni alive and healing. Once I was there, I could survive anything the bots threw at me and Benchmark started doing 10+ damage a round. Omnitron I was slowly plinked away over the course of a few rounds.

Although I did have 1 scary part right at the end. I knew Omni I couldn't be defeated as long as a device was in play. I also knew that Omni IV had weird interactions with Omni I. What I didn't piece together was that I couldn't win with the Defensive Grid in play, and that I had to deal with that full health Explosive that was there O.o

~Komori

Some how got a mint with benchmark at 4 and rest were down.  Won using bunker to have bench play two cards getting the coolant and a software to kill the last omni 4 device.  Unity wnet down early and I used her to kill enviroment devices.  The singularities wreck this team though.

Near Mint. The first game started to go wrong when the Environment played multiple cards in a round then Terraforming came out and gave Omnitron a strong board that was difficult to recover from quickly.

In the second game I focused on controlling the Environment and not building up too much equipment until the first Singularity was out of the way. I was able to win before the next one came out or any of the Flecettes. This team have a lot of Equipmemt needs, but there’s also some great stuff Omnitron can U can do - Hasty Augmentation into his discard a plating power is like 16 damage to Omnitron on the turns he isn’t giving damage reduction. Also keep in mind his card that blows up components works on both Omnitron I and IV’s components, so can save your bacon in this game if timed well.

Benchmark struggles to build up as quickly as he’s capable of, and I was playing a lot more temporary software than I usually like to with him, but Countermeasures can get quite a bit of work done vs the drones.

Fine rating after a couple test games I finally hit on a good method. Bunker shouldn't do anything but draw, occasionally take a shot, and use adhesive grenades he's the sacrificial deck to get rid of overcharged systems. Omni-U wants a plating and defensive blast, some extra drawing helps get free platings to toss. time a use of hasty augmentation to when Omni is in factory mode and you can get off 16 damage on Omni with that combo I managed it twice. That plus 2 raptors, a platform, turret and legacy bots I managed to cap Omni pretty quickly, got hit with the second singularity after it was gone but it was just cleanup and no one needed their equipment by then.

Help!

I keep getting destroyed by Flechettes.

I keep everyone with one Equipment until after both Singularities.  I keep the environment with 0 or 1 card in play.  I get out a lot of Golems.  Bunker concentrates on keeping his hp up while sniping down any Drones that make it to him.  Onnitron U passes a lot, concentrating on the Environment and Components.  Unity churns out Golems until she is under 6 hp.  Benchmark sticks mostly to Fly-Bys, and tries to keep Countermeasures up.

However, right after the second Singularity, I take a lot from Components before I can build back up or get Omnitron U's healing going, which usually takes out Benchmark.  Then the Flechettes take everyone out.

Should I play fewer Golems to keep Unity's hp up, at the cost of some damage from Drones and the EMP bomb?  Should I take a bigger hit from the Singularities to keep the board more clear?

Mint with everyone in low single digits. I made sure to take out all cards, whether they be environment, components or drones. Which is easy with this team. Omnitron-U is great for getting rid of components on the turn when Omnitron has damage reduction, and he gets to do damage to boot, thanks to Self-Sabotage.

I had Omnitron down to 65 before the first Technological Singularity came out. At least Omnitron-U got some good counter damage and Benchmark tanked a lot of that damage using Intervening Path Calculator. After that, it was a slog where the heroes raced to get out gear and use it and Omnitron raced to destory it. Unity was great as Platfrom Bots and Turret Bots will stick around for the entire fight and that makes a lot of difference.

Bunker's strategy is the same I always use: put out a piece of equipment I don't want then destory it using his main power. This lets you cycle through the deck and find those Adhesive Foam Grenades while still firing away with the Flak Cannon. Omnitron's plating never really came into play. The main damage source he took was from Technological Singularity so he had no protection. The only thing plating was good for was doing 2 fire damage after it was destoryed.

I never worried about not putting equipment out. I just went for broke and kept plugging away and it did the trick.

Much easier Mint than I was expecting. Final HP 18 / 7 / 17 / 17; Unity's was so low only because of her base power. 

Only 4 environment cards ever saw play, and I nuked them all as soon as they came out: Omni-U got two of them (one with Self-Sabotage, one with his environment destruction power); Bee Bot got the Techno-Pursuer as soon as it came out; and the Partial Omni-Drone ate dirt quickly from splash damage. 

Omni-U and Unity focused on damage (and Unity was very sad to lose her Raptor Bots to the Omni-Drone), no surprises there. Benchmark and Bunker were far more interesting to play. I Only played one Equipment with Benchmark, focusing more on disposable Software most turns. It was remarkably useful - extra damage on Omnitron one turn, passing a power to Omni-U another (again, damage), Shunt Energy once, deck cycling on another.

Bunker, as others have noted, was also deck cycling, using the extra power from his base power to do Aux Power Source several times. I only saw two Foam Grenades, but that's all I needed (especially since I got the first one out just in time for Terraforming to whiff).

Only saw one Tech Singularity, and it only hit Omni/Benchmark/Bunker once each.

"Close" mint for me, unity dropped to EPE that survived the turn I blitzed omni down. I didn't plan my burst as well as I could have, but I basically had OU set up a number of equipments and used his power multiple times (2x normal, 1x unity, could've made it better by using benchmark's software to give a 4th) and blew up all his stuff onto omnitron. 

I learned something weird about Omnitron yesterday! If you kill it by dealing under 7 damage, and there are devices in play in Omnitron-IV, all of its Components stick around on the empty playing field. I don't think they're able to trigger, since Omnitron's the one doing the damage; I should have waited to check. 

I learned that, if Technological Singularity comes out and Omnitron's dead, you'll lose all your stuff, but won't take any damage.

Which makes sense, but I was worried for Benchmark for a minute, there.