Weekly One-Shot 206 Form the Mecha-Knight

I got so lucky. One of the initial conditions was Who Are You Fighting, and another was Losing to the Odds. With two Wagelings out, it was child's play to get everyone to even HP in an environment that can't damage the heroes until the start of its turn. That could have gone very differently, regardless.

Near Mint after a very Wager Master-y loss the first game. I had everything set up to win with a Losing to the Odds on the second round. Everyone had taken some damage, was at even hp, and Visionary had stacked his deck to not deal damage before LttO would check if we had won. However, I didn't read the fine print of LttO. It specifies that ALL hero targets need to be less than full and even, not JUST character cards. The Cosmic Weapon at full hp messed that chance up, and from there I started taking massive chains of damage from What Do You Really Know?

Second game wasn't going too well either, with Who Are You Fighting stalling the game and no real other way to win out. The heroes were getting pretty low when LttO came out and I had a chance. It wasn't a good one though as The New Deal was out first and would mess up any even HP hero before LttO could take effect. Tempest went down before I could do much else, but that actually helped turn the game into my own Wager Master style win. He made heroes immune to psychic damage and I arranged everyone's hp to hopefully survive any additional damage and finish with even hp. Bing bang boom, the remaining heroes survive in the low single digits with even hp and we win.

~Komori

Horrible opening set of conditions for me: Wagelings, New Deal, Losing To the Odds were my first three. So, uh, that would never work. I had a ton of damage in hand, though, so I flipped him and prepared to beat him down... then LTTO was the first thing to flip back over. Played Vernal Sonata, game over.

This made me realize I got really lucky because I had played a Cosmic Crest, realized my mistake, and was able to blow it up with Potent Disruption from his power. If that hadn't been one of the first three cards, oof.

Mint with all heroes above 10. I found playing with 5 was actually easier than normal. Who are you Firghting? was out on the first round, but I took Wager Master down to 25 during the first two turns and then had him flip. With so many conditions to choose from, it was good odds that I wouldn't see Who are you Fighting? come back right away. Wagelings came up instead. Then, true to the title of the one-shot, Idealist used Conceptualize to bring out Karate Robot and even got a second use of it during Captain Cosmic's turn thanks to Dynamic Siphon. Tempest never even got a third turn. 

Mint after a pretty harrowing final two turns. All but Argent Adept were in the low single digits and Playing Dice With The Cosmos had been active all game.

First turn was pretty nasty with two Wagelings, An Unwise Wager, Who Are You Fighting, A Burning Sense Of Failure and the aforementioned Cosmos all entering in quick succession. It looked impossible to fight your way out of and Wager Master is the Villain I've played the least, most recently was as I was trawling through the old back issues and learned of an easy win trick with Losing To The Odds in The Gong Show.

So with play going backwards from Tempest to Idealist I kept the win condition of having even HP below max in mind in case it ever showed up. Tempest and Captain Cosmic were the main damage dealers, Argent Adept and Visionary did Villain deck control as they set up, and going last with Idealist allowed me more time to think strategy with her. I would target the Wagelings first, then Wager Master when it was viable to target him. Environment was rather quiet: Police Backup took potshots at WM, Hostage Crisis showed up but by then I had Dynamic Siphon and Sarabade of Destruction in AA's play area so I could remove it before it affected the team, and towards the end was the derailing Monorail.

Luck seemed to favor me today as WM's shuffles and flips appeared to work out, with only Wagelings and An Unwise Wager making reappearances so it was simple to deal with them. Captain Cosmic got to the teens for his remaining deck with some Harsh Offense plays from his main power. I also tend to have lousy luck with Requittal but I used it more intelligently.

Willingly sent out Losing To The Odds when I had the option with AA's power, with CC's Destructive Response used to help prep the Hero's HP tally, but an untimely Impossible Quandry and Tempest being under the effects of Localized Hurricane soured that attempt. On the fourth and final round I looked for everyone's most damaging options to hit WM, saddened I never invested in Syncopated Onslaught earlier when two were in hand. Had a decisive clutch turn with Idealist at the end, whose Monster Of Id had been snacking on a well stocked Stabby Knives after it showed up thanks to Focusing Tiara as first Idealist play, and after the round prior Conceptualize brought out the signature Knight, err, Karate Robot, I got 4 cards under by the end after also using Better Punching to trigger the Knives. Overkill for WM who went down from the first punch from the Karate Robot but by that point but he deserved it.

A very satisifying Mint, as the randomized setting meant the training wheels were off. Glad for what I was able to think of on the fly!

Mint after a moderately long game with a roller coaster of a final round.

We started with Who Are You Fighting and The New Deal without Losing To The Odds among the initial conditions, so opted to flip him and try to rush damage. We actually went a few rounds of flipping Not All He Seems back and forth before Who Are You Fighting returned. A single Twist the Ether on Wager Master (plus Cosmic Crest) was providing reasonable damage mitigation, though both Idealist and Tempest had fallen below 10hp from What Do You Really Know procs.

Precognition revealed Losing to the Odds and The New Deal was still facedown, so we started planning out how we might be able to win with it.

• Need to destroy Twist the Ether, so that What Do You Really Know procs deal even damage. Ball Lightning can do this.
• Idealist, Visionary, and Cosmic need to take odd damage.
• Have 8 constructs, mostly at 2hp. No Construct Cataclysm available.
  • 3 have 1hp and need to be destroyed, including 1 Energy Bracer
  • The other Energy Bracer also needs to be destroyed so that Cosmic's HP parity doesn't change when the heroes receive damage.
• Need to flip the 1 Wagelings back face-down.

Destructive Response fixes hero HP parity. With an Augmented Ally, AA can give Tempest enough plays for Ball Lightning and a couple Chain Lightnings to solve the rest of the listed problems. It looks like we have a plan. We have to hope that out of the 5 facedown villain cards that we don't flip Wagelings or The New Deal. Likewise, the environment has 2/11 chance of boosting all damage by 1.

Captain Cosmic draws a Construct Cataclysm, so we opt to have AA get that played instead of all the Chain Lightnings. We choose to "deal 3 energy damage to up to X=8 targets", because Wager Master is getting low and we still have Who Are You Fighting. Unfortunately, the game doesn't let us stop after hitting Wager Master (I filed a bug report). Now all the heroes have odd HP with Idealist/Visionary/Tempest below 10. It's not looking good.

Wager Master's start of turn finds... the wagelings. What Do You Really Know takes out Tempest and Visionary. The Wagelings entered play before Losing To The Odds, fixing the HP of the surviving heroes, leading to victory!

Near mint before I even got a turn. First game just got a REALLY bad order for conditions.