Grand Warlord Voss (and his infinite supply of minions) is going up against Ra:Horus of Two Horizons, Freedom Five Bunker and Xtreme Prime Warden Fanatic in the Ruins of Atlantis with a randomized start.
This isn't gonna be pretty, folks.
I tried two practice games to get more familiar with how this fight could go down.
In the first practice game, Voss CRUSHED the heroes. I think he won with over 70 hit points. The poor heroes *seemed* like they had good initial hands and good card draws, but Voss’ card plays and the env deck were lethal. Note: Voss having "Forced Deployment" out with "Quark-Drive Translocator" in play is a *bad* combo.
The second practice game was better. The heroes won with hit points at 0/0/10. The heroes took steady damage every round. Ra and Bunker went down the same turn. But then things started to turn. I did find that Ra’s incap ability was good for putting weak minions on top of Voss’ deck. And Bunker’s incap ability to let one hero be -1 on damage, coupled with Fanatic’s “Undaunted” card (lets her ignore 1 hit point attacks) let Fanatic ignore most attacks. Well, most attacks until the Kraken showed up in force.One Kraken was okay, ‘cause I could leave a minion in play for the Kraken to devour. Then the second Kraken came out, and Fanatic got walloped good. She played “End of Days” (one of the few times I’ve done that) to take out all the non-relic cards in play, trashing the two Kraken. So of course the *THIRD* Kraken came out right away and walloped Fanatic again. Luckily she kept throwing out her "Aegis of Resurrection" that reset her hit points to 10 every time she died (another card she doesn’t use that much in my plays) so that’s what kept her alive. With one Kraken in play, she was okay. And *finally* she got Voss to fewer hit points that she had, so the Kraken could chomp on Voss some. A Kraken attack and “Mystical Defenses” took Voss out at the end.
I did not find the innate powers of Ra and Fanatic to be that useful in this game.
I am not looking forward to playing this as this week's one-shot.
First attempt went very poorly. First minions were all hit multiple hero types; after I did an End of Days to clear the board, Voss immediately countered with Forced Deployment. This one was quick.
Near Mint. My first game, I got buried under a three-round combo of Leaking Room -> Hallway Collapse -> Leaking Room. Second run went much better. I started with Imbued Fire, Flak Cannon, and Absolution in hand, and by round 3's start I had the Staff of Ra and Blazing Tornado out. Ra laughed at Forced Deployment with Inferno destroying everything that got respawned, and Voss melted under a constant assault (aided in part by two rounds of Adhesive Foam Grenade because seriously, go away, Atlantis).
After getting a Kraken on round one, I spent the game leaving one Minion out as a sacrifice and committing myself to just doing less damage to Voss the entire game.
I barely squeaked by with only Ra left standing, but I also got the Kraken to eat Voss! :D That could have gone way worse, though, and I don't blame anyone who has to take a few tries to get through this one. It's doable though.
Mint by too close a margin for my liking. Ra and Bunker down, with Fanatic using 2 Aegis to stay alive.
Started with an imbued fire and a forced deployment in play so I just waited a round then started dealing increased damage. Followed by Phosphorescent Chamber, the heroes were dealing some serious damage. However, the environment wasn't playing nice otherwise and a bad Font of Power played another Forced Deployment and we took a lot of damage. Managed to get things under control but low hp meant things were close. The kraken eventually ate Voss after Fanatic popped back up for the second time. Didn't see a ship so that was good.
~Komori
Almost lost this one and would have too if not for the best of luck with Bunker’s power showing End of Days right after the Forced Deployment went off.
Directly after clearing the board Voss played another Forced deployment which again would have been game over but Voss was low enough for a 22 damage Wrathful Retribution to end it. Ended 0 – 10 - 6
Mint at 2/7/7 (after one Aegis). The usual Standard Voss progression of flip him as soon as possible and beat him down while eliminating all targets worked well enough, especially with Kraken support. Wrathful Retribution ended it.
He only drew one Forced Deployment (cancelled with End of Days). He did get the Stalwart out, but only for about a round before Ra trashed it.
Atlantis was reasonably well-behaved. Krakens only chomped Fanatic a little. Pillars of Hercules gave a couple extra plays to Voss, but nothing bad. No Hallway Collapses. Bunker pitched a bad hand early to Seaweed, but recovered. A couple Leaking Rooms, but the Heroes were well-set up and not too inconvenienced. *Shrug*
I couldn't figure out why our games were so different, but then I remembered it was a randomized start this week. My draws were a little different and ended up with a pretty comfortable mint.
Bunker let Ra get set up very quickly and Fanatic pulled up Absolution on her second turn. Both Translocators came out on turns 1 and 2 along with a Forced Deployment, but they were gone by the end of the second round. The heroes were chipping away at Voss, keeping him at 1 minion, but there was never any real threat after that- the heroes could do over 15 damage to anything that popped up (Kraken or a ship) and the second Forced Deployment never popped up. When a Hallway Collapse killed the last minion, the heroes simply turned up the heat (literally) and Voss went from 62 to 0 in less than 2 rounds.
Randomized really makes it, well, random! Snagged a mint too-- both ships came out within the first three cards, but that's where End of Days feels like it borders on cheatingly unfair. With all his ships and minions in ruins, not even Ruins of Atlantis shenanigans could keep Voss safe from our steady onslaught.
One of my favorite punching bags in one of my least favorite environments.
The first game was winnable, and I had a good setup pretty quickly. But I made some boneheaded mistakes (Bunker had Flak Cannon and Grenade Launcher out when the seaweed showed up. I totally should have played turret mode before dumping his hand), and was tempted to use the undo button. Leaking Room came at exactlly the wrong time, followed by a Hallway Collapse and then a Kraken, so I lost.
Rematch went better. At the end, I had to decide which hero the Kraken would eat (Bunker took the fall, since Ra was immune to fire), and a big Retribution finished Voss off. Near mint. Unlikely to play again.
Well, got him down to 12, then a secong Kraken came out and ate me.
"I'm Setback and I'm helping!"
Heartbreaker & Equity Kill the Sentinels Universe
This one can go right to hell.
The first time I played, I got what might have been my worst opening against Voss ever - Voss opened with a frosthound, a psi-weaver, and the banshee, and pinged everyone for 4 (7 to Fanatic.)
Ra had no damage-dealing cards in his hand, Bunker's only damage-dealing card was an omni-cannon, and Fanatic's only damage dealing card was a Final Dive which I used anyway, knowing the Stalwart would just bring it back. I needed some damage on that dumb ship, and I had some damage in the pipeline.
And then the environment's first card was Phosphorescent Chamber, and Voss's next card was Vyktor. Everyone took 12 damage (plus another 5 to Ra.) With my team at 8 / 13 / 9 without enough damage on the table to kill the Stalwart, I just gave up.
So of course in my second play, we were doing alright, and then Voss played Quark-Drive, and then the environment played Pillars of Hercules and rapid-played a minion and a Forced Deployment, Voss instantly popped the Forced Deployment and played eight minions and then played two more cards (a minion and a flagship), and then Bunker's turn started and Voss's minion count hit eleven plus a flagship and I called it a day right there.
Those are some tremendously bad odds. D:
It was legitimately so bad I've been doing back-of-the-napkin math to see if there's a way for Voss to do even more damage than that. I think maybe combining the disastrous opening hand with the Pillars of Hercules might have killed me faster? Maybe?
I know I said I was unlikely to try this one again, but I was wrong. After getting a near mint, I though that surely I could win again, right? Ten losses later, the closest I've gotten him is 20 HP. And I experienced what was my first loss to being overrun, so there's that. So forget this crappy setup, I'll select Voss and then hit "random" and beat the crap out of him in any other scenario, thank you.
I have played this scenario ten times now, with the following results:
- 5 times Voss has just destroyed the heroes, while each time his hit points were still in the 50s;
- 3 times the heroes won, but with only 1 hero still standing, and barely at that;
- 2 times the heroes won, with all heroes battered but still standing (hit points in very low teens or fewer).
I have started with great hands and gotten great card draws, and won and lost. I have started with terrible hands and not great card draws, and won and lost.
I am of the opinion that winning or losing this match is really just down to the card orders in Voss' and the environment's decks.
Don't know why this scenario has "called" to me so much to make me want to try it so many times. I suspect it was that several early games were such disasters for the heroes and I wanted to "solve" this setup. Its been fun, but eyeopening that there are just some setups you just can't win.