Weekly One-Shot #271: Dead of Winter

Turned out to be an easy Mint for me with no fear of death despite how horrifying Spite looks as an Undead creature. But honestly, Absolute Zero, that variant almost always makes him absolutely useless/unused for me in games. He played almost absolutely zero role in our victory.

Surprisingly, I had a pretty easy Mint, only losing Absolute Zero. And that was because I never realized I could be returning and replaying Imbued Fire so he could actually heal himself on his turn.

My first game went poorly and I gave up in frustration when he was mostly full and I was mostly dead.

Mint with only Benchmark up at around 15 hp.

Was having trouble keeping Spite under wraps and was slowly losing more health than I was doing in damage. Wasn't sure what I was going to do to pull it out of that slow spiral until I got all 3 Good Samaritans out in play at the same time due to a Forced Entry, then put them all right back into the safe house. From there, I just needed one more to flip him and keep him from playing any more drugs. Unfortunately, he still got 4 flipped, and the one I didn't flip was the mostly useful Mind Fyre. That round hurt (Increase his damage by the number of civilians in the safe house, when you need at least 4 to flip in the first place? Owch), but I pulled through and the extra card plays helped get that much more set up. 

From there, Ra, AZ, and the Sentinels just couldn't heal enough to stay alive. Benchmark could however, what with his armor, his increased healing, and his discard a card to heal. The game basically devolved into Benchmark playing cards to bounce back, using powers, getting hit, discarding to heal, then on his turn using his Rocket Barrage to plink away at Spite. He eventually blew him away in this fashion.

~A-Kat

I just ignored all the victims and let spite flip all his drugs. two rounds of combo mainstay "next damage irreducible" with a superboosted AZ thermonuclear explosion was enough to eat most of his HPs. at that point benchys irreducible damage could be reliably used as well. For me, it was Ra that was useless aside from as fodder for the spite drug effects and imbued fire. 

Every time a Spite game appears I hope that someone figured out a way to make fighting him fun, and every time I am disappointed.

This one wasn't as bad as usual. Unlike some, I find Termi-Nation AZ quite overwhelming, especially when I've got two buddies who can tank hits for him. Got a Mint with everyone at 10+ HP; there was a bit in the middle where all of the Sentinels were down to 5-6, but Benchmark pulled them out of the fire.

As usual, the primary plan for fighting Spite is to let him murder whomever he wants while you do intense setup, and then go to town against him. Everyone except Ra played a big part this time around:

• Benchmark played multiple Software per turn, then returned them to his hand so they wouldn't die, while playing enough equipment to reduce damage, heal 2 HP per turn plus 2 more whenever he discarded, and blasted Absolute Zero with Termi-Nation boosted ice healing every time he used a power.
• The Sentinels provided intense tanking via using the Idealist to reduce Spite's damage and then redirecting all the small hits to Mainstay with DR through Human Shield, and Doctor Medico's healing kept Benchmark and Mainstay topped up.
• Absolute Zero was launching three to four hits per turn, all at boosted damage. Hoarfire is fun when you've got a full setup and your power up - the net effect of it heals AZ for 15, then hurts AZ for 4 and hits Spite for 10. (You can shift around who you hit with what to alter the healing vs harm effect: if you're in a good place against an enemy with no DR and no extra damage buffs on AZ, Hoarfire is a net Damage 16, Heal 2.) 
• Ra was there too. 

*EDIT* It belatedly occurs to me that Ra could have been quite useful for damage-boosting Benchmark and the Sentinels with Imbued Fire, then letting Spite snap it back to his hand so that Absolute Zero could continue to ice-blast everything while healing. 

Got unlucky my first game in that he got his damage reduction out immediately. Wasn't able to quite overcome that combined with his damage upon power use. Second game I tried to race victims again and lost worst. Third time I got him. Not sure why this time I had trouble.

So, like many others, Benchmark was my MVP for this fight.  The funny thing is, I was so happy to get him really set up and was thinking how useful he would be in the rest of the fight, and then the Sentinels finished Spite off the next turn.  ;-)

So, yea Benchmark.  But I also found the Sentinels really useful, and between Idealist's innate power, Mainstays "Durasteel Chains" and their card "Human Shield", the Sentinels absorbed a LOT of damage from all the heroes.  They also did a good bit of damage to Spite.

And contrary to other's experiences, Ra did a lot of damage to Spite.

My biggest disappointment was Absolute Zero.  I have had great success with this variant of AZ in the past, and he REALLY likes to team up with Benchmark when Benchmark gets his "Onboard Cooling Systems" card in play.  However in this fight AZ didn't do a single point of damage, and in fact I don't think he ever used a power the entire game.  AZ never saw an "Isothermic Transducer" card, not less get it into play.  Did others get him set up with this, and if so, how?  What did I miss?

I am not a big fan of Spite fights, but this was a lot of fun.

I had AZ set up almost fully I think right before he died. :B So probably you weren't too far off the beaten path.