Weekly One-Shot #96: Nature Calls

Easy Mint here, though it certainly wasn't fast! Bee Bots and Retcons saved the day for me, constantly taking out Entombs, Cryo Chambers and Entry Points, and once Akash's limbs were brought under control, it was just a matter of slowly and steadily chopping her down to size. My personal favourite moment of the match happened when Akash played Disrupt the Field, with 4 rooms out. Haka had 3 Dominions out and Guise had high-fived him for "Uh, Yeah, I'm That Guy". Soooo much card draw! :)

Easy if kind of sloggy mint here.  There were a handful of "oh crap" moments, but none of them hurt as much as I feared.  Took out the Rockslides, and then everything else was Taiha fodder.

Slow mint. Got rather lucky when I accidentally played Gimmicky Character first turn and dodged the first Primeval Eruption.

Near Mint because I accidentally hit rewind... would have been an easy Mint otherwise.

Broke my 31 week Mint streak :(.

I just hope Guise found a functioning toilet at the end of it all.  

"Easy but sloggy" is about right. Once Unity got into her groove, though, there was little hope for Akash. Discovered Guise can play stolen Bots during his power phase, which is nice. :)

If nothing else, I approve of the toilet humor. :V Sentinels needs more of that.

I had an awful slog--Haka's gear got destroyed multiple times and left him with no damaging powers for several turns, and while the raptor-bots kept coming, they kept getting their damage shut off.  Naturalist and Guise are nice sources of damage, but without Hunted Naturalist stacking nonsense and any other damage boosts, 200 HP is a lot to get through.  Still finished with no less than 17 HP on any hero, it just took ages.

Near Mint.

I saw that Guise started with Uhh Yeah, I'm that Guy! and Naturalist had turned into a crocodile...and I thought to myself, "Oooooohhhh! Wouldn't it be cool to have TWO crocodiles?!?"

And when I did it, I was reminded of the text for Naturalist's forms and was so ashamed that I hit rewind. No crocodile for you, potty mouth!

Anyway, long game, all heroes ended right around 20HP.  Haka ended it with a 15-card Haka of Battle fueled Mere bash.

I got in a bad spot when a poorly-timed Eruption laid out Haka and Guise and took the others down to 2 and 3 respectively. With Akash at over 110 hp, I figured it was one more round to Game Over. But thanks to a stunningly helpful Stealth Bot and Legacy's Landing Pad, I managed to survive long enough to prune Akash down to size. Guise's targeted heal and Haka's all-heal kept everyone else standing (barely), then Haka switched to being a 0 HP target to soak up all the brambles' attention once Unity hit critical mass. The last round was particularly fun, with three 10+ damage Raptor Bots chewing on Akash's face while a lone Platform Bot hovered over to finish off some vines. The next round, Akash managed a Living Rockslide, but the sacrifice of a Bee Bot and two Raptors blew it apart in time for Mr. Chomps to seal the deal.

Mistakes were made, and it wasn't "easy" by any means, but I have never given a louder whoop when the Sentinels victory theme started playing!

All of this talk about a slog just keeps making me think of the Oblivaeon update. I can no longer see 200 HP as a large amount.

You can do it, you just have to play Uh, Yeah, I'm That Guy! first =)

 I didn't find this easy at all, and barely escaped with a win -- two heroes incapped and five HP between the remaining two!

I suspect part of my problem is that I've never really figured out how to play Guise effectively, and only have a moderate sense of how to make use of Naturalist.

Guise is easy.  You draw a bunch of cards, and then play Guise the Barbarian and Blatant Reference on the same turn.  If you're really good, you work in a Best Card Ever! at the same time.  Then you do it again.

I guess that’s one strategy but not a very satisfying one.  

That is nearly my exact strategy with Guise, though I tend to build up an even larger hand of cards then do: Play Guise the Barbarian, use power to play Super-Ultra Kawaii and deal 1+2 damage, then use S-UK to play Blatant Reference then discard to do 1+2 damage. That way, assuming I have the cards to feed, I can play damaging one-shots every turn on top of dealing BR damage. Combo that with a Sell-Out to discard a non-damaging one shot to play 3 damaging one shots means big damages.

I agree to an extent. It is kinda boring just building up cards, though it usually leaves Guise spare cards enough to do something at least every turn. I see it as a kind of Tachyon 3 Lightspeed Barrage turn buildup where you can do some pretty awesome damage once built up.

~Komori

It’s a strategy you can do but I feel that’s underutilizing him.  If you are playing with others it means you aren’t really carrying your weight until the game is mostly over in a lot of cases.  Due to the sheer health of Akash’Bhuta and because limbs aren’t damaging her that won’t be the case here.  I like to look for combos I can do at any given point or use my cards to take out/soften targets.   I’ll build up to what you list as a secondary piece. 

I had a very easy time. Naturalist finished at full HP, Unity at 23, Guise at 24, and Haka at 25.

Akash never even had a chance to shuffle her deck (though that was partly because of Ironclad Maintenance Bay being out for half the game). I only ever saw one Rockslide, both Earth's Sacrifices but one came out so early all it did was kill Croc form, and never saw any equipment destruction. Kept one of the Phalanges out for most of the game, it wasn't really doing much with the Medical bay out.

Everybody did stuff, but Naturalist got into a nice groove early. After Mission Control came out, Naturalist ended up with Croc, Natural Form's Power x2, and Natural-Born Vigor out, so with his extra power one-shots he was frequently using 3 powers a turn, pinging down limbs and hitting Akash for 7-10 damage. 

Unity got a bit paralyzed by Brambles, which kept snuffing out one of her Raptors, and she had some bad luck with Mission Control. She also had to sacrifice two Bee Bots to take out Entombs. Still, by the end I had Champion, Raptor, Platform, and two Bees out. 

Guise and Haka both mostly hoarded cards, though Guise did competent damage while he was building up his hand. Haka got out Mere early and kept using it every turn in combination with getting two Dominions from Mission Control. 

When Akash got to 100 HP, I unleashed my two card-hoarding fellows and she was dead in two rounds. Guise did a Selling Out megaturn and piled on discard damage, while Haka dumped a hand of 20 cards (thanks, triple Dominion) into a Savage Mana that had stashed a few limbs. 

Easy mint here. A little worried at the start, but ignoring the brambles and the phalanges, I could pretty much do as  I want. Naturalist started in gazelle form to draw cards and tank, and then moved to crocodile soon after to put down the pain. I decked Unity to pull out Cryo Bot and Champion Bot. Along with a Bee Bot and 2xVolatile Parts, I could destroy Living Rock Slides as fast as they came out without anyone else getting hurt and a few Inspired Repair Cards kept everyone else around. This meant I could really start pulling out all the bots I wanted. Entombs never caused any damage with all the ongoing destruction and I ocassionally destroyed an environment card if a Bee Bot got destroyed, but never really worried about it.

I think I could have won pretty handily anyway, but once I decked Haka to get Savage Mana, it was all over.

My use of Guise was same as everyone else- Blatant Reference+Guise the Barbarian+Super-Ultra-Kawaii. Retcon was ridculously handy for Entombs. Otherwise, there were no great combos to be had except just using each card on its own. And like was mentioned, the game was fairly in hand by the time I bothered to do this.

That was easy, but long. Ended with Guise and Unity at full health, Naturalist at 29/30 and Haka at 30/32. Unity had 12 bots in play. 

Played Gimmicky Character to try to get Unity's bot generation going, and considered myself lucky to dump the Primeval Eruption at the same time. 

I had Naturalist shifting forms a lot early on depending on what was in my hand. As usual, I ended up with the Croc in play for extra damage at the end of the game. 

RetCons were saved for Entombs. The one time a Living Rockslide came out, I had it kill 2 beebots and a Raptor Bot. With Volatile parts in play, the return damage took out the Rockslide, getting rid of an Entry Point in the process. The environment was generally helping me a lot more than hurting me. 

My best single turn with Guise was Barbarian, then Best Card Ever/Look What I Found during his power phase. 

One misstep I failed to think of (and had the presence of mind not to hit the back button) -- Don't Yeah, I'm that Guy on the Naturalist. 

Got the win with a pair or Say Cheeses. 

Near mint.  First game I didn't do what everyone else did with discarding top cards of every deck, and ended up with Training Simulator and two Primeval Eruptions, so it was a terrible slog and I couldn't kill limbs as they'd just pop right back with the simulator.

Second game I did, and it was much easier.  Still not easy, but I got it eventually with a full hand Haka of Battle.