Advanced Matriarch (So Huginn and Munnin are indestructtible) vs Completionist Guise, Adamant Sentinels,X-Treme Captain Cosmic, Bunker and X-Treme Haka on the MDP.
EDIT: Guise shenanigans for the win. Swap Bunker to FF Bunker to get extra card plays, then to GI Bunker once Munnin appears. I also got good use out of swapping to regular Mainstay with chains and Human Shield to negate all the birds.
G+ games: I am part of the 100%
This game is for the birds.
Crush your enemies, drive them before you, and laminate their women! - Guise, Prime Wardens #31
Mint on 1st try. Focusing all damage on Matriarch every turn except 1st.
Biggest hint I can give is on turn 1 kill the mask after using adamant Writhe’s power. This put the mask beyond the reach of Darken the Sky allowing me to win before she flipped or even got her 2nd Odin Raven.
Swapping out for FF bunker and Requital Captain Cosmic really helped. With Energy Bracers on Haka and Extreme Haka power on Captain negates all negative effect from Requital. Ended with an extreme Barbarian round powered by Requital CC with FF bunker for even more plays. There are few powers for Completionist Guise’s big turn better than Requital CC.
Well, that was... a lot easier than I expected. I normally avoid the Matriarch and her swarm of birds, but realized this team was pretty good against her.
Spoilers below.
Mainstay is “MY MAN!” this game.
First round he got his “Durasteel Chains” card into play, the second round Completionist Guise swapped this variant of Mainstay with his standard version, and then on the Sentinels turn, they played “Human Shield” and Mainstay used his innate power each round for the rest of the game. He was now redirecting and absorbing 2 points of damage from all hero targets. And given that almost all damage from the Matriarch and her deck are 1 or 2 hit points, the heroes were immune to damage, so the heroes could ignore most of the Matriarch’s cards and just leave her birds alone. Now if they can just knock the Matriarch out before she plays “Horrid Cacophony” and destroys all the heroes’ ongoing cards.
Everyone did their part. Competitionist Guise swapped out Mainstay (key move), XPW Haka for regular Haka (for another attack power), base Bunker for “Freedom Five Bunker” right away and at the end swapped him out for “GI Bunker” (wanting that ability to make damage irreducible, but honestly didn’t need it). Also, on round three Guise got his “Blatant Reference”/“Guise the Barbarian” combo going and did a lot of damage to the Matriarch.
The Sentinels were key for defending against bird swarms. They also did a lot of damage.
XPW Captain Cosmic got lots of constructs in play (mostly on Haka, giving him “Autonomous Blade” for more damage and “Augmented Ally” for another attack). His innate damage was ramping up by the end of the game with so many constructs in play.
Bunker kept switching identities. Spent most of his time as “Freedom Five Bunker”, giving his teammates extra card plays, and sometimes using his trusty “Grenade Launcher”.
Haka Smash! (Yes, I know he’s much more than a Hulk, but that’s really what he did this game). Thought he would play “Savage Mana” and put that annoying “Mask of the Matriarch” under it, but by the time he was ready to do it, I realized we were close to the end and opted for a “Elbow Smash” instead.
The Matriarch started round 4 with 4 hit points left. Then she played “Muninn” (who is indestructible in “advanced” mode) and I was a bit worried, but needlessly so. The Sentinels shut her down on their turn.
The environment was only a mild annoyance. It only got to play 2 cards before the game was over.
I was amazed: this was easy and fun, two words I have never used to describe the Matriarch, let alone advanced Matriarch. I bumbled my way to a Mint, even, missing a few optimal plays along the way!
Similar to someone above, I also buried the Mask of the Matriarch with Adamant Writhe's power; dissimilarly, I just went for a damage race after that and pounded Matriarch into the dirt before either of her cohorts came out. Lord knows there was enough damage in hand after getting the Durasteel Chains out and having F5 Bunker available.
Yeah, I took her down in the third round, and that's even with killing the Mask twice because I didn't catch Writhe's power quick enough. I saw the persistent damage immunity option, and the vast potential for Guise shenanigans, but as it is so often, damage is the real trick. Guise the Barbarian using Requital turned out to be quite a lot of it.
I found an odd interaction -- maybe a bug, maybe not.
Regular Mainstay has Durasteel Chains and Human Shield in play, plus an Energy Bracer. Completionist Guise has Adamant Mainstay tucked underneath. With "I'm That Guy!", he high-fived Mainstay, so he has Human Shield in play.
I play Positive Energy and start killing birds. Matriarch launches 3+1 psychic damage at Haka, and I'm asked if I want to redirect it to Mainstay, to which I say yes. But then I'm asked if I want to redirect it to Adamant Mainstay; I say yes, and he takes 4 damage, even though he's underneath Guise. But then when I redirect damage to him later, he's back to his previous health. He's invincible!
(On another note: when using F5 Bunker's power, with fast animation, I only get a very short look at the cards that are revealed. It would be nice to have a way to see them all so I can decide...)
That’s a bug as it should direct to the Mainstay currently in play and not underneath Guise.
Crush your enemies, drive them before you, and laminate their women! - Guise, Prime Wardens #31
Seconded. It would be nice if it was like Ley-line Shift from Lifeline's deck where it shows you all the options.