Multiverse Saving Contest - A Battle of the Teams

In the 1000 games thread I started playing through every villain on advanced with the Freedom Five.  I decided to use whichever environment I felt was most thematic (and use each environment at least once) and play each battle as many times as it took until I won.  When I finished I decided to go back and repeat this process with the Prime Wardens and Dark Watch teams and make it a competition of sorts. Here are the "rules" I decided on:

1. Each hero team will battle every villain (on advanced) currently in the video game version until they either win or lose 10 times.

2. Environments will be selected randomly but once selected the environment will not change for a particular villain. To keep it fresh if I randomize the same environment for 2 consecutive villains I will re-randomize.

3. No variants for heroes but the variant villains must be fought as well.

4. Turn order of the heroes will be fixed for all battles:

a. Freedom Five: Legacy, Bunker, Wraith, Tachyon, Absolute Zero

b. Prime Wardens: Argent Adept, Captain Cosmic, Tempest, Haka, Fanatic

c. Dark Watch: Expatriette, NightMist, Setback, Mr. Fixer

5. When I finish I'll tabulate total losses for each team fewest losses wins. I'll also tabulate how many wins each villain  and environment had.

(Sidenote: Season 2 preview pack came out when I was midway through the Prime Warden battles, so I went back and battled Chokepoint with the Freedom Five when I got up to facing her with the Prime Wardens.)

I'm going to post the results of the rest of the games I play for this purpose here.  If anyone else wants to take on this challenge feel free to post your games here as well and I'll add your results to the tally.  And now... back to saving the multiverse!

Coincidentally I recently did something like this with the Freedom Five, and went 25-4. Screenshots on my instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/migrantp/

Awesome!

Dark Watch defeat La Capitan at Realm of Discord.

I'd love to see the results of this with the actual team variants and the complete Darkwatch once the Harpy is released. I have a feeling the Freedom V variants would come out on top. Though it wouldn't surprise me if the Prime Wardens gave them a run for their money.

Once those variants are out in the video game, I may decide to go ahead do that. I’d also bet on Freedom Five (variant forms) to come out on top and probably Dark Watch (variants) on bottom.

Anyone want to place a guess on which villains will prove the toughest?

Miss Information, Spite (either version), and Skinwalker Gloomweaver are the villains I expect to give the most trouble.

Iron Legacy.  Isn't he just straight up the hardest for most teams?  Actually, I think Dark watch is probably the most capable of the three teams to handle him, though I'd consider them weakest in general.

I could be misremembering, but Bunker, Tachy, and Legacy should make it pretty easy. Once Bunker goes down, Tachy can play Hypersonic every turn, and Legacy can help make sure she gets through any DR.

That’s for F5. Tempest and Fanatic can also make the fight very easy, especially once Tempy goes down.

Pretty much, yeah. I'm at 6-0 with them in Advanced, with five of those games in Advanced Challenge mode (Blade at MDP, Omnitron at Mega, Voss at WMB, Dawn at IP, and Spite at Pike), and the sixth against Advanced Mad Bomber at Pike. Spite died on his front side.

For teams that aren't the team-variant F5, sure. Once PL626-Xi comes out, an F5 Tachyon protected by Hypersonic Assault, Throat Jab, or Heroic Intervention can force-feed Spite 23 Blitzes every round. Meanwhile, F5 Legacy + Bunker + Wraith can pretty quickly set up Lead From The Front + Next Evolution, letting Legacy soak ALL of Skinwalker's Infernal damage output, relics included.

I miiiight have just described the Advanced Challenge Agent/Skinwalker game I just finished.

>

a. Freedom Five: Legacy, Bunker, Wraith, Tachyon, Absolute Zero

b. Prime Wardens: Argent Adept, Captain Cosmic, Tempest, Haka, Fanatic

c. Dark Watch: Expatriette, NightMist, Setback, Mr. Fixer

I would have chosen these for the order

a. Freedom Five: Legacy, Tachyon, Wraith, Bunker, Absolute Zero

b. Prime Wardens: Same!

c. Dark Watch: Mr. Fixer, Setback, Expatriette, NightMist

I chose the order based on theme (as best I could) rather than strategy:

The Freedom Five are in the order they joined the team in Freedom Four Annual number one. Then, Absolute Zero last.

For the Prime Wardens I remember AA started the team and Captain Cosmic was first to join him. I just guessed for the order the rest would have been recruited.

We have a bit more detail on the order Dark Watch joined. It was formed by Expatriette and NightMist as they grew concerned about Mr. Fixer’s disappearance. They then recruited a reluctant Setback and fought Mr. Fixer on their first mission. The Harpy joined at some point later.

I tend to put Wraith before Tachyon -- that way, if, say, Wraith finds a Devious Disruption and puts it on Baron Blade's deck, Tachyon can Hypersonic Assault it into uselessness.

For the Wardens, Haka plays clean-up (gotta put things under Savage Mana).

For the DW, if I'm going vanilla, Fixer goes last. For the DW variants, Fixer goes first to get that free-ish shot in. Setback is usually first otherwise (he's just the type to rush out in front, after all).

Dark Watch was defeated by The Dreamer at Insula Primalis 8 times but won on attempt number 9. I thought the first game went poorly when I only destoryed 5 projections.... then I tried again and in game 2 Dark Watch combined for a grand total of 1 damage to 1 projection. I didn't get the Dreamer to flip until game 7 and lost on the turn she did in that game.

Luckly in game 9, the plan I had formulated as the only way I could hope to win worked out... I had Expat, Setback and Fixer take care of the projections, and had NightMist play Enlightment every turn in an attempt to draw Mist-Form before the Volcano came out. The Volcano came out the round before I drew Mist Form, but a well timed Grease Gun meant I only lost Setback. The following round I had NightMist play Astral Projection of her turn and Mist Form on Setback's. This proved critical as it let me sacrifice the spare Ongoing to an ill-timed Illusory Demon.  Luckly no other Illusory Demons were played so NightMist held on for the win.

Dark Watch had a much easier time with Kismet at Dok’Thorath. Won on first attempt.

Took 2 attempts for Dark Watch to defeat Iron Legacy at Insula Primalis.

How exactly does this work?  Are you thinking that hypersonic is a burst card? It isn't.  I don't see any other way that F5 Tachy and F5 Bunker can recycle Hypersonics.  F6 Bunker would be great, with his great ongoing-destruction abilities, or G.I. Bunker, with his DR negation, but I don't see how F5 is particularly well suited for this matchup (except for simply being good generally).

I think Pydro meant base Bunker not the Freedom Five variant.

This is also a bit confusing to me.  Why those two?  I get why Tempest's incap ability is awesome, though it may be too late by the time he goes down.  It seems to me like AA would be the MVP of PW until Tempest was incapped.

Aha.  That makes sense.  I thought we were talking about the variant versions.  My bad.

(Note to self: games below this note have been added to Sentinels Statistics Project, games above this note still need to be added)

Advanced Infinitor defeated at Pike Industrial Complex on the 4th attempt.

NightMist in Mist-form is an automatic win in this scenario… A plus 1 damage boost and 5 users of Expatriette’s 1 projectle damage incap ability on NightMist managed to save a lot of time though. Interestingly, Mist-form was the only card NightMist played all game thanks to Crushing Cages.

Dark Watch defeat Deadline at Insula Primalis on first try. NightMist was last hero standing and there were only 3 cards left in the environment deck.

Dark Watch defeat Kaagra at Tomb of Anubis on take 3. Ill timed Fickle Fans cost the heroes both of the first 2 games in what would have been really close wins.

Oh no! Progeny cannot be stopped. Dark Watch losses 10 consecutive matches to it at Rook City. The last game was the closest I got to winning with Progeny down to 30 HP. He ended most games with 60 HP or more.

Well, that's more or less how it turned out in the ARG, so kudos for accuracy.

First battle of Dark Watch vs. Wager Master at Omnitron IV was a loss via The New Deal... I think that's the first time I've lost to that card's effect).

Second battle I managed a very close win with NightMist incapacitated on the villain turn after "Playing Dice With The Cosmos" had checked for the loss condition. I managed to use Tire Iron to work around "Who Are You Fighting?" that round before "Playing Dice With The Cosmos" could trigger me to lose on the following Villain turn.

Dark Watch defeat Bomber Blade at Wagner Mars Base on the first attempt.

Cosmic Omnitron was on 60 HP when he took out Mr. Fixer, Setback, and Expat. He was down to 8 HP when he took out NightMist with Technological Singularity. All this was at Tomb of Anubis.

Game 2 took a nasty turn as well with Omnitron playing most of his deck in 1 turn thanks to Terraforming. Another loss.

Game 3 a really bad loss; this time Setback was the last hero to fall.

Game 4 was the charm with NightMist as the last hero standing.

10 losses to Agent of Gloom Spite at Zhu Long.... I'm not even sure if this is winable.

Defeated Skinwalker Gloomweaver at Enclave of the Endlings on First try thanks to Mist form.

Chokepoint is defeated at Realm of Discord.  The Multiverse has been adequitely saved!

Here's the final results:

I'm surprised Freedom Five did that much better than the Prime Wardens.   I suspected DW would be at a disadvantage only because it's four heroes verses the five that the other two have but I didn't think they'd suffer that much especially Spite Agent of Gloom.    The Dreamer, Progeny, Kaargra Warfang, and Cosmic Omnitron were the only ones that all teams had to face multiple times.   I am surprised there weren't more losses across the teams with the Rook City villains. 

Yeah, I didn't anticipate Spite being such an issue in both forms, I actually thought Dreamer was going to be the biggest issue and that having fewer heroes would help Dark Watch with that one. I expected Dark Watch to have the most trouble but the extent of thier struggles surprised me.