Killer Combos?

So what combo’s of heroes, or villains and envirments have you found so far? Mine:

Fanatic + Bunker: he has some ongoings that really pour red hot damage on your foes, and with Fanatic emboldening him and providing support it becomes a really potnent mix.

Villain:

Grand Warlord Voss in Rook City. REALLY big mistake. The city has cards that reduces damage to villain targets and that plays villain cards… so his minions started to really get out of control very quickly. We ended up conceeding when he had every minion come back from the graveyard for the second time… it may have been 10 (auto loss) but we did not even check, we knew we where done.

My wife found that Visionary Twisting the Ether on a minion-less villain makes Ra’s ability to give everyone fire immunity a near instant win. We actually took more damage from the environment than from Spite in one game.

If you haven’t tried it, yet, go with Legacy, Ra, and Absolute Zero. You can add any other heroes you want - say Visionary to help AZ go off faster - but these three really make fun stuff happen. Legacy builds everything the other two do, Ra throws everything at AZ (once he’s set up), and AZ throws all that back at the opponents - and then some.

It’s a fun, crazy combination - if you enjoy that kind of thing. 8)

Omnitron in Rook City. The environment deck top decked an Electro-Pulse Explosive in three different games. The 15 damage lead us to wipe on all 3 games.

Ooh. The first time I introduced Sentinels to my gaming group we played the Freedom Five vs. Omnitron. Its first draw was an Electro-Pulse explosive. We could only deal it a few points of damage. The next round it drew one of its weapons. We were defeated by round three. Fortunately, my friends immediately demanded a rematch whereupon we soundly beat the AI menace.

The Wraith and Mr. Fixer.

When incapacitated, The Wraith can enable another hero to play a card. Mr. Fixer’s Overdrive card reads:

You may use Mr. Fixer’s “Strike” power twice this turn.

In a game we played this evening, Mr. Fixer’s ability to play that card on another hero’s turn enabled him to do 9 points of damage twice to the villain: Strike (1), Dual Crowbars (+1), Grease Monkey Fist (+1), Harmony (+1), Bloody Knuckles (+2), Legacy’s Galvanize power (+1), Legacy’s Inspirational Presence (+1), and a power from one of the Infernal Relics Heroes (+1). If there’d been another target available, using Dual Crowbars he could have done another 18 points of damage to another target.

As it happened, due to a card in an Infernal Relics environment, Mr. Fixer was also able to play two cards on his turn, getting out both a second Bloody Knuckles and a second Overdrive to do 36 points of damage on his turn, for a total of 54 points of damage in less than a round. But I digress.

In the other direction, The Wraith LOVES Mr. Fixer’s Salvage Yard card, which pulls all hero equipment out every players’ trash and puts it back into their hands.

Bunker likes that even more. Put him in turret mode with the Omnicannon and then have Mr. Fixer give him a ton of cards to use on the cannon and other places.

My favorite is probably Fanatic + Ra

Embolden + Imbue Fire + Flesh of the Sun God lets Ra use 2 powers consistently every turn with no price tag, its pretty nice.

I’ll say Tempest and Ra, why you may ask? Because against a villian will minions with a lot of varied HP Tempest can weaken them and even destroy the weaker ones while Ra can lay down the final blow to the ones still standing or even go all out on the big boss. Throw on Imbue Fire and Tempest’ hailstorm will destroy any Gene-bound lackies Voss wants to put into play leavings things to get too hot in the kitchen for Voss.

I’ll try that next time… we have a pending rematch against Voss who wiped the floor with us last week.

Aside from those Gene-bound firesworns, then Imbue Fire is deadly… to the heroes!

Oh yes those nasty little buggers immune to Fire, that’s why you also have Tempest’s Elemental Subwave Inducer in play, so that way you can do something else if need be. Tempest is the bomb diggity, and will always have a trick or two up his sleeve. Although I guess that can be said about all Heroes since depending on who they face they each will offer something amazing to the field.

Edit: Humorously I am doing random battles right not and I actually now have Tempest and Ra (plus Expatriette and Visionary) up against Voss. Currently kind of taking a break from playesting (they are all in there just rolling randomly and if one of the IR characters show up than great) since it isn’t un using the samethings over and over again. But back to the point, Ra and Tempest are going to make some fiery magic of death in some Atlantian waters.

How often do you play?! Where do you find the time?

I was actually on vacation this week so I had lots of time to sitaround the house and play quite a few games. But I go back to work tomorrow night so my playing will be cut back signifcantly. So then it’ll be back to making sure there is a playtest card in every battle whenever I do play, which will probably only be Friday nights.

Absolute Zero and Visionary. With Absolute Zero knocked out and Visionary in her Telekinetic Cocoon, AZ (or anyone with that Incap. ability) can keep increasing her next damage by two until she can one hit the Villian with Mind Spike (Or really any attacking one-shot) and woohoo! The battle will be over.

Well, sure! Isn’t engaging any villain in Rook City generally a tactical error? But if that’s where they make their stand, well, ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

I did something similar. I used Visionary and Absolute Zero to two man Plague Rat on Advanced mode. Visionary used Twist the Ether on both Plague Rat and AZ, then Telekinetic Cocoon. The end result was not pretty for Plague Rat.

Tempest and K.N.Y.F.E. vs. Gloomweaver. Every time a relic comes out, use Into the Stratosphere to put it back on top of the deck, then Wrecking Uppercut to discard it. Repeat twice and you've won. Hilariously easy.

I happened upon this a couple of days ago…or so I thought.

I had KNYFE going in order before Tempest, so it didn't work out as I had anticipated.

This is definitely one of the strongest combos. I've started adding Visionary to games to make it easier, or banning her to make it harder. The video game really enlightened me on her capabilities. >.> <.<

Here's a killer combo we learned tonight. When playing vs Infinitor, since we didn't have enough damage the first turn we just weakened his manisfestations to take out next round. Unfortunately the Environment (Time Cataclysm) played Surprise Shopping Trip. Infinitor flipped and his targets lost the DR 1 that he gave on his front side, so now each time one of his cards entered play everything took 1 damage and his first play just happened to be something that also played the top card and that one also played the top card so that was 3 points of damage going to all the manifestations, some of them having already been weakened by us. This happened when we also had 2 Occular Swarms out. This was just the start of the 2nd round, he kept comboing off occular swarm and surprise shopping trip until there were 10 manifestations in the trash and a handful of one-shots that got discarded due to occular swarm. He even got the 3rd one out while the 2nd one was still alive. We lost about half our HP or so just that single round from getting pinged over and over and over.

You think that’s bad? Take my word for it: NEVER let the matriarch go shopping.

Never Fight Gloomweaver "The Rotting God" in the Realm of Discord ever!

now the realm of discord is annoying but combine its Imbued Vitality card (ongoings and equipment now have 6 health).

with Gloomweavers flipped ability of dealing H damage to all targets then regaining 2hp everytime a target dies.

this led to him spiralling out of control twice now.

and the only thing i have actually had to ban when we play is surprisingly Legacy against the Vengeful 5,

The combination of Lead from the front (choose to redirect any villian damage to himself) and Next evolution (power: become immune to damage type of choice till start of turn)  means seeing as the Vengeful 5 have about 80% melee damage he picks that and makes the game very boring, throw in his power ring and he plays like normal but no-one takes damage except for the occasional hit from friction or proletariat.

Take Down also screws over the V5 since none of them can play cards for a round.

The Vengeful 5 have enough hero ongoing destruction that maintaining the combo is not a sure thing. It does make the fight a lot easier so I can understand wanting to limit using him for the challenge, though. That combo neuters about 50% of villains anyway.

My favorite team combo on any villian that has lots of minions it Legacy, Ra & Tempest. Legacy uses Galvanize and inspiring presense. Ra uses IUmbue Fire, and the tempest uses Electricl storm? the one that damages everyone at the start of her turn. and then she uses her power to hit everyone for another 5 points. it is awesome against grand Lord Voss, or citizen Dawn, Keeps the minions at bay.

Something I noticed is that if you use Precognition or Prophetic Visions and then use SS Tachyon's Experiment on the villain/environment deck, you can get rid of really problematic cards that way (mostly things like Dawn's Devastating Aurora). Probably one of the more simple combos in SotM, but it's decent nonetheless.

Cant you also do that with, say, O-X's timeslip?

Yeah you can…it's easier that way, even, since you only need to worry about one card - to ditch them via Science Tachyon, you need both the revealed cards to share a keyword (and Dawn has very few one-shots compared to, say, Citizens). Timeshift would work really well with Parse's (otherwise useless) incap ability that lets her look at the top card of the villain deck but not do anything about it.

I've seen some nice combos above, but they all pale in comparison to the following.

Legacy + Visionary + Absolute Zero

Absolute Zero is the lynch pin. Eveyrone will make him better.

In Play:

AZ: Isothermic Transducer, Null-Point Cailbration Unit, Focused Apertures, and the absolute mandatory Thermal Shockwave

Legacy: Inspiring Presence

Visionary: Twist the Ether (on AZ)

Shockwave does 3 targets 1 cold + 1 Ins Pres + 1 Galvanize + 1 TtE = 4 damage to 3 targets = 12 Cold damage dealt

Shockwave deals himself 12 Cold (TtE converts from Fire) + 1 Ins Pres + 1 Gal + 1 TtE = Heal 15 damage

This gets better when AZ has Cryo Chamber (+1 Heal), Cold Snap (all targets 4 damage, +4 heal per target), and Impale (5 cold to one, heal 5 more per Impale). Dealing 20+ damage and healing to full is fairly easy. The only weak point in getting this combo out is Visionary. She only has 2 TtE, so you can go the entire game looking for it. Without TtE, you still dish out damage, but one Shockwave hit needs to come back at AZ for initial healing, to soak the Fire feedback, before the transducer heals him again. Getting too aggressive without TtE putting too many of AZ's Start of Turn damage cards into play may mean you can't Shockwave more than 1 enemy, but in that case he's still dumping out massive damage.

There are characters that can pour out some damage once in a while... by blowing up their equipment (O-X), or risking their own death (Fanatic). Or their stuff is fragile (O-X takes 5). Or discarding (Bunker) or finessing the kills to one character (Haka). Only AZ can dish this kind of damage every turn, round after round, and keep his HP at max.

Ra does not play nice with AZ. He can deal him Fire, but he must never play Imbued Fire, or Absolute Zero is completely shut down, since he can no longer heal. (Also hurts Knyfe who needs her damage to be melee and energy, while Fanatic needs her damage to be Radiant.) Flesh of the Sun God can cut off Shockwave's feedback damage and Thermodynamics' fire damage.

I have yet to mix Captain Oblivious... I mean Cosmic... into that team. I suspect he will only improve it, but I need closer examination.

Omnitron-X is, for certain, the single most powerful stand-alone deck in the game right now. (Ironic that he came with the weakest deck, Chrono-ranger.) Nothing swarms cards into play like he does. He can provide Unity with Equpment to sacrifice, group heals, irreducable damage that doesn't take a Power, and takes little to recover from disaster. I do not, however, see a power combo with him, yet.

Ra + AZ is risky, but powerful.  Yes, Imbued Fire kills the healing, but it also ramps up the damage you deal.  Imbued Fire turns Hoarfire from dealing 5 damage (6 if you forgo the healing) into 12 damage (albiet taking 4 damage).  And if you're willing to take lots of damage, you can chain up the amount of damage you deal yourself: 2 fire damage to yourself, then deal 3 damage to yourself, then deal 4 damage to yourself, then deal 5 damage to yourself, then deal 6 damage to your opponent and use coolant blast to deal your opponent 15 damage.

And of course, if Visionary is around, AZ can have his cake and eat it, too.

Also, Chrono-Ranger is by no means the weakest deck.  Once he starts getting damage magnification (By Any Means, Ultimate Target, Hunter and Hunted), his damage output goes through the roof.  

Also keep in mind with Thermal Shockwave that if you are only dealing Fire Damage you only get one damage back from Thermal Shockwave since it's retaliatory damage is based on cold damage dealt.  

Chrono Ranger a weak deck? Noooo, Jim's damage can get ridiculous if he gets outside buffs. Even without them he can do 3+3 damage to a target with a single power, which he can use multiple times in a round via Ultimate Target (wielding the Compounded Bow on a target affected by Ultimate Target and By Any Means). Get him Infected versus Plague Rat when the Locus is out and that's 5+5 (+1 for Nemesis bonus, +1 from the Locus when Infected). And that's before you factor in all the one-shots he's likely to play, with all their single-point plinks :D. The fact he can get hold of what he needs pretty easily with all his search cards means he can usually get set up with something within a couple of turns, even if it's not a particularly uber combo. I really like both Jim and Omni-10 and find them both fun to play :).

Setback can get infinite damage.  It just takes time.  And he can deal it out round after round.  He just needs to heal or redirect 3+ damage a round for it.

Ameena, everyone gets outside buffs, so that's not a unique argument in favour of Chrono-ranger. Galvanize + Fanatic's innate power does 4 damage, for instance, but with Chrono-ranger does 2. And I showed you what AZ does with Legacy's buffs above. I have played Chrono-ranger a dozen times.. but he fails to come out far too often, and my probability analysis says that is never going to change. C-R is, quite simply, grossly underpowered.

Chrono-ranger has one theoretical power combo.

Tae Masadah + Hunter and Hunted + 6 Bounties on one villain = 14 damage to one target, Heal self 1 per turn, but he will take damage + 6...

The problem is that combo takes all 6 bounties in the deck, a specific equipment card, and a specific Ongoing he can't hunt his deck for with a tally of 8 cards. The most I ever got from that combo is 9 damage before external buffs. It simply takes far too long to get his power combo into play... the villain dies or wins first; meanwhile, others embarass him for total damage dealt. O-X is often dropping 4 irreducable without buffs by turn 6, or 8 buffed when C-R is dropping 3 buffed reducable. With the same buffs, AZ is soaking all the "highest HP" damage and laughing it off, while whittling the enemy down. Fanatic always deals 2x his innate damage, and heals, and can stop all villain damage, and... . Not to mention Wraith is doing 5 unbuffed in 2 cards. 5+3 with 4. Or Bunker doing 4+4+3. Or haka doing 5+5 and taking villain and environment cards out of play.

Chrono-ranger's inherent problem is an inability to get to his bounties. Sudden Contract and Ranger's Mark need to be combined to pull bounties from trash and deck. It is too easy to start with Ranger's Mark in your starting hand, and get Sudden Contract far too late to do any good. Chrono-ranger can, by times, come out as a B when his cards sort in the correct order (about a 1 in 4 chance of that happening), but he comes out F so often that I have to rate him there overall. He could be an A, but that power combo has to be as reliable as AZ's combo before it can happen.

Chrono-Ranger has multiple forms of draw accelleration, additional plays, equipment retrieval, bounty retrieval, search effects, and damage buffs within his deck without accounting for other heroes.

While that does not mean he is efficient in every single game (few heroes, if any, are), I think you may be grossly pigeon-holing his usefullness and assuming a rather narrow definition of strategy with his deck. It seems a lot of your comparisons or frustrations can be fixed by looking into different ways to play him.

And Absolute Zero is fun, but I find it strange that you find Chrono’s set up abilities to be lacking compared to Zero, considering Zero’s search cards are also divided between exclusively searching his deck or trash. I recommend looking into what can be done with one to two of Chrono-Ranger’s bounties in play rather than fixating on getting all six out. He rips through enemies with two or three cards on the field regardless of Legacy’s Galvinize being involved or not.

Galvanize and Exorcism deals 2 and 2. That is very different from dealing 4.

Chrono-Ranger isn't about massive damage. He's about consistent damage. Almost every card in his deck has a "Deal 1 projectile damage to..." rider attached.

By focusing only on large instances of damage, you are completely missing the joy that is Chrono-Ranger.

Chrono-Ranger's strength isn't in his ability to wail on villains with huge shots of damage (though he can do that on occasion), but in the massive number of small shots that he can do. All of his One-Shots (more than half of his deck) allow him to ping at least one target. Some of them let him play more cards. Get his hat out and he can play even more cards. All of his One-Shots other than Terrible Tech-Strike also help him to get the things that he needs (via search, recover from trash, or extra draw). Ultimate Target lets him use extra powers out of turn - even more instances of damage.

The more instances of damage you deal, the more you benefit from damage boosting. CR does so many little shots and if he gets a damage boost, they all get boosted. In addition to whatever his allies might do for him, he's got three sources of damage boost in his deck (By Any Means, Ultimate Target, Hunter and Hunted). With just a few cards in play (e.g. Ultimate Target, Jim's Hat, Compounded Bow), Chrono-Ranger can easily be dealing 7 instances of 2 damage each round to a single target. Add another +1 boost, and he's doing 21 damage per round. This is just with a couple of cards.

Is it possible to not draw the right cards? Sure, but that's the case for every hero and Chrono-Ranger happens to have a lot of tools to find the cards that will help him.

Also, imo you are focusing way too much on the idea of a "power combo" for each deck rating how good the deck is.  You can't compare each deck like that because they perform different roles

To be fair, this is the "Killer Combo" thread.

In that case, Chrono-Ranger has all six bounties, Hunter and Hunted, Jim's Hat, Compounded Bow, and The Masadah in play. On his turn, he plays 4 Eye on the Prizes (4 x 9 damage) and 2 Terrible Tech-Strikes (2 x 9 + 2 x 10 damage), then uses Compounded Bow to deal 2 x 9 damage. If the villain does him any damage as a result of that, he gets to use Masadah to deal another 14 damage. Total 106 damage in one turn. Even more if there are other boosts and plenty more if the villain does damage during other heroes' turns.

"Killer combo" does not necessarily translate to "killing combo". Could just mean a really awesome "oh, wow" combo.

And with that combo, the villain doesn't even have to deal him the damage. It just has to deal damage.

It's the killer combo thread, not the "this deck is obviously weak because it doesnt have a damage combo as easily attainable as the next deck" thread

For clarification's sake:

This is a thread about killer combos.  It is not a combo thread that is killing people.

Thank you.  We can now resume our previous discussions.

In certain situations, AZ doesn't mind all his damage being Fire, and original/Redeemer Fanatic certainly doesn't need her damage to be Radiant. Imbued Fire is a bit of a kick in the face for KNYFE, given that it will boost the Psychic Damage she deals herself, but it doesn't actually reduce the amount of damage she can do. The Wraith is one character who loses damage when Imbued Fire is played.

Even then, she only loses damage if she actually had an MTC out. It's possible to play Wraith as a deck controller (Eyepiece) or a damage nerfer (Stun Bolt, which doesn't need to deal damage in order to nerf it) and leave the major arse-kicking to other people ;).

If you're judging decks based on how much damage they can deal, does that mean you think the Adept is rubbish? Because he really, really isn't ;). Also, most of Tachyon's damage is plinks of one (everything except Supersonic Response, if I remember rightly) until you can built up to a Lightspeed Barrage so she's even worse off than Jim if her intended targets have soak because she can't even buff herself.

Defining "killer combo" to whatever is convenient to your argument is just being argumentative.

A killer combo is a combination of cards that results in an amplifying effect that makes the group more capable as a whole than as individuals in defeating enemies. I base that on the first post, which was intended to set the stage for the discussion. He talks about "hot damage", so his intent was combinations of cards from different characters that amplify damage more than normal. I will expand that to being "more effective against the enemy" than just large damage because some enemies are not just about dealing damage... but more effective combinations in winning against a broad range of opponents.

That said, each villain is different. Some are disadvantaged by area damage, and some by direct damage. There are specific combinations that are effective against specific enemies. The best team to take against an individual villain is not the intent of the originator of the thread. So the combo must be effective against multiple enemies.

Legacy + anyone does more damage, so his very presence is a combo. For a Legacy combo to be more "killer", it needs to be with the Heroes that use it to greater advantage.

For instance, Galvanize + Squall does baseline 2xtargets in damage. That seems like a killer combo against some villains, but not all. It is very effective against Infinitor's weak Manifestations, but bounces off Akash'bhuta when she's got lots of arms out or Apostate's Relic damage reduction. It is also contraindicated against Voss (because it tends to flip him) and Citizen Dawn (losing control of the Citizens in discard due to it being indiscriminate), but especially Dreamer since it kill sher and you lose. It is also no help against villains with very low villain target counts in the deck. So I can't call it killer. It is merely situationally more effective.

This differs from the standard AZ+Legacy combo. With his modules in play and Legacy giving +2, Thermal Shockwave heals AZ for 1+2x2 while dealing 2x(1+2) damage. It can instead deal AZ -1-2+6+2=5 damage, deal one target 1+2, and a second target (1+2)+(8+2) damage. Legacy's effects are dealt 4x to one target at the cost of 2x to AZ, which puts Fanatic to shame for her version of "hurt self to hurt others". It is flexible and can get even worse with a third target instead of healing. It even penetrates higher Damage reduction, which someone earlier commented about with reference to Fanatic's effect with Legacy.

Since I only just got WotC Thurs, I hadn't had a chance to experiment with the decks yet. CC and SS work extremely well in combination, but are not a killer combo. They cover each other's weaknesses extremely well, and raise reliability of victory vs. other pairings, but do not amplify each other. They fill each others' holes. SS, for instance, taking all damage from hero targets protects the constructs. And CC gives SS a way to do direct single target damage. There is a synergy there, but not a killer combo. SS seems a shoe-in as best combo with Unity. She also gets Legacy's Ring into play, which has always been Legacy's weakness. One of the best five card teams may wind up being Wraith+Legacy+Sky-scraper+Absolute Zero+Unity (in that order). Ongoing and environment destruction, lots of equipment to sacrifice, healing, Villain Deck control, villain damage reduction and control, and the raw damage AZ can flood out.

CC does have an effective combo that might be killer, but it is a healing combo, rather than damage. Vitality Conduit+Motiviational Charge + any ability that hits a Hero target for 1 damage (like Thermal Shockwave). Shockwave hits VC for 1, heals target for 2, later MC hits something for 2, heals everyone for 1 including the VC. Rinse and repeat. Further enhanced by Dynamic Syphon, which allows this to go off every Hero Turn for each Hero that can damage DS and VC. Killer? Since it works against almost every enemy, I'd say yes. But Legacy can't buff up damage anymore, or the Constructs die, so it is a post-near death recovery combo. Cosmic Crest helps with another DS on CC, but now we're getting into stupid numbers of cards. In our case, we had Tempest out, too, with Healing Rain, but I thought that was too much healing and was lengthening the game unnecessarily.

Nightmist + Tachyon + Visionary can combine well. They feed cards into each others' hands, and two make good use of them. (I look forward to Super Scientific Tachyon with Nightmist online with Relics, but quite a wait for that.) Much as I like Nightmist for her fun factor, she comes out soft far too often, and can tear herself up trying to become effective, then wind up unable to get herself healed back up fast enough to participate. Early on, this team has weak damage output and no healing except personal, so can wind up letting the enemy flood out. The weakest point is Visionary, who seems to die first every time.

My favorite Syphon combo is Dynamic Syphon on Tempest with cleansing downpour (or 2 preferably)  It is really hard to lose to most villains with that setup.

We can amp that up, phantaskippy. Add Argent Adept, and move the DS to him. He wants the following out:

Instruments: Musaragni's Haro, Telamon's Lyra, Drake's Pipes

Ongoing: Inspiring Supertonic, Sycopated Onslaught, 2x Rhapsody of Vigor

1. Damage triggers a Power.
2. Use TL. Perform Harmony IS.
3. AA uses MH. Perform Harmony IS.
4. Tempest uses CD. DS is Healed.
5. Accompany Harmony IS. AA regains 2 HP.
6. Accompany Rhythm SO. 1 Sonic damage to DS.
7. Damages triggers a power.
8. Use DP.
9. 2x Perform Melody RoV. Heal 5 targets 2 damage, including DS.

Enough healing for you? Thing is, on a decent day, AA can actually have all that in play. He's one character that can sometimes have a lot of cards out fast.

I've seen Argent Adept play all 4 Arcane Cadence and 2 Silver Shadows on his turn, then the same thing on the Scholar's turn because of don't dismiss anything, in the same round. Then next round repeat it again. He didn't have much left in his deck. Once all he had in his deck/trash was 4 Arcane Cadence and 2 Silver Shadow, everything else was either in play or in his hand.

I've had everything either in play or in-hand on one or two occasions. It's somehow quite satisfying ;). And at one of the London meets (when Wrath was still in playtesting) I was playing as him and someone else was Captain Cosmic and put the Dynamic Siphon on me. I had both copies of Rhapsody of Vigour out and a bunch of other stuff so everyone kept deliberately plinking the Siphon so I could let loose with a power chain which always included healing back the damage done to the Siphon. I have no idea who we were fighting but we won ;). Even without the Siphon I can end a game on full health (or close to it) with no outside help. That said, I think the aforementioned game was the only one where we had the Adept and Cosmic in play. I only received my copy of Wrath on Monday so haven't had a chance to do anythign with it yet but my partner is coming round today so we'll have some games. Naturally I haven't told him that Wrath has finally arrived and I'm gonna see how long it takes him to notice that the deck arrangement in my boxes has changed a bit >:).

You're mean.

As a suggestion, do not try an all Wrath game against Kaargra Warfang. Between titles and Guise, remembering who's turn it is can be tricky. Awesome, but tricky.

Lol so we were sitting at the table and I'd put the two Sentinels boxes (open) on the table to see if he'd notice the dividers for any of the new heroes or anything, but he didn't. We roll our villains and environments, though, and the first villain up managed to be the Wager Master, so I just took the deck out of the box and plonked it on the table - my partner picked it up and looked to see who it was and then sort of looked at me with this half-startled kind of "omg, the new decks have arrived/you didn't tell me the new decks have arrived" expression, at which point I told him they'd come on Monday. And then we kicked the Wager Master's arse in four rounds...which took 45 mins because of all the out-of-turn stuff that ended up happening as a result of having Captain Cosmic and PW Fanatic on the team, plus in the first round the Wager Master put out the "your turn actions now go in reverse order" card (Breaking the Rules, I think) which we never managed to get rid of. It meant it took me ages to get set up as I was playing Unity so couldn't play a card and then use its power to put out a bot. However, by the end of the game I had Swifty, Stealthy, Turret, Champ, one Mr Chomps and one Platform Bot out so things were over pretty quickly as a result :D.

Keeping track of Turns is not difficult. Take all the divider cards and stack them, top first (ie. Villain on top). When each turn ends, move the top of the stack to the bottom. I can play at work, but we all have to prioritize work and can rarely put our heads together. In order for each person to tell whose turn it is, just by looking and not interrupting others actually doing the job, they just grab the stack. If it is Villain or environment, anyone can do it, but if it's the first player, he can segue into Hero turns. If it is your Hero, then execute your turn and move through environment and villain if you're last.

A friend of mine wants to put damage on the divider, but if we need to keep track of turns, he doesn't get to.

Was re-reading this thread, and spotted this combo. It does not work.

Embolden demands that "If they take no damage this way, destroy this card." Ra becomes immune to the fire damage dealt by Embolden, takes no damage this way, so the card is destroyed at the end of the first turn Imbue Fire is involved, and may only gets its use once. You can reduce that damage by 1 and still keep Embolden in play, but the Hero character must take damage. It cannot be redirected, either. Embolden works better on the Alien with Many Powers (Tempest of course) who can heal off the damage it causes with one Power use and damage with the other. Another example you can try easily online is Heroic Interception which makes Wraith immune to damage, so she takes no damage and Combat Stance will not activate.

Also note that Imbue Fire shuts down Sacrosanct Martyr, so Ra once again does not play well with others. The absolute nature of Imbue Fire (where the other players cannot say, "No, I do not want it's effect") makes for a strong desire for me to ban him from certain players with too self-centered a mind-set. The problem is, he is the strongest direct damage deck in the game, and such players want him for exactly that reason.

There are a couple other cards like that you have to watch out for. Damage Dealt effects (except for reduction) generally do not trigger unless real damage is dealt. As much as I want it to, Omnitron-X does not get to hit back with Reactive Plating Subroutine, unless he takes at least 1 point of damage after the relevant plating is subtracted from damage. RPS is not a method to kill all Matriarch's birds in one turn, for instance.

I do wish the designers would start using "takes damage" or "receives damage" more often instead of using the current context sensitive "dealt damage", but it's what we have to work with right now.

awp832’s combo did work when the post was written.* That errata wasn’t there in 2012.

*Ok, technically it didn’t, but nobody knew that until rule #15.

If we're going to get all technical, then technically that's not true, at least one person knew it didn't work.

Are you saying Christopher is nobody?

Well if you have a jerk Ra who uses ill timed Imbue Fire, just pick DW Fixer and the problem solves itself.

Are you saying Christopher is nobody?

 Can confirm.

I'm a bit astonished at the perception of Chrono as being a "weak" hero.  

My favorite combo with him is this:

Play hunter and hunted with no bounties out.  Play the Compounded bow, preferably by using a displaced armory.

Then, play "By any Means" and "The Ultimate Target", preferably by using his Ranger's Mark or the Sudden Contract.  

This should bring you up to 5,5 damage (to the target with both bounties, using the bow, and 3,3 to any other target), which can be further increased as you get out additional bounties or through the one shots.  In our games, its quite common for Chrono to get up to 6,6 or higher with the bow, with no outside help, and playing two (or more) cards that do additional damage. A standard chrono-ranger turn, after minimal setup (1-2 turns), is to do anywhere from 8-14+ damage on cards, then another chunk of damage through use of the bow. And this is completely discounting if he manages to get any chains going with eye on the prize, or terrible tech strikes. Also bear in mind that this is without any outside help at all- other people just make him better, especially against armored targets. 

Most of my friends have stopped using Chrono because he obliterates most enemies, and actually apologize when they want to play him because they feel like they will be taking the fun out of the game by ending it so quickly. 

Just don't taunt the Cyclops when you're sailing okay? Poseidon will get pissed.

This one's probably fairly obvious, but of all the environments, the Naturalist and his Environmental Allies loves the Final Wasteland best of all.  All the targets in the Final Wasteland deal damage (and none hurt the heroes in other ways), which the heroes are now immune to, except for Con's Bunker and the Ancient Library, which help the heroes at the price of bringing out more of the environment deck (which is not at all a hardship, since you're immune).  Throw in Rook City Wraith, and It won't be long before the entire Environment deck is out trying to eat the face of the villain.  Of course, a well placed shot of ongoing destruction could leave you surrounded by hostile cryptoids, but where's the fun without a little bit of risk?

And don't forget that with the heroes immune to damage from all the gribbly monsters, they don't have to worry about the possibility of Unforgiving Wasteland either >:). The Environment Allies/Gazelle combo is also highly useful in Silver Gulch, what with Explosive Wagons being targets and everything ;).

Allies in the Block. We slaughtered Voss last night because of this, with Char and two Rogues plowing the road for us. It was pretty comical.

Scholar, Legacy, Argent, Sentinels, OX. Substitute Tempest for taste. This team excels at healing, damage boosts, granting cards, and nothing goes to waste. Everyone has something they can do even if their combos aren't ready.

Also, while not a legal combo, The three Legacies vs Iron Legacy is a great game to play.

Against any single target Villain Deck (Iron Legacy, Kismet, etc.), TtE, Lead from the Front, and Next Evolution. All villain damage gets converted to the type Legacy is immune to, he soaks every shred of it, and it's a waiting game until you wipe the villain out. I had not ever defeated Iron Legacy (in my defense, I had previously limited myself to "No Legacy" and three hero decks mostly due to limited table space), but the above was all out in Turn 3 today. Wraith and Fanatic did the damage. I won't mention the 5th deck, for fear of de-railing the thread on the same subject... again. I will start a new one on that topic soon, since it deserves its own thread. Been working on a wall of text.

I prefer TtE and FotSG. Requres less cards, and can be setup on turn 1. Also, with IF, you can also be immune to self Damage. Alas, Unity’s bots will die, but everyone else is safe.

Yes, can be Turn 1 vs. Turn 2, but Ra is shut down for the game. Legacy can still bring out the Ring later and get back into the fight. TtE is the limiter in both cases, since it's 2 of 40 cards in Visionary's deck, so you'll be hunting it for a while, typically. If you get Fortitude and LftF instead, Legacy is still doing a poor man's version of this, while Ra has to wait TtE.

[Edit... my sleep deprived brain mixed in IF complaints with FotSG. Deleted because I made no sesnse.]

Vis has nice card draw, and Ra has much better card draw than Legacy, who needs to find both cards, not only play them. Ra is far from shut down by using this strategy, since he still has a ton of powerful damage cards. All he is losing is his base power, and the loss of Galvanize can easily be more detrimental to the damage output than just the loss of Ra's power (especially with more players). Not too mention for several turns, Ra can use two powers if he really needs to. It's also worth pointing out that Ra has no downtime to be hit by things, since he is always immune to fire damage, while Legacy can get hurt on his turn. Does it have some disadvantages, sure, but from my experience, it is much easier to get into play, not to mention get back setup if the Ongoings are destroyed.

I am not trashing Ra. Ra is an offensive deck. I was discussing Defensive combos. Ra has one. Others have more. LftF is still useful on its own, without TtE and NE. But with LftF and NE, Legacy can at least soak all the melee IL dishes out. Ra does nothing until both TtE and FotSG are in play, since IL's normal damage is Melee, not Fire. Legacy can also Heroic Interception to drastically cut down damage, and LftF + Fortitude still reduces IL damage by 2, because Legacy is not Nemesis. With 2 of IL's rings in play (or flipped and 1), Superhuman durability, Fortitude, and LftF reduce damage to 1. Legacy is not as card-locked on damage reduction combos as you pretend... he doesn't need only LftF and NE... he has other options to do the job he was chosen for, which is to soak Villain damage. You can even trick IL when he flips with just NE, if you can burn down Legacy to Lowest HP. Basically, what I am saying is that Ra needs the full combo, but Legacy still gets strong effect if part of the combo is in play.

The deck choices were made for more than just damage dealing. Visionary provided Ongoing destruction, TtE and card drawing for decks that came out weak. Wraith for good damage, Stun Bolt's damage reduction, and Ongoing destruction. Fanatic was in for Ongoing destruction, strong Nemesis effect on Innate and Galvanize, a first Turn EoD if major Ongoing destruction was needed, and a faint hope of Wrathful Retribution for a come-from-behind victory if we fell behind. Turns out there was more opportunity for general damage than expected because Wraith drew two Grappling Hooks (and an Imp weap) at start, then Visionary Enlightened a Mental Divergence in Turn 1. Fanatic did not wind up doing much more than punching IL in the face over and over for 3+3 due to a mediocre start draw. With that, IL fell fast. 32 HP ain't much if the Ongoings are dealt with. Ra could not have replaced any of those. Especially Legacy, pre-draw because one combo is not what Legacy was chosen for. He was selected for Galvanize and IP, suicidal LftF if needed, and all of his damage reduction options which would buy time for tohers to build what they needed. Could we have defeated IL with a straight up overwhelming damage deck build? I will of course try that some day and Ra would definitely be on that team, but I predict grim slaughter. Ra cannot displace Legacy from this team.

Going back to Chrono Ranger for a minute, I had a ridiculous combo last night and it was all from within his own deck.

We were fighting the chairman in the tomb of Anubis. I immediately got his hat and ultimate target, on the operative, out of his deck. The next turn I played sudden contract to retrieve By any Means and the neurotoxin dart thrower. Every time we destroyed a target and she retaliated, I was able to ping her for 3 and her next retaliation was less. With the naturalist in rhino the whole game, we basically only took damage from one out of 3 targets destroyed. That probably saved us, considering all our health was 5 or lower. 

After doing 30 or more damage to the operative and eventually killing her, I pulled nearly the same trick on the Chairman, but instead of killing targets it was from hitting him, and I got to use the bow this time because we needed to kill him as fast as possible. I ended up doing 24 damage in 4 turns and stole the kill from expat's unload.

This combo was better when I had a autonomous blade on me, and if I had any damage buff I would have been able to kill the operative in the middle of the game, instead of her healing to half health.

Chrono ranger is a killer combo with 4 cards out, and get them all out in 2 rounds while still dealing 14 damage to one target.

Chrono-ranger discussions can go here.

https://greaterthangames.com/forum/topic/analyzing-chrono-ranger-6952

To get this thread back on the rails.

About the above... I do discuss NTDT vs. Wraith's Stun Bolt. Are you certain your combo is more powerful than Wraith's Razor Ordanance + Micro Targetting Computer + Utility Belt + Stun Bolt? That's 5+3 for -1 damage dealt vs. your straight 3. Replace the RO with another SB, and it's 3+3 for -2 damage dealt, literally 2x as effective as the C-R combo you described. Sorry to rain on the parade, but it's not killer. Wraith is the master of attack based damage reduction. (Excluding one-shots that prevent all damage.)

He didn't say that it was better than the Wraith, just that it was really good. Which it kind of is ;).

My combo has one less card, deals the same amount of damage, if we are going on the damage reduction route, and has the potential to do a lot more. You seem to forget the ultimate target's strength is the power use, not the damage. The damage is nice, but if I want extra damage, I look for by any means because it increases everyone's damage to that target. I get ultimate target when I want to use extra powers.

One of the best things about NTDT and Ultimate Target is you can often hit a target with NTDT that just entered play, which is awesome when you are dealing with Voss or Dawn, or anyone with AoE damage minions.

Ooh I hadn't thought of that, thanks

Guise+Mr. Fixer+Sky-Scrapper+Captain Cosmic+Unity

Captain Cosmic and Unity play lots of Constructs/Mechanical Golems

Sky-Scrapper goes huge

Mr. Fixer plays Jack Handle

Guise plays Guise the Barbarian, Lemme See that... on Jack Handle and I Can Do That To! on Sky-Scraper.

Worst case scenario Guise does 14 damage to the villain.

Best case scenario (Against the Matriarch In Time Cataclysm with Fixed Point and as many targets as possible out) 190 damage to all non-hero targets, for best results use Alternating Tiger Claw and Uh, Yeah, I'm That Guy.

Oops, you're right, Humble-Knight, and thanks for noticing my oversight. Thought HaH was in there for some reason so I went to 4 instead of 3.

Stun Bolt + MTC is the correct Wraith combo for exactly 3 and -1 damage dealt. Directly identical and only two cards instead of three. The one advantage for C-R is that everyone else can deal +1 damage to that target, but if I add one extra card to match count, I can add Combat Stance to bump up her damage to compensate. NTDT caps out, though, and doesn't have much to expand the combo unless HaH is indicated as reasonable. The weakness in C-R's is that it is difficult to shift to a new higher priority target, whereas Wraith can select a different priority every turn.

When I play as Jim, I tend to just focus fire on the main villain and leave other targets to the other heroes - we normally have enough damage or nerfing abilities (such as Hypersonic Assault) to deal with anything horrible, meanwhile I'm just constantly pew-pewing away doing double-figures of damage at least once a round depending on Bounty and equipment status - Ultimate Target, By Any Means, the Compounded Bow, and of course the wonderful Hat are my primary set-up. The only time I don't go for the Hat ASAP is if there's an environment/ongoing that really has to be destroyed right now, in which case I'll go for a Grenade if there's no-one else around who can deal with it (I think this has only happened once or twice). By the time everything's been dealt with that isn't the main villain, I've usually done most of the work in whittling down their hp. The only game I can think of where I played Jim and didn't really do very much was at the last London meet-up, but that was because of reasons (the nature of that particular game meant that Jim and a few other characters were playing very differently to normal, otherwise it would've been business as usual).

No matter what hero I play as in a game, I feel like it was a good game for me personally if not only did we win, but I made some kind of contribution to the team. It doesn't matter if that's killing off minions, dealing a lot of damage to the main villain, taking out the really horrible ongoings when they come out, sitting there at the highest hp and tanking for everyone, getting other people to take more actions whilst doing very little for myself (this being my primary tactic as the Adept, though even then I sometimes "tank" by way of giving myself so much healing that even if I get hit a few times I'm back up to max hp on my next turn)…even if I only do one thing that seems super-useful such as playing one particular card or using a power that deals with one really horrible thing that would've caused us a lot of trouble if left out, that still counts so I feel like I did a good job :).

That's a great way of playing the game.

Oh and I agree on everything you said about Jim too

Chrono ranger is great for a high HP main target with tons of other targets game, because while everyone else takes out the adds, Chrono can focus down the main target.

Which, thematically is his style, and he fills it very well.

He can go after other targets too, but he excells at taking out the main threat.

By any Means + Ultimate Target + The Masadah is awesome for taking Voss down while your allies clear the minions.

I recently discovered a neat combo. WW2 Legacy with Prime warden Fanatic and visionary. Once Legacy get motivational charge and Fanatic gets absolution and visionary twist the ether on fanatic. Fanatic uses her power to hit herself for three which reduces by TTE, plays a card and lets leagcy use a power, he heal a hero and lets that hero use a power, Either let him motivational charge for more healing or let fanatic deal extra damage with absolution, Legacy's turn use his power to heal fanatic more and let her use a power, she hits herself then lets legacy motivational charge again. rinse repeat.

Add in Argent Adept, and Captain Cosmic for some Dynamic Syphon/Augmented Ally fun and it gets really crazy.

Don't know if someone allready pointed it, but I had a beautiful Hat trick the other day with our favorite gunslinger.

Villain was Akash'Bhuta. She had three Bounties on her (the damage ones and the healing one), a fourth bouty (the draw 3 cards one) was on one of her members. This was the third time Chrono had this bounty out in this game. He had LOTS of cards in hand. Jim had his hat on.

First play : Hunter and Hunted. Second card play : two draw/play/damage cards, plus another one with damage, each dealin 1+ 4 bounties + 2 bonus from bounties for a total of 21.

Power phase : destroy HaH.

Later, the three bounties on AK were still in play, but the Hat had been destroyed and akash had some damage reduction. I played displaced armory to get the Hat back, gained another card play, for another armory : get the Masadah. Power phase :  3 (bounties)+2 = 5 irreducible ( and a few points from the armory damage went through akash damage reduction).

It was fun. The following game was less favorable to Jim, though :)

In a game this morning, Unity kept "eating" Bunker's Grenade Launcher to put bots in play - while he kept bringing it back again and again from his trash, as he had nothing in hand but "decomissioned hardware". In the same game, Ra spent a lot of time with the Living Conflagration power - and kept using it (and Inferno) to hit unity's bots or Captain Cosmic construct to activate their effects. The Skinwalker won, but I don't have much experience fighting it.

Skinwalker would eat unity an Cap Cos for breakfast as thjey provide more targets to power boost him.

Advanced Voss vs. Bunker, Legacy and Ra... Got the game semi under control, but Bunker died. Luckily, Legacy had the ring, and became immune to energy damage.  Ra, meanwhile, made both he and Legacy immune to fire. Forced Depoloyments were an issue, but when I was down to 1 hp with Legacy and 8 with Ra, I finally found my second Take Down. Bunker allowed 1 to be played every turn and Voss couldn't hurt us. It took ages, but with Ra's one shot and Motivational Charge, Voss went down.

Not sure if this is the proper place for this, as it is more luck than combo, but a buddy and I just had a most epic game.

Kaagra in the Enclave of the Endlings, heroes were Guise, Scholar, and Chrono-Ranger in that order. He was playing Guise and Scholar, I had CR.

It was looking bad, Kaagra ket playing gladiators and we just couldn't muster up good damage. At one point she had all but one of her gladiators and herself on the field.

Right before this happened though, we accidentally began an epic set-up. Mindbreaker had come out, and Guise had been hit by 2 people. I had a power usage from ultimate target and asked my friend if he wanted the 1 damage so he'd get mind breaker and we'd get a point. He said sure. Then next turn Guise got Chaos Lord, then the Indiscriminate, then he played Guise the Barbarian.

On the round he played the barbarian he got hit 3 times, once from me, once from the environment, and then once from the villain. Every time he was hit he drew a card (gritty reboot), dealt 4 damage to every target (scholar reduced by 2 from Iron and I regained 1 from the reckless title for a net of 3), then played the bottom card of his deck which generally either allowed him a power usage which he used to heal, or more card plays and draws.

The final total was 45 points to 16, and that was all my fault. I miss counted how much damage was coming CR's way and mistimed playing Hunter and Hunted, which ended in both him and guise going down. Luckily Scholar, who'd really only sat and tanked the whole game, was able to drop Kaagra by the 16 hp she had left before they finished us, but it was probably mostly luck (thank you Slamara).

Still, we had "The Indiscriminate, Champion Mindbreaker, Chaoslord Guise" and it was worth it... plus CR was "the Reckless Living Weapon", so I guess it was slightly thematic too

Really, really stoked about a combo I just found last night.

On the first turn, Fixer & Nightmist looked at each other's hands, & Nightmist cackled with glee. She could switch her deck & trash on the first turn, & a salvage yard was availible. :-)

Mwa ha ha ha ha ha!

That is awesome.  

That is just spectacular. 

Fun time today.

Adv. Iron Legacy in Rook City.

Tony Taurus comes out, Writhe is lowest and has Caligunous form out.  IL dealt himself 7 damage.

Writhe does wonders against IL all the time, but I've never seen that combo.  Turned one of the toughest matchups possible into a quick loss for Iron Legacy.

I think I found the ultimate healing combo:

World's Greatest Legacy, Fanatic, Tempest

Tempest plays 2 Cleansing Downpours and Otherwordly Resilience

Fanatic plays Embolden

Grandpa Legacy plays The Legacy Ring and Mitivational Charge

Embolden allows Tempest to use both Cleansing Downpours for 2 damage reduced by one for Otherworldly Resiliance. Grandpa uses his base power healing the one damage and giving another Cleansing Downpour. Then with the Ring, Motivational Charge heals 1 more to all hero targets. That's 7 sustained healing to all hero targets every turn. Tempest can also use Elemental Subwave Inducer if Inspiring Presence is out. 

I also throw Haka and Visionary in the mix to add insult to injury. 2 Reclaim from the deeps and 2 ground pounds and 2 Suggestions. With careful use of suggestion you can make sure all equipment and ongoing end up in the trash or Savage Mana.

These two combos have made most bosses my play things with only the environment as a minor threat. With Dominion, Hakkas, Aquatic Correspondence, Localized Hurricane, Bolster Allies, Foresight and Vissionay's base power they are actually quite attainable. I'm currently going through the app to see if there is a Villain I can't beat at max health. I only have advanced left.

One of my most satisfying moments was Advanced Dawn with all minions under Savage Mana and all Deavasting Auroras Blinding Blasts, and Return with the Dawns in the Trash healing everyone 7 HP per turn as I prepare a Flawless victory.

Black out on Iron Legacy is a lot of fun.

Play in Ruins of Atlantis for up to +2 to HP gain! =)

If you can get all of those cards, it would work, but there are only two Cleansing Downpours in Tempest's deck, two Emboldens, Motivational Charge + Ring in the same game often takes a long time, and the game is typically over before half of those cards hit the table.

That's 7 sustained healing to all hero targets every turn.

Normally, Fanatic cannot trigger others to use powers on her Turn, so not per Turn. On AGL's Turn, it's 3 to everyone and 1 to Tempest. On Fanatic, it's nothing. On Tempest's Turn, it's 4 to everything. That's 7 per Round, not per Turn.

You can make this more reliable with PW Fanatic, which also eliminates the need to find Embolden. If you can get it, great, pop it on Tempest.

Add Argent Adept. Add Captain Cosmic.

1. AGL MC's, then heals PW Fanatic and passes power to PWF.

2. PW Fanatic Deals herself 1 damage, plays a card, and passes power to AA.

3. AGL uses Harp to heal himself 2, uses Lyra to deal 1 damage, uses Drum to Heal 5 targets 1, deals 1 damage. Damage is dealt to 2 Dynamic Syphons on Tempest.

4. Tempest Heals all 4.

On Fanatic, AGL, and AA turns, all Heroes can trigger others powers, so this combo happens on their Turns. This, though, can be improved. Put one Dynamic Syphon on AA, instead. Now, anytime anyone wants to trigger the Healing circle just hit the Syphon for <4 damage. AA uses the Harp to pass power to AGL, to PWF, back to AA. AA ends with Pipes and 2 Rhapsody of Vigor, and Tempest is Syphon-triggered for one power use. 6 to everyone, and 2 to AA. Every single Hero Turn.

Unlike the other combo cards you mention, AA can often have the cards I mentioned in game. He has wonderful card search and deck Mill capacity to make it happen, where Tempest can find his two CDs at the bottom of the deck and takes longer getting there. Captain Cosmic getting two Dynamic Syphons is not difficult either, if you're playing his base Innate instead of PWCC, and are not facing a lot of Low HP or All Hero damage that wreck Constructs. Truth is, though, you're better off with Team Leader Tachyon than Fanatic, since Tach can more than double rate the necessary combo cards come out in all decks, and trigger the combo with single HP damage. the Combo itself loses a function, but Tachyon gets everything else in play and working much quicker.

You're right my mistake, I meant round but said turn.  I still think 7 HP to all heroes per round is amazing. 

I have gotten it out on Basic Chairman at Rook City and I plan to have a go at Advanced Chairman at Rook City tomorrow.

You'll have to. That is scheduled for 2016, last I checked.

Too long.

My biggest thing is that the heroes in Vengeance are some of our favorites. My wife is super sad not to get Setback before next year!

Not really a combo but something I found entertaining in a digital game recently: when an Environment target (Escaped Lab Rat) dealt damage to the two lowest non-Environment targets, one of those happened to be an indestructible Cohort of the Matriarch since that Cohort was currently at -2 HP.  If I'd been playing with cards, I probably would've overlooked that and gone for the two lowest targets with HP tokens on them.

I know that feel. Setback, The Sentinels, Parse and Knyfe are all in the list of heros I use frequently when I'm playing (I do like the naturalist, but I don't play him often)

Just a quick sanity check: With all Citizens under Savage Mana and the other cards in the trash, was there anything left to play, or did you shuffle the trash into the deck and have to start facing those cards?

This makes me sad too. Parse and KNYFE are two of my favorites.

I actually can't remember the last time that my wife and I played a game without a Vengeance hero in it.

Late 2015/Early 2016 last time they gave a date on it.

We just battled La Capitan in the Realm of Discord. Mister Fixer, Captain Cosmic, Nightmist, and Ra all present.

Captain Cosmic constructed an Augmented Ally and Cosmic Weapon for Mister Fixer. Fixer, on his own, had Dual Crowbars and adopted Grease Monkey Fist. On a few concurrent turns, Fixer was able to discard at the start of his turn to use the Cosmic Weapon (5 damage to one target, 7 to another) and then play Overdrive (3 damage to one target, 5 to another...twice). Total of 28 damage per turn.

Later on, with Harmony, Imbued Fire, and a Dynamic Siphon all on the board, things got even more crazy. I never realized how well Cosmic would combo with Mister Fixer. He effortlessly hooked Mabel right off her trapeze, and then finished off Siege Breaker. Several times. Meanwhile, Battle Forged wasted all his efforts trying to hit constructs immune to energy damage.

And then Time Flew.

It's funny. Often enough I get the card that makes Cosmic and his constructs immune to Energy damage, and I think, "Wow, that's situational." And then there comes a time when it comes in handy, and it all but wins us the game.

Actually, I think the last time that happened was against La Capitan and Battle Forged.

I can't remember who it was that commented (i think in playtesting first) that Wrath of the Cosmos was essentially the "massive Fixer buff" expansion, since he combos amazingly well with both Captain Cosmic and Sky Scraper.  Even his DW version, which I'm not a huge fan of, is crazy with Sky due to the ability to recycle her Links

Dawn has 12  cards in her deck after all minions are under Savage Mana.  2 each of Devastating Aurora, Blinding Blast, Channel the Eclipse, Healing Light, Luminous Leadership and Return with the Dawn.  With 6 cards in trash that left her 6 cards to play with.  I made sure that everything that played, discarded or destroyed in her trash and used suggestion to keep it that way.

I did make a mistake I meant Channel the Eclipse instead of Return with the Dawn.  

That was me, I was calling it Wrath of the Fixer, largely because I was playing Fixer obsessively and looking through those decks, my goodness they are just amazing for him.  

My favorite is Cortex Hyperstimulator with Jackhandle and Grease monkey.  A free all target attack at the cost of one damage from your first attack?  Awesome.  Of course Compulsion is the best.