Weekly One-Shot #19: Picnic, Interrupted.

Kaargra Warfang

VS

Captain Cosmic, Argent Adept, Fanatic, Tempest, Haka

IN

Insula Primalis.

Owwwwwwwww.

Got this on my second attempt.  Word of advice don't play Ta Moko or Energy Bracer you'll regret it.

Yeah that was not pleasant. Other changes I had to make on my second attempt: changing the number of targets destroyed before round three(?) so that Kaargra didn't gain Chaos Lord, and rewinding several times to get around the evil, evil second Fickle Fans. Near-Mint, in the end.

Also, I found what I think is a bug? If you flip Kaargra from back to front with Divine Focus at the start of her turn with no Gladiators in play then she'll flip straight back, when in theory that trigger has already passed, since Divine Focus is the newer card. I think.

I would tend to agree that she shouldn't flip back.   Another piece if you can grab it is Living Weapon for Tempest.  

Got mint.

I didn't know that it was made so that chos lord was supposed to go under kaargra but I managed to avoid it by having CC destroy most of his own constructs after the round he played them which triggered a title being played so I guess I got lucky there but it also hlped that Tempest was able to get death caller with flash flood later as well.

got mint too pretty easy

Mint.  I brought out an energy bracer, even knowing the risk, and a bloodsworn grabbed Seeker.  So I killed him, and then Haka punched Tempest and claimed it for the heroes.  Temepst got Living Weapon.  CC got Deathcaller when he sacced a construct, and I actually used it in the last round killing a bloodsworn.  Bloodsworn had 18 favor at the end - an unlucky Fickle Fans very nearly cost me this, but fortunately a well timed Ground Pound kept them from gaining any more favor, except for one from the Hivemind.  AA got Chaos Lord on the last turn, although at that point it was pretty useless.

> I didn't know that it was made so that chos lord was supposed to go under kaargra but I managed to avoid it by having CC destroy most of his own constructs after the round he played them which triggered a title being played so I guess I got lucky there but it also hlped that Tempest was able to get death caller with flash flood later as well.

I wouldn't say that it was made for Kaargra to grab Chaos Lord.  The rate at which titles come out is extremely dependant on what the heroes do and what targets they destroy.  I would say that Kaargra getting Chaos Lord with Bloodsworn Judgement isn't particularly more likely than her getting any other title.

Energy Bracer wasn't what got me but it put me in bad situation allowing the tryragon to get the Seeker Title.  Since I wasn't able to take out Kaargra that following round the Fickle Fans ended it even though I had over 20 favor before that.  

Got mint by the skin of my teeth.  Went into the final round with Kaargra in the arena with 10 hp left and 19 favor vs 14 for the heroes.  Luckily I had left Obsidian Fields in play (Haka had Ground Pounded so the gladiators couldn't use it against me), so I let loose with all the damage I could muster (helped by AA giving Tempest an extra round of boosted AoE damage) and was able to knock her out and get to 20 favor before the end of the round.

Fun fact: this Weekly One-Shot was crowd sourced from the comments in the Season 2 Kickstarter!

I got Mint. Kaargra Warfang got The Seeker because of damage reduction, but I destroyed it in round three via Cedistic Dissonant. Bloodsworn Judgment gave Kaargra Champion which wasn't bad at that point since I had lost my damage reduction by that point. Tempest got The Living Weapon, turning his base power into "Deal each non-hero target 3 projectile damage", which was sick. The other titles didn't matter that much.

Mint.

I put Living Weapon on Fanatic for some serious single target ouchie.

Also, just thought I'd ask, who else read the description and was disappointed when Fanatic didn't start with Absolution?

Near Mint.  Made some miscalculations in the first go-round that let the Bloodsworn get to 20 favor the round before I could clear Kaagra off the board.  Second go round, had to rewind once to prevent Kaagra from getting Chaos Lord, then got Captain Cosmic to obtain it, Champion, and Death Caller thanks to Conservation of Energy.  BTW, Chaos Lord + Unflagging Animation is DUMB.  I also managed to have Cosmic Crest gain Stone Jaw, which was kinda amusing.  Tempest had Living Weapon and Argent Adept gained Unbreakable that game.  And thanks to an Energy Barrier, Obsidian Field, and a well timed Fickle Fans, I managed to have Argent Adept gain The Seeker while having Dymkharn and Orrim kill themselves.

Me! I wrote the description after setting up the game (it just has a seed I found playing a couple of times, nothing specifically searched for) and didn't even think of that. Also, Captain Cosmic should have started with a Pernicious Picnic Table construct in hand.

Near Mint.

Those darn Fickle Fans completely messed me up in game one with Kaarga down to 3HP and me leading 28 to 16. Got my revenge, with Tempest picking up Living Weapon, Adept giving him an extra round of damage, and everyone else hitting Kaarga. Final Score: Team Yogi's Heroes 28 Kaarga's Chumps 10.

Mint - the key for me, I think, was I didn't really like any of Fanatic's turn 1 plays so I dropped Divine Favor and pitched everything but Prayer of Desperation.  Prayered turn 2 and that drew me into the Wrathful Ret that eventually one-shot Kaarga for the win the turn after Haka Ground-Pounded

Near Mint. Fickle Fans got me the first time. I think what helped the second time was leaving Tarnis with enough HP to soak the Velociraptor hit so Tempest could take him out and get Living Weapon. Because Tempest with Living Weapon is amazing. And then I pretty much just focused on Kaargra until she flipped.

Mint but it was a nail biter.  Turn before the first Fickle Fans heroes were winning 6-5.  Then Obsidean Field and Fickle Fans hit and by the end of Kaagra's turn it was 19-2 (AA earned unbreakable, Kaarga was an indicriminate seeker). The heroes lanched an epic comeback lead by Living Weapon Tempest with out of turn power use from AA.  Haka's plan was to ground pound but when Stone Jaw came out after AA had already used his power the only way to pull out the win was to have Haka use Taiha on an Energy Bracer to trigger Sustained Influence.  By the villain turn it was 17-19 villains lead and when the second Fickle Fans hit the heroes went up 22-14.  That was the final score as Tempest dealt the killing blow on AA's turn in what may have been one of the most epic Sentinels games I've ever played. 

A very close mint for me. I had the Favor, but getting Kaarga to flip almost allowed the Gladiators to get to 20 first, they ended on 19. On my last turn, with Tempest's (title enhanced) base power I triggered Mindbreaker into CC's Construct that when damaged allowed for a power use for the damage needed to flip. All and all a great game.

Whew.

This one took me three tries.  The second Fickle Fans ruined my first attempt, and in my second go-round I coulda, shoulda had it, but made a couple of silly mistakes at the end.

Third time is the charm in the Bloodsworn Colosseum!

Turns out Tempest with Living Weapon is pretty good.

Mint. The thing to remember about Captain Cosmic is in the Coliseum is his constructs are excellent targets for the Heroes to destroy! They can make it easy to get certain titles.  

Third try for me as well! Took some creative title gathering. Cosmic used his destroy constructs to play cards one shot, grabbing chaos lord, champion, and death caller. Then Unflagging Animation pinging him to trigger chaos lord.

Mvp for taking down kaargra herself though was fanatic. For much the same reason as tempest on the rest of your turns. I used a cosmic weapon to pierce cosmics energy bracer, nabbing seeker and triggering chaos lord, and then killed tarnis for a living weapon. Living weapon seeker fanatic with a dynamic siphon and argent adept is a MONSTER at single target death dealing.

Mint, but I really thought I was going to fail that one. Luckily I had played Ground Pound on the turn when 5 tokens were moved from my pool to the enemy, bringing them up to 19 and me down to 11. Managed to squeak out the 9 favor tokens (actually finished on 22) and also bring Kaargra down from 20-ish in the next round to get the Mint in Haka's last turn.

Same here – the second Fickle Fans killed it.  I was ahead 23 favor points to 18, Haka had just played Ground Pound, my heroes had plenty of health (around 7-9 HP apiece), and I had more than enough damage readied to put Kaargra into the ground the next round.  None of the gladiators who give out favor points were on the board, and there was no way Kaargra was going to pick up any favor points by whacking my heroes…except she played Fickle Fans, got her 20 favor points instantly, and I died without firing a shot.  

I think Kaargra is my most frustrating villain for that reason:  No other villain's deck makes blind luck as big of a factor.    I've played about 10-20 matches against Kaargra, and have never lost by her incapping all of my heroes.  If she beats me, it's always because of the favor points mechanism, and usually either because of a last-minute Fickle Fans, or because she gets some crazy opening draw that starts her off at 10+ favor points before I've had a chance to do anything.  

Kaargra's deck isn't set up to incap the heroes, so that's not surprising.  Given that your goal isn't to defeat the Bloodsworn either, it makes sense that the deck is set up to gain titles and win the favor of the crowd instead.

Regarding blind luck, wait until we get Wager Master.   I'm really looking forward to his Weekly One-Shot, even if it's a random one (as that would actually be appropriate for him).

I got Mind on first try and feel very proud of myself for that. 

I don't disagree about Fickle Fans - but for my money, "Motley Crew" is my single most hated card in the game, in terms of going from 0-60.  (I'm sure there are at least five different cards in Infinitor's deck that would contend for that title if I had more experience playing him)  At least a bad "Fickle Fans" is a quick mercy killing: "Motley Crew" usually cascades into La Cap's whole squad re-entering play and 2-3 consecutive card plays that eat all my stuff.  That's some grade A bull poop that does not kickstart my heart.

Yeah, La Capitan wouldn't be so bad if she only had one type of "flood the field with minions" card. I can't tell you how many times I've just ragequit out of a game because she emptied her trash of minions, then drew all of them out of the deck at the same time.

It's official. I hate Kaarga Warfang. The Arena twits have some potential, but I'm finding anything but a high damage strategy non-viable, and that makes it more boring than not to me. Only did her twice in the card game prior to this.

It makes sense, though -- a blood crazed crowd isn't going to care about strategy and finesse, they wanna see people get stomped.

It's one of the things I both love and don't love about this game -- that characters, villains and environments will have cards and such that are thematically appropriate, but not necessarily mechanically optimal.