Weekly One-shot #39: Turning of the Seasons

Progeny against Captain Cosmic, Sky-Scraper, and Guise in the Dok'Thorath Capital made sure to read the intro for a chuckle before taking this on.  Good luck!

Mint. A tough but fun battle Sky-Scraper fell on the last Villain turn but Guise and Cosmic avenged her. Intersestingly, at around the half-way point of the battle Cosmic was on 7 HP while Sky was at 21, but by the battle's end Cosmic had healed up to 14 and Sky was incaped. Most valuable card was Cosmic Crest; paired with a dynamic syphon on Capt. Cosmic I managed to go the whole game losing only 1 construct (and that was on the first round).

Not a lot of room for error on this one.   If possible you gotta take out the Ziggarat or you will be in for some hurt.  

For once I had a mighty struggle with this one. Ultimately I got the Mint, with an incapped Captain Cosmic, 2 HP Sky-scraper, and 3 HP Guise. My first Thorathian Monolith got played right before Obvious Futility got played, so Sky-scraper took a lot of damage I hadn't intended on. Cosmic Crest didn't last, but it entered play long after Progeny had flipped and so wasn't that useful (though it would've helped with various environment things...). Ultimately I threw in a bunch of damage in the last couple rounds, thanks to the fun combination of Time of Tribulations and Compulsion Canister on Progeny.

I probably would've had a better time if I had destroyed Scion of Blight instead of Scion of Frost. This team is very good at drawing additional cards, so having to discard a card for Progeny's first turn-damage isn't as bad as it could be otherwise. It would have enabled me to do better work at hitting Progeny and keeping his HP low.

In all honesty, I'm very bad at playing Progeny. I've heard a lot of people say Progeny is the easiest difficulty 4 villain (and some say he shouldn't even be considered difficulty 4), but I still struggle with him a lot. Granted, I struggle with all difficulty 4 villains (except Matriarch, for some reason), but I've yet to figure out good strategies for Progeny.

Failed the first one...Guise made a valiant stand at the end and brought Progeny under 40 HP, but it wasn't enough.  I left Scion of Frost around...and I wonder if I had gotten rid of it if I would have dealt enough damage.

On to the next try!

I failed miserably. Not sure what y'all did to get mint. Grats on that!

What UXM266 said. That was a dramatic trouncing. First non-Mint in a bit. I even ousted Frost scion instantly and dealt with discards admirably. I have a few ideas of how to try to do better next time, but... eesh.

Near Mint. Got him down to 4 my first try, took him out my second. Guise was a heavy damage dealer in this one, and Cosmic keeping him alive was pretty important. Repeated Thorathian Monoliths were helpful, too.

The Ziggurat wasn’t really an issue; the environment was actually pretty helpful. The real key was taking out Scion of Frost BEFORE Blight. Obviously Storm had to go second, but the first game I got rid of Blight first. If I hadn’t, I would have won; the stalling he got from his healing kept me from winning.

Ugh, these decks seem intentionally engineered to limit the number of good combos available. Putting all Guise’s useless Lemme See That… cards up front was evil, and having all Sky-Scraper’s leading Tiny cards be Undetectable Relinking slowed me down a lot. The Orbital Bombardment/Obvious Futility is also suspiciously timed, almost like they wanted me to go for Monolith…

Of course, leaving Progeny with the Scion of Frost the whole game might have been a factor in my second-game loss with him at 10 HP. He ought to have flipped and done Radiant damage on himself, grumble grumble.

I did get some fun Aggression Modulator shenanigans, one medium Construct Cataclysm, and once, ONCE during that slog I had the glorious Guise the Barbarian/Blatant Reference combo, with a Dynamic Siphon to boot.

Well, next time I try, I might give everybody the Micro-Assembler to force some shuffles.

And that worked! This time, I tried leaving Progeny with the Scion of Blight, and I used one of the early turns where the villain/environment synched up such that I would’ve drawn two to instead give Guise the Micro-Assembler and have him shuffle. He got much better performance with a rearranged deck!

Then it was a matter of having Guise and Cosmic hide behind Sky-Scraper’s Huge body and an army of Constructs. Dynamic Siphons on both of them were fantastic. I managed to get some Freedom Fighters and the Rebel Headquarters in the game, too.

I would not have thought about using Micro Assembler to get a shuffle but depending upon when you do the shuffle the results would be different.   I thought everyone's performance was fine even not doing that.   Melty McMeltface against a three hero team is rough matchup he gets easier in a five hero matchup.   

Second go-around went much better.

Got rid of Frost first, and while it wasn't easy, the heroes managed the win.

Sky-Scraper (tiny) was incapped at the very end, Cosmic and Guise each had 8HP.

Getting rid of Frost is key. You have enough card draw, and dump cards, that are useless against Progeny, that his Scion of Blight, is not as scary. My first few games I got rid of Blight and barely scratched him. 

Here is the evil thing I did to set up this game:

• Go to the New Game screen and choose the villain, heroes, and environment

• Press Fight

• Play through the game, decide it's a good one, record the starting seed.

• ???

• Evil!

He admits to being evil! 

So I just have a case of pareidolia. Guess I’d better go get that checked…

My first turn, if anyone is interested, was to put Cosmic Weapon on Guise, then on his turn he used I can Do That Too to use his base power, play the SECOND I Can Do That Too and copy Surveillance, and then use Cosmic Weapon for some decent damage.

I also had a cool turn where Guise copied Destructive Response, with Guise the Barbarian.

And I may have found a bug; if he copies Unflagging Animation, Guise hits Captain Cosmic at the end of Cosmic’s turn. It should change Cosmic’s name to Guise, so not only should it trigger at all then, it should read, “at the end of Guise’s turn, Guise deals himself 1 Infernal Damage.” He shouldn’t be hitting Captain Cosmic.

It is a bug I know they are aware of.  

Ok, good. I wish i had been, because it killed Cosmic on that turn.

Christ almighty that was a BRUTAL fight, but I still managed the Mint by the very skin of my teeth. Despite managing to get Sky Scraper KO'ed on her huge side, which completely nulifies all of Progeny's built-in damage (he REALLY loves wailing on her corpse!) it still ended up with Cosmic on 1 and Guise at 3. Nailbiting right up until the very end! Loved it. :)

Near mint.

Second game, let Sky-Scraper get ko'd while huge to act as an indestructible meat shield. Threw a Wounding Buffer on her for good measure. Did double-draws with Guise and Cosmic for the first two rounds, knowing I was going to not be able to play anything in the second round anyway and any constructs I put in play would get blasted by the Orbital Bombardment. Finished with Guise standing alone with 2 hp.

Mint on Mobile, and it was a close one, helped by knowing what was coming. Managed to keep everyone alive, with one big thing being having Cortex Hyperstimulator on Progeny for half the game and, in conjunction with that, leaving Scion of Flame out a little longer than I might normally have. A handy Rebounding Debilitator + Time of Tribulations being played the same turn Progeny flipped ended up being a turn where he did 5 damage to himself and none to me. Guise ended up doing most of the last stretch thanks to Super Kawaii, Guise the Barbarian and and Dynamic Syphon, and Sky-Scraper finished things off with a Colossal Left Hook --> Explosive Reveal and Cosmic Weapon.

Mint on my phone. The first time I played this I kept Frost around so this time I went with Blight. Blight is definitely easier. Highlight of the match was playing Compulsion Canister on Guise to get him under 10 HP.