Akash'Bhuta is wreaking havoc in The Block. Mr. Fixer, K.N.Y.F.E., Prime Wardens Tempest, Freedom Six Absolute Zero, and Ra.
The description sounds like a sci-fi horror genre flick. Dead Space, anyone? Then again, I wouldn't wanna be stuck in a para-dimensional prison where a plant person is tearing apart walls.
Target heavy environment so Akash'Bhuta is especially dangerous this time.
I got by with a Mint, but it was dicey. Fixer was at 1, KNYFE at 2, and Ra managed to fight his way up to 7 with repeated Staff plays. I lucked into realizing that F6 AZ's incap power is well-suited for this fight.
My suggestion: Kill off AZ and watch as Akash's play engine crumbles.
You can keep them all alive and still win. Considering the damage being laid out I like keeping AZ alive.
Mint, with everyone but KNYFE and Ra dead.
Be extra careful with this one. Imbued Fire screws with AZ and KNYFE (not that I ever saw hide nor hair of any of her damage boosts), and Grease Gun will kill Akash'bhuta's self damage. And the Block makes Akash'bhuta much scarier than normal.
Mint. Plus I got pretty good milage out of excavation and flawless execution... 2 cards I rarely use.
I played Imbued Fire immediately, making sure I never dealt Absolute Zero cold damage unintentionally, but I had no need to deal him cold damage anyway. I played Grease Gun after a Primeval Eruption, but then realized Akash'bhuta couldn't deal herself damage with that out, so I just stalled a round instead of killing everything like I had originally planned. I played Subzero Atmosphere smartly, making sure not to destroy it during Akash'bhuta's play phase, and actually spared the team a lot of damage from Living Rockslides (actually, no Rockslide ever dealt damage, which was cool). The last round featured a lot of shenanigans, between K.N.Y.F.E.'s Incidental Contact comboing with Flawless Execution, Incidental Contact and Imbued Fire having Absolute Zero do damage twice on K.N.Y.F.E.'s turn, Hoarfire doing a lot of damage because of Absolute Zero hitting himself for fire three times, and finishing with Ra's Inferno also hitting Absolute Zero in addition to Akash'bhuta and all Primeval Limbs. She had started that round at 95 HP.
The only unfortunate thing was that Tempest could not deal damage after the second round, due to the annoying Brambles (though he was partially responsible for it, having thrown one into the stratosphere...).
Not sure how people are beating this one. She just plays too many cards, and there's probably too much shuffling to come up with any decent strategies. I've so far had three completely different losses in a row, and all I can say is play Aquatic Correspondence first turn so you can get that Ball Lightning sooner.
Well, if you want to see how I did it, my video just got uploaded: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjT7j7xyJLs
So I followed that video.
And I think the clincher is Stratosphering that one Brambles so the environment doesn't play two Primeval Eruptions in a row. (Along with Subzero Atmosphere.) I have to wonder if the theme here isn't "cards you never play". <.<
I didn't do either of those and ended with a team still out there. As to playing cards you don't typically I didn't feel that was the case at all.
Near Mint.
The only thing atypical I did was play Imbue Fire with AZ on the table. I don't normally do that, but after losing the first game, I decided I needed the extra damage more than the potential healing. Admittedly, I also used a bit of gained foreknowledge in order to play the Grease Gun before the Prison Riot made the super turn happen, but that was more foresight than atypical.
Don’t think anyone mentioned it here yet, but the name and the setup is based on a post on the Steam forums.
Fine.
Boy, I had a series of very close games that didn't quite make it. In the second game, with only Mr. Fixer and KNYFE left (Fixer at 2HP, and KNYFE at 1HP) I thought I had it perfectly set up for the win. Char would be brought back by Tempest's incap power to clear the board of dmaged limbs and wipe out Akash'Bhuta. Turns out, I forgot to factor in that because Ra had recently been incapped, Imbued Fire was no longer in play. This did clear the board of limbs, but becasue of my brainfart, Akash'bhuta was left with 1HP. Then Char burned the heroes to a crisp. Ugh.
Watched LewdDolphin's video--the main difference between my play and his was that he had Tempest play Localized Hurricane to draw a bunch, which led to an Into the Stratosphere that I never saw in my games. That proves to be a BIG factor -- by gumming up the villain deck and making that Prison Riot/Primeval Eruption combo less scary (still scary, but less so).
Anyway, I finally beat it.
Near Mint for me. First attempt got crushed when Prison Riot emptied the environement deck and played back to back Primeval Eruptions. Second attemp I deliberately murdered Absolute Zero right out of the gates and played the rest of the game without an Environment deck at all, which completely neutered Akash.
Mint here, all standing except Tempest, who was laid low by the mighty KNYFE after the player demonstrated his inability to do basic math (completely forgot about Localized Hurricane). His first two turns unconcious were key, however, as he killed off an Entomb that was played when Knyfe killed off one of the Block's residents, and played a Lockdown to kill off Char.
It got a little hairy after I got her down to 50, when she then wiped my Equpis and Ongoings, but Knyfe killed off Arboreal Philanges while she was at 11 with a Carapace (sp) out.
When/how did you ever see Subzero Atmosphere? I'm in the middle of my first (and looking to be unsuccessful) try – I'm on at least Round 5 or so (the first Prison Riot/Eruption has come), and there's no Subzero Atmosphere in sight. I played Sub-Zero's "grab your favorite module from the deck then draw a card" card – maybe that made my shuffle different than yours?
Near-Mint. On my second try, I used LewdDolphins Imbued Fire + SubZero Atmosphere trick (side note: I never had a chance to play SZA my first go-round; it never showed up), and ended up with everyone alive except Tempest. He probably would have made it as well, but I used his power first round to play a bunch of one-shots, which really knocked down his HP.
Fixer was the big disappointer this match. I never got either of his big Akash-blasting weapons (Dual Crowbars or Jack Handle) into his hands, so he was reduced to 2- or 3-HP shots every round, except for the times he played Overdrive. Not great contributions out of KNYFE, either, since she never got her Blade or Gauntlets in hand, but the Imbued Fire helped her damage a bundh. Ra was the MVP, between playing Imbued Fire, then pulling out a coupled of IF/Staff-powered Scorched Earths, and one neat round where the Flesh of the Sun God allowed KNYFE to use Incidental Contact without hurting the heroes.
So how'd you pull it off? I read the comments on the forum, but still tried to play my first game "straight," as if I didn't know what was coming. Was actually doing so-so, maybe a chance of winning, until an environment play forced out an Entomb that I couldn't do anything about. That killed 3 heroes and knocked the others down to 2HP and 1HP respectively, with Akash still at about 100 HP. As it stands, killing off AZ to get rid of the environment play seems like the safest way to beat it. The multiple shuffles seem to prevent any other consistent strategy – I never saw "Subzero Atmosphere," for example, so LewdDolphin's strategy was right out.
You can watch how LewdDolphin played it by going here https://youtu.be/QjT7j7xyJLs
As to my game I feel the big keys was playing Grease Gun right before the Prison Riot and opening up Ra's first turn with Imbued Fire.
Those were the key for me as well, though for me Grease Gun was played after Prison Riot to buy me some time to deal with all the targets. The other key move I made was moving 3 non-target environment cards from the environment trash to the bottom of an empty environment deck using Excavation to buy a few rounds of peace.
The utility of Excavation in this scenario really cannot be overstated. :)
I can see that but I did not use it for this game.
I got it on my third turn by playing my third Onboard Module Installation. What you get definitely changes based on which Modules you select, since the differing deck contents would affect the deck shuffle.
I got it out for a round, too.
I think I sacrificed it to Fueled Freeze (should have sacced Localized Hurricane, instead.)
Mint.
I had everyone focus on AZ round 1, including having Tempest unload on him with multiple slashes. He Was at 3 HP on Akash's 2nd turn, and she finished him off with an Entomb.
After that, it was a steady game. No environment, and we methodically pounded her into dust. She had a nasty round at the end with a primeval eruption bringing out multiple rockslides, but without any ability to play cards during the environment turn, it was nothing we couldn't handle.
Poor AZ
I know, right?
dramatic voice He doesn't HAVE to die!
(unlike Tempest in the previous one)
Mint. This was easier than I expected, given the setup. I just kept knocking everything out round-by-round until her megaturn. The most critical decisions I had to make were these: - At one point, I had to choose whether Tempest or F6AZ would take a hit, making them the lowest HP, making them the target of the Brambles. I chose Tempest; despite the fact that he had two Lightning Slashes in hand, I figured keeping AZ around with Cold Snap + Imbued Fire would be worth more through the course of the game. Plus, Tempest could actually do stuff without dealing damage (Aquatic Correspondence, Subwave Inducer, Ball Lightning). - I had 7 Ongoings out when AB decided she was destroying 5 Ongoings. I kept Cold Snap and Impale out, destroying everything else (Imbued Fire, Battlefield Experience, Flawless Execution, Grievous Hailstorm, and Living Conflagration.) Basically, I had another copy of three of those in hand already, and blowing up BE made me draw another one anyway, so no big loss. Akash'Bhuta's mega-turn ended up being painful, but I still had Grease Gun, so I threw that out and used the round off to chip away at Mountainous Carapaces and recover my Ongoings (and Isothermic Transducer) that got destroyed. Once Imbued Fire was back out, I went berserk in the final round and took down her entire board, including a glorious Imbued Fire-boosted Incidental Contact that caused AZ to deal out an additional 6 damage. We finished the job on Ra's power usage before she could start going through her freshly reshuffled deck. Mr. Fixer (12 HP) - Could have been a lot more useful, actually, but having so many copies of Charge and Overdrive was enough. Never played any equipment (only saw Tire Iron), only got to play Grease Monkey Fist right at the end. KNYFE (10 HP) - Punch stuff with base power, used Energy Burn ASAP when it came up, threw out a couple Ongoings that didn't help much. Incidental Contact was her finest moment. PW Tempest (7 HP) - Lots of Hailstorm until it got blown up, used Ball Lightning to knock out an Entomb despite being unable to do damage. Never used his base power. Somehow never got around to using Lightning Slash, which felt weird. I did use a Chain Lightning though. F6 Absolute Zero (5 HP) - Pulled Transducers with each Onboard Module Installation I got. Cold Snap first, then Impale, then just kept chipping away at things with his base power. Used Fueled Freeze as soon as I got it, destroyed one of KNYFE's ongoings to make it 2 damage (in addition to destroying the Allies of the Earth). Only hit him with fire twice (Incidental Contact). Guess I could have done it again, but I didn't know I'd have the HP to spare. I got Subzero Atmosphere one turn too late for it to have done any good. Ra (9 HP) - Imbued Fire, Staff, start burning things. I threw out Conflagration as a one-shot but never used the power. Good thing, too, as I only got A'B dead by a margin of 2 HP on Ra's last turn, and who knows what that next turn would have been. Anyway, he finally got to throw out Inferno on the last turn. - I tried it again by annihilating F6AZ as fast as possible (round 2) and stunlocking the environment - the final HP values then were 17, 15, 13, 0, 21. Probably could have done a little better than that, it made the battle utterly trivial. A'B didn't even survive to play a Rockslide.
Got a Near Mint after a few critical early mistakes in the first game.
Absolute Zero was a big damage dealer in my winning game, couldn’t have done it without him. I got Thermal Shockwave out, which combined with Isothermic Transducer and Imbued Fire was doing 2 damage 4 times each round with only 1 damage to himself.
KNYFE didn’t have her own buffs, so she took advantage of the fire as well. Do I want to hit AZ a second time with Incidental Contact? Yes, yes I do.
Like has been said, Excavation was really handy to help keep Akash from flipping and giving a little respite from limbs. And of course Ra bounced a little Inferno damage off Zero when he ran out of targets.
Tempest spent a few turns unable to do damage, but still contributed with a Ball Lightning and some Correspondence on those rounds. Did some damage on other rounds with a burning Hurricane.
Not Fixer’s best match but he did 2-5 damage most rounds.
I enjoyed arranging for Guards to hit limbs when they were out. I even let Char get the killing blow on Akash.
Everyone was up at the end, though Tempest was at 1 and Absolute Zero was at 2.