Prime Warden Captain Cosmic -- Thoughts?

This worked out so well last time, I thought I'd throw it out there again.  Between Weekly One-Shots and Sentinels Randomizer challenges, I've been seeing a lot of PW CC lately, and perhaps I suffer from an embarassing lack of imagination, but I just find him MUCH less effective than regular CC.  Unlike, say, PW Fanatic's new base power, which can be a total game-changer, PW CC's power is a real downgrade from his regular one, at least to me.  Regular CC's base power is (essentially) a free extra card play or draw every turn, which pairs extremely well with CC's play style, e.g., you want to get as many constructs out there as quickly as possible.  

PW CC's new base power is the ability to (essentially) replace a destroyed construct with a new card play or draw.  While that seems nice -- hey, every time a construct is destroyed, I just pop out a new one! -- there are a few problems with it:

(1) The power by definition does nothing unless a construct is destroyed.  Sometimes you have bad guys/environments that don't damage the low-HP targets.  Unless constructs are being destroyed, then PW CC just becomes a regular CC who plays 1/2 as many cards.

(2) Quite often the thing that kills CC's constructs are AOE damage, so you don't get to replace a construct as soon as it is destroyed.  If you have a villain doing (ex:) 4 points of AOE damage, then any new construct will be killed as soon as it is put into play.

(3) And, call me crazy, but usually I don't want CC's constructs destroyed.  If (ex:) that Dynamic Syphon is out there on Argent Adept, allowing him all sorts of extra songs/draws/powers, I usually try my damndest to keep it alive.  

(4) Maybe this is just my perception, but I don't think that there are *quite* enough constructs in CC's deck for him to be useful without the extra card draw/play that the original base power allows.   Much like Fixer -- where quite often you find yourself with a handful of Riveting Cranes, Tire Irons and Pipe Wrenches, when what you really need is Grease Monkey Fist and the Jack Handle -- I never seem to have enough constructs in my hand, or enough of the right constructs.  With regular CC that's not a problem -- the extra card draw/play every turn can quickly make up for a bad hand.  But with PW CC, I find that quite often a construct gets destroyed, and there's nothing but (ex:) a bunch of Construct Cataclysms or Conservation of Energy-s to play, or the Dynamic Syphon gets destroyed, and all I have to replace it is a Wounding Buffer or Cosmic Weapon that I don't need.  He needs that original base power--with the constant extra card draws/plays--to be able to churn his deck effectively enough to find and pull the best constructs.

(5) ...and that limitation on his deck also limits the base power.  Since PW CC only plays about 1/2 as many constructs as original CC, he has that many fewer opportunities for him to use his power.  Without constructs actually in play to destroy, PW CC's power becomes useless.  Again, if you find yourself with a bad draw, PW CC doesn't have any extra card draw/play to allow him to get his engine going.  

So, are there any PW CC fans out there?  Any folks who *prefer* him to regular CC?  If so, why -- what sort of shenanigans do you use him for?

I mean, flooding the board with Constructs is nice, but I find PWCC's robustness a good draw. Like other CC variants, he suffers from essentially wasting a turn if you want to play something that isn't a Construct, but he works far better on a random team because he doesn't need to be in the first party slot to get the most out of his Constructs. That's one of the big reasons I've never much liked Captain Cosmic, because I do tend to play random teams, and if he's not first or second, you might as well kiss your Constructs goodbye, and fat lot of good they'll be doing.

Of course, I'd much rather play Xtreme Prime Wardens CC and just do all the damage. >.> Talk about a fantastic variant.

I am a person who was excited to play PW Cosmic when he was first announced, then bitterly disappointed in his first (weak) incarnation, and finally elated when he was restored to his current text. I think PW Cosmic is my second favorite (though more plays with XPW Cosmic may change that,) and while he does have distinct weaknesses I think he has a number of strengths that may not be your cup of tea, but certainly are for me. 

1. Yes, if your enemy is not using AoE or hitting the lowest target then PW Cosmic is much less effective for the reasons you stated, but that is a function of the circumstances you're playing under, like how if someone is not destroying golems then Termination Unity is much less effective than her other counterparts. 

2. Imagine this: Mass AoE damage is threatening to kill all of your contructs. With regular Cosmic those are lost completely, maybe you did something useful with Destructive Response, but otherwise you're out of luck. With PW Cosmic you can put that to use: once your first construct is killed you can play Construct Cataclysm to destroy all those constructs that would be killed anyway, draw a card for each of them, and do a lot of damage. Or you can draw twice as many cards from Conservation of Energy. 

Regular Cosmic is about swarming the field and hoping you get something you can use (or that can soak damage,) PW Cosmic is about maintaining your resources and being able to act during a crisis. PW Cosmic gets more mileage out of his One-shots than regular Cosmic (assuming you play them off turn.) 

One aspect about PW Cosmic that I don't think anyone talks about is that over-time your deck's composition shifts towards mostly constructs so in addition to getting double use out of Cataclysm and Conservation your Harsh Offensive becomes more likely to do massive damage (and Harsh Offensive is what makes Unflagging Animation still a worthwhile play at times.) 

3. It's not that you aren't trying to keep them alive, it's that you have something to do when they're taken out. Not always the most useful ability, but when it hits, you're glad it's there. 

4. That's not my perception at least, I often find him with plenty of constructs in hand to go around. He can suffer from bad draws sure, but I've never been without a construct in hand for more than a turn, and if you can get at least one out and a Conservation then your drawing power doubles. 

I view PW Cosmic as I do Unity or Scholar: going in I expect to spend a turn or two just looking for the cards I need to get going, but unlike the two of them even if I'm functioning under par for the first few turns I can still begin to set-up my main mechanic, and if the worst happens then my build-up has been accelerated. 

Even in an AoE-less situation pair him with his fellow Prime Wardens Adept and Fanatic. Let Adept feed him card draws and plays and let Fanatic do an out of turn Final Dive on a construct and I think you'll see that with a little bit of time he can drastically alter the game state in just one construct reaction. 

For those trying to get the hang of base Captain Cosmic I agree you want him first but he does fine even last in hero turn order.  In Vengeance games it really doesn't matter which turn order he is at.  

Can you expand on this? I'm not quite seeing exactly how that works.

I think the idea is that Constructs are continuing to get shuffled into your deck but one-shots remain in your hand/trash.  

PW cosmic is best when you can get some constructs out, but they will be facing destruction.

Then you hols onto your one-shots that destroy your constructs.  If a big wave would destroy your constructs, you let it destroy one, then play a one shot and voluntarily destroy all the other constructs that would be destroyed by damage.

That's the major value in PW Cosmic, using one-shots to destroy constructs that were already going to be destroyed.

Yeah that's it. Over time more constructs than non-constructs will be in your deck so Harsh Offensive will reveal more on average. 

On top of this, since you can also draw/play a card for each destruction, as long as you have at least one construct out, Construct Cataclysm essentially can become "destroy all Constructs in play and in your hand". Plus if you draw then play more constructs, you could further increase Construct Cataclysm damage - maybe 50% more or so.

> (2) Quite often the thing that kills CC's constructs are AOE damage, so you don't get to replace a construct as soon as it is destroyed.  If you have a villain doing (ex:) 4 points of AOE damage, then any new construct will be killed as soon as it is put into play.

Since PW CC can react to construct destruction, he can damage and hopefully destroy whatever is dealing the AOE damage before it can damage other party members (kinda like Chrono-Ranger's Ultimate Target, or ExPat's HairTrigger Reflexes).

If he can't, then I would use this opportunity to just draw cards and find the cards/constructs you need.  If you have in hand a construct you don't need, you can play it, let it get destroyed and draw a new card.  I actually find PW CC more likely to get the constructs I want because of this.

I agree that if your constructs aren't getting destroyed then it's less effective.  But if they aren't getting destroyed, for me that usually means the heroes are having a good game and are in control of things :)

You could always destroy one yourself to start the chain.

I do find PWCC starts a little slower, but like others said, he gains the ability to react to huge AOE attacks in some pretty huge ways. Plain CC, if such an attack comes out, can't do anything beyond a 1 hp plink before watching the rest of his Constructs vanish, while PWCC can potentially strike back and stop whatever's hitting everybody before it hits anyone but that first Construct. Or, failing that, he can draw like a madman and then he's ready for anything.

Basically, CC is proactive, PWCC is reactive. Given the way the damage scaling works, I tend to go with plain CC in a 3-4 hero game (where his Constructs will mostly take 1-2 damage at a time), while PWCC is better suited to a 5-hero game (where they might be facing multiples of 3 or 4 hp attacks).

Against Plague Rat today I took down Plague Locust with PW Cosmic playing disruption and cataclysm and playing a Dynamic Syphon.  With Destructive Response and a +1 that was 11 damage and another 3 for the syphon power, dropping the damage to the heroes to 1.

I've done it to the EPE being played by Pillars of Hercules on the app.  It is a lot of fun, and with the updated card text a legitimitely viable way to play him. 

Prime Warden CC is my favorite in any game with extra card play from your deck.

Although the Best is using Santa Guise to switch between Requittal, Play with Madness and Absorption.

Getting Guise to use Requital is amazing. XD

I think you mean Completionist Guise.

I find that Augmented Ally is actually the key to Prime Wardens CC. Once you have the ally you can use it at the start of your turn to activate your base power and use that with the combo of your choice. My personal favorite is Conservation of Energy as you can really reset the field to the current game state. Hope this helps. 

That's fantastic!