Unexpected combinations

I recently discovered a fun card interaction: Caspit’s Playground (Freedom Tower) and Micro-Assembler (Skyscraper). It lets you search your deck for any ongoing (or equipment) card, super useful for some characters.

What are some unexpected interactions you’ve found in the game?

This is an interaction I found last week: If damage dealt by incidental contract is redirected the new target may be dealt the 1 additional energy damage rather than the original target. So in a 5 hero game Wrong Time and Place can turn Incidental Contact into 12 separate attacks against the villain. Add Twist the Either and KNYFE’s damage boosts and this can become 48 damage to the villain at the cost of only 5 unlucky tokens. In the process of discovering this I dropped Ambuscade from full HP to incapped in a single turn.

Another interaction I discovered a while ago but enjoy putting to use is that Hippocractic Oath can heal for 1 extra point if you target The Idealist (or Mainstay/Writhe if thier signatures aren’t out) with Medico’s initial attack due to Sentinels Nemesis Bonus.

Lastly, team up Santa Guise and Freedom 6 Tempest. Tempest can target his presents with his base power (though Guise may not appreciate you returning his gifts).

Hippocratic Oath also works wonders if Medico gets Infected - free healing for someone at the start of your turn? Yes please! :D

Speaking of Infection, that was something I loved about Fixer’s Jack Handle: It negates any self damage.

Wait. What?! That is amazing. I had not idea you could do that.

Speaking of the Jack Handle, this is from the fireside chats.  I haven't tried it yet, but it sounds interesting -- give Fixer a second Jack Handle attack for free:  

• Suppose Mr. Fixer would deal 1 damage to a target. Due to Jack Handle, Mr. Fixer deals the 1 damage to all non-hero targets, then Friendly Fire lets him deal 2 to Setback, which becomes 2 to all non-hero targets, and then stops. Setback does not get to add 2 tokens to his Unlucky Pool, as he was not damaged this way.

It works quite well.  Add Charge or Overdrive or Plague Rat's infection for more fun.  Also see Compulsion Cannister and Catch A Ride.

Even more fun?

Mr. Fixer + Dual Crowbars + Friendly Fire. Back when we were figuring out the best strategy to unlock DW Setback, we realized that combo can take out The Operative in one turn.

Throw in Fixed Point, and you've basically won, so long as you can win via reducing HP to 0.

Kinda sucks for Setback, but it's a little fitting that his most broken combo requires him having the everloving hell beaten out of him.

I haven't had my caffeine dose today, so I'm having trouble envisioning it.  Is it something like this?

1.  Fixer hits Operative with Dual Crowbars – first strike of the turn (1), hit 1 of 2 (I'll call this Hit 1-1 to keep track)

2.  Friendly Fire activates, allowing Fixer to hit Setback for 2 HP (Hit 2-1) then Dual Crowbars kicks in, allowing Fixer to do a second augmented hit for 2 +1 (Dual Crowbars) + (any other buffs) to Operative (Hit 2-2)…

3 …which activates Friendly Fire again, allowing Fixer to hit Setback for 2 HP (Hit 3-1), which again makes Dual Crowbars kick in, allowing Fixer to do a second augmented hit to Operative (Hit 3-2)…

4. …which activates Friendly Fire yet again…and so forth.

Is this a never-ending loop that only stops when Setback is incapped?

Yup. Every time you hit Operative lets you activate Friendly Fire again, with the only limit being Setback's HP. Throw in a Silver Lining and even that isn't the limit.

I did this for the very first time recently:

With Fixed Point in play, got two copies of Dual Crowbars, one Jack Handle, one Pipe Wrench, Grease Monkey Fist, Harmony and two copies of Friendly Fire.  Was against Gloomweaver with one Zombie in play.  Did about 130 HP or so damage to each.

Heard the stories about Fixed Point abuse before, but seeing it with my own eyes was quite the experience!

I just imagine it as Fixer taking a swing with his crowbar, rearing back for a second hit, Setback coming up behind him all "Whatcha dooooin'?" the crowbar rebounding off his forehead and Fixer not really noticing, just wondering why his backhand has gotten so springy.

Well, that’s the end of it right there.

Doesn't Silver Lining stop the chain? I was playing in the video game and running through that combo when Setback died and Silver Lining rejuvinated him. The chain stopped at that point. Was that a bug?

Silver Lining may or may not stop the chain.

If you hit the a target first and then start the friendly fire chain when Silver Lining triggers you’ll still have the second hit of your original attack to resolve… starting the chain up a second time (if you have a second silver lining that one will break the chain.

If you hit 2 targets first and choose not to trigger friendly fire off the first hit, then Silver Lining will break the chain.

Environment cards that let you discard your entire hand, such as Toxic Seaweed or Rites of Revival can turn Critical Multiplier into a Haka of Battle.  Or, if you have multiple Critical Multipliers out, 3x a Haka of Battle.

Fright Train's Incap + Jack Handle. 

Fright Train makes Mr. Fixer hit himself, but Jack Handle's effect takes priority and hits the villains instead. 

I'm beginning to like Jack handle more and more

Ooh, nasty! :D

Proverbs and Axioms is also fun with Jackhandle, gives you a double attack.

And try giving Mister Fixer a Jack Handle and Cortex Hyperstimulator. Every turn is Overdrive!

This could quickly turn into a Mr. Fixer breaks the world thread, so for a change up (all credit to LewdDolphin for this one): Throat Jab + Wrest the Mind.

Throat Jab Visionary and have her drop Wrest the Mind on say, I don't know, an EPE from Omnitron and suddenly you've got a 75 (5 player game) point nuke going straight at Omnitron. Drop it on an Explosives Wagon enhanced by a couple of Skyscraper's Aggression Modulators for even more fun.

It seems a lot of our great combinations requires heros beating themselves up. That's kind of sad, pain is good?

In fairness, the Throat Jab & Wrest the Mind trick came from a video I saw a year or so ago (it might've been Nunleft speedrunning Omnitron) which did involve Wresting the EPE's Mind with a Throat Jabbed Visionary :P.

Actually I was wrong! It was apparently Darklyte from March 2015, though he used Divine Sacrifice on Visionary instead of Throat Jab… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Rmh03LGW_k

Hey, lots of comics have the heroes pulling off extraordinary feats by overdoing it and doing some kind of damage to themselves, so why should SOTM be any different?

But just as a mental exercise, I have concluded that Captain cosmic and Sky-Scraper are Mr. Fixer's best friends.

CC has three each of Augmented Ally and Cosmic Weapon and all of Sky-Scraper's Links can stack. That means with Jackhandle, Grease-Monkey Fist and Harmony, you can have as many as seven AOE attacks in one turn (Three CWs, Overdrive or Charge, then the two from Cortex Overstimulator), all at +2 except the first blow.

Oh yeah, Fastball Specials, Arrow Special (Hawkeye firing Ant-Man who turns to Giant-Man) Just, realistically, silly to beat your friends up for victory! HAHA, I'm just making a dumb observation. 

On the flip side, I played a game against Advanced Bomber Blade today where my primary means of attack was “tricking” Blade into hitting himself and triggering the 2 Backlash Fields he had in play… It was a pretty great game (and a strategy I’d never used before).

If, for some odd reason, the villain is still around after this, Visionary can also cocoon up on her next turn to keep it going.

So great!

Heroic Infinitor, Dr Tremata, and Tony Taurus are best friends until Infinitor loses it again.   Since Heroic Infinitor counts as a hero target on the initial side he can't damage either one of them.  Once he flips though they better run.  

Even more, if you have Sky-Scraper drop a couple of Compulsion Canisters on him, and that will all be irreducible!

Everyone knows the best combo is Guise borrowing Jackhandle, High-fiving Absolute Zero and then using Thermal Shockwave.  Preferably with Barbarian in play.

That's a fun one if you can pull it off.  

Akash in The Block vs. Guise, AZ, Fixer, XPW Fanatic and Grandpa Legacy.

Block plays riot, tons of targets for akash and environment.

Guise borrows Jackhandle, plays Uh Yeah on AZ, uses I can do that too to copy Fanatic's innate power, then Grandpa Legacy lets Guise use Thermal Shockwave.

Akash took 7 shots of 2 cold damage (Inspiring Presence) 3 times, then fell on #4 of 7 hits of 42 fire damage.

I mean, we set the game up hoping to pull it off, and it happened.

Can't wait till XPW Fanatic is in the video game.

Put Twist the Ether on Guise and change everything to cold damage.

GLHF

GLHF?

Guise Laughs, Heroes Frown

(Good Luck Have Fun)

One I just discovered -- Fixed Point is NASTY on Vengeance.  Not only do all the Villains continue to have full turns despite negative HP, but Proletariat with a single Clone out is practically invincible as all the damage gets redirected to a clone even with the clone at negative HP.

This is awesome, and I need to try it.

That said, I will never try this outside of the Video Game without an assload of counters in front of me.

[quote="phantaskippy"]

Akash in The Block vs. Guise, AZ, Fixer, XPW Fanatic and Grandpa Legacy.Block plays riot, tons of targets for akash and environment.Guise borrows Jackhandle, plays Uh Yeah on AZ, uses I can do that too to copy Fanatic's innate power, then Grandpa Legacy lets Guise use Thermal Shockwave.Akash took 7 shots of 2 cold damage (Inspiring Presence) 3 times, then fell on #4 of 7 hits of 42 fire damage. I mean, we set the game up hoping to pull it off, and it happened. Can't wait till XPW Fanatic is in the video game.

[/quote]

Did a hero close to this but in my case Akash'Bhuta has gone through a whole chain of Primeval Eruptions so most of her limbs were out.   The resulting fire damage was 107 to each target.    Since I had Super Ultra Kawaii!! in play I had Guise the Barbarian and X-Tremeeeeee!! out before the power use. 

If Guise high-fives Omnitron-X with Reactive Plating Subroutine in play, and Guise takes damage that Omnitron-X reduces with a Plating card, Guise will react. Guise doesn’t even need to use Lemme See That on the plating, which means he’ll react to instances of 1 or 2 damage! Works great on the Ennead’s Elemental Storm.

Omnitron-U is also a fun partner for Guise, because Guise can copy its base power and then throw out a ton of Ongoing cards just to get the damage when they disappear.

The shape shifter is apparently well attuned to being a robot.  

Never tried this one, but it occurred to me that if playing The Sentinels against Progeny, if you could pull out Caliginous Form and bring Writhe below 10 HP, you could lock Progeny into a loop where he flips (which might be particularly useful in Advanced Mode), keeps hitting himself at the beginning of his own turn, and spares the other heroes.

...of course, if you *don't* get lucky enough to pull Caliginous Form, then The Sentinels likely will ALL serve as punching bags to spare the rest of the heroes.

Progeny typically does multiple instances of damage so you'd need to combo it with Human Shield or something else that would ensure the end of turn damage by Progeny is the first hit made on Writhe. 

I managed that once with Nightmist -- she kept Mistbinding his deck to keep him from pulling out damage cards.

One I just realized on a playthrough today:

Setback's "Whoops! Sorry!" doesn't specify that you have to destroy an ongoing or equipment card, you can destroy any non-character card belonging to another hero. This includes, for instance, Bee Bot, which means you get to destroy two troublesome ongoing or environment cards and do some damage to boot.

(I also just noticed on the art of that card that the Bunker suit itself seems to be sighing in exasperation.)

It's helpful in La Capitan and Chokepoint games too.  You can also take out presents from Santa Guise but he frowns upon that.  

For Chokepoint, though, only after she flips -- her front side says the upside down cards can't be affected by anything.

Yes.  Even End of Days can't impact them on her initial side.  

Well, one "unexpected combination" that I experienced recently, that turned out to be very BAD was End of Days and The Dreamer.  I had already flipped her, and had about half the cards that I needed, and the game was going very poorly (everyone in single digit hp, 1 incapacitated I think).  I thought I would sneak a win by using End of Days to clear the board and win.  However, as End of Days began to process, I realized my mistake.  It cleared all the projections (yay!) but then began destroying the cards under her as well.  Seeing as these were no longer "projections" (just villain cards) they did not immediately re-deposit back under her, and merely went to the trash.  In the end, I just swapped a little over half the cards I needed for a little under half the cards I needed :(  I feel confident this is one that I would have played incorrectly at the table.

You can get that one to work if an Illusory Demon is out.  Otherwise you will have happen what you described.  

I never thought of using an Illusionary Demon's ability for that with EoD. I should try that out...

Yeah, I've done the End of Days Dreamer panic as well.  In my case, I was fortunate enough to have an Illusionary Demon out, so I could use Powerhound's trick.

On the other hand, End of Days is just brilliant for flipping the Dreamer in the first place.  No muss, no fuss. 

Another, simpler one for Mr. Fixer I was playing around with earlier -- Compulsion Cannister + Driving Mantis. So long as he has no buffs out, he can redirect the first shot.

Even better than that - never mind Driving Mantis, use a Jack Handle instead >:).

Yeah, but you can fish for styles easier than you can fish for tools :P

True, but no mention was made of the ease of obtaining the card, just having it out in play for lots of whacking of all the bad people :D.

Wait, what’s the deal with Guise and Cold Damage?

I think it was referring to a game which included Ab'Zero as well, maybe when Guise is copying all his ongoings?

So I'm not sure if this is a combination because it only involves one deck, but the game made me realize that Sentinels Tactics triggers immediately after the first instance of damage, with other checks and results happening afterward.

For instance, I killed Ambuscade with Fling into Darkness from 10 HP. Mainstay did the first hit (4 with a buff from his chains), then ST triggered so the Idealist could smack him for another 2, putting him under the 4 HP threshold.

It's not fully immediate but it's pretty close.  For example, if you had taken out a Sonic Mine for instance it's destruction damage would trigger before Sentinel Tactics does.  

Wouldn't those two be considered "simultaneous" and thus down to player choice? A Sentinel dealt damage and the mine was destroyed at the same time, so couldn't they choose whether to trigger the power use or the explodey stuff first?

Sonic Mine goes off first per damage ordering and it was validated to work that way in the video game testing when Handelabra checked with Christopher.  

I always thought Omnitron-X/U was a bit underpowered,  but I'm starting to come around.  Just noticed in this last game that Omnitron U's Volatile wiring triggers whenever his cards are destroyed (and not equipment or components), that you can double dip this with villains like Chokepoint,  since she often destroys his cards and takes them, triggering this, but later will also destroy them and return them (on her flip), triggering it again since even though the cards have no text they are still counted as his cards.  Omnitron can also double dip himself using the card-play off the Volatile Wiring if he blew things up there, since if he used Volatile Wiring as well the last turn there's a brief window those effects overlap!  It was a pathetic self-sabotage for one component,  but with the double Volatile Wiring effect I managed to punch through the last couple HP on Chokepoint in the last game a squeeze out a win.

Also, I never pulled a Slip Through Time,  but it looks like it would combo even better with that!  And the damage would be better without reduction getting in the way.

It's a bit similar to having multiple of Unity's Volatile parts out and then using Termi-Nation Unity's reconfigure to blow up a bot yourself and double trigger the response.

Correct! Getting that "extra" fire damage off Slip Through Time is doubly important, because often times you won't want to use one of his other powers without it. Volatile Wiring is just that good. :)

Yeah, I've been unlucky enough that nearly every turn that I don't  use Volatile Wiring, that's when some massive equipment/ongoing wipe comes out.

I got one when playing around with Parse and Guise.

Parse has out 3 Critical Multipliers.  

Guise plays Selling out.  In Env, discards ongoing, plays Blatent Reference, UYITG on Parse, and Guise the Barbarian.

Every hero turn, Guise can discard for BR, which activates CMx3, which lets him boost attack by 3, and GtB increases by 2.

Guise deals 6 damage per hero turn by discarding 1 card each turn.

Niiice :D.

I'm not sure if this is a "combination" or "unexpected," but it's a neat wrinkle I discovered during the most recent one-shot (the one with Challenge Gloomweaver) that makes Captain Cosmic more user-friendly.  It's especially good with PW CC, who doesn't get the potential extra card play of regular CC:

If you have Augmented Ally and Unflagging Animation out, you can discard a construct to get a power usage, then immediately pull that construct out of the trash and put it in play via Unflagging Animation, essentially giving you two power usages and two card plays every round.  I believe (anyone want to confirm/deny?) that to make this work correctly, you need to have first played Augmented Ally, then Unflagging Animation, so that the discard (powered by Augmented Ally) occurs before the trash pull (powerd by Unflagging Animation). 

Confirmed

just had a crazy shenanigan happen

fighting GWV with Parse in the party in the Time Cataclysm.

Fixed point just cme into play from the Environment, and Parse had Buffer Overflow out. GWV tried calling in his Flagship, and i had the Buffer get rid of it. 

thanks to fixed point, however, Buffer Overflow didn't get destroyed on getting rid of the Flagship, and the flagship was still discarded.

in essence, FREE CARD-BLOCKING!

Talk about unexpected combinations -- the entire team (Sentinels, SS Tachyon, Grandpa Legacy, PW Fanatic, AA) for the latest one-shot (#66) is a combination machine!

Between Grandpa Legacy, Fanatic, and AA (assuming he gets the right instruments/songs in play), you can have three instances of multiple power usages every turn....and once the Sentinels get Human Shield in play, every time you give them a power usage, it's essentially a -1 DR for every hero target.  

Add onto that the fact that the Sentinels' deck is *80%* one-shots (32 cards out of 40), and that makes them a ripe target for SS Tachyon's base power -- they can quickly get all out all of their Signature cards and Ongoings.

So, once you add Sentinels Tactics to the mix -- allowing the Sentinels to use a power the first time they do damage every turn, then here's an example of a totally overpowered hero turn:

Grandpa Legacy

Play: (whatever card he wants)

Power:  Gung-Ho -- allowing another hero to heal 1 HP and use a power; so use it on...

...(ex:)  PW Fanatic, who gladly takes the +1 HP, then uses *her* base power to get a free card play and let another hero use a power...

...(ex:)  AA, if he has out instruments/songs that allow other heros to use a power, plus whatever additional goodies his instruments songs can do, so allow another hero to use a power, like...

...(ex:)  SS Tachyon, who can use *her* base power to allow the Sentinels to (probably) play the bottom two cards of their deck.  Since these are usually one-shots, and most of them do damage of some kind, then Sentinel Tactics will allow Mainstay to use his -1 DR power.

...Lather/rinse/repeat once you get to Fanatic and AA's turns.  By the end of the heroes' turns, what you've likely accumulated is:

--3 extra card plays from Fanatic

--3 HP of healing (from Grandpa Legacy) distributed among Fanatic, AA, Tach, and/or the Sentinels.

--*6* extra card plays from the Sentinels (assuming every Experiment resulted in two card plays)

--whatever extras AA's instruments/songs are set up for (card draws, damage buff/reduction, etc.)

--the ability to redirect *any* damage from a hero target to a -3DR Mainstay (-4DR if he has his Chains out)...which means that PW Fanatic *wont* hurt herself when she uses her base power.  But it's optional, so AA can still (ex:) take the damage from Polyphonic Flare, Tachyon can still take the damage from Pushing the Limits, etc., and if you get a villain that deals out irreducible AOE damage, you can opt not to get Mainstay killed.  This may be the best tanking setup in the game; it costs 2 discards a round, but the Sentinels have fantastic card draw, so it's not a hardship. 

Discovered another one from the most recent one-shot (#67).  A variation on the Visionary-Throat Jab-Wrest The Mind-ElectroPulse Explosive:

When playing Visionary against Ambuscade, play Wrest the Mind on his Sonic Mine.  When the Mine is destroyed, use Wrest the Mind to have Visionary get hit with the first instance of damage.  Now Visionary can't do damage to herself, and can redirect to another target every other instance of damage that Sonic Mine would do.  When playing with heroes that have lots of targets in play (Unity and CC come to mind), that can be 10+ instances of 2 damage that also prevent their target from doing any damage until the next villain turn.  You can neuter a bunch of environment targets, pile multiple redirected damage to the same target to destroy it, direct one instance at a hero to prevent him/her from damaging themselves...the opportunities for hijinks abound.

Dovetailing with Dreamer / End of Days / Illusory Demon, I had great fun with TN Unity, Fanatic, The Adamant Sentinels, and Chrono Ranger against Iron Legacy. All of IL's ongoings were destructible, so I was able to set up with CR and Unity while Fanatic fished for End of Days. When she got it, I put out Bee Bot first. Destroy all of IL's cards and the environment, then Bee Bot, which destroys End of Days, conveniently leaving fun stuff like By Any Means out. We roasted IL the round after that, in the rare case of the heroes having setup while IL had none.

I beat Baron Blade on Ultimate without deck manipulation thanks to "Backlash Field"

Backlash Field + Ultimate Target + Compounded Bow. 

Every time I hit Baron Blade he hits back with Backlash Field then I ht him with Compounded Bow. Having Legacy with Galvanize helped with damage boost of course. But I never thought having NO ongoing destruction would be so beneficial!

Backlash Field can be fun when he has both out and you have some damage redirection.

Enjoy zapping yourself, Ivan.

I don’t know how Tachyon ran so fast she fooled lightning into hitting the wrong person, but she did.

Probably not as much of a surprise, but take five really damage-heavy heroes and see how easy it is to damage-race most villains.

I used a combination of Young Legacy, Hunted Naturalist, Ra, Knyfe, and Chrono-Ranger to beat the main four villains on Ultimate difficulty in a span of an hour. (Only substitution was for G.I. Bunker on Voss so I could ignore his minions altogether)

I have discovered the greatest ninja trap known to mankind: Prime Wardens Captain Cosmic.

It's usually not hard for him to have one Construct out during any given round. And especially in the Temple of Zhu Long, it's not hard for him to lose them, either. So when those pesky assassins fall to your AOE or whatever, just place them on top of CC's deck and have him shuffle the next destroyed Construct in over it. And presto, no more ninja! A pretty low chance to ever see the darn thing again, too, if the game doesn't go on too long.

I think this is probably already known, but I just (re)discovered it in the video game:

I often think of Punish the Weak as useful but very situational. However, I just realized that it makes Rampages even more awesome! Not only do you probably get to use the buff from Punish the Weak to clear out minions very effectively, but you will always reduce Rampage damage to ALL hero targets by one.

Here's one that I pulled off in this week's Weekly Oneshot - Guise high fives the Sentinels while Sentinel Tactics is in play (but Hippocratic Oath is not).  Then he plays Blatant Reference.  Does Guise like getting to use his power every turn?  Yes he does!

Something I only realized in my stream last night: Mr. Fixer with Dual Crowbars and Bloody Knuckles can hit himself super hard to hit another target super harder. With no other boosts, it's a 6 hit to himself and a 9 hit to a second target.

The other day I randomized Progeny and Time Cataclysm and discovered probably the only time you're ever happy to see Oppressive Smog.

Not the only time.  It makes games against Spite easier as well.

Huh.  Does Oppressive Smog mean that effects that heal targets "Back up to full health" only heal them up to their maximum health minus 2?

I also appreciate seeing Oppressive Smog vs Matriarch's flip side.

I think "restoring" is different from "healing", so it wouldn't affect that, no, any more than it would affect Fanatic's Aegis restoring her to 10hp or whichever Title it is that restores someone to 6hp.

The title is a heal so would be affected, Aegis is a restore so wouldn't. Also, those cards in The Sentinels deck are a restore.

However Haka of Restoration is paradoxically a heal!

Yeah, that's also basically the logic behind TN AZ. He gets to pull that same stunt every round if he wants.

Found a pretty cool trick with the Adamant Sentinels:

Play Telekenetic Wallop with Sentinels Tactics and Writhe's signiture in play. Hit the highest HP villain target first, then use Haymaker on that target. Target your second hit a Writhe and it will redirect to the highest HP villain but won't be reduced....

Net result is 8 damage on the main villain, 3 damage on a second target. 

Nice! And fairly easy to pull off!

I tried that one, but it didn't work for me…

It should I've done similar in the video game.  

I'll try it again once I'm home.

On healing:

There are 3 terms that reference healing effects:

Regain:  the most common, you gain HP, but never above your maximum.

Restore:  You set your HP to a specific amount.

Recovery:  This refers to regaining HP, not resforing HP.

Restoring HP is not regaining or recovering, so it isn't affecteg by Smog, or team Operative's incap, or Unhallowed Halls.

Restore also isn't impacted by Idolator in the Operative's deck. 

Fun one: high- five the Sentinels, with Hippocratic Oath, and steal a Jack Handle. Also play Barbarian and Reference. Every hero turn, discard a card for MASSIVE HEALING

(add in the Scholar for extra fun!)

Along those lines, two Sentinels shenanigans that I discovered during the "Best Cards Ever! (Weekly One-Shot #70)":

(1) Neat interplay between The Sentinels and The Scholar when he plays Proverbs and Axioms:  Unlike (ex:) Don't Dismiss Anything, which only allows The Sentinels (collectively) to play the top card of their deck/bring a card out of the trash, under Proverbs and Axioms every Sentinel gets the choice of healing 2 or doing themselves three damage and using a power, which means a Proverbs and Axioms play could result in four Sentinels power usages.  

(2) I imagine other people have discovered this, but when you have a lot of non-hero targets (ex: Voss, Dawn, Chairman, any Vengeance game, Final Wasteland, etc.), Hippocratic Oath plus Blackout becomes a recipe for massive healing:  With Hippocratic Oath in play, play Blackout, and have Writhe hit Dr. Medico.  Yes, Dr. Medico will take the initial damage from Writhe, but then if there are (ex:) 10 villain targets out there, that's 10 instances of 2HP healing that Medico gets to spread to any hero he wants.  

Is that correct? I thought Proverbs and Axioms was per Hero, and the Sentinels are one hero… 

Yes, that got ruled on during testing it should work that way. 

Which way is “that way”?

What robb8888 posted how each Character Card of the Sentinels got a choice of a power use or health gain.  

The reason it works that way is because Proverbs and Axioms specifies Hero Character Card and the Sentinels has four Hero Character Cards. 

If I’m not mistaken, it’s even better.

Each Sentinel gets to either heal by 2 or deal themselves 3 damage to have the Sentinels collectively use a power.

So for example, you could have Mainstay and Idealist pick heal. Then have Medico deal himself 3 (becoming healing) to let Idealist use Telekinetic Jab. Then, have Writhe deal himself 3 (redirected) damage to let Mainstay use block.

You are mistaken.

Each Sentinel gets the choice of healing 2 HP or taking 3 damage and using a power.  The wording of Proverbs and Axioms reads:  "Each hero character card [as opposed to "each hero"] may either regain 2 HP or deal themselves 3 psychic damage and use a power."

In the context of the actual One-Shot (a Vengeance match against, among others, Advanced Fright Train), it was just sick.  Advanced Fright Train channels "all hero damage" to himself.  That includes – as it turns out – damage the heroes inflict upon themselves.  

I had Scholar play Proverbs and Axioms on the very first turn; with eight "hero character cards" in play (Guise, Wraith, Tach, Scholar, and four Sentinels), that was eight extra power usages, with three damage for each usage inflicted on Fright Train.  The Sentinels had previously played one of their AOE cards; between that and Proverbs, Fright Train went down before the environment's first play.

Are you sure? I just replicated in the video game. Should I send a bug report?

Here's the relevant portion of my log file:

I wasn't sure who you were saying is mistaken.

This thread seems to be suffering from a lack of specificity in its statements.

If only there was some sort of feature that one could click to allow everyone to know who the poster is responding to. Perhaps it’ll be added in th massive website update?

Unlikely 

The person who said directly above my post, "If I'm not mistaken." Sorry I thought that was clear.

Dandolo, that would be a bug.

No need to send in a bug report - I reproduced it locally and we'll get it fixed.

Yeah, as I understand it, first, if Medico's damage becomes healing, it doesn't trigger Sentinels Tactics, because he didn't deal any damage.

And even if he could, it only triggers the first time a turn, so Writhe's self-damage couldn't let Mainstay use block.

No, but he “dealt himself damage” to use a power, per Proverbs and Axioms. There’s no Rule 15 wording, so it works. Medico and Writhe aren’t activating Sentinel Tactics, which is where you guys are getting mixed up. They’re just doing what they are supposed to because of Proverbs and Axioms!

And since it doesn’t say use a power ON THAT CHARACTER CARD, when Medico tries to deal himself damage, The Sentinels get to use any power, Including The Idealist’s. Then HER damage triggers Block with Sentinel Tactics. Then Writhe deals himself damage per P&A – which may or may not get redirected – to trigger M.D.

There’s no bug there. Each power is used once, and every card is obeyed. You’re mistaking the powers from P&A as being multiple uses of Sentinel Tactics, which is not the case.

It is working as it should be. Do not change it.

Per MigrantP and I'm assuming this will be laid out in Fireside Chats if the individual Sentinels member chooses to take damage then that individual member can use the power on their character card, a power on a card attached to them, or a power of a card in the Sentinels play area.  In other words, I can't have Idealist take the damage then have Mainstay use a power off of that.   The self damage would trigger Sentinels Tactics if it's in play but if Idealist uses her base power off of that then likely she has no other powers she can use for Proverbs and Axioms.

Right. That’s exactly the situation laid out.
Mainstay heals. Idealist heals. Medico takes damage (which becomes heals) to use a power. He uses Idealist’s power. Tactics triggers, allowing him to use M.D. Then Writhe takes damage (which gets redirected away) and uses Block.

No double dipping on powers or Tactics. It follows the rules, and is NOT A BUG.

No.  What you listed out wouldn't work.   If Mainstay heals, Idealist heals, then Medico chooses to take the damage and Hippocratic Oath is out then Medico heals a target and can use the power on his character card.  Then Writhe has his choice on healing or taking damage.   If Hippocratic Oath isn't out when Medico decides to take the damage then Sentinel Tactics triggers and you can choose to use any of the Sentinels powers.  If you chose Medico's power due to Sentinel Tactics then he likely has no power option.   

This should work along the same lines as Gung Ho.   The individual Sentinels member which gets healed can only use the power on their character card.  

I'm assuming in both of these cases that none of the Sentinels have any cards attached to them or in their play area that grants another choice for a power.  

MigrantP has also already confirmed in this thread it should work the way I've laid out and what happens in the video game currently is a bug.  

That’s literally the opposite of what you just said 2 posts ago.

And now you say that’s NOT the case. Which is it? Block is in Medico’s play area, and they’re the same hero, so why COULDN’T that work?

Because…comic books? (Is this the right thread?)

Thats a typo on part.   It should say this:

I can't have Idealist take the damage and then have Mainstay use a power.

I will try editing it but I don't know who will see it  

It's been a while since we had a good juicy rules argument on this forum.  I can't wait for OblivAeon!  :D  

Dr. Medico can't use the Idealist's power because he's not the Idealist and her power is not on his card. Writhe can't use Block because he's not Mainstay and the power is not on his card.

By the wording of the card, you, the player, are not using the power -- the character card is.

And the character card can't use a power on a different character card.

In addition, with Proverbs and Axioms, when you let Dr. Medico deal himself 3 damage and use a power with Hippocratic Oath in play, he heals someone for 3 and then still gets to use his power.

Yeah, that isn’t what’s up for debate. It’s whether or not he triggers HIS power, or THE SENTINELS to use a power.

Are the other Sentinels’ character cards not cards (with powers on them) in Doctor Medico’s play area?

Quote for emphasis:

By play area I'm talking about something that would give a power to use like Rod of Anubis not other character cards.  

He does have a point though. The rules don’t make the distinction. It’s The Sentinels using a power. They have 4 to choose from.

In fact, that’s how it HAS to be for Tactics to work, otherwise Idealist’s power could never trigger any of the other powers; it would only allow HER to use a power.

But The character cards aren’t what use powers, it’s the Sentinels as a conglomerate hero.

Sentinel Tactics say "You may use a power" which is why you can use any power.   For Proverbs and Axioms much like Gung Ho a hero character card is chosen of the Sentinels and only that hero character card can use a power.  Another example would be playing Embolden on a member of the Sentinels as it goes next to a hero character card so only that hero can use a power and only that hero takes the damage.  

That sounds bizarre, there is nothing in the rules to say that should be the case for gung ho, P&A nor embolden, it’s incredibly counter intuitive if that is how they’re meant to be.
Powers are on cards in a play area, when you get to use a power you use whatever is available in your play area. Mechanically it doesn’t make sense to throw in an additional rule restricting that, the game is clunky enough as it is in regards to phrasing, and there’s very little thematic reasoning either.
The simpler things can be kept the better.

I love Setback, but I was trying to think of how Guise can interact with him, since Setback's play is dominated by his unlucky tokens, and playing them together means Guise needs to build up unlucky tokens first, which would slow down the play and their interactions a lot. BUT! I finally thought of a good one that shouldn't take too much time invested into setup.:

Guise uses "Yeah I'm That Guy" to copy Setback while he has "Friendly Fire" in play, and then plays "Total Beefcake". This allows every hero to get an extra 2 damage dealt to the nonhero target with the lowest hp every turn.

And now I can't wait to try it out in the video game.

... and one more. Fanatic loves an augmented ally (Captain Cosmic) if she has a prayer of desperation in hand. She can discard at the beginning of her turn to use her power, and then pray for desperation to draw back up to 6 cards. making the discard not a hardship in the least.

Had a revelation when trying to fill out the My Turn 2 for Absolute Zero vs. AoG Spite.  Normally, Compound Upsilon bounces most of the ongoings back into their owners' hands at the start of Spite's turn, so if you put out anything protective, it's gone when it comes time for him to deal damage at the end of his turn.  But with Sub-Zero Atmosphere in play, all the damage happens at the start of the turn, too!  It depends on when the drugs come into play, but I got Upsilon out last, so Spite tried to deal me damage first and failed, then Ground Pound went back into Haka's hand to be reused next round.  Pure gold.

Just remember to not let Sub Zero Atmosphere get bounced back to your hand. 

You can get around Immutus with Wrest the Mind. Choose to direct the damage to Immutus first, and then have Visionary redirect to whomever she likes!

I just made L’Epeiste finish off La Capitan with a 25-point zap this way.

The way redirection works in this game is often surprising. Smoke Bombs, for instance, will give Sky-Scraper a straight extra point of DR with Thorathian Monolith if she's the lowest HP.

Everyone knows how much Absolute Zero loves Visionary's Twist the Ether: stick it on the villain, and if they're focused on AZ, you can heal him or make him retaliate to damage at will. Well, I found a way to make this even better.

Give Absolute Zero Coolant Blast, and stick Twist the Ether on Xtreme Prime Wardens Argent Adept. He can then use his main power to heal AZ for 3, sure, but if he actually deals the damage -- the fire damage -- AZ can then heal himself (or deal damage!), play a card, and use Coolant Blast to dish out even more for his power usage. And since CB tracks fire damage until the end of your turn, if Argent goes after him and you're lucky enough to have a second TtE on the villain, you can rack up quite a lot of fire damage over one round, which means plenty of cold damage when it gets back to Absolute Zero. :3

I thought the Xtreme Prime Wardens aren't in the Video Game yet?

Is this just for video game stuff? :B Oops.

Unfortunately, that would be correct. Locks self in closet and cries

2.5 minutes later - Stops crying

5 seconds later - Remembers that there are other variants besides the Xtreme PWs not in the video game and cries some more

1 minute later - Wishes I had the Mr. Chomps plushie to comfort me as I cry, inducing even more tears

Undetermined time in the future - Gets Mr. Chomps plushie and the variant heroes + OblivAeon heroes in real life and the video game and stops crying

For unexpected combinations - Guise can build up his own unlucky pool using Uh…Yeah I'm that Guy on Setback. If Setback also happens to have Uncharmed Life out, Guise and Setback can fight over who takes damage, as apparently the wording does not stop it from acting after the first use. If it is a glitch and Uncharmed Life should only be used once, then there is a bug in the video game.

I had a fun and long game once where Guise kept building up his unlucky pool over the course of a long game to something like 20, then toward the end, using UYITG again after Setback had gotten High-Risk Behavior out.

There were no (Villainous) survivors.

How are multiple redirection instances treated, rules-wise?   Although I can't think of specific circumstances, I know there have been many times in which I have seen multiple redirection effects in play; in some of these instances, the game has allowed me to choose which one actually takes effect, in others, the game ostensibly offers me a choice, but still redirects the damage one particular way.

Here's an example:  Let's say that Lead from the Front (LFTF) (Legacy) and Alchemical Redirection (AR) (Scholar) are both in play, and a villain attempts to do damage to a hero target that is not Legacy or Scholar.  Lead from the Front says: " Whenever a Hero Target would be dealt Damage by a Villain card, you may redirect that Damage to Legacy.  "  Alchemical Redirection reads:  " Redirect all Damage that would be dealt to Hero Targets to The Scholar. "  

Which takes precedence, and why?  Does it matter which one was played first?  Does one always trump the other, or is it possible to choose between effects?  For example, if for some reason it is better for Legacy to take the damage, it possible to elect that?  The iOS version of the game usually says something like "Which of these do you want to take effect first?"  – which should be chosen to ensure that the final damage goes to Legacy?

I haven't specifically tested this, but the game should allow you to redirect it to Legacy if you would like to. However, if any damage would be deal to Legacy because of Lead, it will inevitably redirect to Scholar regardless because Alchemical Redirection is a "must" and not a "may" as opposed to Legacy's being a "may". In the case of two "musts" I have no idea, it likely is dependant upon other circumstances and wordings.

Neither do, you would pick the order of the redirection. So if you pick Lead from the Front first, then The Scholar would take damage as Alchemical Redirection would trigger next. If you did it the opposite way, the Legacy would get the choice to take the damage or not after it has been redirected to the Scholar. If yes we chosen, then Legacy would ultimately take the damage.

The thing I've found about redirects in the game is that they all go off at the same time (assuming they're all valid; Smoke Bombs could undercut a Synaptic Redirection, for instance) and you can only apply each once per instance of damage.

Also, all damage goes to Immutus. :B

Except when playing Challenge Mode Fright Train.  

And Guise.

But then to be fair, most situations end with Guise as an exception

And that Wrest the Mind thing I mentioned.

And my axe!

I discovered the other day that you can use Into the Stratosphere to move a card from underneath Savage Mana to the top of the Villain deck.

I’m not sure why that might be useful, but there you go. My first thought was to use the same technique to un-charge Mad Bomber Blade, but his rules say cards under him have no type.

I could see it being useful if, say, an Infra-Red Eyepiece turned up two Devastating Auroras and you needed to put something else on top of Citizen Dawn's deck to buy some breathing room.

Or just generally as a stalling technique if there isn't anything on the board to bounce.  You can pick something harmless from under Savage Mana and be promised a safe-ish turn.

Reminds me of using Whoops, Sorry! to destroy a card under Chokepoint or La Capitan.

It could also be useful if you want to release some of what's under Savage Mana but not all of it, e.g. the Chairman's Underbosses but not his Thugs, to get him to flip.

Now that's a salient point!

Granted, you could always just not put them under SM in the first place, but some Hakas...

Or in Final Wasteland.

Turns out, Chiquito can steal villain cards.

I was so shocked when I saw this, I sent in a bug report, but John confirmed it's working as intended.

You use a card like Fumbling Fool and hit choose for me; if the first deck is a villain, their discard will be stolen by the monkey! I imagine it'll work with Gimmicky Character, Wrecking Uppercut, Extrasensory Awareness and anything else that's similar.

I think the reason it was so unexpected is I've come to interpret "a player discards a card" to mean "a hero card is discarded". I mean, when you discard from hand, both of those are true, but when you use any of those above cards, you, the player, are also causing a card to be discarded, just from the villain deck.

I'm not sure there's any useful interaction here (I guess you could delay Friction getting an extra Surge?), as it just means La Capitan taking less damage, but worth noting regardless.

Correct me if I'm wrong (and I can't test in the app yet), but wouldn't that also mean that when a villain or environment causes a discard from a hero player's hand, it would not go under Chiquito?  As long as the card is phrased "discard a card" and not "hero discards a card"?

Sidenote: The first time I played La Capitan's team game was in Madame Mittermeier's, and I think I played Carousel of Horror wrong.  It was basically game over the way we played it, which was to put all the discarded hero cards under Chiquito.

I don't think "discard a card" ever shows up as a command save for on hero cards. The environment or villain is going to say "Each player discards a card" or "A player whose hero took damage this way discards a card". The player is forced to discard by the non-hero card, but they're still doing the discarding. And that's why Chiquito won't steal cards off the top of your deck when you're forced to discard that way.

That's correct. Not only that, but Chiquito only takes one card per turn, rather than one card per hero per turn, so that ended up being doubly wrong.

Here's a fun one:  If Plague Rat uses Chemical Frenzy ("Plague Rat deals each target 1 toxic damage. Any target dealt damage that way deals itself 1 melee damage.") when Greazer is around, then Plague Rat will attack the Perfect Pompadour, causing Greazer to punch him.  Then, the Pompadour will punch itself, causing Greazer to punch his hair, causing him to punch himself.

Greazer is great to have out alongside Plague Rat, Sgt. Steel, Friction or anyone else who does team damage. :D Arsonist plus Mega Gunner (minus Espionagent <.<) equals look out!

You know, I'm still not clear on the "The first time an X does Y each turn" language.  In some cases, like Provocator Tarnis, it triggers once per turn period, no matter how many X's there are.  In others, like Wrong Time and Place, it triggers once per X per turn.  I haven't figured out what language makes the difference between the two behaviors.

They're exactly the same language. It's just up to Christopher which one is which. It really bugs me that he won't clean up his wording. "It's technically correct." Yeah, that doesn't mean it's not ambiguous as hell! "I'm an English major. I'd know." Like you're the only one! I'm a Communications major!

Given a choice I'm sure Setback would like Wrong Time and Place worked like Provocator Tarnis.  

I was surprised to find that Glamour triggers on every X, not just once per turn.

So was I.

I thought this one was pretty funny so I thought I would share:

My team was near death in a villains game against Bugbear, Fright Train, Sgt Steel, Biomancer and La Capitan in the Court of Blood. Each of the villains were greater than 20 HP. Fixer, Expat, Tempest, AZ and Bunker were each under 5 health and the court of blood had a single vampire out. The environment played Infecting an Heir resulting in the vampire bringing Fixer down to a single HP. I thought the game would end right there, but I luckily had Jack Handle out! Instead of doing 2 damage to each target, Fixer ended up doing ~15 instances of 4 damage to each villain target (~60 points of damage!!) and completely cleared the field for a win at the last second!

It is an odd combo to set up, but WOW can it have fixer decimate the villain field. I can only imagine the result if we had damage boosts on the field. With Legacy and Twist the Ether, it could have climbed to as much as 15-20 instances of damage at 7 damage per shot for as much a 140 points of damage to a single target in a round, out of turn!

Slaughterhouse Six Ambuscades Pitfall card says "Play this card in the Hero play area with the fewest Snare cards. Whenever that Hero's player draws a card, each target in this play area deals itself 2 melee damage. Then, destroy this card."

I am not a native english speaker therefore others probably had no problem with the text but I had the impression that whenever is related to a sequence whereas the wording "when" would mean a single card draw. Mr. Fixer had his Crowbars on the field and I skipped his play and power phase to let him draw 2 cards because I thought he wold be able to deal him and another target 2 times damage.

Well, yeah, by my reading it would trigger on each draw, but you'd need Fixed Point to test it because it'll get destroyed after the first one.

This ^. The card destroys itself after the first draw and thus the second draw would not trigger any damage. Fixed Point would be needed for what you are describing.

It's once per turn per Nemesis, is the problem. So if you have (to pick a completely random, wasn't-at-all-encountered-by-a-lot-of-people example) Glamour and Ray Manta in play, the first attack against each of them will rebound. If you attacked Glam twice, the second attack would go through, but the first hit against Glam doesn't mean the first hit against Ray goes through.

Glamour isn't so bad if you have someone capable of attacking multiple times in a round (Chrono Ranger, Ra, KNYFE) or anyone who can destroy without causing damage (AA, Fanatic, Naturalist). I think once I comboed one into another -- PW Fanatic used Smite the Transgressor to eat up the redirect, smacked her with Absolution, then used her base power to let Naturalist eat her.

She's a pain, but there's ways around her.

Yes, this is what I meant by every X, whereas the same wording on other cards only applies to the first X.  Which is why I was surprised it worked that way.

It has similar wording to Wrong Time and Place so this interaction did not surprise me. 

The way these are phrased is identical, whereas, as implemented, Glamour works for every Nemesis and yet Chiquito only works on the first player.

The word "each" would clear so much up.

Each vs Any would be a very simple, unambiguous, comprehensive solution.

Compare it also to something like Destructive Response. I want to be able to deal damage every time a Construct is blown up, darn it! :| Just without the option of bringing it back into play for a double-dip, you know, that one's already had its turn.

Hi

Thermobaric Mine of Greazer: "When this card enters play, put it in the play area of the player with the most cards in play. Then, this card deals each hero target in this play area 1 fire damage. Whenever a card enters this play area, this card deals each Hero target in this play area 1 fire damage."

"Enters this play area" doesn't include one-shots correct?

I thought EACH card enters the play area but the mine didn't activate, thematically it makes sense. 

Does the mine also activates if ongoings and equipments are played beside targets, i. e. all cards which stay in the play area?

PS. The wiki is missing some text for Electroshackles, whoy should be contacted?

https://sentinelswiki.com/index.php?title=Greazer_Clutch

One-shots do not enter a play area.   There are very odd interations that can occur if one-shots were considered to be in a play area.   Also, you might refresh the Greazer page.  

You can edit the wiki yourself!

One shots do enter play, though. Just not into a play area. Right?

Unless I'm reading my prior post wrong that's what I wrote.   One-shots can trigger a card like Surprise Shopping Trip but will not trigger Thermobaric Mine.  

It amazed me when I first saw that happen. I beat Greazer a whole lot while triggering Mines via One-Shots!

I remember being real surprised to learn that, even though Ambuscade's Slaughterhouse Six stay in play when he's defeated, they aren't listed as villains that you need to beat to win, the way that Omnitron's devices are. You can wipe out the other villains, and then I guess the Slaughterhouse Six go home for the day?

If the heroes had beat all the big guns and it was just me left… I sure would! 

The better to come back another day when the odds are more favorable.

Glamour's sitting there like "You better not hit us! Just you try it!" and the heroes walk away, like, "Okay, we won't."

Just found out that in the Realm of Discord, if a distortion comes into play, it will destroy Visionary's decoy projection, because it has a keyword of "Distortion". I would totally have screwed that up in the physical version.

I was so mad the first time I saw that happen. XD

I got one for you: Exploit Vulnerability + Surprise Shopping Trip

Watch those minions be taken out solely by the act of them entering play! :D

Sergeant Steel in The Block was interesting, as all of his targets are Agents, so they are hurt by inmates and helped by other agents in the Block.

When playing against La Capitan, Freedom Six Tempest can use Sacrifice to get one of his stolen cards back!

Yep!  Whoops, Sorry! works to, and Chokepoint can also be dealt with this way.

Once flipped though for Chokepoint.  It doesn't work on her intial side

If Greazer's contract goes on a character who has another Nemesis in play, Greazer also counts as that villain's nemesis -- so if he's after Setback, Plague Rat hits him even harder. It's in theory a neat way to get them to whack each other, but in practice it's meant Setback goes down fast.

hoo boy, every time I play in MMFFCC, I learn something new about Maze of Mirrors. I just had a fun matchup with a team that included FS Parse, Santa Guise, and Nightmist. Maze of Mirrors came out, and the shenanigans were flying.

Parse had Updated Intel in play, and Santa Guise kept copying it. Every time I played a card, I got to spy on two decks, which made Parse's base power, Santa Guise's power, and Nightmist's love of deck stacking very, very happy.

-

Also, in not necessarily "unexpected" combinations, but a fun one I ran across - Sky-Scraper loves seeing Mega Gunner get his ability activated twice so she can drop a net 12 damage (or more) Compulsion Canister.

Incidental Contact + Wrong Time and Place with enough tokens.  Hit a target MANY times.  Each redirect allows you to hit the new target twice.  Used this on Gloomweaver to deal 36 damage to him in one go. (6 per hero and 6 for Gloomy himself, using Conduit Blade and Null Amplifier)

I won a game in Madame Mittermeier's against Infinitor by abusing All-Seeing Alzrabar WHILE Nightmist was in mist form. SInce Alzrabar just reveals a card, and then puts it into play, It let Nightmist go from below 5 hp to almost full as she played one shot after one shot, finally taking out Infinitor. Young Legs, Ra, and Wraith took care of the rest of the environment and gave Nightmist enough card draw so she could discard almost every turn and stay in Mist Form.

Story wise, I imagine Nightmist in mist form kinda floating around and investigating this weird fortune telling machine, kinda ignoring Infinitor, while he wrecks the place with manifestations and the carnival fights back.

Wait… How did you fill up on health? With Starshield? Because Master of Magic shouldn’t trigger from “put into play” effects.

Mist-Fueled Recovery would work though, right?

Yes.  Although it wouldn't trigger Master of Magic either.  

I would assume through Mist Fueled Recovery coming up as one of the revealed cards. 

Yeah. Just making sure Master of Magic wasn’t acting up.

Another good one I found:

Shooting Gallery (Madam Mittermeiers) and Hippocratic Oath. Make Dr. Medico the lowest HP hero and you get a nice round of healing out of it. Best part is that you can spread those heals out however you choose.

Another good card for The Sentinels in that environment is the fortune teller. Since their deck is almost entirely one shots, you can almost play one every turn. Not too shabby.

Yes, with Starshield, and with Mist-Fueled recovery.

I just realized today, that Prime Wardens Haka's power allows him to use Haka of Shielding to protect any target. So I can totally use him to protect the Dreamer so I can rampage the next turn.

I've done that to help beat her on Challenge mode.  I discarded… a lot.  The only time I've really made use of Haka of Shielding.

Not sure if it's been said, but if it has I'll say it again anyway:

XPW Captain Cosmic and Unity's Hasty Augmentation. That is all.

I don't know that it's unexpected, but Captain Cosmic's Augmented Ally (discard a card at the start of your turn to use a power) and Unflagging Animation (at the start of your turn you may put a Construct from your trash into play) combo really well, letting you discard a Construct to immediately put it into play... provided you play them in the right order!

Not sure if this has been brought up: 

Requital Cosmic and XPW Haka. If Haka has Ta-Moko, the drawback of Requital is nullified, (assuming nothing else alters the damage.)  In a similar way, XPW Argent and XPW Haka are great together. Haka shields anyone and Argent Yells at them. It's redirected to Haka. If he has Ta-Moko, he takes 1 damage, then regains 1 HP. So "free" play and power. 

Well, who gets the play and power use? You have to take damage that way to get it.

That raises an interesting question: what happens when you stack Haka's power?
 
I f he stacks it on the same ally twice, only the first "copy" would redirect the damage, but would he be healed twice?  I'd suspect not, inferring that "whenever Haka is dealt damage this way" applies only to the damage dealt as a result of that particular "copy" of the ability.
 
But what if he used it on an ally and then used it on himself?  Oddly, it doesn't seem illegal to do so.  Per the ruling on Smoke Bombs (damage dealt to Wraith while she's the only hero target in play is reduced), it seems like he'd redirect the damage to himself, and since the damage was in fact redirected by both "copies" and he did take that damage, I'd think he'd be healed twice.
 
Guess we'll find out in the next couple of weeks!

You cannot redirect damage being dealt to a target to itself. Using XPW Haka's power on himself doesn't do anything at all.

aw :(

I mean, they'll call ya Jerk Haka, but you basically get free DR that way!

Yeah, it’s too bad… it would have made Enduring Intercession a good play if Haka could target himself.

I really wish this variant had been made so any damage dealt to Haka which was redirected to him caused the health gain so Enduring Intercessiom turned into a card you're more likely to play.  

I feel like "find a way to make Enduring Intercession useful" is one of this fandom's Holy Grails.

It can be useful but often isn't worth the trouble especially in the core game environments.  So I agree it is a Holy Grail of sorts and I certainly had hoped XPW Haka might have lead to finding that.  

Enduring Intercession + Ta Moko is really good in Temple of Zhu Long; the only things that can hit Haka are Shinobi Assassins entering play and Zhu Long's end of turn action.

Yep that was one I would say it's worthwhile in.  Realm of Discord and Time Cataclysm aren't bad either with that setup.  

That's what I thought until I ran across the Smoke Bombs ruling.  Why does that one work, then?

I don't make the decisions, but Smoke Bombs doesn't redirect from the Wraith to the Wraith it just reduces in that case.

So this is a combo I ran into that can be potent.   XPW Fanatic and Setback with Friendly Fire out.   Every time Fanatic damages her target chosen from Kill the Spirit you'll get prompted to hit Setback which that damage will be redirected to your target again.  Now that massive Holy Nova hits for an extra two for each instance of damage 

Haka gets the play and power, since he will take 1 damage through this method. Sorry if I wasn't more clear.

Hm. Guise borrowing Jackhandle and aping Thunderstruck, anyone?

I caught Dolphin's Dive this week and decided to play around with his setup taken to extremes: Citizen Dawn in Rook City vs. Greatest Legacy, Fugue State Parse, Santa Guise, Xtreme AA, and Ra.  And Dawn's starting setup was Citizens Blood, Sweat, Tears, and Truth, plus Return with the Dawn!

The team managed to take out Truth and Tears with their starting hands, but Dawn brought back Tears.  Naturally, they wiped out my hands and ongoings in a hurry, and dealt the team considerable damage, but they couldn't do anything about presents!  It took just one more round to fill Legacy's and Parse's tables up with a great selection of ongoings, not to mention Parse filling her hand back up again instantly.  Guise's presents turned out to be duds (although they'd have been a little better if I'd opened them in a different order), but Ra's contained enough firepower to wipe out Dawn from almost full to considerable overkill on Guise's fourth turn.  It was pretty nuts.

So yeah, my "unexpected combination" of the week was that presents are immune to nearly every type of destruction except for Apocalypse/End Of Days and a couple of others.

That makes me wonder, what 'field killer' cards are Captain Cosmics constructs immune to?

It's probably easier to list those cards that do effect them. AFAIK it's just Apocalypse/End of Days. 

And anything that does 4 damage to all targets =)

But not energy damage. Sometimes.

Har har.

Just realized the crystals in Magmaria are fair game to discard for boosts to the Hakas. Not exactly game breaking, but it does boost his nuke to even more insane heights.

Parse likes to discard them, too.  Especially Fugue State Parse to fuel Ember Shaman.  Assuming that works in the video game--it should, but I hear there are bugs related to this.

I believe there is a bug related to Parse and discarding Magma Crystals currently.  

Jeremy said something I had never considered before during a stream- I think it was last week's episode. I had always just considered Fugue State Parse's innate power needed her to to discard from her hand for the extra effect. But, Buffer Overflow's discard works just as well. I would also assume this is also true if she discards a card villain card with Extrasensory Awareness. Small thing- but still cool.      

It still has to be during her turn, though, which isn't likely to happen unless you've got something like Pillars of Hercules in play.

Or Empower, or very likely Dynamic Syphon.  Something to keep in mind when playing those cards.

On the flip side...

Don't play against the Dreamer in Madame Mittermeier's! Unlike most environments, it has six cards that can cause character cards to damage themselves, which bypasses the ability to redirect environment damage from the Dreamer to heroes. And there are five more cards that play cards faster, which means that you've got a high chance of the Dreamer murdering herself. (It gets even worse on Challenge Mode, which is practically unwinnable.)

Oof, I didn’t even THINK of that.

Another bad villain/Environment combo:

Never take The Matriarch shopping.

If Surprise Shopping Trip shows up, you’re SCREWED.

Each time a Fowl card enters play, each target is dealt one melee damage, including the bird. So it dies, and Matriarch deals retribution damage. And then she plays the top card of her deck. God help you if she plays Darken the Skies.

Infinitor can be just as bad at times with Surprise Shopping Trip while he and his manifestations don’t take any damage. 

Santa Guise is terrible with Surprise Shopping Trip. Using your power to put presents face-down makes for H instances of 1 melee damage to everyone. Flipping everyone's presents is also costly, since each card is treated as if it just entered play, and thus re-triggers Surprise Shopping Trip.

It could be great if you have a Ground Pound, Enduring Intercession and Ta Moko, or Human Shield and using Block, or Heroic Interception and Danger Sense.  

Or just be lazy and play a Mega Computer. Aka, the winner of "Best card I never play until I remember how good it is." It isn't quite as good as those other options, but it's easily searched, and it sticks around just in case. 

If you have hero DR, then both Surprise Shopping Trip and Negative Energy Field can be fun ways to wear down the villains.

Seriously, Surprise Shopping Trip and basically everything in Dok'Thorath have seriously changed my priorities when it comes to the Wraith. I used to go straight for Razor Ordinance and Infrared Eye Piece, but now I find myself more and more often working to get Megacomputers out ASAP.

One I my favorite combinations is 3 Mega Computers with Jack Handle and Riveting Crane. Heroes can ignore the Environment but the pesky villains can’t!

With requital Captain Cosmic now with us, I just realised how he's absolutely and bar none Guise's Best Friend Ever!

I Can Do That, Too! is flat-out amazing when Requital Cosmic is around. Play the top 3 cards of my deck in any order? Why, thank you very much sir! Reckless manipulation of cosmic energy has never been more fun or rewarding! :)

And Oddly enough, Requital Cosmic is often the best Representative of Earth when playing in Celestial Tribunal.

How so?  haven't played in CT, so I'm not sure how thses things interact.

Cards in Celestial Tribunal allow you to use the power on that Character Card pulled out by Representative of Earth

Oh.

Wow.

Yeah...  Wow.

NICE.

Never realized some of the shenanigans that could occur with Caspit's Playground.

Was losing a game with Dark Visionary against the Dreamer in Freedom Tower: Dreamer was flipped and everyone was incapacitated but Visionary in her coccoon,  and I stumbled upon a combo that got me the win.  I thought all was lost when Mission Control played Demoralization, but I then realized I could hit everyone BUT the Dreamer and then kill Treacherous Ape last -- since Demoralization was now an Equipment, when he died he destroyed it so it wouldn't hurt Dreamer.  Then I used Rook City Wraith's Incapacitated ability to pull Demoralization from my trash into play, as it was an equipment card even in my trash.  Not my favorite way to win, but I did!

How so? I don't play in Tribunal as often as I'd like, so I need some tips.

Playing the top three cards of a deck is pretty powerful as the downside can't occur as there would be no constructs in play to deal damage.

Another pretty good CT hero is Termi-Nation Bunker. Especially from someone like the Naturalist or the Argent Adept, who can have spare ongoings to destroy. But yeah, Requital Cosmic and Team Leader Tachyon are pretty nuts as the representative. 

Also, Completionist Guise, but for different, headache-inducing reasons. 

Now I want a book called 'The Spaced-Out Trial of Guise: Cosmic Attourney', told in the styles of a Phonix Wright game.

Anyone pointed out Requital Captain Cosmic and Extreme Haka with Ta Moko combo yet?

Or Twist the Ether -- make his self damage Energy with Cosmic Crest out.

We did get Requital Cosmic and Xtreme Haka in the thread. Twist the Ether will only work with Cosmic Crest for Unflagging Animation's 1 irreducible psychic. Requital's base power has each Construct deal him the damage. He doesn't deal it to himself.

I'm usually afraid of hero boosts like Legacy with Requital Cosmic, because of accidently losing half of my HP in one turn to boosted Construct damage. However, in my last game, Imbue Fire with Flesh of the Sun God made that a fantastic non-issue. 

Oh, whoops. I thought it was him doing himself psychic damage for some reason.

Would the seer' s nemesis effect stop the attacks?

Yes, clearly.

The Damage is being directed at a Hero Target by a Hero Target.

Speaking of Requital Cosmic, I took him for a spin with the rest of the Not Prime Wardens variants (Eternal / Dark Conductor / Freedom 6 / Redeemer) and had fun with Zealous Offense slowing down Construct damage to Requital CC.

Honestly, though, a pair of Energy Bracers on Hugh and the power is just golden.

Yeah, I figured that bit out quick. But watchout for games with Legacy or Ra, or anyone who likes to raise damage for hero targets.

However, Ra grants the amazing Imbued Flesh combo, which also nullifies the penalty nicely.

Which also makes him immune to his self-damage from Unflagging Animation. Which is actually great, since UA is one of the few upkeep ongoings that doesn't care if Cosmic is dealt the damage.

Requital with Completionist Guise is also a nice insurance plan. Requital plays cards, Guise copies that power, now Cosmic can either switch to base or XPW. Basically boost early then switch to a 'safer' Hugh. I personally like to just stay Requital and let chaos reign, but it's a pretty good strategy.    

Yeah, switching to XPW after swarming the field as Requital is pretty powerful.

Another fun one (and yet another reason that Captain Cosmic and Mr. Fixer are best friends):

You can get an extra shot of Bloody Knuckles boosted damage by getting Augmented Ally into play first. Extra fun with multiple copies of Augmented Ally and Cosmic Weapon -- get in two or three extra shots before Bloody Knuckles destroys itself.

There's also the old classic of Cosmic Weapon+Dual Crowbars=Cosmic Crowbars, and add in the card that gives Fixer two uses of his Strike power in one turn(the name escapes me at the moment), then you have a power-palooza of damage on your hands.

Overdrive.

Yeah, 3 power uses. Plus a bonus one at start of turn with Augmented Ally.

Yeah, I had just finished a game against Infinitor where Fixer just spent every round wrecking everything with Irreducible damage, Harmony and Jackhandle. Adding Dynamic Syphon to the mix meant any of Infinitor's "do everything 1 damage" one-shots ended up really meaning, "Destroy all the Manifestations."

Anubis became my best friend today. Since he's immune to environment card damage, he can't hurt himself with Compulsion Canister. And Aggression Modulator is a card. So Sky-Scraper just spent her turns bouncing Canisters, and Anubis wrecked the Ennead for me. 

Also, Visionary with Wrest the Mind and Cocoon is a well-known one, but doing that on Trueshot is fun since she usually won't die if you just play cards and ignore her.  

This one feels obvious in hindsight, but it wasn't apparent natively so I thought I'd share.

If The SW Sentinels has Hippocratic Oath out, you can increase the amount of HP Dr. Medico will heal by having his damage target a member of The Sentinels or a Void Guard hero and get the "nemesis" bonus before the damage is nullified.

Yup, that's a solid tactic. I usually target Idealist for the damage on habit since she never really has amy kind of self-defense, thus i get more out of the heal...

Dr. Medico isn't regularly punching his daughter to heal his teammates better, no! He's using his love for her to boost his healing abilities. That's totally what's going on there, uh-huh. :V

I for one have always been a "healing shiv" sort of person. I just find the dissonance amusing.

But yeah, loading damage boosts on Medico, hitting Medico with Blackout, all very enjoyably amusing procedures.

You forgot to mention Infecting Medico and let him go around biting heros.

This doesn't really count as an "Unexpected Combination", but if you use Caspit's Playground to turn Hippocratic Oath into an equipment, then Guise can borrow it while copying Scholar's Forms and turn into a Fountain of Eternal Youth until he maxes out his health.  If you use Scholar to keep his (and Scholar's) health down, you can turn it into an infinite loop.

Oh word removed -Mod that’s really creative

I hadn't considered it until this week's weekly challenge (P Spoopy), but Unhallowed Halls plus Twist the Ether is borderline abusive against villains who personally deal most of their damage.

And also that Guise can use Sell Out to play Barbarian, Blatant Reference, and Lemme See That to borrow Wraith's Targeting Computer to shoot for 5 damage every turn. If that doesn't take a chunk out of your target, nothing will.

I never thought about this until today, but now I won't be likely to forget it. I usually don't think twice about playing Wrecking Uppercut with KNYFE, but after watching Atum chain a card play into Set getting another card play during KNYFE's turn, I won't be doing that again any time soon...

Also a good reason to carefully consider using Extrasensory Awareness against them. Unless you've set up their deck so that one of the "bring out another member" cards are on top.  

If you’re playing Challenge Mode it doesn’t matter what’s on top at all.  

Well, it does if what's on top is Ongoing/Equipment destruction. There's times I've found it worth it to discard the card and take the damage triggered from the symbol rather than lose a bunch of my set-up.

Depending on which Ennead members are out you might still run into the Ongoing/Equipment Destruction anyways.  

Not sure how I missed this one before, but Subzero Atmosphere has a strange effect on Deadline.

On his back side, he ends up starting his turn destroying his Catastrophe cards. Then he plays a card; if it’s another Catastrophe, he can stay locked on this side for a long time.

Bright side is that it keeps the environment clear and you don’t deal with the “catastrophic” effects. Whole lotta AOE damage, though.

A Matriarch game yesterday revealed to me that the Unforgiving Wasteland prevents destruction effects from triggering, because destroyed cards are removed from the game instead of being destroyed. I hadn't thought of that - I had assumed that they would be destroyed, and then be removed from the game instead of going to the trash. 

It means that the Skunk Ape is the ultimate anti-Matriarch weapon.

Except then she will start spamming Cacophonies, and no one wants that.

Well, don't let the environment kill the Cohorts or Carrion Fields, then.  Removing the little birds won't make the rest of the cards any more frequent.

Yeah, that’s fair, actually.

Dunno if it was mentioned yet, but XPW Fanatic + Setback’s Friendly Fire just came up in an Akash’Bhuta in the MDF game. Yes I would like to try to hit Setback for two damage after each Holy Nova hit, all getting redirected wherever I chose last round.

Oh damn! Now that's a combo I've never thought of! :D Probably because I never play Friendly Fire...

She’ll play them at the rate she always plays them, because Fowl cards always generate a new play.

I also came across a cool combo today, Setback’s wrong time and place (the one that redirects damage to him first, or remove tokens) plus Haka’s punish the weak, with a rampage as card play. After he hits the villains, every one point of hero target damage gets redirected to Setback, and for each one token he removes, it’s 3 damage to the lowest hp non hero target.

It was a huge help against Chokepoint in Atlantis, especially with Captain Cosmic and several manifestations in play. 9 hero targets (and tokens) became an extra 27 damage.

Oooo, that sounds good. And strangely appropriate story wise.

Setback and XTreme Prime Wardens Haka synergize really well together. I played Ultimate Spite with them and Scholar and utterly wiped the floor with him. Some highlights:

• High Risk Behavior is a very safe card now for Setback, as any massive damage Setback would be dealt gets redirected to Haka who loses the massive damage boost and shrugs off the pitiful damage (especially with Ta Moko and the 1 HP recovery).
• Wrong Time and Place takes less of a cost on Setback, as any damage you would want to redirect from Setback can first get redirected to Haka, who reduces it by 1 with Ta Moko and any Haka of Shielding effects, and thus takes fewer tokens to redirect.
• Friendly Fire is kinda inert since Setback now can't be dealt any damage... but on the other hand, with High Risk Behavior, any time Setback deals damage to Spite, he can choose to deal damage to himself, and remove tokens by Wrong Time and Place to deal more damage to Spite. If he deals a second instance of damage to Spite on his turn, he can Friendly Fire himself, redirect to Haka, and then remove the tokens to redirect it to Spite again!
• On one hand, Haka's power phase gets a bit boring as he can't use Taiaha or Mere... but on the other hand, you won't notice it with all the damage Setback is doing thanks to XPW Haka.

@LewdDolphin: You realize now you're required to reproduce that on the stream, right? ;)

+1

That's not a bad idea! We could use another week of "every villain is accidentally Spite."

Just discovered that Heroic Infinitor and Freak Show from Madame Mittermeier's can be tough if Infinitor is the lowest hp hero target. Because he doesn't have a way to discard cards to get rid of Freak Show, it is impossible to win unless another hero target becomes the lowest or you play an environment destruction card.

Oh wow D: That's terrible!

So I took F5 Wraith for a random spin today, and boy howdy did her base power get along with Setback. Surprising Fortune giving Setback two more cards? Don't mind if I do!

Don't forget about Cash Out.

I went and did the Ultimate Spite match on stream tonight. Check it out if you missed it!

I'm sorry I wasn't there even though I'm the one who requested it; I haven't been feeling very good for the past couple of weeks.

Well, I was hoping that if I target with Unitys Hasty Augmentation Freedom Five Tachyon each instance of damage gets the +2 buff but it wasn‘t the case. Just her base damage was affected but not the other sources of damage after selecting cards. Anyway her discard pile was full of burst cards and there were 3 other buffs around^^

I think that this was something MigrantP brought up on the stream a few weeks ago as a potential rules question for Christopher. It makes sense to me, since the text allows you to "use this power again"  instead of something llike "repeat the game text of this card." Hasty Augment would be amazingly rediculous otherwise. 

Thank you for the answer. 

We checked with Christopher and the way it is working in the game is correct.

Turns out F5 Wraith's power stacks. And since it lasts to the end of her next turn, you don't even need an out-of-turn power use to do it. So if you use it two turns in a row, she can discard after the first draw that is part of the power, then when she draws to finish her turn, she can discard twice to dole out two card draws.

Don't be like me, folks: hold off on Freedom Five Tachyon's Blitz in Magmaria when Crystalloid Behemoth is in play. I'd worked out the Hasty Augment issue with the multiple power uses, but I'd forgotten about the Behemoth's counter damage every time you use a power. 

...this might be a hilarious way to boost the number of cards in Tachyon's trash against Spite, though it would hurt a bit.

@bolnerap: Related to that is when I was playing Iron Legacy for nemesis message reasons and had a brain blip and forgot that Final Evolution triggers on every power use and not just the first one. It was like "Oops. Yeah, let's rewind and actually NOT waste all of Tachyon's Burst cards for no good reason."

… Oh gods, if Spite's damage is negated, Tachyon could just keep using Blitz forever.

…Outside of her own deck, I can think of three easy ways to do that. 2 of them on the FV.

Legacy: Next Evolution & Lead from the Front

Wraith: Throat Jab

Chrono Ranger: Ultimate Target & Neutralizing Neurotoxin (He'll need to have hit Spite twice)

Wraith with double Stun Bolts and Utility Belt works too. 

Well no, because the discards/damage don't happen until after the power is finished, and finished means "after you stop using the option to repeat your power". So you can do it X times and  AFTER you say no/don't have any more Bursts in the discard pile  then you will trigger Spite's discard/damage clause X times.

So she could do use it every turn if someone gave her extra power uses but not infinitely on one turn.

Fair point. But still, being able to pump out 23 damage on each of her turns is pretty good.

I just tried that in the video game, and it doesn't work as well as you'd think.  Discarding from an empty deck causes it to get reshuffled, just like drawing from one does.  So what ends up happening is that you have to carefully add up the number of cards in her deck so that you use the power exactly the right number of times so that she gets as many bursts as possible in the trash (which may mean multiple shuffles).  Or else you get lazy, use all of them up every time, and end up with some random number of cards in your trash.

Still, with normal Legacy on the team to cancel out Spite's retaliation and boost Tachyon's damage, it was the easiest game I've ever played against Advanced AoG Spite.

Requital Captain Cosmic absolutely WRECKS the Bloodsworn Coliseum.

My first turn with him, I used his power to auto-win Chaos Lord. My second turn, I used the power again. Between the two, he had five constructs in play, including an Energy Bracer on himself, and a Potentially Disruption. So:

• A bunch of targets dealt Cosmic damage, winning him Mindbreaker

• The first was an Autonomous Blade, which won itself The Seeker

• Potent Disruption won Cosmic Death-Caller

Then, the next time something hit Cosmic, he:

• Dealt several Vitality Conduits and Dynamic Siphons 1 damage

• Played a construct off the bottom of his deck, which promptly won Stonejaw

!!!

Wow.

Wow.

I always worry about playing CC against Kaargra because all those 4-HP targets the villains can destroy are easy points for them. But I’ll have to try this.

I honestly just love the mental image of Cosmic's constructs going around being gladiators with titles in their own right.

That reminds me of the story of how Stealth Bot ended up with all the titles and basically won the whole thing single-handedly.

Yeah, what really struck me was how trivially he and his Constructs could get, like, ALL the titles.

I didn’t even have this happen, but he could easily get Champion with a Construct Cataclysm or Conservation of Energy. A couple well-placed Autonomous Blades and Wounding Buffers, and he could use his power to get Indiscriminate. (Or choose the multiple-target damage on Cataclysm.)

About the only difficult one to get (where"difficult" probably just means “requiring help from other heroes, like Compulsion Canisters”) is Reckless, and I don’t think it’s possible for him to get The Living Weapon. But all the rest…just use Requital a couple times!

For what variant?

Assuming this target is at 1HP, no DR or any redirection stuff, 

For XPW, he just uses his power to kill the target.

For Vanilla, he can reveal a damaging card and play it, correct? He's using his innate power to take it out.

For PW, I think it's impossible. 

But for Requital, are you able to equip a contruct with an Autonomous Blade, and then use Requital to make all of the contructs deal you damage, and have the blade act, once the construct it's next to hits you, to destroy the target in question? Would that work? 

I think most of those would work in theory with board game with house interpretations of the rules, but not the video game.  Otherwise you could argue that Grandpa Legacy's innate granting another player the ability to use their innate power to destroy a target as ambiguous of who would receive the title.

Fair point. 

Do the Fireside Chats clear anything about this up?

Only powers that directly deal damage or destroy targets can earn Living Weapon.  Playing a card that deals damage does not earn it.  Triggering an effect that deals damage does not earn it.  Dealing damage and then finishing them off with Deathcaller or Flawless Execution does not earn it.  The power must be the direct cause of the destruction by a damage or destroy effect written into the power.

Similarly, damage written in the power is the only damage boosted by it, just like with Hasty Augmentation.

(I just tested the Flawless Execution version, in case anyone was wondering)

Yeah, I was thinking about Requital Cosmic, and in his case it’s always the Constructs or card plays dealing damage when he uses his base power - not the power itself.

I think that the constructs dealing damage would count as the power dealing damage, but I'm not sure.  That said, boosting the self-harm damage seems like a bad idea.

Hasty Augmentation on XPW Cosmic boosts not only the damage dealt by him when he uses his power, but all his constructs as well.

Living Weapon can only be earned by heroes, though. There was a bug in the video game at one point, with XPW CC, where constructs could earn it, but that was fixed. Prior to that fix, I suppose Requital CC’s constructs could have earned it, either via redirection or, very briefly, the direct way.

Can Requital CC earn Living Weapon: Yes. But,

1. Why would you want to?

2. It requires both Guise, and The Sentinels.

3. It might not work properly in the video game since if you did this you'd probably be the first person to do this.

Here's how to do it though:

1. Get a 1 point damage boost from Legacy, Parse, Insula Primalis, etc.

2. Have Guise copy Caliginous Form and Human Shield via Yeah, I'm That Guy.

3. Trigger the self damage clause on Requital.

4. Redirect 1 of the hits to Guise and then redirect it again with Caliginous form so that it destroys a target.

...actually thinking on it, you could replace Caligionous Form with Total Beefcake which could eliminate step 1.

Or you could do it in The Enclave of the Endlings with Immutus.

Maze of Mirrors from MMFFCC

Heroic Interception

Drawn to the Flame

Ten hero ongoings in play, plus the Staff of Ra

Ra does eleven damage to all but one non-hero targets.

I did this against Ambuscade this morning, destroying two Reactive Platings, the Personal Cloaking Device, and a couple of devices.

That still shouldn’t work. The source of the damage is the constructs, so the hero didn’t do the destroying even though his power did. I mean, XPWCC can’t get The Champion using just his base power, can he?

The title doesn't say anything about the source of the damage. It says: "When a hero destroys a target using their innate power..."

Both XPW Captain Cosmic and Captain Cosmic: Requital can earn The Living Weapon if they destroy a target using their innate power (regardless of whether the destruction is caused by damage from CC or a construct).

Not sure why you're asking about The Champion, that has completely different wording. I suppose there might be shenanigans where you can get a Wounding Buffer to destroy 3 targets during his power usage. But then it would be the Wounding Buffer getting that title, not Captain Cosmic.

Speaking of Maze and Mirrors, that's a useful card if you want XPW AA to be able to use his 'Rebel Yell' power on himself.

With every other “when X destroys a target” effect in the game, X has to be the one actually dealing the damage. For instance, if you played Compulsion Canister on someone other than Sky-Scraper and the damage destroyed a target, Sky-Scraper wouldn’t have been said to have destroyed that target, even though it was her action and card that directly caused the destruction. I don’t see why “when a hero destroys a target using their innate power” should behave differently from “when a hero destroys a target” in this way. I read it as an additional constraint on “when a hero destroys a target.”

Just had a surprising combination while playing, and I now cannot continue, weirdly.

I'm playing with Scholar and some other heroes against The Matriarch in Omnitron IV.

Internal Defense Grid is out, so whenever a new target enters play, the Grid deals it 1 damage.

Scholar just played Offensive Transmutation, so Matriarch cannot do damage. No Carrion Fields are out.

The Matriarch just played Darken The Sky, with a lot of birds in play.

Darken The Sky brings out a Fowl card, which the Grid immediately kills, but which keeps coming back again.

Cannot proceed!

That’s not what I encounter.  Each Fowl only comes out only once from the trash and then the Mask is played.  It’s a nice interaction when Matriarch can’t deal damage for your case I’m wondering how many Fowl were in the trash. 

Oh, that's cool! And I rarely say that about that card.

To add to Powerhound's comment, that's not how it works.

1. Every Fowl comes out of the trash and go into a "holding area".
2. A single Fowl enters play.
3. Internal Defense Grid deals damage to the Fowl and kills it.
4. The Highest HP Hero is offered the choice to destroy an Ongoing or take damage.
5. The Matriarch tries to deal damage but fails.
6. If there are more Fowl in the "holding area", Go back to 2.
7. Check the trash for The Mask and put it into play.
8. Internal Defense Grid deals damage to The Mask.
9. Darken the Skies goes to the trash.
10. Heroes celebrate

I'm now reminded of the time I had Maze of Mirrors and Freak Show out at the same time while playing against Plague Rat and Sergeant Steel so I more or less got to just sit back and let the villains beat themselves up.

So, I've made clear on the Handelabra streams and in my own space that Isolated Hero is my least favorite card in the game, but I had a situation today where it actually helped.

I've been taking the Freedom Five variants through the gauntlet, having them take on each solo villain on Ultimate. So far they are performing very, very well, as one would expect. Today's game against Miss Information in Silver Gulch was hairy, though - once she flipped, I could barely do any damage because I never saw Inspiring Presence and her native 2 DR was tough to get around. Absolute Zero was isolated and couldn't benefit from extra card plays from Legacy or Bunker to keep himself afloat, so he went down pretty quickly.

I got to a situation where Legacy was down, Absolute Zero was down, Wraith and Bunker were both at 2, and Tachyon was at 14. Given MI's counter damage and wildly variable card plays on Challenge, I tried to figure out if I could bring her down from 32 in one round. Wraith could do 3, and Tachyon could do 26... but Bunker couldn't get through her DR and his base power whiffed. Tachyon had Synaptic Interruption out to block counter damage, but it would be DR'd down to 1 and leave MI at 2 HP with one last turn. Then it hit me -

AZ's incapacitated power of increase all damage dealt to and by targets by 1 would still affect Miss Information! So, Tachyon bounced MI's counter damage back to her with Synaptic Interruption... and it was increased by +1/+1 from Absolute Zero's incapacitated power, which was the extra 2 damage I needed to do her in.

Take that, Isolated Hero. :P

Wouldn't that have still helped even without Isolated Hero?

Of course. But I didn't have enough Ongoing destruction to get rid of it (Challenge rules, there were a ton of Clues in play), and the point was more that I was able to get a benefit from an incap power in spite of Isolated Hero.

I managed to get The Seeker on Freedom Five Tachyon, the full ramifications of which did not hit me until I started using her base power. If you're lucky enough to have Inspiring Presence out (or another damage boost, but I'm using just the F5 variants), that's one Favor per hit from Blitz, and Kaargra goes down pretty quickly. I'm really enjoying F5 Tachyon.

Well, I just learned a fun one.

Cards placed underneath the Dreamer on her The Dreamer Wakes are not indestructible, which means that End of Days wipes them out and places them in the trash.

That was a fun way to lose a Mint on the latest one-shot. 

Ah, yes.  I've done that.  Fortunately, in my case I was saved by the Ongoing-destroying projection, which takes out End of Days before it can destroy the cards under Dreamer.  Which as a bonus also protects all the hero cards from being destroyed.

Yes, noticed both of these on my last play through this - not enough to save the game, but something to keep in mind for the next play through.

It turns out that for someone who never wields a gun, Mr. Fixer is a crack shot in the Shooting Gallery.

In fact, he's quite good at handling many of the attractions at Madame Mittermeier’s, provided he's holding his trusty Jack Handles.  You Won't Believe Your Eyes, but Mr. Fixer doesn't care, he's blind.  He's not going to Vanish without a Trace either, and he doesn't find the Carousel so Horrifying.   

Nothing game breaking but a nice combo for two variants, at least to me, that don’t see much play.  If you have DW Setback in turn order before F6/Golem Unity and he uses Mitigate bots now cost two self damage for Unity which is certainly more appealing me to than four damage allowing you to get more use out of the power before health gets concerning.  

It was probably already mentioned but I love Mr. Fixer with his Dual Crowbar and Grease Monkey Fist which lets him deal 3 damage to the first target and 5 damage to a second target. 

Sometimes there is no second enemy target but if you have AZ with Null-Point Calibration Unit on the field let Mr. Fixer deal cold damage with his Grease Monkey Fist and heal AZ every turn. 

Or hit AZ with fire and get him to hit the target, too.

Dude Mr. Fixer with Crowbars, Grease Monkey Fist, and Harmony, and Absolute Zero (fully set up, with Coolant Blast) is ridiculous!

Mr. Fixer hits AZ with fire, then hits an enemy with MORE fire. Then AZ either hits himself for cold, or hits that enemy again. With Overdrive or Charge (or Overdrive and Rod of Anubis, even better!) you can really rack up the damage, without leaving AZ any worse for wear.

Then on AZ’s turn, use a one-shot like Frostbound Drain or Hoarfire, and let loose with Coolant Blast for MASSIVE damage!

The Wraith, Unity, and The Naturalist are great. Have out Unity's Stealth Bot (making sure it is the hero target with the lowest HP), Wraith's Smoke Bombs, and Naturalist's Formidable Rhinoceros and Resilient Hide (making sure Naturalist is the hero target with the highest HP). Whenever a villain target tries to deal damage to a hero target, have it redirect to Stealth Bot, which triggers Smoke Bombs and redirects to Naturalist whilst reducing the damage by 1. Damage deal to Naturalist is already reduced by 1, and if the net amount is 1 Resilient Hide prevents it. Thus any damage of 3 or fewer from the villain side is no more. This gets further improved with Bestial Shift (another damage-1) and Indomitable Force (another damage-1 and non-villain damage dealt to hero targets can also get redirected to Naturalist, albeit without Smoke Bombs' effect).

Throw in a Wraith Stun Bolt or two for even more reduction!

I often use Wraith with Visionary or Nightmist if I want to be Smoke Bomb happy. When they become invulnerable, (Telekinetic Cocoon or Mistform) I'll ping the health of the rest of the heroes so they are all tied for lowest. Then Smoke Bombs makes everyone in the party invulnerable to villain damage. But it's not great if you summon minions. (Unity, Captain Cosmic) Throw in Parse for some deck control to avoid ongong destruction and the game can end up in a lock for the heroes.

Lately though, Legacy and Captain Cosmic give me all the tanking I need. Throw all the Energy Bracers on Legacy and Legacy will tank all the villain damage of 6 or less without a scratch. (thanks to Superhuman Durability, Fortitude and Lead from the Front)

Well, here's a new one, although maybe it's less "Unexpected combinations" and more "really obvious thing that I never clued in to":

If Guise borrows one of Argent Adept's instruments, he can activate songs that are still in AA's play area. Instruments don't care where the songs are. This seems obvious from the literal card art, but I'd never thought of it so I never tried before...

Sooooo, entering a Fixed Point in time allows flip side Mad Bomber Blade to recruit minions and/or find Mobile Defense Platforms. Funny that.

Ohhhhhh. Well, I never caught on to that. I just thought, "Man, that's hard to copy Argent Adept when I have to use his instruments and his songs."

Well I just learned that abilities that target decks (Rogue KNYFE's power was what I noticed it with) can target the Title Deck.  It makes sense, but that's not something I would have considered as a possibility playing on the tabletop.

Interesting. You can search for a title you want.

…or a mission you want, I’m guessing. Could Super Scientific Tachyon get two mission cards in play?

The mission deck doesn't have a play area, and cards that come from it get "moved," not "played."  And there's no mechanism for moving mission cards not on their deck or in a hero play area.  So even if you could, all it would do is lock those two cards into an unusable limbo area.

Got slaughtered by one the other day that perhaps shouldn't have been unexpected.

Fighting Omnitron with a team that included Absolute Zero. About halfway through, I played Sub-zero Atmosphere.

But Omnitron's on the Self Aware Robotics Factory side, so it's "end of turn" activity is to shuffled trash and play a component. And it draws the Electro-Pulse Explosive.

Since it's still the start of the villain turn, EPE goes off, and every hero takes 15 damage.

Ouch.

EPE is not a valid item to come into play as Omnitron only plays a card with the Component or Drone keyword from trash.   The EPE only has the Device keyword.  

Omnitron probably just played the top card of its deck at the start of turn. Not a great villain to use Sub-Zero Atmosphere against!

That certainly is the other case.   Sub Zero Atmosphere can be great in some setups and downright terrible in others.   

So I was going to ask about strange things. Was playing about with some of the old weekly one-shots and Ultimate Baron Blade made it to 15 cards at the start of his turn due to Subzero atmosphere but didn't win the game. Is that because the order the actions resolve is check, then discard? 

The check happens first per the order of the card text.  A similar case is Voss with Forced Deployment out and he has ten minions in trash. The check and the minions coming into play happen at the start of turn but the check on Voss’s Card occurs before Forced Deployment triggers. 

Ah ok was resolving it correctly on the table as well.

I also just realized that you can lose to Ultimate Baron Blade by flipping him if you are very very unlucky. 

Impulsion Beam + Gritty Reboot.  Whenever you draw a card, you take damage.  Whenever you take damage, you draw a card.  You can keep trade as much HP as you want for cards.

Random game I was playing recently tweaked me onto this combo:
Omnitron-X + KNYFE, with KNYFE having Focusing Blade out and up to the 3 other copies in hand. If OX plays Singularity (Destroy X Equipment, deal X to all non-heros) and destroys Focusing Blade, KNYFE can play another copy immediately to get blown up again and so on. Nice way to add a little extra damage to the AoE nuke.

~Komori

Nice! You can do a similar thing with Construct Cataclysm and Sustained Influence.

I just had this happen:

Baron Blade had a Living Force Field on the board, so Sky-Scraper played a Neutralizing Resonator for next turn. She was last, and the environment, Omnitron IV, quietly played a lone Resource Recycler. On Baron Blade’s turn, he whipped up a Backlash Field.

Wraith used an Infrared Eyepiece on her turn to reveal another Living Force Field and a Devious Disruption. Great! I pick the lesser of two evils, thinking that Portja can at least get rid of one damage reduction.

Sky-Scraper’s turn starts. I get the option to destroy an Ongoing card and blow up the Force Field. Then a bunch of things zoomed around my screen and I got ANOTHER option to destroy an Ongoing card. I had to rewind to figure out what happened: the Neutralizing Resonator got destroyed and went into the top of Sky-Scraper’s trash, where the Resource Recycler promptly put it into play again. It auto-played onto the villain character card without my input, and then, since it was still the start of turn, it could trigger again to explode the Backlash Field!

Ha! Ha! Ha! That's great!

So with 380 posts, it's hard for me to find time to read through everything to see if someone already posted this... but I just had a fun one that I thought I would share.

Matriarch in Madame Mittermeier's. She has no environment destruction... and Maze of Mirrors came out... and her birds spent the rest of the match KOing themselves by flying into mirrors.

That is so satisfying...

X-treme Prime Wardens Fanatic against (solo) Plague Rat is a lot of fun. She’s even more fun if the team involves Setback and he has both copies of “Friendly Fire” in play. She pummels the ever-loving crap out of Plague Rat.

I assume you mean that she can re-direct the Infection damage to Plague Rat. Similarly, when she tries to hit Setback with Friendly Fire, that gets redirected to Plague Rat as well. I think that since this is an “unexpected combos” thread, it’s helpful to spell out exacly how the combo works.

Just beat Ultimate Blade, although not sure if this is working as intended - in Final Wasteland with Unforgiving Wasteland out, he got killed by environment on front side which let me remove him from the game and get the win. Assuming it IS working as intended, nice combo with any of the “hits lowest” monsters (which aren’t exactly in short supply!)

That is intended.  

Awesome, thanks!

I used Guise and played „I can do that too!“ https://imgur.com/a/t0rhKfX

I copied the base power of the Hunted Naturalist to draw a card and the crocodile was chosen „snap snap“ https://imgur.com/a/VFRPAmK

The Hunted Naturalist had Cornered Beast in play https://imgur.com/a/XfIGCe1

The Bonus of Cornered Beast was doubled https://imgur.com/a/7mEgLQR

That doesn't look right.  Cornered Beast should apply only once even if both The Naturalist and Guise count as crocodiles.  Even if "Uh, Yeah, I'm That Guy" were also in play, it would only benefit Guise once and Naturalist once.

Working correctly. Both Guise and The Naturalist activate the crocodile text on Cornered Beast, giving The Naturalist +2 to damage. Worth noting also is that both Guise and the Naturalist activate the crocodile text on Uh Yeah, I'm That Guy, giving Guise +2 to damage.

I thought Uh, Yeah was supposed to destroy Form cards when you copy the Naturalist. <.<

Doesn’t mean Naturalist can’t put the Form back into play.  

But the Hunted Naturalist's base power doesn't have that problem.

Well, I tried it with Uh Yeah and Resilient Hide, and I don't understand what happened at all: at the start of Guise's turn, both he and Naturalist gained a hit point.  The log said that the Naturalist got his from Resilient Hide directly, and Guise from Uh Yeah, but that doesn't make sense, since Resilient Hide shouldn't have triggered until Naturalist's turn.  I would have understood if Uh Yeah gave Guise two hit points (one from each rhinoceros), based on the above example, but this I don't get.

Also, why does it work for ongoings, but not one-shots?  I would expect that if both Guise and Naturalist can trigger the same symbol on the same ongoing, they would also trigger the same symbol on the same one-shot.  I haven't tried it on Natural Form's Power yet, but I honestly have no idea what to expect given the pattern so far.

Is it because the rule, as written when you F3 to check out what's happening, is "The Naturalist may activate {animal} effects"?

Like, it doesn't matter who's playing them. If they're there, they can be activated.

But even then, Resilient Hide when copied by Guise reads, "At the start of your [Guise's] turn, Guise regains 1 HP."  The Naturalist shouldn't be gaining HP on Guise's turn.  And if ongoing clauses with the crocodile symbol happen twice if there are two crocodiles in play, I don't know why that doesn't apply to one-shots.

If anything, that logic is the reverse of what's happening.  No text in the game says "Guise may activate [Crocodile] effects," but when he's a crocodile, they're activated regardless of who they belong to.

I referenced the Vengeance rulebook where it explains how The Naturalist works, but unfortunately, it's clearly wrong (it only talks about playing cards, not cards that are already in play).

Resilient Hide has a rhino text that says "At the start of your turn, The Naturalist regains 1 HP."

At the start of Guise's turn, he activates the rhino text on Resilient Hide, so The Naturalist regains 1 HP, exactly as the card says.

Uh Yeah has a rhino text that says "At the start of your turn, Guise regains 1 HP."

At the start of Guise's turn, he activates the rhino text on Uh Yeah, so Guise regains 1 HP.

Yeah, I understood how he worked with Argent Adept.  That's easier to understand because there aren't any passive effects.  I never considered that the original copy of Resilient Hide would check every hero to see if they happen to be a rhino, and if so, heal The Naturalist at the start of that hero's turn.  That's really weird and unintuitive.  I get the logic, but boy is that something that no one will ever play right in tabletop.

Now I'm imagining Guise parading around in a really awful rhino disguise and persuading all the enemies to attack The Naturalist, who is in Gazelle form but has Indomitable Force out.

If I’m understanding it correctly, it works because “Uh Yeah” also copies Rhino, and Rhino doesn’t care which hero has cards with Rhino text.

Uh Yeah reads “Guise may activate Rhino effects. If Guise takes exactly 1 damage, prevent that damage. Rhino: At the start of your turn, gain 1 HP.”

The first phrase is what activates Resilient Hide on the Naturalist, and the “gain 1 HP” phrase copied to Uh Yeah.

Of course, this implies that on the Naturalist’s turn, his copy of Rhino activates the Rhino text on Uh Yeah. I haven’t tried this.

EDIT: Several cards display Guise’s shape-shifting abilities, including Uh Yeah. So I imagine that if he’s being a Rhino, he’s definitely a Rhino, the same way he has substantial pecs on Uh Yeah and Guise the Barbarian. It’s just that it’s a purple Rhino that’s recognizably Guise.

The Rhino came from "I can do that, too"

That's why this is so hard to track, you've got two separate things doing kind of the same thing but not really. x.x

Minor annoying one from this week's one-shot:  Imbued Fire + activated Flesh of the Sun God + XTREME Fanatic.  She cannot redirect her self damage, because she is immune so it just fizzles.

Also found on this week's one shot:
X-Treme Haka redirecting Fanatic's damage to another hero from Enbolden means it destroys itself due to not dealing damage to said hero :/

~Komori

Never realized how ridiculous Freedom Five Legacy's incap power is.  Incapacitated FV Legacy and Nightmist in Mist Form == super overpowered -- can still dish out damage and ignore all damage done to her!

…

That's…

Damn.

Without villian or environmental ongoing destruction, I don't think that's losable.

A little more Chaotic, but Nightmist in Mist Form just loves opening present from Santa Guise.

I’m never really clear when you can get around a “can’t play cards” ongoing. Often, effects that says “play a card” are cancelled by cards like Mist Form or Turret Mode. I know that you can’t use Argent Adept’s powers to play cards, for example. I don’t see how Freedom Five’s incapacitated power gets around the “can’t play cards” text. Santa Guise works because you’re not playing cards, you’re turning over cards that are already in your play area.

F5 Legacy's incap power specifically says " One player may play a card, even if they would otherwise be prevented."

"Even if" trumps "can't" trumps "can" =)

Oh, OK. I didn’t have ready access to the exact text of F5 Legacy’s incap power, I just read the summary off the wiki and assumed it was like most “one hero can play a card” incap powers.

Also anything that says "put a card into play" gets around "can't play", because playing and putting into play are two different things!

Now I’m wondering if F5 Legacy’s incapacitated ability can let someone get two Limited cards into play.

I wouldn't think so.

When things like Atlantean Font of Power would cause a Limited card already in play to enter play, it gets discarded. I know some cards that have this effect specify other things (play the next card instead), but that's the usual behavior and I think it would supercede anything else.

Or heck, I can just try it.

...No, it does not allow you to play a Limited card. I think because the "otherwise be prevented" is meant to work against "cannot play cards".

From this week’s one-shot, I learned that Fanatic can mitigate the dangers of Captain Cosmic’s Requital power with Zealous Offense. She can also use Divine Sacrifice to ping some constructs, triggering them, and also saving Captain Cosmic some damage.

I've been playing a lot of the core game on my phone, and I had never discovered how great Oxygen Leak from Wagner Mars Base is.  I had always instantly eliminated it because it was cheap to do so, but it's a pretty cool tool for the heroes with good AoE damage.  Also, slap a Twist the Ether on the main villain and suddently all damage they deal gets turned to fire and is reduced by 4 (3 from the Oxygen Leak, and 1 from TtE).  Just probably don't want to play with the Leak if Ra is on your team, considering it makes him pretty useless.  Also be careful of using it if you are going to blow up a Self Destruct Sequence.

If you can get Judge Mental (Miss Information) out in a game with Proletariat your increasing the physic damage dealt to Proletariat at the beginning of his turn. Noticed this combo before a recent game with Proletariat, Fright Train, and Miss Information. Although if your playing with Challenge Proletariat this combo won't work.

Beautiful!

I mentioned this jn another thread, but a solid strategy for beating Dawn (especially with fewer players) is to let her get a lot of Citizens out and play defensively.  She'll immediately flip back and you can finish her up.

Not truly unexpected, but I love playing Writhe's Blackout on Mega-Gunner after Sergeant Steele has activated him. 4 damage to every villain target, and any/all backlash damage not hitting a hero? Sign me up!

So the Chaos Lord Title from Kaargra's fight is an interesting play with F5 Tachyon in that you can Blitz, placing a burst card from trash underneath your deck, and then hit yourself, which puts that card into play. Fleet of Foot came out at least three times every round after the first few rounds. It wasn't pretty.

drool that is awesome. 

Aaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahaaa! That’s beautiful.

Well, this isn‘t an unexpected combination but maybe my post fits here. 

As Benchmark was released yesterday... I can recommend to bundle him with AZ. 

Absolute Zero loves Onboard Cooling System. 

More Benchmark and Absolute Zero fun, courteousy of everyone's favorite ruthless efficency archer: 

After scoping out Benchmark's Inferno Pod, Parse decided to fire a Targeting Arrow right into AZ's intake, increasing the fire damage he took and output, leading to even more explosive Coolant Blast the turn following. 

Theoretically one could use this to heal AZ up even more, but where's the fun in survival?

*Silently Parse wordlessly shoots Absolute Zero in the back" 

"Hey lady, what'd you do that for, that's gonna make everything ten times worse!" 

"You're welcome." 

Was fighting Kismet and Benchmark got Scattered Mind (discard every time you do damage).  With Missile Pod out, all the extra discards were just extra ammo for Missile Pod!  And damage from Missile Pod itself causes even more discards for more Missile Pod ammo for the next round (Kismet didn’t make it to the next round, though).

I rarely use Dark Watch Mr. Fixer. He has to destroy cards to use his only power, which makes him a bit of a downer, or at least kind of difficult to use effectively. 

He is pretty darn good paired with Stuntman, however. 

Like so many other hero cards, Stuntman's ongoing cards have conditions for destroying them and effects when they are destroyed. Unlike all those other heroes, however, Stuntman's cards activate their effects however they're destroyed, not just if they're destroyed under specific circumstances.

He pairs very, very well with Dark Watch Fixer. Action Hero Stuntman is even better, since he can get two card plays on his turn in order to stay ahead of Fixer's destructive hunger. (Really needs extra card draw, though.)

As I’ve said elsewhere Mainstay is also effective paired with DW Fixer 

I'm not sure if this has been posted on this thread before, but Heroic Infintor and The Sentinels have an interesting combo.

I played a game with Heroic Infintor and The Sentinels, and got Blackout in my starting hand. On my second turn played Blackout, causing Infintor to destroy 4-5 Manifestions, giving the me an early victory. This was my first time beating Heroic Infintor before he flipped.

That one's come up before.  it's a REALLY strong card for Heroic Infinitor.

I like the Lito Foodstuffs Action Lineup: Grandpa Legacy, PWX Captain Cosmic, Stuntman (either one), and Guise.  It’s a really effective team.  Perfect for beating even the hardest boss, and best enjoyed with Dora Lito’s Fresh Cheddar Pressed-Corn Snack Biscuits and some generic soda.

My first time beating Heroic Infinitor flipped was due to Fixed Point in Time Cataclysm. He had all of his manifestations out or under his card, and he kept cycling through his deck playing one-shots, dealing damage, and playing the next card. He finally got all his cards under him and I won with his HP at 0, Captain Cosmic at 0, and Argent Adept, Skyscraper, and Chronoranger all at -1. I feel like I should have gotten the Close One achievement

That should really be its own achievement. Pyrrhic Victory, win a game with all your heroes at 0 HP or less.

like

Well, this just happened: playing against Ultimate Matriarch in Freedom Tower (as a result of random vill/enviro), with a team of F6 Tempest, PW CC, F5 Legacy, DW Nightmist, and The One True Tachyon (Science Tachyon, of course), and oh boy.  Take Downs and Hypersonic Assaults and Mistbounds abounded.  Speaking of which, if you’re ever in a pickle... there are a lot of fun things you can do with Reclaim from the Deep and Mission Control.  Is Legacy low, but you need Take Down?  Reclaim from Mission Control!  Did you lose Master of Magic?  Reclaim from Mission Control!

EDIT: I almost forgot, we only gave her 2 turns between all our shenanigans.

Nice one!

If both Benchmark and Stuntman are fighting Greazer and Benchmark is the hero target with the highest HP, then Stuntman also counts as Greazer’s nemesis.

I really didn’t expect it to work that way. Once Akash’Thriya is in the game that has pretty big implications.

It shouldn't work that way, IMO.  "Greazer's Nemesis is any hero character card in the same play area as the Contract card."  It doesn't say that Greazer's nemesis symbol is treated as being the same as the symbol on that card.

I agree, but the video game does give Greazer’s the OblivAeon nemesis symbol.

Also, it would work the same with Void Guard/Sentinels.

That may have been a programming convenience.  It didn't matter very much back when heroes didn't share nemesis symbols.  Not sure if John ran that by Christopher or not before implementing it.  Hopefully it will show up in a fireside chat at some point.

I think it’s already in Fireside chats I’ll take a look.  At the very least they have talked about it on stream.  

Edit:  yep it is in Fireside chats

>

Greazer has a nemesis effect against other targets sharing the same nemesis icon that his contract has. For example, if the contract is in Ra’s play area, Anubis and Greazer are also nemeses. In the video game, Greazer’s card shows the appropriate icon during gameplay.

Whoops, should have checked there first.  I disagree with that reading of it but at least it's consistent.

Good thing because I totally forgot about that!

Yay for when you program things right the first time and they just work!  I love it when that happens.

Got hit with another "ouch." I was fighting Baron Blade in the Time Cataclysm and Fixed Point came up. Then he played Devious Disruption. Fixed Point won't let you destroy any of your own cards, so every hero takes damage equal to the total number of ongoing and equipment cards you have.

Wiped me out in one shot.

Oof!

This was probably already posted but I couldn‘t find the search function for this forum. 

Nevertheless , this happened:

I started a random game and Freedom Six Tempest was in the first spot vs. La Capitan. 

She put a card of each hero under her character card during the first turn. 

I played a one-shot and thought, let me just use his Sacrifice power which lets me destroy one of my cards to draw 3 cards although no card of me was in play. 

That assumption was WRONG, one card of Tempest was under La Capitans character card. 

This should also work with Chokepoint, very interesting. 

I often use Tempest but this is my least used variant. 

Note that it will only work with Chokepoint once she has flipped.   On her initial side the facedown cards in her play area can’t be targeted.  

I’m pretty sure this should work vs. the team variant of La Capitan and the cards under her monkey.

Mwa Ha Ha! That’s awesome!

There are a lot of places I often forget to look for cards I can target with Sacrifice and Whoops! Sorry!.  Face-down presents from Santa Guise are a great one.  Also, cards under Savage Mana can be targeted by things like Into the Stratosphere, which can be nice when you're trying to lock down The Chairman.

Cards under cards are still in play, they just have no text other than the name on their back, so tempests cards are still tempests cards.

Fun fact, this also works with Omnitron-U's base power, O-U's cards that are facedown or under other cards still trigger his 2 damage when destroyed.

My first game to attempt to unlock Super Sentai Idealist was to take her up against Chokepoint.  And because Chokepoint is usually stupidly easy, I almost always play her on Ultimate.  Sounds fine, right?

Nope.

Hoo boy did I forget to read her Challenge mode text carefully.  Void Guard in general hates her--she steals the Shadow Cloak and any of Mainstay's stuff he wrecks--but Idealist is the one who really suffers.  Karate Bot her with 4 fragments to do 10 damage?  Great, Chokepoint heals for 8 of it and deals each hero 8 damage to boot.  I realized my mistake far too late.  It's still a winnable game, especially if you bring Writhe to shut off her healing (or use the Court of Blood) and another hero (Legacy probably) who can tank the damage, but Idealist gets nerfed into the ground otherwise.

Oh, my. Just got a new fun combo. Void Guard Writhe fighting in The Final Wasteland. The Unforgiving Wasteland is out and Writhe plays Darkly Dreaming. It does enough damage to reduce all the environmental beasties to 1-2 hp. He destroys the cloak and...

...they damage themselves and take themselves out of the game.

Missed it by that much- was playing against Ultimate Baron Blade in Ruins of Atlantis with a fun team- Guise, Idealist, Setback, Skyscraper, Unity.  Pretty soon he had 15 cards in trash and about 7 in deck, with Pillars of Hercules out.  The only way to win at this point would be to discard or play enough cards from his deck to cause a reshuffle.  I managed to get him to 0 cards left.  Still lost...

I don't know if it's been mentioned yet (this is a really long thread), but Twist the Ether pairs really well with VG Writhe's Concealed Assailant.  +Damage is always good with effects that do repeated small hits, but TtE also lets you make everything the same type, so you can keep your shadow cloak (and the associated +damage). For those keeping score, that's three cards, one of which can be searched for at will, to give you 9 damage on a power.  Not the strongest combo in the game, by any means, but solid nonetheless.

I want to point out the fun of making Omitron-U the Representative of Earth for this very reason. People like Mainstay and K.N.Y.F.E. already like to blow their own stuff up, so using O-U’s power to get more free damage out of those destructions is great. 

Bud doing this when destroying 4+ cards under one of Idealist’s Constructs is amazing. Not to mention Bunker’s Omni-Cannon. 

Isolated Hero and Lonesome Highway. Apparently, since Isolated Hero means that the affected hero can't "see" the other heroes, his own cards consider him to be the hero with the lowest (and presumably the highest) HP. Definitely not an interpretation I would have come up with.

It would be the same if he was the only hero not incapacitated, I would assume!

Mainstay and Legacy make a surprisingly good damage/tank teamwork machine. Not only does Legacy buff up Mainstay to do even more damage, but with his 'Lead from the Front' and 'Next Evolution' combo he's also able to help him out with the retaliation damage from cards like 'Mano a Mano'. Not to mention how 'Motivational Charge' can help mitigate some of the damage from 'Shard-Form', especially when Mainstay is fully tanked up and only dealing himself 1 Toxic from it. And in return Mainstay can take over tanking duties for a while thanks to 'Leader of the Pack', just in case Legacy needs some time to rest and recover.

I just got done going through all the villains with base Void Guard. People have talked about Umbral Siphon shutting down Spite, but Idealist also has a great anti-Spite function: Making Things Up's ability to play as many concepts as you have in hand can easily let Idealist keep up with the ongoing/equipment bouncing back to hand by herself, allowing the rest of the team to stay set up.

Naturalist's Natural-Born Vigor and Malpractice Dr. Medico's power.

During the Naturalist's turn, Dr Medico deals 4 energy damage and the Natural Born Vigor stays in play, allowing the Naturalist to use an extra power.

Oooo, I need to try that out. Four extra damage a turn? Yes, please!

Would that work with Second Opinion too? Or does that only trigger if Medico causes the healing?

It would work with Second Opinion giving the Naturalist three power uses in a turn if they wanted. 

Oooh, that’s a subtle bit of wording on “Natural Born Vigor.” It never crossed my mind that you can activate the first part (“heal 4”) without activating the second part (“destroy this card”) if effect prevent the healing, and possibly get a benefit. Normally I pay attention to “if he takes damage this way” because it’s a common conditional on cards like Polyphonic Flare, preventing a benefit if you prevent the damage, but it didn’t occur to me that the “if” on Natural Born Vigor prevents a drawback if you prevent the healing.

Funnily enough, you can do that without Red Right Hand. Just say you want to regain HP when he's missing 3 or fewer; he won't heal 4 HP, therefore the card won't be destroyed.

Probably old and long since discovered, but I didn't realize that if Baron Blade had 2 HP and a Mobile Defense Platform in play, when Tachyon sucker punches him the Mobile Defense Platform in play gets put in the discard.

More Fixed Point shennanigans. If Benchmark has more Software than Hardware, each Software's start of turn check will draw you a card and destroy nothing. 

Conversely, Idealist is sad because she can't destroy cards under her Concepts, and Writhe is sad because he can't destroy his Shadow Cloak. 

Let’s add in Mainstay and all his destructible stuff.

Mainstay isn’t bothered too much.  Stuntman is offput by it since he wants to destroy his Ongoings.   The exception, however, is with Moving Target which if Stuntman is dealt damage by a villain target he gets to use a power but still gets to keep it in play. 

He may not be as bothered by it as other heroes are, but it still denies a lot of his helpful secondary effects. Void Belter's destruction damage has been quite helpful mumerous times when I needed that exta bit of damage to finish off a target, just to name one example.

It’s more situational compared to Idealist or Stuntman but I’ll stop it here so as to not derail the thread.  

Played a game with Mister Fixer, Visionary, and Termi-nation Absolute Zero.

Fixer had Driving Mantis.

Visionary put Twist the Ether on Absolute Zero, because of course.

Absolute Zero had Null Point Calibration Unit, Focused Apertures, and Thermal Shockwave.

After using Violent Shivers, Abs could fire off the Shockwave and:

- Do damage to one target, let Visionary pick Cold and increase, for 1 + 1 + 1 + 2 = 5.

- Do damage to Mister Fixer, let Visionary pick, oh, Energy, and DECREASE, for 1 - 1 + 2 = 2, at which point Driving Mantis lets Fixer retarget the damage to the same target as above. Then Visionary picks Cold and INCREASE, for 1 + 1 + 1 + 2 = 5 damage.

Then Absolute Zero can hit something else for 5, and then heal a bunch.

Oh, there was also a Cold Snap in there. And the Argent Adept, so the combo happened every round.

I call this one the Balrog:

Imbued Fire + Concealed Assailant

Wow. Just unexpectedly helped a villain.

Void Guard Medico with the original Sentinels. Original Wraithe has his Caliginous Form out.

Void Guard Medico plays Immunize. Which Caliginous Form redirects to the villian. Since Immunize is irreducible, the -2 doesn't come into play. Net result? Void Guard Medico just made the villain immune to damage.

Oof

Yeah, anything that changes all of VGWrithe’s damage to a singe type(except Infernal, I believe) make CA fantastic.

Why not Infernal? I just looked through his deck and didn't see any reason, as long as it's the same type. In the Court of Blood, Infernal is frequently the best choice.

I believe it's infernal that triggerst te distruction effect? I coud be mistaken, and it could be just a second form of damage that triggers it. I don't have the cards in front of me right now.

I believe it’s if 2 types of damage were dealt this way

^^^ Yup, if at least 2 types were dealt. So, yeah, Twist the Ether and Close Quarters Combat are also great. But Imbued Fire has the advantage of the “shadow and flame” joke!

Last night I was playing Benchmark and Sky-Scraper's player gave me the link which provides a power that allows a hero to look through their deck for an Equipment card and put it into play.

Mwa ha ha ha ha!

The first thing I did was get equipment to give me extra powers.

We were playing against a custom villain that didn't have (or at least didn't play) any ongoing or equipment destruction. Benchmark ended up with about ten cards in play and DID ALL THE THINGS.

Champion Studios was the first OblivAeon environment I played. It was previewed on Twitch yesterday and ... Well there was some funny interaction.

1) 'Bottom of the 9th' plays the top cards of each hero deck at the beginning of the environment turn, then chech if H hero one-shots were played. Thing is : Not all cards played by Bot9 have to be One-shot.

If Tachyon, for example, manages to play multiple one-shots (via Fleet of Foot or Lightning Reflexes) each one counts for the win

Ditto with 'Props Department': it it was played before Bot9, all one-shot played by it counts to win that baseball game.

Who said hero was above cheating? :)

2) Car Chase Scene is a great way to say goodbye to the Stunt Doubles without discarding cards : The discard only occur when the Double is reduced to 0 HP. The chase allow him to die with 1 or 2 HP left.

Props Department acts at the end of the environment turn; it doesn't interact with Bottom of the 9th.

I've used this one a few times with Benchmark. Legion Core Processor (extra power at start of turn) and Overhaul Loadout. Use a power from a software card at the start of your turn, then play Overhaul Loadout to return that card to your hand and play it again right away. You can then use that power again durng your power phase since it just came out. It's handy for when you want to spam a power.

That’s … that’s … that’s EVIL. Very cool. I’m not even 100% sure that should be within the rules of the game … my understanding is that you can’t use the same power on the same card more than once in the same turn, but I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a ruling about how taking a card out of play and putting it back into play in the same turn would affect that.

I checked the card and was sure it said at ‘start’ too … Well I guess I could use some reading lesson.

Yeah, this works according to the video game. A card leaving play and re-entering seems to be treated like a brand-new copy of that card. 

A similar example is Benchmark’s Onboard Cooling Systems. If you play a Software at the start of your turn, Cooling Systems will trigger and deal 2 targets 2 cold damage. Then, if you pick up and replay Cooling Systems with Overhaul Loadout, then play another Software later in your turn, Cooling System will trigger again. 

Same thing with Legion Core Processor itself. If you can pick it up at the start of your turn (use the start of turn power granted by the Processor to use Supply and Demand’s base power and play Overhaul Loadout from the top of your deck) you can replay Processor and it will trigger again since it’s still the start of your turn. 

Benchmark is a bit nutty.     

Whoa. I would not have expected either of those to be true.

On a related note, when playing Benchmark, in particular (but also Idealist), I find it difficult to keep track of what text is allowing me to do whatever the video game is allowing me to do at any given moment. I wonder if there's a way for the game to provide explanations of what's allowing any given action.

If you playing on a tablet or PC it should have the card highlighted to the side or above.  The phone version doesn’t have as much space to do that. 

Cool. I have the steam version, but a slow computer, so it’s been a long time since I used anything besides the Phone version.

One time while playing Visionary against Voss, I managed to get a Wrest the Mind onto the Psi-Weaver and then play Telekinetic Cocoon with 1 hp left on Vis.  Essentially, I mind-controlled one of his minions to attack him every turn, with no damage to Visionary or the minion!  He was on his flip-side too, so it was dealing 4 damage to him every villain turn.

That's a pretty neat idea. I might try that out one day, minus the '1hp' part.

Do you remember if you won that game or not?

I actually quit out of a game today because Imbued Vitality came out alongside Lady Luck and I just mentally blue-screened. Tried setting it up in the digital game, though, and was surprised at the result!

Imbued Vitality basically doesn't add anything to lady Luck's rules. I'd have thought being dropped to or below 0 HP would mean a constant cycle of being destroyed and preventing its own destruction until you found a Lucky card in Kismet's deck. Instead, if the revealed card isn't Lucky, Lady Luck just soldiers on, with 0 or -2 or -6 or however many HP, until it no longer has HP to care about (or you find the Lucky card after another hit). It's basically an indestructible target, and I'm sorry there wasn't more around to have shenanigans with. (Nothing in Realm of Discord hits lowest, after all.) Bizarre, wanted to share my findings.

That doesn't sound right. 0 HP is something that's normally checked constantly, in game terms. I think your initial interpretation is the correct one - it should continue discarding cards from Kismet's deck until you reveal a lucky card, in which case Lady Luck then gets destroyed. I don't think the digital version is correct in only checking once.

The exception is if Kismet runs out of cards. Then it should just be destroyed, since it says "reveal" not "draw," and it can't prevent destruction if there's no card.

I can only assume the way it works in digital is the way it's meant to. This isn't a very new set, after all...

I would also assume your initial assumtioas to be correct, because that's how it interacts with Fixed Point. You don't have to hit tgings again to destroy them when Fixed Point goes away. I call it a bug, or an incorrect judgement.

From the fireside chat

>  Lady Luck reveals a card when Kismet herself would be destroyed, and will prevent her destruction if the revealed card is not a Lucky card and her HP is >= 0. If it is a Lucky card, she will be destroyed. Specifically, if the card is Fortune's Smile and her HP is <= 0, she may regain HP to above 0, but since she's in the process of being destroyed, the game will still end.

I feel like that didn't really address the actual issue being discussed

I’ve sent feedback on beta boards to Handelabra on it.  As to whether more cars are revealed or just one I’m not sure yet.  Ultimately Lady Luck will be destroyed if it’s at 0 or less HP and not check only once then be fine with it.  

This is more just a rules question that I can't be bothered to check myself, but it does involve a self-interaction.

Does Cosmic Inventor Writhe's power stack with itself? I kind of suspect no, but more importantly, can it be refreshed?

Say the environment hits everyone for 2. The hit to Writhe is prevented by Mk. II Shadow Projector. Then the Dynamic Siphon next to him is hit, allowing him to use Shadow Projector again. Would using it on himself then prevent the next hit to him on that same turn? And afterward, would he be able to take two hits during the villain turn without damage?

It prevents the first damage. The second damage is not the first.

I think that if it did, it would be written as “Prevent the first damage that would be dealt to that hero each turn” instead of “Prevent the first damage dealt to that hero each turn”.

There seems to be an unfortunate equivocation in Sentinels between “damage dealt” (how much damage somethng’s trying to inflict) and “damage dealt” (the amount a target’s HP are actually reduced by). Sometimes, it’s just weird how the damage dealt is different from the damage dealt…

• Ambuscade dealt 5 damage to Legacy. Thanks to Superhuman Durability, Fortitude, and chosing damage reduction effects in the right order, Legacy was dealt 1 damage.

Sometimes, you have outright contradictions (if you don’t distinguish between dealing and dealing)…

• First thing in a turn, Ambuscade dealt 2 damage to Writhe. Thanks to the Mk II Shadow Projector, Writhe was not dealt damage. The first damage dealt that turn was prevented, so there was 2 damage dealt and also there was no damage dealt.
• Then, after also hitting a Dynamic Siphon for another Shadow Projection for good measure, Ambuscade again dealt 2 damage to Writhe. This is the second damage dealt to Writhe and also first damage dealt to Writhe. 

Or, another fun one…

• First thing in a turn, Ambuscade dealt 2 damage to Writhe. Legacy, Leading from the front and loaded with Fortitude and triple Wounding Buffers, wants to to redirect that damage and make a mess. However, thanks to the Mk II Shadow Projector, the damage dealt is prevented, and as such Write would not be dealt damage, so Legacy can't redirect the damage dealt to a hero by a villian. 

(Apparently, Lead from the Front redirects damage that would be dealt instead of redirecting damage that would be dealt. I get the impression that “would be” is mostly reserved for damage dealt, hence my above suspicions of the wording if it was intended to stack.)

I wish that different words had been used for the different meanings. Perhaps “aimed at” instead of dealt, and “received” instead of dealt. So, the shadow projector would say “Prevent the first damage aimed at that hero each turn”, while Lead from the Front would say “Whenever a hero would receive damage”. Or, taking MigrantP’s reply…

All that said, I’d much rather have Sentinels as-is than not have Sentinels at all!

I tend to use targeted and taken instead of aimed and received, but otherwise agree with you.

Just found a really fun one. No idea if this one has been talked about, But figured I'd say something just in case.

Important parts:

Ambuscade vs Luminary&co at Champion Studios

Ambuscade has out two shields, the Car Chase Scene is in play, and Luminary has a fully primed Orbital Death-Laser and two 'Technologically Stable's in hand.

I blast him with my laser, figuring the damage from his shields wouldn't matter since the ODL is distroyed after it's attack anyway, and I can pull it back out with Technologically Stable next turn and charge it up again.

Shields go off and reduce ODL to 1hp, which has CCS destroy it BEFORE it's own destruction+reshuffle trash effect goes off, leaving me with 16+ cards in my trash, and an easily retrievable ODL.

3 turns of a fully charged laser cannon and a car chase results in one crispy Frenchman.

Andy and I had a ridiculous combination come up last night. He was playing base Mr. Fixer with Jack Handle, Grease Monkey Fist, and Bloody Knuckles. I was playing Sky-Scraper. We were playing team format, so Fixer was already wiping folks out left and right, but on my turn I dropped a Compulsion Canister on him, allowing him to wipe the board. He did 24 damage to all targets in two turns. X-D 

… but likely through a misunderstanding of the rules. If Fixer targets himself with Jack Handle, Grease Monkey Fist, and Bloody Knuckles, how much damage does he do to all non-hero targets? 4 or 6?

The digital version has Fixer doing 4, but our reading of the cards and even of the Fireside Chats don’t make it completely obvious to us why that’s the case.

If you have Jack Handle, Grease Monkey Fist, and Bloody Knuckles in play when Compulsion Cannister is played each attack would deal 5 to all non hero targets.  The total from both hits would be a total of 10 irreducible damage to all non hero targets that round and a second round of all this would bring it to a total of 20. Harmony being out would increase it to 24.   If you only got 4 damage total in the video game then you only had Jack Handle in play for Mr Fixer. 

Forget Compulsion Cannister. If Mr. Fixer has Jack Handle, Grease Monkey Fist, and Bloody Knuckles in play and then uses his base power, the digital version has him do four to all non-hero targets.

We were thinking a case could be made that it should be six, if Mr. Fixer originally targeted himself, because the damage he would do to himself without Jack Handle would be six, so he should do six to all non-hero targets. Whether it's four or six seems to hinge on whether or not, like redirection, increases and reductions are refigured after the target of the attempt to deal damage changes, or, like Dual Crowbars, the amount for the new attempt to deal damage is set based on the amount of the previous dealing of damage. Since with Jack Handle there isn't any damage dealt before the target is changed, this seems more like redirection than something akin to Dual Crowbars, but the word 'redirect' isn't actually used in the text of Jack Handle, so we weren't 100% certain how to rule it.

Mr Fixer never hits himself so the additional damage to himself isn’t counted.   Basically look at the base damage being dealt and that is the basis for all hits to non-hero targets.  For each individual hit to a non-hero target you then look at any static or temporary damage boosts to add. 

This has probably been mentioned before, but HOT HECK can Freedom Five Tachyon beat Advanced Plague Rat.  If she gets Infected right away, it’s game over for lur bitey and scratchy friend, buried underneath a nigh-endless barrage of damage that he buffs up to lethal levels.

This happened to me in a game where Omnitron had Adaptive Plating:

Tempest had in play, in this order, Electrical Storm, Elemental Subwave  Inducer, and Grievous Hailstorm. First he hits Omnitron with the start of turn lightning damage (Omni becomes immune to lightning). He chooses Fire damage for the Inducer, and plays Lightning Slash (Omni becomes immune to fire). The powers can't do damage to Omnitron.

Next turn is Unity. She plays Hasty Augmentation, and lets Tempest use the Hailstorm. The elemental Subwave inducer only changes Tempest's damage type for ONE TURN, so it's cold damage again and does damage to Omnitron!

Infinitor went infinite on me!

I was doing a quick game against heroic Infinitor, and had all but one of the manifestations under him. The last one was in play, and he was doing his "Play all the one-shots" thing. He was at 1 HP, the last manifestation was at 1 HP, his penultimate one-shot is a "1 damage to everyone!" Whispers of Oblivion, and just for fun I decide to hit Infinitor instead of the manifestation, because self-inflicted major twist. 

So Infinitor flips, dumps all his manifestations in the trash, does the last damage to the remaining manifestation, and plays the top card of his deck. The last one shot. Insanity. Which plays the top card of the (just a sec, shuffling...) deck, a manifestation. Which is destroyed by Infinitor, and since it was a manifestation we repeat Insanity. Which plays the top card of the deck, a manifestation, which is destroyed by Infinitor, and since it was a manifestation we repeat Insanity. Which plays the top card of the deck, a manifestation, which is destroyed by Infinitor, and since it was a manifestation we repeat Insanity. Which plays the top card of the deck, a manifestation, which is destroyed by Infinitor, and since it was a manifestation we repeat Insanity. .... Which plays the top card of the (just a sec, shuffling...) deck, a manifestation, which is destroyed by Infinitor, and since it was a manifestation we repeat Insanity. 

Insanity with a deck/trash containing only manifestations is insane!

This was fun.

Luminary vs. Omnitron with Backlash Generator in play.

Play Triple Cross, selecting Omnitron to deal himself 2 psychic damage.

Omnitron is a non-hero target that just dealt damage to a Device.

Backlash Generator punishes Omnitron for being wigged out by the triple cross. XD (It was something like 4 lightning damage for reasons I don't actually recall...)

I'm not sure if it's a bug or not but I got a very unexpected interaction during an OblivAeon game today.

Obly just turned phase 3 and Voss is in the other battle zone.

Tachyon did her sonic boom (forgot the real name, it's the card that deals 1 damage to all non hero target and prevent them to do damage) and Chrono Ranger did the 119 remaining damages on his turn.

Voss then becomes OblivAeon ... and since 'OblivAeon cannot deal damage' and 'Voos counts as OblivAeon', poor Voss was prevented to do damage when in the same battle zone as Tachyon.

Doing a few damages wouldn't have saved Him, but poor guy, apparently he didn't knew that when you stole infinite cosmic power, you steal broken ear-drums as well...

Something I didn't expect when playing Realm of Discord with Haka. Imbued Vitality came out on the same turn as Haka played Ground Pound. When Ground Pound was destroyed at the start of Haka's turn, it counted as Haka destroying a target- so I got to put Ground Pound uner Savage Mana. Not exactly what I was expecting, but it made Savage Mana a little more interesting that turn.

Prety sure that one is a bug, since Ground Pound shouldn't be counted as a target. Might want to submit that one.

Ground Pound was a target as they mentioned due to Imbued Vitality. 

I don't think this one has been mentioned, but I'm not digging through 500 posts to find out :P

One "Cheeky Bastard!" play I found in this week's one shot: If Tachyon has an empty deck but full of Burst card and Lightspeed Barrage trash, and La Comodora has 3 copies of Harnessed Anomaly in hand, Tachyon can play another 3 Lightspeed Barrages on the same turn :) Comodora puts Barrage in Tachyon's empty deck, "shuffles", then plays the top card, then Comodora chooses to play another Anomaly to repeat.

~Komori

Throw in one I've posted in both Dr Medico's and Benchmark's threads, and like the immediately prior post I'm not digging through to find out - Benchmark's Upgraded Memory Unit lets you gain an extra hp when Benchmark is healed.  This, added to Dr Medico's Experimental Medicine/Second Opinion combo, lets Benchmark activate a power from Universal Donor whenever Dr Medico is harmed.  Then Benchmark can use Ally Matrix to let Medico use Healing Pulse, which also deals more damage to Dr Medico, which lets Benchmark use another power, which could be another Ally Matrix or an Auto-Targeting Protocol (one of those five targets could be Doctor Medico...).  Argent Adept loves being around these two, since he can benefit from as many power activations as he can get his hands on, and with Benchmark discarding so much stuff it's pretty nice to be able to stack Syncopated Onslaughts on Benchmark so he can unleash a truly monstrous Inferno Missile Pod.

Nothing exciting, just an unexpected combination:  With Mad Bomber Blade (hopefully on his flip side), when Imbued Vitality comes into play all of Blade's Ongoings are instantly destroyed since they are now villain targets.

If Absolute Zero has his Ice Module and is somehow immune to damage (Meteor Storm or Immunization) he can still gain life when ice damage should be inflicted to him ... Even though the damage should be 0 because of his invulnerability.

Interesting.  I wonder if that is a change?  Whenever I play Heroic Interception I do not get the option of healing Absolute Zero instead of being immune.

Yeah that sounds more like a bug.  

Apparently, Fixed Point prevents Omnitron X's plating cards from returning to your hand.  So if you have the right hand, you can get all three types of plating out on the same turn, and possibly some duplicates.  As long as you never play another plating card and they don't get destroyed by another effect, all of them will stay in play forever, turning Omnitron X into an INDESTRUCTIBLE TANK!  Your components are now safe, Reactive Plating Subroutine will punish anything that gets through the wall, and Defensive Blast deals massive damage, especially with buffs.  I can just imagine Omnitron X noticing The Dreamer, frantically putting on every piece of plating he has, and then running around blasting bad guys for the rest of the battle while everything bounces off him!

Yeah, Fixed Point shenanigans are great. See also: Mr. Fixer using multiple tools at once, Naturalist getting all 3 Forms out, Tachyon becoming an infinite damage-redirection engine, etc.

I didn't think it would affect the platings, though, since they don't get destroyed when a new plating is played; they just return to hand. I'm not sure if it's actually intended behavior or not.

It is intended behavior.   Indestructible means the card can’t leave play which includes affects that try to return cards to hands.   So with Fixed Point in play Omnitron-X’s platings and Mr Fixer’s Tools remain in play even if you play another Plating or Tool

Unfortunately, this also applies to cards like Into the Stratosphere.

Playing Prime Wardens Tempest in the Maerynian refuge is surprisingly easy, if the Maerynian-Lightning Dome is put into play. PW Tempest's base power forces him to take 3 damage to play a card, up to 3 times. Lightning Dome reduces all lightning damage by 2, except for the Highest HP target, which is usually the villain. Tempest can now play 3 cards for 1 damage each. Add in his personal damage reduction (Otherwordly Resilience/Subwave inducer), and his base power now reads "Play 3 cards".

On the other hand, Tempest can only really hurt the highest HP targest effectively, unless he switchest his subwave inducer to a different setting.

Strange interaction or bug?  Omnitron has Interpolation Beam and EPE.  Bunker has Ammo Drop.  Tempest destroys Omnitron, allowing Bunker to draw a card from Ammo Drop.  Drawing the card triggers Omnitron, who is no longer in play, to hit Bunker with Interpolation Beam?

My initial guess is a strange interaction similar to how Tome of the Unknowable and Ammo Drop work.   They’re in the process of being destroyed while you draw a card.   But I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a bug.  

I found out last night that La Comodora's Shipshape, a card she always wants to have out, allows her to laugh at Progeny's Scion of Blight. Granted, you won't want to have two of those in play, and maybe sometimes Parse or someone will want to discard, but the rest of the time, Comodora can blithely fill her trash with stuff, then ram it all down Progeny's throat with Run Aground. :D Fun!

Speaking of Shipshape, using the second effect when Fixed Point is out is a fun way to get a free top of deck play since the check only looks for the discard, not that a card actually left play and moved to the top of your deck.

Was fighting the Matriarch with Wraith, Lifeline, Chrono Ranger, and Tachyon.  Matriarch had tons of fowl cards out (of course) and a domain, but Wraith Stun Bolted the domain and CR darted Matriarch.  Lifeline had Vitality battery out and Terminarch's Casing, and played Unleash Energy, killing all of the birds.  The domain did nothing, Matriarch did nothing, but each bird destroyed meant Lifeline could regain 2 HP using Vitality Battery.  So Lifeline killed everything and regained more than a dozen HP in a single turn, with no damage to any heroes!  Not sure if this is an "unexpected" combination, but it felt awesome when it happened.

When a card is under another, it IS under another.

Meaning that Completionnist Guise using Sentai Idealist's power will count the shelved hero character cards along the unshelved Concept/Fragment he took from Idealist to see how many damage he does. (Though you can't destroy Character cards to put them into the discard ... too bad, that would have been funny.)

Akash'Thriya and the Sentinels make an amazing team-up!

First, all the Sentinels' healing abilities can funnel into the Primordial Tree, leading to lots of power uses at the start of Akash'Thriya's turn. Even having the tree take 2 damage so Medico can heal it by 3 is a net gain.

Second, all the Seeds are more likely to be the lowest health target than any of the Sentinels, which makes it more feasible to have Medico use M.D. instead of having Mainstay use Block.

Add Sentinel Tactics into the mix, and the Sentinels are often dealing damage + healing the tree at least twice per round.

I've never seen that tree so healthy!

You could also use Human Shield to get those power uses free, couldn't you?

As long as you don't have any damage increases floating around, yeah!

Not truly unexpected if you're paying attention, but was a heckuva lot of fun.

Mr. Fixer was fighting Obllivaeon. He had Dual Crowbars and the Mecha-Knight out.

Dual Crowbars is whenever Mr. Fixer deals damage. The Mecha-Knight hits the target (a Scion) five times, so the crowbars hit a second target  (Oblivaeon) five times with more damage. Add in the buffs and it was a lot of fun.

Fixer + Rewards in general is just really good for OblivAeon, especially the power ones.  It's why putting a cosmic weapon on him is also a fun time, as is using freindly fire/compulsion canister/hitch a ride with him.

Ra's Excavate is normally a pretty low use card for me but I did find out today that it pairs really well with Akash' Thriya. Ra gets 3 cards and Akash gets to move three seeds from the trash into the deck!

Not really unexpected, but Legacy + Luminary make taking down Ambuscade a breeze.  Luminary can set up a Rube Goldberg of Devices for Amby to detonate while Legacy tanks all the heroes from damage (thanks to Next Evolution). I finished a Terralunar Translocator with 8 cards in trash

Among the many insane interactions that happen in OblivAeon mode, Voidsoul can flip himself several times in a single turn, activating his end-of-turn effect every time he does.  At the end of the scion turn, if he's flipped, he deals some damage and then flips back over.  Then, since it's still the end of the turn, his end-of-turn effect for his front side activates, making a hero target deal every other hero target 2 and 2.  Unfortunately, since I had the objective "Summon the Collosseum" in play, all that damage dealt by a hero target caused that objective to flip, which of course makes Voidsoul flip back over.   Since it's still the end of the scion turn, the whole cycle repeats once again.  It stopped after that for me, but it is definitely possible for it to keep going if another round of damage manages to flip one of the target objectives, like Hellion.

Edit: I realized Voidsoul won't cause damage to villain targets, so he can't cause Hellion to flip.  Other than Summon the Collosseum, I think the only mission he can directly cause to flip is Enraged Terror-Bird.

In a random setup, I discovered the fun of Action Hero Stuntman vs Citizen Dawn.  If he has one or more of Dramatic Cliffhanger, L'Embuscade, No Time to Bleed, or Planquez-Vous!, Steal the Scene, or Stylish Armour in play, Devastating Aurora can be much less devastating.  She destroys something that lets him play a card (or use "All My Own Stunts", which lets him play a card).  Behold, In Medias Res cancels the rest of the Aurora!  So satisfying.

In another random setup, I realized that Luminary's Terralunar Translocator (destroy non-character cards) would be really effective against Apostate, who can get really annoying if he gets a lot of relics out.  Though Apostate didn't last long enough for that to be a problem.  I'll have to play him again and neutralize his relics...

That is a sweet way to sidestep Devastating Aurora!

Vs. Voss with an otherwise random setup, I got DW Expat, Golem Unity, Setback, and VG Medico.  I was very glad that I already had Stealth Bot in play when Surprise Shopping Trip came out.  Then Voss dropped a Forced Deployment, and I thought I was going to be in trouble.  But since Voss didn't have any guards in play or the trash, all I had to do was remove Forced Deployment early.  First minion comes back, Shopping Trip pings all the bad guys while Stealth Bot shields the heroes.  Next minion comes back, it happens again.  Third minion comes out, first minion is dead, repeat...  (For a moment, I wondered if I had an infinite loop where the minions would keep coming out of the trash, but you remove them all first, then put them into play.)  When it was done, there were only two minions left, with 1 & 2 HP each, easily taken care of.

I knew that Expat could give Voss fits with Hairtrigger Reflexes with some damage boosts, picking off minions as they arrive (or even better, return).  But if Parse has one or both copies of Exploit Vulnerability in play, Maerynean Refuge's Hurricane Shield can do likewise.

Nice!

Well, I learned a new one today. The Naturalist's Indomitable Force is the only hero cadd I know of that redirects damage by source, not target. He ranks all damage by villain targets, no matte who they're targeting. 

Which means that if he has it out and then a couple of AkashBhuta limbs get killed, she will punch the Naturalist for 20 damage instead of herself...

Oh, that's... interesting. o.O And doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And isn't actually how the card is written.

I would consider reporting that as a bug, Akash'Bhuta isn't a hero target.

That sounds more like you used Threatenting Stomp in Akash'Bhuta.  Otherwise some other affect redirected that damage to Naturalist or that's a bug for Indomitable Force 

Oh, hrm. I did play a Threatening Stomp that turn. I thought that I’d hit a Rockslide with it, but maybe I misclicked and punched Akash without noticing.

This works kind of exactly as expected, but...ever aim an Inferno Missile Pod at Termi-nation Absolute Zero?

Wow, I hadn’t thought of that. But here’s once better: do this, but have Visionary play “Twist the Ether” on Benchmark, so if he has multiple cards under “Inferno Missile Pod”, he can hit AZ first with fire damage, which AZ then amplifies and sends back out, and then Benchmark hits AZ again, this time with cold damage to heal him back up. Continue alternating at will.

I just tried this and with half a dozen cards under “Inferno Missile Pod”, and Benchmark and AZ were able to do about 50 points of damage to Akash’Bhuta in a completely repeatable manner. By the time the heroes got set up (surprisingly fast all things considered), Akash’Bhuta only lasted one round under this onslaught.

Thanks for the suggestion of interesting interactions.

Yeah, Twist the Ether always amplifies everything to do with Absolute Zero. It's not necessary, though - as you said, you can choose the effect of each "missile" individually, so if Abs is fully set up you can still alternate the effect of his cold damage between attacks and self-heals. Especially Termi-Nation Absolute Zero: his modifiers make for plenty of self-healing even without turning the original missile into cold damage.

I had another fun one yesterday. If Guide high-fives Stuntman, "Uh, Yeah, I'm That Guy" takes on the on-destruction effects of EVERY card Stuntman has in play. If you destroy "Uh, Yeah" when Stuntman has multiple Ongoing cards in play, they you get to trigger each effect in the order you choose. Pro tip: make sure you have multiple powers at your disposal...

Wow - hadn’t thought of that one either. Will have to give it a try.

You know, I’ve probably played hundreds (thousands???) of games of SotMV (mostly in the app but a lot with physical cards), and I think I know how to use most/all of the decks, but I still get (pleasantly) surprised by these kinds of interactions between cards in different decks. What a great game.

Thanks again Trajector for the insight.

There are similar effects between Guise and Mainstay too.   

My new favorite combo is Twist the Ether on Blood Mage Lifeline in the Court of Blood with Unhallowed Halls out. All the enemies take boosted Infernal damage and you can make Lifeline hit himself for 0 radiant damage with his power.

Found a fun one, not going to dig through all 500+ posts to find if its been posted before.

Just played a random game with Action hero Stuntman, Legacy, and 2 others against regular Spite. Spite got out his PL626 (Deal damage and discard every time a hero uses a power) after a few rounds, and I realized there was a fun interaction that was set up. Stuntman played Moving Target and Legacy played Heroic Interception. Once Spite tried to deal his many instances of AoE damage, Stuntman got a power use. Using his base power to increase damage and play a card, he played his pistol. Spite promptly tried to hit him again, which gave a new power use. Using the pistol dealt damage and allowed him to play the flame thrower. Spite repeats, and Stuntman flambes him. After that, it was Stuntman's turn and I basically repeated the same sequence. Between those two turns and Legacy's Galvanize, Stuntman did ~40 damage in those two turns. Legacy pulled a second Heroic Interception, and Spite went splat before flipping :D

~A-Kat

Prime Warden Haka can use his Haka cards on villain targets with his power ...

It was very useful against the Dreamer: You can heal her when she is in bad shape or shield her when a hero is about to use an AoE damage card.

That was how I beat Ultimate Dreamer for the first time.  And also the only time I ever used Haka of Shielding to good effect.

Healing Dreamer is the bomb. Not sure I’ve ever shielded her!

That's amazing. :O

I knew about using Rhapsody of Vigor to heal the Dreamer, but that Haka trick is pretty sweet.

~A-Kat

Really funny one happened to me today:

"Ensnaring Brambles prevented Akash'Flora from dealing damage."

I stumbled upon this is a random game. Guise plus Harpy.  Get out several of Harpy's ongoings and then Uh Yeah I'm That Guy becomes really potent. I lucked into Barbarian and Harpy Hex with this setup and suddenly every token flip procs bonus damage from Harpy and boosted bonus damage from Guise. I finished off Spite with a Mystical Outburst, flipping 4 tokens and watching the fireworks. 

Haka of Shielding can also help with Challenge mode Dreamer.

Found a fun combo today for Guise in OblivAeon Mode. Have Guise copy the text of A brother's sacrifice and you can remove Uh, yeah I'm That Guy instead to prevent the damage and give the heroes immunity. This leaves the original in play to be used later.

I had a ridiculous combo with Mister Fixer in the Time Cataclysm.

We all know how Mister Fixer loves Fixed Points, but specifically what I got out of my first Fixed Point was Alternating Tiger Claw + Riveting Crane. Also in play was the Atlantean Throne Room, so...I left that in play the whole time. First with Overdrives and later a Jack Handle, Mister Fixer eliminates the cover for the villains while the heroes get -1 damage and +1 card draw!

After I incapacitated Nuit and the Fixed Point reshuffled into the deck, I later ungraded to a Jack Handle + Pipe Wrench >:)

Recently ran into an unusual occurence involving Termi-Nation Unity and Omni-Unity.  I used Unity's base power when she had no golems out, but I forgot that Stuntman had Omni-Unity and Lance-Flammes in play, so Unity destroyed Lance-Flammes and shuffled it into her deck.  I eventually drew it into Unity's hand, but when I played it it went into Stuntman's play area, so unfortunately Unity didn't get to use a flamethrower. 

How cool. :O What happened with the card vis-a-vis playing it tracks with a lot of the shenanigans Guise can pull, too.

On a related note: If Termination Unity does the same thing with another player's reward card she will get to use that reward if she plays it (T-Rex bot is the easiest to do this with but all equipment and ongoing rewards are in theory stealable, thanks to Omni-Unity and Catpit's Playground).

> I stumbled upon this is a random game. Guise plus Harpy.  Get out several of Harpy's ongoings and then Uh Yeah I'm That Guy becomes really potent. I lucked into Barbarian and Harpy Hex with this setup and suddenly every token flip procs bonus damage from Harpy and boosted bonus damage from Guise. I finished off Spite with a Mystical Outburst, flipping 4 tokens and watching the fireworks.

Sweet!

Uh, Yeah is super fun with any characters that are really Ongoing-heavy. Harpy does have a great ability to get a bunch of those in play!

I don’t know if “Unexpected combinations” is the right place for this, but what the heck.

The “Randomize” button gave me a fun setup that had an unusual conclusion, which I’ll call Spam Musubi.

Kaargra Warfang vs DW Expat, Setting Sun Ra, F5 Legacy, Akash SotV, and La Comodora in the Temple of Zhu Long. (I was initially concerned about Akash giving the Bloodsworn more targets to destroy, but it didn’t matter)

It went something like this:

• I think Kaargra played both of her Bloodsworn Judgements
• Expat plays Assault Rifle; seeing Shock Rounds also in her hand, she uses Aim to set up next round.
• Ra probably played his Staff, then Blazed.
• Legacy played something (I don’t think he had Inspiring Presence, though that would have been fun), then let Ra play Imbued Fire
• Akash did something, I don’t remember.
• LaC played Paradoja Figurehead and sent it to Expat
• The environment gave me a Shinobi Assassin
• Kaargra played a couple of victims for me.
• Expat played Shock Rounds, then Fired Assault Rifle at her victims. With Aim, Fire, and Pardoja, that was 5 damage from the Assault Rifle, and 4 from Shock Rounds. More if I had Inspiring Presence.

I realized that the gladiators weren’t going to survive the round, which meant that Kaargra was going to flip. But seeing the amount of favor I’d racked up, I realized that had a chance if I could repeatedly abuse that assassin enough. So I put it on top of Expat’s deck. Then Ra wiped the board, and I put the assassin on Ra’s deck. Repeat with help from Thrashing Brambles and Temporal Rigging, and I just made it, with favor 20-2, before the environment got a second turn.

In some fighting games, spamming the same cheap move over and over will get you booed. Apparently these fans LOVED seeing that poor ninja get brutally killed over and over. I’m going to call him Kenny from now on.

I’ve replayed the scenario numerous times, and have had a lot of fun with it. Kaargra has only managed to win once (darn Fickle Fans). Some more fun:

• Resurrection Ritual which keeps “Get Back In There!” from returning gladiators to play
• Take Down and As the Earth Turns keep Kaargra from playing, and LaC’s power lets her return those cards to their decks.
• When Kaargra is in play, preventing you from winning, you can accumulate a lot of favor while trying to flip her back. One of my wins was 49-14.

More fun from “Randomize” – the Temple of Zhu Long, with either the Naturalist (and the always-fun Environmental Allies) or the Visionary (with the “I almost never use it” Mass Levitation). The heroes are now protected from the environment, and when you get 3 Mysterious Ceremonies in play, you get a lot of extra card draws and/or plays. Bonus if you have Sky-Scraper and she adds some Aggression Modulators to the Apprentice Poisoner(s) or The True Form (with Master of the Temple causing him to hit everybody).

This game continues to amaze me sometimes.

Just found out Harpy can play Eldritch Training and destroy a card stolen by La Capitan for a free power use.

I guess it’s because it’s destroy “one of your hero cards” instead of, say, F6 Tempest’s innate power, which specifies keywords.

I think I just assumed those cards were not in play on her front side. XD

Unless I’m misunderstanding, F6 Tempest can destroy one of their cards under La Capitan to draw cards.

Oh, you know, you’re right, he also doesn’t specify keywords.

This one wasn’t exactly unexpected (though Lillian was a bit surprised, I’ll wager) but I just successfully played a combo I’m calling Effect And More Effect.

With 31 tokens in Setback’s Unlucky Pool, and High Risk Behavior in play, he played Cause And Effect, hitting The Matriarch for 40 HP - then Writhe sacrificed the Shadow Cloak to redirect the self damage part of Setback’s action using Lies Of The Shadows, hitting her for 40 more points - game over!

I am honestly slightly embarrassed right now at how badly I have underrated Setback in the past, tbh…

That’s an example of the cat toying with a bird before killing it. It does make you think about the trouble you could get into with double High Risk Behavior and Looking Up - stack tokens and punch for 20+ per round, as long as you can survive!

Or keep using tricks like Writhe’s Lies or Setback’s Wrong Place And Time to dodge the self damage and double your fun!

And the thing is, it was only the third round, and the Matriarch was at 60 HP when Setback dropped the bomb - I expected success, but dang!

Don’t be embarrassed, I do this all the time, too! I feel protective of my heroes and typically limit my play of potentially self-damaging cards. But High Risk Behavior, Cosmic Immolation, Hunter and Hunted, Bloody Knuckles, and the like are how you supercharge damage dealt.

Oh, and if I’m reading it right - and I believe I saw it work this way in game - using Wrong Place And Time, Setback only has to pay 3 tokens to redirect the damage from Looking Up, and only applies the damage bonus from High Risk Behavior once the damage is redirected to a Villain Target!

Of course, he may have to buy off the boosted damage from villains just to direct a few points back at them…

3rd round at 31 tokens?! That’s a feat in and of itself!

Best I can figure in one turn is 13: 2 if both Behaviors are out at the start, Fumbling Fool @ =5, Risk power +1 to top deck the other Fool. You must’ve had some extra plays or powers to pull it off!

I had F5 Legacy and XPW AA helping, but yeah, it took some fortuitous draws to make it happen - a fat Cash Out can help a lot in that respect, but mostly I just got the right cards at the right time.

This may have been mentioned somewhere upthread, and it’s an obvious one since the promo is designed with her in mind, but just to get the ball rolling on my contributions here: Unity playing Hasty Augmentation on Omnitron-U, after he’s already used Volatile Wiring once, allows him to create a second “augmented” Volatile Wiring effect, both of which last until his next turn. So if the villain refuses to blow up his stuff, he can just go Singularity or Self-Sabotage, or even Focused Plasma Cannon and then Rocket Punch himself to get the Cannon and all his other Components to blow up. The result will be one instance of 2 damage, from the normal VW, and one instance of 4 damage from the HA-VW, for every card which is destroyed this way. Throw in Slip Through Time for extra fun.

Or, for a more straightforward interaction that works with the original OX, you could always just HA a Defensive Blast for 12 damage (9 if you’re using Ablative Coating instead of the other two Platings) to every nonhero target. This one takes a lot less setup than the first version, and is better against villains with a lot of minions, but if you’re fighting someone like Progeny or Plague Rat (or even Kaargra Warfang, where the 4-damage instances are worth favor tokens), the O-U+U combo is the way to go.

I’m not going to respond to most of the old posts, but this is one I have to mention:

Well I did play it wrong at the table, at least once (and probably more than that). In one of my first 20 or so games, way back in like 2015, I played Fanatic against The Dreamer, and thought End of Days x2 was a super easy win. I’m not sure if I counted correctly on how many Projections needed to come out in the second phase, or if I just got lucky with Violent Nightmares, but I thought it was a super lame way to win. Turns out I was right and this shouldn’t have worked.

This interaction should absolutely be in the Fireside Chats or some other FAQ.

I’m sure others have noticed this before, but in a random setup game with Santa Guise in the Temple of Zhu Long, I discovered that those pesky Shinobi Assassins, which have a way of ending up on top of hero decks, can end up in the heroes’ Gift-mas piles instead… Just let them pile up in one area, get your opponent down to the lowest HP, then let somebody unwrap a bunch of ninjas!

I also learned that when Guise uses “I Can Do That, Too!” on Hunted Naturalist, when you check effects in play, you get fun messages like “Guise may activate (Gazelle) effects. Zoom zoom!” (I haven’t seen what the other two animals say…)

Not really unexpected, but quite entertaining, was Voss’s attempted invasion of the Final Wasteland. With The Naturalist’s “Environmental Allies” in play, those cryptids weren’t a problem for the heroes, but Unforgiving Wasteland really neutered Forced Deployment. Sadly, Voss didn’t survive long enough for me to completely empty his deck…

This is relevant to your interests.

(Also you should change your username to vossamerica, if that’s possible on this forum.)

I’ve hit upon a combination that might be worth trying out, if you just really, really want to cripple a villain deck - Void Guard Writhe can play Grasping Shadow-Cloth and destroy the Shadow Cloak to prevent cards from being played by a deck of his choice. His base power Sink Into Shadow recovers the Cloak, and Sky-Scraper’s Micro Assembler allows him to retrieve the Shadow-Cloth from his deck after it is shuffled in at the beginning of Writhe’s turn.

So, Writhe plus Sky-Scraper plus anybody who can consistently give Writhe an extra power use equals a villain deck that just. sits. there.

Does it work if the villain trash is empty? Don’t you need something there in order to select the deck and move a card to the bottom? Good thinking, though!

Per the card text, the option to destroy the Shadow Cloak and prevent cards plays from the selected deck is not conditioned on being able to execute the first step, so I believe it will work just fine with an empty discard pile.
However, I have already overwritten the log file for the game against Voss in which I tested the trick, and I can’t recall for certain whether there was a card in there the first time I did it, though I don’t think there was, since the first villain turn put both Gene-Bound Guards in play right off the bat.

And you know what’s the best place to try this combo out? THE PILLARS OF HERCULES! You get that extra power you need, plus you get to play a card every round apart from the Shadow-Cloth, plus a card draw to cover the cost of the Micro-Assembler, plus extra card plays and powers for everyone else. Try this on H=5 for extra fun.

Oh, man - There are tons of options to get an extra power use, of course, but I agree, that one does sound like loads of fun…and its only drawback is negated every round when Writhe does his thing!

I found one today: Natural Born Vigor only destroys itself when The Naturalist opts for beginning of turn healing if he successfully heals. So, Medico Malpractice’s power turns the healing into damage and the card remains in play! It’s an extra power usage and a free 4 or more damage at the beginning of The Naturalist’s turn.

I thought I saw that happen and decided to confirm, and picked Legacy, Medico Malpractice, and Hunted Naturalist in the Final Wasteland. First of all, HOLY MOLY does that trio pump out damage!!! But second, I discovered a new combo. Con’s Bunker came out of the environment deck first, and I kept opting not to destroy it. The end of turn healing + malpractice was usually more than enough to zap whatever came out from the extra card play!

This also works if Naturalist is less than 4 HP away from being at full. You can get a free heal back to full and the card stays out, because 4 HP was not regained!

If that’s true, then presumably Oppressive Smog in the Time Cataclysm also allows Natch to get 2 HP healed every round. And there’s the VOTM Operative’s incap ability, which reduces it to 1 HP. Both of these should be tested in the app to verify they work.

What about Savanna Nocturna in the Nexus of the Void? If he gains 5 HP, that’s not 4 HP so he should keep the card! rules lawyering

And if so, that’s a combo with regular Void Guard Medico’s Clinical Consult as well. Or hey, maybe use Second Opinion to replace it with a third power usage?

Now that’d be a really interesting case to test…

Desperate Prey at the start of each turn, alternating between the two forms you don’t have in play. Each round can have two card plays with all three form effects, then use the full effects on both copies of Natural Form’s Power! That’s what we call Chimera from the Mist Storm Verse!

The hard part is just managing to actually draw one of the three Form cards…

Confirmed, he heals 2 and keeps the card!

Same deal, not a surprise now.

This was the one I was most interested in, since it doesn’t follow the pattern of the others. And it turns out, the card does get destroyed! So I guess he has to heal at least 4 HP!

I figured as much. Just brought it up for argument’s sake. @The_Justifier did have a good point about Second Opinion that I hadn’t considered before, though. I’d often take a 3rd power over some healing anyway!

Now that kind of bugs me a little, because there’s nothing on the card text to indicate that gaining between 0 and 4 HP would have a different result than gaining >4 HP. I guess the video game is implementing the spirit vs. the letter of the card, but that leaves some interactions that are otherwise unclear to the players.

(I do see there is a Fireside Chat clarification on the wiki that says “at least 4.” Looks like something they’ll clean up with The Naturalist: Definitive Edition. )

I know that if they wanted to prevent free-healing, they could have used the text “if he regains HP this way”, which would still allow the Second Opinion and Red Right Hand combos, but not the Operative and Smog interactions. If Savanna Nocturna doesn’t work, then presumably Clinical Consult won’t either. But I don’t recall the order of operations; can Operative reduce an amount to 1 and that amount then be boosted, or does a “set value equal to” always override all other operators?

Almost certain it’s “Hero targets heal only 1 HP” regardless. Not sure if you can apply Experimental Medicine / Red Right Hand before that effect and damage more than 1.

“Damage dealt by Dr. Medico cannot be increased”, so my guess is that RAI would be “no”.

This is probably not that unexpected, but I’m still finding details about Benchmark which are surprising to me. If you have a Legion-Core Processor to activate an Intelligence Analyzer (it analyzes intelligence, you know), or a Load On Initialization to do it that way, you can play a Software during your start phase to trigger Onboard Cooling Systems. Then, in your play phase, play Overhaul Loadout, pick up the Cooling System and any Software, put them back down, and you can deal your “once per turn” cold damage a second time that turn. Combined with Fly-by, that could be as much as 10 damage to the main villain and to a secondary target, before you even get to your power phase!

The more I play Benchmark, the more I think of him as Bunker 2.0. The flavor isn’t that far apart; if anything the Hardware/Software mechanic feels more like something the Army would actually build, something really complex with a ton of moving parts that works best when used according to a carefully calculated (and well documented, and not to be deviated from) plan. He combos really well with AZ too, so the two ironclad members of the F5 could at least have some decent synergy with each other (and Unity kind of). Bunker meanwhile is really showing his age as a core set hero, seeming much more like a fairly generic superhero rather than specifically an Iron Man type, with the mode switching kinda seeming like a trap that Revocorp built into the suit to keep it from being too useful. I might just have to kinda headcanon the two into each other’s suits a little.

Would you say that he is, perhaps…the NEW STANDARD™?

Well, for Armor Suit Guys, certainly…

Natural-Born Vigor from the Naturalist can allow you to gain 4 life at the beginning of his turn.
If he does so, the card is destroyed.

The card is destroyed if he gains 4 life … if he gains 1, 2, 3 life (because he did lose that much life sofar for example), the card stays in play and it’s a free heal

Works great with Redico as the healing is prevented

This was already mentioned just a short distance up the thread, Hankroyd.

One small detail that I noticed recently: if Haka needs to deal damage, and he can’t hit something for Melee (whether because of a target that’s immune, such as Voss’s ships, or because you’re playing a version other than basic Haka and you can’t keep a Mere or Taiaha in play), Savage Mana can be “dry-fired” for 0 toxic damage, but you can boost that up quite a lot with a Haka of Battle. I love the idea of downing the Dreadnought by just vomiting a gigantic column of bile into the sky, destabilizing the craft’s orbit by the sheer mass and velocity of the belch.