Weekly One-Shot #72 May Day

Advanced Skinwalker Gloomweaver vs Legacy, Captain Cosmic and Argent Adept in the MDP. Ouch.

Well, I think that was the most damage I’ve ever dealt with Motivational Charge in a single game. It took 14 rounds, but I managed a mint with everyone near full HP despite some early mistakes.

Oof. Playing Team Support against Skinweaver? No thank you. The Constructs are just fodder for Gloomy to play extra cards on his front side; don't even ask me about flipping him, I never got that far. One damage dealer is not enough to deal with everything he throws at you. I definitely made some mistakes with Argent Adept, but mining Legacy's deck for Next Evolution didn't help. I think getting rid of Sable Pins (the ones that make you discard) needs to be a higher priority next time.

This one is a marathon, not a sprint. Here are some tips to help!

1. Gloomy typically does 3 damage. A construct can take a single hit, so prioritize which constructs get that hit. 

2. Unless you have a Cosmic Crest in play, you can use destructive reflex to ping your own constructs to activate them. 

3. The sable pins are just awful. I found that getting rid of them ASAP was extremely useful. 

4. Cursed Acolytes are a major threat, BUT you can prioritize their damage. I found that stacking wounding buffers on the Argent Adept was extremely useful as a counter to them, as was having them hit Dynamic Siphons to let Legacy charge motivationally. 

5. You want the Argent Adept to get an Inspiring Supertonic soon. Having Legacy be able to charge twice in a round is very useful, especially once you have some autonomous blades in play. 

6. Relics can be destroyed by the Adept. Since Gloomy can potentially use the book to destroy every construct in play (4 damage to all hero targets if no one discards), you need to consider VERY carefully if it is worth sacrificing an instrument. 

7. Once Gloomy flips, have a plan. He does 3 damage to all targets... which isn't enough to kill any constructs if you have them at full HP, but will activate all of them. So it can definitely be turned to your advantage if you stack siphons on Legacy. 

8. The Cosmic Crest makes Captain C. And all constructs immune to energy damage. Battalion gunners do Energy damage. Maybe you prefer being immune, maybe you prefer letting the gunners ping your siphons and vitality conduits.  Either way you choose it, think about how their damage will impact the health of your constructs on Gloomy's turn, since he does 3 damage. 

9. Remember that you can choose which target Gloomy hits if their are multiple ones that meet the criteria!  It can be REALLY useful to let a gunner or mechanic get punched, particularly if they are hiding behind a shield. 

Good luck!

First run I got Gloomweaver to flip, and then down to 84HP before it all came crashing down.

One of my mistakes was using Lead From the Front too much. If Legacy goes down, it's game over.

And then when Vast Following brought back the Grimoire of Curses....well....it made me Grim. And Cursey.

Had to settle for a Near Mint here, as I foolishly ignored the peril of the Sable Pins in my first run, and paid the price for it. Second one went much, much better with everyone in their 20's and the Rotting God going down under a flurry of autonomous blade-assisted motivational charges.

Near mint.

Second game was a LONG slog, but Legacy at 5HP and Catain Cosmic at 4HP emerged victorious. Argent Adept fell in the last round to a Battalion Gunner.

This is one where the "Choose for me" button is not your friend. Order matters.

Very much so.

I lost my first try (stupid pins).  Second was a comfortable near mint with everyone near full.  It just took all afternoon.

Near-Mint because I was a doof and let Gloomy use the Grimoire to wipe out all the Constructs because I forgot about the damage increase. Second time around it was pretty much just have Legacy do all the damage aided by Siphons and Supertonics and Onslaughts. I was also silly in realizing too late I should have put the Wounding Buffers on Cosmic and not Legacy, but that mistake was much less crippling.

The first time around I played Cosmic Crest, but I realized that I feel it's better to let the Gunners ping the Siphons.

The Sky Deck is a lovely card... Gloomy's Vast Followings just pulled out a zombie or two thanks to it.

Mint.  Finally.  I didn't count rounds, but it took ~1.5 hours.  And most of that was clicking through mass damage.

It turns out that Legacy with Fortitude, Lead From the Front, and 3 Energy Bracers is nigh invulnerable.  (And Superhuman Durability can deal with the handful of things that Gloomy can do to deal 5+ damage.  But it takes FOREVER.

By the end I was killing off Cursed Acolytes, not because they were dangerous (actually, they were helpful, because they could trigger my Dynamic Syphons), but because they took too long to deal with.

At my nadir, all heroes were below 10 hp.  By the end, they were all above 20.

Be careful, though.  I got stuck in a loop near the end where Gloomy's deck was almost entirely cultists and zombies, and they kept chaining.

Fine. With which I was, ahem, fine. Went into the first game clueless (I haven't played against Gloomwalker Skinweaver much), and got swamped. Second game, I was still clueless, but spent more time trying to understand the flow of play. Got further, but not far enough. Braithwhite's tips up there, though, cracked the whole thing wide open. My heroes were all comfortably over 10 HP (in fact, I think the Alliterative Duo were over 20; and even Legacy was only where he was becasue of a fumbled Lead from the Front play) and the stack of Autonomous Dynamic Buffers (now available in your local store, from RevoCorp!) on Legacy meant I was healing 2-4 damage per target per round and dealing something like 20-30 damage.

Still, I didn't find it all that fun, I have to say. Not even because it was Gloomskin Walkerweaver, but--well, because I was on my phone, for one, and more specifically I was on my phone dealing with precise ordering of mass targets. If I hadn't already unlocked Termi-Nation Unity, this game might have done it all by itself. I needed more screen real estate to avoid spending all my time scrolling left to right and back.

(Something I may submit as a feature request to Handelabra: Sort by Character. Instead of the "Choose Target" menu going in chronological order of target, I'd rather see Legacy then everything attached to him, then all of CC's, then AA's, then Weaverskin Walkgloomer's, then the environment's. For example.)

Environment was mostly irrelevant, thanks to Bracers, the Cosmic Crest, and all three Shield Generators; Sky Deck did help me avoid recurring relics from Vast Followings though.

Definitely.

Or at least, to sort by how "choose for me" will actually go.

Once you get set up with all the DR stacked on Legacy, he can tank EVERYTHING with Lead from the Front. Then I mostly just ignored everything and focused on Gloomy, flipping him ASAP.

I didn’t realize what the fight would be the first time, so I lost without laying a finger on Gloomy. The second, though, I managed a Near Mint with 16 constructs out, all at full health, and the heroes all at about 17 hp.

Not quite everything.  He can't pull the environment damage with Lead from the Front.  Which isn't much of a problem on the MDP, but can be a problem if you're not careful.  Also, Gloomy has one Voodoo Pin that deals irreducible damage, and enough zombies can make Strength of the Grave and Chosen Disciple dangerous.  But generally yes, Legacy is a tanking machine.

I went basically the same route, and took just about as long.  Near Mint (I screwed up one of AA's super-fiddly multiple instruments/power/card play turns and had to undo), but Flawless Victory – all heroes at max HP.  

Legacy was tanked to the max, with not only three Energy Bracers but also three Autonomous Blades, Surge of Strength, Inspiring Presence, and the Legacy Ring.  With all of the buffs and constructs, every Motivational Charge did at least 5+4+4+4=17 points of damage, and that's if I didn't have AA in there adding extra out-of-turn Galvanize uses.  

I can just imagine this playing out in the "real world":  

Gloomy's little cultists obtain one of Blade's old MDPs, and use it Renfield-style to transport the corpse of their dead master.  Using an unholy ritual, they raise him from the dead.  Our three heroes break into the MDP and try to clean out the nest of cultists, but they have to chase them through the labrynthine corridors of the MDP.  The cultists take full advantage to backstab, sneak attack, and place Gloomy's little voodoo pins all over the heroes, while the MDP crewmembers snipe and strafe from cover.  It's a long, ugly, bloody fight.  After finally clearing out the last of the cultists, our beat-up and weary heroes emerge on the flight deck, where they are greeted by the horrifying sight of a colossal demon zombie Gloomweaver, oozing malice and baleful magic. 

But here where they have room to move, the heroes' teamwork finally comes into play:   Every time the demon monster aims one of his tremendous fists at Legacy, an equally massive yellow energy shield from Captain Cosmic deflects the blow. At the same time, yellow energy swords are whirling in an arc around the enraged monster, darting and slicing.  All the while, the eerie long-haired stranger dressed in silver plays his otherwordly music, which, powered by the pure stellar energy flowing out of Captain Cosmic, is visible and tangible, as well as audible.  The music literally lifts and sustains the heroes:  It washes away the pain and weariness from the long fight in the corridors, their bruises visibly fade, open wounds stop bleeding and begin to knit themselves shut. They think more clearly, move more quickly, fight more creatively. 

Legacy begins to go on the offensive.  The music enhances even Legacy's own inherent super-speed.  He becomes a stellar energy-powered blur, barely visible.  At the same time, he's throwing cosmically- and musically-enhanced punches that could level buildings.  The resurrected Gloomweaver is puissant and terrible, but even this hellish revenant is simply no match for the onslaught of 200 years of enhanced human evolution, powered by cosmic energy and arcane melodies.  Gloomweaver goes down in a hail of lightning-fast blows and incandescent streaks of yellow energy, his cries of rage and despair drowned out by music that seems to be coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.  

Right, but I used Legacy to obliterate the Crimson Chi- I mean, Pins, and since I was using Counterpoint Bulwark, I could protect Legacy in general AND Argent from the Environment. CC was protected by the Crest, and Legacy had Danger Sense. So except for when they were buffed, they didn’t hurt anyone. When they WERE buffed, they hit Argent for one or two a round.

Not bad Mint, using the Legacy tanking the whole game.  Felt strange with Legacy and Cosmic never having cards in their hands, as Argent kept playing them.

Mint, and I actually didn't have any trouble at all.  Lead from the Front, Fortitude, Energy Bracer, and Counterpoint Bulwark neutered all the villains, and Cosmic Crest and a second Energy Bracer (on AA) neutered the environment as well.  I knew the pins needed to go before I got very far, and I sacrificed some early instruments I didn't need to nuke the first couple of relics.

I really, really wanted a "Yes to All" button when it asked me whether I wanted to trigger Lead from the Front for all those constructs, though.