Weekly One-Shot #74: Like Lambs to the Slaughter

Wow, am I the first to post? Well, so it goes.

The Eternal Haka, OG Bunker, and OG Ra against OG Baron Blade in Wagner Mars Base: Challenge Mode.

(Which means that even after you flip the Baron, if he gets 15 cards in his trash, game over.)

Minted this one by the skin of my teeth. Haka had 3 HP, Bunker had 1, and Ra was (ahem) toast. Tanking speed was the name of the game for me: I didn't wait to set up or get damage reduction or Ongoing destruction out, so at the end of the game Blade had both Basklash Fields, the Living Force Field, and even a Remote Turret out. Between Punish the Weak, Imbued Fire, the Staff of Ra, and Flame Barrier, I think Bunker actually ended up being the least damage-dealing party member. Though he also did lay the final smackdown when the numbers were getting close and I started worrying about getting double-tapped by the Backlash Fields. (Hid behind a Meteor Shower for a round or two to let the Maintenance Bot push Bunker into the safe zone, then dropped it for a multi-power Flak/Grenade combo turn that dropped Baron from 3 HP to 0. Yes, I needed both--Living Force Field.)

Outside of incapping Ra this team doesn't have any Ongoing destruction so you don't get much choice on removing those cards.   After flipping Blade I turtled behind the Meteor Storm as I built up the OmniCannon to take Blade out in one shot.  

I took a similar approach, 29 damage Haka of Battle to Flip Blade… a 23 damage Bunker turn did most of the work on side 2.

This was challenging (lol), but I felt like I shouldn't have lost my first time through. I got the distinct sense I should be saving up cards for large hits, but I never saw Haka of Battle or Omnicannon. Second time was the charm, though I probably didn't use the Meteor Storm as much as I should have. Blade had a good 13 cards in his trash (more after I used Savage Mana), and Bunker was left the only one standing, with 2 HP. Overkilled him by about 6 though, so it worked!

I made a few mistakes, but weathered the storm until I could do the Ground Pound-Self Destruct Sequence exploit which let Ra burn Baron Blade down.

Near mint for me, since I forgot about about Ra's incap powers and simply tried for a frantic damage race that didn't turn out to my advantage. Second time it went a lot better with Ra suiciding into the backlash fields with as much firepower as he could manage while Haka ate everything that looked like a target and stored up for a savage mana knock-out blow. Once the incapped Ra could do his thing and clear out the fields, Blade crumbled like a tin can.

I had a relatively easy time. 

Ra didn't make it, but he was taken out by Blade on the last turn.  I won on Bunker's turn after Fire in the Biosphere came. Didn't let either Meteor Storm stay past Haka's turn.

One of the easier challenges so far.  I didn't do what others did it looks like.  I let Ra burn himself down hitting blade, then wiped the ongoings that annoyed me.  From there a little turtling to build up and Haka and Bunker both finished just below 20.

I've never used that–what is the "Ground Pound-Self Destruct Sequence exploit"?

If you play Ground Pound after Self-Destruct Sequence, you can skip your turn for SDS before you have to discard for Ground Poind, keeping Ground Pound around as long as you don't mind Haka sacrificing his turn. Given its for immunity to damage, that's probably worth it.

Never even saw Ground Pound in my run through. Did do the Omni-Cannon+Meteor Storm trick, but used Oxygen Leak as the finisher so Pervassive Red Dust did not kill the OmniCannon once it was out.

You can see the runthrough on Ronway's twitch channel!

I thought Ground Pound automatically destroyed itself at the beginning of the next turn after it's played, i.e., Haka can't discard additional cards to keep it in play, even if he wants to.  Does the exploit allow it to stay in play because "skipping" Haka's turn means that he never reaches the "beginning" of his turn, so the opportunity never comes for Ground Pound to be destroyed?

(BTW, I've not played this one yet, but this strikes me as one of those face-palm nobody-would-actually-choose-this-matchup challenges.  Three heroes with no Ongoing or Environment destruction against (a) a villain whose primary way of being annoying is to have nasty Ongoings in play, and (b) an environment with an instant-game-over card in the deck.)

Yeah, that would be my read: both Ground Pound and Self-Destruct say "at the start of turn," so the player chooses the order, chooses Self-Destruct first, that skips the turn so boom, no opportunity for Ground Pound to get downed.

You don't choose the order.   It's based on the order they came into play.   If you played Ground Pound then Self-Destruct Sequence comes out during the environment turn at the start of Haka's turn Ground Pound is destroyed then you get the option about skipping your turn for Self-Destruct Sequence.  If Self-Destruct Sequence comes out then on Haka's turn you play Ground Pound on the following start of turn for Haka you have the option to skip the rest of your turn for Self-Destruct Sequence which if you chose yes makes the check on Ground Pound skipped.  

Wasn’t sure I was going to get the Mint on this one, but it turned out ok.

I thought I’d try a damage race until the second Backlash Field came out. Then I hid from the Meteors for a few turns to set up. Shortly thereafter I was hurting pretty bad when Haka drew his second Ground Pound, so I skipped a few of his turns for that while Bunker charged and Ra pinged the little targets. Haka ended up with 2 Rampages, Punish the Weak, and Savage Mana while Bunker got his Omni + Recharge Mode combo.

As a side note, not sure why I never noticed this before, but did you know that if Savage Mana eats every target in Blade’s deck he only has…
You guessed it: 14 cards!

I've lost to Challenge Mode Baron Blade in the past when he got Consider the Price of Victory far too many times, so I rushed to do as much damage as possible with very little damage mitigation.  That worked better than I feared but less well than I hoped.  I got to the point where BB had 11 HP left and all my heroes were under 3 HP, so couldn't survive even one hit from anything.  And then the Meteor Shower hit and saved my bacon.  Took a couple of rounds to shore myself up, had Bunker sacrifice himself to Flak Cannon one last time, then let the Oxygen Leak finish Blade off first.

Wow!  That was the answer for an easy Mint on this one.   Unless you have a villain or environment that destroys Ongoings or makes the heroes damage themselves, the Ground Pound/SDS combo is pretty unstoppable – Ground Pound prevents all non-hero cards (not just villain cards, or non-hero targets) from doing damage, so long as Ground Pound stays in play, the heroes are completely immune to outside damage.  Can anyone think of other cards/environments that Ground Pound would work with, i.e., cards that repeatedly ask the heroes to skip their turn, like SDS?   

SPOILER:

I had Haka do everything he could to draw cards (Mere, playing "haka" cards, using his base power) until he drew Ground Pound.  Once the Self-Destruct Sequence came out, Haka played Ground Pound and kept it in play for the next 5 turns, immunizing the heroes from damage while Bunker and Ra pounded on Baron Blade.  The Self-Destruct Sequence was aborted conveniently in time for Haka to finish off Blade with a Rampage (putting 4 extra cards under Savage Mana), followed by a 10-HP Savage Mana shot.   Just for fun, I replayed the same scenario (but with different random seeds) 5X, and was able to easily beat Blade every time by exploiting Ground Pound/SDS.

Mint.  Yeah, normally Challenge Blade is a major damage race against the clock, but in this case his trash builds up surprisingly slowly.  Never saw Omnicannon, but dug for a 15 pt Haka of Battle, got two turns out of one Ground Pound, and generally had a good time.

I went in with the idea to hide so much stuff under Savage Mana that he would have a hard time meeting the alt win condition. Instead, this turned into abusing the environment while Haka and Bunker built up for massive damage. I burned Ra down to 8 before healing him up a bit with Staves. Staff + Flame Barrier meant that for a while, Ra was outdamaging Blade even with double Backlash. Then the DR came out and I decided it wasn't worth it anymore, and turtled with Ra too.

Mint with Haka at 19, Bunker at full, and Ra at 12.

This was yet another one shot that shows off how utterly abusable the Mars Base can be. (See also the Legacy / Tempest 3H game against Advanced Voss where it's quite easy to let Oxygen Leak do much of the work.)

Near Mint, because I made some stupid mistakes while things were well in hand the first time and the Self-Destruct went off. Doh! But the second time, Blade fell to a 30-point Omnicannon shot.

In this scenario, it seems like the double Backlash Fields are more of a problem than the Challenge mode. I dealt with them by eventually incapacitating Ra (while the others drew and got set up) and then dealing a big blast of damage.

Good.

Was traveling the past two weeks, so didn't finish it in time.

Would have been a Near Mint, though.  My first try was close, but I was too cavalier regarding the Backlash Fields.