Weekly One-Shot 83 Infernal Affairs

Challenge Apostate vs Fanatic, Scholar of the Infinite, NightMist and the Sentinels in the Court of Blood.

Sooo much infernal damage.

Pretty comfortable Mint. Fanatic at 13, NightMist around 15, Scholar at 20. Sentinels at 9, 10, 11, 12. Used Final Dive on the Runes, Retribution on the Orb. Ran LEE and healed Scholar every chance I got. After I took out the orb it was pretty simple.

Mint.

Looking at the setup, I expected Unhallowed Halls to come out right away to stop all of the healing heroes present. SPOILER ALERT: It doesn't.  I kept expecting it to come out every turn, and it took quite a while to show up.

Anyway, it wasn't too bad--took a long time, and Apostate's relics are frustrating, but Scholar did lots of tanking, and Nightmist did lots of redirecting and the Sentinels did their thing.

In the end, neither the heroes nor the vampires did Aposte in.  He fell to a frenzied crowd of villagers tired of the loud organ music blaring from the castle on the hill at all hours of the night.

Fanatic 13HP, Scholar 14HP, Nightmist 15HP, Sentinels 10-14-8-12 Hs P.

Fine.

I botched this hard. First game, I had Apostate down to 1 HP and could have lined up the kill, but first I decided to kill the only other villain target in play...a Relic Spirit. Didn't recover.

I also had misplayed a few Radiant damages, forgetting that Unhallowed Halls was out. I wish there was a way to say "wait, I didn't mean to hit that one button" without sacrificing Mint, though I admit that's counterintuitive to the point of Mint.

Second game, I don't even remember what I did, but it was really unfocused. I eventually had an Apocalypse go off that had almost all of Apostate's relics out and nothing else, and I jacked out.

Third game I went back to my first-game game plan, fought my way past the Runes and the Effigy and the Orb, and was able to clear it up especially when I Mistbound Apostate.

Environment was almost entirely a nonissuem except in game 1.

Mint by the very skin of my teeth, with Fanatic and Nightmist both left at 1 HP and the Scholar and the Sentinels down for the count. It looked like I was going to cruise my way to an easy and comfortable mint when an ill-timed demon returning to play from the discard pile brought in an Apocalypse that spelled ruin and destruction for all of my careful setup. The two Unhallowed Halls that then came out didn't do me much of a favour either, when Apostate exploded in chained card-plays and Infernal damage butchered just about everything. Fortunately for me, the massive boost to infernal damage also made Nightmist's Oblivion murder incarnate and she cleared the field of unholy relics and fallen angels both to save the day!

Long, extremely sloggy Mint.  (seriously, cycled through Apostate's deck 3+ times).

I had just about given up, when I had Nightmist at 7hp and in Mist form.  (and everyone else dead.) I kept givign nightmmist the damage boost, and waited until the orb was wiped by the environment. A pilferer ate Mist form and forced nightmist to take a punch from a Pugilist before being able to put it back up.

Then two Pilferers came out, eating all of Nightmist's cards in play after all the damage was done.

So here I am: Nightmist at 4hp, ALL THE CARDS in hand (except Mist forms).  I use Fanatic's incap to play the amulet. 

Nightmist's turn: Oblivion, and so aptly named.  Completely Wiped the board, including a fresh Condemnation (Killing the runes, first), and taking Apostate down to 6.

i'm at 4hp, and two Halls out, so I skip my Power Phase.

Use the Sentinel's Incap to play scouring Mists, redirect +base killed him dead.

Too. Damn. Close.

I'll try again soon to take him out far earlier.

Minted with the Mainstay tank strategy. Took a while with all the relics that come out, but I was never in any real danger.

Mint with Fanatic at 1, Scholar at 6, MVP Nightmist at 11, and the Sentinels at 2/3/0/7.

This game was the Nightmist and Writhe show for a while - Writhe made sure Apostate had some pretty easy turns to deal with, and we did a bunch of damage. 

Then I tried to be a hero and take Apostate down from 40+ to dead in one round. Unfortunately I missed by 6 HP and he played Profane Summons next round, bringing out the Periapt, Effigy, and Tome, which also pulled the Runes. A couple rounds of scraping stuff together later, the environment played Unhallowed Halls and I basically said YOLO and played Oblivion, which pulled up 4/4. That wiped the board and left a very sad Apostate with nothing left in his deck but a Relic Spirit and a Remorseless Provocation. He would have died from Nightmist redirecting it back to himself, but the environment killed him before we had the chance.

If I'd had Apostate hit Fanatic instead of Scholar on that round when I tried to burst him down, it would have worked - she would have done an extra 8+ on Wrathful Retribution and I never would have seen Profane Summons. But it worked out anyway, thanks to Nightmist being awesome.

Used Extract ever round. Apostate never played a demon and the only Relics he got out after setup were Gauntlet [2x] and Orb. This fight was smooth sailing.

Quick, comfortable Mint.  Made sure to leave the Relic Spirit alone, immediately used Final Dive on the Tome of the Unknowable, then focused fire on the Runes of Malediction so I could use area damage to wipe out the rest of the relics while whittling Apostate down with big single-target damage, mostly from Fanatic (base power with Nemesis bonus and a Wrathful Retribution from 5 HP).  The Idealist then wiped the board (minus the Relic Spirit!) with a single play.  Scholar had double Flesh to Iron to try to soak up all the highest-HP damage, but ended up needing it very little, since Nightmist usually had the highest HP.

Playing like Unhallowed Halls was gonna be the next card out got me a fairly easy Mint. That said, could've benefited from Hippocratic Oath for the first half of the game, but well! That's how it goes!

Oh yeah I lied, I used Final Dive on the Tome, not the Runes.

I also never used extract. It was Jab and Block (or One-Shot for damage MD on Scholar, Block) every turn.

Also I got Aura of Vision out first, which made me draw another Unique Capabilities for the chain. I fueled NightMist with it every turn until Scholar had 2 or 3 Elementals out, and then I fed him.

Mint, but a pretty close one.  Fanatic was down, and had I ordered the final Oblivion differently I think I would have wiped out over half the remaining team.  

I was very, very close to victory, but I forgot that Apocolypse kills the Relic Spirit along with everything else.  Pulling back from that was... exciting.

Mint with a fairly easy slog.

I turtled behind Scholar using 2xFlesh to Iron and Bring What You Need in the first few turns to tank everything. This soaked up all of Apostate's per turn damage and pretty much all of the environment damage, too.

Sentinels used Unique Capabilities and Team Communication so in the first two turns, they had all their Signature Cards and Sentinel Tactics out. Eventually Mainstay threw a Human Shield up as well for good measure. Writhe discarded a lot of pesky cards from Apostate's deck and otherwise, the Sentinels threw a lot of healing around. Runes of Malediction stopped a lot of the 2 damage cards from doing much to the board.

Nightmist drew lots of cards, redirected like crazy and used Planar Banishment on any Apocalypse cards that came out. I sat with Unhallowed Halls out for a while to get the bonus on Infernal damage, but there was lots of unused healing on my side of the field and Fanatic sitting with a dead hand, so I nuked those, too.

Except for Imp Pilferer, I left the demons and the environment targets alone. Scholar's Grace Under Fire was doing big damage (10+), so I could take out Orb of Delirium or Runes of Malediction without any issue. Using Don't Dismiss Anything kept a steady supply of them in my hand. (I should have done the same trick with Wrathful Retribution, too) Fling Into Darkness and Final Dive were used to get rid of low hit point relics that were otherwise a pain to deal with due to damage reduction or the orb.

I kept slogging through, dealing with relics as they came up and trying to keep the demons in play. At the end, I was going to wait for Apostate to reshuffle his deck before killing off Runes of Malediction, but then I had Nightmist use Mistbound to stop Apostate's deck. The Sentinels took out Runes of Malediction and the demons that came back did nothing to help Apostate. Know When to Let Loose destroyed Condemnation in one hit, followed by a Channel to Apostate to take him down to 1. After the Sentinels took out the rest of the relics, Fanatic used Absolution to deal the final blow. All my heroes were at max, except for Fanatic, who I had let drop on purpose for Wrathful Retribution.

Mint, a slow slog, but overall I was never too worried. 

Near-Mint, but mainly because I totally blanked on my own game halfway through. Fanatic distracted all of Apostate's damage to herself, and then I got confused and dropped Blackout, and then Apostate hit Fanatic like six times off my own card draw. Which I clicked undo to reverse, because whoops. It ended up pretty solid after that. 

Surprisingly simple Mint.  Did nothing much first turn as Apostate started with Apocalypse first play.  Fanatic kept after Apostate for nemesis bonus, Scholar focused on staying alive, Nightmist focused on card draw to fuel her amulet, and Writhe kept putting junk on top of Apostate's deck.  

Had a few minor annoyances:  Forgot about Challenge mode, so I ended up with two imp pilferers in play destroying lots of my stuff.  Had to use up my Wrathful Retribution to knock out the Runes of Malediction.  Chastised the Relic Spirit to make sure to not accidentally kill it.  Wiped the environment accidentally with a DDA'd Planar Banishment.

Otherwise, very straightforward game.  One of the easier games I've had against Apostate, to be honest.