Weekly One-Shot #88: The Curious Case of the Missing Socks

Ambuscade, Baron Balde, La Capitan, and Greazer, Advanced, against Setback, the Scholar of the Infinite, the Argent Adept, and Nightmist in the Tomb of Anubis.

Got this Fine on my third attempt. Some thoughts (cross posted from Steam):

Impulsion Beam is probably my least favorite card in the game, especially with Advanced Vengeance Baron Blade. Cards that let cards come out but that don't count as being played or that play cards out of turn sequence are key. (You'll get some of those up front, thankfully.)

There's going to be a fair bit of redirection. Make some of it work for you.

If you can keep Flesh to Iron alive, the Scholar is an absolute tank.

The Argent Adept is not going to last long. Get whatever use out of him you can and then let him flip. His incap will at least let you get more powers going and maybe even more cards out, with Setback's base power.

Trials hit Villain cards too. Let them.

Ugh, failed my first two tries.  This one is just awful.  Lots of discarding (much of it voluntary) that feeds Chiquito, lots of ongoing destruction that hurts everyone, and Setback can't really use his power unless all his cards in hard are useless and he might as well just gamble.  And then the Scarabs come out and the game is just unplayable.

I did do better on my second try.  Using Nightmist to take out Blade's Genetically Fused Physique ASAP so he starts killing himself (especially before he gets Negation Bands) is critical.  I'm not sure whether it's better to have Greazer go after Setback (who will go down and make Greazer leave) or Scholar (who might be able to tank).  Probably Setback.  Letting the environment deal with Nemeses (especially after Glamour comes out) also seems necessary, but it does make it harder to survive.  I think the real trick is going to be figuing out how to keep Flesh to Iron going as long as possible.

I’ve lost once we haven’t tried a second time. It’s just BRUTAL. I have no idea how you’re supposed to get through those devices.

You’re not. I’m pretty sure the Beam was out for the whole time Blade was active in my victory run.

Actually correction, it got blown up by the environment the round before Blade went down.

I was barely able to make a dent in the Beam. Thankfully, it really only hamstrings Setback, and even then, he can at least get tokens with his power.

I think what went wrong for me was not being able to keep Flesh to Iron out. That would have helped a lot. I think La Capitan blew it up. :/

I tried this with a random seed over lunch today and won with only Scholar alive (expected/10). Damage ordering mattered a ton thanks to Chiquito, and yeah, it was basically the environment show. Took forever because in that seed, Blade started with Negation Bands that were out for basically the entire match. :\

I'll have to give this a shot later with the One-Shot seed and see how I do. Got to pay attention to damage order all the time...

Near Mint.  First game, but I had to rewind to undo a stupid mistake.  I keep assuming that I would be able to get decent use out of "Get Out of the Way!" considering the target rich environment, but there's far too much damange reduction on this board.  Ended up with everyone but Scholar dead.  Scholar tanks like a boss once La Capitan is out of the way.

Get Out of the Way? I never even SAW that!

I'm pretty sure I saw every card in Scholar's deck.  I was down to the last 3 when I won.

Again, though, it's not nearly as useful as you'd think it would be.

Glad I'm not the only one having trouble with this.

I had the same problem with GootW.  Tons of targets.  3 hp gained.

Third try.  As predicted, getting and keeping Flesh to Iron and letting the environment wipe out all the villains was the trick.  The other heroes' primary jobs were to put out sacrificial ongoings, help Scholar draw cards to discard, and keep Chiquito off the board.  Entered the final environment phase with Ambuscade, Blade, and La Capitan all still out but at 6 HP or less, Greazer left because Setback went down, and Scholar had only Flesh to Iron out and no cards in hand.  Fortunately there were a ton of trials out that did plenty enough damage.

Mint with Scholar at 4 and Nightmist at 6. Misplayed a couple things thanks to Chiquito, who at one point ended up with 5 cards underneath him, but it turned out OK. Too difficult to remember some specifics because of the nature of LC Villains games, but here are some things that I noted:

- The extra card plays from Chronological Hotspot did more good than harm. I left it out until LC blew it up herself with Quando? Ahora! CH helped me get Nightmist set up with all of her Relics except the Ring, and Setback to bring Wrong Time and Place back from its grave.

- Speaking of Wrong Time and Place, it was super useful. Each round it was out, I was able to redirect a hit from Baron Blade back to himself (net 5 damage), which served three purposes: getting him dead ASAP, allowing Flesh to Iron to survive, and keeping Argent Adept alive for one last use of Vernal Sonata / Alacritous Subdominant.

- I put Living Paycheck on Setback. My plan was to put it on Scholar if he started with Flesh to Iron... and he didn't, so. Bye, Setback ol' buddy.

- Don't worry about the Swarm of Scarabs, LC should blow it up before it affects too many people, and Scholar can play around it temporarily with Bring What You Need.

- I got to play Oblivion three times (1/3, 1/2, and 3/3) thanks in part to LC making Nightmist reshuffle, and immediately following that, I used the Tome to grab one final copy. 

- This is pretty much the Nightmist and Environment show for damage. Anubis was super helpful - as soon as Scholar became the highest HP target (which didn't take long), he hit a villain character every time he went off. 

- I focused as much damage as I could on Blade. By the time he went down, Ambuscade was down to 10 and LC was in the teens. I focused on LC from there and Ambuscade went down to AOE in the meantime.

Mint. Didn't make any attempt to play defense. I used Vernal Sonatas and Don't Dismiss Anythings to put 4's on NightMist's deck and then played Oblivion 3 times. Scholar and AA didn't make it, but Setback and NightMist were in single digits when the dust settled.

Near mint, Scholar at 10, all others incapped. 

Chronological Hotspot and the Environment were the MVPs here.

CH helped me get sacrificial ongoings to keep Flesh to Iron in play, while the environment killed everyone.

Finally got to this one, I was out of town last week, so no chance for a mint, but I did get it on my first try.

Holy Oblivion show!  Flesh to Iron was great, and Anubis did more damage to Villains than heroes--but it was Argent Adept allowing Nightmist to play an out of turn Oblivion, followed by another Oblivion on her turn, followed on Nightmist's next turn by another Oblivion (with Infernal damage boosted by a then incapped AA) that really took the wind out of the villains' sails. All of the villains were done in at the same time by Nightmist, save for Greazer who left when Nightmist took out Setback. Sorry about your socks, buddy.

Setback and Argent Adept incapped, Scholar in the mid-teens, and Nightmist in single digits at the end.

Only just got to this one as I was on vacation when it came up. Took 3 tries. The key for me was letting Greazer chase after Setback and Setback playing Wrong Time and Place right off the bat. Nightmist took care of ongoings, especially on Baron Blade. After that, everyone piled on Baron Blade. Setback went down first, bviously, but he soaked up enough damage and took Greazer with him so the heroes were generally ahead at this point of the game. Counterpoint Bulwark provided some extra defense while Anubis went crazy and Nightmist threw around Oblivion spells like they were on sale. Argent Adept eventually went down, but it was all pretty much over for the villains by then.

The end came quickly with a "Know When to Let Loose" followed by the Scholar's power to take out La Capitan and knock Ambuscade into single digits. Nightmist and Scholar in single digits at the end.