Weekly One-Shot #93: Tell Me About Your Mother

This week’s one-shot pits Wager Master against The Sentinels, XPW Argent Adept, Sky-Scraper, and Bunker.

It’s a randomized start, so you may not have gotten as lucky as I did, but this was the easiest One-Shot I’ve ever done.

First turn saw Wager Master put out Losing to the Odds and a couple Wagelings, so everyone took damage. Fortunately, The Sentinels started with 2 Unique Capabilities, so I played Hippocratic Oath to heal people to even numbers. Argent Adept and Sky-Scraper skipped their turns, Bunker played Adhesive Foam Grenade, and we won at the end of Wager Master’s second turn.

Mint. Thanks to some Mainstay tanking.

The highlight was Breaking The Rules entering play during Sky-scraper's end phase due to Blighted Streets and then being destroyed at the second start phase of the same turn due to Neutralizing Resonator... resulting in Sky-scaper getting 3 play phases, 3 draw phases and 3 power phases all in one turn.

Automatic Mint. Got one of those Wager Master openings where you just win during the first villian turn (Wagelings - > Unwise Wager (basically a blank) -> The New Deal -> Wagelings -> Losing to the Odds).

Well, see you next week, I guess!

Match 1: He opened "Who Are You Fighting" and "What Do You Really Know", and I was pretty much toast.

Match 2: He opened "Not All He Seems", Wagelings, Wagelings, and Playing Dice With the Cosmos. I decided to go for the Not All He Seems win because I had Argent Adept ready to go with Bell / Bulwark / Inventive Prep, Sky-Scraper started with Neutralizing Resonator and Undetectable Relinking, and Bunker opened with Heavy Plating and Recharge Mode. So, we were able to tank all the Wageling damage, put his cards in the trash indiscriminately, and we thankfully dodged What Do You Really Know? both times. Unfortunately, Toxic Sludge came out and flipped Not All He Seems when I had Wager Master down to 2 cards in his deck. Fortunately, the top card remaining was Losing to the Odds and we won anyway.

Near Mint, can't feel bad about it because it's Wager Master on a random start, glad this didn't come up after my Mint streak of 26 earlier this year.

Two very nerve-wracking rounds led to an easy Mint, winning to the odds.

Finally Fine-d it, also thanks to Losing to the Odds.

Wager Master is such a pain in the neck.

Mint.

Whew, that one took a while.  "Who Are You Fighting?" was one of Wager Master's first cards, so I had to go fishing with Writhe's power for a Fling Into Darkness in order to win. That or hope Losing to the Odds came up and panned out just right, but it didn't.

It took waaaay longer than it should have.  You'd think that I'd come across a Fling, or a Team Communication or Unique Capabilities sooner rather than later....but the odds were not in my favor. Just Second Chances and Human Shields.

So. Many. Second. Chances.

Thankfully, Sky-Scraper had multiple Thorathian Monoliths and XPW AA had Vernal Sonatas to keep them coming back, so I could afford to wait it out....but it was a lot of waiting.

Eventually, a Fling happened, and Mainstay punched Wager Master into the shadowy Void.

Medico 10HP, Writhe 12HP, Idealist 10HP, Mainstay 9HP, XPW AA 18HP, Sky-Scraper 21HP, Bunker 23HP.

Also, I didn't realize this was Advanced, and I went nuts on the first round trying to figure out why Not All He Seems didn't flip over after Bunker pinged Wager Master with the Grenade Launcher.

I calmed down after a while.

Easy Mint, won on his second turn.

Pulled: Wageling, New Deal, Wageling, Wageling, Losing to the Odds.

Used Hipp Oath to heal Idealist to evens with the rest, Toxic Sewers messed up my evenness, Wagelings hit, I went "Oh crap!" when Hipp'd Medico went to hit himself for 3 (New Deal), then realized I could heal him to odd, the wagelings hit everyone for 1 bringing them to even. and I won.

Annoying slog of a Mint.  Got into a really long holding pattern with Mainstay with Chains and Human Shield and Tactics, Argent Adept Yelling at Medico to allow them to play a damage dealing card and double up on Mainstay's block, and also heal.  Sky Scraper put Compulsion Cannister on Mainstay to use Tactics and Block again, so we were able to ignore most damage, and heal a little every turn.  Finally ran out of cards for the Sentinels so we lost the shield.  Eventually killed Wager Master by beating him up.

So my mother was brutal very brutal that first time around.  Not so much the second go around.  Oh Wager Master and your silly conditions.  

Wager Master just isn't fun for me.  Loaded it up, Losing to the Odds was on the table but I made a mistake accouting for the sequence of events properly, quit.  My time is more valuable than this.

Mint thanks to Losing to the Odds here as well on Wager Master's third turn. The environment didn't get to play a single card thanks to back to back foam grenades. Not much else to say, other than typical Wager Master nonsense, really.

MMint, thanks to Losing to the Odds, through pure dumb luck. I couldn't keep anything in play. I probably wasn't going to last another round when LttO flipped back up.

Near Mint. Lost the first game after Dr. Medico got picked off by The New Deal. The second game was a bit of a slog but ended with Wagermaster flipping and Mainstay, Sky-Scraper and Bunker whittling his HP down over several turns.

Near Mint.

First game started out with the New Deal, Losing to the Odds, Wagelings and Wagelings. It made it pretty much impossible to get evens without damage resistance, and Mainstay was the only source of that. I tried Thorathian Monolith to soak up damage, but I couldn't make it so Sky-Scraper ended up even hit points at the same time. Soon after, Playing Dice with the Cosmos came out, so the Sentinels couldn't take advantage of Argent Adept feeding Mainstay and tanking damage for the even condition. After two more Scum and Villainy cards and three Impossible Quandary cards, (one of which came up in Scum and Villainy) I was soon losing all my heroes. I tried to get Mainstay as the last hero standing where he could end the game with 2 hit points, but I couldn't pull it off.

Second game was the the nice easy win with Losing to the Odds. It took a few rounds, but it was much easier to pull off.

About the only other alternative I had in game 1 was trying to deck WagerMaster, but there was too much damage coming out and I spent turns focusing on getting evens somehow.

Fffffffff

I lost the Mint after a huge amount of time because I was an idiot.

I was going for running out Wager Master's deck using Not All He Seems, combined with Writhe to take out his deck at double speed. I let Wager Master flip, got Not All He Seems back, and proceeded to wipe the rest of the cards. But I forgot that I had dropped Proportionist earlier, and then I played a Thorathian Monolith and accidentally pinged him for 1, which flipped it face-down. And then I got killed by An Unwise Wager when it flipped up while a deck was empty, which was just terrible luck.