Ultimate Apostate vs Nightmist, FV Tachyon, Argent Adept, FV Bunker.
He starts with a Runes of Malediction in play so getting rid of the book is a chore. Have not actualy managed to beat him yet after 2 attempts. The second attempt went much better than the first but couldn't clear all the relics after getting him down to 2 HP and the demons kept summoning more.
I shall see how you all do and see if there was a glaring error I made.
Haven't tried it yet, but Apostate versus a team with very little in the way of damage buffs sounds like it's going to be a rough time. FV Tachyon sounds like she won't be very helpful in this one and usually FV Bunker is my favorite of his variants, but I'm wishing for a Panzerbuster here.
I can't remember the last time I was this demoralized by a one-shot. D: What are you supposed to do? You have to draw to get to the Mistbounds, and they're both fairly high in Nightmist's deck, but until you uncover them for Heedless Lash, you're just filling up his play area. And woe betide if you put it into play with Bunker's power, that's just a flat waste. This is a really bad team for this setup. :/
Woo boy was this a wild ride!
Minted with Nightmist in the high 20s, AA in the mid teens, and Bunker and Tachyon near 10. Tachyon MVP for reasons I will get to below.
I can't even begin to be able to give a play by play, but this was my strategy more or less. I spent a few turns just sitting mostly as I wanted to get the book out of the way before I started drawing cards. I ended up killing it by playing Heedless Lash for 4 (total 2 to the book) one round, playing the Elder Ring, then Scouring Mists for 3(total 1) to kill it. While this was happening, I was getting as set up as possible with AA and Tachyon, and keeping the environment from doing anything with Bunker.
Once I could actually draw cards again, it was already too late. I knew that I couldn't burn through all of the Relics out with Runes and Effigy out, and Ultimate mode made it so I didn't want to actually just flip Apostate repeatedly as destroying Runes pulls out Demons which means more card plays. What this meant was that I needed to BONK!(tm) him out to win.
Through judicious use of Hypersonic Assault, Mistbound, Adhesive Grenades, and Vernal Sonata to play even more of the same, I controlled the damage, environment, and his deck as much as I could until: 1. Nightmist Mists of Time -> Mist Fueled Recovery for ~15hp -> Mist Form for tanking, 2. AA had lots of Songs and Insturments out for lots of healing and taking care of whatever, 3. Bunker was stable and feeding cards to the others (Especially useful with Vernal Sonata since I could choose what to play next) and keeping the environment down, and 4. Tachyon had 3 Lightspeed barrages, 19 bursts in her trash, and a Sucker Punch in hand. At this point, Apostate had every Relic except the book out and I had taken out all of his demons except the Relic Spirits.
With Apostate around 50 hp and Tachyon raring to go, I made my move. On his front, if Apostate would be destroyed with a relic out, he destroys it and flips to 20 hp. However, if hes on his back, he only does the same if hes brought to 0 hp, not just destroyed. 3 Lightspeed barrages dropped him to 0, he flipped to 20, and Blitz brought him back down to 2 hp. AA's Alacritous Subdominant then allowed Tachyon to BONK!(tm) him with Sucker Punch, destroying him without dropping his HP for the win.
I managed to win on my second try with all heroes in the upper single digits, and I made a few tactical mistakes with Tachyon and Adept. It's possible to clear all relics except Condemnation by the end of Nightmist's third turn.
Tachyon to BONK!(tm) him with Sucker Punch, destroying him without dropping his HP for the win.
That is by far the most filthy way to win. It is glorious and I now must try this. But 3 light speed barrages? I only saw one when my highest HP was 3
I went through her whole deck by the end. All I can say for advice is Apostate's damage vastly targets only the highest HP target. Get Nightmist into Mistform with a decent chunk of HP and she can tank all sorts of damage. AA with Rhapsody of Vigor can help stabilize everyone as well.
Wow! That really is a brilliant kink in the rules you found.
What will our heroes do in The Face of Evil? Sucker punch it.
Nightmist’s topdeck has a spell number of 4. So if you play Elder Ring first round, skip draw, and Heedless Lash second round, she can kill the Tome. This means you only need to skip the draws of everyone the first round.
Between Mistbounds and Vernal Sonatas, you can potentially get through the game without seeing a single demon.
Holy crap.
Okay, first? Ring + Heedless Lash is the way to go.
I am not so sure about the Sucker Punching, but that may just be me. <.< Fine, but it took a LOT of rewinding to perfectly carve Apostate's HP down, and that was after flipping him the first time, because you can only Sucker Punch him on the back, and his healing was way bad. D: Oy.
Ow. I ended up with Fine because of two stupid false starts (I hit new game to see what the set up was, and should've stopped there instead of hitting "start game" when I didn't have time to play it. Stupid. Then I stupidly did it again). Then it was clean through.
I used Ring+Heedless Lash to get rid of the book (thanks to the hint above). Then Nightmist got beat up and healed and got beat up and healed while I desperately looked for Mist Form. I got it late and only had it up for two turns, so it wasn't that valuable in the end.
However, at the same time, I successfully found Cedistic Dissonant and started blowing up instruments left and right to dump Apostate's artifacts. I took out Corrupted Effigy, Runes of Malediction, and Condemnation that way (and wisely played Mistbound just beofre taking out Runes of Malediction so the Imps I'd killed didn't let Apostate draw cards when they came back).
I'd let Tachyon build up a huge trash by then and so once those were down, she was able to let go with a Sonic Vortex / Lightspeed Barrage / Blitz combination. That finished it.
The other key for me in surviving long enough to get all the cards out was good old Hypersonic Assault. I must've played it at least six times using Vernal Sonata to keep pulling it back out and playing it again. That has got to be my favorite card in the whole game.
Mint....But that's because I read this thread first.
Once the book was gone, it was the Argent Adept show, using a bit of setup and then Cedistic Dissonant to destroy all of the relics.
I never used Mist Form...but on the turn that the demons started appearing (in droves!) Nightmist did clear the board with an Elder Ring-boosted Oblivion. That was fun.
After that, Tachyon used a Lightspeed Barrage to bring Apostate to 1HP, then finished him off with one last Hypersonic Assault.
All heroes at 9HP, except Tachyon, who was at 7.
I agree TakeWalker, Sucker Punch is usually a very niche, situational card. The only reason I thought I could pull it off in this scenario is FV Tachyon's Blitz with a full trash can be very surgical in damage application 
I ended up with two Pugilists out, so that wasn't an option for me, sadly. :(
And I never did find Cedistic Dissonant. Did anyone who used it play Instrumental Conjuration? I wonder if it's the kind of thing a shuffle would hide.
Thanks so much! After two abysmal failures on my own, I was able to eke out a “Fine” by using your strategy.
EDIT: This was a reply to starkenburg_alexander
Mint with Nightmist at full, Tachyon at 6, Argent Adept at 1, and Bunker at 5.
Bunker's only functions were to play Foam Grenade twice and keep using his base power. Nightmist offed the Tome (as described otherwise), then eventually got fully set up and started dropping good damage. Never used Mist Form. Argent Adept blew up four instruments and associated Relics. Tachyon did Tachyon things, mostly using Research Grant to build her trash, but also dropping two Hypersonic Assaults along the way. Apostate only got to play one Demon since I used Mistbound both times I saw it.
He didn't get a Profane Summons until his last turn either, wherein he pulled the other Gauntlet and the Orb. I nuked them with a 3+1/3+1 Oblivion and Tachyon burned her entire trash to pound Apostate into submission immediately afterward.
And yes, Takewalker, I played Instrumental Conjuration a couple rounds into the game. I didn't see Cedistic Dissonant until after I'd done so - I spent the first couple rounds with AA just using Rhapsody of Vigor.
I played Instrumental Conjuration multiple times, even a couple of times as the extra play from Bunker’s power.
I can't believe I got mint on this one.
At the start I floundered because of the combination of the Book + the Runes. I didn't want to draw any cards, but the cards you start with didn't look capable of taking out the Book with the -2 damage reduction. I never look at one-shot threads before playing for the first time, on the grounds that they give you information you shouldn't have before playing at least once, so I didn't know about the Ring + Heedless Lash solution. I did figure that Bunker's power gave me a possible work-around that would let me draw enough damage to kill the book without drawing cards. It didn't work out that way, but I did eventually manage to kill the book without drawing cards. I don't remember how now.
I really thought I'd lost when Apostate pulled out all his relics, but I've found that in a suprising number of cases it's possible to salvage situations that look impossible. Syncopated Onslaught helped me deal with the -2 damage reduction. Tachyon + Syncopated Onslaught + Sonic Vortex managed to deal enough damage to destroy the Orb that was redirecting all damage, then Nightmist + Elder Ring + Syncopated Onslaught + Amulet redirecting the self-harm damage managed to take down the Effigy.
At this point Apostate put down Apocalypse, which I destroyed with Blinding Speed. Bunker + Syncopated Onslaught + External Combustion blew up the Runes, most of the other relics, and the Imps summoned by destroying the Runes. However, Apostate managed to draw and play his second Apocalypse because of the Imps, and I had no way of dealing with it. Board wipe for me except for Nightmist's stuff, since those are Relics as well.
A couple of turns later it was going very, very badly, and almost everyone was down to 3-4 HP. I could see that Apostate had only Fallen Angel plus a bunch of demons left to draw. Which meant that no matter what, he was playing Fallen Angel and killing everyone. I still didn't give up, just stalled for time with Mistbound. I had Tachyon use Blitz to empty her trash because I figured she was going to die at any moment, and there was no point in saving them for future Lightning Assaults or Sonic Vortexes.
Negative Energy Field and Explosive Bubbles were out. Argent Adept put up Bulwark on himself and Nightmist, so Negative Energy Field was only damaging Apostate, and it was steadily plinking away at him as I played cards. It also plinked away at Explosive Bubbles until it was down to 2 HP, so it was only targeting Apostate and Condemnation.
I finally drew Cedistic Dissonant, and I realized I could blow up Condemnation with it, and that Apostate was low enough at 15 HP that I had an outside chance of taking him down. The environment played Ethereal Bonds, which targeted Nightmist. I redirected that to Apostate, so he couldn't do damage, which neutered Fallen Angel.
I poured everything at Apostate, and by the time Argent Adept's turn came up, Apostate was down to 3 HP. Again, Negative Energy field was being a big help by plinking away at him every time I played a card. I blew up Condemnation with Dissonant, and Bunker finished him off with a Flak Cannon.
All the heroes were still standing, but everyone was at a uniform 2 HP each.
Near Mint. Messed up the first try by not playing Mist Form quick enough and losing Argent Adept before he could blow up enough stuff.
Second go was much easier - Argent Adept got Cedistic Dissonent out really early and that let me blow up all the relics before buffing Tacyhon for a Blitz finish.
Minted with the sucker punch method. Nightmist was the lowest with 11 hp. Hypersonic assaults and mistbounds for days made Apostate's turns pretty uneventful.