Road Warrior Mainstay Unlock Discussion

And since I'm here, I might as well make the thread for Mainstay, even though it's a week away.

Handelabra may decide upon nothing or other options. 

I vote for Guise S. Pumpkins.

Any Questions?!?

I got it relatively easily. I got it immediately after I got out all of Mainstay's equipment and ongoings and then used "drop the hammer" to destroy all of his equipment. It should give the variant before you choose a target.

Oh sweet, Road Warrior Mainstay is live. That means I'm bound to completely accidentally unlock LAST week's update without understanding how, based on the trend this month's been following.

Mainstay seems to need destruction effects, based on the hunch posited here and especially based on the timing of the unlock. I can try a fourth Skinwalker run with Mainstay and the Doc along, see what happens.

I just tried that, although I was missing having Preemptive Payback in play. Otherwise I did have all his equipment and ongoings, and destroyed all his equipment to Drop the Hammer. Unfortunately my game reloaded near the end, so I have only a very short log.

Also, did you remember to tweet your unlock screen to Handelabra for the Hall of Fame spot? 

Have every possible ongoing of Mainstay in play, including 1 of every limited ongoing and all 3 copies of preemptive payback, AND have all three of his equipment cards in play. Use Drop the Hammer to destroy all 3 equipments in one turn.

thats my guess. Can confirm that all copies of PPB need to be in play.

Edit: I guess I should say I got it.

https://puu.sh/BXMgZ/27ef0a7975.png and https://pastebin.com/aMt4vPdV to get the logs rolling, at least.

not just this.  Also not this plus all equipment must end in trash.

Just tried twice- got to full build (doublechecked) then used Drop Hammer to destroy three equips. Had all 11 equips in discard, had all ongoings in play against Ambuscade on Mobile Defense Platform. No unlock. 

Could be prerequisite condition?

(also, i followed up with two more Drop the Hammer, then several Kick the Tires on my Preemptive Payback to oneshot Ambuscade for "kicks")

tldr: not simply get full build use drop hammer.

Not sure about condition, but no prerequisite game. Got it on the first game I played after unlock was available.

Played all ongoings (including 3x Preemptive payback) and equipment then destroyed all three with DtH.  No Unlock.  Played them again, and DtH again.  No unlock.  Played them again, the DtH destroying everything (thanks to Caspit's Playground) to deal fatal damage to Gloomweaver.  No unlock.

Edit: I also tried playing DtH both in and out of turn.

Is it significant from NyxFSSD's log file that the unlock happened before Drop the Hammer was finished destroying all the equipment Mainstay had in play?

I don’t know if that’s true.  The Durasteel Vest was being destroyed (its healing triggered) so I think it’s more like the destruction of the last equipment triggered the unlock.  I could be wrong, though.

Here's a question... did all unlocks so far have Stuntman on the team?  I know those two have a story relationship. (Don't know the details, as I'm not super familiar with the storyline).

I see that now, I think you're right - the order of reporting in the log wasn't what I expected, it looks like the game engine needed to activate the things a card does when it's destroyed before it reports the card as destroyed, but perhaps the destruction was reported to the process checking for unlock criteria before he destruction was reported.

Just got a double unlock for Writhe and Mainstay while following the play all ongoings and equipments and destroying with Drop the Hammer. I did have Stuntman on my team.

https://pastebin.com/7AVdn67a

Just got the unlock after trying again with stuntman.  I thus propose the following unlock condition:

In a game with Stuntman on the team, Mainstay must have 7 ongoing cards and exactly 3 equipment cards in play and destroy all three of his equipments with a single play of Drop the Hammer.

Not sure about the wording.  I said exactly 3 equipment because earlier in the game I tried it with Caspit's Playground in play and it didn't work.

Failure in game where Stuntman was not in play and Caspit's Playground was. 

I did not have stuntman on my team when I unlocked him.

Stuntman isn‘t required. 

Failed trying just having the full load (7 ongoings +3 equip)  + stuntman and drop the hammer. 

Also failed for me with all possible ongoings out and all Mainstay's equipment in the trash. (Drop the Hammer destroyed the last 3 copies of his equipment).

I did it twice in the same game, and no unlock.

Dangit.  Welp, so much for that theory.  Who was your team?

Mainstay, Medico, TLTachy, and Grandpa Legs.

It's also maybe something to note that when I destroyed his equipment with drop the hammer, it was the first equipment he had destroyed, and no other equipment was in the trash.

Here's my unlock.  I left an Undo in there that also shows a failed unlock, but I was missing a Preemptive Payback and Leader of the Pack, as well as Whiplash, at the time.

Got it replicating this except with f5 legacy for plays, 7 ongoings, 3 equip, no equipment destroyed or in mainstay’s trash at all. Drop the hammer, unlock after 3rd equip sacrificed. 

Unlocked.

I had every possible Mainstay card in play when I used Drop the Hammer to destroy and equipment card. I had not previously destroyed any of his cards in the game.

My theory is you have to destroy all of Mainstay's card at once, and have not destroyed any other of his cards. Can anyone disprove this theory?

We have multiple reports on the Discord of folks destroying Ongoings before the unlock; some were destroyed and re-played, some were destroyed during the unlock turn but before the unlock.

I would like to report that it is not sufficient to get all Ongoings out and then destroy all his equipment. I tried that repeatedly with different setups and it failed. However, I did get the unlock after playing several of Mainstay's other one-shots, THEN playing Drop the Hammer to destroy his 3 equipment cards that were in play.

There are clearly other required card plays or some other condition involved that we're not seeing yet.

Did any unlock have a lot of cards in the trash?

My unlock happened as I dropped the hammer and destroyed Rhonda last, after reshuffling the trash into the deck. 

Unlocked.
https://pastebin.com/1YV18QdV

FF Legacy, F6 Tachyon, VG Mainstay, Wraith, and Expatriette versus Ambuscade in the Freedom Tower.

Not a lot of cards in trash from Mainstay, I got all seven of his ongoings and his three equipment cards out, no equipment cards ever in his the trash. Come to think of it, I don't think anyone sent any equipment cards to the trash the whole game. I played Drop the Hammer and the unlock came as soon as his third equipment card was destroyed - in order Sweet Rhonda, Dura-Steel Vest, Void Belter.

Caspit's Playground was in play, so all of Mainstay's ongoings counted as equipment cards as well. I kept on destroying them, racking up damage so Mainstay beat Ambuscade to the ground in for about 32 damage in one turn. ;-)

Could it be as easy as destroying all of his equipment cards whole there are no equipments in his trash?

No - I fulfilled that condition multiple times in my many cycles through my turn order.

Success

Baron Blade vs FF Legacy, Dr Medico, Dark Visionary, Mainstay in MDP

I got all his ongoings and equipments in play, then (in one turn) shuffled my trash into my deck and then destroyed all my equipments with drop the Hammer. Before that, none of my cards had ever been destroyed once. Tell me if there is something that I should be reporting on that I missed.

A thought just occurred to me:

Has anyone tested if you can use cards like devious disruption to kill all the equipments and get the unlock?

Could it be that it could be as simple as "As Mainstay play all of his cards in one game, then use Drop The Hammer to destroy all three equipments in one turn?"

some people reported that it worked after playing oneshots?

 l never played Bad to the Bone, Kick the Tires, or Lonesome Highway, so it's not all one-shots.

Confirmed, not it....

sigh

When I had completed the unlock, I had originally thought it was destroy each of his cards with void belter. I destroyed every card and then didnt get the unlock. Once I had played all of his ongoing and equipment cards and then played drop the hammer to destroy them I got the unlock. It may be that you have to fight Ambuscade as well as the playing his ongoings and equipments? 

I saw unlocks vs. other villains than Ambuscade. 

Here's what was in my trash when I just got the unlock: https://imgur.com/a/AIR4eY9

The equipment was discarded from playing 'Drop the Hammer', and the order was 'Void Belter', 'Durasteel-Studded Vest' then 'Sweet Rhonda'. I didn't actually play most of them, they were discards from his vest. I remember I did play one 'Bad to the Bone' for an extra bit of damage, and the 'Kick the Tires' only for the extra draw. Doubt I played anything else that went to the trash.

Got the unlock, Young Legacy, Team Leader Tachyon, Freedom Five Wraith and Mainstay vs Gloomweaver in Freedom Tower.

Had all Ongoings and Equipment in play, all other cards in hand and had played 0 one shots through the entire match up. Card unlocked upon playing Drop the Hammer and destroying the 3 Equipment cards. 

Something of note: The card did not unlock at first. Rewound back and changed the order in which I destroyed the Equipment and suddenly got the unlock. It might have something to do with the order you choose the equipment to be destroyed in? 

The order that got me the unlock: Sweet Rhonda > Durasteel Studded Vest > Void Belter. 
It did NOT unlock when I destroyed Void Belter as the first one.

Just tried using TL tach, PW argent adept, Mainstay, Naturalist, and Medico to draw mainstays entire deck, get all cards in play, and never play a oneshot, against Ambuscade on Mobile Defense Platform. Used drop the hammer in every possible order.

no unlock.

Just got the unlock, following Marcjt91’s steps. Though, his order of destruction didn’t work for me. I destroyed them in the order i played them, which was Vest>Belter>Rhonda, and I didn’t get the unlock until after the card draw from Rhonda resolved.

EDIT: Grandpa Legacy, Team Leader Tachyon, Prime Wardens Haka. Mainstay, Medico vs Ambuscade in Final Wasteland

EDIT2: is it possible Mainstay has to take a certain amount of damage from Mano A Mano before using Drop the Hammer? I let mine go for about 4 turns I think before I finished getting everything out.

Used the exact same team as above, playing ambuscade on FW. Got everything out, filled hand. Never played any oneshots (painfully slow only playing one card per turn.)

tried every destroy order.

no unlock.

Ugh. Did NOT give four turns on Mano e Mano.

COULD BE DECIDING FACTOR.

will try game with several turns on Mano.

Reporting- let Mano e Mano with Headlock bring me down to literally 1 hp...

drop hammer. 

No unlock.

I’m trying to think of what else I did with Mainstay that game. I used his base power a couple times. I healed him a bunch with Medico. I had my entire deck in my hand (minus the ongoing and equipment in play of course).

The reason I didn’t use his powers much were because I use the setup I was using in order to get every target under Savage Mana. I mostly just let Haka do the punching.

Like I said, I didn’t get the unlock until after Rhonda’s card draw resolved, which made me draw the two other Equipment I had just destroyed and shuffled in to my empty deck. I don’t know if that is relevant or not.

I think all of my runs have always used Drop the Hammer immediately after getting full build. Maybe i'll give it a couple turns...

If my unlock is anything to go on, you do have to destroy Void Belter last, whatever else is going on.  I tried dropping the hammer several times, undoing after each one, but it only worked the fourth time I did it, which is the time I picked Void Belter last (the order was Rhonda, Vest, Void Belter).  I had Shard Strength in play at the time, and Leader of the Pack was in the process of being destroyed, so I'm not sure if that counts as being on the board or not. (I used Kick the Tires to destroy Leader of the Pack, which gave me a card play, which I used to Drop the Hammer.)  I had not destroyed or discarded any equipment to that point.

For what it's worth, I never played Mano-a-Mano, but I did have a Headlock in play for one full turn.  I played it during his end phase (via Sweet Rhonda) and then destroyed it on my next Power phase (via Void Belter).

Unlock Log

I destroyed Belter first in my unlock. I don’t think the process of the destruction order is the deciding factor anymore, but the aftermath of the equipment destruction. maybe it’s the ammount of damage done via ‘Drop the Hammer’ and the equipment destruction results that’s the important thing here.

I suggest going back through your logs and seeing if there were any other differences between the two plays.

Here's an accidental unlock. Happened during a Drop the Hammer play. The unlock happened on the last card destroyed, (Belter -> Rhonda -> Vest) which was also the order they entered play. Mano was in play on Voss. Shard Strength was also out. I'd played and destroyed two Headlocks (via Belter).

Could it be as simple as "destroy X of his ongoing and equipment cards, and the last one has to be via Drop the Hammer?"

Unlocked, quite deliberately. F5 Legs, TLT, Medico and Mainstay vs. SWGW at Zhu Long. Rewound an instance of Drop the Hammer that failed at a point where I was missing a Preemptive Payback on the board, drew into my entire deck until I reshuffled my trash and got the third copy back, then put it out and Dropped again. The Equipments ended up being the only thing in the trash at the time of the unlock. Over the course of the game, a handful of his One-Shots never saw play (off the top of my head, I know I never played Lonesome Highway and Whiplash).

Mechanically, it seems Road Warrior wants to get hit in order to fuel that base power. Could the missing link have to do with damage redirected to Mainstay, either with Leader of the Pack, Headlock, or some combination of the two? If so, I'd imagine the driving force would be the total damage prevented from the intended targets rather than the amount tanked by Mainstay, given I then redirected damn near all of it back to an Infernal-immune Legacy.

I definitely got the 50-damage requirement for Medico, though. As fun as trying to find this stuff was, I'm so happy to know what I'm doing with an unlock again.

For what it is worth I tried putting Studded Vest, Void Belter and Rhonda in the trash through Omnitron-X and Visionary then play drop the hammer on nothing.  No Unlock.  I figured as much, but wanted to put it out there in case we get to the point of really wondering about weird stuff.

Have an unlock log: https://pastebin.com/JE9fULHc

I was testing a theory that equipment cards in hand were also necessary. There are a few rewinds where that wasn't enough. Not sure what the deciding factor was, but it might have been Mano a Mano + Headlock, after coming back from nearly losing Mainstay.

I think it may be something along the line of how much damage he absorbs with those two cards out. I know he wasn’t anywhere near death durring my unlock(he was still in the upper twenties when I got it), but he had absorbed plenty of damage from both the villain and Shard Form.

I got the unlock with both Mano a Mano and Headlock on Ambuscade, and doing a Drop The Hammer to destroy the three equipments. I had absorbed a lot of damage via the vest and leader of the pack; I was not keeping track though.

Has everyone who got the unlock had Mano a Mano and Headlock on the same target?  I did the whole Drop The Hammer destroying all 3 equipments with every single ongoing in play, but had Mano a Mano on Ambuscade and Headlock on one of his other cards and didn’t get the unlock.  I wonder if that’s a factor.

Yes, I had ‘Mano a Mano’ and ‘Headlock’ both on Ambuscade when I used ‘Drop the Hammer’, and all card effects and destruction effects were used on Ambuscade as well.

Double unlock of Writhe and Mainstay today. Log attached.

I believe I had mano a mano on ambuscade but had headlock on a shield generator from the MDP. 

Success on Steam: https://pastebin.com/DvSGPrFa

I went in seeing if damage was a factor, getting Mainstay to do 50 damage before dropping the hammer.  That didn't do it.  Then I thought maybe it was taking damage, but I hadn't been keeping track up until now, so short of letting him take a full round of Ambuscade's fire canon I don't actually know if that did anything.  The only difference I did between the last unsuccessful round and the successful round was intentionally destroy 2 more of his cards.  I'll comb through my log when it's not super late and see what the what.

Another data-point:  I unlocked using VG Mainstay, VG Dr. Medico, TLTachyon, and F5 Legacy vs. Ambuscade at Freedom Tower.

Had out Headlock, Mano a Mano, Shard-Strength, and one Preemptive Payback when I used Drop the Hammer to destroy all the equipment - Rhonda, Vest, Belter.

Got the unlock before I finished walloping Ambuscade.

I replicated this and got it on my first try.

I also tried to replicate this, but it didn’t work, so there has to be something else to it…

Have you got a question about the Road Warrior? If so, BRING IT! https://www.reddit.com/r/sentinelsmultiverse/comments/9ytwxl/ask_me_5_things_void_guard_road_warrior_mainstay

Ok, summary:

Does the unlock condition depend on taking a certain amount of damage?

No.

Does it require Drop the Hammer?

No.

Does it require destroying all 3 equipments?

YES.

Does it include the words "turn(s)" or "round(s)?"

Yes (although he linked to Total Eclipse of the Heart, and he answered 6 instead of 5, so that may have been a joke response)

Does the boardstate -- outside of Mainstay's play area -- matter (at the time of the destruction at least)?

No.

So a lot of our assumptions still hold. We need to destroy all 3 equipments, probably within one turn/round, but Drop the Hammer specifically isn't necessary.

These were answered in the reddit post so if you are unsure if he was joking or not just go through his responses there. 

Also, the unlock does not contain the word "Headlock."

(I asked that; I was wondering if there were specific Ongoings that had to be played as part of the unlock. Which I suppose is still possible, but Headlock isn't one of them)

Oops yeah I missed the Headlock one.

And... Yeah, I was summarizing the Reddit post. That's how I found them in the first place.

Unlocked, and I know how to post logs now! Unfortunately, it's only half the game, but hopefully still helpful.  Greatest Legacy, TLTachyon, Cosmic, Medico, and Mainstay v. Ambuscade in Silver Gulch.  I actually watched that absurd 7 hour gameplay video (mostly to see Lifeline, but then I felt committed) and got some ideas on effective use of Cosmic and his constructs.  Between Energy Bracers and Legacy's Next Evolutioning Energy, Fire, and Projectile Damage, my heroes were taking very little harm and were basically all at full health almost  the entire game. 

I believe I had played all of Mainstay's ongoings at some point or another, and I'd destroyed at least one Leader of the Pack and two Preemptive Paybacks (once due to its own text, once from another card that allowed me to destroy an ongoing).  I'd definitely played a few one-shots, but not many.  Trash and Deck were either empty or mostly empty.  Order of destruction was Vest, Rhonda, Belter, which was the default "choose for me" order.

Link to log if it's easier to read this way.

The community has discovered the official unlock condition for Void Guard Road Warrior Mainstay. 

First, all 3 of Void Guard Mainstay's equipment cards must enter and remain in play for at least 3 rounds. Then, in the same game, Void Guard Mainstay must destroy all 3 of his equipment cards in one turn.

Woohoo

I hadn’t seen any mention of number of rounds here, so I was wondering if MigrantP had just taken pity on us. Nope, it turns out that the Steam thread figured out the 3 round delay requirement.

No similar flash of insight on the Idealist, unfortunately.

Holy crap! :D Hooray!

Well, glad that worked! I've been so eager to ramp the three equips that i always destroyed them before three turns! 

Guess playing Mainstay's entire deck in two turns isn't condusive to getting the unlock 

finally lol

Side note: is this variant that good? It doesn't seem to be a particularly useful variant power?

Comboes with mano a mano and school of hard knocks. I like to play it dangerously to get lonely roads off fast.

They got some smart-cookies over there.

Yeah, the Steam folks seem to get more unlocks than we do here. I can't remember the last time an unlock wasn't solved either there or on Discord.

I find RW Mainstay to be night and difficult to use, but in a few cases, he's just nuts. Against Matriarch, for instance. Having Medico around is highly recommended, though.

Of the Void Guard variants, I find I tend to prefer the base character, but Road Warrior Mainstay is an awful lot of fun. Granted, if he's not taking lots of damage, the power's pretty much useless, but there are ways around that...

Just an FYI: I was trying to unlock Road Warrior Mainstay this afternoon while fighting in the "Freedom Tower" environment deck and ran into something odd.

VG Mainstay got his three equipment cards out for the requisite number of rounds (moreso since I am paranoid), Dropped the Hammer to destroy his three equipment cards and... nothing.  So I rewound, looked at things, and realized the enviroment card "Caspit's 'Playground'" was in play, which makes hero ongoing cards into equipment cards.  So I kept playing and in the next round had Tachyon destroy "Caspit's 'Playground'" and then had VG Mainstay Drop the Hammer again and now destroy his three "true" equipment cards and BAM!, variant card unlocked.

While "Caspit's 'Playground'" was in play I thought about just destroying all of VG Mainstay's ongoing cards as well, but thought the path I took was 'safer' and closer to the stated unlock condition, so that's what I did.

Just wanted to mention this in case others take this path and see the same thing.