Weekly One-Shot #299: The Great Escape

Unity, Void Guard Writhe, And Prime Wardens Tempest must recapture that merc-with-a-pain-in-the-derriere-cloaking-device Ambuscade, who has escaped his cell and is running wild in The Block! Hijinks ensue!

Easy mint, with the outcome never really in doubt. Ambuscade never got most of his damaging devices in play, other than a couple of Sonic Mines, easily neutralized in the first instance by Writhe’s Lies Of The Shadows by turning its own damage debuff against it, and in the second, by the Block Guard responsible for its destruction in the first place. His Reactive Plating could do little more than plink at Unity’s Stealth Bot, while the heroes hit him with everything but the kitchen sink!

The environment turned out to be pretty benign in this game - Tempest was able to play Flash Flood to remove nasty cards like Char (ugh!), and Defensive Displacement hampered Ansel while the heroes inflicted irreducible damage courtesy of Writhe’s Nowhere To Hide.

A Hasty Augmentation to give Writhe a big boost on his Concealed Assailant, a few rounds of Platform Bot damage, and Gene Bound Shackles coming out early to let Tempest really bring the thunder spelled quick incapacitation, and hopefully more secure accommodations, for Ambuscade!

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This showed up at like 1 in the morning for me, and I considered doing it immediately (as I did last week when Plague Rat attacked Megalopolis at a similarly early hour), but Ambuscade is a villain I’m somewhat less familiar with, and I didn’t want to risk losing a Mint due to rewinding because I forgot how a card worked. So as of this posting I still haven’t played this one; instead, I’ve been replaying all the old weeklies with Ambuscade in them, trying to get very practiced in dealing with him. Interestingly, his second ever appearance in the Weeklies was in this same environment, and also featured a three-hero team with Unity in position 1.

I was surprisingly pleased to see Vanish come out on round two, when I hadn’t quite taken the Cloaking Device down. That card’s never actually made me happy before.

Otherwise, yeah, easy Mint with some fun twists.

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Never really felt threatened. Was only mildly annoyed when Ambuscade got a shuffle that brought the cloaking field back out a second time. Other than that, pretty much as the others have said. I did make good use of Lies of the Shadows, a card I usually disregard. Got to the end of the environment deck, with only a Time Crazed Prisoner out. I like to imagine this was Ray Manta, according to the intro blurb. He started to charge Unity and her bots, screaming something about “Robots must die!!!”. And Writhe was just like, “Uh, that guy’s the robot! See the metal arm?”

Went ahead and beat it, easily and without even being significantly tempted to Undo. Unlike several other posters, I didn’t use Lies of the Shadows (a card I find annoying, because it prompts you constantly throughout the round; I don’t know of any other way it could work, so I just avoid using it in general). I don’t recall exactly what I did do (aside from dropping Otherworldly Resilience so that Tempest could use Arc of Power totally unrestrained during the Defensive Displacement turn, dealing irreducible damage to Ambuscade because of Writhe), but it was nothing particularly out of the ordinary. An awful game for Unity because she had so few Bots, but still an easy win against a villain who I’ve only EVER lost against on Challenge mode.

That did NOT happen to me. I guess his shuffles mean he plays randomly every time, even though the player and environment decks are fixed?

I think the RNG seed is influenced by the current game state, so if you play the same cards each time his shuffles will turn out the same, but if you don’t then he might play different cards.

Yeah, something like that. I recall the recent La Capitan one-shot had different outcomes because she shuffles so much.

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Unlike several other posters, I didn’t use Lies of the Shadows (a card I find annoying, because it prompts you constantly throughout the round; I don’t know of any other way it could work, so I just avoid using it in general).

FYI, if you click/press and hold on the “Do you want to destroy the Shadow Cloak” prompt (or any prompt, like Twist the Ether), you can set it to Yes/No/Whatever for either that turn or the entire game. If you want to cancel a choice you made, you can hit the lightning bolt at the top of the screen to see active effects and clear the choice. I use it a lot with the Matriarch, Twist the Ether, Stealth Bot, etc.

But yes, easy Mint with everyone near 20hp. Final round Ansel went down from ~40 hp to 0 from two 9 damage Powered Shockwaves, 3 Platform Bots, and two hungry Raptor Bots. Nom nom

~A-Kat

This I knew.

This I didn’t. Thanks!

The big issue with Lies of the Shadows is that it asks you a question for every single instance of damage, and because you can only destroy the Shadow Cloak once, the answer will default to “no” most of the time, but could shift to “yes” any moment when a big hit shows up. I can’t think of any reasonably easy solution to this issue; I’ll just have to wait until our AI technology gets good enough that the interface of SOTMTVG is no longer limited to buttons. Then I can tell the AI something like “say No to all Lies of the Shadows triggers unless they deal at least 4 damage, except those with a cannot-deal-damage rider attached or the like”. Until then, it’ll just be a card that I rarely want to use, like Haka’s Punish the Weak or Tempest’s Violent Cyclone. Doesn’t mean I don’t like those heroes, and Writhe is probably still in my top ten, despite one or two cards I tend to avoid.

I just realized next week’s will be #300. I wonder what John has in store for this nice, big, round number!

I’m betting on a Madness? This is Sparta! reference, probably either Infinitor or Miss Information, with Rook City being the most fitting setting. But other than Haka and Ra, not sure which heroes would fit. Stick with the shirtless guys from the past and do Chrono Ranger (okay he usually has a shirt, but we’ve seen him without it)? Or do a Gladiator thing with Skyscraper and Lifeline (preferably the Blood Mage version for even more lack of shirt)? Actually, mentioning that, I wouldn’t say no to Kaargra Warfang either; it loses the madness connection, but keeps the general epicness.

On a related topic, I recently saw their website is still talking about the big contest they did last year for the Sixth Anniversary. Since 6 is not generally considered a particularly notable number, I’m guessing they do something for every anniversary? I hope maybe this year I can get in.

I found it worth the bother in this game, but I hear you.

Currently I’m playing around trying to set up a combo with Lies Of The Shadows, Scholar Of The Infinite’s Channel base power and Know When To Turn Loose to inflict a ton of damage on some unlucky bad guy.

Thermal Shockwave with Cold Snap would do it too.

Yep - Visionary’s Brain Burn is another good candidate…and now I’m building a team in my head, centered around heroes who can deal big damage to themselves, and heroes who can redirect that damage…

Apologies for meandering even further off topic, but I just put together a team, and while Chokepoint swiped the Shadow Cloak and ruined my Lies combo for most of the game, I did gain a new appreciation for Setback, who tanked the everloving heck out of everything and threw a lot of the damage right back in the villain’s face!