Sentinels of The Multiverse Villain Death Match.

Good afternoon SOTM fans,

My kickstarter goodness has finally arrive and I am going to do something I've been wanting to do ever since someone mentioned the possibility on another thread. I will be holding the first unoffical Sentinels of the Multiverse Villain Death Match. Approximately once weekly, I will be pitting all the villains of the game against each other in single elimination rounds until only one remains victorious, the ultimate Sentinels villain*. In order to add a little excitement, I will also be allowing all you sentinals fans to bet on the outcomes of each match. Each player who responds to this thread during the first round will get 100 imaginary sentinels dollars with which they can bet on matches. At the end of the Death Match tournament, whoever has the most imaginary sentinels dollars will be declared the winner. There is no prize, just bragging rights. So join up and get ready for some carnage!

The fine print:

1.Each Villain fight will start with a random villain going fist (die roll). Each villain will get a villain turn followed by an environment turn. All Villains will be using Basic Mode. If this goes well, we will have Death Match 2 with advanced Mode.  

1. All villain cards will be interpreted as if the opposing villain and his/her minions are hero/non-villain targets. Environment cards will be interpreted as both villains and their minions counting as her targets. 

2. any other rules ambiguities from having a villain fight a villain will be resolved by me in the most logical way I can come up with. 

3. Rather than a standard environment deck, the Villains are fighting in a holographic environment.  I will create a new deck with cards from all the environment decks to minimize weird interpretations and because I want to see a Kraken and a T-Rex running around together (at least you know what two of the cards will be). Otherwise you will just have to figure out what's in the deck as the rounds progress. 

4. I will not be betting and unless any of you play at Great Escape Games in Sacramento CA, then I do not know you and have no inherent bias.

5. you may bet any amount of imaginary money on any of the fights and split your bets among any fights during that round. You cannot spend more than you have and if you lose all your money then you are out of the betting and only get to watch. Pay outs are 2:1 so a 100 dollar bet on a successful fight nets you a total of 200. I will keep track of totals and post them with the results each week. So keep an eye on the thread. 

ROUND 1: 

After Randomizing the villains, this is the first round. you have one week to join in the death match and place your bets. Just respond to this thread publicly this week to join and get your 100 imaginary dollars. I'm not sure if the PM's are working yet, but if so, send me your bets for the week privately. If not, state them publicly here and we will just have to risk people copying. You have until 12:00 Pacific time on Sunday, September 30th, to place your first bets. And here is the first round: 

Apostate vs. Plague Rat

Baron Blade Vs. Citizen Dawn

Gloomweaver Vs. Grand Warlord Voss

Ambuscade Vs. The Chairman 

The Ennead Vs. Mad Bomber Blade 

Cosmic Omnitron Vs. Spite

Omnitron Vs. Akash'Bhuta

The Matriarch gets the only buy (no betting on this one).

*at least against other villains 

How do you intend to deal with the third party immunity granted by cards like Citizen Truth? Given many of the cards state highest hp target, they'd completely ignore the source of the immunity and just pound away uselessly. That gives the villains with an alternate victory condition like Baron Blade or Voss a massive advantage.

Are you planning to count devices as equipment? 

That, plus what PWatson said are going to be pivotal in several matches.  If you don't imbue the villains with some kind of targeting intelligence, I might have to put all of my money on Omnitron's Electro-Pulse Explosives.  Except maybe against Dawn.  Hm. 

Spite's return-stuff-to-the-hand drug will be fascinating to resolve.

Look forward to the results, though.

This is one of those areas where my logic would have to prevail. If a target is immune to damage whether by immunity or damage reduction, the villain would no longer conisder them a target (thus moving to the next one down the chain). No pounding away futilely. This is a death match, not a snooze fest. 

I think the Baron will still have an advantage, because of his alternate victory condition, but I also think that some creative environment choices could help level the field. Thus, the custom deck. If it works, it works, if not, there won't be a death match 2. 

What about discard effects?  The Chairman has a minion that makes you discard or take damage, since the villian never really has a hand, does that mean always the damage?  Either way, there could be some nice interactions.  Any possiblity of you give a recap of each battle?

Do we have 100 imaginary dollars to bet across all first round matches or do we have 100 imaginary dollars for just the first match and then use the winnings for the second match or do we have 100 imaginary dollars to bet on each first round match or something else?

Interactions like those are why I put in the rule of me being final arbiter. Once I see the interaction, I will do my best to play it logically (to me), discard may mean the top card of the villain deck in the trash or may just be auto damage. It's going to be on the fly.

I will give highlights, like an ESPN game summary.

and the 100 imaginary bucks is your stake. However well you do after the first round is all the money you have for the second.

PMs are working!

I don't know… the rules seem too nebulous for my imaginary money…  

I suppose I should have put a disclaimer that this is for entertainment purposes only and should not be viewed as a fully accurate portrayal of super villain combat and mayhem. Nor should imaginary money be construed to have any value other than for betting in an imagery death match with imagery villains.

Righto, well, rather than ask more questions, I'll lay my fake money on the line and kick off the betting! I'll trust that you handle all the fights the way you see best, which works for me!

---

Fight One: 15 on Apostate

Fight Two: 10 on Citizen Dawn

Fight Three: 20 on Grand Warlord Voss

Fight Four: 15 on The Chairman 

Fight Five: 15 on Mad Bomber Blade 

Fight Six: 15 on Cosmic Omnitron

Fight Seven: 10 on Omnitron

---

Let me know if I didn't do that right. 

Back to work!

Without knowing how discard effects work, it's hard to put my imaginary money down. For example, if discarding from the hand is treated as discarding from the top of the deck, that gives Vanilla Blade a sizeable edge. Especially if Dawn gets a starting draw including Sweat and Tears that she always seems to when I play against her. Grumble grumble.

What on earth does H equal?  I would assume 4.  

that was my plan, middle value.

I'm reckless with my imaginary money, so lets do this!

(BTW thanks for doing this, I love the concept, hope we can get a few lines on each battle too).

$15    Apostate                              

$25    Baron Blade                         

$15    Grand Warlord Voss

$10    The Chairman 

$10    The Ennead  

$15      Spite

$10     Akash'Bhuta

I dont know the new characters yet so I'm guessing they are tough, I'm putting a big bet on Baron Blade because I honestly think it takes careful strategy to get him from crashing objects into earth. Without a careful coordinated attack he would go from "super easy" to "super tough".

Wow, I'm excited about this, cool idea! Here are mine:

Apostate - $5
Baron Blade - $10
Grand Warlord Voss - $15
Chairman - $30
Mad Bomber Blade - $20
Cosmic Omnitron - $10
Akash'Bhuta - $10
Let the best villain win!

50 dollars on Mad bomber Blade,
50 on the Chairman.
Watch as I mysteriously lose in the first round to my own disappointment as well.

As one of the resident strategy-fiends, I can't pass up a chance to provide commentary on this event.  Here goes.

Apostate/Plague Rat (70/30)

Apostate has what it takes to go the distance in this damage race, with an overwhelming flurry of damage at the highest target.  Infecting Apostate likely works out to the demon's advantage.  Plague Rat's potential saving grace lies in his irreducible damage.  This will allow him to tear the relics apart with ease, but the Rat probably isn't smart enough to avoid the Rune of Malediction/Relic Spirits combo.

Cards needing interpretation: Infection, Tome of the Unknowable, Afflicted Frenzy, Shadowy Ambush.

Baron Blade/Citizen Dawn (45/55)

This matchup is perhaps most open to interpretation.  The victor likely hinges on what happens to "discarded" cards, whether Blade's devices are counted as equipment, and just how Devious Disruption works.  I could see it going either way, with Dawn's army relentlessly overwhelming the Baron, or with them dawdling while the Baron sets off his Impulsion Beam.  If the Citizens can disarm the beam, though, I think victory is theirs. 

Cards needing interpretation: Devastating Aurora, Devious Disruption, Citizen Tears, Blinding Blast, Consider the Price of Victory.

Gloomweaver/Grand Warlord Voss (10/90)

Psh.  Gloomweaver wants to be Grand Warlord Voss.  Gloomweaver's minions have good damage, but Voss has more insistent minion production and better damage reduction, with terrifying "relics" of his own.  This game has the potential to become a drawn-out slog, with no damage getting through on either side.  However, Voss has an alternate win condition, which should quickly provide him victory in that circumstance.

Cards needing Interpretation: Drum of Despair, All the Pins, the Relic I'm forgetting (a Tome, maybe?), Gene-Bound Banshee.

More later!

For those worried about the Dawn/Blade match up, I ran a few simulated runs. Discard is from the top of th villain deck. Yes, this  possibly puts Dawn at a mild disadvantage in this fght but it makes for an exciting duel. She is a beast and her discard cards do not hurt her too much. Some of the Baron's cards are too good at eliminating citizens and allowing dawn to flip. So I think it's a wash.

the other thing I did not specify earlier but will enforce is that environment cards will be treated as hero targets by both villains. Otherwise some cards just stay out forever. It also makes comic book sense that a villain could ignore their mortally wounded opponent and get distracted by a mundane task, only to then get back stabbed. Isn't this SOP?

$10 on Plague Rat

$20 on Citizen Dawn

$10 on Grand Warlord Voss

$5 on Ambuscade

$15 on Mad Bomber Blade

$10 on Spite

$20 on Omnitron

While I have not played with any of the new content (but I got my box last night!) I'm curious how the Mad Bomber will do against the Ennead. It is a large team, each with their own high hitpoints... but Bomber Blade is a damage output machine. I could see him becoming a supernova of detonations if the Ennead procrastinates on taking him out.

Ambuscade/Chairman (15/85)

Seems a simple case of easiest villain vs. hardest villain, mais no?  Ambuscade can be quite a crafty villain, though, and the effects of damage immunity are somewhat hard to predict.  Most likely, the Operative and Hired Guns will team up, blow up all of Ambuscade's toys, and murder the exposed hunter.  If Ambuscade can set up a huge chain reaction with Charged Attacks, that's his best chance to blow through the minions and try to murder the Operative, at which point he may succeed at sniping the Chairman from cover.  Sonic Mine could be significant.

Cards needing interpretation: Enforcers, Informant, Thief.

The Ennead/Mad Bomber Blade (40/60)

Mad Bomber Blade is armed with nothing but his lunacy and a few ongoings.  If Blade charges up his attack quickly, he can take the whole Ennead down in a few huge swings.  If the Ennead can organize and take down Blade's first side quickly, the advantage shifts to them.  Nuit in the lineup gives them a defensive advantage, while Atum and Set give them an offensive one.

Cards needing interpretation: Osiris, Consider the Price of Victory.

Cosmitron/Spite (75/25)

This matchup is a mess of confusion, thanks to Spite.  You're telling me we're going to have Cosmitron saving victims?  So he can kill them himself, presumably.  Cosmitron is quite powerful enough to batter through Spite's resistances.  The only hitches come in interpreting what Spite's cards are supposed to do in a villain-on-villain environment, which may give one side or the other a huge advantage.

Cards needing interpretation: All the victims, bouncy drug, power-punishing drug. 

Omnitron/Akash'Bhuta (55/45)

This matchup breaks depending on two things; targeting intelligence, and the makeup of the environment deck.  Surely, Omnitron would recognize that you attack AB by attacking the limbs, right?  The environment, of course, plays a huge role in games with the nature deity, determining just how aggressive she is.  Nevertheless, she probably won't see the Electro-Pulse Explosives coming.  Terraforming stands to be really fun as well.

Cards needing interpretation: Rejuvenating Entropy.  If that kills Devices, Omnitron may be sunk.

I

$15 on Apostate

$5 on Citizen Dawn

$35 on Grand Warlord Voss

$15 on the Chairman

$5 on Mad Bomber Blade

$15 on Cosmitron

$10 on Omnitron

Interesting!

Apostate Vs. the Rat:  20 on Apostate

I'm thinking that the rat just doesn't have what it takes to outlast Apostate.  He coudl get lucky with some of the infections, but I'm putting my money on the guy who can out-crazy Fanatic.   

Baron blade vs. Citizen Dawn: 10 on Blade

I love the Baron's style and panache.  the guy really gets the "mad" part of mad science.   So even though I think he stands a serious chance of being crushed by the Citizens, my money is on him.

Gloomweaver vs Voss:  20 on Voss.

Voss is terrifying.  A fiery head and zombie minions are NOT going to stop voss's legions.  

Ambuscade vs. the Chairman: 20 on the Chairman and his operative.

He'll hide, he'll set some traps, and he'll get in a few shots.  None of that will matter. 

Ennead vs. Mad Bomber Blade:  5 on Bomber blade:  

If it goes wrong for Blade, it will go wrong quickly.  But  I think he'll show them.  He'll show them ALL.

Cosmic Omni vs Spite:  20 on Spite

You know what?  He's going to do it for the children.

Omnitron vs Akash'Bhuta:  5 on Omni

I'm going with technology over nature on this one.  Obviously, the environment will play a huge role.  

$10 on Apostate

$10 on Citizen Dawn

$20 on Grand Warlord Voss

$20 on The Chairman

$10 on The Ennead

$10 on Spite

$20 on Omnitron

Looking forward to seeing these play out!

Just a reminder,

The death match begins tomorrow and you have a little more than 24 hours to get in on it! So get those initial bets in.

Eh, why not.

15 on Apostate

10 on Baron Blade

15 on Grand Warlord Voss

20 on The Chairman 

15 on The Ennead

10 on Cosmnitron

15 on Omnitron

I'm going all in on the underdog - 100 on Abuscade for the upset.

I know, I know, it's like a Cleveland Browns fan drafting Brandon Weeden in the first round of a fantasy football draft out of team loyalty ...

Ambuscade gets a bad rap as "easy" but I think like Baron Blade he is just weak against heroes who can focus all their efforts against the one target they need to get out of the way, in his case the cloaking device.

Hopefully we will start seeing some fight results soon... I'm tempted to start running some of them myself since it will be at least until Saturday for me to get to try the Infernal Relics characters with my friends.

I gots ta know if I was right!

The first two face offs are done and I will work to get the other’s done soon. These battles take longer than I had anticipated but they are very interesting. Also, if you plan to run your own battles, please do not post them here to reduce confusion about the official results.  Here are the first results.

Plague Rat vs. apostate

Plague Rat wins the coin toss and opens up with a very ho hum 3 turns in a row of ongoing trifecta (Afflicted frenzy, Shadowy Ambush and Sewer Fiend). That 1 irreducible damage is nice but when it is not supplemented with some carnage, its is a drop in the bucket. Meanwhile apostate was smacking the uber rat down. Since Plague Rat wasn’t initially infecting anyone, he was not healing. Apostate seemd to be reading Plague Rats deck and dumped out three demons including two pilfering imps that were quickly dispatched after stealing two ongoing’s from the rat. Finally he got going with Ravages and tooth and claws coming out left and right. He Infected Apostate and then promptly infected all of his demons. Unfortunately Demons are too squishy and plague rat kept massacring them every turn. Thus He was only healing a measely point from Apostate. At least Apostate kept smacking himself while the rat was finally coming into his own

Having replenished his Shadowy Ambush ongoing, Plague Rat was getting around 2 cards a turnbetween it and the useless infect cards (I rules they do not work on relics but do on demons). Then Apostate pulled out his apocalypse card and blew up the world. Apostate had been fighting with one hand behind his back this whole time. He only had 2 relics in play ever at any one time until the end, but it was all a trick to draw his enemy out . After the reset, the gloves came off and with scum and villainy, Apostate pulled a Profane summons.  Now there were 4 relics in play. 2 Relic relic spirit spams later and it was like Plague Rat was playing in slow motion. He had lost the advanatage and could just watch as his claws carved up the spirits, knowing he was sealing his doom.  2 Spirits hit the trash, and apostate now had all 7 Relics out. To his credit, Plague Rat managed to flip apostate with damage, but that was his last turn before succumbing to the pimped out might of Apostate.

Highlights: Plague Rat getting 3 cards played in one turn, Apostate punching himself in the nuts 3 times in one turn from infection and 2 inflicted frenzies, and Apostate pulling out a world destroyer when Plague Rat had nothing in play.

Take aways: Plague Rat may have had a chance if not for his slow start. He had to get aggressive immediately, and Apostate had to be slow on the relics. He got one of those but not both.

Apostate is going to be a monster to beat. I think his games are going to come down to whether a villain can wipe him out before he gets reliced up. Otherwise there is not much that can be done.

Dawn vs. Baron Blade

Unlike the pendulum blow out that was Plague Rat and Apostate, Dawn and Baron Blade played cat and mouse. She started with some strong cards including Citizen Spring, Citzen Assault, and Citizen Summer. The Baron had only his defense platform but he laughed at the competition thinking he was impregnable. Dawn won the toss and started the beat down of the platform. The Baron remain impregnable for the first turn and unleashed some cannon fire, raking all of Dawn’s citizens. The environment conspired to play a much larger role in the is combat. The first four turns released 4 diffferent distortions, so that the villains never knew what wascoming next. The Baron got out his bbatalian and smacked Dawn around pretty hard with them for the one turn they were out.

Dawn for her part managed to kill the Baron’s defense platform. She also was working with zombies for much of the fight after getting return with the dawn into play. She also foolishly assisted the baron in a 2 card discard, while blinding him temporarily. He chuckled evilly and then played two back to back Hasten Dooms. The moon was looming awfully largely and Dawn had lost all her citizens. In desperation she burst into full Nova mode and invulnerability.  This helped her get citizens back in play but they were dropping like wheat to the Baron’s Backlash field thresher. A zombified autumn finally took it out. The count was 13 cards in the Baron’s discard. He was down to 9 life and a hungry T-Rex was eyeing him for lunch. His play,  flesh repair nanites and gains 10 life, delaying death for a round. 14 cards in the trash. Dawn and the T-Rex bring him down to one life.  The Baron’s last real turn and the deciding play of the game was a living focefield and then he flipped from environment damage. Sure all damage dealt to him was reduced by one, but once the impulsion beam was gone, he didn’t have a snowball’s chance with Apostate of surviving. A thorough battering lator and the Baron is killed by, of all things, Mystical defenses.

Highlights: The baron wiping Dawn’s entire force off the map with 2 Hasten Dooms, the Baron’s Clutch gain 10 life, and Mystical Defences taking the Baron out.  

Take aways: The Baron’s deck decided his fate, not Dawns. I’m not sure if I like that, but that’s the way it goes.

While Dawn can pump out the villain targets many of them are very squishy until Citizen truth hits the table.

Environments probably picked on the Baron more than Dawn, but his death, was inevitable. The environment really pulled off a mercy killing. Dawn was going to whack him on her turn no matter what. Saying that, there were several turns where the time slow gimped Dawn’s damage output until she could bring it back to normal with citizen dare.

This is so cool!

So close!

That is totally awesome... I could tell you wanted the rat to win, so would I, and I'm glad the underdog put up a valiant fight and gave Apostate a few infected wounds to worry about. Apostates design intimidates me a litte and I think he could go the distance.

As for Baron Blade, I'm not ashamed to lose that bet... he came within an inch of doing what I predicted and was mostly defeated by bad luck. Ultimately it is for the best when the moon does not crash into the earth, right? 

Every mad scientist needs to lose once in a while. It keeps them angry, inventive, and hungry!

Say, any update on the deathmatches? Some of us have a lot of virtual money riding on this ;-)

Are there more battle results for this thread?

Perhaps the community should continue them, unless Brax reappears, and possibly add in the new villains. This is too much fun not to carry on in some way.

No fair ressurecting this thread, I thought people had gotten Shattered Timelines already before I saw the date :(  But it is in time to set up bets for an expanded roster...

I didn't mean to upset anyone. I didn't think Shattered Timelines was mentioned in it. I just wanted to know if I missed anymore villain on villain goodness. The two battles posted were awesome.

Bump

This thread and idea are awesome. You still around, Brax? Need more commentary of Villains punchin' themselves in the nuts. ;)

Smilinbrax,

Do we have permission to carry on the tournament and commentary? Are you going to start a new one when ST arrives?

Right, I plan to run the Gloomweaver Vs. Voss battle shortly (H=4, basic mode, no environment), if there are no objections.

Grand Warlord Voss Vs. Gloomweaver

My favourite twelve-sided random number generator selected Voss to go first, and the first card he played was the TCF Stalwart. A very good start for Voss, and a very bad one for Gloomy... Gloomy responds with his Drum of Despair, but damage dealt to Voss is useless, and since the zombies can damage neither Voss nor his flagship they resort to hitting a few minions for 1 damage each. Then the Stalwart destroys them all.

Voss' Quark Drive Translocator was his second play, and most of the rest of the game was such a whitewash that it's barely worth describing. Seven or so turns in Voss had ten minions in play. Gloomy's Grimoire of Curses almost saved the day by destroying them all, but by that point Gloomy was on a single hit point, and at the start of Voss' next turn the Nightmare Walker was zapped by a spaceship.

Grand Warlord Voss wins!

Rulings:

Drum of Despair: Ignore the discards and destruction, and simply deal the H-1 infernal to the villain character card.

Indigo Pin: Discard from the top of the deck.

Sable Pin: Ignore the card destruction effect in favour of dealing damage.

Grimoire of Curses: Discard the top card of the villain deck, then deal H-1 damage.

Excellent! I have a perfect record so far!

*grins*

Another one! Skipping Ambuscade Vs. The Chairman, since I have neither Ambuscade nor Rook City, so next up is The Ennead Vs. Mad Bomber Blade! (I don't actually have MBB either, but the internet is a wonderful thing.) H=4, basic mode, and with a composite environment deck this time.

The Ennead Vs. Mad Bomber Blade

Atum, Tefnut, Shu and Set open for the Ennead, but Blade gets the drop on them. A Devious Disruption may not be the finest opening, but it certainly lands some damage on the Ennead. Ther response is an Ankh-Sun-Hand trifecta, thanks to Atum and Set, knocking eight health off of MBB. Blade's healing is responded to by a barrage of Ennead flame, and at the end of the third turn the Ennead are back at full HP. An Atlantean Font of Power does more harm than good too.

The next round is mostly building power: Blade gets another bomb, and the Ennead get Nephthys and Nuit. And the environment gets an Enraged T-Rex, which is always nice. The Bomber builds bombs, the Ennead throw out an Electrical Storm, the environment mauls the Ennead a little. Mad Bomber Blade is rather on the ropes at this point, and though he gets another bomb out next turn, the Ennead get Geb. Living Force Field manages to protect Blade from a turn that would have killed him otherwise, but the same turn also nukes the environment that's been so reliably damaging them...

The next turn flips Blade, which probably means game over is coming before too long, but a Hallway Collapse means that once again the environment is favouring the Baron. His own deck, however, is not; for the second time in the game Flesh-Repair Nanites are played before the Baron takes enough damage to fully utilise them. Isis appears, The Kraken follows, the Baron hits back with Hasten Doom/Slash and Burn, but the Ennead are still dishing out damage at an admirable pace. Then, finally, we get our first casualty; The Kraken, boosted by Explosive Wagon and Cramped Quarters Combat, drags Set into the deeps. This could spice up this match somewhat...

Consider The Price of Victory. Normally, quite a good card. When played against the Ennead, who act baased on cards entering their trash... not so much. That was pretty much the end of the game.

The Ennead Win!

BlueHairedMeerkat,

Your signature is awesome.

Good battle stories, too. The Voss and Ennead victories are not all that surprising.

Thank you! :D I feel obliged to inform you that it's a quote from Jagarciao though.

Voss was really not surprising at all, but there was a fair bit of money against the Ennead (incuding that of Christopher and Adam... sorry guys xD). Next up is Akash'Bhuta versus Omnitron... could be a very interesting game, and not one I'd like to call.

That one should be interesting… an avatar of nature vs an avatar of technology.

Akash'Bhuta Vs. Omnitron

The nature spirit takes the first turn, and an early, if minor, lead; Entomb damages Omnitron and finishes off his S-85 Repair Drone, while Omni's Terraforming and Repair Drone are both useless this early on. Actually, not entirely; Omni's Rampaging Robot ability sticks the latter straight back into play next turn, where it does some good, while its friend the S-83 Assault Drone deals a little damage to Akash'Bhuta. Then a second Entomb knocks them both out, as well as doing a dangerous amount of damage to a nearby Explosive Wagon.

Two Ensnaring Brambles are something of a redundancy, and for now are rather ineffective; Omnitron has no opportunity to deal damage on his turn, opting instead for a useless Technological Singularity and another Assault Drone. Perhaps Akash is inspired by Omni's useless equipment destruction; a Mongolian Death Worm-triggered Rejuvenating Entropy does virtualy nothing. That said, his turn more than makes up for this: a Living Rockslide, two Mountainous Carapaces and a third Ensnaring Brambles all hit the table on his turn. Omnitron does his best to respond, getting an Interpolation Beam out, but as long as those Carapaces are out it's all but useless, and is promptly destroyed by the Death Worm - which promptly re-emerges, bringing an Arboreal Phalanges with it.

BOOM! That's the sound of a second Living Rockslide causing an Explosive Wagon to go off. It doesn't scratch Akash himself, but it's a harsh reminder that he shouldn't get complacent; he's winning now, but if his limbs go down he'll be in for a world of hurt. They don't, however; after an Omnitron turn of no consequence, a Time-Crazed Prisoner ushers in a Rejuvenating Entropy, and all the limbs heal right back up to full. An Allies of the Earth is pretty much just kicking Omnitron while he's down. A Fixed Point is a small reprieve for Omni, and a Mountainous Carapace - the third on the field, is just unnecessary.

Bzzzt. That's (probably) the sound of an Electro-Pulse Explosive - this could be Omnitron's making. The Kraken heals Akash to full, and he puts out yet another limb - a second Arboreal Phalanges - aaand the Ensnaring Brambles manage to lock down the Electro-Pulse Explosives. Not to worry though - Omnitron has a spare.Akash is enraged, throwing out every last one of his limbs, but this time it really is too late. In one fell swoop, Omnitron hits Akash for 37 damage, and wrecks his Brambles and an already-damaged Carapace to boot. An Adaptive Plating Subroutine is always nice to have, but pales in comparison to Sedative Flechettes... 92 more damage to Akash, adding the rest of the limbs to his growing trash - which, conveniently, was shuffled back into the deck shortly before the destruction began, meaning they won't be back for a while. Omnitron's health is low, but Akash is now well below half, and both Electro-Pulse Explosives are still around...

The Chaos-Bound Creator sure as hell isn't going down without a fight, however. An Entomb played on the environment turn damages Omni and his bombs, and a second Entomb is readied. It smashes Omnitron's fresh-faced drones, does more damage to the Explosives (after they did more damage to him) and Omni's Adaptive Plating actually works against him - his immunity to psychic damage leaves it around for another turn. Rejuvenating Entropy, however, is a wasted play, and Omnitron's explosives and drones (both of which get swiftly broken by Entomb, but not until they've already done their damage), along with his new Electro-Magnetic Railgun, keep chipping away at Akash. That said, his limbs have started reappearing...

Things are looking bleak on Omnitron's next turn; Akash has four limbs on the field, thanks to a Disrupt the Field and a Primeval Eruption, and he's taking quite a beating. His Disintegration Ray will go down before his next turn, his Technological Singularity does nothing... An Enraged T-Rex even takes a chunk out of him. It's over before the start of his next turn.

Akash'Bhuta Wins!

Sounds like one of the most satisfyingly insane battles so far! Glad that Omnitron got in some good hits before going down, the fact that wrecking limbs hurt Akash really evened things out. As a player I really hate those flechettes so it was fun to watch them used against a villain. I guess we will get to see them again when Omni reboots as cosmic and goes against Spite.

I just realized spite is going to be an interesting opponent, since villains will not be making any effort to protect victims. Hmm...

Yeah, this was a really fun game to run. Akash had the advantage, but for a moment I really thought Omnitron was going to pull it out of the bag...

The problem with this is that I can't play Rook City games, so ideally someone else could run those. I can, however, throw the Shattered Timelines heroes into the mix. So, without any further ado, the last few round 1 match-ups will be:

The Matriarch Vs. Miss Information

Kismet Vs. La Capitan

The Dreamer Vs. Iron Legacy

Hmm. The obvious problem here is that Iron Legacy would take out the Dreamer in two rounds flat... This could be problematic. Meanwhile though, there's nothing stopping the second match-up going ahead, so that'll come soon.

There could be a rule that The Dreamer is immune to Iron Legacy's damage. She will still be able to be targeted by the environment deck though, so it could turn out pretty nasty!

or if she has a projection in play they take the damage for her? In the scenario of the Heroes fighting the dreamer, they are fighting through her projects to get to her to wake her up and stop the psychic projections from running amuck. If she were aware and fighting someone, the Projections would be fare more likely to be used in defense against someonelike IL, no?

Yeah, that sounds like a plan; Whenever The Dreamer would be dealt damage, it is redirected to the Projection with the highest HP. Would she still have her alternate win condition, do you think, or can IL only win through beatdown? (I'm inclined to say the latter, but I want other opinions.)

Kismet Vs. La Capitan

La Capitan begins fairly standardly, with a useless Plunder and a rather more useful Trueshot. Kismet, for her part, brings out an Inconceivable Obstruction and hits the good captain with a Shaky Arm jinx. The environment, meanwhile, conjures up a F.I.L.T.E.R. Officer, who snipes at the Trueshot. The game continues with Maria Helena's Revenge, and though Kismet redirects Cappy's attack to a nearby Explosive Wagon, the Amazon and an "All Together Now!" keep chipping away at her health. The charmed scoundrel's damage output is less than the time corsair's, but with Two Left Feet, Fortune's Smile and a Scattered Mind, not to mention the damage boost from her Talisman, she's certainly not going down without a fight.

Turn three, and La Capitan launches her game into the stratosphere. Raiding Party and A Motley Crew bring five more crew into play, and Plunder filches all of Kismet's ongoings and readies the Captain for a flip. Oh, and steals The Talisman, then gives it back (odd; damaging the villain target with the lowest HP is basically useless here). But Kismet does not shy away from a fight - Karmic Disjunction, Glass Jaw, Two Left Feet, Imminent Destruction and Hapless Strike smashes half of Capitan's crew and drops two curses on the Captain. The next round is pretty low-key - La Capitan chips away at Kismet's health while Kismet damages La Capitan's crew and destroys her stolen cards. Trueshot returns, but then Kismet brings out the big guns: Imminent Destruction, with three jinxes out and The Talisman in her area. That said, Kismet's 'Big Guns' are doing more harm than good as long as La Capitan has Maria Helena's Revenge on the field.

Kismet's in bad shape now, and the environment is really not helping; an Atlantean Font of Power brings out Chip, L'Epeiste and The Amazing Mable on La Capitan's side while blessing Kismet with a virtually worthless jinx. La Capitan brings out the Battle Forged and blasts away at Kismet, whose Unlucky Break destroys Maria Helena's Revenge far too late. She gets destroyed the next turn.

La Capitan wins!

This was an interesting match; both villains felt like they were doing things all the way through, unlike, say, Gloomweaver. Maria Helena's Revenge probably was La Capitan's star player, but I think she'd have won without it; Kismet's heavy reliance on ongoings is easy pickings for the captain.

The Dreamer Vs. Iron Legacy

[The Dreamer loses her alternate victory condition, and any damage dealt to her gets redirected to the Projection with the lowest HP.]

Iron Legacy wins initiative, and opens with a Flying Assault on The Dreamer's Dark Hero, Grotesque Arachnid and Granite Oni, then uses his base attack (boosted by a pair of Demoralizing Presence cards) to smash all of young Vanessa's Projections, before demoralizing her twice. She flips, wiping out all of Legacy's Ongoings, then uses Projected Paralysis to stop him playing cards next turn before taking a single HP from him with Night Terrors and bringing out a Granite Oni, which unfortunately gets rather mauled by an Enraged T-Rex before being finished by Legacy.

Vanessa's next turn sees her field a Macabre Specter, another Dark Hero and, interestingly, a Whipacorn; the ability to flat out stop Paul from dealing damage is likely going to come in very useful. It does get rather mauled by the T-Rex though, and after eating the Specter, the Kraken is eyeing it hungrily. Legacy flips, plays a useless Iron-Fist Strike, then heals himself. The Dreamer brings out The Toy Master and an Illusory Demon, and hits IL with a second Projected Paralysis and quite a bt of damage. The environment remains neutral - the T-Rex bites Legacy, the Kraken eats the Whipacorn, and a Surprise Shopping Trip is a bit useless, seeing as both villains have damage reduction.

On his turn, Iron Legacy heals himself, and sits around feeling rather impotent.

On her turn, The Dreamer brings out a Treacherous Ape, damages IL, uses Violent Nightmares to bring out a Tooth Fairy and a Whipacorn, summons up another Tooth Fairy, then lets her minions run wild and attack IL as well as the local fauna. Said fauna decide to team up for once, and tear down the Dark Hero. Then IL, finally able to act, brings out Galvanized and tears apart the Treacherous Ape. His efforts are futile though: on her turn, The Dreamer swells her ranks and finishes him.

The Dreamer wins!

Well that was unexpected - one of the strongest villains in the game is knocked out of the tournament by a six-year-old   At this point the game gets problematic though, because I cannot run any of the remaining games, so I really need someone with Rook City and Ambuscade to step in and play them for me. Anyone up for it?

If you can give me an idea of what the put-together Envirnment deck looks like I can run the other stuff in the next couple of days

Awesome! My environment deck is not completely fixed; I always have the T-Rex and the Kraken, the Explosive Wagon, Fixed Point, Close Quarters Combat and the Atlantean Font of Power, and fill the rest with some targets and some non-targets (usually, the non-targets are ones which only stay in play for one round, but they don't have to be).

The original villain death match was also a collection of cards from different decks. I don't think every fight has to use the same deck. I think your best bet is just put together some cards whose effects are blatantly clear in a villain fight. Things like Close-quarters Combat and Mystical Defenses.

Sounds good.  So I'll run Ambuscade vs The Chairman and Miss Information vs the Matriarch

Ambuscade vs. The Organization

Amuscade started out with his Personal Cloaking Device in play and got first turn, which was probably his best possible start.  He also had a Sonic Mine and Automated Turret and sniped at the Operative.  Over the next few turns, The Deuputy and the Broker started setting up the field, destroying the Mine.  Ambuscade set two Unavoidable Explosives, and the Abominable Snowman, Nomti, Anubis and Char do a lot of damage to Thugs, Underbossess and the Operative. Ambuscade gets a few devices out, but they keep getting stolen by the Thief

Then Charged Attack comes out, and the complexion of the fight changes.  The Snowman keeps eating the low HP thugs and Char takes out the rest.  The Thief finally steals the cloaking device, but the resulting Charged Attack clears all but 1 thug.  Char wipes out the last device and 1 underboss, and charged attack takes out the other 4.  The Operative is taking some hits from Nomti but is still at relatively high health.  Ambuscade can finally damage the Chairman, but he can also take damage himself.

...Until Vanish comes off his deck as the next card, putting the cloaking device into play again.  Perfect Human Specimans heals the Operative once the Chairman flips, but the real damage is done by the last Prison Break in the deck.  The Thief steals the cloaking device again, but the resulting charged attack clears the board of most of the thugs and the Snowman and Char have taken all of the underbossess to the point where they are about to be killed by the Unavoidable Explosive that is waiting...until Fixed Point comes up.    The explosive goes off, but the underbosses are around to pull everyone back.  The Contract and Hired Guns hit Ambuscade for 12, and when Fixed Point is destroyed the Operative takes him down to 18 HP due to the loss of all of the villains.  

From there, it was just a matter of time. The T-Rex and another Sonic Mine finally kill the Operative, but ultimately Ambuscade is crushed by the Abominable Snowman

The Chairman Wins!

Ultimately, Ambusace got his best possible setup, and had a decent chance to win, but  Fixed Point coming out when it did let the Organization have an extra turn at full force, which was all they needed.  The Chairman's immunity to environment damage looks like it will be a big time factor in the tournament going forward.

I porbably won't get to Matriarch vs Miss Information until this weekend.

I am surprised Ambuscade did that well. He actually eliminated the Operative. We don't usually have too many problems against him.

It really was a perfect storm for him.  Due to first turn cloaking device and Vanish, he didn't actually take any damage until Turn 6.  The Environment is really what did most of the damage to the Operative.  Ambuscade is definately more dangerous if you aren't concentrating your fire on his device, and a lot of the Thugs hit highest HP target, which he would shrug off

Great report! I guess that's what happens when a difficulty 1 (I think?) goes up against a difficulty 4... Poor Ambuscade.

As an aside, I realised I was playing The Dreamer wrong; I was using her oversized card, whose Awoken From Slumber side has a typo: play H-2 cards at the end of her turn instead of H-1. Which means, basically, that she beat Iron Legacy with one hand tied behind her back :D

Nice to see a few of these piled up for my next visit. I totally did not think Ambuscade would win, but the fact he did so well and the way it was written had me really rooting for him and I'm glad he came close. I really like him as a villain, but I'm huge on those random mercenaries and thugs that people like Batman or Spidey fight all the time.

Dreamer was a surprise, thankfully I did not gamble on it or it would have been a big loss... now I'm a little afraid to fight her, I have not done so yet.

La Capitan vs Kismet was also great... have not fought Kismet yet but La Capitan knows no mercy. I want to see how she will fare against somebody with minions, since her and her guys love beating on the character with the lowest hp.

These were my bets:

Apostate vs. Plague Rat 40 on Apostate

Baron Blade Vs. Citizen Dawn 10 on Dawn

Gloomweaver Vs. Grand Warlord Voss 10 on Gloomweaver

Ambuscade Vs. The Chairman 10 on The Chairman

The Ennead Vs. Mad Bomber Blade 10 on Mad Bomber Blade

Cosmic Omnitron Vs. Spite 10 on Cosmic Omnitron

Omnitron Vs. Akash'Bhuta 10 on Omnitron

Looks like all of these contests have occured except for Cosmic Omnitron vs. Spite. So far I appear to have won 70 of my bets and lost 20.

Miss Information vs The Matriarch

So...this is where this breaks down.  I ran 12 rounds this morning between these two and Miss Info was nowhere near flipping due to Huginn and Horrid Cacophony.  There is no concievable way I can see for Miss Info to win but until she flips she can't be hurt.  Unless anyone has an objection, I would advise calling this one for the Matriarch and moving on.  Sorry for the lack of excitement

I guess Miss Information was never going to be simple... I'd go with that. All we need now is Spite Vs. Cosmitron and then onto Round 2!

Yeah Miss Info against anyone with persistant ongoing destruction = stalemate, since she can't deal or be dealt damage.  The enivironment might help against some, but wiht Matriarch's healing+damage reduction, there wasn't much point.  

I'll see if I can run Spite vs Cosmitron later tonight

Cosmic Omnitron vs Spite

In a fascinating matchup, the souless killing machine goes up the literally souless (cosmic powered) machine.  Cosmitron deploys both his Electro Magnetic Railgun and Disintigration Ray, doing 8 point of damage to Spite.  Then the big gun drops...Electro Pulse Explosive is on the field.  The resulting 4 damage from an S-84 seem almost an afterthought as Spite is in a dire situation and hasn't even done anything yet.  Spite does get out Mind Phyre and has a couple of victims, but besides the 3 damage he does to Cosmitron, nothing else happens.  With Mind Phyre, the Environment is now a non factor.  Cosmitron does 23 damage at the start of his nect turn and, to add insult to injury, pulls out Adaptive Plating Subroutine.

It really isn't a contest from there.  Spite has a couple of nice healing turns, including killing the Potential Sidekick, but is never able to do enough damage to Cosmitron to get rid of those deadly Components or significantly reduce the HP of the Explosive.  He doesn't get the PL602 out until the turn before he dies, as Cosmitron destroys him with barely a scratch on his cosmically-shined plating.

Cosmic Omnitron Wins!

This could of been more of a contest had Spite gotten a different drug besides Mind Phrye and let the Environment help him, but it was going to be almost impossible to take down Cosmitron with an initial setup like that.

First round matchups are in the books.  Are we randomly drawing for 2nd Round?

We are! :D

Round 2 Matchups

Grand Warlord Voss Vs. The Matriarch

Citizen Dawn Vs. Akash'Bhuta

The Organisation Vs. The Ennead

Apostate Vs. Cosmitron

La Capitan Vs. The Dreamer

Hmmm, these could be very interesting. And I suppose we should leave it a week before we start running these; in the meantime, betting is now open! If you didn't bet on the first round, you have 100 imaginary dollars; if you bet via PM, we're relying on the honour system; if you bet in this thread, then I've added up your winnings:

Christopher: 150

lugaru: 120

Adam: 140

josul0215: 100

evandan55: 60

flamethrower49: 170 (Our 'resident strategy fiend' appears to be winning, unsurprisingly)

Braithwhite: 120

robalan: 140

Greonhal: 150

Flex Apollo: 0 :P

arenson9: 140

So yes, come one, come all, and place your bets! The next round shall commence next week.

The only issue we have now with adding the ST heroes in is we're going to have to have two of these matches be the 2nd round so we can get down to 8 left.  I don't know if we'd rather draw those randomly or assign them based on first round performance.

Mmm, fair point... So option one, pick two fights randomly to have as their own round. Option two, we could have a three-way duel in round three, which could be interesting or could not work at all. Option three... have a vote or a lot or a free-for-all or something to bring a few of those defeated back into round three to make up the numbers. Any of them could work, I guess...

Mind if I join in?

Round 2 Matchups

Grand Warlord Voss Vs. The Matriarch (20 on Matriach)

Citizen Dawn Vs. Akash'Bhuta (20 on Dawn)

The Organisation Vs. The Ennead (30 on the Chairman)

Apostate Vs. Cosmitron (20 on Apostate)

La Capitan Vs. The Dreamer (10 on The Dreamer)

and that's it :)

Round 2 matchups: 140 to bet

Grand Warlord Voss Vs. The Matriarch (20 on Voss)

Citizen Dawn Vs. Akash'Bhuta (20 on Dawn)

The Organisation Vs. The Ennead (60 on The Organisation)

Apostate Vs. Cosmitron (20 on Apostate)

La Capitan Vs. The Dreamer (20 on La Capitan)

I bet via PM last time and I am not a money fiend... I have:

40 to bet :(

Round 2 Matchups

Grand Warlord Voss Vs. The Matriarch (5 on Voss)

Citizen Dawn Vs. Akash'Bhuta (10 on Dawn)

The Organisation Vs. The Ennead (10 on Organisation)

Apostate Vs. Cosmitron (5 on Apostate)

La Capitan Vs. The Dreamer (10 on Capitan)

Okay got 100 gonna give this a try

Grand Warlord Voss Vs. The Matriarch (15 on Voss)

Citizen Dawn Vs. Akash'Bhuta (25 on Dawn)

The Organisation Vs. The Ennead (25 on The Organisation)

Apostate Vs. Cosmitron (20 on Cosmitron)

La Capitan Vs. The Dreamer (15 on La Captain)

Grand Warlord Voss Vs. The Matriarch (30 on Grand Warlord Voss)

Citizen Dawn Vs. Akash'Bhuta (20 on Dawn)

The Organisation Vs. The Ennead (20 on the Ennead)

Apostate Vs. Cosmitron (20 on Apostate)

La Capitan Vs. The Dreamer (30 on La Capitan)

Copied and pasted from Drakossozh but I'm wagering with some serious changes... mostly I'm gambling that Voss's aliens will give him a lot of armor, since they kind of do that by default. If he gets pwned well ces la vie. I just have no clue what will happen in Organization vs Ennead... I kinda am picturing that "mob vs yakuza" simpsons scene... just this insane turf war.

I'll i've got to say about the battle between the Organization and Ennead is Shu. I'm not sure what kind of environment cards will be in it, but that will be the only way Shu will get hurt. If Shu doesn't show though it will be a really close one.

Joining late with my 100.

Grand Warlord Voss Vs. The Matriarch  (20 on Voss)

Citizen Dawn Vs. Akash'Bhuta  (20 on Citizen Dawn)

The Organisation Vs. The Ennead  (20 on The Organization)

Apostate Vs. Cosmitron  (20 on Cosmitron)

La Capitan Vs. The Dreamer  (20 on La Capitan)

Citizen Dawn Vs. Akash'Bhuta

So, umm... I just ran this battle, typing it up as I went, and then as I neared the conclusion I somehow deleted it all. So, um, sorry, no report. Dawn won; she ended with 23HP, and it was kind of a whitewash. She had six Citizens in play at the end, and she didn't ever have enough in her trash to flip. Next time I do one of these I'l type it up in Word or something, so I can't just refresh the page and kill everything. Sorry.

Apostate Vs. Cosmitron

Apostate begins with a Fiendish Pugilist, and deals 10 damage on his opening turn; I’m guessing Cosmitron is going to spend a lot of time on his Sentient Dropship side, and I’m also guessing that this is going to be a short battle one way or the other. An Adaptive Plating Subroutine offers nothing in the way of damage for Cosmitron, but at least it buys him some time… though Imbued Vitality means it has less time, since anyone who wants to hit Cosmitron but can’t will instead hit it. Sure enough, one turn and one Fallen Angel later, it’s gone.

Electro-Magnetic Railgun is Cosmitron’s next card. Most likely useless, with the damage Apostate is putting out. An Atlantean Font of Power could offer him a reprieve though; it brings out a second Fallen Angel for Apostate – not nice, but relatively mild – while netting Cosmitron an Electro-Pulse Explosive, against a foe with lots of targets and a penchant for hitting the highest-health enemy…

Gauntlet of Perdition hits the field next turn; Apostate is hitting for 12 damage a turn now. It’s nice, but Cosmitron’s Explosive does more to more targets, and promptly wrecks Apostate’s stuff. An S-84 Automaton Drone and a second Adaptive Plating Subroutine are just icing.

Apostate’s Runes of Malediction are nice, but Electro-Pulse Explosives just fry them (though not the Fiendish Pugilist; Fixed Point means it’s not come out yet). Another Electro-Magnetic Railgun hits the field this turn, and for the first time Cosmitron may keep it out long enough to flip.

Apostate really is on his last legs now; he gets out a second Gauntlet, and even manages to break Cosmitron’s newest component, but in the end the Electro-Pulse Explosive finishes him.

Cosmitron wins!

There you go; I didn't accidentally delete this one or anything :D

I can run The Org vs The Ennead tonight or tomrrow.  I'm really excited to see this one paly out, it might come down to when Shu shows up.

Also, Cosmitron is a beast with the EPE.  If he gets that first 2-3 turns, I don't think he's losing

I think a lot of it comes down to how much multi-target damage his opponent has, but yes the Explosives are lovely lovely things. Is there any way for the Organisation to damage Shu, or are they relying on environment damage?

They would entirely have to rely on the Environment deck. As the Organization only deals Melee and Projectile damage, both of which Shu is immune to.

The Environment will have enough damage that Shu is not immune to

La Capitan Vs. The Dreamer

Hmm, I've been looking forward to seeing the Dreamer in action again ever since her savage beat-down on Iron Legacy...

The Dreamer goes first, with Night Terrors and her projections tearing into La Capitan, and damaging La Paradoja Magnifica too, plus a Whipacorn attack means the good captain can't deal damage next turn either. Captain's Orders and Maria Helena's Revenge both hit the table on turn 1 though, and a Tooth Fairy is knocked out and stored beneath La Capitan.

Dark Hero hits the field on turn 2, and La Capitan gets pounded some more, while Cappy follows an entirely useless "All Together Now!" with a rather useful A Motley Crew and a Temporal Thief. Minions take damage, but the Dreamer is tricky; beating her will most likely have to involve a single magnificent turn, or else she'll flip and then murder everything...

Oh my, this could be fun: Fixed Point and Imbued Vitality have just entered play. The former is interesting, but if the latter goes out of play then all of La Capitan's ongoings shall count as villain targets being destroyed, and Maria Helena's Revenge will trigger on every goddamn one. The Dreamer's not worried though; she just blasts all of Capitan's stuff with another Night Terrors, and swings at her a bit more with her minions. The captain, for her part, gets a second Captain's Orders out, but two projections taken out this turn will unfortunately not be stored under her. Poor Cappy.

I think the environment feels sorry for her though; Nomti punches Captain's Orders, but an Atlantean Font of Power throws away a Projected Paralysis while A Motley Crew lets three more crew hit the table, and a Grotesque Arachnoid, while nice, does little on her turn, allowing La Capitan to conduct an orchestra of violence; Temporal Thief thanks to Mable, A Motley Crew bringing out every target in her deck, All Tohether Now toasting hte Arachnoid, then another Temporal Thief, and finally the combined attacks of her whole crew bring down first the last few projections, then the girl. It's magnificent.

La Capitan wins!

I'm a little baffled, are you playing it that Dreamer has to be incapped for the opposing team to win? Especially not activating her flip cuts bad her potentional to do much of anything aswell.

Update on this, I played Org vs Ennead last weekend but it was such a beast of a match  (my transcript is 2.5 pages in Word) and it's been crazy at work so I haven't had time to edit it down.  I should get a chance to post tonight

If I'd been allowed to bet on the length of that match I'd have bet everything I had on shuffling the Chairman's deck at least 3 times.

Yeah, the Dreamer has to be incapped (and any damage that would be dealt to her by her opponent is redirected to her lowest-HP Projection). It's a delicate game, really; if the villain can wipe out her projections then kill her, they win; if they wipe out her projections then don't immediately kill her, she flips and becomes nigh-unstoppable. Plus she does do rather a lot of damage - La Capitan lost most of her health in the few turns the game lasted.

You would have won that bet.  The game lasted 15 full rounds.  Yes, it was as exhausting as it sounds

Ok, since it's been almost 2 weeks since I've fought this, lets record the results

The Organization vs The Ennead

Nuit, Nepthys, Shu and Set have deployed against The Chairman and his Operative.  The Organization starts setting up early, as the Broker is first into play before the Operative summons The Muscle.  With them come the Enforcers, but all of the damage done goes to Shu, who is immune (this is a prevalent theme).  The combination of 2 Rise to Powers and some damage dealing one shots bring out Geb and Tefnut and kill the Broker and her Informant, and the game is afoot.

Over the next few rounds, combination of environment cards and damaging one-shots manage to clear 4 lietenants and flip the chairman.  However, Prison Beak hits and within 2 turns Nuit and Set are incapacitated and all the others are at single digits....except for Shu.  The next turn the environment and many goons kill off the rest and The Chairman is at full health and the Oprative is around 25 HP.  Isis coming out doesnt do much but provide another target for the Organization to wail on and she's incapacitated withintn 2 turns.  The environment has 11 cards out that deal 7 different types of damage.  Shu is at 12 HP and will be dead in two turns..

...then Ghostly Images leads to a Desert's Wrath for the Ennead, killing the Operative and taking the Chairman to the teens.  It's all over from there.  It takes 6 more rounds, but eventually Osiris and Atum come out to help Shu finish off the Chairman.

The Ennead win

Thoughts:

I loaded the environemnt deck with multiple different damage types for this excat scenario, and it would have worked for the the Chairman except for the timing of Desert's Wrath.  Also, this took 15 rounds and 90 minutes to play. It was exhausting

Gods, that does sound exhausting. And now, all the hopes of the difficuty 4 villains rest on the shoulders of the Matriarch...

You know, in retrospect, I'm not sure that's a win for the Matriarch.  I love the exchange, though.

Matriarch: "Ah, Aminia, my lovely assistant.  Thank you so much for sending that exploding birthday card to my infuriating cousin.  It was even better when it blew up their headquarters, though there weren't enough birds.  They would never know it was me if I hadn't told them."

Miss Information: "I'm sorry.  I'll keep that in mind next time."

Matriarch: "Please do.  How are my lovely avian friends?"

Miss Information:  "They're doing well, but these reports say there's a cat over on Fifth and Pine that keeps eating them."

Matriarch: "Oh dear.  I'd better go see to that.  I say, my mask looks like it was dipped in marshmallows and left in the microwave.  You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

Miss Information: "No."

Matriarch: "Ah, well.  Order a new microwave, I guess, and make it a good one this time."

Miss Information: "Yes ma'am."

Matriarch: "I'm off.  This being evil is hard work!"

That's a great exchange.  On the battle though, Miss Info couldn't destroy the Mask and the Diversions kept getting taken out by all of the Fowl.  Clues couldn't stay in play so she could not flip.  Feel free to run it again if you'd like; I was at 12 rounds and wasn't getting anywhere.  Ultimately, if she flipped Miss Info could stop all of Matriarch's damage

I trust you about how the fight went.  It's just that if the Matriarch is too reckless to find out what is happening, it shouldn't count against Miss Information.  I daresay she would go unnoticed by many of the villains for one reason or another.  I guess I'm saying I would count this game as a draw, but also that neither of these characters are designed for this event.

Matriarch was supposed to have a bye so I don't feel bad about letting her move on from the Miss Information stalemate.

I'm out of town this weekend, so I'll try to get in Matriarch vs Voss before then

Oh hey, look what I found.

Grand Warlord Voss Vs. The Matriarch

Voss goes first; he plays a Minion, and his Minions pound on Matty a bit and almost destroy the Mask of the Matriarch. The Mask does little on The Matriarch's turn, simply netting her a useless Darken the Sky, but the five Fowl and Muninn she pulls out do make up for it somewhat... Voss adds a Minion to his army and then the Fowl start to fall, which makes Matty very much not happy; a Gene-Bound Guard is somewhat negated by Cramped Quarters Combat, and Voss ends his turn feeling really rather diminished. This feeling is only exacerbated by Matty's Horrid Cacaphony taking out the last of his forces. An Atlantean Font of Power tries to cheer him up, but ends up Darkening the Sky as well as handing him a Minion.

Minions do their Miniony thing, and then Fowl do their Foul thing - Voss is armiless again - and for her next trick Matty brings out a Carrion Field, to shatter any hopes Voss had of maintaining an army. Forced Deployment glimmers hopefully, but Huginn destroys it and the army it pulls is subsequently pecked to death. Then a second Carrion Field. Voss does very little, and Matty puts the last of her targets into play, just before they ALL DIE.

Well, all the Fowl, anyway. The Mystical Defenses have activated. Neither party is paricularly enthused by this development, but Darken The Sky gets Matty her birds back next turn, so she's fine. Until the Defenses do their thing again, at which point she pretty much rips Voss to shreds.

The Matriarch wins!

Didn't you mean to say that Huginn destroyed Forced Deployment? Muninn is the soak/damage buff cohort ;).

Sounds like Lilian had a pretty easy time of it, anyway ;).

Err, yeah, that

Right, well I'm not sure how much interest there still is for this, but betting opens now for the semi-final. 

Cosmitron Vs. The Matriarch

Citizen Dawn Vs. The Ennead Vs. La Capitan

The games shall begin some time after the 30th.

Well, I'm just getting in this at the finale, but I'll go

50 on the Matriarch.

I'm assuming the second is a round robin?  If so then:

Dawn to beat Ennead  30

Ennead to beat La Capitan  10

Dawn to beat La Capitan  10

If it is a 3-way death match then:

50 on Dawn

I was going for 3-way death match, since that sounds more fun :D

I don't remember how many points I have to vote with AND I don't have enough brainpower/attention span to try to guess who will win these, but I'm looking forward to reading about it.

Cosmitron Vs. The Matriarch

It’s a very strong start for Cosmitron, beginning with a Disintegration Ray and an Electro-Magnetic Railgun, and pulling another Ray and an Electro-Pulse Explosive on his first turn. The Matriarch’s Horrid Cacophony deals with the components, but not the bomb, and she only manages a single Fowl, which thus gives her very little retaliatory damage. Furthermore, until Matty pulls a second Cacophony her retaliation is going to be near useless; Cosmitron’s found himself an Adaptive Plating Subroutine.

Darken The Sky – the second Darken she’s played – is not The Matriarch’s best move, really, netting her only one bird… and it gets flattened by a Collapsing Hallway. There’s the Mask too, but the Explosives deal with that. Two more Fowl pop out next turn, along with Muninn and a Fixed Point, which help a little; another Darken the turn after helps very little at all, and after that Cosmitron, still on 93 hit points, has accrued enough power to finish the old bird off.

Cosmitron Wins!

Yeah, thats what happened with Cosmitron when I played him.  Villains can't deal with early turn EPE's because they don't focus fire and it just takes too much out of them to recover.

I bet on Matty because I thought she'd get to flip.  Darned Omni keps getting his big guns early.

La Capitan Vs. Citizen Dawn Vs. The Ennead

You join me a little way into the game, since I just lost my report as far as I had it. To recap, La Capitan and Citizen Dawn are both going fairly strong, but mostly tearing chunks out of each other, so while The Ennead are a little bruised, they have some room to breathe. Dawn has also just pulled a Return With The Dawn, netting her a Citizen Dare to join her Citizen Anvil in making most damage go in her favour.

The Ennead find a neat way to counteract this though - Rise to Power summons Nuit and nullifies the extra damage. They then let rip with an Elemental Storm, which thanks to Dare deals really rather a lot of damage to The Captain and her crew, enough to take out L'Epéiste and La Paradoja Magnifica, but this may not be as good for Dawn as she thinks, for at that point Maria Helena's Revenge kicks in, tearing through the Ennead, taking out two Citizens and readying Maria Helena to flip.

La Cap flips with four cards under her, brings out Mable and destroys Return With The Dawn, but then Dawn draws That Card and suddenly Maria is rather unhappy... (The Ennead play Sun's Fury, and are at this point mostly spectators to the Dawn-Cap battle.) All Together Now gets The Captain her ship back; Devastating Aurora does very little. Ennead and Mdjai damage means that La Capitan is ready to flip back over...

...And she gets a stellar turn out of it. A Raiding Party starts it off with a gaggle of Crew entering play, followed by a Captain's Orders, and a Temporal Thief combined with her crew tearing through the rest of Dawn'd Citizens readies her for a second flip. This is, however, a very dangerous game; once she starts losing the cards under her, Dawn is going to accumulate five trashed citizens, and that's going to be very hard to deal with... Nothing significant really happens until the start of Maria's next turn, which sees the flip, the appearance of the rest of her crew and the reduction of Dawn to 32HP. (Cappy's at 48 and the Ennead are mostly in the teens, for reference.)

Truth, Atum and Cyrus Hayes enter play, La Capitan deals out some damage, and then so does Dawn, with a Blinding Blast. Between that and her end-of-turn damage, La Capitan's defences are stripped away, right into Dawn's trash, where six Citizens now reside...

Dawn is on 14HP when she flips. I suspect this might be Game Over.

What follows is mostly people fighting around Dawn, and destroying her citizens pretty much every round. The Ennead tear through La Cap's crew with an Explosives Wagon-augmented Elemental Storm, but she is in turn tearing through them, and her crew can come back. The Ennead cannot... Still, both sides are pretty much spent by the time Dawn flips back, and flip back she does, mostly thanks to an Atlantean Font of Power and Citizen Truth shielding her citizens. But with her on 24HP and Cappy and Shu on 6 and 9 respectively, it does not look like this fight will last much longer.

La Capitan fought bravely, but fell to the Ennead, oddly; Shu played a reserved game for a while, then struck out with a double-boosted Elemental Storm, wiping the Captain and bringing Dawn, who had previously played two Healing Lights in quick succession, to 9HP. The environment piles on, dropping Dawn all the way down to three hit points... but then with a mighty Hammer, Shu falls.

DAWN WINS!

The Final:

Cosmitron Vs. Citizen Dawn

12/11/13

Just curiously, how long did that take you to play? (I'm remembering my Organization vs Ennead battle which took over 1.5 hours)

100 on Dawn.

I don't even know how much I still have, but I'm betting that Dawn will triumph.

Also, that sounds like an intense match @.@

I think about two hours?

Yeah, I have to bet on Dawn with That Card.  Cosmo's been wiping folks out with EPE but in this match that would just cause Dawn to flip pretty fast and stay merged with the sun for a while.

That was so much fun to visualize! Maybe I'll do some battles like this myself.

Citizen Dawn Vs. Cosmitron

The battlefield is still, very still. Dawn and Omnitron stare each other down; the Citizens ready themselves as the robot’s weapons click into place. Then, in a flash, everything springs to life, and the battle is joined.

Dawn fires off a Devastating Aurora, backlighting the tremendous assault from her people; Omnitron takes just enough damage to smash is weapons, so he switches to a different tactic and takes to the sky. He releases a single S-83 drone before dropping an Electro-Pulse Explosive. Both sides know what this means; if Dawn can successfully merge with the power of the Sun before the bomb kills her, then it renders her nigh-unstoppable. If not… well, it kills her.

Dawn can see this, it seems; she begins to Channel the Eclipse, for death or glory. Omnitron in turn merely pulls out a Railgun, which is of relatively little use; three damage a turn is nice, but less nice than an army of robots. Then the environment seemingly takes Omnitron’s side, with an Explosives Wagon upping the speed with which everything is torn apart.

Dawn heals herself now, and follows that up with a second Channel the Eclipse. She’s going to be tearing through her deck really rather quickly now, which could be very good for her… until, and I take back everything I said about the Electromagnetic Railgun being a bad play, Omnitron flips, takes out Dawn’s Channel the Eclipses with Sedative Flechettes, and drops a second Explosive. Dawn is now at 30 health, and it doesn’t look like she’s going to survive another turn.

Put simply, she doesn’t.

Cosmitron wins, and is the mightiest of all villains!

Those 2 nukes in Omnitrons deck are really scary. Best of 3!

How did it go that she didn't flip?

She would have had to have had a really unlucky draw to not pull any more Citizens

Or just pulled a few Return with the Dawns. The Nuke probably made quick work of any citizen that hit hte board. With all of the extra plays she was getting, I am sure she had a ton of ongoings in play.

In three rounds, Dawn pulled two Channel the Eclipses, a Devastating Aurora and a Healing Light. On round four she pulled a Citizen and something else, and then died. It was not a long game.

Wow, your Cosmitron's Luck never ran out.  Early EPE's in every game, Cosmo really wanted that trophy.

Reading your posts makes me want to start a pvp league for heroes, and give commentary and analysis on the fights.

"We're here with Dawn, who was heavily favored in this fight, but went down in the fourth round, What happened out there Dawn?"

"Well I thought we had a great game plan going out there today, but with those Explosives popping out like that there's really nothing you can do."

"All Humans must be Annihilated."

"I hear you back there Omni you cheat!  Who shuffled your deck huh?  Heart of the cards my @#3!"

"Organic life is inferior."

"How about you come say that to my face you hunk of scrap!  I'll tear you apart with my bare hands!"

Yeah, we need pregame and post game next time.  Maybe some Mean Gene style interviews.