Absolute Zero is great

Games Sentinels of the Multiverse
1

I finally had everything line up nicely with modules, frost bound drain, thermal shockwave, and dealt a ridiculous amount of damage to poor Grand Warlord Voss.

I've seen it play out before but it didn't really click for me until I had all the pieces right in front of me. I'm just glad AZ had 18 health when he hit himself for 17 fire. 

It didn't hurt that Tempest had the elemental subwave inducer and localized hurricane for feeding hit points back to AZ while he ramped up.

Also didn't hurt that Voss was subjected to Take Down while Pillars of Hercules were up.

2

For added fun, try putting Twist the Ether on AZ sometime. When you can control which type of damage he's doing and roughly how much, he becomes a monster of extreme flexibility.

I find AZ frustrating sometimes, but he's definitely one of those guys that when you get him going right, it almost feels like cheating.

3

see, the reason I'm not to fond of AZ is because I feel like it's too easy to make him useless. Anything that gets rid of equiptment, anything that changes damage type (like cramped quarters combat), or not drawing the right hand. I have had so many time where the team's AZ had no module cards for 3 turns, so he had to just sit there and do nothing

4

I've had games as Absolute Zero where he had no module and still rocked everything in his path.

5

Bad hands happen with every character.  For a long while I hated playing Wraith because I constantly had some terrible hands. Just because you don't get a module out doesn't mean AZ is useless.  You can play effective games without seeing either module.  

6

Same. I will usually put out Impale and Cold Snap before a Module. Even if I get one, only Iso seems worth it until his health is low.

7

Fixed that for you.

8

Impale needs to get out as early as you can manage to get the most value out of it (unless you know theres ongoing destruction in the near future)

9

It could just be me, but I will use cards like Frost Bound Drain, Thermal Shockwave, etc. without a Module in play. Do they work better with a Module, sure, but they still work without them.

10

Stop stealing my lines!

11

Not just you, Pydro.  :wink:

12

I've played Absolute Zero a few times, and this was the first time I was able to get both modules and focused apertures out. I've had AZ do well without all of those things, but having them all was fun.  :sunglasses:

Also fun was having Ra hit Absolute Zero.

13

Once I stopped caring about being able to heal I started using Elemental Wraith AZ instead of vanilla AZ.  I also love Imbued Fire with Thermal Shockwave, Iso is nice, but not needed.

14

I didn't going in caring about these things. :) I was using five random heroes against a random villain and I was expecting AZ to be his usual "deal some damage" self, but I got all the good stuff and extra plays so I put it all out, and it was surprisingly good, on the order of dealing 30+ cold damage in one turn. I didn't expect that.

15

Also, I am looking forward to giving Elemental Wrath AZ a try, although I am waiting to get variant cards before using variants.

16

I like the more complex decks, and AZ was my early favorite. The feedback of all his cards and flow of damage suits my need for numbers.

AZ without support is a B- deck. His effectiveness comes from + Damage Dealt, which makes Legacy all that much more important. Adept, TTE, and the other rare + Damage Dealt abilities Are far more effective on him, because it helps him damage and heal himself. With support, he is one of the few decks I call A+. That amplification may be why AZ has no normal nemesis deck, just a Vengeance minor leaguer in Proletariate. A full on Nemesis for AZ may amp him up, and might wind up with problems for balancing that deck.

AZ is vulnerable to large-scale destruction, but so is everyone else. He can take longer to recover, but he has good deck search for his mandatory modules and trash search for what was wrecked.

I tend to use AZ to soak Highest Hero Damage (HHD) before worrying about him dealing damage with Impale, etc. When he is soaking well, games end with 20 HP remaining on all heroes, regardless of how long the game lasts.

17

Yeah, I had Young Legacy, Super Scientific Tachyon, Absolute Zero, Ra, and Tempest. I was using Ra and Tempest (in his case with damage changed to cold) to pump both AZ's healing and damage output, plus inspiring presence was out. It was pretty brutal.

The only time I didn't really get much out of Absolute Zero at all was trying to do a Freedom Five vs. Miss Information thing, and she had so much ongoing and equipment destruction out there was no sense in playing much of anything beyond what was strictly necessary to deal with diversions. Once she flipped (after a long time) the heroes were so far behind there was no catching up. Most every other time in the app and card game both he deals a respectable amount of damage even without having all his toys out.

18

Not all Heroes are great against all Villains. They all have strengths and weaknesses.

For Miss Information you want Ongoing destruction and deck manipulation. AZ can do some good Ongoing destruction, but he needs to hold onto it until all the clues you need to flip MI are in play. AZ has no deck manipulation. Since he is reliant on Modules to deal damage or heal, if you can't keep Equipment in play he is nigh useless. Other characters have reasonably useful Innates and decent one-shots, but his one-shots are also suicidal without Modules.

Wraith and Visionary for MI. Both can put Clues on the top of the Villain deck and get you to where Ongoing destruction can start. You may want to destroy some Ongoings that are harsh on particular characters.

There are multiple ways to deal with Equipment and Hero Ongoing destruction (or at least the ones that don't destroy it all). Choose heroes that all put out lots of it to overwhelm the destruction, or heroes that rely on One-shots and don't need Equipment or Ongoings. When you go with random heroes, you sacrifice this and lose because your strategy was poor. If AZ is the only Equipment heavy character, then put him away and take someone else. Unlike Wraith, who can flood out Equipment, or Bunker, who can switch modes to flood out cards at times, AZ rarely puts more than 1 Equipment or Ongoing in play per turn, so even 1 per Turn destruction stops him... cold. But if 4 heroes are putting out 2.5 per turn average, then they build slowly, but they do build.

19

I prefer the challenge of random myself, even if it occasionally gives me unfavourable match ups. It feels kind of unsporting to me to swap out a hero if I don't think they'll do well this match, but of course that's just my preferred play style. No judgement on people who pick heroes, that's perfectly valid too.

I just enjoy winning under non-ideal circumstances, and I learn more and play better if I play random even if my win rate is lower. I don't consider it poor strategy, because I'm forced to adapt my play to fit these more challenging circumstances. I have to think more.

20

I beat the crap out of Miss Information with Parse, Haka, and Fanatic* in Pike Industrial. Miss Information was actually defeated by an exploding irradiated cyclohexine vat, which made me quite happy. 

I didn't take random heroes against Miss Information the first time, either - I took Legacy, Absolute Zero, Wraith, Tachyon, and Bunker. Miss Information had enough ongoing + equipment destruction going (because of five heroes, and because multiple cards added to it) that I couldn't accumulate any equipment with any of the characters. I think the real problem that took the heroes down, however, was picking Freedom Tower as the environment and getting pretty much all the forced entry points in play. I did not realize that the Freedom Five was so unsuited to fighting Miss Information, and I also did not realize that Freedom Tower was such a potentially harsh environment and I made some bad calls about not removing certain environment cards.

I didn't have any issues with ongoing destruction, as I was able to remove all of her clues as soon as she flipped and kept them gone. 

When I said regarding the other thing "It was pretty brutal" I meant it was brutal to Voss, who was frozen to glass-like brittleness by Absolute Zero opening all of his apertures and dealing 30+ cold damage in one turn and leaving Voss at -12 or so.

Anyway, all that said, I love to click random on the app, and I use Spiff's randomizer at least half the time I play anything, and while I have lost a few of those fights I find I can go back to them with a better chance of winning due to knowing how the villain, heroes, and environment worked. I have yet to lose a random game on the app, although there's a lot less variety to choose from so far.

Not to dismiss your advice, I am just not entirely clear why you mentioned random heroes when the game I described with random heroes was a clear win, and the game I described losing was not due to random selection.
 

* fixed - I had prime wardens on the brain