How do you play Absolute Zero well?
Despite my enthusiasm, I’ve only gotten a chance to play a half dozen games, so I haven’t really seen AZ in action yet.
My guess is that once he gets out the card that allows him to use cold for healing, he generally alternates between hitting himself with fire in order to generate cold damage and then hitting himself with cold to heal the previous fire damage.
He is a somewhat different hero which is why I think I like him so much. The big thing is to get his 2 main module cards out to give him both his ability to heal and damage an enemy. His main weakness is that you need so many cards out to be effective and since they are almost all equipment they can be vulnerable to being destroyed. His main strength is that he can easily turn a +1 damage bonus (like the one Legacy often doles out) into a +2 since in order to deal damage he must first deal it to himself then to the target, accumulating a +1 each time, he is also the most effective self healer in the game. You often can get interesting chain reactions with him especially when backed up by certain other heroes like Ra, Legacy or Visionary or just lucky draws from the villain or environment deck. It’s fun when the volcano erupts on him. I had a situation recently where the Volcano erupted (which deals everyone 7 fire damage) and there was an obsidian field out (which increases all damage by +1). The Volcano hit the villain for 8 damage then hit AZ for the same but AZ spouted 9 cold damage back at the villain as a result.
Playing well with Absolute Zero requires a certain mentality, a bit of luck (make sure you can get your good cards out quickly, especially if there is a chance of loosing played cards), and making sure he has allies that play well with him. He’s most effective with both Isothermic Transducer and Coolant Blast both in play, which then make cards like Hoarfire extremely powerful. I can probably show you how I play him tomorrow.
That’s very interesting. I play him completely different.
For a long time, I would have agreed, but in my experience the vulnerability to equipment destruction is a problem, so I try to go for cards that have a nice effect now.
I’m particularly fond of Sub-Zero Atmosphere, which I consider to be the best card in his deck, and one of the best in the game. This is really useful against mooks, effectively making them skip one round of attack, and giving the heroes time to kill/damage them before they can attack again.
The next priorities are Cold Snap and then Focused Aperatures, allowing him to deal 2 cold damage to all targets every time his turn comes up, and that’s without team buffs. Twisting the Ether, or Glavanize/Inspiring Presence make this ability a pretty nice minion killer.
Beyond that, I try to get out the Null Point Calibration unit just because its reasonably easy and gives him something to do with his powers, especially nice if you’ve got focused aperatures… Isothermic Trasnducer I get if I have the time, usually not that hard to get in your hand. A very good card if you’re playing on Insula Primalis, or even Wagner Mars Base (though, if thats the case… poor, poor zero…) , or with certain minions from Dawn in play, otherwise I could take it or leave it. I dont generally worry about coolant blast, thermal shockwave, or cryo chamber unless I have nothing else good to play. I like using Glacial Structure early and often to give Zero more cards, and reasonably often I take advantage of the rule “dont play a card or use a power: draw 2 cards”.
That’s a pretty interesting way to play awp, i’m probably will try it out one of these days to see if I like it.
Interesting. That sounds like one of the ways I sometimes play Tempest. I’ve never played Absolute Zero like that though.
If you’re teamed with Visonary, he’s probably the A-Number-One target for Twist the Ether, since the ability to alter his damage type as needed and grant a +1 is pretty huge with him. Fanatic is probably the only one who can milk it for anything like comparable damage, or maybe Tempest if there are lots of enemy targets (eg vs Dawn or Voss). Visonary’s innate power can really help him build up his hand fast, too, allowing a speedier start and better recovery from equipment destruction. Zero likes his women bald, I guess. 
If he concentrates on healing he can play “iron man” for the rest of the party by arranging to have the highest HP turn after turn. There’s something to be said for simply being too tough to kill, since so many attacks go after the highest HP hero target. I’ve seen games won because Zero simply took 100 points of damage without dropping while his teammates whittled down the bad guy. Twist the Ether on the biggest villain damage source doesn’t hurt either - watching Citizen Assault unintentionally doing +1 Cold damage on Zero turn after turn is just hilarious.