This is a reconstruction of an actual play of the weekly game “Elementalist”. It shows the Scholar achieving a seemingly impossible victory over an enemy that has him hopelessly outmatched, immobilized, and able to do almost nothing beyond simply surviving. The log is pretty dense reading; I’ll try to clean it up.
Akash’Bhuta plays Ensnaring Brambles and moves Hallway Collapse to the trash. Tempest cannot deal damage.
Absolute Zero plays and uses Glacial Structure. Draws Sub-Zero Atmosphere, Coolant Blast, and Onboard Module Installation x2.
Ra plays Summon Staff, draws and plays another, draws Flesh of the Sun God, and has two new Staffs. But he’s still at full HP, so he plays Imbued Fire. He uses Pyre for 3 on the Brambles (6). Ra draws Flame Spike.
Tempest plays Elemental Subwave Inducer. Skips his power since he’s Brambled, and draws another ESI.
The Scholar draws Mortal Form to Energy and Truth Seeker.
Ruins of Atlantis plays Mystical Defenses. AB plays Earth’s Sacrifice, which destroys IF and moved Toxic Seaweed to the trash.
Defenses deals AB 2 Energy damage (198), then Brambles (4), F6AZ (25), Ra (28), Tempest (24), and Scholar (27).
AB plays Mountainous Carapace, moved HC to the trash. Tempest is Brambled.
Absolute Zero plays OMI, draws and plays another, draws Cryo Chamber, plays a third OMI, puts one of each Module into hand plus a spare, and draws and plays Focused Apertures. Deals 3 cold to the Carapace (8), and draws Glacial Structure.
Ra plays Living Conflagration, hits the Carapace for 2, then 2 more with his Power, leaving it at (4). Draws Wrathful Gaze.
Tempest picks Energy for ESI, skips the rest of his turn, and draws Aquatic Correspondence and Grievous Hail Storm.
The Scholar plays Energy Form, heals to 28, and deals 1 to the Defenses (14). Draws Transmutive Recovery.
Atlantis plays The Pillars of Hercules. Defenses deals 1 to AB (197) and Tempest (23), 2 to each of Brambles (2), Carapace (2), AZ (23), Ra (26), and Scholar (26).
The Pillars plays Living Rockslide. AB moved Phosphorescent Chamber to the trash. AB plays Rejuvenating Entropy, which destroys Apertures and ESI, healing both previous Limbs and the Defenses.
Chose AZ this time for the Brambles. Rockslide deals 2 to AZ (21), Ra 24 (24), Tempest (21), Scholar (24), and the Defenses (13).
Pillars plays Arboreal Phalanges at the start of AZ’s turn, and another MD is trashed. AZ skips the rest of his turn to destroy the Pillars.
The Staff enters play; Ra heals to (27). Uses Pyre on the Carapace (8) and draws Scorched Earth.
Tempest plays and activates Hail Storm. AB takes 1 (196), and 2 is dealt to Phalanges (10), Brambles (7), Rockslide (8), Carapace (6), and Defenses (11). Tempest draws Flash Flood.
The Scholar discards Truth Seeker for Energy Form, then plays Grace Under Fire and deals Living Rockslide 6 Radiant damage (2). Heals to (25) and zaps the Carapace (5). Draws Flesh to Iron.
Atlantis plays Leaking Room. Damn! Defenses deals 1 damage to AB (195), and 2 each to Phalanges (8), Brambles (5), Carapace (3), and destroys Rockslide. AB deals herself 10 damage, -1 for the Carapace, and is left at (186). The heroes also take 2 each: F6AZ (19), Ra (25), Tempest (19), and Scholar (23).
AB plays Earth’s Sacrifice. LC, GHS, and MFtE are destroyed; Seaweed, Leaking Room, and PhosphorChamber are discarded. AZ again takes the Brambles, and Phalanges hits Ra (22).
Absolute Zero draws Thermal Shockwave and Hoarfire.
Ra uses Pyre to deal 3 to the Brambles (2), then draws Flame Barrier. Tempest then uses Squall, bouncing off AB and dropping the Brambles to (1) and the Carapace to (2), plus the Phalanges to (7) and Defenses to (10). Tempest draws Electrical Storm.
The Scholar draws Energy Form and Get Out of the Way!.
Leaking Room destroys itself, then a Kraken is played. AB plays a Rockslide. Another Kraken is discarded, then Defenses destroys the Carapace (AB takes 10 and is at 176), finally takes out the damned Brambles (AB takes 9 and is at 167), and then shoots Akash directly (165). Phalanges falls to (5), Rockslide to (8), and the heroes drop to 21 (Scholar), 20 (Ra), and 17 (the other two). Finally, the Kraken takes out the Phalanges, and AB takes another 12, leaving her at (153).
AB plays another Carapace, and discards the Atlantean Font of Power (spoilers: the Font never sees play all game, unlike the Pillars, which is drastically more in Abby’s favor than the heroes’). Rockslide hits all the heroes (Scholar 19, Ra 18, others 15), the Kraken (13), and the Defenses (8).
AZ plays Transducer, desperate to get set up for a late game which, again spoilers, he’s never going to see. With the Brambles finally gone, he’s free to blast the Carapace for 2 (9), and he draws Apertures.
Ra plays Flame Spike, which along with Pyre and a Staff results in a total of 9 damage. I debated taking out the Carapace, but that’d be a bad idea with Atlantis doing its thing, so I leave it alive at (4) and deal 3 to Akash’Bhuta (150), who is still protected by it. Ra draws Fire Blast.
Tempest plays a new Hail Storm, using it to hit the Rockslide for 2 (6), ditto the Defenses, cut the Carapace in half (2), scratch some paint on the Kraken (11), and plink Abby (149). Draws yet another Hail Storm.
Scholar plays Iron Flesh, having no idea how long it’s going to end up lasting. Heals to (20) and draws Expect the Worst.
Ruins of Atlantis plays another Kraken. AB plays a Carapace. This shuffles the environment deck, so AB was flipped to its back side. AB moved Font of Power from the freshly shuffled Atlantis deck to its trash (I don’t know what she has against that Font, honestly).
At this point, the log contains the baffling line “Akash’Bhuta has been flipped over, so it can no longer do things from the previous side”.
Defenses deals one Carapace 2 Energy damage and destroys it. AB trashes The Kraken and deals 9 net damage to herself (140). The Defenses go on to blast Akash directly for 1 (139), and deals 2 to the Rockslide (4), the other Carapace (9), Zero (13), Ra (16), and Tempest (13), while bouncing off Scholar’s Iron Flesh. The Kraken then destroys the Rockslide, dealing another 9 to AB (130) and discarding Seaweed. The second Kraken deals 5 to the remaining Carapace (4).
Disrupt the Field is played; the first Kraken dies, and AB plays Entropy, which destroys the Transducer. The Carapace heals to full, and technically so do the Defenses and the surviving Kraken. The second Kraken is killed, and AB plays Entomb. Defenses dies and Primeval Eruption is played. Fortunately this only plays one Limb, a Rockslide, although the bonus play adds a Brambles. Finally, Disrupt plays Allies of the Earth and Hallway Collapse; this hits the Carapaced AB for 2 (128) and goes on to deal 3 damage to everything else: Brambles (6), Rockslide (7), Carapace (8), AZ and Tempest (10), and Ra (13), while doing just 1 to Scholar (19). With all of that out of the way, the Rockslide fires; AZ and Tempest are at (8), Ra at (11), and Scholar is unharmed. AZ again takes the Brambling, and Abby is finally done.
AZ plays and activates GS; he draws NPCU, Coolant Blast, Cold Snap, and OMI.
Ra plays Flame Barrier, then Pyres the Brambles (2). Draws Drawn to the Flame.
Tempest plays Into the Stratosphere on Entomb, plinking the carapaced AB (127). Hail Storm hits her again (126), and reduces the Brambles to (2), the Rockslide to (5), and the Carapace to (6). Tempest draws Talk To Fish.
The Scholar discards EtW for Iron Flesh, then plays Alchemical Redirection. He heals to (20) and draws Take a Nap.
Leaking Room shows up again.
AB replays Entomb; a Rockslide completely bounces off the Scholar. AZ has had it with being brambled, and I try to put it on Tempest instead, but I quickly change my mind and rewind to have AZ waste his turn yet again (seriously, I wonder if there’s a single hero who is more useless when unable to do damage than AZ).
Zero draws Cryo Chamber and an NPCU. Ra deals 2 Fire damage to the Rockslide (3), then draws Conflagration. Tempest upstages him with the Hail Storm, dropping the Rockslide to (1), the Carapace to (4), killing the Brambles (AB discards Seaweed), and hitting AB both directly (125) and through the Brambles (117). Tempest draws another ES. The Scholar discards Energy Form, and AR destroys itself. He draws another Iron Flesh and Keep Moving.
The heroes have a moment of hope, figuring they will just take the hit from Entomb and finally get to unload before the end. Then out come The Pillars. AGAIN.
Entomb fires; Ra takes the hit first (7), letting FB hit Abby for 1 (116) . AZ and Tempest are cut in half (4), while Scholar’s armor takes half the hit and he falls to (18). Entomb destroys itself, and for a brief moment, AZ hopes he may actually accomplish something this game. Then the Pillars plays another Entomb. Two heroes die, Ra falls to (3), and Scholar is okay at (16); the Entomb dies again. Phalanges enters play; if only that card and the Entomb had been in the other order. The Rockslide drops Ra to (1), but he destroys it, dealing 9 to Abby (107) and causing her to discard PC. The Phalanges poke Scholar, getting through for 1 (15), and Abby is dooooooooooh screw you, Hercules.
At the start of AZ’s turn, The Pillars plays yet another Entomb. AZ skips his first incap turn to dispose of the Pillars, and takes a moment to reflect on just how useless he’s been this game.
Ra plays The Staff and quadruples his HP. He then smashes it across the Carapace, destroying it, and AB discards HC and falls to double-digit HP (97 specifically). The log is again weird in saying “Ra’s Pyre destroys Mountainous Carapace”; it seems to assign nearly all of Ra’s attacks to Pyre for some reason. Anyway, Ra draws Excavation.
With the two surviving heroes staring down an Entomb, dead Tempest grants immunity to Psychic damage; Ra is going to have to break a lot of Staffs if he hopes to survive, but it still seemed worth trying at this point, since I’ve always understood that if you drop to one hero against a deck with Brambles, it’s basically Game Over.
Scholar discards KM for FtI, then plays Redirection to buy Ra another turn. He heals to (16) and draws Don’t Dismiss Anything.
Atlantis plays Defenses. Allies caused AB to regain 15 HP, then she gets blasted down to (110) while Scholar shrugs off both his own shot and Ra’s, and the Phalanges falls to (10).
Entomb damages nothing but the Defenses (11) and thus sticks around. More Phalanges are played; Scholar gets fingered for 2 net damage (14).
AZ is finally able to use an incap ability, but what he chooses to do on his turn is “nothing”, more specifically declaring that “nothing” is what the Environment deck will play on its turn.
Another Staff of Ra gets him up to (7) HP this time, and he tries to keep this one, using Pyre to deal 3 to the older Phalanges (7). Draws SE.
Once again, Psychic damage is negated on Tempest’s turn.
The Scholar discards one FtI card in order to keep another one; sadly, no such option exists for Redirection, so that ends. Don’t Dismiss Anything is played (I legitimately forgot this); Ra tries to get back a Summon Staff, while Scholar wants Truth Seeker. Scholar heals to (15) and draws his card.
Defenses shoots Abby (108) and both of her Fingers (5 and 10). Ra also takes 2 (5), and Barrier deals 3 back to the Defenses (8), before Abby starts her turn and Entombs it down to (4).
The very card I feared, Brambles, turns up yet again; more Fingers poke at Scholar to bring him down to (13), and Ra gets tied up in vines.
Bored with doing nothing, and very worried about those Brambles, AZ uses “One Target deals itself 1 Cold Damage”, targeting them (8).
Unable to deal damage, Ra plays Excavation; he picks the Font of Power, a Chamber, and lastly Defenses for lack of a safer pick. He draws his previously queued-up Summon Staff, another Barrier, the final Staff he was hoping to Summon, and a Flame Spike.
Though worried about Entomb just sticking around forever, I’m not ready to deal with it yet, so again I have Tempest negate its damage to the heroes.
The Scholar discards Out of the Way, then plays Truth Seeker and uses it to deal 2 to the Brambles (6). Draws Solid to Liquid, then Bring What You Need.
Atlantis plays a Chamber. Defenses deals 3 Energy damage to AB (105), the Brambles (3), and both Phalanges (2 and 7). Ra falls to (2) and tries to fire back with Barrier, but is Brambled and fails to deal the 4 damage he should get from this. Scholar takes 1 and is left at (12). Ra discards Flame Barrier; the Scholar discards StL.
Entomb bounces off the heroes, but does annihilate the Defenses (as Ra failed to do when shot by them); the villain card play thereby triggered shuffles AB’s deck, and from the result she plays Earth’s Sacrifice. FB, FtI, and TS are wiped away, and Atlantis loses Leaking Room (whew), Atlantean Font (dang), and a Chamber (umm, could go either way there). Carapace comes out as Abby’s normal card play, and the two Phalanges hit Scholar for a total of 8 (4). Even with a beating like that, Scholar is still the party tank, so the Brambles wrap up Ra as usual.
AZ tells Brambles to “just chill”; with the Chamber increasing damage, they fall to (1) HP.
For the first time in probably 30 games, I find a reason to have Ra play and activate Wrathful Gaze; he can’t deal damage thanks to the Brambles, but he can make the Brambles stop existing. And in so doing, he indirectly damages Abby; the Carapace and the Chamber cancel each other out, so she takes the usual 9 damage (96), putting her into double digits again. MD gets discarded, and Ra draws Flame Spike.
It’s more crucial than ever to have Tempest cancel Psychic damage, so that’s all he does for yet another round.
Scholar plays Outtadaway, dealing 1 net to AB (95) and 2 to every other enemy target. The first to take the hit is the near-dead Phalanges, whose death reshuffles Atlantis and flips Abby again; HC is the first discard from the new environment deck, and Abby takes 12 gross-and-net damage (83). The other Phalanges is left at (5), and the Carapace at (9); that’s 4 targets that took damage, but the Chamber applies to the HP gain, so Scholar rises to (9), then to (11) with enhanced Better Living. Draws a replacement for TS, but promptly discards that along with Ra’s FotSG, getting rid of the Chamber.
Turns out I should have kept my cards; The Kraken is played, and it triggers the side-A Abby to Disrupt the Field, destroying the entire Environment, which consists solely of the Kraken but would also have included the Chamber (and, in this rare case, the heroes wouldn’t have had to lose a card regardless of the Chamber staying or going). A Rockslide is played, discarding the Font yet again, and Seaweed pops out; Allies restores Abby to (98). Since the Rockslide is about to kill him and there’s nothing he can do about it, Ra dumps his magnificent 9-card hand (including a Staff, a Flame Blast, and two Scorched Earths) to take the Seaweed out.
Abby’s turn consists of fingering The Scholar down to (8), then Rocksliding him to (6) while disposing of Ra. Even though there aren’t any Brambles to paralyze Scholar now that he’s alone, he knows this is inevitable if he manages to survive for any length of time, so the game seems lost; nonetheless, I opt to stick with it.
AZ freezes the Environment, and for his first incap turn, Ra destroys AotE.
Tempest continues counteracting Entomb. That’s 3 heroes who have done nothing proactive, just counteracted various negative effects. The pattern continues with Scholar, whose turn consists of Taking a Nap (TR), healing to (8) and drawing Know When to Turn Loose plus Keep Moving. Better Living gets him up to (9), which is still clearly not enough, and he draws another Take a Nap.
Since Atlantis doesn’t get a turn of any kind at this point, we move right on to Abby. She appears to have two Entombs this turn; I may have missed her playing a card somewhere. Regardless, neither does anything thanks to Tempest, and AB plays Entropy, restoring the Phalanges from 5 to (12), plus undoing 2 damage the Carapace had taken (11). The Phalanges undo Scholar’s last turn of healing (6), and then the Rockslide brings him back to (4) again, where he was when he first lost his Iron Form.
AZ paralyzes Atlantis again, and Ra takes one of the Entombs out. For once, Tempest doesn’t counteract the other Entomb, instead giving Scholar back his Flesh to Iron card. Scholar plays this, but first uses Keep Moving to fetch another copy from his deck, so for this one turn at least he’s invincible. He heals to a whopping 5 and draws Out of the Way.
Another Atlantis non-turn brings us back to Abby, who utterly fails at Entombing Scholar as usual, though for a different reason. Another Carapace is played, and in a rare stroke of luck, Abby discards the Pillars. The Phalanges phail at phingering Mr. Iron Phlesh, and Rockslide is equally ineffective. How does skipping YOUR whole turn for a change feel, Bhutie?
AZ continues actively “doing nothing” in Atlantis, and Ra wipes out the other Entomb. Tempest activates his usual incap ability, but picks a different damage type this time: Melee. This allows Scholar to partially de-Iron his Flesh, discarding Know When to Turn Loose and keeping just one of these protections. TR and Better Living bring him up to (8), and he draws Proverbs and Axioms, GUF, and Know When to Hold Fast. (The fact that not one of his former allies has “Play a card” as an incap ability makes him very sad upon seeing this card.)
The long-dreaded Brambles turn up now, discarding the Kraken; though unaffected by the Phalanges, Scholar can’t damage anything, so the two turns he just spent napping are now about all he can look forward to doing either.
Zero releases the Environment from its icy prison, instead forcing the Brambles to freeze themselves (8). With no Ongoings left to remove, Ra gets to give Scholar a power instead, though all he can do with it is heal by 1 (9). Tempest again renders the Phalanges impotent against Scholar, and he discards GUF, being currently unable to use it, in order to stay Iron-Fleshed. Now seems a good time When to Hold Fast, so Scholar Knows this, and draws Energy Form, EtW, BWTN, Offensive Transmutation, and DDA. (The game log now shows the phrase “GameController sets the action count of PlayCard to 0”, which I assume is related to KWtHF, though it’s certainly not the wording I’d have chosen for skipping your Power and Draw phases.)
Leaking Room is played; great time to stop icing up those cracks in the dome, AZ.
An Eruption is played, revealing two more copies of itself, Earth’s Sacrifice, and Entropy - a thankful lack of result, though AB gets to play another card as usual. This turns out to be a second Brambles, further dooming Scholar and making AZ despair of ever accomplishing anything with his single plink each round. Abby discards The Kraken and is done, her Limbs failing to affect Scholar other than to keep him restrained.
For whatever it accomplishes, AZ zaps the same Bramble again, leaving it at (7), and Ra unzaps the same Scholar again, finally getting him out of single digits (10). Tempest continues to counteract the Phalanges, despite them currently only dealing 1 damage.
Bring What You Need is what Scholar needs to discard for FtI; unable to play, he chooses not to power either, and draws KM plus PaA.
Chamber replaces Leaking Room; Scholar discards EtW.
Abby plays Phalanges, dumping MD. Though immune to the Fingers, Scholar does get bonked with a self-throwing pebble, which now has glowing runes all over it, enabling it to bring him back down to (9).
The Chamber makes Zero more effective than usual, and he’s able to bring the Bramble he’s been working on all the way down to (5). Ra gives Scholar similarly improved healing (11), and Tempest could do the same, but of course it’s better to keep rendering the Phalanges harmless. Scholar discards OT, then plays TR, which the Chamber improves enough that he rises to (14) while drawing Hold Fast and Liquid Form. He then heals to (16) with his power and draws GUF.
At this point, Scholar decides that the Chamber is mostly working in his favor, so he waits to discard at the turn’s end instead of its start. He might slightly reconsider this decision when HC is played, but only a little; AB is much bigger than Scholar, so a lot more Hallway Collapses on her, and the Chamber (which somehow survives Collapsing this way) enhances the damage of the falling masonry, causing her various Limbs to take a huge amount of damage. AB herself directly takes only 2 through her Carapaces (96), but both of these, two Brambles, two Phalanges and a Rockslide are all crushed for 4, leaving them respectively at (7), (7), (1), (5), (8), (8), and (6) - 30 total damage to the angry earth mother! A mere 2 damage to Scholar would be a small enough price to pay for that, but since Tempest has been protecting him from tree-fingers, he’s equally immune to the masonry chunks. Atlantis is definitely on his side this turn! Discarding a Solid to Liquid is certainly a small enough tithe for him to offer in thanks to whatever ancient powers protect this ruined site.
AB plays Rockslide, discarding Defenses; Scholar takes all of 1 damage each from the two Rockslides (14) and remains comfortable in his bondage.
AZ finally (over)kills the Bramble he’s been freezing this whole time, causing Abby to hit herself for 7 through the two Carapaces, with a +1 from the Chamber, leaving her at (88). Ra lets the Scholar heal to (16), and Tempest opts to heal him again, all the way up to (18). Discarding MFtE, Scholar plays BWYN so that he’ll have a better power to use on Ra’s turn from now on; trying it out now, he reveals Turn Loose, Keep Moving, and StL, putting the last on the bottom of his deck (which is currently two cards counting this one) and the rest into his hand. He then draws OT the normal way and is done.
The Chamber stays Phosphorescent, and a Leak turns up. I clearly didn’t math this round out; Scholar should really have gotten melee immunity again. Maybe I was just bored. Anyway, OT is basically a useless card in this match, since so little of Abby’s damage comes from her main body (unless in Advanced mode, which we aren’t). So he feeds it to the Chamber, and Atlantis is done.
The third Carapace comes out; Seaweed is discarded. Scholar gets reamed all the way down to (12) by the Phalanges and Rockslides; I’m really not sure why I left the Chamber out, given that I wasn’t even planning on using Better Living during Ra’s or Tempest’s turns. AZ freezes the remaining Bramble down to (3); maybe that was part of my reasoning, not that it makes any more sense really.
Even though I can now Bring What I Need, I don’t have enough of a deck to make it optimally effective, so the power Ra gives to Scholar is again used to heal him, with the PC bonus, bringing him to (14). Tempest now resumes Melee immunity. Scholar discards Proverbs, then draws the final Form in his deck, shuffles his 29-card trash (his hand is probably at 9 cards right now, since I think only 2 are in play), and gets EtW for his bonus draw from not playing or powering.
The Chamber stays, while the Leak goes; Atlantis now shuffles itself again, and Abby re-flips. A second PC comes out, forcing Scholar to discard not only Proverbs but also EtW. Scholar looks forward to the possibility of having Ra’s, Tempest’s, and his own turns give him +9 HP over the next round.
No such luck; Abby plays Disrupt the Field. Rockslide pops out, and then The Pillars of Freaking Hercules. Without the PC bonus and with Melee immunity on, no damage gets through to Scholar this round, but he does remain brambled.
The Pillars plays Entomb on AZ’s turn, and he then skips the rest of it to put a stop to this behavior. (Really, what the heck were C&A thinking with this freaking card?)
Ra grants Scholar a power, and this time he does Bring What You Need, rather than healing for a mere 1. Expect the Worst, The Actual Worst (aka Alchemical Redirection, a card which is currently blank), and Keep Moving are revealed; he opts to leave the useless card on the bottom of his deck for now. Tempest melee-proofs Scholar as usual.
The Scholar discards Turn Loose, then plays Hold Fast. He draws DDA, Take a Nap, Iron Flesh, and 2x Energy Form.
As I’d been hoping for some time, The Kraken shows up and obliterates the sole remaining Bramble; Abby discards a Leak and takes just 6 damage through her triple-thick Carapace, leaving her at (82).
AB successfully Entombs the Scholar, who only half-resists (12), and thereby destroys the card - but not before it also hits the Kraken (11). Abby reshuffles again, playing another Entomb; her attacks remain ineffective against the Iron-Fleshed and melee-immune Scholar, although the three Rockslides do affect the Kraken, leaving it at (5) mere moments after it appeared. Abby didn’t get a card when it was played, but she’ll get one from destroying it on her next turn unless something majorly changes. But something has majorly changed - for the first time since having to scramble to save his own life, Scholar is out of the brambles and can actually attack this turn.
AZ zaps one of the Carapaces which was damaged a while back, leaving it at (6); I’m not sure if I mathed this out to make sure it was the right choice, or if I just generally thought this was as good a thing to do as any. Apparently I ended up deciding it wasn’t as good of a plan though, so I rewound and hit the most damaged Rockslide instead, leaving it at (5) - aka as Kraken Chow. That was pretty definitely a better use of his turn.
Ra lets the Scholar Bring What He Needs again, revealing TR, Energy Form, and Turn Loose. He bottoms the Form and takes the other two into his hand. Then Tempest lets him do the whole thing again, in lieu of the usual melee immunity; this time, he gets GUF, Liquid Form, and Redirection, and this time he keeps the blank card as discard fodder, bottoming the surplus BWYN instead.
Disposing of his blank card, Scholar seizes his unbrambled moment; Keep Moving puts Mortal Energy into play, then another one fetches Liquid Form, a third fetches another StL, and finally he plays another MFtE. With all of that transformation done, a single use of Better Living not only shoots him up to (15) but also lets him shock the new Carapace down to (5). He draws Out of the Way.
Atlantis plays Defenses, and Abby is on side B so she doesn’t immediately respond; The Kraken demolishes the Carapace which was untouched at the start of Scholar’s last turn; its death makes Abby discard a Leak, then she takes 11 damage, minus 3 for the three layers of armor which are currently being reduced to 2. Left at (74) HP, Abby is tough enough to ignore the direct effect of MD, but her two Phalanges go down to (6) each, two Rockslides to (8) and one to (3), and Carapaces to (5) and (5).
Entomb hits The Scholar for 2 (13), drops MD to (11), and leaves the Kraken at (1) before expending itself. Naturally, with Scholar desperately wanting Abby not to play Brambles, she does exactly that. The Phalanges are able to touch Scholar inappropriately this turn, bringing him down to (12) from the first probing, and then the Rockslide fires, destroying the Kraken and triggering Abby to play Earth’s Sacrifice. Fortunately, for once, this doesn’t fully wipe the board; H is 4 in this game, and Scholar just so happens to have four Ongoings that were just rendered useless, so all of them go, leaving just Iron Form again. Atlantis discards Kraken, Seaweed, Hallway, and of course the Font. That first Rockslide then goes on to drop Defenses to (9) HP, the second Phalanges bring Scholar to (11), the two remaining Rockslides drop the Defenses to (5), and the Brambles tie Scholar back up.
AZ zaps the new Brambles (8), an act which feels no less futile now. Ra feeds cards to Scholar again, letting him “draw” Truth Seeker, Take A Nap, and Hold Fast, except not that first one. Tempest melee-proofs the Scholar again.
Scholar discards Turn Loose and plays Hold Fast. Deja vu. The Scholar draws KM, OT, BWYN, “GOotW”, and P&A.
The Kraken arrives again, and Defenses shoots the Phalanges down to (4) each, the Brambles and two Rockslides to (6), the Carapaces to (3) each, and a third Rockslide is massacred by the Kraken. Defenses is discarded from the Atlantis deck, and Abby takes 8 through the Carapaces, falling to (66) HP. The Scholar is climbing that mountain, despite being unable to move!
Abby completely wastes her turn on Allies, which Ra will presently remove; with the Scholar being a bit low on HP, the Phalanges actually go after the Kraken this time, dropping it to (12) and then picking it again to leave it at (9). The Rockslides then drop it to (7) while taking the Defenses down to (3), then (1) while the Kraken falls to (5).
Scholar is Brambled again, but Atlantis is doing all the fighting anyway, so AZ helps it out by zapping a Carapace down to (2). Tempest melee-proofs Scholar again.
Scholar discards OT and plays TR (13), drawing AR and OT. He uses BWYN, putting GUF and Truth Seeker to hand and Iron Flesh under the deck. Draws another TS.
Hallway Collapse occurs; both Carapaces are destroyed, discarding TS and then shuffling Atlantis to discard a Leak; AB takes 19 Energy damage from these deaths, then another 3 directly from the Collapse, before a Phalanges dies and deals her 12 more, leaving her at (32). The other two Phalanges are both left at (1), the Brambles and two Rockslides at (3) each, the Kraken at (2), and Defenses is killed, but Abby is back on her first side and doesn’t react. That was quite a Collapse! And Scholar was immune of course.
Not quite done, AB plays Eruption. Brambles and Phalanges come into play, and HC and Kraken are discarded, along with Disrupt and Entomb. Another PE is played by the first, but reveals only one-shots, including the third PE, both Entropies, and Earth’s Sacrifice. Disrupt is played, destroys The Kraken, and plays Entomb and Defenses, which plays Brambles, discarding the gosh-darn Pillars. The Phalanges attack the Defenses (12), then the two Rockslides reduce them to (8).
AZ makes the Brambles knock itself down to (2), and Ra bumps the Scholar up to (14), but Tempest does something different, moving Expect the Worst from The Scholar’s trash to hand. Scholar gives up FOI in favor of playing this, heals to (15), and draws FOI again.
A Chamber is played; I expected the Defenses to destroy the Bramble that AZ zapped, but it also kills both Rockslides, and the Chamber ups Abby’s self-damage as well, so she takes 11 twice and then 10, exactly equalling her current 32 HP. Still Brambled into submission while Atlantis itself got rid of the intruder, Scholar nods sagely, gathers up the KO’ed remnants of his teammates, and heads back to his houseboat again.