Recently had a game against this, and whew. Interesting match. I wanted to clarify how some things work.
Just for clarity, it says that traps start face up and whenever a trap would be discarded, shuffle it back in to the deck instead, and play the top card of the villain deck.
Most of it stemmed from Armed and Ready. We hit two traps that were on top of each other. We did the damage and went to shuffle the first one back in to the deck, would we pause there, and resolve the second one fully, then go back and finish resolving the first one, or does the act of shuffling the deck take precedence? I ask because the card seems to never leave the top of the deck, simply do its damage and then you start shuffling the deck.
Second question was, we ended up with nearly all of Amubscade's deck recycling in the trash, due to Knyfe. If we had done this, I assume once his deck got down to just the 4 bombs, they would go off infinitely and kill us all. Is this correct? I know cards normally stay in play until they finish resolving, but the challenge mode states shuffle the bomb back in before it states play another card....
This mode was brutal, regardless. We ended Ambuscade's first turn with the entire team at around 12 hp.
I don't like Challenge mode Ambuscade. I understand he has ways of getting his cards back into his deck, but what if they were discarded and he DOES get to the point where his deck becomes a timebomb of infinite trap plays? It either kills you in a succession of explosions and death, or forces an infinite state, as Migrant pointed out. It's a good thing that's sort of hard to pull off, either way.
The damage increase isn't what I have a problem with, it's the forced state of limited plays. Almost like the way Spite is designed to eventually become a robot who does the same thing each turn.
As far as him having a clock and ramping up in practice, it should happen rarely. The only reason we got close is Knyfe played two uppercuts in a turn and both hit 'reshuffle' cards. It was much more normal for him to reshuffle his deck a ton, and pretty rare for it to get even half empty.
Phantaskippy: I agree that it likely never left the deck, but was concerned it may similar to revealed cards and played cards, which go into their own limbo zone briefly. It matters because it would mean extra plays and damage, and he gets so very many plays in challenge mode anyway. Armed and Dangerous is already a terrifying card in Challenge, and if it turned out that back to back bombs trigger, it may become the most terrifying card in this game.
That was an idea we had too. Even just the constant reshuffling in of face up traps is savage, but with an extra play each? Woof. I may suggest this to my friend next time and we will give it a try.
We also tried Challange mode La Capitan. That.. uh.... didn't go great either.
Well, while it might be broken (to those who don't like it) it is a Challenge mode. I consider it a timer for him. If you get to the point where he only has Traps in his deck then, well. Timer up. He's had the oppertunity to lure the heroes into the trap hallway of doom and destruction and dropped a mountain on either exit.
It isn’t really a timer, he has so much deck shuffling only traps shouldn’t really occur unless weirdness happens.
My only real issue with the “play a card” part of the bombs isn’t the power level, ridiculous as it is, as much as how convoluted things get. Which is fine once in a while, but I like the idea of dropping it to give Amby some more teeth, while also not breaking my mind.
Don't get me wrong, it can be done without much problem. But it DOES lead to an infinite loop, which is different from Blade's auto-win. It's just...meh.
I had a challenge mode Ambuscade match where we were actually saved when the third card played by traps while we waited for Armed and Dangerous to find a device was run and gun, which shuffled 5 devices into the deck and we lived. End of Days was an easy choice at that point.
It does get convoluted, multiple Armed and Dangerous cards in play gets wierd.
It's only finite when the heroes receive damage until they die. If Ground Pound, Hypersonic Assault, Offensive Transmutation, etc. prevent damage, then you're stuck. Note this is only possible if for some reason his "shuffle" cards get ditched (2 Run and Guns, and 2 Quick Stim-patches). That's why I acknowledge that it is difficult become stuck, but the possibility exists.
All you need is all devices out of the deck and to hit Armed and Dangerous, and reveal the shuffle cards without any getting played by finding traps. All the revealed cards will stay out of the deck until the chain resolves, which it won't.
Yeah, all you need is him having 10 specific cards not in his deck, playing 1 of 2 cards remaining in his 15 card deck, and for that card to reveal 4 more very specific cards before finding a trap.