Guise-Self Contained Infinite

Hi there. So I was a late arrival on the SotM scene. Not by choice mind you. I suffered from a chronic case of real-life-friends-don't-want-to-play and although I was aware of the game I knew there was no point in me getting it. That's why the Video game was such a great release for me but this also meant that most of the combos I was "discovering" were known for years already. However there has always been one that no matter where I looked I never found any threads or posts talking about it. Specifically it was something I never thought would exsist in Sentinels, a Self Contained infinite combo for a hero, specifically Guise.

A self contained infinite? Surely no. However I've personally done it in the SotM video game several times and posted it on other forums to see what people think. So far no one has ever been able to point to something in it that does not work... so I figured I'd bring it to the final frontier and see what you guys think. So here's how to do the combo.

Basically the goal of the combo is to generate a string of never ending plays, draws, healing and damage with Guise however it usually requires a very specific set-up, namely he needs nearly every card in his deck and discard to be drawn into his hand to do it. So once he's drawn every card how does it work? First you need to have Selling Out in play. Then at then end of the environment turn when prompted to discard you discard a Oneshot (NOT Best Card Ever, I generally use Gimmicky Character as that card is pretty useless for the combo). After that each and every time you are about to take an action follow the following rules (ie each time you need to make a decision start from rule 1 going down til you find a rule whose "if clause" is met and then loop back to the top for the next decision):

1. If you are discarding for Selling Out; Always discard a useless One Shot,

2. If you need to play a card AND you have Best Card Ever in hand AND you have at least 2 cards in your deck/discard; play Best Card Ever and raise the roof (the roof is gonna be raised reeeeeeeeeeeeeally high).

3. If you need to play a card AND Selling Out has 0 more plays remaining (after the current play); play Retcon, destroy Selling Out, choose to play a card, play your second Selling Out

4. If you need to play a card AND you have at least 2 cards in your deck/discard; play Where Did I Leave That (If you reach this rule Where Did I Leave That should draw at least 1 copy of Best Card Ever).

5. Otherwise: play pretty much anything you want (this will often come after playing Best Card Ever so you can play any card though avoid playing cards like Gimmicky Character which will add more than 1 card to your discard pile as that could potentiall drop the combo).


If followed you will never run out of Plays as the Retcon -> Selling Out will reset your play counter each time. Further you will end up cycling Best Card Ever a lot letting you redraw your cards often and you will draw more cards than you are playing/discarding and even better every play of Best Card Ever will allow you to deal damage. On top of that you will also end up with “free” plays occasionally which you can use to play any card you want (ie step 5 above) which allows you to play supplemental cards like Guise the Barbarian or Xtrrreeeeeeeeeeeem to overcome damage reduction/redirection. Lastly, if up against an “immune to melee” enemy, you can also play Say Cheese an infinite number of times (again whenever you reach step 5) to finish them off that way. Basically unless the villain has some sort of complete immunity to Melee and Cold damage or some sort of continuous reaction ability (ie when a hero draws/ plays/deals damage something happens) once the combo starts the Heroes win the game.

Like I said, just on face it seems like might be possible to "drop" the combo if you are unlucky with where cards end up during a reshuffle but in extreme situations (ie dealing 200 damage all at once) the combo never dropped and it never has dropped once in all the times I've used it leading me to believe it truly is infinite.

 

So there it is. Now I know that having every card in hand is kinda a steep requirement and your average player will win long before that. In fact there's an offshoot of this combo involving a certian team in which Guise can use a modified version of this combo on turn 1 garanteed (unless the villian specifically disrupts play/power/damage) to win a majority of games before the villain even gets 2 turns but I'll share that later. Regardless, what do you think? does anyone see a flaw?

As I've said elsewhere I don't see a flaw.  However, as you state the requirement of having your whole deck in hand is pretty steep.  

This looks very familiar, but I can't find anything similar on the forums.  

Welcome to the forums!

This has been asked about in various video game threads about shenanigans, but never fully fleshed out.

But seriously, Guise is one of the most capable heroes at drawing cards.

Well it's been over a week and so far no one has pointed out any flaws with it so for now I will assume it works. Now though I'm going to post the follow up "Ultimate Combo" involving what I personally believe to be (part of) the current best team in the game.

The team is F5 Wraith, Completionis Guise along with any character that can give a play to Guise with their base power (Omnitron, Rogue Knife, Legacy+Expat ect) and then throw in Characters like Visionary or Sentinels who can provide some environment control. What makes this team so strong is that, barring villian/environment interferance, this team can perform Guise's infinite on Turn 1 guaranteed. The trick involves using Clandestine Funding (Draw a card. Until the end of your next turn, whenever you Draw a card, you may Discard a card. If you do, another Player Draws a card.) with Wraith and then copying it with Completionist Guise. This allows Guise and Wraith to endlessly pass any draw Guise and Wraith get back and forth between one another. Although they do not net cards, the card discarded does not need to be the card drawn which basically allows them to set their entire hand to whatever they want (as long as the cards are not currently in play) any time they draw a card.

The next part of the combo is to get Guise to play Selling Out. This can be accomplished by a hero like Omnitron alone if you are patient enough. Simply set up Guise's deck such that you know the top card is Selling Out/Best Card Ever/Gimicky Chracter (which you can do with the Guise-Wraith draw shenenagans if you are patient enough, if not patient you can use Grandpa Legacy+Expatriot instead) and link it into Selling Out.

When Selling Out triggers you can now perfom Guises's infinite by playing a copy of Best Card Ever before every play of of Selling Out and playing Where Did I Leave That... at least once per cycle which balances out your Cards Drawn and your Cards Discarded per cycle. So there you have it. An infinite damage combo, turn 1 guaranteed regardless of what cards are drawn by the heroes.

Now two things can mess up the combo, the Villain and the environment. The environment is the really dangerous one because if you try to do the combo and it gets unexpectedly messed up by the environment (like a Hostage Situation) you can lose your chance completly. This is because Completionist Guise removes the Clandestine funding ability from the game so you end up losing your chance. To protect against that you must bring along Dark Visionary and place her before Guise and Wraith so you'll know ahead of time if it's safe to combo on this turn.

The Villain might be annoying by doing things like preventing power usage or playing a card every time a hero draws a card but you get to see this ahead of time and can delay the combo til a later turn if something messes with it. The likelihood that a villain will be able to maintain this defense forever is pretty low (though admittedly not impossible). It's also worth noting that even Villians like Chairman or Ambacade who have invulnerability phases won't catch a break. Even if Guise cannot do his infinite to kill them he can do his infinite to both Heal and Draw his whole deck round 1 (Same as before but play 2 Where Did I Leave That... each cycle) which of course means that he can then do his infinite on every other round of the game as well and just wait for the Villain to come out of his shell.

When facing the Villain team things can get really really messy since there are far more chances for your combo to be messed up once you do it and you might permenantly lose your chance (Though using I Can Do That To will keep the correct Wraith around). As of now I don't have a super reliable way to insulate you against the Villian team although doing the Legacy+Expat set-up and planning to do it when sheilded by Heroic Takedown with Legacy in the last Hero spot would probably be safest.

Regardless, this is what I currently consider the strongest team in the game if Strength is measured is shear win% and reliability (rather than say how quick you can win). Just wanted to share it because... well I love combos.

I would buy another Wraith deck and play F5 Wraith and RC Wraith. Maybe Parse w Updated Intel?

What is the GI Legacy, Expatriette combo? How does that help Guise get set up?

Oh sorry I should have been clearer. Guise needs to be able to play a card. By having Legacy use Gung-Ho on Collector Guise and then having him "collect" Expatriot, Guise can play a card. Of course all this was based only on the varients I knew about and I've recently learned about XTREME Prime Wardens: Argent Adept amd how he can just give Guise the card play so he would probably be the best choice for the team.

If you spend this much time getting an infinite, why not just do a regular combo he has, He has so much damage potential without an infinite. I am looking though the forums to see if anyone caught this.

 

Also welcome and can't wait to play with ya.

It was posted over on Steam in January, in a conversation featuring someone whose name and avatar trigger what the French call "a strange already seen sensation." There was also a mysterious stranger in the other half of the conversation whose identity may never truly be known, but it is said that due to a character flaw he is able to walk in where angels fear to tread.  

http://steamcommunity.com/app/337150/discussions/0/142261027581250580/#c142261352656057859

http://steamcommunity.com/app/337150/discussions/0/142261027581250580/#c142261352658061655

http://steamcommunity.com/app/337150/discussions/0/142261027581250580/#c142261352658477614

Post 38, 39 have followups refining other team members to improve Guise's damage so you need fewer loops for a kill but aren't critical to either the infinite or the T1 nature thereof.  

The answer to "why do the infinite instead of a regular combo" is probably one of "because I can," "because I want to beat Ultimate Cosmic Omnitron and that dude is a jerk," "because it reveals Guise's true awesomesauceness," "because I like fiddling around with edge cases as much as I like winning," or "because it's all the way at one end of the bell curve describing whether character ratings have a meaning independent of team composition," depending on your particular needs in the moment.