Has anyone started a hints/tips guide for beating Infinitor? I only play the video game, so I've only been able to play him as of this week. I played twice and won twice, but it wasn't pretty either time:
The first was an awful two-hour slog in which all of my heroes except Nightmist were incapped, and she turtled under Mistform for 20+ rounds until the environment finally killed him.
The second was a near thing--all of my heroes were at/near single digits when I finally got things in hand. I was really only able to win that one with some serious deck control: Dark Visionary keeping all of the "bring out every *&%^$#! Manifestation in your hand" cards away, Tempest with a couple of timely Into the Stratospheres to put the least pesky Manifestations on top, and Nightmist with some lucky draws and a couple of Mistbounds in a row keeping him from drawing cards.
Admittedly, I also had some bad luck in those games -- both times, he pulled multiple Crushing Cages on his first play and crippled my team -- but his ability to just pump out manifestations, and the universal -1 DR, are killers. In the first game, I think he was able to get out 8 manifestations in a single turn. Other than controlling his deck, any other thoughts on beating him? Maybe a team full of damage dealers (Ra, Haka, Tempest, Wraith) to kill all of the buggers as soon as he brings them out, with Legacy on board to buff everyone and (hopefully) soak up some damage?
The first time I beat him, I used the Prime Wardens as a team with Haka on cleanup, and Savage Mana and an early Rampage made him a cakewalk.
Buffing and/or irreducible damage help immensely. Mr. Fixer, Jackhandle and Riveting Crane, for instance, can get rid of his DR.
Captain Cosmic is also great, if you get Cosmic Crest out and with the rate at which CC can get constructs out, it's just about guaranteed. Infinitor does Energy damage, as does Twisted MIscreation, which both target the hero with the highest HP.
My recommendation is always to take out Ocular Swarms first when they come up. If you have any ability to manipulate the villain deck always put a Manifestation on top as his one-shots will always result in getting more manifestations out and likely damage the heroes. If he has flipped I would try to leave one Manifestation out so that Infinitor can blow it up and remains on that side. I suggest that because when flipped neither Infinitor nor his manifestations have DR which allows you to burn him better.
Yeah, getting rid of Ocular Swarms is pretty paramount. Even if there are multiples on the board, thinning their numbers will make the fight a little smoother.
And like I always have to tell myself with Citizen Dawn: Don't forget to hit the villain! It's so easy to get caught up with clearing the board that you waste all your resources on it while Infinitor sits at high HP. If you can hit two things in a turn, make sure Infinitor's one of them!
Urgh, we had a game against Infinitor earlier today which just got utterly ridiculous on his second turn (on his first he put a Crushing Cage on someone) - he'd flipped and then played Insanity which led to a massive chain of most of his Manifestations coming out, then some more one-shots which ended up with the rest of his Manifestations coming out, meanwhile the one-shots where he deals one point of damage to everything ended up killing some of his earlier Manifestations, which went to the trash, only to shuffle back into the deck and come into play when that one-shot reached the "play the top card of the villain deck" part. We ended up with a lengthy queue of his cards waiting to be played/resolved as one-shots kept coming out and waiting to take their turn while he plinked everyone, taking out Manifestations which included Ocular Swarms which of course added some more to the queue. And this was on his Play phase so eventually all the Manifestations in play would have got their turn to hit us and we were mostly dead by that point anyway with exploded heads from trying to resolve all the cards, and we just decided we'd lost and immediately played a rematch with the same team (and environment). We lost again, but at least the game went on a bit longer that time :P.
UPDATE: Tried a new crew of heroes against him: Legacy, TL Tach, Ra, Haka, Wraith. I was hoping for a Savage Mana/Rampage combo to take out the Manifestations, but in the end, didn't need it--beat him pretty handily 3X in a row. Wraith quickly got out Eyepiece, Utility Belt, Stun Bolt and various throwing weapons, and was able to keep the worst cards from playing, as well as do damage reduction and crippling damage. TL Tach kept everyone in an abundance of cards, and played the occasional board-clearing one-shot or damage-negating Hypersonic Assault. Legacy buffed everyone's damage and occasionally froze Infinitor's deck, while Haka and Ra smashed and burned, respectively. Legacy is especially helpful -- being able to overcome the -1 DR from the get go really helps clear the board of manifestations, and once you add an Inspiring Presence and an Imbued Fire (which you have a pretty good chance of getting, thanks to TL Tach's insane card draw powers), and everyone on the team is doing +3 damage on every hit, Infnitor doesn't have a chance. Infinitor was dead before the fourth environment turn in every game.
Powerhound/TakeWalker -- good tips. Killing the Ocular Swarms early *is* key -- even before the Crushing Cages, which seem like an awful thing. Most of the time I put the cages on Ra, and just let him do damage for the 1-2 turns it took to get the cages off. If I had killed the Cages first, the Ocular Swarms would have simply replaced them with something else obnoxious. Killing the Ocular Swarms really helped reduce the manifestation army to manageable levels. And yes, many times I had a hero who could whack a manifestation for 4+ points of damage at once -- I made a conscious effort to transfer those high-damage hits to Infinitor, rather than "waste" the extra damage on killing the manifestation. Since he really doesn't have healing, or damage reduction/immunity beyond his -1 base power, he goes down pretty quickly.
The only protection Infintor ever has is on his unflipped side - meaning he can always be a target. My main strategy is to focus ALL damage on him, ignoring most manifestations. I just take care of the Cages, as they slow the damage race too much, but otherwise manifestations are secondary targets.
If you go all out on him, chances are you will destroy him before all your heroes fall. Try considering the Manifestations as distractions, and ignore them as much as you can. It's a damage race.
Think Advanced Baron Blade : don't lose time (and discard space) on anything but your main villain ! (Or, to an extend, villains like the Matriarch and La Capitan )
The Scholar can be quite powerful against him (Grace under Fire !).
Yeah, there are three main strategies against Infinitor, I've found. 1) Ignore the manifestations as much as possible and just go for the throat. 2) let him flip, then try and keep him with exactly 1 manifestation in play at all times. Fortunately, you can be guarenteed that he will play a manifestation every turn, to match the one that he destroys. 3) Use Telekinetic Coccoon or Mist Form (or multiple Flesh to Irons) and turtle until he kills himself. Infinitor can't deal with ongoings at all and he deals himself damage, so this works great (albiet slowly) unless the environment blows up your shield, at which point you're facing every manifestation ever, and you can't play cards due to multiple Crushing Cages.
I'd posit a fourth, which I've now used successfully a couple of times: Have a team with Legacy and 2-3 good damage dealers (Ra, Haka, CR, Wraith), that can do enough damage to consistently kill 2-4 manifestations every round. Deal with any Ocular Swarms/Crushing Cages, then concentrate on pounding Infinitor. If you have enough damage on your team to kill 2-4 manifestations every round, you have plenty enough to whack Infinitor with. Since he doesn't have much in the way of damage avoidance (other than his native -1 DR) or healing himself, you'll knock him down to 0 pretty quickly.