Good evening. Got him right before he'd have killed me.
Justin Elby posted a Mint victory on the Steam forums, screenshot time stamped at 45 minutes after the one-shot was made available. He tried to post it here but was delayed by account verification. We believe that he was first, and think it's only fair that he wins the prize. We're still making certain though.
Well done ordalca! Beating this one-shot is a huge accomplishment, I have never done so myself despite probably 20 or more tries.
Ah, well. They definitely earned it with the mint.
We're making it official - Justin Eby is the winner of the contest! Anyone who manages to beat this one-shot at all also deserves congratulations. It's crazy hard!
Yep it's a tough challenge even with your choice of three heroes.
Finally managed it. (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=729783262) So far as I can tell, the secret is some combination of 'get really lucky with prison breaks and the environment' and 'Dark Watch Mister Fixer with dual crowbars is wow'. That is, his first two plays were prison break, the environment got out both helpful sidekicks, and Fixer did 16 damage a turn for the victory turns.
That was *tough*, even with that much luck. Massive congratulations to Justin Elby. I have no idea how anyone could "just do it."
Inspired by the one-shot and Peter’s idea, I decided that it sounded like fun to try to run through each villain (and villain variant) currently available in the video game. Just finished it up yesterday. I feel like I learned a lot about both Mr. Fixer and Nightmist through this project… not as much for Expatriette.
I tried to spread out the environments as evenly as I could - I started out by making sure to do one base set environment with each of the base set villains, then did a couple of thematic matchups (Plague Rat in Pike Industrial, Gloomweaver and The Dreamer each in Realm of Discord, Ennead in Tomb of Anubis), then tried to even things out by reusing environments or going out of my way to use mini-expansion environments (Kaargra Warfang in Megalopolis, Infinitor and Heroic Infinitor each in Omnitron-IV, Iron Legacy in Silver Gulch). I’m sure some of the matches would have been much harder had I used different environments for each villain, but I didn’t go out of my way to make it easy either.
Here are some stats and thoughts from my set of 28 Dark Watch experiences.
Most Resets: The Chairman in Rook City (30+)
Second-Most: Iron Legacy in Silver Gulch (8)
Third-Most: Ambuscade in Rook City (7)
Obviously the Chairman in Rook City was an awful matchup. Iron Legacy is Iron Legacy, but a friendly set of Ongoings and the presence of Tactical Shotgun, Bloody Knuckles, and Explosives Barrel was enough to outpace him. I was surprised at how bad the Ambuscade in Rook City matchup was, though. So many environment cards play villain cards, and so many of Ambuscade’s cards play extra cards, that he was often getting 4-5 card plays per round. Ambuscade is weak, but if he’s consistently getting that many card plays, he can bury this crew easily. I’d never been so happy to finish off Ambuscade as when I redirected his own damage back to himself, causing his own reactive plating to kill him.
Number of Incapacitations in Wins:
Expatriette 10, Mr. Fixer 8, Nightmist 0
Number of matches where Nightmist was the only survivor: 5 (Progeny, Baron Blade, Plague Rat, Akash’Bhuta, Skinwalker Gloomweaver)
Final Expatriette Evaluation:
Most Helpful Cards: RPG Launcher, Tactical Shotgun, Assault Rifle, Reload
Least Helpful Card: Unload
Expat had serious, consistent survivability problems. As the only member of the crew with no damage reduction or healing, she was incapped as often than not, even in wins. Flak Jacket was occasionally helpful, but as often as not, it got destroyed by villain / environment Equipment destruction, or was a target for Mr. Fixer’s Bitter Strike.
For damage and overall effectiveness, Expatriette was the least consistent of the three characters. If she started with a Shotgun, RPG Launcher, Quick Draw, Assault Rifle, or (in some circumstances) Hairtrigger Reflexes, she could get some things done. If she started with a bunch of Speed Loading and Ammo with no guns to put it in, she could barely even feed Fixer. Battles rarely felt like they turned on what Expat could or couldn’t do, though Hairtrigger Reflexes was essential against the Chairman.
RPG Launcher and Assault Rifle were great cards for piling up extra damage by bouncing it off Mr. Fixer. Reload was frequently good. If nothing else, ammo cards were good as destruction fodder for Fixer if I didn’t want to break his setup. All of the ammo cards came in handy at one point or another. Assault Rifle and Liquid Nitrogen Rounds were particularly great (in combination with Driving Mantis) for reducing certain targets’ damage by 2 each round!
This team setup makes Unload almost unplayable. I only had time enough to make it worthwhile once: vs. Deadline in Enclave of the Endlings, which had the requisite low ongoing/equipment destruction from the environment as well as Fixer either skipping his power phase or only destroying his own stuff. More often than not, Expat either didn’t survive long enough for Unload to be useful, or Fixer was destroying Expat’s stuff to save his own. But man, that one time, she did 35 damage combined in her last two turns…
Final Mr. Fixer Evaluation:
Most Helpful Cards: Driving Mantis, Pipe Wrench, Bloody Knuckles
Least Helpful Card: Riveting Crane
With the scale of damage to 3 heroes, there were a couple of fights where Mr. Fixer was nearly untouchable. Spite, Spite: Agent of Gloom, Kismet, and Gloomweaver each were powerless to stop him once he got Driving Mantis and Pipe Wrench out. AOG Spite was particularly weak - after he flipped and did a pile of damage on that first turn, we cleaned out the Safe House and he didn’t touch Mr. Fixer for the rest of the game.
Even by themselves, Driving Mantis and Pipe Wrench were amazing. Driving Mantis gave Miss Information, The Operative, Cosmic Omnitron, Ambuscade, and Akash’Bhuta’s limbs severe cases of the old schoolyard disease “Stop Hitting Yourself!”. Driving Mantis also ruled the day in several environments. Omnitron-IV, Dok’Thorath Capital, Tomb of Anubis, and even Rook City turned annoying AOE damage into redirect gold.
Meanwhile, Pipe Wrench completely soaked Matriarch’s counter damage, allowing me to roast birds with impunity. Bloody Knuckles was consistently great, though it did cost me one match when Slamara from Enclave of the Endlings played it off-turn.
Overdrive was interesting as a round 1 play (for example, it helped me get rid of Deadline’s glaive right away), but otherwise I saved it as discard fodder or if I desperately needed the extra damage (finishing off the villain, double Jack Handle to wipe the board, etc). It wasn’t consistently useful, but it was great in a pinch.
Honorable mention to Jack Handle for completely breaking the Kaargra Warfang fight (JH + The Seeker + The Mindbreaker = we win the Favor battle 28-6), but overall, Jack Handle wasn’t as essential as I thought it would be.
I don’t think I ever bothered with Riveting Crane. The only villain who really gave me damage reduction issues was Apostate, and I found Alternating Tiger Claw more useful in that situation because I had Jack Handle out. Riveting Crane would have made the Infinitor battle a little faster, I guess, but then I would have been taking more damage…
Final Nightmist Evaluation:
Most Helpful Cards: Amulet of the Elder Gods, Mist Form, Mistbound, Oblivion
Least Helpful Card: Master of Magic
The total lack of deck manipulation in Expat and Fixer’s deck meant that I often had to lean on Nightmist to get me through dicey situations. Mistbound explicitly won me at least three of these matches by stopping Omnitron’s double-play side, Grand Warlord Voss, and Heroic Infinitor dead in their tracks. Astral Premonition saved me from more resets against La Capitan by helping me bury Raiding Party and All Together Now! after I got her ship in the trash, and also helped me know when to get victims under the Safe House against Spite.
Nightmist did the BIG hits via redirection. Between my Omnitron and Cosmitron wins, there were three times where she redirected the full 15 from Electro-Pulse Explosive back to itself to save us having to so much as scratch it. Wagner Mars Base’s Oxygen Leak and Insula Primalis’s Volcanic Eruption also helped me land some huge hits on Progeny and Citizen Dawn. La Capitan’s L’Epeiste also developed a severe case of Traitoritis in our win, regularly delivering 6-8 damage per round to his boss. Thanks for being the first guy to attack, L’Epeiste, you’re a peach.
Oblivion was at its best when I could set it up as a 2/4 or 3/4, dependent on what Expat and Fixer had in play. With a 2/4, all I needed was Driving Mantis out to make it worthwhile. With a 3/4, I could potentially take 0 damage (Flak Jacket, Driving Mantis + Pipe Wrench, Amulet of the Elder Gods) and redirect 6 more damage to the enemy. I only got that setup going twice, but it absolutely wrecked the villains when I did. One of my last moves in the challenge was a 1/4 Oblivion that did 16 damage to Mad Bomber Blade’s flip side. (A nearly dead Explosives Barrel was out, so: 2 to Blade from the first card, 2 redirected from Fixer, 2 redirected from Nightmist, 6 from the exploding barrel, and 4 from the second card.)
Master of Magic basically never came in handy except as destruction fodder for Fixer. I think I had MOM out and actually healed HP from it once over the course of these matches. Even Tome of Elder Magic - a card I almost never use in normal matches - came in handy a couple times by grabbing more cards to fuel all of Nightmist’s discard abilities.
Good stuff all around. I feel like I’m a better player (at least, with Mr. Fixer and Nightmist…) because I took on this challenge. I look forward to more villains so I can take this crew for a spin again…
The main piece with DW Expat I notice is that at least with bad starting hands is the base power is at least helpful. With DW Nightmist I often found Master of Magic to be more helpful since losing card draw makes Starshield Necklace less useful for it as healing. Amulet of the Elder Gods I've found has mixed results with this version if I don't get Enlightments or Call Forth.
You list your games in the 1000 games of SotM thread and add results to here https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeOjRTJHDrEuJ7ifOuZcDWYnC9ZEZiaGa-tcCDwAPIgYRPzPQ/viewform as well
bolnerap: Really cool writeup. Thanks!
DW Expat + Original Fixer = Amazing.
DW Expat + DW Fixer = Only one can flourish.
DW Expat is great for unloads, when you aren't sacrificing cards to Fixer. Fixer is also fantastic for Expat when using Overdrive from Salvage Yard doesn't mean you need two cards to destroy.
Speed Loading + Salvage Yard is one of the best team-ups in the game. Free Ammo plays and as soon as you run out Fixer puts them all back in your hand.
Salvage Yard was great for DW Nightmist as well - Mists of Time round 1, Salvage Yard round 2. One of the Steam folks mentioned that combo a while back and I took every chance I had to use it. Giving Nightmist that many extra cards early in the game is huge.
Never thought about Speed Loading and Salvage Yard together... I'll have to try that out with regular Fixer sometime. I rarely had the chance to actually use Speed Loading with this crew except in the Deadline matchup I mentioned.