What would Scholar and Miss Information be rated complexity/difficulty wise? Not having played either, just looking at thier cards I've got Scholar at a 2 and Miss Information at a 3. I would like to know mainly for sorting purposes, but we've been playing through the villains the first time based on their difficulty rating.
This topic discussed villain difficulty: https://greaterthangames.com/forum/topic/difficulty-of-shattered-timelines-villains-3019. Miss Information is a 3. Haven't seen Scholar complexity discussed anywhere.
Yeah, I'd call him a 2.
2 to play; 3 to master. Or possibly 4. He has TRICKS! Hoo boy, I like The Scholar.
Scholar is like a Zen koan. If you think you get it that probably means you don't. Only when you understand that you don't understand will you attain enlightenment.
Scholar is interesting... he is incredibly simple... you could play him by playing a random card each turn.
But man, once you know what is in his deck, the combos and all that... his potential shoots way up. For sure one of my favorite recent heroes... you can mix a nice relaxed slow pace with an occasional bit cool moment.
As for Mrs. Information I found her to be a very luck driven Villain, either brutal or very simple. That said she WRECKS ongoings and equipment, so characters who rely on one shots are highly suggested. I used the Scholar against her and had a hard time keeping an elemental card in front of me, but since she got very few diversions, that was a non issue.
Ooooh Boy. I love the Scholar. I think he's my new favorite hero (after Absolute Zero). I think the best card to watch out for is Keep Moving. once you play that, then you can start stacking elements, and if you have a large hand, then you can do crazy things! Use water and energy to deal massive damage to opponents! Turn yourself into super-iron and laugh as enemy attacks just bounce off. Of course, he's only really useful most of the time if he's taking damage, but you have cards for that, and with his healing, he's usually the one with the highest HP, so it's easy to do. I think I might want to see him with Legacy, who can really increase his damage potental, but also might steal his thunder, too... He was a little hard to start, though. Just remember that his elementals are not limitied! They are limitless!
Also, you should play Hotel California when you play him. Or perhaps Jimmy Buffet. I'm thinking he looks like he likes those kinds of things.
The Scholar Abides!
I love the scholar as well. I've been playing him in almost all the games I've played of ST lately and yeah he's not all that hard to play, but getting use to all the strange combos ad tricks he has is a little bit of a challenge.
Also Zalrus, the Scholar is obviously the Dude from the Big Lebowski. All you have to do is replace the Philosophers stone with a bowling ball and there you have it.
Speaking of the scholar's trickiness, what's the purpose of Expect the Worst (reduces all damage taken to 0 for one turn, then heals 2)? It seems a bit like a poor man's Flesh to Iron to me. I guess it allows you to focus on the other elemental shapes or catch a huge blast you can see coming, but it's a card I end up discarding for elemental fuel often, which makes me think I am missing something :P actually, the same goes for Know when to Turn Loose, where I often only keep just 1 in case I need burst damage urgently.
Looking at these right now makes me wonder if a no sustained elemental cards scholar is feasible, where you focus on card draw and one-shots and use elemental shapes more as complicated oneshots in combo's with Keep Moving than as ongoings.
During playtesting that's how I played him at first, but that was when flesh to iron was -2 damage for 2 discard upkeep, so without someone like TL Tachyon pumping cards in your hand there was no way to keep up flesh to iron.
I suppose with the Scaholar, you sort of need to take damage sometimes, especially if you want to deal damage via Mortal Form to Energy. Because it says that when he heals, he deals damage equal to how many hp he just healed. But if he's at full health, you regain 0hp if a heal comes your way and therefore deal no damage.
The Scholar plus Freedom Six Tachyon is very cool…her base power keeps him drawing cards while he enters elemental forms. Add Omnitron-X into the mix and you can basically skip your go all the time (draw twice) to keep the hand going, playing the occasional one-shot or whatever if an interesting opportunity comes up, meanwhile dealing damage on Omnitron-X's go when his healing beam thingy goes off (even better if he has both copies out) at the start of his turn :D. I did that myself once - I was the Scholar and my partner was Omnitron-X (can't remember who the other character was). Spent my time building up a hand and hitting stuff on Omnitron-X's go, then I think I finished the fight with that "discard your hand and hit something for that much damage" card (Know When to Turn Loose? Or is it Grace Under Fire?) and whacked on a final hit of about ten damage or something.
One benefit of that "all damage is reduced to zero" card could be if something's gonna be hitting you repeatedly…say the Matriarch has a zillion birds out and both cohorts (so her damage is +2, meaning three damage per Fowl destroyed) and you know that all those birds are gonna be dying in a minute (say you're in Atlantis and the Mystical Defenses are out). I can't remember whether Lilian hits the hero with the highest or the lowest hp but if you make sure the Scholar fits that category then he can take all the damage and lose no hp at all :D.
Scholar: Water element + Energy element
Omitron-X: Healing component x2
Tempest: Healing Rain
This combo came up during my first game with the new ST stuff against Kismet. It was histerical considering I thought I would hate the Scholar. He is now my new buddy
Lol cool. even better if you have a damage buff in play (eg Galvanise) - that'd boost the damage-after-healing even more :D.
Expect the Worst is a really tricky card. It can protect you from really huge damages, such as Electro-Pulse Explosive coming out and no one has the means to destroy it, so at least Scholar won't be taking any damage from it. If he has a way of play 2 cards in a single round he can pair it with Alchemical Redirection to take all damage to him and reduce it to 0, thus no one will take any damage at all. It'sa pretty situational card. You could always use it as health that you will gain next turn.
The Scholar could be totally feasible as a character that doesn't focus on his Elements, in theory at least. I think the only element you would want out is a copy of Flesh to Iron. Obtaining Truth Seeker would be another step aswell. Since no you can deal out constant damage and even draw a card to help fuel the Flesh to Iron. He has plenty of one-shots that give him health, so playing a Keep Moving to get one of his other elements in play followed by a card like Transmutive Recovery will allow him to heal and do whichever element that was chosen. I think going this route may be just as effective as the previous method, as you don't have a high up-keep cost and you could actaully spend your time playing one-shots that help the team rather than trying to heal yourself to deal damage and using Bring What you Need to keep your hand steady.
Generally speaking, when I play Scholar, I try to be adapative. If I have the cards, I'll try to get out Solid to Liquid and/or Mortal Form to Energy for some combos, and if not, I won't worry about it. I do tend to look for Flesh to Iron early, since many villains strat off bursty. I also try to build up a huge hand early, and then go into elemental forms (or not) as needed.
I guess what I'm getting at is that I don't necessarily try to focus of elemental forms or NOT focus on them either. I go for a big hand early, and then try to do whatever best fits the situation. The one thing I do actively do is try to avoid holding onto elemental forms that aren't helping me immediately. If I go a round or 2 without taking damage, Flesh to Iron is gone. If I go even 1 round without healing, Solid to Liquid and/or Mortal Form to Energy are gone. With 4 Keep Movings and his insane card draw (not to mention Don't Dismiss Anything), letting your forms drop isn't a big deal. Use them when they're awesome (Flesh to Iron - the whole game vs. Iron Legacy), and let them go when they aren't (damage is irreducible or you need to do other things than heal).
Just my $0.02
Expect the Worst saved out bacon in one match against the Matriarch. Double digit birds were on the field and the last environment card in the deck was the solvent vat that deals all targets damage. With the Scholar at highest HP, Expect the worst allowed him to tank a metric pile of damage from the Matriarch's angry response to the birds popping.
I love Expect the Worst. What's not to like about psuedo-damage immunity? Only one turn, but it works. Flesh to Stone, which I also love, can stick around, but doesn't solve all of your problems against high damage numbers. Of course, neither work against irreducible damage, but in that case, the Scholar needs to focus on healing. I agree with Broccoli's playstyle. Go for a big hand to start, then just do what makes sense.
That's the thing I love about the Scholar, you can play him so many different ways. I usually focus on getting two or three flesh to iron cards out then tanking all the damage forever with alchemical redirection, but if you have the cards to spare, solid to liquid plus mortal form to energy (preferably multiple copies of each of these) can deal some serious damage. If course, I'm still of the opinion that damage dealing isn't the scholar's real job, and trying to do so detracts from his helpfulness to the party, as you end up having to discard cards everyone would love in order to keep that many elements going, which is why I like to focus on flesh to iron instead (unless fighting plague rat or someone else who does irreducable damage). Still, he's a very versatile character with a lot of fun tricks. One of my favorite combos is having out multiple flesh to irons, using alchemical redirection, and then having AA let me play proverbs and axioms once or twice. That way, everyone draws a card and either heals two, or uses a power for free, as the three damage you would take from option two gets directed to me and bounces off harmlessly.
In my first fight of the Scholar versus the Matriarch, yesterday, he used Flesh of Iron + redirection of damage on him a lot, allowing birds to stay in play untill he was able to do lots of damage with the X=total number of non-hero targets in play (Grace under FIre)... He also managed to have a very big hand - and discard it for a lot of damage.
The Scholar is very adaptative - you can build lots of combo or team combos, depending on the villain. With flesh to iron, versus te Matriarch, you won't really need to heal, so other elements are not really a good choice, for instance. And as you can have lots of cards in hand easily, you often can build the "perfect combo" for the situation.