Can anyone offer me their strategy against Cosmic Omnitron? I have fought him 7 or 8 times in a row over the past 3 days, and I think the lowest I've gotten him to is about 40 HP.
For most of the games, I used the Freedom Five. My 7-year old suggested I use the other 5 from the core set, so I tried that today. A different experience, but not a substantially better one.
Because of his attack patterns, is choosing 5 heroes part of the problem (i.e., too much damage to too many targets too consistently)?
Cosmitron is definitely harder than the original Omnitron. I'm assuming you have tried the original. If not, try it first.
Unlike most villains Cosmic Omnitron gets harder with more heroes. With three you should be fine letting it flip to side B since it will only do 2 damage to 1 target. However, with 5 heroes you should try your hardest to let it hold onto 1 component to keep him on side A. If it flips it will hit 3 targets for 4 damage. That's much harsher than letting it keep 1 component.
It starts with 3 components so get it down to 1 ASAP. Absolute Zero is best at that. After that keep the damage to Cosmo under 7 for the first half the game (Or at least until you are ready to hit it hard and ready for side B hit you hard). If you have to choose between setting up or hitting it on Side A, set up. That's especially important since the Freedom Five has 4 setup heroes. Bunker, Wraith, Absolute Zero, and Tachyon all take time to get going.
The problem is it has cards that destroy your stuff. The keys to the game are going to be:
Wraith's Infared Eyepiece to get Sedative Flechettes and its Singularity card to the bottom of its deck, Wraith using Throat Jab to stop damage, Wraith using Stun Bolt, Tachyon using Synaptic Interruption on its Electo Pulse Explosives, Tachyon using Hypersonic Assault to stop damage, and Legacy using Next Evolution not Galvanize.
Thanks. Your Freedom Five advice is more or less what I tried to do, except that I'm no good with Absolute Zero. Part of it also has to do with card draw, I suppose. I think I'll take a run at him with 3 heroes and see how that changes things.
Is he tougher than The Chairman or The Matriarch? I haven't tried them yet either.
OK. After about 12 attempts over the past few days, fighting no one else, tweaking my approach each time, I FINALLY beat Cosmic Omnitron.
I gave up on trying it with 5 heroes and cut it down to 3, which worked much better. My winning team was Ra (for sheer damage and HP), Dark Visionary (for mind reading), and Tempest (for, well, everything - seriously, that alien is my all-purpose go-to hero). Dark Visionary used Turmoil every turn to control Omnitron's AI, which really controlled our approach. Even more surprising for me, all three heroes were still standing. We fought in the Ruins of Atlantis, which I believe to be one of the more hero-friendly Environments.
I was so thrilled after winning; I was hugging and high-fiving my seven-year old son who was watching me play. We ran to tell my wife about our victory!
Hehe sounds cool :). Can I just make a mention, however, that the Ruins of Atlantis is not friendly to heroes if you are fighting the Matriarch. It's really, really not. Speaking from personal experience. Twice. Dammit.
I presume he uses ongoing destruction to control them, as opposed to hitting Omnitron to get rid of them.
It feels so bad to leave components in play. Also, whenever I leave him on his front side, he flips two nasty cards and no drones. This frustrates me. Generally, I end up just racing Cosmic Omnitron's flipped side, with mixed results. This is a rough fight. I don't think it's harder than Advanced Matriarch/Chairman/Ennead… but Cosmitron might be fourth in line.
I would generally prefer to use deck control to put Technological Singularity at the top of the deck rather than the bottom, because it gets worse the longer you leave it, and against Cosmic Omnitron you will end up seeing it sooner or later. (Against regular Omnitron, I'd put it on the bottom.)
I mentioned that Absolute Zero is best at this because he can destroy UP TO 3 ongoing cards. In a five hero game AZ would take out 2 of them and leave 1. Probably the 1 damage when you draw one because Wraith's Stun Bolt stops it completely.
Ameena and Vyolynce are correct. Atlantis is hard. At the start of the post I didn't know which environment was being used. Insula Primalis and Megalopolis will be much better for beating Cosmitron. Mars is usually good, too, but not with the Freedom Five.
In a 3 or 4 hero game it's best to flip it round 1 and keep it on side B the whole game. It gets a lot more interesting in a 5 hero game. Timing its flips gets important.