the total amateur's guide to the scholar

I can't pretend to anything like flamethrower49's expertise with the game, but here in embryonic form is a collection of thoughts I've had about The Scholar since I started playing Shattered Timelines.
-----
THE BASICS

As I see it, The Scholar will primarily follow one of two primary routes through a given game—tanking and counterpunching.

Tanking

He can tank with Flesh to Iron(s) and use his play phase to boost/shield other characters with Don’t Dismiss Anything, Proverbs and Axioms, and Alchemical Redirection—the “tank-and-crank” strategy.  The Scholar will vacuum up damage and effectively give everybody else double turns.

A slight variation on this is the “tank-and-bank”—focus on mass card drawing (Bring What You Need, Know When to Hold Tight) and await the right moment to deploy Know When to Cut Loose.  I think this is generally suboptimal when done in place of tuning up the other heroes, but against certain villains (particularly ones who have a built-in waiting game like Dawn and Spite), strategic deployment will make inevitable victory a mathematical certainty.
 

Counterpunching

Flesh to Liquid(s) + Flesh to Energy(s) makes The Scholar a punching-bag that punches back.  He’s still tanking, after a fashion, but instead of shrugging the damage off, he's using it as fuel for a heal-to-damage attack through his base power or “Get Out of the Way!” or any out-of-turn healing from other heroes.  His health will yo-yo up and down from round to round, but, barring bad luck, he shouldn't be in real danger of dying; there are just too many ways for him to regain health.

 

ATTACKING

Know When to Cut Loose is a sucker’s bet 90% of the time; you’re better off playing the cards for their individual powers or banking them to keep one or two Forms going.  10% of the time—when capping off a “tank-and-bank” strategy—this card will win the whole damn game.  Deploy it to kill or cripple villain characters; otherwise, you’re better off using the cards themselves.

Truth Seeker is useful in very specific circumstances—generally, you’re better off using Bring What You Need for drawing, then powering more Forms for damage.  Sometimes, though, it's more helpful to do two things acceptably than one thing well; thus, this card.

Offensive Transmutation does something that other heroes can do more easily, but it’s nice to have it nonetheless; there will be slow moments where The Scholar’s biggest contribution is just standing there and taking the hits, and cards like this let him provide some additional utility.  Slap it on whatever's likely to do the most damage in the next round (or whatever'll do damage in a way that The Scholar can't tank), and it'll give the heroes some useful breathing room. Villains who do most of their damage personally (like Spite) are especially vulnerable to cards like this one.

“Get Out of the Way!” is a key part of the using the counterpunching strategy against minion-based villains; combining it with Mortal Form to Energy allows you to catch the villain and his minions coming and going.

 

POWER COUPLES

Legacy and the Scholar are OMG BFFs in a big, big way.  Legacy’s Motivational Charge and Galvanize will elevate the counterpunching strategy from sustainable DPS to a non-stop beating, and presence of two beefy tanks will ensure that the other heroes rarely get hit.

Omnitron-X loves The Scholar.  Why?  Because The Scholar will nearly guarantee that Omnitron-X’s fragile Components never leave play; Omnitron-X is never gonna get close to 5 damage.  Plus, Don’t Dismiss Anything lets Omnitron-X get set-up in half the time. (Similarly, Unity can play bots directly with Don't Dismiss Anything; her restriction only applies to her own play phase.)  And The Scholar’s just fine with Omnitron—his Innervation Beam dovetails nicely with a counterpunching strategy.  (With Omnitron X and Legacy together, The Scholar is conceivably putting out 4-6 damage per round automatically, without including his own plays and powers.)

Wraith and the Scholar only have one really great interaction, but it’s a killer: Smoke Bombs.  If Scholar is the highest HP hero in the game and Smoke Bombs is in play, Flesh to Iron becomes an unstoppable forcefield.  Even if he’s not the highest HP hero, judicious redirection of damage with Smoke Bombs will quickly equalize everyone’s HP, at which point The Scholar can heal back up and continue as above.

 

MISCELLANEOUS

The Scholar should really be the first hero to play. He responds well in the immediate aftermath of villain plays, either with damage cards like “Get Out of the Way!” and Grace Under Fire or with tanking cards like Alchemical Redirection and Expect the Worst.  Moreover, other players will benefit from seeing the results of Don’t Dismiss Anything or Proverbs and Axioms in deciding what to do during their own turns.  Similarly, it'll be helpful for them to know that they’ll be sheltering under an Alchemical Redirection or that a Flesh to Iron will stay in play until next round.

Drawing your second Don’t Dismiss Anything of the game sets you up for potentially vicious card engine.  Repeatedly using one Don’t Dismiss Anything to place another Don’t Dismiss Anything on the top of your deck will essentially allow you to surrender your play phase indefinitely in exchange for giving everyone else a free card play every round.  When deployed early in the game or when paired with setup-heavy heroes (Argent Adept, Unity, Omnitron-X), this combo will let the team come out swinging.  The trade-off, however, is that you will be giving up everything else—no Proverbs and Axioms, no Alchemical Redirections, no mass card drawing, etc.  Your draw phase will go towards keeping a single Form in play (preferably Flesh to Iron), and you will be effectively in stasis as you keep the engine running.  If you’re going to run this engine, try to get Bring What You Need out before starting, then use your power phase to bank cards towards paying for Forms or an eventual Know When to Cut Loose.

Remember that Forms are not limited; you can stack them to augment their effects.  Just remember that you have to pay for all of them—two Forms is generally the sustainable limit, either through card-drawing abilities or by skipping your turn to draw twice.  You can put out more Forms in short bursts, but even with the Scholar’s various card-drawing powers, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to sustain them for more than a round or two.  (On the other hand, it’s generally better to get a Form out there and use it when you can; you’ll get more use out of that in the long run than in storing them up waiting for a card surplus that may never come.)

Very nice work.  I really like reading guides, even for characters that I feel I have a handle on (which unfortunately isn't many). 

Flamethrower49's guides were actually my entrypoint into the game in a way.  I read most of his available guides after I had kickstarted Infernal Relics, but before I had any idea what cards were in any of the heroes decks.  It's always nice to see other people's perspectives on different decks, especially since part of the appeal of this game is that there is no single correct way to play any hero.

I hope we'll see more people writing guides in the future (and that Flamethrower keeps 'em coming).  I'm currently trying to work up the courage to write a guide for Absolute Zero.  Maybe in the next couple of weeks... 

 

Some other power couples:

Scholar loves when Argent Adept can let another Hero play a card, allowing Scholar to use his Draw 5 Cards one-shots without immediately ending his turn.

And while pretty much everyone loves Team Leader Tachyon, Scholar loves her more.

 

 

 

ALSO Scholar and AA's play card out of turn can set up the "Expect the worst" "Alchemical redirection" combo of damage negation. That's a fun one.

Nice!  This will be added to my growing compendium.

I'm not sold yet on the Don't Dismiss Anything engine.  It looks super strong, but you have to play the card, and my other heroes just keep flipping up disastrous cards.  (End of Days, Inventory Barrage, Oblivion, Enduring Intercession type of cards, where they have a time and a place, but right now, they suck.)  Of course, a hero can get a card back instead if they think that might happen, but that's not nearly as strong a thing for the Scholar to do every turn, and besides, it's hard to resist the pull of free plays.  (The same thing that has us killing Set game after game, whether or not it results in unmitigated disaster.)  Unity/Argent Adept/Omnitron X, though, it certainly works pretty well for them.

It's definitely a high-risk, high-reward strategy.  (I've also End of Days'd myself, but it was fortunately right at the beginning.)

Don't Dismiss Anything is great when combined with Vernal Sonata or Reclaim From the Deep. In this case, you probably want The Scholar to go last, in order to get the benefit of playing cards like Take Down, Grease Gun and Ground Pound out of turn.

don’t let me forget to add this to the wiki! ornif someone else does that’s good too

i wikied it. Finally :p

You forgot to add Inspiring Precence. That extra +1 comes with a HP for everyone. With MFtE that is a free damage.

In fact, due to Legacy being able to buff everyone, Scholar might not need StL. Solid to Liguid always flet like a buff to me than a way to heal faster. I mean, the +1 healing is nice but it works best iwht MFtE. It's like scholar is saying "I heal 2 and deal 2 but I need to spend two turns playing it unless I Keep Moving and i need to discard 2 cards a turn: while with Legacy he says "I heal 1 deal 2 and I only need to discard 1 and spend a turn setting up!'

Motivational charge might even do more damage...

 

(With Mortal form to energy)

Legacy: Galvanize.

Scholar: +1 hp, (1+1=2)

 

(With Mortal form to energy and solid to liquid)

Legacy: Galvanize

Scholar: +2 Hp, (2+1=3)

 

(With Motivational Charge)

Legacy: Motivational Charge. 2 damage. Everyone heals 1. Shcolar deals 1.

Scholar: heals 1

4 damage.

 

Imagine Legacy Ring and/or two MFtE. that +1 HP can do a lot or work.

A Biophospherescent Chamber in the Ruins of Atlantis would be very helpful too, then (all healing +1, all damage +1, though it forces a discard from everyoneat the end of the environment turn if you didn't all discard to get rid of it at the start).

Oh yea, that's a good idea. If scholar uses his base power to heal 1, the chamber buffs it to 2. Wih a MFtE the dmage he does is +1ed for 3, and if he has a SoL that's an extra HP for 3 heals 4 damage.

 

Course, that would be three discards so with th echamber out if everyone can aford discards. It would be best to just have one form out with the chamber (two if your team focus on Smoke Bombss/Flesh to Iron or other have Scholar take it all strageties.)

 

Another good team up for scholar is Team Leader Tachyon. Now, I know TLT works best with everyone, but Scholar needs extra draws. WIth TLT Scholar can draw two without having to skip his card play and power. Thus, he adds more fuel to his engine.

 

 

My favorite team up with the Scholar is Tempest.

Rain is wicked, and Scholar giving Tempest an out of turn power to heal everyone. . . yeah.

But the amazingness is having Tempest play directly before the Scholar.  You reclaim from the deep with Tempest and DDA with the Scholar.  In a four player match that lets the other two cycle one card from the trash into play each turn, all out of turn.

It isn't always worth it, but there are tons of one shots that can be far more valuable than the card play you are giving up.  As long as Scholar and Tempest return a copy when they play their own card it works indefinitely.  Tempest Scholar Adept can also be an amazing 3-man team because of the ridiculousness you can get into with vernal added in (a heal too) and extra card plays from Adept to let you cycle more if needed.  Add an Expat if you want someone to churn out ridiculous damage while they have fun with cards.

They kind of break the Multiverse.

Note that playing a card is not the same as discarding.

But when I play a one shot, it goes to the discard pile, correct? So doesn't that mean it got discarded? And this happens before my turn is over? if not, then I've been playing this completely wrong.

I will type through this, to see where my assumptions are. I play a card.

  1. It leaves my hand 2. It goes into play 3. Its effects take place. 4. The effects resolve. If it was ongoing/equipment I leave it in play. If it was a one-shot, I send it to the discard pile… Okay, it looks like I'm assuming that I'm the one either leaving the card in play, or sending it to the discard pile when it''s effects are over. It's possible that the card moving to the discard pile is handled by the card/game mechanics, and doesn't count as a card I discarded. While possible, I'll need confirmation. Got any links?

Edit: Also, what about "destroy this card" effects? Do those count as discards?

[quote=Natediggadoggity]

But when I play a one shot, it goes to the discard pile, correct? 

[/quote]

This is incorrect on two points.

a) there is no discard pile.  There is a trash, but it's not called the discard pile.  (The distinction is trivial, but it makes it harder to argue that one-shots are discarded because they're placed in the discard pile)

b) When you play a one-shot, it goes into play just like any other card.  It doesn't move the trash until after it is resolved.  This is different from discarded cards, which move directly from your hand to the trash.

 

EDIT:  I see you already understand b).  My mistake for not reading thoroughly.  But point a) still stands.  There is no discard pile.

I have a rulebook.

Om the Glossary, under One-Shot:

Tje effects of a one-shot card happen immediately upon being played, after which the one-shot card is moved to the appropriate trash.
It is moved there, not discard or destroyed.

Destroyed cards are also not discarded. Look under Destroy:

When a card is destroyed, it is removed from play and places in the appropriate trash.
 

Discard and Destroy  are two separate and distinct actions.

Discard means removing a card from your hand without playing it.

Destroy means removing a card frrom play that has some kind of duration (ongoings, equipments, targets).

Playing a card is a third, discting action, and in the case of one-shots, does not count as a discard or a destroy.

The wording on the cards is very important in this game, and refer to seperate and discrete actions.

Okay, that is fair. Luckily, it doesn't mess up how I've been playing him that badly. Most of what I said is still accurate, except the varying damage amounts based on how many cards played in a turn. Turn Loose with a 3 card hand (Turn Loose included) would be 2 + 3 damage, instead of 2 + 4. and just ignore the rest of the stuff in that same paragraph about counting cards played.

 

Any other critiques on my Infinite Scholar guide?

Not that I can see, although I haven't had a chance to play with him yet.

I will caution you though, that until the physical cards arrive with Villains, the promo abilities aren't set in stone.  I don't think it's likely to change much, if at all, but it has happened (Compare the original PW Captain Cosmic with his actual power)