This has got to be winnable ... please show me how.
Visionary, Absolute Zero, Ra, and Haka (in that order) vs The Chairman in Rook City
Had this come up on random. Tried it four times before I ran out of time. Only got The Chairman to flip once. Twice I used Brain Burn to bury most of the Thugs back in the deck, but it was too little too late in both cases. Yes, I tried using Savage Mana to grab Villain targets, but lost so many hit points setting it up that I was just about dead before I got more than a couple of them. I got Twist the Ether on The Operative a couple of times, but too many other things went wrong for it to matter much.
I tried just focusing on The Operative, since I had some pretty consistent damage dealing, but she healed most of the damage I did. I tried just keeping up with the underbosses and thugs, but fell behind and then got hit with a prison break anyway. I tried doing everything I could to avoid playing extra villain cards, but fell behind because of not being able to play hero cards a lot (Visionary and AZ couldn't take out the necessary Thug w/ their base power), and got punished by leaving the relevant environment card in play (Scum & Villainy, maybe?).
On paper, it looks fantastic. Visionary brings to the table her TtE on AZ to grant any desired effect at a given time, and protects against the environment with her Mass Levitation. Ra is the heavy hitter, and Haka shuts down the grave, deals massave rounds of damage and nulls it with Ground Pound.
I managed to win the scenario. Got an early Brain Burn and some timely Ground Pounds. The scariest part was getting rid of the two blighted streets but with two in play they had to go. Once I got the Operative Incapped I could manipulate the villain deck with suggestions for a couple turns . Sub Zero Atmosphere also meant only the one shots were torublesome as well. Rook City is just rough.
I just managed to beat it with a practically perfect opening (Rook city revealing both Tremata and Taurus, Visionary's opening hand have both Twist the Ethers, No savage mana, like I said, practically perfect)
A prison Break/all nearly got me, but haka did two rounds of ground pound and Ra pulled out two Staff boosted Infernos
AZ gets MVP for Thermal/TtE shenanigans against a TtE Operative. (he was healing 10-20 points of damage a turn. Including a 24 point heal on the second to last turn to max out his HP after KOing the Chairman and leaving the Operative with 2 HP so that Haka could get the win.)
never got Mass lev, TK Cocoon, or Savage mana going.
Final HP: Vis 1 Ra 7 AZ 29 Haka 6. The ground pounds saved me, otherwise AZ would have been trying to fight alone without the benefit of ridiculous level healing.
Twist on Operative is amazing for AZ heal tanking, and Flame Barrier +1 takes care of hitmen.
Savage Mana of course is incredible, suggestion too.
The worst is Scum and Villainy playing Rook City is Mine. Once on the app it did that playing another Scum and Villainy which played another Rook City is Mine.
The problem is that Mass Levitation rarely helps against Rook City since Rook City itself rarely damages the players (except for the falling statues and gunmen). Most of the time, Rook City is just beefing up the villain damage (blighted streets) or making you play more Villain deck cards. Even for Scum and Villainy, the damage source is the Villain, so Mass Levitation does nothing.
Twist the Ether on Absolute Zero though is quite nasty. Or better yet, put it on The Operative and kill her minions with zero guilt as all the damage goes to Absolute Zero and heals him, keeping him as the highest HP hero.
And all the other pieces add up just fine. AZ, Ra, and Haka have enough damage to control the villain targets. And once the Chairman flips, Ground Pound can buy you a full turn of free damage against retaliations.
I beat it first try, but I had a fantastic starting hand.
Chairman's opening: Prison Break & Deputy
Amongst my weapondry: Brain Burn, Prophetic Vision, Precognition, Savage Mana, Taiaha...
I Brain Burned first thing, and then had Haka eat all the underbosses. Then I puttered around for a while setting up with Twist the Ethers on the Chairman & Operative, Imbued Fire, Flesh of the Sun God, etc. Then Haka of Battle + Savage Mana to drop the Operative almost to dead and flip the Chairman, and pound until dead.
A first turn Brain Burn really feels like cheating against the Chairman.
Out of those cards I only got a Brain Burn and that wasn't until the first card draw so it was played on the second round. Mostly I would say try to mitigate the environment as much as possible. Sub Zero Atmosphere can also help since it prevents the thugs from immediately coming out.
It certainly slowed down the game so I could some setup done but I barely won. Suggestions , Ground Pound, and Sub Zero Atmosphere were what allowed me to eek out win. Especially when I could put gunman on top of the deck and have no fear of damage.
A note on Sub-Zero Atmosphere, The Operative has an end of turn action, which brings Underbosses from the deck into play. This will instead be start of turn, so Underbosses put into play this way will still act, infact this allows The Muscle and Broker to act immediately, rather than waiting a turn.
Is your point that one would do as much damage as they can to the underbosses and thugs until the other cards are drawn? Or would you focus on The Operative first? Would you try to minimize the number of villan card plays at the risk of leaving out dangerous villain and environment targets, or accept that the villain is going to get accelerated? Or is there some other strategy I'm missing?
Don't mean to unnecessarily harp on about this. I'm looking forward to trying again when I have some time.
To me by the second round I was trying to focus damage on the Operative as much as possible and mostly destroyed environment cards when I could discard to Toxic Sludge. At one point I also did destroy Twisting Back Alley wiht it's alternate condition. Outside of being Incapped this team has no way of destroying environment cards.
My point was (more or less, and admittedly cryptic) that if you don't draw the particularly strong cards, then you just play with the cards you have until you draw the strong cards or win without them.
I realize that we've been rather unhelpful when it comes to strategies (in part, I think, because there no single 'right' way to beat the Chairman), but the post I was replying to was merely asking about likelyhood of winning, rather than how it affects your strategy, which struck me as a rather pointless hypothetical.