Santa Guise, the Scholar, Redeemer Fanatic, the Argent Adept, and Ra of the Setting Sun against the base Dreamer at the Temple of Zhu Long.
Credit where it's due, the scansion on the rewrite of "A Visit from St. Nicholas" is pretty good. You've no idea how often that isn't the case...
Near Mint. Lost the first game to being overwhelmed by VIolent Nightmares on the Dreamer's flip side.
Notes:
Fanatic gets an End of Days in the first three cards, and between Santa Guise and the Scholar's flip cards, it can be her first-turn play. Great way to flip the Dreamer early.
Destroying the Illusory Demon last with End of Days means you can stop it from destroying anything else (because the Demon destroys EoD). But the Dreamer's flip is going to wipe your board of Ongoings anyway.
Setting Sun Ra + Flesh of the Sun God can be very strong indeed. But heal the Dreamer regularly.
Mysterious Ceremonies is worth keeping around. Especially when the ninjas and even The True Form can do as much to help you (by attacking the Projections) as hurt you.
The Argent Adept completely failed to get off the ground in my games. Mostly he healed.
I still can't stand the "can't deal damage/can't play cards" cards, like Whipacorn. Argh.
Yeah, I had to give John props for that poem. :)
Minted, but I wouldn't say it was "comfortable". Careful use of End of Days got me through the game, but I still lost both Guise and Ra by the end.
Oh boy is using Mysterious Ceremonies to play Expect the Worst and Alchemical Redirection out of turn great, though. Scholar soaked something like 50+ damage that round.
Just fine unfortunately - got it on the 3rd attempt. Made a fair few mistakes in the first one with End of days at the wrong point but everything worked much better by attempt number 3 and used End of Days + Illusionary Demon as well as a timely out of turn Alcemical redirection made it fairly comfortable at the end (Guise using Blatant Reference + Guise the Barbarian to do a shed load of damage on one turn certainly helped while I was waiting for the Illusionary Demon to pop out).
1st attempt ended with 9 under Dreamer, and I might have won, but I accidentally drew instead of playing a card, and Fanatic coldn't hold on, even wtih the Aegis.
Edit: serously, I was also talking with my fiancee, and all of a sudden, I was swearing because, for some reason, I had clicked draw, and my 4 letter vocabulary came out.
Near mint, because I was foolish and killed the Illusiory Demon the first time around.
Got End of Days the first turn, but held on to it and wiped the field with a double Blaze of Glory (thanks, Guise!) and a Ninja. The first 5 projections on the flip side were easy, but then it got out of hand, and I'd already killed the Demon so I couldn't use End of Days.
Mint by an uncomfortably close margin.
Ended up accidentally playing EoD first round which was fine by me. This team does have some tankability but 5H Dreamer needs to be put down fast imo. Flipping her on round two helped with that.
Ended up sacrificing Scholar to tank a round with Alchemical Redirect to save everyone except AA. Some very judicious use of the "Effects in Play" button to make sure Ra could deal damage and wouldn't kill the Dreamer with boosted damage, combined with Blatantly Barbaric Guise brought down enough projections to win it with the remaining heroes all sub 5hp.
Dreamer hurts.... 5H Dreamer haunts my nightmares.
~Komori
Skin of my teeth mint. I forgot that End of Days destroys cards under The Dreamer, which set me up for a disasterous round. A second EoD was able to clear the board, hitting an Illusory Demon last (and thus actually keeping the projections tucked away). Zhu Long was able to kill the 10th projection, leaving me only with Fanatic with 3 HP.
Mint with Guise at 6, Scholar 12, Fanatic 7, AA 5, Ra incapacitated, and Dreamer at full. Like Arcanist Lupus, I opened "I Can Do That, Too" and used Ra's base power after I saw AA's opening hand of healing options. I then used Don't Dismiss Anything because the chance of being forced into discarding Scholar's hand was very, very small. Dreamer flipped at the end of round 1.
From there it was mostly cruise control until enough projections were out for End of Days to win the game, though I was careful to stash the Shinobi Assassin until I needed it to finish a Granite Oni for me. I think I could have saved Ra if I hadn't redirected the damage from Master of the Temple, but eh.
An easy Mint turned into a rolling disaster when I also forgot about End of Days, and instead of blowing up the last three projections I took out the seven I'd clawed my way through and then I died.
And an easy Near-Mint turned south on me in a hurry. I End of Days'd my way through finishing the Dreamer Round One (Guise put away top cards, then Scholar played top card, which made Fanatic play Brutal Censure and draw End of Days) and got set up for the follow-up. After killing the first three projections, with only a Grosteque Arachnoid left, the Dreamer played the following, in order:
1. Violent Nightmares (Dark Hero, Macabre Spectre, Treacherous Ape)
2. Violent Nightmares (Granite Oni, Macabre Spectre, Illusory Demon)
3. Night Terrors - hit everyone for 9 damage (7 to the Scholar).
4. Night Terrors - hit everyone for 9 damage (7 to the Scholar).
Between the projections and the two Night Terrors, every hero took over 20 damage at once and died.
Near Mint.
I did a rewind when I used End of Days....and forgot about order of operations and took out an Illusory Demon too soon, which made me frustrated enough to hit the button.
Scholar with double Flesh to Irons and good timining with Alchemical Rediection kept everyone alive. A lucky opening of Guise’s presents toward the end to reveal a much needed Blatant Reference/Guise the Barbarian combo saved the day, and eliminated the necessary projections. Yay Christmas!
Ra and Fanatic were helpful for damage purposes....I found Argent Adept did a whole lot of nothing for me in this one.
Guise 8HP, Scholar 6HP, Fanatic and Argent Adept at 12HP, Ra ended with 18HP. I didn't use his base power more than twice.
Mint with only Guise at 4 and Ra surviving, though I resurrected Scholar on the last turn (unnecessarily, since I already had 11 cards under the Dreamer). Couldn’t use Ra to his fullest since AA’s healing kept getting destroyed, but Imbued Fire helps everyone. Didn’t end up using End of Days at all, just that leading double Blaze from Guise (but man it’s painful seeing Best Card Ever and Guise the Barbarian removed from the game).
My first Mint! Pretty straightforward too. I did lose Ra near the end, but that was
1. because of a lapse in attention, putting a Shinobi in play from the top of Guise's deck that I had put there on the previous turn to be safely gift-wrapped
and 2. helpful to my victory anyway because his "destroy targets with 4 or less HP" power was just as good at clearing out projections as a round of Solar Flare-boosted fire damage would have been.
I actually didn't use Ra's base power all game because I initially missed that I could use AA to heal the Dreamer. Most of my damage was dealt by Guise and Fanatic, while the Scholar tanked (this game was a great showcase of just how absurd of a tank he can be) and AA healed. This was a really fun game!