Weekly One-Shot #18: That Way Madness Lies

Games SotM: The Video Game
1

Randomized start, so everyone will have their own story.  But I got mint.

 

I opened up with Mist-form in my hand, so I dropped that had had Nightmist turtle the entire game.  I also had an round 1 Stealth Bot, and between Stealthy absorbing the 1 pt damage from Ocular Swarms and One-shots, and Nightmist taking the brunt of Infinitor and the Helions, we did very well for ourselves.  Tempest took the first Crushing Cage, which slowed down his set up, but both Unity and O-X got pretty far into their set-ups.  O-X used Environmental Exochassis to deal with Energy and Fire damage, and never got wiped.

 

The Enclave dropped a round 1 Immutus, which then absorbed all the villain damage exactly before dying.  Defensive Blast chews through Manifestations like nobody's business, and Raptor Bots ate Infinitor.  After the first one, all the Crushing Cages got attached to Nightmist, who didn't care.  Tempest did a little, but nothing significant.

 

 

All and all, I had it pretty easy, but I could see this going really poorly since O-X reacts poorly to high damage and Lambant Reapers can chew through Unity's bots like nobody's business.  Stealth bot and Environmental Exochassis are critical, I would say.  But all that is secondary, because once you play Mist Form you're guaranteed victory.

2

Just so it's there, the match-up is:

 

Omnitron-X, Unity, Dark Watch Nightmist and Tempest vs. Infinitor at The Enclave of the Endlings.

 

I was also able to get Mist Form and Stealth Bot out in my first turn and the rest of the battle was quite easy.  Omnitron-X never really got set up in my team and I wish I'd spent more time getting him to help out Unity, but it was a lot of fun.  I really did enjoy seeing the environment work its magic too.

3

Mint. I had a rough start, but the combination of Bloggo and Stealth Bot helped protect the vulnerable golems from destruction. I had some fortunate card draws with Unity and ended up with 2 Raptor Bots doing 11 damage each on Unity's final turn.

4

Near Mint.  Still new to Wrath of the Cosmos stuff, so guess I just need practice?  Focused a bit more on Infinitor second time round and took more advantage of his flipped side without DR.

5

Almost didn't get a Mint due to yet another misclick involving Localized Hurricane.  The Self-Destruct Ongoings REALLY need an "Are you sure?" prompt.

6

Mint. Hastily Augmentationed Defensive Blast thrice in two rounds for the win.

7

Mint.

Omnitron-X used Timeshift on Unity every turn, and it worked out incredibly well. Unity had a vast army of bots (including the VERY helpful Stealth Bot) that quickly overwhelmed Infinitor. A nicely timed Powered Shockwave cleared out all of the manifestations, too.

Tempest was tied up with Crushing Cages most of the time, while Nightmist sat quietly and took damage (I don't do very well with Dark Watch Nightmist)--but Unity handled it all almost by herself (because O-X gave her the opportunity to build that huge army).

 

Orbo was the first Endling out, and it mostly just damaged itself the whole time.

 

All heroes in mid-teens at the end.

8

Near Mint.

Two totally contrasting games. Game one drew absolutely nothing, when a turn one oblivion does 2&1 you know it isn't going to go well. Infinitor finally flipped then took everyone out very quickly.

The rematch was short and sweet, the card draw was pretty strong. Omnitron-X and Unity did the damage, Tempest healed everyone and Nightmist hid in her Mist Form. Everyone finished well above 20hp.

9

Near Mint, and I think the reason why is the first game, I prioritized trying to get Elemental Exochassis on Omnitron, which never happened until very late. The second game, he got it first round and I immediately started Timeshifting bots into play. That combo really is powerful.

10

I think they have put the Untiy and Omnitron setup together a couple of times to show people how good they are together. I think they need to couple Captain Cosmic and Omnitron to show how well they work together. Nothing like Omni pinging all the right constructs for one damage and then healing them up!

11

Near Mint, but because of some sort of glitch.  I played the game once through, and although I won without rewinding, it didn't register a card (screenshot 1).  When I tried to go to the main menu, I got a strange "loading" screen (screenshot 2), but finally got back, at which point, it said "New Weekly One-Shot," as if I hadn't played before.  I played it through again, without rewinding, but only got a Near Mint (screenshot 3).

 

The second game was significantly closer than the first.   Bad luck with the draws, and Omni-X never got any of his platings, which meant (1) that his components kept getting blown up, and (2) I couldn't work the neat combo with Unity/Hasty Augmentation/Defensive Blast, and do 9-12 pts of damage to every target on the board.  Plus, Tempest never got his Localized Hurricane, so his cards were limited, and it took forever for Nightmist to get her Amulet, so she couldn't redirect damage.

 

Unity was the star in this one.  I had Omni-X keep feeding her cards, and she eventually got out about six bots, including Swifty and Stealthy, and a couple of Raptors, which ended up finishing off Infinitor.  I liked this one-shot; it showed me a couple of combos I'd never used before:

 

(1) I knew that Omni-X was good for feeding Unity out-of-turn bot draws, but a number of her other cards are really good for playing out of turn as well, particularly when she is after Omni-X in the turn order.  For example, a Supply Crate out of order can both give Unity an extra card draw (from Supply Crate), as well as put an Equipment out for her to destroy to play a bot.  An out-of-turn Hasty Augmentation is a free out-of-turn power for any hero.  If her bot options are low, an out of turn Brainwave (??  The card that gives her two draws and 1 electrical damage to three targets) can give her some more options before the start of her turn. 

(2) Unity also works well with Omni, because much of his stuff is equipment, which can be sacrificed to feed her bots.  For example, the Gaussian Whatchamacallit (does 1 pt damage to all non-hero targets) was doing me little good against Infinitor and his -1 DR, so I sacrificed it to bring out a Platform Bot, which could do more damage.

(3) A truly awesome Unity/Omni combo is Hasty Augmentation/Defensive Blast.  DB lets Omni-X do (essentially) 1/1/1 or 1/1/1/1 damage to every non-hero target on the board.  Hasty Augmentation boosts that damage by +2 *per hit*, which means that Omni can do a staggering 9-12 points to every non-hero target.  

(4) Making (3) even more powerful was Tempest.  On my first game (the one that somehow got glitched), I played a Hasty Augmentation-boosted Defensive Blast.  Tempest then brought Hasty Augmentation back out of the trash (Reclaim from the Deep), and I used the deadly combo again the next turn -- in two turns, Omni did 18 points of damage to every non-hero target.  Ouch.

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12

Mint, just barely.

i never saw Swift Bot, Stealth Bot, or the Amulet of the Elder Gods. Even with the Elemental Exochassis, Omnitron's components rarely lasted a full round. Infinitor kept tossing out manifestations, and I could barely keep up.

The environment wasn't helping, either. The ones who hit 2nd lowest & lowest targets were out (I don't recall their names since I haven't played too many games in the Enclave yet). The Terminarch herself was in play, ensuring that all of the Endlings survived, barring desperate measures.

After O-X & Unity were incapped, I thought all was lost. However, I didn't realize the power of this team's tanking abilities. NightMist went into Mist Form and used Starshield Necklace to heal, and Tempest had Otherworldy Resilience out. Add in the DR from Omnitron's incap power & Unity's healing, and Tempest wasn't taking any damage to speak of. Since I wasn't rapidly dying anymore, I was able to get Tempest's damage potential going with Shackles, Chain Lightning, Electrical Storm, and Greivous Hail Storm. When the game ended, NightMist was at 18 hp, and Tempest was at 4. 

13

Sadly a near mint for me after what was possibly the hardest Infinitor start I’ve ever encountered. Two crushing cages round one, and the third by round 2. Then double occular swarms the next round. Thanks to help from Bloogo Omnitron-X made a valiant last stand but it was too little too late.

Game number two went much better.

14

I got mint-by-dumb-luck.

Nightmist was incapped super early (I don't think she ever got to do anything), Omnitron-X didn't manage to put a single bot into play for Unity and Tempest, while being a fairly reliable at tidying up after Infinitor, was incapped about 4 turns before then end. Infinitor had such an insane amount of cards out that he spent nearly the entire game on his flip side. Unity actually managed to get a heck of a lot of bots out (no thanks to Ominton-X) because she landed two Pylons early in the game. Omintron-X was eventually put in charge of nuking anything in the environment that looked like trouble and pinging anyone who damaged his plating card. 

Immutus and Bloogo totally saved my bacon, because they kept the heat of the bots for a villain turn or two and Tempest incap eventually made the remaining gang immune to energy damage. Not sure what the numbers were at the end of the game, but Unity dealt Infinitor about 25 points of damage on her last turn and that was it.

15

Had a really rough start to this one. Everyone was taking a ton of damage, I wasn't getting good cards out, and Tempest got dropped to 1 HP. Then I managed to pull Stealth Bot and get some healing going, pulling everyone back up. Unity got several bots out and they barely took any damage - only ones that got hit were Stealth Bot and a Platform Bot, which was minimal. The Stealth Bot died within a couple rounds the first time I got it out, but thanks to Nightmist I was able to reshuffle Unity's trash into her deck (and heal Nightmist for 5) and Stealth Bot popped up again shortly thereafter. An early Cryo Bot was very helpful as well - it took damage multiple times and was able to help clear out a bunch of manifestations.

Latter half of the game, Nightmist tanked by healing at the end of her turn and consistently staying the highest HP target at around 14. With Unity doing bot damage, Omnitron-X with most of his components out, and Tempest playing damaging one-shots and healing I was able to whittle Infinitor down while pretty much ignoring the environment (hey, it was giving me extra card plays).

Pulled out a victory in my first attempt as a Near Mint, because I rewound a couple of silly mistakes (not totaling up my damage properly before starting my turn, improper damage order). I seriously thought I was screwed, though. Everyone finished up around or slightly higher than 10 HP.

16

This one was rough, but I ended up pulling it out. Environment didn't do much, though it did take out a Manifestation or two. Poor Nightmist kept getting stuck in cages, but eventually managed to get the Amulet out and throw a couple attacks back at Infinitor after he flipped.

O-X helped Unity get Turret Bot out quickly, which let her start the damage train. Her bots didn't manage to stay out too long, but she ended up doing the bulk of the damage to Infinitor, alongside Tempest and his shackles. I switched him over to healing as soon as I could, though, which more or less saved me. That and Turret Bot taking a bunch of the 'highest HP target' damage instead of someone else.

In the end, Infinitor was brought down in a swarm of bullets and Raptor Bots, earning me a close Mint.

17

The manifestations I was facing were inumerable. The heroes were bedraggled and unlikely to recover from the grievous blows about to befall them. I was at the end of my rope, as the environment turn came...

Then Immutus walked out in the middle of the battle, was dealt exactly 35 damage during the villain turn, and died horribly.

My immediate thought was, "Well, that was the best thing that possibly could have happened."

Omni-X time shifted a few bots into play, Unity miraculously managed to actually get a pretty good set up despite being caged for half of the game, Nightmist killed all of the manifestations except for one Twisted Miscreation with a well placed Oblivion, and Tempest healed everyone all of the time.

Honestly, the worst thing that happened after the whole Immutus fiasco was Bloogo jumping out and protecting manifestations until I hit him with a planar banishment. What the heck, Bloogo? I thought we were friends.

Mint

18

Sorry for raising this thread from the dead, but I'm slowly going back to do the old one-shots now that I can play on my phone.

This was my least favorite type of game.  I got overwhelmed from the beginning with manifestations and Endlings.  My team was going down quick.  Nightmist used Mist-form to save herself, and then watched helplessly as her teammates got mowed down.  She ended up staying in mist form until the Endlings eventually defeated Infinitor.

Very unsatisfying. :confused: