Weekly One-Shot #306 -"Know When To Hold Fast"

Games SotM: The Video Game
#1

Well, that’s one way to end my like 3-month streak of Mints. I knew I was in trouble when I saw it was a Vengeance-style match in Omnitron-4, then more so when I saw it was 3 heroes, and still more when I saw Bugbear… and then I read the challenge modes. Ouch.

I got to Dark Dynamics an Expect the Worst before Scholar’s first turn, which stopped 4 damage from Greazer and 4 from Rahazar and then like another 7 from Bugbear, but that was the end of my good luck. A Flesh to Iron barely slowed his doom down, and once he and Greazer left, Bugbear became unstoppable.

I’m not touching this one again until I have something resembling a plan. Also, gawd is this version of Argent ever pretentious-sounding. I kind of wish Bugbear had gotten to eat him.

#2

I feel like this is definitely one of those one-shots with a trick to it. That first-turn Expect the Worst is a great example. Also, taking the title to heart and playing Know When to Hold Fast instead of Don’t Dismiss Anything on Scholar’s first turn so you don’t accidentally dump your hand for meager damage.

Unfortunately, it’s clear you need Flesh to Iron, and it took a good three or four rounds before I found even a Keep Moving. :confused: And that’s with using Dark Dynamics every round on Ra and Scholar. I think it’s probably worth using on Proletariat and Bugbear at some points, though, because once they get their ongoings in play, there’s no way to take them out. (Argent Adept was dead by that point.)

So yeah, I got hella wrecked and I’m not sure how to do this one better. :B

#3

After three tires I have gotten down to just Bugbear with 7 hp, Scholar with enough cards to Turn Loose and kill Bugbear, but not enough HP to survive Bugbear’s turn to play it by a whopping 1 hp : /

I’ll keep trying as I have shown to myself its possible, but yeah. Owchies on this one.

~A-Kat

#4

I say that, want to try again right after, and proceed to beat it XD

So Fine with AA at 5, Scholar at 16, and Ra down and removed from game to bring down Greazer.

I think there were 2 major plays that really made a huge difference, but I will try to recreate a step-by-step here, so spoilers below. I am going to just focus on the heroes as I don’t think what the villains play/choices made on their turns really matter.

T1:
AA: Cadence Harp into play, Pipes in hand, Sarabande on top of deck, Rhapsody on bottom, and Conjuration in trash. Dark Dynamics Bugbear and Scholar, put Expect the worst into play (Big play 1)
Ra: Staff then Blaze of Glory
Scholar: Hold Fast

T2:
AA: Supertonic then Harp to Supertonic Ra Blaze of Glory
Ra: Fire Blast Bugbear then Blaze of Glory (Then discard Excavation and Imbued Fire to stop Blood Scent)
Scholar: Proverbs (AA: Deal self damage, Use power on Harp, give Ra Blaze of Glory and heal, Ra: Heal, Scholar: heal) then Better Living

T3:
AA: Polyphoric Flare into Dark Dynamics on Ra+Scholar, put Keep Moving → Flesh to Iron in play, followed by Dont Dismiss Anything (Put Top Card into Play for all gets Cedistic, Solar Flare, 2nd Flesh to Iron), then Harp to give Ra Blaze of Glory and heal (2nd Big Play).
Ra: Flame Spike Bugbear into Blaze of Glory then Staff on Bugbear (then discard Drawn to the flame and Summon Staff for Blood Scent as hes about to go down, though with 2 FtI it doesnt really matter)
Scholar: Discard 2x Mortal form to Energy, Play Grace Under Fire to finish Bugbear (ends up unnecessary as the environment plays Internal Defense Grid, but w/e), Better Living

Environment brings down Ra and Proletariat
T4:
AA: Play Sarabande, then Dark Dynamic AA and Scholar, put Alchemical Redirection in play
Ra: Incap to deal 10 irreducible damage to finish Greazer
Scholar: Takes it easy

~A-Kat

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#5

I accidentally dumped my hand for meagre damage and still won on the first try, so who knows =)

#6

Using your breakdown, I was able to get mint! The only thing I did different was choosing Greazer as the target of Grace Under Fire on turn three, which resulted in the environment finishing off Ra and all three villains for me!

Thanks for the tips!

#7

You know, the instant I posted that, I thought, wait, what if that’s the secret?

#8

In classic scholar fashion the whole game devolved into turn scholar into a tank with incap powers.

Basically I let Ra burn himself to death, which killed him, but put Prolitariot and Greazer down to 4 HP… just enough to let Ra instakill both of them. Unfortunelty this meant bugbear whom I hadn’t dealt a single point of damage to as he was healing 10+ per turn from my face was now much stronger.

I was able to hold out using a single flesh to iron + a form of water and a well placed expect the worse to survive a long enough to get a 3 flesh to iron wall then relied the enviroment to deal 12+ damage to bugbear a turn for the kill.

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#9

Welp, no Near Mint for me either. I think that even though the free Expect the Worst on round 1 stops like 15 damage to the Scholar, it’s not a good idea, and you should let yourself draw the card, so you can play it after things start to get really bad.

I have my doubts as to whether I can even Fine this one. This might be one of those games where I need to write down every card play and exploit this foreknowledge before I can manage to beat this one. Playing “normally” just doesn’t seem to cut it.

#10

I played normally and won on the first try, but YMMV.

#11

It’d be interesting to compare our respective game logs, but I presume you don’t have that kind of time.

#12

Welp, I followed people’s advice this time and went all in on the invincible scholar plan, and I got my Fine, though it felt kinda icky just allowing Argent and Ra to die and letting O4 run amuck. Seems like keeping the whole party alive for this one might be impossible, at least without perfect knowledge of deck order to manipulate with Dark Dynamics.

#13

For this one I ended up tanking for a while to get the 3 flesh to iron out letting Ra burn himself out. i purposely didn’t kill anyone so that bug bear would not power up then I played Offensive Transmutation twice on him to stop the heals burnt out Ra 1st OT followed by the incap 10 dmg 2nd OT with Grace under fire twice ending bugbear. Omitron was gracious enough to finish off the other 2 for me. He probably appreciated the Scholar’s triple shiny metal form and let him become the new metal king.

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