Weekly One-Shot #361: Buffalo Bill's Wild West

Games SotM: The Video Game
#1

Advanced Trickster Kismet vs. Mr. Fixer, Void Guard The Idealist and Termi-Nation Unity in Silver Gulch, 1883.

I took a painful Fine on this one. First try, I had Unity left as the last one standing and was hoping to use Mr. Fixer’s and Idealist’s incapacitated abilities to permanently recycle an ongoing card on to Kismet’s deck and use Stealth Bot to keep Unity alive, but I messed up the sequence. I’m not sure it would have worked anyway as the environment keeps hitting the Talisman and moving it around the board.

After that, it was a mess of trying different things and never quite repeating the same game until I just let Unity eat the Talisman and had Mr. Fixer and Idealist focus on damage with the extra power use from Unity and squeaked out a win.

#2

Two devastating losses today so far. Not used to this version of Kiz, but she’s BRUTAL.

#3

aw heck, I almost forgot about this D: got myself down to a Fine the first day, with no real hope of finishing in time

And a third one just now. D: Really gonna need a primer for this one.

#4

Are there such primers somewhere? I’ve constructed a few for my own use, but have long wanted to have some sort of fansite for collecting them on, and looking them up so I don’t always have to do all the work myself.

#5

just gotta wait for someone to post a play-by-play :B

#6

Well okay, here goes.

Round 1

Turn 0, Kismet gives the Talisman to Fixer, then plays Shaky Arm on any hero (I recommend Unity), then plays Weak Heart on Idealist, then deals 5 to Fixer.

Fixer should play Pipe Wrench on turn 1, then he Strikes for 2, either reducing Kismet to 73 or the Talisman to 5; I choose the former. Draws Overdrive.

When I first played this, I started with Making Things Up for Iddy, and one of the discards was Vivid Thoughts, since this is unpredictable in a game that’s random. However, since we know what we’re getting here, let’s just play Vivid Thoughts, getting us Spark of Inspiration, Conceptualize, and Karate Robot. The Robot goes into play first, then Conceptualize gets us any Concept from our deck. For this first record, we’ll go full berserker mode and grab Monster of Id, put Conceptualize under Karate Robot, then fire off Spark of Inspiration, drawing Strained Superego. The healing is wasted because we aren’t damaged quite yet, so we reduce Kismet to 71, the Talisman goes to 5 after all, and Karate Robot gets a second card: Iddy fires this for 1 plus 2 cards plus Monster of Id, 4 total damage twice, and Kiz is at 63. Kiz then deals 1 to Iddy, and Id deals 2 self damage after drawing Focusing Tiara, so Iddy is left at 21.

Termination Unity sucks in this game, having nothing much to do other than draw cards until she has a way to get a bot into her trash. For now, she’s able to play precisely one card, a Hasty Augmentation on Iddy, who deals 1 plus 2 augmentation plus 1 for Monster of Id, another 4+4 hit to leave Kiz at 55, and another Weak Heart damage leaves Iddy at 20. With Reconfigure and her draw step, Unity obtains Robot Reclamation and Bee Bot (gotta love the two types of Unity card names, way too long and way too short).

Silver Gulch fires off Sustain the Portal; it never before just now occurred to me that the usually useless discard option here is valuable to Unity, but with the Golems she’s currently holding, I don’t think it’s valuable enough, so we’ll ignore it for now. The damage would hit Fixer for 1 due to Pipe Wrench, but instead he takes 3 because of Kiz’s advance text; hes left at 20, and everyone else takes 2, leaving Iddy at 18, Unity at 25, Kiz at 53 and the Talisman at 3.

For her first non-starting turn, Kiz plays Karmic Disjunction, deploying Two Left Feet, Violent Trickster, Glass Jaw, and Hapless Strike. Both Jinxes wind up on Unity (not much short of a hero attacking her could have prevented this), so she now takes 1 net damage if she plays a card. Kizzy deals 4 net to Fixer, and is now set up to get lucky twice on her next turn.

Round 2

Fixer opts to play Grease Monkey Fist rather than Driving Mantis, keeping to the berserker theme, and hits Kiz for 3 damage of a type of his choice (it doesn’t matter, but I went with Lightning the first time in case Water Trough had come out, and it’s kinda been my tradition to stick with that ever since, as I’ve lost and lost and lost to this one about eight times this week - it’s quick and fun and has good music, so I haven’t minded repeating it endlessly). Draws the thoroughly undesirable Bloody Knuckles, further emphasizing that this is NOT his lucky day, magic rock or no.

Of her incredibly numerous options, what I decide to have berserk Iddy do this turn is play Strained Superego, use its power to fire off Sound Beating for 4 damage to Kismet (she’s at 46), take 1 damage from Weak Heart, put Sound Beating under Karate Robot, and draw Vivid Thoughts. Monster of Id swipes the card out of the Robot, Superego moves it straight back, and the Robot then attacks for 3+3 damage, while Weak Heart hits Idealist again, leaving her at 16.

Unity again has only one non-Golem card to play, which this time is Robot Reclamation; no robots are actually reclaimed, and she draws another copy, so all she accomplished (besides digging one card deeper into her deck, which actually is important as we’ll find out later) was to trip clumsily and bash her delicate face into her enfeebled arm for 1 net damage, leaving her still…safe?..at 24 HP. Reconfigure draws her Powered Shockwave, which is followed by Platform Bot.

Since Silver Gulch enjoys doing nothing so much as hitting every hero for 2, Tyler Hayes comes out. Kismet falls to 38, Unity with her Glass Jaw goes to 21, Idealist drops from 16 to 14, Fixer also starts at 16 but does some extra math and comes up with 13 instead, and perhaps most importantly, the Talisman is reduced to 1.

Kiz plays Hapless Strike, and before resolving that card, she does her own “woo I got lucky!” effect, hitting Idealist for 2 (12) and the other two for 3 (Fixer 10, Unity 18), as well as healing to 41. The actual Strike then makes Unity shakily zap the doubly-accursed Fixer right in the Pipe Wrench for gross and net damage of 2; another 4-point blast from Kismet ends her turn with him at 4 HP (previously it was 3, I’m not sure how I spared him a point this time).

Round 3

Since he isn’t holding a Grease Gun, this will be Fixer’s last turn, so he must choose only one of Charge or Overdrive to get played. The latter is obviously slightly better, so he punches Kiz for 4 and then 3 more, of whatever type you prefer, and then ends by drawing Salvage Yard.

Iddy tries playing Vivid Thoughts again, and gets Vivid Thoughts, Spark of Inspiration, and Flying Stabby Knives. Playing the latter and then the middlemost, she heals 1 (13), deals 2 to Kismet (32), 2 to Tyler (6), and flips the Talisman, restoring it to (7). She draws Bright Idea, places the Spark under Karate Robot, and activates the Knives to bring Kismet to (29), falling to (8) from Weak Heart as it gets a +4 bonus from Kismet having the Talisman. The Id and Superego do their little dance with the card under Karate Robot, and then he punches Kiz for another 3+3 (23), and Kiz retaliates for another 5 (3).

Unity takes another damage (17) as she plays Robot Reclamation again to do nothing other than draw a card; she gets Construction Pylon at last, but can no longer play it, and having not discarded a Golem, Reconfigure gets her nothing other than a Supply Crate. Only now does she finally draw Stealth Bot, who can die so that a hero may live, and would have been able to do that over and over thanks to Reconfigure.

The Law finally shows up, and Tyler Hayes mows everyone down one more time; Kismet falls to (21), the Talisman to (5), Fixer takes just 1 now that Kismet is on a different side and is left at (3), Idealist is at (1), and Unity is at (14). Sherrif Pratt is reduced to (5) and then shoots the Talisman for 3, leaving it at (2).

Playing her extra card at the start of her turn, Kismet throws Violent Trickster, which is her first Lucky card, so she gets to heal to (24) and play another card; this second side of hers is terrible even before the Talisman’s massive damage bonus comes in! This discard allows Unity to get a Bot into her trash, and in previous games I somehow got the Trickster played a turn ago, allowing Platform Bot to enter play on Unity’s third turn; instead, I now get to ditch Stealth Bot, along with any card I want from the two heroes who are about to die. Unity goes down first to the Trickster punch, but then Fortune’s Smile heals Kizzy again (27) and lets her kill Fixer, leaving Unity at 7. She then plays Hapless Strike, so Unity zaps herself down to 5, and then Kismet finishes her off.

So, that’s berserker mode; it clearly isn’t sufficient in this match.

#7

Okay, let’s try that again, a little less suicidally dangerous this time.

Round 1

Turn 0, Kismet gives the Talisman to Fixer, then plays Shaky Arm on any hero (I recommend Unity), then plays Weak Heart on Idealist, then deals 5 to Fixer.

Fixer should play Pipe Wrench on turn 1, then he Strikes for 2, either reducing Kismet to 73 or the Talisman to 5; I choose the former. Draws Overdrive.

We’ll go with Making Things Up for Iddy, drawing Spark of Inspiration, Conceptualize, and Karate Robot, discarding Vivid Thoughts and Hedgy Hogs. The Robot goes into play first, then Conceptualize gets us any Concept from our deck. We’ll get Giant Floaty Head this time, and use it to destroy Weak Heart; we draw Flying Stabby Knives and Better Punching, followed by Strained Superego.

Termination Unity sucks in this game, having nothing much to do other than draw cards until she has a way to get a bot into her trash. For now, she’s able to play precisely one card, a Hasty Augmentation on Iddy, who deals 1 plus 2 augmentation with Karate Robot, leaving Kizzy at 67. With Reconfigure and her draw step, Unity obtains Robot Reclamation and Bee Bot (gotta love the two types of Unity card names, way too long and way too short).

Silver Gulch fires off Sustain the Portal; it never before just now occurred to me that the usually useless discard option here is valuable to Unity. She discards a More Of A Hornet Bot, then the damage would hit Fixer for 1 due to Pipe Wrench, but instead he takes 3 because of Kiz’s advance text; he’s left at 20, and everyone else takes 2, leaving Iddy at 22, Unity at 25, Kiz at 65 and the Talisman at 5.

For her first non-starting turn, Kiz plays Karmic Disjunction, deploying Two Left Feet, Violent Trickster, Glass Jaw, and Hapless Strike. Both Jinxes wind up on Unity (not much short of a hero attacking her could have prevented this), so she now takes 1 net damage if she plays a card. Kizzy deals 4 net to Fixer, and is now set up to get lucky twice on her next turn.

Round 2

Fixer opts to play Grease Monkey Fist rather than Driving Mantis, and hits Kiz for 3 damage of a type of his choice (it doesn’t matter, but I went with Lightning the first time in case Water Trough had come out, and it’s kinda been my tradition to stick with that ever since, as I’ve lost and lost and lost to this one about eight times this week - it’s quick and fun and has good music, so I haven’t minded repeating it endlessly). Draws the thoroughly undesirable Bloody Knuckles, further emphasizing that this is NOT his lucky day, magic rock or no.

Of her incredibly numerous options, what I decide to have Iddy do this turn is play Strained Superego, use its power to fire off Sound Beating for 3 damage to Kismet (she’s at 59), put Sound Beating under Karate Robot, and draw more Knives. Superego swipes the card out of the Robot, enabling Iddy to fire the Head and remove Glass Jaw; she draws another Superego and Making Things Up.

Unity again has only one non-Golem card to play, which this time is Robot Reclamation; no robots are actually reclaimed, and she draws another copy, so all she accomplished (besides digging one card deeper into her deck, which actually is important as we’ll find out later) was to trip clumsily and bash her properly robust face into her enfeebled arm for no net damage, leaving her still…safe?..at 25 HP. Reconfigure draws her Powered Shockwave, which is followed by Platform Bot, and meanwhile Bee Bot goes into play.

Since Silver Gulch enjoys doing nothing so much as hitting every hero for 2, Tyler Hayes comes out. Kismet falls to 57, then Bee Bot chases Tyler offscreen (the sound effects of him careening off of a Prickly Cactus and into the Water Trough are distantly audible), dealing another 2 to Kiz. All of which doesn’t actually happen, since I forgot what discarding to Sustain the Portal actually does; Tyler reads the script of his intended pratfalls and refuses to come onstage, so instead we just have Sheriff Pratt shooting the Talisman for 3.

Kiz plays Hapless Strike, and before resolving that card, she does her own “woo I got lucky!” effect, hitting Idealist for 2 (20), the same to Unity (23), Fixer for 3 (13), and popping Bee Bot to take 1 damage (Unity’s Shaky Arm kept her from tossing the Bee dead center), putting her to 58 before she heals to 60, then destroying Two Left Feet. The actual Strike then causes discards that I failed to note in the previous log (in both cases it was Driving Mantis and Platform Bot, with the third from the other game now forgotten and replaced with a Flying Knives), after which it makes Unity shakily zap the doubly-accursed Fixer right in the Pipe Wrench for gross and net damage of 2; another 4-point blast from Kismet ends her turn with him at 6 HP.

Round 3

Since he isn’t holding a Grease Gun, this will be Fixer’s last turn, so he must choose only one of Charge or Overdrive to get played. The latter is obviously slightly better, so he punches Kiz for 4 and then 3 more, of whatever type you prefer, and then ends by drawing Salvage Yard.

Making Things Up draws Giant Floaty Head, Bright Idea, and Bored Now; discarding the Head and a Superego, she plays Knives and Bright Idea, drawing Focusing Tiara and returning the second Head to play with Better Punching under it, placing Bright Idea into Karate Robot. Knowing that Sherrif Pratt will flip the Talisman this round, and every Jinx is a bad Jinx when Kiz has her magic feather, she uses the Head to wipe out Shaky Arm, draws Hedgy Hogs and Conceptualize, then another Hedgy Hogs. Superego moves a card from Karate Robot to the Knives, and hits both Kiz and the Talisman for 2, leaving the villain flipped at 52.

Unity plays Robot Reclamation again to do nothing other than draw a card; she gets Construction Pylon at last, but can no longer play it, and having discarded a Golem, Reconfigure gets her a Supply Crate in hand and Platform Bot in play. Only now does she finally draw Stealth Bot, who can die so that a hero may live, and would have been able to do that over and over thanks to Reconfigure. Platform Bot gets to hit the Talisman, not for enough to flip it, but I believe Sustain the Portal is coming, so I’ll try it.

Nope, I was wrong. It’s Lost in the Past, so Kismet gets to have her double turn… this is probably game. And indeed, playing it out, it was in fact game, so let’s rewind as far as Platform Bot’s shot, and instead reduce Kismet to 49. This way, the Sheriff reduces the Talisman only to 4. Kismet then plays her advanced start-of-turn card, which is Hapless Strike; she heals to 52, plays Two Left Feet on Unity, forces Unity to deal 1 to Platform Bot, and plays Fortune’s Smile. She heals another 3, zaps Fixer for net 1 (5), Iddy for 2 (18), Unity for 2 (21), and Platform Bot for net 1 (1). Another Hapless Strike is played, and Unity destroys Platform Bot; Kiz then deals 3 to the girls (Unity 18, Iddy 15) and 2 to Fixer (3), before hitting the Talisman (1) and destroying the Jinx. (PS, of all the useless bits of code; side B of Trickster Kismet has a note saying what the Talisman’s HP is, when it’s sitting right next to her character card, and side A doesn’t have a reminder of which hero is actually holding the Talisman or how much HP it has.)

Round 4

Amazed to still be up, Fixer could switch to Driving Mantis and try to survive even longer, but instead we’ll go with Overdrive for 3+3 to Kismet (49). Draws, but will never play, Meditation.

Iddy wishes she could do all of the things, instead of only some of them; she plays Focusing Tiara, then uses Strained Superego to play Spark of Inspiration, healing to 16 and hitting the Talisman, which flips and goes to Unity, then Kismet (48), then Sheriff Pratt (6). She draws Vivid Thoughts, places the Spark under a Head (no doubt she learned that in shop class), then dredges up a card with her Tiara to supply Karate Robot with a card. Drawing Conceptualize, she Superegos her card over to the Robot and then hits Kiz for 6 (42) before reloading one of the Heads.

My little peek at the future has demonstrated that we don’t want Stealth Bot just yet; instead Construction Pylon plays Platform Bot and Bee Bot. She draws Brainstorm, blasts Kismet down to (39), and is done. Feels weird not to Reconfigure anything.

Temporal Event brings Sustain the Portal; Unity almost discards Stealth Bot so she can start Reconfiguring it in a round, but thinks better of it for now. Sherrif puts the Talisman to 4, then Sustain hits Kizzy for 2 (37) before massively overkilling Bee Bot, who hits Kizzy again (35) and shuts the portal down.

Alas, now Kizzy stops screwing around; Karmic Disjunction reveals Imminent Destruction, Glass Jaw, Unlucky Break and Scattered Mind, ALL of which are played. The Destruction happens first; Sherrif Pratt and Lost in the Past die, and 3 damage goes out, leaving Fixer barely alive, Platform Bot very dead thanks to the Talisman damage bonus, Unity at 13 for that same reason, and Iddy at 13 as well. Glass Jaw can go on either girl; for now I pick Iddy. Unlucky Break destroys Fixer’s kit and the spare Floaty Head; Unity takes 4, then the Talisman is hit, fortunately only for 2. Another Jinx enters play, landing on Idealist without any options, and Unity is hit again, leaving her at 4.

Somehow alive, Fixer plays Driving Mantis to try and stay that way, Strikes Kizzy for 1 (34), and draws Harmony now that it’s unachievable.

The Tiara lets Iddy load the Robot with Vivid Thoughts; she plays Conceptualize to fetch Monster of Id, loads the Robot with this, and has the Floaty Head destroy Scattered Mind. Loading the Robot again, she draws Vivid Thoughts, moves a card from the Robot to the Head, uses the Robot to reduce Kizzy to 26, and loads the Robot anew, with Monster of Id then unloading the Head.

Regretting not having discarded Stealth Bot, Unity plays Brain Storm to draw Volatile Parts and Scrap Metal, shock Kizzy (25), shock the Talisman (1), and shock Fixer who then redirects this shock to the Talisman, giving it to Kismet again. Reconfigure gives her a Platform Bot for now…I can rewind and make that Bee Bot if the Environment requires… and she draws Cryo Bot and Brainstorm before blasting Kizzy to (22).

Explosives Wagon enters play, which has definitely never happened before in my game; I was expecting a Stout Barrel containing Matthew Hayes, which is what has previously happened. Kizzy plays Shaky Arm, then Imminent Destruction; alas, Fixer has no chance to redirect anything more before dying, Iddy’s Glass Jaw has her taking 4+4, to survive at 5, and Unity is very very dead. Kismet survives at 16, then deals lethal damage to Idealist, but Yahweh himself intervenes to save Unity from her tragic miscalculation (leading a veritable Host of rabid Fanatic readers to write innumerable angry letters). While it’s not quite the escape I hoped for, Unity picking Bee Bot instead has turned out to very much be the done thing, even though she’s still doomed; this time Kismet starts the Environment turn at 25, the Wagon enters play, then Shaky Arm is played, Imminent Destruction still happens, but Bee Bot is able to deal 3 to Kismet (16 after that and the Explosion) and then destroy Glass Jaw. Fixer and Unity still die, but Idealist is taken from 13 down to 7 by the Explosives and then suffers another 3 from Imminent Destruction, having 4 HP left before Kismet deals 3 to her. If only Kismet did not then damage the Talisman, flip, and deal another damage instance. This turn was still death, it turns out.

#8

Finally managed to beat it, just in time for the next one-shot.

The strategy that worked for me was to avoid letting the Talisman ever flip, by putting a Bee Bot out on Unity’s second turn and destroying Sherriff Pratt on her third turn. I made sure to put a Bee Bot out on each of her turns afterwards to stop any other environment cards from hitting the Talisman.

Fixer kept using the Talisman’s power to put the least threatening cards on top of Kismet’s deck, once he died he used his incap power to destroy the Jinxes she put out.

Idealist just kept hitting Kismet, with Unity eventually joining in when she was able to get more golems out.

#9

Worked great, thanks! Pacifist* Punching Bag Fixer kept her from going out of control! Talisman didn’t flip either thanks to the ever-watchful bee (hornet) bots!

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Log captured here: GameView StartThe Talisman was flipped to its back side.The Talisman restore - Pastebin.com

*Okay, Slim did get in one punch with a Charge. Couldn’t let him just sit there and take a beating with no response.

#10

Alright, one last try for today, then I officially give up any hope of calling this a Fine.

Round 1

Turn 0, Kismet gives the Talisman to Fixer, then plays Shaky Arm on any hero (I recommend Unity), then plays Weak Heart on Idealist, then deals 5 to Fixer.

Fixer should still play Pipe Wrench on turn 1, since Driving Mantis is useless without it. Then, since aggro hasn’t worked at all and Iddy is clearly on top of the Jinx situation, Fixer tries actually using this stupid rock the woman threw at him; extremely tired of Karmic Disjunctions, he moves Two Left Feet to the top, with Violent Trickster still on the bottom where it belongs. Draws Overdrive as before.

We’ll go with Making Things Up for Iddy, drawing Spark of Inspiration, Conceptualize, and Karate Robot, discarding Vivid Thoughts and Hedgy Hogs. The Robot goes into play first, then Conceptualize gets us any Concept from our deck. We’ll get Giant Floaty Head this time, and use it to destroy Weak Heart; we draw Flying Stabby Knives and Better Punching, followed by Strained Superego.

Termination Unity sucks in this game, having nothing much to do other than draw cards until she has a way to get a bot into her trash. For now, she’s able to play precisely one card, a Hasty Augmentation on Iddy, who deals 1 plus 2 augmentation with Karate Robot, leaving Kizzy at 69, dude. With Reconfigure and her draw step, Unity obtains Robot Reclamation and Bee Bot (gotta love the two types of Unity card names, way too long and way too short).

Silver Gulch fires off Sustain the Portal; it never before just now occurred to me that the usually useless discard option here is valuable to Unity. She discards a More Of A Hornet Bot, then the damage would hit Fixer for 1 due to Pipe Wrench, but instead he takes 3 because of Kiz’s advance text; he’s left at 20, and everyone else takes 2, leaving Iddy at 22, Unity at 25, Kiz at 65 and the Talisman at 5.

For her first non-starting turn, Kiz deploys Two Left Feet, but not Violent Trickster, Glass Jaw or Hapless Strike. The Jinx winds up on Unity, then. Kizzy deals 4 net to Fixer, and is perhaps set for next turn if the Talisman does not get used again.

Round 2

So the talisman gets used again, bringing Glass Jaw to the top, but first Driving Mantis enters play. Bloody Knuckles is still not the card he wants to draw, but you can’t always get what you want.

Of her incredibly numerous options, what I decide to have Iddy do this turn is play Strained Superego, use its power to fire off Sound Beating for 3 damage to Kismet (she’s at 64), put Sound Beating under Karate Robot, and draw more Knives. Superego swipes the card out of the Robot, enabling Iddy to fire the Head and remove Two Left Feet; she draws another Superego and Making Things Up.

Unity again has only one non-Golem card to play, which this time is Robot Reclamation; no robots are actually reclaimed, and she draws another copy, so all she accomplished (besides digging one card deeper into her deck, which actually is important as we’ll find out later) was to neither trip clumsily nor bash her face into her enfeebled arm, leaving her still…safe?..at 25 HP. Reconfigure draws her Powered Shockwave, which is followed by Platform Bot, and meanwhile Bee Bot goes into play.

We just have Sheriff Pratt shooting the Talisman for 3.

Kiz plays Glass Jaw on Unity, then hits Fixer for 4, leaving him at 12, literally double where the last game had him on this same turn.

Round 3

While not fully set up, Fixer plays Overdrive, specifically so he can use the Talisman and then Strike twice. There’s no stopping Kismet from getting Lucky this time though, so he leaves her with Hapless Strike and then Violent Trickster before clobbering her to {62} and flipping the Talisman. Draws Salvage Yard, which would let him do this little dance again next round.

Making Things Up draws Giant Floaty Head, Bright Idea, and Bored Now; discarding the Head and a Superego, she plays two Knives and Bright Idea, drawing Focusing Tiara and returning the second Head to play with Better Punching under it, placing Bright Idea into Karate Robot. Knowing that every Jinx is a bad Jinx when Kiz has her magic feather, she uses the Head to wipe out Glass Jaw, draws Hedgy Hogs and Conceptualize, then another Hedgy Hogs. Superego moves a card from Karate Robot to the un-fired Head, drawing Vivid Thoughts and Conceptualize, and destroying Shaky Arm so Kismet will have no Jinxes to boost her damage this round.

Unity plays Robot Reclamation again to do nothing other than draw a card; she gets Construction Pylon at last, but can no longer play it, and having discarded a Golem, Reconfigure gets her a Supply Crate in hand and Platform Bot in play, but pops Bee Bot, hitting Kismet down to 60 and destroying Sherrif Pratt. Having shuffled, she does not draw Stealth Bot, but instead Inspired Repair and Raptor Bot.

It’s Lost in the Past, so Kismet gets to have her double Luck at turn’s start. Hapless Strike heals her to 52, plays Violent Trickster, and discards Bloody Knuckles, Vivid Thoughts, and Platform Bot. Fixer gets to redirect Kismet’s attack to herself, leaving her at 61, then Unity deals him 1. Karmic Disjunction then makes it to play, revealing Two Left Feet, Fortune’s Smile, Hapless Strike, and Karmic Disjunction. 2LF goes on Unity, Fixer takes 2 net (9), Iddy takes 3 (19), Unity takes 3 (22), the Talisman falls to 4, and 2LF is destroyed.

Round 4

Charge deals 3 to Kismet, who now has 58, and then Strike hits the Talisman, which is now at 2. Draws Meditation.

Iddy wishes she could do all of the things, instead of only some of them; she plays Focusing Tiara, then uses Strained Superego to play Better Punching, dealing 1 to Kismet (57), firing Flying Stabby Knives #1 for another 2 (55), loads the Robot from her trash, and puts Better Punching into FSK #2, loading the Robot again. Draws another Tiara, moves a card from the Robot to a Floaty Head, then fires FSK #2, hitting the Talisman to flip it and give it to Unity, as well as reducing Kismet to 53, and reloading the Robot from trash.

Unity can barely tell what timeline she’s in by now; just to see what the future holds, she wastes Inspired Repair, finding Champion Bot, and decides he and Platform Bot should get produced by her Construction Pylon. Kismet falls to 49 and Unity draws Bee Bot.

Lost in the Past reloads the bottom of the deck, then Temporal Event brings Sustain the Portal; Unity almost discards a Bee Bot, but thinks better of it for now. Sustain puts Kizzy to 47, then 45 as Fixer grabs an energy bolt in both hands and whips it around like a Hoist Chain to smack the villainess again. The Talisman goes to 5, Iddy hits 17, and Unity is ruined thanks to the Talisman, with Platform Bot dying, champ left at 4, and herself at 18.

Kizzy is again not screwing around; Karmic Disjunction reveals Fortune’s Smile, Hapless Strike, Imminent Destruction, and Glass Jaw, two of which are played. The Destruction happens first; Lost in the Past die, and 2 damage goes out, which Fixer sends back at her face to leave her at 43. Champion Bot is very dead thanks to the Talisman damage bonus, Unity is at 14 for that same reason, and Iddy at 15 before gaining a Glass Jaw. Unity is then blasted for 5, leaving her at the same 9 as Fixer.

Round 5

Sans a Talisman to abuse, Fixer nonetheless plays Salvage Yard to play Overdrive, thrashing Kismet to 41; he draws Harmony again.

The Tiara lets Iddy load the Robot with its duplicate; she plays Hedgy Hogs and bounces one off Fixer to double-hit Kismet, leaving her at 35; the Hogs go into a Floaty Head, just so I don’t have to figure out which one I’m using to draw Sound Beating and Strained Superego and then destroy Glass Jaw (risky since I don’t plan to flip Kismet and don’t know if she’ll play a Jinx before her end of turn, but I’m going with it for now). The Robot is loaded, Hedgy Hogs is drawn, Superego moves a card from the other Head to the Robot, and the Robot then suplexes Kismet like she’s a phantom train, dealing 6+6 to leave her at 23, with the Tiara immediately reloading him for the next round!

Regretting not having discarded Stealth Bot, Unity plays Brain Storm to draw Volatile Parts and Scrap Metal, shock Kizzy (25), shock the Talisman (1), and shock Fixer who then redirects this shock to the Talisman, giving it to Kismet again. Reconfigure gives her a Platform Bot for now…I can rewind and make that Bee Bot if the Environment requires… and she draws Cryo Bot and Brainstorm before blasting Kizzy to (22).

Given back her Construction Pylon, Unity has nothing else worth playing, but rather than using it for just a pair of Raptor Bots to deal 6 to Kismet, which would not quite suffice to leave her within range of blowing herself up, Unity instead tries the Talisman on Silver Gulch, selecting Cyrus and Matthew Hayes to come out in that order before the Explosives arrive. Unity draws a third Bee Bot, then Cyrus arrives, targeting the Talisman (2) and Fixer, who slows the bullet down like Neo in the Matrix, physically rotates it in midair with his fingers, and then restores its original velocity on the new vector, hitting Kismet for 3 (20).

Hapless Strike is played; Fixer tells Kizzy to stop hitting herself (18)…actually scratch that, with the mass-damage instance on the stack, Fixer forces Kiz to reclaim her Talisman, flipping and canceling the big blast as well as bypassing her start-turn and end-turn damage instances. After the Hapless Strike deals 1 net to Fixer (8) and heals her back to (23), the villain deals 2 damage with no Talisman bonuses, making Fixer take 1 so that both he and Unity are left at 7, with Iddy at 13, and then doesn’t even have a Jinx to destroy.

Round 6

Harmony is achieved, and Fixer clobbers Kismet for 3 (20), drawing another Meditation.

Iddy loads the robot with a spare Superego from hand, Soundly beats Kismet (17), puts that into the Robot, plays Hedgy Hogs with the Fixer assist to deal another 4 to her (13), adds that to the Robot, and then forms the head with a card from her trash. Sacking a spare Knives rather than unload the Robot any, she clobbers Kismet down to 1 and then congratulates herself on having never brought the Monster of Id out to play in this most Ideal of time-travel timelines.

With Kizzy at 1 HP, Unity could sit back and let Cyrus or Matthew finish her off, but leaves nothing to chance after the past week of continual failures; skipping the play of Powered Shock Wave which would alone have finished things, she pops Construction Pylon to play double Raptor Bots, and sadistically watches Kizzy be mauled into submission.

WOW. I did NOT think I was going to pull this one off. Talk about the luck of the draw! Apparently successful use of the Talisman is absolutely key to surviving this catastrophe. And this was literally a last-minute Fine, because while I was either playing or just sitting and listening to the victory music for like ten solid minutes, the new Weekly was JUST added, so I’m going to go play it RIGHT NOW. And, having finally finished the Draft of my old game report, I even get to make a thread for it BEFORE I play!

#11

Hot damn! Finally got it beat, if too late for any decent rating. :stuck_out_tongue:

I know it comes with the benefit of hindsight, but that’s some very clever Idealist play that gets you through the fight, well done.

#12

Not sure if you’re talking to me, but it seems likely, so on that assumption, what would you call clever about my Idealist choices? She’s a favorite character of mine, and it just kinda makes sense to me how she operates.

#13

I am! (Guess I forgot to hit reply, oops.)

It’s just the number of Concepts you had out, and the decisions to use multiples of them. I tend to completely ignore Flying Stabby Knives, for instance.

#14

FSK is definitely the least useful concept, but having extras out is a hedge against Kismet’s “destroy H hero E/Os” card, plus the Floaty Head is so useful that I might want to have two of them loaded for O/E removal, just in case. I also find it slightly challenging to manage the shuffling of cards around with ID or Superego, so having more Concepts in play is good for arranging that more effectively. They also work well in the trash due to Bright Idea.