Weekly One-Shot 364 - "Villainy 601"

[The_Justifier]

Just think, if you start next week and play one weekly game per day, it’ll take you exactly a year to catch back up. Tell me someone on here is crazy enough to tackle such a challenge! (Note that I don’t stipulate you needing to win them all; after all, we’re up to like nine Oblivaeon games.)

Anyway, this week was a good one. It would have been much easier if I were used to playing around the Idolater, but Argent kept drawing Vernal Sonatas that I refused to play, and CC spat out two Vitality Conduits to try and save Idealist, which would have worked if not for that jerk hanging around. No other casualties though; as always I made it my A1 top priority to kill Sarge Steel, despite suffering the damage penalty from Miss Info. Having Iddy open on Monster of Id and then be unable to do anything but get rid of A World Improved was infuriating, and it was generally a pretty crap game for her overall, only getting to Form The Head once for like 2 damage. Argent also struggled, never really getting set up, and CC was okay at best… this was like 80% a Sentinels victory, despite my having committed mistakes as egregious as not playing Team Communication the first chance I got. Flinging Miss Info into Darkness was incredibly satisfying, and Writhe had surprisingly good luck controlling the Environment deck or whichever villain had a turn coming up, once there were no surplus powers left for Little Iddy or Mainstay. I got surprised by Operative’s second wind, which was part of why I never dealt with Idolater; Chiquito was minimally annoying for once, and La Capitan didn’t live long enough to screw with turn order any, after which it was little trouble to finish the Operative again.

[TakeWalker]

I was really surprised to get through this in one go. It wasn’t easy by far, but you seem to be given a lot of tools to soak the bad stuff that keeps happening. I prioritized Miss Info first and then I think Sgt. Steel? And left Operative for last, though taking her Aegis away just kind of happened in the middle of the game with very little effort on my part.

[The_Justifier]

Weird that you refer to her one-time rez as an Aegis. I wouldn’t have made that connection, because to me the fact that Fanatic has several copies of that card means that it’s by no means limited to happening once, even though practically speaking it rarely occurs more than that. I don’t feel as though Operative having the one-time effect is meant to evoke a similar feeling though; Helena is potentially immortal (if she believes she is), while Sofia is merely too stubborn to give up until she’s been totally broken. Even with Zhu Long’s help, she couldn’t rez over and over again like Fanatic does; if it can happen more than once at all, it’s certainly at some fairly steep cost, while for Fanatic, being killed three times and then just reshuffling her deck and keeping going, that’s just a Tuesday to her. “I can do this all day”, as the saying goes.

[Omegatron]

There’s a tip I saw from someone else that makes this one pretty easy.

Tip

Have the Southwest Sentinels play Blackout and hit Sergeant Steel (or whichever of his agents has the highest damage boost, but usually Sergeant Steel) to make him hit all the villains. Then Argent Adept can retrieve that card with Vernal Sonata and make them play it again with his base power.

Keep doing that at every opportunity and the villains fall quickly.

[The_Justifier]

I did this just the first time, no recursion. It proved sufficient. 4 damage to all the villains on round 1 got us off to a great start; I’m not sure Sarge ever played a second card, and certainly not a third.

[TakeWalker]

That was very satisfying

[FrivYeti]

Well, I got a mint, but boy it was dangerously close.

I made the mistake of deciding to use the first round to power people up, and let Captain Cosmic be the one to destroy A World Reborn. The result of that was that I missed out on enough early villain damage that everything cascaded badly for me. In the end, it was down to the Sentinels alone, rapid-playing Mainstay’s defensive power and using a lot of ping healing as they whittled down Sergeant Steel, the Operative, and La Capitan alone.

And somehow they won!

[doppelgangerung]

Played this one off and on for days before achieving an unexpected Mint. I focused on Miss Info first, then largely targeted whichever opponent had been weakened the most by global damage from heroes, the environment, and Sarge and his crew. This, as it turned out, was Sergeant Steel himself, followed by The Operative. I lost Writhe and Idealist of the Sentinels during the battle, but Doctor Medico was able to revive them.
Then I turned my attention to La Capitan and her little friend - and in a perfectly timed coincidence, discovered that while Fixed Point is in play, Chiquito can’t destroy the cards he has stolen, so he can’t prevent damage to himself or La Capitan.
I was uncertain for a good part of the game whether I would prevail, so it felt great to finish with my whole team standing, after a ferocious fight!