Very rare case of a Spite game that was almost fun, though it still suffers from the “ignore all victims completely” problem. Normally I don’t even try to punch through Spite’s healing, but with him having only one Drug for a long time, and playing some extremely powerful and aggressive heroes, I managed to outrace him. He didn’t start to bounce back until getting a big Drug Raid which let him heal for like 20, but the beatdown continued even after Powers started to fuel his lifetapping. I would have won before he could flip, except that Skyscraper picked the wrong card for her deathblow… Catch A Ride and probably several other cards would have done it, but instead I picked a Compulsion Canister, not realizing that Rebounding Debilitator would prevent it. And then I was stuck in Huge without any Environment card to throw at him, so he survived an unhelpful Endling play, flipped, and did a fistful of extra damage before being utterly pasted by Idealist. Thus did I miss my chance to see whether Spite has a different loss screen if you beat him pre-flip, the way Kaargra and Dreamer and Baron Blade all have unique pictures depending on how they defeat you.
I thought for a minute I might get him pre-flip, but no luck. He took out Sky-Scraper on the first turn on his reverse, and actually had two victims in the safe house to knock himself down to 3 so Idealist could finish him off. Maybe I’d have ended with higher HP using powers more judiciously and thus preventing his healing, but a mint is a mint.
Finished him the exact turn before he would flip, by having Sky-Scraper cause him to hurt himself! That Sidekick was also super helpful for me, staying around the whole game.
Second try was the charm for me. I feel like I just sort of got a different set of shuffles rather than doing anything strategically better. Though putting Paradoja Figurehead on Idealist was great, she hit him for 20 damage with just a single power, nevermind whatever else she did that turn!
Mint for me; took him out before he flipped, which is pretty unusual for Spite. The trick for me was mostly just building up a truly staggering hand of cards while fully tricking-out Lifeline and Idealist, and then hitting Spite for 70 damage in a single round through the combination of a 15-card Karate Robot, La Comodora with all of her tricks in play, and some wild Cosmic Immolation shenanigans.
Mint here. I never even tried for pre-flip victory. Idealist is a beast here, especially with the extra power uses from La Comodora and Lifeline. Skyscraper tanks a lot of damage, especially self-damage when Lifeline brings out Cosmic Immolation and goes nuclear. And Spite often makes things more difficult for himself, letting Chronological Sweetspot being used every turn with no downsides and taking out the environment every turn so I don’t have to.