Kaargra Warfang, Advanced Mode (on her observer side, she adds 2 to the Bloodsworn pool per turn; on her gladiator side, she gets two additional titles per turn), against the Young Squad: Felicia Legacy, Unity, Omnitron-U, Santa Guise (young at heart and all), and Setback, in Madame Mittermeier's Fantastic Festival of Conundrums and Curiosities. I assume the youth factor is the meaning behind the blackboard joke.
I MInted this by the skin of my teeth and I couldn't tell you how. I thought I was dead because Kaargra was in play (with like 5 HP--I didn't quite get her flipped back), the Hero pool had 29, and the Bloodsworn had 19 when her turn came around. I figured she would make the Bloodsworn hit 20 and then boom...and then at the start of her turn enough happened (between Omnitron-U getting a card exploded and environment interactions I think) that her HP went down to 0 before she added any tokens, and then she flipped, and bing!
This strikes me as definitely an Advanced game. Kaargra is one of the most complicated villains, and the Festival is a mess too. I didn't follow half of what happened, I just focused on high damage and taking gladiators out, and then beating down on Kaargra every chance I got. (The Provocateur didn't help either--I probably would have won by a little less of the skin of my teeth if I'd remembered how he worked.)
But, somehow, I got it.
I just sort of lost on turn three because Advanced Kaargra, man. How do you keep up with that? I'm not sure what you're supposed to do except be psychic and discard the early Get Back In There with Gimmicky Character to give yourself time to breathe, and I don't remember exactly when it came out and if discarding it is even possible because of the double card play.
I sort of gave up when Kaargra flipped and immediately gained Chaos Lord. I played it out, but it was downhill from there. We'll see if my second try goes better.
Mint.
Lucky timing on a Fickle Fans and Maze of Mirrors were probably the deciding factors. Destroying 4 Equipment cards with Omnitron-U's Singularity scored a lot of points for the heroes and was probably the most effective hero play I made.
I looked at the setup and went, "Oh man, there's no way I'm gonna win."
And then things were going pretty well! Kaargra was flipped, but Setback generated something like 8 favor in one go. A Fickle Fans got discarded by the environment. I had titles!
And then Idesa came out on round three or four and made me auto-lose. And I look back at what happened, and I'm not sure what I could have done differently. :/ Hm.
Chaos Lord and Maze of Mirrors is just... no. Did much better on the second try (got Kaargra down to 10), but then Provacator Tarnis showed up to add insult to injury. This one is more luck than anything else, randomly picking the right actions to keep the most damaging cards from having as much impact as possible.
Fine, finally.
Killed the indestructible guy first round to dodge giving Kaargra Chaos Lord. Eventually gave it to Guise, who used it to pull Uh, Yeah, I'm That Guy and copy Inspiring Presence. The turn after, OX pulled Defensive Blast out with his Electro-Deployment Unit, and that was that. 3x3 damage to all non-hero targets wiped out Kaargra and enough of her minions to push us past 20 favor.
During the game, I focused fire on Kaargra and only punched her minions if there was extraneous damage I could use. I purposely let Maze of Mirrors come out when I could have dodged it with Guise or Setback, because it negates a bunch of damage (and favor!) from the villains. (Also, Kaargra dealt herself 6 damage plus a Seeker boost, which was nice)
Unfortunately, I can't really provide any advice for finding Defensive Blast, because I shuffled OX's deck with Technological Advancement, which means that anything goes. I will say that you should do your utmost to keep the Electro-Deployment Unit from exploding. I actually used Uncharmed Life for what was possibly the very first time ever to keep OX below the 5 damage threshold.
Santa Guise and Setback were my MVPs this time around.
Third time is the charm.
Used Maze of Mirrors (which I had discarded in my first two games) to keep the team alive long enough to win.
Construction Plyon and Cryo Bot came out at the right time (when Guise was copying Inspiring Presence thanks to Chaos Lord, and Champion Bot was also out) to gain a buttload of favor by hitting many gladiators for 4 damage.
Then, on Omnitron-U's turn, with the Bloodsworn at 19, heroes at 20, it was able to use a singularity to direct enough damage to Kaargra to flip her and win.
Setback was nearly out; Legacy also in single digits. Unity and Guise just over 10HP, and I think Omnitron-U had about 15HP at the end.
Near Mint.
Kaargra had Seeker and Mindbreaker, but the MVP was Cryobot who bounced enough hits back at Kaarga that she kept mindbreaking herself for extra damage.
Crazy fight. I agree with others who say you need to ignore the gladiators (except when you've got extra damage to spread for fovor points) and just focus on Kaargra.
Fine, and happy just to get it. I replicated Arcanist Lupus's strategy, beating the weakest gladiator as quickly as I could so Kaargra wouldn't get Chaos Lord and leaving Maze of Mirrors out to reduce the number of points the villains were able to earn. Having Setback redirect all of Idesa's damage to himself also helped keep their point total down. No big hits (other than Kaargra hitting herself), but I managed to slowly whittle Kaarga down when she was at "only" about 18 points.
It's useful to get carousel of horrors out of play in round 2 so that fickle fans gets played instead of discarded. Gives a big shift to the hero side and nullifies one of Kaarga's card plays.
Hats off to those who minted. My normal play habits lead to a quick demise the first time around. I was able to get the win, but had to think about avoiding the obvious plays to do it.
Mint with a mishmash of what others have reported. I sold out for Favor and destroyed as much as possible. Fortunately, this meant Guise got Chaos Lord instead of Kaargra. Unfortunately this meant Kaargra got Seeker on turn 2 and Mindbreaker on turn 3. I had 20 Favor to their 17 at the end of Kaargra's third turn, and Maze of Mirrors was the only reason she didn't win on her third turn.
Still, with Mindbreaker in play I could only afford Kaargra taking two hits to knock her down to 0 in my third round. Hit 1 was a punch from Legacy for 6 (thanks, Maze of Mirrors + Seeker!), then I ended up using Hasty Augment on Omnitron-U to get an additional Component into play and burned her down with a big hit from Self Sabotage.
Knowing what I know now, I would have had an easier time if I'd used Uncharmed Life to keep Idessa from getting 4 Favor, it would have saved me some breathing room. But I didn't know she was coming, so I burned all my tokens on Exceeded Expectations instead.
I’ve lost my first two tries and I don’t feel like going for a third. This is just brutal!
It's been a long time since I couldn't even get Fine on a One-Shot. :/ How did anyone beat this outside stupidly good luck?
A person on Steam posted a video of them going through it https://youtu.be/JAR2HjzXig8
I finished it 1 minute after the deadline for a Fine. :C And true to form, I have no idea what happened differently to give me the opportunity to win. It wasn't by much, though!