What's The Play? - It's Getting Hot In Here

Oh man, I love these puzzles.

Hrm. Thinking about it for a couple hours, here’s what I can come up with. It feels . . . partial. But it’s what I got.

Tech: Vortoss Emblem x2

Upkeep:

  • Prynn fades (now 3 time runes)

Main:

  • Collect 12 gold (14)
  • Ebbflow Archon {7 runes}, draw 1 card (6)
  • Remove Archon rune {6} => bounce Overeager Cadet into my hand
  • Play Overeager Cadet, draw 1 card (6)
  • Remove Archon rune {5} => bounce Overeager Cadet into my hand
  • Play Overeager Cadet, draw 1 card (6)
  • Remove Archon rune {4} => bounce Overeager Cadet into my hand
  • Play Overeager Cadet, draw 1 card (6)
  • Remove Archon rune {3} => bounce Overeager Cadet into my hand
  • Play Overeager Cadet, draw 1 card (6)
  • Remove Archon rune {2} => bounce Overeager Cadet into my hand
  • Play Overeager Cadet, draw 1 card (6)
    (I have now drawn 6 cards, my hand includes the entire deck)
  • Prynn casts Rewind, all units except the Archon bounce back into our hands (2)
  • Nullcraft (0)
  • Play Overeager Cadet, reshuffle, draw the Vortoss Emblem (0)
  • Prynn casts Vortoss Emblem on Overeager Cadet (0)
  • Play the other Overeager Cadet, draw the other Vortoss Emblem (0)
  • Prynn casts the other Vortoss Emblem on the other Overeager Cadet (0)
  • Midori attacks tech 3 for 4
  • Prynn destroys tech 3 => his base at 16, Prynn gains a rune (now 4)
  • Discard 8, curse the reshuffle rule, draw none.

Patrol -
SQL: Ebbflow Archon (10/10 + A) {2 runes}
Elite: Nullcraft (2/1)
Scav:
Tecn: Overeager Cadet (4/3) + Vortoss Emblem
Lookout: Overeager Cadet (4/3) + Vortoss Emblem


So . . this feels pretty safe. And it almost is. But it’s not completely. Hence why I marked the solution incomplete.

By herself, Jaina can do a max of 2 damage to my base. Either a flame arrow to kill one cadet and ember sparks to target the other and 2 to the base, or two ember sparks – same effect.

The problem is, I know he’s got two lobbers, a faerie dragon, and a mimic in his hand. I’m facing a hasted flying mimic. The nullcraft is there to stop it hitting the base. The Archon is there to stop the other random hasty stuff from walking in and killing a Cadet for Jaina. But the nullcraft won’t stop the mimic from killing one of the Cadets.

That’s probably okay, though. Lobber + dragon + mimic + Jaina + two Ember Sparks . . . that’s an 18 gold plan. I can’t see his worker count, but I feel pretty comfortable betting it isn’t 18. :wink:

I killed the tech 3 to prevent a T-rex clearing the way for Jaina. Which would have been a lucky/expensive plan but not so incredibly improbably so. Seemed worth preventing.

I’m not so sure I feel good about the future here, though. Odds seem good that everything I bounced is coming back. I can swing with the archon next turn, or I can have Prynn trash it and suicide, and then do the deck drawing trick again (I’m unclear on whether that would technically work, but I think it would?). I’m starting with no cards, though, and the whole situation just seems . . . dicey.

Which is why I say it feels like a partial solution. I don’t see a way to do better – I think I need two Vortoss Emblems to survive the implied Jaina threat. Is there a deadlier payload I could load the tech with? It’d have to be something cheap. And it’d have to be a way to win. If there’s something that fits that bill, I don’t see what it is.

Moment’s Peace is a bad idea. I need patrollers or those Vortoss Emblems won’t thwart Jaina. Final Showdown is a tempting payload in place of Rewind, but I can’t get enough damage out of it to win, and I’ve got to win if I don’t get the emblems.

I’m missing something.

So there’s the “obvious” plan of play Ebbflow and then bounce a Cadet repeatedly until we draw “everything.” That can include something we tech. But we’ll only have 6 gold to play it with. We can get to Rewind and bounce everything, but even that doesn’t help that much. Maybe we can do something if we tech a Drill Sergeant, and then use Prynn to rewind the Archon and bounce more stuff for +1s? But then we can’t play Rewind. And that only gets us like 5 +1 runes.

I can’t see any way to prevent Jaina other than “win this turn.” And unless we Rewind, basically the only thing that can attack is Midori, because we can’t really get rid of the Basilisk without using up our other attackers. And rewind only gets us Prynn through anyway.

We do have enough gold to play Drill Sergeant and Second Chances, though. So that’s 6 bounces to draw our deck, then we have to refresh the Archon with Prynn, bounce twice more to draw the remaining cards and hope we draw Drill Sergeant first. Play Drill Sergeant, bounce 5 cadets, archon refreshes from second chances… that’s 6 runes. Bounce 7 more cadets for 13 runes. Move all the runes to Midori, who is now 17/18 flying. If we drew the Drill Seargent before the bounce to draw the second chances, it’s an extra rune and he’s 18/19 and can oneshot their base.

But that doesn’t get the Faerie Dragon out of the way. I’m also not 100% sure about my math.

Prynn can’t attack for an extra rune for a second bounce (which we could spend our last gold on) because the Basilisk will kill her.

Wait no, I forgot about the draw from playing the Archon the first time!

So.
Tech DS and Second Chances
Play Archon. 6 gold left. Draw a card - 5 left in deck.
Bounce cadets 5 times to empty our deck - 2 cards in discard, 2 time runes left.
Bounce one more to draw. 1 time rune left, 1 card left in deck.

  • If that draw is Drill Sergeant, play it immediately, draw Second Chances, play it immediately. 1 gold left

  • Bounce and play a OC. Archon dies and returns due to Second Chances. 7 time runes, 1 +1 runes.

  • Bounce cadets 6 more times. 1 time runes, 7 +1 runes, 1 gold

  • Prynn blips the Archon and then faceplants the Basilisk.

  • Bounce and play a Cadet 6 more times. 1 time rune, 13 +1 runes, 1 gold.

  • Spend last gold and last time rune to bounce Fairie Dragon. Move all runes to Midori. Be short 1 damage of the kill.

  • If that draw is Second Chances, it’s just strictly worse.

And there’s no way to do DS + Rewind + Archon because that’s 15 gold and we only have 14. Maybe one of you guys can figure out something with this?

E: to avoid stupidity with Second Chances, the time rune removal that kills the Archon and procs Second Chances must be the one that targets the Dragon.

There might be a 2-turn solution teching Vortoss Emblem, bouncing cadets with the Archon to draw it, using Rewind and Moment’s Peace to clear their board and prevent attacks from replayed Lobbers, replaying the Cadets, Embleming the Archon, and killing their tech 3. But that doesn’t seem particularly great, either.

There’s a line with teching Slow-Time Generator that saves you from dying next turn to anything but Dark Pact. It seems like there’s no real way to beat Dark Pact, though, unless there’s a way to get the kill this turn.

I would roughly do the following:
Tech in Slow-Time Generator.
Collect gold. (14)
Play Ebbflow Archon. (6)
Bounce and replay an Overager Cadet 6 times, drawing your deck and Slow-Time Generator. Archon has 1 time rune remaining. (6)
Trash Archon with Prynn. Prynn has 1 time rune remaining. (6)
Prynn suicides into Potent Basilisk. Archon returns with 7 time runes. (6)
Play Slow-Time Generator. (1)
2nd Cadet trades with Potent Basilisk. (1)
Midori kills patrolling Fairie Dragon. (1)
Archon bounces all 4 remaining enemy units. Archon has 3 runes remaining. (1)
Patrol Archon in Lookout to protect from Fairie Dragon feather death. (1)

This leaves you safe from imminent death next turn, as the only spell castable with Jaina is Fire Dart, which will leave you at 1. Similarly, double Lobber will prevent any Jaina spells and also only deal a maximum of 2 damage. I’m not sure you’re necessarily the favorite in the post-Slow-Time Generator world, though…

Lines of play relying on Vortoss Emblem are definitely a little less “safe,” because your opponent could split the damage with Ember Sparks, which could combine with Lobbers to kill your base. It’s also vulnerable to bounced Potent Basilisks destroying the emblem.

I don’t think this is correct. The one reshuffle rule only affects the main phase not the discard/draw phase. So you should still draw 5 here.

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Really! I’ve been playing wrong for a while, then. That’s bitten me in actual games. Thanks.

Opponent has 12 workers and no floating gold.

Man, that Potent Basilisk in Squad Leader is a really good puzzle addition, since it locks out a ton of red-herring plays involving attacking with non-flying things, and it’s conveniently untargetable and thus unbounceable. So the only way to remove it is to kill it (which takes most of our available non-flying damage out of play anyway) or use Rewind.

Oh wait, I think I’ve got it.

Hmm, one gold more, and I think we might be able to get there with teching Drill Sergeant and Second Chances, with the plan of loading a bajillion runes onto a Nullcraft. But alas.

Man, the last puzzle was this way, too. One damage short, and getting that last point of damage involved something really clever.

I was the [Demonology]/Fire/Balance player in this game. I’ve been trying to solve it, but I’m not quite there yet. Vortoss Emblem is an option I didn’t consider, but I’m personally wary of solutions involving it rather than just killing this turn, as Ember Sparks + Dark Pact beats all of them.

With Faerie Dragon dead, the Lobber is no longer under the effect of the Feather Rune, so it wouldn’t die to Nullcraft.

Without Moment’s Peace, opponent replays Lobber, plays Faerie Dragon putting rune on Lobber, plays Mimic, Mimic->NC, Lobber->base. If you play Moment’s Peace over NC and break tech 1 instead (to prevent Lobbers from coming back and pinging base, you’re still dead to Ember Sparks + Dark pact or 2x Dark Pact.

Sergeant can’t put runes on Heroes. Second chances is interesting, though.

Here’s what I came up with so far:

Tech Drill Sergeant
Prynn to 3 runes

Play Ebbflow Archon ($6), draw.
Midori+Cadet kill Basilisk
Prynn + other Cadet hit base for 6 (12:heart:), Prynn to 4 runes
Remove 5 runes from Ebbflow to bounce and replay Cadet 5 times and draw 5 cards (rest of deck) (%2)
Play Nullcraft ($4), reshuffle and draw Cadet or DS.
I’ll assume you draw Cadet first, in the worst case scenario.
Bounce FD ($3) (%1)
Nullcraft hits for 1 (11:heart:)
Play Cadet, draw DS.
Play DS ($0), nothing left to draw
Prynn Trashes Archon and Nullcraft, then they come back
Remove 7 runes from Archon to bounce and replay OC 7 times and put 7 runes on Drill Sergeant.
Drill Sergeant moves 7 runes to Nullcraft, which attacks for 8 (3:heart:)

An adapted version of @Caphriel’s line can get the opponent to 1 or 2:

Tech Drill Sergeant + Second Chances
Prynn to 3 runes

Play Ebbflow Archon ($6), draw.
Remove 5 runes from Ebbflow to bounce and replay Cadet 1 5 times and draw 5 cards (rest of deck) (%2)
Remove a rune to bounce and replay Cadet 1, reshuffle and draw. (%1)

If you drew Sergeant first:
Play it now to draw Second Chances ($3)
Bounce Cadet 1; Archon dies and comes back with 7 runes
Replay cadet from your hand, 1 rune on DS
Bounce and replay Cadet 1 6 times for 7 total runes on Drill Sergeant
Prynn trashes Archon
Prynn + Midori kill Basilisk, Prynn dies, Archon returns
Bounce and replay Cadet 1 7 more times for 7 more runes on DS (14 total)
Move 14 runes from DS onto Cadet 2
Cadet 2 hits for 17 (1 short)

If you draw Second Chances first, you lose out on 1 rune.

EDIT: Oh duh, Caphriel has it below. I was overthinking this one a bit, I think.

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I have what I think is a working solution here:

[spoiler]Okay, so what if you tech 2x DS instead of second chances?

Play Archon, draw a card. use 6/7 time runes, draw 1 DS. Play it to draw the other DS. Play it. Have 1 +1 rune.
Prynn blips Archon then faceplants Basilisk. Flicker the same Cadet 7 times. 15 +1 runes.
Midori kills the Basilisk.
Move all of the +1 runes to the other Cadet that hasn’t been bounced, making it 18/18. Cadet runs under the Dragon, kills their base. Done.[/spoiler]

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[quote=“cstick, post:16, topic:1277”]
Play it now to draw Second Chances ($3)Bounce Cadet 1; Archon dies and comes back with 7 runes
[/quote]This is a 50/50 coin toss because of the way Second Chances works if two units leave play at the same time, which I would interpret this as causing. If they don’t leave at the same time, the Cadet leaves first and will be returned by Second Chances.

Oh yeah, I forgot its reminder text.

EricF liked my solution post, so I’m assuming that means it’s correct.

Cadet leaves first, because you have to resolve the whole “remove rune->bounce thing” ability before killing the Archon (and the Cadet will come back after that too)

There is no “correct” answer to one of these, but if you legally kill the opponent this turn, that’s good enough. There might be other answers as well.

In the original game, I’d say they were more of a plan that went right. I was putting a ton of pressure on early, and had just built my tech 2 while breaking his. He played and maxed Oni, and on my turn 5 I chose to break his tech 2 again rather than kill Oni. From that point, he was able to lock me down for a couple of turns with Art of War until I was able to assemble a way to kill Oni. Then the game went on for a couple more turns after that.

That is really cool. I continue to be surprised by what is possible.

Solution:
Take off all your clothes

Having played some base race Red before, my gut instinct was that moments peace just wouldn’t be enough. I have been looking for a way to burst down the base but it looks like Caphriel beat me too it :sleeping:

I was too sleepy to finish writing this last night. caphriel beat me too it. :wink:

Tech 2 drill sergeant

Get Paid $14
Fading Prynn to 3
Ebbflow Archon draw 1 $6
Ebbflow Bounce and play a cadet 5 times to draw entire deck, then bounce play OC once more to reshuffle and draw DS
Prynn banishes ebbflow and then dies dealing 3 to Basilisk and returns ebbflow to play
Midori kills Basilisk safely
Play first drill sergeant and draw the other drill sergeant and get 1 rune. $0
Bounce play cadet 7 more times killing ebbflow and getting 15 total +1 runes
Move all runes to the cadet that hasn’t done anything, swing for the kill.

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noob player missing obvious lethal

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