|
 Welcome to the first playtest of another of my terrible BattleCON ideas! In the red corner, played by Wol, the assassin with more teeth than the Osmond family and something to prove, Regicide Heketch! In the blue corner, played by Tollymain, the super-powered machine soldier who has undergone retrofitting to actually give its targets a chance, Cadenza, Wind-Up Mode!    --- BEAT 1  Discard 1: Psycho Burst Discard 2: Rasping Dash Finisher: Living Nightmare Dark Force Tokens: 1 Discard 1: Mechanical Strike Discard 2: Grapnel Grinder Finisher: Rocket Press Wind-Up Tokens: 3    ANTE Heketch declines to ante! Cadenza antes 2 Wind-Up tokens, and gains Stun Guard 4! REVEAL   Heketch reveals Merciless Drive and has Priority 4!   Cadenza reveals Battery Drive and has Priority 3! ACTIVE PLAYER!  Heketch advances 1 space!  Heketch opens with a Mercilles Drive, with a range of 1~2! It hits! Cadenza takes 2 damage! Its Stun Guard 4 holds! Heketch has a Dark Force token, and cannot be hit or damaged for the rest of the beat! REACTIVE PLAYER  Cadenza advances 1! Merciless activates, and Cadenza loses 2 life!   Cadenza attacks with a Battery Drive, with a range of 1, but Heketch cannot be hit or damaged this beat! END OF BEAT Cadenza gains +4 Priority on the next beat! girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 05:33 on May 24, 2015 |
#
?
May 23, 2015 19:10
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 14:57 |
|
|
Robo morghulis.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2015 19:24
|
|
|
click click kill-ick
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2015 20:19
|
|
|
 Beat 1 card choices, please!
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2015 20:31
|
|
|
Also, it doesn't matter right now, but by a strict reading of Cadenza's UA, he could avoid the no Wind-Up penalty by anteing ANY tokens. I'm probably going to change that, because it makes the fights against Alexian and Malandrax hilariously one-sided.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2015 20:34
|
|
|
idk if regicide has anything to prove, per se i mean, when you hold the world record for actual regicide, it seems like you already accomplished proving whatever you needed to a while back
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2015 20:37
|
|
|
Heketch, how far will you advance?
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2015 02:59
|
|
|
Just the 1.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2015 03:17
|
|
|
advance 1 as well
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2015 03:25
|
|
|
So, following Trasson and Kai Tave's cool analysis posts in the Shekhtur/Eustace game, I'll be posting my thoughts and decision-making process in this game. Starting Hand Official Cadenza is known for being one of the game's most steady, reliable characters, but I'm not playing Official Cadenza. I'm playing Wind-Up Cadenza. Wind-Up Cadenza looks like a rhythm character. What I'm defining as a rhythm character is one who is strong, then weak, then strong, then weak (repeat ad infinitum). In the case of this Cadenza, it needs to use tokens to be strong, but it only regains those tokens by opting into a point of weakness (not using a token). The basic way you want to play against a rhythm character is avoid them when they're strong and punish them when they're weak. Heketch is a rhythm character too. His Dark Force token gives him access to all sorts of powerful abilities, but he's quite weak without it. Heketch's rhythm differs from Cadenza's in that Heketch can regain his token under normal circumstances of just trying to kill his opponent. He doesn't necessarily have to go out of his way to regain it. However, he also can't guarantee he'll regain his token in any given beat. If Cadenza declines to ante, no matter how pear-shaped things go for it that beat, it is guaranteed to regain at least one token. If Heketch makes a play to try and regain his token and his opponent reads it, his opponent will often be able to stop him. What I'm looking at, then, is a rhythm vs. rhythm matchup. The pattern of alternating between offense and avoidance is going to entirely dictate this game, so I need to identify my best options for both parts of the pattern. I want to make sure I don't accidentally leave myself without my good offensive tools or without my good avoidance tools at any point in time. -- UA: Ante Dark Force Token: Not that good in this matchup and not strong in general. Just by virtue of it being Heketch's only token use that has to be done before pairs are revealed, it's significantly less strong than his other token options. It's nice that it exists because despite being suboptimal it is the right piece to solve some puzzles, but I don't expect it to be too relevant. -- Offense Tools: Critical, Rasping (with Dark Force up). My hardest hitting styles. These are my best offensive tools when Cadenza's strong, because they let me actually go blow to blow with him. They're not as good when he's weak since he'll be trying to avoid rather than staying in my face where the +3 Power token options are usable, but they're still useful for the following reason: Sometimes with a rhythm character, you might be forced into a position of weakness where you ask yourself "If I just stay here and take my opponent's attack on the chin...how bad can it possibly be?" Tokened Critical and Rasping are my only tools that hit hard enough to make Cadenza answer that question with "really, really bad". My other main offense tool is Knives. Knives is hard-hitting and fast with a bit of range on it. Its disadvantage is that it may not be able to stun, but in this matchup, who cares? Cadenza in his points of strength is really hard to stun anyway. Cadenza in his points of weakness trades like garbage anyway. Knives will be very good in this matchup and, maybe even more importantly, is my only offensively threatening move when my token is down. -- Avoidance Tools: Merciless. My best avoidance tool in this matchup. It needs me to be Active Player in order to be an avoidance tool at all, but Cadenza is so slow that I'll usually be able to get Active Player without much problem. The reason it's the best is it offers a ton of what I'll call "avoidance threat". Avoidance threat isn't just the ability to not get hit, it's the ability to not get hit and hit your opponent back. It's better in some matchups than in others. It's not really a huge deal against reliable characters like Official Cadenza, because Official Cadenza looks at the 2-for-0 trade you just made and goes "whatever, I'll just hit you for 7 next beat". Avoidance threat is amazing against rhythm fighters, though. Not only are you trading, say, 2-for-0 against them, making that trade while they're at their strongest means they miss out on their window of strength and now have to struggle to come back from behind when they're already in the weak part of their rhythm. Critical. Hi Critical, you're back again! Ignore Stun Guard is a great avoidance tool against someone for whom Stun Guard is brick and mortar. Dash. The Dash game this match is going to be incredibly important. Dash a great way for both of us to regain our tokens, but I have to be very careful not to Dash at the same time Cadenza Dashes. If Cadenza has a slower Dash than Heketch, Cadenza can make sure to regain its tokens and position itself so I can't regain mine - and if Cadenza wants to have a slower Dash than me, it easily will. Assassin, Burst. These aren't incredibly strong avoidance tools, but they're decent and can set me up to regain my token. So what do I want in my starting hand? Assassin and Burst are basically the same thing given Cadenza's lack of high-Priority movement, but Assassin's more flexible so it's pretty much just better. I want one of these in my starting hand, but both would be excessive. One can be discarded. I leave this decision until later. Psycho is not good in this matchup. Psycho Strike or Psycho Knives can be incredibly damaging, but if I pull it out while Cadenza has Soak, it barely does anything at all. Again, there are puzzles in this matchup where Psycho is the right solution, but on Beat 1? Nope, getouttahere Psycho. Psycho goes to Discard 1 because I think it's my worst style this matchup. Besides, I know Cadenza's not throwing away Clockwork against Heketch and that's the main thing that makes Psycho really bad. I don't need Dash when I have my token, but I do need it when I don't have my token. Starting with it would just be a waste, and putting it in Discard 1 would give Tolly a window of opportunity on Beat 2 if I use my token on Beat 1. I want Tolly to think that I could well use my token on Beat 1, so Dash goes in Discard 2. Now I have Psycho in Discard 1 and Dash in Discard 2. I need to throw away one more base and one more style. I figure I can do without Rasping - Rasping Knives or Rasping Grasp would be a tempting move on Beat 1 except that I recall Gutter Owl saying something a while ago about life gain over your starting life total maybe no longer being possible in the new rulebook? I dunno, and I need to throw something out anyway, so Rasping it is. This leaves me with either Assassin or Burst to discard, and it's a base that needs to go - so Burst goes! As for the Finishers, it's a clear and easy choice. I can either choose a multi-hit finisher that gets dunked by Clockwork or something that bypasses all of Cadenza's Stun Guard and turns this from a rhythm vs. rhythm matchup into rhythm vs. an unholy beatdown. Yep, going for the promised land of endless great Mercilesses and vicious Criticals. Beat 1 Both fighters start at full token power. I go over a few of Cadenza's options - Tolly has a bunch of different things he can try here, most of which expend his tokens. I'm really not sure what he's going to do. What I am sure of, though, is if I play Merciless Knives or Merciless Drive I have a decent chance of doing a little damage and I'm not getting hit this beat. It's not a super flashy way to start, but at this point I don't feel forced into a super risky play. I would rather take it easy and probe Tolly's strategy. Merciless Knives would be the slightly better option if he stays still, but Merciless Drive is the much better option if he decides to move at all. Say he decides to pull a surprise and open with Dash - Merciless Drive lets me run him down into the corner. If he Bursts, Merciless Drive lets me run him down into the corner. If he Drives, Merciless Drive lets me to force him to take the life loss from Merciless's trigger and gives me a lot of power over how the board is set up. So Merciless Drive it is!
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2015 05:16
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 14:57 |
|
|
BEAT 2 Discard 1: Merciless Drive Discard 2: Psycho Burst Finisher: Living Nightmare Dark Force Tokens: 1   Discard 1: Battery Drive Discard 2: Mechanical Strike Finisher: Rocket Press Wind-Up Tokens: 1 It's time for Card submissions!
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2015 05:59
|
|