The Book of Thanos (Infinity Quest)

[Karat]

Originally Posted by Lazy Orang

Initial Playtest (9 Life, 6 Def, 3 starting Glyphs) - 1 Close Loss, 2 Big (or at least notable) Losses.
Mr.Nobody (intended to be 9 Life, 7 Def, 3 starting Glyphs, but he seems to have accidentally tested him with 2 starting Glyphs instead) - 1 Big Loss, 1 Big Win
Arkham (9 Life, 7 Def, 3 starting Glyphs) - 1 BIG Win, 1 Close Loss
Lazy Orang (8 Life, 7 Def, 3 starting Glyphs) - 1 Close Loss
Lazy Orang (9 Life, 7 Def, 2 starting Glyphs) - 1 Close Win

I believe this was before my tests and the last tests of LO

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by Karat

I believe this was before my tests and the last tests of LO

Yeah, that's not counting your tests and my last test. I just posted a breakdown of the relevant tests of the present version.

[Arkham]

I'm not entirely sold. I do have a question that may help. @Karat in your first game, did he use Rewritten Death? It said he had 5/9 wounds but I'm not sure if he was on his 1st or 2nd life.

[Karat]

Originally Posted by Arkham

I'm not entirely sold. I do have a question that may help. @Karat in your first game, did he use Rewritten Death? It said he had 5/9 wounds but I'm not sure if he was on his 1st or 2nd life.

Nope. He did not. It was not a very good showing for the mutants.

[Arkham]

I guess my concern is what I had stated prior following my tests, which is that he is strongest when in an army by himself. A big thing that can mess him up is if the opponent gets the Gauntlet with the Reality gem and start preventing Thanos from being as effective. The Reality gem is useless against him if he's by himself.

So it's hard to say. Not saying we shouldn't push forward if you're feeling confident.

[Lazy Orang]

I think, fundamentally, he's got high potential and is, unsurprisingly for a big single hero, kind of swingy. Plus, in the second game of Karat's where he won with half of his Life, he was facing figures whose powers only work on Unique Heroes, so if Karat had realised that and he hadn't faced a force that was skewed in that way, it'd probably have been a closer showing. Everyone who's tested his current iteration is happy with him.

[Karat]

Originally Posted by Arkham

I guess my concern is what I had stated prior following my tests, which is that he is strongest when in an army by himself. A big thing that can mess him up is if the opponent gets the Gauntlet with the Reality gem and start preventing Thanos from being as effective. The Reality gem is useless against him if he's by himself.

So it's hard to say. Not saying we shouldn't push forward if you're feeling confident.

I do agree that he definitely seems stronger by himself; however, I also feel that using a similar tactic as I employed in the last game really mitigates that. Have a hard to wound figure grab the Reality Gem and play keep away while you try and get the Gauntlet off and tie him down with a different unit if possible.

[Arkham]

What you are suggesting is a specific army built to take Thanos down. I'm not entirely sure that's how we should be pointing him on, we tend to specifically avoid pointing based on counter draft scenarios if I remember correctly.

I'll trust you guys though if you feel his loss potential is equal to his win potential in most matchups(not just counter drafts) at that point value by himself.

[Karat]

I do see your point, and I guess I'm weighing him a little different in that he should be more difficult to overcome as an Event Hero. I've never actually beaten Anti-Monitor when playing him one on one to date. The losses didn't feel that far out of whack to me and like a little more careful play could have eeked out a win. Going back to 8 life would help him fall faster as that was the first really big hurdle to overcome was his life and then for free you have to do it all over again. I'm still a fan of making it so he doesn't get Auto-rewritten if we want just a slight nerf and I really don't think it would affect his overall performance that much and it could still have a pretty high chance of success, but just having that chance of failure is handy for keeping him in check.

[IAmBatman]

Make sure the SP is up to date with the version voting on as well. I see 8 Life there.

What power levels were folks disappointed with him at, out of curiosity? I know you were disappointed at 6 defense. Remind us why he went up to 9 Life from what's in the SP? Was he getting beaten up?

4-3 isn't a bad record, though the amount of big wins (and the bigness of them) could be a red flag.

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by Arkham

What you are suggesting is a specific army built to take Thanos down. I'm not entirely sure that's how we should be pointing him on, we tend to specifically avoid pointing based on counter draft scenarios if I remember correctly.

I'll trust you guys though if you feel his loss potential is equal to his win potential in most matchups(not just counter drafts) at that point value by himself.

Note that in my games, neither army was able to play keep away for that long, neither army was built to fight him and the X-Men was specifically one built to be exploitable. The X-Men fight was a narrow win for Thanos (more narrow than expected) and the Justice League fight a narrow loss. (And honestly, if the X-Men had won initiative at the right time once, they could have cleaned up and won.) Given the Mutants in Karat's first game had extremely poor luck and the Dark Judges in his second game had abilities they just couldn't use, that doesn't seem unreasonable. You don't have to build an army around beating him to have a shot, it just helps.

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by IAmBatman

Make sure the SP is up to date with the version voting on as well. I see 8 Life there.

What power levels were folks disappointed with him at, out of curiosity? I know you were disappointed at 6 defense. Remind us why he went up to 9 Life from what's in the SP? Was he getting beaten up?

4-3 isn't a bad record, though the amount of big wins (and the bigness of them) could be a red flag.

He was originally 9 Life, we dropped it to 8 for one game since he was overperforming. That was before we decided a better way around it was only allowing him to place one Glyph himself at game start.
Updated. Also note that the number of Big Wins (and the size of them) is almost equaled by the number of Big Losses - 3/2, with an uneven number of games all told.