Got the DS version

[bredon7777]

And liking it, but I need tips to beat a Sinister Syndicate deck-

I can wail on the rhino for 3 turns, and then he starts being able to bring out heavy hitters- I cant get out a decent heavy hitter before turn 5.

And schooling me on formation and affiliations would be good, too thanks..the tutorial is um..unclear..to put it kindly.l

[captainspud]

Um. Not knowing what your deck has, it's hard to give advice on how to beat Rhino.

Formation... dude in front PROTECTS guy in back. Protected guy can't be hit unless the attacker has flight. Guys in the back row can't attack unless they have range. Guys beside each other in the back row can reinforce each other if they share a team affiliation.

Teams... besides team-stamped effects ("Play only if you control a SinSyn character", "To play, exhaust a Spidey Friend", etc), team affiliation lets you do two things-- reinforce and team attack. A dude in the back row can, if he's Ready, exhaust to reinforce a dude next to him if they share a team. Reinforced characters don't take breakthrough. Team attacking lets you swing with 2+ characters on one defender, letting you swarm on a big guy, then put your big guy through his smaller guy. Team attackers add their attack together against the defender's Defense, but can't do break while hitting a guy.

[gdaybloke]

I'll be hopefully getting a DS in a couple of weeks, but until then, all I can suggest is your visiting the official forums for the game and seeking advice there. Otherwise I'd just be offering blind advice.

[bredon7777]

Yeah I guess my deck makeup would help. If i have time I'll try to type it in soon- it seems to be a standard Spidey starter deck.

I have a few more questions though if y'all dont mind.

Why, sometimes when I attack do I take damage?- there seems to be no preditcable pattern for it, and frankly the very idea that I should be taking damage when attacking (barring special effects) is retarded.

Why, when I attack Rhino's cards with a card that has both both an attack and a defense that is higher than the card I'm attacking does he get to keep the card in play during his recovery phase- and yet, when he does the same thing to me, MY card gets KO'd?

Why is there such a damage differntial? I attack Rhino with a card, he goes down 4 points- he attacks me with a card with the same stats, I go down 8?

[gdaybloke]

1) If your character gets stunned while attacking, then you take END loss equal to the cost of the character. So if you attack with a 3-cost character, and they get stunned, you lose 3 END. There are also some characters that have additional burn effects they can use whtn they get stunned, so if you stun one of those characters while attacking, they may well use their abilities to cause additional loss. One way or another, those abilities are listed on their cards.

2) Are you selecting your card and telling it to recover, before passing? Unless it's a character with Evasion, you can only recover one character in the Recovery phase - if you have two stunned, you'll only get to keep one of them (but it's still the one of your choice). Some cards have self-KO effects (ie, you must meet condition X or the character is KO'd)

3) It's based on ATK and DEF and Cost. When a character stuns, the owner loses END equal to the cost of the character. When a character is stunned during combat, there's also breakthrough - the difference between the Attacker's ATK and the Defender's DEF.
So for example...

My Rhino (Cost 3 Atk 7 Def 4) attacks your Prodigy (Cost 3 Atk 4 Def 4)
Rhino's ATK is equal to or higher than Prodigy's Def, so Prodigy stuns - you lose 3 END for cost, and an additional 3, since Rhino's ATK is 7, while your DEF is 4. You take a total of 6.
Prodigy's ATK is equal to or higher than Rhino's Def,, so Rhino stuns - I lose 3 END for cost.

Other side of the coin, your Prodigy attacks my Rhino.
Prodigy's ATK equal to or higher than Rhino's DEF, so Rhino stuns - I lose 3 END, but since your ATK is exactly equal to my DEF, I lose no additional.
Meanwhile Rhino's ATK is higher than Prodigy's DEF, so Prodigy stuns - you lose 3 END. You were attacking, not defending, so you don't take any additional damage due to Rhino's higher ATK.

[GrizzlyBearTalon]

*Random kinda off topic comment*

I love my DS, it brings joy!

Now back to your already in progress thread...

[bredon7777]

Thanks G'day- you're much clearer than the tutorial in the game.

Thanks to your tips Ive been able to beat Rhino, Lizard and Electro and am now working on Doc Oc himself!

[gdaybloke]

No worries, Bre. Watch out for his left hook. Well, both of them.

[bredon7777]

If you're still feeling helpful can you run through reinforcement and protection?

1) I have two characters with the same affiliation, one in front of the other Why can Blob (Yes, I made it about halfway through the Xmen level) target the back one, yet I have to wipe out the front one before I can target the back one when he has two characters with the same affiliation in front of each other?

2) Why does protection to the right or left of an affiliated character only work sometimes? (Seemingly on a random basis)

3) Why do my characters occassionly get sent directly to the KO pile when no effects are in play that would indicate they should be?

[gdaybloke]

A character is 'Protected' if there is a character in front of it. Affiliation's irrelevent - if a character is in the support row and there's someone in front of them in the front row, they're protected.

As for the attacking, does the attacker have flight? Understanding Flight and Range are critical to your formation.
:: A character with flight can attack a protected character
:: A character with range can attack from your support row
:: A character with neither flight nor range can only attack unprotected characters, and only while in the front row

As usual, there are ways around this and exceptions to the rule (2-drop Nightcrawler from MOR can attack as if he had flight and range, even though he has neither).

A character can reinforce another character that is either (a) in front of it, (b) beside it in the back row. A character in the front row cannot naturally reinforce. Of course, there are ways around this (4-drop Invisible Girl from MOR automatically reinforces all Fan4 characters, regardless of location), and you can always reinforce with plot twist or location effects if need be.

You cannot protect a character beside you (though as stated, you can reinforce a character beside you if you're both in the support row). I should point out here that Blob's printed ability allows him to "protect" all support row characters while he's in the front row - they're not actually protected, but you can't attack them.

Which phase is the KOing happening in? Either there are effects you're not noticing, or (a) it's in the recruit step and you're recruiting a unique character with the same name as one you already have in play, or (b) it's happening in the recovery phase - any characters not recovered get KO'd.