Undercards Talk: Part 1

So I have a couple things started (a long while ago I started a solo fiesta for FFV that I've slowly been progressing through, some casual gaming and other assorted plans, trying to beat CC levels blindfolded) but right now I want to talk about a game I've been playing a lot recently that I haven't mentioned.

Undercards- it's an online Undertale themed collectible (not trading) card game. I've built a few unique decks that I want to put some thoughts down on before I forget about them. To help follow along, you can look up what certain cards not used in decks on the wiki. I'll start with...

Justice Science

Before I can really dig into why this deck worked to get me into Master in Season 21, I need to explain a little bit about how Undercards is played. Each player has a deck of 25 cards and 30 HP to start the match, alongside 2 artifacts (or one legendary artifact, such as Science). Conventional wisdom is that Science is a bad artifact and that Patience or Determination souls (basically, the classes) are the best way to play it. I set out to prove that wrong- after all, Justice seemed to have the strongest set of board removal options, and the goal of a Science deck is to hoard gold and Gaster Blasters to win by direct damage. What could go wrong?

Well, the initial draft of the deck maxed out all Justice spells, and brought Sans, Undyne, Mettaton NEO and 2 Gasters and called it a deck. I think I also had 3 Clam Girls, but I don't remember much of the original version other than that it was very spell reliant. I was consistently spending as much gold, if not more than my opponent to keep the board clear and would eventually die before getting lethal damage.

Oh, Gaster Blasters deal 5 damage to a player or 8 to a monster as a 7 cost spell. The Science artifact places 5 in your starting deck and makes them deal 1 additional damage, bringing that up to 6 to a player or 9 to a monster. Having Gaster on the board bumps that up to 8 to players, which Science boosts to 9. Recall that players start with 30 HP, and also note that the Justice passive deals 1 damage to a random enemy monster and 1 damage to the enemy player if they have more HP than you. This has a lot of value, even against the Health artifact (+5 starting health), or Kindness/Determination souls (heal 2 HP per turn, has an extra life worth 15 HP).

Spells alone didn't work, I needed board presence- monsters that could take down a monster when played and potentially another one later, or at least would divert resources away from my vulnerable health. That's where Fuku Fire came in, substituting for triple of spells. Clam Girl lowering the cost of spells made the final victory require less hoarding, and so on. I started with 3, but then I was drawing too many and replaced a Clam Girl with a Shootout. This all happened over the course of many games, identifying weaknesses and bad matchups and trying to address them. After a few losses to damage over time effects and rush decks, I brought in a Scarf Mouse and Coffee Man for silence and silence+taunt, respectively. And ultimately, this deck worked.

The play strategy is simple- allow a little bit of early damage while trying to find a tempo to play Multi Shot for the full game advantage. This negates the Kindness passive, which is huge in that matchup. The Justice passive also deals the damage dealt to me back over time while I stall. Using spells and effects to wipe the board turn after turn with as few gold as possible (Mettaton NEO worked very well for this after a buffed board) while I held onto blasters and stalled. In hindsight, it wasn't the most interesting deck, but it was the first one I came up with on my own that actually won me games.

As for cards that didn't make the cut? Papyrus Statue, a 1/5 that costs 6 with the effect that all damage to enemies is increased by 1. This was a huge advantage if I could find time to play it AND keep it on the board... which never happened. It's too vulnerable to silence, or Muffet's Pet (kill a random enemy monster with attack of 2 or less) or any number of other cards. It was holding the deck back.

In Season 21, this deck had about a 60% winrate. At the start of Season 22, with the shift in the meta, it was winning about 40% of games, and so I retired the deck. Next time: My Season 22 Integrity attempts and where they went wrong.

Another Month, Another Update!

Future plans:
  I'd like to do a solo class run of every FFV class, all 22 of them. Sullla's solo characters are enlightening, but they only tell half the story. So many places that are roadblocks for a solo character (Karlabos, Purobolos, etc.) aren't for a full party, and some places a solo stomps over (Chimera Brain and Almagest come to mind) are huge threats for a party! I'd like to have a counterpoint to the solo characters, as even though they do demonstrate the ins and outs of the class on its own, they really do only show how an overleveled example of that class operates, and not at all in a party setting. How much does that change things? I'm going to find out! No ETA on when I'm going to start this, but probably somewhere around 2017. Keep an eye out for it!

Blog Index

Updates

• August 8th, 2013
• August 13th, 2013
• May 12th, 2016 (going to try for semi-regular updates from now on)
• June 15th, 2016

Updates on, well, everything

Haven't posted anything here in almost 2 years, and that's not really going to change much for a little while longer- been pretty busy and it doesn't let up until June, really. Of course, once June comes around I'm planning on streaming more (link here) and doing a couple more challenges: naturally another few FFV Four Job Fiesta runs (depending on the teams I get, I might do a writeup here for a no item fiesta!), seriously starting up a PC version FF9 perfect game file (it's well documented how, but the PC version has some interesting changes that should make the overall path a lot smoother), and just generally working from my bloated Steam library (I still haven't played half of it at all!).

So what have I been up to the past couple years?

FFV NINMNFNCM Challenge Part 1: A Rocky Start

FFV NINMNFNCM Challenge:
No Items, No Money, No Freelancer, No Class Mastering

Bartz dispatched the early goblins easily, no need to heal there.  The Pirate Cave was a non-event, with only 1 encounter dealing any damage via an ambush.  The first couple areas before you're supposed to have access to equipment are just too easy, even without items.

The Wind Shrine was a bit easier than anticipated, though Lenna was brought to precarious health by WingRaptor.  I picked up a Broad Sword before the fight and ignored the Tent, using a secret passage to get to the fight quicker.  After getting job classes, I turned everyone into Blue Mages, healed at the pot inside the shrine and picked up Goblin Punch and Aero for use later.  Then I went back to the Pirate Cave for the most valuable spell in these early stages: Vampire, learned from a Steel Bat.  This is the first access to in-battle healing I get, period, healing me for 1/2 of my missing HP, draining from an enemy.  This came in handy in the Torna Canal, as the video below shows.  I won't show most dungeons, just the ones where something interesting happens/it was difficult.

FFV NINMNFNCM Challenge: Part 0

FFV NINMNFNCM Challenge:
No Items, No Money, No Freelancer, No Class Mastering

I'm looking forward to the Four Job Fiesta this year, but while waiting for it to start I wanted to do something different with the game.  I wanted to do a challenge with all classes on the table that garnered its difficulty from the restrictions, forcing clever use of the many classes of FFV to work around, similar to Sullla's Ironcore Team (no party wipes), and T-Hawk's Nudists (never equip anything, ever).  Both of these teams utilized Phoenix Downs to great effect.  What if I removed those?  Actually, let's go all out.  No Items, I haven't seen that done with FFV yet.

No Items in this context means never consume an item, ever.  The only exception being using a Tent to progress the story upon reaching Galuf's world.  This removes Potions, Ethers, Elixirs, status restoring items, rod breaking, !Throw and !Mix, as well as Ramuh and Golem from play.  More annoyingly with the other big restriction, no Tents.  Key Items consumed to get even more items (i.e. endgame tablets) are allowed to be used.  No Items was still much too simple, and GilToss was still accessible.  So I stole a restriction from FFIX, where there's not much to restrict...

Optimal Peggle Scoring

Oh man, it's been a while since I've posted anything here.  Anyway, I recently finished up Ape Escape time attacks, with a final time of 1:59.62, and submitted them all to Cyberscore.  I also looked through the list of games they had, adding in some EoSD scores (can't let bad scores take the top spot when I can make the top spot a slightly less bad score :V), AE2 and 3 time attacks, and a couple other assorted things.  What I noticed, though, is that Peggle had had some decent competition.  The highest score for the first level and the one I'll use to explain why my scoring method is optimal, was 963,830, with 5 scores above 700k.  My method, is done optimally, yields a score of over 4.5 million with very little luck required-or ~2 million, if you decide to ignore one aspect.

Ape Escape any% no IJ writeup

Cut the 1 in Ape Escape...without using the infinite jump glitch.

This run...was something.  For one, something like 3 years ago I jokingly said "I was to get under an hour in Ape Escape".  Jokingly.  Because the infinite jump wasn't discovered yet, so I didn't think it was possible.  There was no community for the game, it was just me doing a run every once in a while.  Then about...a year and a half ago (?) the infinite jump was discovered, and a community sprung up.  I met some really cool people (<3 saboom), but at the back of my mind, sub 1 was always nagging.  Even when I smashed the 1 hour mark with a 57:18 over a year ago, it still occurred to me that I hadn't truly subbed 1 just yet.  We did a few no IJ races, I tried to get there a few times a few months ago, but stopped at a high 1:03.  Well, after the 50:19 any% I pulled...this had to be next.  I had to complete this goal that I already knew was possible from my earlier attempts, even less a slim PS2.  I had to.  and that's what I tried to do yesterday...but fell short with a 1:00:20.  It was far from a bad run, but it just wasn't good enough.  I kept trying for another 4 hours that day, but never managed to top it.  This morning, I tried again.  And failed.  And failed some more.  I failed Specter's Factory jumps/route, I failed Snowy Mammoth movement (kills the run if you fall down), I failed Hot Springs ice bridges (likewise), I failed at everything you could come up with.

Final Fantasy V Four Job Fiesta, Run 2-12

After a month of forced inactivity, and a week of laziness, I'm finally back and writing up the rest of my Four Job Fiesta Report.  Where I left off after post 11 (2-?? was a quick thing on how I finished on time-it'd be a decent read, though 2-13 will cover most of the same things with less OP strategies) was right outside of Phoenix Tower at Level 26.  Without any further stalling, into the tower Team Sidequest goes.

Inside the tower, escaping battles is locked: you MUST defeat every enemy you come across, or die trying.  Coupled with fake walls that if you choose the wrong one is a miniboss, this dungeon can be a challenging place to run through given its 30 floor length.  However, the awesome song Four Warriors of the Dawn plays, so the length doesn't get annoying.

Final Fantasy V Four Job Fiesta, Run 2-??

So, the Fiesta has ended, and my run was unfinished due to my laptop dying.

Or was it?

I recovered the remainder of my data at 6 PM on the 31st of August, the final day.  I then elected to go all or nothing on my laptop, previously been booting to Ubuntu off a DVD, and do a full factory restore.  This worked.  Using no less than 2 external hard drives, I maneuvered my FFV data back onto my laptop...and you guys probably don't want to hear this part.  I had 4 hours remaining to defeat Exdeath for my victory to be counted.

Status update- 8/13/2013 & more on VVVVVV

My data is still not yet recovered, since to do so I need to physically remove the hard drive from my old laptop.  I should still be able to resume posting in a week or so.  Lastly, I managed to pull off another V rank in VVVVVV- Space Station 2.  I  was getting the frame perfect flip strategy for Gordian Knot every time today, so I went for doing it twice to avoid having to do Backsliders at all.  The first time took me to Manic Mine, the 3rd trinket, where I died stupidly.  The second success was foiled...by automatic update costing 20 seconds, so I had to go for the fast strategy in 'Just Pick Yourself Down' to have any chance of meeting the 3:20 time limit.  I failed it, and then couldn't get to Gordian Knot for a while out of frustration.  Then, I finally strung together a run.  Gordian Knot, And Veni Vidi Vici both fell first try this was my first time doing VVV today too! From there, I was a nervous wreck and could feel the adrenaline pumping.  I remembered where V stitch was and didn't charge headfirst into spikes, played it safe in Down Under, and nearly died in Shenanigan but hit the last possible frame I could flip on.  If I had died there, it would have been heartbreaking.  That's not an exaggeration either-I flipped AFTER Viridian had fallen off the edge.  As it was, I didn't die on the last possible room and finished with 17 seconds left on the clock with 0 deaths and all 5 trinkets for the V rank.  Just the Lab remains until I have all 6...

It feels good.  That's definitely one of the harder things I've done in games.

Status update- 8/8/2013

My laptop recently died, leaving me without my FFV save and minimal access to a computer. I'm working on resolving this and regular posts should resume to in about 2 weeks. Until then, I managed to pull off a V rank on 'The Final Level' in VVVVVV in the short period of time I've had access to the game- got to The Villi People and choked, then got it the very next attempt.  The amount of nerves was ridiculous.  Also, 27:30 100% with a bit of messing around to show my sister some stuff in the game with a 2 death Gravitron.

See you on the other side of the month, my data is all intact on my hard drive and I just need to recover the rest of it.

Final Fantasy V Four Job Fiesta, Run 2-11

Now in the Third World, or the Merged World, there's a lot of optional things Team Sidequest has to do.  But first, we have to stop by Tycoon and throw a huge banquet for the safe return of Princess Sarisa-better known as Faris.

Fittingly enough when Faris left the party she was in her Dancer outfit, and still is in this scene.  You'd think Bartz would be used to it by now, she's nearly mastered it.  Anyway, Krile the walking talking plot device gets a 'feeling' from 'Galuf' from beyond the grave, saying to leave Tycoon.  Reina wouldn't want to leave, and Bartz can't get through the dancing people to reach Faris, so he and Krile head off.

Don't fret townsperson, I'm sure the sky looking strange means nothing at all.  Absolutely nothing at all.  Also, I finally found my way into the tower on the right!  There's 2 Cabins in there, and you have to walk through the castle wall.  Like that makes any sense, but free treasure is free treasure.  While looking around for this passageway I spoke to Faris' teacher, who reminisced about what a sweet little girl she was.  Of course, the scene also shows how nice of an older sister she was to Reina.  I suggest watching this scene if you haven't already-words won't do it justice.

Final Fantasy V Four Job Fiesta, Run 2-10

I realized I had forgotten to pick up the Shoat summon, so I returned to the forest were I found Koko to pick him up.

The Shoat summon petrifies a single enemy on the battlefield, at base 99%+(caster level-target level) odds, capping at 99%.  Could be useful, but I'm finding attacking more generally useful than cheap instant kills.  The boss encounter with Shoat is similar, countering any damaging attack with Demon's Eye, a petrifying attack.  On its turns it will either attack, or Drain at 1/3 odds.  Altogether not that threatening to mow through 5000 HP, especially since Faris is immune to Stone through the Ribbon.

Shoat is the last of the Level 3 Summons, which can currently be cast by Reina or Galuf.  Bartz picked up Throw around here, so I shuffled jobs around a bit to maximize potential damage-Bartz became a Summoner with Throw and Reina switch to Ninja with Summon4.  Scrolls were doing base 1000 damage to all targets-I wanted more of those now!  and so Team Sidequest returned to Kelb with 3 million gil and purchased 99 of each Flame, Water and Lightning Scrolls-and 99 Shurikens too.  They then finally trekked off to the Forest of Moore to stop Exdeath.

Final Fantasy V Four Job Fiesta, Run 2-09

With the Hiryuu Weed in tow, the party returned to Bal Castle where Galuf's guards mistake them for Exdeath's monsters.  Not sure how they could confuse their king and his friends for monsters, but at least Galuf has a secret entrance through the moat.  There's a pretty well hidden Epee sword which I can't equip, but I do have a use in mind for its high attack power.  Krile's plot telepathy makes her sick in bed but at least we know to go to Guido's (Gill) Cave for advice.  The Moogle really likes Faris, hugging her through the short scene.

Of course, the Hiryuu is still sick, and since the Hiryuu Weed is why the dragons were all dying, it doesn't trust it.  Reina eats some to show that it's safe, but it's poisonous to humans!  Reina even knew that...but thankfully plot convenience Krile runs out of bed and has the antidote available!  She was sick in bed, and now she's running around?  Anyway, the Hiryuu gets better and the party flies off to Guido's Cave.  However, Exdeath sinks the island where it is before the party can enter, so we make a detour to Zeza's fleet by Barrier Tower.  Team Sidequest catches a Few Zs below deck, and Gilgamesh attacks!

Final Fantasy V Four Job Fiesta, Run 2-08

World 2 is relatively short.  This post, on the other hand, covers a decent chunk of it and isn't going to be that short.  Anyway, we left off right next to the warp to World 2, so let's jump right in.

You end up on an island, which has only one type of random encounter-a Pao, a weak enemy that always drops a Tent.  I killed one of these, then rested to advance the plot.  Seriously, how are you supposed to know this!  Reina and Faris start some sisterly bonding, talking about their lost parenst when suddenly one of Exdeath's goons kidnaps them.  Bartz wakes up from his nap and engages the Abductor in battle.

Win or lose, it doesn't matter and the outcome is the same.  I elected to try to win but without expending any consumables-attackattackattackattack led Bartz the Ninja to victory.  Of course, he gets captured anyway due to a gas trap being left behind.  Meanwhile, Galuf is waging war on Exdeath's castle by trying to cross the Big Bridge.  Exdeath uses his newfound prisoners to dissuade further attacks, saying he'll kill them if they proceed.  aluf shows how awesome he is by borrowing his granddaughter's dragon, flying straight into the castle, dropping down 30 feet twice and decking himself out in the best equipment I have access to right now.

Four Warriors of the Dawn plays during this part, also known as Galuf's theme.  It's so amazingly good, and especially fitting for this part.  Give it a listen!  Right now, during this part.  So triumphant.  Anyway, I saved, blew up a Jail Bear and nearly wiped to 4 Tarantulas.  and then it was time to face Gilgamesh for the first time.

Final Fantasy V Four Job Fiesta, Run 2-07

Picking up right where I left off last time, I'm treated to a miniature boss rush type thing.  In order to enter the Ronka Ruins I need to defeat the 4 outer turrets, which are one of 2 fights.  The first, Flameguns, have 2500 HP apiece and attack endlessly with a fire elemental attack, single target.  Nothing too threatening.  The other set use only Gravity based moves, meaning they'll never kill me-but my confused party members might!

 Both sets of enemies died in a couple of Thunder Scroll tosses.  I'm not a member of Team 750 (price of a rod) but Team 200 is much more powerful AND economical!  Before taking on the big bad boss of the ruins I bought more Scrolls at 200 apiece, as well as healed up and saved.  I also switched Bartz and Galuf so I have more powerful overall Thunder damage.  Pretty sure Bartz's final build will be a Ninja with !Summon to boost Scroll damage, maybe !Dance or !Mug.  Not sure on the overall yet.

Final Fantasy V Four Job Fiesta, Run 2-06

Now with control of a Fire Ship, you're supposed to go to Crescent where a story event removes the boat from you.  I have another idea, as usual.  Around the forests of Istory there's another summon I can obtain, Ramuh.  Since I have summoner I want all 14 summons available in the endgame-and all available as soon as possible.  Specifically, there's a few bosses up ahead weak to Thunder element.  Along the way I found out that the Th.Anemones always dropped Thunder Scrolls, which give my Ninjas some Thunder Element attacks as well.

That's a normal attack from the Sea Avis-which have 90% evade AND 80% Magic Evade!  Thankfully they only have 25 HP, so one successful hit kills them and summons don't miss.  The Istory item shop had a secret passageway that leads nowhere, and the armor shop has Flame, Coral and Angel Rings for sale-for 50,000 a piece!  I've been pretty frugal with my spending, but I only have 20,000 right now.

Final Fantasy V Four Job Fiesta, Run 2-05

Since last time we left Cid in a depressive mood because he thinks he caused the Fire Crystal to shatter.  It kind of is his fault since he built the machine, but he's not really to blame for it because both Queen Karnak (now delusional in bed) and that suicide bomber soldier.  I did find out that after the Fire Crystal shatters, you can obtain a Fire Rod hidden in a barrel.

Yes, you're seeing that right!  I sold my 12 Elixirs!  Because I got Ninja, stealing one means stealing 99.  I was stockpiling Elixirs to prepare for the worst, but the worst that can happen now is getting Dragoon again, and that's only due to how repetitive it would be to last run.  If you're wondering where the 12th Elixir came from, it was in the Fire Ship-I missed it the first pass through.  I needed to go back there anyway because Cid was on the deck.  I had to return to the pub (agh, remembering arbitrary plot triggers out of order, my biggest weakness) to speak to Cid before heading down to the Ancient Library.

Final Fantasy V Four Job Fiesta, Run 2-04

Since I stopped last time not at full HP, I rested at the Inn in Walse.  Reina made the switch to the Summoner class, and then I sold my Daggers and (now spare) Training whatever.  I purchased 2 Cotton Robes, preparing to switch someone else to Summoner after obtaining Shiva, and also restocked on Potions.

Reina's stats as a Summoner are much lower Strength, much lower Agility, slightly lower Vitality but more importantly her Magic Power is nearly 40 points higher!  Nice to have some magical damage and even AoE this run, since last time my only magic damage was Holy and my only AoE was X-Fight-and that doesn't really count.  Before speaking to King Walse about his broken crystal, I purchased the Chocobo, Sylph and Remora summons.  The chocobo summon does single target physical damage-surprisingly, right now it does more than my Thieves, and from the safety of the back row >_>.  The Sylph summon deals about 200 base damage and drains it evenly into the party.  Group healing equivalent to throwing a Potion on everyone is much appreciated for this team.  Finally, the Remora summon has a base 100% chance to paralyze the target.  This changes based on caster and target level though, and is subject to Magic Evade.  I'm probably not going to be using this.

King Walse told me to go to Karnak to save the Fire Crystal, but screw that, I want redemption on Shiva.  With the ability to safely deal damage from the back row now, along with an upgrade to my Daggers and full party healing, I think I can take her now.