MPQ Quick Skill Test

Unknown

Polarity Shift:
You're playing with MNMagneto, CStorm, and Ares, with 9 against max Wolverine, Ares, Moonstone (0 AP, full health)

The board is like so:
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h

A. Do you use polarity shift this turn?
B. If so, where do you place the 5 blue tiles?

There may not be any one right answer to this, but I'm curious to see the different play styles and skills of forumites.

h4n1s

pre-requisit is that MNMags is having 5 covers on purple. Then the location of blue tiles would be following in my case:

c3,b3,c5
that should clear row and hopefully do a crit on purple (hopefully, not sure where that crit tile will occur, but I assume on c3 location and fall to d3)

h3,h1
that should prepare the ground for next match 5 (by moving h1 to h2 location with the next move)

Professa D

Yes

2a, 2c, 3c, 5c, 2h

Yield: 11 , 1

Launch Wind Storm

Professa D

h4n1s wrote:

pre-requisit is that MNMags is having 5 covers on purple. Then the location of blue tiles would be following in my case:

c3,b3,c5
that should clear row and hopefully do a crit on purple (hopefully, not sure where that crit tile will occur, but I assume on c3 location and fall to d3)

h3,h1
that should prepare the ground for next match 5 (by moving h1 to h2 location with the next move)

Nice, I'm liking yours more than mine now

Your yield is 12 and 2 (with the possibility of a 3rd if a drops on top of a3)

Very nice.

Bowgentle

Funny how we see different matches.

I'd have picked
C2, E2
H3
C3, B5

Preparing 2 match 5s and a match 3 with one of the ensuing criticals on the bottom row, giving me 12 blue + cascades.

h4n1s

Bowgentle wrote:

Funny how we see different matches.

I'd have picked
C2, E2
H3
C3, B5

Preparing 2 match 5s and a match 3 with one of the ensuing criticals on the bottom row, giving me 12 blue + cascades.

B5 is TU tile, is it gonna work with PShift?

Professa D

h4n1s wrote:

Bowgentle wrote:

Funny how we see different matches.

I'd have picked
C2, E2
H3
C3, B5

Preparing 2 match 5s and a match 3 with one of the ensuing criticals on the bottom row, giving me 12 blue + cascades.

B5 is TU tile, is it gonna work with PShift?

No. Only basic color tiles. Plus, c2 and c3 will break (no crit) and e2 pops with f2 and g2 leaving h3 unused.

C'mon Bow!

hurcules

I would pick:

h2, h3 (obvious)
h1
e2
c5

I will get:

12
2
4
2
3

and 1

hurcules

h4n1s wrote:

pre-requisit is that MNMags is having 5 covers on purple. Then the location of blue tiles would be following in my case:

c3,b3,c5
that should clear row and hopefully do a crit on purple (hopefully, not sure where that crit tile will occur, but I assume on c3 location and fall to d3)

h3,h1
that should prepare the ground for next match 5 (by moving h1 to h2 location with the next move)

I like the h3,h1 move. somehow I never think about moving tiles after placing them. Good suggestion.

GrumpySmurf1002

H1-H3 for sure. B3,C3, C5 would be the rest. That should pick up the 11 blue, plus 4 green/4 purple and whatever else cascades from the crit match on H2.

TheHueyFreeman

I like this. We should do more scenarios

HailMary

Assuming I do use Polarity Shift, how about this:

H1, H3, C5, D6, E6

Blue match-7 clears row, drops directly into purple crit match-5. This creates a crit TUAP match-4, clearing the row again.

Swap H1-H2 to for lower-left black match-3 + blue match-5 L, creating crit, which gets sandwiched by greens.

I'm too lazy to figure out the total AP, but it's not bad.

Unknown

HailMary wrote:

Assuming I do use Polarity Shift, how about H1, H3, C5, D6, E6?

Blue match-7 clears row, drops directly into purple crit match-5. This may create a crit TUAP match-4, clearing the row again?

Swap H1-H2 to for lower-left black match-3 + blue match-5 L, creating crit, which gets sandwiched by greens.

I'm too lazy to figure out the total AP, but it's not bad.

That's the best move I can see as well: the Blue match 6 creates a purple match 5, which has a 1/7 chance of forming a vertical line clear if drops in on column 6. Either way you get to dispose of all criticals. The H1 to H2 move auto clears itself with a 3-green crit match, and also gives you some meaningless black.
You should get at least 11 5 3 3
+ whatever you get from clearing the crit, at least 2 more
-> at least 26 AP

I'm impressed no one simply put H2 H3, which is common with newer players, but instead realized the H1 H3 potential. I also had not considered hurcules double line clear in the bottom left, which is interesting, and decent AP.
That gives you 12 2 3 3 2
+ whatever you get from clearing the crit
-> At least 24 AP.

HailMary

daibar wrote:

HailMary wrote:

Blue match-7 clears row...

That's the best move I can see as well: the Blue match 6 creates a purple match 5...

Hahaha, I was thinking about the 4-horiz + 3-vert configuration, and casually lost my ability to count.

Bowgentle

Professa D wrote:

h4n1s wrote:

Bowgentle wrote:

Funny how we see different matches.

I'd have picked
C2, E2
H3
C3, B5

Preparing 2 match 5s and a match 3 with one of the ensuing criticals on the bottom row, giving me 12 blue + cascades.

B5 is TU tile, is it gonna work with PShift?

No. Only basic color tiles. Plus, c2 and c3 will break (no crit) and e2 pops with f2 and g2 leaving h3 unused.

C'mon Bow!

Ah damn, I suck at MPQ.

mischiefmaker

HailMary's solution is really good, although I don't think it's described quite right -- namely, there's no automatic 4-way TUAP.

Here is your initial placement:









This creates the following (6 1 1 1 1 )










Letting that fall, we get:









Which triggers the purple crit, as described (6 5 1 1 1 )
Note there is a 1/7 chance that a purple falls on top, generating an extra 1 2 1 1 ??
There's also a 1/7 chance that a green falls on top, generating an extra 2 and a 1/49 chance 2 greens fall on top for 4 1 1 ??









Letting that fall, we get:









Now we make the h1-h2 swap, which looks like this after falling (11 5 1 1 3 1 )









That matches the 2 green on the bottom. At this point, given no additional cascades from the top, our grand total is 11 5 3 1 3 1 with 3 and a 30% chance of getting at least 2 green. We want to have started this whole thing by targeting Wolverine, and then we'll Wind Storm Ares, which will probably down Wolverine. Matching the 4-way TU will guarantee we get off Onslaught next turn, which, depending on cascades, might be enough to down Moonstone, at which point we're left with a 3-turn stunned Ares and halfway to our next Polarity Shift. Whee!

P.S. In case anyone else wants to spend an hour or so making pretty pictures, you can use http://i.imgur.com/WlJ8yHh.png and http://i.imgur.com/YmL7zUA.png by wrapping it in img tags -- it's an image that's the same size as the blue tile, but the same background as the default board background, so gives you an appropriate amount of whitespace to line things up.

HailMary

mischiefmaker wrote:

HailMary's solution is really good, although I don't think it's described quite right -- namely, there's no automatic 4-way TUAP.

Yep, I though I screwed up the TUAP match-4 move sequence after I posted, edit-deleted that line, then edit-reinserted when I saw daibar's upvote, figuring he'd verified my entire cascade description. Turns out he was being lenient.