Koth = Easy Button

RhysMarkov

Koth seems to be making a resurgence in the meta and I was just curious: how many people just kinda want to give up after the third time he cascades and plays his whole hand after wiping your board? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Lol

SpaceDuck

I'll sometimes burn a heal and give up in QB if the math looks bad against Koth. With Chandra or Jace 2.0 I can usually come back to win, but I get what you're saying...it's a question of emotional investment: Do I feel like dealing with this?

The jokes on them in the end if they want to play an ez mode and ultimately boring PW.

If you mana starve him from the start though and your deck is strong enough he can also be an absolute pushover win which is why I don't think he hasn't been balanced by the devs.

RhysMarkov

Most definitely. Either mana screw or discard works against him if you can get it in place in time, but sometimes all he needs is that one match 3 to put out something it would take any other deck/PW 2+ turns to put out.

I get the design philosophy behind him and to a further extent the "red deck wins" mentality that it encourages. I even get the use of him to farm crystals by overwhelming anything else in as little time as possible so as to get more wins. It makes sense. I just don't dig having to fight him seemingly every other match.

<shrug> it is what it is I suppose.

Oaklanbash

Yes Koth is easy.... But when I am doing QB again when the new release comes out tomorrow, I don't want to actually pay attention. I want to be able to watch TV while hitting the easy button and letting Olivia make it so I never have to heal....

RhysMarkov

Haha. Like I was saying, I totally get it. I build stupid life gain decks for pretty much the same reason, i.e. the bus pretty much drives itself, which is pretty much what I did playing paper MTG. I'm just of the opinion that Koth is still slightly unbalanced, which is why he's still (post quasi nerf) the go-to easy button.

Oaklanbash

In events like Avacynn's Madness I use Koth for all the easy fights. But against Avacyn, Persistent Nightmare, etc I pull out either Arlinn or Kiora. Koth is not that powerful for the tough fights. During long fights red gems run out....

RhysMarkov

I can definitely see that. For PvE, especially Avacyn with the long duration battles, I imagine Koth isn't as versatile. But for QB and other PvP events he's a nightmare right now. Out of the past 10 fights against Koth I've won one, and that was thanks to luck, a 16/16 Avaricious Dragon and Sarkhan's ulimate lol

Oaklanbash

Koth is easy to kill if you have creature removal. All of Koth's creatures have power equal to or greater than toughness. This means almost all removal spells work against his creatures.

RhysMarkov

It's the sheer volume of creatures that he can put out that's problem. One match in particular involved him tossing out that 10/8 berserker Eldrazi 4 turns in a row. You can only stall for so long before you do the math and realize you're not getting out from in front of that bus.

morgue427

i hate seeing him and i have a lot in qb lately just faced3 in 5 battles, 2 were easy to mana starve last with impet devils and devils playground just rolled over me like no tomorrow and i was using a gideon life deck that has gotten some of my creatues up to 30 regularly, ehh it happens just starve early and every time is all i can offer

Kevinanth

He used to bug me but now I just hit the red gems and starve him. I find Lili 2 to be the most annoying PW right now cause she can suck so much time to beat if she gets the right draw with recurring zombies

wereotter

Kevinanth wrote:

He used to bug me but now I just hit the red gems and starve him. I find Lili 2 to be the most annoying PW right now cause she can suck so much time to beat if she gets the right draw with recurring zombies

Agreed, Liliana 2.0 with Oath of Liliana, Graf Harvest, Prized Amalgam becomes really annoying to deal with really quickly.

Elexsynn3411

Koth battles are annoying, lol. I use Nahiri in QB so I just snatch reds ASAP.

dj55

I don't have Koth, but I can definitely see how he could be an easy win. I don't see that he's that frustrating to play against, though. I mostly use Saheeli and Kiora. Never have any issues with his cascade and full hand plays. He does it, but it's usually not too difficult to deal with the outcome. I usually take, destroy, or send back whatever comes out.

blacklotus

In my opinion, Olivia for R/B and Deploy for W = Easy Win Buttons.