Harness the storm glitched?

Gunmix25

Okay, so the other day I ran across a deck that used the Harness The Storm support as a loop. The planeswalker was Saheeli. Anyways,  the deck had no creatures beyond the Thopters  that she can summon on the battlefield and only Harness the storm was available as a support. The AI cast Moon prison for three mana and suddenly the board lit up with 3 mana gems being destroyed (as expected) and moon prison reappearing and being recast thus destroying one of my creatures, if not moon prisoned already, again... wash and repeat. Eventually the effect ended after some ridiculously 10 times, I did my turn and the AI would activate the Thopters for three more. Cast a spell and Harness the Storm would start looping again with moon prison for 10 or more castings. Now as I understand it, destroying a gem does not provide mana, correct? If so, how in the heck was Harnessing the storm providing mana for moon prison without a Baral on the board? Note. Everytime this triggered, the loyalty points refilled and Thopters were summoned every turn. I was effectively shut down so I quit the match confused about how this occurred as I've never seen Harness the Storm work in a loop before.

morgue427

when you cast a spell it destroyed 3 gems on the board, how it targeted your own creatures without your oking it i couldnt tell you though

madwren

Harness generates mana via cascades from destroyed gems, not the destroyed gems themselves.  It certainly has the capability to loop cheap spells, and if all that the AI has cast is Moon, then it'll keep recycling the two Moon spells again and again until another spell gets cast and put into the graveyard.

Gunmix25

morgue427 said:

when you cast a spell it destroyed 3 gems on the board, how it targeted your own creatures without your oking it i couldnt tell you though

When it casted moon prison for 3, the effect destroyed one of my targeted creatures and triggered Harness the Storm. Which destroyed brought back a card from the graveyard and destroyed three gems. Which essentially recast Moon Prison and wash and Repeat. But I think Madwren might be correct. The cascade effect triggered the spell over and over and over and over and over and over..... ugh. 

Gunmix25

madwren said:

Harness generates mana via cascades from destroyed gems, not the destroyed gems themselves.  It certainly has the capability to loop cheap spells, and if all that the AI has cast is Moon, then it'll keep recycling the two Moon spells again and again until another spell gets cast and put into the graveyard.

Thank you for the insight. If I didn't know any better,  the Harness the Storm effect chose gems that would create cascades... unless that is part of its design that I'm not aware of.  This loop effect literally occurred over 5 times in a row. To get that lucky to have that many cascades that many times over many turns seems fishy to me. 

madwren

Gunmix25 said:

madwren said:

Harness generates mana via cascades from destroyed gems, not the destroyed gems themselves.  It certainly has the capability to loop cheap spells, and if all that the AI has cast is Moon, then it'll keep recycling the two Moon spells again and again until another spell gets cast and put into the graveyard.

Thank you for the insight. If I didn't know any better,  the Harness the Storm effect chose gems that would create cascades... unless that is part of its design that I'm not aware of.  This loop effect literally occurred over 5 times in a row. To get that lucky to have that many cascades that many times over many turns seems fishy to me. 

As someone who has played with Harness extensively, I can tell you that there are some games where Harness will generate little mana from cascades. However, there are also plenty where it fills your hand repeatedly, especially if you've designed it well (i.e, with a tightly-controlled selection of low-cost spells).  After all, it only takes one cascade to refill a hand full of spells, at which point you’re getting that many more chances at generating your next cascade, which will then fill your spells with mana again.  

The biggest danger with using Harness is that it will target itself with the same likelihood as other gems, which means it’ll frequently self-destruct.

TL;DR – It is inconsistent, but extremely powerful. It does not deliberately choose cascade gems, and in fact will often self-destruct.

Gunmix25

madwren said:

Gunmix25 said:

madwren said:

Harness generates mana via cascades from destroyed gems, not the destroyed gems themselves.  It certainly has the capability to loop cheap spells, and if all that the AI has cast is Moon, then it'll keep recycling the two Moon spells again and again until another spell gets cast and put into the graveyard.

Thank you for the insight. If I didn't know any better,  the Harness the Storm effect chose gems that would create cascades... unless that is part of its design that I'm not aware of.  This loop effect literally occurred over 5 times in a row. To get that lucky to have that many cascades that many times over many turns seems fishy to me. 

As someone who has played with Harness extensively, I can tell you that there are some games where Harness will generate little mana from cascades. However, there are also plenty where it fills your hand repeatedly, especially if you've designed it well (i.e, with a tightly-controlled selection of low-cost spells).  After all, it only takes one cascade to refill a hand full of spells, at which point you’re getting that many more chances at generating your next cascade, which will then fill your spells with mana again.  

The biggest danger with using Harness is that it will target itself with the same likelihood as other gems, which means it’ll frequently self-destruct.

TL;DR – It is inconsistent, but extremely powerful. It does not deliberately choose cascade gems, and in fact will often self-destruct.

That was a good explanation, thank you.  Looks like I really did end up in the middle of a perfect storm.  Pun intended.  

EDHdad

You probably only saw part of the deck, because Harness keeps putting the same spell back into its hand and the AI never pitches cards.  It might have been a Baral deck, but Baral was never drawn / cast.  Also, there is a support called Metallurgic Summoning, which will put two thopters on the board whenever its controller casts a spell.  So, blowing up the same dude 10 times with Imprison would have also put 20 power on board, and if Baral was out, it's possible the game would have ended much sooner.

Harness used to be more powerful.  It cost less (I think 6) and it put the spell in hand before the cascade.  It wasn't unusual to get a 40/40 devil token with Devil's Playground, or to do lethal damage with something like Devour in Flames.

Ohboy

EDHdad said:

You probably only saw part of the deck, because Harness keeps putting the same spell back into its hand and the AI never pitches cards.  It might have been a Baral deck, but Baral was never drawn / cast.  Also, there is a support called Metallurgic Summoning, which will put two thopters on the board whenever its controller casts a spell.  So, blowing up the same dude 10 times with Imprison would have also put 20 power on board, and if Baral was out, it's possible the game would have ended much sooner.

Harness used to be more powerful.  It cost less (I think 6) and it put the spell in hand before the cascade.  It wasn't unusual to get a 40/40 devil token with Devil's Playground, or to do lethal damage with something like Devour in Flames.

Harness was baral lite. It got nerfed quickly. I don't know why people are acting surprised about baral nerf. 

Mainloop25

I don't think anyone but the least insightful people are surprised about the baral nerf at all. 

losdamianos

Im not suprised about baral nerf just disapointed by the company practice of selling you something that will be nerfed few weeks later. Im not sure how can You trust this company going forward...

UweTellkampf

losdamianos said:

Im not suprised about baral nerf just disapointed by the company practice of selling you something that will be nerfed few weeks later. Im not sure how can You trust this company going forward...

You don't. You stay alert, and you don't spend any money until the trust is sufficiently restored (by honestly engaging in the discussion with the community how to make the game better for both sides and then actually implementing long desired features.)