Cycling

Laeuftbeidir

It's 8 mana. Card text doesn't fit. It cycles like every other card, so you get a 10% chance to get a new one that you can cycle again like you described..it's no real loop.. But loopish

Matthew

All of this will be even worse once Blue/Green Nissa is released. Her abilities are tied to Cycling, and it looks like they will enable looping as well.

DumasAG

cycling is an absolutely ridiculous mechanic. I've been shoving two cycling cards in most decks purely to cantrip. I no longer play 10-card decks, I play significantly more consistent 8-card decks. It's a bad mechanic.

Abenjes

Total time to design cycling 5 minutes; total time to break it... 4 minutes

Onus

No one else is experiencing freezes while cycling?

erakbgg

Onus said:

No one else is experiencing freezes while cycling?

I am, which saddens me considering my first two AKH rares were Drake Haven and New Perspectives. At least the devs are aware.

shteev

Dyou know, I was prepared to accept that maybe they just hadn't thought about the problems that Alhammeret's Archive would cause with Cycling. it's an old card, after all.

And then today, I saw Curator of Mysteries.

Half an hour per card.

Mburn7

Does anyone know if the AI actually uses cycling?  Since its a manual trigger by exiling the card (something the AI never does), it may not matter how powerful it is, since no opponent will ever do it.  So its great for us, but it won't really hurt anyone

Pcell777

Does Cyling trigger the "When you draw a card..." effect? Like Jace2 3rd skill.

Ohboy

Pcell777 said:

Does Cyling trigger the "When you draw a card..." effect? Like Jace2 3rd skill.

It triggers archive. No reason it wouldn't trigger other draw mechanics 

Delnai

Mburn7 said:

Does anyone know if the AI actually uses cycling?  Since its a manual trigger by exiling the card (something the AI never does), it may not matter how powerful it is, since no opponent will ever do it.  So its great for us, but it won't really hurt anyone

I don't agree that having the AI being unable to play certain decks doesn't hurt anyone. It hurts -everyone- by essentially breaking PvP. I've already seen this with some creatureless Ob Nixilis decks, where the AI never saves up loyalty for the ultimate ability, and kills itself in tiny increments by using its first ability. When it only happens one in a while, it's easy to happily take your ribbons and move on. But imagine if 1/3 of your games were against decks the computer just couldn't play. It would be boring. 

shteev

Delnai said:

Mburn7 said:

Does anyone know if the AI actually uses cycling?  Since its a manual trigger by exiling the card (something the AI never does), it may not matter how powerful it is, since no opponent will ever do it.  So its great for us, but it won't really hurt anyone

I don't agree that having the AI being unable to play certain decks doesn't hurt anyone. It hurts -everyone- by essentially breaking PvP. I've already seen this with some creatureless Ob Nixilis decks, where the AI never saves up loyalty for the ultimate ability, and kills itself in tiny increments by using its first ability. When it only happens one in a while, it's easy to happily take your ribbons and move on. But imagine if 1/3 of your games were against decks the computer just couldn't play. It would be boring. 

Agreed. Standard (IMO) has thrown some harsh light on existing game problems ot matchmaking, tiers, and card balance, and now cycling is doing the same for the rather creaking and ancient AI. We call him Greg. Poor Greg is looking a bit green around the gills these days.

EDHdad

I'm fortunate to have Day's Undoing and New Perspectives.  If Day's draws a cycle card with New Perspectives on board, the card gains 6 mana.  Also, if I'm constantly discarding my hand, Scrapheap Scrounger is a pretty decent thing to have kicking around.

At present, I don't have the cycling cards to bust the strategy wide open, but a lot of good cards are commons and uncommons, so hopefully I eventually will.

As others have mentioned, the AI doesn't pitch cards, so even the most lethal cycling deck probably isn't terrifying to someone sitting on the other end of the table.

Pcell777

Ohboy said:

Pcell777 said:

Does Cyling trigger the "When you draw a card..." effect? Like Jace2 3rd skill.

It triggers archive. No reason it wouldn't trigger other draw mechanics 

Seems like there are so many ways to break the game with Cycling.

shteev

EDHdad said:

I'm fortunate to have Day's Undoing and New Perspectives.  If Day's draws a cycle card with New Perspectives on board, the card gains 6 mana.  Also, if I'm constantly discarding my hand, Scrapheap Scrounger is a pretty decent thing to have kicking around.

Couple of things... have you noticed a bug where New Perspectives is not putting 3 mana into the new 6 mana gem changers? That irks me a lot. Also... you know that Day's Undoing doesn't discard, right? Maybe you're discarding with other sources, but I thought I'd check that with you.

shteev

I see Shefet Monitor is broken, as well

EDHdad

@shteev - I hadn't monkeyed around with it long enough to figure that out.  Didn't realize Day's Undoing doesn't discard, so there goes that idea.  I was able to make the 'cycle 3 or more cards' objective with Kiora using New Perspectives and Day's Undoing, but the actual cards in the deck were pretty jank.

Dodecapod

Cycling is a broken mechanic; the idea is great, but the implementation is flawed.  There are countless ways to qualify the issue, and some design mistakes are bound to happen from time to time, but ultimately none of the new engines should have made it to release, nor should most of the best individual cycling cards either.

If SOI block was analogous to paper MtG's Urza block (i.e. rampant powercreep that significantly increased the typical speed of a game and significantly reduced the interactivity), and KLD block was analogous to Masques (i.e. mostly reduced power levels overall, with a few instances of much more oppressive cards than intended), then AKH is PQ's Mirrodin, with cycling mirroring affinity in its overwhelming speed, power, and consistency.

These are just a few examples of what a cycling deck can do even without New Perspectives or Drake Haven (Alhammarret's Archive should work just as well as Curator of Mysteries in Standard, though Shefet Monitor has no equal):

Training Grounds using an AKH-only deck (first attempt with this version):

Beginning of turn:

End of turn:

Cards in hand:  5 Shefet Monitors, 1 Shadowstorm Vizier

This screenshot is still pre-swap, so the stopping point is entirely arbitrary; I was aiming to illustrate that Vizier's P/T could be increased by at least 130/130 in one turn (i.e. enough to kill any current player-accessible PW), but the loop could probably have been continued for hundreds of cards beyond that.

In the most recent black Trial of the Planes event, I ran AKH-only T2 decks for all games and went 12-0 against (mostly) enhanced Legacy decks (in Platinum tier).

In the current FiRF cycle (also in Platinum), a Kiora deck similar to the one depicted has so far managed 3 turn 6 wins with 1 Vehicle replacing Vizier as the primary win condition; in other words, the AI hasn't had a single turn yet in which it would benefit from Enraged on that node.

Sandwurm Convergence doesn't even make the cut in most of my Standard Kiora decks now, because it's weak and painfully slow by comparison.

That's how powerful cycling is in its current form, and again, none of these decks include the very best cycling engines, as I don't have either New Perspectives or Drake Haven.  The mechanic essentially revives an arguably even stronger version of Baral mere weeks after his (well-deserved) nerf, and unlike Legacy loop decks, which are still far too powerful in their own right, this incarnation requires nothing from prior sets to function at maximum efficiency.

@Hibernum_JC Please rethink the broader design philosophy behind looping mechanics and cards, especially in blue; I'm a Johnny at heart (though perhaps more of a Spike/Johnny in practice), so I actually love finding and breaking exactly these kinds of combo decks (especially when they turn out to be competitively viable), but they're not healthy overall when they dominate the metagame and relegate every other archetype to tier 1.5 at best.  Infinite combos have their place (ideally in non-competitive PvE formats), but turns 3-5 of Standard shouldn't be among them.

Furks

@Dodecapod couldn't have put it better. All my decks have turned into cycle loops by splashing blue. I hate playing them but they are just so consistent and powerful. They don't even require any mythics. It's like baral 2.0 but on steroids 

wereotter

Cycling may be incredibly powerful, you're absolutely right, but I think this mostly comes from the fact that there is no library restriction here. If you cycled through your 40 cards deck and then would lose the turn your next time you tried to draw, then I don't think people would be so inclined to actually put these kind of decks together.

However: this isn't nearly so bad as Baral as previously stated, as even playing against decks with large numbers of cards that cycle, I always see the AI casting them. So, unlike Baral, this is more the one-sided eternal loop that only the human player can pull off. You shouldn't ever have to sit through watching your opponent cycle 50 cards before doing a match and attacking, and killing you on turn 2. To that end, I don't think we're going to have the same issues.