Ohboy said: Is this a underpowered deck you threw together to make your point, or are you really playing this deck? Because I didn't see a cheating ai, just a deck that's outclassed. Pretty straightforward.
AresOmega said: Ohboy said: Is this a underpowered deck you threw together to make your point, or are you really playing this deck? Because I didn't see a cheating ai, just a deck that's outclassed. Pretty straightforward. As well as some simple but glaring gameplay issues on the OP's side, such as not taking the 3 green match at the bottom of the board, that would have dropped down another green match at about the 3 minute mark. Took the upper green match, and let the AI take the left side of the one he should have taken from the right, cascading into the white match that gave the AI its Angel of Invention. The AI got at least 2 cascades handed to it by the player in this manner.
MDsupa said: AresOmega said: Ohboy said: Is this a underpowered deck you threw together to make your point, or are you really playing this deck? Because I didn't see a cheating ai, just a deck that's outclassed. Pretty straightforward. As well as some simple but glaring gameplay issues on the OP's side, such as not taking the 3 green match at the bottom of the board, that would have dropped down another green match at about the 3 minute mark. Took the upper green match, and let the AI take the left side of the one he should have taken from the right, cascading into the white match that gave the AI its Angel of Invention. The AI got at least 2 cascades handed to it by the player in this manner. reply to OhBoy: NO, this is not an Under powered deck.. but like I said with the limitation of Standard, creating a good Green deck is hard to do with your limited cards.Doesn't help that my draw and my 2nd ability did not pull the right creature out form the deck.
I have been exactly where you are. When RATC was a competitive event, I had a very similar combo deck that I used with Kiora to reliably beat Tezzeret in Node 3.3. It worked without fail for 3 events, then in the last one I lost against him 5 out of 6 times, and badly in those 5 matches, not even getting close to winning.
I was convinced they'd changed their algorithms. But the reality is most likely that I had a run of bad luck, and maybe played poorly a few times. I think it's the same case here.
Watching the video, you played an aggressive deck stuffed with mythic and masterpiece cards that didn't depend on subtlety or combinations. Comparatively, your deck did seem underpowered. Random chance will go against you as often as it goes in your favor, and maybe even more often when there's an imbalance in other competitive factors (like the inherent power of the cards in the opposing deck).
It might seem like cascades always fall in the AI's favor, but you'd need to a lot of data to make a compelling case for that.
shteev said: Hey, thanks for posting the video! I kinda wasn't expecting it, it's not easy opening yourself up to potential criticism like that. If I may, I'd like to offer some critique...We'll start with the AI's huge turn 1. I paused your video before you made your first turn, and the move I decided on was the same as yours. This was a mistake. It's not easy to see that it's a mistake, but it's a mistake nonetheless; it sets up your opponent into a match3 red + match3 white cascading into a match5. All those gems are already on the board. A really canny player could have spotted that, made a different move, and not given away 7+7+4 guaranteed mana, plus additional mana from cascades (since the move guaranteed destroying 11 gems, the chances of an extra cascades happening were not minute). You set the AI up for his big turn 1, all the gems were there, you could have prevented it from happening; the AI did not cheat. As I say, I'd have missed the correct play first time around too Let's skip forwards to the next turn, you bring up, turn 5. The AI plays a Chrome Mox. Chrome Mox is an extraordinarily powerful card. It's going to cause cascades. It's going to cause a lot more cascades over the long term, than, say, your Attune with Aether, which is a terrible card. If you're feeling hard done by because you've noticed that your Attune with Aether doesn't cause nearly as many cascades as you'd like, then it's time to stop playing with Attune with Aether. I do understand that you're playing Attune for synergy with Willbreaker rather than a more powerful card like Nissa's Pilgrimage, but that then brings me onto my next point:Willbreaker combo is not a great deck. It's ok, and I'm sure you've had some success with it in the past, but as a full on combo deck which relies on an expensive 2/3 creature, it's inconsistent and vulnerable to a relatively small amount bad luck. Congratulations for building a fun combo deck, but unfortunately part of moving forwards in the game is realising your combo deck is now outclassed. No amount of synergy with Willbreaker is going to turn Attune with Aether into a good card; It costs 4 mana, and most of the time you won't get that mana back. Reclaim has it's problems, personally I generally consider it too bad to play with, although I'm sure other top players would disagree with me on that one, but in this deck it's definitely the last and least powerful card of a three card combo. Appetite for the Unnatural is just a straight up bad card. It's way too expensive for what it does, and chances are when you really need it to hit a specific support it will hit the wrong one. Also, notice how in order to trigger Willbreaker with certain cards, you had to play them suboptimally... gaining 0 mana with Animist's Awakening, and using Appetite to kill a Battlefield Forge.
hawkyh1 said: could try replacing gather the pack with tezzeretsambition? my reasoning, gather the pack destroyscreatures making it much less likely to draw them.also animists awakening, reclaim, attune with theaether, baral's expertise all benefit from havingmore cards in hand to hold onto the managenerated. part of the problem is you're wasting alot of your freebie matches/cascades.(in this case I think your opponent has the betterdeck)HH
@MDsupa Ok, so I honestly had to laugh out loud when I saw this video. Not at you or your play or your deck, but at the fact that I have lived moments like that plenty of times in my day.
To be fair, you had some big turns and cascades as well, which left you drawing off the top for much of the game.
I would say that a combo deck like this is far more likely to fail than a more balanced deck. Nahiri's deck was certainly very strong and seemingly not tuned to Trial of Ambitions. But she didn't really NEED any of her pieces. Its nice to get chrome mox out early, but if not you can draw an AOI, or an OP sword, or scab clan berserker.
Your deck was totally dependent on getting willbreaker and baral out and stable on the board. Your only draw is gather the pack. This type of deck requires that you get established and maintain board control and is absolutely prone to good early starts by the AI. You would be way better off using stuff like disperse or anchor to the aether than animist awakening and attune with aether in this deck.
My only other critique is that you seem to be 100% focused on your plan. At about 2 minutes in you had 13 loyalty with a match 5 starting at you and willbreaker/reclaim ready to go. But that leaves your hand empty of spells after you combo into willbreaker and reclaim. So you know that you are losing your WB the next turn. So perhaps you could draw a baral, and maybe you would draw more cards when you hit your combo. But what if you filled up the other cards first with the match 5 and saw if you could get close to an octopus. 32/32 octopi could have changed this game.
Anyway, if you want to discuss some ideas on re-drawing the deck I am happy to do that. You are welcome to come to our slack channel and if you are looking for a coalition we can help you with that as well. I commend you for posting a video as most of us make mistakes all the time (I probably also would have made the first swap mistake), but its very helpful to improve if you review your mistakes and get constructive feedback from other players.
Anyway, PM me if you want an invite to our chat channel or are interested in joining a coalition that shares ideas and can help with deck building.
Your deck reminds me of a Gideon first strike deck that I used as my first legitimate deck. I basically had to get a big flying blocking first striker in the air and pray it didn't get hit by removal . Yours actually seems much better than that.
madwren said: Great thread, guys! One of the tenets of successful play is limiting variance/facilitating consistency. Including Willbreaker in the deck means that you dilute both Kiora's second ability or Gather the Pack. Not drawing/fetching a Baral isn't isn't something that can be blamed on the AI. It's simply a suboptimal result of your card choices, which will unfortunately occur. Saying that is isn't an underpowered deck is all well and good...but it is. Standard weakens a lot of decks, and not everything is translatable. That's neither good nor bad; it simply is.I'd focus on getting rid of the weaker spell selections in favor of more card draw, which will help smooth things out. For example, I'd drop these:Baral's ExpertiseAttune with AetherApepetite for the UnnaturalAnd replace with any of these uncommons or commons, just off the top of my head. There may be some I'm missing: Anchor to the Aether - better than Baral's Expertise, and drawsWinds of Rebuke - doesn't draw, but cheap bounceArtificer's Epiphany or Hieroglyphic Illumination - simple draw spell that replaces itself cheaply Dissenter's Deliverance - artifact removal and cyclingFloodwaters - stall card, cycles when you don't need itThat'd leave you with something like:WillbreakerBaralAnimist's AwakeningTurn to FrogReclaimGather the PackAnchor to the AetherDissenter's DeliveranceHieroglyphic IlluminationFloodwaters
Ohboy said: I think it might be helpful to keep an open mind when more experienced platinum players tell you this isn't unusual or evidence of ai cheating. You're just playing a fun combo deck against a more efficient one. Really, if you think this is cheating... Eventually you'll get to a game where chandra1 or ob gets a lucky cascade and one turn ko you with skill 3 in enraged mode. That will really blow your mind.