Koth...Nerf him

Monkeynutts

Graf has always been two and as u mentioned its great for mono walkers compared to dual walkers

Kinesia

morgue427 said:

think you would be suprised though on how often using his first ability doesn't lead to any matches. depressing really but when it hit it hits hard, perhaps people are remembering the one time it face stomped them not the 3 times it didnt do much?

Perception bias like that is a _huge_ thing in many parts of this game. Not just in who beats people but just in terms of opening packs and getting dupes. People's long term ideas are being crafted by _anomalies_ because they only remember the things that outrage them, the "slight happiness" that is actually more common gets totally forgotten and pushed into the background.

Kinesia

Ohboy said:

Where did you get this weird idea that all complaints are unreasonable? Being a complainer and being a reasonable person are not opposite ends of a spectrum. 
.....

Anyway, as a game developer... What exactly is the mental process behind identifying a Planeswalker as too uncompetitive to play in major events and then singling him out to nerf further? 

Love your first sentence.

Complaints are the first part of the fact finding mission. We need them to even get to the point of deciding things.

I can answer your last though...

With this game there is HUGE assymmetric gameplay. People keep foccussing on the one side of the picture they are familiar with and upset about, but we need to solve _both_ at once. If we try and solve one side we need to make sure it doesn't make the other side worse at the same time.

Playng with Koth and playing against Koth are very very different experiences and both need to be measured and talked about _Together_.

Most Koth decks have a boring dumb strategy that the AI can play very effectively.
This makes him very different from Kiora which is unbalanced in the _opposite_ direction. _I_ can make unbeatable Kiora decks but the AI can't play them at all, they are easy for other people to beat.
With Koth, if I make something that _I_ will win with there's a good chance the AI will be totally fine with it too.

Koth _is_ inconsistant and annoying to play with.
He is also inconsistant to play _against_ but the AI doesn't _get_ annoyed.


If you have to play against Koth and you wind up losing... Shrug. Big deal?

The _actual_ problem is having to play against 10 Koths out of 11 games and it largely being dependant on luck whether you get anywhere.
The feeling of _powerlessness_ is the true problem. We play games like this for _agency_, for the illusion that we have a bit of power in our lives and can actually solve problems. Koth brings too much real world pain back into our fantasy world.

I believe the real ways to solve this are more by dilution than direct addressing. If Training grounds had 5 nodes (one of each colour) then there would be a _maximum_ of 1 in 5 games being Koth and that's only if noone at all used another red planeswalker. This would dilute the pain considerably.
The other needed fix is fixing the matching system... People using many Mythics and MPs shouldn't turn up in games against beginners, at all, ever. There are a bunch of potential ways to address that, but it's more important than planeswalker level. You should only be matched against people who have a _few_ Mythics/MPs in their deck. (I'd personally put a hard cap on 1 MP per deck and 2 Mythics per deck, but fixing the matching system works too.)

These problems would address most of the pain involved in playing against Koth _without_ having to Nerf Koth.

It's all about perception really.

Ohboy

Perception is a good way to describe it. 

I don't meet koth in TG as often as people claim. Not even as high 50% of my games. And I don't find it nearly impossible to beat him even when I'm running my standard decks for testing, as people so often claim. 

Kinesia

Ohboy said:

Perception is a good way to describe it. 

I don't meet koth in TG as often as people claim. Not even as high 50% of my games. And I don't find it nearly impossible to beat him even when I'm running my standard decks for testing, as people so often claim. 

This is where I have an interesting test case... I've been playing for ages and am Platinum and have a bunch of mythics and 60 planeswalkers. My wife has been playing a few months and is now gold but only has 1 PW at 60 and very few mythics. My kids play sporadically and have almost nothing.

So I see a bunch of differences at the beginning/middle/edge cases that I wouldn't notice with just my own experience.

My wife has a _huge_ problem with Koth decks in TG, but now she is at Gold she is actually seeing him _less_.

When she was mostly playing with level 40 planeswalkers the problem was almost never the level of the opponent, it was the decks full of mythics (which I now know are people gaming the matching system deliberately to do this).

Koth + Mythics in tons of matches = beginners giving up. Except they are the people we _least_ want to lose.

You are right, it's not as high as people claim because it's what they _remember_ and they don't remember the non-Koth opponents, but the problem is just that the perception even exists. It needs to be broken.

Gilesclone

Koth can get off to such a great start that you can't recover and you lose without hope. While that's a powerful memory, it doesn't happen that often.  

I probably average 1 Koth a day in TG and I usually beat him, but when he wins I'm usually mad about it!

i don't think he needs any nerf.

Kinesia

Yeah, I don't think he needs a nerf, I think the environment around things needs adjusting to reduce the impact instead. There will always be "some favourite maybe broken planeswalker", so you change the environment so it matters less.

There are all kinds of things that can be done but the matching system needs fixing too so why not do both at once?

I personally like the idea of training grounds being 5 games a day instead of 4, with 5 different colour nodes, so any broken planeswalker can only be used once and there is much more variety in games. I _want_ variety.

But there are easier ways... You can just hardcode the matching system so TG you don't face the same planeswalker a 2nd time until you've played 5 games. (or some number to stop problems occurring if people are playing 30 TG games or something)

Steeme

I've been using Samut in the TG and having a blast with her.

I might actually use her for trying to win in X rounds (I don't have lightning runner).

She is much more consistent than Koth because she can ramp with Green and aggro with Red.

Once players start building decks for her, if the AI can pilot the deck, you will start to see complaints.

Like I said earlier, Saheeli is more imbalanced than Koth.  I use her in every event, especially on nodes with cast X or more spells and cast X or less supports.  Boomship is just a win-more / win-faster mechanic, she doesn't even need any of her abilities.

Szamsziel

I think that the problem is that Koth is easy to play for beginners and does not require specific cards to be a threat. So people choose him on early stages play. On higher levels there are many counters to aggro Koth is using. That's why on Plat tg he is rarely spotted. 

Tilwin90

Szamsziel said:

I think that the problem is that Koth is easy to play for beginners and does not require specific cards to be a threat. So people choose him on early stages play. On higher levels there are many counters to aggro Koth is using. That's why on Plat tg he is rarely spotted. 

Nonsense. I face Koths every single day, no exceptions, since I joined platinum! Koth is swarming through platinum and due to its huge mana gains it can drop with ease broken creatures such as Olivia, Pig and Ulrich. They are everywhere!
Now of course I don't find him that impressive anymore, as I can deal with brokeness by bringing my own broken toys (Exert Influence, Imprisoned in the Moon and Wrath of God are juicy examples that come to mind) but even so, it's boring to see so much lack of originality.

Koth (together with Elspeth at a lower degree) break one of the main rules of magic that are already sort of ignored in MTGPQ as it is: tempo.
You are not meant to be able to play super powered cards (*cough* such as omniscience *cough*) early on, and this is controlled by mana costs. In MTGPQ this is hardly a problem. Sure, you need a bit of luck, but Koth's first ability ensures consistency with respect to this.
Compare him with Tezz2. He is a very powerful planeswalker due to his colors and the mana gains are good, but due to the lack of mana gain peaks (like a +9), it evens out the gains to avoid such huge "lucky" swings.
Sure, streaks will happen every now and then with ANY planeswalker, but for Koth they are simply more dangerous and further exacerbate this problem.

Steeme

Koth is used in Training Grounds because people are lazy and feel like they have to do the TG just for the rewards.  They learn nothing by using cards that are not Standard legal, nor do they care.  It's not actually a training grounds.

TG should be where you build some decks and experiment, in order to practice for upcoming events.

andrewvanmarle

Steeme said:

Koth is used in Training Grounds because people are lazy and feel like they have to do the TG just for the rewards.  They learn nothing by using cards that are not Standard legal, nor do they care.  It's not actually a training grounds.

TG should be where you build some decks and experiment, in order to practice for upcoming events.

Agreed! Training grounds should allow you to at least choose standard or legal and maybe even level or color of the opponent. that way you can actually test a deck against a certain threat...

Monkeynutts

WOW !
What kind of thread have I started? lol

TheDragonHermit

Monkeynutts said:

WOW !
What kind of thread have I started? lol

You started a thread, a great deal of them seem to end up like this.

Gormhaus

ElfNeedsFood said:

hawkyh1 said:

(people do care that cycling is overpowered)

HH

True, but not like the firestorm over Baral. That's the case where it truly broke the game because the AI could play too. If the AI could cycle, the heat would be as high as the Baral debate. 

Higher. If the AI could cycle the complaining would hit these boards like the fist of an angry god. I loved the old Beral but when you were up against him the matches would take a long time and if you couldnt counter him you were probably going to lose. With cycling you would lose and it would probably be quicker.

Gormhaus

I have aggravated assault in my koth deck and it makes him really overpowered and i thought he was bad to begin with.

Gunmix25

Gormhaus said:

ElfNeedsFood said:

hawkyh1 said:

(people do care that cycling is overpowered)

HH

True, but not like the firestorm over Baral. That's the case where it truly broke the game because the AI could play too. If the AI could cycle, the heat would be as high as the Baral debate. 

Higher. If the AI could cycle the complaining would hit these boards like the fist of an angry god. I loved the old Beral but when you were up against him the matches would take a long time and if you couldnt counter him you were probably going to lose. With cycling you would lose and it would probably be quicker.

And the only counter would be to play solemnity

wereotter

So.... going back to the Training Grounds part of this. The easier solution than expanding it to 5 nodes is just eliminate the saved deck slot from Training Grounds. This more than anything else is skewing matches to more Koth, Nahiri, Kiora, and Elspeth and fewer of everyone else.

There's very little reason to need a saved deck slot for Training Grounds. If you don't want to dismantle an existing deck and are trying to test out new ideas, I can see it, but beyond that, more often people are just playing with what they already have built and are selecting a deck from that list. Add to it that there are no card set restrictions on Training Grounds, and it's not like you even had to change an old deck because it contains cards that are no longer legal.

Comparing it to Quick Battle, I face a much smaller variety of opponents now than I ever did then since it could just pull from whatever deck was out there. Bring back the legitimately random opponent generator of all decks at an appropriate level, and the Koth problem will be less impactful, and also will make Training Grounds more interesting.

Tangent note: I've been using it to test out and earn runes to level Sammut, and am literally facing the same 8 decks over and over because there are that few people in my tier registering planeswalkers at that level. I've gotten to know the player handles far too well and now know exactly what those decks will be throwing at me. Not really helpful for testing out how to build a deck as I level her.

Ohboy

I'm pretty sure QB also pulled from only the played QB decks and not from the entire universe of player's decks. 

wereotter

Ohboy said:

I'm pretty sure QB also pulled from only the played QB decks and not from the entire universe of player's decks. 

I don't think that's accurate as I face a far greater percentage of the same planeswalkers in Training Grounds than I faced when Quick Battle was a thing since there was never a "node" to save a deck into. It seemed it just pulled from whatever was out there. Like I never see mono-blue Tezzeret  in Training Grounds, but I used to see him pretty often in Quick Battle. Same could be said for several other planeswalkers.