Koth...Nerf him

Szamsziel

Lol. Any green pw with shafet/rishar/mangerie/season past can get > 60 mana per turn. I can provide you log with 125 mana generated in single turn.
Edit: checked log and there was no 5 mana swap at all. Only spells.

babar3355

I guess the moral of the story is we like the total ineptitude of the AI.  Any PW who the AI plays even half-decently is overpowered and needs a nerf.

wereotter

So couple points. Koth beats me closer to 50% of the time than 5% based on how many losses it takes me to get through Training Grounds. So I think your assumption of a 5% loss rate is more applicable to other planeswalkers. 

Also because of how matchmaking works, with all level 60 planeswalkers in the event, and being in platinum, and still regularly encountering him, that means people at my same place in the game are using him and are using him frequently, else I wouldn't be encountering him. 

Ohboy

I'm also in platinum and I think I fought 3 koths in this entire hor event.

As @Monkeynutts tells us, it's not impossible to get 95% win rate against koth, so this probably boils down to your playstyle not adapting to koth if you're just winning 50%.

Against koth, you want to aggressively deny red gems at the start and work on efficient trades. Play your trumps only after you've stabilized unless you think you can outrace him.

Half the time if you can deny red gems till he burns his first skill 1 and gets nothing back, you're cruising the rest of the match. 

babar3355

wereotter said:

So couple points. Koth beats me closer to 50% of the time than 5% based on how many losses it takes me to get through Training Grounds. So I think your assumption of a 5% loss rate is more applicable to other planeswalkers. 

Also because of how matchmaking works, with all level 60 planeswalkers in the event, and being in platinum, and still regularly encountering him, that means people at my same place in the game are using him and are using him frequently, else I wouldn't be encountering him. 

You seriously lose 50% of your games to Koth?  I would be surprised if I lose 1% to Koth.  And lower on virtually every other PW.

Ohboy

I just went to TG to find a koth to demo. It took me 8 tries before I got matched with a koth. Here's the video. I used Jace 1 and built a deck with standard cards of rares, Uncommons and Commons.

https://youtu.be/1D-EM82FsGc

wereotter

Ohboy said:

I'm also in platinum and I think I fought 3 koths in this entire hor event.

As @Monkeynutts tells us, it's not impossible to get 95% win rate against koth, so this probably boils down to your playstyle not adapting to koth if you're just winning 50%.

Against koth, you want to aggressively deny red gems at the start and work on efficient trades. Play your trumps only after you've stabilized unless you think you can outrace him.

Half the time if you can deny red gems till he burns his first skill 1 and gets nothing back, you're cruising the rest of the match. 

I've been playing the game long enough to know how to play against Koth. I know to deny him red matches. But thanks for the advise all the same.

My decks aren't built to be fast and aggressive, and unless you can manage to outpace Koth and deny him red matches, you will loose. This I know. But it's generally too late to do anything about it once you have a locked in planeswalker and get matched up against him.

Furordraco

It's easy with blue to stabilize on koth. He runs out of steam without card draw and black can just remove the threats. And even with card draw the reds won't come forever. As the ai plays him so directly it's easy to counter. Of course he goes out of control sometimes but I'd say I lose 10% of the time versus him. I lose a lot more versus nahiri

Mainloop25

wereotter said:

Ohboy said:

I'm also in platinum and I think I fought 3 koths in this entire hor event.

As @Monkeynutts tells us, it's not impossible to get 95% win rate against koth, so this probably boils down to your playstyle not adapting to koth if you're just winning 50%.

Against koth, you want to aggressively deny red gems at the start and work on efficient trades. Play your trumps only after you've stabilized unless you think you can outrace him.

Half the time if you can deny red gems till he burns his first skill 1 and gets nothing back, you're cruising the rest of the match. 

I've been playing the game long enough to know how to play against Koth. I know to deny him red matches. But thanks for the advise all the same.

My decks aren't built to be fast and aggressive, and unless you can manage to outpace Koth and deny him red matches, you will loose. This I know. But it's generally too late to do anything about it once you have a locked in planeswalker and get matched up against him.

I've learned that it's not usually a good idea to run control (at least mana denial) on koth unless you are good at denying him matches. His first ability does get him out of bad situations as it is supposed to do, and all it takes is a couple of Demolishes and your lock-down strategy is out the window. 

Gilesclone

Too much ramp is a bad idea against Koth. It creates cascades on his first. One ramp support is about perfect. Don't get rid of all the red.  Just deny red matches. And leave him off color fours, he'll always take them instead of something better.

Sirchombli

There are exactly 3 pws that make me nervous or I roll my eyes when I see them pop up against me. I've accepted that koth just happens. He's easy to use, he's kinda fun, he's explosive and he's a fast. He's really a good stress test for my decks. Honestly, if he was a huge menace, he would have caught a nerf by now. He's been around for a long time. He's just annoying. I see Saheeli, I know I've got trouble for a couple reasons. A: blue. B: there are like a million different directions. I see Drake Haven, I know we're good. I see lightning runner I tense up. Either way, it's going to be a long match. Nahiri has got a lot of toys. She can run a lovely bunch of double strikers. Big ones, small ones, some the size of your head! Plus she's white, so you know you're going to have to earn every point of damage you deal. And of course we have the queen, Kiora. I actually find her a little less scary lately because y'all love some cycling, but she's another one where I have no idea what I'm in for. Am I going to be staring down a 96/96 octopus on turn 5? Is it going to gaeas revenge going neener neener? How about some funky brew with cultivator of blades and overcome? At least with both I know what's up. Hulk smash! Except for whoever I came across yesterday with a creatureless koth deck. If you're reading this, you are a savage. That is not natural! I almost lost. Not cool! 

Mainloop25

It's h impossible to go completely creatureless with Koth but yes I've seen some pretty creative non-creature focused builds with him. 

morgue427

know what you mean mainloop saw that too creatureless kiora too and was baffled luckily the ai was stuck in a bad draw loops so i scraped by if it had cascaded like they normally do would have been ugly

Grenade110

It is impossible for Koth to be creatureless. Max 6 spells and 3 supports. So, he'll always have 1 creature.

ertaii

In training grounds I only use Liliana 3 and koth is not a problem. He used to be annoying in some events where you met him with a deck not event-designed but now, even though being quite an opponent, he is not a problem anymore.