Koth? Seriously? Part 2!

2

Comments

  • RhysMarkov
    RhysMarkov Posts: 120 Tile Toppler
    The most consistent build I have for beating Koth is the aforementioned Nissa 1, using the stated creatures and supports to minimize the amount of red mana available at any given time. That being said, that build isn't viable for everything due to set restrictions for events, like FIRF for instance.

    I have a decent enough selection of cards that I could build all of my decks to be specifically antiKoth, and they'd most likely be good for a lot of other matches because of it, but I like variety in my decks, and building just for him, with only 10 cards, means that a lot of the variety goes right out the window. (Yes, I tend to rage a bit at the idea of "the meta" as well lol)

    I appreciate the idea of using him as a benchmark for deck capability. I just can't seem to get past that feeling of overwhelming jank when Koth opens up on his first turn with something stupid powerful that would take my deck 2 turns minimum to put out.

    So, as far as the Koth antipathy goes for myself, some of it I feel is a legitimate gripe, but that's tempered by me just being (most likely) unreasonably stubborn about deck building.  Tbh, I have the same issue in paper Magic. Sometimes, you just really want to use the cards you want, and not the ones you need to win. Does that mean I shouldn't kvetch a bit? Probably. I'll still do it though.

    The original idea of the post still stands though. I think knowing the force quit rate for PWs would be an interesting metric to see. It wouldn't accomplish anything meaningful, but still.
  • RhysMarkov
    RhysMarkov Posts: 120 Tile Toppler
    Also, sometimes I'm a l337 n1nj4 myself, but not so much when Koth hits the table lol
  • Furordraco
    Furordraco Posts: 142 Tile Toppler
    Again the Koth hate....personally Saheeli and Nahiri are waaaaaaaaay more dangerous then Koth. Its easy to shut down a pw that depends on one mana typology....especially if Ai is playing it. On the other hand saheeli and nahiri lose control much more easily...especially because saheeli **** thopters
  • morgue427
    morgue427 Posts: 783 Critical Contributor
    yay back to this again, fighting with people that will never see any side but their own. all yours i am done and just going to watch the flames burn
  • majincob
    majincob Posts: 732 Critical Contributor
    update: played koth because I could cram 10 vehicles in it and play 5 games in the last half an hour of the event.

    On topic: I'd love to see all the statistics honestly. I wish they had a transparent development philosophy.
  • Gilesclone
    Gilesclone Posts: 735 Critical Contributor
    majincob said:
    update: played koth because I could cram 10 vehicles in it and play 5 games in the last half an hour of the event.

    On topic: I'd love to see all the statistics honestly. I wish they had a transparent development philosophy.
    So true. Without the statistics this is all a matter of opinion. 
  • Sirchombli
    Sirchombli Posts: 322 Mover and Shaker
    Here we are on koth. Again. He's not fun... He's hard... Bad beats... Trying a different angle... Koth dumps his hand and then struggles to keep up. He's not unbeatable. He's not unfair. He's just a pw with a creature focus, so the derpy ai can play him right. If he's causing you to force quit 50% of the time, your deck doesn't have a realistic build. Koth is annoying. So is elspeth, and saheeli, and samut, and jace, and liliana, and Gideon. None of them are as annoying as the clockwork griping about koth. Let's gripe about something that may potentially change 
  • Kinesia
    Kinesia Posts: 1,621 Chairperson of the Boards
    Sirchombli said:
    Here we are on koth. Again. He's not fun... He's hard... Bad beats... Trying a different angle... Koth dumps his hand and then struggles to keep up. He's not unbeatable. He's not unfair. He's just a pw with a creature focus, so the derpy ai can play him right. If he's causing you to force quit 50% of the time, your deck doesn't have a realistic build. Koth is annoying. So is elspeth, and saheeli, and samut, and jace, and liliana, and Gideon. None of them are as annoying as the clockwork griping about koth. Let's gripe about something that may potentially change 
    While true, the biggest _reasonable_ gripe is that his first ability enables his first ability which is broken conceptually as well as in practise. The rest of the complaints, big deal, but even if you can work around this one it's a very valid complaint. There are a bunch of ways to fix it, don't really care about that, increasing the cost, letting it work on red gems too, preventing him from getting PW mana from any cascades that result from using the ability, etc.

    If Kiora had "Steal 6 mana including PW mana" would that be reasonable? It would be ridiculous, but that _is_ what Koth is doing.

    The rest... As someone said, Koth is a good test. If you can deal with Koth dumping creatures fast then _creatures_ aren't a problem with your deck. You should be able to cope (most) of the time.
  • Fiddler
    Fiddler Posts: 251 Mover and Shaker
    We should nerf Kiora’s abilities!

    Wait, we were talking about Kiora, right?

    Sorry, got confused with the past. Let’s balance all PW’s so they are exactly the same. That would make the game so much more fair and balanced and boring. 

    Then we would never be tempted to spend $ on new PW’s to explore their gifts only to have them taken away later. Not that I am still bitter, no!!!

    Koth is a kitten. 
  • Kinesia
    Kinesia Posts: 1,621 Chairperson of the Boards
    Fiddler said:
    We should nerf Kiora’s abilities!

    Wait, we were talking about Kiora, right?

    Sorry, got confused with the past. Let’s balance all PW’s so they are exactly the same. That would make the game so much more fair and balanced and boring. 

    Then we would never be tempted to spend $ on new PW’s to explore their gifts only to have them taken away later. Not that I am still bitter, no!!!

    Koth is a kitten. 

    I agree. We also need to get rid of this Creature/Spell/Support discrimination and turn everything into just _1_ card with different names, a 3 mana 2/2 creature with pictures of different kittens on it.

    That would fix everything!
  • Ohboy
    Ohboy Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    Every card is a morph that can't morph! 
  • Sirchombli
    Sirchombli Posts: 322 Mover and Shaker
    @Kinesia I understand the gripe. It comes up roughly once a month. All koth has is fast mana. Once he dumps his hand, all that mana doesn't really mean anything. He was my first pw outside of the original 5, so I've been playing with and against him for over a year. He's the stress test. Playing against him isn't the most fun, but he's just big, dumb red. I'd love to face less of him, but that leads me to believe that tg is the actual problem. 
  • Kinesia
    Kinesia Posts: 1,621 Chairperson of the Boards
    Yeah, there will always be _some_ PW people hate the most, it will vary from person to person, but the way TG is set up encourages it. having a node of each colour is the favourite suggestion I've seen, forcing people to use at least 5 different planeswalkers.
  • MDsupa
    MDsupa Posts: 124 Tile Toppler
    How are you built a Koth deck without additional card drawing creature/support/spell?  you gotta face those Koth that dump his hand and keep drawing more to keep spitting it out.
  • Sirchombli
    Sirchombli Posts: 322 Mover and Shaker
    @MDsupa I think you took me a bit too literally. Of course there are koth decks that draw extra cards. The point is that koth runs out of resources easily, and isn't that big of an obstacle. 
  • Rhasget
    Rhasget Posts: 412 Mover and Shaker
    He is by far the most used in TG from my experience (17/22 TG matches against him this week!)
    I lost alot to him at first also but have built a few TG decks with different PWs that can tackle him (and most others also) so now I only loose once in a while when my draws fail to stop the Olivia/Pig/Ulrich bombardment.
  • Ohboy
    Ohboy Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    I think there's some kind of weird matching where they actually track what kind of decks will make you lose the most.

    I almost never get matched against koth. It's always Saheeli, kiora or Nahiri. 
  • Gilesclone
    Gilesclone Posts: 735 Critical Contributor
    And I always get matched against Lilliana 1!  Discard, discard, discard...
  • RhysMarkov
    RhysMarkov Posts: 120 Tile Toppler
    As I acknowledged in the original post, the Koth discussion has already been had, so the post was less about "more hate on Koth" and more just wanting to see that hypothetical number. I made my peace (such as it is) with Koth a while back. He's a thing. He exists. Still my least favorite PW to battle against. The other PWs mentioned I have no issue with beating them or losing to them.

    Interesting sidenote: I -did- just beat Koth with a CycleNissa deck that was slopped together last night more out of amusement than any sense of strategy.

    Startled Awake
    Nimble Obstructionist
    Elder Deep-Fiend
    Reason/Belief
    Bring To Light
    Oath Of Nissa
    Zendikar Resurgent
    Panharmonicon
    Imprisoned In The Moon
    Exert Influence

    Are there gaping holes ready for exploitation? Absolutely.

    Do I not have answers for every potential crisis? You betcha.

    Is it silly to watch? Most definitely, especially when Koth's Avaricious Dragon and Akoum Firebird got Exerted. Lol

    <shrug>

    I also played it against a Kiora where I got stomped on by Gaea's Revenge, but Gaea's Revenge is it's own special brand of jank, if you can't disable/control, bounce or destroy it.

    So. Again. Koth is Koth. He does his thing. I've heard good arguments both for and against him, and I know he's not going anywhere or getting another nerf (remember when 3 red got him 12? Was that a thing, or am I misremembering it?).


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