Potentially unobtainable requirements

Kinesia

Too many people are hung up on the "kill x creatures" and you get an opponent that doesn't have any.
I've tried saying before that they aren't the only cases and not many seemed to believe me, I'm playing an example right now...

"Take < 10 damage" against basic basic Chandra that everyone has. The _only_ defense is Djeru or Gideon's intervention both of which aren't regularly avaialeble cards.
This is an easy thing to lose to random chance. Also _any_ red deck playing Hour of Devastation which cuts through the only defenses anyway

"Lose <2 creatures" on white. While you _can_ do creatureless white it's actually an advanced deck with specific cards again not attatinable to most. So for _most_ people this caren't be guaranteed.

I don't want these removed, I just want people to stop expecting to get every point, you are not entitled to it, things are going to go wrong and they ARE random and depend on who you are matched with and their deck.

As i said over and over the creatureless decks were an _obvious_ example of something that is happening subtely all over the place.

You have no control, RNG is in control, stop trying to scrabble and make your world make sense, even just the tiny bit of this game within it, the world is harsh and cruel and this game is great for making metaphors about life. You can prepare, you SHOULD prepare, but then it's not up to you when it actually plays out and things WILL go wrong.

Stop thinking you should get all the points.

I actually think the real solution is to make PVP requirements the same as Avacyn Madness where it's actually _impossible_ for you to get them all, people understand things better when you bluntly hit them over the head with them like that.

deletedgone

I think the counterpoint is that this unpreventable randomness tends to be the only factor dictating top event standings.  For something like a Platinum HoD bracket, an AI turn 1 inferno jet costs you a top five finish and substantial in-game rewards.  Creatureless opponent decks are another example of something that will knock you out of the top five and can’t be addressed through deck building.

It is agreed that one shouldn’t expect to get a perfect score.  That is the real problem to be addressed.  I wish the events were much harder and that top scores were closer to 80% of perfect.  In this case, the “RNG” variance in final scoring would be a much smaller percentage of the distance from perfect at the top of the scoreboard.  I can appreciate, however, that not all players would enjoy this change.

Unfortunately, the way things currently are, a virtual coin flip determines the top few event finishers in a way that is frustratingly obvious and frequent.  That is not fun, either.

Houdin

I absolutely agree with this.
Events should actually be much harder in platinum. 
There is no reason why the secondary objectives can't be tiered to the bracket. 
For myself personally and probably every member of my team, if Greg doesn't get some crazy rng goodness, a perfect score is easily obtainable.
However one crazy cascade knocks you out of top placing.
This is just bad feelings all around. 
It would be much better if 80% completion was a struggle for everyone.
As a bonus it's my opinion that this would also keep content fresher longer. 
When you don't really need to rethink your strategy after the first time through an event it gets boring fairly quickly

Mainloop25

All they need to do is vary objectives from one run of an event to the next. Then this becomes a non - issue. 

ElfNeedsFood

I think Greg should also get smarter (maybe just better?) by tier.  I get gimping match 5's for Silver, but up here in Plat, let him prioritize these...

Thuran

Playing right now...turn 1 Greg vomits out his entire hand of energy cards sand a dynavolt tower...on the take 10 or less node....

Lol, never mind..writing the comment caused the game to crash xD

wereotter

I managed to do the take 10 or less damage using Elspeth and took 0 damage for several matches.... then one deck cast Hour of Devestation and I immediately lost that objective, and considering there are literally only two cards that could have prevented that, it's a poor design for objectives considering what cards exist. Only a perfectly timed Insidious Will (which I couldn't run in Elspeth anyway) or Djeru could have prevented that.

It falls into the issue of RNG determining who is at the top and who isn't. It's not a big deal to lost points, and I by no means expect to get them all, but when you consider the rewards for losing say 5-10 points off a 3-day event due to bad luck on secondary objectives changes your rewards from:

300 jewels
150 crystals
1 HOU rare

to:
20 jewels
50 crystals
1 HOU rare

The punishment is pretty severe and of course people will complain that RNG lost them the reward over strategy. The reward structure ought to be reconsidered and I think you'll see far fewer complaints regarding the loss of a few points. Reward brackets can be enlarged, prize discrepancies can be reduces, number of players in a bracket can be reduced, or any combination of these.

Firinmahlazer

I think bracket size has a lot to do with the difficulty as well. 3k person brackets are awful. I'd rather see rewards cut back and bracket sizes reduced. Maybe you'd only fall 5 spots back instead of 25 for missing a point. Also I'd like to say I agree with OP. A perfect score shouldn't be expected. If it is being obtained it shouldn't be by 20 some odd people but maybe 2-3. Stop acting like it's the end of the world because you didn't place first in an event. 

Volrak

wereotter said:

there are literally only two cards that could have prevented that

While I agree that RNG isn't the best way of splitting the competition, it's certainly false that only two cards could stop the 12 damage from HoD.  RNG can't force you not to consider other ideas.   For example: There's more than one countering support.  Other cards exist which prevent damage to planeswalkers. And various drain, discard, or extra turn strategies can make it difficult for the AI to cast anything.

wereotter

I’m referring to once the card gets cast. Discard and drain strategies don’t help if your opponent draws it and cascades into casting it, and I’m not going to consider Pact of Negation as it’s a masterpiece level rarity that the number of people who can rely on it as a strategy are incredibly small.

As far as the planeswalker damage prevention, I also didn’t mention Gideon’s Intervention as the support only has two shields and the spell hits your creatures first, so it would mean they break the support before it hits you and you still lose the objective. 

span_argoman

If we *really* want name all the specific cards which would have prevented 1 HoD from ruining the take 10 or less damage objective, Orbs of Warding does so as well.

wereotter

Okay, so two plus Orbs of Warding that then has the asterisk that you have to take exactly 0 damage for the entire remainder of the fight and the entire fight leading up to it. Sure it can save you from exactly one Hour of Devestation, but if your next best solution is one that is such a razor thin margin or error, it's still a poorly designed objective.

AND considering most if not all your creatures are dead as a result of the spell, you've also just lost the other objective of don't let too many of your creatures get killed on top of having no defenders left for that hasted creature that red probably has to back up that Hour of Devestation play.

Rhasget

There are some options to hinder the AI from casting and/or stop creatures or spell from damage you. 

But it is easier to deal damage than to hinder it.
And theres also the loyalty abilities that can't be countered. 

I missed points facing Chandra1 when she cascaded to be able to use her third ability. There are only two cards I can think of that can stop that: Platinum Angel (a Masterpiece and not many have it) and Gideons Intervention (which I had but was destroyed the turn before). 

Affliction negates all defenders since you deal the damage anyways and it also has the same countermeasure as above.

I don't mind it being used though, just that there are more tiebreaker possibilities in other nodes so it is harder to get a full score.
I kinda liked FirF because of this where you could miss several ribbons and still place decently although that might have been due to people not caring at all about objectives instead.

Bigred5442

Jaces defeat too. there are several cards across several rarity levels in white and blue that can and should be played on a <X damage node. still need luck to get them at the right time, but the same could be said for most any thing in a card game like this (didn't draw enough creatures or spells, you could loose the points from the Samut node).

don't have those cards? well, keep playing and your collection will get better and you will have more answers to more situations. when BFZ was out, i wasn't able to complete all of the battles in OotG 1&2 (not just side objectives, but even winning the battle). it didn't bother me because i know i would eventually have the tools to do it. and now i can get every objective first try (well, the ones that aren't opposites, obviously i have to play those a second time...)

there are ways to build around everything, just need to look for it. i played kiora cycling, Censor'ed every chance i got, and typically got the DH NP combo out in turn 2 or three and finished the game as quickly as possible. never lost a point. 

Did i get lucky? sure, i didn't encounter  an AI that happened to draw something that cost 12+ mana in their opening hand and happened to cascade into enough mana in one turn to cast it. it was always a possibility, but its still a fairly slim one, and i chose speed and mana denial to mitigate that risk. it works for me on all the damage nodes, i rarely lose points, on any of those. its not perfect, but close enough for me. you can play the same key cards in any color node since they are all blue and only rare cards. so i see this as a non-issue.

that being said, the fact that loosing one point drops you 20 places is the real issue that should be addressed, that is no fun...

wereotter

Bigred5442 said:

that being said, the fact that loosing one point drops you 20 places is the real issue that should be addressed, that is no fun...

This more than anything else is the reason my complaints with the objective exist. I don't mind losing points to bad luck if it weren't for the fact that the punishment for losing even a handful of points is SO brutal. The rewards literally are halved every step of the way down the placement, so evening that out some would make it less of a feel bad issue when RNG or bad luck ends up losing you points.

Especially when finishing at the top is basically a guaranteed mythic/masterpiece, and since some of these ways of avoiding bad RNG are tiered behind masterpieces, you can see where this creates a loop of people with all the answers having more access to get rewards to get even more answers, which is the same thing people have been complaining about for over a year.

Matthew

I can't believe nobody's mentioned Haze of Pollen yet! It's a greatly underrated card. And it also synergizes perfectly with everyone's favorite strategy: Cycling!

Theros

for this HOR I had to face 3 creature less decks in lower left node.
This kind of RNG is bad for game, at least not worth my time and effort. there are better ways to make things competitive; objective need change.
Ranking is also severe especially in platinum. losing a single point is costly and disheartening; rewards go from good to worst. From the moment you lose that 1 point or lose 1 game, you lose all motivation and realize all that time/effort spent playing is wasted and has no added value. This ain't fun. This is why I would suggest more emphasis on coalition rewards than individual in most events. that way, losing won't feel that bad. coalition rewards are poor in many of the events. There not high enough to motivate all members to their max. It really takes courage and mad love to go beyond progression rewards.
All this mess originated from austerity in an effort to reduce prizes given. 

Toodles

Yay RNG! No one should be able to get a perfect score every event. I actually build my decks to win and wreck other players objectives in the hands of the AI

Toodles

wereotter said:

Bigred5442 said:

that being said, the fact that loosing one point drops you 20 places is the real issue that should be addressed, that is no fun...

This more than anything else is the reason my complaints with the objective exist. I don't mind losing points to bad luck if it weren't for the fact that the punishment for losing even a handful of points is SO brutal. The rewards literally are halved every step of the way down the placement, so evening that out some would make it less of a feel bad issue when RNG or bad luck ends up losing you points.

Especially when finishing at the top is basically a guaranteed mythic/masterpiece, and since some of these ways of avoiding bad RNG are tiered behind masterpieces, you can see where this creates a loop of people with all the answers having more access to get rewards to get even more answers, which is the same thing people have been complaining about for over a year.

The rich get richer