Gem Conversion no longer changes Loyalty gems [Investigating]

Ciotog

I didn't see anyone else post this yet, but I could have overlooked it. Since the update, loyalty gems are not changed by gem conversion effects.  Was this an intended change?  I don't see it listed in the patch notes and it is quite a nerf to energize decks (which are still standard legal). 

//Edited Title -Brigby

HypnoticSpecter

Seems like a nerf to green decks in general.

DBJones

I also noticed that gem conversion won't change void gems. Is that new and/or intentional?

Kinesia

This is a small change but has huge huge effects and probably hasn't been fully considered.

The current PVE event makes this very obvious as using a land against Tezzeret at the end no longer changes _anything_ because it's all fabricate and energy and loyalty and 0 else.

In this situation things still need to be changed and opening it up to anything else but loyalty gems is possibly even more dangerous and unpredictable, so please just put it back and do deep research on the effects before changes like this. Like I said, it _looks_ small and simple but it totally isn't. Practise on the last Tezz boss to see.

Ciotog

Gem changers have never changed void gems @DBJones

This is also prettying annoying if you are running a heavy aftermath/Embalm/Eternalize deck....

bk1234

When playing an energy deck, gem changers are now pretty much obsolete because of this. Can we get status on whether this was intentional or is a bug so we can plan accordingly. RATC has energy objectives and it made a difference in gameplay this week. 

Kinesia

Just before winning yesterday I got a very weird deck arrangement that I wish I could have photographed, due to very odd random arrangments the ENTIRE board was green and loyalty and NOTHING matched by itself, it was crazy...


But I want to reiterate that during Escape to Orcas (the sequel to Free Willy) I faced a Dovin energy deck with AjaniGreen and hit a point where I could not change a single gem. There was _only_ supports, energy, loyalty.

We have not been told the rationale behind not changing loyalty gems, it would be interesting to know, but if that isn't negotiable how about...

Change the colour of supports and energy gems when needed but leave the support on the new colour, leave the energy on the new colour. (I'm not saying this is a good idea, but it's the same level of potential crazy that needs testing as the loyalty change was.)


Any changes here have very very wide experimental game impacts, the easiest thing to do is just revert the change and let us change loyalty gems again. You can test out other ideas in the background but NOT implement them until they are guaranteed to work, this was too huge a change to do like this without consultation.

It is not valid to rule out one of greens main benefits when you can very easily face a Tezz2 energy, fabricate, treasure deck in the current environment. 

Kinesia

There are more and more reports of people seeing far more cascades on the AI side, part of it is perception bias, but I'm beginning to think there are other things going on related to this specific change.

I see more cascades too, but I see them for myself as well as the AI.


I have a broader theory now, related to the removal of loyalty gems from the options for matching.

Firstly, why the change?
In this set, for the first time we have lands that change things to loyalty, perhaps that was bringing in some issues and they chose this as a fix for that without realising the unexpected consequences?
Explore changes gems too. Maybe they needed a general rule adjustment to fix problems with that?


Ignoring older sets for a moment with energy and void and treating this in a vacuum...

The board is a delicate arrangement where things have stopped falling. Any change can start them falling again. If you are ruling out loyalty gems and _changing_ colours (meaning you actually have to change something) then you are now increasing the chance of a clump of the same colour and you are more likely to cause a match then you were when loyalty gems were included too, they actually diluted the chances. (Note! Needs more math, this is just a theory for now.)

So even setting aside perception bias... What if there are a lot of people who don't use land mana changes but they end up playing against people who do? In those cases the AI IS going to get more cascades.
And maybe I'm seeing it slightly differently because I use gem changers religiously in every single deck, so I'm seeing the same effect happen for myself too.


Anyway... This change is extremely extremely big and complicated, but it needs a fast fix too. Was the reason for avoiding Loyalty Gems a bigger issue than the current problems outlined in this thread that it has caused?
If not, a quick answer is to change it back and then work longer term on a better solution.


Appendix:
A) I'm very curious about letting the colours of supports and energy gems change too, I wouldn't recommend it without testing, but it'd be _interesting_ to end up with Hixus on Green because someone changed the gem colour later...
If A causes problems then another thought would be that changing 1 gem of a "restricted type, possibly including loyalty) is still possible but uses up 2 "charges" of gem changing and is only done after all non-restricted types are changed. But again.... Huge testing required.

DBJones

I've seen more crazy cascading on both sides even with no gem changing at all, so this change probably isn't the entire cause of that.

Brigby

Hi Everyone. I'm compiling a comprehensive list of all Ixalan bug reports to be sent to the development team today. I will be sure to include this issue on that list as well. Thanks for the info!