Never-ending combo that locks up the game

knifelheim

So I had a hunch that an infinite combo was now possible in legacy and I tried it out. Yup, I have a 754/754 insect (and climbing) right now in a game, with no way to stop it from continuously reinforcing.

The Combo:
Olivia Mobilized for War, The Locust God, and Vanquisher's Banner.

Every time I draw a card, the Locust God summons a 1/1 insect, which then trigger's Vanquisher's Banner and causes me to draw another card. Normally, this would end when my hand is full, but Olivia's ability causes me to discard a card each time the locust comes into play, thus causing my hand to never fill and perpetuating the cycle.

There needs to be a way to stop abilities from activating when you don't want them to.

Stormcrow

There's never been a way to stop infinite loops from locking up the game, and this is far from the first one. I've accidentally done this to myself with Harness the Storm, Omniscience, a Whir of Invention in hand and a Whir of Invention in the graveyard.

I mean, I don't think it's desirable that we be able to give ourselves arbitrarily large insects, or Omniscience with an arbitrarily large number of shields, and then just stop the combo when we feel like it. So I wouldn't say the fix should be "stop abilities from activating whenever you feel like it" - I think the game just needs some kind of infinite-loop detection that will automatically end the match after a while.

octal9

This also happens with Olivia, Locust God, and Zendikar Resurgent.

I'm not sure a way to stop abilities from activating is the solution here, as it would remove a fairly significant portion of gameplay (and introduces another advantage of the player over the AI).

The long and short is you have to be very careful when pairing Olivia & Locust God. They're great together, but you really have to watch the other cards in your deck or you can fall into this trap.

edit:

Stormcrow said:

I think the game just needs some kind of infinite-loop detection that will automatically end the match after a while.

This is a variation of the Halting Problem, albeit with a smaller input language. I wouldn't count on an implementation for that here.

Stormcrow

octal9 said:

This is a variation of the Halting Problem, albeit with a smaller input language. I wouldn't count on an implementation for that here.

Except that the game doesn't need to know with absolute certainty that a loop is literally infinite - they can just cap it after an arbitrary, but large, number of cards played in a row, tokens generated, or even a certain number of minutes passing since the last time a player made a gem match, without the turn passing to the other player.

Bil

The fact that you cant stop an infinite combo is as problematic as the fact that you can actually launch an infinite combo ... Both should be fixed and balanced for the sake of the game.

Szamsziel

Good old times, when Olivia paired with Wharf Infiltrator created unbreakable loop of eldrazi tokens. 
End as Olivia is main issue here - maybe to be compliant with current development she should loose a shield when she buffs
Edit: Solution added.