First round of charges from Race to Orazca

Matthew

I hope you'll indulge me here, because my curiosity has gotten the better of me.

One of my teammates, after completing his first 5 charges for Race to Orazca, noticed something odd. He was in 54th place after dropping just a single secondary objective (for a total score of 43). That means that at the time of this posting, there are 53 individuals with perfect scores.

Let's let the poll speak for itself.

If there are missing options that would make this more scientific, then please speak up. I'm no data scientist, so I'm bound to have forgotten something.

Matthew

I have a perfect score and I'm using pure Cycling decks on all nodes.

I'm not at all throwing stones here. Merely trying to prove a point. I'm not ashamed of my choices. I want those rewards.

Mburn7

I don't have a perfect score and I'm using pure Cycling decks on 1 or 2 nodes.

I try to avoid cycling at all costs, but since I can't very well miss out on points for my coalition, I sometimes have to cycle a bit.

I appreciate that the objectives (and Greg) are easier, but I still hate the "win with x or less life" and "take x or less damage" objectives (and the speed ones, although 12 turns isn't awful).  Seriously, why not just tribal summon and keyword objectives?  Much more fun

GrizzoMtGPQ

I don't have a perfect score and I'm not using Cycling decks anywhere.

I'm done with cycling. It's no fun. Rather do something else. The rewards don't matter as much as the challenge.

Mainloop25

I don't have a perfect score and I'm using pure Cycling decks on 1 or 2 nodes.

Yeah at this point I have to look at anyone in a top coalition who still cycles every competition match a little side-eyed. Surely you have collected cards that are fun and competitive enough to play and you can win almost every match without cycling? Even an omni deck is a little more exciting than that. 

Skiglass6

I have a perfect score and I'm not using Cycling decks anywhere.

I voted before I looked at my decks because I knew I had not built any around cycling. I looked before this post and I have no cycle cards in any of my decks. I loathe cycling but was suprised I didn’t have a single cycle card (not even Shefet Monitor). Maybe I just got lucky with my opponents. But my 1st battle in second set, I forgot to cast enough creatures and couldn’t get a lucky cascade with last swap when I realized I needed 1 more. So not perfect any longer. 

bk1234

I don't have a perfect score and I'm not using Cycling decks anywhere.

I am using a deck with Drake Haven and 3 cycling cards on green. I’m at -2 and lost on that node (13 rounds). 

DBJones

I don't have a perfect score and I'm using pure Cycling decks on 1 or 2 nodes.

I'm only down two points because of the stupid red node. I barely won the battle where I lost the points against Chandra 2. I've found cycling to be much less tedious with low level Planeswalkers, my level 26 FotD Bolas is quite fast. My level 16 Dovin Baan is slower on the white node, but that's for the stupid objective. Technically, I'm also using a pure cycling Kiora (lvl 60), but I kinda forgot because it's a weird deck without Drake's Haven. I put in Farm instead and use her ultimate as the win condition. I'd run gem conversion spells instead, but I don't have the pieces to make it consistent. So I run a Shefet Farm instead.

Thuran

I have a perfect score and I'm using pure Cycling decks on 1 or 2 nodes.

Same, you cannot be "nice" or "fun" when 300 jewels are on the line!

Running cycling on the 30dmg Tinykitty node, and on the "kill 5 dudes" node.

Both leave margin for error, so I cycle to kill without chance of reprisal, and cycle yo guarantee that I can find 4 copies of turn to frog, in order to kill enough creatures in time, and in case of them only summoning 1 dude.

Should prolly just switch to cycle on the red node too, but, so far running doom on red, hufsun on white, and normal deck on blue

rafalele

I don't have a perfect score and I'm using pure Cycling decks on 1 or 2 nodes.

I am using it in 1 node . Has another one with New Perspectives , but without Faith and Drake.

The thing is that if I am not wrong some of the ones that are using cycling asked for it yo be nerfed. I think tough you are in top places you need it to perfect score, so imagine other  people not in your place just using it to win.

Matthew

I have a perfect score and I'm using pure Cycling decks on all nodes.

Mainloop25 said:

Yeah at this point I have to look at anyone in a top coalition who still cycles every competition match a little side-eyed. Surely you have collected cards that are fun and competitive enough to play and you can win almost every match without cycling? Even an omni deck is a little more exciting than that. 

I mean sure, this is true. But with a shortened timer on the current Elite Pack, and me in need of jewels, I want to remove as much chance as possible from the equation. Look at me side-eyed all you want. I want that shiny stuff.

I'm totally in agreement that it's boring and one-sided. I was just curious what the stats were from amongst the forum-goers.

TomB

I don't have a perfect score and I'm not using Cycling decks anywhere.

I usually use cycling on the "summon X or less creatures" nodes, but I got caught a little off-guard and forgot some of the details with RTO, so I failed to use cycling on the White node with DB. meh

Bullvinne

I don't have a perfect score and I'm not using Cycling decks anywhere.

I went to test tribal decks at first, first set of nodes netted me 21/45 points. After revamping those tribal decks I ended at 53/90 on the second set of nodes.

Time to switch to Cycling/HUF decks where able to try and salvage this event.

Laeuftbeidir

I have a perfect score and I'm not using Cycling decks anywhere.

I lost two points on the third charge. No cycling at all (except for shefet on the blue). Stupid Greg makes winning easy, enough air for stupid secondaries

FindingHeart8

I don't have a perfect score and I'm not using Cycling decks anywhere.

I don't really care about being in the top 50 players because I also have other things in my life that require my attention aside from this game, so I'm happy to settle with just completing all the single-player objectives and contributing a solid chunk of points to my coalition.

I am happy however with the super easy climb to this completion however, walking on the faces of cycling decks that the AI can't abuse

Lars

What's a 'pure cycling deck'? Is it one with 10 cycling relevant cards in it? If a deck has 4 cycling relevant card in it, are people not classing it as a cycling deck? Don't decks like that, with a significant percentage of cycling in them, also illustrative of how problematic cycling is?

deletedgone

I have a perfect score and I'm using pure Cycling decks on 3 or 4 nodes.

I have New Perspectives and Curator or Archive on four out of five nodes. That is my cutoff for "pure cycling".

For coalition events, I owe it to my team to win as many points as I am able. My goal is to never cycle (because it is not fun), but I do it unless I have an equally competitive alternative.

For HoR, I was down to one cycling deck.  With New Perspectives being disproportionately powerful and the remaining card in Standard that demands balancing (with HUF being a distant second), I don't see myself ever cycling drastically less in RtO.

Gilesclone

I don't have a perfect score and I'm not using Cycling decks anywhere.

I don’t have a problem with cycling but it didn’t really fit with what I wanted to do on these objectives.

bk1234

I don't have a perfect score and I'm not using Cycling decks anywhere.

I am now at -6 -- I took the few cycling cards I had out of my green deck -- it's perfect, I finished black with 31 (he popped Ob's ult support when he had 3 life left) and I purposely dropped an objective on red -- because I was bored with it. 

4 of my 5 decks are using tribal bonuses: 

Red: Pirates
Green: Dinos
White: Dinos
Blue: Pirates

Black is creatureless Ob -- and is a lot more fun than I expected in Standard without KLD / AER. 

deletedgone

I have a perfect score and I'm using pure Cycling decks on 3 or 4 nodes.

Aaaand I need to change my vote.  Stupid math!

speakupaskanswer

I don't have a perfect score and I'm not using Cycling decks anywhere.

I can't bring myself to go the easy way, but it unfortunately means more losses and harder games. That is really unfortunate and a sign of an unhealthy standard environment.