Can we report players for exploiting a bugged card?

ElfNeedsFood

Laeuftbeidir said:

I found out the variation with forerunner of the légion, légion "fetch-himself" -dude and path is way worse - since the gems turn to white, it won't destroy the path. Once set up, it can go on and on until the loyalty gems make any matches impossible, ten minutes is quite realistic. I managed to get a board with two colored activation gems, path and the rest was loyalty + white

Including Favren in this also fuels up a lot of tokens that all discover. Not cheating. Four card loop. There are lots of winning four card loops out there. 

Dodecapod

On the topic of the OP, I agree completely with the frustration (sitting through 10-20 minute loops is the antithesis of engaging, interactive play, and the power of a few different loops involving Path of Discovery combined with the painfully slow animations the card often induces almost brings to mind comparisons with Baral 1.0), but given the number of bugs and frequent ambiguity between intended and unintended interactions in this game, I also think that penalizing players who take advantage of this or any other card-based bugs as cheaters would be too severe of a countermeasure, and that while the situation isn't ideal, it's probably a necessary evil to bear with many of these quirks as though they were features until they're resolved even when that entails some negative play experiences along the way.

That said, I've come to believe that Path deserves serious scrutiny for a potential balance adjustment independent of the Roil interaction, and whether or not it ultimately receives one, it would be great to see some animation speed improvements in the not-too-distant future as well.

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On the topic of 20-minute loops incorporating Path of Discovery, I'd initially omitted the full video from the "emergency bans" thread last month under the assumption it would be of little interest, but since the issue has been raised again and encountered understandable skepticism, here's a Standard-legal example of exactly that as a proof of concept; the loop displayed wouldn't be possible for the AI to replicate because it entails replacing creatures, so it isn't an ideal representation of what we might have to face in the wild, but as a couple of other examples from games I didn't record videos of but happen to have intermittent screenshots of, the Path/Roil/Banner combo had another game against RAtC Tezz in which I had to wait over 20 minutes before having any ability to interact, which means the AI could in principle accomplish the same, and the Path/Forerunner/Conquistador combo had a turn I didn't time (as I had to switch away from the app several times to allow my device to cool) during B4T in which Conquistador grew from low double digits to over 1200/1200 and a Vampire token that entered play that turn grew to over 450/450 before Path finally popped to end the loop, which again left no opportunity to interact throughout the process and therefore the AI would in principle be able to replicate.

Lest anyone raise justifiable questions about how many games it took to create these board states (e.g. encountering this once in every 1000 games would be much different from encountering it once in every 10), I have played about 15-20 games total with any kind of Path deck against RAtC Tezz and all B4T levels combined, so while the overall frequency would be difficult to infer from such a limited sample size, it appears at first impression as though these lengthy loops aren't anomalous, and are instead fairly characteristic of moderate-probability scenarios when using similar setups.

Examples
20+ minute loop video involving a Standard-legal Path deck:
https://youtu.be/hEaagDhxbus
Before and after with a similar deck against RAtC Tezz (with no ability to interact between these game states, and about 20 minutes between them):




Intermediate loop states with H2 Vampires + Path against B4T 5.1 (again with no ability to interact between the depicted states, or for some time before the first screenshot or after the second, although I didn't record the total time; the overall loop involved Conquistador growing by about 1200 P/T and the Vampire token by at least 450 P/T between opportunities to pass the turn, as Forerunner's size reflects the approximate size of Conquistador when the turn began):

Sirchombli

Just. Kill. The. Token. The combo is extremely clunky .You've got plenty of time and can see it coming from a mile away. Don't cry to the devs because you lost. The game is about exploiting cards. 

khurram

A solution would be to make explore 1 convert just one gem and change the wording on other cards to explore 2 for converting 2 gems, and so on...

Mburn7

khurram said:

A solution would be to make explore 1 convert just one gem and change the wording on other cards to explore 2 for converting 2 gems, and so on...

That would make the mechanic completely useless, unless everyone increases to like explore 6 (but somehow keeps the +2/+2 buff from explore 2), which would be way too clunky.  

I really think that if Roil gets fixed this is much less of an issue.  Making Path work on non-token is too much of a nerf (and doesn't even stop the Conquistador problem).  I think we just have to get used to a world where support hate is vital to any deck (admittedly, we should already be used to that, but still). 

Either that or make path a mythic and remove it from everyone's collection, so less people get to abuse it 
Note:  Don't do this