Legacy Cards in Standard Format Exploit (10/1/18)

Brigby
Brigby ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 7,757 Site Admin
in MtGPQ General Discussion
Hi Everyone,

As some of you might know, prior to its fix in the 2.9 build, there was an exploit that allowed players to utilize Legacy cards in their decks during Standard events. When we became aware of this method, the team quickly set out to determine how this was occurring, and begin implementing a fix for it. 

Many of you were extremely helpful, and privately provided us information on how to reproduce this exploit, which both aided in the fix and limited the negative effect it had on other players. We're certainly grateful, and want to thank those of you that reached out to assist.

Now that the fix has been implemented in the 2.9 build, we will be taking action against players that purposefully used the exploit to gain an unfair advantage over their competitors. In addition, we'll be rewarding those who played honestly, and whose ranks were affected by these exploiters.

We understand that a fair playing field is integral to maintaining a healthy, competitive environment, so we thank you for being so patient as we work towards resolving this issue!
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Comments

  • Buizel
    Buizel Posts: 50 Match Maker
    So we'll get rewarded for not using the exploit? Neat.
  • Sherry
    Sherry Posts: 25 Just Dropped In
    So when will you guys be implementing this?
  • khurram
    khurram Posts: 1,090 Chairperson of the Boards
    Brigby said:


    Now that the fix has been implemented in the 2.9 build, we will be taking action against players that purposefully used the exploit to gain an unfair advantage over their competitors. In addition, we'll be rewarding those who played honestly, and whose ranks were affected by these exploiters.

    How would you know? Considering that the exploit has been fixed 
  • Mburn7
    Mburn7 Posts: 3,427 Chairperson of the Boards
    How can you tell who exploited this and who just accidentally did it without realizing there was a problem?

    There weren't exactly a ton of steps that needed to be followed to make it happen
  • Kinesia
    Kinesia Posts: 1,621 Chairperson of the Boards
    Mburn7 said:
    How can you tell who exploited this and who just accidentally did it without realizing there was a problem?

    There weren't exactly a ton of steps that needed to be followed to make it happen

    Number of times is a start. You don't do something 20 times in every single node of every single event by accident.
  • wereotter
    wereotter Posts: 2,070 Chairperson of the Boards
    Mburn7 said:
    How can you tell who exploited this and who just accidentally did it without realizing there was a problem?

    There weren't exactly a ton of steps that needed to be followed to make it happen
    I'm going to go out on a limb here, and assume that if you were playing the events as intended, you wouldn't be able to readily exploit them. I don't even know how the loophole was found, nor do I really care what it was, and I never once found myself in a position to use legacy cards in standard events. I'm willing to assume the majority of players doing this were doing so knowingly rather than accidentally, especially when most if not all of us know what cards in our collection are standard legal and which are not.
  • bk1234
    bk1234 Posts: 2,924 Chairperson of the Boards
    The exploit did take several steps to make happen. I don't see how it could have been done intentionally. As far as how they can tell, I would guess that they have access to our battle logs -- I make this guess because I have had tickets where support has accessed my battle logs to discuss bugs or interactions. 

    Of course this is all just speculation. 

    Anyway, great job to all of the people who set in tickets because playing a fair game matters. 
  • Mburn7
    Mburn7 Posts: 3,427 Chairperson of the Boards
    bken1234 said:
    The exploit did take several steps to make happen. I don't see how it could have been done intentionally. As far as how they can tell, I would guess that they have access to our battle logs -- I make this guess because I have had tickets where support has accessed my battle logs to discuss bugs or interactions.
    It was a 2 step process (not sure if I'm allowed to go into more detail about a fixed loophole)

    I mean, it was discovered completely by accident, and isn't unreasonable that it could have happened by mistake again (say by someone playing story mode or something while an event was going on)
  • Gunmix25
    Gunmix25 Posts: 1,442 Chairperson of the Boards
    Mburn7 said:
    bken1234 said:
    The exploit did take several steps to make happen. I don't see how it could have been done intentionally. As far as how they can tell, I would guess that they have access to our battle logs -- I make this guess because I have had tickets where support has accessed my battle logs to discuss bugs or interactions.
    It was a 2 step process (not sure if I'm allowed to go into more detail about a fixed loophole)

    I mean, it was discovered completely by accident, and isn't unreasonable that it could have happened by mistake again (say by someone playing story mode or something while an event was going on)
    Even if discovered by accident,  the choice to go forward knowing that you're using legacy cards wasn't.  
  • Sarahschmara
    Sarahschmara Posts: 554 Critical Contributor
    While I never discovered the steps (eh, I didn’t look very hard), I do know that many people discovered on accident and reported it ages ago. 

    I’m very glad that this issue is fixed. I’m still pretty unimpressed that it took so long... apparently you’ve known about this for months.

    I do hope they are cross-referencing UIDs and battlelogs and not relying on screenshots (since we know that names are not unique). 
  • khurram
    khurram Posts: 1,090 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited October 2018
    I fail to see the "oops, I played the legacy decks in my events by mistake" as a genuine excuse. 

    Two steps sure, but it did involve intended tampering of the decks registered in the event and it doesn't take a genius to figure if they were supposed to go ahead with those or not. The concept of "legacy" and "standard" is not that complex.
  • Aeroplane
    Aeroplane Posts: 314 Mover and Shaker
    Never knew or experienced this exploit or how long it was going on for, but I think Oktagon has more pressing issues , especially, after that last update. Sphynx's Decree needs immediate attention, the card freeze was never attended to, and numerous bugs were brought back or created with 2.9 . For some reason Forrest Gump's quote came to mind," This game is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you'll get after an update"
     
  • James13
    James13 Posts: 665 Critical Contributor
    Interesting.

    I'll admit that I was curious and wanted to try it, but never did get around to actually do it in any AIx or such.

    I'm not sure how they are planning to try to identify those who used in it competitive ranked events, but getting something for free here would be nice if they do scrape through old logs or something.
  • Szamsziel
    Szamsziel Posts: 463 Mover and Shaker
    From a technical perspective: as a developer I'd implement an option to track usage of cards in events in the beginning - at least to have information to nerf / buff specific one. So I think identify of abusers in that area should be simple. Hmm. It would be great to see statistics of mythica/masterpieces - how often each card is used.
  • IM_CARLOS
    IM_CARLOS Posts: 640 Critical Contributor
    I don't know how this exploit works and I didn't see a lot of legacy cards in standard events.
    But maybe it's like making a eleven card deck (accidently happen to me once). I wonder how this happen. But if it possible to make 11-card deck a 1- or 2-card-deck should be possible two. That would be a really annoying exploit.

    I think there are a lot of bug around after every update. 
  • octal9
    octal9 Posts: 593 Critical Contributor
    edited October 2018
    Szamsziel said:
    From a technical perspective: as a developer I'd implement an option to track usage of cards in events in the beginning - at least to have information to nerf / buff specific one.
    Back when they nerfed Kiora one of their justifications was the number of players that would start a match against a Kiora and eventually quit - not just lose, but outright ragequit.

    They have the ability to track this type of information (industry term is "telemetry data"). Just because we can't see it doesn't mean it's not being tracked.
  • Wolfteeth
    Wolfteeth Posts: 125 Tile Toppler
    I know this is kind of sad, and I have been playing this game for almost 2 years, but I am confused as to what a Legacy card is and what a Standard event is.  Are the standard events like Oath of the Gatewatch?  Ones that don't involve your coalition and ones that don't record your score?
  • octal9
    octal9 Posts: 593 Critical Contributor
    edited October 2018
    Wolfteeth said:
    I know this is kind of sad, and I have been playing this game for almost 2 years, but I am confused as to what a Legacy card is and what a Standard event is.
    "Standard" is a collection of sets that can be used in certain events to restrict which cards can be used. So far, it's always been defined as Origins plus the most recent four - right now that's M19, DOM, RIX, and XLN.

    "Legacy" is "all cards from any set". Legacy events, decks, and vault items are displayed with a blue ribbon on them to set them apart from Standard items.
  • Wolfteeth
    Wolfteeth Posts: 125 Tile Toppler
    octal9 said:
    Wolfteeth said:
    I know this is kind of sad, and I have been playing this game for almost 2 years, but I am confused as to what a Legacy card is and what a Standard event is.
    That's okay. "Standard" is a collection of sets that can be used in certain events to restrict which cards can be used. So far, it's always been defined as Origins plus the most recent four - right now that's M19, DOM, RIX, and XLN.

    "Legacy" is "all cards from any set". Legacy events, decks, and vault items are displayed with a blue ribbon on them to set them apart from Standard items.
    Thank you!  Glad to know I'm not being a ****, cheating is lame
  • Tremayne
    Tremayne Posts: 1,673 Chairperson of the Boards
    Question to D3/Octagon concerning this bug.
    1. I didn’t know an exploit existed until it was communicated, so I was unable to send a ticket or otherwise help with the fixing of the bug.
    2. I haven’t on purpose attempted to cheat, but I don’t know if I have accidentally used this bug during an event.
    3. When I make a deck and it is accepted by the app, then I do not verify that it is standard. I expect the app to take care of that! Even though I have played the app for a long time. Why you ask, see bullet 1.
    4. Once I have made my deck, I tend to play with that deck during the entire event without changing it. Changes occur occasionally, if I have forgotten a crucial component which either makes me loose a match or loose points.
    5. I rarely end up with top-10 prizes for various reasons, but I guess that bullet 4 is the main reason. I assume that top players alter their deck depending upon the opponent they are matched up against.

    The play-style and the communication from D3/Octagon plus the speculation on the forum makes me concerned. How can a player provide any proof of innocence to being accused of exploiting the legacy in standard bug if they have a similar approach as I have stated above?

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