Problematic deck: Kiora-Array

arNero

Call me a sore loser here, but having just seen another Kiora Prismatic Array deck going infinite earlier, and recalling how either Oktagon or the guys before (sheesh, I've forgotten their name already XD) actually bothered to mass-nerf Cycling cards, I think the following cards also need to be nerfed as well.

Offenders:

1) Prism Array
There is at least one old thread in this very forum complaining about the insane power of this card, and I believe I need to restress that this card is insane. It's just far too cheap for something that does far too many things, and most damningly, it severely punishes the opposition for DOING something that is basic in the game (matching 4+ gems, including from effects). true, maybe it isn't too powerful without green and their massive gem-changers, but it's still just too good. As a comparison, Era of Innovation can also do what Prism Array does (draw 3 cards by doing some action), but Era of Innovation needs a LOT of setup before you can draw 3 with it, whereas with Prism Array, the condition is far, far too easy.

My suggestion is multifold:
A) While it does feel strange to change it this way, the first method I recommend is to nerf it so that the draw+disable ability doesn't trigger from gem changes, a.k.a, make it so that the ability trigger ONLY from the player matching 4+ gems manually. Like I said, this is strange because then the card that normally Landfalls cannot function like normal Landfalls (unless you later change the Landfall ability to only work from manual swapping, which may or may not be a good idea)

B> Do not let the ability trigger from OPPONENT getting Landfall. This effect that punishes opponent from, again as I said, doing something so basic is among what makes Prism Array broken, turning it into yet another "kill me now or DIE" card.

C) Instead of drawing the 3 cards IMMEDIATELY make that draw 3 happen ONLY at the end of turn. That way, Array can still net you a lot of cards, just not way too easily; As Seasons Past have taught, this kind of immediate drawing/fetching effects in this game when combined with many effects that give a LOT of mana basically is broken.

2) Seasons Past
They did a good job of nerfing it the last time (fetching after gem change instead of before), but with Hour of Promise, Nissa's Renewal etc etc, this nerf becomes pointless as Seasons Past can fill those cards first, fetch the three cards, then let Renewal/Promise etc fill those three cards (which may include ANOTHER Seasons Past)

Suggested fixes:
A) Given that now we have Exile effects, not to mention a few cards which exile itself after being cast (such as that black Undergrowth spell I forgot the name), what about we have Seasons Past exile itself afer cast so that it can't infini-fetch itself? Or at the very worst, like Hazoret's Undying Fury, make it so that Seasons Past cannot re-fetch itself.

B> Like Prism Array, one of the things that make Seasons Past broken is because it fetches the cards as an immediate card effect. Instead, delay the fetching at the end of turn, so that even if Seasons + Hour + Renewal gives infinite mana, the fetched cards ALWAYS start with empty mana, removing infinite combo.

3) Part the Waterveil
To be fair, this card is mostly only broken because of the combo, but the fact that this card can serve as an instant kill in that combo means this card also needs a nerf.

A) Like my suggestion on Array, make it so that you get the Elementals only if you manually get a 5-gem match instead of getting a 5-gem match from Seasons Past etc. This will curb its instant-kill potential.

B> Alternatively, Like many heavy-shield supports of its kind (such as Mirrorpool), make it so that the support immediately self-destructs when you match 5 gems, or at least, lower its shield count (like to 2). With 10 shields, this card can survive waves upon waves of infinite cascades which is among the reasons why it's busted.

Again, this time I call for the nerfing of these cards because they have actually cared (or been bothered) enough about the power of Cycling deck (which was already Legacy-only when it got nerfed) that they have nerfed its key cards, causing it to be far weaker. (in other words, if they had never nerfed any of the Cycling cards, I probably would just complain about Prism Array and that's it)

And besides, it's funny how a deck that the AI just cannot play is nerfed, while the deck that can slaughter a player on TURN 1 from an unlucky cascade is left unaffected.

So please consider. I do admit it's surprisingly rare to see Kiora Array these days (and I am thankful), but considering that that deck is instant loss for us if we fail to kill it on turn 1 (okay, exaggeration, but I hope you get my gist), the offenders I mentioned needs to be nerfed.

andrewvanmarle

Please....let's not open - that- can op worms again... 
This is why they split standard and legacy. That is enough. 

Now instead of nerfing, let's help you fight these kind of decks. 

Kambal punishes with damage  for each spell the ai plays

Authority of the consuls and kinjali's sunwing disable the tokens when they are created giving you the time to react. For instance by stealing them. 

Murder can destroy during the opponent's turn

The various disable supports will serve you well too.

Sphinx's decree stops him in his tracks as does azor the law bringer

Of course playing prismatic array in turn works wonders. 

And when you run into Kiora in Legacy look at what you are playing and change PW or deck before jumping into the fray. 

And don't worry when you do lose once in a while, it's part of the game

Tremayne

I lost to such a deck in ToTP yesterday. The most annoying part was the waiting while the slow animations played out. However at the time I was just messing around with some playtesting against the final node in ToTP, had I been prevented from getting my rewards I might have felt differently. I definitely get the frustration that an unexpected lost results gives you.

I must agree with @andrewvanmarle let us not restart this discussion. I think that a combo of three cards, well actually 6-7 cards, is not something to nerf. Because then every card must be nerfed, it is difficult to imagine that every card can’t be part of such a large combo.

If we look at it the other way, had I finally been able to gather a series of cards that enabled me to achieve what Kiora Prismatic array can do, several rare and mythic cards, I would be sad if they didn’t do something amazing.

As @andrewvanmarle wrote try to anticipate and exchange one counter card in your deck design, maybe the extra kill spell must be murder or add that card that punish spell casting to your deck and see what happens.

khurram

arNero said:

Call me a sore loser here

You... are a sore loser. 

andrewvanmarle

khurram said:

arNero said:

Call me a sore loser here

You... are a sore loser. 

Not nice...not productive, khurram. 

madwren

Tremayne said:

As @andrewvanmarle wrote try to anticipate and exchange one counter card in your deck design, maybe the extra kill spell must be murder or add that card that punish spell casting to your deck and see what happens.

The flaw in the "just use a counter card" argument is that the average Kiora Waterveil deck is so explosive that you frequently won't have the chance to both draw and cast whatever counter you think will stop it.

Kiora Waterveil (for lack of a better name) wins on turn 3-4 with great regularity--and occasionally earlier. Even if you have the counter card in the opening hand, mostly it just delays the inevitable. It's that explosive. You might get out Bonds or AoC, but it'll just get exploded via ramp spells; Murder is a great initial option that might be ready turn 1, but it only stops the first iteration of island tokens, and Kiora's always in a position to either beat you over the head with a giant Hydra or simply start the cycle anew with another Rx into BSZ or whatever nonsense the person packs their deck with.

Something like Kambal is a theoretical counter, but not a practical one. It's Too Slow for the vast majority of people (I mean, sure, you could Summoner's Pact it out in your mono-Kambal deck, but if you're doing that, you probably have a better win condition).

Basically, once Kiora starts up the Perpetual Mana Machine, you have to hope it fizzles out, that the person has constructed the deck inefficiently (for example, using cards that can choke on lack of targets), or that you're packing your own Deck of Brokenness in return.

Brakkis

arNero said:
2) Seasons Past
They did a good job of nerfing it the last time (fetching after gem change instead of before), but with Hour of Promise, Nissa's Renewal etc etc, this nerf becomes pointless as Seasons Past can fill those cards first, fetch the three cards, then let Renewal/Promise etc fill those three cards (which may include ANOTHER Seasons Past)

Suggested fixes:
A) Given that now we have Exile effects, not to mention a few cards which exile itself after being cast (such as that black Undergrowth spell I forgot the name), what about we have Seasons Past exile itself afer cast so that it can't infini-fetch itself? Or at the very worst, like Hazoret's Undying Fury, make it so that Seasons Past cannot re-fetch itself.

B> Like Prism Array, one of the things that make Seasons Past broken is because it fetches the cards as an immediate card effect. Instead, delay the fetching at the end of turn, so that even if Seasons + Hour + Renewal gives infinite mana, the fetched cards ALWAYS start with empty mana, removing infinite combo.

Season's Past can't fetch itself.

Tremayne

@madwren - so what are you advocating;
Nerfing combos that require 2 cards to win,
nerfing combos that require 3-4 cards to win or 
nerfing combos that require 5-7 cards to win?

Will you agree that to any deck created there is at least one card that can counter said deck?
mind you that card may not be available to a specific opponent?

andrewvanmarle

@madwren

You just spelled out a win condition, using the opponent's deck against itself, what are you poohpooh-ing about. 

__Adam

Legacy isn't salvageable. Let's not waste what little dev resources we have on this dumpster fire.

arNero

__Adam said:

Legacy isn't salvageable. Let's not waste what little dev resources we have on this dumpster fire.

Again as I have reiterated, if they had NEVER nerfed Cycling deck, I would NEVER have advocated the nerfing of this Kiora Waterveil. I can agree (even if I may not want to) that Legacy is a hellhole full of stupidly overpowered cards, yes, but again, that doesn't change the fact that Oktagon (or the previous guy) actually cared enough to NERF Cycling deck when it has been a Legacy only deck. And most damningly, the one Legacy deck they nerfed was the one that AI cannot play properly, which means a deck which is NOT a problem for the game.

If they can do that much, why not touch some of the other busted Legacy cards?

Brakkis said:

arNero said:
2) Seasons Past
They did a good job of nerfing it the last time (fetching after gem change instead of before), but with Hour of Promise, Nissa's Renewal etc etc, this nerf becomes pointless as Seasons Past can fill those cards first, fetch the three cards, then let Renewal/Promise etc fill those three cards (which may include ANOTHER Seasons Past)

Suggested fixes:
A) Given that now we have Exile effects, not to mention a few cards which exile itself after being cast (such as that black Undergrowth spell I forgot the name), what about we have Seasons Past exile itself afer cast so that it can't infini-fetch itself? Or at the very worst, like Hazoret's Undying Fury, make it so that Seasons Past cannot re-fetch itself.

B> Like Prism Array, one of the things that make Seasons Past broken is because it fetches the cards as an immediate card effect. Instead, delay the fetching at the end of turn, so that even if Seasons + Hour + Renewal gives infinite mana, the fetched cards ALWAYS start with empty mana, removing infinite combo.

Season's Past can't fetch itself.

Okay, that's good to hear, so at least the devs does one thing right. Unfortunately, that doesn't change the fact that with Prism Array, Seasons Past can mass-landfall to draw three cards, one of which is ANOTHER Seasons Past, so yeah, I stand by my argument that those two cards must be nerfed.

Tremayne said:

@madwren - so what are you advocating;
Nerfing combos that require 2 cards to win,
nerfing combos that require 3-4 cards to win or 
nerfing combos that require 5-7 cards to win?

Will you agree that to any deck created there is at least one card that can counter said deck?
mind you that card may not be available to a specific opponent?

All decks, no matter how broken or how weak, share one weakness. Unfortunately, that weakness is not a specific card or a specific strategy, it's a lucky cascade on turn 1 or so before the other cards gets to play any of its game-winning cards.

Example. You can say Prism Array is a support that can be destroyed. You can say, oh, play some Insidious Will to stop the combo dead. You can say, oh, get a good draw or tutor engine to get your gamewinners first before Kiora Waterveil kills you. That simply means that you have to play FAST (or pray you can win on turn 1 repeatedly, not an easy task even with HUD + Deploy) to win, because once you flub due to bad draw, it's over for you, even if your hand is full of the counters you can play the next turn.

Also, speaking of decks that need so-and-so number of cards to win, I have one particular view about card-based games, not just MtG Puzzle Quest but a few other: No single card should be able to win the game by itself. Okay, you're speaking about card combos, but then the fact that getting those cards out then instant-win does not make a good game.

(This reminds me to my pet peeve about Hearthstone: Some combo cards are so broken that your only choice is to play aggro and try your best to finish the game before turn 5 or something. It is a solution, a universal solution, perhaps, but is it a good one?)

__Adam

arNero said:

If they can do that much, why not touch some of the other busted Legacy cards?

Because it's a bottomless pit of fail. It would require an entire rewrite of the whole block to even have a chance. And oddly enough, there's an audience that likes the broken af format.

I agree, they should have left cycling alone. I suspect they only fixed it because it's broken and inexpensive to achieve, hurting their bottom line.

madwren

Tremayne said:

@madwren - so what are you advocating;
Nerfing combos that require 2 cards to win,
nerfing combos that require 3-4 cards to win or 
nerfing combos that require 5-7 cards to win?

Will you agree that to any deck created there is at least one card that can counter said deck?
mind you that card may not be available to a specific opponent?

I'm not advocating any nerfs. I'm simply saying that people have a habit of giving pat answers without appreciating how practical those proposed solutions actually are.

It's similar to how saying "play support removal" isn't necessarily a practical answer in an environment where the board is flooded with other supports, treasures, servos, and what have you. It's fine in theory, but in practice the result is frequently ineffectual--thereby rendering it a non-solution.

The game is fundamentally flawed in numerous ways that are endemic to the way the game was designed, which makes Legacy a cancerous dumping ground. At this point, we get what we get and can only hope Standard turns out differently (which I'm not entirely confident in).  

For example, I see some things like them not giving green any recent big gem converters, and think, hey, maybe they've caught on. Then they make BSZ, which is strong enough to make all the broken Legacy decks even more broken.

madwren

arNero said:

(This reminds me to my pet peeve about Hearthstone: Some combo cards are so broken that your only choice is to play aggro and try your best to finish the game before turn 5 or something. It is a solution, a universal solution, perhaps, but is it a good one?)

Right; in many ways, Legacy is simply an arms race. This is pretty well exemplified by TotP. On a macro level, you have HUF Deploy, Kiora Abuse, Omni decks, which Greg can play to a reasonable degree of success, and stuff like ID and cycling (which still works, it's just slower), which the AI often fails to play correctly and results in easy wins.

However, what sets Kiora apart is that it isn't specific cards. You can get rid of HUF, you can get rid of Omni, you can get rid of ID, you can nerf cycling, but Kiora is the combination of ridiculous amounts of mana and ridiculous numbers of cards that have compounded over the course of several blocks.

madwren

andrewvanmarle said:

@madwren

You just spelled out a win condition, using the opponent's deck against itself, what are you poohpooh-ing about. 

I'm not sure if you actually read my message, but yes, the best counter to these decks is to run these decks yourself, not to advocate bad cards like Kambal as a viable sideboard option.

Stormcrow

....wait....what year is it? *blinks* *looks at calendar* ...Hunh.

Kiora was released (for $$) in May 2016. The first complaints about how strong she was, including discussion of both of those cards, showed up not long after she was released for crystals the first time. (Note, Quickbattle was the main activity at the time and a lot of people considered a deck that takes as much real-life time to win as Prism/Veil to be too slow to be any good!) By August 2016 there were complaints about specifically that deck type though.

What is my point, besides a kind of entertaining (to me at least) trip down memory lane? Well, the point is this: the combo deck you're complaining about is maybe literally the oldest combo deck in this game. It has existed for, at this point, a majority of the time this game has existed. And at this point, there are any number of other equally-deadly or more-deadly combo decks out there. When it was introduced there was no Standard/Legacy distinction so you could encounter it anywhere, all the time. And just like most other combo decks, it is by no means a guaranteed win when the AI is running it - just like lots of HUF/Deploy or Omniloop decks will lose because Greg sits there trying to hardcast a Piggy while HUF or Omni gather dust at the bottom of his hand, lots of Prismveil decks will lose because Greg will start with a hand full of gem-changers and nothing else, will dump them all in a massive cascade that does nothing but empty his hand, and then sit around hoping to top-deck combo pieces while you murder him. And in general, the game has added a lot more counters to Prismveil decks than it has added pieces that improve it, in the blocks since it was released. (If you have it, Mistcaller is absolutely good enough to main deck, trust me.)

If, despite all these factors since its inception, you still think that this particular combo deck needs a nerf, it might just be time to take a hard look at yourself in the mirror and admit that you just don't like combo decks.

To which my kneejerk reaction is to say "Suck it up buttercup, combos are part of Magic", but that's probably not the most tactful or understanding reaction so let me try to walk it back a little and suggest more charitably that we are approaching from different perspectives. Here's what I think people don't like about combo decks - combo decks strip away the illusion that we can counteract the overall randomness of the game.

Like, even paper Magic has a lot of randomness built in, via card-drawing (and occasionally other mechanics, but mostly card-drawing). PQ compounds this randomness with more randomness in terms of gem matches and cascades. And if you know what you're doing in this game, 99.9% of your losses are a result of that randomness going against you. The enemy gets the cascades and the mana and the right cards in the right order, and you don't. And that's just as true, if not more true, for combo decks than it is for aggro or control decks. The difference is, a combo deck's "luck" is all confined to basically one single roll of the dice - either the deck combos out in time, or it doesn't. Whereas an aggro deck or a control deck, you feel like you have more control over the situation - even though fundamentally it's just as random whether you can beat them. A Koth deck that drops Olivia on turn 1 and chunks 25% of your life total every turn to beat you on turn 4 makes you feel like you had 3 turns to draw an answer to Olivia even though realistically the win was based on random cascades and them getting the right cards and you getting the wrong one. You could've drawn that answer, nuked Olivia, only to have them play a Pig the following turn and you still lose. But you feel like you did something. A combo deck that spends 3 turns dropping supports, does no damage to you for those 3 turns, and then combos out on turn 4, hitting you for 100% of your life total - well, it didn't win any faster than the aggro deck. And you had 3 turns to draw and cast a support destruction, just like you had 3 turns to draw and cast a creature destruction spell against the aggro deck. And if you actually looked at what had to happen for that win to occur, or if you sat down and looked at win/loss percentages of the different decks, the combo deck's victory was probably every bit as random and luck-reliant as the aggro deck's win. The difference is, the aggro deck let you feel like you could do something about it.

And that's my problem with people who complain about combo decks. Most of the time the complaints boil down to, "I want these cards nerfed to be objectively less competitive, because of how the deck they were used in made me feel." And that is...well basically, you're privileging your feelings over the feelings of people that liked putting together and using those combo decks. And I don't think that's great. There are plenty of players, myself included, that really enjoy putting together and refining a deck so that a bunch of non-obvious parts work together like a well-oiled machine, much more than we enjoy just throwing a truckload of efficient monsters and a bit of removal into a Koth deck.

There are exceptions of course. Sometimes a truly degenerate combo can come into being and need to be nerfed. A combo deck that absolutely does win at a way higher percentage rate than equivalent aggro or control decks. But that kind of deck is usually absolutely obviously detrimental to the metagame - something that strong will be everywhere all the time. Prismveil, a combo deck that has quietly existed for two and a half years, is as far from that as a combo deck can possibly be. Leave it alone.

Tremayne

Mawren said:
I'm simply saying that people have a habit of giving pat answers without appreciating how practical those proposed solutions actually are. 

I don’t know what pat answers means, but I hope that it is not derogatory!

@mawren - I will assume that it is not, due to your history of fair answers. However I do not think that you are being fair in your assessment of my response to the OP. My point was that the OP was complaining about a combo design that required a huge number of cards, which I think was impossible to nerf.

I think the OP’s complaint is about something that there is no answer to, because he was hit by randomness. Try to nerf that!

I deliberately avoided answering with “add Mistcaller” because you are right that is not practical solution.

stormcrow’s sums at lot of what I wanted to say to the OP.

Kinesia

Combos are necessary and a valid style of play and there are SO many ways to get loops going and things that you can't easily rectify that part anyway. (And shouldn't)

The one thing I would agree with the OP. (Hmmm, Original Poster or OverPowered or both?) about is that Prism Array really is way overpowered for a rare of it's cost, like say Storm the Vault which it goes perfectly with!

Even outside a combo deck Prism Array can be seen as overpowered and it's valid to bring that up just so Oktagon put it on their list of "legacy cards to look at eventually".

Their changes so far have been fairly small and careful so I think it's totally reasonable to say "This should be on the list" because it's just a list to investigate, not an automatic "nerf to the ground".

Laeuftbeidir

Disclaimer - I'm still in the "maybe they should focus on fixing standard before fixing legacy" boat.

I see the issues with prism. If you want to fix it, what would be a balanced solution? Drawing fewer cards and not disabling if the opponent landfalls? We have that, the card is called retreat to coralheim.. What I mean with it, is that all parts are replaceable (although prism fulfills several roles at once!)

Before I pulled prism (this week) I used rashmi to loop with kiora. There are also some spirits in blue disabling on spells cast, which basically leads to the same effect.

Before I had rashmi, I used retreat and alhammarets archive.

Baral can be a draw engine, so can niv Mizzet be - it's nearly impossible to get the draw engine out of blue.

Seasons past is a good card, although the fetch doesn't really make a difference when you have another draw engine. I find it most useful in my samut build. Before i had SP, I used riskars ex. And hop. And, and, and.. And all those cards are just mediocre compared to bsz.

Just to be clear, I don't think such loops are balanced, but how could they possibly be fixed without touching at least a dozen cards?Nerfing prism won't help at all.

There's one thing I

find interesting in prism :  it's actually one of the best realistic conter cards for this very strategy. Mistcaller is great, but won't help at all if it's not a part the combo, but a ten GR in one turn loop.

Fredbat

I wouldn't mind combo decks so much if it didn't take so long for the animations to resolve. Having to wait 5+ minutes for a Kiora loop to end is agonizing enough that unless I know I can win the next turn, I just quit the game. It's the same complaint I have against path of discovery in combination with roil.

Wish we could just disable animations entirely. As a bonus it would probably make the game far more stable