Problematic deck: Kiora-Array

Froggy

Another nerf thread.

I’m having a dajavu.

Before we talk about another nerf, how about fixing the myriad of bugs in the game??

And you must now be terrified that half the players own Omniscience by now and will be creating troll decks for Toilet on the Planes...

Before we talk about more nerds, I think we need to talk about the bugs that break the game.

Yes, I’m looking at you Giddy’s Intervention... So please, lay off of it. It’s a waste of resource.

Mburn7

Froggy said:

Another nerf thread.

I’m having a dajavu.

Before we talk about another nerf, how about fixing the myriad of bugs in the game??

And you must now be terrified that half the players own Omniscience by now and will be creating troll decks for Toilet on the Planes...

Before we talk about more nerds, I think we need to talk about the bugs that break the game.

Yes, I’m looking at you Giddy’s Intervention... So please, lay off of it. It’s a waste of resource.

Its been mentioned a couple times in this thread that obviously bug fixes should be the top priority.

That doesn't mean its a waste of time to have a constructive debate on the nature of overpowered legacy cards.

ZW2007-

Mburn7 said:

starfall said:

Mburn7 said:

Look, Prism Array has always been stupidly powerful.  And there have been sporadic complaints about it over the years.  But the thing is, there really isn't any way to change it without either completely changing its function or making it completely useless.

Not true. You could change it's mana cost, you could change it's number of shields. You could change the number of cards it draws. You could change the effect it has on your opponent's first creature, or remove the effect completely. You could make it not trigger on your opponent's turn.

There's a broad spectrum of changes you could make to the card, and at one end, yes, it's completely useless, and at the other it's overpowered. But there's a lot of space in the middle. One example of a more balanced Prism Array is Retreat to Coralhelm. That's a perfectly decent, if unspectacular, card. And you can see that there's design space in the middle for a card more powerful than RTC and less powerful than PA.

Yes I was being a little hyperbolic, but I don't agree that it would be so easy to fix.

Retreat to Coralhelm is a garbage card except for beginners.  If you are basing a landfall deck around it you should probably be using something else, and if you aren't it is total junk since you don't get landfalls THAT often for its measly effect to be worth it.

But fine, lets use that as a base (cheap, your landfall:  Disable and draw 1) and try to find the middle ground for Prism Array (cheap, any landfall:  Disable and draw 3)

Make it draw 2 cards instead of 3?  Still overpowered.
Remove the Disable effect?  Still overpowered, but less useful in a non-infinite combo deck
Make it draw 1 card instead of 3?  Mostly useless, but still works in the combo deck.
Remove the draw?  Useless card.
Increase the cost and keep it the same otherwise?  Still overpowered, but just takes a little longer to go off
Make it only work on your turn?  Still overpowered, but less useful in a non-infinite combo deck

Did I miss something?  I can't think of another individual effect, nor can I see a combination that would work in the desired way.

You missed shield count. Double it's casting cost to 12, reduce cards drawn to 2 per landfall, reduce shields to 2, leave the rest the same. Still a very strong card but not overpowered. 12 mana or 3 mana or 30 mana doesn't make much difference once the deck is looping but it will take more than a first-turn match-3 for Kiora to drop it. Drawing only 2 per landfall and having only 2 shields makes it more likely to pop itself before it draws another copy.

ZW2007-

So this thread got me thinking and rather than post a big long comment buried in this thread I made a new one that shares my idea of how to "fix" the problem with Waterveil and a few other problematic supports that fuel some of the most degenerate combos. Essentially it boils down to a new mechanic similar to Flash that would let you cast a support destruction during your opponent's turn but before the creature's attacking trigger of Flash. Check it out here.

Gabrosin

The reason this deck seems so good is because Greg is accidentally able to pilot it effectively, most of the time.  He produces the right creature and support and then fires off the gamebreaking spell sequence.  There are far more degenerate things that players get to do, but often Greg isn't set up to do them to us.

__Adam

Gabrosin said:

The reason this deck seems so good is because Greg is accidentally able to pilot it effectively, most of the time.  He produces the right creature and support and then fires off the gamebreaking spell sequence.  There are far more degenerate things that players get to do, but often Greg isn't set up to do them to us.

Could you imagine if greg could have actually used cycling?  Actually, how pathetic is it that the AI (the only opponent you can play in the game) can't utilize the marquee mechanic of a year long block? 

Sometimes the only thing worse than their designs are their implementations.

madwren

ZW2007- said:

Mburn7 said:

Make it draw 1 card instead of 3?  Mostly useless, but still works in the combo deck.

You missed shield count. Double it's casting cost to 12, reduce cards drawn to 2 per landfall, reduce shields to 2, leave the rest the same. Still a very strong card but not overpowered. 12 mana or 3 mana or 30 mana doesn't make much difference once the deck is looping but it will take more than a first-turn match-3 for Kiora to drop it. Drawing only 2 per landfall and having only 2 shields makes it more likely to pop itself before it draws another copy.

He also missed the change from "your landfall" to "any landfall".

However, I'm primarily baffled why drawing 1 card for any landfall would make it "mostly useless" considering the ease at which Kiora landfalls--which is one of the primary reasons Prism Array is so powerful in the first place.

madwren

Tremayne said:

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.

Hi Tremayne, just to clarify, "pat answers" are explanations that have been given several times before, but aren't always sincere or genuine because they fail to acknowledge the realities of PQ gameplay.

These type of answers are problematic when people use them as an excuse to dismiss someone else's concerns instead of genuinely investigating the root of the problem—and there are several problems at the root of PQ gameplay that are fundamental design issues.

Basically, the answer to "why has Kiora been an issue for 3 years" is not "just run Kambal" or "just run support removal". It ALSO isn't "nerf Prism Array", though.

Hope that makes more sense.

wereotter

It doesn't help if it's in slot 1 for Prism Array, but.... Mistwalker is pretty effective against Part the Waterviel turning all those island tokens into card draw for you instead. I run it semi regularly in general decks, but always plug it in if I'm seeing myself paired off against Saheeli, Elspeth, or the new Tezzeret.

Stormcrow

arNero said:

eventually it will be the ONLY deck ever being run in Legacy blue/green events

...Any minute now, right? 

I mean, as I already posted links to earlier in this thread, this deck has existed for two and a half years without taking over the meta, but any minute now it's finally gonna have its break out moment and be everywhere. For no good reason, because it's not especially amazing as combo decks go and it is really time-consuming to use, as combo decks go.

wereotter said:

It doesn't help if it's in slot 1 for Prism Array, but.... Mistwalker is pretty effective against Part the Waterviel turning all those island tokens into card draw for you instead. I run it semi regularly in general decks, but always plug it in if I'm seeing myself paired off against Saheeli, Elspeth, or the new Tezzeret.

I have noticed that Greg when running Nicol Bolas like making zombie tokens a lot more often than he used to, too. They're not generally more than a nuisance but turning them into free cards is always nice. Mistwalker also slows down Garruk/Ghalta decks and totally trivializes saproling/Slimefoot decks unless you just don't draw him until way too late.

HarryMason

There are so many cards that are interchangeable in that deck . Array works . Rashmi, Baral , Niv Mizzet Parun work ,too . Retreat to coralhelm works in a pinch. It can loop pretty well with any ramp cards and still works without waterveil with a different win con. The archetype is one of the staples in mtgpq. It's probably not going to go away ,realistically . There are ways to survive it, though. I'd recommend trying something new. 

Unknown

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Mburn7

starfall said:

Out of interest, how many people who are able to build the Kiora-Prism Array-Waterveil deck will be running it in the right hand node of HoD this weekend? And how many of those people will not be running it?

I shall be *probably* running it, I'm not convinced any other combo deck is significantly faster, and importantly, the Waterveil deck includes Ulvenwald Hydra for defense against early damage from threats like Lightning Runner or Lannery Storm.

I say *probably*, as I have just received Omniscience in the Big 2018 HOU Giveaway, so my options for OP combo decks have expanded somewhat. But maybe I'll stick with the deck I know, it keeps earning me perfects.

I actually don't have Waterveil, so I won't.  And my Rashmi looper deck doesn't use Prism Array either (it pops supports way too fast).

So if I have an infinite loop deck (50/50) it won't be that!  No need to worry!

madwren

starfall said:

Out of interest, how many people who are able to build the Kiora-Prism Array-Waterveil deck will be running it in the right hand node of HoD this weekend? And how many of those people will not be running it?

I shall be *probably* running it, I'm not convinced any other combo deck is significantly faster, and importantly, the Waterveil deck includes Ulvenwald Hydra for defense against early damage from threats like Lightning Runner or Lannery Storm.

I say *probably*, as I have just received Omniscience in the Big 2018 HOU Giveaway, so my options for OP combo decks have expanded somewhat. But maybe I'll stick with the deck I know, it keeps earning me perfects.

I'll be switching from Waterveil to Omni, just so I don't have to set my phone down for 10 minutes and wait for it to finish looping.  The two are roughly the same speed as far as number of turns, but one of them will allow me to finish my nodes significantly faster.

Kinesia

I won't be playing this OR my looping HUF-Seasons Past Werewolf deck with Arlinn because they BOTH overheat my phone and crash the game.

I'm quite happy to play against them and come up with ways to beat them if they stop crashing on me! Grin.

But one thing... Agros Kos is tech against the green versions of these decks and available to EVERYONE for free, if you haven't looked into him yet, he might be your jam...

nerdstrap

I disagree that talk of nerfs have worth. This is an official communication channel with the producers and developers of the game. Until the OVERWHELMING flaws are fixed, functional changes (which could be construed as flaws I suppose) are not worthy of discussion. It’s reductive. 

nerdstrap

If we do talk specifically about Prism Array, quality plainswalker/card choice and critical gem matching will overcome every deck 90% of the time. Luck/chance will screw you 3% and poor AI design will let you win the rest. All other observations are confirmation bias until someone presents a video analysis of 1000+ matches versus Kiora + Prism Array for peer review

Matthew

nerdstrap said:

If we do talk specifically about Prism Array, quality plainswalker/card choice and critical gem matching will overcome every deck 90% of the time. Luck/chance will screw you 3% and poor AI design will let you win the rest. All other observations are confirmation bias until someone presents a video analysis of 1000+ matches versus Kiora + Prism Array for peer review

All generalizations are false!

khurram

nerdstrap said:

If we do talk specifically about Prism Array, quality plainswalker/card choice and critical gem matching will overcome every deck 90% of the time. Luck/chance will screw you 3% and poor AI design will let you win the rest. All other observations are confirmation bias until someone presents a video analysis of 1000+ matches versus Kiora + Prism Array for peer review

Looking forward to the video analysis that led to those results of 90%, 3% and the 7%.

Tremayne

Matthew said:

All generalizations are false!

So true, but only generalisation made by others than me. 🤪