Loop Prevention System - More Details *Updated (3/12/19)

IM_CARLOS

First: they heard the forum. Hooray! 

2nd: it's not inpossible to change anything like said before. So it's noz impossiblr to stop a patch train. Hooray! 

3rd: 90s is way better and safe a lot of harm for the game, but the tethode is still a sledgehammer instead of CRISPR. 

4th: next lvl. System please. There is at least one player with lvl 70 in top3 coalition (everybody search for itself) with 1600 cards mastered. Thats not yet a real problem but don't wait the pre-patch-information storm to react again. 

thesmallesthuman

This is great news! But hold up. What about card resolution once the timer has hit its limit? I swear I saw in the original posting that once the timer was up, the current card in play would finish doing its business before moving on to the next phase. The video posted last night shows that that isn’t the case, and that once the timer is up your card is just cut off from completing the action that you paid for.

90 seconds is great and a huge improvement, but I’m still pretty leery of the fact that if I cast, for instance, a day’s undoing at the wrong point in my turn it can potentially exile my entire hand and not draw me new cards.

This issue was almost more horrifying to me than 18 second phases, the idea of not being able to count on your cards doing what they are supposed to do simply because you cast them near the end of your turn. 

I appreciate that that they listened, but I’ll echo everyone else in saying we don’t need a timer. If they go this route then we should be getting a CARD counter, not a SECONDS counter. Then at least we can be assured that our actions will fully resolve and our cards have the chance to work as intended.

Dologan

thesmallesthuman said:

This is great news! But hold up. What about card resolution once the timer has hit its limit? I swear I saw in the original posting that once the timer was up, the current card in play would finish doing its business before moving on to the next phase. The video posted last night shows that that isn’t the case, and that once the timer is up your card is just cut off from completing the action that you paid for.

[...]

I appreciate that that they listened, but I’ll echo everyone else in saying we don’t need a timer. If they go this route then we should be getting a CARD counter, not a SECONDS counter. Then at least we can be assured that our actions will fully resolve and our cards have the chance to work as intended.

Yup, what she said.

Thanks for listening to us and increasing the timer so that some semblance of normal play would be possible. However, I believe it's still as important to make sure that the effect of the card currently in play fully resolves, be it summoning, drawing, buffing or whatever. There needs to be predictability in card effects, period.

Also, while 90 second should go a significant way towards letting fair and legitimate combos play out, the inconsistent length of animations for some effects and abilities still results in likely nerfs for them, for instance Huatli, Radiant Champions first ability, which can lead to several seconds of utterly pointless animation on each G/W match on a battlefield with even a moderate amount of reinforcements.

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Tunist

Brakkis said:

ZW2007- said:
Let's see these infinite decks that will never end or combo decks that will take well over 30 minutes. Give me a breakdown of every card in each deck please.

Zendikar Resurgent
Olivia, Mobilized for War
Locust God

When you draw a card, Locust God creates an Insect token.
When a creature comes in to play, Zendikar Resurgent draws a card
When a creature comes in to play, Olivia discards a card

So at the start of your turn you draw a card, Locust God creates the token, Zendikar Resurgent draws a card, Olivia discards that card, but Locust God creates another token on draw, and it just goes on and on. I've encountered the deck twice, ever. Fairly certain it was the same player, both times on Samut.

Actual solution - Change Zendikar Resurgent to only trigger on non-token creatures.
Also an actual solution - They could make Olivia only trigger on non-token creatures as well. She could use a nerf.
Not actual solution - Turn timer.

If i understand the way the timer works it actually makes this a viable deck now.  Your turn will start' you'll make a bunch of tokens that will get haste, lifelink, and a power and toughness boost eventually the timer will stop and you'll get to match some gems.  Maybe cast a card if the combo left you with one and then your creatures get to attack. 

Before the combo forced you to quit the game.  Now it will make you a fairly large hasty lifelink creature every turn.

Edit:  Downloaded the patch and tried it out.  Got unlucky in that it took a few turns to draw into olivia but once I did the lps became a feature rather than a hinderance for this deck anyhow.

Phreaker

Brigby said:

Hi Everyone. Thank you all for the insightful and constructive feedback. I just spoke with the team this morning, and they will be changing the 18 seconds per phase to 90 seconds. 

This change will be a transitional adjustment, as the team will continue to monitor and work towards finding the right balance between solving infinite loop issues and maintaining player play styles following the 3.3 update.

@Brigby

90s still probably doesn't cover the non-loop deck I posted.  I play that type of deck regularly enough... it is slow to play, which is really frustrating to me personally.

I believe that applying the 90s solution to Greg is probably reasonable, mainly because the AI can't stop loops, or near infinite situations.

Could there also be a "less animations" mode?  Please.  I want to play my Huatli Radiant Champion deck, but I also don't like literally leaving my phone for a few minutes while I wait for my turn to finish.

Froggy

Ok tried it. First game, not enough time.

I can’t imagine an 18 second timer... Please remove the timer altogether.

(And thank you @Brigby and the devs for at least listening to us - I mean that for real. I appreciated it.)

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DragonSorcerer

killed my run when using Harness the Storm. Nothing would cast after that (I had a hand full of cards with full mana and multiple extra swaps) until my next turn.

Theros

With a timer, there is no point in preventing copies to cast the same turn.
However, I think 90 secs is somewhat too little for legitimate and resonate loops.
Basically,  90secs is sometimes sufficient to build enough momentum to end the game when the timer ends. This is could be enough for TG and totps
However 90 secs is too risky for objectives based games. When the timer ends, the game is most likely over before you satisfying your secondaries. I could not finish RT in 4 games like I used to.
I think the timer needs to be increased above 90. We need more feedback on other interactions to kind of set the upper limit

rafalele

DragonSorcerer said:

killed my run when using Harness the Storm. Nothing would cast after that (I had a hand full of cards with full mana and multiple extra swaps) until my next turn.

Same for me, four cards in hand full of mana and 6 extra turns with nothing to do until my nectvreal turn. 90 seconds would not be enough against big opponents as Bolas in ROTGP.

Gilesclone

I just pulled Baral and Rishk Ex.  Too bad the Fun Prevention System just nerfed them.

Mburn7

Gilesclone said:

I just pulled Baral and Rishk Ex.  Too bad the Fun Prevention System just nerfed them.

I wouldn't be too upset.  Loops or no loops those are 2 of the best cards in the game.  I'll gladly take them from you if you're not happy

Gilesclone

Mburn7 said:

Gilesclone said:

I just pulled Baral and Rishk Ex.  Too bad the Fun Prevention System just nerfed them.

I wouldn't be too upset.  Loops or no loops those are 2 of the best cards in the game.  I'll gladly take them from you if you're not happy

Lol.  I guess I’ll keep them.

HJ16

Just had two games with LPS kicking in...
The first game it actually helped a bit. My opponent was down to 14 life, and I didn't need much to win. Got in some cards and built up the turn. LPS killed it early making me win a little faster. 
Next game, building up steam on my turn. LPS kicking in before the last key card was played. 7 swaps left, a hand full of mana, 3 cards I need to play... And the game just won't do it. Won't let me play any card anymore. 7 swaps left...
I'm sorry, but this is just stupid.

Gideon

There is a simple solution to this. Do you remember when you released Zendikar VS Eldrazi and you had a Beta? You should be doing that more with features and updates. Your team is clearly understaffed to fix all of the bugs, communicate to the community, and roll out seamless updates with no slowdowns or glitches. Let us take the reigns in a Beta of all of your releases. Then you’ll only have to worry about fixing it before it goes to the masses.

rafalele

It has been twice that the system has ended my turn without showing the progress bar that should appear when the timer is finishing (I have seen it many times in other matches, before and after).

Please do not fix it, just remove the timer.

IM_CARLOS

Just happen to me, that my turn was ended by lps. I had 5 more turn (titch of time) so only 5 sways and no card from hand can be cast, but becon bolt from graveyard was cast in already ended turn but only after the 5 additional turns.

Maybe I can validate this sometime. 

Brakkis

I can now confirm that if the timer runs out while a card effect that draws cards and gives mana is going off (Days Undoing and Blue Sun's Zenith both tested), the cards will be drawn and gain NO MANA.

You can shove your timer up your ****.

ertaii

I'd like to add my thanks to the list for listening to us and increasing the time limit . I already ran into it a few times at 90 seconds. I can't imagine what It would have been at 18 seconds...