Question on WINNING

Boogeyman

It seems to me that this game punishes you for not having the latest "looping" combo.  If I do not put out my best deck, Greg seems to take advantage of the situation and I lose.  

My point is, I want to use different combos of strategies, but unless I use the game breaking combos, I usually lose points.  

Any ideas on how the game can fix this?

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Mburn7

There are a couple ways to fix this.

The difficult way is to balance cards in a way where there is no infinite looping instant-win combo available (in standard at least, Legacy is probably impossible).  That requires a lot of analysis whenever a new card is designed to figure out what it could combo with and how, and Oktagon probably doesn't have the manpower/ability to do that (although making new cards give half mana instead of full will definitely help the situation)

Or you can design cards specifically to loop better with more cards, so then every properly themed deck becomes a good looper deck.  Then no matter what combos or strategies you use you still have an instant-win button card.

Another solution would be to make Greg smarter/better so you lose points even with a good looper deck sometimes.  Then it won't hurt as much to lose points with janky deck (although of course you might lose more points with the janky deck and still feel bad)

Conversely, you can further dumb down Greg so even a bad deck will win most of the time.  Please don't do that.

Right now what I do to lessen the pain is to only play my busted decks in coalition events that I care about (which aren't many these days since the app is too slow for me to play competitively anymore) and then when I have time run my janky themed decks in TG or RT where losses don't really matter.  Today I made a fun "everything deals damage to all creatures" themed deck.  It was nice!  But I'd never use it in a coalition event where I know I'll see a bunch of Naru and Tammy combos.

Boogeyman

Mburn7 said:

Right now what I do to lessen the pain is to only play my busted decks in coalition events that I care about (which aren't many these days since the app is too slow for me to play competitively anymore) and then when I have time run my janky themed decks in TG or RT where losses don't really matter.  Today I made a fun "everything deals damage to all creatures" themed deck.  It was nice!  But I'd never use it in a coalition event where I know I'll see a bunch of Naru and Tammy combos.

This is what I am tending to do right now as well.  I noticed on the last team event, you could use the same base of 7 cards on almost every enemy.  Then change out the 3 cards to adjust towards secondaries.  It works, but benefits those that have all the cards, which is probably the point. 

I am not complaining per se, I just want to think about how to make the game more fun, instead of a grind or pay-to-win.    

On non-team events, I am also playing "Broken" as an opponent almost every time.  I like the idea of bolstering the single and dual color planeswalkers to be viable opponents as well.  

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Boogeyman

starfall said:

When you think about it, adding the LCS into the game is, in effect, saying: "We endorse the use of looping decks".

It's true, I love to loop as well.  There are even some pretty fun pauper (common, uncommon) looping type decks, once you get them going.  

If the game wants you to loop, it should teach us to loop.  Have training on how to do so.  Show cool community made decks.  Maybe even make the beginner and master decks looping examples.  

The game seems to go out of it's way to remain silent, expect for the LCS on looping. 

FindingHeart8

Easy solution: dont give Greg the option to continue a loop, always have him end it.

As annoying as they are to face, loops (aka combos) have been a part of Magic the Gathering since Mirrodin and before.

IM_CARLOS

I think different objektive can break the loop hole. 

Instead of '3 or more spells a turn' use 'not more than 1 spell a turn'.

Only 'x or less of <card-type>' prohibit exzessiv combo use.

'X+ of <card-type>' only support usage of combo/looping machines.

And I wonder why they kicked the former copy card rule (wait a turn before use). May it's just because of cash flow. People like to play unhealthy combo decks and they will pay for specific cards.

I wouldn't be shocked to see another baral-like card for cash or a meta-breaking set-abulity like cycling that stays for at least the release of the next set. They will pay to get them all. And to be honest I am one of them. 

Boogeyman

FindingHeart8 said:

Easy solution: dont give Greg the option to continue a loop, always have him end it.

Hmmm?  It doesn't give me that option?  What do you mean?

Mburn7

Boogeyman said:

FindingHeart8 said:

Easy solution: dont give Greg the option to continue a loop, always have him end it.

Hmmm?  It doesn't give me that option?  What do you mean?

Under the new system, you can end your own loop but not Greg's.  "He" has to end it.  According to the devs Greg should end the loop more often than not, but it isn't an automatic "Stop" programmed in and sometimes the loops go through several LPS iterations before stopping

Boogeyman

Mburn7 said:

Boogeyman said:

FindingHeart8 said:

Easy solution: dont give Greg the option to continue a loop, always have him end it.

Hmmm?  It doesn't give me that option?  What do you mean?

Under the new system, you can end your own loop but not Greg's.  "He" has to end it.  According to the devs Greg should end the loop more often than not, but it isn't an automatic "Stop" programmed in and sometimes the loops go through several LPS iterations before stopping

Oh, i see what you are saying.  Yeah, give US the option to stop Greg's loop. 

Gunmix25

starfall said:

When you think about it, adding the LCS into the game is, in effect, saying: "We endorse the use of looping decks".

Or..  " we see both points so here is the middle ground answer"

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Mburn7

starfall said:

Gunmix25 said:

starfall said:

When you think about it, adding the LCS into the game is, in effect, saying: "We endorse the use of looping decks".

Or..  " we see both points so here is the middle ground answer"

The centre ground on looping is "we will allow loops that win regularly on turn 2"? Crikey, what's the more extreme pro-looping position?

The extreme pro-looping is "we will allow loops that win regularly on turn 2, but only when you start them"
The fact that they allow Greg to keep the loop going instead of auto-stopping right away means they are trying not to go that far.

FindingHeart8

Mburn7 said:

starfall said:

Gunmix25 said:

starfall said:

When you think about it, adding the LCS into the game is, in effect, saying: "We endorse the use of looping decks".

Or..  " we see both points so here is the middle ground answer"

The centre ground on looping is "we will allow loops that win regularly on turn 2"? Crikey, what's the more extreme pro-looping position?

The extreme pro-looping is "we will allow loops that win regularly on turn 2, but only when you start them"
The fact that they allow Greg to keep the loop going instead of auto-stopping right away means they are trying not to go that far.

I'd wonder if it isn't a matter of them "not trying to go that far," and more a matter of "they just haven't fixed what might be a game glitch allowing Greg to continue the loop."  The latter is also very common for Octagon.

Mburn7

FindingHeart8 said:

Mburn7 said:

starfall said:

Gunmix25 said:

starfall said:

When you think about it, adding the LCS into the game is, in effect, saying: "We endorse the use of looping decks".

Or..  " we see both points so here is the middle ground answer"

The centre ground on looping is "we will allow loops that win regularly on turn 2"? Crikey, what's the more extreme pro-looping position?

The extreme pro-looping is "we will allow loops that win regularly on turn 2, but only when you start them"
The fact that they allow Greg to keep the loop going instead of auto-stopping right away means they are trying not to go that far.

I'd wonder if it isn't a matter of them "not trying to go that far," and more a matter of "they just haven't fixed what might be a game glitch allowing Greg to continue the loop."  The latter is also very common for Octagon.

I'm not sure.  The original announcement did say that Greg would be allowed to continue loops sometimes, without listing the criteria.
It did also say that Greg would usually choose to end the loop, though, so that part of it may be a bug.
Who knows, we haven't had any real communication from the dev team in months (other than the 3.7 patch notes)

Gunmix25

starfall said:

Gunmix25 said:

starfall said:

When you think about it, adding the LCS into the game is, in effect, saying: "We endorse the use of looping decks".

Or..  " we see both points so here is the middle ground answer"

The centre ground on looping is "we will allow loops that win regularly on turn 2"? Crikey, what's the more extreme pro-looping position?

I was being facetious, lol.

I haven't encountered a single match in which the AI defeated me in turn 2 or any others to be honest. I see loops occurring maybe 1 in 7 matches? I know that they are there and have built for the meta and easily remove the key cards when they appear so they don't trigger. But that's just me. *shrug*

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