Kiora/Rocco is another Danitha/Blade

Janosik
Janosik Posts: 580 Critical Contributor
edited August 2023 in MtGPQ General Discussion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9rdCwf1Cl4

Like Danitha/Blade, Kiora/Rocco is another infinite loop 2 card combo which only requires you to cast one of the cards, and you don't even need the second one in your hand as the first one will fetch it.

'Play removal n00b' doesn't really help if Greg times out the loop timer and ends his turn with a card which will restart the loop in his hand, full of mana. There's a 50% chance this will happen with Danitha/Blade (Blade will only restart the loop if Danitha has not been killed)... 100% in a deck with just Rocco and Kiora. This doesn't happen with the Danitha deck since if Danitha is killed a Blade in hand will not restart the loop, but it will happen with Kiora or Rocco.

Somebody played against my Kiora/Rocco deck in Revolving Planeswalk and it seemed that Greg always declined to pick Bladecoil with Rocco, although this might not be universally true. If Greg DOES ever pick Bladecoil, then in addition to looping infinitely he can potentially refill his hand with mana, or discard you hand, or have a creature (maybe even a lethally large creature?) with haste.

Something should be done about these combos, or else the next 2 years of Standard will become increasing broken as more and more players obtain the cards.

The Kiora/Rocco combo here is driven partly by bugs:
1) Kiora triggers when you cast her, even if there was no copy of Kiora previously in play; This is not how cards with this text template should work
2) Kiora always seems to fetch the cheapest card in your deck (and it's not difficult to make the 7 mana Rocco the cheapest card in your deck). Her text says she should fetch 'The first card with lesser mana value in your library', not the cheapest card in the whole deck.

Comments

  • Drag0n
    Drag0n Posts: 6 Just Dropped In

    Made a few queries with devs about the danitha/blade combo and from my responses it looks like it's hear to stay, would love to see it nerved because other combos that require a few cards that aren't as potent as this were nerfed

  • Sarah
    Sarah Posts: 161 Tile Toppler

    @Opperstamper said:

    I would also love to hear @Oktagon_Support's opinion about this. Is that fair to ask?

    It's fair to ask but I wouldn't hold my breath for an answer. ;p

    I'm usually all for making the game more accessible to newer players and powerful standard-legal combos like this certainly make it easier. But it certainly makes the game less fun.

  • ArielSira
    ArielSira Posts: 522 Critical Contributor

    Completely agree with @Killroy .

    If things stay stale like this (ie no fixing infinite loops, no new events, no other bug fixes we have been reporting for months) then there are several veterans that I know of who will quit this game, including me. The September update will decide this for us.

  • Janosik
    Janosik Posts: 580 Critical Contributor

    @Opperstamper said:
    Editing this post to include this link: https://d3go.com/card-balance-and-more-mtgpq/.
    These are the rulings that Oktagon has made to check if cards are too powerful.

    It's interesting that the broken environment they are talking about in this blog post is the AKH/HOU Standard environment which had Cycling... I had no interest in playing such a broken environment so I quit the game until it was finally nerfed. I may do that now, too.

  • Machine
    Machine Posts: 857 Critical Contributor

    Just to add my two cents, I faced 9 or 10 Dakkons last weekend (Family Business) with at least 3 or 4 containing the Danitha / Blade combo. I lost to a turn 1 Danitha / Blade combo for the very first time. That's not how a game should be.

    A side note: I read somewhere that there was only one bracket of players this weekend, indicating how less players are playing nowadays. I think @Oktagon_Support is trying their best to ruin this game if this is true.

  • Tremayne
    Tremayne Posts: 1,673 Chairperson of the Boards

    In the bug thread for DaniBlade it is suggested that every rarity has a default limiter, so common can only trigger twice and (suggested) MP can only trigger 8 times pee round/turn. Could this be a way forward, the players could recommend to the devs?

    Obviously, the default value can be changed in various ways, some supports like Omni has a built in removal and that is fine. Other supports could have a game text that overrode the default limit.

    I don’t know if the devs like cards with unwritten rules, but hey they don’t mind that MTGPQ as a game has unwritten rules, so I guess the devs are fine with this.

  • Machine
    Machine Posts: 857 Critical Contributor

    @Tremayne said:
    In the bug thread for DaniBlade it is suggested that every rarity has a default limiter, so common can only trigger twice and (suggested) MP can only trigger 8 times pee round/turn. Could this be a way forward, the players could recommend to the devs?

    Obviously, the default value can be changed in various ways, some supports like Omni has a built in removal and that is fine. Other supports could have a game text that overrode the default limit.

    I don’t know if the devs like cards with unwritten rules, but hey they don’t mind that MTGPQ as a game has unwritten rules, so I guess the devs are fine with this.

    I think this is a great start for the way forward. But please also note that Kiora is just bugged. If it was working as written by the text, there would be no loop.

  • naabaldan
    naabaldan Posts: 552 Critical Contributor

    urza's saga + inexorable tide
    (And bladecoil serpent)

  • Firstofhisname419
    Firstofhisname419 Posts: 133 Tile Toppler

    Kiora is a MoM Masterpiece, and there is no way to earn MoM packs without paying golds for them since Octagon hasn't added a new event since ONE. So I'm not all that worried about the Kiora combo. Like Omni before the anniversary event, the check on its power is that nobody has the card.

  • Tremayne
    Tremayne Posts: 1,673 Chairperson of the Boards

    @Machine - I understand that is the case, but I think that the default limiter should count on every type of card, not just supports. My example was support oriented because that was the first example that came to me, but Rocco should only trigger 4 times (if that is the default for an uncommon card).

  • Xibvert
    Xibvert Posts: 106 Tile Toppler

    I'm glad that Rocco is an elf. I think I've only seen the opponent loop Kiora & Rocco against me twice but both times I already had a Khalni Garden and Selvala, Heart of the Wilds in play so their loop gave me a giant elemental to kill them with before they got to attack me.

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