Yodaman, you make me wish I'd paid attention in maths class in school instead of spending my time fantasising about my drama teacher.

First I'd like to say thanks to yodaman1971 and gobberlerra for posting solutions to my math question.

@yodaman1971 you did exactly as I asked. Good job. Unfortunately i asked my question slightly wrong. I wanted to draw A Holocron and any 2 of 8 abilities, then roll the special on my Holocron twice. Fortunately by taking the 46% to draw the Holocron and 2 blue abilities and multiplying it by 1/9 I get the answer I really wanted, 5%. At least I think that's the correct answer.

@gobberlerra. Action economy is more valuable than resource management in Destiny. If you play the Holocron and use its ability twice you've spent 6 actions to save x amount of resources. The question now becomes what did your opponent do during those six actions. If all he did was pass you're golden. If he used that time to kill one of your characters.....I'll let you decide who got the better part of their 6 actions. It is so unlikely it's almost impossible to kill a character on turn one. Not to mention your resource savings set you up for a potentially strong 2nd turn. This is why playing Holocron twice on turn 1 is so strong and why I wanted to know the chance of successfully playing it twice on the first turn. Using 3 actions to save resources on turns 2+ Is much more risky.

Bottom line for me on Holocron is, yes it has blowout potential. but a 5% (if I interpreted correctly) chance for that blowout on turn 1 is an acceptable number for me. Achieving the blowout also assume your opponent was unable or unsuccessful at interfering with your plans, or didn't have the speed to Maximize the action advantage you've spotted him. Of course there are many variables in Destiny that will determine the outcome of any given game, most of them under the control of the players in the form of the decisions they make concerning the way they spend their actions.

First I'd like to say thanks to yodaman1971 and gobberlerra for posting solutions to my math question.

@yodaman1971 you did exactly as I asked. Good job. Unfortunately i asked my question slightly wrong. I wanted to draw A Holocron and any 2 of 8 abilities, then roll the special on my Holocron twice.

8 abilities as in 4 cards each appearing 2x in the deck (so 8 cards total you're picking 2 of) or 8 cards that each appear 2x in the deck (so 16 cards total you're picking 2 of)?

@gobberlerra. Action economy is more valuable than resource management in Destiny. If you play the Holocron and use its ability twice you've spent 6 actions to save x amount of resources. The question now becomes what did your opponent do during those six actions. If all he did was pass you're golden. If he used that time to kill one of your characters.....I'll let you decide who got the better part of their 6 actions. It is so unlikely it's almost impossible to kill a character on turn one. Not to mention your resource savings set you up for a potentially strong 2nd turn. This is why playing Holocron twice on turn 1 is so strong and why I wanted to know the chance of successfully playing it twice on the first turn. Using 3 actions to save resources on turns 2+ Is much more risky.

There are only two times when activating faster than your opponent really matters: character death and dice-dependent counters. You need those to land faster. Otherwise, it really doesn't matter. You could do all your actions, I could do all my actions, and the end result of the round will be the same.

But even barring that, where I think a lot of people are overstating the speed disadvantage of the Holocron is that they're assuming you have to fall behind to use it. You really don't. At the very least, it can wait - even if you roll it, you don't have to use it. If you do, you may very well have another special to resolve at the same time, so that falls into the same action and costs you nothing. Holocron also allows you to bring the die in late - if you're paying for an upgrade, you have to get it into play before you activate the character. The Holocron you don't. You can wait until everything else has worked it way out, then use it, and still get the newly-arrived die.

Bottom line for me on Holocron is, yes it has blowout potential. but a 5% (if I interpreted correctly) chance for that blowout on turn 1 is an acceptable number for me.

Can you name another upgrade that has a 5% chance to turn the game into a blowout on the first turn? Honestly, can you name another upgrade that has ANY potential to turn the game into a blowout on the first turn, at all?

You still aren't explaining how any of that makes the card 'broken.'

@gobberlerra. Action economy is more valuable than resource management in Destiny. If you play the Holocron and use its ability twice you've spent 6 actions to save x amount of resources. The question now becomes what did your opponent do during those six actions. If all he did was pass you're golden. If he used that time to kill one of your characters.....I'll let you decide who got the better part of their 6 actions. It is so unlikely it's almost impossible to kill a character on turn one. Not to mention your resource savings set you up for a potentially strong 2nd turn. This is why playing Holocron twice on turn 1 is so strong and why I wanted to know the chance of successfully playing it twice on the first turn. Using 3 actions to save resources on turns 2+ Is much more risky.

There are only two times when activating faster than your opponent really matters: character death and dice-dependent counters. You need those to land faster. Otherwise, it really doesn't matter. You could do all your actions, I could do all my actions, and the end result of the round will be the same.

But even barring that, where I think a lot of people are overstating the speed disadvantage of the Holocron is that they're assuming you have to fall behind to use it. You really don't. At the very least, it can wait - even if you roll it, you don't have to use it. If you do, you may very well have another special to resolve at the same time, so that falls into the same action and costs you nothing. Holocron also allows you to bring the die in late - if you're paying for an upgrade, you have to get it into play before you activate the character. The Holocron you don't. You can wait until everything else has worked it way out, then use it, and still get the newly-arrived die.

Bottom line for me on Holocron is, yes it has blowout potential. but a 5% (if I interpreted correctly) chance for that blowout on turn 1 is an acceptable number for me.

Can you name another upgrade that has a 5% chance to turn the game into a blowout on the first turn? Honestly, can you name another upgrade that has ANY potential to turn the game into a blowout on the first turn, at all?

There are tons of "PERFECT DRAW" situations that allow you to drop a powerful card on turn 1. Let's say I'm playing with at least 3 character dice and activate all three, getting at least three resources. I can play a Launch Bay and activate it round 1. That has the potential to turn the game into a blowout from round 1. 1/3 chance (ish) to do 4 damage on round 1. 1/3 chance (ish) to do 5 damage on round 2. That goes a long way to killing a unique character and unbalancing the game in your favor from the second round.

How About eHan/eRey, and you pull 2 Holdout Blasters in your opening hand and end up with 4 extra actions, activate Han, activate Rey, Maybe deal 9 damage, and then claim the battlefield, before your opponent has done ANYTHING. There ARE lots of amazing 1st turn plays.

Bottom line for me on Holocron is, yes it has blowout potential. but a 5% (if I interpreted correctly) chance for that blowout on turn 1 is an acceptable number for me.

Can you name another upgrade that has a 5% chance to turn the game into a blowout on the first turn? Honestly, can you name another upgrade that has ANY potential to turn the game into a blowout on the first turn, at all?

Blowout? Overstate much? Significant advantage maybe, but hardly a blowout. It depends completely on what you are playing against and whether or not they can deal with or otherwise avoid the impact.

You have a 5% chance to get Mind Probe trigger turn 1. While that is a significant factor in a game, there are many, many aggro decks that can kill Vader (or anyone else really) inside of 3 turns consistently while still removing most of your offensive dice. If they kill you before you kill them, any advantage you gained is basically lost, likely along with the rest of the game. I don't see how that equates to blowout....

Obviously, getting this trigger helps immensely with that race, but far from guarantees a win....

Also, 1/20 games turning into "auto wins" (potentially, with a big asterisk) means you could go a whole tournament and MAYBE have it happen a grand total of one time? I cannot believe we are still discussing this being broken....

There are tons of "PERFECT DRAW" situations that allow you to drop a powerful card on turn 1. Let's say I'm playing with at least 3 character dice and activate all three, getting at least three resources. I can play a Launch Bay and activate it round 1. That has the potential to turn the game into a blowout from round 1. 1/3 chance (ish) to do 4 damage on round 1. 1/3 chance (ish) to do 5 damage on round 2. That goes a long way to killing a unique character and unbalancing the game in your favor from the second round.

If you happen to have a Holocron, you can do that AND drop another upgrade (or two). That's the problem with the Holocron - it's entirely additive, with no cost to it. At least with the Launch Bay, you have to consider the cost. What else could you do with those 5 resources? What is the opportunity cost for the Holocron?

Plus, even with an ideal character setup (Han + 2 Hired Guns, each with 2 resource icons) you're looking at a 1 in 27 roll, or about 3.7%. If you mulligan aggressively for a single card you've got about a 31% chance of getting it in your opening hand. So you're sitting around a 1% chance of that going off, compared to the described 5 for the Holocron. Although I'll admit that a mere 5x more likely is a big improvement over the "1 in 7700" suggestions presented as earlier comparisons.

I REALLY wish people would take the time to understand the probability. Every chain of events will, if you add enough "It has to do X" steps, get pretty small. That's just the nature of dependent events. You can choose to believe that no card can be overpowered because the perfect chain sits at single-digit percentages, or you can consider cards in comparison to each other, which normalizes that. The point is not that the Holocron destroys the entire game. It's that it is an order of magnitude more powerful than any other card in the set.

First I'd like to say thanks to yodaman1971 and gobberlerra for posting solutions to my math question.

@yodaman1971 you did exactly as I asked. Good job. Unfortunately i asked my question slightly wrong. I wanted to draw A Holocron and any 2 of 8 abilities, then roll the special on my Holocron twice.

8 abilities as in 4 cards each appearing 2x in the deck (so 8 cards total you're picking 2 of) or 8 cards that each appear 2x in the deck (so 16 cards total you're picking 2 of)?

@Buhallin I don't have time for a long answer now, but I'll get back with you.

You guys see how he's ignoring me, right? That tells you everything you need to know about this thread.

If they don't re-print this set ever again...(I've heard after this print run they are done), then I think there are some cards that will go down in history like the Black Lotus. I can imagine the holocron having a TON of playability when you factor in FUTURE sets and future ability upgrades, especially the "Ignores Restrictions" part - it COULD potentially be game breaking SOMEDAY.

But then again I also think Cunning is one of those cards that could potentially be game breaking with potential future cards.

Imagine a blue upgrade that doesn't have a die... but rather says "Action: Exhaust this card - Heal 2 damage on this character and READY this character" and it costs maybe 5 or 6? Maybe some day there's the emperor's Force Lightning and it costs 10! Future cards could make Sith Holocron feel broken... depending on what sets remain legal for standard play.

You guys see how he's ignoring me, right? That tells you everything you need to know about this thread.

It's basically the story of the whole thread. He's cherry picking what to respond to and ignoring the rest.

Internet forums at their finest right here folks.

If they don't re-print this set ever again...(I've heard after this print run they are done), then I think there are some cards that will go down in history like the Black Lotus. I can imagine the holocron having a TON of playability when you factor in FUTURE sets and future ability upgrades, especially the "Ignores Restrictions" part - it COULD potentially be game breaking SOMEDAY.

But then again I also think Cunning is one of those cards that could potentially be game breaking with potential future cards.

Imagine a blue upgrade that doesn't have a die... but rather says "Action: Exhaust this card - Heal 2 damage on this character and READY this character" and it costs maybe 5 or 6? Maybe some day there's the emperor's Force Lightning and it costs 10! Future cards could make Sith Holocron feel broken... depending on what sets remain legal for standard play.

Oh, totally agree, but we cannot analyze those until we are aware of them.

And as I mentioned before, I imagine that the other colors/combos will see improvements as well, so the impact may be that some of that doesn't matter, or actually feels fine despite the obvious power creep.

Another possible outcome is they over cost blue villain upgrades from here on out so that you basically can't play them without the Holocron, which would drastically affect the viability of the deck with them.

Just spit balling, but again, we won't know until we know. =)

How About eHan/eRey, and you pull 2 Holdout Blasters in your opening hand and end up with 4 extra actions, activate Han, activate Rey, Maybe deal 9 damage, and then claim the battlefield, before your opponent has done ANYTHING. There ARE lots of amazing 1st turn plays.

This is getting stupid.

The only way this works is if you roll double resources on Rey, resolve those, play both, then get a perfect roll from Han and the Blasters. Even then, you're only going to get 8 damage, not 9. You're going to start at a 9.2% chance of drawing both blasters in the first place, then about a 5.5% chance of getting the resources from Rey, then you have exactly one face on each of the last 4 that will get you the damage you want, which is about a 0.08% chance. Add all that up and you're sitting around a 1 in 263,000 times that will go off, and the timing doesn't work at all like you think it does.

If you stick to one blaster to try and get the 9 damage you're at a 31% chance of the draw, but again need exact rolls on 5 dice. That all falls out around 1 in 23,000 or so.

I know it's a given that most people don't understand probability, but come on...

This is getting stupid.

The only part of this I disagree with is the present tense form.

It's been stupid for a while.

That all falls out around 1 in 23,000 or so.

In all seriousness though he probably means that just having two holdout blasters in your opening hand and playing one on round one and another on round two would be a pretty good start.

You guys see how he's ignoring me, right? That tells you everything you need to know about this thread.

It's basically the story of the whole thread. He's cherry picking what to respond to and ignoring the rest.

Actually it's because he's on my ignore list, and been there for years. He's nothing more than a troll, and loves his passive-aggressive declarations of victory (like this one). He hasn't been worth responding to for a very long time. I made the mistake of thinking he might have an actual contribution at the beginning of this discussion, but it didn't take long to realize that error.

I've done by best to respond to the points that keep coming up. I'm not intentionally cherry-picking anything, but I only have so much time to keep responding to 5 different people, and I'm spending a ton of time doing the math that nobody on your side of things is bothering to do. There's also the advantage that the math is concrete, whereas things like action economy are going to be very much subjective.

It does seem like we're well past the point of actual discussion here though, and into nothing much more than insanely unlikely scenarios and personal attacks. Not much more point to continuing this.

Funny, there really isn't much math involved in explaining why a card is broken (or not, as the case may be). Might have saved yourself some time, but I'll accept yet another one of your patented cop outs if it means an end to this thread.

That all falls out around 1 in 23,000 or so.

So you're saying there's a chance...

In all seriousness though he probably means that just having two holdout blasters in your opening hand and playing one on round one and another on round two would be a pretty good start.

The described timing (4 actions, claim before opponent does anything) made it sound very much like it was describing a one-turn play. Could be wrong though, and apologies if I was.

First I'd like to say thanks to yodaman1971 and gobberlerra for posting solutions to my math question.

@yodaman1971 you did exactly as I asked. Good job. Unfortunately i asked my question slightly wrong. I wanted to draw A Holocron and any 2 of 8 abilities, then roll the special on my Holocron twice.

8 abilities as in 4 cards each appearing 2x in the deck (so 8 cards total you're picking 2 of) or 8 cards that each appear 2x in the deck (so 16 cards total you're picking 2 of)?

I'm saying 4 cards with 2 of each for 8 total abilities in the deck.

@Buhallin I don't have time for a long answer now, but I'll get back with you.

Just to make sure, so your opening hand would be holocron, 1 card with an ability, 1 different card with an ability, 2 other cards that could be anything? Or, could it be holocron, 2 cards with an ability that could be the same, 2 other cards that could be anything? The odds will be different in those situations.

First I'd like to say thanks to yodaman1971 and gobberlerra for posting solutions to my math question.

@yodaman1971 you did exactly as I asked. Good job. Unfortunately i asked my question slightly wrong. I wanted to draw A Holocron and any 2 of 8 abilities, then roll the special on my Holocron twice.

8 abilities as in 4 cards each appearing 2x in the deck (so 8 cards total you're picking 2 of) or 8 cards that each appear 2x in the deck (so 16 cards total you're picking 2 of)?

I'm saying 4 cards with 2 of each for 8 total abilities in the deck.

@Buhallin I don't have time for a long answer now, but I'll get back with you.

Just to make sure, so your opening hand would be holocron, 1 card with an ability, 1 different card with an ability, 2 other cards that could be anything? Or, could it be holocron, 2 cards with an ability that could be the same, 2 other cards that could be anything? The odds will be different in those situations.

I think he means a Holocron plus any two of the 8 blue abilities commonly run with blue decks.

Which lands a bit over 24%.

Gonna toss my vote in the "holocron is broken" camp.

Cards that get you expensive things for free are one of the more common types of effect to see bans in other games. Holocron into Mind Probe is incredibly strong with very little opportunity cost.

Gonna toss my vote in the "holocron is broken" camp.

Cards that get you expensive things for free are one of the more common types of effect to see bans in other games. Holocron into Mind Probe is incredibly strong with very little opportunity cost.

We've come full circle. Let's take up another five pages to talk about the same thing.