Hey Guys,

Was wondering what your thoughts on the "Hyperloop" combo are. For those that don't know, the combo is: Emperor's Throne Room + Millennium Falcon + Hyperspace Jump.

If you have first action you:

1. Roll in the Falcon Die
2. Your opponent does an action
3. At any point from here, you can claim the battle field, set the Falcon to the special with the Throne Room, resolve Hyperspace Jump from your discard pile for free, and end the action phase.

Note that if the battle ground is not the Emperor's Throne Room, Hyperspace Jump can be played from hand to change it, among other ways. Also note that it is difficult to disrupt since very few cards currently can remove the Falcon die consistently and as a backup you can use Cunning to trigger the Falcon special if required.

My personal opinion is it creates a situation which is at the very least a Negative Play Experience (NPE). At worst, it can be considered exploitative. If you are able to get the combo going, you can basically stall a game out and not allow your opponent to do anything but claim the battlefield as their first action. If they do so, you get a free turn, which usually results in massive damage being dealt. This means that under the current tournament rules that if I get ahead on damage, I can essentially legally "stall" for time and automatically win. If you try to break it up, I can just kill you with my free turn.

Do you all think this is a problem for the game? Or just an annoyance?

Personally, I think that the Falcon should remove the card you get from the special from the game (RFG). The issue with this is that currently Destiny has no cards which remove from the game, so such text would need to be added and explained. The positive part is that it would limit the potential combos going forward as well, since you could never infinitely recur the cards you get from the Falcon.

Thoughts?

Hida77, you have summarized very well my thinking about the Hyperloop.

I played a bunch of games against it, and I must say it is not unbeatable. But it provides frustration and sucks the fun out of the game: this is by definition a NPE.

I second your proposal for an erratum on the Falcon to keep this and future combos in check.

I think it is a bit early to pull out the torches for this combo personally. It is not the easiest thing to set up (requires 2 cards and at minimum 5 resources -- potentially 8 resources), it is able to be disrupted (disrupt resources, control falcon die, play your own copy of Hyperspace loop, AT-ST), and you need to get the lock going early enough in the game to be effective -- setting it up turn 4 when you are already behind will not help you stall out and win the game...

Hyperloop doesn't let you win and several decks really hard counter it. Han/Rey and Poe/rey destroys this Vader/Ejabba will crime lord or infamous ace in the hole crime lord you if you allow them that many resources. Jango will wreck you if you try and activate a character. Even Vader/Raider will wreck this combo.

There real combo people haven't figured out yet is having reversal in your discard and cunning and falcon out so painful and will actually make you win

Wait until Never Tell Me the Odds come out.

I've never played against it, but I'd say it takes awhile to ramp up and while that's happening your opponent is not sitting idle.

It actually takes 3 resources and a Poe special to get out the falcon. And the combo can be gotten on turn 1-2. It's a very strong deck.

Play an upgrade every chance you get. Every time your opponent stops the turn draw a card or cards and work towards the cards you want to end the loop.

I am playing a hero red/yellow and eventually I would have Hit and Run (A Villain would perhaps use Tactical Mastery) and It's a Trap, so once the Falcon rolls a you just play your cards and quite possibly one shot Poe. After that you just want something to remove the Falcon dice now and again, Dodge perhaps?

Other cards to consider: Closing the Net, Deflect, Electroshock, He doesn't Like You, Heroism, Mind Trick, Reversal and The Best Defense.

If the Falcon rolls it's ranged damage use Guardian to remove the dice. Jedi Council, and remove a card a turn. Activate Vader and Mill a card a turn.

57 minutes ago, pstalker said:

I think it is a bit early to pull out the torches for this combo personally. It is not the easiest thing to set up (requires 2 cards and at minimum 5 resources -- potentially 8 resources), it is able to be disrupted (disrupt resources, control falcon die, play your own copy of Hyperspace loop, AT-ST), and you need to get the lock going early enough in the game to be effective -- setting it up turn 4 when you are already behind will not help you stall out and win the game...

I agree to some degree, but there are decks which can easily get a turn 1/2 Falcon without much trouble.

I don't mean to insinuate that it is unbeatable or anything, but it is the type of combo where you look at it and say "geez, a potentially abusive infinite combo already?". Which Is why I am in favor of the Falcon change. It solves the issue and all future issues with that card.

54 minutes ago, amrothe said:

There real combo people haven't figured out yet is having reversal in your discard and cunning and falcon out so painful and will actually make you win

Trust me, they have. Most decks that include Hyperloop also include 2xReversal. If you assume you will be generating the money to get Hyperloop, its not much of a stretch to get Reversal a lot too. But again, would be largely solved by having the Falcon RFG the card.

The most important take away from this conversation is that we need best 2 of 3 games in a competitive setting, with sideboards and viable counters.

5 minutes ago, WonderWAAAGH said:

The most important take away from this conversation is that we need best 2 of 3 games in a competitive setting, with sideboards and viable counters.

I don't agree really. Sideboards have their own problems and 35x3 minutes every round isn't overly scale-able.

Why not just fix the problem here?

The fastest way to break a game is recursion, and the Falcon brings a repeatable way to recur events. Even if Hyperloop isn't terribly bad (and having not played it or against it, I cannot say), the idea of an infinitely recurring event bodes badly for the game. I am not sure an erratum so quickly is the right move, but I would a watch on the Falcon.

3 minutes ago, GooeyChewie said:

The fastest way to break a game is recursion, and the Falcon brings a repeatable way to recur events. Even if Hyperloop isn't terribly bad (and having not played it or against it, I cannot say), the idea of an infinitely recurring event bodes badly for the game. I am not sure an erratum so quickly is the right move, but I would a watch on the Falcon.

I agree 100%. I am not sure it needs an errata, but I will say if you get stuck in a game with it and have it done repeatedly, it is not fun at all. That's not to say you can't sometimes break it up or get around it, but you need to be playing specific things and be prepared, which is not something that is necessarily easy or always possible.

1 hour ago, Hida77 said:

I don't agree really. Sideboards have their own problems and 35x3 minutes every round isn't overly scale-able.

Why not just fix the problem here?

Because it also fixes FFG's terrible matchmaking system, and nobody likes knowing they lost their match at deck building. There needs to be room for counter play to help take some of the sting out of sitting down with scissors only to see rock across the table. With only enough room for 30 cards, who's going to main deck hard counters like Disarm (for problematic upgrades) and Surgical Strike? Now imagine FFG taking the easiest route to countering the Hyperloop and they print a 0-1 cost card that removes a card in the discard pile from the game. Is that kind of meta call really worth the opportunity cost of reducing your deck archetype to 28-29 cards? Probably not, unless they can stuff it in their sideboard.

I don't know what your guys' experience with this game is, but I haven't met a seasoned card player yet who didn't agree that you could easily play Destiny best 2 out of 3 in an hour.

Having cunning also helps get the combo going better. I like using the Falcons special with Reversal, why not get some damage for it.

2 hours ago, WonderWAAAGH said:

Because it also fixes FFG's terrible matchmaking system, and nobody likes knowing they lost their match at deck building. There needs to be room for counter play to help take some of the sting out of sitting down with scissors only to see rock across the table. With only enough room for 30 cards, who's going to main deck hard counters like Disarm (for problematic upgrades) and Surgical Strike? Now imagine FFG taking the easiest route to countering the Hyperloop and they print a 0-1 cost card that removes a card in the discard pile from the game. Is that kind of meta call really worth the opportunity cost of reducing your deck archetype to 28-29 cards? Probably not, unless they can stuff it in their sideboard.

I agree with this for the same reason. It wouldn't kill this game or take much time to allow a 6 card sideboard. That's 3 cards pretty much and would allow for some specific hard counters like block and dodge, that may be completely useless at least half the time, to see some regular play.

2 hours ago, WonderWAAAGH said:

I don't know what your guys' experience with this game is, but I haven't met a seasoned card player yet who didn't agree that you could easily play Destiny best 2 out of 3 in an hour.

I like the hit them hard approach, because I can play 4 matches and we will only be taking a touch over 2 hours. So I can have a very wife/family friendly tournament on a Sunday afternoon or even midweek while my wife is overseas. If you go best of 3 then you are looking at over an hour a round and what was/is taking 2.5 hours will now start looking at 5 or more.

Ideally, if I was to spend more time gaming, I would rather more rounds of Swiss than fewer longer rounds. So that if I get an unlucky game or two I can rise back up to the top. In 5 hours having 8 or more games would be far more enjoyable to me.

Top cut in the tournament rules is best 2 of 3 in 90 minutes.

7 minutes ago, LordFajubi said:

I agree with this for the same reason. It wouldn't kill this game or take much time to allow a 6 card sideboard. That's 3 cards pretty much and would allow for some specific hard counters like block and dodge, that may be completely useless at least half the time, to see some regular play.

Some of what you say here is a meta-choice, dodge is very valuable in a meta that contains a lot of Jango/Veers decks. We had a fellow say he played in Brisbane and there were 15 J/V decks out of 18 players, why wouldn't dodge be auto-include in that meta? I think being rewarded for reading the meta and responding to it correctly is taken away with a sideboard.

43 minutes ago, Amanal said:

I like the hit them hard approach, because I can play 4 matches and we will only be taking a touch over 2 hours. So I can have a very wife/family friendly tournament on a Sunday afternoon or even midweek while my wife is overseas. If you go best of 3 then you are looking at over an hour a round and what was/is taking 2.5 hours will now start looking at 5 or more.

Ideally, if I was to spend more time gaming, I would rather more rounds of Swiss than fewer longer rounds. So that if I get an unlucky game or two I can rise back up to the top. In 5 hours having 8 or more games would be far more enjoyable to me.

Best 2 of 3 allows for better differentiation between players with similar match scores. For example, you and another player might go 3-1 in a 4 round event, but if you didn't drop any other games and the other player did then you clearly place higher. Right now all we have is strength of schedule, which is piss poor for events with small turnouts or fewer rounds. TL;DR: best 2 out of 3 gives you more room to rise to the top.

More rounds also provides a similar degree of differential between players. If you play 4 rounds and go 2-1, 2-1, 2-1 and 2-1 why wouldn't you end up about the same rank as you played 12 matches and took 8 wins and 4 losses? Both end up being the same time commitment for the players and far less sitting around for them as there is no waiting for the guys on 1-1 to finish that third game while those that went 2-0 twiddle their thumbs.

That's not exactly an apples to apples comparison, though. One is still a 4-0 record, the other is 8-4.

Also, ties offer a further degree of differentiation, and you can't do that well with the current one-game system. Look at how poorly they're currently managing games that go to time.

Change the wording of Hyperspace Jump from "may" to "must" and it becomes way more balanced.

This deck and this deck alone is killing the game at the LGS and even started a small sell-off when some of the better players decided that one or more of the following must be true:

1) The designers don't know what they are doing. (When will game designers learn that allowing you to play things for free leads to nonsense and makes the game harder to design and future-proof going forward?)

2) They didn't properly play test this game. (Disconcerting to say the least as the next set might have more of this in it.)

3) The designers want the game to be played this way with brutal lockdown combos. (Super not fun and not what our LGS players thought it would be at first glance.)

Hoping they change it sooner rather than later but I respect the opinions of others as well who feel it is not a problem yet. Can only go on what I see at LGS right now which is not pretty.

That's not exactly an apples to apples comparison, though. One is still a 4-0 record, the other is 8-4.

Also, ties offer a further degree of differentiation, and you can't do that well with the current one-game system. Look at how poorly they're currently managing games that go to time.

I don't agree that it is an unfair comparison, the constraint that drives most tournament systems isn't the mathematics of seeding or rankings as much as the constraint of time. Your 4-0 and my 8-4 both take about an equal amount of time. I like the system we have as you can for the most part go to the LFGS at 6:00pm and play 3-4 games and be home by 9:00pm or pick up munchkin #1 from FIRST robotics.

4 minutes ago, [Ace] said:

Change the wording of Hyperspace Jump from "may" to "must" and it becomes way more balanced.

My fencing coach still tells me, if you are doing something and it works keep doing it, it is up to your opponent to figure out what you are doing and change what he is doing.

Can things be changed to defeat hyperloop, I think there are quite enough options, try a character with guardian, before it dies you should get 2 turns where there is no lock down. Add Endless Ranks and while your opponent has you locked out you can return the character back to play.