2 hours ago, Vitalis said:

Guys....you do realize Sabine's lock is just a combo deck ? And thats all.
Combo decks are in MtG since forever, with the same pattern - try to assemble a combo then its GG you can't do anything. Why all that rage?

On the one side we used to cry - weee destiny is so 1 dimentional, all dmg no funny decks, and then when we got first true combo deck you all cry its broken. Come on..if you see Sabine just mulligan for Rend or anything with action that can break the combo and your good.

Hyperloops was a combo deck. The cards in that deck were meant solely to facilitate the combo. You either got the combo and won or didn't and lost.

Sabine/Running Interference is a damage deck which happens to have a potential lock-out combo in it. You run Running Interference, Infamous, Thermal Paint and Ambush weapons - all of which are good for Sabine even without the combo. The lock-out is just icing on the cake.

As for playing against the combo, that's the problem. I don't think the lock-out will by itself take down competitive players (Sabine may still win, just likely not by lock-out). But it will crush casual and new players who don't know they have to play a certain way against it. And it's not like Palpatine where you can look back and realize you could have done some things differently. Against the lock-out you either have the key to the lock or you don't. I'm not worried about high-level play; I'm worried about our weekly league tournaments.

5 hours ago, Vitalis said:

Guys....you do realize Sabine's lock is just a combo deck ? And thats all.
Combo decks are in MtG since forever, with the same pattern - try to assemble a combo then its GG you can't do anything. Why all that rage?

Destiny is not Magic. The deck is half the size, parts of your combo can start in play, the mulligan is selective, and you draw up to 15% of your deck each turn rather than 0.4%. This makes combos almost infinitely easier to assemble. Combo decks cannot be a thing in Destiny, because the draw is far too reliable.

Yeah, I am not a fan of combo "I WIN" decks in destiny. It is too easy to set up. Any form of recursion can be problematic. The solution is a card like Rend that solves the problem without errata. A card that removes the discard pile from the game is perfect. If it is a support, even better.

You need to remember that Sabine's combo has highly specific requirements to set it up:

a) BOTH Running Interference cards have to be active

b) Two Ambush weapons needed - one has to be in the discard pile and the other has to be in your hand. I know Thermal Paint can also start it if it is in hand but ultimately you have to have two Ambush Weapons with one in hand to persist it.

c) A specific Battlefield has to be in use (otherwise the Ambush card does not recur and the loop breaks)

We discussed this in another thread and while it is possible the odds of executing it are pretty low. Plus as Mep notes Rend invalidates it ahead of time (as do other cards that remove or exhaust Supports) and if your Opponent has ANY card in play with the "Action" keyword the loop is impossible.

1 hour ago, Joelist said:

if your Opponent has ANY card in play with the "Action" keyword the loop is impossible.

This isn't true. Many actions will not change the game state if you haven't gotten dice into your pool yet. There are only a few characters and upgrades that qualify. Most of the options come from pretty useless supports that exhaust themselves.

And that too is assuming you manage to get it into play first.

1 hour ago, Joelist said:

Plus as Mep notes Rend invalidates it ahead of time (as do other cards that remove or exhaust Supports)

No, they don't. They slow it down for a round, but even if you discard RI they can claim it back with the Graveyard. Support exhausting is mostly (all?) event based, so useless. And even if you slow it down for a turn, it's not like the deck just does nothing - Sabine's die is almost identical to Vader.

You’re assuming the Graveyard will be the Battlefield. And yes any Action will do as it is executed it fulfills the Take a Card Action step and the loop is broken. I rechecked the rules and nowhere does it specify the Action has to change the game state. It just says you pay any associated costs and do what the Action says.

56 minutes ago, Joelist said:

I rechecked the rules and nowhere does it specify the Action has to change the game state.

Really? I know it used to be there, let me...

Yeah, 20 seconds or so of searching. There you go. It is handy that the examples cover exactly what we're talking about here.

Page 15:

If a player takes an action that does nothing, then they are considered to have passed their turn instead.
Example 1: A player uses the Action on General Veers (r4), but there is no Veers die for them to remove. As such, nothing happens and they are considered to have passed their turn.
Example 2: A player uses the Action on Backup Muscle (r99) when the card is ready and there’s no damage on it to move. However, since the Backup Muscle exhausts, something happened and the action does not count as a pass.

While I don't like Running Interference, recursion is the problem here. Even if Sabine isn't running a lock out loop, she can run a loop. As more sets come out with more possibilities recursion is just going to become a even bigger problem.

34 minutes ago, Joelist said:

You’re assuming the Graveyard will be the Battlefield. And yes any Action will do as it is executed it fulfills the Take a Card Action step and the loop is broken. I rechecked the rules and nowhere does it specify the Action has to change the game state. It just says you pay any associated costs and do what the Action says.

Just for clarity, the rule is there in the version 1.4 of the rules. if you follow example 2 there are a few cards that pretty much prevent the lock.

PASSING (p15):
If a player does not wish to take an action on their turn, they may pass their turn. They do nothing, but they retain the option to take an action after their opponent. After both players pass consecutively, the round proceeds to the upkeep phase.

If a player takes an action that does nothing, then they are considered to have passed their turn instead.

Example 1: A player uses the Action on General Veers (r4), but there is no Veers die for them to remove. As such, nothing happens and they are considered to have passed their turn.

Example 2: A player uses the Action on Backup Muscle (r99) when the card is ready and there’s no damage on it to move. However, since the Backup Muscle exhausts, something happened and the action does not count as a pass.

Thanks Amanal. That was my point albeit clumsily made. There are actually a fair number of cards especially in the EaW world now that have the Action keyword. And a lot of them have nothing to do with dice but rather do things like gain a Resource, inflict a hit like Backup Muscle, Exhaust a Support and so on. As long as the Action includes exhausting the card it counts even if the action itself (as in the Backup Muscle example) does nothing.

TBH my complaint about Sabine has nothing to do with running interference. I only feel the consistency of pulling ambush from the discard pile and the lack of interaction with her dice as a result. Compare to Cad, he has a similar ability and is played frequently with success and has a finite number of uses. His drawback is the need to play from hand. Your opponents hand is something you can interact with pretty easily. Sabine however pulls from discard pile which not only can the opponent not interact with but, Sabine CAN control what goes into her discard pile. And there is no limit to how many turns it can be used. The actin cheating is just too consistent and combined with her character dies no pay damage sides seems over the top at this point. I am very open to ideas on how to mitigate what she does. The only ideas I have is to load up on shields and just straight up out damage.

26 minutes ago, JeffIncredible said:

TBH my complaint about Sabine has nothing to do with running interference. I only feel the consistency of pulling ambush from the discard pile and the lack of interaction with her dice as a result. Compare to Cad, he has a similar ability and is played frequently with success and has a finite number of uses. His drawback is the need to play from hand. Your opponents hand is something you can interact with pretty easily. Sabine however pulls from discard pile which not only can the opponent not interact with but, Sabine CAN control what goes into her discard pile. And there is no limit to how many turns it can be used. The actin cheating is just too consistent and combined with her character dies no pay damage sides seems over the top at this point. I am very open to ideas on how to mitigate what she does. The only ideas I have is to load up on shields and just straight up out damage.

Action cheating with Sabine, in itself, already impose a drawback on its owner. Don't forget that as soon as Sabine ovewrite a 2 cost upgrade with a 2 cost upgrade (And later on retrieve it for extra action) has lost a card in his/her hand. That means on the long run, she lose 1 card, so 1 less reroll, also if only 1 running interference is played, that is another card lost (1 running does'nt do much).

My friens have Sabine deck, and besides the fear of getting locked, they are more vulnerable to "luck" than regular deck.

Chak

Are you saying you lose the card because of the overwrite? Seems like a very small price to pay. Not to mention you could always just pay for it and not use Sabines ability. Her ability gives you a way to get the ambush for free if you don't have one in hand, every turn, for as long as she is alive. It's just extremely easy and consistent to get unmitigatable dice every turn.

1 hour ago, Chakan99939 said:

Action cheating with Sabine, in itself, already impose a drawback on its owner. Don't forget that as soon as Sabine ovewrite a 2 cost upgrade with a 2 cost upgrade (And later on retrieve it for extra action) has lost a card in his/her hand. That means on the long run, she lose 1 card, so 1 less reroll, also if only 1 running interference is played, that is another card lost (1 running does'nt do much).

My friens have Sabine deck, and besides the fear of getting locked, they are more vulnerable to "luck" than regular deck.

Chak

Sabine doesn't lose a card from hand. Once they have an ambush item on her and in her discard, the action cheat happens for no cost.

57 minutes ago, gokubb said:

Sabine doesn't lose a card from hand. Once they have an ambush item on her and in her discard, the action cheat happens for no cost.

I think he meant losing the weapon you are overwriting. So still having one weapon instead of 2. But I don't see that as much of a loss in this situation.

On 9/24/2017 at 2:17 PM, RJM said:

Yeah, this is really how it should have been in the first place.

'Before you activate this character, you may move a weapon from your discard pile onto her by paying its cost. Decrease the cost by 1 if it has the word "Thermal" in its title.'

Moving doesn't have a cost.

4 hours ago, JeffIncredible said:

I think he meant losing the weapon you are overwriting. So still having one weapon instead of 2. But I don't see that as much of a loss in this situation.

Yeah, it's been a pretty crippling cost for FN-2199. I mean, who plays THAT guy, right?