2 hours ago, saluk64007 said:

My problem with library is less about one turn win, and more about entire deck in hand tends to be a subpar game experience for both players. Whether or not it actually breaks the game, it feels broken. The game is about making do with the cards in your deck, and then making the right house choice with the cards in your hand.

Having all the cards feels against this spirit. Whatever house you call, having no resources means you are going to barf out a grotesque amount of cards, and every combo available in the deck is now open to you. And then you can pull off the draw all cards combo again.

I agree with those who say its too early to implement without seeing what answers show up or how chains can help. Its probably good to have something like this in the game to see what the balancing mechanisms can do.

But god it is terrible and boring to sit there watching your opponent draw and play 1000s of cards with no agency to stop it. Maybe you could have prevented it before hand, but they can still luck into it. This, and being completely locked out are the most feel bad parts of keyforge to me.

And at least the first part with library access activating twice feels more like a bug than an intentional design.

How frequently do you think the combo goes off before the deck loses and how many turns does it seem to take on average before it goes off?

2 hours ago, saluk64007 said:

Whether or not it actually breaks the game, it feels broken.

This right here illustrates my strongest argument for not changing anything. You don't know if it is actually broken or not, you just feel it is. You say it a few more times too.

Again, all this based on the worry that this situation could happen. Let's wait and see some data and figure out if it is actually happening or not. Wait for the chain system to arrive and impart justice.

Wasn't there just a PAX unplugged? There had to be a Keyforge tourney there right? Anyone know if there was one and how it turned out? There could be a good tell in that info...

On 12/8/2018 at 12:22 PM, PickleTheHutt said:

There have recently been many discussions regarding broken combos. The most troubling, in my opinion obviously, is the infinite card draw combo and 1 round win (with Library Access and certain other cards once they're in your hand).

While I only play casually, so none of this really affects me, I envision the high level tournament scene being nothing but this combo at the top. There are already several such decks registered with obviously more in existence.

In general, I'm of the belief (and I stress that this is my opinion only again) that any sort of infinite possibility should see errata (it seems they wanted this with the rule of 6 but didn't go far enough to cover all cases).

There are 2 changes to the rules (not card changes) that I think would solve this problem and would not affect 99+% of the player base.

1.) Expand the "Rule of 6" to include ALL effects and cards. For example, Library Access' draw a card could only draw 6 cards regardless of how many times Library Access itself or other cards are played. This very slightly nerfs a few cards but in a vast majority of cases it only affects game breaking infinite combos. In all the games I've played or watched, I don't think we've had an effect go for more than 6 anyway although I do know it can happen with other cards sometimes that aren't as problematic overall.

2.) Add a rule that allows a player to call "no house" (or when forced to call no house) to entirely skip their turn (no forging, no using omni, etc.) in order to discard their entire hand and redraw. While this is less of a tournament winning issue than 1.), it is still an infinite loop stopper (player infinitely forced to do nothing until opponent wins).

I think the above two rules takes care of virtually every major issue brought up since the game's release and requires no card errata, just an update to the online rules.

There is a third errata that I would like to see, but it is a card errata and much less important than the above.

3.) Change: The Horseman of Death when played returns all Horsemen, except for Death, from discard to hand instead of all Horsemen. This ONLY affects double Horsemen decks and is also an infinite loop stopper. Currently, unless you can purge or get a lucky forced discard of Death (this is why it's not as important as it is possible to stop for some decks, but not all), it's possible to have a battle line of 7 Horsemen every turn. If the above infinite card draw engine is stopped, I see every tournament winner being double Horsemen with other houses that have good control and stealing to bide time until the Horsemen are brought online.

Before anyone mentions it, I know double Horsemen aren't unbeatable, but when played well it requires such a specific deck AND luck to even have a chance that I think it breaks the game. Single Horsemen decks are totally fine. I did watch the Team Covenant match where Stephen beat Zack's double Horsemen, but Zach massively misplayed it (not calling Sanctum for multiple turns to avoid "wasting" a turn unstunning) when he could have turned on the reaping machine much earlier before Stephen could have gotten his own stuff rolling. Even then, with Stephen using a deck almost tailor-made to stop/slow down Horsemen decks, the game went down to the very end.

I'm not here to argue with anyone as I've stressed this is all in my opinion and since I only play casually the tournament scene doesn't directly affect me, but I thought I'd proffer some suggestions that I see as beneficial to the game as a whole.

Peace to all the other Archons out there.

I 100% disagree with all of this. This is like using a sledgehammer when a screwdriver is needed. Personal dislike of combos should not justify gutting several cards. There is already a much more elegant and built in way of handling all of this. If a deck is actually too strong (not just you lost to it so you are hurt) they can retire it.

Don't like Restringuntus when you played your Pit Lord? Perhaps you should have paid attention more before playing the Pit Lord.

Double Horseman? Really?

Next we will see people complaining that Key Charge ect. isn't fair and shouldn't be allowed to be used if you forged a key this turn already, or some other ridiculous nerf.

I do wish more people would spend some time learning the game instead of tilting at windmills. The asking for game shattering changes just because they don't like a particular combo is very selfish and counter productive. People are so worried about seeing things that they probably never will. There is a lot of borrowing trouble in threads like these.

I agree with the original post's feelings, but not thier solutions.

1) library access does too much in certain cases, but limiting the rule of 6 is a bad solution. It limits design, and hurts other cards that are fine as is. The very first card with a constant ability when listed by card number is an example of this. Should a deck with 2 autocannons only be allowed to damage the first 3 creatures played every turn?

2) I am not against lock down victories. They are a potentially fun alternate win condition. The problem is that certain ones are too easy to pull off. This is a card design (or deck construction) issue, not a rules issue. I am against the Pitlord ruling, but why is a bit more complex.

3) It is way too early to be doing an errata to balance cards. I want double horseman to be overpowered, because if it isn't then they made single copies of the horseman too weak. But there is no way to be confident that it is (in a competitive setting).

I also think you are underestimating the number of ways to counter the horseman. If a player has all 8 horseman set up, then they are basically forced to call Sanctum every turn (from purely a board state perspective). This makes the player highly predictable. A shadows player can set up an epic bait and switch. Dis has a lot of the counters that you already mentioned. Mars has all of those psudo-purge cards. Turns replaying all of the houseman after a board wipe are turns you gain no Amber, so decks with multiple board wipes can probably out race the horsemen.

On 12/8/2018 at 2:22 PM, PickleTheHutt said:

There have recently been many discussions regarding broken combos. The most troubling, in my opinion obviously, is the infinite card draw combo and 1 round win (with Library Access and certain other cards once they're in your hand).

While I only play casually, so none of this really affects me, I envision the high level tournament scene being nothing but this combo at the top. There are already several such decks registered with obviously more in existence.

In general, I'm of the belief (and I stress that this is my opinion only again) that any sort of infinite possibility should see errata (it seems they wanted this with the rule of 6 but didn't go far enough to cover all cases).

There are 2 changes to the rules (not card changes) that I think would solve this problem and would not affect 99+% of the player base.

1.) Expand the "Rule of 6" to include ALL effects and cards. For example, Library Access' draw a card could only draw 6 cards regardless of how many times Library Access itself or other cards are played. This very slightly nerfs a few cards but in a vast majority of cases it only affects game breaking infinite combos. In all the games I've played or watched, I don't think we've had an effect go for more than 6 anyway although I do know it can happen with other cards sometimes that aren't as problematic overall.

2.) Add a rule that allows a player to call "no house" (or when forced to call no house) to entirely skip their turn (no forging, no using omni, etc.) in order to discard their entire hand and redraw. While this is less of a tournament winning issue than 1.), it is still an infinite loop stopper (player infinitely forced to do nothing until opponent wins).

I think the above two rules takes care of virtually every major issue brought up since the game's release and requires no card errata, just an update to the online rules.

There is a third errata that I would like to see, but it is a card errata and much less important than the above.

3.) Change: The Horseman of Death when played returns all Horsemen, except for Death, from discard to hand instead of all Horsemen. This ONLY affects double Horsemen decks and is also an infinite loop stopper. Currently, unless you can purge or get a lucky forced discard of Death (this is why it's not as important as it is possible to stop for some decks, but not all), it's possible to have a battle line of 7 Horsemen every turn. If the above infinite card draw engine is stopped, I see every tournament winner being double Horsemen with other houses that have good control and stealing to bide time until the Horsemen are brought online.

Before anyone mentions it, I know double Horsemen aren't unbeatable, but when played well it requires such a specific deck AND luck to even have a chance that I think it breaks the game. Single Horsemen decks are totally fine. I did watch the Team Covenant match where Stephen beat Zack's double Horsemen, but Zach massively misplayed it (not calling Sanctum for multiple turns to avoid "wasting" a turn unstunning) when he could have turned on the reaping machine much earlier before Stephen could have gotten his own stuff rolling. Even then, with Stephen using a deck almost tailor-made to stop/slow down Horsemen decks, the game went down to the very end.

I'm not here to argue with anyone as I've stressed this is all in my opinion and since I only play casually the tournament scene doesn't directly affect me, but I thought I'd proffer some suggestions that I see as beneficial to the game as a whole.

Peace to all the other Archons out there.

My opinion is that any change made to deal with a specific deck layout that I have a less than 1 in a billion chance of seeing is a bad idea.

My deck is about 50/50 for an unlimited draw deck. We need a site like crucible to keep statistics, and then we will be able to wovaluate combos a bit better. Are some people in this discussion upset simply because they lost, when they should be focusing on seeing the combo in game and destroying it. Every single house has ways to destroy this combo. Do you have zero artifact bounce cards in your deck? Do you have zero creature bounce cards? Do you have zero cards that stop your opponent from playing action cards? There's all kinds of ways around this combo.

One of the best is Nexus, a shadow creature. Reap to use opponent's artifact as your own, sacrifice seed for something in your discard pile (or for even nothing).

I want to go out on a limb here, and say that it's not the talented and skilled players that are crying for rule changes. I believe the skilled players understand how many pure combos there are in the game, and don't give preference to one over the other..... why? Each combo is difficult to bring into play. Opponents can mess with cards in your hand, with cards in your discard pile, or just choose a different house for you to play all together.

I have a strong drawing deck, but I see martian reaping abilities with artifacts as a much worse combination, because of the high synergy with cards in their deck. When we're discussing these draw decks, there's a few cards that are necessary ... where mars has huge combinations of things that work well together.

I just got hit with restrictugus and control the weak. I didn't even get a turn. Tell me that doesn't need nerfed. You can't choose one combo that's more powerful over the others, because they are situational and draw dependent

57 minutes ago, KFMixer said:

I just got hit with restrictugus and control the weak. I didn't even get a turn. Tell me that doesn't need nerfed. You can't choose one combo that's more powerful over the others, because they are situational and draw dependent

Considering the first player can only play one card, this sounds like hyperbole or misplay.

I'm not talking about a first turn combo, which they just don't exist with any cards. I'm discussing cards that I believe are very powerful together. I don't think that any should be nerfed.

11 minutes ago, KFMixer said:

I'm not talking about a first turn combo, which they just don't exist with any cards. I'm discussing cards that I believe are very powerful together. I don't think that any should be nerfed.

And I was noting how your claims didn’t add up. It’s impossible for you not to get a single turn. (Edit: if we want to discuss possible changes to a game, accuracy is paramount)

On 12/10/2018 at 3:16 AM, Starbane said:

How frequently do you think the combo goes off before the deck loses and how many turns does it seem to take on average before it goes off?

Playing Library Access and retrieving it to play it again...is pretty broken. If you have 3 other Logos cards it is highly likely you will draw your entire deck and play all your logos cards.

the one turn win is just that...but in this circumstance you are sitting with 20 cards in your hand and going to generate a massive amount of aember.

Making this subject to the Rule of 6 makes all sorts of sense to me...and here is why. I want them to make lots and lots of powerful fun combo stuff. I have loved that part of Keyforge. The rule of 6 puts a stop in place that makes it EASIER for them to keep making powerful cards.

1 minute ago, papalorax said:

Playing Library Access and retrieving it to play it again...is pretty broken. If you have 3 other Logos cards it is highly likely you will draw your entire deck and play all your logos cards.

the one turn win is just that...but in this circumstance you are sitting with 20 cards in your hand and going to generate a massive amount of aember.

Making this subject to the Rule of 6 makes all sorts of sense to me...and here is why. I want them to make lots and lots of powerful fun combo stuff. I have loved that part of Keyforge. The rule of 6 puts a stop in place that makes it EASIER for them to keep making powerful cards.

There are only 11 other logos cards in a deck, at best if your entire hand was logos cards and you draw every other logos card (increasingly unlikely for every card drawn) you’d get 16 cards cycled; all the logos cards +5).

6 minutes ago, Derrault said:

There are only 11 other logos cards in a deck, at best if your entire hand was logos cards and you draw every other logos card (increasingly unlikely for every card drawn) you’d get 16 cards cycled; all the logos cards +5).

Let's say this is "going off" third turn.

Start with 30 cards in reserve...play 4 in first two turns...and draw 4.

You have 26 in reserve and 4 logos in hand

Play LA

Retrieve LA

Play LA again - draw 1.

You now have 3 logos in hand and 25 in reserve

play 3 - draw 6

Play 2 - draw 4

Play 1 - draw 2

So in the most "tame" version - you have drawn 13 cards, played 6 non LA Logos cards, have a hand of 9, and a reserve of 13.

If you can't find a way to win from that position...your cards are awful.

I am comfortable saying that situation is not good for the game. LA should either be subject to the rule of 6, or shouldn't Stack, or shouldn't go to the discard pile until end of turn.

Regarding your other issues:

2. Being locked out for a turn is no big deal. Discarding your hand would be a massive change to the rules if you could do it optionally. I would not like this. It makes people digging for answers even more common. I could see a tweak that would say "In the rare circumstance that you cannot declare a house two turns in a row, you may ignore any ability that is 'forcing you to pick a house' and therefore pick any house that you aren't specifically prohibited from picking. In the even more rare circumstance that you are prevented from legally picking each house for a second turn in a row, you are free to pick any house for that turn"

3. Horseman rule - dealing with creatures is built into the game. Way too many options exist.

39 minutes ago, papalorax said:

Let's say this is "going off" third turn.

Start with 30 cards in reserve...play 4 in first two turns...and draw 4.

You have 26 in reserve and 4 logos in hand

Play LA

Retrieve LA

Play LA again - draw 1.

You now have 3 logos in hand and 25 in reserve

play 3 - draw 6

Play 2 - draw 4

Play 1 - draw 2

So in the most "tame" version - you have drawn 13 cards, played 6 non LA Logos cards, have a hand of 9, and a reserve of 13.

If you can't find a way to win from that position...your cards are awful.

I am comfortable saying that situation is not good for the game. LA should either be subject to the rule of 6, or shouldn't Stack, or shouldn't go to the discard pile until end of turn.

You wouldn’t draw a card for playing LA again, it’s the same card (both in title and literally), so it’s exempt from its own effect.

Card draw is good, sure, but I’m not seeing how that’s significantly better than a deck with multiple Battle Fleets (potentially draw 5, then 9, then 9 for a hand size of 23 cards.

edit: what I’m getting at, is that most every deck I’ve seen has some kind of killer combo in it. But you do still have to ‘get’ that combo.

On 12/10/2018 at 4:37 AM, TheSpitfired said:

Wasn't there just a PAX unplugged? There had to be a Keyforge tourney there right? Anyone know if there was one and how it turned out? There could be a good tell in that info...

There wasn't one. There was hundreds! I participated in a 3 deck sealed where if you lost, you could not use that deck again, 2 3-deck BYOs where if you won, you could not use that deck again. And a draft. They also had rotating Pods which would start as soon as there were 8 players ready. both sealed and Archon formats. There was pretty much always a line for these, meaning they ran continuously. There were many structured tourney I didn't have time for as well. They had so many tournaments that after the first day they refused to sell decks as they were worried about having enough for sealed deck games, and in the end they were scraping the bottom of the barrel for prizes, giving out a single acrylic amber token or alt-art chain cards to winners.

Unfortunately, there were SO many tourneys, that it was too chaotic to gather any data from it.

56 minutes ago, xbeaker said:

There wasn't one. There was hundreds! I participated in a 3 deck sealed where if you lost, you could not use that deck again, 2 3-deck BYOs where if you won, you could not use that deck again. And a draft. They also had rotating Pods which would start as soon as there were 8 players ready. both sealed and Archon formats. There was pretty much always a line for these, meaning they ran continuously. There were many structured tourney I didn't have time for as well. They had so many tournaments that after the first day they refused to sell decks as they were worried about having enough for sealed deck games, and in the end they were scraping the bottom of the barrel for prizes, giving out a single acrylic amber token or alt-art chain cards to winners.

Unfortunately, there were SO many tourneys, that it was too chaotic to gather any data from it.

That sounds amazing, I wish I could have been there!

Hi

Chains should be able to manage any combos because if it takes 3-4 cards to pull off a turn 1 win than they can start with 18 chains! Also I figure Tournaments could have players bring 3 decks get one look at the cards in the deck via the archon card, bid on the deck they want to play than play, if your crafty you get them to bid higher.

I take it though that there are no cards in Keyforge that could Purge action cards from a deck, thus removing a piece of the combo? I wonder because some decks can usually go through the deck quickly enough that it is completely feasible to be back online with the combo in a matter of turns.

cheers

Let me lead in by restating that I think the library access combo is bad for the game.

I don't understand how people think that a change to the rule of 6 could work without hurting too many other cards in the process. The only viable option I see is adding a special line that calls library access out by name. I think people are forgetting that decks can have multiple copies of the same card. If that card has a constant ability, this rule will be hurting those decks.

5 hours ago, Derrault said:

You wouldn’t draw a card for playing LA again, it’s the same card (both in title and literally), so it’s exempt from its own effect.

Card draw is good, sure, but I’m not seeing how that’s significantly better than a deck with multiple Battle Fleets (potentially draw 5, then 9, then 9 for a hand size of 23 cards.

edit: what I’m getting at, is that most every deck I’ve seen has some kind of killer combo in it. But you do still have to ‘get’ that combo.

He played Library Acess twice, so he drew one more.

I have seen this combo in action. I was in control of the board on my way to a third key, while my opponent had none, but had seed in play + probably a couple other irrelevent artefacts or creatures: he won on his next turn.

Like probably a big bunch of decks, mine had no easy way to destroy artefacts. Now, this was far from a first turn win (we were well in the late game), but there was nothing I could do to stop my opponent form getting that win. It is clear that its a NPE to lose this way, but more importantly, the combo is extremely easy to pull of, as you only need the seed in play + library access and as much Logos in hand as possible to start it.

But lets forget a moment that combo and imagine instead that a player has only seed and library access, no way to forge a key or else in his deck. What is possible to happen next, assuming enough Logos card to play?

1- That player has its entire deck in hand and the end of the turn

2- Each Logos action card got played 6 time (exemple: twin bolt thus made 24 damage to creatures and generated 6 amber. Labwork generated 6 amber and archived 6 cards, etc.)

3- Have generated more than enough amber to forge all your keys of the game in one turn (it only require 3 cards with an amber bonus to generate 18 amber)

4- this can happen every turn after this one

Os course you will need a bit of luck or a good amount of non-logos in play to make sure the loop does not stop ( phase shift and wormhole help extremely), but the points are:

- that it only require 2 cards to possibly put yourself in a situation where the game will be hopeless for the oppenent unless they were so far ahead already

-the deck can be super good without the combo ever going off, as those cards are good by themselves, so there is no real cons of having this (unfair?) win condition

- I do not see any way this can do any good to the game

Now that this is said, I do not have any way to deal with that situation easily. What I know, though, is that this combo would be the only one affected if we were to put a hand limit to 10 or 12, as normal Logos never accumulate big amount of cards anyway. I also know that it would be a shame to get rid of my decks that cant deal with artefacts just because of this...

8 hours ago, xbeaker said:

Unfortunately, there were SO many tourneys, that it was too chaotic to gather any data from it.

The "data" I would mine from that is that this game is a blast to play and lots of people are enjoying it! 😀

3 hours ago, loup167 said:

What I know, though, is that this combo would be the only one affected if we were to put a hand limit to 10 or 12, as normal Logos never accumulate big amount of cards anyway.

That is a drastic rules change for a hypothetical problem. There are other cards this change would impact, not to mention potentially the entire Archive mechanic.

Call me crazy, but if I'm one forge away from winning a game and my opponent is able to pull a crazy (any) combo and win before my turn starts I am not upset. He had the right cards and played them correctly to make the amazing play. That's good fun. Yes I wanted to win but I will not let that urge ruin my interaction with another player in the game. It's not a negative experience if you don't make it one. "You only won because you played a broken combo." You can dress that any way you want but you are being unfair to the other player at that point and your reaction is generating a more negative experience than a card combo ever will.

If you really want to "fix"hypothetical issues in this game start playing around with chains. We don't know how the power and chain system will factor in so start messing with it. If you're playing against these decks with perceived issues (and admittedly most of you are not) then implement what we do have and see how it works.

I imagine I will draw lots of ire for saying this, but don't count online play in your analysis of this situation. You are dealing with more algorithms than deck composition for how those games go, and it's easier to work yourself up over a game when you are not sitting across from someone.

tl;dr - Simmer.

Why are you quoting me out of context as being pro rules change when the rest of my post that you didn't include makes it clear that I am not. Also , calling people out for stating an opinion is strange in the first place. The entire point of my post is that I think the card is bad for the game, but I am still against a rules change. Or at the very least, all of the rules changes people have suggested so far.

Ope! I misread and I apologize. I will edit the post and remove my counter to a point not made.

On 12/10/2018 at 12:09 AM, saluk64007 said:

My problem with library is less about one turn win, and more about entire deck in hand tends to be a subpar game experience for both players. Whether or not it actually breaks the game, it feels broken. The game is about making do with the cards in your deck, and then making the right house choice with the cards in your hand.

Having all the cards feels against this spirit. Whatever house you call, having no resources means you are going to barf out a grotesque amount of cards, and every combo available in the deck is now open to you. And then you can pull off the draw all cards combo again.

I agree with those who say its too early to implement without seeing what answers show up or how chains can help. Its probably good to have something like this in the game to see what the balancing mechanisms can do.

But god it is terrible and boring to sit there watching your opponent draw and play 1000s of cards with no agency to stop it. Maybe you could have prevented it before hand, but they can still luck into it. This, and being completely locked out are the most feel bad parts of keyforge to me.

And at least the first part with library access activating twice feels more like a bug than an intentional design.

I second thee's opinion!
When someone gets the whole deck in hand. It's boring. End of story. Whoever argues against it is dumb

9 hours ago, Derrault said:

You wouldn’t draw a card for playing LA again, it’s the same card (both in title and literally), so it’s exempt from its own effect.

Card draw is good, sure, but I’m not seeing how that’s significantly better than a deck with multiple Battle Fleets (potentially draw 5, then 9, then 9 for a hand size of 23 cards.

edit: what I’m getting at, is that most every deck I’ve seen has some kind of killer combo in it. But you do still have to ‘get’ that combo.

Derrault,

LA does draw off of a LA.
Why would you think otherwise?