Unpopular Opinion: Needs cycling a nerf?

Magic: The Gathering - Puzzle Quest MtGPQ General Discussion
61

Thanks @volrak
To add to your point : basically it’s kind of the opposite : I just prepared our roster yesterday for ToS: I missed half a dozen of our top pvp players for our top ten coalition, and around the same amount of players who would have been qualified for that coalition at the bottom of the list.
So newer players rising in the ranking is not a problem :
it is vitally necessary,
and the very reason why we help them as much as possible internally. If you want to have a shot for the top ten, just pm me or any of the groups posting in the recruitment forum; they all offer fair chances..you’ll see that the “toxic elite” ain’t toxic at all.

Most of the top coalitions don’t have fixed rosters, even if you always see the same dozen names in the top ten : the players are changing (just take a look at the lifetime points of the players, normally they don’t exceed some thousand points)

62

My stance is due to the fact that there really is no other cause and effect to the cycling mechanic that creates such an out cry. Best guess is that the pool of rankings is flooded with cycle decks of all levels, which It is as another post in here concedes that. And it created a saturated positioning system.

If that is not the case, where is the evidence that players are negatively affected? How does cycling affect them as a player? I am aware that players are not happy (as am I) with the ToZ event as node 3 pretty much requires cycling to get through it, and primarily cycling in either blue or white. (Even more so requiring the necessary use of select cards to do so on to p of that) It is arduous and time consuming to pass. But that event is a creation of the Devs… not a result of cycling and more the required application thereof.

Monotony is not a condition of complaint. It is a design. I know plenty of decks that with clever design and control and are without cycling can take forever to play out. Don’t play cycling if it annoys the play style one is accustomed to.

Last guess is players don’t like facing a cycle deck because there is not a challenge there. I get that too, but not an argument for OP mechanic.

While I do agree that cycling is a powerful mechanic from the players perspective, it just isn’t unless we are given access to have live PvP then… oh tinykitty… It certainly is op

63

Again, I think you are missing the point. The point from my perspective is that there are no new cards that I can attain that will make my decks more effective. I don’t need angel of sanctions so I didn’t buy it. I don’t need any of the mythics or masterpeices in any of the recent elite packs. The only card that might improve my life from the set is Sandwurm Convergence. (I only have 6 mythics in the set.. The 5 gods and glorious end)

So what do I do? The optimal scenario from a competitive standpoint is to hoard my jewels (at 1300 and counting) horde my crystals (at 3000 and counting) and not spend any real money on this game until cycling no longer provides me with an easy button in every event and with every objective.

So why is this bad? As you stated, it gets really boring and is really tedious. It incentivizes me to go into cruise control. This state will lead me to look for other sources of entertainment outside of the game. Perhaps I will stay for another year for cycling to rotate out, but there are a lot like me who probably won’t.

This is what is driving the outcry against cycling. It is bad for the playership, it is bad for D3, it is simply bad for the game.

Regardless, I just don’t see the argument against modifying cycling costs by a small amount. Just increasing each cards cycling cost by +2 would fix most of the issues and still keep cycling as a very strong and effective mechanic.

64

Not to mention that cycling breaks the balance of the game, meaning that events and objectives and future cards have to be balanced around cycling, creating a vicious, well, cycle, where you need cycle to compete.

Just look at current pve events, cycling breaks them in half, but is also one of the few reliable ways to beat them. Previous pve events did encourage a variety of viable decks to beat them, but if cycling had been around, we would all just have been doing that instead.

Imagine kld coming out after akh. Would you be excited for the new cards? Or just conclude that cycling is better and ignore them?

That is the real issue, cycling is so powerful an option that it pretty much breaks the entire game surrounding it. It may not be as obvious right now, but just wait for October.

Oh, and if new cards aren’t good, why should players spend a dime on ixalan or future exclusives? At that point cycling also directly causes the economy of the game to suffer, a lot!

That is why new perspectives has to go before it has a chance to cause more impactful damage to the game.

65

My alt account doesn’t have new perspectives. However, it does have Drake Haven and Curator of Mysteries. It is still very easy to cycle giant Drake stacks, not to mention Faith of the Devoted as an extra win-con with Tezz2.

I believe it’s the cheapness of Cycling that makes it easy to abuse. Commons are the cheapest cards to cycle, and the cost to cycle tends to go up in rarity. My proposal is that cycle cost/rarity be reversed, so that commons have an average cost of Cycle 4, and Cycle 1 cards shold be much more rare. As long as you have to sacrifice some mana to cycle a card when NP is out, it would make it much harder to abuse.

66

Prior to new perspective the game was a sinking ship. New perspective or not, the game is still a sinking ship unless D3 changes other variables. Imo power at lower rarity is essential especially for people with limited colection and/or standard restrictions. Cycling does not discourage deck building, it’s the only way for many in 3.X bosses for instance . If not for standard rectristictions, I got dozen of ways to beat them 3.X nodes fast. Their diffulty and hp is exagerated.

67

One positive of cycling is that it has allowed me to cruise through Trial of the Planes events, and accumulate jewels. This will allow me to snag additional Mythics for the day when they nerf cycling.

And by cycling, I mostly mean “New Perspectives”.

It is the engine that drives the monster, and it almost always means a win when it comes out.

Sure, I’ve won games without it hitting the board, but NP is the biggest offender.

Cycling could, and should, continue to be a viable deck, but it needs an adjustment for the health of the game.

New Perspectives: Like Baral, at the beginning of the turn, cycling cards get 3 mana… not when you draw it.
Drake Haven: Summons one 2/2 drake instead of two. Drakes outpace every other creature, making them moot.
Faith of the Devoted: Nerfing New Perspectives will rein this in, but maybe nerf down to 4 instead of 5. Ten is a big swing.

Casting Costs of cards with cycle need to greater than functionally similar cards that do not. Dissenter’s Deliverance is so much cheaper than cards like Creeping Mold or Reclaiming Vines. That’s just wrong, when you add in the cycling bonus.

68

There is a really simple solution to fixing cycling.
The three cards that are required to be altered are New Perspectives, Drake Haven and Faith of the Devoted.
Look at the change that was done to Gonti’s Aether Heart, whenever this supports effect is triggered it loses a shield.
All of them have 3 shields each and so does the heart. I don’t suggest increasing their shield values since cycling causes you to draw so drawing into another one of these low cost supports is high.

69

Just to address a seemingly common (and understandable) misconception in this thread, New Perspectives is not needed to generate a functionally infinite loop on turn 1, and thus even outright banning it wouldn’t be sufficient to stop those loops from occurring consistently before turn 5.

I’ve run 2 infinite cycling decks in ToA for the last 2 cycles and this one, neither of which has dropped a ribbon so far: Kiora on the green node, and Ajani 2 on the white node. I don’t have thorough historical data to compare their average or median results, but I can attempt to compile at least limited info for each going forward, and these are the results for the first 4 games on each node for this cycle:

Kiora - winning turns 3, 6, 3, and 1 respectively; 3.25 turns needed on average to win
Ajani 2 - winning turns 8, 3, and 2, and 6 respectively; 4.75 turns needed on average to win

This isn’t enough data to draw strong conclusions, but crucially, it’s unbiased; the previous examples I’ve posted were cherry-picked to illustrate the peak results, which occur with alarming frequency but nevertheless fail to reflect the average or median. As a very loose estimate, I’d put the average turn needed to go infinite with New Perspectives at around 3-4, and without it at around 4-6. The actual winning turns are often a bit slower due to real-time considerations and/or suboptimal technique (both of which were factors in a few of these games), but the estimate is intended to reflect the theoretical limit of consistency, assuming correct play and a willingness to spend as much time as needed to complete a one-turn winning loop as soon as possible.

Shefet Monitor is one of the key cards these decks have in common, beyond a critical mass of cycling 1 near-blanks, and it’s a core enabler due to the ability to gain mana without passing the turn; adjusting enough engines might be enough to rein in cycling to reasonable levels without changing cycling costs, but every last engine would have to be hit, without exception, not just one or a few. Leaving any of Drake Haven, Faith of the Devoted, Monitor, New Perspectives, Alhammarret’s Archive, Monuments (even these are enough to go infinite currently with another piece or two, and if pressed I’d be happy to provide numerous examples), or Curator intact still gives too much upside for too little mana to a mechanic that’s already extremely powerful even without any enhancements.

This reflects on a core design principle that the devs seemed to have missed the mark on with cycling: recurring “whenever X happens” triggers that produce extra mana or extra cards are game balance minefields, and their frequency and power level have to be kept low enough to allow other decks to interact during the first few turns of the game. Otherwise, we’re not playing a multiplayer game, even asynchronously; we’re playing Solitaire with a different skin instead.

70

To be clear, true infinite cycling requires 3 things:

  1. additional card draw via cycling(to compensate for cycled in cards that aren’t cycle cards

  2. mana gain derived from cycling that exceeds cycling costs

  3. critical mass of cycling cards in deck

Shefet is a path to a huge cycle combo, but will eventually break because it does not guarantee (2). This is similar to the idea behind harness the storm decks. It’s not true infinite, but the player banks on the fact that the balance of probabilities lean towards the combo killing the opponent before it fizzles.

That’s what @Dodecapod is trying to say I think. Taking away the path to true infinite doesn’t remove the pseudo infinite which is also as strong in most real games.

2 things can be done to soft nerf cycling decks without removing drake Haven(cycle is Op even without drake Haven) . You can either attack (1) by changing curator and switching cycle mechanic from draw to fetch, or you can increase the cost of cycle cards to sane levels(2).

It’s always been weird to me that the rare level cycling cards seem to have their costs properly balanced, while the common/uncommon ones are ridiculous. Just fix this and everything falls in place.

If cycling cards cost about 3-4 average, even new perspectives won’t look super Op.

71

While I agree with this analysis, I was actually implying that (2) exists outside of blue as well; if we’re splitting hairs, even the characteristic U/G deck of New Perspectives, Drake Haven, 1 objective card, Curator, Monitor, and 5 cycling 1 cards will eventually fizzle in principle when it draws enough of the non-cycling cards consecutively, but the likelihood of that occurring before winning with all objectives satisfied is extremely low (assuming optimal play), to the point that the loop can reasonably be described as functionally infinite even if it would technically terminate after thousands or tens of thousands of cycled cards in each case and might fizzle too soon once every several dozen or several hundred games.

As far as non-blue decks go, there’s no question that New Perspectives and Curator are superior to the alternatives for (1) and (2), so some efficiency is admittedly compromised in other colors, but the available substitutes are still strong enough that the balance of probabilities remains overwhelmingly in favor of killing the opponent with all secondaries (not to mention any other arbitrary goals, such as creating a 500-power creature) met before running out of resources, to the point that the practical results in Standard coalition events essentially seem to be indistinguishable from blue cycling decks after a few dozen games (at least with Ajani 2; this may not hold true universally).

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@wickedwitch74

The problem is that changing numbers on Drake Haven and Faith is meaningless if you don’t change new perspectives :slight_smile: if you can cycle 1000 times at will, it doesn’t matter if you make 1 1/1 drake and drain them 1 HP each time, they still die.

But as a Nerf in addition to new perspectives, I wouldn’t mind haven being toned down a little. That said, i dont think it entirely necessary if you can’t go infinite the same way.

Regarding Shefet monitor…uhm, you guys DO know we are playing with the nerfed version, right? Ever since day 1 it has been bugged to require 8 mana to cycle, as opposed to the 6 it was supposed to. So first fix the card to work like it was supposed to xD

73

Just throwing in, here, that it seems the Devs are more likely to update a card/process if it hurts gameplay for the players compared to making it too easy.

Now if the AI WAS able to use Cycling, that would honestly pretty much be WORSE than the Baral problem. Especially if people left decks like @qwerty 's for the AI to play, pretty much ANY Green or Blue deck would be a horror to play against.

Since we can’t (technically) play each other, there’s no need to worry about it and yeah, some fights will be insanely easy, but like @madwren said, people like their easy button.

I voted people will get bored of it and while I still will play Cycling and enjoy Nissa 3.0, Kiora and Dovin for that mechanic, I remember when I didn’t play Blue or Green at ALL and went with Black or Red/Black (My friend, Sarkhan), so I think this is just the latest “phase” and something new will come out, eventually, just like before.

Nerf it? Nah.. Let them focus on bug fixes and the duplicate booster pack creator, instead. Meanwhile, yeah, I think people are more than capable of building non-cycling decks if they want to.

74

I’m of slightly split opinion on cycling. I think the mechanic itself is fine. Works very similarly on paper. The problem is the cards that either have spell effects on cycling or are triggered when you cycle. Drake haven is obscenely broken. The paper version is barely playable, but in pq it’s a 4 mana instant win. Of course people are going to play it. Cards that have spell effects on cycling allow you to manipulate your turn in a way that is contradictory to the way the game plays naturally. There wouldn’t be this much discussion if it weren’t fundamentally broken. If the ai ever gets upgraded, it’ll be baral all over again. I’m in the bored with cycling camp, but there are plenty of people still jamming it because it’s the truth. It’s kind of like junk food. It’s probably not going to kill you, but it’s not healthy. I’m on a mission to build deck the ai can pilot, reasonably. Pvp is getting a little homogenized

75

So, how many are doing tripple-cycle for this event? Kinda curious if anyone is using a deck that is not cycle your way to victory :wink:

Also, lvl 10 nissa3 vs lvl 60 koth: easy win due to cycling ^^

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I’m only using cycling in N3 node

77

Not doing triple cycling was like giving up top prize, but I didn’t do it either. I fully expect myself to screw up and drop a point or two before it’s over.

Were the top prize a good exclusive, I would definitely have triple cycled to victory.

78

I’m only cycling black – and N3 for the objective, but that deck isn’t meant for ridiculous cycling (it has 3 cycling cards in it and NP is not in it). I’m using the same embalm deck that I use for ToA – not a cycling deck.

Sidenote – my only loss has been from a freeze on said cycling deck.

79

I’m playing cycling in n3 because nissa is still a wee one. Other than that I think I have 1 cycling card in Nahiri. It’s not even cast out. Cycling makes me nod off mid match. Can’t be doing that. There’s no reason I should be able to fall asleep and still win.

80

There were around 30 people with perfect scores in ToS in my bracket. For the first time, I have played two decks relying heavily on cycling, and one fool proof Ob Nixilis deck. I have not dropped one single point and did not have one match even being close to this happening.

There are three crucial cards that enable god mode in cycling, and many players already have them resulting in winning easily in a double manner: You can control your opponent due to endless draw and – since many are playing cycling decks and AI doesn’t cycle – the opponents are easily to be controlled due to AI’s inefficiency in playing cyclung decks.

The new PW encourages cycling making it even more powerful. I have N3 on lvl 36 and won every single match against lvl60 without really caring for the cards the AI played, knowing that as soon as I drop the 3. ability - it’s game over.

I have the feeling that next to all the other fun-killing developments in the recent update, this one weighs in the most when it comes to the future of the game. Cycling as a method is not to disappear any time soon. Fun will though, if the winning stays this easy. I have just won 300 unobtanium with 0 effort except if the somewhat longer time to win counts. And if the app doesnt crash I will repeat this in any future events quite easily. As a matter of fact, I’m perfect in EO too as of now (3 games left).

My vote is clear: Do something about this. Make cycling something really special:

a) New Perspectives and Drake Haven (15+ Mana will still see them being played)
b) Amount of mana needed for cycling a card (5-9 would make you think twice before you cycle)
c) The way how AI deals with cycling (Let it do it in any way codeable)