The Goblin Archer Fiasco

[spiller]

Do other games have great combos? Sure they do. The difference is they do not happen on TURN 2! Mystical Empires system of no mana/energy/ki/etc is unique (which I like) but it removes a significant inhibitor of combos. In magic, you not only have to get the correct combo of cards but also combo of mana. That variable is a huge difference on how quickly and likely a deck can "go off". In a Type 1 tournament, you will rarely see a deck win out on turn 1 because you have to have at least 2 cards and the right mix of mana. Your opening hand has to have a least 4 or 5 cards out of 7 for it to happen. Even then, play in a type 1 tournament sometime, it isn't nearly as fun as you would think. There is no interaction between players other than one turn of counter wars to sneak your "I WIN" combo onto the table. It is the second biggest factor on why so few Type 1 tournaments are played every year (cost to aquire the cards being #1).
I will concede that adding more cards to make your combo work does weaken your deck in other ways. The problem is that 12 of those cards would be in just about any agro deck (Dec of War x2, Sword of Quickness x2, Vorex x4 or 3, and Battle Monger x4). None of the cards listed actually are only included for the combo.
People are finding ways to deal with it. They better if they don't want to die on turn 2. That is the problem in a nutshell.

[Mojo]

Type 1.5 has turn 2 combo's, Extended has turn 2 and 3 combo's and type 2 the quickest is heart beat which I believe can be triggered as early as turn 3/4. I know this because we run all these type of events and see them on a regular basis.

Ever sense I made Jay sleeve his deck his combo rate has dropped. His cards would always stick together and his shuffle was terrible so his combos would stick together raising his chances of getting it again.

I'm not saying he was cheating, just saying that I hope big tournaments require SLEEVES! lol

[Keith Katsikas]

ALL Tournaments require clean, unmarked, satin sleaves.

I want everyone to know that we are looking closely at this card. I cannot say now if it will change or not. One thing I would like to say however, is that this is one of the easiest combos to take care of. Quite possibly the simplest way is to defend against it. Then of couse there are over a dozen creature removel remedies to add to the mix. So many overestimate the combat power of a creature with high power or many actions. Most of these creatures have VERY low health and can be dealt with with great ease. I have yet to see this card become broken.

ps. Everyone has their own opinion of what justifies a "Broken" card, or combo. I will be posting my definition of "Broken" on the forums very soon.

[kevmo]

I dont think the card should be changed just limited

[Deleted]

sojomojo said:

Oh and Magic not having combos like this? That is incorrect in every version of Magic. Type 1, Type 1.5, extended, and current Type 2. Don't even get me going on Yu-Gi-Oh, VS System, Raw Deal, etc..

Sojo out!

I'm well aware that Magic has billions of combos...trust me. In Type I, many of which will kill you on turn 1, and there would be absolutely nothing to be done about it less you have FoW* (for those who can follow. ). But you're missing the point.

Current ME constructed gaming can be viewed as a Type II would be in Magic. Like Redshirt said, there isn't a combo kill faster that turn 4-5.

Regardless, Magic does not have a combo (at least a viable one) where a creature can attack 20 times on turn 2 specifically. The style of this combo is unique to ME.

Nevertheless, I was one who voted to leave it be. As Keith described in the new forum, I'm not too sure this card is broken yet.

[kevmo]

My last thoughts on this is that i just dont understand how dwarven infantry and hydra made it to rare and ultra rare and this one was made a common. I am just amazed how this wasnt looked at being leveled up. I mean it has a second ability of being an archer for gods sake.

[redshirt]

Mojo said:

Type 1.5 has turn 2 combo's, Extended has turn 2 and 3 combo's and type 2 the quickest is heart beat which I believe can be triggered as early as turn 3/4. I know this because we run all these type of events and see them on a regular basis.

Not to get too far off the beaten path, but what viable turn 2/3 combos are there in Extended?

The earliest Heartbeat could possibly be triggered is turn 4 and it would require a pretty good hand, if not a god one:

T1: Land
T2: Land, Sakura-Tribe Elder, sac for a total of three lands
T3: Land, Heartbeat, Sakura-Tribe Elder, sac for a total of five lands in play
T4: Something like:
Land, 2nd Heartbeat, tap out to produce a total of 13 mana, Early Harvest, tap till you can produce 23 mana, Maga/Invoke the Firemind.

So to go off turn 4, you would have to have 10 cards (four lands, two Elders, two Heartbeats, one early Harvest, kill condition) in your first 11 cards (Seven to start plus four draws.) And even this hand can be disrupted by disenchant effects, land destruction, hand destruction and counterspells.

By contrast, this Archer business requires just two cards (Archer and any one of Battlemonger, Declaration of War, Sword of Quickness) of the first 7 to be lethal or pretty close to it on turn two. And since you can redraw without penalty, you have two shots at the brass ring.

There are ways to disrupt it, certainly. But the other problem is that if the opponent ever has his characters and creatures fully engaged, the Archer player can bust out with Archers + Vorex.

[Deleted]

What Keith is advising though is that while GA is very good, it is avoidable and does not reach his defintion of Broken.

An easy way to be broken is to kill your opponent the turn GA comes into play. How easily can that be acheived? Turn 1 Battlemonger, turn 2 GA and Vorex...that only kills Grimus, assuming they don't block. That's if you went first. If you went second, then maybe turn 1 creature and a Sword of Quickness on it. Turn 2 GA and Vorex, untap the GA, and move the Sword to GA, that deals 15 damage, assuming they don't block. That's still doesn't kill half the top characters. Even then, how many cards did that involve?

Now, if you open up with the GA and don't attack until the next turn, then most of the top decks will have several ways of dealing with it.

I don't think GA is 'broken' the way Turn 1 Spirit Song was, where it was very hard to come back from that. Do you see where I'm going with this?

[sojomojo]

Redshirt try adding birds in the example and see how much faster you get that combo. Not that birds are in the standard version of the deck but we are talking about hypotheticly how quickly to get he combo off.

[sobrokenjay]

queue said:

An easy way to be broken is to kill your opponent the turn GA comes into play. How easily can that be acheived? Turn 1 Battlemonger, turn 2 GA and Vorex...that only kills Grimus, assuming they don't block. That's if you went first. If you went second, then maybe turn 1 creature and a Sword of Quickness on it. Turn 2 GA and Vorex, untap the GA, and move the Sword to GA, that deals 15 damage, assuming they don't block. That's still doesn't kill half the top characters. Even then, how many cards did that involve?

acctually ill shar my opinion on ur combo lol, seeing how everyone wants to ban my combo =( i mite as well show u the real way to do it rite? ok listen up 1st turn GA 2nd turn bloodshed blade and vorex... swing for 20 untap swing for another 20,.... be afraid be very afraid =]

[redshirt]

sojomojo said:

Redshirt try adding birds in the example and see how much faster you get that combo. Not that birds are in the standard version of the deck but we are talking about hypotheticly how quickly to get he combo off.

I don't even think Birds would speed it up that much on average, because you need lands in play to power the combo and Birds don't give it to you. A god draw could do it, for instance:

T1: Forest, Birds. (2 cards out of 8 assuming you're going second)
T2: Forest, Heartbeat (4 cards out of 9)
T3: Mountain, Tap a Forest and Bird to cast Heartbeat. (6 cards out of 10) Your lands produce 3 mana. Put six mana in your pool, and play Heartbeat (7 cards out of 10) with GRR and then Early Harvest (8/10) with GGR. Tap out to put 12 mana of your pool and use GGG to Early Harvest (9/10) again. This leaves you with 10 mana floating. Put another 12 in your pool for a total of 22. You can kill with Blaze. (10/10)

So you would have to have the perfect hand and use as your kill mechanism a different one than the Heartbeat decks generally use these days because you can't transmute for it if need be.

If you were to try to kill with Maga, I think you would need yet another Early Harvest or Heartbeat so you could get over the 23-mana hump, putting you over the 10 cards you would have available to you by T3.

The point is, there are a number of ways to slow that combo down or defeat it altogether. The opponent has his T2 and T3 to eliminate the Bird and prevent the Heartbeat player from going off. And that's with the Heartbeat player getting the perfect hand/draws out of a 60 card deck, which as we can all imagine isn't very likely.

By contrast, the Goblin Archer player only has to get a decent draw to be able to hire Goblin Archer first turn and then put out one or two of the various enhancers on Turn 2 to potentially attack for lethal damage. That's 3 cards out of 7.

While you can stop the combo on Turn 2 from being lethal by saving an action and blocking, the real trouble is that the combo can come pretty much out of the blue on turn whatever via Vorex. (Assuming Battlemonger, Sword or Declaration had been played in previous turns).

[sobrokenjay]

guys guys this isnt magic lol lets not get to off topic with the birds and heart beat pllz and thank u

[Deleted]

sobrokenjay said:

queue said:

An easy way to be broken is to kill your opponent the turn GA comes into play. How easily can that be acheived? Turn 1 Battlemonger, turn 2 GA and Vorex...that only kills Grimus, assuming they don't block. That's if you went first. If you went second, then maybe turn 1 creature and a Sword of Quickness on it. Turn 2 GA and Vorex, untap the GA, and move the Sword to GA, that deals 15 damage, assuming they don't block. That's still doesn't kill half the top characters. Even then, how many cards did that involve?

acctually ill shar my opinion on ur combo lol, seeing how everyone wants to ban my combo =( i mite as well show u the real way to do it rite? ok listen up 1st turn GA 2nd turn bloodshed blade and vorex... swing for 20 untap swing for another 20,.... be afraid be very afraid =]

No, I might not have made myself too clear. Of course the best set up for killing the quickest way is the way you described or similar. But as I was trying to say, if you show the GA a full turn before you would attack with it, you give your opponent a significant opportunity to deal with it. That in itself takes away from "brokeness"

Keith said on his forum that one of the things that he would consider to be broken is to be able to kill your opponent with a card or card combo the turn it is played since that wouldn't give your opponent much of a chance at all. The examples I provided were to this effect, demonstrating that even in those situations the GA wasn't too 'broken". But all those are matter of opinion.

But I cleared that up a bit.

[sobrokenjay]

i see wut ur sayin now, i cant wait to see the look on sum faces at gencon when they get nocked up by 40 - 50 damage 2nd and 3rd turn

[Deleted]

...and I'll have to hand out tissue for the tears trickling down the pre-teens faces who thought they could make it big. Dreamcrusher!