I'm posing this question:
When does an infinite combo become ban-worthy?
We saw Moloids.dec get nerfed almost immediately.
Now we have the horrible Jackal.dec (Check metagame.com if you don't know what I'm talking about.)

Jackal combo is obviously awful, and should lose 90% of the time to Voltage and Titans, but it is nonetheless an infinite combo that you need something to interfere with your opponents plans or you will lose.

So, do awful combos need to be dealt with too? How many cards does a combo need to go off before its considered a complete pile?
Just food for thought... not much interesting coversation going on lately... lets hear what we all have to think...

it depends on a few factors....

1 - reliability
if your combo is card intensive and you can't really tutor for them effeciently, it's bad.
(ex: your combo is more than 10 cards and the teams it needs to make it happen have no tutors for the location and characters and plot twists AND the equipment)

2 - disruptability
if it dies to something everyone plays (or does naturally thoughout the course of the game), it's bad.
(ex: your combo requires your 1,2,3,4, AND 5 drops to all still be around on turn 6 when none of them are concealed)

3 - turn it "goes off"
if your combo waits 'till turn 8 to do its thing, nobody cares.
(ex: any combo involving the JLI Dr Fate)

Personally I am not a huge fan of allowing any infinite combo - and though in the late games (ie Doom + Press) it is more reasonable to expect them - anything prior to turn 5 seems to be just asking for a degenerate metagame.

Don't get me wrong - I love infinite combos several ways till monday - but the quickest way to discourage new players is to have them be thoroughly smashed match after match against a deck that offers little to no interaction.

Sure High Voltage has the potential to put the game away as early as turn 4 - but at least you are DOING something during those 4 turns and actively participating in a match.

Most combo decks (particularly infinite combo decks) roughly break down to your opponent attempting to smash your face in while you do nothing but shuffle your deck six ways till monday searching for your combo pieces until you finally have them all in hand.

With that said - I don't think the judge on whether or not they allow an infinite combo should be based on consistancy - but rather its effects on the metagame should that combo deck be allowed to run unchecked.

For this reason - original Light Show = bad, Doom Press = acceptable.

'Just my two cents.

decks that don't involve a combat phase are boring, people that play them simply don't know how to perform the correct attacks, i've played my share of combo decks and they are boring, light show was fun, but boring, moloids was just boring also, new school takes forever, im glad high voltage came around and that titans is still up there. I really want PCLA to be full of combat based decks, not exhaust ur field next turn decks.

Considering how the Jackal combo has been known for a long time and no action has been taken, I'm going to assume unless someone puts up a good showing at a 10k or the PC with it, Its going to be here to stay.

There are many new elements that make the Jackal combo more viable than it ever has been. It wasn't genuinely available until JLA, and HOG has given it its first big bump in awhile. But it is terrible pay no attention to the deck, or combo, nothing to see there move along.

...could you explain this to me?
for some reason, i've got it in my head that "fun" and "boring" are kinda like boolean opposites...

Maybe it's like Risk.. You get a group of guys together, pass around the alcohol and begin a late night conquest of the world dictated by dice rolls. This invariably continues through mindless moving of pieces and rolling of dice until finally one person in the group realizes that they really don't like the game and decides to declare nuclear war on the rest of the board.

For those that haven't played Risk, nuclear war is essentially the end all doomsday scenario where after losing an important victory when you roll snake eyes, you take the board and throw it across the room in a fit of anger.

I would wager 87% of all Risk games are either a) never finished or b) suffer from this unfortunate ending.

With that said - despite this debilitating ending the next time you get a group of guys together and opt for a "fun" time - invariably everyone forgets how the last game ended and you decide to play a "fun" game of Risk that begins te cycle a-new.

Sure it seems like a fun idea until your mid-way through conquering Asia and you finally realize that despite spending 6 hours on the land war to unite Euro-China you still probably have another 12 hours of moping up the board before you win :(

And thus Mission Risk was born. But I preger Junta on those nights anyway.

Mission Risk is fun as long as people don't take things personally. We usually finish in under four hours!:classic:

[quote=RyanDG]



I would wager 87% of all Risk games are either a) never finished or b) suffer from this unfortunate ending.

QUOTE]

Awesome observation. I'm a veteran of many wars waged over world domination and there's probably been a handful that were actually finished. Usually it's that horrible counting of countries and armies finish due to it being ridiculously late.

Jackal.dec is good stuff, bad decks that run little non-combat interaction lose to it due to the fact that you can recover jackal with Muir Island or any recovery plot twist then go off with cosmic rad. However, this is the most easily disrupted combo I've seen in a while. Reality Gem, Have a blast, noncombat stun (in resp to going off), noncombat KO/Stealing (pretty much seals the game right there), and phantom zone (can't forget it lol) dominate this deck so bad.

Noncombat oriented decks tend to be FAR better than combat oriented decks (almost all good GA decks are noncombat, see Voltage (burn), titans, doomwithotherteams.dec, madhatter+poisonivy.dec)

This thread was started to bring up banning and combos or infinite combos we looked at the Jackal, and now we have Bart Allen / Human Torch, is this anymore or less ban/errata worthy? Is it simply because it more/less dangerous/realistic/possible?

since it goes off turn 5 but takes the alot of team it might stay untill it win something. Just like ramma light had alot of team except the new version didnt. just Doom and MoE that was the really broken deck. Using hard sound constuct with ramma tut and devils due. Turn 3 win if you use latveria.

Rama-Tut was errata'd before Hard Sound Construct was even released. What are you talking about?

I think Hide Johnny needs to be errata'd. There's a fair amount of room in the build for tech slots and you can search for freakin' everything but non-ongoings so I don't think it's very hard to set up.

-Mike