While I guess a lot of all this depends on the actual cards we see out of MEV, isn't this a prime example of a card (ie Armed Escort) not working "the way it was intended to"? That has often been a good enough reason in previous cases to justify errata/ bannings.

Card not working as intended + Infinite combo = Errata/ Banning

Of course, there are still cards which don't "work the way they were intended to." Quicksilver comes to mind. But Quicksilver doesn't fire off an infinite combo as early as turn 3, and he gives you much more leeway to work with. Against a turn 3 infinite loop, if you don't draw any of your "tech" cards by turn 3, you lose. It might not matter that there are answers to the deck, if the window where these answers remain viable is ridiculously small; or if these answers require a very specific decktype to pull off effectively.


And there's also the possibility that, while this combo might not be consistent enough atm, it might eventually become a significant problem once it develops a better engine with the release of future cards (much like how JLoA needed the Archangel-X-Corp engine to work effectively).

How was Quicksilver not working the way he was intended to? It's plain and simple. Free >>> Ready Quickie.

There's no complexity to that.

I believe it was mentioned somewhere UDE originally wanted him to be some sort of weenie-killer; ie an early drop which could take out multiple small guys.

What Onyx said is right. If this 3 card combo is the core of the deck, there's no point playing anything else. The deck could simply be something like this.

4x Jaime Reyes <> Blue Beetle, High-Tech Hero
4x Coach, Manipulative Mentor
4x Doop, Forward Observer
7x (Whatever Energize 2 drop we can get)
4x Red Skull, Aleksander Lukin * RAID
1x Galactus, Devourer of Worlds
24 Characters

4x Armed Escort

4x Omnipotence
4x Pathetic Attempt
4x Salvage
4x O-Force
2x Have a Blast
2x Death of a Dream

4x Enemy of My Enemy
4x Straight to the Grave
2x Avalon Space Station
2x Slaughter Swamp
2x Soul World

So far that's 62 cards. Just take your pick on what to cut.

All you do is stall to turn 9. Everything else in the deck is just to make sure the combo sticks.


@Dysartes: Detective Chimp was banned because you could play powerful team-stamped cards without playing any character from that team. I believe Kent Farm became quite useful because of the Chimp.

QFT. Without knowing exactly what cards we'll be seeing in MEV, if the power works as stated, Armed Escort will create an infinite combo that should not come into existence.

Really the broken-ness of this combo will come down to:

1) Is there a visible 2 drop Energize character?

2) Can the pieces be assembled quickly enough and consistently enough to avoid the various counters to 2/3 drop characters and resources in the row? (These being counters that are useful and powerful in any deck, and as such not wasted silver bullet space)

(1) being a vital factor in (2)

Without the O-Force, the combo isn't half broken enough for GA, because it takes too long to wait for Thanos. With the O-Force, it's highly vulnerable to Richards Rival/HAB, without the 2 drop it's highly vulnerable to Reign, which would stop it on T4, and on T5 Mr Sinister/ Luthor would trump it.

Honestly, I don't think the combo can beat Doom reliably, which makes it not broken in GA.

It's irrelevant because it's Golden.

It's irrelevant because we wouldn't allow it in our Hobby League.

No Mega-Weekend will ever be Golden. Golden doesn't move product.

You realize O-Force doesn't work if your X-Statix 1 drop is KO'd by Mikado. So you'll need a Team-Up...oops now it's a 4-card combo.

You realize Flame Thrower beats you without ever attacking.

It's a silly interaction that only a tool would bring to play against their friends and that won't see the light of day in a relevant sanctioned event.

Voltage beats you on 4, Doom stifles and ends better than you do. Deadshot, Anarchy, hell even Political Pressure ruins assembling the combo later.

Stop crying that the sky is falling about an interaction that may not even exist or that a good HL TO wouldn't allow into their Hobby League.

CC

Ok, seriously, I have to ask... why are you so dead-set AGAINST this being fixed? It's no skin off anybody's back if UDE decides to clean up this loose end, so why are you getting so pissed off?

Stop, please.

Seriously, you are spewing so much ignorance it's painful.

3 card, infinite combo, before turn 8, that makes a card not work as intended, that can go off any turn your opponent attacks, that if it doesn't burn infinitely, instead just forces your opponent to NEVER ATTACK, and if they they don't have answers either way they lose without any interaction what so ever and if they're a new player, which I'm seeing a fair amount of, then that hurts the game on top of all the other concrete reasons that would get a card banned or fixed in the past that are here now.

"Doom beats it." So?

"Equipment hate beats it?" SO?!

"Oh my God, you NEEEED O-Force!" No. You don't. And.... SO!?

"It wouldn't be nice to play this at Hobby League! I'm a nice guy! I'd PUNCH somebody for playing this crap!" You're a loser.

This is not a hard question. This is not even a question. "Use this ability only once per turn." on Armed Escort, end of story. You can discuss how you would beat it all ####ing day and it still doesn't mean that it should not be fixed.

Parademon. Not good. Easily beaten. Didn't even day 2. ERRATA'D!

Unless the only Energize characters are cost 7 and above. So, fine, until there is preview for a character with cost less than 7 with Energize, we're all cool. But if you don't understand why this needs to be errata'd you don't understand the points I'm making, you're willfully ignoring them or just can't understand them and that's fine, you're more the fool for it.

Yeah, that was one of the major reasons. You clear their board in Faces of Evil, you have like 3-4 weenies left, make them Team Superman and team attack to the face. Thus crushing opponents on turn 4 like empty cans. Rigged Elections was pretty bad too. Any sort of recurring character or high volume recruit deck became a win condition with Detective Chimp and Rigged even without Cosmic.

-Mike

Just a note: I don't think you need O-Force or Thanos. Once the pieces of the combo are set (Energize character, Red Skull, Armed Escort), any attack will set it off. Also, I'm not sure why you would need a 2-drop necessarily... I think a 3-drop or 4-drop would work just fine.

By saying that the format is irrelevant and there are decks and cards that beat it is not a solution to the fact that this combo, and possibly others, will be detrimental to the game much in the way that Ivy League and Light Show were. (Which also had solutions, just not good ones.) This combo is no different than the other combos that were banned.

We've previously seen great, unbroken cards like Antarctic Research Base moved out to make way for new developments like the Fate Artifacts; regardless of your opinion on either of these cards, it was necessary to adjust the game accordingly to accommodate for growth. Armed Escort, which had never seen play before MUN, may be a casualty if we want the game to continue in exciting new ways.

And I must agree: I'm not sure why you're so insistent on the idea that the combo can be worked around. No one is disagreeing with you; the problem is that the solutions may not be consistent, and the developers may feel that the solutions should not have to be teched into every deck. (Much like Have a Blast! for Light Show and Sage for Ivy League.) Why leave it up to the TO and potentially alienate players who are faced with such a problematic situation? Your tournaments may be well-run, but that doesn't mean other people should suffer because there TOs shouldn't let them run sanctioned decks.

To be fair, it should be fixed.

Even though the combo's not environment altering broken (in my opinion), infinite loops shouldn't really be there.

Metas should be allowed to fix themselves right?

The issue is that there isn't a meta. Please for the love of god, answer this question:

Q: If it doesn't get banned...what format is it hurting that would be detrimental to the game?

THATS MY POINT.

It's a POTENTIAL COMBO that would do what? Ruin 1 week's worth of Hobby League?

After that it would get teched into oblivion.

Mega Weekend wouldn't get hurt by it, Marquee Events wouldn't get hurt by it, City Champs wouldn't get hurt by it.

If anyone is playing Golden Age its on the kitchen table, or between friends. If one of the guys from Hobby League attempted to play this deck, the first week we would let it slide, then COLLECTIVELY we wouldn't let him/her play it again.

And Mike, I never addressed you personally, I expect the same in return, because frankly you wouldnt act that way in person.

CC

Okay, in your situation, it ruins one week's worth of Hobby League games and gets someone pissed off at your League.

In the situation in which this Golden Age Crime Lords equipment card is errata'd to work as it was intended to...absolutely no one gets hurt in any way.

Your way involved a week or two of misery, arguments, fights, self-bannings, etc....

Our way involves a single announcement from UDE.

I understand that this is not a huge deal to you, but you are purposely choosing the path of greatest resistance for no reason that you've yet articulated other than "it wouldn't suck for long" which isn't a good enough reason to let such a turn 3 infinite combo slide.

That's an intelligent, well crafted retort...I like to work around combos because I don't like to scream at the top of my lungs to ban/errata unless it's the LAST OPTION. I respect people's love of Golden, I personally don't play it unless I have to, and even then I go and build a deck that is fun for me to play. Think about it. Let's say they don't do anything...what will happen? Someone will post about a random Hobby League 6-Man tourney that got trounced by "Flaming Skull.dec". That's the worst possible scenario right there.

The days of UDE worrying about PCs and 10Ks are long gone unfortunately.

They really don't need to do anything...

CC

Actually I gave the worst possible scenario. It wouldn't happen at HL because no one would even think of building it. There's nothing at stake anymore. We're playing for 2 Ultimate mats soon, like 5 of us really want it...so we're going to vote on dis-allowing Omnipotence for the Clone Saga Event. Why? Because Omni makes clone saga no fun.

I get it...it's an infinite combo...it sucks.

You're right, it MAY need to go, but really, explain a scenario to me where this hypothetical combo matters.

CC