Way too many " instant win " cards

[76561198051514398]

It's very annoying when getting 1 lucky card gives you a better chance at winning then having a diverse deck with a good strategy

[Noshur Viverse]

That sounds to me that your deck is neither appropriately diverse or built around a good strategy

[Caesar]

An all-around deck is not better than specialized decks, it just has fewer weak points and there's no such thing as instant win cards, they are all conditional.

[HolyRay]

which "instant win" cards you mean there?

[mitrovich]

It's getting worse. Restrict mundane cards to add ones that win on their own. The game has been declining since the last edition.

[shattered fractal]

Originally posted by Noshur Viverse:

That sounds to me that your deck is neither appropriately diverse or built around a good strategy

"If your HQ has over 30 health, do 20 points to the enemy HQ."

OP is right though: a deck build that advocates the use of this card (and others like it, especially when you can have more than one in the deck!) is for a game that isn't for serious players anymore. How do you build a deck to fight against 20 damage all at once?

These types of cards are very disappointing to see.

[romy]

Originally posted by shattered fractal:

How do you build a deck to fight against 20 damage all at once?

Have more than 20HP or keep opponent under 30HP.

Alternatively, you can discard the card, make opponent overdraw it, increase its cost so it costs more than max Kredits or simply counter it with a countermeasure. You can also use the recently added finnish countermeasure SISU so the opponent HQ takes 20 damage instead of yours.

[HolyRay]

Originally posted by shattered fractal:

"If your HQ has over 30 health, do 20 points to the enemy HQ."

Yeah kinda shame developer didn't make it 18 damage instead of 20, but the deck that utilize it normally have many draw card, and units that let them recover their HQ by dropping another unit/draw a card, the other card is about 7*4 defense recovery. If you shut down those units, you already 30% win, you do damage and not allowing them to gain +30 defense on HQ, you're 60% win, the rest is just about your deck and how you play it.

[puschit]

Originally posted by shattered fractal:

Originally posted by Noshur Viverse:

That sounds to me that your deck is neither appropriately diverse or built around a good strategy

"If your HQ has over 30 health, do 20 points to the enemy HQ."

OP is right though: a deck build that advocates the use of this card (and others like it, especially when you can have more than one in the deck!) is for a game that isn't for serious players anymore. How do you build a deck to fight against 20 damage all at once?

No, no and no.
The OP is complaining about getting lucky draws where a single card turns the game upside down. Commonwealth does that but the entire deck is build around that card and the rest is for defense, so this will never be a lucky topdeck - drawing it at some point is inevitable.
How do you fight against it? Oh there are so many things. He isn't dealing much or any damage otherwise so if you gain a single extra life he can't kill you (and he has only one Commonwealth). You can counter that thing with something as simple as Interception. You can make him discard or overdraw it. You can increase it's cost so he can't cast it without ramp. But the most obvious one is killing him fast enough (it's a 12k order after all) or at least keep him below 30 life because he won't deal any damage if that condition isn't met. Yes, that deck has tons of lifegain, removal and delaying cards, but that's what this deck does. Let's face it, if he still has 30+ life 20 turns into the game, you would not have won that thing anyway, Commonwealth or not.

As I said before in other threads, I don't like that card either but it is the single worst example for what the OP says. Blitzkrieg - I would agree on that. But not Commonwealth, where all 39 other cards are working hard to make this one card work including prolonging the game as long as needed even if Commonwealth is the last card of your deck. It's only technically an "instant win" as you go down from 20 to zero in one turn but the true battle is fought before, you just lose a little bit every turn the opponent gains more life than you deal damage

[Khaybar]

I can think of Commonwealth only. But overall, there are also cards that can turn entire battle into your favor instantly, which are mostly board wipes and other ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ combos. I wish we could get more of gameplay that we used to have in beta, where the game was more about units and orders/deployment effects were just side part of the game not having such gamebreaking impact like it is today.

[shattered fractal]

Originally posted by puschit:

...(it's a 12k order after all)...

I don't think there's an argument about the strategy needed when the design of the game prior to this release was such that even the UNIT cost of the B-29 is fifteen points. If you don't own the front line, you simply cannot place the unit without having more credits than the default maximum, and that unit cannot win the game in 1 turn.

Both the cadence and philosophy of the game changes when an ordinary card becomes a one-turn win... as for myself, it's the same sort of loss of character as when Magic the Gathering became a group game, rather than a 1v1 battle; it changed the face of the game forever.

I think that is what happens to KARDS with this change, and I don't like that very well.

[puschit]

What are you talking about, Magic has always been a game that could be played both as a 2 player game and multiplayer. In fact it was more about kitchen table games in the early days compared to now. Back then in the 90s we got Grand Melees with as much as 120 players on conventions. And cards like Wheel of Fortune refer to "ALL players" from Revised and on - Revised is from 1994 :)

[shattered fractal]

The adaptation to multi-play was a turning point in terms of how the cards were designed. If you were in that far back, you know the default example was a 1v1 game, as explained in the basic rules.

But that's a sideshow discussion; the last point on topic here was that a unit can't 1 turn win even with a higher-than-max cost, while another card with a max cost can 1-card win.

The balance is broken.

[puschit]

Yes, the very first edition was for 1-on-1 and just a year the rules got, well, revised with the Revised edition. A single year. 99% of all current Magic players have started later than that, so for all practical measures, it has always been a game for MP. Commander wasn't the beginning of a new era - it copied the EDH format that was made BY THE PLAYERS because, as I said, the multiplayer kitchen table variation of Magic had always been strong and has even been the norm for most players back in the day.

[the pooterman]

basically if you can afford the whole deck, elites and all, you win. and if you cant then suck it up and lose to people that can!

[the pooterman]

but now its just finnish card to swing the battle in ur favor lol