Prime Warden Captain Cosmic's (nigh infinite) or limitless loop

So with the foil's change to the wording to remove "instead" on Prime Warden's power he can enter into a limitless loop maintaining the loop as long as he desires.

This makes the draw or play a card seperate from the shuffling act and allows for the limitless loop. The loop can be done with 2 uses of the power before the start, but much easier with 3 or more uses before the start of your next turn. When you play "Conservation of Energy" or "Construct Cataclysm" you either must destroy or can destroy up to all of your constructs in play. As the destruction of a construct interupts the chain of destroying constructs to allow you to draw or play a card you can draw and play a card which if your deck is nothing but constructs can continue without limit.

At 3 instances of power uses you can draw 2 cards and play one card giving a net increase of 1 card in your hand and as long as the card played is a construct you may continue this chain until your deck is either in play or in your hand.

Captain Comsic's deck consists of 23 constructs and 17 other cards and the fact that the power shuffles the destroyed cards into the deck means constructs are either in play waiting to be destroyed, in hand waiting to be played or in the deck waiting to be drawn. The deck is already weighted for a construct to be more likely drawn then not leaves this very easy to sustain while you build your deck into your hand. This ultimately means you can continue drawing and playing cards until the player breaks the chain by refusing to play more constructs. At the least that "Construct Cataclysm" can do nigh infinite damage increase without limit.

An even more damaging combo that is easily achievable as you now have limitless plays is to cycle destroying and playing two "Autonomous Blades" with "Potent Disruption" Dealing 5 damage plus 2 damage from the blade. Replaying the blade resets the first time qualifier.

Essentaily once the chain is started Captain Comsic wins the game. 

The conditions to achieve this loop are not difficult and can be done with any hero team with Prime Warden Captain Cosmic, in any environment as Captain Cosmic can allow out of turn hero powers with his Dynamic Siphon. Obviously this is easier with heros that allow other power uses like Argent Adapt, Prime Warden Fanatic, and America's Greatest Legacy.

Tests of this loop are defeating the Weekly oneshot in the vidoe game with the prime wardens in the second round. A game against Voss where he was defeated during the first environment turn.

As it stands the current ruling on this power is broken and needs to be fixed. The problem comes from the combination of being able to destroy multiple constructs with one play and being able to draw or play more then once per destruction. The easiest way is to have the draw or play conditional on shuffling so you can only draw or play once per construct destroyed. It's still a very strong and versatile power with this limitations, but not broken.

Attached is a picture during the second round where CC has no deck or discard and just playing cards till he defeats his brother.

This came up in the original testing of PWCosmic, which is what led to the "instead" on the original which nullified a lot of the synergy in his deck. I believe McBehrer was the first to recongize and argue against this exploit. 

It does make games with him less fun when you pull this off, so I tend to agree that tying the shuffling to the action is a good way to go (though this limits the usefulness of Unflagging Animation.) 

I don't want to take credit for first discovering the loop, I just want the loop to be fixed.

The instead also gave the consequence of not allowing construct destructions to count with Potent Disruption or Construct Cataclysm. I don't want that to change. 

I suggest adding an "if you do" clause which would be the best of both worlds, card dustructions count and you can only play/draw once.

The person to convince is Christopher on this for the printed version.   However, playing on the tabletop there is nothing to stop you from house ruling that it's only one draw/play per Construct destroyed.  

I read the new updated wording as still having the draw/play option being conditional on shuffling the card into the deck.  And since you can only shuffle the card in once no matter how many times Absorbtion was stacked, you can only draw/play one card per destroyed construct.  I was very surprised when the video game implemented it so that Absorbtion stacked, and that the draw/play happened independent of the shuffling.

According to Christopher it stacks and a similar power I would reference that also stacks is Omnitron-U's power which can give you multiple instances of two fire damage for just one of his cards being destroyed. 

That is an incorrect interpretation.  I don't care if that is Christopher's interpretation, it is wrong.

The new foil card says "Whenever a construct is destroyed you may shuffle it into your deck and either draw or play a card."

If you have two of that effect active when a construct is destroyed you would go in order of your choosing.

So you would choose one of the effects to process first, shuffle the card in and draw or play a card.

Then you would move to the second one, and have two possibilities:

1.  The effect digs through the deck to find the card you just shuffled into the deck and shuffles it back into the deck then you draw or play a card.

2.  The effect has no card to shuffle in so it fizzles.

#2 is how every other conditional effect with an "and" clause works.  That's how they should work.

The idea that a single action can count as meeting the requirements for multiple conditional costs has been ruled out for a very long time, and the Video Game continues to support that.

The Video Game's treatment of this effect is wrong.  The loop is not legal.

It wouldn't be legal only if the original wording on the variant was present.  With this change it can stack as it has wording similar to other powers which can stack. With the wording as is the draw and play are not dependent upon a shuffling a Construct into your deck.  I feel a wording change would have to be done so that this power doesn't stack.  In a different thread MigrantP has stated they will talk with Christopher about it again.  

Then you can decline shuffling a construct into your deck and still get the play and draw?

Yes. 

Why?  My understanding was that the shuffling was added specifically to prevent stacking, specifically to avoid the infinite loop that is made possible if the effects do stack.  Why was that changed, violating GtG's very clear (up until this point) policy of preventing infinite loops whenever possible?

The interpretation that the video game uses is entirely valid.  But it flies in the face of everything I understand about SotM design, and the design process of PW CC in particular.

The wording changed it no longer has the instead clause.  That instead clause prevented the loop and they discussed this with Christopher after it was updated with the Foil release.  The easy fix in my mind is change it to until the the next you use a power like Best of Times CR has.  

That… actually would have been a really excellent fix.  Cleanly and easily stops the stacking, and actually makes Absorbtion a little more powerful by allowing it to last into CC's play phase.  Why wasn't that wording used?

I wish I knew.  

Powerhound I really like that suggestion. Really lets all the strengths of the removing the include plus the added bonus of working during your turn without allowing for the limitless loop.

The wording has to fit on a physical card at a legible size.

"Until the start of your next turn" is only 2 characters shorter than "Until the next time you use a power", although admittedly, the characters are long enough that it's really more like 3.  Even so, the length would be shorter than before "instead" was removed.

You asked why, and I gave the answer so far as I know.

Best of times was made after PW CC. I think the clause from Best of time would have been tried, if it had been invented at the time.

It doesn't matter how anyone interprets the power or how it "should" work. As of right now, its actual implimentation into the video game is plainly and obviously broken.

@MigrantP, how do you think this will be addressed, if at all, moving forward?

Yeah, I'm honestly baffled at why this change was made. It's not like other infinite damage tricks that need a specific environment card with two or more specific characters -- PWCC can do this anywhere, practically at will.

Well, isn't that what powers his ring?

The video game implements the intention of Christopher. The video game is not broken, and does not work incorrectly (except for an outstanding timing bug).

We'll bring it up again with Christopher, but how the rules of the game work is not my decision.

The "until the next time you use a power " clause was suggested for the original version of Absorption, but it wasn't used.

I still don't see how removing the instead on the shuffle seperated the shuffling and playing or drawing.

The entire opint of "shuffling instead" was to get rid of the loop by limiting the player to one draw/play per destruction.  The instead only cancelled the destruction, removing that allows the destruction to process for other effects.

Right now the official ruling is that the entire time Christopher and playtesters were trying to fix that loop we were operating under false pretences.

Which ticks me off because we were working with Christopher.  To come out now with the only official ruling on the card and to reverse course after working with us to solve the situation with the understanding that the opposite was taking place, seems really dishonest.

And for what?  To pointlessly make the card broken and stupid?  (because infinitie damage loops are broken, and shuffling being an option for absolutely no reason is stupid)

This is stupid and wrong.

EDIT:  I'm angry at the ruling, and that the playtesting process seems to have been undone and the game hurt for no reason.  I am not angry with the Video game or the people who make or test it, they do a great job.

The wording got changed with the foil set sent out.   As to why it didn't get noted to playetesters with this release I'm not sure.

100% agree

This is disheartening. Thanks for the response MigrantP.

Personally, I plan on never using this ability more than once per round… to me, stacking it feels too cheap and removes too much of the challenge of the game. Hopefully, this ruling is just a matter of Christopher not realizing how game breaking this is as currently applied and changes his mind.

I do like that the power can now trigger on destruction effects and that it no longer needs to work against Unflagging Animation.

There was long winded PT discussion threads on this very topic which led to him changing the language in the first place from its original wording. It's been known why this was problematic for a long time.

So how could one actually break this? Asking for a friend...

Easiest way is to use PW Captain Cosmic, PW Fanatic, and Greatest Legacy, since they grant additional power uses with their own default powers.  Have CC go first, play a construct and use his power, then have the other two activate his power, then get a construct destroyed before CC's next turn.  Draw a card, play a construct, then play either Construct Cataclysm (ideally) or Conservation of Energy to destroy that construct.  Then your loop is set up; each time a construct is destroyed, you play a construct and draw two more cards (and at some point play Construct Cataclysm if you haven't yet).

I just gave this a test in the app, as an experiment.  PW CC, PW Fanatic, Greatest Legacy, Ra, and some poor schlub who didn't even get a turn vs. Advanced Iron Legacy in Rook City (which I would never ordinarily attempt).  Worked like a charm.  I thought I might be in trouble when Superhuman Redirection came out, but it didn't matter--with three triggers per construct destruction, I had plenty of extra plays to use on Harsh Offense and Potent Disruption, so the kicker of Construct Cataclysm actually dealing damage wasn't even necessary (plus a lucky 5-point Harsh Offense used up the redirect).  Most likely only two triggers would be enough to pull off the loop most of the time.  But I have no desire to try it again myself--even with Iron Legacy's low HP, slogging through the whole process is extremely tedious (it ate up over 40% of my phone battery).

Gotta add my voice to the wtf crowd on this one. I don’t hold Handelabra responsible for this one, nor do I see it as a “sky is falling” situation since you can house rule on the tabletop and just not double dip CC’S power on the videogame. However, working as intended it is unbelievably broken as it is so incredibly easy to setup and get rolling.

I don’t think any 3 man team should be able to defeat any villain save The Dreamer and Miss Information on round 1.

Presumably you're discounting a lucky start against the Wager Master, which I think can end in a win/loss during set up (or at least during Wager Master's first turn) if the cards come out right ;).

Also, Iron Legacy :D.

I think that NinjaMonkey’s point was that this team can defeat any villain, not that no other team can defeat specific villains.

Also, those things are uncontrollable, and don’t line up perfectly very often at all. The PW CC combo does require a specific set of heroes, but can be pulled off the majority of times.

The PW:CC combo requires Captain Cosmic and a single Dynamic Siphon to pull off. Sure a specific set of heroes makes it easier, but the combo can be pulled off with PW:CC and any 2 random heroes who can hit for 1 or 2 points of damage.

...Shouldn't this thread be in the videogame forum since from what I'm reading that's what most of you are complaining about?

Arguable.  It's really a rules issue.  It's demonstrated in the video game because the video game is immune to house rules and player interpretations, but video game is supposed to be the perfect implementation of the rules of the card game, so the issue involves both of them.  It is just that in the card game, the official ruling can be overwritten by house rules, which is not possible for the video game.

It right it is in the wrong forum, but since it is a rules issue that applies to both the card game and video game, I am moving it to the rules forums.

Either there or rules forum.   Really this is questioning a ruling Handelabra was given by Christopher in regards to PW Captain Cosmic.  

I wonder if Guise could pull it off with Super Ultra Kawaii and 3x I can do that too.  Would be a lot harder, since it's a lot more set up needed, and much smaller percentage of the deck is constructs and the ability to destroy them.

I 100% agree with this post from phantaskippy. Including the part where he said I was wrong. I definitely was, and I appreciate the passion here for getting things right.

I just had a meeting with the Handelabra team, and they're working on implementation of that in the next patch. Sorry for the confusion.

Who says things don't get done around here?

Well done MigrantP, Handelabra, and Christopher. Thanks for talking about this issue and getting it fixed.

Been a while since Christopher commented on a rules question in the forum.  I realize I've been arguing why it works as it does currently in the video game but I do agree I'd prefer not to see this loop caused by stacking the power in the video game.  

I'm glad to see things got resolved amicably.

So, to clarify, the draw/play is now contingent on the shuffle? 

I would say that's a reasonable assumption but we won't have the definitive answer until the video game implementation.  

darkroydante, that is correct. 

Sorry for giving a definitive answer ahead of schedule, Powerhound!

I like this version, because it's easily understood, and it still works with Sustained Influence. Shuffle the construct back into the deck, draw a card, destroy Sustained Influence and grab the construct right back out of the deck! (I hope.)

I guess I can accept that as well.  

Who says fandoms can't get things done? :O

points finger

Stop pointing at me!

OK, everything here seems resolved. I'm going to stop watching this space (I was anticipating at least some grumpiness about the ruling, but looks like we're good) and so, with that, it's time for

*smoke bombs*

Grrr rulings.

stomp stomp.

Grr*cough*dang smoke*cough*Grrr.

You guys! We totally missed an opportunity to hold Christopher’s attention!