Data Hack and other card steal/discard abilities

here's a thought:
would it not be simpler to go back to the old system - where the 'roman cancel' was allowed, but with one exception:
if you have put an ability/spell onto the stack (or started a stack), you cannot play a non-spell until the stack is resolved. (card abilities of course can still be added to the stack as you'd expect)

therefore, the issue of roman cancel is avoided, without causing a clickwar for discard/steal cards in the play phase?

personally, i think that would fix the problem that is currently being discussed here.

thoughts, ideas?

It'd prevent the play-counter Roman Cancel, but it would still allow some instances of sac-response Roman Cancel.

Thing is, there'd still be clickwar in that it's castable on the Draw and Sacrifice phases still. It'd reduce the clickwar potential but it wouldn't eliminate it.

well i think the fact is that no matter what happens, you'll never be able to fully eliminate it.
so it's more a matter of finding the acceptable level

besides, most people i play don't exploit click wars - but maybe that's just to do with the time of day that i'm online

Since the thread was revived, does anyone have an objection to tossing the new keyword onto the 3 discard/steel monsters to stop locks? We can argue about the spells/marshes later but tossing it on those 3 seems like the most imporntant thing to me, and one of the things both me and Astral agree on.

As far as I'm concerned, this is a clickwar-reducing measure, and not a balance issue. A card being expensive doesn't remove the fact that it causes clickwars. If we add the keyword, I say we use it on almost all of the cards discussed - exceptions being the likes of Author, Avenger and Spybot. And that you're proposing that only the rarely used cards get changed as opposed to the more commonly used ones, huh?

Of course, that it's one of the few things that both you and Astral agree on outweighs all of the above. Also, you said imporntant, which is a pretty convincing argument in its own right.

Personally, I agree with you masa, but I'd sound pretty stupid asking if anyone disagreed to adding it to all the discussed cards but Author, Avenger and Spybot, knowing full and well at least one person didn't agree to 2 of them. implicating the things everyone agrees on seemed like a good first step.

Well, consensus can be reached even if there's a dissenter or two...

Should Mindflay Marshes be left out and then given it's own thread? I recall that we had some agreement based on if it was added that it'd have a lower cost.

That sounds good. Mindflay Marshes has a few more complications involved with its changes then the other cards have.

Plus I don't think there was a full decision on whether to limit it to 'own turn only' or 'combat damage only'. Though I personally see nothing wrong with discussing it in this thread...

Guess that means we need a summary then:

Currently, Mindflay Marshes can be combo'd with a number of direct damage cards (some repeatable) to not only deplete the opponent's hand very quickly, but lock them completely via a clickwar.

The solutions to this proposed are:
1. Limit discard only to combat damage.
2. Limit discard only to direct damage caused when the player is not actively taking their turn (effectively the opponent can't cause discard via direct damage during the player's draw, sac, play and attack phases).

Either of these would result in a cost decrease to keep the card usable.


Arguments for it are rather obvious. It helps to remove a clickwar. More arguably, it also keeps the opponent from locking the player down by making them discard the card they draw at the beginning of their turn.

Arguments against are the location costs enough to make the combo costly enough to try to get working, that removal of this combo is effectively removing the only combo the card has, and that limiting the discard and reducing the cost only helps rush decks and limits the uses to decks that use invisible attack and stall.

There were also a number of complaints that discard-lock decks aren't common and so aren't a concern.

Balance Codex Wrote:Popularity is not a measure of power.

This is usually used to say a card isn't bad just because no one uses it. However, it also works the other way and says that just because people don't take advantage of an abuse, doesn't mean that it isn't an abuse.

There's also the question of what Mindflay Marsh's purpose was meant to be. Autoguns, Torpedo Launchers, Drones, and a bunch of other direct damagers weren't around when it first appeared. Repeatable direct damage consisted of Holy Banishers and Kelar Shadows. Feedback, Kerpow, Uprising... single use direct damagers were limited and very costly. Kinda makes me think that it was originally designed for use with combat damage. So it probably ought to be useable for that - even if not exclusively.