I’ve recently encountered a few broken mechanics IMO;
“If you have 10 mana crystals;” With 9 Mana crystals, use a coin, you now have 10/9. Technically you “have 10 mana crystals”. But it doesn’t trigger. Found out the hard way cost me the game because not only did I not heal myself, I used an extra 2 cards which triggered his 6/6 rat secret and prevented myself from being able to double trigger Shudderwock because I used my mana crystal. It’s frustrating because I’m looking at 10 mana crystals (10/9) but the card doesn’t highlight. It literally reads “if you have 10” and I do.
“Replay all other battlecries from cards you’ve played this game” Yet it doesn’t double trigger battlecries you’ve triggers twice. “From cards” supposed to negate this? Cause the battlecries were “triggered twice” “from that card” it doesn’t make sense why it only triggers once on battlecries you’ve double triggered. Again found out the hard way when I believed I had lethal because of double triggers and he survived because they only triggered once for each double.
“If your opponent has 4 or more”; This one I understand to an extent because the battlecry triggers individually and the opponent no longer has 4 minions, but I think it should trigger based on when it is played the condition was met. Basically it is saying that the battlecries include the if/when in them when the way I say it, if/when condition is met, then the battle cry, in this case “steal a minion” should trigger, and if its triggered twice, it should steal two minions regardless of if the if/when condition has changed because it was already met upon summoning. The if/when is basically considered apart of the ability which is counter intuitive.
(Although this does give the option for some battlecries that cannot possibly be triggered twice such as “if your health is odd restore 10 life” or “if your opponent has more 25 life deal 5 dmg”. Just a thought for future cards that are “OP” but cannot be abused by double trigger mechanics or recast mechanics)
“Whenever you cast a spell summon a 3 cost…”; Evolve doesn’t summon a minion before it is evolved. Yet every single other minion with abilities like this triggers first (Am I wrong?). Whenever I have seen a “whenever” ability, the moment it casts, before anything else, that card triggers, then the cast goes through, but with this interaction it evolves the minion before the card can trigger. This one is definitely off based on other cards that work exactly the same and trigger instantly before the spell or whatever triggers it is resolved/cast. Maybe I’m missing something and there is a difference in wording?
I’ve seen these types of inconsistencies in the past; one example I can think of is
Hobgoblin / Addled Grizzly. It used to be that minions summoned from spells wouldn’t trigger even if they met conditions. More recently I believe I’ve seen it trigger minions that were summoned by spells and also many other cards of the same type (Knife Juggler etc) trigger regardless. Not sure if I’m confusing the two (Hobgoblin / Addled Grizzly) and one does and one doesn’t trigger off spells, but either way it is confusing and inconsistent. I believe that it used to be it didn’t and they changed it but I could be wrong.
That’s all for now I’m sure there is more I can’t think of atm. It’s just annoying because there’s no way to know for sure until you do it and it can be the difference between a win and a loss.
Gives me another idea. Why not have a “training room” with a few dummies on opponents end and can try out various combos to see if/how they work. You could select starting mana, whether or not you have a mana crystal, reduce your deck size to 10, change starting health/armor, etc. Even select the board with AI that plays as it normally would and create situations. Then situations that have been verified to be beatable could be shared. I know MTG does the situation part of it but developers create them, it would be nice to have players create them and share them (Only if they can be passed). So the creators would have to complete it in order to submit it. The attempts by players could auto-rate the difficulty so ones that are passed frequently on first attempts would be 1 star, ones that take several attempts and/or aren’t passed after several attempts go up to 5 stars relative to other challenges 2-5 star.
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