Disable scute swarm until servers can handle it without crashing

[Typal_Tribal]

I play 4 player commander, and this card has crashed more games than any other card I've seen. Unless it's removed very quickly, it WILL crash the game. It's annoying to see a card that whenever it gets played almost always results in the game crashing and having to restart. Not an enjoyable experience. I have no problem with this card in paper, but until MTGO has servers that can handle the number of triggers it produces, this card should just be disabled. It's simply not a playable card online.

 

[Neo001992]

I would actually be all for this. It's super frustrating playing multiplayer commander and having a single card when encountered consistently crash the game, invalidating everyone's time spent during that game if it's not answered immediately. I think modo has a lot of problems with multiplayer commander not handling multiple triggers well, but Scute Swarm is in a class of it's own in terms of how likely it is to cause a game to crash singlehandedly.

 

[swiftwarkite2]

i think it would be better to simply errata scute swarm so that it say if you control 6 or more lands AND this creature is not a token create a token thats a copy of it instead. that way the number of guys goes from 1-2-4-7-11-16-22 instead of the current 1-2-4-8-16-32-64. in most games 22 dudes will be just as good as 64 dudes. this will retain almost all of the utility of the card while making it much easier for the game to handle

 

[Neo001992]

I would definitely be against making any modo exclusive errata that would leave us with a bastardized version of a card that would likely have the same effect as banning it.

 

[swiftwarkite2]

I would definitely be against making any modo exclusive errata that would leave us with a bastardized version of a card that would likely have the same effect as banning it.

well as probably the player who plays scute swarm the most on mtgo right now i would much prefer a bastardized version like what i suggested to banning the card alltogether.

 

[swiftwarkite2]

i put this in the same camp as the name sticker goblin solution. mtgo was unable to function with the card as printed in paper, so the errated it into something that could work on mtgo while still making it as close as possible to the paper version

 

[swiftwarkite2]

something even better would just to make it an optional trigger

 

[ManaDrainThis]

i put this in the same camp as the name sticker goblin solution. mtgo was unable to function with the card as printed in paper, so the errated it into something that could work on mtgo while still making it as close as possible to the paper version

The problem is that now name sticker goblin exists in a weird space where it is not a real card in paper but exists on Mtgo, thus codifying a paper/digital split. I would much rather they ban a problematic or non-functional card than create a new version of the card that functions differently than the original paper version.

 

[Firedrake]

There is precedent. According to Tony, Distant Memories is banned on MTGO due to game reset issues it causes.

 

[akwehhkanoo]

by this logic we should ban anything that tends to make more than 10 or so tokens, so take Smothering Tithe please? Rabble Rousing, Krenko (both of them).

In all seriousness I think its better to come up with a better solution of creating and displaying tokens that doesn't tend to crash the game. From what I've seen adding too many triggers to the stack or creating too many tokens in one turn causes this to happen. I have suggested in another thread that if the stack is long with repeated triggers or if there are a ton of the same token, you could represent it by one image with a counter over it, the way people might do in a paper game with one token and dice.

 

[Neo001992]

by this logic we should ban anything that tends to make more than 10 or so tokens, so take Smothering Tithe please? Rabble Rousing, Krenko (both of them).

In all seriousness I think its better to come up with a better solution of creating and displaying tokens that doesn't tend to crash the game. From what I've seen adding too many triggers to the stack or creating too many tokens in one turn causes this to happen. I have suggested in another thread that if the stack is long with repeated triggers or if there are a ton of the same token, you could represent it by one image with a counter over it, the way people might do in a paper game with one token and dice.

A lot of cards have the potential to crash games in combination with other cards/effects, but I would say Scute Swarm is in a special class of it's own in how it will eventually crash a game with certainty if it's left unmolested.

I would also agree that the better solution would be to make it so that the client could handle the level of tokens/triggers that cards can generate without rolling over and dying.

 

[GwennieMacrae]

I would hate to see Scute banned or nerfed for MTGO but I get the frustration. It sucks that in some ways it borders on being unusable on MTGO as I've seen it crash the game with as "few" as 30ish tokens.

I actually love the card and use it in a bunch of decks in Modern and Commander but yeah, I've also crashed the game and ruined it for myself and the other player tons of times too. I actually ended up taking it out of my Nadu commander deck because it ended up crashing the game virtually every time I played it.

I mean Im not a programmer/game designer or anything so I can't say I have a proper solution but yeah I too would love to see it so that the card could stay working as printed but just NOT crash the game. Which I understand is easier said than done of course.

The only thing I could think of would basically be the same thing akwehkanoo already suggested, like some kinda single card/token thing that would represent it with counters on it but I also get that creates it's own problem of like making it harder to keep track of what's tapped/untapped or like which ones have any kinda augment on them or whatever.

 

[laxpanther]

EDIT: Apologies to akwehhkanoo, I did not read all of their reply before I posted. Needless to say I agree in full with the serious part of that comment.

Just thinking out loud a bit...

Is there a way creation of a lot of token copies of something could be shortcut, by stacking the tokens? In other words, MTGO gets the prompt to (say) create 64 treasure tokens. Instead of pooping out 64 individual cards and potentially crashing the game, instead populate the board with 10 cards: 4 individual treasures, and 6 token cards that have a big "10" on them to denote 10 treasures. Or perhaps 14 individual treasures and 5 10x pieces, but you get the idea - limit the number of individual copies to a number that the system can handle and stack the rest for use as needed. Players would have the option to (or the system would automatically) break the 10 blocks if needed to pay costs or use creature tokens for attacking/blocking/convoking etc. If this worked, stacking 100 or even 1000 tokens into a single could be a possibility, though I don't see much need for tokens totaling 1000.

I'm sure this breaks something else, but it seems a lot more preferable than how things currently work. I would prefer even a relatively small token limit that allows the game to continue rather than the current system.