Yeah I apologize for that, hard for me to mix things right. If it sounds fine on my headphones (while I'm editing) it sounds bad on my earbuds and worse on my phone speakers. I cant seem to find the balance yet. Getting a new mic instead of switching between 3 will probably help me normalize audio levels going forward hopefully.
Win conditions are so funny to me because it makes any set up from your opponent worthless. One that I remember being especially funny to me was in the pokemon TCG “slowbro’s walk off homer”. Such a troll card.
I do think you can find a semblance of cool flavor in Thassa’s Oracle. If the library is meant to be your sum total of knowledge, the Oracle looking at your entire library is like seeing the exact actions you need to assure victory. I dunno, that’s at least how I imagined it.
the flavor is a little bit undermined by the fact that usually, you empty your library... meaning... the oracle has found all knowledge in the world, because the world contains no knowledge?? i feel like it would make more sense if you did it when you had a sizable chunk left and your devotion to blue was just that high. would be neat if it was something like "if x = 60 or more" since thats your starting deck size, but that'd just be far too impossible to achieve. what if it said something like. If X is greater than or equal to your devotion to blue, reveal the top card of your library. If Thassa, Deep-Dwelling is revealed this way, you win the game. the point being that now you have to - mostly mill your library without entirely milling it - ensure that the specific target card remains in the library (perhaps you play other scry effects and purposefully scry it to the bottom) - are possibly encouraged to keep more in your library and have greater devotion instead, to have a greater chance of finding the target card - and in flavor, it sort of makes sense that the oracle is making a prediction and has to find a specific future (though there might be a more flavorful target card than just Thassa, idk)
devotion to blue = more knowledge = deeper scry effect. If devotion bigger then your deck = your faith in thassa is greater then anything you otherwise have in your mental arsenal, you are granted a boon of your god, winning the battle instantly. Its a really neat and simple design.
The way I flavor Thassa’s Oracle is that it’s like Achieving Heaven in the JoJo sense. In particular, that requires temporarily destroying the source of your powers, which checks out with the risky nature of deleting your library. This also means that forcing your opponent to draw a card while their library is empty corresponds to oxygen poisoning.
The problem I have with it is mostly because it's an easier way to win than winning the game normally. Even with Yugioh's insane combos you're at least using damage to win.
You're giving me major Rhystic Studies and Ceave Gaming vibes, in the best way. I was kind of expecting a more design-oriented approach as to how alternate win conditions create fun play, but I love your focus on the fluff, because it is actually incredibly important.
Funny you mention Uther. In Wild currently, there is a semi-viable build that has made the otk the easiest its ever been. It involves two minions that are two mana: one allows your hero power to trigger twice, the other lets you press your hero power twice in a turn. There are cards that allow you to order your deck high to low mana, letting you draw Uther next turn, and there's a paladin legendary (that's tutorable too) that sets both players mana to 10, which lets you play Uther next turn. Then you can either play Call to Arms or just draw the combo pieces and it's made the deck go from meme to something that could get you to legend on ladder.
This is a *really* good video. Its very interesting how win condition cards feel cheap without some kind of mythology or fluff around them to justify their existence, but ironically enough their use in play and the stories that come out of it can *become* that mythology itself (i.e. Final Countdown). It kind of reminds me of how pro tournaments for the Legend of the Five Rings TCG were considered canon to the setting and effected the characters and events in the story.
"Yugioh doesn't have lore outside the cards themselves." Someone hasn't heard of Duel Terminal, World Legacy, Abyss/Branded, and so on... And while it's true now that Yugioh media is made to support the game, that wasn't the case for Exodia. When it appeared in the manga, the idea of Yugioh even being a game at all wasn't even a consideration. The game was built around the manga, not the other way around.
I stumbled upon the second sun win con by mistake initially. I bought the "Second Sun Control" challenger deck on a whim during my earlier MTG days because I thought the cover card looked cool, made even cooler with it being a god. It wasn't long before I realized exactly what I had really gotten my hands on however. I did end up cautiously testing it out against my brothers and step dad a few times just to see how viable it was while I had it, though I wouldn't have ever built such a deck on my own otherwise. Turns out, it was scarily effective right out of the box, losing only a single game, and even then, only by a single turn. I ultimately opted not to even consider playing it again for a very long time, and to this day haven't taken it out aside from 1 other time after having given in to upgrading the deck significantly, and beating my step dad with it in a double blue-white control battle of wits. I still wish to upgrade it even further, as I have now committed to building the deck as efficiently as possible under legacy legality (as my playgroup basically defaults to "kitchen table legacy"). That being said, even if it becomes my most powerful deck (assuming it isn't already), it shall forever remain locked away in my forbidden vault, only to be released on extremely rare occasion to prove it still has its grit, before being swiftly locked away again as not to taint the mood for too long. Again, not a card i ever would have thought to build around on my own accord, knowing how Inherently unfun it is to play against, but in this case, the deck chose me, and so its legacy shall remain.
In my opinion, alternate win conditions are only fun when there's sufficient counterplay other than rushing your opponent down before they can get it off. Otherwise, you might as well be playing rock, paper, scissors if you automatically beat everything that isn't aggro. I'll use an example from the early days of Shadowverse (yes, once upon a time people actually played that game). There were two big "I win the game" cards seeing play. One was an amulet (goes on board, can't be attacked) for 8 mana that destroys itself at the end of the turn, and summons another amulet, that does the same thing etc. Destroy the 5th amulet and you win. The other was a 20 mana card that says "Take an extra turn. Costs (1) less for each spell you've played". I believe the first card had a higher winrate, but my god were people furious with the second one. Why? Counterplay. Everyone has the ability to play a card that removes amulets from the game, but if your opponent gets an extra turn, you have no agency at all. That's it, you lose. The Bandle Tree in Legends of Runeterra and its nerf is another perfect example. It used to be the case that you won the game if you had played cards from every region and then played the tree. It was not very fun and it got changed to the tree having been in play at the same time as cards from every region in order to win. Pretty much killed the deck, but when I busted out a Tree deck half a year later, my opponents' responses weren't angry or salty. They were really hyped and asked for the decklist, because there's no way it should work after the nerf, but it kinda did! There were plenty of options to remove the tree for all the regions, but no one bothered to put the tech in since it wasn't very relevant for the meta. Just having an option available to defuse alternate win conditions goes a really long way to minimize player frustration.
There's actually a lot of Yu-gi-oh card lore, there actually are 4 primary story lines, Duel Terminal, World Legacy, The Albaz story and the current Diabelstar story
I've played a game of commander where one person did cast second sun but was shortly forced to shuffle their deck. That made oh so much worse. Yes the card was likely deeper in their deck but where. It made it so every time they drew a card we had to wonder if it was the end. Must have been an interesting story on ground level, an apocalyptic event is knew to be happening, but will our heroes be able to stop it before it come to pass.
my favourite alt win-con in yugioh is True Exodia. You have to summon out True Exodia, give it to your opponent, then summon the 4 limbs of the forbidden one. There cannot be any other monsters either.
I disagree that alternate win cons need to have a good justification lore-wise to why they ought to end the game. As you mention with Final Countdown, the card's play pattern can create a good story. However, I think that if they don't have any cool lore or such, it should be apparent that you're working towards this win condition before actually winning with it. I think that Thassa's Oracle would be less of a letdown if there was some way of letting your opponent know, "Hey I have this card, Thassa's Oracle, and once I do this thing, it lets me win the game", rather than "I play Thassa's Oracle". "Oh, what does that card do?" "Oh, you know, I just win the game"
Personally I think that having some sort of roadsign for the opponent is key to alternate win conditions regardless of if there's lore reasons or not. Something to clue your opponent in on what direction you're trying to win on and, more importantly to me, allow them to interact with it. With the 'default' way to win, everyone's clued in on what people are trying to do and how to stop them from doing it, so the game stays a multiplayer game. When it's a alternate win condition out of nowhere, then it's just solitaire. I love playing alternate win conditions. Mill, despite me not being able to make it take off, was one of my favorite concepts of Magic behind turbo boosting out big stompy critters. The downside to mill in MtG was that the only way it could pop off was with a 'stasis' deck, denying your opponent the ability to do anything which isn't that fun for those on the receiving end of it. I'm hoping that the new radiation mechanic is adopted in the 'main' expansions because I think it's a bit more fair and gives some interaction with your opponent.
great video, otks are my absolute favourite playstyle in hearthstone, but the wincondition has to be interesting and cool, and the overall powerlevel of the deck has to be in check for it to actually be fun
Once deceived myself with approach of the second sun, my control deck had some difficulty winning, so I decided to play approach (only one copy, since the format I play only allows for one copy of any card). The deck however really likes drawing / searching / sorting cards, so instead of waiting 6 turns to draw to it, it often only took 1-3 turns to draw it and it became my fastest way to win.
Magic actually has a wincon similar to Mecha'thun called Barren Glory where, if the only cards you have out is Barren Glory and you have no cards in hand at the start of your turn, you win the game. There isn't any notable lore around the card, but the interesting detail about it is that it began as the Un-card "The Cheese Stands Alone" which had the same effect but was printed in a joke set and not tournament legal.
Was more like: my older sisters would half explain what a card did to me, and with Last turn it was so long they never bothered to read it and find out how it worked
While not technically an instant win, Galuctus in Marvel Snap is the closest to an alternate win condition. The basics of Marvel Snap is that there are 3 locations on the board and you compete to win 2 out of 3 locations over 6 turns (the game always ends on turn 6 every game Galactus or not, with a few other exceptions that either extend or shorten the turn count). Galactus's effect is that if you can resolve its effect on one location, it destroys the other 2 locations meaning only the Galactus location matters so whoever wins that location wins the game. Lore wise it makes sense how powerful his effect is, however it has never been a good card in competitive play but it has always been one of the most hated cards despite statistically not a high performing cards simply because of the feel bad effect of invalidating the other 2 locations and forcing the other player to play the Galactus game.
I really wanted you to talk about Coalition Victory from MTG as I feel it is incredibly thematic, but potentially too easy or hard to pull off depending on format.
Amazing video! Alternate win condition cards have always peaked my interest whenever I see them. I think I've only ever got a Mech'thun win once or twice. Also glad to know that MTG has some alt win cards too. Gonna try to learn that game once the Miku cards release. I'll for sure press that subscribe button!
Amazing analysis! I always loved alternate win conditions in every game, and having played both Hearthstone and Yugioh at the time the alternate will conditions you exemplified were meta made me smile. I'm hoping to see your future videos!
Great video, although the bgm is a bit loud at times. I've always been fascinated by alternate win conditions, it always feels special getting it pieced together out of the norm. Many times I've been gravitated towards trying to pull at least one off, even if its usually harder than the usual ways of winning.
You have good and nuanced takes on alternate win conditions and I'd like to hear you talk about more of them. It's important that you view them in all their aspects and don't shy from criticising them. However, sometimes this video takes a weird turn with you going off to talk about things that are barely related like the Majora's Mask segment. The ending is also messy since your sentences are cut together so harshly that you cut yourself off sometimes, like bits and pieces of a stream of consciousness. Scripts like this can do with a bit more focus and your videos will be considerably better for it.
I strongly disagree with you about the Purified Shard. I played a lot of Questline Priest when it was in Standard, and it's not really about curving out. It's about stalling until you draw the right cards, with the added fun that the right cards are also stalling tools. Maybe it's personal taste, but I love Control Priest. The Questline gave Priest a wincon for their stalling power, something the deck desperately needed against other Control decks. The tradeoff is that the deck became more scuffed against aggro since you had to build a higher curve than normal. As for flavour, the shard is a piece of Mi'da, a shattered Naaru (basically the Warcraft version of an angel). The shards of Mi'da were the driving plot behind the Year of the Gryphon story arc, and the Quest shows Xyrella taking a corrupted Void shard and purifying into a shard of pure Light.
oh i unlisted it, felt weird as a follow up vid for it be a main vid on my channel, i have it in a play list on my channel page tho, which is probably what ill do with any follow up vids in the future
@@pymbette I really heavily dislike this method tbh, I never would have found out there's more of your excellent content if i didnt happen to see this comment
funny enough i had an ending segment where i talked about vennominaga (since its another card ive had since i was younger), but ended up cutting it cause it didnt fit like i wanted
Thoracle does have some flavour to her. Consult Thoracle wins because you consulted both god and demons to know everything required to win, Breach Thoracle is the same. Inverter Thoracle inverts the wisdom of the gods and gives you again everything you need to win the game. Thoracle is almost always never a single card win con therefore allowing all the flavour to work.
You really should have looked into Legend of the Five Rings. The core gameplay has four win conditions: Destroying your opponents provinces, Honor, Dishonor, and playing each of the five Ring cards.
Man, as a Yugioh player (but mostly Edison format) I disagree. I really don't care about the "lore" of an alternate win condition, the problem with most alternate win condition is that they're gameplay sucks. They don't play out like Yugi desperately pulling off Exodia, because most of the time they are not an alternate win condition for the decks that play them, they are the main win condition. It's not that "despite things looking hopeless on the board, you pull out this sneaky clever way to still win", because those decks never cared about the state of the board, so there is nothing hopeless about it. It feels like awful to play against those alternate win conditions in Yugioh, not because they win often, but because as the player playing the 'normal' deck, you often have very little agency in the outcome of the game, that is relegated to some degree to the decisions of the alt win con player, but mostly the luck of the draw. But even worse is that the flow of the game is solely dictated by the alt win con players deck: Every deck feels very similar playing into an alt win con deck. It doesn't really matter what your deck does, what the cards you have deliberately chosen do, only if they by some miracle can interact with the alternate win con players deck.
Love the video, but one small correction--Thassa's Oracle technically isn't an alternate win condition, it's just the win condition of a combo deck. "Milling out", i.e. drawing a card from an empty library, has always been a possible way to lose the game. You're on point on how cheesy and lame it is though ha. Milling out is one of the most un-fun ways to lose the game. Mill strategies have always been popular in competitive and casual MTG though. The people that love mill, really love it. The thing that makes Thassa so unsatisfying is that milling out your opponent's entire deck is usually very difficult in Magic, but Thassa makes it trivial.
True initially I was gonna talk about mill strategies, that they are inherently "alternative" win cons and talk about thassas oracle in regards to that. Ended up not going with that route in the video, and just talking about cards saying "win the game"
Thassa's Oracle literally is an alternate win condition tho, which doesn't technically have to do with milling at all. It says "you win the game" right on it, which just requires two specific numbers to be equal.
I take a bit of issue with your commentary on Thassa's Oracle. It comes from a narrow perspective and you don't take the time to understand the flavor. A. Commander vs 60 card constructed. Yes in commander thassas oracle is very easy to pull off. it requires two slots amd a bunch of cards you were going to run anyway. in 60 card formats pioneer, modern, legacy, etc oracle is a much more interesting deckbuilding constraint. you have to really commit to playing a thassas oracle deck. look up legacy Cephalid Breakfast or Doomsday. B. The flavor. The scale of a game of magic isnt always the end of the world. a toxic bug with a big hammer will kill you. In magic your deck and cards in hand represent your mind. So if you are unintentionally without cards in deck, youve been driven insane, you have been milled out, you have lost the game. Thassas oracle represents a sort of divine clarity via insanity and is bolstered by your faith in thassa. yes you can win the game with no cards in deck, but if you have higher devotion to blue - aka belief in thassa, you do not need to give as much of your mind away. Thassa's oracle is a pushed card, but it's worth more than a dismissive footnote and a clip used as evidence without context or thought
WOW is supplemental material that Hearthstone is based on, and yes it does add to some of the lore of the cards, and I would never say that HS is lacking in world building as a whole. But the great lengths MTG goes to, (considering it's ONLY a card game) to write and create world building both within the game and outside it, is so far beyond what HS and Yugioh do. That was my point
imo wincons should have flare for the majority, like instead of "you win" "your opponent draws 1000 cards" "deal X damage where X is your opponent's hp" or even simply "banish your opponent" they are effectively the same 99% of the time, but there can be some counters if they become too prevalent.
Ive been skipping through alot of this video because of how many tangents are in the video. I get it that sometimes you want the weight and history of these win conditions but I cane here to learn about Alt win cons not really about the history of power and how that power makes people feel things.
Some people that call themselves "creators" should learn to summarize their few core ideas.. instead of creating a 30 min video of nothing. The few seconds @11:56 discussing the Oracle dissonance were more than enough to get that specific point across! Sometimes, less is more..
watched the video. Definitely disagree. The point of a game is that it has a fixed set of rules that all players know. Creating alternative win conditions has always and will always only be fun for the one using them. If I am winning a game in a traditional sense I don't want to lose to a gimmick. Imagine an alternative win condition in other games. You are behind 3-0 in football but then you got your 11th corner and because each of your 11 starting players has each taken a corner you win the game. That would be horrible. The yugioh stuff is alright, but all of the examples from HS, MTG are terrible. This also goes for "mill" and infinite combos.
I agree if the thing is a symmetrical game but asymmetrical games which these deck building card games are can definitely give out weird wincons and have them feel fine at least to me so long as they telegraph themselves properly.
Yugioh alt wincons are some of the worst in the entire industry because of how they have the tools to sometimes just steal games because the opponent didn't open interruptions. No one wants to play against someone trying to solitaire for an FTK or Exodia.
