10/10 Game mechanics

[BulletWulf1]

I was gonna put this in Technical Problems, but seems more like a person just had a brain fart when creating this game. How are you going to let something like Heartichoke and Venus FlyTraplanet be used as many times in one round as it can be. Did you guys just not consider the fact that it can just be completely * abused?

[jj48car]

I think some of the combos in the game only exist because they wanted to troll the players.  The game doesn't have a lot of broken combos, but the ones that exist are pretty brutal.

[UniVoidz]

Let's just be grateful that Flytraplanet isn't as powerful as it once was.

[Gabochido]

I'm 50 stars into Ultimate and have played a variety of decks, including 3 variations of health decks that have flytrap and heartichoke. In my experience with the game, that particular combo is by no means broken. It takes a lot of set up to get to it and it is very easily disrupted. Even when it works, it has a limit set by the shield block. There will likely be decks that are much more susceptible to this combo because they don't have the best tools to deal with it, but that is true for any strategy. 

The most powerful combo in the game right now is Valkarie, combined with ways to beef her up then have her deal an attack before the plant player can react. This in conjunction with other strong cards that create a lot of pressure, make it an incredibly strong combo, difficult to prevent. This is the closest thing to a brain fart right now, maybe with berry combos in second place, but more of a brain fart, they are simply strategies that are a little too strong for the meta. The rumored balance changes should fix the valk problem.

[BulletWulf1]

With Valkarie, the least you can do is stall until you can either get something like a squash. The heartichoke/flytrap combo, if you start off with nothing that can damage the plant you're pretty much done for. Especially when you use anything that gives you extra sun, you can set it up in just 3-4 rounds. And if you use anything such as heroic health to stall your health, once you have no shields there's almost nothing you can do...

I wouldn't call Valkarie op, that's just waiting for the right moment, but this set-up is honestly broken

[puntwothree]

I’d say Sergeant/Sergeant is worse.

Either way, these combos do not a broken game make. Magic the Gathering, which has many, many infinite combos, has been around for decades and continues to come out with new cards that are able to combo infinitely. The game is terrific.

PvZ has no truly infinite combos because of the block meter. The best/most degenerate ways to win IMO do not involve two-turn set-ups like Heartichoke, but rather wins w/out triggering block at all as with Cyclecap Astro-Shrooms or a sufficiantly powered Valkyrie.

In Magic the Gathering, which has been around for decades, you can win before turn 1.... and though it is hard, you need neither a perfect hand nor a perfect draw to make it happen.

In PvZ, the fastest wins I have seen or conceived of are turn 2 wins that require almost perfect hands, perfect draws, and specific heroes/superpowers. Neither use Valkyrie, Astro-Shroom, or Heartichoke, and neither is very consistent at winning when it doesn’t work.

[Gabochido]

Think of it this way. The normal "combo" in the game is to play some creatures, then use removal to destroy the the other creatures and deal damage with yours. Eventually, one of your creatures deals enough damage to defeat the opponent. That doesn't mean that creature is overpowered or anything, just that you played a game until you set up the state of the board to win.

The real combos work in such a way that the rest of your pieces aren't dealing damage but are instead controlling the board so that you get enough time to win with a couple of powerful synergistic pieces. You expect these types of combos to defeat you in a single move, or two at the most, because they are hard to set up and possible to disrupt. This is most certainly the case of flytrap and heartichoke. There are various strategies that defeat it consistently, including Valk otk. Also super aggressive decks like aggro dancing can defeat it before it can go off. Any deck with cheap environments can easily disrupt it too.

To me the proof that this particular combo isn't overpowered is that you don't see many people playing it at Taco league, unlike something like Valk otk which is much more popular due to it being far more consistent. 

[BlazinsZ]

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@UniVoidz wrote:

Let's just be grateful that Flytraplanet isn't as powerful as it once was.

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I had the same thought,  was a tough combo, Sneezing Zombie did not even exist. It is uncommon to still see complaints from this combo

Previously you just had to save the environment, now you can prevent them from healing, and the plant in the environment must survive also.

[saintlydevilis]

Zombies have enough cards, and tricks to beat this combo, as already said it takes a few rounds to set this combo up. Anyone remember stompadon? and endless going viral for instance?