Magic: The Gathering Arena shatters under the weight of recursive raptors
I AM THE LIZARD KING!
Open the door, get on the floor, infinitely spawn the dinosaurs! The free-to-play CCG Magic: The Gathering Arena updated yesterday with the 2020 core card set. One card from this new set -- Marauding Raptor -- can be played together with Polyraptor to destroy the game. Causing an infinite loop of dinosaur spawning, the perpetrator can only grin smugly and dare their opponent to hit the concede button. It's either that, or watch helplessly until the heat-death of the universe. Below, a video of this by "RiddledWith Adventure" on YouTube.
This combo is one of the easiest ways to break Magic in the history of the game. First, you play Marauding Raptor, a cheap red creature that deals 2 damage to any other creature you play, because it's a big scaly jerk. It also gains 2 strength if it attacks another dinosaur. Then you play Polyraptor, a more expensive green creature which spawns another Polyraptor when it takes damage. Polyraptor is immediately hit, replicates, and the mirror-raptor is then hit, and replicates. Before you know it, it's raptors all the way down, and Marauding Raptor is now infinitely strong.
This replication is endless. The game presumably declares a draw or just crashes at some point if left long enough, but it's more likely that your opponent will just surrender. Even if you could theoretically stop the spawning early, you'd still be dealing with nearly infinite dinosaurs, one of which has more power than god. The hilarious thing is that this exploit was known about long before Magic: Arena updated with it. Last month, YouTuber The Magic Historian explained just how bad it would be if those two cards were unleashed upon the game without fixes. Oops.
Still, infinite dinosaurs aside (and that seems like an exploit that will be patched sooner rather than later now), Magic: The Gathering Arena is a pretty neat way to start learning the great grand-daddy of collectable card games. You can snag it free from it's official page. It is developed and published by Wizards Of The Coast's own digital studio.
Just, maybe listen to your players when they try to warn you about infinity dinosaurs.