False Positive Stalemate - Hallowed Priest, Impassioned Orator, Token Generation
Using a white soldier deck to generate tokens and life, the "stuck check" built into the game determined I was locked in a stalemate because of how long the game took to resolve all of the counters I was gaining on my Hallowed Priest.
I generated a ton of tokens using Horn of Gondor and Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation. Each one triggered the Impassioned Orator's "gain 1 life" ability three times (one for each of three copies of the creature on the battlefield). Each time this resolves, the queue is paused and three Hallowed Priest "whenever you gain life, add a +1/+1 counter" abilities are added to the queue. The queue was over 100 steps long, and each individual step would stop, add three more steps, let them resolve, and repeat. The resolution took so long that the game forced a stalemate on my opponent and I.
I believe the breakdown was 36 tokens created at once, triggering 363 impassioned orator abilities, which triggered 363*3 hallowed priest abilities. Again, the primary issue being that they were added to the queue while it was in the middle of resolving, rather than being calculated and added ahead of time. This is also a minor annoyance and the solution would be a UX improvement.
As a suggestion, I would have the game detect how many instances of gained life are in the ability resolution queue ahead of time, and add Hallowed Priest's +1/+1 counters to the top of the queue. This way, all of the abilities may be resolved at once quickly if "Resolve All" is clicked. The issue is that they are added to the queue during resolution, and the game assumed my match was stuck in a permanent loop, ending it in a draw halfway through the match.
I understand the way it's presently set up does not account for an instant card destroying an impassioned orator before its ability resolves. In this case I would hope there's an ability to remove all queued abilities tied to that ability. If not, I would suggest the "Resolve All" button forcing the entire queue to be completed. I had to manually check that option several times (every time a +1 life resolved and the three extra Hallowed Priest abilities were re-added to the queue). If the resolve all check may be skipped over after my opponent confirms they are not going to use an instant/flash card or ability, there is no reason for the game to prompt us again.
I am happy to answer more questions any time to get this up and running again. Feel free to email me. As a technical designer myself I've made a lot of assumptions about the way these systems are functioning, and I think the fix I've proposed is straightforward enough and is sensible! I'm happy to participate in follow-up correspondence, to reproduce the bug with QA, or to lend any other help that I'm able. If you would like a video please reach out via email and I will happily join a game with staff to reproduce, or to reproduce with a friend and send a video.
I am on PC, using Steam. I am unaware of the platform my opponent was using. I assume this is a backend issue and would be platform-agnostic.