During a recent game of Competitive Brawl, I ran into an issue with the way Food Chain + Squee, the Immortal is handled on MTG Arena.

For those unfamiliar with the interaction, Food Chain can repeatedly exile and recast Squee, generating additional mana each time through the loop. In paper Magic, this is relatively straightforward to demonstrate: once the loop is established, you can simply state that you are repeating it an arbitrary number of times and move on to whatever you intend to do with the resulting mana.

On Arena, however, actually performing the loop can be extremely cumbersome. Because the game requires the same actions to be performed repeatedly, it is very easy to run into the chess clock and have the turn automatically pass before you can finish executing your line.

This got me thinking: could Arena eventually implement a way to shortcut deterministic loops?

I'm specifically thinking about situations where the game state is known and the player has demonstrated an infinite or arbitrarily repeatable sequence of actions. Rather than requiring the player to manually execute the same sequence dozens or hundreds of times, Arena could potentially recognize the loop and allow the player to declare something along the lines of:

"Repeat this loop X times."

The player could then specify the resulting resource total, while Arena verifies that the sequence is actually legal.

This seems particularly relevant now that Competitive Brawl is becoming a more serious competitive format. I play this type of strategy in paper cEDH, where shortcutting deterministic loops is a normal part of tournament gameplay. Obviously, Arena has different technical requirements, but it seems worth considering whether some of those concepts could be translated into the digital environment.

For example, a deterministic mana-generation loop could potentially allow a player to establish the necessary resources to execute a larger line without spending an unreasonable amount of time clicking through the same actions. A deck might use that mana to cast Terra, Magical Adept from the command zone, continue through a deterministic sequence until finding something like Purphoros, God of the Forge, and then convert the established loop into a win.

I'm sure there are many other examples of this in Brawl and other Arena formats. Food Chain/Squee is simply the interaction that made me think about the issue.

Why treat some infinite combos differently?

This also raises a broader question for me.

Arena already has a number of infinite or effectively infinite combos that players can assemble and execute. If those combos are considered legitimate gameplay and aren't being specifically prevented from functioning, why should a deterministic Food Chain/Squee loop be functionally limited by the timer simply because Arena requires the player to manually perform every repetition?

I'm not suggesting that Arena should make infinite combos easier to assemble, or that every loop should automatically result in a win. There should obviously still be opportunities for an opponent to interact with the combo if they have a legal response.

Rather, I'm wondering whether there is a distinction that could be made between:

A loop that still contains meaningful decisions or opportunities for interaction, and
A deterministic loop that has already been demonstrated and can simply be repeated an arbitrary number of times.

In the second situation, forcing the player to manually perform the same actions over and over again seems more like a limitation of the interface than an intended part of the game.

There are also some interesting questions about how this could work. For example:

Could Arena allow players to declare a deterministic loop and specify how many times they want to repeat it?
Could the client automatically verify that the loop is legal before allowing the shortcut?
Could the player instead declare a desired resource total, with Arena determining how many repetitions are necessary?
How should Arena handle loops that generate infinite mana but still require the player to perform a separate action to actually win?
Should an opponent's ability to respond prevent a shortcut from being declared?
Are there technical limitations that make this particularly difficult to implement?

Most importantly, if Competitive Brawl is intended to have a meaningful competitive scene, should Arena's interface eventually accommodate the kinds of deterministic combo shortcuts that are already commonplace in competitive paper Magic?

I'm curious what everyone thinks. Is this something Arena should eventually support, or do you think manually executing these loops is simply part of playing combo decks on the digital client?

And if Wizards has a technical or design reason for treating Food Chain/Squee differently from other infinite combos, I'd be genuinely interested in hearing it.