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Consider the case where both players (Warlocks) have Mal'Gannis who has been reduced to one power by damage plus Crazed Alchemist or Reversing Switch. Each player also has a Stoneskin Gargoyle with taunt from Rusty Horn (to make the board even more unchangeable we can give each Stoneskin Gargoyle +1 health from Armor Plating). Both players have nothing else on the board and no cards in their deck or hand.

Each turn, neither player will be able to kill the opposing Stoneskin Gargoyle and neither player can take fatigue damage due to their characters being immune. Will the game go on until one player surrenders, or is there some mechanism for detecting nothing changing/loops for umpteen turns and declaring the game a draw?

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    This is interesting. If you instead don't worry about the other factors and just put two people against each other that both agree to test this and play Mal'Fannis, then both just never kill the other Mal'Fannis and see what happens from there.
    – Judge2020
    Feb 1, 2016 at 22:58

1 Answer 1

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So while looking into the effects of Immunity, I found this little tidbit:

Immune effects will not prevent the game from ending automatically at the start of the 90th turn. {Hearthstone Mythbusters}

In the provided video, the two testers have Mal'Gannis on the board and continue to pass the turn to each other. Immunity is protecting both from fatigue damage, but both heroes explode on the end of the 89th turn. In reviewing notes about turns:

Each game of Hearthstone has a limit of 89 turns. At the start of the 90th turn, both heroes will explode, and the game will end in a draw. This means that Player 1 has 45 complete turns (turn 1, 3, 5... 87, 89), while Player 2 has 44 complete turns (turn 2, 4, 6... 86, 88). Player 2 does not start turn 90, he will not draw a card nor will start of turn triggers happen. This limit is very rarely reached, due to fatigue damage.

It seems to be, no matter how you have an Infinite Stalemate setup, both players can continue to play until the game forces both to "give up".

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    lol, the ultimate rage-quit... you just explode.
    – Nelson
    Feb 2, 2016 at 1:09
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    Worse then that. The game itself rage-quits on itself, and destroys both players for being bad.
    – NBN-Alex
    Feb 2, 2016 at 1:57
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    @NBN-Alex Except that both players have to actually be quite good to be "that bad"
    – corsiKa
    Feb 2, 2016 at 17:41
  • @corsiKa Not excately. Even if both players ran out of cards and got locked into statemate, Mal'Gannis can still take damage. Because of the cost and cards required, both players would have to pass on turns where they could of ended it all for their opponents just by smashing their Mal'Gannis unto their opponent's. Even if you where to setup a fort like lazarusL suggested, both players would need at least two turns where they're not playing the "objective". (ie. go face, win big)
    – NBN-Alex
    Feb 2, 2016 at 23:24
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    @NBN-Alex Here's a completely unlikely scenario where this could occur without both players necessarily meaning for it to. Player A (warlock) has Mal'Ganis, Reversing Switch, Stoneskin Gargoyle, and Rusty Horn in hand. Player B (shaman) has Wrath of Air Totem on board and Lava Burst and Faceless Manip. x2 in hand. Neither have any in deck. Warlock plays MG. Shaman has 7 locked mana from last turn (e.g. Elemental Destruction + more) and hits MG with the LB for 6. MG is 9/1. Player A kills totem with MG and uses switch to save MG and drops Garg with taunt. Player B copies both.
    – Nathan K
    Feb 4, 2016 at 20:54

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