This reminds me of how 2b2t PvP has evolved. At first everyone was just wearing fully enchanted diamond armor and had golden apples that regenerate HP faster than you can lose them. Hacking is allowed on 2b2t. Because of dupe glitches getting large quantities of specific items is possible. Ender crystals that are normally used to resurrect the ender dragon can be smashed to create an explosion which kills players in full diamond armor instantly. Suddenly it was all about who could deploy his crystals first. Then totem duplication + auto equip allowed you to survive instant deaths until your inventory no longer contains totems.

No matter how impressive each of these techniques were, each of them had a counter that was highly effective.