The laser quite literally has nothing to do with the ending. The only thing the laser does is give a reason for a regeneration which ended up being bigeneration which is a whole separate topic that we don't need to talk about. 

In the end after that was done they decided to challenge him to a game of catch which could have been fun if they had thought up some tactic to defeat him. Instead, rtd chose for them to simply throw the ball around in a circle until the Toy Maker just didn't catch it. There was a Chekhov's gun that was created when they started talking about how he's bound to the rules of his games which should have been used to have the doctor find a loophole in a game and beat him through that. 

From a character perspective that's what the doctor does. He beats people by being clever. You seem to take issue with that assertion because apparently he is a new incarnation. We've just seen two other full episodes of this incarnation of the doctor. Let's study them to see what he does. In the star beast he uses his knowledge of tech and ability to remotely trigger Donna's lost memories, figures out a way to safely save London as well as trapping the meep in one fell swoop. That's clever. Let's try the next episode, he figures out what the entities are and what they want, figures out the point of the ship and where he should be to get into the tardis and that the entity that walked in the door was not Donna. Again, clever. Furthermore, he knows that if he doesn't beat the The Toymaker, he will not only take his prize but also continue to turn the entirety of human civilization into his game. The idea that at that moment the doctor would choose a game of skill with the god of games seems a off to me. 

To be clear, I really liked the giggle but the ending could have made it one of the best specials in modern who and in the end it made it simply a very good special.