jatill's challenge blog *complete*

[jatill]

After having been away from the game (manalink, not magic) for an extended time, I'm back, but only as a player. The most appealing part of the game to me is the much maligned challenge mode. My goal is to beat every one of the 37 challenges. Along the way, I'll post the decks I'm using and how many tries it took.

For general challenge information, see this link: http://www.slightlymagic.net/wiki/ML3_Challenge_Mode

As a general strategy, I'm going to try to beat the challenges that give in-challenge bonuses first, to make the whole experience a little easier. Also, whenever possible, I'll choose quick decks, so that I can get through the matches more quickly.

I'm avoid strategy and spoilers found in other threads to see if I can do this on my own.

Status Update:

Set 1 - *Complete* on 1/18/2014
1.1 Tribal Trials (2 attempts) *Complete* on 12/21/2013
1.2 Vanguard Vengeance (1 attempt) *Complete* on 12/21/2013
1.3 Chipping Away (1 attempt) *Complete* on 12/21/2013
1.4 Onslaught (1 attempt) *Complete* on 12/21/2013
1.5 Shandalar 2.0 (1 attempt) *Complete* on 12/21/2013
1.6 BANNED! (1 attempt) *Complete* on 12/21/2013
1.7 Planeswalker Decimation (50+ attempts) *Complete* on 1/18/2014
1.8 Magic: The Puzzling (3 attempts) *Complete* on 1/1/2014

Set 2 - *Complete* on 1/5/2014
2.1 Super Mulligan (1 attempt) *Complete* on 12/27/2013
2.2 What Hand? (1 attempt) *Complete* on 1/5/2014
2.3 That's Big (3 attempts) *Complete* on 1/5/2014
2.4 Epic (2 attempts) *Complete* on 12/27/2013
2.5 There Can Be Only One (3 attempts) *Complete* on 1/1/2014
2.6 March of the Machines (1 attempt) *Complete* on 12/17/2013
2.7 Land Ho! (3 attempts) *Complete* on 1/1/2014
2.8 Dude (1 attempt) *Complete* on 12/21/2013

Set 3 - *Complete* on 1/10/2014
3.1 Big Dumb Object (8 attempts) *Complete* on 1/1/2014
3.2 Enchanted Evening (5 attempts) *Complete* on 1/5/2014
3.3 Master Warlock (1 attempt) *Complete* on 1/1/2014
3.4 Urza Wannabe (1 attempt) *Complete* on 12/21/2013
3.5 Instant Gratification (1 attempt) *Complete* on 1/1/2014
3.6 Gimme (5 attempts) *Complete* on 1/10/2014
3.7 March of the Machines 2 (7 attempts) Complete of 12/20/2013
3.8 Easy as 1, 2, 3... (2 attempts) *Complete* on 1/1/2014
3.9 The Perfect Storm (1 attempt) *Complete* on 12/27/2013
3.10 Sliver Nation (1 attempt) *Complete* on 12/22/2013

Set 4 *Complete* on 1/18/2014
4.1 Chaos Orb (3 attempts) *Complete* on 1/10/2014
4.2 Into the Pit (10 attempts) *Complete* on 12/16/2013
4.3 Life's a Lich (2 attempts) *Complete* on 12/22/2013
4.4 Cascade (1 attempt) *Complete* on 12/22/2013
4.5 ABSs (3 attempts) *Complete* on 1/5/2014
4.6 Challenge Challenge (1 attemp) *Complete* on 1/18/2014
4.7 Enchanted (2 attempts) *Complete* on 12/16/2013
4.8 Budget deck for ya (1 attempt) *Complete* on 1/5/2014
4.9 Archenemy's Cohort (7 attempts) *Complete* on 12/21/2013
4.10 Back to 95 (7 attempts) *Complete* on 12/15/2013

[jatill]

I did a bit last night, and I'll fill in the decklists later.
I started with 'Pit Fighting', using a deck full of Wraths to clear the board, and trying to win with Batterskull and Baneslayer. I tried 6 or 7 times and only made it to Lord of the Pit once.

From there I decided to try a challenge I've never done before: Back to '95. First I tried a U/W control deck with Serra Angel and Control Magic as the win conditions. It did well in 3 attempts, but was too slow to keep trying. I switched to B/U aggro, as I could complete matches in a minute or 2 that way. On the 4th try, I succeeded.

[jatill]

I kept up my plan to finish challenges that offer in-challenge rewards first. I tried Enchanted, using a mono-blue deck that cheats out either Platinum Angel, Blightsteel Colossus, or Emrakul. In my first attempt, I lost because I wasn't prepared for 4x Energy Flux, and couldn't find an Emrakul. Succeeded on the 2nd try.

I decided to use the same deck for Into the Pit, and succeeded after 3 tries. The rewards from Back to 95 helped a lot here, specifically the Wall of Air, since it buys you an extra turn against Silvos and Rorix. Popping it out as a surprise blocker caught the AI any number of times. I anticipate that reward will be extremely useful going forward.

Next was the last freebie challenge, 'Archenemy's Cohort'. I made 2 deep runs with a U/G mana ramp / cheat fatties into play deck. On the 3rd try, I got obliterated by the Archenemy. I have no idea how to beat him at this point.

[jatill]

I put Archenemy aside for a while, and decided to work on the challenges that don't have a particular boss at the end. Match of the Marchines was first, and I used a somewhat standard affinity deck. I plowed through the opponents on my first try, with no games being particularly close. Having a free Wil-O-The-Wisp to skullclamp was pretty handy.

Next I tried Big Dumb Object, witha deck full of mana myr, and Kuldotha Forgemaster to tutor up Blightsteel Colossus. I added Inkwell Leviathan to the deck so I would get the Blue reward card, but white probably would have been the better choice, since the white rewards seem best. I lost 4 times, running afoul of the splicer deck twice. I may want to try a manaless agressive deck next (steel overseer + signal pest for beats), but I may also just wait until I complete the archenemy campaign. I got 4-6 games in each time before dying, so I'm close.

[jatill]

I switched over to March of the Machine 2. I saw a video of someone playing a modern Ownling Mine deck, and thought it might be fun to try something similar out here, since Black Vise is unrestricted in Vintage now. I tried 3 times and won 4-6 matches each time, but dies whenever I didn't draw the Ensnaring Bridge / Grafted Skullcap combo. So I swicthed over to the "right" deck, which included Vedalken Shackles and Living Weapons. 0-3 there too, so I went back to Owling Mine, since it was at least faster to play. Won on the 1st new attempt.
A key note is that I stuck a White artifact in my deck just to have access to Wall of Swords, which is the beefiest surprise blocker available by the challenge reward.

[jatill]

Lots of free time today, so I crushed a ton of challenges.
I decided I'd reattempt Archenemy, but I wanted to build the cheatiest deck possible with all of the 2-card combos in magic, so I could beat the end boss.
For that, I needed to unlock Kiki-Jiki and Tezzeret first, so I worked on Dude and Urxa Wannabe.

For Dude, I used an elves deck. No trouble at all there, and I won every game by a landslide on my first try.

For Urza's wannabe I build a W/B deck using my 6 cheats for mana artifacts. I got obliterated in the first round, but then sailed through pretty easily on my 2nd attempt.

Having unlocked the cards I wanted, it was back to the archenemy. Turns out time vault combo is slow as hell to actually earn a win, so after I lost once I just abandoned this deck out of boredom. I updated my U/G deck to include the combo, but it would be a quicker game since I had real creatures to win with as well.

3 tries later I made my way to the archenemy, and had a quick Show and Tell for Emrakul. Unfortunately, my opponent also had Emrakul. Luckily, he was too afraid to attack, so I was able to seize the initiative and win.

With the archenemy reward unlocked (and all the rewards for that matter), things became quite simple.
For the next set of challenges I switched back to my Pit deck, mono-U with show and tell and tinker.
I died once in tribal trials, but then plowed through that, Tribal Trials (2)
Vanguard Vengeance, Onslaught, Chipping Away, Shandalar 2.0, and Banned! all on the first attempt.

A couple interesting things happened:
In Onslaught, during the Coat of arms round I got 5 0/1s with the archenemy scheme, and they ended up as 17/18s. Yay!

For the touch Shandalar 2.0 boss, my opponent got hit with the archemeny scheme that milled him until a creature was found. Since his deck is all lands, it was an auto-win. Oops!

Finally, I tried to complete Magic: the Puzzling. Should have been easy, since I wrote the puzzles! But I believe there's a rules engine bug that prohibits me from winning the 3rd puzzle

[jatill]

I wanted to slam out all the rest of the challenges that my Tinker deck would work in. So that included: Slivers, Cascade, Life's A lich, and Chaos Orb.

For Cascade the opponents had some insanely good starts by cascading Moxes and Lotus into play on the firt turn. Not enough though, and the AI got crushed.

Life's a lich I failed the first time because I got my Lich disenchanted by a Qasali Pridemate. I thought the reward from the enchanted challenge protected against that, but guess not :/ I managed to dodge that and bolts for the 2nd attempt.

Chaos Orb I thought would be a breeze, but apparently my shrounded permanents can be hit, so the Tinker isn't so effective there. Guess it's storm instead!

[HarlequinCasts]

Finally, I tried to complete Magic: the Puzzling. Should have been easy, since I wrote the puzzles! But I believe there's a rules engine bug that prohibits me from winning the 3rd puzzle

I just beat puzzles 1-3 to double check and its working fine. If you are missing a rules card, make sure the deck that you begin the challenge with has a card that requires one.

(Hint: the deck that i use to do the puzzling challenge has a Simian Spirit Guide in it just so I can use that bit during some of the challenges

With recent changes to the rules engine, if you plan to use the spirit guides in your solutions then you should include them in the deck you go into the challenge with. If you do not, their abilities may not initialize properly.

quoted from the thread about this challenge here in the decks and challenge forum)

[jatill]

Thanks for that tip. I'll do that and then try to do the challenge again.
I haven't had much time to play the last few days, but when I did I've spend with the Tendrils Storm and Dredge decks. With Storm I took down (surprise) the Perfect Storm without much trouble.

The Dredge deck was good for Super Mulligan (using the "cheat" about knowing that the cards thrown back will appear in a certain order), and Epic (using a bigger cheat that makes casting flashback Dread Return not count as your one spell per game.

I didn't have to use the Archenemy much, but having Pit Scorpion and potentially Wil o the Wisp as free black creatures in the grave for Ichorid to eat, or to die to Dread Return was somewhat helpful at times.

[jatill]

I've been poking in and out of the game, but haven't been taking great notes. So I'll write this all as if I did the challenges today, instead of over the last few days...

I gave There Can Be Only 1 a couple more tries using my modified archenemy deck. This worked the 2nd try.

For Master Warlock, I made a deck full of Mana Ramp, with Entreat the Angels and Rude Awakening (bugged, sadly) as my win conditions. This was a pretty easy one and I finished on my first try without any trouble, despite the bug.

I made a W/U/G deck for Land Ho, with my secret tech being Kabira Crossroads with a lot of bounce lands. The 1st time through I didn't have enough threats, so I replace Tabernacle with Garoyle castle, and succeeded on the 3rd try.

For Instant Gratification I made a straightforward counter/urn deck, and breezed through on the 1st attempt.

I tried to put a Hondens deck togther for Enchanted Evening, with Ghostly Prison and Propaganda for defense. 3 runs in a row I lost to Forestwalking Elves, so I'll either need to avoid that matchup or think of something new to try there.

I finally completed Big Dumb Object, with the same Myr deck I originally had. Just needed the stars to align there.

Finally, I finished the Magic: the Puzzling challenge. A couple puzzles I was able to cheat my way through since infect has been released since the puzzles were written, making at least 2 rounds easier, with an identical solution, and extra cards.

Easy as 1,2,3 was simple as advertised. I misbuild my deck the first time, putting in Tinkers with no cheap artifacts, etc. I got it right the 2nd time, and used Show and Tell / Eureka / Channel to power out giant Artifacts.

Not too many challenges to go! One thing I wonder about is how many challenges there actually are for set 1. I think it says 9, but there only seem to be 8 in the list.

[jatill]

That's Big (3 attempts): I originally thought to try this with Mishra's Workshops and big artifacts, but then I remembered that I could use free spells that cost 4+ instead. After Force of Will, I thought of Snuff Out and Contagion to stay alive. If I'm going to cast a 4-mana spell, the best choice seemed to be Eureka, so I stuffed the deck with giant Black creatures and Emrakul. Chancellor of the Dross tied everything together. I crammed the deck full of 2-mana lands, and it worked like a charm. Took 3 tries, but it was a lost of fun going off. Of all the decks I've made for the challenge so far, I'm most pleased with this one (even though I forgot to add a basic land or 2 to find with Path to Exile).

What Hand? (1 attempt) Breezed through with Dredge. Challenge set 2 complete!

Budget Deck for Ya (1 attempt) I made a mono-red burn deck for this one. Having the free Lightning Bolt reward made this a lot easier than it might have been otherwise. I didn't realize this particular challenge had a "boss" (the last game is a mirror match but they get Glorious Anthem). Didn't pose much of an issue.

ABC (3 attempts) I arbitrarily made a quick S deck trying to Show and Tell Stormtide Leviathan or Serra Avatar into play, but it just wasn't working very well. I switched to M so I would use Moxes, and decided Mono-red would work well since I could use Mountain. Mutavault and Mishra's Factory joined a couple Dragons to clear through the enemy pretty quickly. It helped that I happened to put Madcap Skills into the deck (to put onto my Pit Scorpion), and that card is bugged so the AI just never blocks the creature correctly. Probably a tough bug to fix.

[jatill]

Had a pretty unproductive day today. I tried Planeswalker Decimation today with a tricked-out burn deck, but without all of the challenge bonuses, it was too tough, and I was lucky if I ever got past the 1st round. Next time I try I'll create another Emreakul deck.

I had the same bad luck with the updated version of Gimme. I tried storm and got pretty far, but all the games I win are on the razor's edge. I'll probably keep at it with that deck, modifying the deck a little.

Finally, I updated my all enchantments deck to include Moat to solve some problem matchups. 2 tries later, that one was at least complete.

[jatill]

I haven't had a lot of time now that vacation's over, but what time I have had has not been terribly productive, challenge-wise. There are only 3 to go, and I probably spent about 20 attempts at the Planeswalker Decimation challenge. I've never made it past the 7th round. Ironically, one of the cards I would like to have for this challenge is the locked Serum Powder, since there is a pretty high bar for having a sick opening hand.

I made a couple runs at Gimme with storm, but couldn't win consistently. I switched over to a Goblin Charbelcher / Empty the Warrens deck, and that got through in 2 tries.

2 challenges to go!

[jatill]

I finally wrapped up the last 2 challenges. I lost track of how many runs I made at Planeswalker Decimation, but I finally managed to get it done... I just needed to cheat a little. See, there was a bug that prevented the challenge rewards from showing up here. So I fixed that bug in my own version of the game, and then build a deck to exploit the Green reward. I added a set of Natural Orders and Progenitus to the deck that I tried to cast by turn 2 every game, since the Planeswalkers are so unforgiving. Even after all that, I only managed to beat the challenge due to luck. In the fnial match against Nicol Bolas, my archenemy power let me copy Nicol, winning quickly from there. Monster slayed!

Last was the Challenge Challenge, and there really isn't too much deckbuilding choices there, so I went mono-blue. Having the Pit Scorpion to pit the Jitte on was pretty key. I managed to beat this last challenge on the first try!

Executive Summary:
Only 2 challenges really had me ripping my hair out: Archenemy and PW Decimation. It's fair for archenemy to be nuts, since the reward is pretty insane as well. I think Decimation needs to be toned down quite a bit, perhaps by removing the "decimation" aspect. All the rest of the challenges just took patience, a little luck, and the willingness to play some busted-ass decks.

The Magic: the Puzzling challenges were also pretty tough. Even though I wrote them years ago, I got stuck on some for a few. Perhaps putting some hints on the wiki would be appropriate.

Overall, this was a fun endeavor, and it was enjoyable to play a game I had put down for a couple years. Cheers!