[Archive] Challenge Set 3

[aww1979]

I didn't have Pit Fighting at the time, but I found Wild Growth and Fertile Ground to be worth their weight in gold. They made all the difference for me on that one, since I used Hondens and Collective Restraint/Propaganda, and a lot of those cost 4 or 5 mana.

In the list above, I think I'd do the following:
-remove Regeneration. A lot of removal gets around this (Path to Exile, Gatekeeper of Malakar, Wrath of God, etc)
-remove Rancor. It's a good card, but half the time it doesn't return to your hand when it should. If it works for you, though, I'd keep it; that's the only reason I suggest removing it. I'd also add another Unholy Strength and Sarcomancy, since those are pretty darned good one mana cards.

If you wanted to try something completely different, maybe a monogreen or mostly green deck with enchantments like Blanchwood Armor and Aspect of Wolf? I don't know if that would work, though.

I haven't tried using the custom set editor yet, but there might be some nice enchantments over there, if you can do that in challenge mode. (I know zendikar mode doesn't work in challenge mode)

[thedrigo]

Actually, Regeneration was a later addition to the deck. I thought it might be useless, but there aren't a lot of cards that boost toughness that were worth including (I always thought Holy Strength was a crap card)and the poor scorpion kept dying to a multitude of blockers, especially when facing black, since the Sleeper's Robes' fear effect doesn't work.Rancor is there for one reason: Trample. I already beat Enchanted too, so the auras being destroyed is not really one of my concerns. The deck I lost to in round ten was TurboFog, to which this deck has absolutely no answers...
Also, I didn't face burn, against which I'd considered including Diplomatic Immunity, but that would defeat the purpose, since you can no longer enchant your creature and it's too slow against a turn one Lightning Bolt or Path to Exile.
I mean, this deck was just a way to make a fun deck, so I'm not really worried. I think I'm gonna go the legendary enchantment way, aka Hondens.
Thanks for the ideas though, Aww.

EDIT: Well, call me crazy! I decided to keep trying out the deck and I just beat the challenge. I removed Threads of Disloyalty and added another Unholy Strength and another Sarcomancy, like Aww suggested and it worked! I do admit that I got lucky against another round 9 TurboFog encounter, with the AI stuck at three land, unable to wrath away my 11/9, lifelinked, trampling, fear inducing, flying, vigilant, card-drawing Pit Scorpion. Lucky, lucky, lucky...

[grinnin]

Finished Urza Wannabe with my secret Planeswalker tech: Eureka. Its a great feeling to drop 3 or 4 planeswalkers turn 4. Kinda feels like cheating.

The best ability in this deck turned out to be Liliana's tutor. Basically mulligan until you get a drop-spell or enough lands to stall with a Garruk or an Elspeth. Get Liliana into play and tutor for a Sorin or Bolas. Garruk is great for hardcasting the expensive win spells.

The last battle was by far the hardest, when the mirror Eureka'd out a Nicol turn 4, which I responded with... Elspeth. Thankfully the AI has no idea how to use planeswalkers!

Not sure about the Show and Tells, I only used them once, but I couldn't come up with a better replacement- maybe land tax or moat?

Decklist:
;M2- Challenge Planeswalkers
;
;grinnin
;
;
;1
;4th Edition
;

.823 4 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
.808 4 Liliana Vess
.802 4 Garruk Wildspeaker
.822 4 Ajani Vengeant
.212 4 Savannah
.12 4 Bayou
.241 4 Taiga
.9 4 Badlands
.189 4 Plateau
.629 4 Eureka
.815 4 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
.613 4 Sorin Markov*
.625 3 Sarkhan Vol
.1758 2 Show and Tell
.252 4 Tropical Island
.258 3 Underground Sea
.254 1 Tundra

[aww1979]

The Eureka is a nice touch :p Instead of show and tell, maybe Black Lotus and Sol Ring? I didn't use Eurekas, I just went with moxes and those two. Moat would be great, too but remember Land Tax only works on basic lands; it can't get duals.

[grinnin]

Yeah, for me those two slots were pretty unimportant, I think I used show and tell for the last game when the AI had more cards than I did.

Moat would have worked but I was using it as kind of a crutch on the first set of challenges so I wanted to stay away from straight attack-denial. If I had to do it again I'd probably swap out the Show and Tells for a Lotus and a Demonic Tutor.

[discoransom]

RE: Gather No Moss

So frustrating! Was using Archive Trap to speed games and prevent crashes, but auto-loss to Lord of Atlantis sucks, seeing as we already auto-lose to Elvish Champion. *sigh* back to frequent crashes it is.

RE: Gimme

Absolutely the most frustrating challenge for me. I'm playing Old Man of the Sea, which is a house that people seem to have missed (?) in favor of Annex. Is Annex winning you any games? We've got so many better turn 4 plays, but perhaps I'm just flat wrong. Kicked Rite on Old Man is also an out about half the time against Heartbeat of Spring deck. Anyway no luck yet- this one could literally take 1000 man hours based on sheer randomness.

RE: 1,2,3...

Is the best challenge IMO. So much fun that it's the only one I've gone back to multiple times after winning. Just want to compliment this great design!

[Vecc]

RE: Gimme

Absolutely the most frustrating challenge for me. I'm playing Old Man of the Sea, which is a house that people seem to have missed (?) in favor of Annex. Is Annex winning you any games? We've got so many better turn 4 plays, but perhaps I'm just flat wrong. Kicked Rite on Old Man is also an out about half the time against Heartbeat of Spring deck. Anyway no luck yet- this one could literally take 1000 man hours based on sheer randomness.

It's not that we forgot; it's the fact that Old Man of the Sea takes the wildcard slot for this challenge, considering he's a creature and the challenge's conditions for deckbuilding are "noncreature cards that steal/copy something" - and there are a lot of things better for those wildcard slots than Old Man of the Sea. If we could use creatures, Keiga, the Tide Star would be a no-brainer.

This challenge can get very frustrating, true. I personally went for strong draw spells as my wildcards and Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker as a finisher strategy to at least give me a chance vs. Burn. Worked out ok - feels clunky but really, what doesn't in this challenge.

[discoransom]

LOL I stand corrected on the non-creature bit. Kind of glad I didn't win that way tbh.

[Xanathar]

Looking forward to beat enchanted evening using this deck (no Hedrons!, 4 colors):

4 Bayou
4 Underground Sea
4 Scrubland
4 Savannah
4 Tropical Island
4 Tundra

4 Porphyry Nodes
3 Moat
1 Conversion

3 Standstill
3 Collective Restraint

4 The Abyss
4 Underworld Dreams

4 Drop of Honey
4 Enchantress's Presence

4 Pernicious Deed
2 Dark Heart of the Wood

Options : still in doubt about Conversion - put there in the hope of hosing burn, together with dark hearts. Previous versions used 1 Necro to avoid self-decking, 4 Propaganda instead of Collective Restraint and 1 more Standstill in place of 2 Dark Heart of the Wood and Conversion.

Progress so far:
Mirror match - the AI can't play the deck it seems... so easy win

UG Threshold - Delay the match with drops, porphyry and deeds to find Moat as soon as possible. Won 2 times by dreams, once by decking (it draws more than this deck).

White Weenie - Very vulnerable to honey/porphyry and then moat/abyss. Pernicious deed of 2 kills basically everything and especially tokens (pernicious deed of 0). So far seems a win.

Slivers - Hard. Winged sliver gives everyone flying and crystalline sliver gives shroud. Pernicious deed is the only way out.

Burn - lost 2 times to it, but never tried yet with the changes (dark hearts, conversion).

Crashes - still the major enemy matches are loooooong and the chance of crash rises exponentially. So far lost at least 5 times to crash.

Will report further progresses with this.

[scherbchen]

I was a big fan of Luminarch Ascension in this challenge. once you get the game locked down it wins faster than Underworld Dreams (hence shorter games). another card to look out for is Mystic Remora if you have the auramancer reward and have unlocked it.

Night of Soul´s Betrayal is also decent as a one- or two-of, Oblivion Ring is also very decent (though it is somewhat buggy for me for some unknown reason last time I played with it).

not a big fan of Standstill in this challenge tbh. you never want to cast it if you try to catch up so it is an extra mulligan you took in that scenario and if you don't have to play catch-up a Luminarch Ascension is better as it wins the game rather than drawing you redundant nodes or Moats. love the card but this is not the challenge for it imho.

also, keep in mind that the ai, when playing burn, will often hold back spells to unload them in one big turn if it does not have creatures to fling them at. which makes Luminarch Ascension actually go online sooner than it usually would against this deck and, hopefully, draw some of the fire onto tokens once it is online. freed another three slots there.

EDIT: ah, just found mine. what a ghastly deck I built there.... here it is, for what it is worth

7 Plains
6 Island
4 Tundra
4 Savannah
4 Tropical Island

3 Luminarch Ascension
4 Moat
4 Pacifism
4 Brainwash
4 Annex (huh.... no idea what my reasoning was there, I'd cut these today. just imagine these are Journey to Nowhere or Oblivion Ring)
4 Collective Restraint
4 Propaganda
4 Exploration
4 Enchantress's Presence

[discoransom]

Enchanted Evening, a solid list that only loses to nut draws

3 Honden of Infinite Rage
2 Honden of Cleansing Fire
2 Honden of Life's Web
2 Honden of Night's Reach

1 Luminarch Ascension
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Fertile Ground
3 Moat
3 The Abyss
4 Journey to Nowhere
4 Oblivion Ring
4 Drop of Honey

4 each of the appropriate duals

[scherbchen]

ugh, red and black hondens are such a waste of digital cardboard and digital mana spent. especially as multiples.

I do kinda like Fertile Ground as a choice, however.

[discoransom]

ugh, red and black hondens are such a waste of digital cardboard and digital mana spent. especially as multiples.

I do kinda like Fertile Ground as a choice, however.

haha yeah they're not the best thing ever printed. However in this deck, there is a pretty hard lock with black honden/abyss, and red honden is a good but slow kill condition.

[scherbchen]

aye, I suppose you could really make an argument for the red honden. the black one reads "gain 2 extra life if you control a honden of lcleansing fire versus the AI, though )

again, Fertile Ground is a really good idea. so much better than my Exploration.

[discoransom]

aye, I suppose you could really make an argument for the red honden. the black one reads "gain 2 extra life if you control a honden of lcleansing fire versus the AI, though )

again, Fertile Ground is a really good idea. so much better than my Exploration.

lol it kind of does.

________________________________


Master Warlock

I really don't know if this list is any good, because I drew 3 mirrors and 3 elves/spawnwrithe decks which are pretty easy...


(edit: for the love of God, run Ambition's Cost No idea how I missed that)

25 Swamp

4 Innocent Blood
4 Barter in Blood
4 Damnation

4 Hymn to Tourach
1 Mind Twist
4 Night's Whisper

2 Reanimate
1 Beacon of Unrest

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Diabolic Tutor

4 Drain Life
4 Corrupt