The Challenge Masochist

[aww1979]

Holy crap... beat Lightning Blast, even with no protection. Turn 2 DSC and win 2 turns later at 4 life. I got an angel out on turn 3, and I guess Lightning Blast always targets the player, because he didn't kill it, though I didn't even need it to win that time.

Here comes underworld dreams... if I can make it through that one, it should be possible to beat the obliterate round by doing nothing except ancestral recall the AI at some point.

[aww1979]

Sweet! Managed to transmute artifact a mana vault into darksteel colossus by using voltaic key and master transmuter on my mana vault and then saccing it, then kept myself alive by bouncing all AI's underworld dreams twice with echoing truths.

Hmm, the deck for round 10 is 200 cards. I guess I can still make it though, by dumping mana artifacts and tinker or show and tell. I got black lotus and DSC in my opening hand, so it looks good.

[aww1979]

Thank heavens DSC has indestructible... Cast show and tell on DSC with black lotus, and smashed face in two more turns.

So there you go. Onslaught defeated even with my banned list :p Took three or four evenings of magic to do it, though. I was thinking of banning Platinum Angel before I started my masochist challenge run... Do you guys think Platinum Angel is a fair card to use? I figured he was fair since his casting cost is high and he is painfully vulnerable to naturalize (damn you spawnwrithe deck!) or Qasali Pridemage.

The deck doesn't take as much skill as something like Tendrils, but it is a bit tougher than the ones I used earlier in this thread. Still, I think the general idea of how to win should be obvious, even if one occasionally misses the best play. I certainly wouldn't recommend going this route to win this challenge, but at least it can be done without dredge or tendrils, even if it required a lot of luck.

Oh, the exact decklist is the one I put on the previous page, and only got to round 7 at the time. The win was the first time I beat round 7, and I went all the way, hence my statement that it required a lot of luck.

[jatill]

Hey aww (what's your name, by the way?)-
I notice that your 'next draw' feature works. How? I thought that broke for everyone during the graphics update?

[aww1979]

Alex. How does my next draw work? I don't know; I have never had a problem with it :p Maybe I never installed whatever broke it for others?

Made it twice to round 9 of Shandalar 2.0 with a hulk flash deck. (sliver style) Fortunately, the games are very fast, so I can keep trying a lot of them. My 'plan' for the Honden round was to pray like hell for an uber opening hand. Round 9 keeps screwing me, though, due to the Titania's Song messing up my artifact acceleration.

[jatill]

Re: art. I'm so jealous. I wonder why that works for you. It looks like we have the same image. Would you mind uploading your Duelart/Winbk_Endduel.bmp, just so I can be sure?

[aww1979]

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[aww1979]

This is a bit of a copout, but looking at this thread viewtopic.php?f=57&t=1521 I see that my original challenge deck for Shandalar 2.0 already meets my ban conditions, and I am unable to find anything else that works so far. Hulk Flash might make it eventually, but round 9 is really hard for it, and round 10 will be about as bad. Anything else I can think of that might work uses cards I have banned for myself.

edit: my original deck for BANNED! also meets the requirements, so I'll skip that one, too. Since part of the point of this thread is to find easy to play decks that don't use the same old cards, I don't have a problem just referring to that :p

-The deck for 5:1 (then 10:1) that I used also meets my banned list, though that is by no means an easy deck to play. However, there IS no other deck to play for that one, except with minor variations.

Looking at my challenge set #2 decks:
Super Mulligan - technically meets my banned list, but I used contract from below :p
What Hand? - Does not meet my banned list, I used Oath
That's Big... - meets my banned list
Epic - Does not meet my banned list, I used Bridge
There can be only one - has Serum Powder, Cursed Scroll, and Goblin Charbelcher, but since this is a 100 card highlander deck, those can easily be replaced by almost anything else, and this challenge is easy anyway, nearly any deck will work
March of the Machines - meets my banned list
Land Ho! - I haven't beat this one at all. There's only one deck to try, too, and I didn't ban any lands
Dude... - meets my banned list, and this is basically the only deck to use anyway

So, Super Mulligan, What Hand? and Epic include banned cards. I'll try those ones with other decks. So did There Can Only Be One, but replace those 3 cards with anything and it should be doable easily; alternatively, any decent deck you can come up with should work, since the AI gets no advantages in this one.

edit: Ok I have decided... back to Land Ho :p I'm not going to finish this project unless anyone is really stuck on one particular challenge.

[jatill]

All this work you put into challenges... makes me want to make an even harder challenge than land-ho. Maybe I got lucky to beat that on my 2nd or 3rd try!

[aww1979]

I can't even beat Land Ho with the Pit Scorpion in play! I had to put that challenge on hold, though; for some reason, Treetop Village dies whenever I activate it now

It'll be tough to come up with a harder challenge than that one, and still have it be possible.

[Marek14]

All this work you put into challenges... makes me want to make an even harder challenge than land-ho. Maybe I got lucky to beat that on my 2nd or 3rd try!

I was looking on Planechase Planes, and some of them have effects which, when one-sided, could make funny challenges.

Such as:

Cliffside Market: In computer's upkeep, if you have more life than him, your life totals are switched.
Goldmeadow: Computer gets three 0/1 tokens whenever a land enters the battlefield under his control.
Isle of Vesuva: Every nontoken creature computer gets is copied.
Lethe Lake: You are milled for ten cards every turn.
The Dark Barony: You lose 1 life for every nonblack card that goes into your graveyard
The Eon Fog: You skip your untap step.
The Hippodrome: Your creatures get -5/-0
The Maelstrom: Computer puts the top card of library onto the battlefield in its upkeep (if it's not instant or sorcery).

[Nicdanger]

After getting through Tribal Trials with the standard Oath of Boredom deck I decided never to use it again unless I became absolutely stumped by a challenge.

Vanguard Vengeance: (someone suggested elves)

Joraga Warcaller does stupid and silly things with lots of mana . . that is all!

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
8 Forest
2 Gaea's Cradle
3 Windswept Heath
3 Wooded Foothills
4 Bramblewood Paragon
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Elvish Champion
2 Elvish Lyrist
2 Elvish Scrapper
4 Imperious Perfect
4 Joraga Warcaller
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
2 Nissa Revane
4 Nissa's Chosen
4 Wren's Run Vanquisher


Chipping Away:

After several failed attempts with various decks I gave Oath of Boredom another shot. I was almost pleased when it failed too and I went back to the drawing board. Soon I found some new friends named Lone Missionary and Knight of Meadowgrain.

After many a combination of splash colors and hours of getting fail draws at the 8th or 9th round I ended up finishing with the following:

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Pearl
2 Chrome Mox
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tundra
8 Plains
2 Bonesplitter
2 Loxodon Warhammer
4 Mana Leak
4 Path to Exile
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Knight of Meadowgrain
4 Lone Missionary
4 Meddling Mage
4 Slith Ascendant
4 Soul Warden


While the barrage of life gaining dudes saved me from a preemptive dirt nap, Meddling Mage gets my vote for MVP. Every time he hit the table the AI would shutdown like a 7/11 with a broken slurpie machine. Mana Leak was probably the least valuable card in this challenge, I don't think I cast it once!

Manalink 2.0 and these challenge things are better than sliced bread and Cherry Coke! I'll post more soon because I have nothing better to do with my massive abundance of time!