[Archive] Challenge Set 1

[Professor]

I have gone through a few deck trying to beat challenge 1, but I've been playing a variation on the Propaganda/Tabernacle deck below lately. Effective as it can be, I still haven't made it all the way home yet.

As I wasn't reading his decklist other than the main combo, mine evolved a little differently. I do not have Oath of Druids or Crop Rotation. Instead I have StP and Careful Study. My only non-UW card is a Demonic Tutor to get a Tabernacle if I must. But you really, really want to have a Tabernacle in your opening hand to kill the AI's in-play dude. Mine's definitely more defensive, but the only real drawback is that I might have to wait a few more turns for my kill condition to show up (which is currently 2xPlatinum Angel and 3xBaneslayer Angel).
Someday soon, though, I'll get there!

[grinnin]

I finally beat challenge #2 !!!!

It was brutal - at least 2 weeks of constant trying before I could get to the Reaper dependably (75% of the time) but I really had no clue how to finish him. I finally made a practice 'orb vs reaper' deck on single-player and kept practicing until I knew exactly what to burning wish for. In actuality I found that there are more than 5 decks available to the chaos orb, something like 2 - 3 per color, as sometimes I would tutor for cards find my whole deck was different.

I ended up using the Kithkin deck posted, but swapped out the Rangers for Plains as I had mana problems a little too often. There's also a bug with Kjeldoran Outpost that definitely saved me a few times. The 'Unblockable' deck above is an amazing hoser deck, but unfortunately it would crash the program on deck #4 just about everytime. As for Momir I found those matchups the most fun, always going first and letting the opponent lay down two creatures before I threw one down, then trading until I had 9 land down for Iona.


Orb cards to wish for:

Black - I usually mulligan to at least 3 or 4 lands, and then wish for Ob. After a few turns Ob will just stomp him out or sit untapped and allow your in-deck shadows to finish him off. Or, go for a Dauthi Marauder and hope you can race him.

Red - By far the easiest of them all, go for the Magus of the Moon. Some of the red decks have Price of Progress built in, so I wouldn't go wishing for it.

White - Intrepid Hero. As long as you have one or two critters out before the Hero goes down, you can assassinate his newly cast creature and hit him with your unblocked weenies.

Blue - This is hard, I've only won about 50% of the time with blue. The Verdalken artifact is good, but often gets Pridemaged away.

Green - I have no idea with this, I can only win about 1 in 4 games. If I have a handful of elves I sometimes go for Eldamari, or if I have a big critter I'll go for the Elvish Piper. Suggestions?

[aww1979]

What I did with the orb match was either wish for a colour hoser like circle of protection or flashfires or something, or else wait and save it in case I was going to lose the game, then get something to turn the game around. The game I beat it, I think I waited until I was about to die, then got Martial Coup for 5 down and won with baby soldiers.

[discoransom]

Rolled it with Baneslayer Zoo first try. Basically the Kibler list from Austin w/o Grove/Fire. Got insanely lucky when Goblins got mana screwed and I had a hand full of removal that wasn't path. Last battle just as lucky drawing into cat warriors of all things. Hurricane from the wish, and that was that.

[grinnin]

Anyone have any luck on this one with High Tide Tendrils? I'm using a modified version of the decklist listed in Challenge #1 and it seems a bit too slow...

[aww1979]

Grinnin:
I haven't ever tried that deck, but I would expect it to be slower than other Tendrils decks. High Tide is more of a mid-late game card, whereas Dark Ritual is better in your opening hand. Slower isn't necessarily a bad thing, though, as long as you can keep the game under control.

Has anyone tried using a Pitch long style deck for the challenges over standard tendrils?

I have not had much time, with tests and all, but it seems solid enough.

Not for this challenge, but for the one to unlock Mind's Desire, where you have to win the turn you play your first spell, I made a deck that was almost exactly like that, the main differences being it didn't have Careful Study or Force of Will. (or Time Walk, but only since the rules of that challenge made it useless) I think I had stuff like Meditate, Manamorphose, and spirit guides in their places. I expect that just about anything Tendrils will work on this challenge.

[grinnin]

I beat this one today using an Oath deck that combined the ideas of 'White Oath' listed above, with Aww1979's Winter Orb deck, but using Felidar Sovereign as the only win condition (and minus the winter orbs.) Basically you sit behind the lock (Propaganda/Tabernacle) while Oathing up Ancestor's Chosen and throwing them away with the Tabernacle


Provided you put out a Propaganda before the Oath, this deck can handle the first 6 challenges easily enough. I had to restart with the Time Walk battle a few times but once I got past it the rest was cake. The obliterate match was hilarious though- I Oath'd up to 80 life and waited until I enough Moxen to cast Felidar (I had both in my hand) only to find out the computer Obliterates at the beginning of your upkeep, before he triggers. Thankfully I had a Feldon's Cane and just decided to run the computer out of cards

Oddly enough the challenge continued on afterwards until something like battle #13- I was definitely stressed out as I almost lost #11 to the 'Akroma' deck- the Felidar triggered on a turn when I had no cards in my deck.

;Oath Lock 2
;
;
;

.1956 4 Collective Restraint
.1975 4 Propaganda
.17 1 Black Lotus
.166 1 Mox Jet
.167 1 Mox Pearl
.169 1 Mox Sapphire
.230 1 Sol Ring
.806 4 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
.317 1 Tolarian Academy
.1424 1 Lotus Petal
.168 1 Mox Ruby
.165 1 Mox Emerald
.252 2 Tropical Island
.254 4 Tundra
.1314 2 Magus of the Moat
.495 1 Feldon's Cane
.78 2 Felidar Sovereign
.1902 4 Oath of Druids
.1893 4 Forbidden Orchard
.212 4 Savannah
.1718 1 Chrome Mox
.1663 4 Ancestor's Chosen
.349 4 Enlightened Tutor
.1891 4 Echoing Truth
.1897 3 Land Grant

[Zargophian]

i beat this chalenge with a conbination of red wht green.

Red - sneak attack
Green - Oath of druids
White - Academy rector

Now, if the red or the green are banned u still can play the enchantments with the rector.

But my problem is that i reached the 13 battles and no cursed scroll unlocked.

I dont know if i have to unlock all the chalenges till 6 ( cursed ) because when i pasted opponent n 10, the 11th oponent was the same challenge than the first.

[Gocho]

I dont know if i have to unlock all the chalenges till 6 ( cursed ) because when i pasted opponent n 10, the 11th oponent was the same challenge than the first.

I know you don't have too take them in order in the 2nd set as I did march of the machines first so I'd assume the same thing for the first set of challenges.

I'm also not having the win condition not trigger on this challenge, twice I've completed in with 3c sliver and after game 10 it starts giving me the next challenge stuff (1 land/opponent 5) and never actually completes.

[Zargophian]

can someone check this please....

thank you

[Gocho]

It does work, I tried it again with the same deck and got the victory after game 10. Just a bit buggy perhaps?

[grinnin]

I just got to the last guy (nonbasic banned) and some weird bug occured- the three lands in my hand showed up yellow as if I could play them (two mountains and a Forbidden Orchard, despite it being nonbasic) but ultimately I couldn't put any of them down.

Thoughts?

[aww1979]

Only that when I wrote that it was nonbasic land, I was really only guessing, and it might be all land. I don't remember why I thought it was just nonbasic land, except that maybe all land seemed to mean to me :p

[Systral]

Yeah it's all land. I remember beating it with a dredge deck and getting lucky at the last round (draw instead of play, discard a dredger, dredge enough Narcamoebas and bridges to chump block for a while until I could Dread Return an Angel of Despair and destroy his beater). Just sucks that the hardest match is the last one, so prepare to try a couple of times until the stars align.

[grinnin]

'the stars align' I think is the motto for the majority of these challenges...