[Archive] Challenge Set 1

[Reid]

I feel for you. I got stuck on this one for a long time. In the end I just got lucky, and he didn't open with a turn one lackey. I ended up outracing him with an exalted deck.

I lost with Elves, Kithkin and with the white deck I used for the first challenge based on Worship/Moat (I think this is the best I made to play against it, but it's terribly slow against other decks). I'll try again with that and if I can't make it, I'll switch to a blue counter deck.
I'm welcoming any suggestion though

Edit: this is insane. I can't understand why some people says it's easy... This is my first round against Akroma today (I obviously lost, he sacrificed its normal goblins with Siege-Gang Commander to get right of everything I could play and with the flying Goblin Lackey it kept putting in other creatures...). What could I have done? It can spend 7 mana on the first round...
I'll switch back to a white deck, but the only idea I have is to pray to draw Balance at the start.

[aww1979]

Wow... Onslaught is hard :p I thought I'd found a way to beat it when I realized Jatill didn't ban Contract from Below, and I made the world's best Tendrils deck. I beat the entire challenge on the first attempt with it, half on the first turn, but apparently Jatill foresaw it because nothing was unlocked; it just kept playing regular games after the last one instead of giving the upkeep unlock message! Sneaky devil, that Jatill...

The hardest part about Onslaught is that your deck has to be able to deal with such a wide variety of 'onslaughts', as discussed below. Most games the same deck shows up each round, but occasionally you'll get them switched up, just to keep you on your toes.

Round 1 - Sacred Nectar
This one is mostly trivial, unless your deck is very, very slow. Most decks I used virtually ignored Sacred Nectar, or else were slowed only a little by the 4 life per turn gain.

Round 2 - Spawnwrithe
This one's hard. Not only do you have to deal with Spawnwrithes en masse, but the Elf deck the AI usually plays here has four naturalize, so even with Moats, Collective Restraints, and such, you can't be 100% safe. Echoing Truth, Maelstrom Pulse, Pyroclasm, and Moat are effective here, as is anything that can win fast, since the only disruption is Naturalize. If you lose... well, at least it's just round 2 :p

Round 3 - Relentless Rats
Similar to but easier than Spawnwrithe. If you can neutralize the Rats, you win, period. Drop a Moat and it's over. Shouldn't be much trouble at all for any good deck unless you draw a poor hand.

Round 4 - Bitterblossom
Not very hard. If you got this far, you'll usually beat it. Whatever got you past Spawnwrithe/Rats will probably stop Faerie Rogues, and your win condition plus bitterblossom pain should make this one simple. Probably the easiest one in the gauntlet, except Sacred Nectar.

Round 5 - Meddling Mage
This one is incredibly difficult. If your opening hand doesn't either have a mess of card draw or a permanent answer to Meddling Mages every turn picking your topdeck card, you can't win. The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale + Winter Orb is effective here, doubly so because the Tabernacle is a land and can't be named by the Meddler. Howling Mine/Font of Mythos work well here, since you will be able to draw usable cards. Shuffling your deck via fetchlands or other cards after Mage names a card but before you draw will help you draw useful plays, too.

[aww1979]

Round 6 - Coat of Arms
The first few times I got here was with a creatureless deck, and the Kobolds beat the heck out of me most times. This plays actually quite similar to Rats, only you need your answers much sooner. If your deck has creatures that can abuse Coat of Arms, so much the better, though I doubt a weenie deck could make it this far. I haven't ever seen this round not be Kobolds.

Round 7 - Time Walk
Ouch! Yes, it really is Time Walk! And it's only round 7... Be fast, very fast, and be prepared for creatures that might get summoned on one turn to attack you on the second AI turn before you get to go. Usually AI gets Merfolk, Gold Weenie, Kithkin, or some other weenie deck here. Moat will neutralize most threats, though Spectral Procession, Asura of War, and a few others will still fly over.

Round 8 - Lightning Blast
This one is the furthest I've ever gotten to, except for the degenerate Contract from Below/Tendrils deck. You've got 5 turns to win, unless you pack a lot of life gain, damage prevention, or are just really fast. I made it here with a modified 'why I hate winter orb' deck, which had zero life gain and relied on a long drawn out prisoner-style game with Glimpse the Unthinkable as a win condition... it had no chance.

Round 9 - Underworld Dreams
I'm not sure what deck the AI plays here, because Tendrils/Contract won on the first turn, which it only managed because this engine doesn't let you die at 0 life until the end of a phase. I was at something like -20 when I went off with a Tendrils, but gained it all back and more. Assuming you don't draw extra cards (which you probably will) you have about the same amount of time as the Lightning Blast round gives you.

Round 10 - Obliterate
You need threats you can deploy on turn 1. And since every turn basically is turn 1, you need a lot of them. Alternately, you could probably win this one by just decking your opponent, even if you hadn't designed very heavily for that. One Feldon's Cane in your deck is practically an autowin here. Tendrils took about 6 turns to win here, but I just didn't do anything until I had a probable win in hand, and then played it all. The AI played Goblins against my Tendrils here, but that's just one sample, so that might not be the usual.

What does it all mean: I'm thinking fetchlands are a must. They'll help against Mages, plus they're good cards in 90% of all decks. You'll need either uber hosers like Moat, or a reliable way to win very fast. Or both. You need either a ton of one mana threats for the obliterate round, or else a method of taking one uber turn for the win.

Decks that I've tried and failed with: Weenie, Black Vise, Workshop, Tendrils (nondegenerate), Academy, Control, a modified 'why I hate winter orb' deck that I beat challenge #1 with, and quite a few others, mostly silly metagamed things that were useless outside this challenge, and mostly useless even in it. I did have one that had Time Vault/Voltaic key, and about a dozen tutors to get it fast, but often it wasn't fast enough, and I had a bad habit of forgetting to click or misclicking, due to the tediousness of keying your vault and tapping it every turn. This one had issues against Sacred Nectar/Lightning Blast, though, and would never make it past Underworld Dreams or especially Obliterate.

I'm thinking Tendrils will still be the best way to go. Even my nondegenerate version managed the occasional first turn kill, just nowhere near the 1/4-1/3 or so rate that the Contract one did. I haven't made it past the Meddling Mage one with it, though; usually a key card gets named early, and I had no removal in the deck. Tendrils fairly regularly got me to Mage, though, so I think I'll work on making it a bit faster.

Summary: So... you have to beat lifegain, beat several sped-up weenie decks, beat a 5-6 turn clock twice, beat Meddling Mage, and beat Obliterate with many cheap threats or a one turn kill (not necessarily on turn 1 though) The best bet seems to be Tendrils, or something very similar in style, where you can go off in just a few turns, and the possibility for one turn for Obliterate.

Tendrils... a few tips: if you play Cruel Bargain/Infernal Contract, you will crash the game if you cast these at negative life. You can cast them at 0 life successfully, though this borders on cheating, since modern rules say you die immediately rather than at end of phase. Other lifeloss effects can generally be used at 0 or lower life, like Night's Whisper, Vampiric Tutor, but not fetchlands. The AI usually won't bother countering any of the spells in a Tendrils deck, except Tendrils itself, and the storm effect means you'll just have to make sure you do a bit of overkill if you think the AI has counters.

If anyone beat this with a deck OTHER than Tendrils, I'd LOVE to see the decklist :p Also, since I upgraded my challenge mode to the newer version after I beat the first three challenges, I'm not sure what I unlocked besides Mystic Enforcer, City of Traitors, and Mystic Remora, so if anyone could mention those, that would be helpful, in case some of those will make other decks possible.

[jatill]

I used a Tendrils deck with 4 Echoing Truth to win this challenge. I actually found the Spawnwrithe and Relentless Rats rounds to be the toughest.

[reng0r0]

I beat it with an Oath deck last night. Platinum Angel saved me from death on pretty much every match except 1 & 10. I had one Underworld Dreams and Feldon's Cane in the deck for Round 10.

[Zeek]

I was doing the Oath/Angel thing up until Lightning Blast. I couldn't drop Platinum without Greaves, and Moat isn't sufficient. So that didn't...end well.

I was having a nice time with a Bridge powered Workshop Affinity, but I got screwed over by mass Meddling Mage. Because it automatically calls the next card in my deck, my having an empty hand turned into two uncastable cards, which meant the Mages were no longer held back by Ensnaring Bridge, plus it wouldn't have mattered if I was holding threats or not, because again, uncastable. While a quickly emptied hand with Ensnaring Bridge is great for the rats and plenty of other decks, but yeah, those Mages are a sheer pain.

Anyway, this challenge would be so easy if I could play EonHub.dec, but we seem to be missing a key part of that. >_>

[aww1979]

Jatill: yeah those two are pretty tough for the tendrils deck that I'm playing. I'm not using Echoing Truth in it, but decided to use extra card draw and mana sources instead. Echoing Truth was key in a lot of other deck attempts I made though.

reng0r0: nice! I tried a couple different Oath decks, but I found my versions were too slow, so I gave up on it. It was also too dependent on getting the Oath.

zeek: I feel your pain :p Ever since playing tendrils, the AI named Tendrils with every single first turn Meddling Mage, followed by an immediate forfeit. Even the game I had two opening hand Tendrils, a third one was STILL on top of my deck... I put in a single copy of Empty the Warrens for this scenario and I'm going to try again now.

[MalkolmX]

I followed your tip Jatill, Tendrils with Echoing Truth it's quite good, i got to duel 9 of this challenge after a while. Echoing Truth gives you a lot of tempo against some of the decks, it usually gives 1-2 turns and against Meddling Mage is amazing, Echoing Truth EoT and crack a fetch during the upkeep and you're ready to go without any disruption.

[Salbei]

this is my list used to beat the first challenge.
oath list with propaganda/tabernacle combo as backup.

the 2 show and tell are random feel free to replace em with whatever you feel like.a single maze of ith might be good to add (4 crop rotation to tutor it if needed).

Code: Select all

;tabernacle oath
;
;Salbei
;User E-Mail
;15/08/2009
;1
;4th Edition
;

.806   4   The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
.1975   4   Propaganda
.1902   4   Oath of Druids
.1308   4   Platinum Angel
.10   1   Balance
.249   1   Time Walk
.1351   1   Tinker
.1   1   Ancestral Recall
.499   1   Brainstorm
.17   1   Black Lotus
.457   3   Mox Diamond
.165   1   Mox Emerald
.166   1   Mox Jet
.167   1   Mox Pearl
.168   1   Mox Ruby
.169   1   Mox Sapphire
.1488   4   Flooded Strand
.1487   4   Polluted Delta
.254   4   Tundra
.252   4   Tropical Island
.258   2   Underground Sea
.62   1   Demonic Tutor
.333   1   Vampiric Tutor
.390   4   Crop Rotation
.1675   1   Progenitus
.349   1   Enlightened Tutor
.1891   2   Echoing Truth
.1758   2   Show and Tell


no orchards in there simply because you don´t need em.

mulligan rule:
try to either get a really early oath into play (turn1 or 2) or else a turn 1 tabernacle followed up with a propaganda will buy you more than enough time to find a winning option (hardcast platinum angel or more likely draw/tutor for oath).
i just had to mulligan twice , maybe i was just lucky but it seems to be a consistant list for the task.

[Salbei]

just finished the 2nd challenge with this one. was mad lucky at the goblin encounter. rest was fairly easy.i´ve used ankh of mishra at the last encounter.keep in mind you can search your library for any card. esnaring bridge might be a good at the last battle if things get messy.

its not even a well build deck. first turn nacatl into 2nd turn hierarch into 3rd turn liege is pretty much the most aggressive clock.
genesis is in there against that anti creature encounter and does the job very well.battlegrace angel and finks keep you alive (the finks saved my ass vs zombies).it felt pretty lucky so this one ain´t the best solution to beat the challenge.

Code: Select all

;Enforced
;
;Salbei
;User E-Mail
;16/08/2009
;1
;4th Edition
;

.1972   4   Mystic Enforcer
.1949   4   Wilt-Leaf Liege*
.1861   4   Qasali Pridemage
.1470   4   Sakura-Tribe Elder
.1804   4   Noble Hierarch
.1915   4   Genesis
.1801   4   Battlegrace Angel
.1414   4   Knight of Meadowgrain
.1935   4   Kitchen Finks
.212   4   Savannah
.91   2   Forest
.188   2   Plains
.1473   4   Windswept Heath
.1474   4   Wooded Foothills
.1326   4   Wild Nacatl
.241   3   Taiga
.319   1   Gaea's Cradle


[aww1979]

Took me long enough :p Kept playing with different Tendrils builds, and ended up going with only a single Tendrils copy, mostly to combat the Meddling Mages. They aren't likely to name it if there's just one. This version was fast enough to handle all the decks fairly easily, but it took days of playing and tweaking to get it to this point, not to mention learning to play this very difficult deck.

;Ultimate Power
;
;#oldgames
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;16/08/2009
;1
;4th Edition
;

.499 1 Brainstorm
.1890 1 Demonic Consultation
.62 1 Demonic Tutor
.1 1 Ancestral Recall
.55 4 Dark Ritual
.1734 4 Cabal Ritual
.165 1 Mox Emerald
.166 1 Mox Jet
.167 1 Mox Pearl
.168 1 Mox Ruby
.169 1 Mox Sapphire
.1718 1 Chrome Mox
.1424 1 Lotus Petal
.157 1 Mana Vault
.1704 1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
.1910 1 Yawgmoth's Will*
.333 1 Vampiric Tutor
.1886 1 Burning Wish
.1848 1 Tendrils of Agony
.250 1 Timetwister
.1351 1 Tinker
.282 1 Wheel of Fortune
.309 1 Windfall
.317 1 Tolarian Academy
.1342 1 Time Spiral
.1898 1 Lion's Eye Diamond
.230 1 Sol Ring
.17 1 Black Lotus
.1900 1 Memory Jar
.894 1 Mana Crypt
.587 4 Meditate
.1904 4 Simian Spirit Guide
.1696 4 Manamorphose
.457 1 Mox Diamond
.403 4 City of Brass
.1893 3 Forbidden Orchard
.1502 4 Infernal Contract

The goal is to play mana, draw cards, and repeat until the storm count is sufficient to make the kill with Tendrils of Agony. It's easier said than done, and it's a more complex deck than appears at first glance.

One caveat: there is a strange bug on this challenge round if you do 'too much' stuff on the first turn, but don't win. (usually drawing lots of cards) During the AI upkeep, you will be handed an automatic loss if you did this. Therefore, ALWAYS play your first turn as "land, go". Other than that, play the deck as you would in real life.

Other cards I experimented with in the deck at one time or another: Night's Whisper, Cruel Bargain, Land Grant, Hurkyl's Recall, Echoing Truth, Elvish Spirit Guide, Regrowth, Grim Tutor, Frantic Search, Careful Study, Ponder, fetchlands/dual lands, Empty the Warrens (for Meddling Mage alternate win), Time Walk, Library of Alexandria. For various reasons, those were cut in favour of the build you see before you. The Demonic Consultation would've probably been the next to go; it almost never did anything useful except when I'd already won or as a desperate gamble naming something like Black Lotus. Mostly it fed Chrome Mox :p

[reng0r0]

Very interesting deck. I just might have to try that out. The reason I hadn't before is because I wasn't even sure how it won.

I'm going to tell you now though..it may work fine for the first few matches in the Shandalar challenge, but it will screech to a halt later on.

[Tepa]

It sees that everyone is coming to the conclusion that Tendrils is the way to go to beat this particular challenge. My own build:

;g_Tendrils
;
;User
;User E-Mail
;08/08/2009
;1
;4th Edition
;

.1897 4 Land Grant
.1696 4 Manamorphose
.1685 4 Chromatic Star
.17 1 Black Lotus
.1424 1 Lotus Petal
.1898 1 Lion's Eye Diamond
.894 1 Mana Crypt
.157 1 Mana Vault
.165 1 Mox Emerald
.166 1 Mox Jet
.167 1 Mox Pearl
.168 1 Mox Ruby
.169 1 Mox Sapphire
.230 1 Sol Ring
.282 1 Wheel of Fortune
.55 4 Dark Ritual
.1734 4 Cabal Ritual
.62 1 Demonic Tutor
.333 1 Vampiric Tutor
.1848 4 Tendrils of Agony
.331 1 Imperial Seal
.1502 3 Infernal Contract
.1 1 Ancestral Recall
.499 1 Brainstorm
.249 1 Time Walk
.250 1 Timetwister
.1351 1 Tinker
.312 1 Ponder
.1900 1 Memory Jar
.252 2 Tropical Island
.12 2 Bayou
.258 2 Underground Sea
.1487 3 Polluted Delta
.317 1 Tolarian Academy
.1910 1 Yawgmoth's Will*

It can, among other things, abuse a slight bug in Chromatic Star for free storm. Against the Meddling Mage deck you just hope to get either get a first turn kill or have the first mage(s) name something irrelevant and/or restricted. The deck plays alot like the old SX Tendrils deck from before the restriction of Brainstorm.

[jatill]

What's the Chromatic Star bug?

[Tepa]

What's the Chromatic Star bug?

Activate the Star with a single click, then click cancel when it prompts you for payment. The Star will draw you a card, and then you will be asked which colour of mana you would like. This, of course works only if you would be able to activate the Star from the beginning.