[Archive] Challenge Set 3

[Drudger]

Thought I'd add my deck that I used to beat March #2, used the deck I used to beat the first March challenge as base. Beat it with this the 1st real try. Forgot to turn on challenge mode.

.17 1 Black Lotus
.169 1 Mox Sapphire
.168 1 Mox Ruby
.167 1 Mox Pearl
.166 1 Mox Jet
.165 1 Mox Emerald
.230 1 Sol Ring
.1216 4 Seat of the Synod
.1682 4 Darksteel Citadel
.1775 4 Mind Stone
.1571 2 Serrated Arrows
.248 1 Time Vault
.1550 1 Voltaic Key
.1685 4 Chromatic Star
.1686 4 Chromatic Sphere
.1215 4 Vault of Whispers
.1711 4 Helm of Awakening
.18 4 Black Vise
.965 3 Ensnaring Bridge
.1894 3 Goblin Charbelcher
.1306 4 Sculpting Steel
.495 1 Feldon's Cane
.1774 3 Grafted Skullcap
.981 3 Expedition Map

Includes 2 of my fav lock-down combos, Vault/Key and Bridge/Skullcap. Fairly easy to play: get a bridge in play (copy it if playing against green or white), dump hand, then thin and cantrip to a belcher.

[scherbchen]

just in case nobody had any idea on the Gimme! challenge (yeah, right) here is the one I did it with:

18 Islands (no fast mana acceleration, we need lands)
4 Underground Sea
4 Volcanic Island

4 Annex (our mana acceleration, sometimes you get to cast Nicol this way or hose an opponent)
4 Copy Artifact (to copy an opponent's Mox or, most of the time, Vedalken Shackles)
4 Vedalken Shackles (arguably the best card in the deck)
4 Threads of Disloyalty (cheapest stealer)
3 Bribery (most notably against the soldier deck)
4 Treachery
4 Control Magic
3 Rite of Replication ( just because it is fun to get 5 Scions of Oona, also kills Legends)
2 Twincast (meh)
2 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker (very iffy but it can give you a lucky win against burn since it has no noteworthy creatures. also, you have to play Nicol if you can )

[aww1979]

The new changes to Gimme! made it a lot easier. This deck beat it the first attempt. Previously, it had 4x Annex, 2 more Confiscate and 2x Twincast in place of Sarkhan Vol and the 4 wildcards. (AR, Time Walk, Sol Ring, Mox) I got lucky in that I didn't hit turbofog or the burn deck, though with Sarkhan Vol and Dragons I'd have at least stood a fighting chance this time.

.44 4 Control Magic
.1000 2 Confiscate
.1053 4 Rite Of Replication
.627 4 Threads of Disloyalty
.1341 4 Treachery
.126 10 Island
.258 4 Underground Sea
.266 4 Volcanic Island
.254 4 Tundra
.252 4 Tropical Island
.985 4 Bribery
.630 4 Vedalken Shackles
.625 4 Sarkhan Vol
.1 1 Ancestral Recall
.249 1 Time Walk
.230 1 Sol Ring
.169 1 Mox Sapphire

BTW, kicked Rite of Replication = win on Siege-Gang Commander, Cloudgoat Giant, and Captain of the Watch

Also note Vedalken Shackles; I missed that the first time I tried Gimme, because it's not technically blue, though it might as well be.

[aww1979]

.823 4 Elspeth, Knight-Errant*
.822 4 Ajani Vengeant
.807 4 Ajani Goldmane
.613 4 Sorin Markov*
.802 4 Garruk Wildspeaker
.809 4 Chandra Nalaar
.625 4 Sarkhan Vol
.1159 4 Chandra Ablaze
.17 1 Black Lotus
.230 1 Sol Ring
.167 1 Mox Pearl
.165 1 Mox Emerald
.166 1 Mox Jet
.168 1 Mox Ruby
.189 4 Plateau
.241 4 Taiga
.212 4 Savannah
.9 4 Badlands
.12 4 Bayou
.216 2 Scrubland

6 free cards were all acceleration. Game 8 I should have lost, but AI kept attacking my planeswalkers with slivers instead of finishing me off. Game 9 was a mirror match (I think 9 always is) and it was extremely close. I had 1 life, AI had 4, I had one Elspeth soldier and AI had three tapped beast tokens, and I topdecked Ajani Vengeant. Attacked for 1 and lightning helixed for the win!

[aww1979]

Sliver Nation

Round 1: Plated Sliver
Round 2: Muscle Sliver
Round 3: Blade Sliver
Round 4: Bonesplitter Sliver
Round 5: Might Sliver
Round 6: Coat of Arms
Round 7: Sliver Queen
Round 8: Crystalline Sliver + Winged Sliver
Round 9: 2x Virulent Sliver

[jatill]

6 free cards were all acceleration. Game 8 I should have lost, but AI kept attacking my planeswalkers with slivers instead of finishing me off. Game 9 was a mirror match (I think 9 always is) and it was extremely close. I had 1 life, AI had 4, I had one Elspeth soldier and AI had three tapped beast tokens, and I topdecked Ajani Vengeant. Attacked for 1 and lightning helixed for the win!

I'm surprised you were able to make the mana work. That's been a constant issue for me and my deck is only 3 colors. That, and last time I played and I was in round 7. I played Ajani Vengeant when I already had Ajani Goldmane in play. Dammit!

[scherbchen]

aye, killing my own Ajanis was also a favourite pasttime of mine

finally managed it with this 3 colour list

4 Plateau
4 Taiga
4 Savannah
5 Plains
4 Mountain
4 Forest

4 Ajani Goldmane
4 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3 Chandra Nalaar
3 Chandra Ablaze
4 Garruk Wildspeaker
3 Nissa Revane
4 Sarkhan Vol
4 Ajani Vengeant

extra cards:

1 Jokulhaups (a relic of a former 4 copies, at times an incredible card)
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
3 Nissa's Chosen (great early defense, playing first and having one of them in the starting hand takes a load of pressure off your planeswalkers, probably should be a 4-of)

Gaddok Teeg simply murders this deck, coupled with Jenara, Asura of War you will lose 95% of games. burn, Goblin and Faeries are also quite nasty but you can't lose to turbo fog.

another possible route is, imho, going blue for Jace Beleren who is a 3-drop with 5 loaylty, basically, and adding Sower of Temptation for creature defense. alas, having no access to fetchlands makes the mana base shaky as is, as jatill mentioned.

up next will be Enchanted Evening before I have another go at March of the Machines 2 which I have failed at bitterly so far.... I'm thinking Ajani Goldmane, Sarkhan Vol, Saproling Burst, Exploration, Enchantress's Presence, Fires of Yavimaya or Ajani Goldmane, Moat, Pacifism, Luminarch Ascension, Threads of Disloyalty, blue and white Hondens, Control Magic, etc.

do we get extra cards in the Enchantment Challenge? Enlightened Tutor would be nice ;D

edit: ah, no planeswalkers... sniff...

[aww1979]

I'm surprised you were able to make the mana work. That's been a constant issue for me and my deck is only 3 colors. Dammit!

Other than Sorin, getting the coloured mana wasn't ever a problem, but having *enough* mana to do anything often was, which is why the land count is very high. If you have Garruk in play and, say, one plains or two swamps, though, you can tap them, garruk to untap them, and then cast ajani/elspeth/sorin as needed, which occasionally I did, particularly with sorin.

I did the same thing as you, burying my own ajani or chandra when I first started playing the deck, but eventually I got used to it :p

[scherbchen]

well this was not that bad though there are some matchups which will annoy you... Enchanted Evening 2.3 (which means that I built a lot of silly decks before this one that did not work)

lots of lands as usual

7 Plains
6 Island
4 Tundra
4 Savannah
4 Tropical Island

more mana (yes, there is a pattern to my decks)

4 Exploration
4 Annex

defense

4 Moat
4 Pacifism
4 Brainwash (no kidding)
4 Collective Restraint
4 Propaganda

just because

4 Enchantress's Presence (never, ever, cast this against turbofog)

killing the opponent

3 Luminarch Ascension (reads: if this enchantment is in play you put a counter on it every time your opponent deals no damage to you. if this enchantment has 4 counters you win the game)

back to march of the machines 2, sigh....

[aww1979]

I'm still trying enchanted evening :p It's tough, or else I'm playing it wrong. My most successful ideas I've tried was similar to your deck scherbchen, only they had black for The Abyss, and sometimes green for Drop of Honey, and Porphyry Nodes were in, too, and the kill conditions were either Underworld Dreams, Luminarch Ascension, or Hondens.

I tried Enchantress's Presence, also, but I found that by the time I was playing it (rather than Moat or something so that I didn't die) I no longer needed the card advantage because I'd either already locked the opponent, or else was doomed anyway.

I've been thinking of trying a Gimme!-style deck, with lots of control enchantments, and then other support like propaganda and stuff.

[scherbchen]

I started out with Treachery and Threads of Disloyalty and Control Magic first but against Slivers or Zombies or Goblins those were always too slow or uncastable for me. But, yeah, Exploration and Enchantress's Presence might be somewhat on the iffy side. unless you have them in your opening hand they are pretty much chaff.

the nice thing/bug about Brainwash is that the opponent will often pay the 3 mana for it but then deny to pay for Propaganda or rather pay and attack than cast another creature.

[jatill]

I started out with Treachery and Threads of Disloyalty and Control Magic first but against Slivers or Zombies or Goblins those were always too slow or uncastable for me. But, yeah, Exploration and Enchantress's Presence might be somewhat on the iffy side. unless you have them in your opening hand they are pretty much chaff.

the nice thing/bug about Brainwash is that the opponent will often pay the 3 mana for it but then deny to pay for Propaganda or rather pay and attack than cast another creature.

I lost the Enchanted Evening over and over until I added fulls sets of Propaganda and Collective Restraint. It because pretty simple then, except for the mirror

[aww1979]

Heh, I've been using playsets of Propaganda and Collective Restraint in almost every try I've made on enchanted evening and I'm still getting pwned. I did finally realize that Wild Growth and Fertile Ground would provide some acceleration that the deck badly needs, so maybe those will make the difference for me.

[scherbchen]

finally unlocked my Jitte, I thought it was not to be. tried to do a non-oath 1,2,3 deck (mostly because I have no Serum Powder yet) and to use some new cards at the same time, building a mono-blue deck with Vedalken Shackles, Umezawa's Jitte, Sundering Titan, Master Transmuter (no Goblin Welder yet, either, alas) , all the Mana acceleration artifacts that are not called Mind Stone (so that would be Mana Vault and Grim Monolith in this challenge, 0 casting cost artifacts would really help ), Tezzeret the Seekeer and all the usual suspects.

got utterly trounced in all attempts but the first one where Jitte bugged on me one single time in round 8 on a needless pump.

[aww1979]

mmm Finally beat Enchanted Evening. The keys are the wild growth and fertile ground for mana acceleration.

.1744 4 Honden of Cleansing Fire
.1749 4 Honden of Infinite Rage
.1747 4 Honden of Life's Web
.1748 4 Honden of Night's Reach
.1745 4 Honden of Seeing Winds
.1975 4 Propaganda
.1956 4 Collective Restraint
.1034 4 Fertile Ground
.285 4 Wild Growth
.252 4 Tropical Island
.254 3 Tundra
.258 3 Underground Sea
.12 3 Bayou
.212 3 Savannah
.241 4 Taiga
.266 4 Volcanic Island

The mirror match was pretty silly :p Dropped a couple propaganda/restraints so Life's Web spirits couldn't attack, then let the AI deck himself with the blue Honden. A convenient little bug where the AI doesn't activate red Honden on players helped, too; not sure if it made the difference or not, but it would've been close.

That just leaves Sliver Nation and Gather No Moss. (and Land Ho! from the other sets) I've made it to round 8 of slivers (see above for the slivers in play so far) but Gather No Moss is really hard, since you basically have 30 or so useless walls and only 4 cards that do anything.