Beating the Challenges - Tutorial
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Re: Beating the Challenges - Tutorial
by Salbei » 18 Feb 2011, 04:33
Added an index to the initial post to "navigate". Hope you like it 
Also changed the topic to "Announcement", so people will spot this right away.
Also changed the topic to "Announcement", so people will spot this right away.
Retired a long time ago. I will not reply.
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Re: Beating the Challenges - Tutorial
by aww1979 » 18 Feb 2011, 07:24
Set #3
Challenge #3: Master Warlock
This challenge has 9 rounds, and the last round is a mirror match.
This is one of the easiest challenges, since sorceries are a strong card type. Unfortunately, Donate isn't much use except in combo with things like Illusions of Grandeur, but whatever.
There are many strategies you can use for this deck. When I did it originally, I used a lot of sorceries that produce creatures, like Dragon Fodder and Spectral Procession, and then whatever direct damage struck my fancy. I'll do something similar here, though I forget the exact list I had before. Many decks will work here, and I think I won it the first time when it came out, so it's not very hard.
A deck chock full of removal and creature sorceries. Due to the Demonic Dread (which I thought was a neat touch) some spells were not included, like Balance. (nothing like cascading into THAT when you don't want it...) The green/blue duals are for Tribal Flames and anything I might jank with Burning Wish.
Run #1: (loss) Lost to goblins on round 5. It took awhile to finally give up the ghost, but I was fighting an uphill battle the whole time. Eventually two AI Wastelands crippled my mana base and I couldn't recover.
I think the Demonic Dread was a huge mistake, and I'm going to design a new deck for next round.
This one's more controllish, and the addition of green allows abuse of 4x Living Wish. The lower land count is alright due to Land Grant. (hopefully!)
Run #2: (win) This deck did a lot better. One game against the white weenie shadow deck was a bit scary, but I topdecked a second black mana for Damnation and after that I was fine. Other than that, it wasn't too bad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPzaQ3chKYQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvFUZECjTGc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bhskYz3SN0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k020YBmBAo8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez5F9quWTKI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaG3zpvctuk
(yes I know I could've used the youtube embedding, but then the post gets really long)
You could do a lot of different decks for this challenge; this is merely one of dozens that would probably work as well.
edit: Lifted this deck from the Challenge Set 3 Spoilers thread, which also won on its first attempt:
Challenge #3: Master Warlock
This challenge has 9 rounds, and the last round is a mirror match.
This is one of the easiest challenges, since sorceries are a strong card type. Unfortunately, Donate isn't much use except in combo with things like Illusions of Grandeur, but whatever.
There are many strategies you can use for this deck. When I did it originally, I used a lot of sorceries that produce creatures, like Dragon Fodder and Spectral Procession, and then whatever direct damage struck my fancy. I'll do something similar here, though I forget the exact list I had before. Many decks will work here, and I think I won it the first time when it came out, so it's not very hard.
- B/R/W Sorceries deck | Open
A deck chock full of removal and creature sorceries. Due to the Demonic Dread (which I thought was a neat touch) some spells were not included, like Balance. (nothing like cascading into THAT when you don't want it...) The green/blue duals are for Tribal Flames and anything I might jank with Burning Wish.
Run #1: (loss) Lost to goblins on round 5. It took awhile to finally give up the ghost, but I was fighting an uphill battle the whole time. Eventually two AI Wastelands crippled my mana base and I couldn't recover.
I think the Demonic Dread was a huge mistake, and I'm going to design a new deck for next round.
- B/R/G Sorcery | Open
This one's more controllish, and the addition of green allows abuse of 4x Living Wish. The lower land count is alright due to Land Grant. (hopefully!)
Run #2: (win) This deck did a lot better. One game against the white weenie shadow deck was a bit scary, but I topdecked a second black mana for Damnation and after that I was fine. Other than that, it wasn't too bad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPzaQ3chKYQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvFUZECjTGc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bhskYz3SN0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k020YBmBAo8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez5F9quWTKI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaG3zpvctuk
(yes I know I could've used the youtube embedding, but then the post gets really long)
You could do a lot of different decks for this challenge; this is merely one of dozens that would probably work as well.
edit: Lifted this deck from the Challenge Set 3 Spoilers thread, which also won on its first attempt:
- 5 colour white tokens | Open
Last edited by aww1979 on 18 Feb 2011, 11:34, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Beating the Challenges - Tutorial
by aww1979 » 18 Feb 2011, 11:33
Set #3
Challenge #4: Urza Wannabe
In this challenge, you can use planeswalkers, Beta lands, and 6 'wild cards' that can be of any type. When I did this challenge originally, I picked Black Lotus, Sol Ring, and some moxes in order to speed the deck up. We also have a few more planeswalkers to choose from this time, such as Elspeth Tirel, Gideon Jura, Venser, the Sojourner, and Jace, the Mind Sculptor.
This challenge has 9 rounds, and the final round is a mirror match, like most in set #3.
This is a fun challenge because planeswalkers are quite versatile. The current list of implemented planeswalkers is:
The deck I will try for this challenge is:
Koth and Gideon seemed like great choices since you can get creatures out of them. Garruk is the same way, except that since there are no other green planeswalkers, except Nissa, which sucks here, and Sarkhan Vol, I decided not to use a full set of 4. For my 6 wildcards I went with all mana acceleration, since planeswalkers are pricy to play. There will probably be a lot of mulliganing... and losses :p I expect this one will take quite a few tries, 5-10 at least is my estimate.
Run #1: (loss) Lost on round 3 to the vampire deck.
Run #2: (loss) Got raped on round 6 by the R/G/W zoo deck. I'm going to change the deck up now, adding more mana and garruks and taking away some of the other walkers.
Removed 2x Koth, 1x of each chandra, 1x gideon, and added 2x garruk, 1x scrubland/taiga/tropical island.
Run #3: (loss) Lost on round 3 to faeries. Even with 5 lands in play, I couldn't cast any planeswalkers in hand due to colourscrew.
Run #4: (lockup) Game froze at the end of game 8 when I played and activated Chandra Nalaar to finish off the AIs last life point. It was a miracle I got that far; the previous game, the zombie deck either got seriously manaflooded or else didn't want to play anything but Spineless Thugs. Another game I was at 10 life and the AI had 10 power worth of slivers, and it kept attacking planeswalkers over and over, and I managed to actually win by using each walker once before it died; sorin drained to 10, garruks made beasts, chandras fired off once, etc. The AI attacked my planeswalkers for what would've been lethal damage to me I think 6 turns in a row. I also had two other games that were incredibly close, but legit wins.
Based on the performances so far, Venser is totally useless in this deck, Sarkhan the Mad is mostly useless, and Liliana is mostly useless, so I'm changing the deck again.
After removing sarkhan the mad and liliana, I saw that my only black walker was sorin, and he has BBB in his cost, so I scrapped him too. I removed 2x Sorin, 2x Liliana, 2x Sarkhan the Mad, 2x Venser and replaced them with 2x Ajani Goldmane, 2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor, 1x Koth, and 3x land. I then swapped all black duals for other duals. I also removed the 4 moxes and put in Mana Vault, Balance, Ancestral Recall, and Time Walk.
Run #5: (loss) Got wtfpwned on round 1 by soldiers. 20+ power on turn 5 is not fun.
Run #6: (loss) Got to round 8, and then the AI played turn 2 Gaddock Teeg. Fffffffuuuuuuucccc.... I prayed for Balance, but never saw it.
Run #7: (loss) Lost on round 3 against slivers due to a misplay. AI had Plated Sliver and Virulent Sliver out on turn 2, and I had Time Walk and Balance in hand. I had one poison counter already and 19 life. I decided to pass my second turn, thinking to wait for AI to overextend. AI cast another Virulent Sliver on its next turn, attacked for 4 poison counters, then cast Time Walk and attacked again for 6 poison counters; death by poison, and I'd only gotten 2 turns!
Run #8: (loss) Lost on round 2 to elves due to colourscrew.
Run #9: (loss) Lost on round 3 to white weenie shadow due to manascrew.
Decided to change things up a bit more tonight, and removed blue from the list. I also removed Mana Vault, and then added 3x Nissa's Chosen as some of the wild card slots. (in place of the vault and blue cards) I then put in Nissa's Chosen instead of Jaces, and increased the land count even higher, since the mana curve is around 4 or 5, which is ridiculously high, but unavoidable for this challenge. I also removed the Ajani Goldmanes, since they rarely were useful in this deck. I'd love to use Sorin Markov, but splashing black for 3BBB is not feasible.
Run #10: (loss) Lost on round 5 to soldiers.
Run #11: (win) Had some REALLY close calls but got through. The closest call of all came on the turn before I won on the last round, where the game seemed to lock up. I went to bed and came back and found that it had finally unstuck itself, so I finished it. Unfortunately, Camrecorder was not so friendly, and crashed upon saving.
This is a tough challenge. Adding the Nissa's Chosen/Revane thing seemed to work, since Nissa's Chosen was another early play to help. It's still going to take a lot of tries on the average to make it even with the final version.
Challenge #4: Urza Wannabe
In this challenge, you can use planeswalkers, Beta lands, and 6 'wild cards' that can be of any type. When I did this challenge originally, I picked Black Lotus, Sol Ring, and some moxes in order to speed the deck up. We also have a few more planeswalkers to choose from this time, such as Elspeth Tirel, Gideon Jura, Venser, the Sojourner, and Jace, the Mind Sculptor.
This challenge has 9 rounds, and the final round is a mirror match, like most in set #3.
This is a fun challenge because planeswalkers are quite versatile. The current list of implemented planeswalkers is:
- The Planeswalker list (as of Feb. 18) | Open
The deck I will try for this challenge is:
- Five colour planeswalker | Open
Koth and Gideon seemed like great choices since you can get creatures out of them. Garruk is the same way, except that since there are no other green planeswalkers, except Nissa, which sucks here, and Sarkhan Vol, I decided not to use a full set of 4. For my 6 wildcards I went with all mana acceleration, since planeswalkers are pricy to play. There will probably be a lot of mulliganing... and losses :p I expect this one will take quite a few tries, 5-10 at least is my estimate.
Run #1: (loss) Lost on round 3 to the vampire deck.
Run #2: (loss) Got raped on round 6 by the R/G/W zoo deck. I'm going to change the deck up now, adding more mana and garruks and taking away some of the other walkers.
- revised 5 colour planeswalker | Open
Removed 2x Koth, 1x of each chandra, 1x gideon, and added 2x garruk, 1x scrubland/taiga/tropical island.
Run #3: (loss) Lost on round 3 to faeries. Even with 5 lands in play, I couldn't cast any planeswalkers in hand due to colourscrew.
Run #4: (lockup) Game froze at the end of game 8 when I played and activated Chandra Nalaar to finish off the AIs last life point. It was a miracle I got that far; the previous game, the zombie deck either got seriously manaflooded or else didn't want to play anything but Spineless Thugs. Another game I was at 10 life and the AI had 10 power worth of slivers, and it kept attacking planeswalkers over and over, and I managed to actually win by using each walker once before it died; sorin drained to 10, garruks made beasts, chandras fired off once, etc. The AI attacked my planeswalkers for what would've been lethal damage to me I think 6 turns in a row. I also had two other games that were incredibly close, but legit wins.
Based on the performances so far, Venser is totally useless in this deck, Sarkhan the Mad is mostly useless, and Liliana is mostly useless, so I'm changing the deck again.
- 4 colour planeswalker | Open
After removing sarkhan the mad and liliana, I saw that my only black walker was sorin, and he has BBB in his cost, so I scrapped him too. I removed 2x Sorin, 2x Liliana, 2x Sarkhan the Mad, 2x Venser and replaced them with 2x Ajani Goldmane, 2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor, 1x Koth, and 3x land. I then swapped all black duals for other duals. I also removed the 4 moxes and put in Mana Vault, Balance, Ancestral Recall, and Time Walk.
Run #5: (loss) Got wtfpwned on round 1 by soldiers. 20+ power on turn 5 is not fun.
Run #6: (loss) Got to round 8, and then the AI played turn 2 Gaddock Teeg. Fffffffuuuuuuucccc.... I prayed for Balance, but never saw it.
Run #7: (loss) Lost on round 3 against slivers due to a misplay. AI had Plated Sliver and Virulent Sliver out on turn 2, and I had Time Walk and Balance in hand. I had one poison counter already and 19 life. I decided to pass my second turn, thinking to wait for AI to overextend. AI cast another Virulent Sliver on its next turn, attacked for 4 poison counters, then cast Time Walk and attacked again for 6 poison counters; death by poison, and I'd only gotten 2 turns!
Run #8: (loss) Lost on round 2 to elves due to colourscrew.
Run #9: (loss) Lost on round 3 to white weenie shadow due to manascrew.
Decided to change things up a bit more tonight, and removed blue from the list. I also removed Mana Vault, and then added 3x Nissa's Chosen as some of the wild card slots. (in place of the vault and blue cards) I then put in Nissa's Chosen instead of Jaces, and increased the land count even higher, since the mana curve is around 4 or 5, which is ridiculously high, but unavoidable for this challenge. I also removed the Ajani Goldmanes, since they rarely were useful in this deck. I'd love to use Sorin Markov, but splashing black for 3BBB is not feasible.
- 3 colour planeswalker (naya style) | Open
Run #10: (loss) Lost on round 5 to soldiers.
Run #11: (win) Had some REALLY close calls but got through. The closest call of all came on the turn before I won on the last round, where the game seemed to lock up. I went to bed and came back and found that it had finally unstuck itself, so I finished it. Unfortunately, Camrecorder was not so friendly, and crashed upon saving.
This is a tough challenge. Adding the Nissa's Chosen/Revane thing seemed to work, since Nissa's Chosen was another early play to help. It's still going to take a lot of tries on the average to make it even with the final version.
Last edited by aww1979 on 21 Feb 2011, 16:43, edited 5 times in total.
Re: Beating the Challenges - Tutorial
by neon1300 » 18 Feb 2011, 18:34
I was using a black control deck for this challenge - Damnation + Innocent Blood + Barter in Blood + Hymn to Tourach. Just wait till the opp has no creatures on the battlefield and no cards in hand. Then you can start to put those creatures in graveyard back under your control by using cards like Beacon of Unrest or Reanimate.aww1979 wrote:Set #3
Challenge #3: Master Warlock
[/spoiler]
It worked fine at the start, then Beacon of Unrest started pissing me off. This card is bugged, 1/2 of the times it didn't bring the creature back from the graveyard and got me lost in some critical situations.
I think I will just switch to your deck
Re: Beating the Challenges - Tutorial
by aww1979 » 18 Feb 2011, 20:50
That would be a risky strategy, because a few of the challenge mode decks don't have any creatures in them. If you included some Drain Life or similar cards, it might work though.
Re: Beating the Challenges - Tutorial
by neon1300 » 18 Feb 2011, 21:36
I had 4 corrupt in the deckaww1979 wrote:That would be a risky strategy, because a few of the challenge mode decks don't have any creatures in them. If you included some Drain Life or similar cards, it might work though.
Re: Beating the Challenges - Tutorial
by neon1300 » 19 Feb 2011, 18:59
lol, omg lol
Was using aww1979's deck(with some modifications),it works better than my black deck. AI(a doppleganger) discarded Rule Engine after I used Gerrad's Verdict
I have to scrnshot this, I couldnt stop laughing when I saw this.
PS:forgive me if ppl have seen this already, I am new to this forum...
Was using aww1979's deck(with some modifications),it works better than my black deck. AI(a doppleganger) discarded Rule Engine after I used Gerrad's Verdict
I have to scrnshot this, I couldnt stop laughing when I saw this.
PS:forgive me if ppl have seen this already, I am new to this forum...
Re: Beating the Challenges - Tutorial
by aww1979 » 19 Feb 2011, 23:41
Hmm... that probably should be in the bug forum, but yeah it is pretty funny. When the rules engine was first created, I once accidentally blew it away with Pernicious Deed, but that was fixed long ago. Odd that it would be destroyed by something like Gerrard's Verdict, though; that is affecting the hand, not anything in play.
Re: Beating the Challenges - Tutorial
by neon1300 » 20 Feb 2011, 03:10
Yer, I will have to check the bug forum. Some bugs are alright, but some are really affecting my gameplay. I kinda give up to do some challenges like urza wannabe, cuz it is never a pleasant experience to see your planeswalkers got killed by merely a Naturalize or Demystify.aww1979 wrote:Hmm... that probably should be in the bug forum, but yeah it is pretty funny. When the rules engine was first created, I once accidentally blew it away with Pernicious Deed, but that was fixed long ago. Odd that it would be destroyed by something like Gerrard's Verdict, though; that is affecting the hand, not anything in play.
Edit: I just found out cards like Maze of Ith,Fog, etc...They can not protect your planeswalkers from receiving combat damages
Last edited by neon1300 on 21 Feb 2011, 23:35, edited 3 times in total.
Re: Beating the Challenges - Tutorial
by aww1979 » 21 Feb 2011, 16:44
Set #3
Challenge #5: Instant Gratification
This challenge has 9 rounds, and round #9 is always a mirror match. Decks are chosen from the usual challenge deck lists, and you can encounter a mirror match earlier than 9, but only round 9 is guaranteed. It is a good idea to remember for this one that since your entire deck is instants, you can wait until the opponent's end of turn to play spells most of the time.
Run #1: (loss) Lost on round 3 to vampires. Got overrun pretty quickly, and had all blue cards and no blue mana by the end.
Run #2: (lockup) Game froze on round 2. It was pretty close, and I'd wager it was about a 50/50 chance whether I'd have won.
Run #3: (lockup) Game froze on round 8. This one was really close, too; hard to say if I'd have won or not.
Run #4: (loss) Lost on round 1 to elves. AI had a great hand and I had crap.
Going to change the deck around a bit. I am not very happy with Beacon of Destruction, due to the high mana cost, or Electrolyze, due to the blue mana cost.
Removed the electrolyzes and beacons of destruction and added 4x Searing Blaze, 2x Starstorm and 2x Fire // Ice.
(edit june 17th)
Due to hardware problems, I haven't been able to complete any challenges recently. My CPU keeps overheating and my computer shuts down :p Anyway, the following deck is consistently winning, and would probably complete the challenge if my computer would stay powered long enough. Once I fix the problem, I'll get a video for it.
Tithe gets card advantage in the form of lands, and also plays well with Fireblast, cunning wish gets you whatever broken instants you want (usually ancestral recall or a finisher) and Manamorphose cantrips and helps you cast the white/blue cards.
edit July 23, 2011
Run #5: Got to round 5 easily, but lost due to a one land hand against goblins; it got wasteland...
Run #6: Got to round 8 and died after an epic battle to affinity. I'd just barely got by zombies in round 6 in an equally epic battle, except that one went my way.
Run #7: Got to round 8 and lost to the threshold deck. It got three nimble mongoose...
Run #8: Lost on round 1 to soldiers. 3x Raise the Alarm and 2x Honor of the Pure by turn 5 were tough, but I managed to kill everything off. The AI ended up with two more Honor of the Pure to get all four in play, and by then I had to play two direct damage cards for every creature I killed, and quickly ran out.
Run #9: Lost on round 6 to the threshold deck. Damn mongooses... neither hide nor hair of any of my fallouts or starstorms.
Run #10: Lost on round 3 to rats. AI had mox and ritual in opening hand and got the rats out too fast for me.
Run #11: Lost on round 7 due to an engine error with spells on the stack and Tarmogoyf.
I'll do more soon... I hope! I want to get to the new challenges, but I also want to go in order.
edit: Sept. 14, 2001:
Run #12: Game locked up on round #6 vs elves. I had the game under control and would have won.
Run #13: Lost on round #1 vs the red direct damage deck (it got 2 price of progress early and I couldn't recover, even with Fireblasting in response)
Run #14: Lost on round #2 vs merfolk. It countered both my starstorms and the merfolk army raped me.
Run #15: Ach, Hans, run! It's the Spawnwrithe! Lost on round #2.
Well, I'm going to change the deck and try something totally different...
Run #16: Loss. Made it all the way to round #9 with this jank, but I was too tired from staying up past midnight and kept making misplays throughout the run, and it cost me game 9, which was probably winnable. The deck requires a decent amount of skill to play, and works by capitalizing on the AIs mistakes, or just surprising it with instant speed creatures, pump, removal, and so on. Mirrorweave is secret tech; I won one game by casting it on the AIs Loxodon Hierarch, turning all my tokens into 4/4s and then killing him with an army of elephants
Run #17: Crash. Well, I guess this 'jank' isn't as bad as it looks. I made it to round #9 again, but the game crashed during the mirror match when the AI cast Gifts Ungiven, after I picked the first card. The game froze and I couldn't pick a second one or continue on. I'm going to take out Fact or Fiction and Gifts Ungiven anyway, because at 3U, I find that I never have the spare mana to cast them. Even when I have 4 mana, I'm busy casting other spells I need to stay alive, or just winning. I think I've cast one FoF and zero GU in 18 games. (I remember turning over 4 lands with FoF :p)
Took out Naya Charm, Mirrorweave, Fact or Fiction, and Gifts Ungiven, and added Brainstorm and 3x Violent Outburst. We'll see how that does...
Run #18: Win! Yay! One or two games I'm not sure if I played them optimally (particularly the one against the green/black deck, game 8 I think) but they were good enough, as I went all the way this time. The mirror match really shows that this deck requires more skill than the AI has. I'm still rather baffled at why I had so much difficulty with the (mostly) red direct damage deck, especially when this one made it so far every time, proving it wasn't a fluke.
Win video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXimkbmN2G4
Challenge #5: Instant Gratification
This challenge has 9 rounds, and round #9 is always a mirror match. Decks are chosen from the usual challenge deck lists, and you can encounter a mirror match earlier than 9, but only round 9 is guaranteed. It is a good idea to remember for this one that since your entire deck is instants, you can wait until the opponent's end of turn to play spells most of the time.
- Red direct damage, with blue support | Open
Run #1: (loss) Lost on round 3 to vampires. Got overrun pretty quickly, and had all blue cards and no blue mana by the end.
Run #2: (lockup) Game froze on round 2. It was pretty close, and I'd wager it was about a 50/50 chance whether I'd have won.
Run #3: (lockup) Game froze on round 8. This one was really close, too; hard to say if I'd have won or not.
Run #4: (loss) Lost on round 1 to elves. AI had a great hand and I had crap.
Going to change the deck around a bit. I am not very happy with Beacon of Destruction, due to the high mana cost, or Electrolyze, due to the blue mana cost.
- Red direct damage with blue, revised | Open
Removed the electrolyzes and beacons of destruction and added 4x Searing Blaze, 2x Starstorm and 2x Fire // Ice.
(edit june 17th)
Due to hardware problems, I haven't been able to complete any challenges recently. My CPU keeps overheating and my computer shuts down :p Anyway, the following deck is consistently winning, and would probably complete the challenge if my computer would stay powered long enough. Once I fix the problem, I'll get a video for it.
- Mostly Red Direct Damage Instant | Open
Tithe gets card advantage in the form of lands, and also plays well with Fireblast, cunning wish gets you whatever broken instants you want (usually ancestral recall or a finisher) and Manamorphose cantrips and helps you cast the white/blue cards.
edit July 23, 2011
Run #5: Got to round 5 easily, but lost due to a one land hand against goblins; it got wasteland...
Run #6: Got to round 8 and died after an epic battle to affinity. I'd just barely got by zombies in round 6 in an equally epic battle, except that one went my way.
Run #7: Got to round 8 and lost to the threshold deck. It got three nimble mongoose...
Run #8: Lost on round 1 to soldiers. 3x Raise the Alarm and 2x Honor of the Pure by turn 5 were tough, but I managed to kill everything off. The AI ended up with two more Honor of the Pure to get all four in play, and by then I had to play two direct damage cards for every creature I killed, and quickly ran out.
Run #9: Lost on round 6 to the threshold deck. Damn mongooses... neither hide nor hair of any of my fallouts or starstorms.
Run #10: Lost on round 3 to rats. AI had mox and ritual in opening hand and got the rats out too fast for me.
Run #11: Lost on round 7 due to an engine error with spells on the stack and Tarmogoyf.
I'll do more soon... I hope!
I want to get to the new challenges, but I also want to go in order.edit: Sept. 14, 2001:
Run #12: Game locked up on round #6 vs elves. I had the game under control and would have won.
Run #13: Lost on round #1 vs the red direct damage deck (it got 2 price of progress early and I couldn't recover, even with Fireblasting in response)
Run #14: Lost on round #2 vs merfolk. It countered both my starstorms and the merfolk army raped me.
Run #15: Ach, Hans, run! It's the Spawnwrithe! Lost on round #2.
Well, I'm going to change the deck and try something totally different...
- | Open
Run #16: Loss. Made it all the way to round #9 with this jank, but I was too tired from staying up past midnight and kept making misplays throughout the run, and it cost me game 9, which was probably winnable. The deck requires a decent amount of skill to play, and works by capitalizing on the AIs mistakes, or just surprising it with instant speed creatures, pump, removal, and so on. Mirrorweave is secret tech; I won one game by casting it on the AIs Loxodon Hierarch, turning all my tokens into 4/4s and then killing him with an army of elephants
Run #17: Crash. Well, I guess this 'jank' isn't as bad as it looks. I made it to round #9 again, but the game crashed during the mirror match when the AI cast Gifts Ungiven, after I picked the first card. The game froze and I couldn't pick a second one or continue on. I'm going to take out Fact or Fiction and Gifts Ungiven anyway, because at 3U, I find that I never have the spare mana to cast them. Even when I have 4 mana, I'm busy casting other spells I need to stay alive, or just winning. I think I've cast one FoF and zero GU in 18 games. (I remember turning over 4 lands with FoF :p)
- Revised gold deck | Open
Took out Naya Charm, Mirrorweave, Fact or Fiction, and Gifts Ungiven, and added Brainstorm and 3x Violent Outburst. We'll see how that does...
Run #18: Win! Yay! One or two games I'm not sure if I played them optimally (particularly the one against the green/black deck, game 8 I think) but they were good enough, as I went all the way this time. The mirror match really shows that this deck requires more skill than the AI has. I'm still rather baffled at why I had so much difficulty with the (mostly) red direct damage deck, especially when this one made it so far every time, proving it wasn't a fluke.
Win video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXimkbmN2G4
Last edited by aww1979 on 15 Sep 2011, 07:06, edited 4 times in total.
Re: Beating the Challenges - Tutorial
by aww1979 » 15 Jun 2011, 02:02
Finished challenge 3 #1, Gather No Moss, with video for all except the last game, where camstudio crashed. I'll try to get some more done soon.
Re: Beating the Challenges - Tutorial
by Althuna » 29 Jul 2011, 02:31
FINALLY!! I just beat the challenge called That's Big. It took me days of trying. I tried a couple of decks I found on this forum and they worked well, but I just kept getting unlucky. Particularly the annoying deck full of counters. Nothing like having your first 3 spells countered while he brings out several 5/5 creatures by about turn 3. Sigh.
In the end I made my own deck just for a bit of a change, and it seemed to work surprisingly well. Took me about 6 games with my deck but it did well each time and eventually won. It required a bit of bad luck I think on the part of the opponent (the slivers deck and relentless rats both seemed to have a bard draw). Anyway I'll share it:
It basically works by just killing everything and then finishing off, so it's not super fast. You have some Shriekmaw for early killing and work as blockers if you can afford to pay 5. At that point you basically have 17 removal spells. 4 tendrils to kill stuff but keep your life healthy. 4 Barter In Blood to take out pairs, and it kills stuff immune to black or with shroud etc. Then 4 Consuming Vapors which is the same thing but gives life (love that card). The AI is not smart enough to not play a creature while it is suspended between turns too. The 4 damnations for wiping out large groups. Also a disc which comes in handy sometimes if they have lots of artifacts or enchants up.
Then there are some creatures which are so insanely powerful you just play them and enjoy basically.
Tricks:
There are some sneaky tricks you can do though. With Liliana, tutor for Emrakul and then Makeshift Mannequin. Then use Liliana to discard yourself, and drop the Emrakul to graveyard. Normally you would have to use the Makeshift Mannequin right away, but for me the Emrakul is bugged to not go to the graveyard which makes it even easier. Just wait for their turn and when they attack, use the Makeshift Mannequin to bring out the Emrakul and block their creature. Then on your next turn it is ready to attack and win the game. You can also sometimes do this if he is in your hand. If you wiped out all their creatures, you can sometimes just not play anything for a few turns and when you get 8 cards, discard Emrakul at the end of your turn. And then use the mannequin on it.
The Beacon of Unrest works on him too by the way. Also one game was really close and I was in trouble, if he used a lightning bolt on me I was dead, but he was on 10. I attacked with Kokusho took him to 5, and then I used Damnation to kill it and take off their last 5. You can also use the Consuming Vapors on your own creatures if you get in a pinch, but I never needed to do that.
Not the cleverest of decks I know, but sometimes brute force and tons of removal is needed!
p.s. The Ebon Stronghold were vital in a few games to play some of the bigger cards early. I tried to not sacrifice two, because it left me with no land in the future. But I often would sac one so that I could play a turn 3 damnation or a bit later so that I could hurry out one of the planeswalkers or something.
p.p.s One last tip, there is one of the decks which is just a nuke deck. You'll learn to recognise it after a while. I found against that deck that if you can't just kill him quick, you have to get any creatures out as soon as possible, and let him focus a lot of his fire on those. On my final game I was scared of him doing some huge nukes on me, but I managed to get the grave titan out early by sacrificing the Ebon Strongholds. He wasted all of his nukes on the zombies and he even used that nuke which sacrifices his own land.. He killed all his land killing the zombies and then the titan itself, but I used the mannequin on the titan and then wiped the floor with him next turn.
In the end I made my own deck just for a bit of a change, and it seemed to work surprisingly well. Took me about 6 games with my deck but it did well each time and eventually won. It required a bit of bad luck I think on the part of the opponent (the slivers deck and relentless rats both seemed to have a bard draw). Anyway I'll share it:
It basically works by just killing everything and then finishing off, so it's not super fast. You have some Shriekmaw for early killing and work as blockers if you can afford to pay 5. At that point you basically have 17 removal spells. 4 tendrils to kill stuff but keep your life healthy. 4 Barter In Blood to take out pairs, and it kills stuff immune to black or with shroud etc. Then 4 Consuming Vapors which is the same thing but gives life (love that card). The AI is not smart enough to not play a creature while it is suspended between turns too. The 4 damnations for wiping out large groups. Also a disc which comes in handy sometimes if they have lots of artifacts or enchants up.
Then there are some creatures which are so insanely powerful you just play them and enjoy basically.
Tricks:
There are some sneaky tricks you can do though. With Liliana, tutor for Emrakul and then Makeshift Mannequin. Then use Liliana to discard yourself, and drop the Emrakul to graveyard. Normally you would have to use the Makeshift Mannequin right away, but for me the Emrakul is bugged to not go to the graveyard which makes it even easier. Just wait for their turn and when they attack, use the Makeshift Mannequin to bring out the Emrakul and block their creature. Then on your next turn it is ready to attack and win the game. You can also sometimes do this if he is in your hand. If you wiped out all their creatures, you can sometimes just not play anything for a few turns and when you get 8 cards, discard Emrakul at the end of your turn. And then use the mannequin on it.
The Beacon of Unrest works on him too by the way. Also one game was really close and I was in trouble, if he used a lightning bolt on me I was dead, but he was on 10. I attacked with Kokusho took him to 5, and then I used Damnation to kill it and take off their last 5. You can also use the Consuming Vapors on your own creatures if you get in a pinch, but I never needed to do that.
Not the cleverest of decks I know, but sometimes brute force and tons of removal is needed!
p.s. The Ebon Stronghold were vital in a few games to play some of the bigger cards early. I tried to not sacrifice two, because it left me with no land in the future. But I often would sac one so that I could play a turn 3 damnation or a bit later so that I could hurry out one of the planeswalkers or something.
p.p.s One last tip, there is one of the decks which is just a nuke deck. You'll learn to recognise it after a while. I found against that deck that if you can't just kill him quick, you have to get any creatures out as soon as possible, and let him focus a lot of his fire on those. On my final game I was scared of him doing some huge nukes on me, but I managed to get the grave titan out early by sacrificing the Ebon Strongholds. He wasted all of his nukes on the zombies and he even used that nuke which sacrifices his own land.. He killed all his land killing the zombies and then the titan itself, but I used the mannequin on the titan and then wiped the floor with him next turn.
Re: Beating the Challenges - Tutorial
by Althuna » 17 Aug 2011, 20:50
Finally just beat Chaos Orb. Took me forever 
I used the charbelcher deck which was fantastic but it still could be unlucky. I must have played 30 games before I finally won.
My main problem is that you can just get bad draws and bad luck, no matter what you do. You can mulligan but if that brings up nothing good either, then you are screwed, and now you have less cards which is a big problem in that deck. Usually if you can't get your combo off on the first few turns, then it's too late. It's no good bringing out dozen goblins on turn 5 when your opponent already has 4 big creatures and one has life link etc.
And some games, luck and circumstance just totally screwed me. For example I often would get to all the way to game 9, and then if I was lucky enough to get a good draw, I would bring out 15-20 goblins, and attack, and then next turn he would use maelstrom pulse killing them all and leaving me with a completely empty hand... And again, some games I would get all the way to about game 9, and a bad draw would mean that I didn't have enough mana to play the Charbelcher and use it in the same turn. So I would play it on one turn, and then before I could use it the next turn.. he would Naturalize it. Or of course the chaos orb would bounce it / kill it / tap it.
So yeah, it definitely required both playing the deck very well, and some consistent luck, but I got there in the end. If I was to try it again, I would still use the same deck though, because all the other decks I tried had luck problems too, but at least the charbelcher deck is very fast. I often would win on turn 1 if I got a good draw, so it's better losing on a late turn after only spending 10 minutes playing, rather than spending 30 minutes or more reaching the later turns and then losing to crappy mulligans
I used the charbelcher deck which was fantastic but it still could be unlucky. I must have played 30 games before I finally won.My main problem is that you can just get bad draws and bad luck, no matter what you do. You can mulligan but if that brings up nothing good either, then you are screwed, and now you have less cards which is a big problem in that deck. Usually if you can't get your combo off on the first few turns, then it's too late. It's no good bringing out dozen goblins on turn 5 when your opponent already has 4 big creatures and one has life link etc.
And some games, luck and circumstance just totally screwed me. For example I often would get to all the way to game 9, and then if I was lucky enough to get a good draw, I would bring out 15-20 goblins, and attack, and then next turn he would use maelstrom pulse killing them all and leaving me with a completely empty hand... And again, some games I would get all the way to about game 9, and a bad draw would mean that I didn't have enough mana to play the Charbelcher and use it in the same turn. So I would play it on one turn, and then before I could use it the next turn.. he would Naturalize it. Or of course the chaos orb would bounce it / kill it / tap it.
So yeah, it definitely required both playing the deck very well, and some consistent luck, but I got there in the end. If I was to try it again, I would still use the same deck though, because all the other decks I tried had luck problems too, but at least the charbelcher deck is very fast. I often would win on turn 1 if I got a good draw, so it's better losing on a late turn after only spending 10 minutes playing, rather than spending 30 minutes or more reaching the later turns and then losing to crappy mulligans
Re: Beating the Challenges - Tutorial
by Althuna » 05 Sep 2011, 00:58
Just beat "Onslaught", I found it very easy for a change! I think I beat it on the second attempt. I don't do challenges now because I already got what I wanted, but I wanted to play around with the Quirion Dryad so I had a go at this challenge tonight. I used the goblin charbelcher deck I used previously (which I copied from this site somewhere), and it worked really easy.
IIRC that deck was for the chaos orb challenge which was really hard because you basically had to play all your stuff in one go, or have whatever you played destroyed one by one. But in this challenge you can just play as you go. You still have to win quickly because they will come at you with huge creatures after 3 or 4 turns, but at least with this charbelcher deck, by turn 2 or 3 you tend to have enough mana to just play the charbelcher and use it right away.
IIRC that deck was for the chaos orb challenge which was really hard because you basically had to play all your stuff in one go, or have whatever you played destroyed one by one. But in this challenge you can just play as you go. You still have to win quickly because they will come at you with huge creatures after 3 or 4 turns, but at least with this charbelcher deck, by turn 2 or 3 you tend to have enough mana to just play the charbelcher and use it right away.
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