Set #1
Challenge #5: Shandalar 2.0
I could swear that I'd done a few attempts with this before the SSA tournament started, but if so, the results are lost. Anyway, for this challenge, the first 5 rounds you have 10 life and the AI has 50 life and 2 permanents in play, so you have to be able to deal with that. Then, in round 9, you have to be able to deal with
Blood Moon/
Titania's Song, and in round 10, you have to be able to deal with all five Hondens in play. (yes, really!)
This is one of the hardest challenges in the list, so be prepared to take many attempts, regardless of your deck. If memory serves, I beat it originally with a deck called 'boring angel' which used
Tinker to get
Platinum Angel out and slowly poke the AI to death. I'll think about what to use and give it a try in the next day or two.
- The rounds: | Open
- Round #1: You: 10 life, AI 50 life with Serendib Efreet, Leviathan in play (Merfolk deck)
Round #2: You: 10 life, AI 50 life with Savannah Lions, Countryside Crusher (used to be Elder Land Wurm until it was replaced in the csv) and soldier deck.
Round #3: You: 10 life, AI 50 life with Goblin Balloon Brigade, Mana Flare, and goblin deck.
Round #4: You: 10 life, AI 50 life with Fungusaur, Sylvan Library, and elf deck.
Round #5: You: 10 life, AI 50 life with Hypnotic Specter, Greed, and zombie deck.
Round #6: You: 20 life, AI 20 life with Platinum Angel, The Abyss, and fog deck.
Round #7: You: 20 life, AI 20 life with Black Vise, The Rack, and random deck. (I usually see the goblin deck here, but once I got the affinity deck)
Round #8: You: 20 life, AI 20 life with 2x Ivory Tower and random deck. (I've seen the black/artifact deck and the faerie deck here)
Round #9: You: 20 life, AI 20 life with Blood Moon, Titania's Song, and random deck. (kithkin is the only one I've seen so far)
Round #10: You: 20 life, AI 20 life with all 5 Hondens, Sword of Vengeance (used to be Dragon Engine) and all-Mountain 200 card deck.
I thought about it for awhile after making some attemps before the SSA tournament (dunno where that post went) and decided to try a dredge deck today.
- dredge deck list | Open
- .398 4 Bazaar of Baghdad
.684 4 Golgari Grave-Troll
.678 4 Golgari Thug
.680 4 Stinkweed Imp
.681 4 Narcomoeba
.705 4 Bridge From Below
.700 4 Dread Return*
.666 4 Cabal Therapy
.1531 1 Angel of Despair
.675 4 Flame-Kin Zealot
.691 4 Ichorid
.682 4 Unmask
.449 4 Contagion
.1851 4 Pact of Negation
.120 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
.576 2 Petrified Field
.1913 4 Dryad Arbor
If you have them unlocked,
Street Wraith,
Leyline of the Void, and especially
Serum Powder are great additions, but I will play without them. The idea is to mulligan until you get a
Bazaar of Baghdad in hand, then keep using it to put dredge cards into the graveyard and dredge them. Ideally you want to have tons of stuff in your graveyard, especially
Bridge from Below copies, then flashback
Dread Return to bring back
Flame-Kin Zealot, making lots of zombies and pumping/hasting them and then attacking in one massive attack. There are some various control spells that are used (ones that have alternate costs since you don't need mana) and the one that isn't traditionally used (that I've ever seen) that I did use here is
Contagion; the rest is pretty typical.
Angel of Despair and
Iona, Shield of Emeria are there in case you need to dredge up some kind of answer (like
Angel of Despair to kill
Moat or
Platinum Angel) and
Pact of Negation is there in case you need to counter a
Fog or something on the turn you would win. (also a card I don't recall ever seeing in such a list)
Run #1: (crash) Game locked up on round 2 when I got too many zombies out. I hope this isn't a recurring problem; I haven't really played dredge much.
Run #2: (crash) I started this one a few days after round 1, as I didn't have time until now. The games are playing extremely slowly on my computer, so I've been pausing the recordings to cut several minutes of waiting out of them, and doing other things in between. This game also crashed when I attacked on round 2 with about 20 zombies. I think that dredge will be quite successful for someone whose computer is more powerful than mine; my old one doesn't seem to be able to handle it, as plays slow almost to a halt with that many creatures in play.
Run #3: (crash) Game locked up on round 1 after attacking with a zombie army. Of note is that I would have won the game even after mulliganing to ONE card and NOT getting a bazaar of baghdad, though I did topdeck one on turn 2. That's how good dredge is... if your computer can handle it. At this point I am going to change to an Oath deck, because it is quite clear that I will NEVER make it through 10 rounds if this keeps happening.
Run #4: (loss) Made it all the way to round #10 with an Oath/Emrakul deck, only to find that an opening hand including
Black Lotus and
Oath of Druids and playing first is TOO SLOW against this round :p Back to the drawing board...
Okay, I'm going to move on to the next challenges for now and come back to this one. I think it can be beaten fairly easily with dredge, as I've said, but it keeps locking up for me.
edit:
- Using the Boring Angel deck: | Open
- .334 4 Personal Tutor
.352 1 Mystical Tutor
.1351 1 Tinker
.249 1 Time Walk
.250 1 Timetwister
.1308 4 Platinum Angel
.312 1 Ponder
.499 1 Brainstorm
.1757 4 Plumeveil
.309 1 Windfall
.173 1 Nevinyrral's Disk
.17 1 Black Lotus
.1891 4 Echoing Truth
.438 1 Library of Alexandria
.1536 4 Man-o'-War
.1084 1 Merchant Scroll
.169 1 Mox Sapphire
.168 1 Mox Ruby
.167 1 Mox Pearl
.166 1 Mox Jet
.165 1 Mox Emerald
.230 1 Sol Ring
.528 1 Strip Mine
.725 1 Mirror Universe
.1923 1 Fact or Fiction
.317 1 Tolarian Academy
.126 11 Island
.1 1 Ancestral Recall
.1718 1 Chrome Mox
.1424 1 Lotus Petal
.894 1 Mana Crypt
.1905 4 Sleight of Hand
The goal of this deck is to tutor for
Tinker and then get
Platinum Angel out, with various cards to stall or go through the deck faster.
Nevinyrral's Disk is primarily for round 10 to destroy the hondens,
Mirror Universe is primarily for the first 5 rounds to speed up games against the 50 life opponents, and there are zero
Seat of the Synod in order to help get around
Blood Moon in round 9.
Run #5: (Run #1 with this deck) (crash) Made it to round 9, but then the game froze on the AIs turn. I went to bed and got up the next morning, and it was still thinking, so I gave up :p
Run #6: (loss) Got to round 4, barely, as the AI misplayed twice on round 3 when it could have won, and then was overwhelmed by the elf deck weenies as I got a slow hand with no mana acceleration.
Run #7: (loss) Made it to round 10, but the AI chose play first. I thought I'd have to discard 5 cards during its upkeep, so I didn't mulligan. If I'd only known... the AI played its hondens in its first upkeep and didn't get to use them that turn. I ended up keeping a bad hand, and while I maximized my chances of getting out of the situation, I was unsuccessful in drawing a way out.
At this point, I decided to modify the boring angel deck slightly. Removing the plumeveils, I added
Darksteel Colossus,
Time Vault,
Voltaic Key, and
Mox Opal, and then changed out some of the islands for 4x
Seat of the Synod. That will make round #9 tougher, but the other rounds easier, as there will be more
Tinker targets.
- Boring Angel (revised) | Open
- .334 4 Personal Tutor
.352 1 Mystical Tutor
.1351 1 Tinker
.249 1 Time Walk
.1308 4 Platinum Angel
.312 1 Ponder
.499 1 Brainstorm
.173 1 Nevinyrral's Disk
.17 1 Black Lotus
.1891 4 Echoing Truth
.438 1 Library of Alexandria
.169 1 Mox Sapphire
.168 1 Mox Ruby
.167 1 Mox Pearl
.166 1 Mox Jet
.165 1 Mox Emerald
.230 1 Sol Ring
.528 1 Strip Mine
.725 1 Mirror Universe
.1923 1 Fact or Fiction
.317 1 Tolarian Academy
.126 9 Island
.1 1 Ancestral Recall
.1905 4 Sleight of Hand
.1216 4 Seat of the Synod
.1805 1 Mox Opal
.653 1 Darksteel Colossus
.1536 4 Man-o'-War
.1084 1 Merchant Scroll
.309 1 Windfall
.250 1 Timetwister
.1758 1 Show and Tell
.248 1 Time Vault
.1550 1 Voltaic Key
Run #8: (loss) Lost on round 2 with a piss-poor hand, while I was overwhelmed by the AI using
Preeminent Captain to bring free stuff out. I stalled with Manowars but it wasn't enough.
Run #9: (loss) Lost on round 2 again even faster than last time. It is very hard to beat a 2/1 and 3/3 when the AI plays first...
Run #10: (loss) Lost AGAIN on round 2. See above.
Run #11: (loss) Lost on round #1 when my Man-o-War got hit with
Daze on turn 3, so I couldn't unsummon the
Serendib Efreet, and got pwned.
Run #12: (loss) Lost on round #2. That one, and round 10, seem to be the worst ones. I'm going to swamp the
Time Vault/
Voltaic Key combo and two of the
Sleight of Hand for 4x
Preordain, which I just realized is strictly better than
Sleight of Hand :p
Run #13: (loss) Lost on round #2. Again.
After finding out I can use a 40 card deck, I trimmed the Boring Angel deck down to the following:
- 40 Card Boring Angel | Open
- .334 4 Personal Tutor
.352 1 Mystical Tutor
.1351 1 Tinker
.249 1 Time Walk
.250 1 Timetwister
.1308 3 Platinum Angel
.312 1 Ponder
.499 1 Brainstorm
.173 1 Nevinyrral's Disk
.17 1 Black Lotus
.1891 4 Echoing Truth
.169 1 Mox Sapphire
.168 1 Mox Ruby
.167 1 Mox Pearl
.166 1 Mox Jet
.165 1 Mox Emerald
.230 1 Sol Ring
.725 1 Mirror Universe
.317 1 Tolarian Academy
.126 6 Island
.1 1 Ancestral Recall
.894 1 Mana Crypt
.653 1 Darksteel Colossus
.497 4 Preordain
Run #14: (loss) Got wiped out on round 2 with a quick AI start and a weak hand.
Run #15: (win) Sadly, my recording program locked up, probably because magic was taking so many resources :p
Round 9 was a bit tricky, but once
Echoing Truth bounced
Titania's Song, I was able to play my artifacts and move along fairly easily.
Round 10 I mulliganed to 6 cards and had
Tinker,
Island,
Echoing Truth, and
Mox Pearl, amongst others. I kept it, and playing first, bounced the
Honden of Night's Reach on turn 1 to buy me time, and prayed that I would draw into mana in time. With luck, I drew a mana source next turn (
Sol Ring in my case, but
Island, Mox or
Black Lotus would have also worked) and then cast it and
Tinker for
Nevinyrral's Disk. AI attacked and hit me with the red Honden again, and on my next turn, with 8 life remaining, I activated the Disk and blew everything away. After that, it was just a waiting game until I drew the mana and spells to win with.
With a 40 card deck, the play felt pretty much the same, merely more reliable. The last round is always the worst, but hopefully with the increased consistency of a 40 card deck you won't have to repeat it too often. Statistically, you will go first 75% of the time on that round, assuming the AI is just tossing a coin when it decides.