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somacat wrote:Just finished 'What hand?', where you skip your draw phases in the game.

After moderate success with both Elves and Affinity (two decks that can produce explosive opening hands (even off a mulligan), including a round 10 where I had to go all in on a 6/8 Ornithopter when the AI cast Harmonize into Naturalise the turn before I would kill him, I decided to change tactics, and zoomed through it quickly and easily with an all-in Oath deck:

.1902 4 Oath of Druids
.333 1 Vampiric Tutor
.62 1 Demonic Tutor
.331 1 Imperial Seal
.1 1 Ancestral Recall
.499 1 Brainstorm
.312 1 Ponder
.1510 4 Night's Whisper
.349 4 Enlightened Tutor
.1686 4 Chromatic Sphere
.1685 4 Chromatic Star
.402 4 Sensei's Divining Top
.379 4 Bogardan Hellkite
.1198 1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
.378 4 Hellkite Overlord*
.1675 1 Progenitus
.169 1 Mox Sapphire
.168 1 Mox Ruby
.167 1 Mox Pearl
.166 1 Mox Jet
.165 1 Mox Emerald
.17 1 Black Lotus
.1718 2 Chrome Mox
.1893 4 Forbidden Orchard
.403 4 City of Brass
.1206 4 Arcane Sanctum

Easy enough to play, simply tutor for Oath and use a Top / Sphere / Star to draw it if it's on top of your library, then smash face with giant Dragons! The AI doesn't seem scared enough of Oath to counter or destroy it, which helps...

aww1979 wrote:What Hand... (unlocks Brain Freeze)
-your draw phase is skipped for all 10 matches

.1902 4 Oath of Druids
.62 1 Demonic Tutor
.711 4 Serum Powder
.1893 4 Forbidden Orchard
.17 1 Black Lotus
.165 1 Mox Emerald
.166 1 Mox Jet
.167 1 Mox Pearl
.168 1 Mox Ruby
.169 1 Mox Sapphire
.1897 4 Land Grant
.12 4 Bayou
.327 4 Grim Tutor
.55 4 Dark Ritual
.390 4 Crop Rotation
.1424 1 Lotus Petal
.328 4 Idyllic Tutor
.212 4 Savannah
.1308 4 Platinum Angel
.1890 1 Demonic Consultation
.1708 4 Gamble
.241 3 Taiga

The strategies I tried here were 1) tons of card drawing, 2) landless Goblin Charbelcher, 3) Oath. Belcher was funny when it worked (black lotus + channel + belcher + no land = lol); it plays similar to this deck, only Oath costs far less mana and needs far fewer cards to put together the combo, so it was more reliable.

My original oath deck had Progenitus instead of Platinum Angel, but funny enough a turn 2 progenitus was too slow in some games! Anyway, basic idea is drop an Oath asap, mulligan when needed, and start oathing your angels into play. It only loses sometimes against the burn deck or if it mulligans itself away. Turbofog will lose because it cannot possibly win, ever, in this challenge, and it is possible to beat turbofog even if you mull to 0 and let it try to goldfish you.

This deck is simple to play; the only thinking required is when you stare at your opening hand and count whether you've got the mana and oath/ways to get an oath or not.

*Be warned* that serum powder sometimes causes an autoloss during the next upkeep; I think it happens when you mix serum mulligans with regular ones, but I'm not sure. It also sometimes causes the AI to play its first turn with some other random deck's opening hand.

I used to have duress and thoughtseize, but I tossed them for gamble/taiga (which I never used). Also note that enlightened tutor and other topdecking tutors will fail, because you never draw the card, unless you were to also include card draw for that. That's why Idyllic Tutor, Grim Tutor, etc, are used instead, even though they cost 3.

meesterhans wrote:Defeated; what hand? and epic with the same dredge deck!

.684 4 Golgari Grave-Troll
.678 4 Golgari Thug
.681 4 Narcomoeba
.700 4 Dread Return*
.398 4 Bazaar of Baghdad
.1967 4 Life from the Loam
.680 4 Stinkweed Imp
.705 4 Bridge From Below
.666 4 Cabal Therapy
.1531 1 Angel of Despair
.691 4 Ichorid
.675 3 Flame-Kin Zealot
.390 4 Crop Rotation
.91 8 Forest
.1913 4 Dryad Arbor

Just added Dryad Arbor, crop rotation, forests. the dryad turns out to be very handy. Can be used for crop rotation and a flashbackcost. It also increases the chance of a good starting hand!