Challenge 2-4 : Epic

[Salbei]

Epic
Challenge: 2-4
Unlocks: (Manabond)
Description: you can only play 1 spell the entire game
NavigationChallenge Index - Archive for Set 2


Please discuss this Challenge here!

[Salbei]

Found at the Archive, might be outdated.

Basically been playing these challenges all day lol. Day off work + new challenges + inherent addiction I guess...

Here's my list for Epic (one spell allowed per game):

.1027 3 Elvish Piper
.1902 4 Oath of Druids
.1198 1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
.378 3 Hellkite Overlord*
.379 4 Bogardan Hellkite
.1675 1 Progenitus
.1226 1 Visara the Dreadful
.1531 3 Angel of Despair
.1585 3 Baneslayer Angel
.1888 4 City of Traitors
.1893 4 Forbidden Orchard
.1474 4 Wooded Foothills
.91 5 Forest
.711 4 Serum Powder
.1473 4 Windswept Heath
.1990 4 Tranquil Thicket
.1946 4 Treetop Village
.398 4 Bazaar of Baghdad

Unfortunately Serum Powder is pretty important for this list, and you need to complete the 5:1 challenge (Set 1 Challenge 7). Fortunately since it's 5:1 now instead of 10:1 that challenge is (probably) less likely to crash on you before you beat it. It's also available without having to beat the other challenges now.

Basically, you mulligan or use Serum Powder mulligans until you get a hand with Oath. Even a hand with Oath and no land is keepable, since there are quite alot of lands in the deck. Turn 3 Elvish Piper off a City of Traitors is plan B, I would even mull a 7 card hand with Piper to find Oath instead. Just be warned that using two Serum Powder mulligans will cause you to lose the game.

The Bazaar of Baghdads (and to a lesser extent the cycling lands and fetchlands) are there to find a Forbidden Orchard for the non-creature decks (Burn and Turbofog).

That's all of them now except Land Ho and Super Mulligan. I'm confident I can eventually beat Land Ho, as I have made it to the final round once. Super Mulligan on the other hand

But for now, I'm gonna take a break and get back to real life for a bit!

Epic (unlocks Manabond)
-you can only cast one spell per game (well, except see below )

.1933 4 Figure of Destiny
.1453 4 Spectral Procession
.1932 4 Demigod of Revenge
.1964 4 Fulminator Mage
.1935 4 Kitchen Finks
.1418 4 Oversoul of Dusk
.1949 4 Wilt-Leaf Liege*
.1421 4 Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers
.212 4 Savannah
.1499 4 Temple Garden
.189 4 Plateau
.1876 4 Reflecting Pool
.241 4 Taiga
.1632 4 Sacred Foundry
.1192 4 Worship

I don't know whether Jatill intended this workaround of the epic problem (as some like Land Ho require abusing AI stupidity) but in any event, hybrid casting costs are unaffected by the epic thing. The worships turned out to be totally useless unless they were the first spell cast (the hybrids count as the epic spell) but I won the first gauntlet attempt so I never replaced them with anything; I'd have used Flame Javelin instead if I'd known that.

If you want to do it with a clearer conscience, my best successes were with this, but the furthest I got was about round 8 with it.

.1902 4 Oath of Druids
.1308 4 Platinum Angel
.508 4 Mishra's Factory
.1990 4 Tranquil Thicket
.1946 4 Treetop Village
.398 4 Bazaar of Baghdad
.438 1 Library of Alexandria
.1893 4 Forbidden Orchard
.1789 4 Havenwood Battleground
.91 7 Forest
.711 4 Serum Powder
.495 4 Feldon's Cane
.212 4 Savannah
.36 4 Circle of Protection: Red
.629 4 Eureka

Usually you want the Oath in your opening hand, but once you get it, wait a turn or two to make sure you aren't facing the red burn deck or the turbofog deck, because the oath usually fails against those. Manlands are there as a backup, and the bazaars and thickets are for recovering from too many mulligans. Havenwood Battleground lets you cast Oath by itself, and you could also use Geothermal Crevice, or whatever the other one is. I didn't bother because you don't really need them, and they got in the way of the manland tempo.

Other cards that might work as the epic spell are Eureka (or Show and Tell), Call of the Wild, Sneak Attack, Tinker, Academy Rector, and Elvish Piper. Oath is probably the best, though, but you could supplement it with some of the above.

I had a nice Epic deck that regularly cast turn 2 Eureka for the win, but I kept hitting a Force of Will deck somewhere along the line. So I used this deck instead. I guess it's technically cheating, since I had to invent cards to win the challenge

I'm guessing this list will be good for super mulligan also, since stack deck into bazaar = win.

Code: Select all

.681   4   Narcomoeba
.684   4   Golgari Grave-Troll
.700   4   Dread Return*
.691   4   Ichorid
.398   4   Bazaar of Baghdad
.390   4   Crop Rotation
.711   4   Serum Powder
.252   4   Tropical Island
.1488   4   Flooded Strand
.682   4   Unmask
.705   4   Bridge From Below
.675   4   Flame-Kin Zealot
.678   4   Golgari Thug
.680   4   Stinkweed Imp
.1728   4   Wasteland


Epic (revisited)

;dredge
;
;#oldgames
;
;16/09/2009
;1
;4th Edition
;

.684 4 Golgari Grave-Troll
.678 4 Golgari Thug
.681 4 Narcomoeba
.675 3 Flame-Kin Zealot
.700 4 Dread Return*
.398 4 Bazaar of Baghdad
.1967 4 Life from the Loam
.680 4 Stinkweed Imp
.711 4 Serum Powder
.705 4 Bridge From Below
.666 4 Cabal Therapy
.791 4 Goblin Lore
.403 4 City of Brass
.266 4 Volcanic Island
.1531 1 Angel of Despair
.691 4 Ichorid

The volcanic islands were a relic from having ancestral recall and time walk in here, but it doesn't really matter because you don't need any land at all besides the bazaars. It won my second gauntlet attempt, and the first was lost only because I made a mistake in understanding the concept of this deck.

[TitanMD]

I found that cascade spells work pretty well in this challenge. Here's the deck i used:

4 x Violent Outburst
4 x Demonic Dread
4 x Hypergenesis
4 x Oath of Druids
4 x Eureka
4 x Emrakul, The Eons Torn
4 x Ulamog, The Infinite Gyre
4 x Kozilek, The Butcher of Truth
4 x Show and Tell
4 x Havenwood Battleground
4 x Dwarven Ruins
4 x Svelunite Temple
4 x Forbidden Orchard
4 x Taiga
2 x Badlands
2 x Underground Sea
4 x Bloodstained Mire

The Fallen Empires sac lands are there so you can cast show and tell, Oath of Druids, or one of the cascade spells on the second turn. You can also cast Eureka on the 3rd turn.

Casting a cascade spell will net you a Hypergenesis or an Oath of Druids. So having just a hand which has an Eldrazi, a cascade spell, and a couple of appropriate lands is pretty much a win for you.

[HornofAmmon]

Here was my winning deck, took less than a dozen tries to beat, which is very good by my standards ^^


.1902 4 Oath of Druids
.1590 4 Hypergenesis
.856 4 Violent Outburst
.1758 4 Show and Tell
.629 3 Eureka
.200 4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn*
.782 4 Blightsteel Colossus
.1675 2 Progenitus
.1980 3 Sneak Attack
.241 4 Taiga
.266 4 Volcanic Island
.61 4 Raging Ravine
.252 4 Tropical Island
.1946 4 Treetop Village
.1728 3 Wasteland
.528 1 Strip Mine
.1474 2 Wooded Foothills
.1308 2 Platinum Angel

[juzamjedi]

I beat this challenge with Dredge. You mulligan to Bazaar and it's pretty easy after that. The main difference, my version has 8 lands that can produce mana + 4x Crop Rotation so that I have more hands that get me T1 Bazaar.

[mox]

Winning Epic was a snap after winning Super Mulligan. With a very similar dredge deck:

.398 4 Bazaar of Baghdad
.12 4 Bayou
.1707 4 Overgrown Tomb
.403 4 City of Brass
.8981 4 Narcomoeba
.1518 1 Imperial Seal
.8524 2 Dread Return
.7967 4 Stinkweed Imp
.8900 4 Bridge from Below
.171 4 Nether Shadow
.1860 2 Ashen Ghoul
.62 1 Demonic Tutor
.7865 4 Golgari Thug
.5824 4 Ichorid
.1542 4 Crop Rotation
.7862 4 Golgari Grave-Troll
.7894 4 Life from the Loam
.7844 2 Flame-Kin Zealot

The only tricky duel was when I faced my same deck, as AI Ichorids were removing Bridges from Below from my graveyard. I won by putting as many zombies as possible on the battlefield as soon as possible.

[Emphyrio]

Cascade speels don't seem to work anymore unless I missed something. Casting Violent Outburst showed me the whole deck as "cards removed" including the Oaths of Druids (nothing happens if clicking them, nothing clickable on the rules engine card either). So I guess that's not a solution anymore for this challenge.

Very easy to complete it with Dredge though, reliable turn 3 or 4 kills.

[magict01]

This challenge unlock Standstill not Manabond, beat it with a oath deck

[discoransom]

4 Enduring Ideal

I wanted to play Epic with an Epic spell. Seven mana is a lot. This combination of "sac for 2" style lands along with the untapped mana from Ancient Tomb and Simian Spirit Guide will reliably cast Enduring Ideal on turn 4 if you have a good draw. Often you play it on turn 5, though it's possible to play on turn 2 or 3 with a jesus draw. I recommend beating Back to '95 for the free Wall of Swords before trying this one- if you use it to ambush an early attacker it can buy you many turns. It took about 10 runs to get through this one, half of those being play mistakes. The mana sources:

4 Ancient Tomb
4 Ancient Spring
4 Icatian Store
4 Irrigation Ditch
4 Remote Farm
4 Ruins of Trokair
4 Tinder Farm
4 Simian Spirit Guide

The enchantment suite here is probably far from optimal, but 4 Form of the Dragon and at least 4 Moat effects are needed due to drawing them in your opener and sometimes discarding them to Bazaar of Baghdad. These should take care of most decks. Island Sanctuary and Curse of the Pierced Heart were there for backup, but not necessary. Dovescape stops burn and Naturalize/Disenchant/Vindicate, and Gravity Sphere stops Dovescape tokens from killing you, as well as being a soft lock in combination with Moat. Curse of Death's Hold also stops the tokens and is useful in certain situations when you go off. I'd swap it out for 2 more Phyrexian Unlife, which was a very useful card in this deck.

4 Form of the Dragon
3 Moat
2 Detention Sphere
2 Dovescape
2 Curse of Death's Hold
2 Phyrexian Unlife
1 Curse of the Pierced Heart
1 Island Sanctuary
1 Gravity Sphere

With only 4 copies of the very expensive castable spell, and no tutors, Bazaar of Baghdad was absolutely necessary. It digs for lands and Enduring Ideal very well. Tabernacle is very useful as well.

3 Bazaar of Baghdad
3 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale