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somacat wrote:Just completed Land Ho, obviously got insanely lucky. Here's the list, although everyone likely has something pretty darn close, since there's not much you can do with this challenge:

.377 4 Maze of Ith
.508 4 Mishra's Factory
.806 4 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
.1946 4 Treetop Village
.1728 4 Wasteland
.528 1 Strip Mine
.1721 3 Kjeldoran Outpost
.694 1 Karakas
.407 4 Desert
.319 2 Gaea's Cradle
.438 1 Library of Alexandria
.1499 4 Temple Garden
.212 4 Savannah
.1989 3 Secluded Steppe
.1990 4 Tranquil Thicket
.428 2 Island of Wak-Wak
.1844 3 Dark Depths
.740 3 Pendelhaven
.398 3 Bazaar of Baghdad
.833 2 Urborg

The bulk of the strategy for playing this challenge is the 'surprise, I have a creature to block with' plan, since the AI seems unaware that Factories and Treetops can be animated, or that Outpost and Dark Depths can put creatures into play at instant speed. For this reason it is incredibly important to mulligan into a manland, as you need to be able to kill their early attackers to stop them getting ahead of you. Factory is by far preferable to Treetop, since it comes online earlier, and a second Factory can make for a 4/4 blocker. This strategy is most effective against decks that attack with alot of 2/2s (obviously). For this reason the Rats deck is the easiest to beat unless they have an early turn with two Rats, since you can keep them getting any bigger than 2/2. Once they stop dropping creatures, then you can start attacking.

The other major strategy is mana denial, both from the Strip Mine / Wastelands, and the Tabernacles. If your opponent has a turn 1 of land-go, I usually recommend using a Strip / Wasteland asap, as they are far more likely to get manascrewed than you With a Tabernacle in play, sometimes you *want* the AI to keep 2/2s you can deal with, rather than have it suicide them into a manland. In this situation, you just activate the manland at the beginning of the AI's attack step to dissuade them attacking. Pendelhaven is pretty amazing here too, as the AI thinks it can pump any size creature. I held of an army of Hierarchs and Rhow War Monks with a Treetop Village and an open Pendelhaven Maze of Ith really shines in this strategy too. If you are playing this way, generally you are going to be winning in the late game either by Outpost + Cradle, or Marit Lage.

The Urborgs may need some explaining: the toughest match in this challenge is probably the soldier deck. Not only are Crusade effects very bad for you, they have Preeminent Captain, which can get around the mana denial strategy by plopping creatures directly into the red zone.

This is a very tough challenge, as the cardpool for it is incredibly small. There are alot of situations it can't deal with, since it can't effectively deal with artifacts, enchantments, or large creatures, and as an aggro deck it doesn't provide much of a clock (you are only the aggro against Burn, Turbofog and often Faeries).

jatill wrote:
Finally beat this myself, on my second try (last challenge complete, woohoo!)
Here's my deck:

Code: Select all

.377   4   Maze of Ith
.508   4   Mishra's Factory
.806   4   The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
.1946   4   Treetop Village
.1728   4   Wasteland
.528   1   Strip Mine
.694   1   Karakas
.407   4   Desert
.438   1   Library of Alexandria
.1499   4   Temple Garden
.212   4   Savannah
.1989   3   Secluded Steppe
.1990   4   Tranquil Thicket
.1844   3   Dark Depths
.740   3   Pendelhaven
.398   4   Bazaar of Baghdad
.1709   4   Temple of the False God
.1913   4   Dryad Arbor


My strategy is a little different from yours. I used Dryad Arbor + Pendlehaven extensively. I cut the Outposts after the first try, since I never wanted them in play, and use Temple of the False God instead. Helps to get those Dark Depths going. Overall, I used 1 of 3 game plans depending on the deck:

1) Make Marit Lage ASAP. Works best against decks like Turbofog and ones with large creatures.

2) LD. If I start with 2 Wastelands / Srtip Mines in hand, I'll play Bazaar and try to find the rest to cripple the opponent.

3) Manlands. This is the most common strategy, as explained by somacat. I never found myself needing to abuse the Pendlehaven AI bug, though.

Code: Select all

.6860   4   Blinkmoth Nexus
.8916   4   Dryad Arbor
.6637   4   Cloudpost
.11264   4   Glimmerpost
.8720   4   Vesuva
.8356   2   Dark Depths
.11463   4   Inkmoth Nexus
.694   1   Karakas
.11998   4   Kessig Wolf Run
.377   4   Maze of Ith
.508   4   Mishra's Factory
.9393   4   Mutavault
.4578   4   Rishadan Port
.528   1   Strip Mine
.241   4   Taiga
.806   1   The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
.3329   4   Wasteland
.10787   2   Khalni Garden
.10815   1   Raging Ravine