Challenge 3-7 : March of the Machines 2

[Salbei]

March of the Machines 2
Challenge: 3-7
Unlocks: (Umezawa's Jitte)
Description: You may only use non-creature artifacts
NavigationChallenge Index - Archive for Set 3


Please discuss this Challenge here!

[Salbei]

Found at the Archive, might be outdated.

Wow! The ones I have left are really hard... well except maybe Sliver Nation, I still haven't even checked what that is, yet. Anyway, this is my deck that beat March of the Machines #2. I should emphasize that this took many, many, many tries, and I tweaked all kinds of things in this deck, so don't expect to make it the first time around with this!

.724 4 Tangle Wire
.1573 4 Smokestack
.18 4 Black Vise
.17 1 Black Lotus
.165 1 Mox Emerald
.166 1 Mox Jet
.167 1 Mox Pearl
.168 1 Mox Ruby
.169 1 Mox Sapphire
.230 1 Sol Ring
.1909 1 Trinisphere*
.894 1 Mana Crypt
.157 1 Mana Vault
.1306 4 Sculpting Steel
.164 13 Mountain
.159 4 Meekstone
.287 4 Winter Orb
.1501 1 Zuran Orb
.1957 4 Cursed Scroll
.1894 4 Goblin Charbelcher
.546 4 Weakstone

Other cards I tried were Sphere of Resistance, Ankh of Mishra, Ivory Tower, Howling Mine, Serum Powder, and Ensnaring Bridge.

Using a vise deck seemed the most obvious way to go, so I started with that. It eventually became Vise/Stax in order to add removal stuff, and then I added scrolls and belchers for more damage sources. Tangle Wire is sick with Meekstone and Winter Orb. Tap your own vises, tangle wires, stacks, and zuran orb first, since they still work tapped. After that, tap anything you aren't using, like maybe a cursed scroll or meekstone you don't need that turn. The Smokestack generally ate Mana Vault/Crypt first, then any extra meekstones, winter orbs, or lands. (always land before moxes due to winter orb)

The deck is actually quite hard to play, and in general I found through experimenting that you rarely want to put more than 1 counter on your smokestack. You can normally afford the loss of one card a turn, maybe 2 for a short time, but at first I was loading the darn thing up every turn, and that didn't work. I'm not sure how to explain it, except that if you play a few dozen times with it, you'll see :p

Found at the Archive, might be outdated.

Thought I'd add my deck that I used to beat March #2, used the deck I used to beat the first March challenge as base. Beat it with this the 1st real try. Forgot to turn on challenge mode.

.17 1 Black Lotus
.169 1 Mox Sapphire
.168 1 Mox Ruby
.167 1 Mox Pearl
.166 1 Mox Jet
.165 1 Mox Emerald
.230 1 Sol Ring
.1216 4 Seat of the Synod
.1682 4 Darksteel Citadel
.1775 4 Mind Stone
.1571 2 Serrated Arrows
.248 1 Time Vault
.1550 1 Voltaic Key
.1685 4 Chromatic Star
.1686 4 Chromatic Sphere
.1215 4 Vault of Whispers
.1711 4 Helm of Awakening
.18 4 Black Vise
.965 3 Ensnaring Bridge
.1894 3 Goblin Charbelcher
.1306 4 Sculpting Steel
.495 1 Feldon's Cane
.1774 3 Grafted Skullcap
.981 3 Expedition Map

Includes 2 of my fav lock-down combos, Vault/Key and Bridge/Skullcap. Fairly easy to play: get a bridge in play (copy it if playing against green or white), dump hand, then thin and cantrip to a belcher.

From the Archive, might be outdated

Most of the lists here seem to lack consistency and skimp on mana, which sets you up for popping a vein when you lose a match at the end of a round due to a bad draw. Here's the list I used to beat March of the Machines #2. Pretty easy to play; don't be afraid to mull away slow hands, lock the game up with bridges and stones and start aiming belchers and scrolls to the dome when creatures aren't a threat anymore.

;Challenge March
;
;User
;User E-Mail
;07/12/2009
;1
;4th Edition
;

.17 1 Black Lotus
.157 1 Mana Vault
.165 1 Mox Emerald
.166 1 Mox Jet
.167 1 Mox Pearl
.168 1 Mox Ruby
.169 1 Mox Sapphire
.230 1 Sol Ring
.1774 4 Grafted Skullcap
.1957 4 Cursed Scroll
.965 4 Ensnaring Bridge
.1306 4 Sculpting Steel
.457 1 Mox Diamond
.1894 4 Goblin Charbelcher
.164 18 Mountain
.159 4 Meekstone
.1900 1 Memory Jar
.1468 4 Wayfarer's Bauble
.546 4 Weakstone

Found at the Archive, might be outdated.

I went for the Black Vise kill. I love any deck with Howling Mine and Font of Mythos.

.503 4 Ivory Tower
.18 4 Black Vise
.165 1 Mox Emerald
.166 1 Mox Jet
.167 1 Mox Pearl
.168 1 Mox Ruby
.169 1 Mox Sapphire
.230 1 Sol Ring
.159 4 Meekstone
.114 4 Howling Mine
.1521 4 Font of Mythos
.287 4 Winter Orb
.119 4 Icy Manipulator
.630 4 Vedalken Shackles
.126 20 Island
.1468 2 Wayfarer's Bauble

[HornofAmmon]

From the examples listed, I assume you are allowed to use normal land, unlike in the first March of the Machines? Thanks.

[240sxforever]

This deck tears up the challenge, If it did not keep crashing on round nine I should have beaten it three times out of four attempts.

Code: Select all

;March of the Machines
;
;User
;User E-Mail
;01/06/2011
;1
;4th Edition
;

.18   3   Black Vise
.237   3   Brittle Effigy
.1894   4   Goblin Charbelcher
.287   3   Winter Orb
.1550   3   Voltaic Key
.540   4   Urza's Bauble
.1576   4   Tumble Magnet
.248   1   Time Vault
.493   4   Temple Bell
.230   1   Sol Ring
.45   4   Semblance Anvil
.169   1   Mox Sapphire
.168   1   Mox Ruby
.167   1   Mox Pearl
.1805   3   Mox Opal
.166   1   Mox Jet
.165   1   Mox Emerald
.1775   4   Mind Stone
.157   1   Mana Vault
.894   1   Mana Crypt
.1424   1   Lotus Petal
.744   3   Lotus Bloom*
.310   4   Grim Monolith
.17   1   Black Lotus
.965   4   Ensnaring Bridge


The deck is a bit tricky to play, but I liked the idea of a landless artifact deck. It kills on turns 1-2 about 1 in 5 games and 3-4 about 3 of 5 games. the only real tough match is against affinity.

[sopcich04]

every time i get to match 8 or 9 the game fails on me, any reason why? haha all i want is this one equipment!!

[Zyrule]

Is there an unlock code for just this challenge. I had 80 percent of these complete til hurricane sandy flooded my basement computer, I got a new computer with windows 7 and I don't mind doing the challanges again, its just this one is my most frustrating, last time it took me almost 2 weeks to finally complete.

[Aswan jaguar]

Sorry,but there is no unlock code for just one challenge unless you ask Jatill and he decides to make one for you.

[GoblinTherapist]

Hi, I'm new to the forums. Used to play Magic from Beta to Mercadian Masques. Very happy to see there's a way to keep playing with the new cards without having to spend a fortune on them!

Anyway, I was stuck on this challenge for a long time. Lots of unlucky draws and game crashes (especially when trying charbelcher decks). I eventually settled on the following control build that made the challenge absurdly easy! Can't believe I didn't figure it out earlier.

12x Island
4x Tundra
4x Underground Sea
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Sol Ring
1x Black Lotus
4x Tangle Wire (easy enough to unlock it in March of the Machines 1)
4x Vedalken Shackles
4x Meekstone
4x Thopter Foundry
4x Sword of the Meek
4x Ichor Wellspring
4x Mycosynth Wellspring
3x Smokestack
2x Mortarpod

The deck is designed around control and synergy, and you get more and more options while your opponent keeps getting less. In the beginning, use Tangle Wire, Meekstone, Mortarpod and Vedalken Shackles to shut down the opponent. Use the Wellsprings to gain card (to draw into combo) and land (for the Shackles) advantage. Drop a Smokestack as soon as possible. You can sacrifice Wellsprings, Mortarpods, 'empty' Tangle Wires, surplus Meekstones and land to it. Keeping them between 1 and 3 counters should usually do the trick. Keep in mind you can tap most of your artifacts to Tangle Wire and they'll still work, except the mana ones and the Vedalken Shackles.

The Thopter Foundry/Sword of the Meek combo gives you blockers, attackers, Smokestack fuel and lifegain (very important against the burn deck!). The Thopter Foundry is the important part of the engine, as you can also sacrifice the Wellsprings, Tangle Wires and surplus artifacts (Moxes, Meekstones). You can use it to get rid of a redundant Smokestack as well. If direct damage is needed, you can ping creatures and players by equipping the Mortarpods to the thopter tokens.

Mulligan until you get a hand that either has the combo or plenty of control options. If you have a Mycosynth Wellspring you can afford to keep a low land hand. I used the Shackles mostly defensively. You'll have enough islands to grab their best creature every turn.

The burn deck is the only difficult match-up. Keep it locked down with Tangle Wire and Smokestack and make sure you get a Thopter Foundry for the life gain! The rest of the decks should be easy. You'll be assisted a bit by crappy computer AI. It never seems to Disenchant/Naturalize the Thopter Foundries, but wastes them on the tokens or Sword of the Meek. The mirror match is laughable, since the AI immediately sacrifices the Thopter Foundry to itself.

Hope this deck/guide helps people out. I was getting very frustrated until I built this.

[mox]

I too always get a program crash on round 9 with a Charbelcher deck similar to 240sxforever's deck.

The crash seems to occur when the program is checking whether the deck is compliant with the challenge's rules. As round 9 is the mirror match it is possible that the program has difficulty to cope with a double check of that deck.

In the possibility that that difficulty was because of the deck being landless I tried to add a mountain. Nothing to do.

I now have to use a different deck. What a pity, that deck was great.

[Aswan jaguar]

Please report that to bug forum so it can be investigated.

[mox]

Thanks Aswan jaguar. Done.

[mox]

Ok, I left off Charbelcher decks and won the challenge with Goblin Therapist's deck. It proved an awesome deck, slower but more solid than Charbelcher and extremely enjoyable to play. And especially it did not suffered the crash on round 9. I recommend it to anyone who wants to play this challenge.

[Zloy]

.230 1 Sol Ring
.165 1 Mox Emerald
.166 1 Mox Jet
.11311 1 Mox Opal
.167 1 Mox Pearl
.168 1 Mox Ruby
.169 1 Mox Sapphire
.17 1 Black Lotus
.9036 4 Sword of the Meek
.10358 4 Thopter Foundry
.7148 4 Vedalken Shackles
.254 4 Tundra
.258 4 Underground Sea
.159 4 Meekstone
.126 9 Island
.11564 4 Batterskull
.12206 2 Helvault
.11643 4 Mycosynth Wellspring
.11222 4 Chimeric Mass
.239 1 Swamp
.965 4 Ensnaring Bridge

[wicked]

Going through the list of Non-Creature Artifacts I too noticed the power of the Thopter Foundry/Sword of the Meek combo, though I also added an old favorite of mine from Mirrodin Block in the form of Krark-Clan Ironworks/Myr Incubator combo to give the deck a second combo win condition. Although a case could be made for using Ichor Wellspring and/or Mycosynth Wellspring, Batterskull and Tangle Wire. But I felt like keeping the average cmc low so I also ran 8 spells bombs to make it easier to dump my hand (and turn on Ensnaring Bridge) and cycle through the deck to find combo pieces faster.

;Chal 3-7 - ThopterSword
;
;User
;User E-Mail
;10/10/2012
;1
;4th Edition
;

.6614 4 Æther Spellbomb
.6764 4 Pyrite Spellbomb
.10358 4 Thopter Foundry
.7078 3 Krark-Clan Ironworks
.6733 3 Myr Incubator
.965 4 Ensnaring Bridge
.9036 4 Sword of the Meek
.7148 4 Vedalken Shackles
.126 6 Island
.165 1 Mox Emerald
.166 1 Mox Jet
.167 1 Mox Pearl
.168 1 Mox Ruby
.169 1 Mox Sapphire
.17 1 Black Lotus
.230 1 Sol Ring
.159 4 Meekstone
.254 4 Tundra
.258 4 Underground Sea
.11311 1 Mox Opal
.266 4 Volcanic Island