Manalink Vintage Competition (winners posted)

[aww1979]

Scherbchen's Blue4u deck performed as follows:
1) scherbchen
2) jatill haterator
3) yggdrasil
4) jatill haterator
5) aww1979
6) jatill haterator
7) thedrigo (LOST)

You have no idea how sick I got of staring at Energy Flux... :p Game 7 had a couple tricky decisions to make, but in hindsight, I think I would have lost no matter the path I took. I think I made the best decisions, though.

Game 1 with TheDrigo crashed against JuzamJedi. It was a very close game, but I think I was losing slightly, but it was still anyone's game. I won't bother uploading the game, since it was just trading removal for creatures for awhile, and then sitting on 3-4 creatures each for a half dozen turns until it crashed.

TheDrigo's Zoo deck performed as follows:
1) nyktorian zoo
2) aww1979
3) scherbchen
4) jatill haterator
5) salbei
6) thedrigo (LOST)

I think I played game 6 just fine... just AI got more tarmogoyfs than I did! :p I made a mistake in game 1, though, but I got lucky and won. (held onto a jotun grunt, thinking I wouldn't need it, but then AI drew removal and nearly killed me. I'd kept it because I had blockers already and could only maintain it for 2 turns, and AI had 2 tarmogoyfs) However, since thedrigo lost to himself in the mirror, he gets 5+5=10 points from me!

Yggdrasil's aggroBG deck performed as follows:
1) thedrigo
2) thedrigo (again)
3) jatill slivers
4) cognis
5) kakodrilojuzam
6) salbei
7) yggdrasil
aww1979
9) yggdrasil
10) cognis

10-0 gauntlet win for yggdrasil.

[Cognis]

Disco's Imperial Zoo went 10-0 and it's the most fun deck I played so far but the AI doesn't do it justice. I didn't do match to match report since I needed time to learn the decks. Anyway

Round 8: 2-0 vs Brandon's Green Force - no chance for the AI
Round 9: 2-0 vs Scherbchen's Blue4U - again no chance for the AI
Round 10: 2-0 vs Brandon's Green Force - no chance for the AI, Dark Confidant was marvelous had three of them and each one took out a creature and the last one took out Force of nature with the help from two Lightning bolt, evil grin

Affinity was the toughest match but I won in round 1 and didn't meet it again

Evil Clone's Warrior stompy deck went 4-1, a nice deck with a lot of synergy's and fun to play

Round 1: 2-0 vs Scherbchen's Blue4U - Bramblewood paragon + Imperious perfect + Sarkhan vol = game over
Round 2: 2-1 vs Yggdrasil's Aggro BG - One first match with no lands in hand but with Land grant, 2x Nettle sentinel, Wild nacatl, Rancor and 2x Bramblewood paragon, had two lands the entire match and won. I was overrun in match two and in match 3 had to mulligan twice, had only two lands the entire match but somehow won, suspecting that the AI had something to do with it
Round 3: 2-0 vs Thedrigo's Zoo - nothing special, just had the more aggro deck
Round 4: 2-0 vs Jatill's Staxx - how I won is a mystery, in match 1 I had two goblin maniacs enter that bypassed Sphere of resistance, had only one land and was able to win, a lot of luck. Match 2 was, well, sureal, the AI has 3x Thorn of amethyst, Lodestone golem and I'm down at 3. I was able to stabilize with Vren's ruin vanquisher and go on the defensive, I played Imperious perfect + Wild nacatl and Rancor on elf tokens. Went all in and bypassed the defense with Giant growth to put the AI to -1
Round 5: 1-2 vs Nyktorian's Zoo - Won match 1 with dragon army. Match 2 and 3 I was overrun with creatures and removal. So far Nyktorian's deck seems to be best for the AI, it really played it well.

[Cognis]

I started to play with Schreben's Blue4U and I don't know how to use debug mode to play Helm of Obedience, I downloaded the zip that was in this topic which should have allowed me to play it but it didn't work so I would need some info on that. Thnx

[jatill]

I started to play with Schreben's Blue4U and I don't know how to use debug mode to play Helm of Obedience, I downloaded the zip that was in this topic which should have allowed me to play it but it didn't work so I would need some info on that. Thnx

What didn't work?

[Cognis]

The helm was still locked, someone posted an update to stop Jotun grunt from crashing the game and unlocked cards that are in this challenge, or did I get something wrong? Anyway I don't have the Helm of obedience unlocked so I can't test the deck right.

[Nyktorion]

The helm was still locked, someone posted an update to stop Jotun grunt from crashing the game and unlocked cards that are in this challenge, or did I get something wrong? Anyway I don't have the Helm of obedience unlocked so I can't test the deck right.

I tried this out, since I have not unlocked the helm either yet. However, it is looking good: the helm ist still titled something like "Locked x Chal y" to me in games, but I can play and activate it as if it were unlocked.

Meanwhile, I played some more games. First, Salbei's deck went 2-1:

mirror match (won first game, lost second game, both were decided by early Dragons. Third game, he got an early big Goyf, which was trumped by my Belcher, though): 2-1

Karodrilo Juzam (got a nice hand which allowed a first turn Wheel of Fortune on the play in game one, and killed with thresholded Mongooses and a big Goyf. Lost second game to lots of creature removal against Dragons and a Goyf. Won third game using an early Belcher): 2-1

jatill slivers (had to mulligan to 4 in the first game, two virulent slivers and two +1/+1 slivers overran me, I died from poison! In the second game, my early Dragon got dazed, and my Goyf was outclassed by four early 3/4 slivers): 0-2

I also played Brandon's Green Force deck, which went 1-1:

Cognis Quirion (two quick wins, in both game, the only real threat was one early coatl each, which I disposed of with Might of Oaks - against the 6/6 one - and Giant Growth - the 3/3 one - respectively)

Nyktorion Zoo (first game was an easy win thanks to Force of Nature. Note: AI wasted a Path to Exile on Llanowar Elves! Second game lost due to having to mulligan to 5, and AI getting a quick horde start with Black Lotus. Third game was close: he killed a turn one Ifrit by exiling, I killed a 4/4 Figure of Destiny by Giant Growth. AI even played badly by fireblasting a River Boa which could regenerate! Finally, I almost finished him using Force of Nature, but he burned me to 0 before. Sorry =/): 1-2

[aww1979]

Score file uploaded.

Results for my testing:

1st = TheDrigo 20 pts (5 gauntlet + 3 defeats, including against himself)
2nd = Salbei 16 pts (6 gauntlet + 2 defeats)
3rd = tie: Yggdrasil 15 pts (10 gauntlet + 1 defeat) and Nyktorian 15 pts (10 gauntlet + 1 defeat)
4th = tie: Disco 13 pts (8 gauntlet + 1 defeat) and Jatill Stax (8 gauntlet + 1 defeat)
5th = JuzamJedi 12 pts (7 gauntlet + 1 defeat)
6th = tie: Jatill Slivers 10 pts (10 gauntlet) and Jatill Haterator (5 gauntlet + 1 defeat)
7th = tie: aww1979 8 pts (8 gauntlet) and Brandon (3 gauntlet + 1 defeat)
8th = Scherbchen 6 pts (6 gauntlet)
9th = Evil Clone 4 pts (4 gauntlet)
10th = Kakodrilo 1 pts (1 gauntlet)
11th = Cognis 0 pts

Number of times I saw each deck:
10 times = salbei and jatill haterator
8 times = aww1979, cognis, evil warrior, jatill stax, nyktorian, thedrigo
6 times = brandon, disco, jatill slivers
5 times = juzamjedi, jatill stax
4 times = scherbchen
3 times = kakodrilo
total=103 games played

Deck Comments:
aww1979: I wasn't too happy about how the AI held back some of its lands several times. It did that a bit during testing, but no more than any other deck does. I had made the decision to go with all speed and no removal, which might have worked if it had played more lands :p

salbei: This was a belcher style I hadn't ever tried before, but it definitely made it easier for the AI to play. The creatures and the 8 lands (more than I normally put in belcher) helped the AI figure out what to do. The unpredictability of the belcher also led to my making poor plays in both games that I lost to it. Blood Moons were a good inclusion. The only thing I didn't like here (and it was my fault) was that the deck looked more like a weenie deck than a belcher deck to me. I'd also have tried to slip a few more ways of getting belcher faster in here, maybe Fabricate. (and then swap one volcanic for tropical island, for land grant)

brandon: The surprise factor of the instant spells lost me one game, and it was fun to play might of oaks and berserk. As I mentioned before, I'd have done Terra Stomper instead of Force of Nature. The two Rancors in this deck might have been better replaced, maybe with berserks, just because they don't actually return to hand like they should. Tarmogoyf would have worked well here, too.

cognis: Unfortunately, this deck didn't win any games. For the AI, I attribute that to not knowing when to counterspell intelligently. The AI also used Jace to brainstorm instead of unsummon a spiritmonger one game.

disco: I'd never used Kor Skyfisher before; it worked well with Moxes, which I hadn't thought of doing. Good synergy with that, I liked that. I didn't like drawing Reveillark off Dark Confidant, though :p I don't know how well AI was using Imperial Recruiter, but properly done, it is a good card in this deck. Jitte is good for the human, but the AI never uses it.

evilclone: I love bramblewood paragon I've made quite a few wearrior decks based on him in the past, both monogreen like yours, and multicoloured ones. I was glad to see AI actually used Sarkhan Vol, or at least the first ability on it. AI did tend to misuse Nettle Sentinel a bit, not playing spells in the right order to untap it, and also Rancor is bugged, but even then, is still a decent card.

juzamjedi: This deck was really easy for the AI to play. I am rather confused about the mana base, though. Mox Diamonds over the other moxes? Also, a couple times I used fetchlands, only to find that the land I wanted (Savannah or sometimes Plateau) was not there. I inadvertently made a few misplays on turn 1 due to that, but I should have read the decklist closer.

jatill: (haterator) Evil :p Funny thing is, I still beat the energy fluxes with both affinity and scherbchen's decks. I don't know if it was intentional, but Cosi's Trickster on the human side scared the AI into not using its fetchlands. Mana Crypt is a great card, but rather dangerous to put into the hands of the AI :p I'd have done Sol Ring, instead.

jatill: (slivers) Not too much to say about this one. AI did tend to misplay the counterspells, though; it only seems to like countering creatures, rarely anything else, unless it will kill the AI with direct damage. (like lightning bolt at 3 life)

jatill: (stax) I got a lot of early hard locks with this deck, which was great, and I was shocked that the AI actually activates Crucible of Worlds. It did suffer somewhat from the same problem as my affinity deck, that it seems to always want to play Mishra's Workshop last, after it has already played its other lands. I would never have thought to put black in a deck like this, though; usually I've done blue and/or red.

kakodrilo: This was a fun and easy deck, too. Unfortunately, I screwed up with it in game 2, and the AI hardly ever got to play it, so it scored low because of that. I am curious, though, what do you think of Juzam Djinn versus Phyrexian Scuta? I play the Juzam in decks unless they are zombie-based; did you consider that card at all, either as a replacement, or as juzams 5-8?

nyktorian: I was surprised when the AI activated grim lavamancers; good to see it knows it can do that. It's a card I wouldn't have thought to include in the deck, but it worked very well here. At first, I thought they would synergize poorly with tarmogoyf, but I never had a problem with that. I would've replaced the fireblast, though; I saw the AI do some really stupid things with that :p

scherbchen: This deck had some fun tricks in it. Unfortunately, most of them went way over the AI's head. The AI did best with it when it got Lodestone Golem. As a human, I did best whenever I got the vault/key combo. I was pleasantly surprised when it managed to overcome jatill's haterator and all those Energy Fluxes *three* times :p

thedrigo: This deck beat me three times, which made it the highest-scoring deck in my games. I only won five with it myself. (losing in the mirror) Pretty straightforward to play. Juzamjedi and nyktorian had a very similar idea, too.

yggdrasil: I didn't think this one was going to work very well, but it surprised me, and I won ten games with it. It was also quite easy for the AI to play. The AI doesn't know that the nighthawk has deathtouch, and when playing the deck, I got to kill some big flyers a couple times with it (broodstar and covetous dragon) I had actually made a fairly similar deck to this in my testing, with the main differences being tarmogoyf, dark ritual, and lord of extinction, but I didn't use it.

miscellaneous stuff:
-disco imperial zoo: this was the deck I had the most fun playing with, since the recruiters made for a lot of interesting choices
-jatill: how come you got three decks? :p not fair!
-too much zoo! :p
-nobody did white weenie? or baneslayer? I nearly did that instead of affinity; it would've been my second choice. Third was a black/green deck similar to yggdrasils.
-no goblins? I thought I'd see that one, too.
-tarmogoyfs: yeah, not really surprised how many of these there were. Ugh. This and baneslayer are one mana too cheap.
-I did 'best of 1' gauntlets, rather than best of 3 or 5 in order to save time, and because with best of 3 or 5, likely everyone's decks would have gotten 10/10 in the gauntlet against the AI. I did best of 5 when I was testing, and not one testing deck ever lost 3 out of 5 games, even the crappy decks I made.

[discoransom]

Three more results in:


Greenforce

1. 2-0 vs Warrior Stompy

Warrior got out 2 early Paragons, and was set to win but swung with the whole team and lost to combat tricks on the crackback. Second game AI drew no land.

2. 2-1 vs Blue4u

All three games were very close. AI knows how to play Sword of Fire and Ice, but again the combat tricks won the day...oh and Garruk was a superstar along with River Boa.

3. 2-0 vs Blue4u (2)

Ifh-Biff Efreet won game two. AI cast Phyrexian Processor on 1 life . Don't remember game one but it was quick and painful with enchanted dudes.

4. 0-2 Loss vs thedrigo zoo

Opponent drew a perfect curve of creatures and removal game one. Game two Greenforce got mulliganed to 4 when it drew no lands and no elves 3 times. Never drew a creature after that

My first decks were green stompy- I haven't cast Force of Nature in years, so that was sweet! And Silvos is just about unfair.


Cognis Quirion


1. 2-0 vs Greenforce

First game I had to stall out the ground and take a lot of trample hits until your guys grew. Once the board stabilized it was beatdown time. Game two saw 2 early Coatls and all the card draw I could want. Chumped or got trampled by a couple monsters again but Coatl got to 10/10.

2. 2-1 vs Slivers

Don't remember each game details, but games were very competitive. Racing Slivers and trading Force of Will is always exciting.

3. 0-2 Loss vs Yggdrasil Aggro

Both games he curved out with monsters and you got land flooded. Shame, as this should have a been a closer match.

I think if this deck could run 4 brainstorm and 4 ponder like it can in legacy, it would put up some 10-0s. I was rooting for you because unlocking Quirion is ruthless!


Imperial Zoo (my deck, so if you don't believe me I understand, and saved my killscreen shots )

1. 2-0 vs Haterator

I got lucky and hit some basic lands before AI got Blood Moon out. After that, it was a matter of Goyfs and recurring Imperial Recruiters courtesy of Kor Skyfisher.

2. 2-0 vs Monty Muck (Belcher)

Qasali Pridemage kept Charbelcher off the field, and Skyfishers flew over blockers ftw.

3. 2-1 vs Quirion

Umezawa's Jitte saved my butt game 1 and 3. Jitte pretty much wins games once it resolves in a creature match. I got Force of Willed and Dazed way too much for my own sanity.

4. 2-0 vs STAX

I was able to play through spheres, barely. I had lots of removal handy for taking out monsters, and the card advantage of Imperial Recruiter got it done.

5. 2-0 vs Quirion (2)

Jitte came out turn one and two, so none of the AI monsters got a chance to grow.

6. 2-1 vs Haterator (2)

This is a pretty tough match. Got locked out game 2. Skyfisher did most of the beating.

7. 2-0 vs Warrior Stompy

The card advantage was too much for the AI to handle.

8. 2-0 vs thedrigo Zoo

These games were all about trading removal and getting something to stick. I don't have much removal and I think I drew just about all of it.

9. 2-1 vs thedrigo Zoo (2)

Thought I was going to lose this one. The Recruiter/Skyfisher engine was the only thing keeping me alive. This match makes me nervous.

10. 2-0 vs Juzam

Juzam can come out fast, and the first game was close with his Black Knights being pro-white. I think I was on 1 life game one. Game 2 he got manascrewed.

[discoransom]

So far, the zoo decks are the scariest to play against. The AI is pretty smart with removal (usually). My favorite deck is Salbei's, and the AI plays it better than I thought it would.

[juzamjedi]

Deck Comments:
...
juzamjedi: This deck was really easy for the AI to play. I am rather confused about the mana base, though. Mox Diamonds over the other moxes? Also, a couple times I used fetchlands, only to find that the land I wanted (Savannah or sometimes Plateau) was not there. I inadvertently made a few misplays on turn 1 due to that, but I should have read the decklist closer.

Glad to hear it; I made some card choices based on how well the AI played them. The reason I didn't use Plateau or Savannah was I feared the AI would fetch incorrectly. Most spells in the deck can be cast with only 2 lands in play so it's harder for the AI to screw up

You're right about the Mox Diamonds. In the revised version I had intended to swap them for Mox Emerald + Mox Pearl instead. Next time I won't wait until the last minute to submit my "polished" list!

[thedrigo]

Wow... I didn't anticipate my deck beating so many others. To tell the truth, I'm not a big Zoo fan, but I built my deck like that to help the AI play it. Initially, I was going to play something like Mud or Oath, but playtesting told me a couple of things:
1. At least one person was gonna think about Haterator and run maindeck Energy Flux to hose Mud or Affinity.
2. Oath would be useless against Blood Moon, lots of removal and Qasali Pridemage; especially with the AI's misuse of countermagic.

Zoo made lots of sense for me because it has a very good balance of removal, punch and speed AND it's super straightforward for the AI to play. Jotun Grunt has proven to be a very good addition because, given longer games, he can reshuffle removal into your deck with the help of a fetchland. I added Char because I knew Lightning Bolts weren't gonna be enough to kill Goyfs and Baneslayers (which I'm really surprised didn't show).

[discoransom]

Wow... I didn't anticipate my deck beating so many others. To tell the truth, I'm not a big Zoo fan, but I built my deck like that to help the AI play it. Initially, I was going to play something like Mud or Oath, but playtesting told me a couple of things:
1. At least one person was gonna think about Haterator and run maindeck Energy Flux to hose Mud or Affinity.
2. Oath would be useless against Blood Moon, lots of removal and Qasali Pridemage; especially with the AI's misuse of countermagic.

Zoo made lots of sense for me because it has a very good balance of removal, punch and speed AND it's super straightforward for the AI to play. Jotun Grunt has proven to be a very good addition because, given longer games, he can reshuffle removal into your deck with the help of a fetchland. I added Char because I knew Lightning Bolts weren't gonna be enough to kill Goyfs and Baneslayers (which I'm really surprised didn't show).

To think you'd probably get more kills if Jotun Grunt didn't always freeze the game in the hands of the AI...From what I've seen, your deck is by far the easiest for the AI to play correctly.

[aww1979]

I think thedrigo's zoo won out over the other zoo decks (at least in my games) because it only had three colours, not 4 or 5, and so there were less chances for the AI to fetch the wrong land and lock out some of its spells.

I, too, was expecting Blood Moon, so my affinity deck has some islands in it, and blood moon was never a problem for that deck. I wasn't expecting Energy Flux, but I did think cards like Uktabi Orangutan (no one used it) or Qasali Pridemage (a couple people used that) would show.

I'm still annoyed about how stupid I was in a couple of the games... :p Still, hopefully I learned something, and maybe someone got a laugh out of it! I swear I'm smarter, usually... (maybe?)

I look forward to seeing the results, and hope we can organize future games like this, whether this or other formats. One thing a local card shop did was to host a lot of theme tournaments. For instance, on Halloween one year, everybody's deck had to be monoblack. Maybe we could do stuff like that?

[scherbchen]

scherbchen: This deck had some fun tricks in it. Unfortunately, most of them went way over the AI's head. The AI did best with it when it got Lodestone Golem. As a human, I did best whenever I got the vault/key combo. I was pleasantly surprised when it managed to overcome jatill's haterator and all those Energy Fluxes *three* times :p

aye, it is the sort of deck I would build back in my PT/GP days. lots of neat little gizmos, poorly constructed, no idea of the metagame, the odd power card and the always popular soft lock (with an added hard lock because Vault/Key is one the AI actually uses which is pretty much the only thought I spent on the AI). then I'd just grab a deck one of my friends handed me at the last second and fare much better with it. added bonus this time around: no regard for the AI on my behalf.

there is a reason I did better at limited/draft events having said that I found the unlock challenges to be very entertaining. redundant at times, yes, but extremely entertaining and channeling deck tweaking skills. going to have to put in a bit more of an effort next time around then

[Nyktorion]

Concerning Zoo: yeah, AI-friendliness was definitely the decisive criterion for choosing this! I was thinking about easier combo decks (than Dredge or Tendrils), but still I saw that the AI was not really good at it. For instance, with Oath, it did not really know what the most important card in the deck is, which should be put on the board, or searched with tutors ASAP. With combos that demand playing more than one piece, it gets even worse...

Concerning best of X: playing 10-0 in bo3 mode is surely easier than in bo1. Still, I prefer bo3, simply because I know that I can make stupid mistakes sometimes - so I just lowered the chance for the decks to be affected by erratic playing behavior of myself

I also have a new result from my playing: the Quirion deck won 10-0!

jatill haterator (two rather straight wins): 2-0
Nyktorion Zoo (first game, I got shot down by Lavamancers pretty badly. Next two games, I suffered from early pressure, but coud stabilise the board in both situation and win with overgrown Dryads and Coatls): 2-1
jatill stax (first game, I got manascrewed by Strip Mine + Amethyst + Golem. Next two game were rather straightforward winss): 2-1
evil warrior stompy (put a small fight in the early game twice. However, growing Quirion put the game in my favor both times): 2-0
karodrilo juzam (two straightforward wins): 2-0
scherbchen blue4u (again, two straightforward wins. Note: the AI does not seem to know how to hande Legends - in one game, it killed its own Academy Ruins by playing a second copy): 2-0
juzamjedi zoo (both times, after some early fighting, the own overgrown creatures win the game): 2-0
Yggdrasil Aggro BG (first game, lots of removal, followed by fat creatures - Spiritmonger, Ravenous Baloth - killed me. Next two games were both easily won, though): 2-1
juzamjedi zoo (first game, the pressure grows too fast, and I quickly lose. Next two games, I can hold off the onslaught until I win, though): 2-1
awwfinity (in both games, early Masters of Etherium posed a significant threat. However growing Dryads and Coatls could turn the game around in both cases): 2-0