Manalink Update 7/31: Challenge Mode + Launcher

[somacat]

I'll leave it up to jatill if he wants to let people know which cards are available at which level, but since many players can deduce which cards are unlockable by picking out the new cards in the deckbuilder, I'll list them here (in alphabetical order):
Avalanche Riders
City of Traitors
Coalition Relic
Coalition Victory
Cursed Scroll
Demigod of Revenge
Enchantress' Presence
Fulminator Mage
Goblin Welder
Grim Lavamancer
Jester's Cap
Mind Over Matter
Mystic Enforcer
Mystic Remora
Opposition
Psychatog
Quirion Dryad
Serra's Sanctum
Serrated Arrows
Shriekmaw
Smokestack

[MalkolmX]

Mystic Remora! Really this idea of giving cards as a reward for hard matches victories is brilliant, it gives much more entusiasm to the game. And the cards added are great, awesome!

[Dwedit]

Avast Antivirus thinks there's a virus in there.

[aww1979]

Eeyahhh! That's a nice set of cards! Now I have to get challenge mode working...

[stassy]

No bug so far up to counter merfolk deck with nils deck (counterspell just kill all my speed summon )

[kresnik alchemist]

Still haven't gotten through the first challenge yet, but since pretty much things are up to chance I decided to go all out and make a Hulk Flash deck which I have had my most success with before getting beat in round 8 from not finding a way to pull Flash quick enough.

I had tried some other strategies but it just seemed like I couldn't get my answers onto the board early enough or the AI would find ways around them or just by speed, most notably the Kithkin deck.

All in all it has been fun and quite frustrating to unlock the new cards.

[reng0r0]

Avast Antivirus thinks there's a virus in there.

viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1233&start=135#p16365

[jackthelad]

Flash crashes my game every time it is cast!! No fair!! I've managed to get to level 9 and 8 respectively with two attempts (elves combo), but i can't be bothered to to use the elf deck, takes too long lol. I've played about 20 times with aggro decks, but no luck yet. my affinity deck does okay, but i think i might as well bite the bullet and play an anti aggro deck of some sort. a single moat would lock down most of these decks. Its a shame that i have so little knowledge of the cards; it takes me forever to make any decks!

[somacat]

Yeah I failed the final rounds of the first challenge a couple of times with elves, and eventually got it with an anti-aggro deck. On a related note, I just finished the fifth challenge, after having to make some crazy modifications to one of my existing decks. Man, was that one tough! I hope the 6th challenge is a bit more reasonable!

[mathusalem]

Ok, I haven't managed to beat the first challenger. as someone elses's said there's always the moment where you get a bad hand..... and I get tired to always play the same games.
maybe a savegame somewhere would ne nice

[Zeek]

I've spent a few hours on the challenge to find the best way to do it. Honestly, some matches can be won very simply, but some decks will kill you before your 3rd turn if they win the flip and there's no answer you can afford to cast in the top 15% of your deck.

Ironically, the more I tried to engineer decks to shut down the onslaughts of creatures, the more I found myself running into inconsistency. The only deck I've gotten to the soldiers is a Tendrils deck that typically goes off turn 3-4 since there's little disruption to deal with.

[jhamma66]

I'm rolling with a pretty reliable lockdown/mill deck that's been treating me very well... until I have a bad draw (like everyone else - lol)! This Challenge mode has been fun and quite an obsession of mine lately. I have to beat it!!!

[Zeek]

I've actually found a pretty good deck for this. It's basically an Oath deck backed by Moat and its Magus counterpart. Because of all the cheap mana acceleration (had to take out the birds because I kept oathing them into play instead), if I'm not resolving an Oath I can typically produce 2WW on turn 2 or 3, which stops most decks in their tracks. Against certain opponents, the rest of the round is a mere formality.

Aside from Magus of the Moat, the only other creatures to Oath for are 4x Platinum Angel and 1x Iridescent Angel, both of which can be hardcast if needed. I also threw a pair of Lightning Greaves in, which can be helpful against the 3 decks that can target Platinum with disruption. The Iridescent is mostly a finisher, because even when a certain white deck can't kill a non-attacking Platinum, flying alone isn't enough to make the kill.

Unfortunately, I may have to add a few copies of Naturalize and hope it doesn't slow me down. One deck surprisingly ran Worship, which ended my challenge run. No not because the opponent killed me, you see, but because I was unable to kill them and they created such an army that they triggered a "wrong parameters" error that closed the game with like, 6 cards left in their deck (while I still had 30+).

[jhamma66]

I'm an old-timer and still learning a lot of the new cards. My deck is fast and easy - lots of attack removal cards (4 plows, 4 path to exile, a few pacify and spirit links), a few disenchants, Moats and an Ensnaring Bridge backed up with Enlightened Tutor. I have some walls for D including Wall of Reverence which has saved my butt a few times. Then 4 mills. One of the opponents beats themselves every time I face them and the rest I have decked. Mono White seemed like the way to go but I can see some other options as well. The trick is the speed in which your deck needs to hit the ground running...

It's been way fun getting back into Magic and tweaking this deck! I'll be looking for alternate routes to victory here pretty soon...

[jos]

I've beaten the first challenge (and the first 6 or so matches of the second challenge) with a white/green deck running cheap spot removal (Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile, like jhamma66), cheap but slow mass removal (Drop of Honey / Porphyry Nodes), shroud creatures to survive that mass removal (Argothian Enchantress for draw and Nimble Mongoose / Pincher Beetles to finish the opponent off), and Worship (for when the mass removal is too slow, and to protect against burn to the face), and some mana accel / tutoring.
Didn't stand a chance against the deck I lost to in the second challenge though, I was out-damaging his lifegain, but not by a wide enough margin to kill him fast enough before his 'alternate wincondition' was going to kill me, and then he even played some mass removal of his own
So I'm probably gonna think about a new deck to take on the second challenge, but I'm not sure what it'll become yet.