[Archive] Challenge Set 1

[somacat]

This challenge I used a tendrils shell, with a couple of minor adjustments. I ran 4 Personal Tutor, one of the few unrestricted tutors in vintage. In the early rounds, this was used to set up a turn 2 or maybe 3 Tinker for Platinum Angel, a card few of the decks have an answer for. I also ran a singleton Lightning Greaves for the goblin match, as Siege-Gang would tend to nuke the angel in longer games. The Platinum Angel was definitely plan A for the first 5 matches, as generating a 24+ storm count for Tendrils can be difficult.
Round 9 is all about Tranquility, cast off of Elvish Spirit Guides and Manamorphoses, since the deck's manabase is almost entirely run on Moxen and nonbasics, pretty much shutting the entire deck off. After that, the match is easy, Plat wins again or you can just storm out.
Round 10 can be a nightmare; I lost count of how many times my elf deck failed a turn 1 Tranquility and could no longer win. Eventually I noticed the actual deck was only Mountains, so the plan became: Get 3 mana into play on turn 1 and cast Personal Tutor for Tinker, since it puts the card on top of the library, safe from the black Honden. Platinum Angel is dead in this match-up, so the suggested target is: Nevinyrral's Disk! Once activated, this becomes the easiest game in the history of Magic, as with no spells, you are free to win with any means you desire

[aww1979]

Wooooooo! I have Goblin Welder and Mind over Matter!

Owing to the almost complete lack of ability of any of these decks to deal with Platinum Angel, I made a deck solely based on landing this punk on the board generally on about turn 2.

Assuming you draw consistent hands, the only issues become counters, Siege-Gang Commander, the Turbofog deck, and the last two rounds, due to the cards in play initially.

;Boring Angel
;
;#oldgames
;
;21/08/2009
;1
;4th Edition
;

.334 4 Personal Tutor
.352 1 Mystical Tutor
.1351 1 Tinker
.249 1 Time Walk
.250 1 Timetwister
.1308 4 Platinum Angel
.312 1 Ponder
.499 1 Brainstorm
.1757 4 Plumeveil
.309 1 Windfall
.173 1 Nevinyrral's Disk
.17 1 Black Lotus
.1891 4 Echoing Truth
.438 1 Library of Alexandria
.1536 4 Man-o'-War
.1084 1 Merchant Scroll
.169 1 Mox Sapphire
.168 1 Mox Ruby
.167 1 Mox Pearl
.166 1 Mox Jet
.165 1 Mox Emerald
.230 1 Sol Ring
.528 1 Strip Mine
.725 1 Mirror Universe
.1923 1 Fact or Fiction
.317 1 Tolarian Academy
.126 11 Island
.1 1 Ancestral Recall
.1718 1 Chrome Mox
.1424 1 Lotus Petal
.894 1 Mana Crypt
.1905 4 Sleight of Hand

Tutor for Tinker ASAP, sac a mox or whatever and put the Angel out. Most of the decks automatically lose once you do this, though it takes awhile for the AI to realize it :p Manowar, Echoing Truth and Plumeveil exist to slow down the opponent in the event you didn't Tinker for an Angel early. Usually they weren't needed, but occasionally they were lifesavers. Several one mana draw/topdeck cards help you get that Tinker or Tutor.

I won on about my third attempt with this deck, after days of getting slaughtered trying everything from Elves to Eureka to monowhite control to monoblack control to WB control to a Vise/Tower/Jace deck to heck knows what else.

The winning round went like this:
Rounds 1-5: Angel out early. Game over.
Round 6: Bounce enemy Angel/Abyss, beatdown with my Angels. Final Judgment wiped two Angels away and Wrath of God the rest, but I recovered the two with Timetwister and used Echoing Truth to bounce my own angels in response to further wrath effects for the win.
Round 7: 5 colour weenie. Early Angel for the win.
Round 8: Goblins. Early Angel for the (very slow) win. Ivory towers gained faster than I could damage him, but I eventually got Mirror Universe, swapped my 1 life for his 70, and attacked for the win.
Round 9: First turn Sol Ring (a 1/1 dude :p) Tutored for Tinker, mana stalled a couple turns for my third land (had moxes in hand that were dead) but Tinkered angel for the win.
Round 10: First hand sucked hard, so I mulled once, and got the incredibly lucky draw of Black Lotus, Mana Crypt, and Nevinyrral's Disk (included specifically for this round, though I didn't expect it to be THIS easy to play), and the play first! Blew away the board, leaving AI with 30 life and mountains. Stalled for 8 turns before I drew my first land (making me grateful I'd blown away Mana Crypt too... imagine dying to that after nuking the shrines and spirits), but who cares, he just had mountains left. Angel (eventually) for the win.

The next challenge is called BANNED :p This does not sound good... Still, I have a few banned decks in my playdeck folder, and I have beaten them before with regular T1 decks, so we shall see just how bad it is

It's in another thread (with all 6 round rewards), but this one unlocked Goblin Welder, Enchantresses Presence, Opposition, Serra's Sanctum, and Mind over Matter.

Looking back on it, the first eight rounds shouldn't be hard with this deck, though Turbofog can be problematic at times, I suspect. I realize I got extremely lucky with rounds 9 and 10, since in 9 I got the only artifact besides Disk, Mirror and the Angels that I could keep in play with Titania's Song out, so in retrospect I think I'd toss in a Mana Vault (maybe for the Chrome Mox? I never drew it so I don't know if it belongs in this deck) and 4x Sensei's Top instead of Sleight of Hand. Round 10 is a crapshoot no matter how you look at it, but eventually you'd get something to Tinker the Disk out. I just didn't expect it to be the first time I got there with this particular deck. So, in summary, I got lucky, but with the slight modifications above, it could be made a lot more consistent for round 9, while round 10 you still have to just hope for the best.

[aww1979]

20 life matches and no cards in play for AI

Round 1: Stoic Angel gold deck. Black banned.
Round 2: Soldiers. Blue banned.
Round 3: WUB Artifacts. Green banned.
Round 4: Elf/Spawnwrithe Red banned.
Round 5: GU Threshold Deck. White banned.
Round 6: Kithkin. Artifacts banned.
Round 7: Countersliver deck. Planeswalkers banned. (Ajani unplayable, but white creatures still were)
Round 8: Turbofog. Creatures banned
Round 9: Goblin.
Round 10: Black/Artifact. Alpha Myr, Juggernaut, Moxen, Juzam Djinn, Cathodion. Nonbasic land banned.

[MalkolmX]

It seems to exist bug on Meddling Mage round, the mage named Echoing Truth, which i drew, but i could cast it during my opponent's attack step, in response to declare attackers.

[somacat]

Congrats aww1979! I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with for Banned!

And MalcolmX, were there two Mages in play both naming Echoing Truth? I know Mage has a bug where if two or four are in play, you can still play the card (it seems to toggle playability on / off, rather than just off).

[MalkolmX]

Congrats aww1979! I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with for Banned!

And MalcolmX, were there two Mages in play both naming Echoing Truth? I know Mage has a bug where if two or four are in play, you can still play the card (it seems to toggle playability on / off, rather than just off).

First of all, i want to say i'm sorry because i just noticed this topic is about challenge 5, not 4, my bad. Regarding your question, if i recall correctly there were two Meddling Mages in play, one naming Echoing Truth and another naming Night's whisper.

[somacat]

Not sure if I recall correctly, but I think 7 might be Enchantments, 8 Creatures and 9 Instants and Sorceries? I thought all land was banned in the 10th round, but that's because I was using a deck without basics

[Reid]

I beat it with an Oath deck last night. Platinum Angel saved me from death on pretty much every match except 1 & 10. I had one Underworld Dreams and Feldon's Cane in the deck for Round 10.

I'm trying to play Oath/Angel too. But I always (well... two times ) get the no-creature deck at the round#9 (Underworld), resulting in me losing because I can't play the Angel.
I'm just unlucky? Can anyone confirm me that there is the possibility that you get to play other decks with creatures at that round?

Edit: Nevermind, I won.

Finally moving to challenge #5.

[aww1979]

That might well be true. I got to round 10 with a Sliver deck (laughed really hard when I got to round 7 with that deck not having been to 7 before) and it had no spells other than Slivers and 4x Aether Vial to get around the no casting problems. I had a couple Ajani Goldmane in there at one point, which is where I noticed those couldn't be played in round 7. After seeing round 10, I swapped all my land for basics, but I haven't got back to 10 yet.

[aww1979]

And the winner is...

;3cc sliver creature
;
;#oldgames
;
;22/08/2009
;1
;4th Edition
;

.1693 4 Heart Sliver
.1377 4 Muscle Sliver
.1386 4 Sinew Sliver
.1381 4 Bonesplitter Sliver
.1389 4 Talon Sliver
.1378 4 Might Sliver
.1743 4 Æther Vial
.164 1 Mountain
.188 1 Plains
.91 1 Forest
.1385 4 Plated Sliver
.1387 4 Spinneret Sliver
.1380 4 Blade Sliver
.1261 2 Magus of the Moon
.212 4 Savannah
.189 4 Plateau
.241 4 Taiga
.165 1 Mox Emerald
.167 1 Mox Pearl
.168 1 Mox Ruby

Aether Vial is the star of this deck. Not only is it already a good card, but it lets you put banned cards directly into play, and essentially gives your slivers flash and uncounterability, which is key into tricking the AI into making mistakes, and several matchups have countermagic. (oops! I Vialed a Might Sliver into play? All your blockers just died, sorry)

Magus of the Moon was a metagame choice because several of the decks this deck had trouble dealing with had nonbasic lands. (and I forgot to take him out when I switched back from basic to mostly nonbasic in the hopes that basics could be played in round 10) I left a mix of basic, nonbasic and moxes to try and have some mana no matter which matchup I got. Black Lotus and Sol Ring would have been good choices, too, but for some reason I didn't bother, and I didn't bother with any noncreature spells except for the Vial, mostly because I couldn't bear to cut any of the sexy slivers from the list!

The original version of this deck had blue for Winged Sliver and Crystalline Sliver, but the 4 colours made it too hard to cast everything, plus the only targeted effects in the entire match are Goldmeadow Harrier and Path to Exile, so I ditched Blue and used Spinneret Sliver for the flyer matchups. Stoic Angel and Spectral Procession were really good against this deck, so I needed answers. I had Ajani Goldmane at one point also, but the WW cost proved problematic.

Play is quite simple with this deck. Just remember, always use the Vial to play things when possible, since they can't be countered that way. Also, assuming the AI has nothing out yet, play your turn 2 slivers with this priority: Heart, Spinneret, Muscle/Sinew. It will maximize damage in the long run, assuming a goldfish situation. Also use the Vial to put Slivers into play after blockers have been declared (either player's turn) to surprise the AI. Often this acts as virtual card removal, or even an AI-only Wrath of God if timed well.

The mana base could probably be tweaked, and now that it has nonbasic lands, Magus of the Moon may be questionable, but this is the version I won with, so it's what I put up. If I hadn't won, the next round I'd probably have swapped out Magus for Black Lotus & Sol Ring, since it's a little mana light. I'm still not sure if round 10 bans all land or just nonbasics; if all land, replace the basics with fetchlands or something, which is what I had before seeing round 10.

Round 7 probably bans enchantments (since Jatill said planeswalkers are coded as enchantments) and Round 9 probably bans nonpermanent spells, but this deck doesn't have any, so I don't know that with 100% surety.

All in all, I'd say this challenge is the easiest since #3. I think any 2-3 colour creature deck with 4x Aether Vial could probably make it. I thought about trying an Isochron Scepter deck with the same idea, but never did because I felt it wouldn't do well.

[aww1979]

This challenge is called 10:1

Life Totals = 20, no free cards in play. The decks are the same ones I've seen before, kobolds, elves, etc.

Round 1: You must have one land in play and AI must have ten.

Round 2: You must have a 1/1 creature in play and AI must have a 10/10.

Round 3: Youmust have one card in the graveyard and the AI must have 10.

Round 4: You must have one life and the AI must have 10.

Round 5: You must have one card in hand and the AI must have 10.

Round 6: You must have one card in library and the AI must have 10.

Round 7: You must have one card exiled while the AI has 10.

Round 8: You must have one creature while the AI has 10.

Round 9: The AI must take 10 consecutive turns this game at some point.

Round 10: You must have one artifact while the AI has 10.

Round 11: You must have one strip mine while the AI has 10. (no, I'm not joking)

[Salbei]

clever choice

i´m still stuck at challenge 4

[somacat]

Good luck with this challenge (you should rename the thread as challenge 7 though!).

I have had a problem with the final round this challenge - the game crashes for me in the AI's upkeep on his first turn. Complete bummer after getting all the way there! Let me know if you experience the same problem.

I'm also cutious how you solve the criteria for round 9

One note as well, not sure if you've noticed, but when you hit the criteria for winning a round, a poison counter appears on your life total, letting you know it's safe to win.

EDIT: You don't have to be meeting the criteria at the time you win, you just have to meet the criteria *at some point* during the game, e.g. if you have the 10:1 land disadvantage, the poison counter will appear, at which point you can play another land etc before you actually win.

[somacat]

I actually stumbled upon a decent way to get through this challenge before I even knew what it was about (from the name Banned!, I thought it was going to be filled with 4x Ancestral Recall decks...).

It was late and I'd just finally beat Shandalar 2.0's &^&%$ Honden round, and I wanted to have a sneak peek at the new Challenge, but not to really try and finish it. So I just wanted to play a 'fun' deck, and I was a bit sick of Elves and Tendrils, so I decided to give my Sneak Attack deck ago. And it's really good in this challenge!

No black spells? Sneak Attack Kokusho into play! No red spells? Show and Tell in Progenitus instead!

The only deck that was a little awkward was the no-artifacts Kithkin deck, since the deck is kind of reliant on mana acceleration. So I just changed the FoWs in the list for Pyroclasms, which bought me more than enough time =)

[aww1979]

LOL I just reported the 'poison counter' as a bug with Liliana Vess :p I didn't realize you could change those conditions. I beat the rounds so far by doing exactly that condition at exactly the moment I won :p

I'm running a Keeper deck (KEEPER IS GOD!) with 4x Ring of Ma'Ruf and a Burning/Cunning Wish to get the junk I need to do the win conditions. For the first one, it's pretty straightforward. For the second one, I Ma'Rufed for a Pandora's Box and a Leviathan (simplest way in my mind) and activated the thing on each of my infinite turns with Time Vault/Voltaic Key until I got one out. I have Silver Myr in my deck for blue mana and the 1/1 condition. For the third one I Timetwistered to put my graveyard to 1 card, and then Ma'rufed for Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker and Liliana Vess and proceeded to burninate things on each of my infinite turns until I put 10 cards in the grave, then Ma'Rufed for a Broodstar and killed the AI with a 21/21 flyer.

The second and third ones took a long time. I put a Jester's Cap maindeck to get rid of threats, and on each timetwister/regrowth recursion, I'd remove 3 creatures from the AI deck in order to increase the odds of a Leviathan with Pandora's Box. (Box only finds cards in the library; if the creature is somewhere else, Box won't find it, unless there's another copy in the library)

I'm thinking I'll do exactly the same thing on round 4, just play around with infinite turns (WotC is on crack with the current Time Vault wording) and Braingeyser with the appropriate life totals. edit: yup, braingeyser for 37 to the head, after wishing for Magister Sphinx to set AI at 10 and pinging myself with City of Brass on my infinite turns.