[Archive] Challenge Set 1

[aww1979]

Round 5 was a piece of cake. Ancestral Recalled the AI (:p) to fill his hand to 10, then wished for Lion's Eye Diamond, and wished again, using the Eye in response, to get a Volcanic Geyser, and threw it at the AI's head for 20.

Round 6 easy. Wished for 2x Traumatize to speed matters along, and Broodstar for a 20/20 finisher. Round 7 simple; wished for a Plowshares and hit a Tarmogoyf, then Jester's Capped 3 times, achieving the condition. Afterward, wished for Broodstar and killed the AI. Round 8 got annoying when the AI started DISCARDING his kobolds after he had 7 in play and I had a moat, so I wished for a forgotten orchard and gave him spirits until he had 10. Just to be stylish, my kill that time was from Marit Lage of Dark Depths that I'd wished for much earlier

Round 9... hmm... I think I'll use Mind Over Matter and Time Vault (both maindeck) to just skip a bunch of turns.

edit: hrm, there is a bug that Time Vault untaps automatically if it is tapped and has a counter. (tapped it with Mind Over Matter) I'll have to think of something else.

[somacat]

Yeah, I had Time Vault and Mind Over Matter MD too, so that was my plan... until I found out that Vault untaps as normal if it has a counter on it (no option to skip and untap...).

As far as I know, there are 2 ways to skip 10 turns in a row. I wonder if you'll find a different one!

By the way, the Wish plan was a great idea. I packed all the cards needed to meet each criteria into my deck, which left it without much room for, you know, cards!

[aww1979]

I just used Master Transmuter to bounce/return the Time Vault ten times. This required 20 cards in hand (10 for the Transmuter untapping and 10 for the blue mana source) so I also wished for a Spellbook and took turns to fill my hand, then let the AI go for 10 turns.

So... 2 ways? Okay, one is the one I used. I suppose you could do something similar with Sharuum the Hegemon by saccing your Time Vault somehow (Arcbound Ravager?) and bouncing Sharuum, but that would take Master Transmuter, or a LOT of bounce cards, or Capsize and a LOT of mana. I'd still count that as the same way, though, since without the Transmuter it's not going to happen.

I just realized Goblin Welder should do the trick, too, but you'd need either two Welders or two Time Vaults and then Mind Over Matter and lots of cards via Spellbook or other means. That would've been better than the Transmuter, because he doesn't need U to activate.

The last one (that I thought of before hitting on the Transmuter, but my deck didn't have the cards) is to pack 4 Copy Artifact and 4 Sculpting Steel with your (restricted) Time Vault maindeck, and then "cheat" and wish for a fifth copy with Ring of Ma'Ruf, then skip one turn with each of your 10 time vaults.

[somacat]

Yeah, I just used Transmuter, had 10 untapped blue sources in play and Ancestralled during one of the AI's turns to get the cards in hand needed.

The non-Time Vault method is to build up skipped turns via Twister-Regrowthing into 10 cast Meditates

Are you able to play the final round, or does it crash right at the start like it does for me? =p

EDIT: and you only really need to be able to skip 9 turns (the AI turns before and after make it up to 10), so Vault + 4 Steel / Copy would do it

The last round is pretty easy (I have played an old version before the Planeswalkers were unlockable). There are alot of ways to do it. I'm guessing you'll use Pandora's Box (seems easiest). I ended up using Forbidden Orchard + Ashnod's Transmogrant + Twister / Regrowth....

[aww1979]

UGH, yeah, my game just crashed out to Windows desktop, too. Since this would be a HORRIBLE thing to confirm, I'll just assume for now that it's bugged somehow and wait for Jatill to mend it.

The deck I used: (rebuilt once after round 2 to include Box/Leviathan/Silver Myr, and rebuilt again after round 3 to include loads of wishes instead; after that it went straight through without losing once. GO KEEPER!!!!!!!!!!!! BEST ARCHETYPE EVER!)

;Keeper Challenge version
;
;#oldgames
;
;22/08/2009
;1
;4th Edition
;

.720 4 Mana Drain
.1 1 Ancestral Recall
.249 1 Time Walk
.248 1 Time Vault
.250 1 Timetwister
.1351 1 Tinker
.1900 1 Memory Jar
.499 1 Brainstorm
.1886 1 Burning Wish
.1889 1 Cunning Wish
.317 1 Tolarian Academy
.1550 1 Voltaic Key
.1955 4 Coalition Relic
.165 1 Mox Emerald
.166 1 Mox Jet
.167 1 Mox Pearl
.168 1 Mox Ruby
.528 1 Strip Mine
.287 1 Winter Orb
.403 4 City of Brass
.230 1 Sol Ring
.17 1 Black Lotus
.1975 4 Propaganda
.592 4 Darksteel Ingot*
.10 1 Balance
.62 1 Demonic Tutor
.1966 1 Jester's Cap
.1084 1 Merchant Scroll
.349 1 Enlightened Tutor
.480 1 Candelabra of Tawnos
.1396 1 Capsize
.451 4 Ring of Ma'rûf
.202 1 Regrowth
.80 1 Fastbond
.1501 1 Zuran Orb
.1912 1 Crucible of Worlds
.1899 1 Living Wish
.1971 1 Mind Over Matter
.812 1 The Abyss
.726 1 Moat
.169 1 Mox Sapphire
.1210 1 Silver Myr

I'm assuming if you made it to this challenge you know what to do with it in general, but here's the specifics to this version This deck btw would NEVER work in real life because it basically assumes the opponent has no disruption whatsoever and just uses nonflying creatures :p It's also really too light on mana sources, which is a holdover from the first challenge, where I hardly had any since I could only have one land out, so why pack twenty of them? In fact, the hand before the crash I would almost surely have lost, due to mulliganing down to 4. (Though I still beat challenge 9 mulling to 5 :p)

Step 1: get some kind of lock down on the AI, whether it be the disgusting Time Vault + Voltaic Key combo, (or Mind Over Matter until you get the Key), Moat, The Abyss, a bunch of Propaganda, or whatever.

Step 2: take as many turns as you want, or draw-go until you get the Vault/Key combo, if you locked some other way.

Step 3: somewhere in your infinite turns, wish for the stuff you need, whether it be Leviathan, or whatever, then through the Timetwister / Regrowth recursion, play whatever it is during your infinite turn cycle.

Step 4: wish for a kill condition, basically anything you want. I used Broodstar, (UU for what was usually a 20/20+) Volcanic Geyser (instant X damage), Braingeyser, and once Dark Depths just for fun, but really you can take whatever you want, Prodigal Sorcerer, Phantom Warrior, Door to Nothingness, etc. The earlier matches I used a few different ones because I thought I had to maintain the win condition when I made the kill, so for the 1 life/10 life one for instance I used braingeyser because I thought I needed to win in a way other than reducing life to 0, but it turns out that isn't necessary.

[aww1979]

The non-Time Vault method is to build up skipped turns via Twister-Regrowthing into 10 cast Meditates

Heh, I should have thought of that! My Tendrils deck from challenge #4 used to do that all the time with Meditate, only I typically didn't give the opponent those turns :p

Are you able to play the final round, or does it crash right at the start like it does for me? =p

Well, I only made it to that round once, but yeah it crashed as soon as I ended my first turn, (I played first) so I'd wager there's something wrong there.

[somacat]

OK, just checking it wasn't something on my end. I tested all of the versions available in the Challenge 7 thread and they are all bugged.

Here's the deck I finished the beta version with (and get to the final round of the public verion before it crashes):

.62 1 Demonic Tutor
.331 1 Imperial Seal
.333 1 Vampiric Tutor
.1 1 Ancestral Recall
.499 1 Brainstorm
.1084 1 Merchant Scroll
.352 1 Mystical Tutor
.334 4 Personal Tutor
.312 1 Ponder
.249 1 Time Walk
.250 1 Timetwister
.1351 1 Tinker
.25 1 Braingeyser
.17 1 Black Lotus
.1424 1 Lotus Petal
.1779 2 Lightning Greaves
.894 1 Mana Crypt
.1230 1 Masticore
.165 1 Mox Emerald
.166 1 Mox Jet
.167 1 Mox Pearl
.168 1 Mox Ruby
.169 1 Mox Sapphire
.114 3 Howling Mine
.1308 2 Platinum Angel
.538 1 Triskelion
.1912 1 Crucible of Worlds
.390 3 Crop Rotation
.202 1 Regrowth
.258 2 Underground Sea
.317 1 Tolarian Academy
.252 2 Tropical Island
.266 1 Volcanic Island
.1487 4 Polluted Delta
.1971 1 Mind Over Matter
.1085 1 Might of Oaks
.162 1 Mind Twist
.528 1 Strip Mine
.1893 1 Forbidden Orchard
.1429 1 Elvish Fury
.495 1 Feldon's Cane
.230 1 Sol Ring
.1840 1 Forbid
.248 1 Time Vault
.65 1 Disintegrate
.1815 1 Master Transmuter
.1937 1 Maelstrom Pulse
.476 1 Ashnod's Transmogrant

Step one is get a Platinum Angel into play, then Greaves for certain matchups. Step two is to get whatever combo is needed for that round. Step 3 is win.

[aww1979]

I actually tried Sneak Attack in an earlier attempt, but it costs 3R vs 1 on Aether Vial, so I didn't get it out as consistently. Plus, the deck I made was too reliant on each colour, so no matter what colour got banned, it was screwed, whereas the Sliver deck could afford to have one colour/card type cut, as long as it didn't end up with too many of that card sitting dead in hand. (but that's when I mulliganed, like if you get 3 green slivers and green is banned, throw it back in even if it would've been a good hand otherwise)

There's a few other tricks I tried earlier to get things into play, like Recurring Nightmare or Master Transmuter, but the Aether Vial was the simplest, and had less of a 'combo' feel than trying to Sneak a Progenitus or Serra Avatar out.

The other thing I tried at first was to abuse the hybrid casting cost bug by packing a deck with stuff like Figure of Destiny, Kitchen Finks, Fulminator Mage, and so on, because the same bug that lets those cards ignore things like Trinisphere lets them ignore being banned. However, it didn't do as well, mostly because that narrows the useful card pool down quite a bit, and it would've been eaten alive on the last round most likely anyway.

[Reid]

Round 9: Kithkin. Player 20/AI 20. White deck with Blood Moon and Titania's Song in play. As long as your deck is resilient against those two cards, you're probably okay. Otherwise, you're hosed.

I have to start to read these topics before to play.

I arrived at round 9 with my Oath/Angel deck with all non-basic lands and mox and my first hand was 2 mox, 1 oath, 1 angel, 1 StP, 1 Tropical Island, 1 ancestral recall... and I was... wow this will be easy...
Uber defeat.

[Regular John]

My game just crashed when I was about to finish the first challenge!

[monopoman]

Yeah I am having the most trouble with the boss battle. It seems like the card quality the chaos orb deck gives out is just horrible. I have yet to get a crack at the red deck though.

[somacat]

The key to winning the Reaper King match is using the Chaos Orb aility wisely. You start with 50 life, so you have a bit of time.

If I am white or black, I like to fetch a turn 2 shadow creature. It will generally put your opponent on enough of a clock to win with some judicial chump blocking from your other creatures. I fetch burn usually with the red deck once my opponent is low on life. Just a pity Reins of Power isn't coded in blue!

[aww1979]

Heh, I'm pretty sure everyone who did challenge #5 had an epic fail against Blood Moon/Titania's Song their first time. I first got there with a Tendrils deck :p All my mana sources were moxes/artifacts and nonbasic land! The only hope I had was Manamorphose or Spirit Guides, and of course I never got them in time!

The hardest match in all seven challenges is the 10th round of this challenge, so if you can beat that one, you're in good shape. It's the only one I took a tip from the spoilers for, and used Somacat's idea of the Nevinyrral's Disk. I felt slightly guilty using an idea I hadn't come up with first, but then Jatill admitted himself that that round is purposely unfair! I like trying to do the challenges without the spoilers, but I know some people might want them, plus I like to see how other people beat them, even if I've already done it.

[Reid]

The hardest match in all seven challenges is the 10th round of this challenge, so if you can beat that one, you're in good shape. It's the only one I took a tip from the spoilers for, and used Somacat's idea of the Nevinyrral's Disk. I felt slightly guilty using an idea I hadn't come up with first, but then Jatill admitted himself that that round is purposely unfair! I like trying to do the challenges without the spoilers, but I know some people might want them, plus I like to see how other people beat them, even if I've already done it.

I'm playing Oath/Angel so my chances could be not so bad if I'd ever got to start first, but unluckily AI started first 2/2 times.
The second time I could have won even if AI started. I discarded 5 cards, leaving me with a Oath and a Mox. If I could have drawn a Forest (or green Mox, or Lotus Petal, or Black lotus), I'd have been able to play the Oath. Unluckily I got a Plain.
I had to make a W-G deck because without Enlightened Tutor the Oath deck is too much slow for the first 5 rounds, anyway if someone has some ideas for Oath/Angel deck I'll be glad to hear them. I was playing a W-G-U deck until I saw round 9 where I decided to give up Blue.

[aww1979]

I did try Oath Angel a few times, but I gave up because it was too dependent on drawing an Oath early. I used 4x Path to Exile, 4x Swords to Plowshares and 4x Moat to help stay alive in case I didn't draw Oath, as well as 4x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. I also put in 4x Tempest of Light for the Honden round. I didn't really have anything fancy, which is probably why it didn't get far enough for me, and I ended up giving up on that strategy.

That's why I ended up doing Tinker Angel :p I found I was able to get Tinker for Angel more reliably than Oath for Angel, given that blue has card drawing and tutors, both of which GW is rather lacking in. Perhaps the (unrestricted) Idyllic Tutor in addition to (restricted) Enlightened Tutor? Pacifism, Wrath of God, Drop of Honey / Porphyry Nodes for more creature removal if you need it? Just tossing ideas out there; hopefully something works for you!