[Archive] Challenge Set 1

[Reid]

I arrived now four times at the last battle. But I never got anything playable. I give up blue because Tinker is a sorcery and that damn Crusecatcher at the first round was driving me crazy . Also I had sometimes problems against Red and Black challenge (red is too fast and with Mana Flare I can play the Oath with just a Forest in hand).
Also with Oath I can play with only four angels and a Magister Sphinx which is quite useful to speed up the first 5 rounds.

I don't have particular problems in the other matches (except that I can only win against Abiss/Angel by let AI finish its cards), StP, Path to Exile and Raise the Alarm are fine enough to slow AI down until I play the Oath. I'll try to give some more tries otherwise I'll think of something with more stuff just for the last round.

Thx for the suggestions though, I'll see if something will be useful.

[somacat]

The major problem with Oath into Angel is going to be the last round. Unless you can also get Greaves into play, it's tricky, because the red Honden will just kill your angel in the AI's upkeep. I would suggest running 4x Demystify, but starting with Plains / Demystify in the last round leaves you with 5 cards in hand, 4 of which will go to the black Honden. *Maybe* you could topdeck a Forest to play the Oath the next turn... But it's pretty unreliable. Really, you need to be able to fire off a turn 1 Tranquility / Tempest of Light / Disk in that match.

I strongly suggest going with the Personal Tutor / Tinker / Angel / Disk package. I think it's the best way to win the last round, and gives you the cheap Angel in the early rounds like you get with Oath. Just make sure you can win round 9 as well though! Echoing Truth would be able to bounce the Titania's song there, so you can play your Moxen to Tinker away.

Good luck with however you decide to try with this challenge, it's the toughest one of the lot to finish!

[Reid]

Thanks for the heads up, pretty interesting.

I think I'll sacrifice some cards I use to slow down AI in the previous match to put 4 Tranquility and 4 Tempest of Light, hoping in a good draw at the last match.
But I just got a crash at round 8 so I'll try tomorrow.


Edit: played again and lost.

Really, you need to be able to fire off a turn 1 Tranquility / Tempest of Light / Disk in that match.

Basically this means that your only chance is to get 2 mox or black lotus along with tranquillity/ToL or you're screwed?

[stassy]

Do you fail if there is more than 1 card exiled on your side for duel 7?

[thedrigo]

ARRRGH!! I've died to the Underworld Dreams deck 6 times already!!!! F*&%ing Wrath of God! I'm running a similar Reanimator build I posted on the 1st challenge thread with an added kill conditon of Magister Sphinx + Hidetsugu's Second Rite for the Obliterate round.

I already tried Elves powered with 1 Intruder Alarm but I keep dying on the Lightning Blast round.

How consistent were the Tendrils decks? Any really good lists anyone wants to put up? I tried the Chromatic Star build but never made past Meddling Mage.

HELP!

EDIT: Finally beat it. The reanimator build was finally able to take out the AI on round nine but was way too inconsistent. I ended up putting together my own Tendrils deck (Echoing Truth is key) and eventually beat it. This is by far the hardest challenge of all the other ones.

[aww1979]

There are two tendrils decks on page 1 of this thread. I don't know if you've already considered it, or what colours you're running, but Echoing Truth and Maelstrom Pulse are pretty sweet on this challenge.

[aww1979]

Do you fail if there is more than 1 card exiled on your side for duel 7?

If you exile a second card yourself before exiling 10 AI cards, you will fail. Once you get the condition of 1 and 10, then you can exile more. I used Cunning Wish on Swords to Plowshares, plowed one creature, and Jester's Cap three times to get the AI his 10. Then I used more wishes/Marufs to get kill cards, which is fine because I'd already achieved the condition.

[somacat]

You also fail if the AI has 11 exiled cards before you get one. For these challenges you have to meet the condition 10:1 exactly at some point in the game.

[Salbei]

so far i´m still stuck at this challenge(for a week now). currently using an oath list with additional ali from cairo (+platinum angel).ali could be hardcasted early if needed.but still couldn´t make it past round 9 :/ i´ve added a couple hellkites to speed up the kill (mostly for game1)

either spawnwrithe crashes the game at round 5 (too many spawnwrithe) or a bad starting hand vs meddling mages/underworld dreams.

already running 4 enlightened tutor+the full black tutor set to get oath into play really early (basicly running 12 oath).

its not a bad deck for the challenge , but somehow i keep failing

edit : finally finished this challenge
used this list:

Code: Select all

;gauntlet
;
;User
;User E-Mail
;23/08/2009
;1
;4th Edition
;

.1308   4   Platinum Angel
.62   1   Demonic Tutor
.333   1   Vampiric Tutor
.349   4   Enlightened Tutor
.10   1   Balance
.1902   4   Oath of Druids
.249   1   Time Walk
.1351   1   Tinker
.457   4   Mox Diamond
.165   1   Mox Emerald
.166   1   Mox Jet
.167   1   Mox Pearl
.168   1   Mox Ruby
.169   1   Mox Sapphire
.17   1   Black Lotus
.1897   4   Land Grant
.1893   4   Forbidden Orchard
.252   2   Tropical Island
.12   1   Bayou
.317   1   Tolarian Academy
.212   3   Savannah
.395   4   Ali from Cairo
.241   2   Taiga
.1474   4   Wooded Foothills
.331   1   Imperial Seal
.1424   1   Lotus Petal
.378   4   Hellkite Overlord*
.1675   1   Progenitus
.829   1   Underworld Dreams


mulligans:
mulligan till you get either a first turn oath or second turn oath into play (with tutor).eventually you´ll be lucky enough.

you need a first turn oath at match 5 (mages).
try to get either early oath+orchard into play at matches 8+9 or hardcast ali from cairo.

i´ve won the last match because i had a full hand (8) and had to discard progenitus each time -> progenitus getting shuffled back into the library so you can draw it next turn. i had a single feldons cane in the deck just for the last match . but when the match started i realized the opponent is playing with 190ish cards - so it wouldn´t help. luckily i´ve figured out a backupplan while i was playing (progenitus).

[ZG-Gnom]

Hey guys, here is version of tendrils that i used to beat challenge #3 and #4
only 3 lands and that is more than enough to get it going around 80% on turn 2, you can also exploit the chromatic sphere(star) bug, but it can also work without that. Have fun.

;Tendrils
;
;User
;User E-Mail
;19/08/2009
;1
;
;

.1848 4 Tendrils of Agony
.17 1 Black Lotus
.1686 4 Chromatic Sphere
.1718 1 Chrome Mox
.1898 1 Lion's Eye Diamond
.1424 1 Lotus Petal
.894 1 Mana Crypt
.157 1 Mana Vault
.165 1 Mox Emerald
.166 1 Mox Jet
.167 1 Mox Pearl
.169 1 Mox Sapphire
.168 1 Mox Ruby
.230 1 Sol Ring
.1685 4 Chromatic Star
.1 1 Ancestral Recall
.499 1 Brainstorm
.312 1 Ponder
.1905 4 Sleight of Hand
.502 1 Hurkyl's Recall
.1666 1 Thoughtcast
.1734 4 Cabal Ritual
.55 4 Dark Ritual
.1890 1 Demonic Consultation
.62 1 Demonic Tutor
.331 1 Imperial Seal
.1510 4 Night's Whisper
.1910 1 Yawgmoth's Will*
.334 1 Personal Tutor
.1897 4 Land Grant
.12 1 Bayou
.252 1 Tropical Island
.258 1 Underground Sea
.333 1 Vampiric Tutor
.1891 1 Echoing Truth
.1696 1 Manamorphose

[thedrigo]

Yeah... The Chromatic Star / Chromatic Sphere bug has been fixed, I assume?

[aww1979]

I thought I'd beat this challenge easy after Jatill repaired it, but I keep losing or, more often, my game locks up and I have to close it and start over. I think perhaps I'm putting too many cards in play and causing it to hang.

[monopoman]

Yeah red is by far the best deck and I have only gotten it once. Price of Progress can be instant win if you can resolve it against the deck on turn 6+ assuming you got some hits in early.

If I remember right the Reaper deck has all non-basics.

[stassy]

Has the fix been released or still in beta? Can't find any jatill update from his last planeswalker update.

Also for duel 9, does the skip turn must have to be done in the same row (skip x 9) or only by the su (eg. skip x 3, normal turn, skip x 6)?

For this challenge I can say that the easiest matchup is the rat one, once deadlocked it's easy as pie to get the win conditions. The worse is zombie, because once deadlocked AI can die by sarcomancy or mill himself by Graveborn Muse

I beat duel 7 with wish > final judgement when AI had 10 mobs on a rats deck and duel 8 with forbidden orchad since AI would not summon any creatures on a sliver deck.
Duel 6 was a pita even though I ran against an elves deck, because the 1:10 count would never be right (had to wish for a Prosperity)

[aww1979]

Jatill sent me and Somacat a private message with the link. I don't know why he didn't make it public, but I'm sure he had his reasons.

For duel 9, I think it has to be 10 in a row turns, not 10 scattered throughout the game.