[Archive] Challenge Set 3

[scherbchen]

I just really don't want to use Rolling Stones for the walls challenge. way too obvious. it's either Ajani Goldmane for me (pump your walls and maybe make a dude that can wittle down the opposing forces) or Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker (which is going to mess up the mana but at least he is going to be well protected) or that 4/6 beast that wins you the game if you are at 40 life.

[aww1979]

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA After trying tendrils, flash hulk, and all kinds of other crazy ideas, I beat Sliver Nation on the first try with an unmodified dredge deck I used back in September. I probably posted it then but here goes:

;dredge
;
;#oldgames
;
;16/09/2009
;1
;4th Edition
;

.684 4 Golgari Grave-Troll
.678 4 Golgari Thug
.681 4 Narcomoeba
.675 3 Flame-Kin Zealot
.700 4 Dread Return*
.398 4 Bazaar of Baghdad
.1967 4 Life from the Loam
.680 4 Stinkweed Imp
.705 4 Bridge From Below
.666 4 Cabal Therapy
.1531 1 Angel of Despair
.691 4 Ichorid
.171 4 Nether Shadow
.1849 4 Anger
.241 4 Taiga
.390 4 Crop Rotation

It could probably be improved with Unmask and a few other things that I don't think we had at the time, but whatever :p I struck upon the idea of Dredge after complaining after having force of will stop tendrils one too many times, so I was trying to think of how to beat the counters. I tried a wierd metagame deck with Defense Grid, and then decided just not to cast any spells and use a dredge deck

Mulligan until you get the bazaar, then go off and win. If you don't get a bazaar, you lose. Even one game I mulliganed down to *one* card. However that one card was a bazaar, and I won the game. It might take a few tries until you get a bazaar in all 9 games, but it shouldn't be too bad.

Now, time to go with Gather No Moss and the 30-odd dead cards that are requisite :p

[joemuz]

!! why isn't ageless sentinels allowed on gather no moss?? (not as the exception of course) that was supposed to be the other half of my offense!

and technically, elder land wurm should be allowed too... but that card sux so bad.. even for this challenge so no matter. i guess.

i just went through the whole deckbuilder and i really don't see much.. not much room for creativity on this challenge. all i see is wall of wonder and some green wall-cantrips and rolling stones w/ something like sunweb/plumeveil. maybe wall of opposition... yea pretty much what everyone else thought of. i mean except for combos... but what's the fun in that?

i actually thought of fortified area when i first saw this challenge just for the sole purpose of being able actually use that card in a deck. but can't even waste a spot with it given the constraints. oh well.

[aww1979]

Yeah, I had the same thing happen with Ageless Sentinels. I'd guess Jatill set the challenge to accept Walls, not all defenders. All I can think of to do for this challenge is a bunch of walls (W/G has the best ones available here) and sit and wait for your 4 wild cards to come up.

I tried a few things, but I think the best bet is 4x Ring of Ma'Ruf and just get whatever you need against that particular deck to win. Unfortunately, my best streak ended when I maruffed for a Door to Nothingness and activated it, only to find autotargeting has it set to target yourself...

[scherbchen]

gah, I give up for now. playing walls is just boring (except for the match against the aggro artifact deck where two copies of Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker actually helped win the game against an islandwalking Inkwell Leviathan and his no less than three pretty much unblockable Juggernaut buddies in play at one point, that was fun). being too stupid to mulligan in round 7 certainly doesn't help

anyhoo, since we have no decklists for that challenge yet I might as well give you one.

wonky mana

4 Tundra
4 Scrubland
4 Savannah
4 Bayou
3 Tropical Island
4 Plateau
1 Taiga

walls walls walls

4 Wall of Reverence
4 Wall of Light (horrible card, do not play this one, even Wall of Brambles is better)
4 Wall of Swords
4 Carven Caryatid
4 Wall of Blossoms
4 Plumeveil
4 Vine Trellis
4 Wall of Spears

extra cards

2 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker (you somehow have to deal with cards like Jenara, Assura of War after all or, of course, you can just pray for decent matchups)
2 Felidar Sovereign (who, for all intents and purposes are pretty much walls if you cant stop the opponent from amassing first-striking Kobolds and Soldiers)


first attempt was plain G/W with Ajani Goldmane who makes your walls formidable and produces humongous Avatars which will get chumpblocked till kingdom come. Rolling Stones is not really an option as a 4-off imho since you have no way to deal with a stalemate. the mentioned Rings certainly have merit.

[jatill]

4 Wall of Reverence
4 Wall of Light (horrible card, do not play this one, even Wall of Brambles is better)
4 Wall of Swords
4 Carven Caryatid
4 Wall of Blossoms
4 Plumeveil
4 Vine Trellis
4 Wall of Spears

That's pretty close to what I used, except I'm embarassed to say I forgot about Vine Trellis. I also used Sunweb and Wall of Wonder. The wild card? Living Wish, just because it's so cheap and versatile. Usually I got Baneslayer Angel, but I occastionally got things like Intrepid Hero to kill Jenara, and the avatar (forgot the name) or Hedron Crab to beat Turbofog.

[jatill]

By the way, has anyone tried challenge 4, the pit challenge? That's the favorite of all my challenges, though I was sad when I wrote it because I thought Kahmal , Pit Fighter was in the game. So I used his sister instead

[scherbchen]

hmm, Living Wish ain't too bad, true.

[aww1979]

Son of a... I forgot about Plumeveil and Carven Caryatid :p I did try living wish, but I figured Ring of Ma'Ruf would be better, though it does cost a lot more mana, in case I wanted a win condition that wasn't a creature.

@Jatill: I tried the pit challenge once; I think there was a blood moon and the abyss in play or something, but I decided I wanted to unlock all the cards first :p

[joemuz]

i noticed something strange in the gather no moss challenge. it seems that sometimes i can start the challenge with fetchlands and sometimes it automatically says i lose (in addition to the 4 exceptions). the fewer fetchlands i used, the less likely it made me auto-lose. if i used just one fetchland, i would be ok most of the time. when i went up to 2 fetchlands, i would auto-lose about 50% of time. one fetchland is pretty insignificant and i hate to click repetitively to restart challenges so i just ditched them all together and used only a/b/u duals and basics. got it in about an hour. i ended up using 2 living wish, 1 felidar, and 1 rolling stones as my exceptions. i think wall of wonder is not so important. i only used 2. i think wall of reverence is the most important wall to have.

[240sxforever]

I just beat the plainswalkers challenge with this build.

It was not that hard, once i realized Deed\Disk was the package that trashes this match, Especially if you are able to get Elspeth's 3rd ability off.

;Plainswalkers

.807 2 Ajani Goldmane
.823 4 Elspeth, Knight-Errant*
.808 4 Liliana Vess
.809 4 Chandra Nalaar
.802 4 Garruk Wildspeaker
.822 4 Ajani Vengeant
.625 4 Sarkhan Vol
.1839 4 Pernicious Deed
.212 4 Savannah
.12 4 Bayou
.241 4 Taiga
.239 2 Swamp
.188 2 Plains
.164 2 Mountain
.91 1 Forest
.173 2 Nevinyrral's Disk
.9 4 Badlands
.189 4 Plateau

[Tattooedoni]

.629 4 Eureka
.
Just another oath deck :p

Holy Moley, I have been trying the bloodbraid elf challenge with oath, but I was playing stupid clone in my 4 spot. Eureka really was a Eureka moment!. Thanks my deck is about 100101010101010294029410 times better now.

[Tattooedoni]

Anybody have a good list for "Urza's Wannabe"? I have a descent one, it is just a bunch of the good planeswalkers, some of the bad ones and Lotus, Ancestral, manacrypt and Yag's will. Basically I just play really long drawn out games until I get unlucky with my draws and then lose. I guess that is just kind of how this challenge will play out, but I wondered if anyone had success with a good list or whatever.

[aww1979]

For Urza's Wannabe, I think I had something like Lotus, Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, then Moxes. I wouldn't use Yawgmoth's Will in that challenge, (what are you going to use it on?) but would go with more mana acceleration instead. The other thing I tried (back when it was 4 exceptions, not 6) was 4x Nissa's Chosen, and that actually did fairly well, but it didn't go all the way.

[Tattooedoni]

I just rechecked my list, my 6 are Demonic Tutor, Yag Will, Ancestral, Lotus, Mana Crypy, Sol Ring. I am using will because usually the games go very very long, but if I get a late Will and resolve it I can usually re-Lotus, Ancestral, and/or tutor and re-cast whatever planeswalker I may need but dont have in hand or on board. It is not very good early unless it means I can go Turn 3 Sorin Markov off of lotus Turn 4 Ajani Vengant or something similar off of lotus again. I was kind of looking for some combo of 6 cards that will let me win the game almost immediately since these games are really very long. Mana excelleration for faster planeswalkers is good, but not for speeding up games, it just helps you win more of them.