Achievement Strategy Discussion

[N-Cat]

Hello, everyone!

There's an "Achievement Discussion" thread over in the development forum, but it seems they're more focused on creating the achievements and the images, and there's not much discussion on getting the achievements themselves in-game.

I wanted to discuss ways people have gotten achievements, or ones they've been having difficulty getting, simply in relation to gameplay.

For instance, these are last four I've been having difficulty getting:

Sealed

• Hellbent (Mythic): Win a game with no cards in Hand, Library, Graveyard, or on the Battlefield. I got the rare version, but I can't think of a set where I can get the mythic version. Anybody have any recommendations for blocks or sets capable of this?
  
  • EDIT: See below.
• Need for Speed (Mythic): Win a game by Turn 2. I can't find a Sealed combo that's quite that fast; my best is Turn 4. Again, any recommendations?
  
• Mana Screwed (Mythic): Win a game despite playing only 0 lands. Not many ways to play completely mana-less in Sealed.

Draft

• Hellbent (Mythic): Win a game with no cards in Hand, Library, Graveyard, or on the Battlefield. Just like on Sealed, I have the rare version, but can't think of any limited combos for this.
  
  • EDIT: Okay, I spent an hour scouring Scryfall. I found a doable way to get this one in Limited, and achieved it only after 5 drafts and only one game attempt: The format is M13, and the combo is Worldfire and Spelltwine. Yes, it's a rare and a mythic, but the AI doesn't take either very high, so you're quite likely to be able to get them both; I was able to let both wheel and pick up the rest of the pieces first. You should be playing a mill deck. Get Worldfire into your graveyard (I liked using Wild Guess for this), then mill out your opponent while drawing through your deck. Get both players to zero cards in deck, and cast Spelltwine exiling Worldfire and something useless or unusable of your opponent's. Worldfire exiles everything, the opponent loses to drawing on empty library.
  • I also managed to achieve this in Sealed. However, it was horrifically difficult. It took roughly 250 Sealed pools just to get both pieces in the same pool, and even then the deck was terrible. I had no mill cards, so I had to use Sign in Blood. And then I had to decide each game whether I would hope that they had something like a Searing Spear in their graveyard to use with Spelltwine, or whether I should rely on them decking. It took ~40 games, most of which I lost. I absolutely would not recommend.

Here are some recommendations for other achievements I have managed:

| Open

Constructed

• Hellbent (Mythic): Win a game with no cards in Hand, Library, Graveyard, or on the Battlefield. I milled myself out, with a Lab Man trigger on the stack. Then I cracked Tormod's Crypt, but holding priority, I used a Quicken effect on Apocalypse. All permanents become exiled, my hand is discarded. Then the Crypt effect resolves, exiling everything in the graveyard, and finally Lab Man's trigger resolves, winning the game. (EDIT: Remembering back, I don't think this was exactly what I did, since Lab Man doesn't use the stack. I think it was a generic life loss trigger on the opponent, and if it was Quicken, it was before I was out of cards. Regardless, it was Crypt+Apocalypse while stacking things carefully)

Draft and Sealed
(in M21)

• Life to Spare/Overkill (Mythic): Win a game with 160 extra life/Win a game with opponent at -200 life. This one is quite easy. In both draft and sealed, in M21, you can use the uncommon enchantment Light of Promise on a lifelinking creature (e.g. Anointed Chorister or Basri's Acolyte) to gain life and grow the creature exponentially, then swing for massive damage and lifegain.
  
• Hellbent (Rare): Win a game with no cards in Hand, Library, or Graveyard. This one is also quite easy. You just need the uncommon Tormod's Crypt, or the rare Scavenging Ooze. Get a dominating board state, play an extra ~10 turns (or less if the opponent is a mill deck), and make sure to play out your hand as you draw cards. Swing out, then activate your cards that empty the graveyard.

(in UMA)

• Arcane Master (Mythic): Win a game without casting any spells. The Dark Depths + Thespian's Stage combo requires two lands, one at rare and one at Mythic. This method is pretty doable in Draft, but much harder in Sealed. Getting them both in my Sealed pool took 8 attempts, and replicating it took another 15 attempts.

(in VMA)

• Storm Chaser (Mythic): Win a game after casting 50 spells in a single turn. For Draft, this is quite doable in any high-power Cube with Storm in it, but my method of choice in Sealed was to get the mythic Palinchron and the uncommon High Tide together. With six islands on the battlefield, you get infinite casts and infinite mana. Any combo that requires a mythic in Sealed is pretty unlikely, and it took many attempts to get the right pool.

[MrMystery314]

I haven't gotten the mythic Mana Screwed, but VMA seems like a good bet; Black Lotus into Serendib Efreet probably isn't beatable by some AI decks. You could probably get the mythic Need for Speed through some absurd Storm deck too. What I generally do for Sealed is 12-pack full cardpool, which still counts for achievements but lets you get theoretically anything if you're lucky enough.

[N-Cat]

I haven't gotten the mythic Mana Screwed, but VMA seems like a good bet; Black Lotus into Serendib Efreet probably isn't beatable by some AI decks.

The VMA idea seems good; Sea Drake is an even faster beater, if you get it. I split my time today between attempting it in VMA and Alpha. Ultimately, I got a workable Alpha deck first (Multiple pieces of fast mana and multiple beaters. Got it using Serra Angel). Both sets have fast mana starting from zero CMC, but the fact that Alpha has them at rare, whereas VMA had Lotus at mythic made it harder for me to get a usable pool. However, I might've just gotten unlucky on VMA; I haven't done the math.

You could probably get the mythic Need for Speed through some absurd Storm deck too. What I generally do for Sealed is 12-pack full cardpool, which still counts for achievements but lets you get theoretically anything if you're lucky enough.

That seems quite difficult to put together in VMA, but I might try it.

[MrMystery314]

This isn't particularly pertinent to your current mission, but I recently got the mythic Arcane Master achievement in Quest mode without planning for it while playing Manaless Dredge against Vintage Shops.

So were you able to successfully get the Mana Screwed achievement?

[N-Cat]

This isn't particularly pertinent to your current mission, but I recently got the mythic Arcane Master achievement in Quest mode without planning for it while playing Manaless Dredge against Vintage Shops.

So were you able to successfully get the Mana Screwed achievement?

Hey, good for you! And definitely no worries on it not being pertinent to what I'm doing, my aim was for this to be a place to discuss everyone's achievement efforts.

And, yeah, I did get the sealed Mana Screwed achievement using that absurdly bad Alpha deck. It took many attempts, but it eventually worked. I would not recommend it at all. The VMA route (Lotus+Efreet/Drake) sounds more plausible, even though I haven't gotten it to work.

I've been attempting the sealed Need for Speed achievement using VMA Storm decks, but my pools haven't been good enough yet. I think you basically need Tendrils of Agony (the other storm payoffs in the cube don't kill instantly, so you need to wait an extra turn), Yawgmoth's Will, and like 3 of either Dark Ritual or Black Lotus. Despite generating dozens of pools, I haven't gotten all of those once. And then once you play, you need all of that in the top 9 cards.

[N-Cat]

Was doing Quests recently (Easy, Fantasy, Commander, Non-Block Set). Achievements are actually made much easier, since the Bazaar sells items and the opponent often starts with global effects. For instance, the last one I got:

Need for Speed (Mythic): Win a game by Turn 0. Get the challenge "Dungeon Crawling (Blue)". The opponent starts with Unbound Flourishing, so if you have Leyline of Anticipation, and fast mana or zero-cost spells, you can draw through your whole deck super easily. It was far simpler than the equivalent achievement in any other set. Thassa's Oracle was my wincon, but all I needed in the opener was Leyline and one zero-CMC spell.