Mmmm... now THAT'S some Magic!

[Eth]

WARNING: Excessively-detailed discussion of the trading card game "Magic: The Gathering" within.  If you're not into it, don't come crying to me. 

Me and four co-workers threw together a Lorwyn-Lorwyn-Morningtide draft a few weeks ago, and decided to play five games against each other participant, however long that took.  The series ended in a tie between me and my friend Seth.  The prize: a $27 gift certificate for the place where we bought the Magic cards.  So it all came down to this tie-breaking final game, which went down tonight. 

I was playing blue/black faeries and merfolk, a flexible little deck with a lot of tech and a bit of the old millstone.  Seth was playing mono-green elves with a lot of mana-acceleration.  Both decks were 40 cards, as is traditional in a draft format.

I got first turn.  We built up our mana a bit.  By the third turn, there were no threats on the board, so I played Jace Beleren.  Now, Jace was the only reason I was even playing blue, really, and I had never managed to activate is big -10 whammy power, so this was my last chance to try to pull it off (at least within the context of the draft series).  A few creatures went down here and there while Jace made both of us draw extra cards (with his +2 ability). 

Suddenly: a major threat.  Seth had turnes a formerly rather puny treefolk into a Changeling Titan!  I needed a solution, post-haste.  I already had Dreamspoiler Witches on the table, so I reinforce them with a Mutavault.  Two 2/2's versus a 7/7 is not enough, I hear you say?  Just wait and see.  Seth attacks me with the Changeling Titan; I activate the Mutavault and block with both it and the Dreamspoiler Witches.  Both of my creatures are crushed, and the Titan takes 4 damage, right?  I deliver the coup de grace with a well-timed Nameless Inversion, reducing the Titan's Toughness to 4, killing it and turning it back into a treefolk. 

So, Seth rebuilds his army of creatures, and I try to keep up, but his creatures are, well, bigger than mine, for the most part.  But he ignores Jace, who's causing us both to draw an extra card a turn, and is getting more and more loyalty.  Seth is untouched at 20 life, and I'm not doing too badly with 14.  Finally, it all comes to a head.  Seth has a truly impressive horde of creatures, and Jace is at 11 loyalty.  The climax begins. 

Jace plays his whammy power, causing Seth to discard 20 cards from his library into his graveyard.  Seth now has only 2 cards in his library.  If he has to draw from an empty library, he loses the game.  I put down a Floodchaser, a rather respectable 6/6 creature.  Unfortunately, along with some merfolk, that was all I had, against around 7 or 8 enemies creatures.  Time to see what I was made of. 

Seth's turn.  He draws a card; he has only 1 left in his library now.  He played some card that put a bunch of +1/+1 counters on some of his creatures.  I think I moaned at this point.  Then he played a card that forced my Floodchaser to block some puny little 1/1 elf of his.  That left my little merfolk to deal with the rest of his army.  He attacks.  My merfolk, of course, blocks the biggest thing it can, and I end up taking 13 points of damage.  I am now at 1 life, but I've all but won the game!

During my turn, Jace causes both of us to draw a card, leaving Seth with nothing in his library.  On his next draw phase, he cannot draw a card, so he loses the game, while sitting untouched on 20 life points. 

All in all, and extremely satisfying game.  So satisfying, that I just had to share it with all of you. 

[FreakyM]

Congratulations on a Mill win. The most satisfying way, in my opinion.


Phyrexian Processor and Angelic Chorus. Last Week. Casual duel with a friend.

For one turn, I took quite a horrible risk, burning myself all the way down to 1 life from 16. Of course, I didn't stay there long, as I was slapping 15/15's down every turn thereafter, and well.. it wasn't such a risk afterall, since I had a Holy Day ready just in case.

The big joke is that it was NOT the processor's ridiculously huge creatures that won the day- it was the simple combo of a False Cure, followed by a Beacon of Immortality targeted onto my opponent.

And, well, a deck that has 4 Wrath of God and 4 Damnation is quite a pain in the ass.

[Eth]

Congratulations on a Mill win. The most satisfying way, in my opinion.

I'm pretty sure it was my first mill win since I started playing in 1993.  Very cool.

Phyrexian Processor and Angelic Chorus. Last Week. Casual duel with a friend.

For one turn, I took quite a horrible risk, burning myself all the way down to 1 life from 16. Of course, I didn't stay there long, as I was slapping 15/15's down every turn thereafter, and well.. it wasn't such a risk afterall, since I had a Holy Day ready just in case.

That was apallingly risky.  10/10's wouldn't have been big enough for ya'?

The big joke is that it was NOT the processor's ridiculously huge creatures that won the day- it was the simple combo of a False Cure, followed by a Beacon of Immortality targeted onto my opponent.

Nice.  That's a great combo; it does exactly the right amount of damage to kill your opponent. No more, no less.  Elegant.

And, well, a deck that has 4 Wrath of God and 4 Damnation is quite a pain in the ass.

No doubt, for a lot of decks, anyway. 

[FreakyM]

Yeah, it's simply beautiful, the realization that you have just been dropped to *exactly* 0 life. Ok, rather mana-heavy, but nothing you can't do with a few Dark Rituals.

Also, the 15 life risk was well worth it, considering I had the situation in control. I take it you are familiar with the little piece of black beauty known as "Hymn to Tourach"? The only "risk" was that my opponent would have topdecked some direct damage, but that did not happen. As for combat damage, the Holy Day took care of that.
Next turn, I was up to 16 again thanks to the Angelic chorus, anyway.
And the next turn, 32.. and then I draw the Beacon and the Cure, at which point I decided to ram the combo down on him, and in case that would fail, I would always have my legion of Minions to simply overrun the guy.

Oh, he was playing some kind of semi-broken Affinity deck, thankfully without Cranial Plating or the Skullclamp you see in those decks usually.

[Dabir]

Whilst I don't play much, and my deck's pretty rubbish anyway, I do have an amusing anecdote for you. A while ago, I was watching the Yu-Gi-Oh animé, and noted a scene in whick Kaiba was forced to tribute Blue-Eyes White Dragon from his hand then brought it back with a Monster Reborn, thus avoiding the sacrifice of two monsters which he didn't have.

A few days later, I was engaged in battle against a friend, using the basic decks (I think). During the game, I was forced to tribute a fairly powerful monster, possible the biggest one in that deck, then I brought it back with a less-costly resurrection spell. Coincidence can be shocking. I was using the blue/white basic deck, BTW.

[FreakyM]

A quite infamous Magic deck plays solely on that trick: Discarding powerful creatures, then reanimating them into play via other means for far less mana than they cost.

Particularly nasty is a first-turn play consisting of
1) Swamp - for the 1 black mana
2) Dark Ritual -turns that 1 black mana into 3 black mana
3) Entomb , costing 1 black mana - which allows you to search your deck for any card, then put it into your graveyard
4) Exhume , costing the other 2 - which allows both players to take one creature from their graveyard straight into play.

Typically, one would drop something like Akroma, Angel of Wrath , or a Hypnox into play on turn one. The Hypnox one is especially cruel, since it causes your opponent to lose his starting hand.

[Eth]

  Yeah, I use a less-efficient version of that combo (buried alive + animate dead) to get my Sliver Queen into play sometimes. 

[Sedodes]

Sorry, but methinks my one-mana-pumpable-flying-black-creature-deck still owns.  That's pretty much all it is.  A few enchants for wallbusting, and a few effect creatures.

Only ever met one person who beat it best of three... and he admitted he got very lucky both times.

[Eth]

  Sedodes, walls are, like, so fifteen-years-ago.     How does it go these days?  "Nobody blocks in constructed."   

  Seriously though, a black flying deck?  With, like, Frozen Shades or something?  Huh.

[Sedodes]

A black flying one-mana pumpable deck.  Vampire bats, pit imps, phyrexian battleflies, etc.  There's a few other mentionable (more than one mana) cards, but seeing as how I haven't played in years I can't remember them.  Best win:loss ratio I've ever had with any deck... I can simply pump out creatures faster than they can be defended against, and with the few direct damage to controller cards I have dangling around in there I can still bring the pain if they manage to mount a last-minute defense.

The funny thing is that I built the deck entirely out of "throw away" cards I collected at a comic book shop when I lived in Green Bay.  Everyone was pissed when the first thing I did with the deck was to go undefeated in the shop's next tournament.  Getting beaten with the cards you got rid of has to be the most frustrating thing ever.

Also, the day I stop having wallbreaking cards is the day I play someone who still uses walls.

[FreakyM]

I sometimes use a pair of Wall of Air, so there.
And sedodes, have fun trying to play anything out of an empty hand, courtesy of repeated Hymns to Tourach =D

Of course, stopping a flood of flying 1/1's is pretty much impossible. Isn't that what the idea of the infamous Faeries deck is?
Stuffing 1/1's out with Bitterblossom and all that?

[Eth]

A black flying one-mana pumpable deck.  Vampire bats, pit imps, phyrexian battleflies, etc.  There's a few other mentionable (more than one mana) cards, but seeing as how I haven't played in years I can't remember them.  Best win:loss ratio I've ever had with any deck... I can simply pump out creatures faster than they can be defended against, and with the few direct damage to controller cards I have dangling around in there I can still bring the pain if they manage to mount a last-minute defense.

[/sarcasm] (Looks up cards.)  Ah, yes.  Actually, that's sounds pretty good.  Very fast, I'm sure. 

The funny thing is that I built the deck entirely out of "throw away" cards I collected at a comic book shop when I lived in Green Bay.  Everyone was pissed when the first thing I did with the deck was to go undefeated in the shop's next tournament.  Getting beaten with the cards you got rid of has to be the most frustrating thing ever.

That's why I never throw Magic cards away.  There are tons of good commons out there, if you know what you're looking for. 

Also, the day I stop having wallbreaking cards is the day I play someone who still uses walls.

Well, there is that.  The DCI just restricted Brainstorm, so I now have three open slots in my "Death By 10,000 Slivers" deck, and I may actually put some walls in there, if I can find any good ones in my collection. 

[Dabir]

Wall of Knives/Blades/Whatever it is? That would fit in with your "Thousand slivers" theme.

[FreakyM]

Mmh, that made me want to make a Sliver deck. Already got a bunch of slivers into my hands, none of my friends seem to value the little critters. Maybe because they have never seen a bunch of them at a time.

Damn, the only problem is the Sliver Queen herself, she's expensive around these parts! 25 euros, for Yawgmoth's sake!
The other two "Super-slivers" are only ~7!

[Sedodes]

Actually, rider, most of my creatures are 0/1 pumpable up to 2/1.

Used to play a white creature deck.  Savannah lions (I think) are 1 mana 2/1 first strike... rocks the world if you can pull one or two of them in your initial draws.