What's the shortest and longest game of MTG you've ever played? Only count games that were played legitimately, with both players seriously trying to win the game.
My longest was a turn 55 loss in standard, which just happened to me today. My opponent was monoblue and I was blue/white. We both had multiple Elixir of Immortalitys and plenty of counters, naturally. The first time I tried to counter a spell ended with a total of five counterspells on the stack. The second time ended with seven counterspells. He finally got me by cloning my Azor's Elocutors and having it trigger before I could draw an answer.
Shortest was last Celebration day. Played green, attacked all in on turn five-ish, waited for blockers and pumped one creature for plus equaling the number of creatures I controlled, gave it deathtouch with Vial of Poison and it was game.
Longest.. Ugh. 8-player EDH Planechase. We were at it for six hours. That was with Grand Melee rules, two people taking their turn at a time. Still brutal.
Standard running Splinter Twin against a no blue deck. T4 both games I combo off with out them having any removal or counters or anything.
Later standard after twin has rotated me and my friend run down to last cards in deck in a hard stalemate, he wins with one more card to draw than me at the end of the 3rd game.
Had several multiplayer games last many hours as well, but thats more expected.
Shortest was vs. belcher. I think he won turn 3, but that deck can definitely win faster than that.
Longest was a LOOONG time ago. Winter orb/icy manipulator (back when you could tap the orb EOT to negate it's effect on you, vs. erhnamageddon. I had the lock, but he had enough removal that i couldn't win with factories and enough artifact mana that I couldn't keep him completely off mana. We both went through our entire deck, twice (we both ran feldon's cane mainboard). I eventually lost (with 300+ life) by decking myself... he had 1 card left in his library when I lost. It probably took 2 hours.
Outside of the whole "I've won on turn 1 with Legacy combo" thing, I've actually won on turn 1 against combo. Land, Inquisition of Kozilek, he takes a look at his hand, thinks for a moment, then scoops because that would've killed his combo and he didn't want me to know what deck he was playing.
Scooping to hide information isn't a strategic decision you see often, but it has its advantages, to be sure.
Shortest was nothing special, turn 5 or 6 I believe.
Longest was my friend's mono-black vs my black-white deck. That game managed to last well over an hour, although I wasn't keeping exact track of time. Mostly it dragged on because we kept hitting each other with removals and healing ourselves up to the point that we needed many, many d20s to keep track of our health. Towards the end, I used my elixir of immortality, shuffled my graveyard of 20-30 cards back into my library. Fourth to last turn I got Elspeth, Sun's Champion into play and started building up my token army. I was going to finish my friend off, but I waited an extra turn, just so he could mill out. It was the first time I have ever seen someone mill out, and neither one of us were playing mill decks.
Man it surprises me how many peoples answer here isn't just "turn 1". I feel like you haven't really truly experienced magic until you have lost a game before your took your first turn.
Shortest game(s). Playing modern Living End against Burn. 2nd game of the round, turn 0 Leyline of Sanctity. He scoops. 3rd game, same story. Ok so is wasn't exactly a "game" but technically the shortest game and match I have played. Longest had to be Stasis back in the day.
My fastest was playing manaless dredge in Legacy. Turn 1 on the play I get the nuts, flip about half my deck and re-animate Flame-Kin Zealot with around 12 zombies on the field. No idea on my longest though.
Man it surprises me how many peoples answer here isn't just "turn 1". I feel like you haven't really truly experienced magic until you have lost a game before your took your first turn.
Not that I havent played t1 combo, I just dont think it counts.
Last standard season (INN-RTR)
was playing bant control vs america control in the finals of a tournament. Game 1 took over 2 hours, eventually with me (bant player) decking out (i had 1 psychic spiral main deck for all the esper decks at the time). Game 2 and 3 were considerably shorter, but that game 1....
I have won turn 2 several times in Modern with Infect. If it wasn't so fragile most other games it would be a totally broken deck, but if it doesn't win fast it is very hard to win with.
Shortest: T0 win against a consenting victim with illegal Vintage Flash/Hulk. He went first, died before his draw step.
Longest: Decking myself in a 2 vs. 1 game with my white "protection from you" deck against noobs. I was swinging for five every turn in the end, but gave them so much life by Plowsharing Colossi that I couldn't beat them down to zero before drawing my last. In a 75-card deck.
By turns the shortest games have been ended when presenting our decks and judge swoops to deck check us. Saturdays PTQ also had almost similar situation. My opponent pile shuffles and comes to 39 cards. This was the first round and as the HJ said the opening words he went through the deck, finding that he was missing one land. He got the card in the deck just as the HJ got to: "Good luck, you may Begin."
As for actual games I've won and lost several vintage and legacy games on turn 1. And while this didn't happen to me I was judging a legacy match that the player playing second never got a turn, so winnig the die roll was pretty good. Starting player won on their turn 1 in all three games.
As for longest, I played Shahrazad several times in a six player free-for-all. We had sub-sub-subgames going until one guy, who ran mana ramp ran out of deck at the last subgames. Finally somebody noticed that if everybody would just scoop the subgames they would get back to main game and just kill me together. I barely survived to my turn and playes Earthquake to draw the game (after two real Shahrazad subgames everybody else was at 5 life or less). We started a bit after nine in the evening and the game ran for over four hours so we finished just before 2 am.
In tournaments I've decked my limited opponent with only modest amount of card draw, so maybe 30 turns in a single game. In constructed I've had single games go up to 40 minutes, but I'm relatively fast player and used to be an active judge, so stalling was not often an issue for me. I did play against Stasis a good bit too around -95, but those times are too hazy nowadays to really remember random games.
Man it surprises me how many peoples answer here isn't just "turn 1". I feel like you haven't really truly experienced magic until you have lost a game before your took your first turn.
I lost on turn 1 on the draw in game 2 (after winning game 1) against TPS in Vintage vs. my Oath of Druids. LSV (before he was a pro) beat me in the semifinals of a Win-A-Mox tournament at Eudemonia in Berkeley, CA in the semifinals. The last game was pretty amazing though, as the last card of the storm'd card Mind's Desire got him another Mind's Desire and the last card on that one got him Tendrils of Agony. This was after he Echoing Truth on my Arcane Laboratory with FoW, Blue card, and Ancestral Recall in my hand. I think LSV won the Mox Emerald that day. I got some random $50 card.
I won on turn 0 once in tournament play with my Vintage Flash Hulk deck. It was pretty sweet to win on turn 0, then on turn 2 in 2 games. The deck I played against was a Mono Black discard deck meant to beat Flash Hulk.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Shortest game was against Belcher...can't so anything about a turn 0 kill when your on goblins game 1.
Longest was Modern with me on UW and my opponent on UWR. At the time I didn't have Sphinx's Revelation and was running Blue Suns Zenith in its place. The game dragged on forever and we were getting down to the end of our decks, he Sphinx's for enough to draw to 1 card in his library at my EOT. I have exactly enough mana to make him draw 1 card and protect it with a Cryptic, he lost on his draw step
Shortest: in a Pauper premier event on Modo 4-5 years ago, I was playing Teachings. In the second to last round of swiss (I was 3-1, I think), my opponent plays (on the play) swamp, Tortured Existence. I conceded the match. It was an absolutely abysmal matchup (and I felt like going to bed).
Also, if it counts, round 12 of PT Dublin. I was 5-6 and in theory live for the money, but didn't really feel like wading through five more rounds of constructed for a small chance of $1k. So I wanted to join a team draft instead. But my friends were taking a while to find another team, so I went and played my match in the meantime. I sat down, greeted my opponent, and shuffled up. I then mulliganed to six. Halfway through a pile shuffle I notice in the corner of my eye one of my friends signalling to me that they had found an opposing team. So I suddenly extend the hand to my completely bewildered opponent, sign the slip, and off I went.
Longest: all the way back in circa '03, when I was terrible and didn't really know what a good deck looked like, I was playing a blue Wizard deck with Mirari and Upheaval, while my opponent was playing B/W Clerics with Patriarch's Bidding. Both of us had ways to shuffle cards back into our deck. The match lasted 7 hours, and we even had a third player who lost after like an hour. Pretty lame for him
Shortest game? I think it was standard when my opponent got a turn 3 win against me. Mind you this was mono red so it's expected...
Longest game? A 4-hour EDH game where we originally had 5 players but then it came down to me playing Aurelia, the Warleader and my opponent playing Niv-Mizzet 2.0. Long story short he tried to kill everything on the board and didn't realize I had an Avacyn, Angel of Hope in play.
Quickest I've killed someone outside of legacy is playing 4 player mental magic. I was player 3, I jam out a Skytherix on my first turn, attack player 4, player 2 giant growths it, player 1 brute force's, killing player 4 before he even took a turn.
Longest game in recent memory is probably me playing wolf run bant against esper in a top 8, were he killed both my kessigs and eventually deck himself in a game 1 that took over and hour.
Shortest: My good ole Tempered Steel. My opponent plays land, go. I draw a card, and play: Plains, Memnite, Memnite, Vault Skirge, Mox Opal, Glint Hawk bouncing the Opal, replay the Opal, Glint Hawk number 2 bouncing the opal, replay the opal. He looks at his hand and scoops.
Longest Standard: A week ago with my BUG Superfirends deck against Esper. We went to turns on game one. The game was going back and forth. My Memory Adepts couldn't stick, his Elspeths got stoned. I almost milled him the hard way - by making him draw one card at a time from his library. Almost. On the last turn he had 1 card in the library, I had 3. The game ended in a draw.
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Currently Building:
WUBGR - Enchantment Realms - WUBGR
An all-enchantment EDH deck: 0 creatures, 0 artifacts, 0 instants and sorceries.
My shortest was a turn 2 win.
Turn 1: Mountain, Suspend Rift Bolt
Turn 2: Rift Bolt (From Suspend), Mountain, Rite of Flame, Seething Song, Seething Song, Storm Entity, Ignite Memories
My longest was a turn 55 loss in standard, which just happened to me today. My opponent was monoblue and I was blue/white. We both had multiple Elixir of Immortalitys and plenty of counters, naturally. The first time I tried to counter a spell ended with a total of five counterspells on the stack. The second time ended with seven counterspells. He finally got me by cloning my Azor's Elocutors and having it trigger before I could draw an answer.
In EDH I have had very long and boring 6-8 player games go for 2-3 hours before.
T1 on the play vault skirge
T2 double rancor
T3 3rd rancor guy concedes
G2 was identical but only 2 rancors. Finished the match with 24:12 on my clock
Longest.. Ugh. 8-player EDH Planechase. We were at it for six hours. That was with Grand Melee rules, two people taking their turn at a time. Still brutal.
Later standard after twin has rotated me and my friend run down to last cards in deck in a hard stalemate, he wins with one more card to draw than me at the end of the 3rd game.
Had several multiplayer games last many hours as well, but thats more expected.
Longest was a LOOONG time ago. Winter orb/icy manipulator (back when you could tap the orb EOT to negate it's effect on you, vs. erhnamageddon. I had the lock, but he had enough removal that i couldn't win with factories and enough artifact mana that I couldn't keep him completely off mana. We both went through our entire deck, twice (we both ran feldon's cane mainboard). I eventually lost (with 300+ life) by decking myself... he had 1 card left in his library when I lost. It probably took 2 hours.
Scooping to hide information isn't a strategic decision you see often, but it has its advantages, to be sure.
Longest was my friend's mono-black vs my black-white deck. That game managed to last well over an hour, although I wasn't keeping exact track of time. Mostly it dragged on because we kept hitting each other with removals and healing ourselves up to the point that we needed many, many d20s to keep track of our health. Towards the end, I used my elixir of immortality, shuffled my graveyard of 20-30 cards back into my library. Fourth to last turn I got Elspeth, Sun's Champion into play and started building up my token army. I was going to finish my friend off, but I waited an extra turn, just so he could mill out. It was the first time I have ever seen someone mill out, and neither one of us were playing mill decks.
Not that I havent played t1 combo, I just dont think it counts.
was playing bant control vs america control in the finals of a tournament. Game 1 took over 2 hours, eventually with me (bant player) decking out (i had 1 psychic spiral main deck for all the esper decks at the time). Game 2 and 3 were considerably shorter, but that game 1....
Reprint Opt for Modern!!
FREE DIG THOROUGH TIME!
PLAY MORE ROUGE DECKS!
Longest: Decking myself in a 2 vs. 1 game with my white "protection from you" deck against noobs. I was swinging for five every turn in the end, but gave them so much life by Plowsharing Colossi that I couldn't beat them down to zero before drawing my last. In a 75-card deck.
As for actual games I've won and lost several vintage and legacy games on turn 1. And while this didn't happen to me I was judging a legacy match that the player playing second never got a turn, so winnig the die roll was pretty good. Starting player won on their turn 1 in all three games.
As for longest, I played Shahrazad several times in a six player free-for-all. We had sub-sub-subgames going until one guy, who ran mana ramp ran out of deck at the last subgames. Finally somebody noticed that if everybody would just scoop the subgames they would get back to main game and just kill me together. I barely survived to my turn and playes Earthquake to draw the game (after two real Shahrazad subgames everybody else was at 5 life or less). We started a bit after nine in the evening and the game ran for over four hours so we finished just before 2 am.
In tournaments I've decked my limited opponent with only modest amount of card draw, so maybe 30 turns in a single game. In constructed I've had single games go up to 40 minutes, but I'm relatively fast player and used to be an active judge, so stalling was not often an issue for me. I did play against Stasis a good bit too around -95, but those times are too hazy nowadays to really remember random games.
Set to default
Longest game: A 2-3 hour 4 player game before shahrazad got banned. I miss it.
I lost on turn 1 on the draw in game 2 (after winning game 1) against TPS in Vintage vs. my Oath of Druids. LSV (before he was a pro) beat me in the semifinals of a Win-A-Mox tournament at Eudemonia in Berkeley, CA in the semifinals. The last game was pretty amazing though, as the last card of the storm'd card Mind's Desire got him another Mind's Desire and the last card on that one got him Tendrils of Agony. This was after he Echoing Truth on my Arcane Laboratory with FoW, Blue card, and Ancestral Recall in my hand. I think LSV won the Mox Emerald that day. I got some random $50 card.
I won on turn 0 once in tournament play with my Vintage Flash Hulk deck. It was pretty sweet to win on turn 0, then on turn 2 in 2 games. The deck I played against was a Mono Black discard deck meant to beat Flash Hulk.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Longest was Modern with me on UW and my opponent on UWR. At the time I didn't have Sphinx's Revelation and was running Blue Suns Zenith in its place. The game dragged on forever and we were getting down to the end of our decks, he Sphinx's for enough to draw to 1 card in his library at my EOT. I have exactly enough mana to make him draw 1 card and protect it with a Cryptic, he lost on his draw step
XXXX
Modern
URTwinRU R.I.P.
EDH
WUGRoon of the Hidden RealmWUG
Shortest game: Playing pyromancer's ascension, sided out into the roil, opponent reveals white leyline before the game starts.
Also, if it counts, round 12 of PT Dublin. I was 5-6 and in theory live for the money, but didn't really feel like wading through five more rounds of constructed for a small chance of $1k. So I wanted to join a team draft instead. But my friends were taking a while to find another team, so I went and played my match in the meantime. I sat down, greeted my opponent, and shuffled up. I then mulliganed to six. Halfway through a pile shuffle I notice in the corner of my eye one of my friends signalling to me that they had found an opposing team. So I suddenly extend the hand to my completely bewildered opponent, sign the slip, and off I went.
Longest: all the way back in circa '03, when I was terrible and didn't really know what a good deck looked like, I was playing a blue Wizard deck with Mirari and Upheaval, while my opponent was playing B/W Clerics with Patriarch's Bidding. Both of us had ways to shuffle cards back into our deck. The match lasted 7 hours, and we even had a third player who lost after like an hour. Pretty lame for him
Longest game? A 4-hour EDH game where we originally had 5 players but then it came down to me playing Aurelia, the Warleader and my opponent playing Niv-Mizzet 2.0. Long story short he tried to kill everything on the board and didn't realize I had an Avacyn, Angel of Hope in play.
It was a rather anticlimatic end to a fun game: Eye of the Storm, Confusion in the Ranks, Scrambleverse, and Possibility Storm. Oi vei~
Longest game in recent memory is probably me playing wolf run bant against esper in a top 8, were he killed both my kessigs and eventually deck himself in a game 1 that took over and hour.
Longest Standard: A week ago with my BUG Superfirends deck against Esper. We went to turns on game one. The game was going back and forth. My Memory Adepts couldn't stick, his Elspeths got stoned. I almost milled him the hard way - by making him draw one card at a time from his library. Almost. On the last turn he had 1 card in the library, I had 3. The game ended in a draw.
WUBGR - Enchantment Realms - WUBGR
An all-enchantment EDH deck: 0 creatures, 0 artifacts, 0 instants and sorceries.
GBUWR - The Necrotic Teenager and its 1,000,000 Combos - GBUWR
A deck built around Necrotic Ooze and its many friends.