Couple Fridays ago I played Dubious Challenge to a 3-1 victory making top 4 at my local fnm. Beating imperial painter, pox, and reanimator. Lost to burn. This is my starting list with card explanations and changes below.
Card Choices: Deathrite Shaman: A real workhorse. Gets in incremental damage when all the pieces aren't available yet. Gains you life and at the same time exiles reanimator targets. Need a 4th mana to challenge? He's your guy.
Elvish Spirit Guide: Originally played 4 to help with mana acceleration. I realized I only needed it to get that 4th mana after casting congregation at dawn. Cut to 2.
Glimmerpoint Stag: You can play this or Flickerwisp or any creature that blinks a creature in this slot. I chose stag because of his .50 price tag.
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn : The boss of the sauce. You can really play this deck any wacky way you want with any wacky big creature. This chick is just the meanest.
Abrupt Decay: One of the best removal spells ever printed. Pretty much takes care of anything in our way.
Swords to Plowshares: Great creature removal, stops threats from killing you. You wouldn't want to die before you windmill slam Emmy on the table, would you?
Congregation At Dawn: I was looking hard for something to set up my library the way I needed it to, this was the answer. Your best 3 to grab for me so far has been ESG on top then a stag and Emmy underneath. You always want to try to play this on their end step, that way you draw an ESG. You can then remove it for that crucial 4th mana for your Dubious Challenge.
Dubious Challenge: Best $1 junk bin rare ever printed. You need 4 to make this work.
Painful Truths: I wasn't sure what to put here. I knew i needed some sort of card draw/dig to get to my combo pieces. This seemed the best choice in my colors.
Pernicious Deed: Board sweeper, Tribal Killer, takes care of pretty much anything you need to take care of. Popping this to blow up 3 The Rack and 2 Shrieking afflictions has been my favorite so far.
Liliana of the Veil: She puts in a ton of work, she pitches Emrakul when you draw it (oops!). Ive never needed to ultimate her, her discard and creature sac is enough for me.
Thoughtseize: We hate blue! Force of will will ruin our day once they stop laughing at dubious challenge and figure out what we are doing.
Lands: Must haves, 23 is the magic number I think. Any combo of g/w/b will do, you always want more Green and Black, don't neglect white or you'll never cast Congregation at Dawn.
Side Board: This is meta dependent. My meta is mostly wacky brews and budget decks with the occasional 3 or 4 serious magic players thrown in. Make this whatever you need to survive.
All in all this deck was a lot of fun and also very frustrating. There were a lot of times where I knew I was dead and this deck just pulled it all back from the brink! Blind Challenges are the most nerve wracking thing ever. Did it twice at FNM and came out with both an emrakul and a stag both times, I do not recommend the blind challenge.
Know your opponents deck and what the biggest threat is going to be, you have a lot of removal at your disposal save it for when you need it and don't be afraid to pop that deed for only a few things, it could save your life!
After playing it for one week I feel OK with the list. Minor tweaks here and there to come.
This week:
-2 Painful Truths
+2 Sensei's Divining Top
It's dig that wont hurt me. Will it be better? I'll have to find out.
There's so many ways you can play this deck. Give this a try, tell me what you think! By no means is this a Tier 1 deck to bring to a large event. But you'll get a good laugh out of it at your local FNM/ Legacy Tournament!
There's so many ways you can play this deck. Give this a try, tell me what you think! By no means is this a Tier 1 deck to bring to a large event. But you'll get a good laugh out of it at your local FNM/ Legacy Tournament!
Thank you for the tip! I will definitely using it in the next game.
Are there any scenarios where opponent taking the Stag could spell death for you? (luckily no Shriekmaw effects in Legacy).
They usually take the Emmy the first time, then when I explain the combo, They always take the stag. It's real awesome when they blink one of my lands and I get to use deathrite shaman an extra time on their end step when I normally should be tapped out from casting dubious challenge. I haven't run into any problems with them taking the stag yet. Sometimes it can be their 7th permanent and they get to keep something when annihilator triggers, but most of the time its not too serious.
Updated the changes section.
Lost horribly this week, 1-2-1.
Round 1 Got paired against homebrew psyachatog madness (the card ability, not just psychatog crazyness). I took game 1 pretty easily. He invasive surgery'd for my dubious challenge and pretty much ended the game 2. Game 3 He surgery'd me again and I was just trying to ramp to 15 to hardcast emrakul. Was at 13 mana with 1 ESG in my hand when our turns ran out.
1-1-1 0-0-1
Round 2 Paired against ANT. I took game 1. When he figured out what I was doing, he saved all the counterspells for dubious challenge, then just stormed me out. game 3 i just got stormed out, got to silence him at one point, that was fun.
1-2 0-1-1
Round 3 Burn. Yay. Warmth saved me game 2. He got 1 and 3 no problem.
1-2 0-2-1
Round 4 BYEEEEEEE
2-0 1-2-1
Not a Great night, working some kinks out still. Tops Stay!
I'm absolutely flabbergasted by this deck. Leave it to the greatness of random online users to break the most horrible of cards in the game. (Dubious Challenge was in fact so bad they talked about putting it on the worst cards ever list in General)
EDIT Also I think that Read the Bones could be something you could play with instead of Painful Truths. Digging one deeper, after all, and costing 1 less life. Might not be awful to test.
Card Choices:
Deathrite Shaman: A real workhorse. Gets in incremental damage when all the pieces aren't available yet. Gains you life and at the same time exiles reanimator targets. Need a 4th mana to challenge? He's your guy.
Elvish Spirit Guide: Originally played 4 to help with mana acceleration. I realized I only needed it to get that 4th mana after casting congregation at dawn. Cut to 2.
Glimmerpoint Stag: You can play this or Flickerwisp or any creature that blinks a creature in this slot. I chose stag because of his .50 price tag.
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn : The boss of the sauce. You can really play this deck any wacky way you want with any wacky big creature. This chick is just the meanest.
Abrupt Decay: One of the best removal spells ever printed. Pretty much takes care of anything in our way.
Swords to Plowshares: Great creature removal, stops threats from killing you. You wouldn't want to die before you windmill slam Emmy on the table, would you?
Congregation At Dawn: I was looking hard for something to set up my library the way I needed it to, this was the answer. Your best 3 to grab for me so far has been ESG on top then a stag and Emmy underneath. You always want to try to play this on their end step, that way you draw an ESG. You can then remove it for that crucial 4th mana for your Dubious Challenge.
Dubious Challenge: Best $1 junk bin rare ever printed. You need 4 to make this work.
Painful Truths: I wasn't sure what to put here. I knew i needed some sort of card draw/dig to get to my combo pieces. This seemed the best choice in my colors.
Pernicious Deed: Board sweeper, Tribal Killer, takes care of pretty much anything you need to take care of. Popping this to blow up 3 The Rack and 2 Shrieking afflictions has been my favorite so far.
Liliana of the Veil: She puts in a ton of work, she pitches Emrakul when you draw it (oops!). Ive never needed to ultimate her, her discard and creature sac is enough for me.
Thoughtseize: We hate blue! Force of will will ruin our day once they stop laughing at dubious challenge and figure out what we are doing.
Lands: Must haves, 23 is the magic number I think. Any combo of g/w/b will do, you always want more Green and Black, don't neglect white or you'll never cast Congregation at Dawn.
Side Board: This is meta dependent. My meta is mostly wacky brews and budget decks with the occasional 3 or 4 serious magic players thrown in. Make this whatever you need to survive.
All in all this deck was a lot of fun and also very frustrating. There were a lot of times where I knew I was dead and this deck just pulled it all back from the brink! Blind Challenges are the most nerve wracking thing ever. Did it twice at FNM and came out with both an emrakul and a stag both times, I do not recommend the blind challenge.
Know your opponents deck and what the biggest threat is going to be, you have a lot of removal at your disposal save it for when you need it and don't be afraid to pop that deed for only a few things, it could save your life!
After playing it for one week I feel OK with the list. Minor tweaks here and there to come.
This week:
-2 Painful Truths
+2 Sensei's Divining Top
It's dig that wont hurt me. Will it be better? I'll have to find out.
There's so many ways you can play this deck. Give this a try, tell me what you think! By no means is this a Tier 1 deck to bring to a large event. But you'll get a good laugh out of it at your local FNM/ Legacy Tournament!
Thank you for the tip! I will definitely using it in the next game.
How often do opponents misplay and take Emmy?
Are there any scenarios where opponent taking the Stag could spell death for you? (luckily no Shriekmaw effects in Legacy).
They usually take the Emmy the first time, then when I explain the combo, They always take the stag. It's real awesome when they blink one of my lands and I get to use deathrite shaman an extra time on their end step when I normally should be tapped out from casting dubious challenge. I haven't run into any problems with them taking the stag yet. Sometimes it can be their 7th permanent and they get to keep something when annihilator triggers, but most of the time its not too serious.
Updated the changes section.
Lost horribly this week, 1-2-1.
Round 1 Got paired against homebrew psyachatog madness (the card ability, not just psychatog crazyness). I took game 1 pretty easily. He invasive surgery'd for my dubious challenge and pretty much ended the game 2. Game 3 He surgery'd me again and I was just trying to ramp to 15 to hardcast emrakul. Was at 13 mana with 1 ESG in my hand when our turns ran out.
1-1-1 0-0-1
Round 2 Paired against ANT. I took game 1. When he figured out what I was doing, he saved all the counterspells for dubious challenge, then just stormed me out. game 3 i just got stormed out, got to silence him at one point, that was fun.
1-2 0-1-1
Round 3 Burn. Yay. Warmth saved me game 2. He got 1 and 3 no problem.
1-2 0-2-1
Round 4 BYEEEEEEE
2-0 1-2-1
Not a Great night, working some kinks out still. Tops Stay!
I'm absolutely flabbergasted by this deck. Leave it to the greatness of random online users to break the most horrible of cards in the game. (Dubious Challenge was in fact so bad they talked about putting it on the worst cards ever list in General)
EDIT Also I think that Read the Bones could be something you could play with instead of Painful Truths. Digging one deeper, after all, and costing 1 less life. Might not be awful to test.