Playing standard at FNM this summer. I'm playing a BWR tokens brew, he's playing elfball. I almost kill him, then he plays an Elderscale Wurm to which I don't have an answer in my deck save a single copy of Sorin, Lord of Innistrad... Except I have a Vault of the Archangel in play, and an Intangible virtue for my hordes of tokens, so I can keep swinging without him being to swing back... And two Hellriders for large amounts of triggers.
Basically, I swung him every turn, activated vault in response to Hellrider triggers, and gained about 150 life each attack step after a few turns of this (and topdecked token generators and such). I eventually topedcked my Sorin and defended him until I ulted and killed the wurm to win the game. I ended the game at about 1500 life.
My fiance and i have what we call the "Mantle Deck" that knows all about obscene lifegain using Celestial Mantle. I once played it against a white Human-Equipment deck toting Mirran Crusader and Butcher's Cleaver. We called it a draw when he reached 93 life and I managed 820.
After that I put a few Serra Avatars in to end games before they get to that point.
Back in Mirrodin Innistrad standard, I got upwards of 190 life through a Wurmcoil Engine and a Kessig Wolf Run against an opponent that was making a ton of blockers.
I also got to somewhere around 800 with Omnath. But I also have well over 1000 mana and 3/3 insect tokens.
Highest I would go since I didn't want to either use very inelegant but probably gramatically correct [if not mathematically correct] stuff like "billion googolplexian," "billion trillion googolplexian," etc, or enter the territory of Graham's Number and other sorts of mathematical silliness.
Basalt Monolith+Power Artifact combo. Classic, though I want to find ... WTF were they, the cards that let me go infinite mana, but used only artifacts to pull it off, making it deck-color[s]-independent?
Discounting the times it has been Arbitrarily High from infinite combo, I have still had life in the trillions; multiplied several times a turn with Serra Avatars plus lifelink and various doubling effects
I had a deck that ran o.g. ajani, true conviction, and wall of reverance.
Once i got my pieces out, i could proliferate enough to make an avatar token at least every other turn.
This was during scars block. And now that trostani exists, i'm considering putting it back together for the lolz.
Also disregarding infinite, on Cockatrice, when RTR first came out, I ran a 4 color deck. I call it True Blood. Main components were 4 Rhox Faithmender, 4 Stromkirk Captain, 2 Bloodline Keeper, 2 Olivia Voldaren, 3 Vampire Nighthawk, 1 Cathars' Crusade, 1 Exquisite Blood, and 2 Vault of the Archangel. I was facing some sort of life gain deck as well. He had Serra Avatar out. It had become a long drawn out game cuz of the amount of life we both had, so I had all my pieces out except a 2nd Olivia, for obvious reasons. I had made my Rhoxs Vampires. I kept swinging with my Vampire Tokens, activating Vault, and making more Vampire Tokens to keep boosting my creatures. By the time he finally gave up, I was over 800 almost 900 life.
In standard one month ago, I'm running True Blood again, this time with 3Blood Baron of Vizkopa in place of Exquisite Blood, Cathars' Crusade, and one Vampire Nighthawk. I was up against Bant Hexproof. My opponent had a slow start while I had drawn my god hand for life gaining, 3 Shock lands, 1 Stromkirk Captain, 1 Rhox Faithmender, 1 Tithe Drinker, and 1 Blood Baron. Turn 1 Shock land, Turn 2 Check land play Tithe Drinker, Turn 3 Shock myself, play Captain, swing with Drinker, Turn 4 Shock myself again, play Rhox, and swing with Drinker again, Turn 5 play Check land, play Blood Baron, Swing with Drinker again. By Turn 5 my opponent was racing to keep my life in check with Invisible Stalker enchanted with Gift of Orzhova, Spectral Flight and Ethereal Armor. Turn 6, Play Shock land tapped,play Rhox + Extort, and swing with Blood Baron. From 6 onward, my opponent slapped on another Ethereal Armor and kept swinging while I was hoping to get my 3rd Rhox out(never happened) and just kept swinging with my Blood Baron. Eventually he gave up when I was at 101 life. He was waiting for a Silverblade Paladin to soul bond to his Stalker. It was his next turn.
For curiosity's sake, excluding infinite combos, anyone else gain an absolutely unreasonable amount of life in a single turn?
My Ezuri EDH deck can easily get a Chameleon Colossus up around 43980465111040 power without going infinite. Tack a Loxodon Warhammer or something onto that and call it a day.
Sorry about going off topic a bit, but super curious about how this happens without going infinite. Not doubting you, just really really curious.
If you make a really large (like a couple hundred), but not infinite amount of mana, say through having about 30 elves, an elvish archdruid, a doubling cube a gaea's cradle and a priest of titania plus some lands, and give your chameleon colossus lifelink somehow.
The only reason you thought this thread might be worthwhile was if you didn't know that it was possible for players to reach an arbitrarily large life total.
Btw, it is possible for players to reach an arbitrarily large life total.
Excluding infinite combos, which happen all the time I've gotten pretty high life totals before. I don't remember the exact values but they were easily into the billions since my life total was doubling every turn, that deck was standard legal at the time (scars/zendikar). In current standard I've had over 1000 off of 23 card Sphinx's Revelation's+Elixir of Immortality every turn. My win condition in that deck was waiting for my opponent to draw out, 1 card per turn.
While not a high life total, it still involved a lot of life gain. During the M13 prerelease myself and another person had some strong lifelink creatures and extort. We were each gaining 15 or so life per turn and maybe doing 14 to each other. When tallied up at the end of the game, we each did well over 800 damage to each other.
The only reason you thought this thread might be worthwhile was if you didn't know that it was possible for players to reach an arbitrarily large life total.
Btw, it is possible for players to reach an arbitrarily large life total.
SURPRISE
I have only been playing 2 years. And I just recently achieved my highest life total with a deck I made myself. I dont spend time researching epic combos or things of the like as I dont have time. Im a very casual player. I just had what I considered to be a very good moment for a newer player and I thought I would share it. Under no circumstances did I believe my experience was exceptional. Just entertaining for people to read about. Which is why I wanted to hear other experiences. Please do not return to this thread if you are just going to bash a casual player...
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Standard GGDWG GWGW HexproofWG RUIzzet MidrangeUR WUBRGChromanticore, it had to be doneGRBUW
That awkward moment when you cast your 4th Banisher Priest
I have only been playing 2 years. And I just recently achieved my highest life total with a deck I made myself. I dont spend time researching epic combos or things of the like as I dont have time. Im a very casual player. I just had what I considered to be a very good moment for a newer player and I thought I would share it. Under no circumstances did I believe my experience was exceptional. Just entertaining for people to read about. Which is why I wanted to hear other experiences. Please do not return to this thread if you are just going to bash a casual player...
I don't think anyone is "bashing casual players". I'm casual as heck and I understand that "infinite" combos are pretty easy to accomplish in Magic.
You have something like 13,500 unique printed Magic cards. It's inevitable that there would be an infinite combo for pretty much everything (which there is).
Sorry about going off topic a bit, but super curious about how this happens without going infinite. Not doubting you, just really really curious.
After activating Chameleon Colossus' ability N times, its final P/T is equal to (X * 2^N), where X is its power before you begin activating the ability (it gets a bit complicated if you buff Colossus between activations). My Ezuri deck runs a metric butt-ton of elf creatures, including Priest of Titania, Elvish Archdruid, Wirewood Channeler, and Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary. Plus, means to untap creatures: Quirion Ranger, Scryb Ranger, Seeker of Skybreak, Thousand-Year Elixir, Wirewood Symbiote (and Staff of Domination, but that goes infinite). Plus Llanowar Druid to untap my forests, and Vernal Bloom to double my forests. 172 mana is not unreasonable for me without touching infinite, and that equates to 43 activations of Chameleon Colossus. With a lord effect in play (such as Elvish Archdruid), that means 5 * 2^43, or 43980465111040.
The highest I've had without going infinite is around 450 when playing an elf deck with Wellwishers against a fog deck. The highest I've had in a tournament was around 240 when playing a B/W tokens mirror match where we stalled and both had Vault of the Archangels. The highest I've seen in a limited game was when I made 35 myr tokens over the course of the game with a Sylvok Lifestaff, and my opponent had two of the 5/5 that gain 5 life whenever an artifact died. He was up over 230 by the time all the chump blocking was done, and I won by running him out of cards.
I kind of want to run an Opalescence + Doubling Season + Followed Footsteps + Soul Warden combo for occasions like this, since that combo will gain more life (and do more damage) in 6-7 turns than the vast majority of players will ever specify when they gain "infinite" life, as it is somewhat mathematically awkward to express numbers that high (it is larger than any number you can write with scientific notation; you have to use power towers, chained arrow notation, recursive function notation or some other way of specifying numbers to represent numbers bigger than that). Also, using a non-infinite combo to kill people who gain infinite life but don't choose a high enough number is fun.
I used to play a deck that gave lifelink (back before it was keyworded and when multiple instances stacked) to Serra Avatar multiple ways. I'd attack and my life total would double, or triple, or in a few games I had my life total multiply by 10 with every attack. We used to play huge multiplayer games in school, and removal was somewhat frowned upon lol. I was well into the trillions in life many times without going infinite.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"A little nonsense now and then is cherished by the wisest men."
- Willy Wonka
The Quote function doesn't work for me on this forum. Sorry for any confusion created.
At that point I just populated them a bunch and was unable to attack my opponent due to him activating an ultimate ability on Ajani, Caller of the Pride so I was forced to just gain a crap ton of life and extend my board/
My wife and I were playing Slivers vs Martyr Proc one time where she had like 10 versions of Soul Warden in play and I had a Brood Sliver damn near doubling my Slivers every turn. I eventually drew into a couple Muscle Slivers and was able to finish her off but her life total, the size of her Ajani's Pridemates, and the number of sliver tokens I had were all in the thousands.
You can also just add some variant of Soul Warden to your Ghave, Guru of Spores EDH deck; you're almost guaranteed to have an infinite creature combo or ten in there already, even if you didn't plan it that way.
For those interested, my basic Ghave infinite combo uses
The current Standard allows for Boros Reckoner, Azorius Charm, and Boros Charm. All you need to do is have a direct damage spell ready. Give the Reckoner lifelink and indestructible, then use direct damage on him. Infinite life, and you get to hit your opponent for whatever the spell did. (I already miss Curse of Bloodletting, which would make this infinite damage too.)
(I'm not counting Exquisite Blood/Sanguine Bond, thank you very much. Your opponent tends to die, so it's not infinite. On the flip side, if your opponent has Platinum Angel or Phyrexian Unlife, you can't stop Blood Bond, so the game ends in a draw.)
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
Basically, I swung him every turn, activated vault in response to Hellrider triggers, and gained about 150 life each attack step after a few turns of this (and topdecked token generators and such). I eventually topedcked my Sorin and defended him until I ulted and killed the wurm to win the game. I ended the game at about 1500 life.
After that I put a few Serra Avatars in to end games before they get to that point.
It didn't always hit gigantic amounts of life, but it would frequently go to 40+ life and just stay there no matter what your opponent did.
It's the only deck I've ever played where the default strategy was winning game 1, not even finishing game 2, and just winning when time got called.
EDH:
UBGThe MimeoplasmUBG
That's definitely the way to do it without going infinite. Its ridiculous. Add True Conviction for more hilarity.
Back in Mirrodin Innistrad standard, I got upwards of 190 life through a Wurmcoil Engine and a Kessig Wolf Run against an opponent that was making a ton of blockers.
I also got to somewhere around 800 with Omnath. But I also have well over 1000 mana and 3/3 insect tokens.
Highest I would go since I didn't want to either use very inelegant but probably gramatically correct [if not mathematically correct] stuff like "billion googolplexian," "billion trillion googolplexian," etc, or enter the territory of Graham's Number and other sorts of mathematical silliness.
Basalt Monolith+Power Artifact combo. Classic, though I want to find ... WTF were they, the cards that let me go infinite mana, but used only artifacts to pull it off, making it deck-color[s]-independent?
Once i got my pieces out, i could proliferate enough to make an avatar token at least every other turn.
This was during scars block. And now that trostani exists, i'm considering putting it back together for the lolz.
In standard one month ago, I'm running True Blood again, this time with 3Blood Baron of Vizkopa in place of Exquisite Blood, Cathars' Crusade, and one Vampire Nighthawk. I was up against Bant Hexproof. My opponent had a slow start while I had drawn my god hand for life gaining, 3 Shock lands, 1 Stromkirk Captain, 1 Rhox Faithmender, 1 Tithe Drinker, and 1 Blood Baron. Turn 1 Shock land, Turn 2 Check land play Tithe Drinker, Turn 3 Shock myself, play Captain, swing with Drinker, Turn 4 Shock myself again, play Rhox, and swing with Drinker again, Turn 5 play Check land, play Blood Baron, Swing with Drinker again. By Turn 5 my opponent was racing to keep my life in check with Invisible Stalker enchanted with Gift of Orzhova, Spectral Flight and Ethereal Armor. Turn 6, Play Shock land tapped,play Rhox + Extort, and swing with Blood Baron. From 6 onward, my opponent slapped on another Ethereal Armor and kept swinging while I was hoping to get my 3rd Rhox out(never happened) and just kept swinging with my Blood Baron. Eventually he gave up when I was at 101 life. He was waiting for a Silverblade Paladin to soul bond to his Stalker. It was his next turn.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
If you make a really large (like a couple hundred), but not infinite amount of mana, say through having about 30 elves, an elvish archdruid, a doubling cube a gaea's cradle and a priest of titania plus some lands, and give your chameleon colossus lifelink somehow.
Btw, it is possible for players to reach an arbitrarily large life total.
SURPRISE
While not a high life total, it still involved a lot of life gain. During the M13 prerelease myself and another person had some strong lifelink creatures and extort. We were each gaining 15 or so life per turn and maybe doing 14 to each other. When tallied up at the end of the game, we each did well over 800 damage to each other.
I have only been playing 2 years. And I just recently achieved my highest life total with a deck I made myself. I dont spend time researching epic combos or things of the like as I dont have time. Im a very casual player. I just had what I considered to be a very good moment for a newer player and I thought I would share it. Under no circumstances did I believe my experience was exceptional. Just entertaining for people to read about. Which is why I wanted to hear other experiences. Please do not return to this thread if you are just going to bash a casual player...
GGDWG
GWGW HexproofWG
RUIzzet MidrangeUR
WUBRGChromanticore, it had to be doneGRBUW
That awkward moment when you cast your 4th Banisher Priest
I don't think anyone is "bashing casual players". I'm casual as heck and I understand that "infinite" combos are pretty easy to accomplish in Magic.
Boros Reckoner + Boros Charm + Loxodon Warhammer is a personal favorite of mine.
After activating Chameleon Colossus' ability N times, its final P/T is equal to (X * 2^N), where X is its power before you begin activating the ability (it gets a bit complicated if you buff Colossus between activations). My Ezuri deck runs a metric butt-ton of elf creatures, including Priest of Titania, Elvish Archdruid, Wirewood Channeler, and Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary. Plus, means to untap creatures: Quirion Ranger, Scryb Ranger, Seeker of Skybreak, Thousand-Year Elixir, Wirewood Symbiote (and Staff of Domination, but that goes infinite). Plus Llanowar Druid to untap my forests, and Vernal Bloom to double my forests. 172 mana is not unreasonable for me without touching infinite, and that equates to 43 activations of Chameleon Colossus. With a lord effect in play (such as Elvish Archdruid), that means 5 * 2^43, or 43980465111040.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
I kind of want to run an Opalescence + Doubling Season + Followed Footsteps + Soul Warden combo for occasions like this, since that combo will gain more life (and do more damage) in 6-7 turns than the vast majority of players will ever specify when they gain "infinite" life, as it is somewhat mathematically awkward to express numbers that high (it is larger than any number you can write with scientific notation; you have to use power towers, chained arrow notation, recursive function notation or some other way of specifying numbers to represent numbers bigger than that). Also, using a non-infinite combo to kill people who gain infinite life but don't choose a high enough number is fun.
- Willy Wonka
The Quote function doesn't work for me on this forum. Sorry for any confusion created.
Still waiting to see the Necropotence, Children of Korlis, Enduring Renewal combo in my Ghost Council EDH deck... Might break the record once that's finally assembled.
At that point I just populated them a bunch and was unable to attack my opponent due to him activating an ultimate ability on Ajani, Caller of the Pride so I was forced to just gain a crap ton of life and extend my board/
Feel free to bid on my cards here!
Casual B/W Exalted Lifelink deck. Vampire Nighthawk, enchanted with Angelic Destiny, plus Sublime Archangel and a few Ajani's Pridemates and a couple other exalted creatures.
Signature and Avatar by Inkfox Aesthetics
You can also just add some variant of Soul Warden to your Ghave, Guru of Spores EDH deck; you're almost guaranteed to have an infinite creature combo or ten in there already, even if you didn't plan it that way.
For those interested, my basic Ghave infinite combo uses
Ghave, Guru of Spores
Earthcraft
Cathars' Crusade
for infinite saprolings.
But each one of those is 1 life with Suture Priest or Trostani, Selesnya's Voice out. (2 in the case of Trostani.) With Doubling Season, Parallel Lives, Mana Reflection, or Fertile Ground, it becomes infinite mana. With Aura Shards, Mind Slash, and the Grave Pact package, you're now playing Stax.
The current Standard allows for Boros Reckoner, Azorius Charm, and Boros Charm. All you need to do is have a direct damage spell ready. Give the Reckoner lifelink and indestructible, then use direct damage on him. Infinite life, and you get to hit your opponent for whatever the spell did. (I already miss Curse of Bloodletting, which would make this infinite damage too.)
(I'm not counting Exquisite Blood/Sanguine Bond, thank you very much. Your opponent tends to die, so it's not infinite. On the flip side, if your opponent has Platinum Angel or Phyrexian Unlife, you can't stop Blood Bond, so the game ends in a draw.)
On phasing: