The Prossh player eliminated the Angus player and then the game went on for a while.
The Prossh player had Razaketh, the Foulblooded out along with Prossh and a fair amount of mana source. The Kruphix player had a number of cards in hand and lands. I had a Sensei's Divining Top and a few creatures.
I forgot to top during the Prossh player's end up. I thought about doing it during my upkeep, but decided to just draw a random card.
I had just enough mana to cast it, but the Kruphix player seems ready. They were at only 20 life and I had 12 power in creatures, so I attacked in an attempt to bait out a response.
Last night the table let me do silly things with my Thrasios & Tarl (TnT) deck.
It was a four-player game that had gone for a little while. I cast Regal Behemoth and incredibly was still the monarch on my next turn. I had 19 mana available. I cast Rite of Replication on Regal Behemoth.
It resolved!
My lands tapped for 7 mana each! I cast Sundering Growth for another Behemoth, though I actually forget about that one. Despite that error, thanks to Early Harvest I still had an absurd amount of mana. I cast Thrasios for four and started digging.
After hitting Wild Ricochet and Aurelia's Fury, I stopped to calculate. Assuming my lands tapped for 7 each instead of the 8 they should have, I nonetheless was able to Fury for 69 and copy it, burning out my opponents.
Last night I managed to win a three-player pod with a Vraska the Unseen ultimate! I was playing my new no-search-no-shuffle Xira Arien deck. I cast Vraska turn four. The Atraxa, Praetors' Voice player had the only opposing creature on the field, Vorel of the Hull Clade. Vorel refrain from charging into the Vraska plus. Atraxa came out soon, but also refrained from attacking because of the destroy trigger.
I got out Kamahl, Pit Fighter and Vhati il-Dal, which proved invaluable. I ulted for Vraska Assassins. The Adriana, Captain of the Guard player cast Chained to the Rocks to remove one Assassin. The Atraxa tried to equip Atraxa with something that gave regeneration. I responded with the double team from Kamahl and Vhati, killing Atraxa. The Atraxa player passed the turn with only one blocker, so the Assassins got in there and one's ability triggered.
The Adriana player had Tajic, Blade of the Legion and Angel of Jubilation. He attacked me with Tajic and cast Sun Titan. I tapped Kamahl to kill the Angel, untapped, and tapped Kamahl and Vhati to kill the Titan. This left the Adriana player with no blockers and the single remaining Assassin got in there.
Sometimes hating on the combo player just enables a second combo player. The other night an infamous local combo Riku of Two Reflections deck served as a master decoy for my Kruphix deck. The table allowed me to ramp unhindered while directing most aggro at the Riku player. Early in the game I cast Intuition for three green sources. Later, with Kruphix out, 5ish mana floating, and tons of lands, I returned Intuition with Recollect and passed the turn. Despite this obvious threat, still only one player swung creatures at me before I untapped. I don't think it would have mattered at that point, as I had a stacked hand that included Cyclonic Rift, but the table graciously let me end-step Intuition for Noxious Revival, Regrowth, and Time Stretch without opposition.
I untapped, drew Time Stretch, cast it, and copied it twice. The table wanted to scoop. I revealed Blue Sun's Zenith, making it deterministic.
Let's just say I learned about the Sram jam. Countering Aetherflux Reservoir and nuking yards with Relic of Progenitus wasn't enough. Comboing off took forever, so one player conveniently scooped, allowing the Sram player to kill the remaining of two of us with attacks via Monastery Mentor and haste equipment.
On my turn, I floated 100 green manage, used Fathom Mage to draw a few cards. I think used Vorel to get up to 8 charge counters on Shrine of Piercing Vision. With 80ish mana floating, guess what I found?
I cast it for most of my deck, leaving 5 cards to play around Stroke of Genius, which the Ruhan player happened to have in hand. The table scooped because I had various ways to win from there.
A few weeks ago, I was playing my Marath deck against a Prossh, Skyraider of Kher stax deck and a few other opponents. The game had gone on for a while but the Prossh player had finally dropped a Winter Orb and had Earthcraft and a bunch of tokens. The Prossh player opted to kill me last because I wasn't doing too much. However, I did draw The Great Aurora. I decided that was my line. On the turn before the Prossh player was going to send lethal my way, I cast The Great Aurora. I then strung together enough spells to get a ton of land and Glacial Crevasses down. I passed, assuming I was dead.
I wasn't dead. The Prossh player couldn't push any damage through my Fog effect. We went back and forth for a few turns and I managed to burn the Prossh player out with Aurelia's Fury plus Fork. He had Goblin Bombardment in hand but was one short of my life total.
Rafiq got off to a quick start while I and Progenitus player had mana issues. Leovold came down briefly. I wiped the board on turn six with Akroma's Vengeance. Medomai the Ageless and Rafiq teamed up to give the Rafiq player two extra turns. He used those to kill the Leovold player with Berserk. The Progenitus player got out Avacyn, Angel of Hope and Brago, King Eternal.
I cast Selenia and Soul Echo for one. The Rafiq player attacked me with Medomai. Selenia blocked and got activated eleven times to reduce me to zero life. The Progenitus player realized what was up. He untapped and cast Iona, Shield of Emeria, agonizing over which color to name. He ended up naming white.
The Kozilek player got a decent start, in particular ramping with Oblivion Sower by taking my lands. He eventually had more of my lands than I did! I built up a few times but got kept in check by sweepers and spot removal. Various Eldrazi appear and attacked. The Progenitus player tried to build up planeswalkers but also suffered from the sweepers.
Eventually, the Kozilek seemed to be in the dominant position. The Kruphix player had a bunch of mana floating but no hand because of his turn being controlled by the Kozilek player via Emrakul, the Promised End. The Progenitus player had a Silent Arbiter out, making it harder for the Kozilek player to murder us with Eldrazi.
It was late the game seemed effectively over. The Kozilek player misplayed and attacked me player with Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre instead of with Emrakul, letting me block and survive. I had ten mana from countering Kozilek, the Great Distortion with Plasm Capture, as well as Vorel on the battlefield equipped with Swiftfoot Boots and Illusionist's Bracers. I cast Altered Ego and had a copy of Emrakul enter with nine +1/+1 counters. Because of the Boots, it attacked the Kozilek player and then grew to 49/49 after a Vorel activation, killing the Kozilek player despite the original Emrakul blocking.
I couldn't believe I'd managed to take out the player who been dominating for the whole game. He attacked me with annihilator 4 at least three times and with Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger once.
I passed the turn and the Kruphix player untapped to topdeck a cantrip that found Walk the Aeons, which he copied with Mirari and payed the buyback cost. Because of Life from the Loam and Terrain Generator, he was then able to take sufficient turns to eliminate us with forced draw.
So in the end both the Kozilek's error and my splashy finishing move didn't do anything to change who won.
Folks were doing the typical ramping, tutoring, and other value players. I countered a Blatent Thievery from the Melek player but otherwise tried to hold back. The climax came when the Selenia player went for Grand Abolisher with a bunch of mana open.
I thought about it for a moment and decided I had to try the combo to draw into some way to stop the Grand Abolisher. I had Increasing Vengeance in case the Melek player had a counter, though thankfully that wasn't necessarily. I drew 60 cards, using Mystical Tutor to find Reset during the process. I then had exactly enough mana to cast Reset.
You got to live the dream. I always wanted to do that in my Intet, the Dreamer Dragons deck. I'll probably rebuild it next year. Maybe someday I'll be able to pull it off.
I cast Primal Command to put the Mirari's Wake to the top and reset the Sedris player's yard. The Sedris player promptly cast Keldon Firebomber, taken out four of my lands. The dragged out, and the Riku player recovered from the starting mana screw.
With Intet on the board, I went for Walk the Aeons without buyback plus Folk, but the Riku player responded with Pact of Negation.
The Riku player scoops. The Sedris player kept the Horde player from killing everybody.
The Horde kept on casting Horde and Maelstrom Wanderer. The Sedris player kept bouncing everything. At length, the Sedris player goes for the Worldgorger Dragon combo. I respond with a Chaos Warp off a Pyromancer's Goggles. The Sedris play casts Intuition but realizes he didn't put enough blue in his pool when he floated mana. He can't stop the Chaos Warps and scoops. The Horde player keeps making fatties.
The Derevi players responds by activating the Elixir of Immortality the I overlooked and gaining enough life to win. Then the Derevi player combos off with Rasputin Dreamweaver and Eldrazi Displacer, though he had me dead to attacks anyway.
The second was my Intet deck versus Horde of Notions, Progenitus, and Karlov of the Ghost Council. The Horde player had cast Avenger of Zendikar with Doubling Season out and then cast Second Harvest. So he had forty-eight 4/5 Plant tokens. The Karlov player cast Knight-Captain of Eos and left three Plains untapped. I had a Dragon attack that could have killed the Horde player. I ask the Karlov player if he would fog me. He said he would. I passed the turn. The Progenitus player cast Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and the Karlov player cast Lapse of Certainty, taping out to do so and leaving himself dead to the Horde player's horde. The Horde player proceeded to win, making the Plants even bigger and attack us for over 700 damage total.
Last night in game where I was playing my Intet deck against a Selenia, Dark Angel deck and a Feldon of the Third Path deck, I cast Warp World on turn seven in order to stop the Selenia player from lifeswapping somebody down to 1 (or lower). The Warp World wasn't great for me but it wasn't bad either. I quickly built up a board that included a Dragon Broodmother.
So the Selenia player went down to 10 and received another turn. He swept my creatures away with Austere Command, but Xenagos, God of Revels stuck around and I just cast Intet and swung in for 12.
That amuses me greatly. Reminds me of a game a few years back, where the player to my left (turn immediately after mine) cast Pact of Negation targeting something another opponent did, while I had a dominant board position and Armageddon in hand. Good times.
Yeah, it was entertaining. A potentially better play would have been Fork the Violent Ultimatum in response to the first Jace's Archivist activation, targeting the Riku player's three blue sources. That would have presumably prevented the Pact of Negation line. I opted to keep more mana open in the hopes that I would draw into something worthwhile.
I am curious who was playing Kruphix though - Glen?
Brandon. Does Glen's Kruphix also run Forced Fruition and Jace's Archivist? Those cards ain't easy to get to work right, but it's cool when they do.
The Prossh player eliminated the Angus player and then the game went on for a while.
The Prossh player had Razaketh, the Foulblooded out along with Prossh and a fair amount of mana source. The Kruphix player had a number of cards in hand and lands. I had a Sensei's Divining Top and a few creatures.
I forgot to top during the Prossh player's end up. I thought about doing it during my upkeep, but decided to just draw a random card.
Primal Surge!
I had just enough mana to cast it, but the Kruphix player seems ready. They were at only 20 life and I had 12 power in creatures, so I attacked in an attempt to bait out a response.
It worked! The Kruphix player activated Alchemist's Refuge, cast Deep Analysis, and then cast Crush of Tentacles.
In my second main, I jammed Primal Surge, flipped my deck on the field, and won with Dragon Tempest and Scourge of Valkas triggers.
It was a four-player game that had gone for a little while. I cast Regal Behemoth and incredibly was still the monarch on my next turn. I had 19 mana available. I cast Rite of Replication on Regal Behemoth.
It resolved!
My lands tapped for 7 mana each! I cast Sundering Growth for another Behemoth, though I actually forget about that one. Despite that error, thanks to Early Harvest I still had an absurd amount of mana. I cast Thrasios for four and started digging.
After hitting Wild Ricochet and Aurelia's Fury, I stopped to calculate. Assuming my lands tapped for 7 each instead of the 8 they should have, I nonetheless was able to Fury for 69 and copy it, burning out my opponents.
I got out Kamahl, Pit Fighter and Vhati il-Dal, which proved invaluable. I ulted for Vraska Assassins. The Adriana, Captain of the Guard player cast Chained to the Rocks to remove one Assassin. The Atraxa tried to equip Atraxa with something that gave regeneration. I responded with the double team from Kamahl and Vhati, killing Atraxa. The Atraxa player passed the turn with only one blocker, so the Assassins got in there and one's ability triggered.
The Adriana player had Tajic, Blade of the Legion and Angel of Jubilation. He attacked me with Tajic and cast Sun Titan. I tapped Kamahl to kill the Angel, untapped, and tapped Kamahl and Vhati to kill the Titan. This left the Adriana player with no blockers and the single remaining Assassin got in there.
I untapped, drew Time Stretch, cast it, and copied it twice. The table wanted to scoop. I revealed Blue Sun's Zenith, making it deterministic.
Remember to hate on all the combo players, folks.
In other news, with my Azami deck I had the option to Thwart a Krark-Clan Ironworks against a Sram, Senior Edificer deck. I declined because I wasn't sure it was an all-in combo build and I wanted to keep my lands on the field since another player had a Strip Mine for my Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx.
Let's just say I learned about the Sram jam. Countering Aetherflux Reservoir and nuking yards with Relic of Progenitus wasn't enough. Comboing off took forever, so one player conveniently scooped, allowing the Sram player to kill the remaining of two of us with attacks via Monastery Mentor and haste equipment.
This prompted Cyclonic Rift on the Jitte, and I killed various creatures. I took 20 damage from a Puresteel Paladin thanks to Gisela, Blade of Goldnight, but Vorel got Rushwood Grove up to over 500 storage counters thanks to Awakening.
On my turn, I floated 100 green manage, used Fathom Mage to draw a few cards. I think used Vorel to get up to 8 charge counters on Shrine of Piercing Vision. With 80ish mana floating, guess what I found?
Genesis Wave.
I cast it for most of my deck, leaving 5 cards to play around Stroke of Genius, which the Ruhan player happened to have in hand. The table scooped because I had various ways to win from there.
Primal Surge is a silly card.
In another game last night, the Riku of Two Reflections player and the Yisan, the Wanderer Bard player got into a spite fight: Force of Will Yisan. Natural Order for Terastodon, blow up your lands. The Riku player ended up basically giving me the game by destroying a Static Orb and casting Starstorm to kill all the Yisan player's creatures but not my Arcanis the Omnipotent. I enabled this play with Unbender Tine to give the Riku player the required red mana to cast Starstorm. I untapped with an obscene amount of mana and comboed off.
The Riku player wanted the Yisan player to lose. I wanted to win. We both got what we wanted.
I wasn't dead. The Prossh player couldn't push any damage through my Fog effect. We went back and forth for a few turns and I managed to burn the Prossh player out with Aurelia's Fury plus Fork. He had Goblin Bombardment in hand but was one short of my life total.
Rafiq got off to a quick start while I and Progenitus player had mana issues. Leovold came down briefly. I wiped the board on turn six with Akroma's Vengeance. Medomai the Ageless and Rafiq teamed up to give the Rafiq player two extra turns. He used those to kill the Leovold player with Berserk. The Progenitus player got out Avacyn, Angel of Hope and Brago, King Eternal.
I cast Selenia and Soul Echo for one. The Rafiq player attacked me with Medomai. Selenia blocked and got activated eleven times to reduce me to zero life. The Progenitus player realized what was up. He untapped and cast Iona, Shield of Emeria, agonizing over which color to name. He ended up naming white.
I untapped and cast Repay in Kind for the win.
The Kozilek player got a decent start, in particular ramping with Oblivion Sower by taking my lands. He eventually had more of my lands than I did! I built up a few times but got kept in check by sweepers and spot removal. Various Eldrazi appear and attacked. The Progenitus player tried to build up planeswalkers but also suffered from the sweepers.
Eventually, the Kozilek seemed to be in the dominant position. The Kruphix player had a bunch of mana floating but no hand because of his turn being controlled by the Kozilek player via Emrakul, the Promised End. The Progenitus player had a Silent Arbiter out, making it harder for the Kozilek player to murder us with Eldrazi.
It was late the game seemed effectively over. The Kozilek player misplayed and attacked me player with Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre instead of with Emrakul, letting me block and survive. I had ten mana from countering Kozilek, the Great Distortion with Plasm Capture, as well as Vorel on the battlefield equipped with Swiftfoot Boots and Illusionist's Bracers. I cast Altered Ego and had a copy of Emrakul enter with nine +1/+1 counters. Because of the Boots, it attacked the Kozilek player and then grew to 49/49 after a Vorel activation, killing the Kozilek player despite the original Emrakul blocking.
I couldn't believe I'd managed to take out the player who been dominating for the whole game. He attacked me with annihilator 4 at least three times and with Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger once.
I passed the turn and the Kruphix player untapped to topdeck a cantrip that found Walk the Aeons, which he copied with Mirari and payed the buyback cost. Because of Life from the Loam and Terrain Generator, he was then able to take sufficient turns to eliminate us with forced draw.
So in the end both the Kozilek's error and my splashy finishing move didn't do anything to change who won.
It was my Intet, the Dreamer deck versus Progenitus versus Melek, Izzet Paragon versus Selenia, Dark Angel versus Child of Alara. I drew into Fire // Ice and Radiate, so I was just waiting for the right moment to pull the trigger.
Folks were doing the typical ramping, tutoring, and other value players. I countered a Blatent Thievery from the Melek player but otherwise tried to hold back. The climax came when the Selenia player went for Grand Abolisher with a bunch of mana open.
I thought about it for a moment and decided I had to try the combo to draw into some way to stop the Grand Abolisher. I had Increasing Vengeance in case the Melek player had a counter, though thankfully that wasn't necessarily. I drew 60 cards, using Mystical Tutor to find Reset during the process. I then had exactly enough mana to cast Reset.
That led to Quicken, Past in Flames, Reset plus Increasing Vengeance, and Reiterate with buyback for an arbitrary amount of mana. I eliminated the Progenitus, Melek, and Child players with Fire // Ice copied by Reiterate.
The Selenia cast Angel's Grace to survive temporarily. I countered Grand Abolisher with Forbid from my graveyard and destroyed all of the Selenia player's mana-producing permanents with Beast Within copied and bounced all the Beasts for good measure. The Selenia player had mana floating and went for Exquisite Blood plus Sanguine Bond/card]. I bounced the Exquisite Blood with the Sanguine Bond on the stack. The Selenia player cast Profane Command for 1 at my face and scooped because an his Phyrexian Arena was going to kill him next turn.
Both the Melek player and the Progenitus player said they were ready to win with Omniscience on their next turns.
You got to live the dream. I always wanted to do that in my Intet, the Dreamer Dragons deck. I'll probably rebuild it next year. Maybe someday I'll be able to pull it off.
The first was my Intet, the Dreamer (new build, spellslinger) deck vs. a Sedris, the Traitor King vs. Horde of Notions vs. Riku of Two Reflections. The game went back and forth for a while. The Riku played started out mana screwed. The Horde player got an early Mirari's Wake and the Sedris player started going nuts with Bazaar of Baghdad.
I cast Primal Command to put the Mirari's Wake to the top and reset the Sedris player's yard. The Sedris player promptly cast Keldon Firebomber, taken out four of my lands. The dragged out, and the Riku player recovered from the starting mana screw.
With Intet on the board, I went for Walk the Aeons without buyback plus Folk, but the Riku player responded with Pact of Negation.
Eventually, facing possibly game-ending shenanigans from the Sedris player, I cast a kicked Rite of Replication via Djinn of Wishes on the Horde player's Sun Titan, and managed to get Walk the Aeons back to go infinite.
In the second game, it was my Jaya Ballard, Task Mage vs. Sedris, the Traitor King vs. Horde of Notions vs. Riku of Two Reflections vs. Derevi, Empyrial Tactician. I quickly started a feud with the Derevi player by using Jaya to destroy Brago, King Eternal. Jaya got hit by Swords to Plowshares twice as retaliation. The Horde player built up to a terrifying board by casting Maelstrom Wanderer and other creatures. The Riku player tried to go off and/or deal with the board. After Intuition, the Riku player cast Firemind's Foresight. The Sedris player countered. The Riku player countered back. I targeted the Firemind's Foresight with Reiterate with buyback.
The Riku player scoops. The Sedris player kept the Horde player from killing everybody.
The Horde kept on casting Horde and Maelstrom Wanderer. The Sedris player kept bouncing everything. At length, the Sedris player goes for the Worldgorger Dragon combo. I respond with a Chaos Warp off a Pyromancer's Goggles. The Sedris play casts Intuition but realizes he didn't put enough blue in his pool when he floated mana. He can't stop the Chaos Warps and scoops. The Horde player keeps making fatties.
I find a Past in Flames and recast Grab the Reins entwined, coped twice, thus killing the Horde player with his own Consuming Aberration.
The Derevi players responds by activating the Elixir of Immortality the I overlooked and gaining enough life to win. Then the Derevi player combos off with Rasputin Dreamweaver and Eldrazi Displacer, though he had me dead to attacks anyway.
Those two games took about five hours.
In the first, it was my Xira deck against Melek, Izzet Paragon, Derevi, Empyrial Tactician, and Karlov of the Ghost Council. The game had gone back and forth. I tried to combo off with Dark Petition into Rude Awakening plus Increasing Vengeance into Treasonous Ogre into Exsanguinate for 20, flashing back Increasing Vengeance. The Melek player had Future Sight in play, an Island and two Mountains untapped, and responded with Mystical Tutor. He initially searched up his own Increasing Vengeance, which didn't work at all. After looking through his library a bit, he eventually decided on Mindbreak Trap. That got the job done. I'd gone down to 4 life but nobody bothered to finish me off immediately. I stole and ulted the Derevi player's Venser, the Sojourner but was at 2 life didn't see a way to avoid losing to the Karlov player's Cliffhaven Vampire plus various cards that gained life. The Melek player had Mizzix's Mastery on top of his library. The Karlov player had a Tormod's Crypt but sacrificed it to Trading Post or some such. He then cast Sun Titan but the Melek player saw what was going on and cast Rewind. On his turn, he cast Mizzix's Mastery and won.
The second was my Intet deck versus Horde of Notions, Progenitus, and Karlov of the Ghost Council. The Horde player had cast Avenger of Zendikar with Doubling Season out and then cast Second Harvest. So he had forty-eight 4/5 Plant tokens. The Karlov player cast Knight-Captain of Eos and left three Plains untapped. I had a Dragon attack that could have killed the Horde player. I ask the Karlov player if he would fog me. He said he would. I passed the turn. The Progenitus player cast Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and the Karlov player cast Lapse of Certainty, taping out to do so and leaving himself dead to the Horde player's horde. The Horde player proceeded to win, making the Plants even bigger and attack us for over 700 damage total.
In the third, I was playing Selenia against Krenko, Mob Boss, Progenitus, and Phenax, God of Deception. Krenko deck killed the other two players on his turn six. On my turn six, which I started at 5 life, I cast Repay in Kind and attacked for lethal.
The turn after the Feldon player cast Possibility Storm, I cast a Life from the Loam that turned into a Dragonstorm. After the storm copy resolved and I got Scourge of Valkas, the Feldon player cast a Reiterate on the Dragonstorm that turn into a Chaos Warp on the Scourge of Valkas. Dragonstorm resolved and I grapped Atarka, World Render. I attack both of my opponent for lethal. The Selenia player cast an Angel's Grace that turned into a Path to Exile on the 11/11 Dragon (from Dragon Broodmother) that was attacking him.
So the Selenia player went down to 10 and received another turn. He swept my creatures away with Austere Command, but Xenagos, God of Revels stuck around and I just cast Intet and swung in for 12.
Dragonstorm for 1G ain't bad.
Yeah, it was entertaining. A potentially better play would have been Fork the Violent Ultimatum in response to the first Jace's Archivist activation, targeting the Riku player's three blue sources. That would have presumably prevented the Pact of Negation line. I opted to keep more mana open in the hopes that I would draw into something worthwhile.
Brandon. Does Glen's Kruphix also run Forced Fruition and Jace's Archivist? Those cards ain't easy to get to work right, but it's cool when they do.