1. 6-0, I T2 seal your Call, T4 Vessel your Wurm and kill you with Nix.
2. 0-6, don't quite have enough permanents to fight through the braids on my play.
3. I'm pleased with my flex spot choice, Seal of Cleansing. Thought there'd be at least one Squirrel Nest deck and some BB decks, but it incidentally hit a bunch of other enchantments.
4. 6-0, I burst out laughing at your analysis.
5. 2-2. Hey, vessel is MY tech! I have no way of casting Nix, so I just drop Seal on T2 to blow up Myth Realized whenever that drops.
The other deck I considered was Devoted Druid//Vizier of Remedies//Rhonas, but I thought there'd be more creature killing going on and went with the Nix+Vessel runback.
I vote to ban Depths from that challenge (and most fast mana challenges), Depths Combo+two Turn Zero flexible disruption pieces (of 3-5 mana) seems really strong.
Hoo boy, some complicated matchups for me this round.
3 | 3 6 X 6 6 6 3 6 | 34
1. 3-3. On my play I get everything out on my turn 2 and force you to Venser the Reservoir in response to my Elixir crack. At that point you can't deny me 4 mana, and I just recast Reservoir and win with 103 life. On the draw you can keep me off 4 mana and eventually Capsize lock me. Should've ran Exploration over Sol Ring!
2. 6-0. You Sorin on T3. On the play I go under Sorin. On the draw I cast everything by turn 2, then in response to Sorin's -3 I pay 50 life to kill the Sorin, then I start gaining life with elixir and eventually kill you.
3. X. I was a dumb dumb and thought you could force T2 draws with Reservoir, so I was super excited about this deck and thought it'd be half the meta. I was considering running ancient grudge over the elixir for the mirror/pithing needle, dodged that self-inflicted bullet!
4. 6-0. I play out Sol Ring + Elixir T1, you play Anvil T2. I discard Reservoir and crack Elixir (replayed off Sol Ring if bounced by Chain), putting Res+Elixir into my library. Each turn I draw both cards because of anvil (It's not actually "Discard a card each turn"!), then discard Reservoir and crack elixir, putting both cards back in the library. I repeat this process until I can cast Res with lands, at which point I discard Elixir instead and kill you. Also wow Exploration is straight better than Sol Ring when you don't need 2 mana on T1, I'll need to keep it in mind.
5. 6-0. Kozilek comes down turn 2. On the play I ignore it and kill you. On the draw, I shoot it down with a t2 reservoir activation, but it returns to your hand. On my T3, I crack elixir upkeep for 5 life, then draw and recrack the Elixir. I gain 11 life on T3 and 6 life each turn after, so on T10 I've gained 11 + 6*7 = 53 life and kill you before you attack with Kozi on T11.
6. 6-0. On the play I go under the KCommand. On the draw I play Elixir T1 and wait for your T3. If you play frog I crack
elixir, then go Sol Ring into Reservoir and kill you. If you play KKcommand I crack Elixir and discard Sol Ring. KCommand goes back to your hand on T5 (frog returns it to library, not hand!), but I kill you on my T4 with Reservoir.
7. 3-3. On the play I go under Mana Drain, on the draw I don't and can't get the reservoir back quickly enough.
8. 6-0. On the play I go under the Mana Drain. On the draw, note that you have to play two Islands on Turn 1 and Turn 2 to cast mana drain on my T2 Reservoir. So you can't cast mentor until turn 3, and while you can cast Legacy Weapon on turn 3 you can't assemble the rainbow activate it until turn 6. Meanwhile I crack Elixir at the start of turn 3 and shuffle elixir+reservoir back into the deck, redraw Elixir T3, then draw reservoir T4 and kill you with it.
Did anyone consider Glorious End, it's literal 3 mana Time Stop if you can only lose the game with 0 or less life!
Skerry would have let you play a utility land and shielded your deck against Encroaching Wastes (running out the utility land instead of Wolf Run on T2). Had you forseen the Vorn decks, Karakas+combo would have 6-0'd everyone except me. Your deck is still awesome though, and actually swept on the play.
4) ?? Lumbering falls stonewalls procession, but City-Tree spits out dudes early, and replaces the ones that die to blocks. I think I lose.
Oh durr. I assumed you could Winged Temple the Lumbering Falls, but you don't have the mana for that.
In that case I 6-0. I hold up mana on your turn, if you try to activate mutavault I exile it, if you activate Lumbering Falls I make a saproling end step. I take two Lumbering Falls hits to stick two saprolings on the board. Then if you attack with Falls I chump and replace the chumper end step, then attack with the other saproling for 1. If you don't attack I make a saproling, eventually amassing 22 1/1s and winning that way.
For reference, I drop Procession on Turn 2 (can't cast it off gilded lotus, sadly) and can activate it on turn 3.
1. 3-3. How does your deck work lol. I see. Fortunately for me, your combo is a T4 kill since you can't make triple blue mana on T3 without tapping the wolf-run. So I procession a combo piece on T3 and win. DERP, Architect can tap itself. Alright in that case I snipe piki on the play and lose on the draw.
2. 6-0. I don't actually tap my land on my second turn, so I'm not slowed down and hit the Vorn on T3 after taking 8/16 damage.
3. 0-6 How dare you play LD in a basically mono-land format.
4. X
5. 6-0, I have procession up in time to stop the flip+kill on turn 4.
6. 6-0, damn you hexproof. Wait you can't activate winged temple and attack with lumbering falls. I hold up mana on your turn, if you try to activate mutavault I exile it, if you activate Lumbering Falls I make a saproling end step. I take two Lumbering Falls hits to stick two saprolings on the board. If you attack with Falls I chump and replace the chumper end step, then attack with the other saproling for 1. If you don't attack I make a saproling, eventually amassing 22 1/1s and winning that way.
7. 6-0. I eventually hit birds and hierach and pick off whatever straggling vampires are left (note that Procession flips with 3 CARDS, I can exile as many tokens as I want). You don't goldfish nearly fast enough to stop me.
8. 6-0, See #2, Mycon doesn't end up relevant quickly enough.
I spent a fair amount of time getting this deck to work, as Mogg can attest to. The crucial thing was being able to win or advance the game while leaving Procession mana open, otherwise I'd just draw a bunch of games either running into manlands or dying on the crackback. I went through several Dreadship Reef+Celestial Colonnade variants looking for something that could drop Procession early enough (earliest activation I got was T4), before doing a gatherer search for "create"/"damage"/"lose life" and finding the City-Tree. I spent a bit more time seeing if I could get a turn 2 activation, but didn't find one.
Also I expected the fatty decks to use Morselhoarder. It only uses two lotuses, so you get two flex spots to cover various bases or set up T3 kills (Mutavault, x2 Cathedral of War, Hadana's Climb). I was gonna run Lotus//Lotus//Morselhoarder//Mutavault//Cathedral of War if I couldn't figure out the Procession deck.
Well we're coming up on the deadline. Of the two unchecked decks, I think #2 and #10 are the remaining gold contenders. Their tentative rows (I never trust my evaluations of other people's decks):
2 | 6 X 0 3 6 0 3 0 6 6 | 28
1. 6-0, doomfall answers scoundrels but affliction outraces BB pretty easily.
2. X
3. 0-6, see messenger analysis.
4. 3-3. On Mogg's play, Scoundrel deals 16 (4 damage each over 3+4+5+6) and affliction deals 3 on T7 once the Sorin drops, so Mogg wins with 1 life remaining.
5. 6-0, the threats slip under vessel and kill long before Nixilis is relevant.
6. 0-6, see messenger analysis.
7. 3-3, see #7's row.
8. 0-6, see #8's row.
9. 6-0, completely outraces.
10. 6-0. Scoundrels outpressures BB super hard, Scoundel does 8-12 by the time BB has enough fairies to block, and fairies is taking 4 a turn on top of that.
10 | 6 0 0 0 6 0 6 6 6 0 | 30
1. 6-0, Affliction OP.
2. 0-6. Scoundrel outpressures BB super hard.
3. 0-6, see messenger analysis.
4. 0-6, BB isn't even close to fast enough, and affliction only does one chunk of 3.
5. 6-0, the threats slip under vessel and kill long before Nixilis is relevant.
6. 0-6, see messenger analysis.
7. 6-0, see #7's row.
8. 6-0, see #8's row, affliction OP.
9. 6-0, Affliction OP.
10. X
So it looks like I got there, barring my screwup or a mistake in the (complicated) messenger analysis.
EDIT: Wait Mogg gained 8 points on the messenger matchups, he might have pulled ahead.
The whole joke is you always cast BSZ after combat to get an EtB trigger. And if it triggered undying, you could alternate between 6 and 5 damage a turn. But without, you alternate between 5 damage (3 power attack, BSZ to kill and get a trigger) and 4 damage (4 power attack, BSZ for 1 afterwards).
Ah by the by, if you BSZ a Geralf's Messenger with a +1/+1 counter on it it will NOT come back (see here). Were the Messenger matchups done with that in mind?
Also this tripped me up, a triggered mana producing ability is a mana ability only if it triggers off an activated mana ability. So stuff like Burning Tree Emissary is no-go.
1. 0-6. BB always beats solo nixilis, sadly. At the end of T5 we're both at 17, you have two fairies (one untapped) and I have a Demon, I'm moving first. I start attacking with Demon. You let an attack through, go to 12, then start swinging with two fairies a turn and chumping with the spawning one. I'm on a 9 turn clock, you're on a 12 turn clock.
2. 0-6 Oh damn, that card gets way better in 2CH doesn't it.
3. 6-0 On play I strip both cards, on draw I strip BSZ and block with a demon twice.
4. 6-0 vessel'd.
5. X
6. 6-0, see #3.
7. 6-0 I t4 my Vessel, your one zombie doesn't do it.
8. 6-0, T4 my vessel and win.
9. 3-3, On my play I strip your 3 drop in time, on the draw I don't.
10. 0-6 That is REAL hard to beat.
M25 is a limited print run, and iirc those have almost always sold out. If M25 was gonna sell out regardless, unbanning JtmS won't actually increase the overall sales (for WotC) of the product. Better for the LGSs though.
Oh man, you guys went way spikier this week than I thought you would.
4 | 0 ? 0 X ? 0 0 0 | 0
1. 0-6. Land locked.
2. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
3. 0-6. Land locked.
4. X
5. On my play, if you play Sol Ring -> Oath I KKcommand the PW out of your hand then steal Oath next turn, same if you Sol Ring and hold. If you don't Sol Ring. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
6. 0-6. You obviously win on your play. On your draw I hold KKcommand for witness, but you just wait to protect Witness with Echoing Truth.
7. 0-6. Damn pro blue.
8. 0-6. I try to steal Legion's Landing, you counter, attack with 3 things to flip legion's landing, then play venser and land lock me.
1. 6-0, I T2 seal your Call, T4 Vessel your Wurm and kill you with Nix.
2. 0-6, don't quite have enough permanents to fight through the braids on my play.
3. I'm pleased with my flex spot choice, Seal of Cleansing. Thought there'd be at least one Squirrel Nest deck and some BB decks, but it incidentally hit a bunch of other enchantments.
4. 6-0, I burst out laughing at your analysis.
5. 2-2. Hey, vessel is MY tech! I have no way of casting Nix, so I just drop Seal on T2 to blow up Myth Realized whenever that drops.
The other deck I considered was Devoted Druid//Vizier of Remedies//Rhonas, but I thought there'd be more creature killing going on and went with the Nix+Vessel runback.
3 | 3 6 X 6 6 6 3 6 | 34
1. 3-3. On my play I get everything out on my turn 2 and force you to Venser the Reservoir in response to my Elixir crack. At that point you can't deny me 4 mana, and I just recast Reservoir and win with 103 life. On the draw you can keep me off 4 mana and eventually Capsize lock me. Should've ran Exploration over Sol Ring!
2. 6-0. You Sorin on T3. On the play I go under Sorin. On the draw I cast everything by turn 2, then in response to Sorin's -3 I pay 50 life to kill the Sorin, then I start gaining life with elixir and eventually kill you.
3. X. I was a dumb dumb and thought you could force T2 draws with Reservoir, so I was super excited about this deck and thought it'd be half the meta. I was considering running ancient grudge over the elixir for the mirror/pithing needle, dodged that self-inflicted bullet!
4. 6-0. I play out Sol Ring + Elixir T1, you play Anvil T2. I discard Reservoir and crack Elixir (replayed off Sol Ring if bounced by Chain), putting Res+Elixir into my library. Each turn I draw both cards because of anvil (It's not actually "Discard a card each turn"!), then discard Reservoir and crack elixir, putting both cards back in the library. I repeat this process until I can cast Res with lands, at which point I discard Elixir instead and kill you. Also wow Exploration is straight better than Sol Ring when you don't need 2 mana on T1, I'll need to keep it in mind.
5. 6-0. Kozilek comes down turn 2. On the play I ignore it and kill you. On the draw, I shoot it down with a t2 reservoir activation, but it returns to your hand. On my T3, I crack elixir upkeep for 5 life, then draw and recrack the Elixir. I gain 11 life on T3 and 6 life each turn after, so on T10 I've gained 11 + 6*7 = 53 life and kill you before you attack with Kozi on T11.
6. 6-0. On the play I go under the KCommand. On the draw I play Elixir T1 and wait for your T3. If you play frog I crack
elixir, then go Sol Ring into Reservoir and kill you. If you play KKcommand I crack Elixir and discard Sol Ring. KCommand goes back to your hand on T5 (frog returns it to library, not hand!), but I kill you on my T4 with Reservoir.
7. 3-3. On the play I go under Mana Drain, on the draw I don't and can't get the reservoir back quickly enough.
8. 6-0. On the play I go under the Mana Drain. On the draw, note that you have to play two Islands on Turn 1 and Turn 2 to cast mana drain on my T2 Reservoir. So you can't cast mentor until turn 3, and while you can cast Legacy Weapon on turn 3 you can't
assemble the rainbowactivate it until turn 6. Meanwhile I crack Elixir at the start of turn 3 and shuffle elixir+reservoir back into the deck, redraw Elixir T3, then draw reservoir T4 and kill you with it.Did anyone consider Glorious End, it's literal 3 mana Time Stop if you can only lose the game with 0 or less life!
Oh durr. I assumed you could Winged Temple the Lumbering Falls, but you don't have the mana for that.
In that case I 6-0. I hold up mana on your turn, if you try to activate mutavault I exile it, if you activate Lumbering Falls I make a saproling end step. I take two Lumbering Falls hits to stick two saprolings on the board. Then if you attack with Falls I chump and replace the chumper end step, then attack with the other saproling for 1. If you don't attack I make a saproling, eventually amassing 22 1/1s and winning that way.
For reference, I drop Procession on Turn 2 (can't cast it off gilded lotus, sadly) and can activate it on turn 3.
1. 3-3.
How does your deck work lol.I see.Fortunately for me, your combo is a T4 kill since you can't make triple blue mana on T3 without tapping the wolf-run. So I procession a combo piece on T3 and win.DERP, Architect can tap itself. Alright in that case I snipe piki on the play and lose on the draw.2. 6-0. I don't actually tap my land on my second turn, so I'm not slowed down and hit the Vorn on T3 after taking 8/16 damage.
3. 0-6 How dare you play LD in a basically mono-land format.
4. X
5. 6-0, I have procession up in time to stop the flip+kill on turn 4.
6. 6-0,
damn you hexproof.Wait you can't activate winged temple and attack with lumbering falls. I hold up mana on your turn, if you try to activate mutavault I exile it, if you activate Lumbering Falls I make a saproling end step. I take two Lumbering Falls hits to stick two saprolings on the board. If you attack with Falls I chump and replace the chumper end step, then attack with the other saproling for 1. If you don't attack I make a saproling, eventually amassing 22 1/1s and winning that way.7. 6-0. I eventually hit birds and hierach and pick off whatever straggling vampires are left (note that Procession flips with 3 CARDS, I can exile as many tokens as I want). You don't goldfish nearly fast enough to stop me.
8. 6-0, See #2, Mycon doesn't end up relevant quickly enough.
I spent a fair amount of time getting this deck to work, as Mogg can attest to. The crucial thing was being able to win or advance the game while leaving Procession mana open, otherwise I'd just draw a bunch of games either running into manlands or dying on the crackback. I went through several Dreadship Reef+Celestial Colonnade variants looking for something that could drop Procession early enough (earliest activation I got was T4), before doing a gatherer search for "create"/"damage"/"lose life" and finding the City-Tree. I spent a bit more time seeing if I could get a turn 2 activation, but didn't find one.
Also I expected the fatty decks to use Morselhoarder. It only uses two lotuses, so you get two flex spots to cover various bases or set up T3 kills (Mutavault, x2 Cathedral of War, Hadana's Climb). I was gonna run Lotus//Lotus//Morselhoarder//Mutavault//Cathedral of War if I couldn't figure out the Procession deck.
2 | 6 X 0 3 6 0 3 0 6 6 | 28
1. 6-0, doomfall answers scoundrels but affliction outraces BB pretty easily.
2. X
3. 0-6, see messenger analysis.
4. 3-3. On Mogg's play, Scoundrel deals 16 (4 damage each over 3+4+5+6) and affliction deals 3 on T7 once the Sorin drops, so Mogg wins with 1 life remaining.
5. 6-0, the threats slip under vessel and kill long before Nixilis is relevant.
6. 0-6, see messenger analysis.
7. 3-3, see #7's row.
8. 0-6, see #8's row.
9. 6-0, completely outraces.
10. 6-0. Scoundrels outpressures BB super hard, Scoundel does 8-12 by the time BB has enough fairies to block, and fairies is taking 4 a turn on top of that.
10 | 6 0 0 0 6 0 6 6 6 0 | 30
1. 6-0, Affliction OP.
2. 0-6. Scoundrel outpressures BB super hard.
3. 0-6, see messenger analysis.
4. 0-6, BB isn't even close to fast enough, and affliction only does one chunk of 3.
5. 6-0, the threats slip under vessel and kill long before Nixilis is relevant.
6. 0-6, see messenger analysis.
7. 6-0, see #7's row.
8. 6-0, see #8's row, affliction OP.
9. 6-0, Affliction OP.
10. X
So it looks like I got there, barring my screwup or a mistake in the (complicated) messenger analysis.
EDIT: Wait Mogg gained 8 points on the messenger matchups, he might have pulled ahead.
Also this tripped me up, a triggered mana producing ability is a mana ability only if it triggers off an activated mana ability. So stuff like Burning Tree Emissary is no-go.
1. 0-6. BB always beats solo nixilis, sadly. At the end of T5 we're both at 17, you have two fairies (one untapped) and I have a Demon, I'm moving first. I start attacking with Demon. You let an attack through, go to 12, then start swinging with two fairies a turn and chumping with the spawning one. I'm on a 9 turn clock, you're on a 12 turn clock.
2. 0-6 Oh damn, that card gets way better in 2CH doesn't it.
3. 6-0 On play I strip both cards, on draw I strip BSZ and block with a demon twice.
4. 6-0 vessel'd.
5. X
6. 6-0, see #3.
7. 6-0 I t4 my Vessel, your one zombie doesn't do it.
8. 6-0, T4 my vessel and win.
9. 3-3, On my play I strip your 3 drop in time, on the draw I don't.
10. 0-6 That is REAL hard to beat.
4 | 0 ? 0 X ? 0 0 0 | 0
1. 0-6. Land locked.
2. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
3. 0-6. Land locked.
4. X
5. On my play, if you play Sol Ring -> Oath I KKcommand the PW out of your hand then steal Oath next turn, same if you Sol Ring and hold. If you don't Sol Ring. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
6. 0-6. You obviously win on your play. On your draw I hold KKcommand for witness, but you just wait to protect Witness with Echoing Truth.
7. 0-6. Damn pro blue.
8. 0-6. I try to steal Legion's Landing, you counter, attack with 3 things to flip legion's landing, then play venser and land lock me.