MTG Salvation

Pull from Eternity / Hedron Alignment / Hedron Alignment / Hedron Alignment / Hedron Alignment / Leyline of Sanctity

Boy I sure wish OGW was legal already.

5nerdyjoe : greatest thief in the multiverse
Dack Fayden / Pyroblast / Hooded Hydra

X | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 | PT | Points
5 | 0 0 6 6 X 6 0 6 6 6 6 6 0 2 | 50 | 384

Thanks for the great analysis of everything but 5 vs 6/8.

I'm slightly confused by your 5 vs 6/8 analysis. You have your own life increasing for no discernible reason:

t5: You Meteor Shower for 2 (17-17). we lore back digger, then incinerate. (19-14).

It looks to me like that line should end (17-14).

You may have also missed that meteor shower is 1+X damage, so all the damage is increased by 1.

Without doing any thinking of my own, a corrected line of play is:


Comes out in my favor in this line, I left my deviations using the same voice to not be confusing. We, our, us is 6/7, you, your is 5.

piato, I don't want to fight about digger mirrors either. I have nothing but appreciation and respect for everyone here. I think the easiest way is to practice a few games with paper cards, trading decks back and forth between the players and seeing what lines emerge.

1 card mirror

Basic Land rule.

When you cast a spell, each opponent may copy that spell, they may choose new targets for the copy.

When a permanent enters the battlefield, if it wasn't put into play by this trigger, each opponent may put a token copy of that permanent into play.

Non-land, non-token permanents have: T: Deal 1 damage to target player.*


*This is so that you aren't priced into fireball (which doesn't work) or creature win-cons.

I don't think this is a good format, but I want to come up with an actually interesting 1 card format.

Denial sets up a delayed trigger, "on next upkeep". Pillage is a sorcery, so this has to be in (either of) your main phase(s). So you don't get lore back into hand until your next turn, so you don't have denial back until your next turn, and i draw 3 for my turn, getting back the digger and disenchant in upkeep. I get to stick a digger and .. at this point graveyard/library order is really important. So i dunno.

The key error in this line (which just says it doesn't work as described, not that it doesn't work) is that Arcane Denial is not: Counter target spell, draw a card, the spell's controller draws two cards.

I vote that unless you (or someone else for you) can show a clean line of logic for a win, digger+denial/disenchant/pillage/icefall pairings are all 2-2.

It's at least somewhat feasible, but there's the line I used elsewhere, which is in response to your second pillage, active the digger in play twice, then disenchant my own digger, getting both back.

My suspicion is that this is a 2-2 matchup. I can keep up digger/disenchant pressure to force you to never have a draw-step window to spend redrawing incinerate.

I wholeheartedly agree. The three way grindy nightmare of 2, 5, and 6/8 will take some figuring out. And you've got a mirror which you fortunately don't really have to figure out (2 points either way).

For such a simple round rule, this is one of the hardest computation rounds. (compare with previous 1 and 2-block rounds) Congrats moderator, I really like this round.

5 nerdyjoe : Meteor Craters
Soldevi Digger / Soldevi Digger / Swords to Plowshares / Disenchant / Meteor Shower

Some thoughts on this. I picked meteor shower to protect against Kjeldoran Outpost, since I'm stuck at one card a turn, so swords isn't good enough to overcome the advantage they can accumulate before digger has mana to power it. Disenchant is clearly for the mirror, as well as possibly protecting digger. I didn't actually expect this many arcane denial, but I think it's still okay, on the play, digger beats denial.

X | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 | PT | Points
5 | 3 6 6 6 X 2 6 2 6 6 6 | 50 | 500

1: On the play, digger gets me there. On the draw, everything I'd want to cast is countered. 3-3

2: This is hard. I don't know. I will try and figure out what's really going on here tomorrow. ??? I can stick both diggers on turn 6 on the draw, turn 3/4 on the play. I then get to upkeep disenchant digger disenchant draw step disenchant your digger to remove it, then work my way through the rest of your resources to win. 6-0

3: Disenchant > all that stuff, starting with digger. 6-0

4: Swords gets there, with digger backup. If you wait til turn 3 so you can denial the swords, I've already got down a digger, so I swords it again the next turn. 6-0

6/8: I've got no idea if either of us can destroy enough stuff to break up the recursion. If I never try to break it up, you clearly are able to win the race. If I try to break it up after you shoot me, there may be a window for me to (half) fireball. In the same category as 2 where recursion/counterspell loops could go round and round a long time.

7: I almost see what you're doing here, but don't quite see the details. But disenchant and swords disrupts it easily. 6-0

9: Swords upkeep -> Draw Swords -> Swords main removes the dude. Then the same thing with disenchant should get rid of your digger. Then I grind you down. 6-0

10: Disenchant upkeep -> Draw disenchant -> Disenchant main removes your digger. Then I mop up the rest of the things. 6-0

11: Double Digger gets through on the play and I can keep things clean. It takes a while on the draw though, so maybe outpost gets enough going fast enough to kill before things are cleaned up. Details:


6-0

*: I'll play with you bubblecat, even if you aren't currently on the list. You only have one piece of interaction for my two diggers, so I set up shop, and swords everything. 6-0

On a more serious note, do flip-walkers count as walkers? Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, et. al.

So what's the flavor bonus for playing Vraska the Unseen? Do we still have to include a snake card?

Sorry for my long delay in computing matchups, holidays and whatnot. I played this for the fun of putting 4 counters in the deck (even though only 3 can be used in a single game).

6 Island / phantasmal bear / Commandeer / Disrupting Shoal / Foil / daze

X | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 | PT | Points
6 | 2 1 2 ! 0 X 0 2 0 0 4 2 0 2 2 | 17 | 121

vs 1: Odd choice of which red blast to use, but it doesn't matter for me. I can't beat the blast, so I hold Shoal+Bear for one of your threats, and Foil+Island for the other. 2-2

vs 2: You play Island, then we fight over LED. I foil, you foil back, emrakul shuffle trigger. I commandeer, you daze. If I can pay for daze, I win (the counter war). 1-4

vs 3: Shoal pitching daze ends your chance of winning. karakas ends mine. 2-2

vs 4: I dunno. Flag this one for deeper analaysis. !!!

vs 5: Leyline T.T 0-6

vs 7: I can foil RB but then can't counter gargadon. Nothing else I have counters RB, and if I don't counter it, my hand gets wiped. It's too bad commandeer doesn't work as a counterspell here. 0-6

vs 8: Memnites can't race, you don't go for the iona, since i can counter it. But if I start swinging, you either block and kill, or crack back for more. 2-2

vs 9: No plan for man-lands. 0-6

vs 10: No plan for man-lands, and bloodghast hits the field even if I counter it. 0-6

vs 11: This is the fight I planned to fight. If you're on the play, you play your dude, I let it go. I play Island, Cast bear. You can shoal pitching 1cmc. I daze. You daze back. I Foil back. Dude hits the field. Then you play tabernacle, dooming both our dudes. If I'm on the play, I cast bear, you shoal pitching 1 cmc, I Commandeer, redirect to commandeer. Works as a counterspell. Pass. You can play your dude or tabernacle, I'm home free. 4-1.

vs 12: I have no plan for man-lands. But I race. 2-2

vs 13: Karakas clears the path, I have nothing to interact with the token. 0-6

vs 14: If you suspend Mindstab, we wait for it come off suspend. If you target me, I let it resolve, discarding Commandeer, Shoal and Daze. You now have no way to get a threat into play, and we draw. If you target you, I let it resolve. You pitch Iona, and the foil package. You then may cast reanimate, but I'd commandeer that so fast your head would spin. If you don't suspend mindstab, we chat about stuff and go to time. 2-2

vs 15: I play my bear, Hold Daze for bitterblossom. You can innocent blood away my bear. Oh well. 2-2.

Format Suggestion:

Delay

3 Card Basic Land Rule

Abilities with {T} in their cost gain "This permanent doesn't untap during its controller's next untap step."
All non-land cards gain Suspend 1 - their mana cost, and lose their mana cost. (non-existant costs can't be paid)

10Nerdyjoe : helix cave
Rhystic Cave / Helix Pinnacle / Evermind / Evermind / Evermind

10 | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 | PT | Points
XX | 6 6 6 6 3 6 6 3 3 X 0 0 6 6 6 3 0 | 62 | 388

vs1: Play both lands, gain a life, stop you from loading up the pinnacle, win turn 120.
vs2: Goldfish a win? I think I'm missing something.
vs3: Cast hero's reunion, keep you from putting counters on pinnacle (most of the time) win turn 120.
vs4: Eureka in a flailing soldier. Beats win in 20 turns (assuming you shrink it)
vs5: Mirrormatch! wonder if relic/evermind makes a difference. I want to call this 3-3. Cave can't pay for cave, so win on turn 102 on play.
vs6: I know I don't know how to pilot this deck, but I'll assume goldfish ftw.
vs7: Rushwood grove to keep you from winning, use the stack trick to kill on turn 119.
vs8: Wait 30 turns, cast the elemental. Then the emblem kills, depending on play-draw. 3-3
vs9: Random effects are worst for their owner, not controller. This doesn't work. I think. Even if control of crypt goes to opponent, they always win the flip. With reverted deck, I do nothing. If you ever play the pinnacle, I start doing the thing. My thing takes less turns than your thing, so I win if you ever really try to win. So the round rule kills us. 3-3
vs11: If i go for it, you kill the manticore, If i don't, you load up the pinnacle. great deck. 0-6
vs12: Can't win, but can stall you out. 3-3 I can't stop cave from generating mana every turn, can't kill with isle. 0-6
vs13: Reaver trigger gets exiled when YOU LOSE. 6-0
vs14: Fairly sure I can win in 100 turns. Load up ring network to be able to cast array, load up array to cast the horror, and all of that takes maybe 40 turns. Horror kill shouldn't take too long either. 20-10-5-2-1 (+2) - 1 gets 5 attacks in. 6-0
vs15: Remote farm puts in gold myr, beats ftw. 6-0
vs16: Can't win, but can keep you from winning. Tabernacle, orchard. Use orchard to pay for cave every time you try anything, tabernacle kills the spirit every time. You can't pay upkeep, since I can pay for cave. 3-3
vs17: You got me. 0-6

As long as it loses to everything, you should get 600 points this week.

Just be sure it can win against a deck that takes no actions whatsoever.

There's also the 5-card requirement. Sometimes you don't want to use all five cards, but you still have to submit a full 5 cards. People typically use "the hockey puck" Darksteel Relic or Evermind to fill out an otherwise complete hand. They function as dead cards. They are _almost_ as dead as the "blank card"s that the test deck uses. In other backbuild rounds, there are test decks that are a little more developed than this round's test deck, so another tactic is to look like the test deck as much as possible.

http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/forum-games/forum-magic/599213-perfect-hand-magic-30-02-5-card-strawman-some

This was an example of the "match the test deck" gone horribly wrong. But in general, it's a fine strategy.