ec2-18-217-220-114.us-east-2.compute.amazonaws.com | ToothyWiki | MagicTheGathering | RecentChanges | Login | Webcomic AlexChurchill for one enjoys looking back on records of particularly notable MtG games he's played, and reading about particularly notable games he hasn't played. Wiki would seem a good format for these records so they're preserved, but other participants can add or correct details.
I suppose records should be genuinely unusual and notable - if you've built a deck to deal 300-odd damage and it does, that's not notable. If it gets sent back at your head with a redirect and you then play MTG: Reverse Damage, that might be.
I suspect there are also records from YesterdayILearnt (perhaps old revisions) which should be added. If you feel this is a bad idea, please say so.
Aluren in the Humble Shared Lattice (2nd March 2004)
Four-player chaos. And it was chaos. Chiefly responsible was SF's MTG: Confusion in the Ranks, as could be expected, and the MTG: Aluren which he deliberately comboed it with. Making things wackier were the MTG: Mycosynth Lattice of AC's so that playing *any* permanent immediately made you trade control of it for target permanent controlled by an opponent, and IH's MTG: Shared Fate. All three of AC's MTG: Future Sights ended up in play, being one of the cards most frequently changing controllers. It was particularly popular when MTG: Shared Fate was around, so that at least people could play cards from their own library, even if not from hand. Notable moments include SF choosing to draw, play and sacrifice PT's MTG: Bloodfire Colossus (which had been revealed by a MTG: Future Sight) to deal six damage to everything, triggering a mad scramble to play creatures at instant speed in order to trade them for the MTG: Rune of Protection: Artifacts, which ended up preventing Colossus damage to everyone except SF. There was also much confusion when a MTG: Broodstar kept changing controllers, causing people to have to try to remember who controlled the local enchantments on their permanents, because it almost certainly wasn't their owner! And there was also a brief period when IH got MTG: Humility into play and was thus able to steal the normally unConfusable MTG: Troll Ascetic or MTG: Needlebug...
I was wondering whether the way we used the RoP? was actually legal, because the Colossus wasn't in play at the time. The CompRules glossary entry for "source" shows we played it incorrectly - you have to name the "source" in question when the RoP? ability resolves, you can't just set up generic shields - but the Colossus was a legal choice at the time, being "an object referred to by a spell or ability on the stack". We were wrong to let the MTG: Coalition Flag stay in play once it had changed controllers, though. --AC
Thinking back, PeterTaylor wonders whether he played one of SF's lands as though in his hand after IH and his Shared Fate had left the game.
How Many Thumbs? (mid-December 2003)
YesterdayILearnt that a 5-player Star MagicTheGathering game where one player plays Shared Fate and another plays a coin-flip deck is really rather silly. Possibly the first time /ever/ where two separate players have been unable to cast MTG: Krark's Thumb due to a third player already having the Legendary artifact in play. PeterTaylor's "match report" trying to persuade Anthony Alongi to write an article on Shared Fate Star decks was "The other day I played an interesting game of 5-colour Star. As the mono-blue player, I kicked myself for forgetting that my green enemy could play Power Sink, which neatly countered my attempt to Smite the Killer Bees I'd just blocked. He eventually won, finishing me off with an Aven Windreader dealing double-damage after he'd used his Goblin Bookey to force the red player to re-flip a coin for Impulsive Manoeuvres. (Afraid I can't bring myself to mis-spell it ;-)".
The game created by AlanLawrence and discussed on his page came out to play for a 5-player chaos. And was suitably silly. It started off fairly sanely - Los killed Edwin's first-turn MTG: Disciple of the Vault in entirely sensible fashion, even if the main phase for each player weren't preceded by or alternating with upkeeps, draws and suchlike. Most of the silliness was just the kind that tends to happen in long multiplayer games anyway: the extent of the PuertoRico effect was mainly the unpredictable phase order seeing an echo card (MTG: Karmic Guide) killed by a round of upkeeps happening well before untap, and a few creatures that spent an unnaturally long time summoning sick. But mostly it was just old-fashioned chaos: NeilRoques agreeing to discard to his MTG: Wild Mongrel so that AlanLawrence got cards from his MTG: Geth's Grimoire, in exchange for Alan paying life into his MTG: Unspeakable Symbol to put counters on Neil's creatures; Los's MTG: Nettling Imp forcing Edwin's MTG: Myr Retriever to attack the only player without blockers; a MTG: Pentavus launching all its Pentavites in response to a MTG: March of Souls. The game ended thanks to Los activating MTG: Balthor the Defiled to return Edwin's MTG: Megatog to play (as well as hordes of other creatures from all three graveyards), followed by one combat round which saw me attacking the two remaining players with a total power of about 40 in flying spirit tokens (from MTG: March of Souls and MTG: Oyobi, all boosted by a MTG: Long-Forgotten Gohei); and then Edwin finally winning by sacrificing 15 artifacts to his MTG: Megatog, and attacking Los with 50-something power of trampling tog (it had already eaten two artifacts that "turn") while I lost 15 life to the MTG: Disciple of the Vault that neither of us had noticed had *also* been returned to play by Balthor! Alan's game structure seems a definite success, and it was a very silly game.
Alan's Deck of Toys (14th September 2005)
AlanLawrence celebrated moving in to TheShrubbery a week ago by playing a 2-and-a-half hour game of Magic... We played Two-Headed Giant with simultaneous turns by the new official rules. PeterTaylor and AlanLawrence squared off against AlexChurchill and SMcV, and Alan's deck of Toys went off like never before.
The craziness started off when he got both a MTG: Moonring Mirror and MTG: Mind's Eye into play with 2 opponents: drawing 6 cards a turn! We tried to respond by playing a MTG: Bounteous Kirin. He let that resolve, but during his next turn killed it with that 3U "destroy target legendary creature" sorcery, MTG: Clone... Then his mad artifacts were joined by a MTG: Vedalken Orrery, and things got really silly. At one point he played MTG: Future Sight as an instant, and from then on, he could play the top card of his library... at instant speed!
Soon he had a MTG: Panoptic Mirror with a choice of MTG: Mind's Desire or MTG: Rude Awakening on: a tough choice, to be sure. He was sure to always attack with enough creatures that a few got through, enough to assign damage to each of us, so that he got two untap effects from MTG: Nature's Will hitting two players!
With the MTG: Moonring Mirror taking away his hand each upkeep for a turn, and either Rude Awakening untapping all his lands or Mind's Desire wanting as many spells cast by the time the Mirror's upkeep effect resolved as possible, we were in the bizarre situation where by far the most active phase of Alan's turn was his upkeep, as he went through using Future Sight and Vedalken Orrery to cast as many things as possible. For example, one upkeep he cast an MTG: Ice Cave from the top of his library, then a MTG: Furnace of Rath from hand (which his red-green opponent unfortunately countered using the new Ice Cave), before resolving a Mind's Desire for 3! The Mind's Desire gave a MTG: Vesuvan Doppelganger (copying PT's MTG: Wizard Replica), which made Alan's MTG: Unstable Shapeshifter into a copy of a MTG: Vesuvan Doppelganger copying a MTG: Wizard Replica. This was when I accused him "Haven't I seen you on a judges' mailing list somewhere... as an example?!"
In the end, the game ended the same way it had played: facing near-lethal attack next turn, Alan pointed a 6-point MTG: Braingeyser at himself to draw all of his remaining library, looking for answers. He found a MTG: Time Stop to get them through our next combat phase, but died to decking in their next draw step. By epitaph, I can only offer this quote on the subject of the Deck of Toys:
SMcV: If his deck was simple enough that he could remember what was in it.... - Alex: Then he wouldn't be playing it! - Alan: Correct!!
Share the Enchanted Insanity (29th November 2005)
An epic three-player chaos game between AlexChurchill's WU highlander Auras deck, AlanLawrence's GBw recursion deck, and PeterTaylor's MTG: Shared Fate deck. It started off with AL intimidating people by playing MTG: Foster and MTG: Golgari Germination. Then he played a one-off card he'd added to the deck five minutes before the game: MTG: Enduring Renewal! It turns out that its Oracle wording doesn't interact anywhere near as well with the aforementioned mad enchantments as the printed wording... in fact it rather shuts them down, and so for all that it's scary enough on its own, neither AC nor PT wanted to destroy it.
Soon enough, MTG: Shared Fate turned up, swiftly followed by a card that would make a nuisance of itself for the rest of the game: MTG: Pulse of the Grid, which is remarkably effective when the cards you "draw" don't go into your hand at all. Even more effective when Peter could activate an MTG: Oboro Envoy(Alex's - maybe I should look at adding a couple to my deck --PT) on lands that other people owned in order to pump up their hand sizes!
Peter was deterring people from drawing from his library with a MTG: Tel-Jilad Stylus, and Alex was keeping people's spells from targeting him using MTG: Rayne, Academy Chancellor enchanted by MTG: Pemmin's Aura. In the end, Peter cast a MTG: Faith's Fetters on the Aura. Then in Alex's upkeep, he used a MTG: Rootwater Matriarch from Alex's library to steal Rayne... except that Alan didn't like this, and so killed the Chancellor and Matriarch both. Alex drew from Alan's library, and with delight cast a MTG: Gleancrawler, which got him back both Rayne and the Matriarch!
Alex and Alan frantically tried to neutralise the four dragons that had appeared, but Alan ended his turn with three dragons still active, even though he had to discard due to having nine cards in hand (no small feat with MTG: Shared Fate on the table, but MTG: Enduring Renewal will do things like that.) However, Alan played a MTG: Seal of Cleansing, warning that the Day would disappear if the dragons attacked him. On Peter's turn, the dragons did indeed come at Alan, so the Seal popped, targetting the Day. Peter used the MTG: Tel-Jilad Stylus on it in response, putting it on the bottom of his library. Then in his second main phase, he tapped 4WUUU to cast Alex's MTG: Enlightened Tutor, fetch the Day back to the top of his library, and then cast it using MTG: Future Sight.
The returned dragons made short work of Alan. Then Peter used the pesky MTG: Pulse of the Grid to draw all of Alex's library, and then pass turn... and during Alex's upkeep, use the MTG: Tel-Jilad Stylus on his own MTG: Shared Fate. Alex died in his draw step - with 24 cards of his library in Peter's removed-from-game zone!
Eighty Life A Turn Is Not Enough
It was Odyssey / Onslaught Standard, and I was playing my W/u deck based around MTG: Master Apothecary. It was a pretty good choice for the Standard field of the time, as it was good against U/G Madness and the various flavors of R/G beatdown while still going 50/50 against the stock MTG: Psychatog deck. (It lost to MTG: Astral Slide and MTG: Mirari's Wake decks, but I lived with that.) One day, I entered the Magic Online 8-man Constructed tournament queue, and found myself facing a rather unexpected and somewhat unfortunate opponent: mono-green Elves. You see, my W/u deck had literally no way to kill a creature that refused to attack or block, even after sideboarding, and the Elves deck packed MTG: Wellwisher, which would usually let it gain far more life than I could reasonably deal in damage. Luckily, I won game 1 on the strength of Worship. He couldn't remove it, and I had more cards in my library, so he conceded.
The Elves deck was unusual enough that I didn't have a sideboard plan, so I had to improvise. I again set up a Worship lock, and had MTG: Devoted Caretaker to make sure it didn't die. Unfortunately, this time, my opponent had more cards left than I did, so I actually had to kill my opponent in order to win this game. To make matters worse, my opponent had enough elves and untap effects to gain about eighty life a turn by using MTG: Wellwisher. Watching my opponent go through triple digit life totals was rather demoralizing - how can I possibly race eighty points of life gain a turn, with my opponent already having a couple hundred point head start?
My improvised sideboard plan held the answer. I drew and played MTG: Mobilization, and started making lots of Soldier tokens. Normally, MTG: Mobilization was used to fight Psychatog decks, as the only way the Psychatog decks of the time could win through it was to resolve MTG: Upheaval, but it was going to come in handy now, as well. Thanks to a pair of MTG: Divine Sacrament with threshold, those Soldier tokens were 5/5 beatsticks that didn't tap to attack. Each turn, I made more and more tokens, and when I felt I had enough, I started to attack. My opponent was gaining eighty life a turn, but I was making tokens faster than my opponent was making more Elves. Eventually, I was doing about one hundred and twenty damage a turn while my opponent was still only gaining eighty life a turn, and I slowly ground away at his life total, which eventually reached zero after reaching a maximum somewhere around 400.
Also, the first time I ever played my W/u Clerics deck in a large tournament (over 64 players), I managed to end up with the first place prize despite the fact that, of the games I actually played, I lost more than I won, but that's another story.
Throttled By Your Own Warped Grip (20th April 2010)
In a three-player chaos game, Edwin played turn 1 MTG: Nip Gwyllion followed by turn 2 MTG: Edge of Divinity. Vitenka and I (AlexChurchill) couldn't kill the Gwyllion, although my 0/5 Thallid was able to block it until an MTG: Celestial Crusader showed up to get the Hag up to the magic 5 power. Edwin was up at 35-40 life before we knew it. I cast MTG: Sarkhan Vol, looking to make some Dragons, but he got attacked down to 1 loyalty pretty quickly. Vitenka had been mana ramping for a bit, and started dropping 5/5 creatures: MTG: Magma Giant to finish off Sarkhan, MTG: Skarrgan Firebird, and MTG: Boldwyr Intimidator hit the table in short order.
Most of my mana having disappeared, and having Warped up the anti-combo of Wall of Roots with Doubling Season, I was struggling to do much on my turn. I tried to get back Sarkhan with MTG: Nature's Spiral, but that targets too, and Grip of Chaos doesn't just affect things targeting the battlefield, so it got me back my Elf. Next turn, I had 6 mana, so I used 3 land and two -1s on the Wall of Roots to cast MTG: Jace, the Mind Sculptor, who entered with 6 loyalty; I used his 0 to Brainstorm, and ended my turn. Edwin, wondering why I'd used the Wall of Roots mana rather than a land, attacked Jace for 4 flying; I drew one more mana from the now 0/1 Wall, which along with my other 2 normal mana let me untap the Bairn to boost him to 18 loyalty before taking 4. (All of us forgot until much later that this target should have been reselected randomly. We decreed that I must have got lucky.)
Vitenka couldn't attack for much due to my MTG: Silent Arbiter, so I untapped with Jace on 14 loyalty, wondering whether to fire off his ultimate... because it says "target player". I thought I should go for it... and managed to hit myself! My hand of 3 became my library, and I giggled even as I groaned.
Vitenka, continuing to feel in a silly mood, cast MTG: Undying Flames. He was burning a random target for a random amount of damage each turn! He could still bring out creatures with his MTG: Elvish Piper... that is, until Edwin cast MTG: Solar Tide to wipe the board. I died after a couple more turns, having been able to do nothing more than use Jace's +2 to enhance Vitenka's burn amounts. Edwin was still on most of his life buffer from his turn 2 4/4 lifelinker, and so declined to play any creatures for Vitenka to kill with his MTG: Altar of Shadows, instead electing to see where the Undying Flames pointed. They kept on pointing at Edwin: 2 from a MTG: Star Compass, 1 from a MTG: Chromatic Sphere, 3 from a MTG: Kodama's Reach... it was looking like it might add up. 6 from a MTG: Chartooth Cougar knocked Vitenka down to 9, and the next die roll pointed the next Flame at Vitenka again... MTG: Nullstone Gargoyle for 9!
As we gathered our minds and decks up from the table, Vitenka planned to add MTG: Tranquility so that he had a way to remove his own MTG: Grip of Chaos when he needed to; while Edwin mused that this was the first game he'd won because all his opponents had killed themselves with their game-winning effects!
I'd just like to add that this was utterly hilarious, and that despite only having one of each, I warp into chaos way more often than is reasonable. --Vitenka
700 Damage A Turn Is Not Enough
When two lifegain decks lock horns. JackV describes it here: http://cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com/651862.html "Liv doubled her life total all the way from 20 to 32,000"... "with about 15 creatures, all 30/30 (due to MTG: Mirror Entity, 15 mana from ally and 15 mana from land), all with about 15 +1/+1 counters on, I was doing about 700 damage a turn"
![[Home]](/img/text_logo.jpg){kind=logo}
MagicTheGathering/SillyGamesRecords