Games you've enjoyed

[Aetherium Slinky]

I hear not many people got to play games so I guess that's why this thread got Buried Alive. I played a paper game with a friend of mine the other day.

He was playing Yarok, the Desecrated ETB tribal and I was piloting my trusty Merieke Ri Berit.

Not much to say about the game, I just love how I got off to a good start and won almost immediately. I think it went something like this: T1 Skullclamp, T2 Aphetto Alchemist, Pemmin's Aura on T3 then T4 just derping around until T5 I dropped Gilded Lotus (infinite mana). Cast MRB, 'sac' her to Skullclamp, rinse & repeat to draw my entire deck, play Thassa's Oracle. Win. It's not the "God Hand" but goddamn close to one.


Another fast game with Merieke here; I played a T1 Thousand-Year Elixir with Ancient Tomb and Sol Ring. T2 land + Empowered Autogenerator, T3 Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter for infinite mana. Apply Merieke for maximum threat level. T4 Azami, Lady of Scrolls (a topdeck) for the win.

I think I need to admit that the list I have is pretty strong, especially with good hands it's really fast as opposed to just having a strong board presence. Not quite cEDH level but probably too strong for most casual tables.

[Aetherium Slinky]

I'm just going to be rude and double post here to bump the thread a little.

The day before yesterday I had a 1v1 with my Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath vs Edgar Markov. It was the most interesting battle. It all started with a simple Mesmeric Orb and a Bojuka Bog somewhere in the early game.

I had a Mesmeric Orb out with Genesis in my hand. I also had an Overwhelming Stampede in my starting hand. My strategy was to mill until I find a sac outlet and sac Genesis to fish my wincons back. Then it happens: the first Bojuka Bog. My Uro is stranded in the Command Zone when my first batch of wincons gets exiled from my grave. There goes Triumph of the Hordes.

I do this weird maneuvre where I cast Uro three times in a turn by bouncing with Temur Sabertooth and escaping it so that my hand is now 8 cards. Proceed to discard Genesis at the end of turn. "Yes!!" Finally the pieces are going where they're supposed to.

"Alright", I think to myself, "I've still got Thassa's Oracle & Finale of Devastation in the deck and this Overwhelming Stampede in my hand. Can't be too bad." I mill some more and don't realise the ramifications of my friend's bounce land. This time Bojuka Bog hits ~20 or so cards, exiling my Thassa's Oracle and Genesis.

Guess if there's another bounce land by my opponent? You got it right: a third Bojuka Bog. Never seen so much value from a simple land. At this point I don't even care what is or isn't in my grave since she's exiled pretty much all of my win conditions. All I know I just lost my Eternal Witness to my own mill so there's really no coming back with anything in my grave.

"Uh-oh. This isn't good." I think about my hand, my deck and my exile pile. Then I decide to just go for it. Switching from conservative milling to maximum draw and mill. I present: Mind Unbound. I know this will be one of my last turns so I'm just hoping to hit something that could win me the game. I kinda forget that I have a Laboratory Maniac as a backup in the library and it gets milled by Mesmeric Orb. Sadness.

At this point I'm down to almost no library, all of my wincons exiled or in the grave with no way to retrieve them. I have my commander, Golgari Grave-Troll and a few dorks on the battlefield. I'm feeling pretty depressed. Remember my starting hand? I almost forgot about the card because I was so focused on getting my board state sorted: I look at Overwhelming Stampede in my hand and start counting. It's lethal if she swings with everything. And she does because combat damage is her win condition. My Uro life gain triggers soak all the damage, I don't even care about my life total anymore.

My turn. I'm excited. I count my cards: mill 12 for the Mesmeric Orb, draw 3 for Mind Unbound...and the library is empty. Draw for turn and lose the game.


A 5-person game with Edgar Markov vampires beatdown, Sharuum the Hegemon artifact toolbox, Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath self-mill, Phelddagrif group hug and Merieke Ri Berit untap/combo (me). This game took 4 hours so I'm just going to present you with the highlights.

First three turns: Phelddagrif decided to drop Mikokoro, Rites of Flourishing and Howling Mine. A little later we also got Shizuko, Caller of Autumn. This means lots of cards, lots of mana, turbo speed game development.

Gamestate somewhere around mid game:

Lots of huge vampires out. Sharuum had pretty much nothing because we destroyed his Thopter Foundry + Sword of the Meek all the time. Uro was half way through his deck with a Fleet Swallower out, Phelddagrif with the aforementioned permanents out and some more and I had Aphetto Alchemist + Illusionist's Bracers and was attempting to go infinite. Enter the first Cyclonic Rift overloaded by Phelddagrif and everything was pretty much reset.

Next turn Phelddagrif played a Mystic Sanctuary which meant that none of us could go infinite or combo off otherwise because the board would have been reset.

Uro decided to cast Rite of Replication on his Soul of the Harvest drawing 6 cards for each creature cast. Same problem as before: Laboratory Maniac on the board would have resolved the issue but there was that looming Cyclonic Rift that was preventing him from winning.

We made a deal with the Phelddagrif player that I Windfall and he recasts Cyclonic Rift. This combination bounced our hands to 16 cards and poor Uro was knocked out due to him drawing from an empty library. First player out. We're still drawing tons of cards and playing lots of lands so it's easy to recover from the Rift.

Next major event: Phelddagrif gets knocked out. Some huge vampire butts did tons of damage to us combo players and Phelddagrif was down to 2 life. There was a trigger from the Markov player to drain 4 life from each of us. Phelddagrif frantically looks at his hand, grave and hand again and announces that he cannot do anything. I could have done something but I decided it's best to go for the win.

I dropped an Archivist and next turn I played Mind over Matter. That's an infinite combo but my current live deck doesn't have Thassa's Oracle (dumb me) so I couldn't win that turn. I was going to look for Approach of the Second Sun. There was a fierce counterspell war over something that escapes my mind right now but basically I'm down to 7 life, pretty much out of juice and no blockers. Guess if the vampires made it my way and ended the game for me.

Now it's down to Markov and huge vampires vs. Sharuum that finally got his Sword of the Meek and Thopter Foundry. The game stalls on for another three or four turns where vampires always kill the blocker Thopters and Sharuum is in topdeck mode. He draws Venser, the Sojourner and was able to keep his Sharuum out and alive. The tipping point was a Darksteel Forge that let Sharuum player keep the Thopters he was making eventually overwhelming the board. Icing on the cake was Filigree Angel that finally sealed the game.

All in all I'm pretty happy we were able to play this game. All decks got to do their thing and everyone was out of interaction and exhausted in the end. It was pretty much a perfect 4-hour Magic festival.

[stuffnsuch]

One of my favorite wins was against a toolbox deck that was just building a massive amount of tokens.  They had the board completely locked down, combat-wise, and were just able to respond so well to everything.  If they didn't have what they needed, they just tutored or drew into it when necessary.  I finally managed to untap with a Repercussion and a Pyrohemia.  A Mana Geyser later, I stated my intent to finish the game with Pyrohemia activations (I had the Wanderer in play, so I was safe).  Everyone else say the writing on the wall, but this one guy starts digging through his library.  He draws into a mystic tutor, draws his Terferi's Protection, and sits back like he's beaten me.  I activate Pyrohemia once, he casts Teferi's Protection, and I say those two little words that that instantly wiped that smug look off his face, "In response..."  Yeah, I still could put like 20 fresh activations on the stack.  It was particularly enjoyable because of all the effort he put into what he viewed as a perfect plan, only to realize too late that I'm not dealing damage all at once, but in little bite sized chunks.  By the time his spell finally resolved, he'd been killed several times over.

[Aetherium Slinky]

Played some games last night. My friend has this group hug Phelddagrif deck that I've already mentioned a couple of times. Whatever you think you know about Magic, you don't. It turns games upside down. Last night I lost a game because I accidentally milled all of my win conditions and gave my opponents 30 treasure tokens. That wasn't even the highest amount of treasures on the battlefield because the Phelddagrif player and another player had a Smothering Tithe out and we were drawing four cards per turn. The Phelddagrif has some 100 treasures on the board in the end. It was a game of "I'll allow it" and hungry hungry hippos all over the place. Everyone should try playing against group hug at some point in their life. That's assuming that the group hug deck has some win conditions, not just giving everyone free resources for the fun of it.

[WizardSpartan]

That's assuming that the group hug deck has some win conditions, not just giving everyone free resources for the fun of it.

Aaaaand that's why most people hate group hug. I've played in pods where there are 2 group hug decks without a real win condition, and losing a game because their game of RNG Kingmaker and headache-inducing "politics" never feel good. Even just 1 well-built group hug deck without a win condition still basically determines which of the other 3 decks wins the game (assuming similar power level), which isn't fun.

[Aetherium Slinky]

That's assuming that the group hug deck has some win conditions, not just giving everyone free resources for the fun of it.

Aaaaand that's why most people hate group hug. I've played in pods where there are 2 group hug decks without a real win condition, and losing a game because their game of RNG Kingmaker and headache-inducing "politics" never feel good. Even just 1 well-built group hug deck without a win condition still basically determines which of the other 3 decks wins the game (assuming similar power level), which isn't fun.

My experience based on this one group hug deck is very different. The dude piloting it is a judge and has played comptetitively in the past. The deck is definitely a princemaker deck in the sense that he decides who places second. But! It's impossible to fight against 100 mana sitting on the board and a full hand of counterspells with some mild recursion engines. His wincons were...unorthodox but the amount of sheer control and mild stax made it impossible to finish the game quickly which allowed him to find his wincons. The only downside was that the game took forever but the amount of interaction was just phenomenal so it didn't matter.

In one of the games my opponent was able to drop three big OG Eldrazi and a Blightsteel Colossus on the board (with 90 mana available on the board) and we survived them. Thanks to little hungry hippos. Talk about battlecruiser Magic. And we definitely lost some games, the group hug deck was just too powerful.

[Slyvester12]

That sounds fantastic. I wish my playgroup had a sick group hug deck instead of Reaper King changelings.

[Aetherium Slinky]

My Barrin, Tolarian Archmage hug/bounce/control deck won a game today! This was played online.

It was The Scarab God mill & tokens, Yorvo, Lord of Garenbrig & lots of creatures and Iroas, God of Victory & Soldiers/tokens, and me, Barrin the Bounce.

Iroas had a rough start, no lands for about 10 turns or so. A really rough start, especially because I cast Overburden on turn 2. Yorvo had a an Elvish Mystic out so they weren't that affected by the Overburden. Otherwise the game lagged for many turns, people bouncing lands and struggling to get anything on the board.

Enter the Iron Maiden that could. I had Iron Maiden out almost from the beginning and people began taking some damage from it (except Yorvo who was able to dump their hand in time). I was even able to get a second Iron Maiden out with Phyrexian Metamorph. Soon after we were drawing two cards with Howling Mine so people's hands were always full. In addition to that The Scarab God played a Psychic Corrosion so we were milling heavily.

Yorvo grew big many a times, lots of green creatures on the board and we were taking heavy hits from it. Enter a few bounce spells and Yorvo wasn't able to hit us quite so hard. By this point the Soldier tribal player Iroas had managed to get token generators out and was slowly trickling some damage in.

Life totals are around 30 for Yorvo, 15 for me and single digits for the two other players. Deck sizes around 30 due to all the draw and mill. The Scarab God exiled a Pelakka Wurm from The Scarab God's grave to gain 7 life and save himself from my Iron Maidens. Two turns after they exiled a Gisela, Blade of Goldnight from Iroas's grave to take less damage from the Iron Maidens. Really skillful plays.

Eventually their defenses wore out (I think I cast an Evacuation) and both The Scarab God and Iroas were out. It was just me, Yorvo and their 25 life. I spent a whole lot of time bouncing, blocking with Psychosis Crawler and countering stuff.

Finally I was able to River's Rebuke Yorvo and began looping Barrin with Equilibrium bouncing two creatures to their (full) hands every turn. That was the end of it. The (two) Iron Maiden(s) that could.

All in all I'm super happy to see that this deck I've been working with has finally started to work and not just spin wheels hard. Looks like increasing bounce density and adding more counterspells was the way to go. I think I still need more solid win conditions but other than that it feels like I'm on the right track here.

[WizardSpartan]

I just played a game with my Reyhan, Last of the Abzan & Alharu, Solemn Ritualist p1p1 counters deck where I had a few crazy turns and managed to kill a couple people.

On board, I had an Alharu, Solemn Ritualist with 1 p1p1 counter on it; a Reyhan, Last of the Abzan with 3 p1p1 counters on it; an Armorcraft Judge; and a Hangarback Walker with 5 p1p1 counters on it.

I untapped and drew a Phyrexian Rebirth, which was just what I needed, as there was a Sidisi, Brood Tyrant deck with a lot of stuff on board, not to mention each of the other opponents had several decent creatures I would like to wipe. So I wiped, and got rolling.

From that wipe, I got

• A 23/23 Horror
• 5 Thopters from Hangarback Walker
• 3 Spirits from Alharu, Solemn Ritualist
• and could move the 9 p1p1 counters from my destroyed creatures onto my newly made tokens.

So far, though, everything was pretty standard and it was just doing what I expected. Now, I started doing some things that wasn't necessarily part of the original plan.

The next turn, I topdecked a Yannik, Scavenging Sentinal, stopped, and looked at my chonky 23/23 Horror, licking my lips.

I played a Conclave Mentor I had in hand and then played Yannik, exiling the 23/23 and allowing me to place 23 p1p1 counters on my creatures.

I distributed them among my creatures, getting extras from Conclave Mentor, then swung and killed the basically defenseless Sidisi player (they replayed Sidisi and some other ground creature during their turn, but my flying creatures didn't care).

As a pièce de résistance, I played an Eternal Witness to get back Armorcraft Judge (destroyed earlier by the Phyrexian Rebirth), then replayed the Judge to draw another ~10 cards.

It was pretty much over by then. I haven't been particularly lucky with games the past few days, so it just felt really good to pop off with a deck of my own creation (I pretty much only used Scryfall, as EDHrec doesn't really have good stats for these 2 partners in particular) in a way that I didn't even think of during the deckbuilding process. The Johnny in me has been sated (for now).

[WizardSpartan]

Another game, and this one was definitely an even wilder one. Playing the new elf commander, Larhril, Blade of Elves (relevant abilities are "Whenever Larhril deals combat damage to a player, create that many 1/1 green Elf Warrior creature tokens" and "{T}, Tap ten untapped elves you control: Each opponent loses 10 life and you gain 10 life").

On the other side of the table, there was Sidisi, Brood Tyrant (Umori, the Collector as companion), Zilortha, Strength Incarnate, and Zur the Enchanter. On turn 1, Zur played an Illness in the Ranks, which really set me back as I wasn't able to draw a removal spell or pump effect to keep any elf tokens around. I also didn't really have much ramp, but I did draw some really good cards.

Yeva, Nature's Herald was an all-star in this game for a couple reasons. After several very painful turns, I drew Temur Sabertooth, allowing me to do crazy amounts of instant-speed shenanigans with the Elvish Visionary I already had in play by activating Sabertooth's ability to bounce Visionary to my hand, then immediately replaying Visionary and drawing a card as many times as I had mana. Still, I couldn't draw anything to get me out of the soft lock. I did draw a Heritage Druid, which was nice for extra Visionary loops and, eventually, fueling my popoff.

Luckily, the Zur player started getting really annoying. Using Zur's attack triggers over several turns, they got Ghostly Prison, Mystic Remora, Rhystic Study, etc. and the Zilortha player decided they didn't want the Zur player in the game. They played Zilortha and a Xenagos, God of Revels, swinging at the Zur player for 14 commander. On Zur's turn, they used his attack trigger to find Imprisoned in the Moon and used it on Xenagos, but that didn't work for long. I continued doing not that much in the meantime. On the Zilortha player's turn, they played a Fiendish Duo and killed Zur.

Finally.

FINALLY!

I can do fun things.

On the endstep before my turn (part 2 of Yeva being awesome), I cast my commander, which I hadn't cast yet because she was basically useless, cast an Ambush Commander which I had recently drawn, and cast a Copperhorn Scout.

I untapped for my turn, and for reference, I had 35 life, the Zilortha player had 35 life, and the Sidisi player had 41 life. My boardstate was composed of my commander, Ambush Commander, Temur Sabertooth, Elvish Visionary, Copperhorn Scout, Seeker of Skybreak, Heritage Druid, and Yeva, Nature's Herald, .

I began with a simple Bolas's Citadel. Off the top, I paid life for Generous Patron, Fyndhorn Elves, Eyeblight Massacre, Sylvan Offering (for X=0, ofc), and then a new card: Elven Ambush. I had a total of 12 elves on the field between lands, the elves I just played, and the elves I had for a while, so I got 12 tokens, which basically won the game.

I activated my commander, tapping 10 of the 12 tokens and draining my opponents for 10. Then, I untapped Larhril with Seeker of Skybreak and activated her again, using most of my remaining elves  (20 total) except, notably, my Copperhorn Scout. I went to combat, attacked with Copperhorn Scout, untapped all my creatures, activated her ability, tapping 10 of my 12 tokens and draining my opponents for 10 more (30 total), untapped her with Seeker of Skybreak, then activated her ability for a fourth and final time, tapping the remainder of my elves to drain my opponents for 10 more (40 total). The Sidisi player was left at 1 life, but I could still activate Bolas's Citadel to finish them off.

Honestly, I haven't had a chance to actually use Bolas's Citadel to its fullest yet, and it felt really, really good. I might need to look into a K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth because of how much fun I had with Citadel. What felt even better was going from losing the game to winning the game in one turn (can't give myself all the credit for the swing, though). I've played 3 games total with this deck, and it is a barrel of laughs. Adding black and giving better access to tokens is phenomenal, as not only do I still have access to the fantastic mana-producing abilities available to elves, but I can actually use them better because I usually have more elves and better card options because I'm in Golgari, not mono green. The play experience is also a lot more varied than Ezuri, and going off felt unique. That could be because Larhril is new, but not many commanders use tap abilities to drain their opponents life

[Slyvester12]

Playing the new elf commander, Larhril, Blade of Elves

Yes, join me and the other converts. Praise be to Larhril.

[Morganator 2.0]

We are witnessing the return of GolgariFTW.

[WizardSpartan]

We are witnessing the return of GolgariFTW.

Lmaooo, maybe. Probably not. Name was kinda too cringe and I don't have the brainpower to come up with an actually good name involving Golgari. Also, WizardSpartan is the name I use across all platforms, so it's just easier and simpler to use it here too.

Playing the new elf commander, Larhril, Blade of Elves

Yes, join me and the other converts. Praise be to Larhril.

By the way, Sly, she got officially spoiled (right after I made the post) and her name is actually Lathril, not Larhril.

Also, I've been here since day one . My two favorite commander decks are Elves and Merfolk with an emphasis of tap shenanigans, so when I saw an Elf commander that has an emphasis of tap shenanigans, I was just as hooked as you are (just for slightly different reasons). I just don't want to drop Ezuri. In fact, I'll probably up the power of my Ezuri list to really make the 2 feel different.

[Marshstepper78]

Last week, I had a blast playing my Karn, Silver Golem deck against 2 other players (Queen Marchesa and Yasova Dragonclaw). The deck rarely wins, but it's the kind of deck that allows me to play with old cards that don't fit in other decks (e.g. Tawnos's Coffin, Arena of the Ancients, etc) so I always derive some pleasure playing it.

So I have a Null Brooch out and my hand is empty as I needed my Ensnaring Bridge to keep Yasova away from me. The Queen Marchesa player is trying to pull off various "you-win-the-game" cards, which I counter with Null Brooch easily. The Yasova player can't attack because of Ensnaring Bridge and both myself and the Queen Marchesa player have no creatures in play so her theft ability is irrelevant.

I almost had the game. I had a lot of artifacts, including Unwinding Clock, and all the good mana rocks, and I was feeling good about my impending victory. The Yasova player baited me into countering an Evolutionary Leap with my Null Brooch. I hadn't played against his Yasova deck in almost a year so I forgot what was in it; I figured denying him a creature tutor was the right call because I didn't want to risk him tutoring out something that could ruin my next turn. At that point, I had sacrificed my Ensnaring Bridge so I could go in for the kill on my next attack phase. Null Brooch tapped, he then casts an entwined Tooth and Nail, getting Hellkite Tyrant and Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker..........................

He attacks each of us with a Hellkite Tyrant, gets 20 artifacts easily, then wins the game. It was pretty epic.

[Rinzler]

I just surprised myself and destroyed a group on turn 4 with my neheb deck.  It was really just luck of the draw.  I drew the god hand, with some mana, a sol ring and an everflowing chalice, along with some draw spells and a tectonic giant, one of my favorite cards in the deck.  I play the sol ring and chalice, and then drop a turn 2 Neheb.  Turn 3, I play my tectonic giant, swing with neheb and use the mana to cast a tome of legends, which I use to draw a card.  From the tome, I get the big man, Kozilek himself.  The next turn I swing with the giant, ping everyone for 3, and drop kozilek and everyone concedes.  It was a rather unexpected game to say the least, but insightful on how strong the deck can be when it wants to.