Games you've enjoyed

[Potato Chop]

I actually have a story this time! I've been reading everyone else's for a while now and thought I should join in. This time: Simic Ramp gets what it deserved. Disclaimer: It's pretty long. Only read if you're in the mood for a good story.

First, let's set the scene:

It was always going to be down to the nail. A three-player free-for-all since the fourth person in our regular pod left early. Opponents ready their boards: Robert (fake name) is playing Tovolar, Dire Overlord // Tovolar, the Midnight Scourge and Norbert (undoubtedly a fake name) decides on Melek, Izzet Paragon. Melek is the least threatening out of the two: A card draw engine starring Teferi's Ageless Insight and The Royal Scions. He looks to win by draining opponents down with direct damage from spells like Master the Way and a constant barrage of triggers from the likes of Guttersnipe. Tovolar is a different beast entirely. A werewolf tribal deck best best described as a "savage beatdown", starring Gratuitous Violence, Beserkers' Onslaught, and all of Tovolar's most relentless Werewolf friends. Robert enjoys making full use of Tovolar's backside ability, using cards like Druids' Repository to make his Werewolf army truly unstoppable.

And me? I have an upgraded Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait precon sitting around, and I don't usually play it. 2 reasons: It's kinda toxic and it's too competitive. Wincon: RAMP DRAW RAMP DRAW KRAKEN KRAKEN KRAKEN RAMP DRAW OOPSIE I WIPED YOUR BOARD RAMP RAMP OH AND NOW THEY'RE UNBLOCKABLE SUCKS TO BE YOU!

Told you it was salty. Strangely, it's also strong. Who knew? (NOTE: There's a hint of Salt Water Creature tribal in there, which I find very appropriate.)

Now, usually I play for fun. I value having a laugh over the ridiculous board states and politics that occur at a casual table over winning games competitively. Robert leans a little more into the competitive side, though, and as a result he usually wins and I usually lose. But today, I decided, since I've already pulled out the competitive deck, I might as well play to win. No conniving. No allegiances. No regard for human emotions, and no mercy of any kind. I was not losing this time. My deck was capable of winning and I knew it.

And so the game begins.

The Sol Ring in my starting hand confirmed my thoughts. I was going for it and going  hard. The dice, however, disagreed. Rolling D20s to determine turn order, Norbert wins, meaning I'm going last. When 2 lands have been played, it quickly rolls around me. I play Forest into Sol Ring. Robert gives me a look and Norbert looks panicked already.

It's working.

Come turn 2, both opponents have only played lands and I slap down a Weaver of Currents. We can all feel the impending storm as Robert admits he kept his otherwise-garbage hand for a Cultivate. Neither of us were sure what he was thinking with that decision. Come turn 3, Aesi's on the board, extra lands and card draw begin flying like it's some primeval food fight festival as Tovolar draws into some creatures and Melek quickly gains momentum with some token-makers.

From that point on, it was a good fight! All the decks matched up surprisingly well. Talrand, Sky Summoner and The Locust God supplied a steady stream of tokens on Norbert's side while Tovolar began to look intimidating with a Kindred Summons throwing out a few big, scary werewolves. I'm sitting on my massive pile of mana with Aesi, Jolrael, Mwonvuli Recluse, and a few other creatures on the field. Aesi's Aqueous Form and my Sol Ring get hit with a Hull Breach on Tovolar's side, which is fair, considering that the opponents were on 5 and 10 commander damage already. The game continued for a couple more turns while I whittled away at their life totals, comfortable. One turn, I decide to get risky and use Jolrael's activated ability to pump my team to 6/6s and swing with everything. This was a calculated risk, though, and didn't come back to bite me, even though both opponents swung back with everything and left me at 20-something life on my next turn. I had everything under control.

I attempt to look unsuspicious, busying my turn with a lot of ramp, ramp, ramp. I have blockers in the air and on the ground, and I'm strategically planning my every move, controlling the board as best I can. Maximum damage output without dying is my goal, and it's working. I am definitely being ganged up on at this point, which is fair, considering my board and their low life totals. Robert swings with a lot of stuff. I chump-block with my Arboreal Grazer and properly block with other things. I wonder why he doesn't use Tovolar to trample over the Grazer, before realizing that he didn't play anything in his precombat main phase either. After combat, that's when he plays it. Blasphemous Act. For a second, I panic, desperately glancing at my hand to see if there's anything that could save my victory. And what do you know, my planning payed off. I'd been waiting on this Counterspell for 4 turns now.

The look of victory turning to surprise melting into apathy on Robert's face was both satisfying and discomforting. Bad feels, man. But also... high five, past me. That was smooth.

Next turn, I play Brinelin, the Moon Kraken and bounce Robert's 7/7. Then I count up my remaining mana and survey the toughness of creatures on the board. I tutor up one more Island with a ramp spell, and Robert knows exactly what I'm doing. Norbert is sitting back with the same entertained look on his face that he's had the whole game. Good sport, I guess.

"Don't you dare play Scourge of Fleets. If you play that thing, I'm conceding," Robert threatens.

I smile and play my Scourge of Fleets, bouncing literally everything they had. Norbert laughs and throws his hands in the air. Robert says something along the lines of "I'm packing up. I don't play against that garbage" and proceeds to not play against this garbage. I felt kinda bad, but after attacks, they were both going to be dead on my next turn. Norbert doesn't give up. He's a sticky one, Norbert. He has a habit of staying in the game even when it's hopeless.

After attacks, Norbert is left on very little life, staring down a massive board and my life total of exactly 13. The unlucky number. How fitting. Robert wheels around to Norbert's side of the table to watch from his perspective, David against Goliath. For the most part, I know what they've got in their hand. Their entire board + their earlier hand. I'm not concerned. I lean back, confident in my win. Norbert, hopeless and waiting for death, plays Thought Vessel and then Master the Way targeting my face, which surprised me. Norbert draws a card, then counts up the cards in his hand. At first I was unworried, but as the count went up, 7, 8, 9, I began to wonder. Could he have done it? Could he have 13 cards in hand? The count goes up 10, 11, 12 ... and then stops. The spell resolves. I'm on one life. ONE. LIFE. He's got one red mana left. Desperately, Robert and Norbert realize that if they can squeak in one more point of damage, they can squeak take me down. So they starts looking around his hand. No creatures with haste. No direct damage spells for 1 mana. That's when they realize: If the Thought Vessel was still in hand, they would have the 13 damage to kill me. We have an unspoken policy of letting people undo misplays if no turn phases have been passed, and so it was that I watch in sadness as my victory slips away from me. Master the Way was David's stone, and I was Goliath. The dead guy and the barely-alive one both grin with glee as I drop my hand on the table.

I was so close. But in the end, there's one moral to the story: Winning doesn't matter. Friends matter, fun matters, and not ruining people's day with a Simic value engine matters. The universe always puts me back in my place when I get a notion of competitiveness, and you know what? I think that's a good thing.

Thank you for reading, I hope that was entertaining

[Aetherium Slinky]

"Stolen creatureS"?  Plural?  How did you keep more than one?

Actually, went through this with a friend. I can stack the triggers so that I can use Magda's tutor ability. After stealing all the creatures as outlined by the previous explanation this is how it goes:

• Activate IsoRev.
• Let that resolve, everything untaps, Merieke's destroy trigger goes on stack.
• Leave the Merieke trigger on stack, activate Fatestitcher to tap down a Dwarf.
• Magda trigger goes on stack, let that resolve creating a Treasure token.
• Repeat a few times to make a bunch of Treasure tokens. Keep the Merieke destroy triggers on the stack at all times.
• At some point after repeating the cycle enough many times activate Magda's ability to tutor up an artifact onto the battlefield. Do this as many times as needed to spew out all the artifacts in your deck.
• Let all the Merieke destroy triggers resolve destroying all the stolen creatures. The stack is empty, you do not control any stolen creatures, you have all your artifacts on the battlefield and an infinite amount of Treasure tokens.

[Aetherium Slinky]

Double posting like a true hero:

Played a game with Morganator using my new brew, the Colourless Kozilek, Butcher of Truth Modules Combo deck. They got to 15 commander damage with Licia, Sanguine Tribune. I did not attack with Kozilek due to the game being 1v1 and annihilator would have been a little too much with so few players and we wanted to test the combo potential of the deck anyway. To the point: I got to my combo. I was floating 88 mana due to Doubling Cube, Horizon Stone, Blinkmoth Urn and a lot of mana rocks so I was able to cast stuff like Dreamstone Hedron and crack it with no sweat. Mill them by looping Codex Shredder, then cast Introduction to Annihilation to force draw their last card.

Being able to execute my combo made me really happy. Proud of my deck.

EDIT: I've been playing the deck a few times now. It produces insane amounts of mana and can actually execute the combo fairly consistently.

[CleanBelwas]

Played a game the other night where a friend of mine Chaos Warped my Gitrog Monster into my Overlaid Terrain.

Ouch.

Funniest Chaos Warp I've ever seen.

[Mynus]

4-pod Commander game, forget what two of the decks are, but I was playing my budget Niv-Mizzet (In my deck lists for those who are curious) and a friend was playing the new curse commander Lynde, Cheerful Tormentor. For most of the game the other two players are in control, and I am just waiting, casting some instants for protection/removal when necessary without really having much of a board state to really make things happen. Lynde plays the curse Maddening Hex, which is not great for me, but it only hits me so often since it is random. I get out Harmonic Prodigy, and have a chance to kill a player with several Niv-Mizzet triggers and do so, but with 3 players the Maddening Hex is hitting more often. We get down to two players, and now Maddening Hex is permanently on me in a spell-slinger deck, so constant damage, and I am ticking away quickly without doing enough to my opponent to win. I finally draw Curiosity and cast it, the Maddening Hex takes me to 4 life, and I have to cast one more spell to get the Curiosity combo win and roll less than a 4. Well the D6 rolls a 4 and I die, but it felt like an epic ending with everything coming down to a roll of a D6.

[The Golgari Guy]

Yesterday I had a first run with my Ardenn / Rograkh deck. Pod of three, against Sythis, Harvest's Hand enchantress and Hanna, Ship's Navigator control.

The Sythis player had dropped an Archon of Sun's Grace and an Aura Shards, and had wrecked my board, destroying all my equipments. He had also assembled a lethal board and was preparing to kill both me and the Hanna player.

However, before that I was able to deal to him 14 commander damage with Rograkh. All I had left was a Stonehewer Giant, Rograkh, Sram, Senior Edificer, some lands and a Buried Ruin. All my equipments are in the graveyard, including a Fireshrieker.

Knowing that I need to protect Rograkh but that the Sythis player can remove easily any equipment I tutor for, I activate Stonehewer Giant to get a Robe of Stars to phase Rograkh out and hope to survive another turn.

Thinking that I'm done for, and afraid of the many board wipes he knows are in the Hanna player's deck, the Sythis player attacks the Hanna player with everything but 3 creatures, dealing 35+ damage to him and killing him. This attack leaves him with 10+ power to defend himself.

Relieved to have survived, at the end of the Sythis player's turn I sacrifice the Buried Ruin to get back the Fireshrieker from the graveyard. In my turn, Rograkh phases back in and I activate the Stonehewer Giant again to get a Colossus Hammer, equip Rograkh with both this and the Fireshrieker and attack for 20. Even though he's able to block around 10 damage, the Sythis player still takes a lethal hit and dies.

Pretty exciting for the first run of the deck! 

[UrizenII]

My most memorable game ocurred shortly after a couple of my friends first got me into MTG.  I hadn't built one of my own decks quite yet, so I was playing one of theirs (we almost exclusively play EDH).  The deck I was playing was a Norin the Wary chaos deck.  Its entire purpose was to just make everything stupid and ran all the cards like Scrambleverse, Thieves' Auction, Possibility Storm, etc.  The other friend was playing his Maelstrom Wanderer deck.

Long story short, Maelstrom Wanderer was cast and cascaded into all sorts of spicy things.  He swung out and killed the only other player left at the table with something like 30+ damage, which meant I was next.  On my next turn, I attempted to cast a Blasphemous Act to wipe the board and save myself for at least one more turn.  The problem was that I had forgotten that Possibility Storm was in play, and I realized that the trigger had to be resolved.  I started exiling cards knowing that I'd probably hit something completely useless and end up dying.  By some miracle, the first Sorcery I exiled was an Insurrection, so I stole all of his creatures and swung back at him for the win.  It was by no means the craziest of MTG interactions I've ever seen, but everyone at the table was laughing and thoroughly enjoying the fact that the jank chaos deck won by complete chance.

And then of course there was the time I killed myself with Phyrexian Arena.  I was playing my Karlov of the Ghost Council deck.  With two other people at the table, I bolted one of them with Aetherflux Reservoir to take him out of the game on his turn because he was in the process of doing some shenanigans that I didn't like.  I wasn't paying close enough attention to my life total though... I brought myself down to 1 life from the Reservoir activation and then remembered I had Phyrexian Arena out so I died on my upkeep and the third player won.  It was a fun game and I still claimed the moral victory; it's not always about the win - it's about sending a message. 

[The Golgari Guy]

A couple funny things that happened during yesteday's game night.

A friend of mine, using my Xenagos deck, attacks a player who was at 25 life with Etali, Primal Storm, giving it +6/+6 and haste. He reveals an Embercleave from the top, attaches it to Etali, which becomes a 13/13 double strike, trample and haste, killing the poor guy 

In another game (cEDH), a guy goes for a demonic consultation to find a combo piece. Another player casts his own consultation in response to look for interaction. He names Fierce Guardianship, but he ends up exiling his own library: it was the very last card. The funny thing is that the guy who originally went for the consultation ends up exiling all his wincons and losing. So that was a funny moment!

[Cosmic_Insight]

Played a game the other night where some chaos happened. I was playing my Najeela, the Blade-Blossom deck against Arhabo, Roar of the World, Galea, Kindler of Hope, and Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver, and I had managed to finally killed an absolutely stacked Galea and took out their player, when the Wilhelt player whom everyone had overlooked swung out at me with lethal damage. I started to pack up my cards, when we realized that Undead Alchemist says "instead of dealing combat damage," so I somehow get another turn, can't find anything, and lose to a very large zombie army. Tons of fun, and a very entertaining game.

[Aetherium Slinky]

So another community I'm involved in came up with a new twist on Commander. Some content creators (apparently Command Zone - haven't watched the video myself) complained about power creep and pointed their fingers at two things: low to the ground mana ramp and tutors. Solution? Ban both. The exact rule was:

No nonland card in the deck may have mana value 2 or less if it:
- Has a mana ability
- Says "search your library"

Some niche cases (Arbor Elf, Gemhide Sliver, Cryptolith Rite) set aside this restriction forces you to take advantage of MV 3 ramp: Cultivate, Shaman of Forgotten Ways, Commander's Sphere etc. While fast fetches are allowed it puts a heavy toll on regular tutoring. No Demonic Tutor, no Enlightened Tutor, no Rampant Growth and so forth. It's not the same as battlecruiser. Instead it simply prevents explosive "Sol Ring into Arcane Signet into Llanowar Elves" starts making the game a bit more balanced and giving everyone a fighting chance.

We're currently trying to "break" the format so I chose my cEDH Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy combo deck as the basis for my deck. I took away 30 cards and replaced them with similar functionality and added seven lands to compensate for the higher curve. The end result is...still strong. We played some 1v1s with a friend and he played regular decks against my monstrosity and lost quite a few times. Who would have thought Simic spam is OP?

One particularly memorable moment was when I pretty much topdecked all my pieces one after another and despite the restrictions I won on turn four. Four! All my cards cost three or more! It was lucky but I haven't been that lucky in a looong while so it felt nice.

[Aetherium Slinky]

The most mentally exhausting game I've ever played. My friend played this deck:
https://deckstats.net/decks/93006/2452429-the-huggy-terrorist?lng=en

These pieces weren't all out at the same time but a lot of them were:

• 2x Knowledge Pool
• Eidolon of Rhetoric
• Teferi's Puzzle Box
• Confusion in the Ranks
• Spellheart Chimera
• Shared Fate
• Scrambleverse

For the most part we didn't have any cards in hand due to Teferi's Puzzle Box and Shared Fate. All spells (if you could even cast them) were behind two Knowledge Pools and a Spellheart Chimera. Whatever you played got exchanged with something else due to Confusion in the Ranks.

We were Zedruu the Greathearted, Medomai the Ageless (me), Lathiel, the Bounteous Dawn and Archangel Avacyn. A lot of silly things happened but somewhere mid game I borrowed a Celestial Mantle on my Medomai and I gained 300 life with it because nobody had flying creatures. The game was in a full lock state because Knowledge Pool and Spellheart Chimera were in play so they couldn't cast any creatures either. Some stack manipulation later they got out of the lock and killed Eidolon of Rhetoric. More silly things happened such as a Scrambleverse until the Avacyn player forgot I had both 300 life and the Spellheart Chimera so they played Aetherflux Reservoir. Yoink it and pew pew for the victory.

We all agreed unanimously that we're not going to play with that deck ever again. I have mixed feelings about this; every player should experience a game like that once in their Magic career but that's it. No regrets - just never again.

[The Golgari Guy]

The most mentally exhausting game I've ever played. My friend played this deck:
https://deckstats.net/decks/93006/2452429-the-huggy-terrorist?lng=en

These pieces weren't all out at the same time but a lot of them were:

• 2x Knowledge Pool
• Eidolon of Rhetoric
• Teferi's Puzzle Box
• Confusion in the Ranks
• Spellheart Chimera
• Shared Fate
• Scrambleverse

For the most part we didn't have any cards in hand due to Teferi's Puzzle Box and Shared Fate. All spells (if you could even cast them) were behind two Knowledge Pools and a Spellheart Chimera. Whatever you played got exchanged with something else due to Confusion in the Ranks.

We were Zedruu the Greathearted, Medomai the Ageless (me), Lathiel, the Bounteous Dawn and Archangel Avacyn. A lot of silly things happened but somewhere mid game I borrowed a Celestial Mantle on my Medomai and I gained 300 life with it because nobody had flying creatures. The game was in a full lock state because Knowledge Pool and Spellheart Chimera were in play so they couldn't cast any creatures either. Some stack manipulation later they got out of the lock and killed Eidolon of Rhetoric. More silly things happened such as a Scrambleverse until the Avacyn player forgot I had both 300 life and the Spellheart Chimera so they played Aetherflux Reservoir. Yoink it and pew pew for the victory.

We all agreed unanimously that we're not going to play with that deck ever again. I have mixed feelings about this; every player should experience a game like that once in their Magic career but that's it. No regrets - just never again.

Oh God, this looks like a true nightmare...

[Aetherium Slinky]

It was exactly the kind of challenge I love in Magic. Sort of a 4D chess game because a lot of the information was available on the table. On the other hand we weren't playing our own decks due to Shared Fate so many of the "draws" were unknown to us which added an additional layer of creativity. It was very challenging and rewarding.

Like I said never again but every player should experience this once. It's something that forces you to play differently and think about the game in a different way. You lose access to normal gameplay but it opens up new avenues and makes you think about the available resources in a new way.

Everything in Magic is just a resource and what we call "value" and "winning" is just to find the optimal way to use those resources. It's all about exchange rates, one resource to another as efficiently as possible.

I know playing such a game can be frustrating because you don't get to do what you were planning to do. But it's an eye opener. You get what you get and you have to make the best out of it.

[Bonethousand]

Played a game this weekend that was only fun for me, but it was fast and my stompy deck got to stomp.

Kept a hand with 1-drop dorks; and Ilharg, the Raze-Boar; and a Old Gnawbone. Turn 3 drop the pig, turn 4 bait out the Mystic Reflections with a God-Eternal Rhonas from the blue player who foretold, slam in the dragon, make a bunch of treasures, slam Ruric Thar the Unbowed against two spellslinger decks, and Mosswort Bridge in a Gisela, Blade of Goldnight.

Something nice about knowing that a counterspell would cost an additional 12 damage when playing high cmc beaters. Everyone just scooped.

[CleanBelwas]

Had a fun one last night.

Was playing some weird Reality Chip clone deck I've been brewing, built mostly around Mirror Box.

The idea is clone other peoples stuff if it's worth cloning, or if not try and make a load of copies of Nezehal or Tromokratis.

Well, as it turned out, someone did have something worth cloning.

My buddy has just created the Mechtitan token from Mechtitan core.

With mirror box in play (and a blue caged sun for a silly amount of mana), I played Phyrexian Metamorph, copying the titan. Bounced my Sakashima the Impostor and replayed, copying the titan. Played Sakashima's Protege, cascading into Clever Impersonator, both copying the titan (or a titan copy in the case of the protege).

Now I had 4 16/16 titans (each getting +1/+1 from the caged sun, +1/+1 from Mirror Boxes second ability and +4/+4 from mirror boxes third ability).

I then proceeded to administer the most savage of robot beatdowns with a hand full of protective spells. It was glorious.