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Post by Daij_Djan on Sept 1, 2020 0:08:06 GMT
Welcome to the Deckbuilders' Challenge originally created by sdfkjgh! To participate in this Contest you'll have to design a deck along the contest guidelines and throw it into the arena with other competitors' entries! At the end of every two weeks, a winner will be determined by forum poll, and the winner decides the challenge for the next fortnight's Contest! Here we go, competitors: our twelfth challenge!
The winner of the “Spectral Brewing! poll“ was ZephyrPhantom with... |
{Comments} "From the depth of Kederekt, a false sun shall scorch all."    Solar Flares on Kederekt    Thoughtseize, Kolghan's Command, Lightning Helix...all the mainstays you'd typically expect of a Mardu Control deck. Sometimes, this is all the opponent can and should ever see in a game - a somewhat permanent light Mardu Control deck that is looking to one-for-one and control the opponent out.  ....That is, until Solar Flare comes down. Combined with Kederekt Parasite, we have the ability to burn our opponent for 10 out of nowhere with the massive amount of cards flowing into their hand. Since Solar Flare is a red permanent, it works perfectly with Kederekt's Parasite, allowing us to turn what would normally be an overly expensive Fate Unraveler combo into an instant kill on turn 3.   However, we won't always draw our Parasites, which is where Runeflare Trap comes in. Combined with Simian Spirit Guide and a bit of luck, we can often pull the remaining 10 or 20 damage we'll need out of an instant slamdown of a Solar Flare on the table. Not necessarily the most consistent or efficient of kills, but can be great for the reaction on your opponent's face if you nail it. A variation of this build could go more all-in on the surprise combo kill with cards like Faithless Looting and Street Wraith to better filter our draws, but I went with this version because I prefer making decks that can function even without their risky combo plan firing off. It also ups the surprise element because you can make it look like you are playing Mardu control with some janky party-game tier cards from a set no one's ever heard of, until they put the pieces together when you're burning them for 10 or 20. Happy oneshotting! |
And the challenge issued by our winner was... Create a deck based on something on your forum profile! (see here for some suggestions)And now, time to begin the challenge! Best of luck, competitors! |
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Post by Lady Mapi on Sept 1, 2020 15:26:24 GMT
This one might be a little tricky for a lot of people. --- I have a feeling that we're probably going to get a deck from sdfkjgh or ZephyrPhantom , and probably no-one else? Because none of the other people who have submitted decks in the past have names or profile images that are remotely useful for inspiring a deck, especially one that has to use existing cards. EDIT: Or, I guess, Daij_Djan, since he can just make any pauper deck he wants. I guess. |
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Post by ZephyrPhantom on Sept 1, 2020 17:12:42 GMT
This one might be a little tricky for a lot of people. --- I have a feeling that we're probably going to get a deck from sdfkjgh or ZephyrPhantom , and probably no-one else? Because none of the other people who have submitted decks in the past have names or profile images that are remotely useful for inspiring a deck, especially one that has to use existing cards. EDIT: Or, I guess, Daij_Djan, since he can just make any pauper deck he wants. I guess. Several people use actual cards as their usernames and profile pictures. thaneofglamis is Sporecrown Thallid for example, and Soulmender is well, Soulmender. You're allowed to be creative with the challenge; I've seen people make themed decks around fictional characters all the time, so Flo00 could do a Rayman-themed deck, for example. Heck, considering that your Battle Board is in your signature, you could make a deck based on that (and it's got quite a few cards posted in it, no?) Also, nothing in the challenge says you had to stick to the main MTG cardpool. Go wild with custom cards if it helps.  |
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Post by Lady Mapi on Sept 1, 2020 17:58:41 GMT
Heck, considering that your Battle Board is in your signature, you could make a deck based on that (and it's got quite a few cards posted in it, no?) Actually, it doesn't. I hard-reset my battle boards after changing my username, so the thread my sig points to has a couple of cards in it, at best. I'll admit, I'm not the biggest fan of challenges like this, because they aren't fair. Some people (like the aforementioned thaneofglamis ) will have a much easier challenge than, say, gamma3 . This kind of thing also gives people an incentive to change their avatar/signature - for example, if I swapped over to the avatar I use on a different forum, I could easily justify making a self-mill deck. EDIT: Plus, I'm not a fan of having a deck-building challenge where you can just make customs to fill in the gaps, because that fundamentally warps everything. Like, imagine how much the "no lands" challenge would've broken if someone posted an affinity-based deck with 12 custom 0-drop artifacts. Then the process of voting would also involve evaluating those cards in addition to evaluating the deck. |
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Post by ZephyrPhantom on Sept 1, 2020 18:39:07 GMT
Heck, considering that your Battle Board is in your signature, you could make a deck based on that (and it's got quite a few cards posted in it, no?) Actually, it doesn't. I hard-reset my battle boards after changing my username, so the thread my sig points to has a couple of cards in it, at best. I'll admit, I'm not the biggest fan of challenges like this, because they aren't fair. Some people (like the aforementioned thaneofglamis ) will have a much easier challenge than, say, gamma3 . This kind of thing also gives people an incentive to change their avatar/signature - for example, if I swapped over to the avatar I use on a different forum, I could easily justify making a self-mill deck. EDIT: Plus, I'm not a fan of having a deck-building challenge where you can just make customs to fill in the gaps, because that fundamentally warps everything. Like, imagine how much the "no lands" challenge would've broken if someone posted an affinity-based deck with 12 custom 0-drop artifacts. Then the process of voting would also involve evaluating those cards in addition to evaluating the deck. If you weren't interested in doing that, you could say, interpret jail as "Prison" and make an anti-prison deck? I'm willing to say anything in your forum profile goes, so that everything from your current Creature rank, Favorite Color, and Favorite Card I'd count things like Favorite Card/Favorite Color goes ( Daij_Djan if you're okay with that change) if I had been more aware of it when making this challenge. My intent was to basically say "Okay, there must be *something* in your forum profile that you'd be able to put a creative spin on for a deck." You're intended to play fast and loose with the contents of your profile, as opposed to taking things as literally as possible, and the challenge in itself is about hitting a bunch of general points that everyone's profile has at least one of those points they may want to potentially work with for a deck. Yes, I acknowledge you could easily change your username and signature for this, but I was hoping for it to be more of a 'spirit of the rule' type thing. I understand it's not like Daij's random card challenges where you can freely reroll, but even if something your username doesn't have some kind of joke or meaning that you could turn into a funny deck you could even take the angle of "I made a deck where every card's name starts with letters from my username" or something similar. Errataing this to use anything in your forum profile should alleviate the restricted nature of the challenge even further since favorite color and favorite card are fairly common options on this forum (and if you're passionate about a card, I feel like its safe to say the odds you actually played it or wanted to play with it are pretty high) + everyone that isn't a mod has a creature type based on their number of posts. So with the errata you should have at least some of the following options: - Deck that makes creative use of a picture (your profile picture) - Deck that makes creative use of a word (your username) - Deck that makes creative use of a card, picture, or word (in your signature) [+Post Errata] - Creature type-based deck - Favorite Colors deck - Deck built around favorite card - Deck featuring your favorite set's cards - Deck based on whatever catchphrase you put below your profile picture. I feel like most people will at least hit 3 of these options post-errata akin which should be enough starting points for a Challenge Slots-esque starting point for deckbuilding. |
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Post by sdfkjgh on Sept 3, 2020 5:46:14 GMT
So, this deck will have very few surprises, as Lady Mapi pointed out, but what it will have is a funny, Squirrel-related name. The only question is which? Do I go for Alas, Poor Monkey Joe? Do I go for We Are Not Raccoons? #JusticeforEarthcraft#NOTICEMESENPAI?
Nah. None of that.
Squirrelzooka* Casual
3 Rocket Lawnchair 4 Earthcraft 3 Squirrel Nest 3 Caged Sun 3 Doubling Season 3 Acorn Catapult 3 Chatter of the Squirrel 3 Deranged Hermit 3 Druid's Call 3 Squirrel Mob 3 Nut Collector 3 Kodama's Reach (just to confuse them) 3 Swarmyard 20 Snow-Covered Forest (to further confuse)
I could've added in Earl of Squirrel, but I wanted to keep it strictly black-bordered (which I will violate by having as many white-bordered cards as I can for this deck). Besides, Druid's Call kinda fills the same function, and if you can get it on a Squirrel Mob, then start plinking that with Acorn Catapults, that seems like a fun time to me.
This was kinda fun, and took me back to my earliest days of the game, as the first deck idea I had was to cram all the Squirrel cards I could into a deck with Spidersilk Armor, Beast of Burden, and mebbe summat to give errything trample &/or haste. It's no worse or stupider than this deck.
The mana curve is atrocious, the main combo is Reserved Listed for some reason, the backup combo has too many moving parts (most of which are far too fragile), and the surprise combo relies on a card that's only there because of a stupid graphic from a column on The Mothership from over a decade ago, written by someone who doesn't even work there anymore, is ludicrously and unnecessarily complicated to boot, and prolly requires a custom card to actually tie it all together.
Enjoy!
*I could've gone with Bazooka Squirrel, and I still might, but for now, it's Squirrelzooka. |
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Post by Daij_Djan on Sept 4, 2020 21:25:46 GMT
Updated the initial post to reflect the challenge update.
Fun fact: I actually always thought things like the Color Alignment were part of the challenge anyway 
Also: Yeah, my signature makes Pauper kind of the obvious choice.. Not sure whether I want to use it, though.
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Post by melono on Sept 5, 2020 10:50:37 GMT
Here's a link to my ManaStack deck:
manastack.com/deck/fruits-and-vegetablesIt's a commanders deck which has fruits and/or vegetables in all its art. Based off of my profile picture. The main card is hard to put, because I only chose the commander because it had fruit in its flavor text. Which is more than could be said about other possible commanders. I guess I could put the first card I used to start the deck off with here:  And this was way too time-consuming, hot damn. Oh, and if I need to put in more info, tell me. |
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Post by sdfkjgh on Sept 7, 2020 18:26:58 GMT
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Post by Daij_Djan on Sept 14, 2020 21:10:51 GMT
Sadly, I didn't have the time to finish my deck. I was working on a Tobias Andrion Human tribal Pauper-legal Commander deck.. Anyway:
This thread is now closed, the poll can be found here. And here's the next challenge! |
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"When in doubt, do a common." 
