> is losing life unfavorable if it wins you the game?
It’s Mana Vault, not Mana Crypt, so losing life is inevitable if Symbi wants to cast NDE.
I believe RoosterCocoa does as follows:
T1: Play Woodlot.
T2: Play Coliseum. Cast Reito Lantern
T3: Sac Woodlot, put it back in deck, draw and play it again.
T4: Cast Ajani, +1 Ajani (now 3).
T5: Sac Woodlot, put it back in deck, draw and play it. +1 Ajani (now 4)
T8: -6 Ajani. One emblem, Put Ajani back in deck.
T9: Sac Woodlot. Put Woodlot back in deck. Play Woodlot.
T10: Cast Ajani. Two poison counters. +1 Ajani (now 3). --> it takes 6 turns.
T14: -6 Ajani. Two emblems, Put Ajani back in deck.
T16: Cast Ajani. 6 poison counters. +1 Ajani (now 3).
T17: sac woodlot and play it, -3 ajani.
T18: draw ajani.
T19: win.
If I am correct, that changes MUs vs Reeplcheep and symbi.
Looks like dte is shaving time off of my version of RoosterCocoa’s clock by sacrificing Woodlot during the upkeep and drawing it in the draw step of the same turn. I was taking a whole turn to sac Woodlot and then another whole turn to replay it. I don’t see a problem with using the upkeep step. Will be interesting to see what RoosterCocoa and Symbi say when they get a chance to consider it.
The controller of the random effect gets the worst outcome for optimal play trying to win the game. At least that's how we've played it here.
Backbuild confuses things because we get points for losing. But each deck pilot must still play optimally to win. You could either view it as switching decks trying to win with opponent's deck, or being forced to win with your own deck (even though round points reward the opposite). Random effects get the outcome that opposes the controller's attempt to win.
Goblin Assassin has 2 options:
a) survive as a 2/2
b) die and ping for 1 damage
In most cases the 2/2 wins faster, so it will die and ping for 1 damage.
In some board states the 2/2 deals less damage than pinging (opponent has a blocker or NDE at 1 life). In those cases it survives as a 2/2 instead of dying.
Mana Clash always loses the flip and kills you. However you cannot use it to 6-0 every Backbuild game on turn 1, because controllers must use optimal play trying to win the game. In most cases optimal play means you never cast Mana Clash. It is like Summoner's Pact in hand. However Goblin Assassin gets cast because both outcomes advance GoblinSmashmaster's game plan. It will just be the slower outcome each time.
Goblin Game is different because the choices are not random. Edit: Math in a separate post.
Last edited by FTW; 10-06-2022 at 08:19 PM.
Last edited by FTW; 10-06-2022 at 06:40 PM.
Goblin Game math and logic attempted.
Player A at 21 vs Player B at 20
A chooses X > 0
B chooses Y after with perfect information.
Resolving Goblin Game...
If Y < X then B -> FLOOR[(20-Y)/2] life // A -> 21-X life
If Y=X then B -> FLOOR[(20-X)/2] life // A -> FLOOR[(21-X)/2] life
If Y > X then B -> 20 - Y life // A -> FLOOR[(21-X)/2] life
Choosing Y=1 is strictly better than anything else less than X (B would lose more without A losing more)
Choosing Y=X+1 is strictly better than anything bigger (B would lose more without A losing more)
Choosing Y=X is never better than Y=X+1 (equal when X would bring you to 2 life, otherwise losing half is worse than losing 1 life)
Player B's only reasonable choices for Y are 1 or X+1. That simplifies decisions.
If X > 12, player B can choose Y=1, get life halved, and ends up ahead: B -> 9 life // A -> 21 - X life
If X < 17, player B can choose Y=X+1, force player A to get life halved, and ends up ahead: B -> 19 - X life // A -> FLOOR[(21-X)/2] life
Starting at 21 vs 20 life, Player B will always end up ahead after 1 Goblin Game. It only gets worse after more Goblin Games. Player A cannot win.
Generalizing... What if player A starts with L extra life?
If X > 11+L, player B can choose Y=1 and end up ahead: B -> 9 life // A -> 20+L-X life
If X < 18-L, player B can choose Y=X+1 and end up ahead: B -> 19-X life // A -> FLOOR[(20+L-X)/2] life
If 18-L < X < 11+L then player B cannot use either line to get ahead. Player A needs L > 4 extra life.
Starting at 25 life, Player A can choose X=15:
If player B chooses Y=1 -> B @ 9 life, A @ 10 life.
If player B chooses Y=16 -> B @ 4 life, A @ 5.
FINALLY Player A can resolve Goblin Game and finish ahead in life no matter what Player B chooses. But A is just ahead by 1 life, not enough to win a 2nd Goblin Game. To win the 2nd and 3rd Goblin Game to kill, Player A needs a bigger life advantage.
Edit: To guarantee winning consecutive Goblin Games, Player A needs a life advantage bigger than 1 after resolving Goblin Games.
Player A could choose X so that Player B cannot match it, guaranteeing player B will get their life halved.
If Player A starts with at least 33 life this is possible.
1st Goblin Game -> Choose X=19 -> B must choose Y=1 -> A @ 14 life, B @ 9 life
2nd Goblin Game -> Choose X=8 -> B must choose Y=1 -> A @ 6 life, B @ 4 life
3rd Goblin Game -> Choose X=3 -> B must choose Y=1 -> A @ 3 life, B @ 1 life
4th Goblin Game -> Choose X=1 -> B can match or choose higher -> either way B loses and A survives at 1 life
With +13 life you can guarantee a win using 4 Goblin Games.
If Player A starts with 27 life, you can't constrain decisions as much but can still win
1st Goblin Game -> Choose X=15
If B chooses Y=16: A @ 6 life, B @ 4 life (we know this wins from above, choosing X=3 then X=1)
If B chooses Y=1: A @ 12 life, B @ 9 life
-> For 2nd Goblin Game choose X=6
-> -> If B chooses Y=1: A @ 6 life, B @ 4 life (we know this wins from above)
-> -> If B chooses Y=7: A @ 3 life, B @ 2 life -> For 3rd Goblin Game choose X=1 -> No matter what B chooses, A survives at 1 and B loses
Edit2: 27 life is enough for Player A to kill with 4 Goblin Games no matter what opponent chooses.
I could not find a winning line with 26 life.
tl;dr- We could ban Goblin Game, but I do not see the point. Perfect information gives opponent a large advantage. You have to gain 7 life just to beat a goldfish. Gaining that much life does not seem competitive in Backbuild.
Last edited by FTW; 10-06-2022 at 06:52 PM.
I don't think "having a lot of decision points" is really a good reason to ban a card
If there is a reason to ban goblin game, it is not because there are too many decision points, but rather because the card’s Oracle text explicitly says that decisions need to be made simultaneously by both players. This is distinct from APNAP order and could in principle be impossible to resolve!
Last edited by BirdsOfParadise; 10-06-2022 at 12:22 AM.
RoosterCocoa, Grand Coliseum, Hickory Woodlot, Reito Lantern, Ajani, Sleeper Agent, GT:2723
I didn't notice that I could -3 Ajani to kill him the last time, or that I could use Lantern on upkeep for Woodlot. Luckily for me, whenever I use Lantern on Woodlot after I use it on Ajani, doing it on upkeep doesn't matter because Ajani is already in my library, so if I use Lantern on Woodlot it just goes below Ajani and doesn't get drawn until the next turn.
dte(TO), Dreadship Reef, horizon canopy, Broodstar, mortivore, GT c. 35
Lantern beats you. WW
Reeplcheep, Dark Depths, Boseiju, who shelters all, Seraph Sanctuary, Veldt GT: 23
Whoever is on the play wins. WL
jfb1337, Lotus Bloom, Conjurer's Bauble, Flailing Soldier, Obsidian Charmaw GT: 15
You can't ever beat me. WW
Dooey, Subterranean Hangar, Lich's Mastery, Serra's Sanctum, Lion Sash GT30
Lich's Mastery means I can't win. LL
Symbi, Lotus Bloom, Mishra's Workshop, Mana Vault, Near-Death Experience, GT:24
Unfortunately for me, with my new goldfish you lose by one turn. WW
FourDogsinaHorseSuit, Ancient Tomb, Brain in a Jar, Pact of the Titan, Biorhythm, GT9
You are too fast for me. LL
BirdsOfParadise, Hollow Trees, Thought-Knot Seer, Vesuva, Wolfcaller's Howl
If I play Woodlot, you can't do anything but I can't win. DD
FTW, Rushwood Grove, Vesuva, Wolfcaller's Howl, Reality Smasher
If I play Woodlot, you can't do anything but I can't win. DD
GoblinSmashmaster, Mercadian Bazaar, Reito Lantern, Boggart Shenanigans, Goblin Assassin, GT183
I am too fast, even with the self damage. WW
Silkster, Chancellor of the Tangle, Eladamri's Vineyard, Copper Tablet, Shriekhorn, GT: 21+upkeep
You have to play Vineyard on your first turn, so I can choose between not paying life for Ajani or not recycling Woodlot. If I don't pay life for Ajani, I lose if you deal 16 damage before I can win, which is my upkeep after your turn 17. You can also delay me by 3 turns with Shriekhorn, using it to mill the card I place on top of my library (I think you can only get one turn per use, but I might be wrong since you can make me use depletion counters from Woodlot). I play Ajani on my turn 3, so I can ult him on turn 5, which gives me enough time to use Lantern to get Woodlot back and play it on turn 4. This means on turn 5 I place Ajani in my library, and I replay him on turn 6. This cycle takes 3 turns, so after turn 12 I have ulted Ajani 3 times and just replayed him. Since you can delay me 3 times with Shriekhorn, this makes it actually turn 15, which means I win. WW
11W 4D 5L = 19
It turns out I'm too used to backbuild lists that only do what I built them to do, I didn't even bother looking to see if the deck could win faster than I designed it to. I did come up with a great list, but it was way too bad to win vs one of the target decks.
Provisional scores for round 7:
3,8 Symbi
3,6 Reeplcheep
3,6 Silkster
3,4 jfb1337
3,4 BirdsOfParadise
3,4 FTW
2,8 dte(TO)
2,4 GoblinSmashmaster
1,6 RoosterCocoa
1,4 FourDogsinaHorseSuit
1,2 Dooey
Which leads to the following standings for S13:
1 26,5 BirdsOfParadise
2 25,9 Symbi
3 23,7 Silkster
4 20,3 RoosterCocoa
5 19,5 Wrath of Pie
6 18,2 FTW
7 16,8 Reeplcheep
8 16,5 jfb1337
9 15,6 dte (TO)
10 15 GoblinSmashmaster
11 12 Dooey
12 10,7 FourDogsinaHorseSuit
13 8,6 alphastryk
14 6,6 Asthereal
15 2,9 Raketenudo
So a very tight race for the top spot, to be decided on the last round between BirdsOfParadise and Symbi, with Silkster maybe able to do something!
Positions 4, 7 and 9 are also in play.
There will be the following additional bannings:
Flailing Soldier
Chancellor of the Tangle
Near-Death Experience
Wolfcaller's Howl
Flailing Ogre
Obsidian Charmaw
Impatience
As well as all cards in the target decks, which are:
Subterranean Hangar, Lich's Mastery, Serra's Sanctum, Lion Sash
Grand Coliseum, Hickory Woodlot, Reito Lantern, Ajani, Sleeper Agent
Ancient Tomb, Brain in a Jar, Pact of the Titan, Biorhythm
I will brew something, last round to be opened soon!
Last edited by dte; 10-06-2022 at 09:57 AM.
I’m seeing 22, 23 and 19 for rooster’s GT. I’m fine to go down to WL if someone can lay it out again. Just to confirm, this is why I’m 23:
I beat 4x wastes by making marit lage on t22 at 1 life (3 turns to play my mana producing lands, 19 to remove counters) and then attacking on t23.
I sent myself a deck, so R8 officially open!
Note that there is two cards that were not played last round but are banned (bolded), the ogre to accompany the soldier, and impatience as well-scoring decks from R6 would be legal otherwise:
Flailing Soldier
Chancellor of the Tangle
Near-Death Experience
Wolfcaller's Howl
Flailing Ogre
Obsidian Charmaw
Impatience
The target decks are:
Subterranean Hangar, Lich's Mastery, Serra's Sanctum, Lion Sash
Grand Coliseum, Hickory Woodlot, Reito Lantern, Ajani, Sleeper Agent
Ancient Tomb, Brain in a Jar, Pact of the Titan, Biorhythm
All cards in them are banned as well for R8.
Deadline Tuesday 18th at 19h.
Flailing Manticore: Legal, or overlooked in the ban announcement?
dte(TO), Dreadship Reef, horizon canopy, Broodstar, mortivore, GT c. 35
If I make the Vineyard, then you can safely charge the Reef for 12 turns, then make Broody then Morty. If I don't make the Vineyard, I can never do anything, so I lose to your normal game plan.
LL
Reeplcheep, Dark Depths, Boseiju, who shelters all, Seraph Sanctuary, Veldt GT: 23
Same as above. If I make the Vineyard, then the Sanctuary powers out a quick and easy Marit Lage. If I don't, I can never do anything and you can win nice and slow.
LL
jfb1337, Lotus Bloom, Conjurer's Bauble, Flailing Soldier, Obsidian Charmaw GT: 15
If I make Vineyard, then you can Charmaw me. So I never make Vineyard, and I die to the Soldier. This deck is super cool.
LL
Dooey, Subterranean Hangar, Lich's Mastery, Serra's Sanctum, Lion Sash GT30
Ooh, I've been thinking about a Lich+Serra's Sanctum deck for a while, but I was trying to do things like have a creature with an upkeep of W, so I never got around to a "simple" build like this. I questioned the Lion Sash at first, but that must be to make the deck actually legal by beating Jötun Grunt.
I can safely make Vineyard on turn 1, so if you ever to get aggressive with the Lion from 20 hp, I can kill you. But if I try to the Tablet, you can play Lich's Mastery to buy yourself a few extra life (and get a few attacks in, though you don't need them).
DD edit: disagreement
RoosterCocoa, Grand Coliseum, Hickory Woodlot, Reito Lantern, Ajani, Sleeper Agent, GT: 27
This is an amazingly interactive and complicated matchup. I'm guessing that my 3 activations of Shriekhorn... well, they only buy me 3 turns cause you can activate Lantern every turn with from Coliseum and the Vineyard mana. I'm going to move on for now.
??
I'm glad to see that RoosterCocoa did the math (which actually wasn't that bad; still, thanks!).
LL
Symbi, Lotus Bloom, Mishra's Workshop, Mana Vault, Near-Death Experience, GT:24
I think APNAP means that my tablet kills you with your win trigger on the stack.
WW
FourDogsinaHorseSuit, Ancient Tomb, Brain in a Jar, Pact of the Titan, Biorhythm, GT9
This is the deck that I've continually been most impressed with over the season. It requires 9 activations of Ancient Tomb, which is just so perfect. Unfortunately. that mean that I was targeting it. Vineyard gives you an easy win, so I can't do that. So then I have no game plan.
LL
BirdsOfParadise, Hollow Trees, Thought-Knot Seer, Vesuva, Wolfcaller's Howl
Ah, Vesuva is a great way to make use of the dummy's Wastes.
WW
FTW, Rushwood Grove, Vesuva, Wolfcaller's Howl, Reality Smasher
Great minds. Sad for team no-lands.
WW
GoblinSmashmaster, Mercadian Bazaar, Reito Lantern, Boggart Shenanigans, Goblin Assassin, GT183
You can deal me damage quite easily, especially with bonus mana.
LL
Silkster, Chancellor of the Tangle, Eladamri's Vineyard, Copper Tablet, Shriekhorn, GT: 21+upkeep
I almost played Chancellor of the Tangle + Saproling Cluster in round 2, which would have done better than the Cluster deck of that round, but not quite as well as the top deck. I got distracted thinking about the next season and ended up scrambling for a deck at the last minute. Copper Tablet seemed good enough, but I was disappointed that I could use it defensively against decks like Brain in a Jar even if I needed the Vineyard to make the Tablet. This was the perfect opportunity to reuse the Chancellor. Unfortunately, I got got by Wolfcaller's Howl again.
12L, 2D, 6W, 2? for 38 points.
I still think randomness is most easily considered by switching decks. After switching decks, everyone is trying to win, and randomness works how you expect it: your opponent chooses the outcome of your random events.
Seeing the scores, I really could have used those 3.5 points from Avoid Fate -> Intervene. It was definitely my bad, though, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Me too! The Ajani is brand new, so maybe someone played it on Arena. It doesn't surprise me that people know about the Charmaw because it was hyped in Modern for a while. But to remember it and realize that it can be used here is the crazy part. An embarrassing number of my searches start with -t:creature or pow=0, cause things that can attack are just too powerful. Wolfcaller's Howl was also a crazy find, and then the ways that made use of opponent playing a land were creative too.
I considered Flailing Soldier with Suppression Field, but then you get too many free wins against certain storage lands. And I thought about Cursed Totem, but then you just have Gray Ogre, and he's way too strong. I knew about Oppressive Rays (I had a really good round with it in the pauper season when removal was scarce), but didn't realize it was useful here. I also like that the way this deck beats 4 Wastes is by getting the creature down on turn 3 because you can't actually land the Rays against 4 activations.
I'm also loving the Goblin themes, especially because they're real decks that are competitively bad.
There's still disagreement.
It affects both this round's results and deck legality for next round (since it is a target deck).
T1 tapped Woodlot (2 counters)
T2 Coliseum. Reito Lantern. (1 counter)
T3 upkeep sac Woodlot -> redraw Woodlot -> tapped Woodlot (2 counters)
T4 Ajani. +1 [Ajani=3, life=17, 1 counter]
T5 upkeep sac Woodlot -> replay tapped Woodlot. +1 [Ajani=4, life=17, 2 counters]
T6 +1 [Ajani=5]
T7 +1 [Ajani=6]
T8 -6. Emblem #1. Put Ajani in library. [life=17, 1 counter]
T9 upkeep sac Woodlot
Library = {Ajani, Woodlot}
Draw Ajani.
T10 Draw Woodlot. Tapped Woodlot [2 counters]
T11 Cast Ajani. +1 [Ajani=3, life=14, poison=2, 1 counter]
T12 upkeep sac Woodlot -> replay tapped Woodlot. +1 [Ajani=4, 2 counters]
T13 +1 [Ajani=5]
T14 +1 [Ajani=6]
T15 -6. Emblem #2. Put Ajani in library. [life=14, poison=2, 1 counter]
T16 Upkeep sac Woodlot. Draw Ajani.
T17 Draw Woodlot. Tapped Woodlot. [2 counters]
T18 Cast Ajani. +1 [Ajani=3, life=11, poison=6, 1 counter]
T19 Upkeep sac Woodlot -> Play tapped Woodlot. -3 Ajani. [Ajani dead, 2 counters]
T20 Upkeep put Ajani in library. Draw Ajani [1 counter]
T21 Cast Ajani. Woodlot dies. [life=8, poison=10, 0 counters]
I get GT21
2 more than dte but 2 less than Rooster!
I agree with dte's sequence except for the 1 issue, bolded. dte has Rooster redrawing Woodlot before Ajani when both are in library. But the library order must be Ajani first, since Reito Lantern must be activated on 2 separate turns. That comes up on T9-10 and T16-17, delaying 2 turns. It does not need to happen for the 4th Ajani cast, since Rooster does not need to save Woodlot after dealing lethal.
Can anyone else confirm?
Last edited by FTW; 10-06-2022 at 06:57 PM.
Note to self: If aiming to beat RoosterCocoa’s target deck, don’t rely on the goldfish turn. Null Rod and Chimney Imp, go!
I may or may not have a deck with GT 21 that really cares whether this is 21, 22 or 23.
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