Creature (8)
Enchantment (7)
Artifact (7)
I'm a control player at heart, both in playstyle and personality. I work best when I know that there is nothing any reasonable person can do to make me lose. If I ever get the time and money to start playing competitively, I'm going to be running stuff like Lantern Control and Turbofog. In the spirit of never losing, I present to all this challenge.
Assuming that I control the cards listed above as I declare my end step, the challenge is to find a way to break this lock and make me vulnerable. Your method can be active (you take an action to break it) or passive (you have cards already in play that can break it). You may use any board state, deck ordering, and cards in hand you want, within Vintage limits, and you may use a fully-stocked Upwelling to represent infinite mana in all colors.
Platinum Angel: The core of this hard lock. It guarantees that no alternate win condition or mill will break this combo.
Mycosynth Lattice, Darksteel Forge, Hanna's Custody (a suggestion from Bovine073), Stony Silence: All permanents now have shroud and indestructible and can't activate any abilities, even mana abilities.
Orbs of Warding, Sigarda, Host of Herons: I have hexproof and can't be forced to sacrifice any permanents.
Angel of Jubilation: This card prevents creature sacrifices and life payments to cast spells, preventing effects like Ichor Explosion and Toxic Deluge.
Gaddock Teeg: Every mass exile and mass bounce spell that affects permanents, with two exceptions, costs at least 4 mana. The two exceptions are Martyr's Cry and Cyclonic Rift. This card prevents almost every other mass bounce and mass exile effect.
Knowledge Pool, Rule of Law, Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, Erayo's Essence : This creates a near hard lock: You can cast only one spell per turn, and it's automatically exiled if you cast it from your hand, or countered if you didn't. Teferi prevents casting off Knowledge Pool, which would break the sorcery-speed only restriction.
Melira, Sylvok Outcast: This card prevents the spreading of -1/-1 counters, such as Carnifex Demon and Black Sun's Zenith, to remove my creatures.
Torpor Orb: This card prevents "enters the battlefield" triggers. Perhaps you have a Standardize and Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund suspended with Jhoira of the Ghitu
about to enter the battlefield. You don't get anything from me.
Xenograft: This card is added in response to chaosumbreon87's method of flipping Thing in the Ice to bounce all non-Horror creatures. Now my creatures are Horrors, too!
Stabilizer: This prevents cycling effects like Decree of Pain, Decree of Justice, or Archfiend of Ifnir.
Rest in Peace: Offered by Zaueski to stop a potential Living End line.
Eon Hub: This prevents forced phasing from Teferi's Realm and any suspend effect that might sneak in. This was a suggestion from zephramtripp, filling a hole created by Sunken Hope and Teferi's Realm, while also blocking any suspended cards that might somehow sneak through.
Iona, Shield of Emeria, Painter's Servant, Light of Day: this prevents casting any spells that could be copied by Mirari or Djinn Illuminatus. As long as Painter's Servant is set to to , it also prevents Lure + Sword of Kaldra from exiling my creatures, as well as the artifact theft ability of Hellkite Tyrant. Additionally, as aholder7 pointed out, Avatar of Slaughter equipped with Godsend would be able to force my creatures to attack and be exiled.
Bane of the Living: When unmorphed, it creates a triggered effect that can reduce every creature's toughness to 0, ignoring targeting and going around indestructibility.
Humility: This is a static effect that makes all creatures in the defense pretty much useless.
Mirari, Djinn Illuminatus (mentioned by zephramtripp): These are triggered abilities which allow a spell to be copied without being cast, skirting around the Knowledge Pool+Rule of Law lock. The cards they allow to break the combo are Drown in Sorrow, Flaying Tendrils, Infest, and Cyclonic Rift. aholder7 mentions Council's Judgment, which grants multiple untargeted exile effects.
These require 2-7 copies of a single card to be in play. I'm willing to assume that copy and/or clone effects are being used.
Mirror Gallery + multiple Night of Souls' Betrayal: This stacks static effects to reduce the toughness of all creatures to 0.
Engineered Plague: A catch by Bovine073, multiples of this card will reduce the toughness of key cards to 0.
Everything in this setup is static effects, so I don't need to worry about anything timing out or being cast. Now, please wreck it! Alternatively, if you know of a card that will reinforce the weak spots, please let me know about it.
The archived discussion has an excellent number of suggestions and combos--check it out!
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| Date added | 9 years |
| Last updated | 15 hours |
| Key combos | |
| Legality | This deck is Casual legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 7 - 0 Mythic Rares 13 - 0 Rares 2 - 0 Uncommons |
| Cards | 22 |
| Avg. CMC | 4.18 |
| Folders | WTF, Pondering My Orb |
| Votes | |
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