What about casting Emrakul, the Promised End and taking over your turn? :)

Yay! Knowledge Pool!

And Decree of Pain works. It is not a permanent while in your hand. If Stony Silence acted like Painter's Servant, than this would be different. Now, is there a way to abuse Painter's Servant as a pillow forter?

On the Darksteel Mutation thing, the relevant rule is

303.4f: If an Aura is entering the battlefield under a player's control by any means other than by resolving as an Aura spell, and the effect putting it onto the battlefield doesn't specify the object or player the Aura will enchant, that player chooses what it will enchant as the Aura enters the battlefield. The player must choose a legal object or player according to the Aura's enchant ability and any other applicable effects.

Note this doesn't target Auras only target from the stack.

I figured out how to break your effect! I can start out with no board state and break through every piece.

1. I suspend Living End, the suspend mechanic bypasses Knowledge Pool because I'm exiling and then casting from Exile later.

2. Very easily I'll be sitting at 7 hand size so I'll have discarded an Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite before LE resolves. It was never cast so she stays in my graveyard.

3. LE resolves. ENGC comes into play. Her static ability kills your Gaddock Teeg and minuses the rest by 2.

4. I discard from hand size Biting Rain the madness effect bypasses your KP the same way suspend does. ENGC survives the effect easily but your creatures are at -4/-4. That takes care of Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, Platinum Angel and Angel of Jubilation.

5. From there I can Flashback an Increasing Confusion for your half your library size to bypass your KP and mill you out now that Platinum Angel is gone.

Don't think I missed anything there... But then again you could stop that whole chain by adding Rest in Peace. It was defintely fun cracking the wall lol

il see if i can help address things I missed or help with rulings, emrakul is nice but he targets opponent. cant do that through orbs of warding. darksteel mutation put into play not cast works around hexproof and shroud (same ruling as journey to nowhere being put into play via zur). Cycling a problem? try Stabilizer. Next, you cant use planeswalker abilities. They are activated abilities so locked. Also nice try but rule of law and angel of jubilation say no to elesh. Lastly, touche on the hellkite call

Not to be the biggest asshole in the comment section, but as you've given me the right to declare my own board state and declared your own in its entirety, I am forced to assume that you have no mana on the field. with this in mind the only thing I will put on my board state is Energy Flux. I don't need any other cards on the field except for the two mana to pay my own upkeep the first time, but I assume since everything of yours will go away the defense is considered broken.

actually that also means that a single decree of pain never stops this fort. slice and dice, solar blast or another decree would be needed. My final solution is Divine Intervention. the game ending in a draw gets around plat angel, and the challenge never said to win. the game ending in a draw should get around your for quite nicely.

Ooh good point. The buff from Angel of Jubilation would stop it from dying... Harbinger of Night in the graveyard along with ENGC would work though. The debuff from his is triggered so it dodges Stony Silence. Rule of Law can't stop me because I'm only casting Living End from exile to dodge the Knowledge Pool.

So Harbinger of Night needs to be discarded to the graveyard before Living End resolves but then the rest of the chain works as stated.

Another method to get around this Pillowfort with Rest in Peace out like I recommended is Hypergenesis and any of the multitudes of enchantments mentioned before. Energy Flux, Humility, and mamy many more.

If I have Sunken Hope in play, I can still force you to return a creature lock piece to your hand, opening up at least on hole in the wall. Might want an Eon Hub to stop upkeep triggers.

Sorry for all the edits, I realized you still have hexproof from Orbs of Warding so after the Biting Rain all of your 5 toughness creatures are gone removing hexproof from your artifacts allowing me to flashback Ancient Grudge on your turn and then flashback any kill condition on my turn such as the aforementioned Increasing Confusion.

the issue with the Living End strategy that is mentioned above is that erayo.... wait. apparently in the last update, erayo was taken out. never mind you are all good. also i can't believe i forgot that nivix would be an artifact. oh well.

also with Spellweaver Helix (assuming it imprinted before you placed Torpor Orb) you can use it to copy an exiled Rebuild which returns everything. it doesnt matter what the other card is that will trigger helix as it will be pooled. Curfew type effects could work as they don't target and then depending on whatever card you returned, other things could be used to exploit your defenses.

also Kataki, War's Wage would destroy your field entirely. this is similar to Energy Flux idea mentioned. but as this is a creature there may be a few ways to cheat it out after the lock is placed. (see Living End).

if i can have Avatar of Slaughter (or anything that has a blanket effect requiring creatures to attack) along with Godsend on the field before lock, then i can exile a piece of the lock, then exploit from there.

i now realize an error in my last post. i suggested several instants to use with Spellweaver Helix which isn't possible, but im certain there exist sorceries with comparable effects. this is all irrelevant as after i read through teferi's rulings i now understand that his second ability supersedes any created timings. so the helix plan doesn't work.

I'm sorry to be "that guy", but you technically don't actually need anything more than 2 of your listed cards to lock the game. Those being Mycosynth Lattice + Stony Silence . Between the two, all cards are artifacts with nothing but some triggered effects and maybe bodies/combat abilities that can block your creatures. Because that set up locks out mana for each player, all you've created is a stalemate scenario that proceeds until you've attacked the opponent to death with your indestructible artifact creatures.

The only way any of this lock can be stopped is if you played it out card by card and assumed that some parts of the lock simply aren't in play.

To me a better way to format this page would be to list the cards that defeat specific lock combos, such as how Bonds of Mortality and a powerful burn spell can get around the indestructibility of the Darksteel Forge + Mycosynth Lattice set up. But at the same time, most if not all burn spells you would be able to abuse are instantly shut down by Gaddock Teeg. Even if you assumed to have March of the Machines and somehow got multiple copies of Elesh Norn, pretty much all cards you would use to obtain that scenario are stopped just by him unless you assume he isn't in play, and thus does not need to be played around.

This isn't a bad concept, it just feels a little too generic in your "challenge" you issue, so I would design some specific parameters for it. I also apologize if I sound a little angry with my rant, as I do realize this is all in good fun, but I'm also usually ticked off with "no win" or "nobody wins" scenarios.

to be fair their are several ways to get around the lands not being able to tap for mana clause. if Black Market or Altar of Shadows is out, its possible to suspend Living End which has been mentioned as a counter to this deck. Magus of the Vineyard, Elvish Spirit Guide and Simian Spirit Guide can also help produce mana for the sake of casting LE.

we were told we could craft our side of the field to whatever we desired, we just needed to have it be able to beat the other deck once every piece was in place.

this deck can be cracked. it just requires odd setups or specific situations. also legendofa im not sure if you wanted to list the cards above as ways of making mana through the lock, since it does limit the type of ways people can cast cards through lock. there are other cards like Braid of Fire but those add their own timing restrictions.

The challenge is extremely easy to beat if you start out with any board state. There are tons of cards that stop it. The challenge becomes hard when you attempt to break out of it with nothing but lands out.

well do tell if you can figure out another way to beat the deck that hasn't been suggested. also as far as i can tell there is no way to break the lock with only lands out as they are all useless due to the Mycosynth Lattice + Stony Silence lock. the only way to produce mana would be Simian Spirit Guide and Elvish Spirit Guide (unless i missed another mana producer you can use from in hand that doesnt require a spell being cast to use.

you can use Yawgmoth's Agenda or Colfenor's Plans to cast Rebuild.

How about Sudden Spoiling? Similar to Humility.

This thing has really taken off... Working backward this time.

rockleemyhero: Good effort, but Sudden Spoiling targets, which Orbs of Warding prevents.

aholder7: Well, Colfenor's Plans and Yawgmoth's Agenda get around Knowledge Pool. Time to put Erayo's Essence back in. I might add mana additions in the next patch. How is your Avatar of Slaughter + Godsend idea dealing with Blazing Archon? Kataki, War's Wage would work very nicely, if not for Sigarda, Host of Herons (I think. I'll need to check the rules on that one). Curfew and a catalyst card does work.

TheRedGoat: What sort of specific parameters would you suggest? I'm open to ideas. And don't worry about getting annoyed; everybody's not going to react the same way to everything.

Zaueski: I hate to ask this of you, but could you please lay out your revised combo step by step? I'm pretty sure I've got it lined up, but I want to make sure before I review it. Rest in Peace does look promising, though.

zephramtripp: Sunken Hope does open up holes, and Eon Hub will close that one. Good call.

Vengeful_Khakis: Is there a story behind that name? Anyway, as mentioned with Kataki, War's Wage above, I believe Sigarda, Host of Herons prevents the sacrifice from Energy Flux. I want to confirm that first, though.

chaosumbreon87: Thanks for the help up there. Stabilizer is going in to prevent the Cycling effects.

Bovine073: Iona, Shield of Emeria + Painter's Servant makes another hard lock. Going to need to review for redundancy, but it'll go in.

Next patch and credits will come at some point tomorrow. If you posted while I was typing, I apologize, and I'll get to you next time. Thanks to everyone who's responded so far, and keep it up!

I believe the Kataki ruling is that your creatures control the ability, no matter who controls Kataki.

Yes, fpr Energy Flux and Kataki, you control the payment so you make yourself sacrifice them. Inability to pay tax effects can't be prevented as far as I can tell.

so we'd need a card that skips our upkeep step. Eon Hub.
It would also remove Teferi's Realm from being a threat.

Well at the time of the original combo I was unaware of the mana ruling on Stony Silence. So I need mana from somewhere and then it'll work.

1. Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, Harbinger of Night, Ancient Grudge, and Increasing Confusion all have made their way to my graveyard. Most likely by discarding from hand size.

2. I suspend Living End, its cmc is 0 so it dodges Gaddock Teeg and its never cast from my hand at any point so it dodges Knowledge Pool.

3. LE resolves, you dont sacrifice anything unfortunately because of Sigarda, Host of Herons. But I get ENGC and Harbinger onto the field without casting them. At the end of that first turn your creatures are at -2/-2. I pass back and you pass back. On my upkeep Harbinger triggers and your creatures are at -3/-3. This kills Angel of Jubilation, Gaddock Teeg and the unimportant infect guy.

4. At the end of my turn I madness out Biting Rain. Again it isn't cast from my hand and its the only spell of mine for this turn to satisfy Rule of Law. That puts you creatures at -5/-5. Which kills off Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir and Leonin Abunas removing Hexproof.

5. From here it becomes much simpler. On your turn I flashback Ancient Grudge to remove your Orbs of Warding. Now I can target you. Then on my turn I can flashback Increasing Confusion or any other kill method that doesn't come from my hand.

The much quicker method that I found earlier dodges even the mana problem. Discard 3 Elvish Spirit Guides to make 3 mana, then suspend Hypergenesis and put Humility or Energy Flux (or both if you play something) into play or any other number of enchantments with similar effects. From there your deck is annoying, but far more manageable.

If you add Rest in Peace, Eon Hub and Stabilizer in and put Erayo back in however I can't think of anything that can break it from just lands.

... master of editing. :D