Ok round 3 of playtesting with 3 decks remaining...

Haven is first...win against mono green 3-0

Cucho next... (after this I think I'll just play cartouches for a bit. ). Win versus Radkos vamps. 3-0

I'll do Flaky another time

Waltzing Brunhilde
Waltzing Brunhilde,
Won't you come a-waltzing, Brunhilde, with me?

AI Hard 1 - Victory! I was never low on life, but it was slow going. Early on, I got out two Baby Ruthless Snipers and a Wharf Infiltrator, as well as the Shadowstorm Vizier. Okay, first thing: Shadowstorm Virginia is no Stormchaser Mage! The core concern I had was that, until you get a decent mana base, it's expensive to put -1/-1 counters and eldrazi horrors into play. I want it all; I don't like to have to choose.
AI Hard 2 - Victory! In fact, a suspiciously easy victory! I feel like this round is trying to trick me into being sure of myself as I head into the real world of Versus bat-holes.

Versus 1 - Rank 35, Loser! I got smacked down hard by a white weenie deck that got out an Oketra's Minimall on T3. So many weenies... so many weenies...

Versus 2 - Rank 34, Loser! Freely going to admit, here: I had to mulligan down to 4 cards, so odds were against me to begin with, so this earns Waltzing Brunhilde a make-up round at the expense of my precious, precious rank. A white and green humans deck... Aren't humans just the worst. Like, think of everything crappy that's ever happened to you in your life. Was there a human involved? I bet there was.

Versus 3 - Rank 33, Loser! Okay, maybe it's not just me. Maybe this deck is a cruel prank on FlakyMage's part. I'm going to eye you suspiciously next time I see you, Flaky. Seriously, you're on the list!

Versus 4 - Rank 32, Victory? Victory! It was pretty easy for me to win when coochbooger put out a Winding Constrictor on T4, only for me to drop an Archfiend of Ifnir, the very next turn. He quit. Sorry, coochbooger. But not really, though.

Versus 5 - Rank 33, Victory! An early Shadowstorm Vizier , Drake Haven, and Key to the City made for an efficient combination. Still, the amount of combo-building required to make this deck work has left it very vulnerable to white weenies and red aggro, especially.

No bonus round for you, Flaky! After losing 3 out of 5, I think I will pass on this waltz.

Also, you owe me three ranks!

lol, I'm 2-0 with that thing, you gotta cycle into the combo stuff.

Anyway Flaky, Pay up the three ranks please

I'm cycling! I'm cycling like it's the Tour de France, but I'm not getting the goods out of it.

This Waltz is Spart- uh, Madness

AI Hard 1 - Victory! Even manascrewed as I was, I Heir of Falkenrathed a couple of times to put out the Bloodmad Vampire and Fiery Temper a key defender for an early, easy win.
AI Hard 2 - Victory! Even manascrewed as I was, I heir of Falkenrathed... this sounds familiar. Anyway, seeing vampires fly the Snugglecopter must be cool.

Versus 1 - Rank 34, Loser! Manascrewed as I was, I was not able to mount a line of vamps quick enough to deal with a bunch of white weenies and I am also beginning to see a pattern.

Versus 2 - Rank 33, Loser! Manascrewed as I was, I was not able to mount a line of vamps quickly enough to deal with a bunch of stinking zombies and the pattern has become quite clear to me at this point.

Versus 3 - Rank 32, Loser! I will admit to being a bit confused, here. Who uses Molten Vortex? First time without a manascrew, though! Still lost to the AI after the opponent got disconnected.

Versus 4 - Rank 31, Loser! This one pissed me off because I technically won, even if I technically lost. By the time I got the opponent to -2, I couldn't get rid of his stupid Gideon! Stupid Gideon of the stupid Trials...

Versus 5 - Rank, 30, Victory! I feel like this is the way this deck was supposed to work. T3 Furryblade Vampire dropping some Incorrigible Youths,the, T4 the duo attacks again, this time dropping a madness Alms of the Vein, meaning in 2 turns, I did 8+8+3 damage. (That's 19, Barney.)

Still, at one victory out of five versuses, I feel like Cucho Lambreta is specifically trying to make my life worse. I don't have a lot, man. Don't take Magic Duels away from me. I get where this was going, but it did not work for me!

Yup 19, I reran the numbers and it checks out

That sucks your Soupness, but in my experience that deck can work fine with 2 lands for 3-4 turns, Btw what's up with all those humans you are facing, I heard that they have started to make soup put it on cans and call that pop art.
Degenerates...

What? What?! Put the corpses of my people into cans for display on shelves? Humans are barbarians! How vile!

I actually have a build that uses Vortex. It runs 26 land tho so its ok...

There was never any guaranteed rank-refunds to my knowledge but if I ever encounter someone with soup in their name on steam, I won’t play any non-land cards for the first 11 turns. After turn 11 the clown gloves come off, tho!

11 rounds? Come on! At least give me a fighting chance!

Come on Barney, get the judging done so we can break some new cards!

Some suggestions:
Bloodbriar
Pyromancer's Assault
Lunar Force
Efficient Construction
Willbreaker
Supernatural Stamina
Fretwork Colony
Nest of Scarabs
Hazoret's Favor

For example...

I can't play again until Tuesday

I love the Willbreaker and I will fight anyone who says she’s broken!

Some great suggestions there. I especially like Willbreaker, Nest of Scarabs, and Efficient Construction (I'm strongly considering yet another token maker for the next round, tho, *sly wink*).

I guess while we are awaiting the judges' deliberations we should go ahead and discuss the contest format for the next round. What did people think about having multiple cards to break in one round? My thoughts are:
Pros:
We get to try out more ideas and cards per round. If we just did one card per round and each round lasted ~2-3 weeks then chances are we will be moving on to another game before we get many cards covered.
It gives people some options. If one of the cards seems boring or frustrating, it might cause people to sit out the round and with so few participants, that might kill the contest.
It might help with rarity restrictions. Last round neither card was rare, but for rounds where one or both cards are rare, building around 2 cards might be better (assuming they complement each other).
Cons:
Apples to oranges. This round is a great example. We ended up having three apples and one lemon (sorry, Soup). I will forever wonder what kind of lemonade people would have come up with if Waltz had been the only card.
Or... Fuji apples to Fuji apples. If both cards tie into one strategy very well then it might influence people to all build the same strat instead of experimenting with different ways to break the card(s). I had considered pairing Efficient Construction with Throne of the God-Pharaoh but decided against to avoid spoon feeding a strat that uses both.

I actually think that the cons have more weight to them and am leaning toward single card for future rounds, but what about you all?

The other questions is, how would you like to pick cards to break? I enjoy unilaterally choosing whatever I want and foisting it on you all, but maybe my picks suck (Hazoret's def turned out to be harder to work with than I had anticipated). Maybe we should make a list and then people can vote?

N'est of Scarabs please!! I think there should be a rule to play max copies cuz otherwise you're not really building around it, no? That way these cards see more action

Actually I've had a great an idea for the next round if everyone agrees:

Elecrostatic pummeler

Now there's a card that's just begging to be Broken and could be a lot of fun.

Pummeler feels one dimensional to me. Make it giant, give it trample or fling it; not that exciting to hold a contest around cause the way it works just ends the game. I'd rather build around something I can work with for more than one turn.

Unless of course you have some crazy idea in mind for it.

I should be able to finish playtesting tonight hopefully, then Soup and I can deliberate

Ok here we go, Flaky finishing off round 2...win versus conflux? 3-0

Round 4! 3 decks remain

Flaky first (I again lost to AI with this thing)...ugh wrecked against Orzhov auras, just no removal. 3-1. In Flakys defence, I did get macabre Waltz going and archfiend with discards and cycles and drakes. It was doing what it was supposed to be doing. So much that the rank 40 guy wrote me after to say how cool he found the deck to be

Let's see how the other two do before jumping to conclusions

Haven is next...satisfying win against Azorious control. 4-0

I'm a little peeved that Haven isn't running Macabre Waltz, it would have fit well. Cucho could have squeezed in a Hazoret Monument too.

Anyway let's see if Cucho can win his fourth round to keep this dance going... (need to fold laundry first tho)... win versus Simic energy 4-0

Round 5!

Cucho first...huge win against superfriends. 5-0

Haven next...win vs mono white 5-0

Round 6

Haven first...win vs mono white 6-0

Cucho next...up against Izzet burn creatureless. I got out key to the city against his fevered visions but I should have been discarding my hand as fast as possible, but I wasn't, which I was dumb. I think I would have lost anyway though. 5-1



Ok so Barney likes Havens deck the best since I went 6-0 with it. I think Waltz is absolute trash but Hazoret Monument is pretty fun. I will foil Havens deck to honour it. Now and always.

Soup, what say you? Was Havens deck your favourite? I'd give Cucho 2nd place. I wouldn't even give Flaky last place.

For me, it was:
1. Haven
2. Cucho
3. Flaky
4. Nomad

As a healing slave for Cardboard, I am taking Life Cums at you fast out for a run to get my rank up and to play some cartouches. Would you believe me if I told you I am currently 20-0 with your deck and it is by far my best performing deck st the moment? Foiled and all. I love it.

21-0 just beat superfriends

I've been catching up on current standard decks and found several variations on the pummeler theme.

So I was thinking in terms of comparing different approaches with pummeler in duels: combo, traditional aggro/mid-range or control with pummeler as a finisher. Also, since its an Artifact, you can try all sorts of different color combinations.

So there could be some real variety built around an attempt to break a card, instead of same-ish variations on the same theme.
Hell, the judging criteria could even be which deck makes the biggest or most awesone pummeler kill...

But, if nobody is interested, we'll just let flaky decide what the next theme is...