The mill bug is weird. When you say you cast Commit from the yard you are talking about the Memory side, right? And are you accounting for the part of Memory that shuffles hand and gy back into library before draw? Even so, 24 cards remaining is a really strange number if they were running a normal 60 card deck.

Cmon pjs don’t let me down

'twas tree hunting day. I don't know why we subject ourselves to the inevitable downpour every year. Nostalgia? Misguided sense of the Christmas spirit? Utter insantity? Not sure I'll be able to wear those jeans again, but it's done now at least.

Should be getting back to wrapping up Nomad's matches soon, I'll update this when I start the stream.

Flaky, that clears it all up for me. Yeah memory. I didn’t know it shuffled the yard back in. So that means I misplayed and blew the match cuz I was holding that red sorcery that ditches your hand and Flamecaller as well, even better. So I would have won . But that doesn’t excuse the fact that some dummy from Portugal is running Memory in a Mill deck. What the heck?! Cuchos deck stays deleted, but he keeps his ranking


I’m really sad I’m going to have to delete one of these decks between DCG and Mowie. They’re both so good. Maybe they’ll tie and I’ll keep both...

Btw best contest ever. I’ve fallen in love with Reunion

Ok I think I have time for one more game tonight.

Round eight

Let’s go with ... actually never mind, my Xbox connection is acting up. I’ll try to finish tomorrow night. Congrats to the two finalists so far

it was foretold!

Lol so true
I have no idea what I’m doing. I always want to burn the creatures instead

Thanks for playing all! Cucho I'm so sad you don't like this one. Those intricate clockwork toolboxes are my absolute favorite types of decks. But yeah I fully expect Mowie to win this contest, and I was shocked I managed to go 6-1 with mine. Lots and lots of practice and luck I guess.

Haven's Bloodsuckers goes 5-2. Very solid overall, but ultimately it feels like a lesser version of the original. Kinda like DCG's, the Reunion fights with the intent of the deck a bit for me, and I really miss a proper Monumenting. Sad I never got to go off big with Archfiend here.

Record: 5/7
Build: 4/5
Enjoyment: 4/5
Reunion: 1/3
Total: 14/20

1. Lose vs W Weenie. They start with Consul's Lieutenant, and I figure I can control that with Fiery Temper and focus on my curve, but after they play a Monument, they drop Thalia's Lieutenant and Always Watching the same turn to take it out of range. I get Olivia and a Visitor, but they use Collective Effort on the latter after playing Lone Rider. An Archfiend makes it close, but they push through the last damage before I can discard enough.

2. ‎Win vs Izzet Spells. Hahahaha hahaha! They burn everything I put down- the end of this game has 12 creatures + Copter in my graveyard. But I get a few hits in here and there. Olivia is really helpful in pushing through some haste damage before she gets wiped. But then they get greedy and play Fevered Visions when I'm close to hellbent with plenty of land and they have full sets of Take Inventory, Cathartic Reunion and Telling Time. That draws me a Fiery Temper and a Bloodhall Priest to knock them down to 3. They Collective Defiance the Priest (and me), hit me with Firecraft and their Dynavolt will take me to 1. They have a ton of cards in hand and I'm clearly dead next turn. Unless their idiotic Visions draws me a Fiery Temper on end step! GOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLLL! So clutch.

3. ‎Win vs Gruul beats. Two land hand but with a Reunion, Copter and Visitor I keep. They start with Bomat, and I only get one crew out of the visitor cause it's immediately magma sprayed. I choose to loot away Temper rather than Judgement, which isn't a card I usually like but here I'm rewarded cause they tap out for a Shrill Howler and I get to two for one them. It takes a Reunion to finally find a third land, then the fourth comes and I start to build. Madness out a Bloodmad so they don't want to attack with their bristling hydra, get the Monument and madness out a priest. They trade the hydra for Bloodmad and get a couple gold gruul beaty pieces, but I'm way ahead and I own property in value town now. Ribbons for the last four.

4. ‎Win vs W Weenie. Top deck skills on point. Lose a Condemned to a blessed alliance, but then Olivia lets me chain Neonate into Priest T4 for a huge attack. They play Gisela, and I go hellbent and attack with Neonate and my 5/5 Priest killing their White Orchid. Gisela blocks the Priest and gets an Alley Evasion? I think that's the first time I've seen that card played. Priest dies, but I top another next turn, then a Temper after that. Burn Gisela, swing with all, trigger Priest to kill their Thalia, win.
5. ‎Lose vs Izzet Thermo-alchemist burn. This one I just have a slightly slow hand after a couple mulligans, lots of madness Vamps with no discard outlet. Temper the first alchemist but have no answer for the second; they point a bunch of burn at my face and win the race.

6. ‎Neonate is Pushed. Visitor is Grasped. Play Bloodmad and turn the tables, Tempering a Diregraf Colossus and hitting with Bloodmad. They go Lord & Cryptbreaker; I play Masquerade and they let it through again. Cartouche of ambition on the Lord and they discard with Cryptbreaker. Reunion a Temper to kill that, and if they're gonna keep letting me through like this I'm just pointing the next Temper at them for lethal. That Reunion got me a Cut for the 3/4 lord too, had anything gone awry.

7. ‎Win vs Dimir artifacts. Keep a risky two lander, where my only play is Key. Get the third land in time though, play Priest their end step, don't take the extra draw so I can go right into Masquerade. Unblockable growing Priest goes the whole distance, aided by some Temper and Alms discards, while they sit there with their Kingpin and apparently no useful removal. If these contests have taught me anything, it's that really any deck with creatures should just run Key all the time. What a great card.

I like those decks also, this one I think is to baroque... it was fun for a time... but we where not meant to be.

Going live now, back to Nomad's deck. The first seven matches, to refresh:



V8: Win against R4 GB enchantments. I played poorly - should've attacked with only Ulamog to further the mill win, but swung with Rhonas senselessly instead of keeping him back to block Opp 6/4 trampler. Opp fortunately missed lethal. Moggy finishes the mill in the end.

V9: Win against R2 GW stuff. I steal an Obsessive Skinner early-ish and pump it and a Sage up to defend till I get beaters down. Message from Opp following the game praising the build!

V10: Win against forgettable Opp. Glorybringer blasts Avacyn, Señor Jello shuts the door.

By my count that's a 7-3, pretty solid. Deck is a bit odd, but certainly a different experience each time.

It was cool to watch for a bit DCG! That's awesome that you got respect for the build post-game. Sorry my phone died and I couldn't finish the match with you.

Flaky's next, but it's time to get caught up on the scoring. For a total of 25 points:

Wins (10)
Build quality (5)
Entertainment value (5)
Card busted-ness (5)

Cucho:
Wins: 8 points from a record of 8-2.
BQ: 4. I'm not wild about Take Inventory. I think I'd prefer 3x Telling Time (even if it is a nonbo with Tutelage) and 1x Pull from Tomorrow there. Not much to complain about otherwise.
EV: 5. Not a lot of mill fans here it seems, but you're in luck - my first competitive deck was mill! There are dozens of us, dozens!
CB: 3. Hmm. No reanimation, only four madness spells. Mostly operates as card filtering that happens to power Tutelages, which is fine.
Total: 20/25

Nomad:
Wins: 7 points from a record of 7-3.
BQ: 3. This feels like a solid idea that needs a little more focus. Lots of cool stuff here but, if the pieces don't line up, you can be up s%#$ creek in a hurry. One pressing note - why Smoldering Marsh? If you're going to include any battlelands, I'd use Cinder Glade as it turns on all of your checklands. -1 Smoldering, -1 Rootbound, +1 Cinder, +1 Dragonskull would be my config.
EV: 3. Beating down with fatties is extremely satisfying, but the mana base and occasional unbalanced hand can cause some frustration.
CB:4. No madness spells, but Reunion fits very well here for filtering and discard -> reanimation.
Total: 17/25

Going live with Flaky's now, starting with 3ish AI matches.

AI 1: Win against UR. Pretty sure that was my first time casting Dark Intimations. Opp sac'd Cryptic Serpent and I picked up mini-Jace. So far, so good.

AI 2: Quick loss to WR aggro. No time to get set up.

AI 3: Win against UW stuff.

AI 4: Win against Bant nonsense. Onto Versus!

V0: R1 Opp concedes before any spells are cast.

V1: Win against mana screwed R5 GB fat-stack stuff. A non-game.

V2: Win against R40 Jeskai Mid/Control, missed a lethal Fling but won in the end regardless.

Time for some sleep, I'll get back to it tomorrow.

Lol Banedon ramp wtf haha Barney even copied the entire deck with my notes still on them: viewtopic.php?f=61&t=18845

It's been a while since I last played Duels so I can't say if the meta shifted, I don't recall the deck working that poorly though. It can run out of lands to search for, but I don't recall it flooding (at least, not more often than other decks). It's also the kind of deck that only needs one threat to win. Cathartic Reunion was meant to help with this draw-the-wrong-half issue. If Evolving Wilds is running out of lands to search for, more lands is probably not necessary and keeping it in hand for the eventual discard to Cathartic and / or big Chandra's 0 is the thing to do.

If anyone has suggestions on how to improve the deck, I'm still interested

Time to wrap this up
Tie braker!
Flaky first
vs r40 mono Black
Awful lost 2 radiand flames wipes the board and kill kalithas but Scrappy keeps coming for more, after 2 tempers a never a exiled scrappy - he casted both- we run out of answers. Pity

CDG championship point
And it takes the crown home!!
Fast win vs r40 Orzhov freaking zombies -Gimme a break!!-
T1 bomat t2 copter t3 furyblade
They kill my copter and then never my bomat, I fetch ther cards and get Hazoret, cut, UD, land yeah they never my poor haunted dead so it's payback time! I drop the land then I cut the zombie pump fury blade with a top deck alms vail and swing for lethal... nobody exiles our Haunted dead!

Congrats to DCG!! He get 6 points and Flaky gets the Silver medal worth 5 points.

Overall I enjoyed this decks a lot thanks for the contest Flaky and everyone testing the decks is so cool to read so many trials!

Lol Banedon I was dying for you to show up to this thread at some point

Cucho when did our deck lose? I don’t even remember losing

When judges are finished judging, please make a wrap up post summarizing the point distribution of the seven decks, 6 to 0 points depending on the placement. This will help Flaky tabulate final scores after

This has been awesome to read, thanks guys.

CardboardNomad: Totally agree on Cryptbreaker. I think Bomat might be the right call, as I tested nenoate a bit, but let me know if you do some testing. Agreed on the mana fixing as well (wonder if 1 Geier Reach would be worth it / too greedy). Beating superfriends with this deck is super fun. Losing to Harvester hurts, definitely makes me want to max out lightning axe but where to cut?

Cucho: Haaaa ! Avacyn/ advocate/Kalitas is a tough matchup for sure. Glad you like the deck though. Having 2 Never's might have helped but again where to switch?!

Barney: Do you still twitch stream? If you never lose with my deck, I will buy you some craft beer the next time you are in Halifax Oh wait, is that bribing the judges?

I don't see many mentions of the mini-minotaur theme with Bloodrage/Neheb. Do people find it is hurting or helping the deck? Other things I've thought about
tinkering with post-contest:

- replacing chandra with kalitas (or somehow getting some lifegain into the deck)
- adding the harvesters to make it more midrangey/drag-outty, but not sure that is where deck wants to be. It does well of course when you can get deeper into the deck, but can't keep up with the wide board token strategies etc.

Cucho's Mill deck goes 5-2. Solid build; I'm not in love with the spot removal but it did its job. Think I might prefer Just the Wind to the Galvanics (and I'd swap any of it for Fogs in a heartbeat). Titi and Flamecaller were stars, and that one copy of Geistblast was nice. Never got much out of Jace, Chandra Torch or the Drakes in this testing. This may be the one kind of deck where Reunion is critical to the build; I don't think a non-control Tutelage deck functions competitively without it in duels. Lets you keep opening hands without either a Tutelage or a third land, and that's crucial.
I'm thinking Flamecaller goes into my Mill build; I think I was trying to keep it planeswalker free originally but she's just too good to pass up here.

Record: 5/7
Build: 4/5
Enjoyment: 4/5
Reunion: 3/3
Total: 16/20

1. Win vs Grixis control. T3 Tutelage, T4 Tutelage and they commit one, t5 reunion and replay it. They don't even get find sixth land to Memory before they're milled out.

2. ‎Lose vs Hasty RDW. On the draw or I might have a chance, but they go Bomat and even my Titi does very little cause they curve a Crasher into Impetuous Devils. I get a Tutelage and a Geisted Reunion off but it's not enough. I want my Fogs!

3. ‎Win vs Temur Energy. Titi, Tutelage, Reunion and Galvanic to take out the first Virtuoso before they can start with the tokens. Flip Titi and get an attack in, but then it gets bounced. Get a second Tutelage, Temper them a couple times off Reunions, mill them enough that they have to Memory. Flip Titi again and take a conventional win rather than making them wait for their draw step.

4. ‎Win vs Simic Ramp. What a battle! They have a lot of early bounce that slows me down, but I have a Tutelage and get to work eventually. Their first threat is an Oblivion Sower, but then I mix up which mode their Bounty of the Luxa is in and don't leave up mana to Commit my Tutelage when Ulamog comes down. Have to Commit that and start digging for another Tutelage instead. Find and play it and have the rest of that turn to mill before they play it again. Oblivion Sower knocks me to 1. Get a Titi and flip it same turn, giving me one more shot to get something. They Mog that away and I go into my turn with my last life point vs their last card in library, and I only have 14 cards left in mine so the Ulamog mills me out even if I can find a blocker. Topdeck the Sanitarium! Is there a more gloriously janky way to win a match than via a Sanitarium with no nonland permanents on board, facing down certain Ulamoggy death? Beautiful.

5. ‎Win vs Izzet Spells. They're doing nothing, so I play Chandra first to tease out counters. They tap out to burn it instead, so then I drop Tutelage to an immediate concession. Play it out anyway cause half the fun of mill decks is seeing what your opponent is playing. This is... Interesting? Dynavolt Tower, Fevered Visions and then everything else is either draw or burn? Why do you hate win-cons? I guess it works; they were at R40 coming in, but man, have you heard of Rise from the Tides at least?

6. ‎Lose vs Orzhov Zombies. Ugh. Mulligan a 1 lander. Then continue to take mulligans and I'm down to 4 before I see another land. Get a third land for Tutelage t5, but I need to topdeck Kozilek's Return to survive the zombie bear onslaught. I don't.

7. ‎Win vs Abzan goodstuff. Double Tutelage vs Duskwatch Recruiter, Ayli and Sylvan Advocate. Looking dicey, then I spike a Flamecaller (first time I've even seen that this whole set I think) and sweep the turn before the Advocate gets big. They rebuild quick on their turn but Chandra's 0 gets me 4 cards, 2 of them draw spells. T7 kill confirmed.

Going live with Flaky's deck again now.

V3: Win against R12 RB Vamp/Sac. Not sure anyone really won in this contest that lasted for 30 min.

V4: Loss to R36 UG Ramp. Opp gets some early beats before I clear his board, then ramps to a billion mana before casting fatties turn after turn. I fight to stay in it for a while, but Rogue's Passage gets a 10/10 Ulvenwald Hydra in for the final blow.

V5: Loss to R26 Mono-R aggro/burn. All checkland hand slows me down, and Opp gets me down to 6 before I can cast Radiant Flames. Exquisite Firecraft and Hungry Flames finish me shortly after.

V6: Loss to R40 Abzan-friends. Misplayed early on, I should've used Visions burn to take out Ob Nixilis and Manticore fling to deal with Lili. Instead I burned Lili (not finishing her) and flung to overkill Ob.

V7: Quick win against R26 UG Stuff. Not entirely sure what Opp was on, he only had time to play two Rogue Refiners and a mana dork before double drakes mowed him down.

V8: A nice win against R24 GR Ramp/Eldrazi. Opp gets Planar Bridge down and activates it next turn to find Moggy. He's at 14, I've got two drakes at 3 power. I minus Lili to mill two, two spells hit the bin, bring back Manticore. Swing 10, Manti fling for the win.

V9: Calling it a win against WB stuff. Opp was mana screwed early, got a Lili down that wasn't doing much. Game and stream crashed right after I Dark Intimation'd his Lili away.

I'll fire back up and finish the last game in a few min. Sig updated to keep results omnipresent instead of scattered everywhere. Time for the last game with Flaky's.

V10: Win against R38 RB Vamps. That was awkward. Opp was flooded for the longest time while I couldn't find a fourth land and was stuck with one spell a turn until I was 23 cards deep. Opp had two opportunities towards the end to topdeck a Fiery Temper or Alms to finish me, but fortunately came up short. TitI gets the win.

The deck rallies from a 3-3 start to finish 7-3! I'll finish the scoring in a bit.

I finally finished Barney’s deck and scored it (page 6). DCG is next. I have a feeling I’m not gonna get to play them all tho.