Played and lost one game with Boros and then sailed through all the wins with Orzhov.
Has to be the best deck in the challenge. I met a different deck in every game and they stood no chance.

That's actually a good lesson. review this again when it's not 3.30 in t he morning thanks for input

This just happened - and it took no skill on my part.

Opponent plays gate/scapeshift and I bounce his ram, followed by an ashiok and exiles his graveyard. His turn, he plays guild summit which I Negate (he would be able to draw quite a few cards). He follows it up with Scapeshift, which I can't counter and sacs all lands but 1 field of the dead.

He sees his mistake and conceeds.

concedes.

pyto

Hello! McFly!

Butthead plays fiery cannonade while I only had 2 Siren Stormtamers. Surprisingly didn't scoop on the spot.

Classic

I've tried something similar, I ran risen reef combo with field of the dead and arcane adaptation. Opponent gets out a couple of big fat juicy critters out and gets me below 5 health. I combo off, and make some 15-20 zombie and figure I'll just stop there to avoid resolving 200 triggers on the stack. I'm out of mana, so I can't give them haste and I have to pass the turn.

Opponent spams "good game" 5-6 times, plays big chandra. Then "good game" 2-3 times more (I've completely stopped responding to stuff other than hello and non-offensive gg's).

He activates -3 and then just nothing. I then see the mouse-over on the zombie elemental horde, then arcane adaptation. Then it's roping time....

Next time, play Flame Sweep

Esper Control vs Vampires. I am on the play, mull to 6 with 3 land a Legions end, Thought Erassure, and Big Telfari.

My turn one, land go.

Opponent Turn one Swamp, Knight of the Ebon Legion.

My turn 2, Decide to go for the Erasure. In hand he has 3 Knights of the Ebon Legion, 1 Aldanto and 2 land. I take the Aldanto.

Opponent Turn 2 Plays 2 Knights and Attacks for 1.

My Turn three I end the Legion and Opponent scoops.

Most appropriate use of that card so far.

The odds... but I imagine such a satisfying feeling on your end.

Btw - the guy streamed himself on twitch and I caught the moment of your play on youtube:

My play of the day was simply not scooping.

Opp life 6, mine 2. I have 2 lands in hand and 7 islands/forests untapped, an Ambusher, one of its tokens and a trickster. He has 2 spirit tokens and something else 2/2. All he had to do was block the 4/4 with the 2/2 and swing back with the 2 flying.

I didnt scoop, I attacked. He chumped everything, didnt draw Kayas Wrath and scooped. I had done all the math in my head, so I was going to scoop. Something told me to wait and see what happened.

Yeh, not scooping is sometimes a godsend.

Yesterday, I ran som mill-combo that wins by milling and exiling with ashiok. Besides that, it just tries to keep me alive.

Opponent plays aggressively, with mentor creatures and swings in a few times. I regain life and bounce stuff, but end up with 14 life, 5 lands in play and a poor hand of land, Narset and Ashiok.

With the goblin token created, and double mentoring, he has exactly lethal and I'm about to scoop, and then I get curious - land, ashiok ,narset, look with narset and find nothing but lands, activate ashiok and mill 4 of his plus exile his grave.

His turn, he directs damage enough to kill both planeswalkers and hit me for the rest. He plays feather and some other creature, emptying his hand. I'm on 7 health and topdeck Settle. Pass turn, opponent plays land and swings in with everything.

With board cleared, I manage to get the mill/lifegain/draw train going and end up taking the win.

Only conceed if you're SURE you're going to lose.

I watched a video yesterday where not scooping when opp had lethal on board led to a win. IIRC it was LVD doing an M20 draft run. Board was crowded on both sides but LVD didn’t have anything that could block flyers and opp had lethal in the air. LVD sees he’s dead on board and comments to the effect he just couldn’t pull this one off. It’s been a long back and forth game and he passes turn to let opp get their victory while he’s live, but opp doesn’t attack with all their flyers for some strange reason (not sure if just didn’t do the math or was being overcautious - I cant recall if LVD had open mana and cards in hand). LVD top decks a card to stabilize and wins a turn or two later. Pretty funny to watch.

I have mixed feeling about when I see lethal that I can't stop and the opponent should know it (like I am tapped out, no cards or some other situation where it would be impossible for me to act.) I had normally conceded anyway because I consider it a loss based on my failed play and/or deck design.

With that said, until I hit Mythic I am willing to take a few cheap wins that really should have been losses.

Oh, and had several great games last night with Command the Dreadhoard winning the game. 2 vs Dino decks I killed in one turn once with 2 Regisaur Alphas and 2 Rotting Regisaurs and the other with 3 Rottings and 1 Alpha. Also 2 wins vs Vamps where I flooded the board with cheap vamps.

Best win though was vs a great mill deck. Great as in I rarely see them and it was pretty well played and a painful match up for me. I was worried for a while because he had all the walkers out including the one that lets you win if you have to draw but have no cards in your deck, and had milled and Ashiocked about 1/2 my library. I was able to kill the planeswalkers and stabilize with about 13 cards left in library and 3 of my four bonds exiled and Command in the graveyard (Ash was gone a bit earlier) He had no counters nor Bonds that I saw and all 4 Thought Erasures were in his graveyard. He made a mistake by Egoing my Big Telfari instead of Command, but I understand that Telfari could be bad for his wincon and he didn't know I had another Bond.

At 9 cards I finally got Bond and was able to use it to get an Erasure and Command back and go to 5 cards. On his Draw I used Erasure to make sure nothing horrible happened (Thanks Telfari!) and on my turn brought back most of his planeswalkers. I milled him with his walls I stole to look at his deck, then self milled for the win!(With the Planeswalker that gives that as a win condition)

I absolutely love beating people with their own cards.

i don't get why you guys consider winning against an opponent's mistake a loss. If your opponent doesn't win the game, they don't win the game. There is skill in Magic although not much. You have to actually cross the line. If a ferrari slams the brakes at the finish line with an 18 car length lead, they can still lose the race

For me the game is about testing my abilities. I want to get to the level of a pro level player eventually, even if I never play in another qualifier. I won't get to that level if I am content with a win I didn't earn. The win or loss doesn't really matter, it is the process that matters. I will get upset at myself if I make some poor decisions, even if I win the game. On the other hand I I won't get upset if I lose a game because I have drawn 70% land.

yeah, that makes sense. I remember back when we were all tracking win percentages and such, CovertGoBlue wouldn't count wins against incompetence or if his opponent got mana screwed. i thought that was nuts. You gotta track everything.

But I get what you're saying. Thanks for explaining it

In a way, it’s certainly not as satisfying as outplaying an opponent with skill. In another way, it’s satisfyingly funny to watch a person snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Either way you look at it, during an event where in-game rewards are on the line, I’ll take it all day every day.

This guy with Simic colors & ramp creatures refused to concede in the face of my Nexus combo, so I bounced his entire board and passed the turn back to him with Tamiyo, tons of lands, 3 Wilderness Reclamation in play, a 6/6 Army token, and 2 Nexus + Root Snare in hand. I calculated there's nothing he can do to beat me, so why not. When he got back from AFK (duh), he promptly played Cavalier of Thorns, which milled his own Nexus and changed my sideboarding plans for game 2.

I want to say I'm a genius for doing this. Actually **** it, I'm a genius for doing this.