But... but... Tzo was talking about avoiding literal loss of life; to win territory or resources without bloodshed. The whole point of magic is to play, or “fight” an opponent

I mean, you do you - but if the “best” type of victory with a particular deck is your opponent timing out before ever playing a card, that sounds like an awful deck to me

Same thing happened to me during the last Momir. Thank God I never got one.

Oh I did. Such **** that card is even in the Momir pool.

Epic play of the day! M20 limited, it's turn 5.

Opponent's board: 5 lands, Dread Presence, Steadfast Sentry, Yarok's Fenlurker
My board: 3 lands, nothing else (missed a land drop earlier).

I'm so behind I might as well be dead. But then, draw for the turn, it's a Swamp. Act of Treason your Dread Presence. Play Swamp. Trigger Dread Presence, do 2 to Steadfast Sentry. Attack for 3, then Bone Splinters sacrificing my Dread Presence targeting your Yarok's Fenlurker. Your go.

Opponent gave me a "Nice!" for that sequence

Got two, neither especially clever but both were effectively game ending (one for me and one for an Opp).

Finally got around to grinding out at least gold constructed rank before the season reset earlier. Figured mono-R was the path of least resistance and grabbed Seth Manfield's deck from Worlds. Only have two Cleaves and don't care to craft another, so I sub in a single Claim the Firstborn for gotcha potential. Game to jump into gold is the mirror, on the draw but have an ok hand. Opp gets out quickly with Fervent into Robber into Anax. I have my own Anax on 3 and Opp passes back on 4 without much event. Lo and behold, here comes Claim to save the day. Swipe my Opp's Anax and bin it to legend rule, giving me four 1/1s and one less Anax on Opp's side for a single R. Opp conceded before I could Cleave the following turn.

Was playing Historic Brawl with Dovin, Grand Arbiter against an Opp on Ayara, First of Locthwain. I got out early with a Mist-Cloaked Herald with Staggering Insight that mercifully wasn't killed before I had counterspells up. Opp played Ayara into Underworld Dreams into Spawn of Mayhem before I eventually countered some dorky big B creature with Essence Scatter. Opp is down to 4 while I'm at 20, waiting to untap to win. They play Gary at X=14, which I conveniently have no counterspells left for. I'm able to get them back down to 5 and go back up to 7 on my turn, but it's not enough to make up for that giant swing.

Opponent's board: bunch of lands, Teferi on 3 loyalty, 2 Golden Eggs, ECD in hand, The Birth of Melitis, 5 unknown cards in hand
My board: bunch of lands, nothing else

I'm super far behind but I have Fires in hand. Cast Fae of Wishes to get Thought Distortion. Opponent goes bazooka and dumps as many spells as he can, including Oath of Kaya on face. Next turn Fires + Thought Distortion wipes out four cards from his hand including the troublesome ECD that could've removed Fires, and then the turn after Casualties of War wipes out his board. There is no better feeling. Take that Thought Distortion, control players!

Jeskai Fires with Keruga vs. Jeskai Yorion. He does nothing for the first few turns and on turn 5 I land a huge hit for 18 damage. He drops to 2, untaps, plays Fires of Invention and Shatter the Sky. I'd drawn a ton of cards with Keruga, but no more haste damage even after cycling a card and drawing with Narset (by the way, I discarded a card to Narset and she promptly killed herself - remember the Narset discard is optional!). I had to play Elspeth Conquers Death on his Fires and pass the turn back. He plays another Fires and an Elspeth Conquers Death of his own to kill my Fires. He's threatening Yorion the next turn, which would of course be very strong by blinking ECD. But! By killing Fires, he unlocks my spells on his turn and I flashed in Brazen Borrower.

I want to say he died the next turn, but I'd be lying, since he gained 2 life from The Birth of Melitis. Still, it was funny

I was playing Mono Red Obosh against Orzhov Lurrus Sacrifice in Gold 1 ranked.

From the beginning I was way behind. He had 2 early Serrated Scorpion and I couldn't attack with my 1/1s.
A couple turns later he had Priest of Forgotten Gods and Lurrus of the Dream-Den in play, I had to sac a creature every turn, lost a bunch of life and he even gained life.
Even though I finally had Anax, Hardened in the Forge and Obosh, the Preypiercer in play I couldn't really risk to attack. I was hoping to draw a Heraldic Banner or a Phoenix of Ash, or even a Shock to kill Lurrus, but Nope.

After drawing another land while beeing on 4 life (opponent on 22) I attacked with all and called the obligatory Good Game, hoping he would maybe underestimate the double damage from Obosh or overlook my Castle Embereth. But he saw everything and thought for a very long time.

He had Lurrus of the Dream-Den and Priest of Forgotten Gods, a tapped Gutterbones, and a tapped Priest of Forgotten Gods in play.
I had Anax, Hardened in the Forge, Obosh, the Preypiercer, Tin Street Dodger and 2x Scorch Spitter in play.

Then he had the seemingly perfect block. He blocked my Anax with his Priest, Used her ability, sac'd his 2 tapped creatures, I lost 2 life points and he could still keep his Lurrus for next round.
Anax does no damage, Obosh and my 3 1/1s go through, but I had to sac 1 of them. so he would survive with at least 2 Life Points and would kill me next turn.

Not a particularly spectacular play, but it was fun

Ikoria draft with RW cycling. I'm on the play.

T1 and T2 I do nothing except cycle a bit. He plays Humble Naturalist on turn 2. On turn 3, I play Marmoset and he plays Goriak. Turn 4, I attack and he doesn't block (obviously). I play another Marmoset, he plays the green mentor and passes back. On turn 5, I attack with both Marmosets and again he doesn't block. I cycle four times, Marmosets go to 10/3, and opponent goes to -2 life

Playing Temur Reclamation against Boros Cycling opponent. I answer his early creatures, but he's on the burn plan which is very threatening because I didn't have Uro. First Zenith Flare hits for 7. Second Zenith Flare hits for 13. I'm dead if it resolves, but he's also on 13 life so I thought why not try to Expansion the Zenith Flare and try to kill him that way. If the copied Zenith Flare also does 13 damage then he's dead and I live. For science, right?

Turns out the copied Zenith Flare uses my graveyard not his, but imagine my surprise when I live anyway, thanks to the Shark Typhoon in my graveyard. LOL. That was epic!

OMG this was so great! It was actually the ANTI-play of the day.

Opponent is at 4 and I'm at 18. Opp has seen my hand earlier and knows I have 1 Into the Roil (I actually had 3 and nothing else) and 2 Islands/2 Mountains. He plays Lithoform Blight on one of my Islands so I have to take damage if I want to kick Roil. He drops two mana dorks. I kick Roil and bounce one and draw...... Slaying Fire


I'm sorry, I couldn't help but click Oops, hover my mouse over the Lithoform and then say GG before I burned him for 4.

Lol, I don't think Lithoform Blight is playable

It's such a **** card bro

Sometimes you just get a lucky draw. I recently did an Ikoria quick draft (I did not do well). Opponent had a lot of removal, so all of my creatures kept dying. I did have the Ozolith, though, so every creature I played at least had an opportunity to be a threat. Opponent was still on 18 life, just swung across the empty field at me, and had me dead nextxt turn. I was in topdeck mode and fully expected to lose, but decided to play it out. My next card was Yidaro, Wandering Monster. I had exactly the right number of lands to cast it, and I had 12 +1/+1 counters on the Ozolith. I won that turn.

Winning by Wandering Monster is epic

Here is another Anti-Play, or Anti_combo.

I am at 16 life and have 2 cats out from Felidar's retreat, and soon will have many more.

Opponent just played his 4th land, and attacks with a Fireblade charger and a Wayward Guide-beast.

Before blocking, he plays an Embercleve on Wayward....so, I use one cat to block and kill the Fireblade, and one for the Wayward. He kills the cat, tramples through for 1 damage...and returns a land...and then does 3 more points of damage, and returns another land. I play Omnath, and I let the Wayard through next turn after blocking with a new cat so he can double strike me again for 4.........

Wayward + double strike is not a good combo.

You can choose not to trample over in paper magic afaik. Can you do that in arena?

Yeah, you'd have to go into options and choose "assign damage" though (Had to do it for Historic because blood artist is a card)

Strixhaven limited ...

Opponent's board: 3/3 Stonebound Mentor with a +1/+1 counter on it, Spiteful Squad, one other irrelevant creature
My board: Daemogoth Woe-Eater, 3/2 flyer, 2 untapped mana

Opponent's life total is pretty low so they have to race. They attack with the Mentor and Squad. I block the Mentor since I'm holding Eliminate. Before damage they sacrifice the Squad to Village Rites, targeting the Mentor with the trigger. I respond with Eliminate, and they respond with Gods Willing! So much for the blowout, I'm going to lose my creature and they keep all the counters.

Except they didn't because Gods Willing giving protection from black also stops the Squad trigger

When your Goblin Charbelcher cannot kill the opponent because you only have 2 cards left in library ...