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jackI was playing my polymorph deck. Currently this is packed full of (a) veiled serpents and other enchantments and sorceries that turn into creatures (b) polymorph which turns a creature into another random creature from its owner's deck (c) gigantic 8/8 and 11/11 eldrazi which destroy N permanents every time they attack, and are generally creepy and scary (d) no other creatures.
But the earlier version of it had the basic idea, but didn't have any eldrazi, and had a number of other creatures, mostly walls. It still tended to drag games out by blocking with low-power high-toughness creatures, and countering as many opposing spells as possible.
In this version, wall of frost was absolutely lovely. It was a turn-3 0/7 defender creature, that whenever it blocked a creature, that creature couldn't attack next turn. Thus it could hold off anything up to two 6/6 creatures. It generally wasn't that good, as it didn't help you win (especially if you polymorphed into it, or another interesting-but-not-overpowered creature instead of a game-winning one) but it was amazingly irritating to the opponent, as it made it really hard to attack at all.
Thus, despite not being that impressive, and because it was one of the few creatures the deck had in play at all, it was a prime target for creature-removal spells from the opponent.
Liv was playing one of my red-based decks, and thus the only removal was in terms of doing X damage, which unfortunately normally couldn't do enough to kill the 7-toughness wall. She had Undying Rage in hand (Enchanted creature gets +2/+2 and can't block). Normally you play this on your own creature, to make it bigger, and assume that if you were playing red, you needed it to attack more than to block anyway.
However, in this situation, she played it on the wall instead. Since the wall couldn't attack anyway (as it had defender), it couldn't attack or block, and was still there, but became instantly useless.
She said she felt silly playing it on the wall, but it was unarguably the correct move, as it meant all the small creatures would be able to attack freely, whereas making one of them bigger would not have helped very much.
The idea had never occurred to me before. In retrospect it should be obvious -- most cards with an upside and a downside are normally played on your creatures, but can be played on your opponent's sometimes. But somehow, I just assumed undying rage was destined for your own. I guess (i) an opponent's small creature doesn't need to be stopped from blocking; it'll normally die when it does (ii) making an opponent's big creature 2 bigger normally makes it really scary, so you have to be thinking really short term to do it to prevent it from blocking (iii) I've not normally experienced such problems from walls that can't block that this interaction had occurred to me.
Now, there is one downside to playing it on the wall of frost, as experienced magic players will probably have noticed. At the time, I think I said that the only downside I could see was that there were a few cards in the history of magic that could let a creature with defender attack. But that it was still clearly the correct play, as it was really really unlikely your opponent would be playing with them in anything other than a deck dedicated to do so (since it's only useful for defenders with non-zero power, and only useful if you have lots of them).
"I think I put one in this deck just because I needed some more cards for it and it had a lot of defenders in," I said, "but I took it out again because it wasn't really useful."
That this was the next card I drew will not be a surprise to people familiar with magic and the natural ebb-and-flow build up to a dramatic reversal at the end of an anecdote.
Warmonger's Chariot also gives a creature +2/+2, and says that if it has defender, then it can attack as though it didn't. It's generally worse than similar equipment which do something other than "can attack as though" but since my deck was packed full of random defenders, I'd thought having some way of attacking with zero-power creatures might make the difference between being able to damage the opponent and not.
Thus, I was able to begin attacking with a 4/11 Wall of Frost that couldn't block. The game still took an incredibly long time to finish, because a 4/11 is practically impossible to kill, but it's not very easy for it to get through to do damage, but I eventually played or polymorphed another large creature and together I think I won (I'm not sure).
But it was, together with the 10,000 life game, the only time I actually couldn't stop laughing out loud at a magic game.
But the earlier version of it had the basic idea, but didn't have any eldrazi, and had a number of other creatures, mostly walls. It still tended to drag games out by blocking with low-power high-toughness creatures, and countering as many opposing spells as possible.
In this version, wall of frost was absolutely lovely. It was a turn-3 0/7 defender creature, that whenever it blocked a creature, that creature couldn't attack next turn. Thus it could hold off anything up to two 6/6 creatures. It generally wasn't that good, as it didn't help you win (especially if you polymorphed into it, or another interesting-but-not-overpowered creature instead of a game-winning one) but it was amazingly irritating to the opponent, as it made it really hard to attack at all.
Thus, despite not being that impressive, and because it was one of the few creatures the deck had in play at all, it was a prime target for creature-removal spells from the opponent.
Liv was playing one of my red-based decks, and thus the only removal was in terms of doing X damage, which unfortunately normally couldn't do enough to kill the 7-toughness wall. She had Undying Rage in hand (Enchanted creature gets +2/+2 and can't block). Normally you play this on your own creature, to make it bigger, and assume that if you were playing red, you needed it to attack more than to block anyway.
However, in this situation, she played it on the wall instead. Since the wall couldn't attack anyway (as it had defender), it couldn't attack or block, and was still there, but became instantly useless.
She said she felt silly playing it on the wall, but it was unarguably the correct move, as it meant all the small creatures would be able to attack freely, whereas making one of them bigger would not have helped very much.
The idea had never occurred to me before. In retrospect it should be obvious -- most cards with an upside and a downside are normally played on your creatures, but can be played on your opponent's sometimes. But somehow, I just assumed undying rage was destined for your own. I guess (i) an opponent's small creature doesn't need to be stopped from blocking; it'll normally die when it does (ii) making an opponent's big creature 2 bigger normally makes it really scary, so you have to be thinking really short term to do it to prevent it from blocking (iii) I've not normally experienced such problems from walls that can't block that this interaction had occurred to me.
Now, there is one downside to playing it on the wall of frost, as experienced magic players will probably have noticed. At the time, I think I said that the only downside I could see was that there were a few cards in the history of magic that could let a creature with defender attack. But that it was still clearly the correct play, as it was really really unlikely your opponent would be playing with them in anything other than a deck dedicated to do so (since it's only useful for defenders with non-zero power, and only useful if you have lots of them).
"I think I put one in this deck just because I needed some more cards for it and it had a lot of defenders in," I said, "but I took it out again because it wasn't really useful."
That this was the next card I drew will not be a surprise to people familiar with magic and the natural ebb-and-flow build up to a dramatic reversal at the end of an anecdote.
Warmonger's Chariot also gives a creature +2/+2, and says that if it has defender, then it can attack as though it didn't. It's generally worse than similar equipment which do something other than "can attack as though" but since my deck was packed full of random defenders, I'd thought having some way of attacking with zero-power creatures might make the difference between being able to damage the opponent and not.
Thus, I was able to begin attacking with a 4/11 Wall of Frost that couldn't block. The game still took an incredibly long time to finish, because a 4/11 is practically impossible to kill, but it's not very easy for it to get through to do damage, but I eventually played or polymorphed another large creature and together I think I won (I'm not sure).
But it was, together with the 10,000 life game, the only time I actually couldn't stop laughing out loud at a magic game.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-18 10:21 pm (UTC)