So in short, make a Legacy-Legal deck with no 'answer cards' and no basic land?

Oh god yes, I can see forever. I'll definitely submit two decks for this bad boy as soon as they finish percolating in my Johnnymatic.

Entry #1!

severed-path.

For my first entry: deck:unholy-power-darkens-the-sky

Aaaand my second entry, because I was chomping at the bit to finish them both right away.

Iohno.

im guessing discard cards like Duress isnt allowed?

oh ha. just read that section. my bad.

The Depths of Marit Lage

no removal? ok cool. I'll just play Dark Depths.

I'll put one up - super simplistic with a win ability that doesn't feel like an "answer" to anything except "I'm playing Magic against an opponent".. but others may feel differently. :)

I give you, Myrtabulous!

heres my 2 cents All Covered in Myr

Platinum Draw-Out

good fun.

what-if...-storm

Dominion of One

I know it hasn't been released yet but can I use Khalni Hydra?

Repeat Tama's question. I'm itching to make a deck based around the new Sarkhan.

OK, first time for this sort of thing. This is a deck I have been wanting to build in paper for ages, but it stuggles against counters and removal. Since this competition has neither, lets rock!

Kick You In the Face!!

Provide a link to the card in your description of the deck and I don't have a problem.

Any card from Rise of the Eldrazi that has been officially released on Wizard's site will be in Tapped Out's library as soon as possible. I was a little delayed on adding Khalni Hydra , because I was having internet problems last night. However, it has now been added. So, you won't need to add them in the description. You'll be able to add them directly into the deck. :)

My 1st deck: br-kingfisher

1st deck chroma green

2nd deck mishra's power barbs

deck:manabond-valakut.

TAMA is overzealous in this challenge! Must just be submitting ones for fun at this point... :P

I'm trying to think up a better second deck than my first, still.

Wurm Fetch

Great challenge! Very fun

Growth Spurt

whoops Growth Spurt

please read the legacy legal list everyone. I have seen a couple of decks so far that are using cards that have been banned since legacy was a term http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=judge/resources/sfrtype15

Okay so just to clear up any confusion.

If it can effect a permanent your opponent controls. Its out. If it can effect a card in your opponents hand or library, its out. It counters or prevents a spell from being cast, its out. No land destruction.

Things that are allowed would be most anything that targets your opponent directly. Cards that target your own permanents. Cards that target yourself. Cards that target/effect cards in your own library. Many many permanents.

Just focus on the problems in magic, you know, the cards that your answering all the time...

Hey LSD, Grapeshot can effect a permanent my opponent controls but I would really love it because it can smash face for (checks watch) 17 last sample hand (by 4th turn). How about for the purposes of this challenge it reads "smashes opponent only and can never ever be used on creatures and/or planeswalkers" _.

I'd like to request that deck:manabond-valakut be removed in favour of my much cooler deck lsd-johnny.

Oh wait there are only two deck entries/person hmmm... I'll get back to you on that one.

I will definitely have two to you by the time it closes otherwise go with lsd-johnny and... as I said I'll get back to you.

thanks for the clarification LSD but I am still not really sure if manabarbs is considered an answer in this. Against a goldfish it does nothing, but against other platers pretty harmful and it is not really an answer. it is just stipulated upon an action that both players inevitably have to make

In the same way I think Ignite Memories does nothing to a gold fish but can kill a real player it isn't an answer it is a choice. Do you want to tap mana and die or do you want to hold onto expensive spells and die.

Another Brick in the Wall is my first entry... I can't figure out any combos without answers haha so hard!

Ok so here is my submission No removal so ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK!!!!(http://www.tappedout.net/mtg-decks/no-removal-so-attack-attack-attack/)

Here's my first entry with Keeping Up. :)

not at all. its merely stating a fact; your doing nothing to your opponent or their side of the board. so your in the clear.

oh and Near-Death Experience combos crazily with Fortune Thief . Definitely a casual deck combo, but janky, nonetheless.

card:Angel's Grace anyone? Worship .

half-past-dead just sayin (not entering).

Pretend this is an anonymous question.

Hello LSD, I am anonymous and therefore you should show no specific bias to me if you can cleverly work out who I am from information given in this comment. I am having difficulty deciding what two decks I should have as my final two for you deck comp. I am not sure which ones will score best considering you are giving more than half the points out to style. So I was hoping you could be a little bit more specific as to what exactly will impress you.

hellcarver-combo just another one I might decide to put in when I finally get around to deciding.

Like a dragon on a cake?

hellcarver's glory if my manabarbs does not apply then remove that and put this in

wildfires is my second entry.

one

SORRY the above is not mine. Will make the name more original then repost :p

One more life

Well, here's my first silly, silly deck,All Your Deck Are Belong To Me

My other, better deck will come along when/if I can manage the man-hours in between studying for tests and doing papers.

is Solitary Confinement an "answer"?

Is it just me or is Elesdee getting the wrong meaning of an answer? To me, and mabye to a majority of the rest of the magic community it seems that an answer (as traditionally an "answer" comes after a "problem") is not something that can disrupt an opponents plans. Silence is NOT an answer, but can be seen as one under his definition. Mabye anything that disrupts the flow of the game can be considered to disrupt, but then you have to factor in many cards that are NOT answer. Mabye its just be, but if others think that discard isn't an answer then wonderful. I am not doing this challenge for 3 reasons, and hope that others like this will not come up again: 1) Welcome to the type where there is almost limitless JENKY, SPIKY decks that can be used, without any answers, even if they WILL NEVER BE USED AS ANSWERS. Wonderfully awesome that we can't even have a deck built around an answer but have a seperate focus. Really what this is is a very spiky creature build challenge, because artifact is based off "answers", storm can target creatures, blue combos have anwers in them (and by the way, per his definition you can only use creatures that CANNOT BLOCK, good luck playing legal decks guys). 2) What this challenge should be is "i really like creatures guyz!!!". Challenges that limit particular peoples playing styles (completly that is) and ARE NOT offering anything interesting or unusual may be fun for some but ARE EXCLUSIVE! That should not happen on a site focused around a community. 3) The only thing that is limited in this is the complexity many people love about magic. This isn't really opening up for new combos, rather ones that are super spiky and jenky and ALREADY BROKEN. There is nothing new, or unusual being offered in this except for the fact that each deck is a deck sailing out on the open sea by itself seeing who GETS THERE FIRST. So, thats my little rant about this. If you don't agree don't hate on me, it sounds aggresive but thats cause im angry. I am not directly insulting anyone, except mabye Elesdee, who mabye should know to make a play style where people are allowed to play creatures that can block.

Reading through one more time i found this funny: "Everyone who participates in it is going to learn something important about deckbuilding and what the game of magic is really all about." Elesdee, you are wrong. I would be interested to know how much you play magic competitively, or in casual at all. Magic is all about a deck that can operate while not being fragile. It is centered around removal and resistance to removal (by the way removal would have been a better word, as it wouldn't limit as much and would have sated my desire to build a deck). This is a fallacy. You can't take out what magic grew up with (look in alpha, i guarantee you will find "answers"). That is like saying, "learn something about what magic is all about, play without creatures guyz" It does not work that way. I am sorry if i am being overly insulting, but i feel like someone has to say it. No one who does this challenge will learn anything about the game other than if you restrict it from being itself it changes into another game (Lets play without mana and make it work like Yu-Gi-Oh, that'll make all happy).

Just to take some of the edge off; Elesdee is running the challenge for us to have fun. There've been a lot of contests ran already, so I'm sorry if you don't like this one, but Elesdee wasn't obligated to host it for us at all. If you don't like the rules/theme/'restriction' of this particular contest, then just wait until there's one you do like.

Although I do agree that the definition of an 'answer card' was pretty loose at first, it has since been clarified for this particular challenge. And I do have to disagree that the only decks made are going to be spikey creature decks; there are plenty of sorceries and artifacts that only target your opponent or their life without affecting their hand/creatures/permanents.

What you take from a contest is what you want to take from a contest. We can be competitive in building and play, but moodwise, let's just keep it casuuuual.

on a lighter note, hurray for alternate win conditions!

I hope Elesdee's goldfish has a 60 card deck.

str8-up-mill

my 2nd entry is also a mill deck.

double hurray for decking the goldfish!

infinite-landmillin'

LOL mill is out hahahahahahahahaa (comment 28)

sorry i did not read all of the many comments, but i think thats lame.

if those mill decks dont count, i submit

big bad primalcrux

@ Darkmonk stop spamming my comment filter, if you need to write start the next harry potter but don't do it where I have to read it. It's not I really like creatures challenge its lets combo with no interruptions challenge. You obviously haven't read the challenge guidelines the idea is to be original not spike. The challenge should be titled Let Johnny live. You may be dissapointed but that just means off until you find one you like. I too am angry so I will apologise but in future don't post if you haven't fully grasped the idea.

interesting-swear-words-that-bleeped-don't-show

@TAMA & darkmonk6593- Stop. Tama, he's not spamming your comment filter, he's just giving his opinion. Clearly he's grasped an idea of the challenge; i agree that some of the restrictions are too much.

Darkmonk6593, i think you're a little too harsh. its just a challenge, and being so angry over something like this doesnt seem normal. its fine if you have a definition for answers thats different from Elesdee, but its what we get to use for the challenge.

I see both of your guys points, and they are valid, you just went about it the wrong; by delivering it angrily.

Just let it happen. Who cares if the challenge sucks or whatever, get over it, wait a week, and move on.

internet draaaamaaaaaa... :)

@ Darkness The challenge is awesome, best interim we've had yet imho. He isn't deliberately spamming it but it was still annoying. I do apologise I'd just had a bad tourny in which I lost a match to a deck because I drew half my deck and only one dude in a 23 creature deck, i repeated this process a second time in order to lose the tournament to a casual deck that had never intended to even win a game.

@ Darkmonk he never said you can't use creatures that can block you can use blue combos and storm both of which I am using. The idea of the challenge is basically to see who can get there first it is a race that is why you are playing against goldfish. More than half the points for this challenge are style points. If you don't like it don't partake but I really like what LSD has put up and I for one am really enjoying the chance to Johnny combo without watching out for interruptions.

I can't be bothered arguing the term answer with you.

@ Matt you are fast becoming my favourite person on tapped.

@ Everyone have a happy easter when the international date line finally catches you guys up.

ha ha, I wasn't already?

Dominion of One & deck:manabond-valakut will have to be my final submissions.

my entries:

no answer challenge - aggro

no answer challenge - death's shadow

Mill that doesn't target much of anything - as far as the 20 turn limit, this will lock in 4-5 so I hope your a bit flexible - Apathetic Mill

and if that doesn't count just imagine an Aluren sliver deck for my second entry.

My 2nd deck: solid-shark

lol darkmonk is the guy who plays counterspell.

All this challenge was is a "what if I didn't have to worry about anything?" scenario. Its not my fault you couldn't figure that out, plenty of people got it, sorry it was above your head. Maybe now that I dumbed it down you can still participate.

I phrased it the way I did because I wanted people to think about their card choices and why they were actually including the card in the deck. You totally missed that. There are plenty of people who visit this site and obviously not all of them are tourney players, those are the people I made this article for.

Its funny because the hexmage depths guy up at top participated just fine, I'm actually very surprised I didn't see every other popular tournament archetype boiled down to its essence like that. Guess it was more original than I thought...

Really, I was going to spend a while creating an interesting deck, but seeing as the restrictions have become so severe and I don't want to have to sort through it, so I'm just going to put out a land attack sorta thing.

So, without any further ado, here is my deck, Landz

Elesdee, the reason you don't see a lot of the popular decks built in that manner is because many of them don't preform well without removal. Look at Zoo. Sure, it wouldn't do bad, but Dark Depths, the very first "real" deck posted for this, would wreck it every time (at least it should). That, and you also said you would grade on style and originality, and major tournament decks are NOT original.

i come to the defense of my deck.

while the depths-hexmage combo is not original, in extended or not, the deck in legacy is.

not many will play this combo in legacy because its so easy to disrupt. but since there are no "answers", playing the deck in legacy works out, and is original.

secondly, there are cards in the deck that are not featured in other depths decks, (partly because of the legacy barrier).

the deck should work for the challenge just fine.

also, this challenge's purpose is to combo-out, Johnny style.That involves using combos, and i doubt anyone here discovered a serious combo all on their own. most have been done before. the reason people claim my deck is unoriginal is simply becuase it is a combo that works well, and people have used it before. so since everyone is using a combo deck of some sort (that has almost assuredly been done before) mine should not suffer a large penalty (if even a small one).

to reinterate, playing this deck the way it is in legacy is original and works, and should be rewarded accordingly.

wow people! contest = fun. Supposed to anyway

i am having fun. i dont want my deck to be fairly analyzed and played. simply a debate. this challenge (for me) has been the best in a while!

While I didn't mind building the first deck (it was really just a mishmash that I put together because I've always wanted a deck like that), my second idea got crushed because I wanted to build a white/blue control style deck that used Heart of Light/Wall of Glare type combos to negate creatures, then mill out the opponent. So the narrowing of the requirements kind of nerfed my idea, so I threw together a Alluren deck that, while not what I wanted, I'm still having fun with. So, its not that I'm not having fun, I'm just wishing I could have done something else.

Sorry Darkness I am pretty sure you just took an extended idea and made it legacy and then tweaked it. Not that original.

If you have been having a look at the competition there are plenty of original combos. Squire1's hellcarver deck, my manabond Valakut and many others. Original combos are found all the time on this site just look and you will find (my totem Hellkite deck for standard).

I agree with squire challenges should be fun especially this one.

I suggest you submit a different deck. If you want to do well look at the scoring the decks are ranked on originality and creativity not how efficient they are. I would have chosen lsd-johnny hands down if it were based on efficiency. But instead I went with slower decks that were original creations.

I chose a well known deck, and made it better. If I dont get top-10 then whatever. It's just a challenge.

Last day. Then you all will be back to the harsh challenge dominion of Caley. Enjoy your freedom while it lasts.

I have decided that my 2nd deck will be a tournament deck that I have been playing for a couple of years, to some kind of success, but it fits this challenge very well, as it rolls over to hate!

It won't win many points for style, but its a blast to play in the right meta!

Belcher(http://www.tappedout.net/mtg-decks/belcher/)

i waivered back and forth but I want my two submissions to be hellcarver's glory and mishra's power barbs

Testing in progress... Good luck.

Well after a considerable amount of testing and the installation of a new browser I am glad to say that deck testing is done. I was supposed to have someone helping me with it but he became ill and could not participate.

Playtesting and Grading is done, winners decided. I just need to write a witty article for it.

Thanks to everyone who participated!

Any idea when that witty article will be ready and the winners will be announced?

This is my simple entry. http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/poisonous-slivers/

whoops looks like I was too late XD. I just made an account on here and I'm not yet with the swing of things (but I will be swinging tonight playing trombone at my high-school's swing-dance).

@zerotimestatechamp Don't worry, weve got challenges running all the time. There'll be a new one up soon. No pressure, Elesdee. :)

And by no pressure he means pressure =) srsly where is it?

Hey there

was just wondering when we were going to find out the results, as its been a week since testing was completed? Sorry to hassle!

Dave

...

so this challenge never gets resolved? or...

2 and a half weeks since testing was completed.

sorry to rush or be a dick, but what's going on?