Scylla and Charybdis Deckbuilder Challenge

Deck Challenges

squire1

19 January 2011

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Scylla and Charybdis

Well if your do not know who Scylla and Charybdis are please read the Odyssey, you know that book by the blind guy. Anyway, the tale of Scylla and Charybdis are the loose origin of the phrase "Between a rock and a hard place". And that, my friends is the point of the current challenge. You have to design a deck that has 2 major stipulations.

The Rock

Players can only be dealt creature damage and can only lose by their life total being reduced to 0 or less.

  • However noncreature damage can be targeted at a player and then redirected to planewalkers as normal.
  • Alternate win methods do not work. Milling, poison, other alt wins will not count as wins. If a player runs out of cards the game will be considered to be not played and will be replayed until a win is achieved by one deck.


The hard place

Creature spells may NOT be cast by players.
I am not going to give many details here, as I do not want to give anything away. There are tons of options and engines to make this happen, just think.


Other Rules and grading

All submissions must be legacy legal. Please check here for what that means:http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Resources.aspx?x=judge/resources/sfrlegacy. There is a maximum submission amount. Only three decks will be accepted from each participant.

All decks will be graded according to my: Adhesion, Competence, and Creativity. Ten points are possible for each category.

Adhesion (10 points)

Basically this category is whether or not your deck really embodies the spirit of the challenge. Did you just find a way to work around the restrictions? Or did you embrace the restrictions and really build a deck that made them seem like an advantage? Also points will be deducted for legality of deck here also.

Competence (10 points)

A competent deck is one that not only functions but wins. Sideboards will not be considered in play unless they are for fetch as cards in the outside the game zone. This is all about how it plays. I will run your deck against some of my own design in testing, and possibly some other entrants' decks as well.

Creativity (10 points)

This is the tough one. I have been playing for a while, and I have seem a lot of decks do a lot of things. If your deck beats me in a new and surprising way I will be super impressed. Empty the Warrens is nothing new. So finding a storm netdeck and winning with it will net you very few creativity points. Not that a creative take on a storm deck is not viable. You should know what creativity means, embody that. I will give a hint of things that excite me. I like writing articles about using cards that supposedly suck.

So have fun deckbuilding everyone. I hope that you have fun and let the creative juices flow. You have until midnight (EST) February 2nd to complete this challenge.

The next article in this series is Scylla and Charybdis Results

Jarrod_0067 says... #1

Quick question. What about loss of life? Say Sign in Blood or Exsanguinate ?

January 19, 2011 12:52 a.m.

Legendinc says... #2

just wondering, but what happened to that Mythic Rare, Legacy Only Deck Builder Challenge?

January 19, 2011 1:11 a.m.

Jarrod_0067 says... #3

January 19, 2011 1:12 a.m.

Legendinc says... #4

January 19, 2011 2:24 a.m.

THEMAVER1CK says... #5

deck:reanimator-32

January 19, 2011 2:31 a.m.

Legendinc says... #6

January 19, 2011 2:40 a.m.

capwner says... #7

January 19, 2011 2:50 a.m.

squire1 says... #8

@Jarrod_0067 no loss of life either

January 19, 2011 8 a.m.

Xander574 says... #9

yah same quesion as Legendinc mythic rare challenge?

January 19, 2011 12:22 p.m.

Battlecry1986 says... #10

Are these decks playing against each other or goldfish or what?

January 19, 2011 1:48 p.m.

We are Gaea . We are victorious.

January 19, 2011 2:22 p.m.

We are Uranus. We are victorious.

January 19, 2011 3:10 p.m.

eze01 says... #13

Attack of the manlands not really sure if this will work but what the hell ill throw it out there

January 19, 2011 4:09 p.m.

Jarrod_0067 says... #14

This is gonna be sweet...

This is PHYREXIA!!!

Mono-black discard suicide since you can't lose by paying life

January 19, 2011 4:12 p.m.

Legendinc says... #15

January 19, 2011 4:56 p.m.

squire1 says... #16

@Battlecry1986 - These decks are playing against decks of my design and if need be for extra testing and tiebreakers they are playing against each other.

@Xander574 - that was KrazyCaley's deal so IDK

January 19, 2011 5:03 p.m.

Legendinc says... #17

is KrazyCaley still on hiatus/vacation/break?

January 19, 2011 5:06 p.m.

Mpz5 says... #18

what creature?

Here is my entry, good luck everyone.

January 19, 2011 5:37 p.m.

We are Erebos. We are victorious.

January 19, 2011 8:34 p.m.

Rustria says... #20

January 19, 2011 9:55 p.m.

xeratheenigma says... #21

to hell and back with deck:fire-and-brimstone

January 20, 2011 3:20 a.m.

Battlecry1986 says... #22

Well its not powerful per say but with aggressive mulligans It can be beautiful. The 1st time you pull off in infinite Stasis a little part of your opponents soul dies.

Trapped in Stasis

January 20, 2011 11:49 a.m.

Battlecry1986 says... #23

Well its not powerful per say but with aggressive mulligans It can be beautiful. The 1st time you pull off in infinite Stasis a little part of your opponents soul dies.

Trapped in Stasis

January 20, 2011 12:02 p.m.

pookypuppy6 says... #24

the-z-squad!

January 20, 2011 1:15 p.m.

pookypuppy6 says... #25

the-z-squad!

The Z Squad has landed! (Pun fully intended) :D

January 20, 2011 1:16 p.m.

xeratheenigma says... #26

The Delirius Legion shall overwhelm all.

January 20, 2011 2:07 p.m.

xeratheenigma says... #27

Did you see tha....gwaaah You Got NINJA'D.

January 20, 2011 11:26 p.m.

IPyro92 says... #28

obviously the only way out of being between a rock and a hard place is up so It's time to Ascend

January 20, 2011 11:31 p.m.

dude1818 says... #29

January 20, 2011 11:37 p.m.

Battlecry1986 says... #30

Try this on for size...

If players cast creatures then your only options are tokens or reanimater, this deck is built to play off of both.

Your curse My blessing

January 21, 2011 1:57 p.m.

dude1818 says... #31

January 22, 2011 3:44 p.m.

Discard1119 says... #32

I hope you enjoy my tasty artifact deck :) I put some time into explaining it as well.

S&C Challenge: Good Buddies

January 22, 2011 6:27 p.m.

capwner says... #33

I like to ride my bicycle v2

Another build of my first submission, still revolves around Fluctuator .

January 22, 2011 11:06 p.m.

$ªmHεiπ says... #34

Squire, you know I had to : SC Reanimator

January 23, 2011 3:04 a.m.

Travis says... #35

sorry dont mean to be rude or disrespectful im new here but whats the point of this?

January 24, 2011 10:49 a.m.

squire1 says... #36

@travis - no offense taken. It is kinda a tappedout instrutution.

The point is to think outside the box and build decks with serious restrictions.

And most of all to have fun. I think people often forget that MTG is a game.

January 24, 2011 11:12 a.m.

Travis says... #37

rite on it does sound like fun and im often guilty of trying to make MTG too competitive.

January 24, 2011 11:21 a.m.

pookypuppy6 says... #38

My second entry:

Planeswalker Boxing

The planeswalkers have picked up battleaxes! :D

January 24, 2011 12:38 p.m.

IPyro92 says... #39

Second entry Just say no to CMCs

January 24, 2011 11:48 p.m.

hamburgers says... #40

Nissa's Reinforcements

Just throwing this out there, but my win involves comboing with One with Nothing

AWWWWW YEAHHHHHH

January 24, 2011 11:58 p.m.

hamburgers says... #41

To whoever above me said the only options are Tokens and reanimating, I say NI!

January 25, 2011 12:05 a.m.

squire1 says... #42

agreed, if the only options you can think of are tokens and reanimation, then look at the other literally 15,000 cards printed

January 25, 2011 8:18 a.m.

Battlecry1986 says... #43

My mistake, earlier when I said that the only options are reanimater or Tokens I should have said the most completive options.

Here is my take on reanimater

3rd times the charm

January 25, 2011 11:16 a.m.

squire1 says... #44

sorry for the wait all. Results coming this weekend after playtesting

February 10, 2011 11:44 a.m.

annuse says... #45

my Apocalyptic Necromancy is beats.

February 11, 2011 9:37 a.m.

gheridarigaaz says... #46

DAMMIT. i only saw this today!!! i made an awesome deck, At least i think it is... oh well its the thought that counts...deck:ula-lah-no-monsieur-creatures-only-1

July 27, 2011 7:34 p.m.

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