The hardest lock of hard locks
Challenges and Articles forum
Posted on Nov. 3, 2014, 6:31 a.m. by HavokX
So I've been thinking about this for quite some time, but I've never attempted to try it until now. Is there any way to establish a game state such that even if your opponent had an infinite amount of turns and cards after you setup, they wouldn't be able to do anything?
First things first, let's prevent your opponent from playing cards. Donate them a Steel Golem and an Aggressive Mining . With creatures and lands taken care of (don't want any sneaky Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle s going off), we now need to tackle noncreature spells. Dovescape should do the trick for almost all of them. Yeah, it gives them 1/1 fliers, but that's nothing that Blazing Archon can't solve. Gaddock Teeg helps with the costly uncounterable instants and sorceries, but then we still have three to worry about (if my gatherer lurking is correct): Abrupt Decay , Volcanic Fallout , and Urza's Rage . Avacyn, Angel of Hope prevents them from destroying any of the pieces on the board, but we're still dead to the direct damage of the last two. There are many options available to us at this point, but Platinum Emperion was the first that came to mind.
So I was able to achieve a lock with 7 cards: Steel Golem , Aggressive Mining , Dovescape , Blazing Archon , Gaddock Teeg , Avacyn, Angel of Hope , and Platinum Emperion . This isn't an optimized list, just something I threw together in a few minutes. Are there any edge cases I haven't considered? Any errors in my reasoning? If you have a more efficient list, feel free to leave it below!
Nigeltastic says... #3
gufymike you are missing something: The way Phyrexian Unlife works is weird, in order to get poison you have to start taking damage at or below 0. The lock is: you go to 5. They deal 1000 damage during normal combat (no first strike), and you take 1000, go to -995, and then reset to 5 EOT, taking 0 poison because when the damage hit you you were > 0. This continues for as long as they don't have a way to take that initial 5 hp off before the rest of their damage happens. It's weird, but it works.
November 3, 2014 4:59 p.m.
asasinater13 says... #4
nigel explained the Phyrexian Unlife
/Form of the Dragon
lock exactly. it's very awkward but works, and being so awkward people you're against often miss what's happening, so it makes it harder for them to play around.
November 3, 2014 5:07 p.m.
Some one played Mindslaver on me while I had Prophet of Kruphix out and I just played everything on their turn.
gufymike says... #1
Unless I'm missing something.
November 3, 2014 2:29 p.m.