Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Kor Triumphant... finally.

After a steady stream of losses, the Kor came back with possibly the best performance ever in a 4-way free-for-all. My opponents were a white Soldier deck, a customized Sliver deck, and a white-red Ally deck.

First, the Soldier deck played Crusade (whether this was part of a failed strategy or a foolish mistake, we shall never know). All the figures below should be increased by 1 at game-time. Without a doubt, in a game where life totals dropped as low as single-digits among players, this did make a difference. However, I retain the actual non-augmented creature stats to describe my combination plays for simplicity.

My luck started with a decent draw with some lands and several inexpensive cards to play. In only a few turns, I was already crushing the Ally deck next to me with this:
Kor Duelist + Adventuring Gear + Basilisk Collar + Trusty Machette.
On Landfall he is 5/4 Doublestrike with Lifelink value of (at least) 5 and Deathtouch. Note that none of the cards in play cost more than 2 mana. I specify "at least" because if a blocking creature is killed on the First-Strike phase of the Doublestrike, then there is no damage dealt after that in normal combat phase.Having a Land to play each turn triggered the Landfall on Adventuring Gear. I became unstoppable by kicking Kor Aeronaut (granting Kor Duelist the Flying attribute) while playing also a Sejiri Steppe during another turn (granting him protection from whichever colour blocker my opponent had untapped).

Turning my attention to the Soldier deck afterwards, I was thrown for a loop when I was finally stopped by a Wall of Nets and Holy Day. That is, the defender blocked, prevented all combat damage, so both combatants survive, but then the attacker is exiled. However, I did have a lot of Lands on the table by this point. So I rearranged several creatures and equipments to the following configuration:
Armament Master with Trusty Machette and Explorer Scope (4/3)
Knight of Cliffhaven (level 1) with Basilisk Collar (6/7)
Kor Aeronaut with Adventuring gear (6/6)
The Sliver deck was gaining momentum (as it always does late in the game). So watched carefully until one crucial mistake... it completely tapped out to bring out a Sliver Queen. It's big and scary (plus the cross-effects of the other Slivers in play gave it several additional attributes. But after considering the math against a single blocker, I took my chance...

I declared Attack with all 3 of my creatures.
The Exporer's Scope triggers and I check the top card of my library. It was a land.
This triggers Landfall on Adventuring Gear and Kor Aeronaut becomes an 8/8 Flying.
Total damage across all three was 18/16 with a Lifelink value of at least 9.

This eliminated the Sliver deck from play. And if that weren't lucky enough, my final opponent continued to have mana issues so for the next turn, I took the time to Level up.
Knight of Cliffhaven (Level 4) with Basilisk Collar (8/8)
Since he's Flying and Vigilence, I attack each turn gaining more life than the Soldier deck can deal without fear of losing a potential blocker.

Finally, I move the Adventuring Gear to Armament Master bringing his bonus up to a +6/+6 so Knight of Cliffhaven can attack and block for 10/10 total. My Lifelink continues to swing my life-counter wildly up and down while the Soldier deck sends Shadow creatures I am helpless against. But it doesn't matter as I'm gaining life much faster than my opponent can deal damage to me at this point. We decide to call it a game.

I hardly ever win free-for-all games. It's nice to do it with a little style and a lot of luck.

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