Part 14

The March of Freedom Continues!

After the defeat of the White Wizard, I decide my deck isn't explosive enough, and decide to embrace the dark side.



That's right, seven Dark Rituals.

There follows a pretty serious buildup phase.

...for which all my screenshots have disappeared. Ugh.

Basically, the shots between the end of the white castle and my attacking the red one vanished. I know there were a bunch in there, because I killed the Green Wizard between the two. For some reason all the shots of using this deck have disappeared, though, up until the red castle. Ugh.

Short version: I got a bunch of good cards for that deck, including two Mana Flares and some Earthquakes for creature control. Also, somewhere in the middle I finally got one of the bazaar events from a goodie hut that lets me buy any cards. I had 13k, so I bought rather a lot of stuff, including a ton of dark rituals, contracts from below, and hypnotic specters.

In addition to letting me make the fireball/draw7 deck more monstrous, it let me build this, which is not many cards off from being one of the most retarded decks possible in this game:



Yeah, the Erg Raiders, Black Knights, and Junun Efreets aren't optimal, and at the time I thought it needed Mind Twist, but this deck is completely brutal, as we'll soon see.

First, though, the red castle. Mana Flare is always in effect there, so I decided not to use the black deck but rather give the fireball one last glimpse of glory.

It decided to go out well. Thanks to a forked time walk, I got four turns to her first two.

And those were all the turns it took.







Then I decide to give the black deck the first outing, against the Black Wizard!

It might not be immediately obvious, but the way the black deck works is that it ideally draws a hand with some combination of Dark Ritual, Contract from Below, and threats. It plays all the Rituals, plays however many threats it can afford, then plays the Contract leaving at least one mana in the pool so you can play the Dark Rituals in your new hand and continue the cycle. Here we see the beginning of the first turn against the Greater Lich, master of the black castle.



This hand chains into this, all before he has had his first turn:



Sinkhole and Strip Mine serve to keep the opponent on the back foot while specters destroy his hand.



With so many Contracts in the deck, it is pretty rare to hit a pause this long without getting one to refill the hand. More likely is that you have to stop chaining them on turn 1 because you get to the point where decking is a danger.



In any case, like above, you eventually draw a Contract or the Demonic Tutor and get to start chaining spells again.





And so it goes with the Black Wizard. Sadly my deck has no way to destroy Greed, so he gets to have one permanent in play when he dies, denying me the flawless victory.

I take Contract, Dark Ritual, and Hypnotic Specter as my three black cards. What a surprise.

Now only the Blue Wizardess remains between me and the final evil. But before I take her on, I decide (foolishly, as it turns out) that I need Mind Twist.

Mind Twist, it transpires, lives in hell.



That's right. A Power Struggle dungeon where fast effects can't be played. Note that despite Dark Ritual having "mana source" on the type line, it isn't allowed either.

Next time: I dine in Hell.