3 decks. 3 wins.

Last night we had a epic gaming session. I played a total of 5 EDH games and won 3. That gives me a winning percentage of .600! I know! I'm impressed too. Now here was the really tricky thing:

All 3 of my wins came with different decks.

Not one of my decks out performed the others. It was even across the board. Todays lineup consisted of Zedruu, the Greathearted, Rafiq of the Many and Ezuri, Renegade Leader. Let me give you a quick recap on each game:

Zedruu was the first of the night. The game went pretty smoothly. Keith was sitting to my left playing Kemba, Kha Regent, Dan was playing Rhys the Redeemed and to my right was Eric playing Ink-Treader Niphilim (which is more or less a house rule that he is a legend...don't ask). I play Rhystic Study  and Keith refuses to pay extra for any of his spells. I end up drawing nearly 3/4 of my deck before the end of the game. I exchange a lot of lands (mostly Mountains) with Keith to keep him off of his white and keep him mana screwed most of the game. Eric was the big pain in my side because he kept targeting the Ink-Treader with things like Unsummon type spells. I eventually got a lock on the board with Paradox Haze, Ghostly Prison  and Zedruu. I was gaining 10 life a turn, drawing 11 cards (one for my turn). Aaron actually pointed out that Thought Lash  can be used as a one shot kill...which I did. I eventually took out Eric with damage (Mostly from a Illusions of Grandeur), I took out Dan with the Thought Lash and with Keith. Well...

And then there was this










So that was game one. The big turning point in the game was Eric using Pyrokinesis on his Ink-Treader, and copying 1 damage to every creature and 45 at me (which I am now seeing it only hits creatures...but we weren't in the right state of mind to see this)...which put me at 18. I was at 63. Eric said he wasn't looking at my life total and the math just didn't add up. Alls well that ends well.


Game 2:
Rafiq of the Many

I built Rafiq of the Many as a infect deck. It is not nearly complete and right now, I would say it's a strictly 1 v. 1 deck. However, I entered into a 5 way EDH match which included Eric sitting on my left playing Animal, Player of Drums, Andy playing Teneb, The Harvester, Ben playing Merieke Ri Berit and Aaron playing Heartless Hidetsugu. This game took place after Aaron won in about 3 minutes, dealing 120 points of damage on turn...like...4. That was awful. I don't even remember how that happened. My memory has blocked it out. As far as I am concerned, that game didn't exist. Now, Rafiq is designed to just one shot players with things like Putrefax. Just infect them as fast as possible. So, I went along with that plan. Eric only had 2 toughness out when I had Rafiq out and I played Putrefax. That's 12 infect coming through. Next I got Andy with 9 infect and then proliferated with Throne of Geth . Everyone ganged up on Aaron because of the game before, so he was at a pretty low life total. I was able to finish him off with Celestial Colonnade. Ben was the hard one. I attempted to finish him off with a Inkmoth Nexus, then the Colonnade, and so on and so forth. Ben always seems to have answer for me, this time it was Sudden Spoiling , Voidmage Husher, and Wipe Away. I was at 2 life when I was able to wipe his board with Parallax Wave and finish him off with a Blightwidow, Sword of Vengeance   and a Rancor. Phew!

It was just a grinder of a game. I was telling the guys that it has been a while since I played a multi-player EDH game where opponents would go out one by one. It's usually everyone all at once. Anyways. Interesting.

Game 3:
Ezuri, Renegade Leader

The only thing I can attest to this win was the fact that nobody (except for Mike) who knew what I was doing! On my left this time was Keith playing Oona, Queen of the Fae, Mike playing Jenara, Asura of War and on my right was...oh god....um....New Guy playing Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer. This game was just bad. My turn sequence went like this:

Turn 1: Forest, Arbor Elf
Turn 2: Oran-Rief the Vastwood, Fyndhorn Elves
Turn 3: Greenweaver Druid, Gaea's Cradle, Fauna Shaman
Turn 4: Lurking Predators VROOOOOMMM!!!!!

Lucky for me, the first creature that came off the top of the Predators was Dosan the Falling Leaf so I was able to do whatever I wanted on my turn. The game ended with me having 17 creatures on the board with Deserted Temple  letting me untap my Cradle. I played Ezuri and swung in with the team. It's totally overkill, but I also had an active Beastmaster Ascension, Slate of Ancestry. Huge damage. No Wraiths also. That was a big part of this game. Biggest part even.

So, there we have it. 3 decks. 3 wins. A control deck, a one shot kill deck and a hyper aggro deck.

I'm not gloating.

I want to point out lots of things happened that allowed these wins to happen. Play errors, focusing on other players for past games, not drawing appropriate cards and players not knowing what your deck does.

EDH is a cruel mistress.