DCC 2/5/14: The Worst Way to Lose!

Once upon a time, many years ago, this question entered my mind while playing a game of Magic the Gathering with friends.

I could not help but ask myself: What is the worst possible way for someone to lose in a casual game of Magic? I wanted my answer to adhere to cards and game mechanics only; no having decks catch on fire or things of that nature. I wondered if it should deal with someone losing a game immediately, but then thought it would probably be more dramatic if the game was one they fought for and perhaps even excelled at. A dark path, I was beginning to travel. But alas, it was in the name of science! Questions must be answered. And results must be tested...

So I built the deck to do it. I assembled the Death Star that would destroy someone's Alderaan. I only needed to have it work just once, and then I would either scrap it or shelve it, like an embarrassed arch-villain hiding his shrink-ray after having somewhat indirectly targeted Superman's phallic region for a minor but permanent "alteration".

I won't post the decklist here, primarily because I do not remember it all. I will, however, explain to you the scenario; the event, in detail. From that you should be able to reverse engineer whatever your heart desires. You may also find that my version of the worst possible way for someone to lose is more comical than yours. I do not doubt that someone may present a better scenario; but it is my hope that you find this one rather fitting. I present to you:

The Worst Way Someone Lost in Casual Magic

It was a regular Friday night, many moons ago, before Commander was a true format. We had our 60+ card decks full of whatever cards we wanted in them. Enter my casual play group, whose true names shall remain hidden. We'll call them: Garruk, Chandra, myself, and Ajani V.

Garruk is on one of his sit-around-and-poke-things decks. It just kinda plays cards and doesn't do anything imposing, and then late game tries to win with big creatures and armadillo cloaks. Chandra is playing some crafty homebrew deck that I cannot recall well; it never had a chance to do much. Now Ajani V... Ajani is playing his favorite deck, his deck he plays almost every time. Red and white, almost 100 cards, focusing on two primary goals: big red spells that do direct damage, and big white spells that blow up everything but lands. It's something he has been slowly improving over time, adding cards like:

 over .

So we progress through the game, and we're about 12 rounds of turns into it. Ajani has noticed I'm on a new homebrew and is keeping me at bay by blowing up creatures at regular intervals, not knowing that my creatures are mere roadblocks to get the right pieces into place. Garruk is doing his own thing and not really presenting a threat, while Chandra is trying to interact with Ajani in a mostly unsuccessful manner. A few more turns go by, and Chandra manages to cause a dent in Ajani's life total. Ajani's attention becomes successfully redirected for a turn, and I resolve a very unimposing Lich's Mirror:

It's just in case I die, I allow my opponents to presume. Harmless, really. Meanwhile, Ajani starts to spend his turns tapping out to destroy Chandra's tools of destruction. The fire war has begun. Thankfully, Garruk is acting as predicted, and I obtain some excellent opportunities to resolve some more toys, mostly in the form of mana acceleration, Diabolic Tutors, and a couple of these, putting me at 20-something after having taken a few random hits:

A few more turns go around, and I patiently wait for my time to shine. I need mana tapped out; an untimely Disenchant would ruin everything. Thankfully, or perhaps unfortunately, Ajani passes the turn to me with no mana open after having cast a rather large X spell, and a life total of 10. Here. We. Go.

I untap, draw, and tap one mana to resolve this little gem:

This gets some stares; nobody likes their permanents stolen, but you can just get them back with the Totem under the new owner's control... right?

And then I get to work. I tap two mana to cast this card:

What could this possibly do? I do have a pair of Life Bursts in the 'yard, however, and things start to get a bit scary for my opponents.

I then proceed to pay 5 mana to activate my Avarice totem, targeting my own Lich's Mirror. I respond with activating it again, targeting one of Ajani's mountains. I still have a lot of mana left (I had multiple of those Mercadian Masques storage lands built up and ready to go). Avarice Totem's abilities resolve in top-down order, first exchanging it for Ajani's Mountain, and then exchanging it back to me and giving Ajani my Lich's Mirror. Ajani smirks, thinking I'm just doing some silly derpy things. I have been known to play group-hug decks. Sudden realization of doom incoming.

I then target Ajani with a third Life Burst. Ajani is at 10, and this Life Burst will cause him to gain 12 more life, going to 22. False Cure will then cause him to lose 24 life for the 12 gained, bringing his new life total to a negative 2. Ouch.

But wait, it's not over.

Lich's Mirror kicks in, sees that Ajani has lost the game, and instead Ajani gets a free revival by replacement effect. He grumbles and looks at me menacingly, but is glad that at least he didn't just outright lose the game. Or so he thinks.

Ajani finishes shuffling everything back into his deck (I give him back his two lands), draws a hand of seven, and feels rather bummed that he has been so completely set back, but still decides to stay in it because he isn't going to give up that easily. 

And then he realizes that he still has Lich's Mirror under his control. Sweet, he probably thought, infinite freebee revivals until he loses it. Then I point out that False Cure is still in effect. I'm met with three blank stares. 

I proceed to explain that any change in life totals from one number to another counts as life gain or life loss. Ajani just happened to go from -2 to 20, thanks Lich's Mirror. That's 22 life gained. False Cure's replacement effect kicks in again, causing Ajani to lose 44 life, and brings Ajani's life total back down to negative 24. Lich's Mirror's replacement effect kicks in again, resetting Ajani to 20, which is now 44 life gained, and False Cure then says "Hey, lose 88 life now". And so the game ends, in a forced draw, with Ajani perpetually losing more and more life into infinity, being brought back to life each time only to lose even worse.

And that, my friends, is what I think is the worst way for someone to lose a game of casual Magic.

If you've made it this far in reading, I congratulate you, and hope that you never use this trick on me. :-)

-CC