Cool plays/games thread

This subforum needs more activity. I'm sure we Vintage players can come up with the crazy and cool plays worth reading about.

A few weeks ago I was able to land Notion Thief with a Heartwood Storyteller out (not mine). Cast Visions of Beyond after getting Bojuka Bog'd, draw four? That was pretty cool except that it made me a huge target and the other three quickly ganged up on me. It was nice mostly until Ruric Thar came out and suddenly my life total was precariously low.

Here's a whole game from this past weekend:

The generals were Norin the Wary, Riku (me), Damia (my deck, but not me), and The Mimeoplasm. Unfortunately, Norin the Wary got manascrewed (yes, in mono-red) and did almost nothing relevant the whole game (except for a clutch Stingscourger to reset Mimeoplasm at one point). The other three decks WENT CRAZY. I actually started off really slowly, playing land and doing nothing for the first several turns. My first two plays were to Fire//Ice two 2/1's in response to a Mimeoplasm-as-Kiki-Jiki (Kiki-Jiki had been discarded to Gamble as one of the few other plays from mono-red) activation on Eternal Witness, and to kill Survival of the Fittest with Nature's Claim (after it had been killed by Damia's Nature's Claim and gotten back with the original Eternal Witness).

Eventually I built up slowly with Explosive Vegetation and a threshed Far Wanderings to ten mana, and was able to cast both Consecrated Sphinx and Rite of Replication on my own Sphinx on the same turn (Riku wasn't in play and I couldn't kick the Rite, sadly). Then a Putrefy came down on the actual Sphinx, but not in response to Rite, so I got one Sphinx out of it. I passed to Damia, drew two from her draw, and then saw her take it with Treachery. Sometimes I hate my decks. Meanwhile, Damia had Garruk Primal Hunter and Cadaverous Bloom and a Pernicious Deed hanging out, and she was killing things with her own Diabolic Edicts and Putrefys. Then there was a Metamorph on Sphinx from the Mimeoplasm deck. That died to something from Damia, but the Mimeoplasm cast his general as my actual Consecrated Sphinx (also exiling Damia's Palichron, which she foolishly discarded to Frantic Search). After mono-red did nothing I was able to land Tidespout Tyrant and bounce Treachery to get back my Consecrated Sphinx (token). Then there was the interesting interaction between multiple Sphinxes: Damia would draw for her turn, I would draw two from Sphinx, Mimeo would draw two from his Mimeoplasm-Sphinx, THEN I WOULD DRAW FOUR FROM HIS DRAWS. And then that was it, he didn't want to keep drawing, so I ended up getting a mass of cards. While I was still tapped out Fleshbag Marauder was played and I choose to sac the Sphinx token instead of the real Tidespout that could be Mimeoplasmed back. Very sad.

But I started my turn with ten mana, eight+ cards, and a Tidespout in play. So I cast Temporal Mastery (which I like because it exiles itself, but I would have had an easy win with any other Time Walk variant (Time Warp or whatever) because I also had Eternal Witness) for its full cost. Then I cast Eternal Witness getting back something, moved to my extra turn, and tried to dig like hell to find Turnabout (which would give me infinite mana thanks to Eternal Witness and Tidespout), but it was not to be. So I actually PASSED the turn after getting two turns in a row with Tidespout in play. I was able to stall the Mimeoplasm on mana a little by bouncing Gilded Lotus and Tezzeret the Seeker. Ugh. So ashamed. And then things got really crazy.

The two BUG decks started fighting over Runescarred Demon. Reanimate your Rune-Scarred, find Progenitor Mimic and play it copying Runescarred, find something else right away. Kill the original demon, play Phyrexian Metamorph copying Progenitor Mimic as Runescarred, get something to kill Tidespout, replay Mimeoplasm as Tidespout. It was scary. But I had a plan: I had Phantasmal Image, and if any of the RSD survived to my turn I could play it to get a Demonic Tutor and fetch the Turnabout I had been looking for, then with Riku and Regrowth I could make a ton of mana and probably combo out.

The Mimeoplasm, perhaps sensing that having multiple Runescarred Demons in play that had gained the ability from Progenitor Mimic to copy themselves every turn was BAD NEWS, played Damnation. My hopes were crushed. But Damia played the Flusterstorm she had found with the Progenitor Mimic RSD with her last mana! He didn't have enough to pay for the several taxes, so creatures lived. The other two blue decks were tapped out and Flusterstorm, the fun-police, had just been used! I was home free as long as mono-red did nothing.

Mono-red did nothing. I made a 1U 6/6 flier with Demonic Tutor attached, got my Early Harvest (did I mention that all my lands were basics?), cast Riku, cast Early Harvest copying with Riku, had a billion mana, started to dig. Found Rude Awakening (which I did not Entwine since a) why? and b) Damia would have blown up Pernicious Deed and ruined MY LIFE), made a billion more mana. Kept digging. Ponder, copy it, shows me Epic Experiment and Bribery, so I announce "I'm pretty sure you all are dead, I have a ton of mana and Epic Experiment". Mono-red says "I don't get it, what's the combo?"

"The combo is I have an excellent chance to find a way to make infinite mana, especially with for instance Mystic Retrieval since I can loop Early Harvest, Regrowth and Mystic Retrieval repeatedly copying with Riku. Then I Bribery all the creatures out of your decks, then I Spin into Myth any creatures you have in play, then I Bribery all of THEM out, and then I... oh I don't know, repeatedly cast Fire//Ice until you all are dead." They conceded, I ended up finding Simic Charm a few cards down, which also would have given me an infinite mana loop with Early Harvest, Simic Charm (bouncing Eternal Witness), then Eternal Witness copied with Riku to get back both spells, nets me mana and an Eternal Witness token each loop.

During the early turns of the game where I was just doing land-go while Planeswalkers and Gilded Loti were coming down I was banking on making it to the late game. The Notion Thief-Heartwood Storyteller episode had taught me that laying low, even involuntarily, can help one's chances of survival. Riku only needs one big turn, and indeed the turn where I won was the first one he was in play.