Favorite Deaths

[Ruiner]

In all of the various games of commander you've played, what are some of your favorite or most memorable ways you've been eliminated from the game?

A few months ago I was playing my Rakdos the Defiler deck and had Havoc Festival in play, which was doing some major work. I'm ready to end my turn at 2 Life but due to board states I had the game in the bag and should still easily win. There are three of us still alive at this points. My friend, player to my left, is playing a monored devils deck featuring Chaos Wand. He is at 1 Life so he will die on his upkeep. At the end of my turn he targets my deck with the wand. I flip Sign in Blood and he kills me with my own card. I die and he manages to scrape by and win the game. One of my favorite ways I've ever died.

Anyone else have any fun stories?

[Gamazson]

One the first games I ever had with my Pir, Imaginative Rascal and Toothy, Imaginary Friend deck. Toothy had like 35 counters and I had an Overwhelming Stampede in hand. My opponent cast Living Death. I had an untapped High Market I could respond with, so I was confident in my next turn but, my library only had 32 cards left. From that game forward I learned to keep track of my library.

[Sinis]

One the first games I ever had with my Pir, Imaginative Rascal and Toothy, Imaginary Friend deck. Toothy had like 35 counters and I had an Overwhelming Stampede in hand. My opponent cast Living Death. I had an untapped High Market I could respond with, so I was confident in my next turn but, my library only had 32 cards left. From that game forward I learned to keep track of my library.

I, too, have frantically done math with Toothy.

[kirkusjones]

Was playing with my old Angus Mackenzie controlled chaos deck, which ran stuff like Aluren, Dream Halls and Teferi's Puzzle Box. Can't remember what the other two decks were, but I was sitting across from a Doomsday Grenzo build. We were heading into the end game and the Grenzo player decided to go for it and cast Doomsday. I looked at him and pointed to my Perplexing Chimera and asked if he was cool with me trying to win off of his doomsday. We were both a little, shall we say elevated, and he was on board. I attempted to make a decent pile that I believe involved walking ballista which didn't go as planned. I fizzled, got laughed at by the table and then someone else stole the win. But the Grenzo player and I had a great time.

That, and any time I get to kill myself playing Vilis by misreading Lich's Mastery

[Gamazson]

Vilis, Broker of Blood & Lich's Mastery. That interaction makes my brain hurt.

[materpillar]

One of my favorite losses was with my friend and a couple of strangers at college. MY friend played Ashling the Pilgrim that routinely went for lethal Earthquakes for the entire table (include himself). He just enjoyed watching the world burn.

Anyway. Ashling does mono-red things and everyone is at <15 life. My friend goes for his standard Earthquake for 20 play. Opponent: response Angel's Grace. Much laughter and amusement followed.

[Dunharrow]

I had an explosive start with Maelstrom Wanderer that included a couple creatures and a Pathbreaker Ibex in play. I decided to spread out my damage as the only thing my opponents had in play was a Trinket Mage.

In any case, player to my right on his turn played Reins of Power and knocked me out.
It was pretty hilarious to me.


The other memorable loss was entirely my fault. My opponent had a Waste Not in play and cast Whispering Madness. I responded with Notion Thief. Drew 24 cards, I believe. In any case, he put his whispering madness on a creature and swung. Opponent didn't block. I had to draw 96 cards and lost the game.
Should have seen that coming!

[PrimevalCommander]

One of my more memorable losses was a 3 player game with my Titania, Protector of Argoth against my friend's Xenagos, God of Revels, and a Zombie deck, The Scarab God I think.

Xenagos was a little slow on the set up this game, so my attention focused on Scarab God. I dropped a turn 4 or 5 Concordant Crossroads and started beating down heavy with 5/3 elementals making 2-3 of them per turn. I saw an opening on Scarab God and swung out for lethal and got hit with one of the blue instants that bounce all attacking creatures. No biggie, recast Titania and set up for next turn.

Xenagos sees this opportunity to play set-up and get his commander ready to go. He largely holds back since I'm swinging with 15-20 hasty power per turn. Much of his early game was used blocking my attacks. Scarab God throws some blockers out, but it's not enough to save him. I finish off Scarab god on my next turn. The turn is probably around 7 or 8, so mid-game in our meta. Xenagos sees me sheilds down, but I'm at 30+ life and he has a mostly empty board. His deck usually caps out at about 16-20 damage on any single turn without much set up... Out comes Malignus with Xenagos, God of Revels pump and OHKO's me from almost starting life.

I don't remember if I had Constant Mists in hand, but it was in the deck, not that it would have made a lick of difference. It was a fun play and similar swingy plays like that happen every time my Titania and his Xeganos are in the same pod.

[tempoEDH]

Oh boy, this one was one of my, and almost everyone at my typical table, favorite games. Apologies in advance for the essay.

I used to play a Sidisi, Brood Tyrant deck. Pretty casual, just zombie tribal, not even a tuned one at that. Anyhow, the deck had Altar of Dementia in it - as a sac outlet, of course. I somehow never managed to think about the interaction between Sidis and Altar while I was brewing. This was also maybe my 3rd or 4th game ever playing with the deck, so while it was a new and rather fun addition, I still hadn't seen every card. So, nearing the late game (casual meta, some stalling, maybe turn 13 or so?) I've got a good pile of zombies on the field, some lords, and I'm looking like I could take the game. Then I draw Altar of Dementia. I play it, because why not, and then read it again, and then look at Sidisi, and read it one more time. How had I not noticed this interaction? I immediately set to work saccing tokens, zombies, and a few lords, to mill my deck out (getting more tokens along the way, to sacrifice again, etc). One of my opponents begins sweeping up cards, and I tell him to hang on, this wasn't a combo deck. As far as I could remember, I didn't actually have a way to win off of this. He obliges and settles down. After I finally dump my whole deck in my yard, I started recurring and reanimating, trying to figure out what to do. I settled eventually on landing Underrealm Lich, and something else I don't remember (some loop that allowed me to place a land on top of my deck every turn). So now I have an empty library, multiple reanimating zombies, access to my whole deck of lords and shenanigans, and I don't need to draw because of Lich - plus I can pop a land on top in case of emergency. Then began a pretty long endgame of me slowly taking over with endless synergies and recursions, no one having exile removal for the Lich, basically slowly putting my entire deck on the table. Finally, on what seemed to be the last turn for the table, I made a mistake. I swung out, killed 2 opponents, and got the 3rd (A funny Phenax deck, who couldn't mill me because I did it first) down to 2 life, losing nearly every creature to the attack - but not caring because I could just reanimate them all, and my opponent had just about no gameplan to deal with me. I play Lampad of Death's Vigil. I move to sacrifice Sidisi, one of 2 other creatures on the field. He doesn't respond, and goes down to 1. I move to sacrifice my Lich, for the last life. My only other creature is the Lampad itself. He responds. With the game ending trigger on the stack, he flashes in Notion Thief. I'm not too worried - he should have flashed it in to block. Then, he casts Wrong Turn, targeting Notion Thief and me. I'm a little worried, because I see where this is headed. I wait, gaining control of Notion Thief, and wishing I had one single mana open so I could sacrifice it to the Lampad - but I'm out of mana. Still with the game ending trigger on the stack, he casts Unsummon, targeting the Lampad. I'm a little confused about this play, until he holds priority and casts Disrupt, targeting his Unsummon. Notion Thief, not a may trigger, triggers off disrupt, and with my Lich gone and out of mana to loop my land, I draw a card from my empty library, and lose. I'm in disbelief, the table is laughing, he had held on to Thief, Wrong Turn, and Disrupt for nearly 6 or 7 turns, in the hopes I would leave an opening, and had only just drawn the Unsummon and waited for an opportunity, which I unwittingly gave to him. The table was very happy about the Altar of Dementia play of just emptying my library and then slowly rebuilding my board and hoping I didn't lose, and the ending was so out of the blue (who plays Wrong Turn in Phenax???), that it quickly claimed a spot as one of my favorite games, and endings, of all time.

[TheGildedGoose]

I was piloting Erebos, God of the Dead against three opponents, including Tuvasa the Sunlit enchantress. Tuvasa had drawn a lot of cards and knocked the other two players out of the game and I was hiding behind Maze of Ith and Deserted Temple at very low life, making me unable to dig for answers with Erebos. Tuvasa eventually lands a third threat, and I'm facing lethal the next turn when I topdeck Death Cloud which I cast for the draw.

I took the moral victory.

[Ruiner]

I just thought of another. This is really the product of it being the final game of a long day/night of games and feeling a bit tired and making a dumb mistake.

I was playing my Sakashima the Impostor deck. My friend to the left of me is playing Brion Stoutarm. I have Dark Depths and Thespian's Stage in play, and get overly aggressive by activating the combo earlier than I need to. Brion player's deck is full of Threaten effects, I know this and still totally space on that fact so he steals Marit Lage and throws him right at me killing me on the spot. I just had to laugh at myself for making such an easy dumb mistake.

[Legend]

A four player game down to two. It was a long game in the early days of EDH. I was playing monoblue, my remaining opponent minored. He was hellbent. I was tapped out but with creatures on the battlefield and a full fan of cards that included Force of Will. I had the game in the bag on my next turn! He topdecked an Incinerate of all things and cast it targeting me. Laughing maniacally, I payed 1 life and exiled a blue card from my hand to counter his Incinerate with my FoW. Everyone else was laughing, too, including him. The 1 life I paid was my last, putting me at 0. I lost before my spell even resolved.. Beer may have been involved.

[toctheyounger]

I was playing Glissa, the Traitor in a game against randoms, one of which was a Dimir mill deck. Got an early Birthing Pod on line, filled my yard a little, landed Greater Good, hit a board wipe, and cast Animate Dead on Lord of Extinction. It was like a 35/35. I got a turn in swinging with it, but without trample achieved nothing, so sacrificed it to GG. Stupidly, I'd not realised that the Dimir mill deck had a Jace's Archivist untapped. He activated it, I had like 40 cards in hand and drew myself out. It took me like five minutes to work out that I couldn't squirm out of it.

I've also been killed by my own Phyrexian Arena, in a separate game. It was far from spectacular, but it was hilarious that that's what got me.

[Outcryqq]

Cool topic!

I was playing my janky Atogatog deck, and a few players had already been knocked out. I had Enchanted Evening in play, and I played my Calming Verse, thinking I'd nuke my opponent's board and swing in for lethal. Instead, he cast Aethersnatch targeting my Calming Verse, I nuked my own board, and I died a slow death. In my defense, I'd never seen him cast Aethersnatch in that deck before. I deserved my death in that game!

[Gashnaw]

Honestly I can't remember any way that was truly memorable for me (probably why I don't remember them) but I do recall a few victories that were memorable. Such as the one person play a cEDH deck against a table where one person. Was playing the brand new arcades.

Well he went earthcraft/squirrel nest and in fear of a krosan grip made 7000 squirrels.

On my turn I told the brago player not.to counter my spell. cEDH player sees that as a threat and activates aetherflux reservoir. I trickbind it and the cast reigns of power. 7000 squirrels. (Well 6999, one was sacced)

I remember having fun while losing a game but don't remember how I lost