Cool!

Well, Reader Challenge Four was definitely something different, and it looks like it was pretty well received. Eliminating so many cards from the challenge (especially the ones that tend to come up a lot in these, like Dark Magician of Chaos and the Jars) made it really tough, but virtually every entry received this time around was top-notch!

In general, the most successful contestants used a combination of Water and Fire monsters to make multiple summons by turn 3’s end phase. Mother Grizzly, Fenrir, and a few fodder monsters were left untouched by the ban on the letter “A” on the Water side, and Fire had UFO Turtle and Inferno. This type of strategy, with some extra tricks tossed in, got several readers into the twenties.

The winner took a slightly different approach, opting instead to use a couple of different monsters to claim a whopping twenty-five summons by the end of the challenge. Congratulations to James M. of Arcadia, California¾you’re the winner of Reader Challenge Four, and also the first winner of multiple Metagame.com Reader Challenges!

Let’s take a look at James’ winning solution:

Opening Hand:
Pot of Greed
Reckless Greed
Bubonic Vermin
Question
Question
Question
The Cheerful Coffin

Turn 1

Draw: Needle Ceiling

Main Phase 1:

-Play Pot of Greed(drawing Mother Grizzly, UFO Turtle)
-Set Bubonic Vermin
-Set Reckless Greed
-Set Needle Ceiling

End Turn 1

Opponent’s Turn

-Summon Molten Zombie in attack mode

End Turn

Turn 2

Draw: Trent

Main Phase 1

-Flip Bubonic Vermin *1
-Special Summon Bubonic Vermin *2
-Summon Mother Grizzly *3

Battle Phase

-Attack with Mother Grizzly (-200)
-Special summon another Mother Grizzly with the destroyed Grizzly’s effect *4
-Attack with Mother Grizzly (-200)
-Special summon Mother Grizzly with the destroyed Grizzly’s effect *5
-Attack with Mother Grizzly (-200)
-Special Summon Hyosube with the destroyed Grizzly’s effect *6
-Attack with Hyosube (-100)

End Turn 2

Turn 3

Draw: Dimension Fusion

Main Phase 1:

-Activate Reckless Greed(Fenrir, Fenrir)
-Play The Cheerful Coffin, send Trent to the graveyard
-Play Question, opponent calls wrong
-Special summon Mother Grizzly *7
-Play Question, opponent calls wrong
-Special summon Mother Grizzly *8
-Play Question, opponent calls wrong
-Special summon Mother Grizzly *9
-Summon UFO Turtle *10

Battle Phase

-Attack with Mother Grizzly (-200)
-Special summon Lord Poison *11
-Attack with Mother Grizzly (-200)
-Special summon Lord Poison *12
-Attack with Mother Grizzly (-200)
-Special summon Lord Poison *13
-Attack with Lord Poison (-100)
-Special summon Trent with Lord Poison’s effect *13
-Attack with Trent (-100)
-Attack with Lord Poison (-100)
-Special summon Trent with Lord Poison’s effect *14
-Attack with Trent (-100)
-Attack with Lord Poison (-100)
-Special summon Trent with Lord Poison’s effect *15
-Attack with Trent (-100)
-Attack with UFO Turtle (-200)
-Special summon UFO Turtle with the previous Turtle’s effect *16
-Attack with UFO Turtle (-200)
-Special summon UFO Turtle with the previous Turtle’s effect *17
-Attack with UFO Turtle (-200)
-Special summon Crimson Sentry with the Turtle’s effect *18

Main Phase 2

-Remove two Mother Grizzly from your graveyard
-Special summon Fenrir *19
-Remove Mother Grizzly and Lord Poison from your graveyard
-Special summon Fenrir *20
-Flip Bubonic Vermin (this technically counts as a flip summon, but James didn’t claim it in his total of 25)
-Special summon Bubonic Vermin *21
-Activate Needle Ceiling to destroy Crimson Sentry, Fenrir, Fenrir, Bubonic Vermin, Bubonic Vermin, and Molten Zombie)
-Play Dimension Fusion (-2000)
-Special summon Mother Grizzly *22
-Special summon Mother Grizzly *23
-Special summon Mother Grizzly *24
-Special summon Lord Poison *25

End Turn 3

Total Summons = 25
My Final Life Points =3500

Nice! This is an impressively creative solution, combining old and new cards with some ingenuity and what was clearly a lot of testing to get the math as perfect as possible.

Congratulations James, and congratulations to everyone else who entered! Keep checking back for more Reader Challenge contests. Variety is the theme for the next few, now that everyone’s had a chance to cut their teeth with a couple “How much damage can you do” type challenges, so the upcoming puzzles should be pretty interesting!

-Jason Grabher-Meyer