Unluckiest MTG Pro Caught On Camera

[@NikachuMTG]

Subscribe for Good Luck!

[@acenuke2513]

Even tho luck is a nice thing i usually dont need it when i play my format. Playing commander with a general that draws you cards is a nice thing. Specially when you play wheel.

[@coffeedudeable]

Count was actually off. Only ticked up 2 for a brainstorm

[@NikachuMTG]

Some cards on top of the library were already known from prior ponders and brainstorms. I don’t want to count the same known card twice.

[@reslime]

hey Nikatchu another top level unluck it's another in best of SCG where a sneak and show player blood moons a Jund player and before he can find the combo the other players draw it's only basic and finish him off it's another great one!

[@NikachuMTG]

@@reslime that sounds great, I'll look for it

[@reingp]

I think if anyone of them had a grizzly bear in play, they would've won

[@Fobia17]

Proof or bear supremacy

[@POROW]

I now know how DnT wins

[@josephmcbride6033]

Storm Crow

[@freelancegaming4582]

Drudge Skeletons

[@CharacterUnlimited]

Storm crow wins games. It blocks flyers

[@cileavictoria1229]

When the guy who tosses his deck away, leaving it behind as he walks off, is the winner you know that was one brutal match

[@Os_390]

I remember watching how Rudy from Alpha Investments played similar legacy game where nothing really happened for 10 turns against TCC professor who said “i have a modern deck which could win by now”.

[@sebastianraducu7850]

link?

[@Os_390]

@@sebastianraducu7850 kzbin.info/www/bejne/mXa4c55-mJhpnqc

[@Os_390]

@@sebastianraducu7850 oh it was vintage

[@ribbonsofnight]

A tribal horse deck could win in that time.

[@HomeCookinMTG]

@@Os_390 Ehhh not really, it was more like old school magic, actual vintage doesn't play cards like Jayemdae Tome.

[@KumanoMTG]

BBD actually had the win at 10:08, all he had to do was to cast Braistorm first, let it get countered by REB and than cast Intuition for Griselbrand. It was confirmed by Brad (he did a commentary video on this game with BDM) that he would have countered anything he could with that REB :)

[@williambax8085]

He also cracked a delta earlier when he should have just used the lotus petal. I don’t know what he was doing.

[@3sts246]

Yeah I saw that too. It was right after Brad Git Probed but the Intuition was on the top of the deck so all Brad knew about was the Brainstorm. Thought that was a misplay.

[@ShinkuDragon]

@@3sts246 it's only a misplay because we know their hands though, the way it was played is the most optimal way to see more cards assuming no counters

[@splitthesoulgaming7431]

@@ShinkuDragon making the assumption of no counters is incorrect though. Also since he had the fetch land he very well could have brainstormed into the ponder and 2 lands, put back some dead TTB or SA crack the fetch then ponder and then still have the intuition and enough mana to cheat something out

[@3sts246]

@@ShinkuDragon But Brad also knew his hand minus the Intuition. Brad, again, confirmed he would have countered the Brainstorm if played first which would have allowed the Intuition through.

[@roguedrones]

the winner walked away in confusion himself. a bitter sweet victory.

[@wbw911]

Legacy is all about turbo combos that end in 2 turns The combo mirrors :

[@SkillsByNiels]

Are you playing Yugioh or what? Winning on turn 2?

[@wbw911]

@@SkillsByNiels well if you are being serious about the question... no I am not a Yugioh player although I have bare minimal surface knowledge of the game... In terms of Legacy, I kinda just started with a physical deck called Manaless Dredge and it does win as soon as turn 2 with me taking the draw~ and as shown in the video, the guy already is presenting a win on turn 1 but being answered by Force of Will~

[@SkillsByNiels]

@@wbw911 you just said why it is not a format that ends on turn 2, so I don't know what you mean.

[@wbw911]

@@SkillsByNiels ah... but yea there are still slower, fairer decks in legacy that don't go all in turbo combo and stuff... this is just one of the weird stereotypes of Legacy haha~

[@dantecasalla3174]

Is this guy taking serious a meme?

[@mpetry8470]

Blue gets so many draw effects and cantrips that anomalies like these don’t make me feel bad.

[@odoacredacalcutta5085]

being a pro means also finding yourself in these spots and still being to extend your end. you can tell he was pissed like mad by his look, but overall his reaction was very classy.

[@newtreesmell7338]

reliving these classic paper moments really makes me miss paper magic with this kind of coverage :_)

[@acenuke2513]

im just glad i can play paper magic again now im just taking it in and hoping that it doesnt get shut down again

[@DeisFortuna]

I just want to be able to go into an LGS again and make people salty by playing infect in modern.

[@seeshure1545]

Shut up adam

[@louisstabile1182]

I loved SCG streams, it was awesome.

[@subzero308]

Paper magic is the only way to play especially tournaments i get if people don't have friends who play or a LGS but paper magic is what i love to watch and play. I want more modern paper magic tournaments.

[@dustyfox6511]

Why do these pro's suck so much at shuffling? Brian is shuffling in a way that he can see the cards that he is moving to the bottom of his deck each time and he's looking at his cards while he's doing it. Just rotate your cards 30 degrees from vertical people, it's not hard.

[@matt-lang]

They should just make it a rule that players have to shuffle faces-down in pro play, and cuts have to be from the middle

[@joelombardi4907]

That may be true, but Brad has the opportunity to shuffle Brian's deck and cut it as well. So even if Brian did see certain cards go towards the bottom of the deck, Brad could shuffle them away and really mix them up, and then cut as well.

[@PurpleDragonSpike]

Sure, but you must present your deck to your opponent so if they feel it's not randomized enough then they may shuffle it as much as they want which sort of invalidates that

[@kaldogorath]

I actually disagree with this. It's far more comfortable for me to shuffle in the position of Brian and I'm super slow otherwise. Like others mentioned, the opponent can also shuffle and/or cut so it's not a real issue.

[@anecdoteur]

he was cheating with suffle omg its obvious, at the end he takes the cards from the middle to act like if it was random cards, but he was just putting the winning cards far away from the top...

[@blackhawk-2176]

I love the clear shock that Brian experiences with the turn 1 sneak attack, he's just there, staring at the card, before casting FoW

[@MrViews-ij3tx]

I love these kind of reaction/analysis type of videos, I know very little about the pro player scene and the eternal formats, so this is educating me, thx for that.

[@NikachuMTG]

You’re welcome!

[@Karthedis]

It`s insane that even a 1/1 Saproling could have won this game faster. xD

[@JackTR21]

Honestly part of why I love Legacy and Vintage is the formats are defined by these big splashy combos and super fast decks but sometimes everything gets countered etc and all that's left is a snapcaster mage swinging in 10 times for lethal

[@dreamwolf7302]

@@JackTR21 I had a match, years ago, that only ended because my opponent lost by default when he ran out of cards to draw. We were well matched, deck wise, to the point we kept countering and board wiping each other, literally, neither of us was able to keep anything in play long enough to do damage, it was just a war of attrition. If He used too many draw effect cards, so he ran out faster than i did.

[@workingtitle904]

That face when you realize you'd have won by now if you had just put swamps in the deck lmao

[@notorioezz]

Shout out to Brian and Brad tho. Two class acts who been in the game since forever. Very skilled MTG players

[@jameskely8792]

I played a good bit of Table Tops with Brad and a few other MTG players. Brad is definitely among the most fun and friendly people I've ever met.

[@halfuhmeatball2184]

He looked so defeated, I could feel the pain

[@donschamun273]

Ponder post-shuffle can just as easily show you one of the three cards you just rejected. And Brainstorm can Fateseal yourself if you don't have a way to shuffle away the drek you put back. BBD cracked a fetchland to thin his deck that he should have saved for a shuffle. I think Adrian pronounced BBD's name 7 different ways!

[@thomashearne4670]

The casual 4-for-2 on turn one is why I will always love legacy lol

[@vancedyoutube6784]

Holy crow, that was intense! I can't believe how crazy that was and nothing happened.

[@thirdplanetman9468]

Holy Crow, I'm never saying Holy Cow ever again, only Holy Crow from this point forward.

[@seanfarrow9085]

Rick's holy crows adventure

[@blackbirdtvyt]

I once played a game with my mtg veteran Dad. We were playing 7 1, so the game was slow. I played red green but I didn't get a forest for 2/5 of the game, he had ivory tower and ivory cup. He got up to 57 health and at the end I got him to 3. I was at a good amount of health, but I ended up losing because he milled me out. He had NO CREATURES, NO LAND (bc I destroyed them all with flashfires :D) AND I LOST TO ONE TURN... Magic is fun

[@GraemeGunn]

I've been noticing some odd shuffling from BBD - 13:47 he either shuffles the deck so as to leave the top or bottom alone. It's making me angry lol - shuffle the whole deck!

[@romxtube]

Well dont be angry, his oponent is allowed to shuffle it aswell if he'd wished to do so

[@Dewgs.]

On my birthday I was at a grand prix standing behind Brad Nelson, I watched his opponent ult liliana, Brad Came back to win that game with 2 lands and a scavenging ooze I think it was. Good times.

[@TheBorzoi]

I was playing historic on Arena. I had a Faceless Haven land with one of the counters from Book Exalted Deeds on it (the one the gives the same effect as a Platinum Angel) and I also had a Nissa Who Shakes the World token in play that makes all my lands indestructible. I thought there was no chance I could lose. I don't know how much life I was at but I was in a huge negative. My opponent kept swinging in each turn despite not being able to kill me but kept enough back that he could block everything I threw at him. It got to the point that he was about to lose from card draw but then he played a Shadowspear... I think you can guess what happened next.

[@sabata414]

Ouch. I feel bad

[@LegendLeaguer]

Why ever animate the land again?

[@TheBorzoi]

@@LegendLeaguer I didn't. My opponent had land destruction spells.

[@pabis6817]

I drew 14 lands in a row in a prerelease after getting my opponent to 1 life with the 2 lands and 5 spells from my opener. My deck was well shuffled in sleeves just destined for an L.

[@Sirmaadman24]

I remember when I had two copies of force of will. Got them from another guy who gave me 500 random cards for $50. That card won me many games

[@Toopa88]

Considering how many cards he saw it is surprising that it was still a fairly high probability. 1 in 500 is not that unlikely.

[@javinot1]

I'm new in Magic, so i don't know if it's so rare, but once i was playing whie / black, draw 34 cards and none plains. I ended up with My hand full of white cards and discarding every end turn, until i lost, so i don't know, maybe i could keep drawing swamps

[@riotThomy]

No mulligan? :)

[@javinot1]

@James Black I had

[@twqzjsidIsndusiakdixisqjeksixi]

@@javinot1 So you're unlucky...

[@sabata414]

Its called mana screwing, and its not as rare as you'd think

[@matke743]

@@sabata414 Yeah if he drew 34 cards thats like 60% of the deck and assuming he had lets say 14 black sources out of only 26 cards left... i cant count how much % is that but i can tell you that its really slim chance :D

[@universeturtle]

this one time I had my brother down to 1 life by turn 4, was ready to turn 5 him but he was able to hold on with a few counters and well placed defense. I think I then top decked 14 lands, in the end I had almost all of my land on the field and lost. Only 23 land in a 61 card deck, I have yet to see anyone get flooded that bad.

[@TheMattmatic]

Would love a video on the Gab Nassif Ignite Memories moment too. That also has to be pretty damn unlikely, not 0,2 percent but still!

[@Sauvenil]

LOL I love Ignite Memories, I built around it when it was in Standard and it was hilarious. With all the suspend stuff and Tormod's Crypt and Fossil Find I could easily cast it for 5 or 6 on turn 4. (Rite of Flame made it possible to cast on turn 1, but only with three of them in my starting hand. It was usually more effective on turn 4 anyway!)

[@Chakibtv]

Loving the content. Been on a binge since I found you. Would love to see a compilation of misplays caught on tape (bonus for reaction of players realizing it)

[@hibertylangout1580]

I was in the finals of a mirrodin draft tournament, swung all out thinking I had game on next turn. The sunblast angel drops, my dreams of first dissolve right before my eyes.

[@FREEFROMITALL]

"the most INTENSE GAME of MAGIC ....... where nothing happens" is 100% accurate.

[@StickyBombLauncher]

Love these videos of interesting pro games! - one of my favorites is a legacy hypergenesis vs elves game where elves just wins off the hypergenesis cast.

[@cassandracastro2759]

Many times I've lost after being on the top. That's maybe becaus I most of the time play multiplayer games (rising too soon to top means everybody else will gang on you). The worst time I believe was the time I cleaned the board with Ugin 2 times, killed every creature with Deathbringer Regent several turns after that, and still lost the game.

[@patrick0101]

Magic Arena player: "Nah! That's pretty normal."

[@modtyrant1784]

Sneak attack is hilarious because your using it to summon large creatures. On the art you see a dragon, so i can't help but image prankster dragons sneaking up on people or other dragons, doing the looney toons tip toe.

[@WadeWilsonDP]

One of my worst losses where I should have won was because of bad draw luck just like this. I had a wizard deck where the win condition was stalling until casting "Day of Dragons" ideally with, I think, "Temporal Manipulation" so I could make all my little wizards 5/5 dragons, skip to my next turn, bounce any blockers and run right through them. Problem was, even though I could look through something like the next 15 cards, I could NOT get one more freaking Island. Finally I had my last land I needed, moved it to the top and just had to wait one more turn. That turn my opponent plays a card that destroys all lands. SHUT DOWN.

[@atlys258]

I swear the whole time watching BBD vs Brad Nelson right now all I can think about is Todd Anderson vs CVM playing their own match where they're both just absolutely going off but not actually getting ahead 🤣🤣🤣

[@dapperghastmeowregard]

I remember back in the day my opponent cast Gamble like 4 games in a row with like 5 or 6 cards in hand, and I managed to pick the card they tutored for every time.

[@tomyang1117]

Ah yes, sorcery speed red entomb

[@CinderFelleth]

8:50 "Brian Braun-Duin doesn't even blink" (Blinks 100x for 25 seconds)

[@AiorosSagittarius]

Hey ho, I am really loving these vids which give some insight into the pro scene. Are you perchance planning vids like "Most incredible top decks caught on camera", "Luckiest player caught on camera" or even "The most 200 IQ moves caught on camera"? I think those would be interesting too. But keep up the infos about cheats too. It's kinda fascinating to see what people are able to come up with, and can also serve us honest players to learn for what we need to keep an eye out.

[@NikachuMTG]

I intend on doing things like that so long as it’s easy to explain to the audience. Very likely we’ll see luckiest moments on camera and the like.

[@AiorosSagittarius]

@@NikachuMTG Am looking forward to it. 😁

[@keatonkuuuun]

This reminds me of the guy who somehow magically drew every copy of scapeshift in his deck, and drawing literally any other card would have won him the game.

[@Chukijay]

Dude had over half his deck looked at and couldn’t seal it lol man that’s the feel-beds

[@JamesWendellDavis]

Lol if I ever get to meet Brian in real life I'll say one thing "Brian, how you Braun-Duin man?!"

[@mariofox8377]

I once had a similar game where after idk how many blank turns just draw pass, and never finding the sneak attack or show and tell i hard casted the freaking griselbrand from my hand. LOL.

[@ryanwonderschool]

8:30 when he plays his second FoW to protect his ponder, isn't it better to crack the lotus petal rather than fetching? Lotus petal doesn't seem of much use at this stage of the game while shuffling with the fetch might useful (brainstorm)?

[@NikachuMTG]

Maybe that was a better line

[@JazzOfTheStinson]

I was playing my strongest commander deck and All I needed was one drawspell or one burn card to win, and after 10 turns (no kidding) of top decking lands and mana rocks I lost. And even after checking the top to see how far I'd need to go to find one I would have had to go another 4 or more cards down to find something. It was quite literally stacked the worst possible way for that game making giving me mana and answers to protect myself, BUT NO WAY TO WIN.

[@nicholasbower17]

I once lost a game with my Animar because I couldn't find a red source. Checked after and the first one was 36 bloody cards deep. Learned that day to never keep a hand that doesn't guarantee a turn 3 Animar at the latest...

[@enachescuserban1097]

@@nicholasbower17 first thing my friends thought me about magic when they got me into it, "Never keep a hand that doesn't let you summon your commander on turn 4 at least"

[@pokefantrent2065]

Sounds like a niv deck and it can happen

[@malekf5251]

@@pokefantrent2065 Oh man speaking of Niv, one game my hand was; 2 hybrid lands, 2 islands a sol ring, a condescend and ponder, I don't know how many turns that was but I lost with 7 ISLANDS, and the two hybrid lads!

[@bootelz]

The real tragedy in this video is riffle shuffling dual lands.

[@TheMattmatic]

Riffle shuffling YOUR OPPONENTS dual lands, even!

[@bootelz]

@@TheMattmatic oh no no no not like this...

[@TheWatchmanOfTheEnd]

This examples why I don't like card games that are entirely dependent on who drew the power creep first and where the entirety of the outcome of the game is based on top deck RNG. Like MTG.

[@jamieclarke2622]

yes the entirety of the game is rng that's why there are random people in the top 8's of pro tours every time just random people who show up and win by flipping the top card of their deck over

[@d43m0n412]

Just goes to show that having too many shuffle effects can actually hinder your ability to find the cards that you are looking for... cause it seemed for every 2 cards bbd drew he was doing a shuffle through either a ponder or a fetchland... so if I had to take a guess that is why he was never able to find a threat cause he kept shuffling his breach effects back in and just kept drawing them instead of finding a way to get rid of them all

[@d43m0n412]

Also the saddest part is that bbd with that breach effect in play was at a 70/30 favor margin and only needed a threat cause I believe the deck lists only played 3 of the lotus petals in their 75 and so Brad without a breach effect those griselbrands in his hand were uncastable cause he already used on of his petals for the t1 attempt

[@Pneubeteube]

I had some insane luck a few months ago where I had 3 crystalize giants on turn 5. By combat on that turn all three had hexproof, the first two both had vigilance, and the first one also got lifelink. That's like a 1 in 22,000 chance or something.

[@Pneubeteube]

*crystalline giants I'd edit the comment but if you edit a comment that's been hearted it gets rid of the heart ❤️

[@jakefriedland6516]

ok but any given combination of counters would yield the same probability would it not

[@Pneubeteube]

@@jakefriedland6516 my favorite chances for that card are hexproof, vigilance, lifelink, and trample in that order, but what matters here are drawing 3 of the same card by turn 5 while a 1/11 chance hits 3 times, and a 1/10 chance hits twice. To put this into perspective, if this same level of luck happened but I was scratching a few 30$ lottery tickets (god forbid) in my US state I would be walking home with 30-40 thousand dollars based on their odds. Yes every chance on those cards is 1/11 then 1/10 and so on, but the chance of even having all of them out by turn five is a liberal 2%, 1/50 games on its own. Edit* it's been awhile and I can't find my discord post on it, so I just did a quick calculation on the chance of just the counters and it's 8.1e-5 or a 1 in 12,500 chance. I probably would have won more in my lottery example :P

[@irbster]

Uhhh no you didn't dude get a grip

[@Pneubeteube]

​@@irbster a grip on deez nuts

[@kingginger3335]

I have a theory that the way you shuffle determines the outcome of your games. I've found that the best way to shuffle is by taking the bottom 3rd of the deck and shuffling it into the top 3rd of the deck. Then take the middle 3rd and shuffle that back into the top 3rd. Then repeat this process a few times. Then offer your opponents a cut. This should efficiently shuffle your deck to truly make sure the cards are being randomized properly. That's why he kept pulling the same 2 Through the Breach. He wasn't properly randomizing the cards.

[@yosefzanerva806]

So there was this one time a few months back, I was playing with my Purphoros, God of the Forge commander deck. I chosen to keep a deck that wasn't very good, but it looked nice. Right off the bat, I found myself in a tough position. Long story short, by turn 6 all I had was my commander and five mountains on the battlefield, and my hand was out of lands. I did have Fiery Emancipation and Skittering Invasion in my hand, though. I untap, draw, and it's a land. I play it, and lacking any better move, played Fiery Emancipation. My next turn comes up, and somehow, both my commander and enchantment are still on the battlefield. I draw. It's a land. I cast Skittering Invasion, which because of Purphoros and F.E., means each opponent took 30 damage. Needless to say, I won.

[@mwilke07]

The commentary on this is gold.

[@LebronTCG]

The judge besides Brandon is the realest person on that arena.

[@raynmanshorts9275]

In poker, there are things called "bad beat jackpots," where if you get _that_ unlucky, you win tens of thousands of dollars. A lot of poker rooms, the bad beat jackpot is progressive, meaning that it increases with every hand that the poker room plays and nobody wins it.

[@jonathanbohn4805]

Good job Bard Narset!

[@marknicklason]

Variance can just feel the absolute worst. While I certainly cannot remember the exact numbers I was playing in a draft once, so 40 card deck, I believed I mulliganed once and got a 3 spell 3 land hand. Unlikely to do better at 5 cards I kept. Proceeded to draw 12 lands in a row before I lost [granted I had likely 'lost' well prior to this]. So of the 17 or 18 land likely in my deck, I managed to draw 15 of them vs 3 spells. Don't tell me the odds...I don't want to know the odds. [or do I am kinda curious]

[@TeamHurricaneX]

for a more casual mtg-player like myself it is so absurd to see those pros slamming volcanic islands on the table like its nothing…

[@a_fuckin_spacemarine7514]

They weren't all that expensive back then. This match is near 10 years old

[@banditkeithkingofduelmonsters]

@@a_fuckin_spacemarine7514 They were around 40-60 from revised.

[@a_fuckin_spacemarine7514]

@@banditkeithkingofduelmonsters I know, that's pretty cheap

[@BrendanJourney]

I had a game during Zendikar/Scars Standard where I drew 13 lands in a row in a game to lose. I was playing UW Sun Titan control, and my opponent was on Boros Landfall. It was game 3 and I was on the play. Pretty sure my hand was something like Seachrom Coast, Glacial Fortress, 2 basics, Condemn, Ratchet Bomb, and a Sun Titan. I lead with the Coast. Opponent leads with Mountain and Goblin Guide, I reveal a land, and Condemn the Guide. I play a land and Ratchet Bomb. He plays a land and a Played Geopede, then I tick up the Bomb. I play a land and pass. He plays a second Goblin Guide and connects with both guys, Guide revealed another land, and I tick up the Ratchet Bomb. I draw yet another land, play one and pass. He connects again, then plays 2(!!!) 2 drops. I say “Thanks, that makes this a lot better.” and I crack the Ratchet Bomb. Board states are 4 lands on my side, to his 4 lands and Guide. I have Sun Titan and a whole lotta land in hand. He connects a couple times with the Guide, revealing more lands for me. I keep making my land drops and drawing more land. The game ends on turn 6 or 7. I cast my Titan and he cracks a fetch and Searing Blazes me out. I started the game with 3 spells and 4 lands in hand and drew nothing but land or revealed land off of Goblin Guide the rest of the way.

[@Feebletrash101]

Was playing black devotion the past fnm and I had 4 land with 2 Grey merchants on hand topdeck junk had 7 life vs oppent with 1 card n they top deck a second burn spell to kill me for seven the next draw was the land I needed to turn it all around sad...

[@icarus-wings]

Oh you sweet summer child. I just finished tracking 200 games of Magic on Arena, 154 of which I was on the draw. Brian Braun-Duin merely adopted the bad luck. I was born in it.

[@alextrigger8199]

Playing Goblins in MTGA, I play Muxus into 6 lands every second time...

[@Senjun1987]

The Music reminds me of Final Fantasy 8. Jesus.. all that memories came back. Memories from a time, where my biggest worry was: "do i have enough pocket money to buy magic cards?" Farewell, good old days..

[@route93tv97]

This game just looks like a classic round of MTG arena

[@bradcallahan3546]

So.. unplayable cancer..?

[@route93tv97]

@@bradcallahan3546 exactly

[@richardroberts3330]

Okay, I got a story for ya, I'm playing instant speed reanimator on the draw in modern while looting and the ape are still in, I turn one attack my merfolk opponent with the combo (Emrakal Goryo's Vengeance) and he sacs his Aether vile and island and goes to 5, he says (it's a friend, I was too nice) "I concede" My dumb ass goes, "you could still win............." and I never find anything I can cast until I die, Let them concede is my new MTG moto, Thanks for reading..

[@monocommander1292]

Was expecting to see the gabriel nacif ignite memories moment But i'm not disappointed. This was really good too!

[@DevilishGuts]

"at least I've chicken" 😂😂 you didn't let me down, Nikachu

[@gigioedave]

final of a local tournament, mill, 18 land drop in 18 turns XD. finally i lost ahahah

[@skyyy710]

Dude that anxiety in that room was probably thicker then shiz

[@ramaluminus]

I don't know why but the sigh of relief from both players and the judges at the end of the match cracked me up.

[@caseydorsey4075]

Brian didn't lose this to bad luck, he lost this because he sucked at making decisions. He had it won by landing a sneak attack and still having counterspells in hand. Brad is forced to counter cantrips because he won't be able to stop Sneak from resolving. All Brian has to do is counterspell through the breach, sneak attack, or show and tell, and he stays the favored to win. What does he do? Counters a counterspell to resolve a cantrips and hope that he hits the ~20% to win the game off of it.

[@_InfinEddie]

The setting: 2016. Modern event at a local LGS. I'm playing Blue/Black Mill. 23 lands. Opponent wins the dice roll and wants to be on the draw. So I'm thinking, "This must be an 8-Rack deck." My opening hand: 1x Inquisition of Kozilek; 2x Surgical Extractions; some cheap mill cards. PERFECT! Only problem was I only had one land... a swamp.. My Turn 1: I Inquisition'd & saw they had The Rack & 2x Shrieking Afflictions in hand. Chose the Affliction then Surgical'd all the copies. Opponent's Turn 1: They Thoughtseize me and take my Mesmeric Orb. (I was surprised they didn't take my other Surgical.) My Turn 2: I top-deck an Inquisition! OH BOYS...! So I Inquisition + Surgical The Rack my opponent's Racks. Now I'm playing against ZERO-Rack! I normally lose to this type of deck, but this was finally my time! I just need to draw some lands and top-deck some mill. EZ For some reason, my opponent did not concede and just kept playing as if nothing happened. and they keep making me discard. Next turn I draw a non-land. The turn after... non-land. Now opp plays Lilliana of the Veil. while I have 1 card left. +1... I draw a spell I can't cast... Lilli +1... I draw a spell I can't cast... Lilli +1... I draw a spell I can't cast... Lilli +1... I draw a spell I can't cast... Lilli +1... I draw a spell I can't cast... Lilli +1... I WENT THROUGH 23 SPELLS until I finally found a second land... ALRIGHT, oh wait, I have no cards in hand... pass... Now it's turn ~17 and plays a Mutivault. I draw a land... Opp attacks for 2... I draw a land... Opp attacks for 2... I draw a land... Opp attacks for 2... I draw a land... Opp attacks for 2... I draw a land... Opp attacks for 2... Repeat that another 5 turns in a row and I die on turn ~28 via a Mutivault... Could not believe it. Such a roller coaster of emotions. Not even MtG Arena could have devised a fate more rigged to lose.

[@NikachuMTG]

Amazing story

[@blakemerrithew9162]

.2% if its all random, but if the last 8 cards in the deck are one hes after theyll just keep sitting as the last 15-8 cards becasue of the way they shuffle the cards. It could be when he put the deck together he had these grouped up and were the bottem cards put in so unless he does more than split the deck and merge it back together every time he shuffles he would never get the cards. It would take a long time for cards at the vary bottem to move all the way to the top.

[@benchow8851]

It's like watching a man getting struck by lightning 3 times on the same day...Lol

[@Icewind007]

That was intense. I've never played this and I have no idea what I am watching, but there was something going on there.

[@GraemeGunn]

16:06 Well, I mean, he was shuffling his deck poorly... When only half your deck gets shuffled, and then the other half gets put on the bottom by your opponent cutting it, you've screwed up.

[@kylegeee]

audibly laughing out loud @7:50 seeing a FoW being hardcast by Brad. legacy rocks!

[@CharacterUnlimited]

My brother played against brad nelson at a modern qualifier and played green devotion with burning tree and managed to turn 2 garruk game 1 and turn 2 ghalta game 2 and won within 5 minutes of the round and he picked up his cards and left. Unlucky fella.

[@darekdeangleo]

I used to love sneak attack or Elvish Piper, use the Piper for Haste creatures. Force of will is filthy.

[@MegaTofil]

8:30 He forgot to sacrifies lotus petal or he has 1 land make 2 mana for force of will?

[@NikachuMTG]

One of the lands is an Ancient Tomb, I think. It adds CC

[@smugglersden7968]

WOW!!! O my goodness I’d be shiny bald too after all that! .2% odds good lord xD

[@jameshill2450]

I have a friend (not quite a pro but he was a high-level player) who was far unluckier. He was playing burn against some kind of Necropotence deck, I can't remember exactly what. In game 3, the opponent is down to 1 life. His board is effectively just Necropotence and a Bottle Gnomes. He has no cards in hand, and can't draw any more because of Necro. My friend is at 12 life and playing burn. All he needs to do is draw a single damage spell to win the match. And he proceeds to brick his draw phase. With a burn deck. Against an opponent who can do literally nothing except attack with a 1/3 creature each turn. For. *Twelve.* Turns. He quit playing Magic for five years or so after that debacle.

[@NikachuMTG]

I'd quit too!

[@jameshill2450]

IIRC the guy had also already Zuran Orbed all his lands. So even if he did sac the gnomes to draw there was literally nothing he could do. My friend basically lost the game to a goldfish at that point.

[@BlackDragonStudios1]

The beauty of blue magic. Player 1: Ponder. Player 2: FoW Player 1: FoW your FoW. Player 1: Ponder finds Brainstorm. Player 1: Brainstorm finds nothing. Ugh. LOL

[@johnfarrier715]

I love these videos recapping pro play!

[@Gretchaninov]

None of my experiences have been that bad but on Arena I recently got 6 Plains and no Islands in a 50/50 blue/white deck and that was by about move 7 or 8. My blue and gold cards were useless to me.

[@pattywompus9332]

Got beat last week because I played defensively against the guy who could've killed me if I didn't. All I needed was the 3rd guy (the one after me) to not draw a lightning bolt. He had already played two, after all. Yeah he shot me in the face and went on to win.

[@ArcanoSilverwind]

Once I was playing a one on one game of commander with a buddy and he absolutely stomped my wizard deck with eldrazi, I mean he was at 40 and I managed to buy myself one more turn at 1 life and proceeded to beat him with wanderwine prophets. He still hasn't let that go lol.

[@DoubtlessCar0]

As a yugioh player I was both confused, excited, impressed, and not impressed at the same time

[@goveyjones3851]

A part of me literally WANTS to call "bullshit" or "staged" only cause the odds are so astronomical. Brad was cutting the shit outta this deck, AND BBD was shuffling on TOP of the cuts.

[@rikrob5172]

That's the thing. Probably hundreds of millions of magic games are played every day so the unlikely becomes more probable.

[@Atomsk2]

I’m used to much smaller decks in different games lol, when they’re like “look at how thin his deck is” I’m like “that’s a whole 40 card deck in yugioh possibilities are literally still endless in that thing” Probably wrong sleeves make the deck look bigger than it is lol

[@paulsvensson6948]

To be honest, if I drew that opening hand, I would expect FoW in my opponent's hand. The odds of drawing that opening is so unlikely compared to opening FoW that in almost all cases I had that hand, my opponent would open FoW

[@jordanharrison8769]

Depends on the match up for me. If im opening in a Turn one deck like reanimator brand or whatever, then the odds of the opponent having exactly force of will is 100% because going second they will mulligan till they get it. In a (slightly) slower deck I might yolo the nuts out there like this.

[@Martin-qb2mw]

Your opponent holding FoW or not is completely independent of your hand. The events are not related.

[@BrandonHex]

Sneak Attack has been my favorite card ever since it was released.

[@T4N7]

Was playing a casual game with my brother yrs ago while I was cooking us some food. I'm 1 of the better players in my play group (only 4 of us took it seriously n I needed out more than any of them) so I wasn't too afraid of losing n had gotten myself set up so that I had decent defenses n all 4 copies of my Wellwishers on the field n tapping them for 16+ life a turn (can't remember how many other elves were in play) n I got to over 400 life but as the stoner I am n also cuz I like a challenge, j refused to beat him until I got my life to exactly 420... for it to 418 but had to find a way to either lose elves or lose life so I could hit that magic number. Before that happened he finally managed to get Liege of the Tangle to stick n hit my life points n made most of his forests into 8/8 elementals n started swinging hard. It became a battle of attrition to see if I could maintain my life when he was swinging for 40+ damage a turn. I ended up losing but its 1 of (if not) my favourite loses in all my yrs playing. Others r when I'd lend a deck to friends who didn't have cards n our play group would underestimate them simply cuz I'm not the pilot but then they'd pull off some combo n beat everyone who was trying so hard to kill me. Mwahahahahaha

[@NikachuMTG]

This is a very flavourful story

[@kraftyk4162]

I'm glad that even the pros sometimes get screwed over by the top deck. Sometimes it feels like it only happens to me.

[@cbmadcow]

These players and there twitches is more entertaining than the actual game. And I love MTG.

[@thesheq5023]

Sneak and show definitely became a lot better with nazahal. Fatty, blue for force, draws cards.

[@AbditusGaming]

Everyday on arena.. can't count the number of games I've been land screwed. Worst on to date was in a control vs control, top decked 18 lands in a row and lost.. *to be fair, my opponent also top decked lands.. but only 13.

[@wolfwing1]

if morbidly curious deck got force of nature with upkeep by drop a forest, tap and discard a elvish spirit guide for 2 green mana total, play gaia's touch, which is from dark 2 green mana that allows me to play a second land each turn as long as it's a forest, play a land, then tap land for lanawar elf, so I have 2 forests, and a lanawar elf in play, next turn play a land, sacrifice touch for 2 green mana, tap the three lands and the elf and BAM force of nature, along with 3 forests and a elf to pay upkeep :>