RUG Buddies – Universes Beyond Showdown || Elder Dragon Social Club

Deck Strategies

• 

  Dr. Madison Li

  Artifact synergy with energy counters, gaining value from casting artifacts, generating energy, and recurring artifacts from the graveyard to maintain board presence and card advantage.

• 

  The Third Doctor with Yasmin Khan

  Utilizes spells cast from zones other than hand to place +1/+1 counters on creatures, untapping them at end step for pseudo-vigilance and incremental advantage, combined with Yasmin Khan’s ability to exile and play cards from the top of the library for flexibility.

• 

  The Swarmlord

  Focuses on creating and enhancing creatures with +1/+1 counters, drawing cards whenever creatures with counters die, aiming for incremental board growth and card advantage through swarm tactics.

• 

  Éowyn, Shieldmaiden

  Human tribal deck that creates multiple 2/2 human knight tokens with haste and trample whenever another human enters the battlefield, aiming to quickly flood the board and draw cards upon reaching six or more humans.

Gameplay Insights

• 1

  Mechanized Production created an infinite artifact token ramp that became a central threat, forcing opponents to find artifact removal quickly.

• 2

  The Third Doctor's paradox ability to cast spells from non-hand zones enabled steady accumulation of counters and untapping creatures, providing resilience and pseudo-vigilance.

• 3

  Éowyn, Shieldmaiden's human token generation created a fast, wide board that pressured opponents and synergized well with Harold's Horn reducing human creature costs.

• 4

  Players recognized the infinite ramp combo as a critical threat and coordinated their removal efforts accordingly, highlighting how infinite combos can dictate game tempo and target priority.

Notable Cards

• 

  Mechanized Production

• 

  Talisman of Conviction

• 

  Exotic Orchard

• 

  Path of Ancestry

• 

  TARDIS

• 

  Yasmin Khan

• 

  The Swarmlord

Summary

The game featured a four-player RUG (red, blue, green) focused battle with commanders from the Universes Beyond series. Early turns were spent setting up mana bases with lands like Path of Ancestry and Exotic Orchard, alongside ramp artifacts such as Talisman of Conviction and Mechanized Production to accelerate the game. One player quickly emerged as the main threat by leveraging Mechanized Production to create an infinite artifact ramp combo, posing an imminent win condition that forced the others to prioritize artifact removal. Meanwhile, the board developed with token generators and counters, including a human tribal strategy that produced multiple 2/2 trampling tokens rapidly, and a +1/+1 counters synergy deck that capitalized on creatures with counters and drew cards when they died. The Third Doctor player utilized spells cast from non-hand zones to place counters on creatures and untap them, creating pseudo-vigilance and incremental advantage. The game’s tension centered around disrupting the infinite combo while managing growing board states and synergies, leading to a complex state with multiple win conditions and tactical decisions about when to strike or block.