Yugioh

To explain this to the uninitiated: (First follow another explanation of the original combo)

In Magic spells are not in effect immediately, instead they go on the stack, before they are resolved. Spells from a stack are resolved in LiFo order, so last in, first out. Instants, like Gut Shot, can be put on the stack at any time by any player (simplified).

So Enemy gets his 21 mana with channel, you let that resolve, he has 1 life. He pumps it all into the fireball, now you act. While fireball is on the stack you cast Gut Shot, paying with 2 life of your 20. It goes on the stack. Your enemy hopefully has no response, without any mana left in his pool, and he looses his last life and the game.

When a player looses the game all his spells are removed from the stack, so you really win and there is no draw.

You stopped his combo with 4 cards worth unreal amounts of money with a single card worth about 50ct.

Yeah, I’d like a breakdown as well. I definitely don’t know enough about MTG.

This is a wild turn one combo that will win if both players have the same starting life. Assume 20 life each, you play the first card to give you 3 green mana, you play the second card using 2 green mana. This card let's you use 19 of your life for mana leaving you at 1 life and 19 manager + 1 from the previous card. You play the third card which gives you one red mana (totals are 20 green, 1 red) and finally now you can use the last card by paying one red and X (X can be any number you choose as long as you can pay it). In this case X is going to be 20, for the 20 green you had dealing a perfect 20 damage to the other player leaving them at 0 life and yourself at 1 life.

This combo works for whatever life total as long as yours is greater than or equal to Theirs

Others beat me to the punch, but see my other comment here:

https://lemmy.world/comment/13482691

This is a first turn win if you draw all four of these cards in your opening hand.

Black Lotus and Mox Ruby can be put down on your opening turn, and since they are not lands you are not limited to playing just one of them. If you are poor you can substitute the ruby with a regular old mountain. Basically, I only employ the ruby here to firmly illustrate that I am indeed an asshole.

If you are poor, cheeky, and lucky you can replace the Black Lotus with 3 Lotus Petals and still theoretically draw all the cards you need to do this with your opening hand.

1. Sacrifice the Black Lotus for 3 green mana.
2. Spend 2 green manna on the Channel, pay 19 life, gain 19 colorless mana.
3. Tap the Mox Ruby for 1 red mana.
4. Use that 1 red mana to cast Fireball. Dump all 19 colorless mana from your Channel, plus the one green left over from the Channel into that fireball which adds up to 20.
5. Fireball does 20 damage to your opponent. You take 19 damage from Channel. You are left at 1 life, but your opponent is dead.

Normally M:tG games start with both players at 20 life. But it doesn't matter if you play some weird format where everyone has more; all you do is sacrifice all but 1 of your life and dump it into fireball plus the one left over green mana from the Lotus. As long as both players have the same life count or you don't have less life then your opponent for any reason, you win.

Realistically, just being able to show people this hand will discourage them from engaging you at all in any type of no-holds-barred play. They'll hide behind their silly Modern or Commander formats or whatever, where Black Lotus is banned and Channel is either restricted or banned.

Wimps.

That's a fun one.

I have an Illusions of Grandeur/Donate deck that can't do first turn, but can take someone out all at once (if I'm super lucky, like all my decks it very rarely wins)

You start with 20 health. Losing half or more on turn 1 is pretty painful.

Theres just too many rules that completely blow the game if you break them. People tell me there's room for strategy but everything feels predetermined by the cards you get and of course there's that guy over your shoulder telling you "can't do that" every time you try something and oh great the other team knows my cards now, game over. Like yeah lol fuck this you guys can play without me.

It's why I've found board games designed as deck builders a lot more fun. Everyone is vying for the same cards so it's more about how you make your deck and involves strategy during play rather than lucky draws.

Star realms is a pretty fun example of this. Dominion is another, although doesn't really feel quite the same as a deck builder.

Yeah that's exactly it, or even a combination of just a handful of cards to combo a cool effect, but it was like 6 cards total, and it took like 10 turns to maybe pull out