Unluckiest Game of Magic: The Gathering Caught on Camera 

Well, I am the one who lost that game. Glad to see it is still talked about from time to time 😂

Laurent: “By my calculations I’ve got a 99.999% of winning” Ben: “So your’e tellin me theres a chance…”

I'm just happy both of them got a laugh at the improbable mess at the end. That's what matters here.

The way Laurent reacted was like - "Dude you HAVE to see this" and Ben is just like - "holy shit really??" How they both laughed and appreciated it - what good sports!

Worst luck I've seen in person was for my opponent at FNM years ago when I somehow had 4 Archive Trap in my opening hand. He cracked a fetch turn 1 and lost turn 2.

Ben: Keeps a one-land hand Also Ben: Where’s all my mana?

Not MTG but way back in the very early 2000's, I was playing in a Yugioh tournament. I watched a guy shuffle his deck many times, his opponent then shuffled his deck a few times to "cut it", and his opening hand was 4 different pieces of Exodia and Mirror Force. He then top decked the fifth piece to auto win.

This one time I was playing sultai reclamation vs dredge, game 1. Growth spiral on 2, reclamation on 3 and another on 4. I had the exact ammount of mana to make them draw their whole deck (like 25 cards or so) and have them die on their draw step. They dredged 5 and hit all 4 creeping chills making me go to exactly 0 life. There are no words to describe how much I hate creeping chill.

Looks like your average game with the MTGA shuffler

Craziest thing I’ve ever personally seen was at an SCG open in baltimore. I think I was at table 6 or 7 and glanced over at the table next to me. Dredge player has less than 20 cards left in their deck. Tron player at 6 life attacks with ulamog. Dredge player in response to the trigger removed the last counter from their shriekhorn and mills the last 2 creeping chills. They laughed and high fived.

This was hilarious. 1 guy can topdeck anything other than 3 cards and win, the other guy has a single land on the battlefield with no board 🤣

Arcbound Ravager to the other artifact lads: Bots, we got em.

The startrek quote is actually from Sherlock Holmes

Gonna tell you a story that looks almost Impossible, but its 100% real and my luckyest game ever. The format was standard, the last set released at the time was Zendikar. Opponent was playing jund, classic jund, bloodbraids, trinax, blightnings, so on. I was playing UW Control, before Worldwake was released, my win conditions were 2 Sphinx of Jar Isle, 4 knight of white orchid, 3 Martial Coup and 3 Jace Beleren, thats it, no colonades, no mindsculptors, those cards didnt exist yet. Game 1 i won a long game. Game 2 i sideboard out all my Jace Belerens and bring in some counters and removal. On game 2, my opponent casts early on Thought Hemorrage naming Sphinx of Jwar Isle. Im like, sure no problem, i can still win this. Some turns later opponent manages to resolve another Thought Hemorrage naming Martial Coup. At this point I'm like doomed, with only 2 Knight of White Orchid left as win-cons against a deck with bolts, Maelstrom pulses and their own creatures. I can't Win this game, i must concede to try to Win game 3. But for some reason i didnt concede immediatly. On my Turn... i draw a card, and what do I draw???? Drum roll.... Jace Beleren! It turns out i miss sideboarded and left 1 Jace Beleren in the deck by mistake!! My savior win con!! I could ultimate Jace and Win! But my library was way smaller than my opponent, it was gonna be close. I started +2ing Jace every turn, my opponent never found an answer and as unlikely as it sounds i managed to ult Jace Beleren when my opponent had exactly 20 cards in his deck and myself had ZERO cards on my deck. I pass my opponent can't draw from an empty library and loses, I had 0 cards on my own deck as well. No only did I won with a card i thought i sided out, but I also drew it on the last possible moment. Had i drawn Jace Beleren a turn later and i would had milled myself first. To this day this is my luckyest MTG moment, kinda hard to beat it. JACE BELEREN WINS!!

Me simply casually playing mtg: You haven’t seen sh*t

One time when I was in fnm I shuffled my deck and my opponent did right afterwards. I drew lands every draw and he was on control, I was on mardu aggro. I had 23 lands in the deck and drew 22 lands in a row and ended up conceding cause I only started with 3 playables.

Back in amonkhet standard I was looking at lethal after casting approach of the second sun the one time already. I flashed back a commit//memory memory half (approach w a a singleton copy in my jekai control deck) and my only out was to top deck the approach to wind since my opponent was tapped out on temur energy. We shuffled out graveyards and hands into our library, I presented the deck for him to cut and he shuffled and cut. Ended up winning by having approach as the last card in my new 7 😂

Perfect example of why you never scoop, no matter how dead you look

Shoutout to the time i kept a 7 land hand at WAR prerelease then preceeded to draw nothing but lands the entire game wihch lasted 6-7 turns

As a TitanShift player, I remember watching this and cringing...

Best part is, neither player showed any form of disappointment or rage in the moment, both were all smiles and had a good laugh at the luck of the draw.

I was playing a friendly game with some friends, and my opponent was running 5 colour dragons and I was running 5 colour slivers. on turn 3, he cast 3 desperate rituals, 2 seething songs, and a dragonstorm. pulled out Utvara Hellkite, Dragonlord Kolaghan, Atarka World Render, and three other dragons, and swung for well more than lethal. Only time that deck has beaten my slivers.

I once drew 15 lands in a row and turned out there were still 3 more land on top deck. The deck had 22 lands. I shuffled like 7 times before that game using various methods.

and from that day on, he only played 3 copies of scapeshift

This proves MTG Arena Algorithm is true🤣

I was playing casual in high school lunch and topped 3 different fog effects on each of my turns and accidentally turbo fogged into a playable board state.

My unluckiest game was drawing 17 lands in a row...after shuffling, fetching, scrying and also after drawing 10 my opponent grabbed my deck and shuffled it...and yes we both know how to shuffle decks. (My deck had 22, with 4 fetches).

No matter how well you make your deck everything's decided by RNG

I don't play mtg at all, but I always enjoy seeing extraordinary things happen in tournament. The fact that you explain the strategy along with the card effect has made watch 4 videos of you on a row 🤣

Aaahhh... Back when there were GPs and GPs were on Twitch 😭

Outstanding Bud, classic moment.

My craziest moment when I played M:TG was during a grand melee, my opening hand + draw was an infinite combo and everything needed to play it on turn one. several of them being restricted cards. I believe it was something like, Lotus, sol ring, mox, fast bond, storm cauldron, and some green spell that gave you 3 life for 3+G and 3 more life for every 1 + G you added to the cast.

Wow! Makes my nine Lands in a row of the top seem common.

If that were me, as soon as I drew my third scapeshift, I would’ve just cast one of them purely to shuffle my library

Shuffler is broken

My first ever deck was an archbound one, back when i was 11 or so. It's heartwarming seeing that a similar one has seen some competitive playing

When a play that crazy goes down, all you can really do at the end is smile and laugh.

this also happened in the semifinals of a las vegas tournament (2016?), where a selesnya player drew exactly 4 archangel avacyns with 4 lands in play.

Thanks Nikachu. I needed to see that. Perspective

My go to story for getting unlucky with Magic is from the finale of a tribal that my LGS held a few years back. A few people had dropped out, so they opted to finish the league with a big 5 player game. I proceeded to draw 15 out of the 18 lands in my Rakdos goblin deck.

Weirdest thing to happen to me: I was playing a Ravnica Coty of Guilds prerelease. In my sealed pool I got Tunnel Vision. I used it in a at home and named a card that I knew my opponent had only one of in his deck. He ended up milling to a very small number of cards, I think like four or five.

Nikachu, concerning your Star trek reference: It is actually a sherlock homes quote

The unluckiest game BEFORE Arena where you always draw multiple copies of expensive cards and 0 lands or only lands with 0 spells! 😤😤😤

You have to remember in paper magic your deck is often times not fully random and packets of specific cards is pretty normal.

And we call this Tuesday in the mtg Arena.

Feels like my last PTQ, back when we and I did those, though I drew nothing but plains, the entire game, Nothing but my opening hand (which was also 3 lands)

Luarent when he drew the fourth Scapeshift: "I made a precise calculation, *but boy am I bad at math"*

In 1996, the mulligan rule was all-land or no-land only and you could only mull once. I faced then-unknown Justin Gary in a LGS draft of 4E and IA. Game 3 my seven were all spells so I revealed and mulled - into all land. My first 5 draws were land #8-12. Sixth draw was Scaled Wurm, which costs eight mana. Seventh draw was another land (#13, out of 14 cards). I did nothing but play land for the first SEVEN turns.

He had us in the first half, not gonna lie...

These videos are so well explained that it makes MTG interesting and possible to follow when not playing

I love these videos Nikachu!

one of the best mtg videos that i saw by long time. i even laugh out loud! THANKS

I was playing amulet titan (another deck where half of it is lands) and my opening hand was 3x summoners pact, 3x serum visions, and 1x amulet.

I have never played a game of Magic, but let me tell you. Your content is SO interesting to watch😂

After drawing the second scapeshift though... wouldnt you think cast one of them, deal 15 to your opponent, that way they cant shock any lands into play, any land after is guarenteed lethal, thin your deck even slightly and if you have the second scapeshift in hand, the following turn just sac like 1 or 2 lands with the second shift and win that way.. .you dont need to one tap... but letting yourself die after drawing 3 more scapeshifts..?

Had a game or two like that. One I remember that I drew 1 land for my opening hand. Then was the last land I saw for next 30 draws. The other player was a friend and though it would be fun to leave me at 1 life point until I drew a second land. Truthfully, we were having fun at that point to see how far down I went through the deck before seeing a second land. This was back in the 90s and there were not as may card that let you look through your deck to pull cards or reshuffle. Yes, the deck had plenty of lands and the last half of the deck was mostly land.

That quote from star trek I believe is actually a quote from the original book of sherlock holms

I remember before anything got fixed win arena first started drafting and only putting 15 lands in my draft deck . Started with three in my hand and then continued to draw eight more before I saw my first spell

Once during a commander game my opponent casted chaos warp on one of my creatures. Don't remember which, only that it was winning the game for me. After shuffling and cutting the deck, the same creature was on top and it came into play again. Which was nice because it had an awesome etb 😅

And that’s why you always make them swing for lethal.

Assuming that he drew 10 more cards, after his seven and the one ramp spell (18 cards in total), the odds of this happening are 1 in 5,922,384,968,721,488,882,949,734,400,000 games. Or 0.00000000000000000000000000000017% chance of this happening. Feel free to check my math, but I am pretty sure this is correct and that this game, captured on camera, is perfectly amazing.

Was playing 4c Shadow vs Boros Burn in paper. Burnplayer kept a 1 land hand. 30 minutes later, I had pulled out every single land (17) from my deck, only found enough removal to answer his creatures, and he was still stuck on 1 land, and I was below 10 without any creatures out. I eventually found a Shadow + Battlerage the turn after he found his second land.

I did prize all four of my Pidgeot-EX in the Pokemon tcg once. It was part of the decks main strategy and I wasnt able to win because of it.

I remember Gabriel Nassif's Hollow Four™. That's like the opposite end of the spectrum

I remember watching this live and the announcers couldn’t believe it

I once had a 2/3 match at a tournament against the guy who won every tournament at my area with a tribal Elf deck where I pulled in my opening hand, 1 swamp, 3 Dark Rituals and 3 Engineered plagues. And I drew the 4th Engineered plague on turn 2, and the 4th Dark ritual on turn 3 in the first round.

Just take a moment to say out loud to yourself "Ben secks face" 🤣

I was playing commander with kaervek back when tucking commanders was a thing and someone chaos orbed it. I shuffled, he shuffled and cut, and wouldn't you know it, he hit kaervek!!! Everyone was absolutely amazed. Keep in mind this was a 99 card deck that still had like 85 cards left in it.

I'll never forget the luck I had in standard with a deck that i kept pulling nexus of fate turn 4 even letting my opponent cut and shuffle

Rogues player in the challenger gauntlet today (Joao, I think?) was stuck on 3 lands and drew all 4 of his into the story.

The original words were not from Startrek but from mah OG boy Sherlock Holmes

in game 3 of the top 8 of the PTQ, I was on UR drakes from the most recent ravnica blocks and my opponent was on RW angles. They mulligan to 5 and I keep a 7 with 2 drakes 2 draw spells a removal and 2 lands. I proceed to look at 21 cards through drawing, scrying and survieling and not hit my 3rd land drop. The spectators behind me started actually laughing every time I looked at a card and it wasn't a land (I didnt mind because obviously if I draw a land I'd play it). Felt pretty miserable tbh lol

Damn. What a game ... great commentary.

Lol i laughed so hard when you said "ANY LAND DROP".

I haven't found a comment about this so I'm just gonna tell you that this Star Trek quote is actually taken from one of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. :) Good content and a very surprising end to this game!

Not at any kind of tournament or anything but I once had a game on MTG: Arena where I saw 19 lands in a row in a deck that only ran 21 lands.

I was playing a two headed giant game at a prerelease with my wife. Our opening hands were pretty solid and mine only needed 1 more land(the 3rd) to be amazing so we got started. I didn't draw a land for 16 turns; it was only a 40 card deck and I didn't mulligan! My wife held it down as long as she could, but we did lose

"Never tell me the odds!"

This is why you always play to your outs, sometimes they just brick in the funniest way possible

I have an exert aggro deck for modern that I really enjoy playing with friends. It has 18 lands in a 60 card deck. I drew 10 lands in a row

1:34 Your face lol your like "Uh green? worst color"

I thought the other dude wont draw another land for eternity then the tables turned.

I died a little inside after that Thoughtseize knowing damn well where this was going. Ugh, I feel for you dude!

Remember kids, if you're gonna draw the fourth copy of any card in tournament, it had better be the fourth Bolt. EDIT: Actually I remember a really unlucky streak for one of my opponents on Arena. I was playing some jank UW Skies adventures deck while they were on sultai ramp. I'm on the draw, but I just went turn one Land Hawk Turn two Land Sailor Hawk while they're doing the usual up to whatever godly value cards they want. By turn three he's dropped a fatty that can't block. Turn three I get stuck on two lands and jam Favorable Winds and they respond on their turn 4 with Cavalier of gales. I kept a grip full of Brazen Borrowers, Warden of Evos Isles', and Empyrean Eagles, so, I'm not happy. I proceed to just let this guy 5 mana Brainstorm three times trying to fight a race I'll lose if he gets to block or remove anything, and topdeck an Ardenvale Tactician and win off the tap. Never didn't have it.

once while playing legacy Dredge, I had created a one turn window I could go off in and I just needed 1 of 3 bridge from below's to come out of my 33 card deck and while milling myself for 29 cards I managed to get none of them. I had to pass the turn knowing my graveyard would be removed the next turn with my opponent at 4 lifes, my deck at 4 cards (3 bridges and a Cephalid Colloseum)... while also only having 1 land and a troll and imp in hand. Then again I've had a pretty amazing luck streak with the same deck in the years before and after. Getting top8/4 in 26 out of 33 tournaments of 30ish to 80ish players. So I might have been about due...

Sweet video, had my teeth on edge the whole time

I literally thought the video was how not to draw against shape-shift decks

Ive busted a water line on accident and lightly flooded a house, was my parents house and minimal damage because they just switched to vinyl floors, yet that 2 second clip of the guy working under the vanity with the water on gives me anxiety 😬😬😅 to this day.

whats ben secks list for the deck and laurent calligaros deck list

Can someone explain how it's 18 damage if you need 5 mountains before the first 3 damage goes off? or do all lands enter the battlefield at the exact same time meaning each mountain triggers off the other mountains that entered the field at the same time it did

Taco Bell goes through me so fast I don’t even bother eating it anymore. I just buy it and throw it straight in the toilet 🚽

perhaps when he had redundant shapeshifts casting one to clear some lands out of the deck was the play, leaving enough mountains to still win. maybe there was some tech land that could've done something? he got boned either way lol.

Ben Secks face is just pure joy.

I just remeber going to GP Miami in 2013, with R/G aggro, i think the deck had less than 20 lands in it, but it seemed like every game out of the 4 i played (2-0 drop) I would see over half of my lands, it was annoying. I would draw a good opening hand, a piece of removal and 2 or 3 creatures, then just draw into lands. I know i mulliganed atleast 3 of those games becuase my opening hand was all lands and maybe 1 non-land.

I played in a tournament somewhere that i've never played before and with BloomTitan deck i started both games with 3 lands and never drew another land. My opponent tried to console me with advise of adding more lands... Should i really add more lands when i'm playing 28 lands? lol, very unlucky and not likely to ever happen to me again

I remember a game WAY back in the early days of Magic - I got mana screwed only getting a green mana for a majority of the game along with having mana acceleration in the form of Birds of Paradise, Elves, Sol Ring and a few Moxes and a Lotus - but I never saw ANY of that and died to a freaking Scryb Sprite because I couldn't get a red land or a black land nor get a Lightning Bolt or a Terror - it was pretty sad and it was a 6 way game no one else attacked me except that damn player with the Scryb Sprite

how about going 17 draws without a land in a 31 land deck think about those odds. I had 2 bounce lands and a basic forest, a primeval titan, and an ancient stirring. this was online so I could not have my bad shuffle interfere. the reason I stopped playing titan I played 2 games like that before the nail in the coffin where that was the third.

The dude in the background just going fishing in his nostril is my favourite

Man I was playing a Ur aggressive delver strategy that was running 4 thunderous wraths I was on the play against a Mardu midrange deck and then drew my 4 thunderous wraths in a row my opponent didn't know what hit them

I was playing a sealed deck, 3 colors, first 16 cards were the same color (or lands providing that mana). Basically I drew all my white cards in a row and there was 16 white cards in this 40 cards deck. I won the game, my opponent thought I had built a second deck and was playing it, he had seen the 3 color deck in a previous game :)