I went to an event with Sableye/Garb and actually had some nice conversations with my opponent as I milled them to death.
I made friends with the greatest troll deck I could ever hope to conceive.
So grab me some of that airplane glue and I'll tell you a story!
Now, this is when I played Yugioh. So those unfamilar with how things in the game work, I'll explain it as best I can.
I trolled the entire Yugioh card game player-base back in 2008 by creating and running a deck at high level events that manipulated the game state when a tie game was created.
Here's what makes the whole thing work: A card called 'Self-Destruct Button'. The card says that you have to have to have a 7000 point deficit between you and your opponent to use the card. If you can fulfill the requirement, the current game ends in a tie and you go onto the next game.
The intent of the card was to basically have a 're-do'. Both players start a new game at 8000 points. In order to NORMALLY have a 7000 point decrease, you either have to have the worst f-up of a hand. OR. You create a deck that is completely dedicated into making the game a tie. At the time, there were two cards that could EASILY create this 7000 point deficit (Inspection, a card you could use 3 in a deck, and Wall of Revealing Light, a card you could only use 1 of. So 4 cards to create the deficit, 3 'Buttons, and 33 cards that were dedicated to draw as many of the 'tie components' in the first turn). When I created the deck, I had it to where it had a 92% success rate. But the deck could ONLY WORK in OFFICIALLY SANCTIONED EVENTS like a state regional or championship tournaments because their judges HAD to abide by the rules to a T, whereas a locals tournament run by Joe Schmo comic shop owner had quite a bit more wiggle room with rules concerning unsanctioned tournaments. This deck utilized a LOT of rules that, when put together (create Captain Planet) create this weird vortex of schmuckiness.
Let's get into that.
In the official guidelines, a 'best 2 games out of 3' match lasts at a max of 40 minutes. After that, end of match guidelines are implemented (we'll get to that in a minute). Also, when I played the deck (under UpperDeck Entertainment guidelines), in the event of a tie game whoever was determined (by coin toss, dice roll, etc) to be the 'choosing player' AT THE START OF THE MATCH got to choose who would go first or second in the next game.
So how does all this add up?
You have a deck that does nothing but tie and has a 92% consistency rate. If you win the initial dice roll and tie game 1, in game 2 you decide who goes first (electing yourself), and do this ad nauseum. The result was that the opponent would draw their hand and could do almost NOTHING to stop what was going to happen for the next 5 minutes. And then the tie happens, shuffle decks, they draw their hand--and can do nothing with it. That is the only interaction I have with my opponent for the full 40 minutes.
What if the opponent went first? Well, at the time, the top tournament decks had no counters or any way to stop it (except for really circumstantial stuff like them drawing Mystical Space Typhoon in their opening hand and me only having a lone Inspection or Self-Destruct Button as my means of making the tie. hitting the lone Inspection would be the smart choice, as shooting for a lone 'Button amongst other 'bait' cards was inadvisable. And because Mystical Space Typhoon was limited to 1 at the time, it was a statistical improbability that they would have their ONE card and I would have so few outs, but I did have it happen once).
So. You have a deck that completely neuters the opponents ability to interact AT ALL. How does it win.
Yes, a deck that does nothing but tie can actually win.
Everyone who enters a tournament can have a 15 card sidedeck. For most decks, you usually have a few 'counters' to other well known decks in the field. The other option (and is an obscure option, but done well it pays off) is to have 15 card sidedeck that completely shifts the focus of the deck into something else. And thats what happens here.
When the 40 minutes is up, neither player has access to their sidedeck. So shortly before time is up (after a game ends, you can access your sidedeck), anytime after the 38 minute mark (players have up to 2 minutes to sidedeck, so you could end a game anywhere from 38:00-39:59 and sidedeck in your win-con. Perfectly legal) after you make your tie game, you would sidedeck in either 15 cards of life depleting cards or 15 card of life gaining cards.
What happens next is that you start this game, and time shortly gets called. At which point the 'End of Match Procedures' come into place. The turn player finishes their turn, the next player gets a turn. Player 1 get 1 more turn. And Player 2 gets 1 more turn. After Player 2's second turn, if no one has won, you go off of whoever has the highest life total. Whoever has the highest life total wins that game.
So, during YOUR two turns, you throw out some cards that gain point on your end, or reduce their points, and have some cards that prevent them from initiating the battle phase--further restricting what they could possibly do. The end result would be a few hundred points difference in your favor.
THEN
The gamestate then checks to see who has won the most games within a match, assuming neither player has already won 2 games.
Since no one won a game during the initial 40 minutes, and you won a game as per the end of match procedures, the gamestate recognizes that you won 1 game, and your opponent won zero games, and you would win the match this way. You literally boil a 40+ game down to TWO turns per player.
Whats better was this deck was completely legal for 5 years until they banned Self-Destruct Button in, I think, 2012 or 2013. The assumption is that they banned 'Button in order to prevent these shenanigans in a new sanctioned event that they tried to push pretty hard (tag-duelling), but was very short lived (ironically, similarly built decks that implemented interaction-reduction strategies--but had a more conventional win condition, were a huge bloody problem with tag-duelling and pretty much killed it. Ergo, Button would have not made any impact). Ironically, in Japan (OCG), Self-Destruct Button is at 3. While it's banned everywhere else in the world.
