Jeopardy and Magic Dreams

Yesterday there was a pretty good match on Jeopardy, and then I had weird dreams about Magic, where there were a few cards that didn’t exist.

So first, about Jeopardy. So, the defending champ had 9800, another guy had 10800, and the leading woman had 14000. There were 2 clues left, $800 and $1200. The defending champ had control of the board, so he chose the $1200, and it was the other daily double.

9800 / 10800 / 14000, with $800 clue left on the board. After some thinking, he bet $5001. And he got it correct.

And then the $800 clue came up, and the leading woman answered it correctly, and then the standings were

14801 / 10800 / 14800. Such goodness. So that was a pretty good strategy by the defending champ – but now for the interesting part. How much did each of them wager in final jeopardy? Take a few minutes to think about it, about the strategies, and whatever… and then keep that in mind. I’ll talk about the magic dreams now, and conclude the post with the results of final jeopardy.

I had dreams about magic… location is unimportant, it wasn’t our house though. I’ll just skip through the plays and just talk about the cards my mind made up, but let’s just say I was winning because I had 1 flying creature. Vinh started coming back but I had some good removal in my hand.

The first creature I played was something like
Creature – UU
2/2
Flying
During your upkeep, pay UU or bury this creature. If the upkeep was paid using a snow land or legendary land, this guy gains vigilance until end of turn and has “when this deals combat damage to a player, you may untap target permanent.”

Apparently I did have a snow land, maybe even snow legendary land, so it did have vigilance.

Vinh played some 1/2 flying creature, and he also had this:
Azorious Creature - 3UW
4/3
This creature is unblockable.
2, T: Target creature becomes unblockable until end of turn.

Wow, that’s good. But luckily I had a weird removal spell in my hand… I’ll modify it a bit so it’s easier for most of us to understand, and less wordy:

1B
Sorcery
Target creature an opponent controls gains Phytohydraness until end of turn and gets Kiku Shadowed.
Another target creature that player controls gets Kiku Shadowed.

It wasn’t exactly like this, because the 1/2 became a 1/3 afterwards instead of a 2/3, but I didn’t want to write that out. So the 4/3 killed itself, and the 1/2 got stronger (which kinda sucks for my flying guy, but whatever).

There’s another card in my hand, which was supposedly a rare Ravnica card (by the expansion symbol) with a mechanic that came from Kamigawa. The mechanic was called “Pledge”. I remember two cards with Pledge, one black creature which supposedly sucked (it had a similar picture to Hunted Horror, maybe that’s why), and this land.

The land I had was a legendary land that produces white mana, and it had pledge. I think it basically was a plains, but also had the pretty much same ability as Pure Intentions – so if someone were to make you discard your hand, you can pay W or something to get all the cards back. It also doubles as a plains in case the other ability was no good. So it’s like a flexible legendary land…

Apparently the black creature was really bad, but I can’t think as to why. I don’t remember the casting cost or P/T, so I’ll make something up:

Creature – 6BB
5/6
Pledge X
When this comes into play, tap X creatures you control.
When this goes to the graveyard from play, put X +1/+1 counters on each of those X creatures.

I think Pledge means to commit to something beforehand. So in this case, you tap the creatures before you get the bonus. I think this card was supposedly bad because it leaves you open for a turn, if you tapped all your creatures. This was the way the card was worded – I’m sure we can find other ways to word it to make it bad, or find other restrictions. But anyway, this was the card, and that was Pledge.

And that’s it about Magic. I woke up eventually so the dream didn’t get concluded. But now I will conclude with Final Jeopardy.

First, the 10800 guy. He got the answer correct and he bet 4001, so he had 14801. The standings now were:

14801 / 14801 / 14800.

Remember, if you tie for first, both people move on, and Jeopardy spends twice as much money that game. Most people don’t remember this or they want total victories or something… I think if everyone worked with one another, much more money could be won on Jeopardy (by different people).

Next, the 14800 woman – She got it correct and she bet 6801, so she had 21601, which is equal to what would happen if the 10800 went all-in and doubled up, plus 1. She knows she can only win if defending champ either gets it incorrect, or gets it correct and bets very little. There’s not really a good point to going all-in. She can bet $2, except then she has to think about the 3rd place guy. So, she bets enough to beat him, but not go all-in herself.

The standings now are
14801 / 14801 / 21601.

The leader usually has the easiest choice in betting. And the leader did just that. He bet 14800, so that even if 2nd place doubled up to 29600, he would still beat her if he got it correct. And he did. Final standings were

29601 / 14801 / 21601.

Well played, defending champion. Well played. And that was an interesting match, with the way the last two clues went down, and the wagering for final jeopardy.