For Challenge # 147. It's a pity these can be exiled/sacrificed/bounced, but what can you do. I just figured that if someone was trying to win the game through superior resources, then everyone else she be allowed to play that game too.

Because the problem with Helix Pinnacle was that it was too hard to abuse.

Meh. I wasn't sure how many counters should have been on this. But you're right... I probably aimed too high. I think the thing that stayed my hand, though, was how easy it was for EDH to drop 50-60 counters on this just in a normal game of dropping permanents and no one attacking. Still probably should have aimed for 75-80, though.

What, no! My sarcasm what directed at how easy it is to win with this in a deck built to do so. I've won with Darksteel Reactor in as few as 4 turns before, and while this takes 100 vs 20, it's also not restricted to one counter per turn.

Ah! Heh. I never played with the Pinnacle, nor seen anyone do it, so I presumed it wasn't too effective. But I'm kind of happy to hear it works for some people. I've seen a bunch of people try to make Reactor work only to have it not do much of anything. That said, they were using the tools at their disposal in 2003. I presume cards like Gilder Bairn do a fair share of heavy lifting.

Yeah, it's in my Vorel Commander deck, which is basically designed to get as many counters on as many things as possible. I think I can win on my 6th turn with Reactor with a perfect curve. Shroud makes Pinnacle almost impossible to abuse outside of Doubling Season effects.

­Opalescene, Helix Pinnacle, Autumn Willow, and Experiment Kraj? Or Glaring Spotlight, wait until your opponent is tapped out (or Mana Short them at end of turn), then Donate it?

Yeah, that's the best I can do in order to remove Shroud. The first option requires white, which you can't do in your EDH deck (though, I presume Experiment Kraj should be easy to justify.) The second only gives you one turn... and then you still got to pay the mana to donate it. Still, I got to admit that it would be pretty awesome to see the expression on your opponent's faces when you surprise them with a Helix Pinacle that suddenly doubled from 50 to 100 counters in one turn.

I don't see how this removes shroud from the Pinnacle. I can see splicing the ability to put tower counters on Kraj, but since it's a separate triggered ability that checks if you have 100 I still don't get how that wins.

Edit: correction to my comment about winning with Reactor. Turn 6 actually only takes a decent hand. I can actually get there on turn 5 with a perfect one. (Both of these assume I'm essentially gold-fishing, of course.)

I like that this puts a win condition on the battlefield for every player. A deck playing this would probably be optimized for it, but it could be tempting for the other players to try. Or maybe they'd just sacrifice it to something, haha.