Five Knights to Nowhere

A hundred and fourteen moves, and a lesson in spending. White drafted cheap and sneaky: Juke to slide pawns through traffic while stealing mana, Bis-Hop for leaping bishops, and two rolls of the Chaos Summon dice. Black drafted expensive and direct: five Power Infusion casts to upgrade pawns into pieces, Shot In The Dark for invisibility tricks, and free Tactical Necessity sacrifices.

White's dice came up rooks, twice. One summon died quickly, but the plan was never really about the summons. It was about the Juke steals: three casts that moved pawns AND drained four mana out of Black's pool over the course of the game.

Black's plan was upgrades. Power Infusion after Power Infusion, thirty mana in total, five pawns turned into pieces. And one by one, every upgraded piece died. Material you pay for is still material you have to keep.

The game turned at move 55. White's Juke slid the d6 pawn through to d8, stole a mana on the way, and the pawn came out the other side as a queen. Black threw a knight at it, White gave back a rook, and the queen held the board. From there it was a grind: White's rook and pawns against a shrinking army. Black tried two invisibility casts near the end, a piece literally vanishing from the position data, but invisibility makes no material. At move 114, down to a bare king, Black resigned. White won by spending less and keeping more.