3CB Tournament #29 Results and Discussion

[wonkey_donkey]

I’d like to congratulate r_x_ and Togran for being the 3CB #29 winners.
Nothing too tricky, I don’t think, although CmdrSam’s deck meant a bit of extra work. Please check your results, though.

There were no decks that drew over 10 matches, so nothing anywhere near the mise-prize.

Entrant – Deck Name – Deck

1. wonkey_donkey – NotGrowingVeryMuchA-Tog – Mishra’s Factory, Atog, Mox Ruby
2. Virtual – Evil Fun Guy.dec – Bayou, Evil Presence, Thallid
3. lockdown – Disk Factory – Bottomless Vault, Mishra’s Factory, Nevinyrral’s Disk
4. Walter – Those Crazy Apes – Taiga, Kird Ape, Kird Ape
5. r_x_ - Little Green Men.dec – Pendelhaven, Thallid, Thallid
6. Alfred – You got SERVED – Savannah, Scavenger Folk, Icatian Javelineers
7. xrizzo – Honey Dew – Mishra’s Factory, Forest, Drop of Honey
8. TimeBeing – Gottolovethepreacher.dec – Icatian Store, Disenchant, Preacher
9. Bubble_King – Mishra’s Ring – Sol Ring, Mishra’s Factory, Mishra’s Factory
10. Matt – Wild Honey Pie - Mishra’s Factory, Forest, Drop of Honey
11. combo_dude – howoriginal.dec - Mishra’s Factory, Mishra’s Factory, Mishra’s Factory
12. Ruinn – Mindless Beatdown – Island, Sol Ring, Serendib Efreet
13. Togran – MarthaStewartsNewBestFriends – Pendelhaven, Thallid, Thallid
14. CmdrSam – Anti-Bog Wraith.dec – Urborg, Dark Ritual, Hypnotic Specter
15. Tobbo – Got a flier? – Mox Sapphire, Maze of Ith, Flying Men
16. flatscreen – boobytrap – Erg Raiders, Bottomless Vault, Evil Presence
17. DreamMerchant – Eternal Warrior – Mishra’s Workshop, Yotian Soldier, Time Vault

How to read the table:
Match the deck # on the left with the deck # on top. Append a 1 for the last 5 decks. The #s on the right of that deck correspond to how many points that deck received versus the deck on top. (Once again append a 1 for the last 5. The 1's are missing to make the table more clear)

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Total
1|x 0 0 2 0 6 2 0 2 2 2 6 0 6 6 6 6   46
2|6 x 6 6 1 0 2 6 6 2 0 6 1 3 6 6 6   63
3|6 0 x 6 0 2 2 2 2 2 2 6 0 0 2 6 6   44
4|2 0 0 x 0 6 0 2 2 0 2 6 0 3 6 6 6   41
5|6 4 6 6 x 6 6 2 6 6 6 6 3 6 6 6 6   87
6|0 6 2 0 0 x 2 6 2 2 2 3 0 0 6 6 6   43
7|2 2 2 6 0 2 x 2 0 2 0 6 0 4 2 2 6   38
8|6 0 2 2 2 0 2 x 2 2 2 6 2 0 2 0 6   36
9|2 0 2 2 0 2 6 2 x 6 2 6 0 3 6 6 6   51
0|2 2 2 6 0 2 2 2 0 x 0 6 0 4 2 2 6   38
1|2 6 2 2 0 2 6 2 2 6 x 0 0 3 0 6 6   45
2|0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 6 x 0 3 0 6 6   24
3|6 4 6 6 3 6 6 2 6 6 6 6 x 6 6 6 6   87
4|0 3 6 3 0 6 1 6 3 1 3 3 0 x 2 6 6   49
5|0 0 2 0 0 0 2 2 0 2 6 6 0 2 x 6 6   34
6|0 0 0 0 0 0 2 6 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 x 0   10
7|0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 x   6

Positions:

1   r_x_ 87
     togran
3   virtual 63
4   Bubble_King 51
5   CmdrSam 49
6   wonkey_donkey 46
7   combo_dude 45
8   walter 41
9   Alfred 43
10 Matt 38
     xrizzo
    Lockdown
13 TimeBeing 36
14 Tobbo 34
15 Ruinn 24
16 flatscreen 10
17 DreamMerchant 6

Thoughts:

Thallid decks were very strong this time around, as they were unaffected by evil presence and mishra’s factories.
Big lack of storage lands – I thought they’d be much bigger. As a result, very little ‘control’ was played. Also there was very little maze of ith, too.

I think it’d be hard to do this format a second time, as any further bannings would make the metagame very weak or very unbalanced. For example, if you banned evil presence then everyone would play storage lands, which would be too strong. If thallid was banned, then everyone would play some sort of factory control, of possibly evil presence.dec. If storage lands were banned, then everyone would probably play drop of honey, as it’s the only thing left that can beat aggro. How does doing the next load of sets sound? I’m not sure whether it’d be better to do 3rd Edition, 4th Edition, and then IA block and Mirage block only, or whether to tack Tempest Block on it as well. I think it’d be more interesting with tempest block in there, too, but that’s just me.

Thanks for the entries, they were quite interesting!

Tom

[Lockdown]

*sigh* I should have used my secondary tech of Island Sanctuary.  Would have owned this field...

[wonkey_donkey]

*sigh* I should have used my secondary tech of Island Sanctuary.  Would have owned this field...

Well, it's a difficult card to build a deck around - you can either go with some sort of storage land or alternatively a mishra's factory deck. You'd either draw or lose to a few too many decks, I expect.

Tom

[r_x_]

Pendelhaven, Thallid x2 vs. Mishra's Factory, Forest, Drop of Honey

Thallid deck wins. It only has to drop Thallid, then wait until Drop is played. Drop eats Thallid, and then another one is played after Drop is out. Mishra has no change against Thallid. If Drop doesn't see play, Thallid just collects 57 counters, makes 19 creatures and attacks for victory.

Pendelhaven, Thallidx2 Mirror.
It should be 3-3 instead of 2-2. Pendelhaven is Legendary.

lockdown has little flaw on his score against me, it shows that we played 6-6...

[wonkey_donkey]

All good points... I shouldn't have missed the point about drop of honey, but IIRC I was doing that one when I was v tired, so probably lapse in concentration. Thanks for pointing it out.

Something would defninitely need banning if we did this again, as there doesn't seem to be anything that can beat the mighty thallids as of yet...

Tom

[r_x_]

Thallids are easily disrupted by playing Tabernacle of the Pendrell Vale. Lucky for me

[wonkey_donkey]

yes, but it's difficult to build a tabernacle deck that doesn't simply lose to everything else   . Maybe some kind of storage land-tabernacle-fatty might work, though.

[r_x_]

Mox, Mishra's Factory, Tabernacle.
I-Hate-Thallids.dec.

I played this on other site when there was this Block-3cb...

[Matt]

Wow, someone else had my deck! At least I had the best deck name.

[xrizzo]

Wow, someone else had my deck! At least I had the best deck name.

You mean someone else had my deck!  I thought the deck would be stronger, but the Thallids own drop.

To get rid of thallid decks, we could just say you can have 1x of any card.  Because 1x Thallid is not broken, the problem lies in having a back up Thallid.  (at least for drop of honey based decks)

[Alfred]

My deck ties matt's and xrizzo's decks. I play icatian javelleneers, and he plays out both factory and forest. He has the choice of playing drop of honey or not. My javellineers can keep factory at bay forever, because if it attacks I can stack the damage and ping it, which will kill it. If matt plays drop of honey, javellineers will die, but I then I play scavenger folk and it can do the same thing. If I'm right, that moves me up three spaces! I was really hoping that there would be more mishra's workshop decks... Oh well... If I knew it would be all factories and thallids I would have gone 2x icatian javellineers.

[wonkey_donkey]

I think I must have forgotten the last clause of drop of honey.... either that or I just assumed that drop decks beat creature decks. I think you're right, will change the results accordingly. It's a shame in a way that it's so close in the middle from some people's perspectives.... anything that changes the points around there is going to change a lot of places - good for some, not for others!

Tom

[TimeBeing]

bummer lots of draw, didn't think so many people would have double creatures. O well at least my deck was unq.

[r_x_]

Will there be next 3cb?

[wonkey_donkey]

There will be, yes... how does something like 4th Ed, 5th Ed, IA block, Mirage Block, Tempest Block sound? I'll check over the cards for possible bannings if this is ok with everyone.

Tom

[xrizzo]

There will be, yes... how does something like 4th Ed, 5th Ed, IA block, Mirage Block, Tempest Block sound? I'll check over the cards for possible bannings if this is ok with everyone.

Tom

Format sounds good.  Minimal acceleration though - consider upwelling in play.

[Matt]

Ban Anvil of Bogarden!

[wonkey_donkey]

Having looked through the lists, briefly, I was wondering whether any other cards should be on the banned list:
Banned List So Far:
Anvil of Bogarden
Balance
Ensnaring Bridge
Evil Presence
Strip Mine
The Rack
Wasteland

I'm very tempted to put other cards on there, as at the moment there are either storage-land decks, swords decks, or aggro (w/swords, in some cases). It seems as though swords ought to be an automatic inclusion in decks, as realistically there are very few other ways to kill. However, an automatic inclusion is generally a Bad Thing, and I was tempted to ban it. However, this would make some decks such as 'sui' very strong, as there is limited discard still remaining (should that lot go, too?) as well as dark ritual to give you first-turn hyppies or shadow creatures. I'm not sure swords helps towards the format, but it seems to be even worse without it. A possible solution is to put bridge back in, as I can't quite get the 'mana base' right for an almighty bridge.dec. What are people's thoughts on swords and its problems/solutions, specifically?

Also, the 2 other cards that could go irrespective of other cards being banned were phantasmal terrain and forget - thoughts?

I'm hoping to be able to run this soon, as soon as we've finalised the list. Hopefully will be up and running tomorrow/thursday.

Tom

[Alfred]

Forget is far too slow for this format. It costs UU so it can't be accelerated out with dark ritual, and with storage lands it comes out way too late. I wouldn't worry about this card at all.