3CB Tournament #29

[wonkey_donkey]

The rules for this competition will be: ABU+Early Sets

Banned list:
Any cards not from Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Chronicles, Fallen Empires, Legends, The Dark.
Balance
Sinkhole
Black Lotus
The Rack
Strip Mine
Hymn to Tourach

What is 3cb?

3-Card Blind (3CB) is a very unique game. The rules are as follows

Your deck is composed of 3 cards, all of which start in your hand.
You have no library (technically, the library exists, but starts at 0 cards) and no sideboard (Wishes fetch nothing).
Random effects always go in your opponent's favour.
You can see your opponent's hand, so you can always make the best possible play.
You don't lose as a result of not being able to draw a card.
You will play each opponent twice, once going first, once going second.
For each win, you score 3.
For each draw, you score 1.
For each lose, you get nothing.
Other than the aforementioned, EVERYTHING IS HANDLED EXACTLY LIKE A REAL GAME OF MAGIC!

To make an entry, PM your deck to me in the following format:

Subject: 3cb Tournament #29 Entry or 3cb Tournament#29 Revision
Deck Name
Card #1
Card #2
Card #3

Optional Deck discussion, random sucking up, etc.


I will calculate the first 20 entrants who I receive, or I'll close entries after a week. Get your entries in by 11th March, and PM entries to me rather than virtual this time round.

Tom

[Matt]

Can we go ahead and ban Mind Twist, too?

[wonkey_donkey]

Can we go ahead and ban Mind Twist, too?

Logically, I'd say it wasn't too potent. As far as I can see, you can't play it for 2 before turn 3 or so, by which time counterspell mana (or even mana drain mana) is up. 2 mana for "target opponent chooses and discards a card" (with all random effects going in your opponent's favour) isn't anything special, in my opinon. If you can see a way of it distorting the format, then PM me and I will grovel at your feet before either banning it or saying something along the lines of "nice one."

tom

[Matt]

I don't know that it would be distorting but lotus-twist for 1-stone throwing devils could work. It really depends on how redundant other decks are - if losing a card means they can't win.

I'd worry about Wheel of Fortune, too, but there aren't any zero-mana creatures that can attack for damage (well there's Factory but that takes a second mana source).

[wonkey_donkey]

My logic was that there are sufficiently fast decks and also sufficiently viable control strategies that mean that keeping mass discard spells (or LD spells) that were 3 mana or over is not going to make the format bad per se. This is why I banned sinkhole - it can be up and running before countermagic. It may not be great, but I didn't want to take the risk.

Wheel is a strong card, it's just that there are several decks that will beat it. Ditto blight, as the main lands worth killing are storage lands that don't untap anyway. If something can be kept off the list, then I think it should be, hence the legality of workshop and others.

Oh, and black lotus is banned, so lotus-twist-devils doesn't work.

Tom

[Matt]

Oh, I didn't notice Lotus was banned. That makes Twist all right, then.

[frogboy4L]

Is the upwelling/trinisphere rule in?

[wonkey_donkey]

Is the upwelling/trinisphere rule in?

no.

[walter]

I hope I see some flying men.  That would be so awesome I wouldn't mind getting my ass kicked.  Not that my ass wouldn't be kicked anyway (my 32 points last 3cb were pretty awesome,) I just would apreciate it if the flying men did it.

[Togran]

I believe Evil Presence may need to be placed on the banned list.  Phantasmal Terrain should also be considered.  

Both of these cards elimanate storage lands.

[wonkey_donkey]

I intended to ban both, actually, but it's a bit late now. As it happens, there are several very viable deck strategies that can function perfectly well off 1 swamp as one of their lands. True, storage land's functionality are cut down, but if everyone's playing aggro decks due to fear of evil presence, then people can play storage lands to beat them, so people will play presence.dec to beat them, and so on. A rock-paper-scissors metagame. The interesting matches are when scissors beat scssors...

It was probably a mistake to have sinkhole on the list, but never mind. Other than that, I think it's quite a balanced format. However, if we redo this at some point, there will be possibly more bannings - I'm not sure, virtual will probably have to deal with that     . I chose the right time to run one, though, as only 1 match has so far come down to who goes first, unless my calculations are wrong.

I have 11 entries so far, am waiting for more!

Tom

[Matt]

For about 20 minutes I thought I broke the format with Storm World, but then I noticed that it affected each player; they can just sit back and let me kill myself!

[Lockdown]

XP  Already thought of that matt  The trick is that you need a threat on the table to race them, even if they choose not to play anything.  Example deck would be:

Mishra's Factory
Mox Ruby/Mountain
Storm World

Once you play the Factory, get in a few beats, then lay down the Storm World.... speaking of which, this deck beats my current 3CB so I may need to make a few changes...

[Matt]

I looked high and low for a way to return cards to my hand to offset the Storm World damage, but Timetwister just costs too much mana.

[TimeBeing]

I looked high and low for a way to return cards to my hand to offset the Storm World damage, but Timetwister just costs too much mana.

and since you have no cards in your grave yard or your hand it doesn't help....

[Matt]

Well something like Petal-Storm World-Black Lotus-Timetwister would have been good. You know, something. A Gush, something like that. But there's nothing.

[Lockdown]

Here's an idea for the next format, how about something based off Smmenen's Type Four (Limited Infinity)

Effectively an Arcane Lab in play and infinite mana.  Only allowed one of any one card in your deck.  All spells that allow you to pay X are banned.

Example Turn 1 Kill in this format:
Volrath's Shapeshifter
Akroma
Phage

While this can kill turn 1, it will rarely win, simply because people can play counters for free, and there will be plenty of them.

[Matt]

You'll have to do a better job of defining what "pay X" means. Is Order of the Ebon Hand banned? Crypt Rats banned, but not Pestilence?

What if we made an Arcane Lab for abilities, too?

[Lockdown]

You'll have to do a better job of defining what "pay X" means. Is Order of the Ebon Hand banned? Crypt Rats banned, but not Pestilence?

What if we made an Arcane Lab for abilities, too?

I like the idea of an Arcane Lab for abilities too.  As far as "pay X" goes, I made that as vague as possible because I wasn't sure what would be the best guidelines for banning.  What do you believe should be banned?

[Matt]

Fireball & Co. Stream of Life/Alabaster Potion. Drain Life/Consume Spirit. And so on. Decree of Justice.

[Lockdown]

So only spells that have X cost somewhere in them?  What about permanents that allow you to repeated use mana or permanents that have X costing abilities as you mentioned before?

[Matt]

Yeah, see, Crypt Rats would be banned, but Pestilence wouldn't (assuming an ability-Lab effect is in play). This is why I hate Smmennen's format: you have to have a million-card banned list. You can get around this with some very easy modifications.

[Dream_Merchant]

hmm ideas are forming
back from holidays and deep into 3cb once again

i brought some sunshine with me..anyone want some?
( no offense to black creatures )

[Dream_Merchant]

just a sec..lands can be from anywhere?

[xrizzo]

Do we have 15 entrants yet?  I am dying to see my savage tech in action...

[wonkey_donkey]

Results will be out when I wake up tomorrow morning   ... stupid GMT and all that. I put the figure at 20 entrants, I ended up with 17.

I can tell you now that you're savage tech's not done too badly, though...

Tom

[Matt]

My deck loses to netdecks but hopefully will beat anti-detdecks.