3CB Tournament #30 Results and Discussion

[wonkey_donkey]

I’d like to congratulate Bubble_King for being the 3CB #30 winner.
Some hard stuff to calculate this time around, me+the winner for example… but interesting decks all round!

Despite Lockdown’s valiant effort, there were no winners of the mise-prize.

Entrant – Deck Name – Deck

1.   wonkey_donkey – The Magic Flute – Hollow Trees, Channel, Snake Basket
2.   Lockdown – Mise! – Swamp, Dark Ritual, Pox
3.   r_x_ - sliver.dec – City of Traitors, Sphere of Resistance, Metallic Sliver
4.   matt – All Holds Barred – City of Traitors, Sphere of Resistance, Soldevi Sentry
5.   xrizzo – Marsha, Marsha, Marsha – Mishra’s Factory, Mishra’s Factory, Mishra’s Factory
6.   Virtual – Deck Tidal – Island, Tidal Warrior, Straw Golem
7.   Bubble_King – Green Burn – Forest, Eladmiri’s Vineyard, Killer Bees
8.   Togran – Superfluous 3rd Nut – Undiscovered Paradise, Eladmiri’s Vineyard, Ranger en-vec
9.   Thissa – Isle.dec – Teferi’s Isle, Mishra’s Factory, Pauper’s Cage
10.   combo_dude – snijj.dec – Sand Silos, Mahamoti Djinn, Phantasmal Terrain
11.   Alfred – Postacular – Kjeldoran Outpost, Plains, Karoo
12.   CmdrSam – thisisAlphaonlyformat,right.dec –  Swamp, Dark Ritual, Hypnotic Specter

13.   r_x_ - Paroxysm Rules – Dwarven Hold, Raging Goblin, Paroxysm
14.   matt – Cage of Vines – Forest, Eladmiri’s Vineyard, Pauper’s Cage
15.   Bubble_King – shelter.dec – Sheltered Valley, Straw Golem, Straw Golem

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   Total
   1| x 2 6 6 6 0 0 6 6 3 6 0 6 0 2     49
   2| 2 x 0 0 2 2 0 0 2 2 2 2 2 0 2     18
   3| 0 6 x 0 0 4 6 6 3 0 0 3 0 6 2     36
   4| 0 6 6 x 2 4 6 6 6 0 0 3 2 6 2     49
   5| 0 2 6 2 x 2 6 6 6 4 0 3 2 6 2     47
   6| 6 2 1 1 2 x 0 0 6 6 6 3 6 6 2     47
   7| 6 6 0 0 0 6 x 6 0 6 6 3 6 6 6     57
   8| 0 6 0 0 0 6 0 x 0 0 6 3 6 6 0     33
   9| 0 2 3 0 0 0 6 6 x 0 0 0 0 6 0     23
   0| 3 2 6 6 1 0 0 6 6 x 6 0 6 0 0     42
   1| 0 2 6 6 6 0 0 0 6 0 x 0 6 0 2     34
   2| 6 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 6 6 6 x 6 3 0     54
   3| 0 2 6 2 2 0 0 0 6 0 0 0 x 0 0     18
   4| 6 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 6 3 6 x 0     33
   5| 2 2 2 2 2 2 0 6 6 6 2 6 6 6 x     50

Positions:

1   Bubble_King   57
2   CmdrSam   53
3   Bubble_king   50
4   wonkey_donkey   49
                matt
6              Virtual   47
   xrizzo
8              combo_dude   42
9   r_x_   36
10   Alfred   34
11   Togran   33
   matt
13   Thissa   23
14   Lockdown   18
                r_x_

A fantastic format this time around, in my opinion. There was no dominant deck, as vineyard was beaten soundly by sphere, whilst hyppie loses to sheltered valley and the completely absent swords.dec. I’m not sure where my niche combo deck fits into all this, I just felt it was the most powerful deck. It did lead to some absolute buggers to calculate though, when playing the vineyard decks especially. I was a bit annoyed when combo_dude changed his sphere of resistance to phantasmal terrain, as it meant he 3-3’d with me as well as failing to stop the vineyard decks. However, such is life.

I should have run Havenwood Battleground rather than Hollow Trees. I thought that it would give me an edge over the sphere decks, but instead I end up losing out against vineyard (I think), snijj, and thisisAlphaonlyformat,right.dec. Ah well, excrement occurs.

I’m willing to publish a separate table for the competition that doesn’t involve the extraneous last 3 decks. Who feels that the presence of these duplicate decks, as it were, is unfairly weighted towards some rather than others? I believe the top 3 would become CmdrSam – Myself – Bubble_King/xrizzo without these decks, so please bear in mind that anything said by the top finishers before and after the addition will be taken with a pinch of salt!

I’m going away this coming Saturday for a week, and will probably be online on Monday or so. However, I won’t be able to run this effectively for the next time – pm me Thursday/Friday, ideally, if you want to help out. For what it’s worth, though, I definitely feel this could be done again, as there are simply so many playable decks – you need to find something that beats vineyard, sphere, hyppie, swords and valley. Sounds like a laugh…

Discuss decks, post result corrections etc etc…

Tom

[gregg]

yay for the forest + vineyard + killer bee's!!

although, i atleast knew that channel snakebasket would be the winner.. its too good.

[wonkey_donkey]

The problem with the channel-basket deck is choice of land. If you choose the tap-land, you lose to sphere, if you choose the storage land, you lose to well-built vineyard and other random stuff that's too fast.

I'm not sure which is the strongest deck overall - another reason why this could be done again. I was impressed with Alfred's entry, too - very original and quite powerful - just a little too slow compared with others in the format.

Tom

[r_x_]

With channel you can't lose to Vineyard deck. Ever.

[xrizzo]

I liked playing the vineyard decks.    They power mishra.

Anyway, as far as allowing people to play multiple decks, I think it is a good thing if we cant get to 15/20 decks.  The larger the sample, the more 'tested' a winning deck is.  

If we don't have trouble getting to 15/20 decks, then it should be discouraged purely because it is unecessary.

Also, at any time, if someone were to use the multiple deck submissions to their advantage (ie playing the two decks off each other, or choosing two different metagame possibilites) then that should be stictly prohibited.

[wonkey_donkey]

With channel you can't lose to Vineyard deck. Ever.

I assure you, you can - I'll show you.

Turn 1: I drop trees, he drops vineyard.
Turn 2: I play channel and snake basket. How many snakes to get, though? If 10, the usual number, I drop to 6 life. He drops the bees. I swing for 10 and take 2 from the yard, he swings for 3. In my next main phase I drop 2 more life and lose. If 7 snakes, I drop to 9 life. Again, it takes him 1 less turn to win with the bees than it takes me to win with the snakes.
It's only different if there is a less efficient kill condition or I can generate extra mana, for example with havenwood battleground, were I running it. The number of permutations of snakes meant that they were hard to calculate, but still, I lose.

If there is a flaw in my arithmetic somewhere, please point it out, though.

Edit: didn't see xrizzo's post. I also feel that it's unnecessary with a large enough sample, but I also think that a further qualification is needed - there needs to be a varied enough metagame, and this is one of the most variable I've seen for a while. If we had accepted second entries for a smaller metagame, then it would be easy to make the decks work together, as it were. You can play 1 deck that you think is good, and 1 deck that won't do very well but will beat everything that beats you. This time it wasn't possible to do that effectively.

Tom

[wonkey_donkey]

because in a fair few cases you had to be able to drop the sphere turn 1 to get a result. In this case, your match becomes a draw, whilst r_x_ would win. Of course, sometimes the regeneration counts (for example against mishra's factory) but other times it's unimportant (for example agains the 2 dark ritual-based decks). If you check the results they ought to be accurate, but by all means show me if I've gone wrong.

Edit: Sorry, just realised... I'd always thought that soldevi sentry cost 2, not 1. Massive oversight on my part, I'll change the results to reflect this. Sorry, astonishingly stupid of me. My bad.

Tom

[Lockdown]

I think I still might have a chance at the mise prize.

My losses:
r_x_
Bubble_King
Togran
matt

I only lose outright to r_x_.  I still "beat", aka tie, all the vineyard decks by going first.  If I pox, they can choose to discard a) their land, then they can't play vineyard/thread b) their vineyard, they don't have mana for threat c) their threat, obviously they can't win then.  If they go first, they go land, vineyard, I pox, they lose their win condition, and land.

[wonkey_donkey]

Yes, but the vineyard itself is enough to work as a kill condition. You both have the same number of lives after a pox (13), and your opponent can drop the vineyard and burn you to death.

Tom

[Togran]

I really wanted to play: Cursed Scroll, Vineyard, Undiscovered Paradise but I just couldn't cheat the rules enough to get the paradise in my hand with 3 mana.  Oh well, I looked at the Bees but thought the En-Vec had that cool effect of being able to stick it with Regen, what was I thinking?

Anyway Pox verse Vineyard.

P1: Swamp, Ritual, Pox.  V = Discard Threat 13/13
V1: Forest, Vineyard.
P2: Burn 2 = 11
V2: Burn 2 = 11
etc etc.
Pox dies first.

V1: Forest, Vineyard
P1: Burn 2 First, 18.  Swamp Ritual Pox. V discards threat.  P = 12. V = 13.
V2: Burn 2 = 11.
P2: Burn 2 = 10.
V2:9
P2:8
V3:7
P3:6
V4:5
P4:4
V5:3
P5:2
V6:1
P6:0

Stupid vineyard doubles as win condition #2
Please tell me if my calcumulations are off by a giant degree.

[Matt]

My scores are way messed up.

Matt vs Lockdown (Swamp, Ritual, Pox): should be 6-0, my favor:

Matt first: City, Sphere. I win because he can't do anything.
Lockdown first: Swamp, Ritual, Pox. 13/13, I discard Sphere. I play City, Sentry, spend other mana to regenerate. I win 13 turns later. If he holds back to wait til I play out Sentry, I just play City first and he can't do anything.

Matt vs Virtual (Island, Tidal Warrior, Straw Golem): should be 4-1, my favor

Matt first: City, Sphere. He can't do anything, so I win.
Virtual first: Island, Tidal Warrior. I play City, Sphere. He attacks, (19). I play Sentry. He attacks, (18). And now we have a standoff, because if he attacks, I block and regenerate, then kill him. If I attack, he wins the race. So we draw.

Matt vs CmdrSam (swamp, rit, specter): should be 3-3.

Matt first: City, Sphere. He can't do anything, so I win.
CmdrSam first: Swamp, Rit, Specter. I play City, Sentry, regenerate. I can't race a flying Specter, so I lose.

Oh wait, I see you've taken care of it. [/color]

[wonkey_donkey]

yeah, I think I got them all. Also, you 6-0 xrizzo, too, as you can get the sentry out no matter what. It's no good him playing the sliver first, either, as he burns for 1, and as a result you can drop the sentry and regenerate it and kill him before he kills you. Sorry about all that, though, major brain fart on my part.

Tom

[Matt]

My other deck (Forest Vineyard Pauper's Cage) should 6-0 r_x_ (Dwarven Hold, Raging Goblin, Paroxysm):

r1: Dwarven Hold, go.
m1: Forest. Vineyard, go.
r2: add a counter, burn for 2, go. (18/20)
m2: Pauper's Cage, go.
r3: cage for 2, play Raging Goblin, burn for 2, attack for 1, go. (14/19)
m3: burn for 2, go. (14/17)
r4: add a counter, cage for 2, burn for 2, attack for 1, go. (10/16)
m4: burn for 2, go. (10/14)
r5: cage for 2, play Paroxysm, burn for 1, attack for 1, go (7/13)
m5: burn for 2, go. (7/11)
r6: cage for 2, burn for 2, attack for 4, go (3/7)
m6: burn for 2, go. (3/5)
r7: cage for 2, burn for 2 when he declares attack step. (-1/7)

Waiting another turn to play the goblin and Paroxysm on the same turn only makes it worse, and I only win a turn faster when I go first.

[Bubble_King]

Hi, it seems my two decks did well enough but here's the other deck i was going to enter, mainly built to use island sanctuary with a very slow win with roterothopter:

Deck Name: 'thopter
Card #1: Roterothopter
Card #2: Island Sanctuary
Card #3: Icatian Store

Beats: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 11, 13, 14
Draw: 7
Loses: 6, 9, 10, 12
56pts (I think)

I can't believe i never noticed sphere of resistance was in the format but even so killer bees rock, espically in the vineyard mirror. This format could easily be done again as there was such a wide variety of viable decks.

[Matt]

Can we get a poll for best deck name?

[CmdrSam]

OK, maybe swamp, ritual, hypnotic specter isn't very original, but it is classic

I think that Channel/Snake Basket really wants the Hickory Woodlot to be a contender.

I was strangely tempted to go for the ~100 turn win deck (Dwarven Hold, Ensnaring Bridge, Searing Touch) but somehow resisted it.

--Sam L-L

[Matt]

I was strangely tempted to go for the ~100 turn win deck (Dwarven Hold, Ensnaring Bridge, Searing Touch) but somehow resisted it.

Was your resistance in any way bolstered by the fact that Bridge is banned?

Also, I assume you mean Havenwood Battleground and not Hickory Woodlot, which is not even in the format.

[CmdrSam]

Was your resistance in any way bolstered by the fact that Bridge is banned?

Pffft. That would have made it easier, yes Something like the first three decks I could come up with were banned (Balance, Strip Mine, and the Bridge).

Also, I assume you mean Havenwood Battleground and not Hickory Woodlot, which is not even in the format.

Ah, I actually meant the Woodlot -- I meant that the Channel/Snake Basket deck wished it was in the format. I overlooked the FE replacement!

--Sam L-L

[wonkey_donkey]

Well, as I said, I'm going away for a week today, so we can either have no 3CB until 5th April or alternatively somone else can run it. We could just go with the the next logical step and use urza's block, masques block and invasion block, 6th edition and 7th edition. A few cards would need banning, though. Either somone will need to take the reins for this tournament, or I'll do it 1 week on monday.

Tom

[ZoneSeek]

Congratulations on tournament #30... I'm glad to see the format which I introduced to this site is still somewhat popular. ^^

[slighguy]

hi i just wanted to know the rules for deck building in this format.

[Misemaster]

So is the prize that is my namesake yet to be given out in another tourny?

[Lockdown]

*sigh* nope... stupid Vineyards doubling as a win condition over my Pox...