3CB Tournament #42

[wonkey_donkey]

The rules for this competition will be: Anything Goes!

Banned list:
Portal
Unglued
[card]Black Lotus[/card]
[card]Mesmeric Fiend[/card]
[card]Nezumi Shortfang[/card]
[card]Blackmail[/card]
[card]Chain of Smog[/card]
[card]Hymn to Tourach[/card]
[card]Cabal Therapy[/card]
[card]Encroach[/card]
[card]Mind Swords[/card]
[card]Forget[/card]
[card]Anvil of Bogarden[/card]
[card]Strip Mine[/card]
[card]Wasteland[/card]
[card]Raze[/card]
[card]The Rack[/card]
[card]Wheel of Torture[/card]
[card]Balance[/card]
[card]Meddling Mage[/card]
[card]Isochron Scepter[/card]
[card]Phrexian Dreadnaught[/card]
[card]Lions Eye Diamond[/card]
[card]Evil Presence[/card]
[card]Seas Claim[/card]


NB this is subject to change within 48hrs of first posting.

:


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 wonkey_donkey in the following format:

Subject: 3cb Tournament #42 Entry or 3cb Tournament#42 Revision
Deck Name
Card #1
Card #2
Card #3

Optional Deck discussion, random sucking up, etc.


I'll close entries after 2 weeks. Get your entries in by 14th October and I'll calculate. As I said, the banned list may change within 48 hours of this post going up. After that, it stays as it is. This is not a reason to withold your decks, though - this is not a particuarly serious format! If something's broke, please fix it whilst we can!

As we are getting towards the 10th tournament since we've put a banned list back together, should we consider doing occasional odd-format tournaments? Just a thought. Also, any more thoughts on the treatment of black lotus?

Results for 3CB#41 will be up later today.

Tom

[Nazdakka]

Lotus: Just no. As you say, just about every low-mid cc discard spell ever printed would need to be banned, plus a bunch of other stuff we haven't noticed yet would get broken. It would create the sort of problems that Workshop already does, but worse. The mise-prize would also become even more popular. The only plus side I can see is that we'd essentially have an entirely new format to play with, but then we can get that by just making new ones up!

[Redmage2k]

Seconded.
First turn Show and Tell makes baby Urza cry.

[Goblinboy]

One vote for yes!

The unbanning of Lotus really only means that Show and Tell needs to be banned.
Mid-to-low discard is still fine. If the discard costs 2 or 1 mana, then you can do nearly the same thing now with Peat Bog. If it costs 3 mana, then you have the choice of either running nothing BUT the discard spell (which would do nothing but draw the game) or play Priest of Gix, which, while Lotus/Gix/Coercion is a fairly strong deck, it's not so good that it would need banning (and it sucks going second)

It allows people to play 3-mana spells that aren't artifacts without having to rely on the slightly-too-slow storage lands. Its use is tempered by the fact that you can't use it with spot removal (if they don't play the thing you need to kill, you can't do anything but draw the game), its hosed easily by Sphere of Resistance, Glowrider, etc., and if you want to, for example, play 2 2-mana spells, Lotus won't help you.

Black Lotus opens up the format and allows for more creativity, and it does not dominate or show up in every decklist. There are still very good reasons to run Factory/Workshop/Moxen/Duals/Storage/Depletion/etc., and people often run them in a Lotus-inclusive metagame.

And I speak from experience. Lotus = good.

-Goblinboy

[r_x_]

I'm with Goblinboy in this.

 I have said before, and I will say again that lotus doesn't make this format die, it makes it more intresting because it opens so many different opportunities.

[Chifley]

Well, I too come from a lotus field, and while I don't think it is degenerate, and could be unbanned, I like playing in a lotus free field for a change.

So thats a "Vote: No lynch" until further notice, I'd like to see how I compete without a lotus.

Oh, I'm god child for the uninformed.

[Nibble]

Lotus/Priest of Gix/Mind Twist gets a minimum of 3-0 against everything that doesn't run Force of Will, unless someone finds a way to have a 0-cost win condition that beats Priest. It auto-6-0's anything using depletion lands or storage lands. This means the only decks capable of even hoping to go 3-3 with it must use Workshop, one-cc spells or moxen, or Lotus itself. This doesn't seem like a healthy format already.

Banning Priest of Gix would be a possibility, but it doesn't get rid of the heart of the problem. As Nazdakka mentioned, most cards with 'discard' in the text would become immediate considerations for banning. Lotus-Mind Twist mises many things. Ban Twist, and Stupor shows up. Then Coercion. Then Distress + Duress, or Distress + a creature. All very powerful mise decks. Lotus/Abandon Hope/Nether Spirit is another winner. Lotus/Dark Ritual/Death Cloud. Lotus/Ritual/Extortion. There are just too many spells that become a problem where they otherwise wouldn't.

That being said, I do find it unfortunate, because Lotus does open up many other, non-broken possibilities. It just seems impractical to unban one card which would inevitably lead to the banning of many more.

[Laurie Cheers]

The unbanning of Lotus really only means that Show and Tell needs to be banned.  Mid-to-low discard is still fine. If the discard costs 2 or 1 mana, then you can do nearly the same thing now with Peat Bog.

Are you kidding? Peat Bog comes into play tapped. One turn makes a huge difference when you're playing discard.

[Goblinboy]

Sorry, I meant other stuff when I was talking about Peat Bog. I structured that part of the post badly. How about Swamp then? Turn 1 Duress, turn 2 threat works about the same as turn 1 Duress turn 1 threat.

Oh, Mind Twist isn't banned. Yeah, that could have an effect on how good Lotus is I've just seen all double-discard spells banned as a sweep and that works well.

-Goblinboy

[r_x_]

Lotus/Priest of Gix/Mind Twist gets a minimum of 3-0 against everything that doesn't run Force of Will, unless someone finds a way to have a 0-cost win condition that beats Priest. It auto-6-0's anything using depletion lands or storage lands. This means the only decks capable of even hoping to go 3-3 with it must use Workshop, one-cc spells or moxen, or Lotus itself. This doesn't seem like a healthy format already.

I disagree with you. I can think like 4 decks without any effort that will atleast tie the first game against that deck, and win when going first.

Here are few of them:
Lotus, Glowrider, Maze of Ith
Mishra's Factory x3
Sheltered Valley, Mishra's Factory, Tabernacle of the Pendrell Vale

Banning Priest of Gix would be a possibility, but it doesn't get rid of the heart of the problem. As Nazdakka mentioned, most cards with 'discard' in the text would become immediate considerations for banning. Lotus-Mind Twist mises many things. Ban Twist, and Stupor shows up. Then Coercion. Then Distress + Duress, or Distress + a creature. All very powerful mise decks. Lotus/Abandon Hope/Nether Spirit is another winner. Lotus/Dark Ritual/Death Cloud. Lotus/Ritual/Extortion. There are just too many spells that become a problem where they otherwise wouldn't.

I still can't understand why people would play Mise decks. That is very stupid and pointless. The best Mise deck is Lotus, Lotus petal, Balancing act. But I see no reason to play it over lets say Lotus, Treasure Hunter, Preacher or any other good deck.

That being said, I do find it unfortunate, because Lotus does open up many other, non-broken possibilities. It just seems impractical to unban one card which would inevitably lead to the banning of many more.

Do what Goblinboy suggested, ban all double-or-more discard. That phrase takes care of cards like mind twist etc.

[BlueJay]

I vote Lotus:Nay. The format is perfectly healthy has it is and it allows for some neat decks to arise.  

[Goblinboy]

Actually, more specifically, the ban could be on *decks* that cause double-or-more discard. That also takes care of Distress-Duress Mise decks (although they would never win the mise, since they would lose instead of tie when going second)

You were talking about Lotus-Mind Twist being a mise. Let me point out that Swamp-Dark Ritual-Mind Twist does the same thing.

But nevermind though. If the TMD regulars don't like Lotus, then I'll stop trying to convince you.

-Goblinboy

[r_x_]

I vote Lotus:Nay. The format is perfectly healthy has it is and it allows for some neat decks to arise.  

Show me a deck that hasn't played before besides Nibble's. Then I belive you that format is healthy. :/

[BlueJay]

Show me a deck that hasn't played before besides Nibble's. Then I belive you that format is healthy. :/

Well then we have a diferent definition of healthy because to me a healthy format is one that has a wide number of viable decks. Hell, even in vintage you have a great number of viable decks that have been played for a while now and its considered to the very healthy format. Just my two cents.

[Nazdakka]

It strikes me a basic rule for any banned list is that you want it as small as possible. If we allow Lotus, it would probably require the banning of 10-15 other cards to kill the Lotus-Mind Rot-X type of deck. Banning a deck concept would seem to be a recipie for lots of grey area confusion.

[wonkey_donkey]

The 3 reasons I have black lotus banned are:

1) There are actually more cards that need banning as a result of it being there that shouldn't need to be on the list - for example, if you can find a 'fair' way to use the discard-2s, then fair enough. As it is, there isn't a way to do it. At the moment, the threshold for banning a card is 2 mana (or more if it's an artifact due to the presence of workshop) - if that threshold hits 3, then we could be in a certain amount of trouble. Either that or we are forced to get rid of until-recently 'fair' effects.

2) It means that you need to be able to cope with a more varied deck field with without lotus - there are a fair few fundamental deck strategies that simply aren't any good with Lotus around.

3) Almost every deck's going to use it! It means that there will almost certainly be an enormous polarisation of the metagame into lotus.dec and antilotus.dec.

This is my opinion and I fully understand the arguments for unbanning it - I can certainly see that it has some merits. As it is, I feel that the banned list is that bit clearer with lotus on it. I must also ask - what is the genuine value of lotus to the metagame? As Goblinboy said, it encourages creativity - however, having lotus banned also seems to do so, ironically. If it can be shown that it has more value than it's absence, so to speak, then I'll give it another long looking at.

Tom

[Goblinboy]

Okay, consider this post not as trying to convince you to unban Lotus (you guys are this forum's regulars, Its your call) but rather defending my choice of unbanning it on mtgnews.

The 3 reasons I have black lotus banned are:

1) There are actually more cards that need banning as a result of it being there that shouldn't need to be on the list - for example, if you can find a 'fair' way to use the discard-2s, then fair enough. As it is, there isn't a way to do it. At the moment, the threshold for banning a card is 2 mana (or more if it's an artifact due to the presence of workshop) - if that threshold hits 3, then we could be in a certain amount of trouble. Either that or we are forced to get rid of until-recently 'fair' effects.

Actually, comparing our two lists, we have a balanced environment, like yours, and these are the cards that are on our list that aren't on yours:
Form of the Dragon
Glacial Chasm
Show And Tell
The Double-Discards

Chasm has nothing to do with Lotus, its doing very well over here, too. Form of the Dragon is slightly sped up by Lotus, but it was doing well in decks that were Lotus-less (and, of course, Lotus/storage land is actually slower in playing Form than Storage Land/Show and Tell). Show and Tell is a direct result of Lotus being unbanned, yes (in fact, I banned it as I unbanned Lotus) but I think it was a fair tradeoff.
The double-discard spells are just too powerful in an environment like this one. You agree that two-mana ones are too good, since you have Hymn and Forget banned, and while you don't have the three-mana ones banned, looking at 3CB #41, I didn't see anybody playing with them. Its not like we had to ban any previously playable discard spells because we allowed Lotus.

Actually, the list of stuff that you have banned because Lotus is banned is lengthly as well: Evil Presence, Sea's Claim, Encroach, Raze, Lion's Eye Diamond (kinda).  

2) It means that you need to be able to cope with a more varied deck field with without lotus - there are a fair few fundamental deck strategies that simply aren't any good with Lotus around.

Such as what? Looking at 3CB #41, I see a very similar list as to what I normally see on mtgnews.

3) Almost every deck's going to use it! It means that there will almost certainly be an enormous polarisation of the metagame into lotus.dec and antilotus.dec.

This is a founded fear. I was afraid this would happen when I unbanned it. However, if you look at the latest mtgnews 3CB (#61), only 4 of the top 10, and 6 out of the whole 17 players used Lotus. It is far from dominating.

This is my opinion and I fully understand the arguments for unbanning it - I can certainly see that it has some merits. As it is, I feel that the banned list is that bit clearer with lotus on it. I must also ask - what is the genuine value of lotus to the metagame? As Goblinboy said, it encourages creativity - however, having lotus banned also seems to do so, ironically. If it can be shown that it has more value than it's absence, so to speak, then I'll give it another long looking at.

Tom

Agreed. Your post changed my stance. I think its actually good that TMD has Lotus banned, just for variance's sake at the least.
This post was just defending my actions. In 3CB, even moreso than in real Magic, powerful cards can be overcome through metagame choices, no matter how small.  Lotus is a powerful card, but you've got to have powerful cards in any format, and this is one that doesn't dominate. By no means is it even as powerful as Mishra's Workshop (though it is slightly more played).

-Goblinboy

[fadeblue]

I, too, play over at the Lotus-inclusive MTGNews boards, and I have to agree that Lotus doesn't really skew the format. It definitely changes the banned list, but that's about it.

Still, I second god child in saying that I would prefer the Lotus to stay banned here. It looks interesting to play in a non-Lotus field (I'm definitely having more trouble thinking of decks), and I think if the format here was the same as MTGNews, the fields would start looking too similar and there wouldn't be as much variety in the 3CB world (however large it is). The experience here also seems to be very different due to the abundance of people aiming for the "mise prize" and the long streak of normal formats (which certainly helps build some semblance of a metagame). So I definitely say keep it as it is.

With that said, I better start looking for a deck...

[wonkey_donkey]

Well, I'd say that the general consensus is that the format would not necessarily be better with Lotus. As a result, it's going to stay banned for the time being.

What do people think about starting doing other tournaments, like tournaments (roughly) 20-32? For example, I'm tempted to go for another b0rken format; i.e. the only cards that are banned are those that are banned by proxy - portal and unglued. We've tried it once before, and it went down pretty well. There are going to be a fair few matchups that'll be 3-3 if we do this, but never mind. What are peoples' takes on this or something similar?

Tom

[Chifley]

I believe we did a "b0rken" week at 'news, and to the best of my knowledge it was just fat vs disruption. That aside, we have lots of theme weeks over at mtgnews and I find the very enjoyable. They encourage new thoughts, which can sometimes translate back into normal 3cb. Also, changing the format breaks up net-decking. Some of my favourite alterant formats have been the infinite mana one, with all X type spells banned, and the Acrostics round, which I just missed.

[Matt]

I would like to see more tournaments with smaller cardpools, a la the MI/VI/WL/5th one we did. It's a lot easier to find new tech, there.

[rvs]

I would like to see more tournaments with smaller cardpools, a la the MI/VI/WL/5th one we did. It's a lot easier to find new tech, there.

Agreed. It will also stop net-decking, which is really killing the format

[Upinthe]

I would like to see more tournaments with smaller cardpools, a la the MI/VI/WL/5th one we did. It's a lot easier to find new tech, there.

I don't like that idea. Storage lands and those two mana sac lands are important, so I think they should always be available.

How about a BYOB? (Bring your own block.) You have to have one card from a large expansion and two from two different smaller ones?

[Nazdakka]

I was under the impression that netdecking was almost the point of 3cB. It seems to be all about metagaming correctly to beat the decks that are expected. How can you have an expected field without people playing the best (net) decks? Leveller is popular, but someone anticipates this and plays Stompy with Oxidize. Storage Land.dec has a good showing, so someone else plays Port-Sapphire-Pet, and so on. If every deck has to be 100% original, then my creative juices will start to run pretty dry.

[wonkey_donkey]

I would like to see more tournaments with smaller cardpools, a la the MI/VI/WL/5th one we did. It's a lot easier to find new tech, there.

Agreed. It will also stop net-decking, which is really killing the format

I was under the impression that netdecking was almost the point of 3cB. It seems to be all about metagaming correctly to beat the decks that are expected. How can you have an expected field without people playing the best (net) decks? Leveller is popular, but someone anticipates this and plays Stompy with Oxidize. Storage Land.dec has a good showing, so someone else plays Port-Sapphire-Pet, and so on. If every deck has to be 100% original, then my creative juices will start to run pretty dry.

You're both right, up to a point. I think new formats are needed so that the metagame doesn't get stale, but equally a well-defined metagame with so many options has a lot of merit too.

The next tournament, I think, will be a tournament with some sort of special format. I'm not too keen on re-running all the ideas from the past, although some of them were pretty cool. I'm thinking we could do one with odyessy-onslaught-mirrodin blocks legal, with 7th+8th ed available too, as we never got round to doing that. I also feel that there's a lot more scope for good decks in both the US/MM/IN blocks and IA/MI/TE blocks formats (provided we ban mise-decks for the former). How do people feel about going back and doing these again? I'd do something like 1 'special' format to every 1, 2 or 3 'normal' tournaments, if they proved sufficiently popular. Thoughts on this?

Tom

[Matt]

If every deck has to be 100% original, then my creative juices will start to run pretty dry.

That seems like just the opposite of how it should be. The strength of the top decks in the T1 version make so many otherwise playable cards unplayable. You just sound like someone whining that they're not creative enough to come up with new decks. With a small format you don't even have to think about cards - when there's only 400 cards cheap enough to be played, you can just scan them all on apprentice or something.

[Nazdakka]

I was referring specifically to the T1 3cB we usually play. There's an established metagame there, so picking and tuning the right deck for the occasion is the order of the day - that will usually mean playing a netdeck, as there is something of rock-paper-scissors about that format. Playing an entirely new deck each week in a metagame like that is usually a recipie for losing a lot. I wasn't intending to complain about us playing new formats though - I have a lot of fun playing T2 as this time of year, trying out many and various bad decks to try and find a gem

[r_x_]

The next tournament, I think, will be a tournament with some sort of special format. I'm not too keen on re-running all the ideas from the past, although some of them were pretty cool. I'm thinking we could do one with odyessy-onslaught-mirrodin blocks legal, with 7th+8th ed available too, as we never got round to doing that. I also feel that there's a lot more scope for good decks in both the US/MM/IN blocks and IA/MI/TE blocks formats (provided we ban mise-decks for the former). How do people feel about going back and doing these again? I'd do something like 1 'special' format to every 1, 2 or 3 'normal' tournaments, if they proved sufficiently popular. Thoughts on this?

Tom

Special Formats are very good and innovative challenge to build b0rken decks from very limited cardpool. One every 3 tournaments is good idea, it keeps the game intresting. Although I would play every time what ever format there would be..

[BlueJay]

Yep, i'm all in favor of special formats. Once every 3  or 4 games is good. And it will surely keep things spicy.

[Matt]

Basically, I don't bother to play UNLESS it's a special format.