3CB Tournament #45

[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 #45 Entry or 3cb Tournament#45 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 25th November 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!

Another special format coming up next tournament - how about we try something interesting that MTGNews came up with for a 4CB tournament? The critical rule is "Whenever a player plays a spell, put a copy of that spell on the stack. You may choose new targets for this spell. If the spell is an artifact, creature or enchantment, put a copy of that spell into play." I'd ban all discard spells for this, and then probably trinisphere, sphere of resistance, glowrider and time walk. Yes, lotus would be legal . It looks fun, anyway. If not, then post suggestions here.

I'm afraid the results for 3CB#44 won't be up until the weekend - it takes time to get them sorted out, which is time that I don't have at the moment - university applications and essays have meant my workload is (and has been all week) through the roof until at least this weekend. Also, don't forget to submit a deck for WotW - I've not got too many decks for this so far, so you'd be fairly sure of getting a place if you enter a deck.

Tom

[leviat]

Yeah... I'm sick of waiting. Can we calculate now? heheh. I want to see how badly I get smashed this time . And if it goes well, mayble I'll submit to War of the Worlds and not be last this time. (So much Akroma hate).

[combo_dude]

Don't like that sort of format - it's of the order of Lotus-Rack-Balance in terms of power levels, and since that won the "no banned list" tournament I'd be wary of letting decks compete like that.

One idea is maybe to only allow one colour (probably power level would go white, red, blue, black, green for 3cb, if that affects choices) - plus artifacts and lands etc, although no Workshop or else there'll be little but a bunch of Leveler decks running around. In fact, ban Leveler too for a tournament like that. Hell, I think it needs the axe in regular tournaments, but that may just be me.

[wonkey_donkey]

Don't like that sort of format - it's of the order of Lotus-Rack-Balance in terms of power levels, and since that won the "no banned list" tournament I'd be wary of letting decks compete like that.

It didn't, if memory serves. Lotus-Show and Tell-Fotd won it. But that's fairly irrelevant. I personally would say that that sort of power level ought to be quite good fun for one tournament. This is ground the likes of which we havent trod before, so there's also plenty of scope for future tournaments. I may have to work a little on the banned list, though. Maybe allowing lotus would make it too unbalanced, so that could easily enough go.

I don't like the idea of only doing individual colours, though, as it's not only got the same sort of feel to it as the restricted sets (which we've now done ad nauseum) but it also feels like the basic lands format (which was cyberknight/limbo's last 3CB as TO, and the first on the new boards). I'd rather do something more original, to be frank.

Tom

[combo_dude]

How does it feel like the basic land format? All nonbasics apart from Workshop would be fine. The main argument I can think of against it is that we've explored most avenues already; as a result there'd only be a few decks around, such as The Harbour.

If you want a powered-up format, what about an untargetable, unremovable Mana Flare/two Glorious Anthems/Furnace of Wrath in play? Not all at once, but I think that's slightly more in check.

[wonkey_donkey]

It's the single-colour thing that gives those connotations; maybe it's just who feels like that, but it seems like either a very normal or very underpowered format (I'm unsure which).

Tom

[combo_dude]

It may be too late for it now, but I think that the fact that nobody plays Leveler in the next tournament is irrelevant. It has to go - the only deck that beats it is land-threat-artifact kill/bounce card. Not even bodyroc beats it.

Ironically, although nobody plays Leveler in the tournament after it wins, presumably because they assume that Leveler will be metagamed, it's rare that anyone actually metagames against it...

[CaptainPlanet.dec]

It may be too late for it now, but I think that the fact that nobody plays Leveler in the next tournament is irrelevant. It has to go - the only deck that beats it is land-threat-artifact kill/bounce card. Not even bodyroc beats it.

Ironically, although nobody plays Leveler in the tournament after it wins, presumably because they assume that Leveler will be metagamed, it's rare that anyone actually metagames against it...

I metagamed against it in 44 with

Mishras Factory, Mox Jet, Diabolic Edict

However, I came in 11th because I tied almost all the games except for that one and another.  

[Nazdakka]

I don't think Leveller is all that bad for the environment - it's the only deck in the current 3cB which just says 'Screw this, let's race!', and that helps keep the many and various Storage land decks honest. It's not very hard to metagame it out of the tournament either - It flat out folds to Maze of Ith, Oxidize, Choker-Chasm, Lumbercrack and Combo_Dude's Keiga deck, among others. IMO we should leave it legal until it actually shows metagame dominance, as opposed to winning one tournament in which almost everybody forgot about it.

[combo_dude]

I don't think Leveller is all that bad for the environment - it's the only deck in the current 3cB which just says 'Screw this, let's race!', and that helps keep the many and various Storage land decks honest. It's not very hard to metagame it out of the tournament either - It flat out folds to Maze of Ith, Oxidize, Choker-Chasm, Lumbercrack and Combo_Dude's Keiga deck, among others. IMO we should leave it legal until it actually shows metagame dominance, as opposed to winning one tournament in which almost everybody forgot about it.

First minor disagreement, my Keiga deck draws with it. But my Keiga deck sucks. Now let us never speak of it again.

Second, while I see your point about the hate, and there is significantly more than I first realised, I hold that Leveler is indeed "bad for the environment". It's not just one tournament - it seems to go in cycles of about one every three tournaments. More important is the fact that almost every time it is played (with the proper Mishra's Workshop side card - normally Mana Vault, sometimes City of Traitors helps as it's a turn slower but doesn't kill you in a stalemate), it wins. This is not something I like.

My other point with this is asking how this is so useful to the environment anyway; I know that Mr. 3cbPresident's deck "The Harbour", or even my own "The Brick" (by the way, if anyone sees the links between most of his [and mine to a lesser extent - not here though] deck names, I'll be quite impressed) is better for a race; it's a 6-turn clock (or a 5 turn one in my deck) with annoying disruption. I think these should be the benchmark race decks, not Leveler. The fundamental turn fluctuates, but it's normally around turn 3; this is when a deck should be starting to do it's cool stuff, not being able to kill them.

Hell, I could even see Dreadnaught off the list to enable Masknaught if Leveler was banned; at least that takes 4 turns to kill.

[wonkey_donkey]

I don't think Leveller is all that bad for the environment - it's the only deck in the current 3cB which just says 'Screw this, let's race!', and that helps keep the many and various Storage land decks honest. It's not very hard to metagame it out of the tournament either - It flat out folds to Maze of Ith, Oxidize, Choker-Chasm, Lumbercrack and Combo_Dude's Keiga deck, among others. IMO we should leave it legal until it actually shows metagame dominance, as opposed to winning one tournament in which almost everybody forgot about it.

First minor disagreement, my Keiga deck draws with it. But my Keiga deck sucks. Now let us never speak of it again.

Second, while I see your point about the hate, and there is significantly more than I first realised, I hold that Leveler is indeed "bad for the environment". It's not just one tournament - it seems to go in cycles of about one every three tournaments. More important is the fact that almost every time it is played (with the proper Mishra's Workshop side card - normally Mana Vault, sometimes City of Traitors helps as it's a turn slower but doesn't kill you in a stalemate), it wins. This is not something I like.

My other point with this is asking how this is so useful to the environment anyway; I know that Mr. 3cbPresident's deck "The Harbour", or even my own "The Brick" (by the way, if anyone sees the links between most of his [and mine to a lesser extent - not here though] deck names, I'll be quite impressed) is better for a race; it's a 6-turn clock (or a 5 turn one in my deck) with annoying disruption. I think these should be the benchmark race decks, not Leveler. The fundamental turn fluctuates, but it's normally around turn 3; this is when a deck should be starting to do it's cool stuff, not being able to kill them.

Hell, I could even see Dreadnaught off the list to enable Masknaught if Leveler was banned; at least that takes 4 turns to kill.

Forceofwill.dec beats it - the mana vault will eventually kill the leveler player.

I think that it's impossible to talk of a fundamental turn in this format. It's either turn 1 or 2 in the case of anything non-storage land based, and it can be almost anything within reason for those. There's no interaction, it's all about whether something is big enough or fast enough.

You're right that it's not just won one tournament - it's been significantly more than that (and most of the tournaments it's entered, if not all - the principle's the same regardless). I don't really think it does much for the environment - there are so many things that 'keep storage lands in check' such as ferropede, port, even other storage land decks that leveler does not play a unique role. I'm not particuarly happy it's there, but it's certainly possible to beat - hence it's not banned just yet, but it may be for #47 or #48.

Tom

[CaptainPlanet.dec]

Forceofwill.dec beats it - the mana vault will eventually kill the leveler player.

Wouldn't they draw? Leveler.dec can see the Force so won't play anything but Workshop.

[Nazdakka]

Forceofwill.dec beats it - the mana vault will eventually kill the leveler player.

Wouldn't they draw? Leveler.dec can see the Force so won't play anything but Workshop.

Yes, but when FoW.dec is running Keiga, the Leveller player has two options:

1) Play Vault, Leveller. Leveller gets FoWed, Leveller player dies to Vault.

2) Do nothing. FoW player builds up to Keiga mana on the storage land, and plays Keiga. Play Vault, Leveller. If the Leveller attacks, then it is blocked and stolen by Keiga. If it doesn't, die to the Vault.

[wonkey_donkey]

Second decks are now being accepted. Sorry for not putting this down sooner, have been busy both in general and on the 3cb front with WotW. I've got 12 entrants, though, so if I get to 15 then, as ever, the second decks will be rejected again.

I've only had 1 objection to the special format suggested in my original post thus far - does this represent a general consensus that this is a good idea or the opposite? I'll have to make a decision fairly soon, so if you could post letting me know what you think it'd be appreciated.

Tom

[combo_dude]

I'm going to make it 2 objections. I've already objected, but hey.

Also, for the next normal tournament, shall we try banning Leveler and releasing Dreadnaught into the format? Or do we wait for the results before deciding to ban it?

Hope next time can be a normal format, I've thought of the coolest deck EVAR. In fact, I think I'll enter it now.

[wonkey_donkey]

Well, I'm going to go for it. If it's a complete failure, then I'll do another special tournament immediately afterwards to make up for it.

Also, what about the next WotW format? They're all for doing a 'no banned list' one over on 'news, and I'm in favour of it. I think it'll work very well with the 1-deck rule (although you can't play, for example, 15 different meddling mage decks - we've got past that barrier), but I want to throw the idea out to the community to hear views.

Tom

[Alfred]

So the idea is just to get as stupidly broken as possible? Blackmail/Rack will be a potent deck or Balance/Rack. I would try to divvy up all of the broken cards though.

Also, strip mine and wasteland! These will be a super annoying card to deal with.

Another thing is, will black lotus be able to be used multiple times?

[combo_dude]

Once again, it'll be one deck per person per team. So only one Lotus-Rack-Balance, one Lotus-S&T-Form, and so on. It WILL be stupidly broken, yes. But you'll have to go stupidly broken in 15 different ways instead of one.

And I think we should have a Lotus format if we must have a special format - we've just seen that we really need to work on our Lotus knowledge.

[virtual]

Deck A:
Sapphire
Pearl
Meddling Mage

Deck B:
Sapphire
Plains
Meddling Mage

Are the considered different?
-Virtual

[combo_dude]

Specifically yes - although my guess would be that you'd have to say "only one card can be shared with any single other deck", or else things get a little ridiculous as you've just shown. This does technically allow Sapphire-Plains-Mage and Pearl-Island-Mage, but I don't think there'd be any better alternative.

Any sign of the results?

[r_x_]

Mtgnews hasn't voted yet,but hereis what we have thinking about:

No ban list,

But only one of any given card per team, mana producers excluded.

So only one deck with Meddling Mage in it.

[CaptainPlanet.dec]

Mtgnews hasn't voted yet,but hereis what we have thinking about:

No ban list,

But only one of any given card per team, mana producers excluded.

So only one deck with Meddling Mage in it.

The problem with that is many of the popular decks now would only be allowed 1 of...The Harbour and 2Threats/1Shop for example.

Howver that would make for a non-metagameable environment, so it could work.