3CB Tournament #68 Results and Discussion

[combo_dude]

I'd like to congratulate Jacob Orlove as the winner of 3CB tournament #68!
Thanks for the really positive response on the special format - only one deck per person in here, and a healthy mix of power decks and those loaded with "E-numbers" filled the top spots (contrast Hi-Val's performance with that of Jacob, for example!). Congratulations, and I hope I can get this sort of turn out regularly!

The winner of the ten bonus points for "Most Obscure Card" is wonkey_donkey, for his use of Keeper of the Beasts. Honourable mentions go to Ephraim's Elves of Deep Shadow and Limbo's Desecration Elemental, but they were too modern (due do EODS being reprinted) to win it. Congratulations!

The rules for this competition were: Different!

1) Every card that you submit must have an "e" in its name somewhere.

2) For each match, you score the usual number of points, plus an extra point for every "e" in your three cards that exceeds the number of e's in the opponents' decks.

For example, a deck consisting of three Engineered Explosives (which is an illegal deck for two reasons!) against a deck such as Blinkmoth Nexus, Mox Pearl, Balance (which is also illegal - I'm just making a point) would score zero in game points, but the total score would be 15-6 to the EE deck, since it has 18 e's to the winning deck's 3; since the difference is 15, this makes the score 15-6.

3) Every deck must be able to win of its own accord. (so no 3x EE then...)

4) There will be a ten-point bonus prize for the most obscure card used. My decision is final!

5) EDIT: You must be able to use all three cards in your deck when goldfishing - no cards were allowed to solely be there to boost the number of e's in the deck.

Banned list:
Portal (in ALL its forms)
Unglued AND UNHINGED
[card]Engineered Explosives[/card] <---- WATCH OUT!
[card]Mesmeric Fiend[/card]
[card]Strip Mine[/card]
[card]Balance[/card]
All cards without an 'e' in their name
EDIT: Basic lands are all legal, regardless. Although Scrappy Kid has a snow-covErEd point...

Decks (brackets next to the deck name indicates number of e's):

1.   combo_dude    -    The Black Deck (10)    -    Shizo, Death's Storehouse,   Flesh Reaver,   Sheltered Valley
2.   wonkey_donkey    -    (no name) (13)    -    Hollow Trees,   Weatherseed Treefolk,   Keeper of the Beasts
3.   Ephraim    -    The Forest Primeval (11)    -    Pendelhaven,   Elves of Deep Shadow,   Evil Presence
4.   Godder    -    Cheese (5)    -    Remote Farm,   Kataki, War's Wage,   Suppression Field
5.   Nibble    -    Out of the Woodwork (12)    -    Pendelhaven,   Sylvan Safekeeper,   God's Eye, Gate to the Reikai
6.   Hi-Val    -    Martha's Vineyard (6)    -    Treetop Village,   Eladmiri's Vineyard,   The Rack
7.   Moonkeeper    -    EEEEEEEEEEEE(k)! (12)    -    Remote Farm,   Elite Javelineer,   Deserted Temple
8.   ix-ir    -    yay I can metagame too! (10)    -    God's Eye, Gate to the Reikai,   Ferropede,   Aether Vial
9.   Jacob Orlove    -    This is why we can't have nice things (16)    -    God's Eye, Gate to the Reikai,   God's Eye, Gate to the Reikai,   The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
10.   Englishman_in_NH    -    Flipping the Bird (14)    -    God's Eye, Gate to the Reikai,   Kangee, Aerie Keeper,   Aether Vial
11.   Limbo    -    "And the ignorant shall fall to the E's." (13)    -    Geothermal Crevice,   Desecration Elemental,   Geothermal Crevice
12.   ReAnimator    -    Seedy (14)    -    Hollow Trees,   Weatherseed Treefolk,   Weatherseed Treefolk
13.   That0neguy    -    Neo-Kangee (13)    -    Shinka, The Bloodsoaked Keep,   Kangee, Aerie Keeper,   Aether Vial
14.   Scrappy Kid    -    (no name) (8)    -    Treetop Village,   Eladmiri's Vineyard,   Wheel of Torture

Results:

      1   2   3   4    5   6   7   8   9   0   1   2   3   4  Total Position
1|   x   4   2   11  6   4   6   6   6   6   2   3   6   2   64   (8)
2|   4   x   2   13  7   7   7   6   6   6   6   0   6   5   85*  (2)
3|   3   6   x   10   3   8   4   7   6   6   6   6   6   6   78   (4)
4|   0   0   1   x    1   0   2   6   0   6   6   0   6   0   28   (14)
5|   2   0   4   11  x   6   6   8   6   6   2   6   6   4   67   (7)
6|   6   6   3   7   6   x   6   6   6   6   6   6   6   2   72    (6)
7|   2   0   2   9   0   6   x   8   2   0   2   0   0   4   35    (12)
8|   0   3   0   5   0   4   0   x   1   3   2   6   3   2   29    (13)
9|  6   3   5   17  4   10  6  10  x   6   5   2   5   8   87    (1)
0|   4   1   3   9   2   8   8   7   1   x   3   0   3   6   55    (9)
1|   5   0   2   8   3   7   3   5   2   2   x   6   2   5   52    (10)
2|   7   7   3   15  2   8   8   6   6   6   1   x   7   6   80    (3)
3|   3   0   2   8   1   7   7   6   2   2   2   0   x   5   44    (11)
4|   6   6   3   9   6   4   6   6   6   6   6   6   6   x   76    (5)

* Ten bonus points for Keeper of the Beasts.

Apologies if I got the calculations wrong - there's a little more room for mistakes here than usual! Jacob's choice of Tabernacle proved to be a fairly inspired piece of metagaming against the other God's Eye decks, as well as hugely upping his number of e's. My own creation was originally using Mox Jet, but then I realised that the speed edge of one turn wasn't worth two points per match that Shizo gives me! I was also very pleased to see Hi-Val's deck do well, as it finished high despite having no less than five fewer e's than the average number (which is, to the nearest whole number, eleven per deck...). At least we now know why The Rack is usually banned!

Next time is a normal format - I'd quite like to try and arrange a Christmas 3CB theme for the following tournament, but I'm struggling to find something inventive enough, so please post ideas or PM them to me.

Adam

[Ephraim]

You miscounted the number of E's in my deck (#3 -- The Forest Primeval).  It actually has 11 E's. Pendelhaven (3), Elves of Deep Shadow (4), Evil Presence (4)

As far as I can tell, you got all of the other decks correct. I'd double-check anyhow, since I expect having to re-run the E-counting calculations over again would be the most tedious part. If you have to do it, may as well only do it once!

[Limbo]

I would like to object agaist Jacob's deck, as it clearly brakes rule number 3:

3) Every deck must be able to win of its own accord.

Jacob has no way of saccing his own lands, therefore cannot create a token and therefore has no selfsupporting wincondition in his deck.

[Englishman_in_NH]

God's Eye is Legendary, when he plays the second one, he creates men, then he just doesn't play Tabernacle for that game.

[Limbo]

God's Eye is Legendary, when he plays the second one, he creates men, then he just doesn't play Tabernacle for that game.

Crap, I missed that :S

In that case, I withdraw my objection, and instead congratulate Jacob with winning this awesome competition.

I actually considered both, but wasn't able to figure out a decent way to get the God's Eye into the yard

Edit: I score 3 points vs Nibble btw, instead of 1, putting me on 51, which is still 10th place...

[Jacob Orlove]

I love how banning Kangee actually made my deck better. The 17 "e" list was obviously Kangee plus double God's Eye.

Here were a few other decks I'd cooked up before I found the double Eye combo:

Breezekeeper
Keeper of the Nine Gales
Saprazzan Cove

Untaidake, the Cloud Keeper
Sandstone Needle
Jeska, Warrior Adept

Keeper of the Flame
Sandstone Needle
Pithing Needle

Sandstone Needle
Deserted Temple
Ydwen Efreet

Gods’ Eye, Gate to the Reikai
Gods’ Eye, Gate to the Reikai
Kangee, Aerie Keeper

Also, I believe I have officially set the record for most points in a single 3cb match, with 17.

[ix-ir]

Bleh I thought the format would be more based around Wasteland, storage lands and aether vial. Well done to Jacob and let's run it again with a Gods' Eye ban.

[Scrappy Kid]

I was also very pleased to see Hi-Val's deck do well, as it finished high despite having no less than five fewer e's than the average number (which is, to the nearest whole number, eleven per deck...). At least we now know why The Rack is usually banned!

This is why I found the format so interesting.. you can build some very strong regular 3CB decks with around 7 or 8 Es that will 6-0 almost all the decks that go for high E counts. I was surprised only Hi-Val and I adopted that plan (my excuse being I am far too lazy/busy/unimaginative to find all these cards with lots of Es).

Anyway we should  run this format again sometime (possibly with minor rules/banned changes), there are still lots of decks out there. Of the 8 decks I was considering entering nobody entered any of them, apart from Hi-Val who also played Vineyard. Now maybe that is cause they weren't good decks , but my point is there is lots more room for expirementation out there.

[jro]

Way for me to forget to enter.  Aether Vial, Deserted Temple, Weatherseed Treefolk would have been my deck.  I think it may have been good enough for second.  And what's up with people entering so many decks that lose to Tabernacle?  Did people not realize it had 6 Es?  And why did so many people run Gods' Eye over Deserted Temple, when running it is a good way to get screwed over by someone else running it?

[Jacob Orlove]

A few notes:

My average points per match is just barely over 6, which may be an unequalled feat in the history of 3cb.

Here's a chart of how many points people gave to their opponents, how many they earned, the total points from their matches, and the place they finished. It's quite interesting:
#   G     E       T        P
1.  47    64     111     8
2.  36    76     112     2
3.  40    72     112     5
4.  131   28     159     14
5.  39    68     107     7
6.  78    72     150     5
7.  69    36     105     12
8.  86    29     115     13
9.  50    88     138     1
0.  61    56     117     9
1.  49    49     98     10
2.  41    83     124     3
3.  64    46     110     11
4.  54    76     130     4

[combo_dude]

Ephraim/Limbo: Apologies. Edited.

Jacob: I'd be surprised if more than 6 per match wasn't a record, since it's always been previously impossible to score more than 6 points per match.

I loved the Tabernacle as a way to go 4-1 against any other God's Eye decks, as well as a drawing mechanism - it's probably the best card to have there regardless of the e count! Also, did you get most of those decks out of a Gatherer search for "keeper", or am I missing something?

I will be running this format again eventually, although not for a little while. And there'll be a few banned list alterations for that, I suspect.

Adam

[Jacob Orlove]

Actually, it was just a Gatherer search for "ee", as well as looking at every land that had at least one e.

[Limbo]

When searching for E's, Excel is your best friend. I got the entire cardlist from Gatherer, placed it in notepad. Replaced every E with _1_, used the _ as a delimiter in Excel, summated every card and sorted afterwards for the highest numbers. I never thought I would say this, but : Go Excel!

[jro]

One good way to get a list of cards for various "E" numbers is to copy and paste the full card list into a spreadsheet program, and then do a wildcard search for various numbers of Es.  For instance, doing a case-insensitive search on "e*e" in MS Excel will bring up every card with at least 2 Es (including double-es, like "ee").  This works for any number of Es ("e*e*e", "e*e*e*e", etc.).

And while I was typing this, the above reply came in, kind of making my post moot.

[combo_dude]

 :shock: 3CB is for brains, not computers!

[/embarrassment for being inept with Excel]

Adam

[ix-ir]

I'm not a mathmo type so can't express this idea properly but an idea for next time with this format: the value of a victory or draw should be in some way related to the spread of E-value so your deck is rated by how much greater its ability to win for a given E-value is than the average of all players. Something like 6 and 3 as usual then you multiply your points by your E-value divided by the average E-value of all decks. A loss is then still worth nothing. This might drive the push to use a lot of Es down, any ideas from the more maths-types? At the moment I think E values are a little better than trying to win, we need a scoring system that creates a balanced tension between E values and winning.

[Jacob Orlove]

The very highest of the E decks did slightly better than the highest of the "winning" decks, but most of that was due to Godder's really poor metagame choice, combined with his decision to use only 5 Es. He gave away an astonishing 131 points.

[Godder]

I accidentally (c&p error) entered the wrong deck, which stuffed it up, sorry. The deck I had in mind was The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, Eladamri's Vineyard and Treetop Village, since it has 11, and is a good deck in general. I'm a little annoyed that I stuffed up so badly, but I didn't realise until the results came out...

[Hi-Val]

I'd like to point out now that Jacob is a savage cheater : )

[Ephraim]

I'd like to point out now that Jacob is a savage cheater : )

He knows it already. Why do you think he named his deck, "This is why we can't have nice things?" In a relatively simple format like this (E's are really easy to find), degeneracy is bound to happen. In any given 3CB variant, somebody will find a deck that exploits the special rules.

[Limbo]

I'd like to point out now that Jacob is a savage cheater : )

He knows it already. Why do you think he named his deck, "This is why we can't have nice things?" In a relatively simple format like this (E's are really easy to find), degeneracy is bound to happen. In any given 3CB variant, somebody will find a deck that exploits the special rules.

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, since there were only new, cool decks this time around...

[SpencerForHire]

Bleh I thought the format would be more based around Wasteland, storage lands and aether vial. Well done to Jacob and let's run it again with a Gods' Eye ban.

Or a new letter..

[Matt]

Do it with, like, K.

[Ephraim]

Jacob and I were actually discussing different variants we might use. Certainly, run it with a new letter, but let's do some other variants in between.  The one rule I particularly liked was standard rules (or something similar), except you get -1 or -2 points for every other instance in the tournament of a card you used in your deck. That will encourage people to go with cards that they don't think anybody else will think to use.

Looking over 3CB #67, it may be better to use that rule with some other variant as well, since the only card in that tournament that's really overused is Mishra's Workshop.

[Godder]

Mishra's Factory is more common than MWS overall, but yeah, I know what you mean. The -1 point per other instance of a card in your deck would be awesome, though .

[combo_dude]

I've got something similar to the -1 point system lined up for the next special format, so watch this space...

Also, since this is the thread people are posting on, can I put out an advert for sending me some decks for the usual format? I know it's probably not got the same allure as a special format, but there is still some room for innovation (I've found a new deck that I quite like, for example); just click on the PM button!

Adam