Illissius
12-25-2007, 08:52 PM
3CB #12 is open for entries! Congratulations to georgjorge, winner of 3CB #11! GreenOne and Illissius were only a point or two behind, respectively, making almost a three way tie.
Special format this week! At a price of one point per opponent you end up facing, you may optionally include a banned card in your deck, or break the multiple discard rule.* (If a card is both banned and breaks the rule, you will only be penalized once). You may invoke this as many times as you like, in which case the price is cumulative. Barren Glory and Force of Will cost double! So for example, if your deck is Black Lotus - Coercion - Ornithopter, and 15 people enter, you will deduct 14 points from your total to pay for Coercion.
* "You may not submit a deck that can force an opponent to lose more than one card from his or her hand in a single turn."
Decklists and results for previous 3CBs can be found at the wiki (http://thesource3cb.pbwiki.com/). Edit your results in for 3CBs #3-5 and #11 if you played in those (password is 3cbthesource). We have full results up on the wiki for all the other rounds, and 3-5 are an ugly, gaping hole; it'd be great if we could fill it, and it only takes a minute to copy your results in from the thread, to which there's a link (conveniently) right there at the wiki.
Entries for this round close at 23:59 EST on Friday, January 4th. To enter, either PM me, or send your deck by email to thesource3cb at gmail. I'm not accepting second decks this week. Preferred format for submissions:
3CB #12 Entry (title of PM or email)
ThisIsMyUsername - Suicide Black
Bottomless Vault
Brush with Death
Tendrils of Agony
Notes, comments, etc.
Please try to follow this format; reformatting close to 30 entries by hand is a bigger pain in the ass than you'd think.
If you're paranoid about me seeing your deck (I won't), I'll be posting the MWS security code for my own deck within the next few days and you can wait for that.
-- What is 3CB? --
3CB, which stands for Three Card Blind, is a unique format of Magic play, quite unlike any other; sort of like a very (very, very -- in the way a government bureaucracy is an advanced form of a pickpocket --) advanced form of Rock, Paper, Scissors. As per the name, you have three cards, of your own choosing. They are your deck and your hand. Your opponent also has three cards. All normally hidden information is visible to both players, and nothing happens randomly, so the optimal play for each player is always known -- meaning you don't actually play any Magic, per se. You submit a deck, so does everyone else, and all outcomes (all decks versus all other decks) are determined deterministically, usually by a moderator, or (as we do here) group effort. Unless you can break the format in half, it often comes down to metagaming.
-- Rules of 3CB --
Your deck is composed of 3 cards which all start in your hand.
Your library contains 0 cards and you don’t have a sideboard nor own any cards outside of the game. (Wishes fetch nothing.)
Random effects always go in your opponent's favor. (This includes Chaos Orb and Falling Star. If controllership of something with random effects changes, they go in favor of the player who doesn't own it.)
You can see your opponent's hand, so you make the best possible play. (If both players' taking an action would cause that player to lose the game, then neither player takes any action, and the game is a draw.)
You don't lose as a result of not being able to draw a card. (If cards are put in your library, you draw them as normal. Effects which require you to skip a draw work as normal.)
You play each opponent twice; once going first and once going second.
For each win, you score 3 points.
For each draw, you score 1 point.
For each loss, you score 0 points.
Three rules restrict the kind of deck you can send. They are:
1. You may not submit a deck that can win before the opponent's first main phase.
2. You may not submit a deck that can force an opponent to lose more than one card from his or her hand in a single turn.
3. You may not submit a deck that uses a card on the 3CB banned list.
Other than the aforementioned, everything is handled exactly like a real game of Magic.
-- 3CB Banned List --
All Ante Cards
All Promo cards not available on Gatherer/Autocard
All Unglued and Unhinged Cards (excluding basic lands)
Creatures:
Magus of the Moon
Mesmeric Fiend
Nezumi Shortfang
Voidstone Gargoyle
Lands:
Ghost Quarter
Glacial Chasm
Strip Mine
Wasteland
Artifacts:
The Rack
Enchantments:
Barren Glory
Form of the Dragon
Instants:
Force of Will
Sorceries:
Abandon Hope
Balance
Blackmail
Cabal Therapy
Coercion
Pulse of the Dross
Restore Balance
Thoughtseize
Special format this week! At a price of one point per opponent you end up facing, you may optionally include a banned card in your deck, or break the multiple discard rule.* (If a card is both banned and breaks the rule, you will only be penalized once). You may invoke this as many times as you like, in which case the price is cumulative. Barren Glory and Force of Will cost double! So for example, if your deck is Black Lotus - Coercion - Ornithopter, and 15 people enter, you will deduct 14 points from your total to pay for Coercion.
* "You may not submit a deck that can force an opponent to lose more than one card from his or her hand in a single turn."
Decklists and results for previous 3CBs can be found at the wiki (http://thesource3cb.pbwiki.com/). Edit your results in for 3CBs #3-5 and #11 if you played in those (password is 3cbthesource). We have full results up on the wiki for all the other rounds, and 3-5 are an ugly, gaping hole; it'd be great if we could fill it, and it only takes a minute to copy your results in from the thread, to which there's a link (conveniently) right there at the wiki.
Entries for this round close at 23:59 EST on Friday, January 4th. To enter, either PM me, or send your deck by email to thesource3cb at gmail. I'm not accepting second decks this week. Preferred format for submissions:
3CB #12 Entry (title of PM or email)
ThisIsMyUsername - Suicide Black
Bottomless Vault
Brush with Death
Tendrils of Agony
Notes, comments, etc.
Please try to follow this format; reformatting close to 30 entries by hand is a bigger pain in the ass than you'd think.
If you're paranoid about me seeing your deck (I won't), I'll be posting the MWS security code for my own deck within the next few days and you can wait for that.
-- What is 3CB? --
3CB, which stands for Three Card Blind, is a unique format of Magic play, quite unlike any other; sort of like a very (very, very -- in the way a government bureaucracy is an advanced form of a pickpocket --) advanced form of Rock, Paper, Scissors. As per the name, you have three cards, of your own choosing. They are your deck and your hand. Your opponent also has three cards. All normally hidden information is visible to both players, and nothing happens randomly, so the optimal play for each player is always known -- meaning you don't actually play any Magic, per se. You submit a deck, so does everyone else, and all outcomes (all decks versus all other decks) are determined deterministically, usually by a moderator, or (as we do here) group effort. Unless you can break the format in half, it often comes down to metagaming.
-- Rules of 3CB --
Your deck is composed of 3 cards which all start in your hand.
Your library contains 0 cards and you don’t have a sideboard nor own any cards outside of the game. (Wishes fetch nothing.)
Random effects always go in your opponent's favor. (This includes Chaos Orb and Falling Star. If controllership of something with random effects changes, they go in favor of the player who doesn't own it.)
You can see your opponent's hand, so you make the best possible play. (If both players' taking an action would cause that player to lose the game, then neither player takes any action, and the game is a draw.)
You don't lose as a result of not being able to draw a card. (If cards are put in your library, you draw them as normal. Effects which require you to skip a draw work as normal.)
You play each opponent twice; once going first and once going second.
For each win, you score 3 points.
For each draw, you score 1 point.
For each loss, you score 0 points.
Three rules restrict the kind of deck you can send. They are:
1. You may not submit a deck that can win before the opponent's first main phase.
2. You may not submit a deck that can force an opponent to lose more than one card from his or her hand in a single turn.
3. You may not submit a deck that uses a card on the 3CB banned list.
Other than the aforementioned, everything is handled exactly like a real game of Magic.
-- 3CB Banned List --
All Ante Cards
All Promo cards not available on Gatherer/Autocard
All Unglued and Unhinged Cards (excluding basic lands)
Creatures:
Magus of the Moon
Mesmeric Fiend
Nezumi Shortfang
Voidstone Gargoyle
Lands:
Ghost Quarter
Glacial Chasm
Strip Mine
Wasteland
Artifacts:
The Rack
Enchantments:
Barren Glory
Form of the Dragon
Instants:
Force of Will
Sorceries:
Abandon Hope
Balance
Blackmail
Cabal Therapy
Coercion
Pulse of the Dross
Restore Balance
Thoughtseize