4 Card Blind

[silkster]

Me: silkster: Forest, Mountain, Orcish Lumberjack, Acidic Slime

1. Asthereal (TO): Treetop Village, Golgari Rot Farm, Gathan Raiders, Basking Rootwalla
What I was hoping for. 6 points

2. jhhdk: Forest, Golgari Rot Farm, Broken Fall, Ochran Assassin
6 points

3. dte: Rugged highlands, Vitality charm, Lightning Axe, Serene Remembrance
I almost submitted a Serene Remembrance deck, though I was looking at 2-land lists with either Incinerate or Saproling Migration. I really liked that a 2-land list beats LD, but I couldn't find a card worth casting every third turn. Burn spells suffer from being offline for a long time and losing to manlands. Token generators lose to both turn-2 combo and the less robust but stronger late-game plans like a single Selesnya Evangel. In the end, I couldn't make it work. I like the solution of having a token generator and a really strong removal spell, but I would have worried about LD. I also thought Convincing Mirage would be a thing, so I liked soft mana requirements that didn't mind one land turning off-colour.
I definitely had my worries about the vulnerability of the Lumberjack. I was not confident about this deck.
I expect many WL of this type. WL
3 points

4. Wrath of Pie: Mountain, Crystal Vein, Geomancer's Gambit, Kris Mage
I considered decks like this too, though I kinda forgot about Crystal Vein and has Invasion sac lands, which are much worse. I didn't really like any 1-drops though.
WL, 3 points

5. GoblinSmashmaster: Geothermal Crevice, Forest, Dark Deal, Basking Rootwalla
I had forgotten about Crystal Vein, but after looking at the above list, I wonder whether Swamp + Crystal Vein would have been better. Then I remembered how thoroughly we've gutted black 1-drops. I guess you could have had deathtouch. Crystal Vein is uncommon. Oops.
WL, 3 points

6. Reeplcheep: Swamp, Pharika’s Chosen, Cauldron Familiar, Witch’s Oven
Witch's Oven was one of the first cards to go on my spreadsheet watchlist, but it never loo
Easy win on the play. On the draw, I have to blow up either the Oven or the land if you haven't played Oven, and then you hold back the deathtoucher. WD
4 points

7. alphastryk: Swamp, Encroach, Ruthless Ripper, Festering Mummy
2 threats > 1 threat on the play. Resources trade on the draw. WD,
4 points

9. FTW: Island, Zulaport Duelist, Force Spike, Dismember
Dismember is bad for me. It's cool to see Force Spike actually being good at last. I was wondering why Zealous Guardian saw play over this last season, but it seems this Duelist guy is new!
0 points

10. Tylert: Aether vial, Island, Faceless butcher, Qasali pridemage
Vial is good for me. I honestly thought Vial looked quite good this week. I'm a little surprised there's only 1, especially with how customizable it is.
6 points

11. H: Mountain, Reckless Waif, Forge Devil, Branded Brawlers
Forge Devil is bad for me.
0 points

12. maxx!: Treetop Village, Selesnya Sanctuary, Silhana Ledgewalker, Armadillo Cloak
Selesnya Sanctuary is good for me.
6 points

41 points

When I was doing my gauntlet, my Swords to Plowshares deck looked much better against almost everything except for storage lands, and I really thought storage lands would be big this round. The Mercadian Bazaar deck from previous rounds looked good to me, and you can still play black removal with Bottomless Vault and Ghoulcaller's Accomplice as a resilient threat. I know they lose to LD, infect, and Channel, but I think they beat everything else? No, not Dark Deal. I guess I might have predicted this. But I did correctly guess that there would be a lot of turn 3 and 4 stuff with taplands of various kinds, even though I couldn't guess what any of them would be. I'm with you Smashmaster: Where are the Eldrazis? Though oddly enough, neither of us 6-0 against Eldrazi.

For two seasons now, my thoughts going in were: Okay, let's get the broken land disruption out of the way, and then it will be a battle of weird 3 to 5 mana spells that no one's ever heard of supported by storage lands and Ravnica bounce lands. And both times it was like, "Oh, there's more LD. Like, lots more." I'm glad I got to play the two I was most excited about.

6. Reeplcheep: Swamp, Pharika’s Chosen, Cauldron Familiar, Witch’s Oven

3. dte: Rugged highlands, Vitality charm, Lightning Axe, Serene Remembrance
Axe is pretty useless here. I think a token every other turn does outrace me though. 0-6

dte only makes a token every third turn, since the non-random shuffler puts the Remembrance on top every time. That might still be enough, though. I dunno. Actually, you both have this as 0-6, and it appears that the entire season is riding on this.

My math shows Reeplcheep winning, but I might be missing a line. Reeplcheep can't rebuy the cat with a tapped oven unless it's lethal. But I just realized that VC has trample on the +1/+1, which might change things.


The last lines become:
draw SR - attack for 4, 4-10 --- rebuy cat, 3-11
draw charm, use charm, attack for 6, 3-5 --- rebuy cat, charm spent tho, still 5 saps, 2-6
remove blocker with axe, attack for 5, 2-1 --- rebuy cat twice, 0-3.

What a nail-biter!

[Asthereal]

All the supplemental products make this confusing. It was a common in jumpstart which, as a non-draftable set, means very little...

It does, but as I've said before, I go with what Gatherer says. If Gatherer says common, it counts as a common.
(Otherwise I have to review every supplemental product and decide whether they count. That's too complicated.)

[dte]

The last lines become:
draw SR - attack for 4, 4-10 --- rebuy cat, 3-11
draw charm, use charm, attack for 6, 3-5 --- rebuy cat, charm spent tho, still 5 saps, 2-6
remove blocker with axe, attack for 5, 2-1 --- rebuy cat twice, 0-3.

What a nail-biter!

Thanks for making the maths!

Edit: learning to read :)
Putting someone at 1 and losing seems more common in 4CB than classic magic :)

[silkster]

While results are coming in and people are checking this thread, I thought I'd get the ball rolling on setting up the next season. The two main things to figure out are format and rounds.

Format: I think it should be something fairly restrictive so that the deviances actually matter. It doesn't matter if "highest life total after 10 turns wins" if you're just going to Thassa's Oracle or turn-1 Iona. I think Legacy with an extensive banlist makes sense. I started writing a bunch of them out, then realized that they're on page 1. Actually, that list looks pretty good. A few others to consider are Dark Ritual, Lotus Petal, Ancient Tomb, and City of Traitors.

1. Sudden Death: After 10 turns, the highest life total wins.
2. Fateful Hour: Players start at 5 life. Chancellor of the Dross is banned. (I think other stuff has enough counterplay not to worry about.)
3. The Long Haul: Players start at 1 000 000 life.
4. Backbuild: You trade decks with the opponent before playing. Your deck must beat (6-0) Island, Island, Island, Merchant of Secrets. For this and Bear Season, we could unban every playable card, banning only conspiracies, dexterity cards, and ante cards.
5. Bear Season: Your deck must lose (0-6) to Forest, Forest, Grizzly Bears, Grizzly Bears. (There might be better deck choices, but it's important to keep it fairly simple to determine legality of submissions.)
6. Hearthstone Coin: The player on the draw starts the game with a Lotus Petal in play.
7. Dual Nature: Whenever a nontoken creature enters the battlefield, its controller creates a token that’s a copy of that creature.
8. Sphere of Resistance: Spells cost more to cast.
9. Supersize: Creatures get +3/+3.
10. Dream Halls: Rather than pay the mana cost for a spell, its controller may discard a card that shares a color with that spell.
11. Instant Vial: Players have ": Create an Instant Vial emblem." (Instant Vial is not the name of a card, so it can't be Needled or anything, and emblems can't be interacted with. Having them tap seems fine.)
12. Enchantment Vial: Players have ": Create an Enchantment Vial emblem."
13. Turtle Up: Until the start of the 11th turn: players, spells, permanents, and cards in graveyards have hexproof. Permanents have indestructible. Damange does not cause loss of life. Players may choose to ignore effects controlled by an opponent that would case a permanent they control or card in their hand to change zones.
14. Turtle Up version 2: Each player plays 5 turns against no opponent, then they start the game with that game state.
15. Umbilicus/Blood Clock: At the beginning of each player’s upkeep, that player returns a permanent they control to its owner’s hand unless they pay 2 life.
16. Peacekeeper: Creatures can't attack.
17. Pillow Fight: Creatures have indestructible.
18. Antagonism: At the beginning of each player’s end step, Antagonism deals 2 damage to that player unless one of their opponents was dealt damage this turn.
19. Impatience: At the beginning of each player’s end step, if that player didn’t cast a spell this turn, Impatience deals 2 damage to that player.
20. Coming Back: Whenever a permanent would leave the battlefield or a spell would leave the stack, its controller may exile it with 3 suspend counters, and it gains suspend. Lands gain "land-suspend" so that it works and doesn't count toward the one-per-turn limit. (This might make games too complicated. Who knows?)

[FTW]

1. Asthereal (TO): Treetop Village, Golgari Rot Farm, Gathan Raiders, Basking Rootwalla
What I was hoping for. 6 points

I really thought storage lands would be big this round. I know they lose to LD, infect, and Channel, but I think they beat everything else? No, not Dark Deal. I guess I might have predicted this. But I did correctly guess that there would be a lot of turn 3 and 4 stuff with taplands of various kinds, even though I couldn't guess what any of them would be.

I thought the opposite. I really thought Treetop Village and storage land decks would be dead here, with all of the unchecked turn 2 combos legal and turn 2 LD. You just spoiled Pillage as common (e.g. with Dwarven Ruins and any color of 1-drop). Wistful Thinking got banned, but there's still Hymn to Tourach and other turn 2 mass discard.

I had many slow control decks that I wanted to play, but most lost hard to Infect, Channel and LD. We kept banning answers that police these strategies (Force, Inquisition, Judge's Familiar, Path). I was determined not to lose to those DTBs so I went with Force Spike. But they barely even showed up.

9. FTW: Island, Zulaport Duelist, Force Spike, Dismember
Dismember is bad for me. It's cool to see Force Spike actually being good at last. I was wondering why Zealous Guardian saw play over this last season, but it seems this Duelist guy is new!

Force Spike is strong against turn 2 strategies, especially with removal for the turn 1 play instead of a 2nd Force Spike. With Force Spike + removal I 6-0 Channel, Infect, LD, and other combo like Dark Deal, and I can draw with the 3 1drop decks. Duelist's flash mill also trolls the recursion decks. I'm weakest to ramp decks but expected them to be unpopular. I did surprisingly well even though the decks I metagamed against barely showed up.

I also debated this sneaky turn 1 LD deck:
Island, Elvish Spirit Guide, Spreading Seas, 1/1 Islandwalk or Duelist
It beats the turn 2 decks and ramp decks, but like many other LD decks the win condition is weak vs fair strategies.

I'm with you Smashmaster: Where are the Eldrazis? Though oddly enough, neither of us 6-0 against Eldrazi.

Tylert scored highly playing 3CB Channel with no backup plan, so I also thought more people would try it. A simple Forest, Forest, Channel, Eldrazi Devastator does pretty well here.

To play around LD there's also Forest, Quirion Ranger, Channel, Eldrazi Devastator, but then you're weak to the removal that Infect draws. Double Forest still WLs against turn 2 LD, or there are Borderposts.

The Mercadian Bazaar deck from previous rounds looked good to me, and you can still play black removal with Bottomless Vault and Ghoulcaller's Accomplice as a resilient threat.

I had Bottomless Vault with Chainer's Edict and Deathbloom Thallid (stops stuff like Treetop early). The 3rd slot was metagame-dependant: either a removal spell like Doom Blade or another threat like Herald of the Dreadhorde, Grixis Slavedriver, or Debtors' Transport.

The other Vault deck I had was Gravediggerx2 + Ruthless Ripper (which can be cast as a Morph or 1/1).

These are barely fast enough to interact with Channel, but get embarassed by Infect and LD. And Dark Deal, apparently.

With Aether Vial one of my variations was 2x Corpse Cur with Vial on 4, which loops to keep shrinking everything -2/-2 until it eats away at all bodies, then kills them with poison. But it's too slow for Infect, Channel, Pillage, and Dark Deal.

3. dte: Rugged highlands, Vitality charm, Lightning Axe, Serene Remembrance
I almost submitted a Serene Remembrance deck, though I was looking at 2-land lists with either Incinerate or Saproling Migration. I really liked that a 2-land list beats LD, but I couldn't find a card worth casting every third turn. Burn spells suffer from being offline for a long time and losing to manlands. Token generators lose to both turn-2 combo and the less robust but stronger late-game plans like a single Selesnya Evangel. In the end, I couldn't make it work.

I had a couple loop decks using either Serene Remembrance, Soldevi Digger, Anurid Scavenger, or Stream of Thought+Noxious Revival/Not Forgotten/2nd Stream.

With Digger and Scavenger and Stream, there's only room for 1 removal/wincon, so I was stuck at Pillar of Flame which is too weak against many strategies. Serene leaves the most options open for interactive spells.

Still, all those strategies lose to LD and Channel. Some are also too slow against Infect OTP.

Another loop deck I had was Stern Constable, Fiery Temper, Library of Leng... before I double checked the rules of Library.

I was also holding onto this cheesy tech:
Land, Forest, Nissa's Chosen, uncommon removal (Dismember/StP)
Treetop Village, Forest, Nissa's Chosen, utility land

Both lose to LD. The removal version is fast enough to beat Infect and Channel.

Wrath's infinite combo deck was somehow still legal, but loses to faster combo, LD and spot removal.
Treetop Village, Selesnya Sanctuary, Midnight Guard, Presence of Gond


Edit: I'm spoiling all my tech now that Pauper/Peasant is over, because most of these won't be relevant in other 4CB formats that aren't 24 weeks into banning commons...

5. GoblinSmashmaster: Geothermal Crevice, Forest, Dark Deal, Basking Rootwalla
I had forgotten about Crystal Vein, but after looking at the above list, I wonder whether Swamp + Crystal Vein would have been better. Then I remembered how thoroughly we've gutted black 1-drops. I guess you could have had deathtouch. Crystal Vein is uncommon. Oops.

This tech seems smarter than it looks. Dark Deal casting Rootwalla with Madness means the Rootwalla isn't exposed to spot removal in hand, while other 1 drops are easily killed. If Dark Deal is not used, Rootwalla could also be hardcast off Forest and then pumped with Crevice (BG) to beat burn, or race as a 3/3 without sacrificing the land.

[Reeplcheep]

6. Reeplcheep: Swamp, Pharika’s Chosen, Cauldron Familiar, Witch’s Oven
Witch's Oven was one of the first cards to go on my spreadsheet watchlist, but it never loo
Easy win on the play. On the draw, I have to blow up either the Oven or the land if you haven't played Oven, and then you hold back the deathtoucher. WD
4 points

dte only makes a token every third turn, since the non-random shuffler puts the Remembrance on top every time. That might still be enough, though. I dunno. Actually, you both have this as 0-6, and it appears that the entire season is riding on this.

My math shows Reeplcheep winning, but I might be missing a line. Reeplcheep can't rebuy the cat with a tapped oven unless it's lethal. But I just realized that VC has trample on the +1/+1, which might change things.


The last lines become:
draw SR - attack for 4, 4-10 --- rebuy cat, 3-11
draw charm, use charm, attack for 6, 3-5 --- rebuy cat, charm spent tho, still 5 saps, 2-6
remove blocker with axe, attack for 5, 2-1 --- rebuy cat twice, 0-3.

What a nail-biter!

You accidentally a word?

I'll buy your math, but it assumes that axe dicarding visions to kill snake is not better than making a 1/1? Otherwise I need to lead on oven.

[Tylert]

1. Asthereal (TO): Treetop Village, Golgari Rot Farm, Gathan Raiders, Basking Rootwalla
2. jhhdk: Forest, Golgari Rot Farm, Broken Fall, Ochran Assassin
3. dte: Rugged highlands, Vitality charm, Lightning Axe, Serene remembrance
4. Wrath of Pie: Mountain, Crystal Vein, Geomancer's Gambit, Kris Mage
5. GoblinSmashmaster: Geothermal Crevice, Forest, Dark Deal, Basking Rootwalla
6. Reeplcheep: Swamp, Pharika’s Chosen, Cauldron Familiar, Witch’s Oven
7. alphastryk: Swamp, Encroach, Ruthless Ripper, Festering Mummy
8. silkster: Forest, Mountain, Orcish Lumberjack, Acidic Slime
9. FTW: Island, Zulaport Duelist, Force Spike, Dismember
10. Tylert: Aether vial, Island, Faceless butcher, Qasali pridemage
11. H: Mountain, Reckless Waif, Forge Devil, Branded Brawlers
12. maxx!: Treetop Village, Selesnya Sanctuary, Silhana Ledgewalker, Armadillo Cloak

1. Asthereal: Math done by asthereal. 1-4 --> 1
2. jhhdk: I play vial + pridemage and butcher takes away the assassin. 6-0 --> 7
3. dte: Can't interact with you and not fast enough. 0-6 --> 7
4. Wrath of Pie: Destroying my land does nothing. Then I have two threats against your lone guy. 6-0 --> 13
5. Goblinsmashmaster: You're too fast. 0-6 --> 13
6. Reeplcheep: I can't let you block and drain me indefinitely so I have to sac pridemage to oven and then, you can wait until I play butcher. 2-2 --> 15
7. Alphastryk: Encroach does nothing to me. I then Have 2 threats and 1 removal against your 2 creatures. 6-0 --> 21
8. Silkster: Acidic slime will come and smash vial before i vial in anything. 0-6 --> 21
9. FTW: Spike OTD crushes me. OTP, I can land vial and win. 3-3 --> 24
10. Me.
11. H: Banded brawlers will never attack as my island will remain untapped. Butcher can either land on Brawlers or waif and you will have to trade with a 3/3 pridemage not to die. 6-0 --> 30
12. Maxx!: I can take care of cloak, but I have to vial in butcher to not loose to ledgewalker and I won't be able to race Treetop after that. 0-6 --> 30

Total = 30.

[silkster]

Force Spike is strong against turn 2 strategies, especially with removal for the turn 1 play instead of a 2nd Force Spike. With Force Spike + removal I 6-0 Channel, Infect, LD, and other combo like Dark Deal, and I can draw with the 3 1drop decks. Duelist's flash mill also trolls the recursion decks. I'm weakest to ramp decks but expected them to be unpopular. I did surprisingly well even though the decks I metagamed against barely showed up.

Yeah, I might have played this if I had thought of it.

I also debated this sneaky turn 1 LD deck:
Island, Elvish Spirit Guide, Spreading Seas, 1/1 Islandwalk or Duelist

Better with Convincing Mirage. I had ESG flagged from round 1, then quickly realized that the uncommon slot wasn't worth a mana. It's interesting to see that revisited.

Tylert scored highly playing 3CB Channel with no backup plan, so I also thought more people would try it. A simple Forest, Forest, Channel, Eldrazi Devastator does pretty well here.

This is why I thought Channel would still be good. And I thought it might use a Borderpost too, as you pointed out.

Bottomless Vault, Chainer's Edict, and some of Doom Blade or Grixis Slavedriver or Unmake is what I was thinking.

I had a couple loop decks using either Serene Remembrance, Soldevi Digger, Anurid Scavenger, or Stream of Thought+Noxious Revival/Not Forgotten/2nd Stream.

The deck that I was really excited for from about round 5 was Hickory Woodlot, Hickory Woodlot, Soldevi Digger, Trumpeting Herd. It fluctuated through the weeks from about 2 round to over 5 round points. If Woodlot hadn't just been banned, I think this is what I would have played. Anurid Scavenger is too hard to make work, and I did not find Not Forgotten.

If Library of Leng worked like that, it would have been amazing.

For a while I considered Blossoming Sands, Ancient Tomb, Midnight Guard, Presence of Gond. It's fast enough to go WL against Eldrazi, and beats a 2-mana removal spell from a storage land deck.

This tech seems smarter than it looks. Dark Deal casting Rootwalla with Madness means the Rootwalla isn't exposed to spot removal in hand, while other 1 drops are easily killed. If Dark Deal is not used, Rootwalla could also be hardcast off Forest and then pumped with Crevice (BG) to beat burn, or race as a 3/3 without sacrificing the land.

Those are excellent points.

You accidentally a word?

I'll buy your math, but it assumes that axe dicarding visions to kill snake is not better than making a 1/1? Otherwise I need to lead on oven.

I'm not sure which word I left out. Axe discarding Remembrance ends the recursion on one side, but not on the other, because the snake can be sacked to the Oven to rebuy the Cat. So it just loses on the spot. The token can attack, and a block lets dte trade out resources for a draw, but this is vulnerable on the back swing, which is much worse for Team Saproling. The first token is going to trade with the snake anyway, so using the Axe instead is just costs an extra card.

[FTW]

Better with Convincing Mirage. I had ESG flagged from round 1, then quickly realized that the uncommon slot wasn't worth a mana. It's interesting to see that revisited.

Yeah, I was saving Ancient Tomb and ESG for commons that would decisively win if played earlier. LD and mass discard are at that power level, but not many are. Midnight Guard combo is a good candidate too.

Bottomless Vault, Chainer's Edict, and some of Doom Blade or Grixis Slavedriver or Unmake is what I was thinking.

Unfortunately Bottomless Vault is MUCH MUCH worse than Subterranean Hangar with instant speed removal. You have to leave Vault tapped to add a counter. You can't leave the land untapped for possible instant tricks and then tick up at EOT, which means Unmake/Doom Blade can't meaningfully interact with Treetop Village and some other stuff.

There were some interesting possibilities in the other colors combining storage lands with higher cost recursion loops and threats.

The deck that I was really excited for from about round 5 was Hickory Woodlot, Hickory Woodlot, Soldevi Digger, Trumpeting Herd. It fluctuated through the weeks from about 2 round to over 5 round points. If Woodlot hadn't just been banned, I think this is what I would have played.

Strong find! I was also saving Digger for a later round after more disruption was banned, and might have played it if Hickory Woodlot was legal. With all the depletion lands banned, there's less to do with Digger.

Anurid Scavenger is too hard to make work

It seems fine as long as you can cast it off 2 common lands (e.g. Hickory Woodlot, Geothermal Crevice) and have a spell you want to cast each turn. Cards like Pillar of Flame and Raise the Alarm fit well, but none of the slots could interact well enough against the degenerate decks.

Great season everyone.
Congrats to silkster for pulling ahead for the win and consistently coming up with strong decks!
Also congrats to dte for 2nd place and innovating whole different angles of play that we had been neglecting!

[dte]

While results are coming in and people are checking this thread, I thought I'd get the ball rolling on setting up the next season. The two main things to figure out are format and rounds.

A 20 week season seems long to me?
And yet all the propositions listed sound very fun. Maybe two seasons of 10?

[*] Fateful Hour: Players start at 5 life. Chancellor of the Dross is banned. (I think other stuff has enough counterplay not to worry about.)

7 life would feel safer to me.
Otherwise it could maybe be boring with simple decks such as 2 x SSG, 2 x bolt, or leyline of anticipation, LED, 2 x fiery temper, beating any deck that cannot interact without playing a land?

[*] The Long Haul: Players start at 1 000 000 life.

How about 50? For some races to be actually relevant?

[*] Backbuild: You trade decks with the opponent before playing. Your deck must beat (6-0) Island, Island, Island, Merchant of Secrets. For this and Bear Season, we could unban every playable card, banning only conspiracies, dexterity cards, and ante cards.

Could we add a second deck to beat 6-0?
Otherwise strategies with Fever Charm or carpet of flowers, vs imitation game of 3 x island + Emry, Lurker of the Loch could be quite boring and restricting design space vs things that interact with islands or wizards.
I can propose Land Cap, Mage-Ring Network, Errand of Duty, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth.
With the wizard deck, they would have a have similar clock, but not much else, so one have to build a deck a bit more independently of the test deck (still has to beat a 1/1+, but nothing exploitable from the actual cards of the test deck).

[*] Turtle Up: Until the start of the 11th turn: players, spells, permanents, and cards in graveyards have hexproof. Permanents have indestructible. Damage does not cause loss of life. Players may choose to ignore effects controlled by an opponent that would case a permanent they control or card in their hand to change zones.[*] Turtle Up version 2: Each player plays 5 turns against no opponent, then they start the game with that game state.

I would add/change:
Damages by sources from another owner/controller do not cause loss of life.
Players cannot win or lose the game before the 14th turn / 2 turn with opponent (barren glory T1 anyone?).

And otherwise, merry Christmas everyone!

[Wrath of Pie]

Could we add a second deck to beat 6-0?
Otherwise strategies with Fever Charm or carpet of flowers, vs imitation game of 3 x island + Emry, Lurker of the Loch could be quite boring and restricting design space vs things that interact with islands or wizards.
I can propose Land Cap, Mage-Ring Network, Errand of Duty, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth.
With the wizard deck, they would have a have similar clock, but not much else, so one have to build a deck a bit more independently of the test deck (still has to beat a 1/1+, but nothing exploitable from the actual cards of the test deck).

You are thinking way too broad for Backbuild, those wouldn't do the trick.

[silkster]

A 20 week season seems long to me?
And yet all the propositions listed sound very fun. Maybe two seasons of 10?

I was just brainstorming. I was expecting that we/Asthereal would choose maybe 7-10 of those and use some from others.

7 life would feel safer to me.
Otherwise it could maybe be boring with simple decks such as 2 x SSG, 2 x bolt, or leyline of anticipation, LED, 2 x fiery temper, beating any deck that cannot interact without playing a land?

There's still counterplay to that, but yeah, maybe 7 would play better. I just really liked that the ability word Fateful Hour is 5 life.

How about 50? For some races to be actually relevant?

My intention was specifically to remove races and just make it the stronger asymptotic deck. Ironically (maybe), I think 1 000 000 would have much less math to do. A complicated race to 50 sounds awful.

If you want something more plain for the backbuild, the deck to beat could be three Wastes and a Zoetic Cavern, but I'll let more experienced players make the call. The only concern I have with the Land Cap version you suggested is that it's really complicated, and this type of round is already fraught with legality issues.

[Wrath of Pie]

Backbuild's other problem, conveniently, is agreeing on what has to be beat, because it has to handle the super-narrow options that typically populate a standard Backbuild round, and neither of those do the trick.

The solution is probably something like Rushwood Trees and three Acidic Slimes, because most of the super-narrow options are permanents. (Monstrous Hound is still a problem though.)

[Tylert]

Tried to find some interresting options for deviant legacy. Not sure if those would be, but still proposing them :)
(Use of Extended banlist would be better)

1. Tribal Madness: Only creatures and land can be played. you start the game with an emblem: "Creature type of your choice get +1/+1".
2. Colored round: Your deck must contain at least 3 different colored mana symbol on non land cards (Hybrid mana counts for 2)
3. Go big or go home: Your non land cards must have a cmc greater than or equal to 3.
4. Phyrexian mana: Colored mana can be paid with 2 life (Maybe this one is too broken)
5. Panharmonicon: Triggered abilities trigger twice
6. Booming metal: Whenever an artifact enters the battlefield, you get three colored mana of your choice
7. hearthstone: Every turn until turn 10, you can put a waste token into play (not counting as a land drop)
8. Never ending story: All creatures have persistence (Melira banned and solemnity banned?)

Tell me what you think about these.

[Reeplcheep]

Bouncy Castle: You start the game with a cloudstone curio on the non-artifact permanent type of your choice.

[FTW]

Some of these would be broken without advance bannings

6. Booming metal: Whenever an artifact enters the battlefield, you get three colored mana of your choice

Infinite storm on turn 1:
Lion's Eye Diamond, Echo of Eons, Pull from Eternity, Grapeshot

But that loses 0-6 on turn 0 to
Leyline of Anticipation, Delif's Cone, Laboratory Maniac, Gitaxian Probe

This format looks too degenerate with any 0-mana artifacts really. It turns Mishra's Bauble and Shield Sphere into better than Black Lotus...

1. Tribal Madness: Only creatures and land can be played. you start the game with an emblem: "Creature type of your choice get +1/+1".

In other words, everyone needs to play white creatures so they have Karakas to answer

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Dark Depths, Vampire Hexmage, Phyrexian Revoker (or Spellskite or Shriekmaw or other protection)

3. Go big or go home: Your non land cards must have a cmc greater than or equal to 3.

Leyline of Singularity, Karakas, Wasteland, Porcelain Legionnaire?

4. Phyrexian mana: Colored mana can be paid with 2 life (Maybe this one is too broken)
5. Panharmonicon: Triggered abilities trigger twice

These seem quite breakable too.

Maybe we want OP formats after playing commons so long? These do seem very strong though.

Edit: illegal Curio decks removed

[Tylert]

If anything seems too obvious or too strong it can be banned before the start of the round of course.
And of course, each proposition here can be tweaked so that we have a harder time to find one of the better decks.
Also, if you think something is too degenerated, just propose your own tweak to the deviant round. It's a little bit more constructive than just saying this doesn't work because of such deck :)

And don't forget that we could (should?) start with the legacy (Vintage?) banathon banlist at least.. a lot of cards you named are banned already.

ANd finally some of your decks do not work like the decks you mentionned for the cloudstone curio round, you need two permanents of the same type to bounce one of them. Fastbond alone or priest alone can't trigger storm enough times for grapehsot.

1. Tribal Madness: Only creatures and land can be played. you start the game with an emblem: "Creature type of your choice get +1/+1".
--> basic lands only?
--> all creatures must be of the same type?
2. Colored round: Your deck must contain at least 3 different colored mana symbol on non land cards (Hybrid mana counts for 2)
3. Go big or go home: Your non land cards must have a cmc greater than or equal to 3.
--> the deck you mentionned doesn't exists anyway (Leyline being banned)
4. Phyrexian mana: Colored mana can be paid with 2 life (Maybe this one is too broken)
--> I'm not against playing a broken round or two.
5. Panharmonicon: Triggered abilities trigger twice
--> same thing here.
6. Booming metal: Whenever an artifact enters the battlefield, you get three colored mana of your choice
--> LED should be banned probably.
7. hearthstone: Every turn until turn 10, you can put a waste token into play (not counting as a land drop)
8. Never ending story: All creatures have persistence (Melira banned and solemnity banned?)
9. Bouncy castle: You have a cloudstone curio for the permanent type of your choice (except artifact).
--> There are strong build constraints here. I don't think this is degenerated.

[FTW]

I just brought up the decks to identify things that should be banned or rules that would need to be tweaked.

For the artifact one, all 0-mana artifacts seem OP. There are degenerate strategies even without LED. Mishra's Bauble is still a cantripping Black Lotus. What if there was a rule that all artifacts cost at least 1? Or ban all Storm cards, draw 7s and Emrakul.

ANd finally some of your decks do not work like the decks you mentionned for the cloudstone curio round, you need two permanents of the same type to bounce one of them. Fastbond alone or priest alone can't trigger storm enough times for grapehsot.

Oh right, I forgot how Cloudstone Curio works. The other decks should all work.

Taiga, Fastbond, Radiant Fountain, Banefire does work though. You don't need to generate storm when you already have infinite land drops and infinite mana.

Either banning Fastbond or making it nonland nonartifact seems good. Banning Fastbond is probably better, because it doesn't do anything fair.

The nonartifact clause is important to prevent things like 2x Lotus Petal, Grapeshot, Squire

With creatures, enchantments and planeswalkers it should be OK. You could loop Crimson Kobolds and Crookshank Kobolds, but then with 2 cards left you can't produce enough mana to Grapeshot turn 1. There might be some way to still storm off on turn 1 but it could be difficult enough to find that the format doesn't become degenerate.

1. Tribal Madness: Only creatures and land can be played. you start the game with an emblem: "Creature type of your choice get +1/+1".
--> basic lands only?
--> all creatures must be of the same type?

Nonbasics help with mana fixing. Banning Dark Depths, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale and Maze of Ith should be enough to keep the format more interesting.

[Wrath of Pie]

Trying to solve the Monstrous Hound Backbuild issue is less interesting than debating potential formats, so here I go.

1. Tribal Madness: Only creatures and land can be played. you start the game with an emblem: "Creature type of your choice get +1/+1".
--> basic lands only?
--> all creatures must be of the same type?

The bigger issue here is that combo is still a thing, so you have to consider banning the combo-oriented lands, otherwise the format revolves around that. ([card]Dark Depths[/cards] is a big offender.)

2. Colored round: Your deck must contain at least 3 different colored mana symbol on non land cards (Hybrid mana counts for 2)

Trying to make multicolor a thing in CB is a task, and I'm not convinced this is the best way to do that.

3. Go big or go home: Your non land cards must have a cmc greater than or equal to 3.
--> the deck you mentionned doesn't exists anyway (Leyline being banned)

I remember agreeing that Leyline of Singularity is dumb, so it should be on the Legacy ban list. (I think this format just ends up being the Oko format though, and that is the real concern.)

4. Phyrexian mana: Colored mana can be paid with 2 life (Maybe this one is too broken)
--> I'm not against playing a broken round or two.

This round is so absurdly broken I have no idea where to start. Trying to make it fair is probably a fool's errand, so better to just let it be broken.

5. Panharmonicon: Triggered abilities trigger twice
--> same thing here.

Compared to Phyrexian mana, this is tame. Triggered abilities are much harder to abuse, relatively speaking. (Double storm is potentially interesting, though.)

6. Booming metal: Whenever an artifact enters the battlefield, you get three colored mana of your choice
--> LED should be banned probably.

Finally, artifact lands can break another format. (Ironically, I think Oko breaks this format as well unless there are turn 1 kills I am missing, which is likely.)

7. hearthstone: Every turn until turn 10, you can put a waste token into play (not counting as a land drop)

Land rule variant has been around and is a way better implementation, so just go with that. (Also, that is the easy way to make multicolor cards relevant.)

8. Never ending story: All creatures have persistence (Melira banned and solemnity banned?)

Persist and undying on the same creature create an interesting interaction, although I doubt that is format breaking.

9. Bouncy castle: You have a cloudstone curio for the permanent type of your choice (except artifact).
--> There are strong build constraints here. I don't think this is degenerated.

Turn 2 storm is definitely a thing, probably just ban Grapeshot and be done with it.

I guess the theme is that we really should ban Oko outright in Legacy, because there is little incentive to play anything else as a threat when it is legal. (See, Wizards can screw up card blind without trying!)

[Tylert]

The bigger issue here is that combo is still a thing, so you have to consider banning the combo-oriented lands, otherwise the format revolves around that. ([card]Dark Depths[/cards] is a big offender.)

We need to snipe some lands for sure. the selection from FTW was a good one (Tabernacle, dark depth at least, maze, I don't know).

Trying to make multicolor a thing in CB is a task, and I'm not convinced this is the best way to do that.

I like the fact that this is gonna be hard to build, and the constraint is here for everybody so it's not a problem IMO. But i'd like to hear how to do this more efficiently and more fun for everyone.

I remember agreeing that Leyline of Singularity is dumb, so it should be on the Legacy ban list. (I think this format just ends up being the Oko format though, and that is the real concern.)

I think we should start with the vintage banathon banlist :)

This round is so absurdly broken I have no idea where to start. Trying to make it fair is probably a fool's errand, so better to just let it be broken.

It's a good change of pace compared to rounds where we have strong building constraints. Good to have "some" broken rounds.

Compared to Phyrexian mana, this is tame. Triggered abilities are much harder to abuse, relatively speaking. (Double storm is potentially interesting, though.)

I haven't put any thoughts on this one, but I don't think it is "too" broken.

Finally, artifact lands can break another format. (Ironically, I think Oko breaks this format as well unless there are turn 1 kills I am missing, which is likely.)

oooohhh artifact lands :) those should be banned of course :)

Land rule variant has been around and is a way better implementation, so just go with that. (Also, that is the easy way to make multicolor cards relevant.)

please quote your land rule variant that has been around and is a way better implementation :) I just made this to mimic hearthstone!

Persist and undying on the same creature create an interesting interaction, although I doubt that is format breaking.

I see some possibilities here thought. not saying anything not to have ideas stolen. If anyone thinks this round could be broken in half by something step in.

Turn 2 storm is definitely a thing, probably just ban Grapeshot and be done with it.

Yep.

I guess the theme is that we really should ban Oko outright in Legacy, because there is little incentive to play anything else as a threat when it is legal. (See, Wizards can screw up card blind without trying!)

Haven't we ban it in a previous season?