4 Card Blind: The Silkster Seasons

[silkster]

After 9 glorious rounds and 0 illegal entries (though a few false positives from my end), we can now crown our winner:

dte - 33.2 points
FTW - 28.4
Silkster - 24.6, just barely edging out
Wrath of Pie - 23.9 because of the "drop the lowest two scores" rule
Reeplcheep - 17.8, also jumping a spot from dropping the two lowest
GoblinSmashmaster - 17.5
Asthereal - 17.2

We'll carry on with the same banlist for a few rounds (probably 4 rounds, dropping the lowest score, but subject to change).

The new ceiling deck is Remote Farm, Field of Ruin, Soltari Priest, Divine Gambit, so these 4 cards are banned too.

[Reeplcheep]

2,3,4 etc kills in 5 attacks. Starting on t4 that is t8 kill.

2,2,2 kills in 10 attacks. Starting on t3 that is a t12 kill

[Reeplcheep]

Congrats DTE. You were consistently a few levels deeper than me at least. Thanks silkster for running this.

I appreciate the dropping lowest as it helps encourage more out there builds and doesn’t punish missing weeks as much.

Can we run show and tell now?

[FTW]

Congrats dte on a strong season!

After Thassa & Strip Mine were banned I ran out of good ideas, but you adapted well with smart ideas and got a lot of value out of Mana Crypt!

Silkster, great job running this season smoothly. I'm in no rush to take over and curious what another 4 rounds of this will look like.

[Wrath of Pie]

Now I really have to think of a new plan.

[silkster]

You're welcome, and thanks to everyone for participating! I'm glad the emergency bans halfway through the season were well received.

I still stand by my statement that Black Lotus isn't the same kind of problem as Oracle and Strip Mine because the strategies that come out of it are so varied, but I do appreciate that this format would be cool with a larger banlist. That's what I plan to do after these 4(ish) rounds. Feel free to make a list of what you think should be on that larger banlist.

[dte]

Thanks Silkster for a very well organized season!

For the next one, I think it would be more interesting to vary the card pool in another way than a banlist, e.g:
One block per round.
Rounds alternating vintage/legacy/modern/pauper
playing with cards that start with an a, then b, etc.
Rounds alternating 4cb and 3cb (even 2cb?)

[silkster]

It took a few minutes for me to warm up to the different formats for each round, but now I really like it. I expect that even one round of standard or pauper would cut power levels enough that they wouldn't really bounce back.

[Tylert]

hey guys!

Been following the thread from the shadows for a long time.
If we're doing some kind of block rounds (or very limited card pool) I'd be willing to join again :)

Don't force yourselves to do something for me of course :)

[silkster]

I wasn't planning to many highly restricted rounds. They usually afford less diversity and creativity, and for most blocks I'd have to start by reading the whole list of cards, which isn't very fun anymore. Broadly speaking, I was planning to do only about 1-3 rounds out of 10 that are as small as a block or a standard. I think the effects of a weaker round like that will persist through the whole season in interesting ways.

For this first round, I have decided. 7c225f976b50ced43c529ad2f7ea3034467d26c502d7ae3397b774b21a160858

[Tylert]

I wasn't planning to many highly restricted rounds. They usually afford less diversity and creativity, and for most blocks I'd have to start by reading the whole list of cards, which isn't very fun anymore. Broadly speaking, I was planning to do only about 1-3 rounds out of 10 that are as small as a block or a standard. I think the effects of a weaker round like that will persist through the whole season in interesting ways.

For this first round, I have decided. 7c225f976b50ced43c529ad2f7ea3034467d26c502d7ae3397b774b21a160858

Oh god. I have to decipher something right at the start!
That is for sure a hard puzzle!
(Please help me, i'm lost)

About rounds, just do as you wish.

[silkster]

Lol, it's not a puzzle and you don't have to do anything. It's a SHA256 hash of my entry.

For example, my previous statement

My submission: 519f586abd85709dcca5d95127056b5284c02e27c35c010c362bafceb8ae55d4 

is obtained when putting my previous entry

Grove of the Burnwillows, Mox Jet, Punishing Fire, Assassin's Trophy; exactly to zero 

into any SHA256 hasher, such as this on https://emn178.github.io/online-tools/sha256.html

It's really not necessary for our little game, but it's amusing to me to do this. Technically, someone could guess and confirm my entry before the deadline, but honestly I'd be so impressed that I wouldn't even be mad.

[Tylert]

@silkster: I've been looking through the thread, and can't find the new season rules. Still not published?

[FTW]

@silkster: I've been looking through the thread, and can't find the new season rules. Still not published?

The current rules are:

1) Vintage 4CB
2) Banlist: Thassa's Oracle, Lab Man, Jace with the Thassa trigger, Strip Mine, Ghost Quarter, Wasteland, Volatile Fault, Vintage Banned List
3) Black Lotus allowed in multiples (no restricted list)
4) Random effects are whatever outcome is worst for the owner
5) Deck must LL to the "ceiling deck". Cards in ceiling deck are banned

This week's ceiling deck =
Remote Farm
Soltari Priest
Divine Gambit
Field of Ruin

[silkster]

@silkster: I've been looking through the thread, and can't find the new season rules. Still not published?

FTW has all the rules there. Technically, we "ended" the last season because it was declared to be 9 rounds at the start, but people wanted to see how it would continue to evolve, so we're continuing with the same rules for (probably) 4 more rounds. The discussion of moving to smaller card pools is for after this mini-season.

From our current regulars, we're just missing Asthereal, but I'm not sure a deck is coming, so I think I'm just going to publish the lists anyway.

[silkster]

Ceiling Bonus Season - Round 1

dte: Trinisphere, Thespian stage, Mana crypt, Dark depths, comment:
GoblinSmashmaster: Sandstone Needle, Shocker, Goblin Sparksmith, Fury, comment: Electric goblins
Reeplcheep: Mishra’s workshop, Mishra’s workshop, Trinisphere, Wurmcoil Engine, comment: Shops
tirrit: saprazzan skerry, hapless researcher, shelldock isle, emrakul, the aeons torn, comment:
Silkster: Ancient Tomb, Dark Depths, Thespian Stage, Petrified Field, comment: field and gambit both critical
FTW: Chancellor of the Annex, Force of Negation, Phyrexian Metamorph, Fountain of Cho, comment: Loses to LD
Wrath of Pie: Treetop Village, Golgari Rot Farm, Elixir of Immortality, Assassin's Trophy, comment: Time for a classic

Round 1 scores: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...gid=1710229930

[silkster]

dte: Trinisphere, Thespian stage, Mana crypt, Dark depths, comment:
More Mana Crypt! It is definitely very cool here, and a clever way to make your deck a turn faster than mine.
WL because I win the stare down.

GoblinSmashmaster: Sandstone Needle, Shocker, Goblin Sparksmith, Fury, comment: Electric goblins
WL - Battle of turn-3 decks.

Reeplcheep: Mishra’s workshop, Mishra’s workshop, Trinisphere, Wurmcoil Engine, comment: Shops
WW - I spent a long time thinking that Urborg, ToY would make my deck illegal and that I had to play something like Eladamri's Vineyard to get my-turn-only mana. One of my concerns was Trinisphere. When I finally realized that playing a third land that made enough mana was legal, that made me happy enough with the deck.

tirrit: saprazzan skerry, hapless researcher, shelldock isle, emrakul, the aeons torn, comment:
LL - Making a 20/20 flying indestructible look pretty underwhelming.

Silkster: Ancient Tomb, Dark Depths, Thespian Stage, Petrified Field, comment: field and gambit both critical
On the play against the ceiling deck, the ceiling deck plays the 2/1 on turn 2, which means that my turn 3 is safe from Field to make Marit Lage, but that would die to sorcery removal, and passing the turn means that Field is back online.

FTW: Chancellor of the Annex, Force of Negation, Phyrexian Metamorph, Fountain of Cho, comment: Loses to LD
WW - Loses to LD, but probably counters most LD. Fortunately for me, I'm not trying to cast anything. Thank you for making dte's deck not have strictly better results than mine!

Wrath of Pie: Treetop Village, Golgari Rot Farm, Elixir of Immortality, Assassin's Trophy, comment: Time for a classic
WL - I was considering this deck two rounds ago against Burglar Rat. I enjoy that you can run a "stock list" and it still feels creative and surprising because it's not obvious all what lists are legal.

As usual, most of the things that I was predicting didn't happen. I thought there would be far more Lotuses: so many that I even thought of playing Disrupting Shoal for 0 for some time. I did also think that people would find and want to play something like Crack the Earth or Tremble. I also had Chandra, Torch of Defiance as a card that loses specifically to Soltari Priest, meaning that I could also play something else that needs to get Gambited, which lead me to trying to imitate the Priest with Silver Knight. I'm glad I didn't go too far down that path.

Signature is updated for the new score sheet.

[Reeplcheep]

Reeplcheep: Mishra’s workshop, Mishra’s workshop, Trinisphere, Wurmcoil Engine, comment: Shops

dte: Trinisphere, Thespian stage, Mana crypt, Dark depths, comment:
WL

GoblinSmashmaster: Sandstone Needle, Shocker, Goblin Sparksmith, Fury, comment: Electric goblins
WL (edit: OTP against the ceiling deck, don’t you put in fury off of divine gambit and win?)

tirrit: saprazzan skerry, hapless researcher, shelldock isle, emrakul, the aeons torn, comment:
WW

Silkster: Ancient Tomb, Dark Depths, Thespian Stage, Petrified Field, comment: field and gambit both critical
Close but LL

FTW: Chancellor of the Annex, Force of Negation, Phyrexian Metamorph, Fountain of Cho, comment: Loses to LD
This is kinda what I tried to beat, but I didn’t see metamorph as 3 cmc answer. You can cast metamorph on t5, which is too slow OTD. WL

Wrath of Pie: Treetop Village, Golgari Rot Farm, Elixir of Immortality, Assassin's Trophy, comment: Time for a classic
Ww can’t trophy everything fast enough with 3 ball in play.

7 W 5L for 21/36

[FTW]

FTW: Chancellor of the Annex, Force of Negation, Phyrexian Metamorph, Fountain of Cho, comment: Loses to LD

Overthought this round. My original idea was Tropical Island, Eladamri's Vineyard + T2 play. Vineyard loses to T1 Field of Ruin but races the decks trying to go off T3. Would score about 27 pts here. But it loses hard to FoN & Channex, so I played those instead.


dte: Trinisphere, Thespian stage, Mana crypt, Dark depths
FoN on Mana Crypt stops your deck. Chancellor gets there. WW 6-0

GoblinSmashmaster: Sandstone Needle, Shocker, Goblin Sparksmith, Fury
You evoke Fury into Chancellor, T2 Shocker, T3 discard. Metamorph is too slow. LL 0-6

Reeplcheep: Mishra’s workshop, Mishra’s workshop, Trinisphere, Wurmcoil Engine
You jam T1 3sphere into Channex, getting countered, then resolve T2 Wurmcoil. I'll have T5 Wurmcoil copy.
OTP you have 2 attacks before I make Wurmcoil. Then they trade and eventually Chancellor flies over to win.
OTD you have 3 attacks, I'll be at 2, and the Phyrexian mana would kill me so I'm 1 life short.
WL 3-3

tirrit: saprazzan skerry, hapless researcher, shelldock isle, emrakul, the aeons torn
Smart deck! You can play through Chancellor tax & FoN. T2 Researcher Shelldock T3 cast Emrakul. T5 Metamorph copy is too slow. LL 0-6

Silkster: Ancient Tomb, Dark Depths, Thespian Stage, Petrified Field
T3 Marit Lage is too fast for T5 copy. LL 0-6

Wrath of Pie: Treetop Village, Golgari Rot Farm, Elixir of Immortality, Assassin's Trophy
You can't safely cast Elixir until T3 or Trophy until T4. You can play Trophy around FoN, so I'm forced to Force Elixir. Then Trophy kills my land and Village beats get there. LL 0-6

9 points (3 wins, 9 loss)

[FTW]

GoblinSmashmaster: Sandstone Needle, Shocker, Goblin Sparksmith, Fury, comment: Electric goblins
WL (edit: OTP against the ceiling deck, don’t you put in fury off of divine gambit and win?)

Hilariously the ceiling deck can play T2 Soltari Priest, which races Shocker + T3 Sparksmith and is protection from both Sparksmith & Fury.

I like that Shocker was tied to a "spark" goblin.