To clarify, is the "standard land rule" ABT's seldom-used "Land Rule", or the more common "Expanded Land Rule" that allows an extra land drop from the hand?
Here's a deck which beats the preceding three under the ELR, but not under the unadorned LR. So... maybe a valid entry, and maybe not.
Good question. I meant the expanded land rule (which was more or less the standard during 2CB). Sorry for any confusion. I hope I haven't held anyone back!
Your deck is fine.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Some facts of magic:
-Terror is an emotion which, when experienced, results in death.
-The pox was a disease notorious for having killed one-third, rounded up, of Europe’s population. Smallpox, on the other hand, killed only a single person.
-A person riding a horse cannot be stopped by foot soldiers, large animals, walls, archers, or even catapults.
Some facts of magic:
-Terror is an emotion which, when experienced, results in death.
-The pox was a disease notorious for having killed one-third, rounded up, of Europe’s population. Smallpox, on the other hand, killed only a single person.
-A person riding a horse cannot be stopped by foot soldiers, large animals, walls, archers, or even catapults.
I'm a jerk for reintroducing turn 1 discard to the pool, but... points. Notes: slows deck 1 down by taking City of Traitors; nabs Geth's from deck 2 before Wheel comes down; takes Moat from deck 5 and levels Hydra to 3/3 double strike before Voidstone.
We can either continue this thread (I think it can go on for quite a while) or we can start a new one with new rules and/or a new format. Thoughts? Personally I'd like to see where this goes. I think we're getting to the point where you can craft a deck with two goals in mind: beating the top decks AND being resilient itself.
Some facts of magic:
-Terror is an emotion which, when experienced, results in death.
-The pox was a disease notorious for having killed one-third, rounded up, of Europe’s population. Smallpox, on the other hand, killed only a single person.
-A person riding a horse cannot be stopped by foot soldiers, large animals, walls, archers, or even catapults.
We can either continue this thread (I think it can go on for quite a while) or we can start a new one with new rules and/or a new format. Thoughts? Personally I'd like to see where this goes. I think we're getting to the point where you can craft a deck with two goals in mind: beating the top decks AND being resilient itself.
Yeah, I'd like to keep this going for a while - we haven't really had time to weed out all the "degenerate" strategies (as evidenced by Viking's latest winning deck and my response to it).
EDIT: Just because I like having it available, here's the "ban" list (cards unavailable due to being used in previous days):
Appetite for Brains
Beacon of Creation
Blazing Archon
Bloodghast
Burning Inquiry
Chancellor of the Annex
Channel
Chronosavant
City of Traitors
Duress
Energy Field
Ensnaring Bridge
Eternal Witness
Exploration
Figure of Destiny
Force of Will
Geth's Verdict
Laboratory Maniac
Leyline of Sanctity
Loxodon Smiter
Meddling Mage
Misthollow Griffin
Moat
Obstinate Baloth
Pithing Needle
Planeswalker's Fury
Raging Ravine
Reach of Branches
Red Sun's Zenith
Student of Warfare
Take Possession
The Rack
Thoughtseize
True Believer
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
Unburial Rites
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
Voidstone Gargoyle
Vraska the Unseen
Wheel of Sun and Moon
Edit: I think we've exhausted the oppressively good 1-mana discard spells. Fingers crossed that Hymn to Tourach clones don't immediately step up to fill that void. I'm happy to keep playing Rolling 2CB as is, but if/when it restarts, I think it would be wise to adhere to the regular restrictions and bannings for 2CB.
Edit: I think we've exhausted the oppressively good 1-mana discard spells. Fingers crossed that Hymn to Tourach clones don't immediately step up to fill that void. I'm happy to keep playing Rolling 2CB as is, but if/when it restarts, I think it would be wise to adhere to the regular restrictions and bannings for 2CB.
Okey dokey. We'll keep rolling until the last day of May. I'll keep thinking about bannings too... We've had a lot of discard, and it's a good strategy, but as everyone has proven it's quite easy to beat. I mean, the first deck started out as Turn 1: discard your hand, and it was beaten by 7 or 8 other decks. Subsequent discard decks have been beaten too - I think Viking's was the first to actually win a round.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Some facts of magic:
-Terror is an emotion which, when experienced, results in death.
-The pox was a disease notorious for having killed one-third, rounded up, of Europe’s population. Smallpox, on the other hand, killed only a single person.
-A person riding a horse cannot be stopped by foot soldiers, large animals, walls, archers, or even catapults.
Okey dokey. We'll keep rolling until the last day of May. I'll keep thinking about bannings too... We've had a lot of discard, and it's a good strategy, but as everyone has proven it's quite easy to beat. I mean, the first deck started out as Turn 1: discard your hand, and it was beaten by 7 or 8 other decks. Subsequent discard decks have been beaten too - I think Viking's was the first to actually win a round.
It's easy enough to beat discard. Doing so and making a deck that is strong in other regards is the hard part - there's only so many cards that are just peachy when you're made to pitch them.
It's easy enough to beat discard. Doing so and making a deck that is strong in other regards is the hard part - there's only so many cards that are just peachy when you're made to pitch them.
Plus, the decks that beat first-turn selective/multiple-card discard spells often look very similar to each other. Mostly we've been seeing either straight-up discard hosers like Obstinate Baloth, or self-reanimators like Nether Spirit, and there's only so much variety among those kinds of creatures. We've also had a touch of flashback and Eldrazi titans, but there are only so many ways to make those kinds of decks fast enough to beat the kinds of powerhouse creatures we still have available.
In the end, I don't think the self-limiting nature of this format quite provides adequate protection against the kinds of decks that ban lists are meant to prevent. Yes, we're going to run out of "broken" cards eventually, but in the meantime I personally think this is slightly less fun than it could be. And sometimes the power cards keep each other from showing up. For instance, Black Lotus decks and first-turn-discard decks are likely to beat each other on the play, so it's highly unlikely that we'll see both types on the same day.
Plus, the decks that beat first-turn selective/multiple-card discard spells often look very similar to each other. Mostly we've been seeing either straight-up discard hosers like Obstinate Baloth, or self-reanimators like Nether Spirit, and there's only so much variety among those kinds of creatures. We've also had a touch of flashback and Eldrazi titans, but there are only so many ways to make those kinds of decks fast enough to beat the kinds of powerhouse creatures we still have available.
In the end, I don't think the self-limiting nature of this format quite provides adequate protection against the kinds of decks that ban lists are meant to prevent. Yes, we're going to run out of "broken" cards eventually, but in the meantime I personally think this is slightly less fun than it could be. And sometimes the power cards keep each other from showing up. For instance, Black Lotus decks and first-turn-discard decks are likely to beat each other on the play, so it's highly unlikely that we'll see both types on the same day.
You make a lot of good points. This will be an interesting experiment! I'll start a thread a week ahead of time for the next round so we can pick rules and bans for the next format.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Some facts of magic:
-Terror is an emotion which, when experienced, results in death.
-The pox was a disease notorious for having killed one-third, rounded up, of Europe’s population. Smallpox, on the other hand, killed only a single person.
-A person riding a horse cannot be stopped by foot soldiers, large animals, walls, archers, or even catapults.
Since I seem to have taken over as moderator (for now), and since we're getting such a late start on this round, and since it's the weekend and I want to go outside, I say we keep this one open till Sunday night midnight EST.
Groteller's winning deck, plus a not-too-hard-to-beat deck of my own:
Impressive. I wasn't sure anything else could beat DragonDart's Beacon/discard deck at all...
Why thank you. There was actually a completely different one I came up with that I'm pretty sure would have worked, but it didn't beat the Shortfang. Eventually I realized that if I could find a good threat to pair with Lotus to play on turn 1, I wouldn't need to have decent answers for everything (which would probably have required three or four cards to properly negate all the cards everyone else was playing).
Since I seem to have taken over as moderator (for now), and since we're getting such a late start on this round, and since it's the weekend and I want to go outside, I say we keep this one open till Sunday night midnight EST.
I'm fine with ending today tomorrow, if no one objects. I don't really care either way.
EDIT: Changed new deck. Twice. I forgot for a second that you can Unsummon your own Jenara to protect against removal, then I misremembered how another card worked. >.<
Some facts of magic:
-Terror is an emotion which, when experienced, results in death.
-The pox was a disease notorious for having killed one-third, rounded up, of Europe’s population. Smallpox, on the other hand, killed only a single person.
-A person riding a horse cannot be stopped by foot soldiers, large animals, walls, archers, or even catapults.
Here's a deck which beats the preceding three under the ELR, but not under the unadorned LR. So... maybe a valid entry, and maybe not.
Raging Ravine
City of Traitors
Goldfishes turn 5 with ELR.
Your deck is fine.
-Terror is an emotion which, when experienced, results in death.
-The pox was a disease notorious for having killed one-third, rounded up, of Europe’s population. Smallpox, on the other hand, killed only a single person.
-A person riding a horse cannot be stopped by foot soldiers, large animals, walls, archers, or even catapults.
More facts of magic
used cards:
Blazing Archon - Bloodghast - Burning Inquiry - Chronosavant - Force of Will- Laboratory Maniac -Loxodon Smiter - Misthollow Griffin - Obstinate Baloth - Planeswalker's Fury - Reach of Branches - Student of Warfare - Take Possession - Unburial Rites - Channel - Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre - Appetite for Brains - Chancellor of the Annex - Meddling Mage - Duress - Figure of Destiny - Thoughtseize - red sun's zenith - eternal witness
Deck to beat:
raging ravine / city of traitors
new submission:
wheel of sun and moon / geth's verdict
Wheel of Sun and Moon / Geth's Verdict
True Believer / Pithing Needle
Wheel of Sun and Moon / Geth's Verdict
True Believer / Pithing Needle
Beacon of Creation / Exploration
Moat / Voidstone Gargoyle
-Terror is an emotion which, when experienced, results in death.
-The pox was a disease notorious for having killed one-third, rounded up, of Europe’s population. Smallpox, on the other hand, killed only a single person.
-A person riding a horse cannot be stopped by foot soldiers, large animals, walls, archers, or even catapults.
More facts of magic
Wheel of Sun and Moon/ Geth's Verdict
True Believer / Pithing Needle
Beacon of Creation / Exploration
Moat / Voidstone Gargoyle
Ensnaring Bridge/Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
Energy Field/The Rack
Wheel of Sun and Moon / Geth's Verdict
True Believer / Pithing Needle
Beacon of Creation / Exploration
Moat / Voidstone Gargoyle
Ensnaring Bridge / Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
Energy Field / The Rack
Blackmail / Savageborn Hydra
I'm a jerk for reintroducing turn 1 discard to the pool, but... points. Notes: slows deck 1 down by taking City of Traitors; nabs Geth's from deck 2 before Wheel comes down; takes Moat from deck 5 and levels Hydra to 3/3 double strike before Voidstone.
To beat:
Blackmail / Savageborn Hydra
New deck:
Cabal Therapy / Reassembling Skeleton
Deck to beat: Blackmail / Savageborn Hydra
The Scoreboard
WhammeWhamme: 1
VikingMetal4L: 3
So, today is May 1st.
We can either continue this thread (I think it can go on for quite a while) or we can start a new one with new rules and/or a new format. Thoughts? Personally I'd like to see where this goes. I think we're getting to the point where you can craft a deck with two goals in mind: beating the top decks AND being resilient itself.
-Terror is an emotion which, when experienced, results in death.
-The pox was a disease notorious for having killed one-third, rounded up, of Europe’s population. Smallpox, on the other hand, killed only a single person.
-A person riding a horse cannot be stopped by foot soldiers, large animals, walls, archers, or even catapults.
More facts of magic
Yeah, I'd like to keep this going for a while - we haven't really had time to weed out all the "degenerate" strategies (as evidenced by Viking's latest winning deck and my response to it).
EDIT: Just because I like having it available, here's the "ban" list (cards unavailable due to being used in previous days):
Appetite for Brains
Beacon of Creation
Blazing Archon
Bloodghast
Burning Inquiry
Chancellor of the Annex
Channel
Chronosavant
City of Traitors
Duress
Energy Field
Ensnaring Bridge
Eternal Witness
Exploration
Figure of Destiny
Force of Will
Geth's Verdict
Laboratory Maniac
Leyline of Sanctity
Loxodon Smiter
Meddling Mage
Misthollow Griffin
Moat
Obstinate Baloth
Pithing Needle
Planeswalker's Fury
Raging Ravine
Reach of Branches
Red Sun's Zenith
Student of Warfare
Take Possession
The Rack
Thoughtseize
True Believer
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
Unburial Rites
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
Voidstone Gargoyle
Vraska the Unseen
Wheel of Sun and Moon
Cabal Therapy / Reassembling Skeleton
Hammer of Bogardan / Nether Spirit
Cabal Therapy / Reassembling Skeleton
Hammer of Bogardan / Nether Spirit
Pyre Zombie / Baneslayer Angel
Edit: I think we've exhausted the oppressively good 1-mana discard spells. Fingers crossed that Hymn to Tourach clones don't immediately step up to fill that void. I'm happy to keep playing Rolling 2CB as is, but if/when it restarts, I think it would be wise to adhere to the regular restrictions and bannings for 2CB.
Okey dokey. We'll keep rolling until the last day of May. I'll keep thinking about bannings too... We've had a lot of discard, and it's a good strategy, but as everyone has proven it's quite easy to beat. I mean, the first deck started out as Turn 1: discard your hand, and it was beaten by 7 or 8 other decks. Subsequent discard decks have been beaten too - I think Viking's was the first to actually win a round.
-Terror is an emotion which, when experienced, results in death.
-The pox was a disease notorious for having killed one-third, rounded up, of Europe’s population. Smallpox, on the other hand, killed only a single person.
-A person riding a horse cannot be stopped by foot soldiers, large animals, walls, archers, or even catapults.
More facts of magic
It's easy enough to beat discard. Doing so and making a deck that is strong in other regards is the hard part - there's only so many cards that are just peachy when you're made to pitch them.
Plus, the decks that beat first-turn selective/multiple-card discard spells often look very similar to each other. Mostly we've been seeing either straight-up discard hosers like Obstinate Baloth, or self-reanimators like Nether Spirit, and there's only so much variety among those kinds of creatures. We've also had a touch of flashback and Eldrazi titans, but there are only so many ways to make those kinds of decks fast enough to beat the kinds of powerhouse creatures we still have available.
In the end, I don't think the self-limiting nature of this format quite provides adequate protection against the kinds of decks that ban lists are meant to prevent. Yes, we're going to run out of "broken" cards eventually, but in the meantime I personally think this is slightly less fun than it could be. And sometimes the power cards keep each other from showing up. For instance, Black Lotus decks and first-turn-discard decks are likely to beat each other on the play, so it's highly unlikely that we'll see both types on the same day.
You make a lot of good points. This will be an interesting experiment! I'll start a thread a week ahead of time for the next round so we can pick rules and bans for the next format.
-Terror is an emotion which, when experienced, results in death.
-The pox was a disease notorious for having killed one-third, rounded up, of Europe’s population. Smallpox, on the other hand, killed only a single person.
-A person riding a horse cannot be stopped by foot soldiers, large animals, walls, archers, or even catapults.
More facts of magic
Baneslayer Angel / Pyre Zombie
Previously played cards:
Tidehollow Sculler / Beacon of Destruction
Tidehollow Sculler / Beacon of Destruction
Nezumi Shortfang / Vhitu-Ghazi, the City Tree
First turn Nezumi beats both decks, actually. Vhitu-Ghazi is my "best guess" for a card to make beating the Nezumi deck harder.
And I was very nearly stumped, but:
Baneslayer Angel / Pyre Zombie
Tidehollow Sculler / Beacon of Destruction
Nezumi Shortfang / Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree
lose to
Black Lotus / Boldwyr Heavyweights
Scoreboard
Groteller: 1
VikingMetal4L: 4
WhammeWhamme: 1
Since I seem to have taken over as moderator (for now), and since we're getting such a late start on this round, and since it's the weekend and I want to go outside, I say we keep this one open till Sunday night midnight EST.
Groteller's winning deck, plus a not-too-hard-to-beat deck of my own:
Black Lotus / Boldwyr Heavyweights
Jenara, Asura of War / Unsummon
Previously played cards:
Why thank you. There was actually a completely different one I came up with that I'm pretty sure would have worked, but it didn't beat the Shortfang. Eventually I realized that if I could find a good threat to pair with Lotus to play on turn 1, I wouldn't need to have decent answers for everything (which would probably have required three or four cards to properly negate all the cards everyone else was playing).
I'm fine with ending today tomorrow, if no one objects. I don't really care either way.
Scoreboard
Grolleter: 1
VikingMetal4L: 4
WhammeWhamme: 1
Previously played cards:
Black Lotus / Boldwyr Heavyweights
Jenara, Asura of War / Unsummon
New deck:
Path to Exile / Ravenous Rats
EDIT: Changed new deck. Twice. I forgot for a second that you can Unsummon your own Jenara to protect against removal, then I misremembered how another card worked. >.<
Chainer's Edict / Devil's Play
-Terror is an emotion which, when experienced, results in death.
-The pox was a disease notorious for having killed one-third, rounded up, of Europe’s population. Smallpox, on the other hand, killed only a single person.
-A person riding a horse cannot be stopped by foot soldiers, large animals, walls, archers, or even catapults.
More facts of magic