Alright, results are up, and hoo-ee! From a guest appearance by 2CB #1's winning elf, up through the ages and all the way through to Mr. Fifteens himself, this week's got it all. There's even that new impersonator filling in for Figure of Destiny, as the historic card was, tragically, unable to appear in person due to a slight complication with the 2CB no-fly list.
Two Card Blind (2CB) is a Magic tournament, run entirely within this forum. To compete, players submit two-card decks which are played against each other by the moderator. Scoring assumes optimal play, without randomness or concealed information.
1. Game Rules
1.1. Except for the changes described in these rules, games follow the Magic: The Gathering Comprehensive Rules for games between two players.
1.2. Players' decks contain exactly two cards, which begin the game in hand. Players do not mulligan or sideboard.
1.3. Players' libraries begin the game empty. A player does not lose the game as a result of being unable to draw a card.
1.4. A random effect produces a result that least benefits the owner of the source of the effect.
1.5 Whenever a player could play a Land card, that player may put a Basic Land card from outside the game onto the battlefield. (Basic Snow Lands are Basic.)
2. Tournament Rules
2.1. Players submit their decks to the 2CB moderator (Personman).
2.1a. The moderator informs players of mistakes in a timely manner. (Sometimes. Often I run kinda late. Be careful.)
2.1b. A player may submit multiple decks, but only the most recent as of the deadline is counted.
2.1c. If a player's final deck is illegal, their most recent legal deck is used. If no legal deck has been submitted, they do not participate.
2.2. A player may not submit a deck that can, against any deck, force one or more cards in an opponent's hand to change zones before an opponent's first turn, or win the game or force a specific card in an opponent's hand to change zones before an opponent's second turn. (Note that forcing your opponent to discard two cards is very likely to force a specific card their hand to change zones.)
2.3. A deck may include any number of any card legal in Vintage (Type 1) and any number of any card in a set that will become legal in Vintage within two weeks of the deadline that has been fully spoiled on magiccards.info or wizards.com.
2.4. Each player plays one match, consisting of two games, against each other player. Each player is the starting player once per match. Results assume optimal play and perfect information.
2.4a. If no player can win, the game is a draw.
2.4b. A player that can't win or draw plays to extend the game.
2.5. Points determine tournament standings. Players are ranked, first to last, in order of decreasing number of points.
2.5a. For each match, a player earns 3 points per game win and 1 point per drawn game. Matches in which each player wins one game and loses one game are worth only 2 points per player, rather than 3.
2.5b. A table of match results is posted each round. Its rows represent players and its columns represent opponents. Match results reflect the combined result of both games played in a match. A player's total points are listed at the end of his or her row.
3. Banned List -
3.1 The following cards are banned. Any deck that includes a card on this list is illegal.
* Fastbond
* Meddling Mage
* Arcane Denial
* Figure of Destiny
* Nezumi Shortfang
* The Rack
* Black Lotus
* Channel
POTM:
Each month, the player with the highest combined score from the four rounds that month is designated Player of the Month. Here are the previous winners, in reverse chronological order:
A nice idea occurred to me, so I decided to ignore everyone's suggestions for special weeks, and instead sync up with 5CB for a week or two, though with a slight tweak:
Mana Market Week
All players have 'Pay 3 life: Add 1 mana of any color you have not added to your mana pool this turn to your mana pool. You can't add mana of the chosen color to your mana pool this turn.'
There are some options regarding bans just a tad further down this page. Please read them and chime in with your opinions. I'll try to have it finalized by Friday morning so you can all make with the deck-submitting.
Lastly, there have been a few minor changes to the rules. Sets now become legal as soon as they are fully spoiled on magiccards.info or wizards.com, and the former 2.4a, a.k.a. "The Goblin Game Rule", has been eliminated, as recent discussion over in the 1CBB thread has revealed it to be unnecessary due to APNAP.
The deadline is 11:59 PM EST next Wednesday, but don't submit til we know what-all is banned!
So how long before we can ban the channel, Emrakul, The Aeons Torn deck?
Even in weeks where it doesn't win it is clearly format warping.
This week for example we have 3xInnocent Blood and a Spell Snare. That's four people who dedicated half of there cards just to fight this one deck and by my count they are the only ones who don't loose 6-0 to it.
I've been thinking about it a lot, and I intended to post with some options for discussion as soon as I was done, but I guess I'll do it now.
It's been, in my opinion, a really interesting 6 Normal weeks since Emrakul came out. We've seen the format evolve significantly each week, each time with some new ideas and metagame strategies. However, I think that it has about run its course, and I assume that Error1 and myself are not alone in being kinda tired of it.
So here are the three options I'm considering:
1. Ban Channel
This is the obvious course of action and has been discussed before.
2. Ban Emrakul
Maybe Ulamog isn't quite as scary? He dies to Path, anyway... but probably this is not a very good idea, and should instead be Ban the Big Eldrazi. This probably takes care of the problem, and saves poor innocent Channel, but has the negative side effect of not letting you use them in 'fair' decks that try to abuse their graveyard-shuffling ability or have them as finishers if the game goes long.
3. Ban Everything
Okay not literally, but is Channel / Emrakul really the only deck people are tired of? If we go with option 1. or 2. will the format be that much healthier? Or should Gargadon, the Beacons, Guildmage, Student of Warfare, and 2-mana counterspells get the axe too? What about Lich Lord and Anurid Scavenger? I'm not going to do this if it doesn't elicit a significant amount of popular appeal, but I think it might be time to seriously refresh the game.
Bonus Option 4: Unban Everything!
This is a pretty silly idea, but you can't deny that there would be more answers to Emrakul if Black Lotus were still around...
Anurid Scavenger
Balancing Act
Beacon of Creation
Channel
Scavenger because it can draw with just about anything that lacks counterspells, Balancing Act because it beats anything that is slower than turn 4, Beacon because of power level concerns, and Channel because turn 15 Emrakul has never been a problem.
Force more creativity. Those cards (or decks) are *very* difficult to beat with otherwise unexplored cards. Although the new decks this round are pretty sweet, will not deny.
Hey, I got the results done! This was a pretty straightforward week to score, but I'm sure I did *something* wrong. Have at it!
EDIT: OP updated with special week, rules changes, and request for further discussion of bannings.
Whamm, do you have a good reason for leaving Mana Drain and Beacon of Destruction off that list? I can see how Guildmage doesn't quite measure up to those others, but those two seem just as bad to me.
Another interesting question is how exactly to word a ban on 2-mana counters, since I don't think anyone thinks we should ban Spell Snare as well. Mana Leak is probably fine too, right? Does "All cards with CMC=2 and the complete sentence 'Counter target spell.' in their Oracle text are banned." cover it?
Kill Channel. Show & Tell + Emrakul is fair, but right now Eldrazi.dec is almost as good as Rack/Balance. I don't have too much of an opinion on the rest of the suggested cards.
On another note, I think "Innocent Blood Week" was actually a fairly good time to roll out Anurid, by the line of play "don't do anything till turn 5, then play both spells and never give the opponent another turn." I suggest the following revisions: 2-2 vs mutantman, 6-0 vs Personman, 6-0 vs WhammWhamme.
Hey, I got the results done! This was a pretty straightforward week to score, but I'm sure I did *something* wrong. Have at it!
EDIT: OP updated with special week, rules changes, and request for further discussion of bannings.
Whamm, do you have a good reason for leaving Mana Drain and Beacon of Destruction off that list? I can see how Guildmage doesn't quite measure up to those others, but those two seem just as bad to me.
Another interesting question is how exactly to word a ban on 2-mana counters, since I don't think anyone thinks we should ban Spell Snare as well. Mana Leak is probably fine too, right? Does "All cards with CMC=2 and the complete sentence 'Counter target spell.' in their Oracle text are banned." cover it?
Ban the specific cards, there's not that many of them.
That said, yes, there are reasons to leave the others off.
Beacon of Destruction is a good win condition that doubles as removal, absolutely - but it's not that fast a clock, and has yet to be an oppressive part of the meta (it's not been submitted as much as the others on my list).
Mana Drain, OTOH, loses its main partner in crime, and has the drawback of being possible to sneak in under, as well as of being purely an answer. Beacon-Drain is more about the Beacon than the Drain, as this week proved.
I would vote to just ban Channel and Beacon of Creation for now. To see if the format changes any without them. Balancing Act is frankly kind of slow and it would feel wierd to ban Balancing Act and not Balance. How good is mana drain really? It seems mainly just Beacon who is willing to use up half there deck for a purely reactionary card. Anurid Scavenger is also really annoying and a little quicker then Balancing Act but has a lot of weakness and has a hard time getting 6-0s
Speaking of the special week, I've always found it strange that you can win second turn but not force a discard, guess we will see how good a turn 1 Show & Tell, Emrakul is
I would vote to just ban Channel and Beacon of Creation for now. To see if the format changes any without them. Balancing Act is frankly kind of slow and it would feel wierd to ban Balancing Act and not Balance. How good is mana drain really? It seems mainly just Beacon who is willing to use up half there deck for a purely reactionary card.
Speaking of the special week, I've always found it strange that you can win second turn but not force a discard, guess we will see how good a turn 1 Show & Tell, Emrakul is
If Gargadon/Balance weren't already banned for causing specific discard on turn two on the play, Balance would need banning too.
I'd probably just be for banning Channel this time.
There was some other version of 2CB that was around for awhile that banned the winning deck every week. =) We could even do that retroactively! Ban everything that's ever won a (normal) round! =)
Regarding the special week, is it:
"Add 1 mana to add any type that hasn't been added by this ability this turn?" or is it actually "Add 1 mana of any type that you haven't added this turn"?
They both let you use the mana market to add a blue, then tapping an island to add another blue, but the second one sort of hides that fact. The second one is overall more restrictive though, but probably in weird ways that I'm finding it hard to make up.
On another note, I think "Innocent Blood Week" was actually a fairly good time to roll out Anurid, by the line of play "don't do anything till turn 5, then play both spells and never give the opponent another turn." I suggest the following revisions: 2-2 vs mutantman, 6-0 vs Personman, 6-0 vs WhammWhamme.
Hey I was right! I did do something wrong!
Quote from Error1 »
Speaking of the special week, I've always found it strange that you can win second turn but not force a discard, guess we will see how good a turn 1 Show & Tell, Emrakul is
You know, that's a pretty good point. I think it's just never been even close to coming up (there's never even been a turn 3 win, aside from Channel / Emrakul). I'm gonna go ahead and line those up with each other.
This doesn't actually preclude Show and Tell / Emrakul this week, unfortunately, since you don't get the extra turn with Show and Tell. Even worse, Innocent Blood doesn't stop it, since you don't have to pay 15 life to play him anymore. In fact, Show and Tell / Emrakul would have done better than Channel / Emrakul this last week, come to think of it, though only due to the utter lack of Mana Drains...
I think Show and Tell has to go for this round at least, and maybe in all of 'em.
Quote from Lithel »
There was some other version of 2CB that was around for awhile that banned the winning deck every week. =) We could even do that retroactively! Ban everything that's ever won a (normal) round! =)
This has been discussed, and a more sweeping version (everything that's ever been played is banned) was a very successful special week once. We should do that again sometime, probably. I think watching as various cards go up and down in strength as the metagame shifts is too much of the essence of 2CB to adopt this globally though
Quote from Lithel »
They both let you use the mana market to add a blue, then tapping an island to add another blue, but the second one sort of hides that fact. The second one is overall more restrictive though, but probably in weird ways that I'm finding it hard to make up.
Hey oops. That's what I get for writing formats at 2:45. The intent is best expressed in the even more restrictive
"All players have 'Pay 3 life: Add 1 mana of any color you have not added to your mana pool this turn to your mana pool. You can't add mana of the chosen color to your mana pool this turn.' "
and I'm changing it to that.
Bans
Given the lack of enthusiasm for rampant bannage, I guess I'm currently leaning towards just Channel (and maybe Show and Tell). If a couple more people pipe up against Beacon of Creation, I will consider it, but I think I would rather do a big reset or nothing when it comes to the other cards under discussion.
POTM News!
I'm actually updating the POTM sheet in a timely fashion this month, so all of the excitement will unfold before your eyes in real time. It's already looking to be an intense month, with newcomer Lithel and former champion mutantman out in front of the pack, but a whole host of other regulars not too far behind. But the month is young yet, and anything could happen as the unexplored 'Mana Market' format tests these fearless competitors' ingenuity in fascinating new ways!
Domogrue is referring to a recent bungled game of Starcraft, in which he attempted to 4-pool or 5-pool me, but when his spawning pool morphed, he mistakenly created drones instead of zerglings.
"All players have 'Pay 3 life: Add 1 mana of any color you have not added to your mana pool this turn to your mana pool. You can't add mana of the chosen color to your mana pool this turn.' "
!
well there goes my completely legal first turn win, and really slows down the deck I actually submitted. I'm not sure I see the point of the rule tho because it doesn't really stop 0st turn counters, wouldn't it be simpler to just say spells can't be countered before the second turn if that's what your worried about.
I dunno, it seems like it does an okay job to me. Here is the list of two-mana counters; not being able to get UU on turn 0 means the best you can really do is Mana Leak, which makes them pay 9 life to get their spell through. Which is kinda nasty but seems fair enough, since you had to pay 6 to do it. If you want to pay 9 yourself for something like Dromar's Charm or Vex, I think that's fine with me.
The rule also slows down the format in general, which seems important.
Alright, it's Friday morning, so as promised, the format and banned list are now finalized. The format is unchanged since yesterday, and the banned list now includes Channel.
Show and Tell, which is banned as part of the special format rules, also has a fairly high chance, I think, of getting the axe by the time the next Normal week comes around as well. Yes, it is twice as vulnerable to Mana Drain as Channel was, but if you don't play Mana Drain, you're pretty screwed. You can't even play Spell Snare. I'm worried that if we keep it, the general character of the metagame won't really change.
show and tell lets each player put a "artifact, creature, enchantment, or land card from his or her hand onto the battlefield." and Emrakul only protects form colored spells not colored permanents. so Confiscate does beat Emrakul show and tell
To point out an interesting interaction, False Dawn allows you to circumvent the restrictions on the mana market, although I doubt it breaks the format at 3 life/mana.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AmmDRW6ypgiJdEFfWDdZY1hMN3lYTWNabUJ4aE9TR0E&hl=en&output=html
Rules:
0. Overview
Two Card Blind (2CB) is a Magic tournament, run entirely within this forum. To compete, players submit two-card decks which are played against each other by the moderator. Scoring assumes optimal play, without randomness or concealed information.
1. Game Rules
1.1. Except for the changes described in these rules, games follow the Magic: The Gathering Comprehensive Rules for games between two players.
1.2. Players' decks contain exactly two cards, which begin the game in hand. Players do not mulligan or sideboard.
1.3. Players' libraries begin the game empty. A player does not lose the game as a result of being unable to draw a card.
1.4. A random effect produces a result that least benefits the owner of the source of the effect.
1.5 Whenever a player could play a Land card, that player may put a Basic Land card from outside the game onto the battlefield. (Basic Snow Lands are Basic.)
2. Tournament Rules
2.1. Players submit their decks to the 2CB moderator (Personman).
2.1a. The moderator informs players of mistakes in a timely manner. (Sometimes. Often I run kinda late. Be careful.)
2.1b. A player may submit multiple decks, but only the most recent as of the deadline is counted.
2.1c. If a player's final deck is illegal, their most recent legal deck is used. If no legal deck has been submitted, they do not participate.
2.2. A player may not submit a deck that can, against any deck, force one or more cards in an opponent's hand to change zones before an opponent's first turn, or win the game or force a specific card in an opponent's hand to change zones before an opponent's second turn. (Note that forcing your opponent to discard two cards is very likely to force a specific card their hand to change zones.)
2.3. A deck may include any number of any card legal in Vintage (Type 1) and any number of any card in a set that will become legal in Vintage within two weeks of the deadline that has been fully spoiled on magiccards.info or wizards.com.
2.4. Each player plays one match, consisting of two games, against each other player. Each player is the starting player once per match. Results assume optimal play and perfect information.
2.4a. If no player can win, the game is a draw.
2.4b. A player that can't win or draw plays to extend the game.
2.5. Points determine tournament standings. Players are ranked, first to last, in order of decreasing number of points.
2.5a. For each match, a player earns 3 points per game win and 1 point per drawn game. Matches in which each player wins one game and loses one game are worth only 2 points per player, rather than 3.
2.5b. A table of match results is posted each round. Its rows represent players and its columns represent opponents. Match results reflect the combined result of both games played in a match. A player's total points are listed at the end of his or her row.
3. Banned List -
3.1 The following cards are banned. Any deck that includes a card on this list is illegal.
* Fastbond
* Meddling Mage
* Arcane Denial
* Figure of Destiny
* Nezumi Shortfang
* The Rack
* Black Lotus
* Channel
POTM:
Each month, the player with the highest combined score from the four rounds that month is designated Player of the Month. Here are the previous winners, in reverse chronological order:
POTM 11: VikingMetal4L
POTM 10: domogrue
POTM 9: mutantman
POTM 8: VikingMetal4L
POTM 7: VikingMetal4L
POTM 6: VikingMetal4L
POTM 5: Tails2k5
POTM 4: VikingMetal4L
POTM 3: VikingMetal4L
POTM 2: VikingMetal4L
POTM 1: DragonDart
A nice idea occurred to me, so I decided to ignore everyone's suggestions for special weeks, and instead sync up with 5CB for a week or two, though with a slight tweak:
Mana Market Week
All players have 'Pay 3 life: Add 1 mana of any color you have not added to your mana pool this turn to your mana pool. You can't add mana of the chosen color to your mana pool this turn.'
Show and Tell is banned.
There are some options regarding bans just a tad further down this page. Please read them and chime in with your opinions. I'll try to have it finalized by Friday morning so you can all make with the deck-submitting.
Lastly, there have been a few minor changes to the rules. Sets now become legal as soon as they are fully spoiled on magiccards.info or wizards.com, and the former 2.4a, a.k.a. "The Goblin Game Rule", has been eliminated, as recent discussion over in the 1CBB thread has revealed it to be unnecessary due to APNAP.
The deadline is 11:59 PM EST next Wednesday, but don't submit til we know what-all is banned!
Even in weeks where it doesn't win it is clearly format warping.
This week for example we have 3xInnocent Blood and a Spell Snare. That's four people who dedicated half of there cards just to fight this one deck and by my count they are the only ones who don't loose 6-0 to it.
It's been, in my opinion, a really interesting 6 Normal weeks since Emrakul came out. We've seen the format evolve significantly each week, each time with some new ideas and metagame strategies. However, I think that it has about run its course, and I assume that Error1 and myself are not alone in being kinda tired of it.
So here are the three options I'm considering:
1. Ban Channel
This is the obvious course of action and has been discussed before.
2. Ban Emrakul
Maybe Ulamog isn't quite as scary? He dies to Path, anyway... but probably this is not a very good idea, and should instead be Ban the Big Eldrazi. This probably takes care of the problem, and saves poor innocent Channel, but has the negative side effect of not letting you use them in 'fair' decks that try to abuse their graveyard-shuffling ability or have them as finishers if the game goes long.
3. Ban Everything
Okay not literally, but is Channel / Emrakul really the only deck people are tired of? If we go with option 1. or 2. will the format be that much healthier? Or should Gargadon, the Beacons, Guildmage, Student of Warfare, and 2-mana counterspells get the axe too? What about Lich Lord and Anurid Scavenger? I'm not going to do this if it doesn't elicit a significant amount of popular appeal, but I think it might be time to seriously refresh the game.
Bonus Option 4: Unban Everything!
This is a pretty silly idea, but you can't deny that there would be more answers to Emrakul if Black Lotus were still around...
Anurid Scavenger
Balancing Act
Beacon of Creation
Channel
Scavenger because it can draw with just about anything that lacks counterspells, Balancing Act because it beats anything that is slower than turn 4, Beacon because of power level concerns, and Channel because turn 15 Emrakul has never been a problem.
Force more creativity. Those cards (or decks) are *very* difficult to beat with otherwise unexplored cards. Although the new decks this round are pretty sweet, will not deny.
EDIT: OP updated with special week, rules changes, and request for further discussion of bannings.
Whamm, do you have a good reason for leaving Mana Drain and Beacon of Destruction off that list? I can see how Guildmage doesn't quite measure up to those others, but those two seem just as bad to me.
Another interesting question is how exactly to word a ban on 2-mana counters, since I don't think anyone thinks we should ban Spell Snare as well. Mana Leak is probably fine too, right? Does "All cards with CMC=2 and the complete sentence 'Counter target spell.' in their Oracle text are banned." cover it?
On another note, I think "Innocent Blood Week" was actually a fairly good time to roll out Anurid, by the line of play "don't do anything till turn 5, then play both spells and never give the opponent another turn." I suggest the following revisions: 2-2 vs mutantman, 6-0 vs Personman, 6-0 vs WhammWhamme.
Ban the specific cards, there's not that many of them.
That said, yes, there are reasons to leave the others off.
Beacon of Destruction is a good win condition that doubles as removal, absolutely - but it's not that fast a clock, and has yet to be an oppressive part of the meta (it's not been submitted as much as the others on my list).
Mana Drain, OTOH, loses its main partner in crime, and has the drawback of being possible to sneak in under, as well as of being purely an answer. Beacon-Drain is more about the Beacon than the Drain, as this week proved.
Speaking of the special week, I've always found it strange that you can win second turn but not force a discard, guess we will see how good a turn 1 Show & Tell, Emrakul is
If Gargadon/Balance weren't already banned for causing specific discard on turn two on the play, Balance would need banning too.
There was some other version of 2CB that was around for awhile that banned the winning deck every week. =) We could even do that retroactively! Ban everything that's ever won a (normal) round! =)
Regarding the special week, is it:
"Add 1 mana to add any type that hasn't been added by this ability this turn?" or is it actually "Add 1 mana of any type that you haven't added this turn"?
They both let you use the mana market to add a blue, then tapping an island to add another blue, but the second one sort of hides that fact. The second one is overall more restrictive though, but probably in weird ways that I'm finding it hard to make up.
Hey I was right! I did do something wrong!
You know, that's a pretty good point. I think it's just never been even close to coming up (there's never even been a turn 3 win, aside from Channel / Emrakul). I'm gonna go ahead and line those up with each other.
This doesn't actually preclude Show and Tell / Emrakul this week, unfortunately, since you don't get the extra turn with Show and Tell. Even worse, Innocent Blood doesn't stop it, since you don't have to pay 15 life to play him anymore. In fact, Show and Tell / Emrakul would have done better than Channel / Emrakul this last week, come to think of it, though only due to the utter lack of Mana Drains...
I think Show and Tell has to go for this round at least, and maybe in all of 'em.
This has been discussed, and a more sweeping version (everything that's ever been played is banned) was a very successful special week once. We should do that again sometime, probably. I think watching as various cards go up and down in strength as the metagame shifts is too much of the essence of 2CB to adopt this globally though
Hey oops. That's what I get for writing formats at 2:45. The intent is best expressed in the even more restrictive
"All players have 'Pay 3 life: Add 1 mana of any color you have not added to your mana pool this turn to your mana pool. You can't add mana of the chosen color to your mana pool this turn.' "
and I'm changing it to that.
Bans
Given the lack of enthusiasm for rampant bannage, I guess I'm currently leaning towards just Channel (and maybe Show and Tell). If a couple more people pipe up against Beacon of Creation, I will consider it, but I think I would rather do a big reset or nothing when it comes to the other cards under discussion.
POTM News!
I'm actually updating the POTM sheet in a timely fashion this month, so all of the excitement will unfold before your eyes in real time. It's already looking to be an intense month, with newcomer Lithel and former champion mutantman out in front of the pack, but a whole host of other regulars not too far behind. But the month is young yet, and anything could happen as the unexplored 'Mana Market' format tests these fearless competitors' ingenuity in fascinating new ways!
Stupid S+D. Should've been S+Z....
Fattycakes Zombie of Clan Limited
well there goes my completely legal first turn win, and really slows down the deck I actually submitted. I'm not sure I see the point of the rule tho because it doesn't really stop 0st turn counters, wouldn't it be simpler to just say spells can't be countered before the second turn if that's what your worried about.
The rule also slows down the format in general, which seems important.
But I haven't been playing as long as many of the regulars, so the format isn't as stale for me.
Show and Tell, which is banned as part of the special format rules, also has a fairly high chance, I think, of getting the axe by the time the next Normal week comes around as well. Yes, it is twice as vulnerable to Mana Drain as Channel was, but if you don't play Mana Drain, you're pretty screwed. You can't even play Spell Snare. I'm worried that if we keep it, the general character of the metagame won't really change.
Confiscate a) costs 6, which is not an amount of mana you will have with Emrakul attacking on turn 4, and b) is a colored spell.
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