Return of the MTG: Vanishing Three Card Blind - Once upon a time there was a 3CB

[Tom the Mime]

So, this is a revival of the MTG: Vanishing Three Card Blind

Three Card Blind is a forum-based Magic game in which in every round, each player PMs three cards to the host (currently ben-zayb). These cards make up your entire deck; you begin each game with those cards in your hand, and you play against each other player twice (one going first, and once going second).

These matches are "played" assuming perfect play, full knowledge of each others hands and horrendous luck for random effects for coin flips for the player who played them (if you play Games of Chaos it will kill you every time).

You get 3 points for each win, 1 points for each draw, and 0 points for each loss. Since you play each opponent twice, that means that you can get up to 6 points per opponent. Whoever has the most points after playing everybody wins the round.

There are many variations of Three Card Blind. In Vanishing Three Card Blind, there is a list of banned cards that nobody can put into their decks. In the first round, there are no banned cards. After that, the cards from the winning deck (or decks, in case of a tie) are added to the ban list. The only cards which are exempt from being banned are basic lands, the Fallen Empires and Mercadian Masques storage lands, and the Time Spiral dual storage lands.

Also, there are four cycles of lands with a special rule. Once every card in one of these cycles has been banned, the entire cycle will be unbanned. These cycles are:
The Invasion saclands
The Fallen Empires saclands
The Ravnica block Karoos
The Masques block Depletion lands

Some additional rules:

All sets and promos are legal, including Unglued and Unhinged. However, any cards that have a random effect (such as Mana Clash), or require some form of physical or mental dexterity (such as Charm School or Question Elemental) are assumed to go against the person using them in their deck (so Mana Clash would give you 20 tails in a row, Charm School falls off your head immediately, and you get an uncontrollable urge to recite epic poetry once your Question Elemental comes into play, at which point your opponent reveals themself to be The Riddler.) Edit: to be clear, you can use the Un-cards that require you to do some physical action, provided it is not intended to be a feat of dexterity. So Knight of the Hokey Pokey works, Goblin Mime does not.

You don't lose the game from being unable to draw a card, but the draw still tries to happen, so you are allowed to use cards such as the Onslaught Words enchantments, which allow you to skip drawing a card for some effect.

Perfect play is assumed, and during the games, each player knows what the other player has. So your opponent won't play their Akroma if you have a Control Magic, and you always know what to name for your Cabal Therapy

In a situation where neither player can or wants to act, the game is a draw. So if your opponent's deck is Foil, Island, and Nether Spirit, and you would be unable to survive against a 2/2 that comes back every turn, you simply don't play any spells at all, and your opponent never has a way to play Foil and thus discard the Spirit. Since neither player is doing anything, it's a draw.

In the event of a card that can draw on cards from outside the game such as the wishes or Research, you may have a sideboard of three cards to draw from.

You don't get any mana to start out with, so your three cards must include something that can get you the mana you need (the aforementioned storage lands are a big help here).

If you think I made a mistake on the results, make a post saying so. I'll look it over and change the results if you're right, or explain why if you're wrong.

When a new set is out, the cards in it will be legal once a round starts with the set available in Gatherer.

I will try to run rounds weekly provided I have at least four decks.

You may send in decks for multiple rounds ahead of time. If your deck contains banned cards or relies on some rules misconception, I'll use the next deck in line. If we rotate hosts, I recommend not sending decks in too far in advance.

If you aren't sure whether your deck works or not, PM me and I'll let you know. You can also PM me if you've changed your mind about your deck and want to submit a different one for the round.

Finally, I am not a judge, so if you think I made a mistake in scoring, please tell me.

Other information:
Old thread
Second old Thread
Example of Play

Special Rounds
Every 5th round will be a special round with a twist. Examples from the old thread include:

• Each player has a deck full of an arbitrarily large library of wastes
• Duplicate 3CB - Your deck contains two copies of each of your cards listed
• Backbuild - trying to lose instead of win but have to beat an empty hand (difference between an empty hand and a hand full of blanks or land was actually important)
• Instants and sorceries have rebound, creatures have persist

Ones used this thread:

• Commander - Round 5
• Each player has an emblem with "If a card would be put into your graveyard from anywhere, instead that card is revealed and put on the bottom of your library." - Round 10
• Conspiracy theory - Each player starts with a conspiracy of their choice in the command zone - Round 15
• No lands and at the beginning of their precombat main phase, each player can add two mana in any combination to their mana pool - Round 20
• Food fight - Each player creates a Food token at the beginning of each of their upkeeps

Future possibilities include:

• Planeshift - select a plane card to start on for your turn and all rolls go against the owner of the plane
• Vanguard Avatar - vanguard avatars are legal (may have an extra slot for it, might not)
• Planeswalker - You can have 4 cards but one has to be a planeswalker
• Two-headed giant - this one would get crazy
• Limited omniscience - Each player begins with X Treasure tokens in play
• Landfall - basic lands all have some sort of landfall ability
• Like a flash - all spells players cast have flash

If there's a wide variety and they seemed fun, some may even be run again if it goes on for long enough.

Important note
Regarding banlists, we have a couple of options.
1) Carry over the banlist

Spoiler: Old ban list

Show

Land: Ancient Tomb, Bayou, Bazaar of Baghdad, Blooming Marsh, Caldera Lake, Cathedral of War, City of Traitors, Crystal Vein, Dark Depths, Dryad Arbor, Ebon Stronghold, Eldrazi Temple, Ghost Quarter, Gruul Turf, Hickory Woodlot, Inkmoth Nexus, Khalni Garden, Keldon Megaliths, Oboro, Palace in the Clouds, Maze of Ith, Mishra's Factory, Mishra's Toy Workshop, Mishra's Workshop, R&D's Secret Lair, Scrubland, Shelldock Isle, Strip Mine, Syvelunite Temple, Tundra, Undiscovered Paradise, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Wasteland

Colorless: Arcbound Slith, Black Lotus, Blacker Lotus, Chronomaton, Emrakul the Aeons torn, Isochron Scepter, Karn Liberated, Lion's Eye Diamond, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Memnite, Mox Emerald, Mox Jet, Mox Pearl, Mox Sapphire, Mox Ruby, Phyrexian Dreadnought, Steel Overseer, The Rack, Thought-Knot Seer, Topor Orb

Black: Bitterblossom, Blackmail, Bloodghast, Cabal Therapy, Chancellor of the Dross, Corpulent Corpse, Cruel Sadist, Dark Ritual, Encroach, Entomber Exarch, Liliana the Last Hope, Mind Swords, Shrieking Affliction, Soul Spike, Vampire Hexmage, Vault Skirge

Blue: Daze, Ensoul Artifact, Flash, Force of Will, Laboratory Maniac, Leyline of Anticipation, Mental Misstep, Zephyr Spirit

Green: Call of the Herd, Channel, Elvish Farmer, Form of the Squirrel, Helix Pinnacle, Sprout Swarm, Tukatongue Thallid, Woodfall Primus, Young Wolf

Red: Burning Inquiry, Chancellor of the Forge, Chaos Lord

White: Balance, Cenn's Tactician, Chancellor of the Annex, Doomed Traveler

Gold: Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker, Research//Development

2)Wipe the banlist clean and start again. Makes sense if it's mostly people who weren't around for the original but a some of the early decks prior to them using vanguards may see a lot of repetition in the early meta.
3)Keep the banlist but allow winners to unban a card every couple of rounds. A single card stops repeats of entire decks but brings in old strong options if the meta starts to get a bit stale.

I'll give it a at least a couple of days to hear what people think about the banlists before starting the first round.

[Ninjaman]

2, wipe the banlist clean. It's been so long I don't think it makes any sense to not just start over.

[Eurus]

Ditto, I think wiping the banlist makes sense unless most of the players end up being people who were in the last one and really don't want to go through the early rounds again.

Also tbh I think a single card un-ban every five rounds or so would be neat even if we start fresh. Might shake things up.

[Dr.Gunsforhands]

Resetting the banlist is probably the way to go, since the new game will have some different rules to begin with. We're presumably not using planes, vanguard avatars or Un-cards this time around, for instance. I might go so far as to assume that Laboratory Maniac won't work the same way, either.

[Quiddle]

Yeah, I think we could wipe the ban list. I also would like to remove planes, vanguard avatars, and archenemy schemes. I think silver bordered magic is okay. I'm also okay with lab man.

[Eurus]

I'm fine with Lab Maniac I guess? It'll probably win a game and get banned relatively early because it's extremely good, but its functionality is consistent with the listed rules ("you don't lose for drawing on an empty deck but you still have a draw phase").

I have no preference on which types of cards are allowed as far as silver border or whatever, I'll go with the crowd.

EDIT: Also the rules don't specify, can you run multiple copies of the same card in your 3?

[Ninjaman]

Yeah, I think we could wipe the ban list. I also would like to remove planes, vanguard avatars, and archenemy schemes. I think silver bordered magic is okay. I'm also okay with lab man.

I second this statement.

EDIT: Also the rules don't specify, can you run multiple copies of the same card in your 3?

Yes.

[Tom the Mime]

Silver border is fine. Lab maniac and the new Jace are fine - banning single cards is a waste as if they're good enough, a round or two takes care of it. Vanguard avatars, planes and schemes are all banned apart from special rounds for now. They're interesting and I know there were some good ideas with them (I went out of my way to make a good planes deck with dreampods) but it gets a little weird and they're better suited to special rounds.

And duplicate cards are allowed in your three cards (unless it's the Commander special round).

[Unavenger]

I'm a fan of starting over from scratch, as well.

[TiaC]

I find the earlier rounds to be uninteresting, as the meta is so harsh that all the decks tend to play the same. Thus, I'm in favor of keeping the old ban list as it would result in much more diverse decks and I find that to be the coolest part of this. However, I've seen a lot of Vanishing Three Card Blind, so maybe others aren't as tired of the early rounds as me.

[Quiddle]

Thats fair I've thought about it more and I would like to change my vote to keep at least somewhat of a ban list.

I think banning the lotuses, force of will, lab man, and jace of mysteries should be enough though. TiaC, if you have other cards you think are super polarizing early let us know.

Just looking at the old ban list it seems like there are a bunch of cards that aren't the most format breaking and should probably come off if we are reseting.

[TiaC]

Thats fair I've thought about it more and I would like to change my vote to keep at least somewhat of a ban list.

I think banning the lotuses, force of will, lab man, and jace of mysteries should be enough though. TiaC, if you have other cards you think are super polarizing early let us know.

Just looking at the old ban list it seems like there are a bunch of cards that aren't the most format breaking and should probably come off if we are reseting.

I think the most minimal ban list to avoid degeneracy in early rounds would just be the lotuses, chancellor of the annex, and force of will (And R&D's Secret Lair, because that is the most annoying card to make rulings for and I want to throw Tom a bone.) Lab man and jace of mysteries are powerful win conditions, but without a way of getting them out first turn, they lose to a lot of disruption and some fast decks.

[Ninjaman]

But aren't the lotuses, Chancellor of the Annex and Force going to get banned within the first five rounds anyway?

[Tom the Mime]

If it's a wipe of the ban list, it's a full wipe. I'm not going to make judgement calls on whether a card or two will be initially banned because if they're good enough, they'll be banned in the first few rounds unless enough people specifically build against them. The first round or two might be a bit of a rock-paper-scissors in whoever predicts the meta the best.

Force of will is strong, but if you're expecting it, forcing a draw or better is simple enough as I'm pretty sure their threat is limited to a 1/1. There's one specific counter to Chancellor of the Annex that almost guarantees WW against any list depending on it. Black lotus lists need one of two leylines or are weak to all disruption so they make more things possible but if the leylines go before they do, they might even stick around for a surprising amount of time.

[Gauntlet]

Definitely interested.

Leaning towards starting again from blank banlist, but don't mind either way really.

[Eurus]

Agreed with blank banlist, that's practically the whole point of the game. Trying to out-predict an evolving meta.

I totally understand why someone who's played a lot of V3CB would want to skip over the earlier rounds, and if most of the playgroup falls into that category I won't mind. I personally haven't played before, so I would enjoy starting blank, so that's where I cast my vote.

[Gauntlet]

If I was going to pick the starting setup myself, I'd have the banned list blank except for R&D's Secret Lair.

[Ninjaman]

If I was going to pick the starting setup myself, I'd have the banned list blank except for R&D's Secret Lair.

I'd be okay with starting with that banned as well.

If not then you can always just get it banned again.

[b_jonas]

I'd prefer the keep the ban list. The previous meta was good, and still had lots of interesting decks to play. I have my deck for the next round (round 31) submitted, and lots of more ideas that I wanted to try. The game only got stalled because there weren't enough players. In fact, the meta is changing in an interesting way, because now most of the good one-mana disruption cards are banned. I think I'd find the first few rounds with no ban list less interesting, even after we tear the Blacker Lotuses and ban the Cities of Ass.

Regardless, banning cards that are very hard to judge is important, and it should decided by the regulars who did all the difficult judging.

On a different note, I would prefer if the special rounds were less frequent.

Tom the Mime: can you make it clear if this means that you're volunteering to be the organizer for the first rounds?

[Quiddle]

I would be willing to help judge rounds later if you get tired of it. How long should rounds be/how often are we going to go through play and judge cycles?

[Tom the Mime]

Ok, there's been enough input so the ban list is wiping clean.

Go ahead and submit your decks for the first round by Sunday. If you can link your cards to gatherer in your pm, that'd be greatly appreciated.

@b_jonas: Yes I'm volunteering for at least the first five rounds. As for special rounds, it's not as big a deal now but when the meta was getting stale at times in the last thread, the special rounds seemed to help and got more people to the thread in some cases. Personally, I like the special rounds but anyone in the previous thread would've seen that I like making weird Johnny jank (which can work because it's off-axis to the disruption) and the special rounds give fresh design spaces for that.

@Quiddle: Unless something comes up for people, I'd suggest swapping after 5 rounds (or they recommit for another 5 rounds) so with 1-2 rounds a week it'll probably end up around 3-4 weeks

Ban list:

Spoiler: Ban list

Show

Empty

[b_jonas]

I weep for the nice balanced environment where most of the cards with power level bah-roken were already banned and we could build actually interesting decks. I'll have to file all the deck ideas that I had and wait for approximately 50 rounds until we return to that state.

Now some rules questions.

1. In general, do you feel bound by rules judgings that TiaC has given for the previous Vanishing Three Card Blind game?
2. How does Blacker Lotus work? It was already banned at the start of the first thread, so I can't see the judgement for it.
3. Is Richard Garfield, Ph.D. allowed?
4. We aren't allowed to use vanguard avatars, schemes, planes, phenomenons; and we can't start with a conspiracy in the command zone, and though technically you can have a three-card sealed booster with a conspiracy in it in your sideboard, there's no way to put it to the command zone from there, right?

[Gauntlet]

Pretty sure Blacker Lotus is just played as a Lotus that can't be recurred by any means.

[Tom the Mime]

Now some rules questions.

1. In general, do you feel bound by rules judgings that TiaC has given for the previous Vanishing Three Card Blind game?
2. How does Blacker Lotus work? It was already banned at the start of the first thread, so I can't see the judgement for it.
3. Is Richard Garfield, Ph.D. allowed?
4. We aren't allowed to use vanguard avatars, schemes, planes, phenomenons; and we can't start with a conspiracy in the command zone, and though technically you can have a three-card sealed booster with a conspiracy in it in your sideboard, there's no way to put it to the command zone from there, right?

1) The only card rulings that could be somewhat ambiguous are R&D Secret Lab and Mishra's Toy Workshop. I'm tempted to effectively ban the lab by ruling that only the gatherer text is used, not any original card text because it's a mess when you specifically ignore clarified card rulings. For the Toy Workshop, what you spend the mana on has to directly put a token into play, not potentially do it later.
2) It wasn't banned at the beginning of the original thread and yeah, it's just a lotus with an extra mana that can't be recurred.
3) Yes but I'm ruling that it loses unless the person who plays it provides an example of a card they choose to mimic winning (unless it's an obvious vanilla card). If they can search it and find a winning one, fine but I'm not looking through all of them myself. Especially when with Fae of Wishes and a sideboard of 3 cards, you've got up to 6 different mana costs you can work with (depending on how you treat interactions with Garfield and adventure) and cast when you have a blue storage land. I doubt many decks would let you get there but if they do, it's on you to find a solution.
4) Correct, those cards are only allowed in special rounds at this stage.

[b_jonas]

Hey everyone! Play Chancellor of the Annex! It totally defeats all decks that will be in the first round.

Also, it probably doesn't matter now, but in the ban lists of the previous thread, "Topor Orb" is probably a typo for Torpor Orb.

[Ninjaman]

Hey everyone! Play Chancellor of the Annex! It totally defeats all decks that will be in the first round.

Could you not?

[b_jonas]

Ninjaman: TiaC specifically allowed that sort of mind game.

Update: I forgot another rules question.

1. Am I allowed to take mulligans? If so, then we can use that to start with some cards of my deck in my library. That can help with some effects that look in the library, or against some discard effects.

[Eurus]

Logically this is going to be a round with two extremes: ramp, and turn zero disruption. On the one hand we have leylines for flash discard effects, Force of Will, Chancellor of the Annex, and probably a bunch more stuff that I'm not even thinking about yet. On the other hand we have lotuses.

[Ninjaman]

Update: I forgot another rules question.

1. Am I allowed to take mulligans? If so, then we can use that to start with some cards of my deck in my library. That can help with some effects that look in the library, or against some discard effects.

No, because that is just going to make stuff more difficult to judge.

[Tom the Mime]

No mulligans and even if there there were, it would give you the worst possible hand and card order. Anything you wanted to protect from discard is stuck in your hand. You have to use graveyard shuffle effects and cards like Bazaar of Baghdad or Lion's Eye Diamond to get cards back to your library from your hand, or cards like Research to get them from your sideboard to your library. There are viable strategies that do this () but they're probably not viable yet.

Also, we have 10 decks so far and a couple of people who've posted here haven't got one in yet so it looks like a good turnout to start things off.