If Jack, who had no idea what it was, could figure this all out that fast, then I'm pretty sure a google search and some churros would have allowed anyone to figure it out after your initial post.

I made a thread for current-format meta discussion here so as to make this thread more accessible to those of us who want to avoid those sorts of discussions. would you folks mind using it? cheers.

But all that does is allow me to discuss the other stuff I wanted to talk about here without constant meta interruption! Damn your simple and effective ideas!

Anyway, I wanted to bring up a discussion on reviewing the 3CM rules. They've basically gone unchanged for years, which is probably a sign of them being well structured. But that doesn't mean they can't be examined! So here's a short survey of the first thoughts that came to mind:

1. Do you like the existence of turn two kills? Do you think they're different than decks that practically win on turn two? Do you feel differently between vanilla and alternates?

2. Do you like the existence of first turn discard? What about the existence of cards that can't be played because of our discard rule, even if that effect has little to no practical use in most match ups?

3. How often do you want a format with more than 3 cards?

I think turn two kills are fine, theres a decent enough amount of interruption that they are acceptable...except...

I don't like the existence of turn 1 discard, its an easy 3 points and not very creative, I see the difference between discard and counters as the difference between Fact or Fiction and Steam Augury. From what I've seen of Alt formats...they're pretty swingy, so I think discard and counters become even more relevant.

I'm kinda interested in whatever, technically, the alt formats HAVE a fourth card, just one you can't really interact with, so I think it would be fine to throw vanilla 4CM in as an alt.

I think they should stay alt-banned for alt-round safety, but if people want to unban the necessary cards to make those happen in vanilla, that's fine, they're deal-with-able.

I think discard is in a good place right now. the targeted ones you can run with basically no external cost are all banned, so if you want to discard you either run blind stuff like funeral charm which can be played around, or you commit your whole deck to the discard plan, which means you don't have any real back-up. Mage/Sculler is probably the most powerful, but a deck with two ways to beat a 2/2 is not that hard to come across.

when it comes up in the alt polls. different amounts of cards are a fundamentally different game so it should be kept separate. and right now we can't support multiple Xcm threads in this community, so let's leave the higher numbers for Sally.

I don't see how anybody can hate the fact that Artifact Blast is viable. The more decks that are viable, the more interesting the format is, especially with obscure cards like Blast.

So how's that WUBRG Spreadsheet going? Anyone want to go through and finish it up?

I transposed existing scores (didn't check many, though I did peek at 16v17 and I believe it's wrong - the Lich's Mirror alone can get recast every turn for a draw and even the choirs of angels can't actually complete the kill) and scored what I could among the unscored pairings. I couldn't work out 5v10, 5v19, or 8v17 this tired Monday. And there are a multitude of symmetry issues that need to be resolved.

I got some free time. I'll go through it a bit.

On some symmetry mismatches:
2 vs 7 marked 0, 7 vs 2 marked 0 with note "Shriekmaw kills a smiter, then outraces 5 damage a turn to 4."
My thinking is 2-2. If 7 never plays anything (just passes turn), 2 does what? If 2 plays Blazing Specter, attacks and forces one of the Loxodon discard (into play!). Then 7 plays Crack to kill the specter and Loxodon and passes again. If 2 plays Shriekmaw first, 7 wins (later-played Loxodon outraces). If 7 plays Smiter first, 2 wins (Shriekmaw destroys). Stalemate. 2-2.

2 vs 15 marked 0, 15 vs 2 marked 2.
I see 2-2. Dispel can counter Mana Short, so 15's plan of a lockdown-from-upkeep is spent. Eon Hub will land, though, so 2 can only cast ONE of Shriekmaw or Blazing Specter. 15 won't cast the Skylasher before end of 2's first turn second main so that means Blazing Specter it is. And Blazing Specter would win the race (or on the play, even force Eon Hub discard!) if 15 doesn't Flash out Skylasher for the mutual destroy leading to a draw.

I did something bad to the symmetry checker on the 15v16 and 16v15 fields, and also for 17v14 and 17v15. 15/16 and 16/15 were screwed up anyway (they were detecting a mismatch for some reason when the values matched) - but my attempt to fix them has clearly borked the formulas - they're showing 'match' now, but I believe for the wrong reasons. Formula extrapolation on that page did not work they way I thought it would.

Wait, you can edit the symmetry checker? That tab is supposed to be protected. Apparently the protection system in the new Sheets makes no sense. Great.

Edit: I reverted the symmetry checker to it's original implementation (or at least whatever is in the Vanilla Redux spreadsheet), and 15v16 looks fine? I'm not sure what problem you were having.

And yeah, those formulas are much too complicated for the built-in extrapolation to do anything. I generated them all with a script and copy-pasted them in.

15v16 was showing red Xs despite the actual result page looking symmetric (a 6 and a 0) - I took a peek at the formulas on the symmetry checker and those cells seemed to be in error (I would guess someone before me broke them) so I tried an extrapolation from nearby cells to fix them, which made them show as green Os but the formulas were now even more wrong. Thanks for reverting, you've now reversed the damage I did trying to repair what I believe was damage someone before me did.

Sorry I didn't fill out my row I just got way too busy with thesis writing

Pleased to see that I was correct in thinking my deck managed to at least push some of the others to a standstill! I thought that was the case but didn't actually have brainpower last week to figure out whether I was right or not.

My opinions on matchups left to do:

I think POS got it right and I 6-0 Scarlet. Although someone else should check that since it's my deck we are talking about.


For 8 vs 17, isn't this just a standoff where no one does anything because anyone using any mana will let the other get an advantage and thus a 2/2?

Edit: Or a stalled board with nothing but lich's mirror on it. Either or.


For 5 vs 19, I don't see how the planeswalker deck loses. Vraska can insta gib both green bringers, and ajani vengeant can perma stop the red one. Then it will take a while to win but you effectively win with Sorin. Easy peezy.

bringer of the red dawn can target itself