You'd probably just have to specify which threshold mechanics are affected.

Saying "all ability words" doesn't make sense with things like Heroic or Landfall.

A quick look at this article suggests the list would look something like this:
-Delirium
-Fateful hour
-Ferocious
-Formidable
-Hellbent
-Lieutenant
-Metalcraft
-Morbid
-Raid
-Spell mastery
-Threshold

Lieutenant? Oh...interesting.

I guess I have some formats I need to come up with.
• Each player submits a card name. All copies of the named cards are removed from both decks and replaced with the card your opponent named.
• All colored mana symbols and colors are purple, and all basic land types are cave (including references in rules text).
• If a game would tie, the starting player wins instead.
• At the beginning of each player's end step, if their life total is odd, they lose the game.
• Players can't play more than one card during their turn.
• At the beginning of each player's upkeep, they may swap a card in their hand with a card of their choice in their opponent's.

this format is actually miserable (although the thought of lightning bolt being effectively banned is hilarious, it's not worth it)

the others seem workable, although cave is not well-defined so you would have to specifically state that it would produce purple mana

Just play a painland m8. If you can't toggle your life total, you deserve to lose to lightning bolt.

But, per the rules, Lightning Bolt would be banned (at least, a deck that could cast it on turn 1). Whether a deck deserves to lose to Lightning Bolt or not, or could easily avoid it, is immaterial. Mountain - Bolt - Anything would be a disallowed deck. So would Mountain-Monastery Swiftspear. Llanowar Wastes-Maggot Carrier, verboten. Chancellor of the Forge would be banned. Dryad Arbor - Invigorate would be banned.

It sure would be different, though.

Well, okay, I guess the opponent doesn't get a FULL turn.

I don't get it. You name Black Lotus. I name Wasteland. If I was playing Wasteland, Black Lotus, Elspeth, Knight-Errant, what does my deck now look like?


Is Cave in reference to something? Is this basically "Mana of any color can be used to pay for any color of costs"?


I'd like not to encourage decks that aim for 2-2s. They just aren't interesting.


Could be a fun format to navigate. Could be awful, but that's true of many alternate formats.


Slows down the Lotus decks, but not much else. Leyline/Karakas is the same. Lands.dec is the same. ChargeKarn is the same. BridgeTongs is the same. Seems to just make aggro and combo worse, and they're already bad.


Evil.

I would just like to offer that the alternate round ideas I've submitted are free for grabs. If I care about being the person credited for the idea, I won't share the idea here.

It becomes Lotus, Wasteland, Elspeth instead of Wasteland, Lotus, Elspeth.


No, Cave is just an arbitrary name, as is purple.
Wild Nacatl is a 3/3 that you can cast off an Island, Sunburst is capped at 1, you can cast Nicol Bolas off a storage land, etc.
Coalition Victory wins if you have a colored permanent and a land with a Basic land type.

I don't know how to make interesting formats for round 3. Maybe it's just inherently not something that appeals to me.
• Decks that don't win in exactly 7 rounds are illegal.
• Decks can't include any two cards that were printed in the same set.
• 4cm. Each player removes a (non-land?) card from their opponent, starting with the start player.
• Choose a printing of each card in the deck. The sum of their collector's number must be between 300 and 400.

Nah, I think most of them are interesting. You don't really find out till you start trying to put decks together anyways. This was more about getting past a hump (like my Can't Sacrifice idea) and identifying immediately broken things like the original version of my Shootout idea. I think the rest can be put to a vote on if people want to be pessimistic about it or give it a shot and realize they should have been pessimistic

Choose a deck that you've been interested in playing in 3CM, but couldn't because it was too slow, too convoluted, or required something extra to work. Build your round rule so that the deck will work.

"Ability words with 'if' or 'as long as' clauses are always on."

Dryad Arbor is both.


For better or for worse, this format would be a T0-disruption format (just like my Spirit Guides suggestion). People could Elvish Spirit Guide into a Funeral Charm or a Force Spike .

Which is perfectly valid, just something people should know is there when they evaluate the merits of the format.

I thought of this today:

Idolotry: All players start the game with a 1/1 colorless Construct artifact creature with "You cannot lose the game" on the battlefield.

The original idea was an emblem that you were forced to sac on turn 20, but I figured that wasn't really any different than normal, except there may be a bit more 3-3s than 6-0s.

I wonder if it should be out of Gut Shot range though?

that format sounds awful

Don't they all though?

There are dynamic ways to win though. You can kill/bounce the Idol or play a "You win the game" card. It naturally lowers the value of aggressive/discard decks while raising the value of control decks. Choosing the right type of removal is difficult though because you won't be sure if using it on the idol will be the right call. Plus it creates fun opportunities to suit up your idol rather than having a dedicated wincon in your hand.

I thought of a really dumb one today but figured I'd share it because when I realized it exactly how much it didn't work I got a chuckle out of the round name:

Sorry Mown: Each letter in card names in your deck must also be a letter in your NGA username.

this at least is awful for all the right reasons

How many of us could even produce mana? For me, the closest I get is Taiga but even that's one letter shy. Gruul Turf is 2 short.