Short of anybody watching the poll like a hawk, I'm pretty sure it's entirely anonymous. So even if you leave your opinion, nobody could really know it's yours. Unless you mention what you voted for.

i voted for two options

One day left to submit Vanilla Lands decks!

Vanilla Lands Spreadsheet!

i cast beast within on turn 3 targeting one of my lands (castigate and elixir end badly, so i don't cast them as long as you have commandeer and mana drain in your hand)

if you mana drain it, then you don't have enough cards to commandeer and i can castigate commandeer away (important, because you can eventually hardcast it and if you commandeer elixir i can't win) then cast elixir and win at my leisure

if you commandeer it (and make it target one of your lands, obviously), i am able to outrace you, as torrent elemental is slow enough that i can set up beast within on my own lands (like i wanted to) and eventually win that way



if you let it resolve, you eventually have to hardcast torrent elemental, which you should be able to do with mana drain backup but not hardcast commandeer backup, so when you are forced to hardcast torrent elemental i can force elixir through using castigate as bait (either it's countered or i exile mana drain) and the game works like this



your best bet is to not attack with torrent elemental, so eventually i get my whole hand back and i cast beast within targeting torrent elemental, which you have to commandeer to one of your lands otherwise you lose, and that functionally works as if you commandeered the beast within so you end up losing anyways

you were right though, your hand owns

I make everyone discard all 3 cards going first so against Jim, Edacade, ThatMarkGuy, and Zietnoba I get 3 points going first.

Jim wins when they go first. So does Edacade. Those matchups are 3-3.

Zietnoba is a math problem. I do 5 damage every turn starting turn 5, so I win on my turn 8. He can attack with an extra 3/3 every turn starting on his turn 5, which is:
5 - 3
6 - 9
7 - 18
8 - lethal
So he also wins going first. The match is 3-3.

Mark is the same math problem. I win on turn 8 going second if I get that far.

He does 1 damage on turn 2, and 3 on every turn starting 4.
4 - 4
5 - 7
6 - 10
7 - 13
8 - 16

I think I 6-0 ThatMarkGuy.


Against Golgari-Spy I lose going second. He castigates my win con and then has forever to do lethal.

Going first, I discard his hand turn 2. I then do 5 damage a turn on turn 3, winning on turn 6. His life gain delays that till turn 7, but he doesn't have a recourse to stop the pain, so I win going first and the matchup is also 3-3. He's marked this 6-0 but I would consider that to be a mistake, because he doesn't have recourse to Castigate my Beacon of Destruction since I always cast it on my turn and he can't cast it until after I start doing that, after which it is safe in my deck on his turns.

Thus I would say the score spy has marked is wrong (I think). Someone please tell me if I'm wrong.



Door 6-0's me.

you can't actually ever beat me, because i can just cast and activate elixir every turn and elixir costs 1 mana so you never get to mind twist it away so that would make it a draw because you can beacon my tokens way faster than i can make them and elixir's lifegain cancels out with beacon

so that should make it 4-1 my favor

edit: i don't think door's matchup is that simple, because you should be able to force him to mana drain beacon (commandeer doesn't really help him because it still shuffles into your library, so he has to mana drain it) and then you can mind twist his remaining two cards once he does, so it looks like a draw both ways

Hm? You don't play your Sol Ring on your T1 because if you do, my Mind Swords exiles the rest of your hand. So you hold it so you can pitch it with Mind Twist and hold your wincon. So your gameplan is simple - a land a turn until T5 then a beacon every turn. If you beacon me to the head 4 times, you win on T8.

I swing for 1 on T2 and T3, and then *4* per turn (Eternal Scourge is a 3/3 and it's attacking alongside the Apprentice) until you Beacon something. I'm hardcasting Mind Swords off two lands, not sacrificing the Apprentice to altcast it. (I'm guessing that's where your math went wrong, you thought that I was losing the Apprentice to cast Mind Swords, but I'm not)

1. Island Apprentice
1. Land1
2. Swamp, Apprentice swings for 1 (20-19), Mind Swords (cast with mana, no sacrifice). I exile Eternal Scourge, you exile Sol Ring and Mind Twist.
2. Land2
3. Land3 Apprentice swings for 1 (20-18), cast Eternal Scourge from exile
3. Land3
4. All swing for 4 (20-14)
4. Land4
5. All swing for 4 (20-10)

If you don't actually target any of my creatures with Beacon, I'll win on my T8, just before your T8 when you'd play your fourth beacon to my head.

5. Land5. You Beacon my head (15-10).
6. All swing for 4 (15-6)
6. Beacon (10-6)
7. All swing for 4 (10-2)
7. Beacon (5-2)
8. All swing for 4 (5-win)

So you should beacon something. Beacon'ing the Eternal Scourge would counter your beacon after the target self-exiles (and eventually gets recast) so you never beacon that. Beaconing the Apprentice ASAP makes my damage line:

5. Land5. You Beacon away my Apprentice.
6. Scourge for 3 (20-7)
6. Beacon (15-7)
7. Scourge for 3 (15-4)
7. Beacon (10-4)
8. Scourge for 3 (10-1)
8. Beacon (5-1)
9. Scourge for 3 (5-win)

Think we're 3-3.

@mark @golgari

My bad. I'll fix them all. Someone get door to fix theirs (I don't want to touch other people's rows).

With that it seems Golgari > Door > Jack > 4th place.

And I'm surprised no elephants were in the room.

Edit: @Golgari, good job on winning the first two rounds.

true story: i almost ran something close to markguy's deck, but i was expecting walking ballista to be a thing

LOL, true story, I was going to run Walking Ballista. I believe my shortlist deck #2 was Gerrard's Verdict - Anguished Unmaking - Walking Ballista. Which would also have performed poorly.

There's a three-way tie in the format poll! I'm going to break it in favor of No Repeats, since Edacade compiled a nice list already.

New Round: No Repeats
You can't use a card that has been used in any previous round this season or last season, and you can't run more than one copy of any card (excluding basic lands for both parts).
Begins Friday, January 27th
Ends Wednesday, February 1st

Is that last line some very dry sarcasm, or a leftover from a version of the post where we were going to be running a rule that was Gitaxian-dangerous. Because I don't think it's particularly relevant in No Repeats.

Just me copying and pasting from the Collector round last season.

I thought the rule was the oldest format on the poll wins the tie.

Weren't all three of the ones that tied introduced for this season?

To be honest i would rather have just taken the losing votes out and had a fresh poll up for like a day. Consolidate the votes for the losing sides into the "winners" and see where it ended up.

This was a special case to avoid making the No Repeats list again later. Also, if it makes you happier, I could've just changed my votes to make it win anyway.

Speaking of which, there's a new poll up!

after all, it is no repeats, you only get to make that list once

I mean...I had a second list building concurrent with the first one.



Although to be fair, I was going to attempt to put the three missing Moxen into decks between this round and next season's Vanilla Land round if No Repeats went around another time.