Magic: The Gathering theoretical format

Cafe Society
1

Warning: The following is an example of extreme geekery. You have been warned.

This was a discussion that fizzled (ha!) out on Usenet. I’d like to explore it a little more, and after seeing the AudreyK and KKBattousai thread, now I realize how many MtG players are here. Here’s the format:

All decks must be three cards exactly. Obviously, decking is not a win condition.
Decklists are known to both players.
The banned list consists of cards from Unglued, Starter, and Portal, plus all ante cards, plus Sharhazad.

I believe this to br breakable, in other words, there is a single best deck. I have not discovered it yet, but I think I may be close. I won’t publish my results just yet, as I’d like to see what the denizens here can come up with.

Any takers?

–
Justin

2

I can guarantee a draw no matter what your deck no matter who goes first.

Force of will and another blue card. What do I force of will? It depends on what three cards you have. If your only mana source is, say, a black lotus, I will counter it. Ta da. Instant draw.

How do I win? Well, that’s not really my goal. I’m just here to take out your unbeatable deck.

3

Ummm… I throw out my Dark Magician, Blue Eyes White Dragon and my Red Eyes Black Dragon.

4

Enderw24 A good, but definitely not best, deck for this would be a Mountain and two Goblins (I believe there are higher power 1 mana ones that have an echo cost, but my memory for the newer cards are spotty since I stopped playing a while ago). Your draw deck assumes they are going to be using a non-land mana source or two lands.

However I think that the deck ideas are going to be something like Lotus, Dark Ritual, Juzam. There may be newer black creatures that are similiar to Juzam or even a Sengir may be best in this case to avoid the constant damage. Against these decks yours does ensure a draw.

I think I can prove there is no best deck.

Every deck has at least one counter deck that can ensure non-victory for the deck. If a deck is its own and only counter deck it is the best deck, by definition it can beat every other deck. However the force of will deck provides an additional deck of non-victory to every deck that isn’t Land and two cards not dependent upon eachother. These decks can be beaten by other decks however and so the best deck cannot be among them. Therefor there is no best deck because any deck that exists has at least two counters that cause a non-victory.

Now if you redefine best to has the least counter decks I don’t think you can provide a deck and prove that it is the one that has the least counter decks. To do that you’d have to generate every legal deck that can do something and play them against eachother to find the answer. There doesn’t seem to be a way to prove that a particular deck has more or less counter decks than another deck.

5

Ah, but my third card can then be a zero casting cost creature with a toughness greater than your attacking power. Ornithopter comes to mind for any 1/1s out there.
So I get rid of one of your goblins and I ensure a standstill with the other.

Or, in the alternative, I make my third card a strip mine.

6

Amp, you failed to tribute for your monsters. :wink:

Just out of curiosity, what’s wrong with the classic Channelball if you know you can pull it immediately?

7

Never mind. I just remembered that it takes four cards to pull off. :slight_smile:

8

Actually I just realized a problem with your deck. Force of Will costs 1 life. You loose on life points. So the third card needs to be something that costs no mana and restores 1 life to you otherwise it looses to those it stalls. Such a card may exist but if not my proof as well as your really good deck is in danger.

I think though the intent was an actual death being required. Since you can’t run out of cards turns just go back and forth infinitely until someone dies. If that isn’t the case then I think there may actually be a deck that can deal the most damage, or get the highest life total discrepancy, before the game stalls.

If the unequal life total draws are allowed then Strip Mine, Force of Will and a Blue Card will indeed always cause a draw. In this case the proof of no best deck is more elegant. It serves as the second non-victory counter for every deck type and in turn every deck type is a non-victory counter for it because it can never actually win.

And JSG that was also my first thought but the damned Lotus won’t give you 2 Green and 1 Red.

9

Well. There used to be the Lotus, Magma mine (I think), Wall of … of. Damn, it’s been too long. The wall that you can get G from by putting a -0/-1 counter on it. But they closed that loophole.

There are a number of 4 card combos that will win you the game (such as Channelball), but I’m not sure that a 3 card one exists anymore.

One option is Lotus, Pox, Nether spirit. Whatever your opponent plays, you then lotus pox, discarding the spirit. Odds are your spirit will match any creature they can play. It can’t be countered meaningfully (it just comes back), and if their first turn consisted of land, creature, you would win.

Of course, there are ways to stop this deck.

The best one I can think of off the top of my head would be City of Traitors and two copies of the Rack. You drop all three first turn. There’s no way they can race that with only three cards, and I can’t think of any way to kill both racks and/or counter them and still be able to do any damage to you. Worst case scenario is, I think, a draw, with the opponent playing a lotus, and that Rack and Ruin, which will kill both artifacts.

[sigh] If only I had blacker lotus.

10

The Tim I’m not sure I understand your argument. The rules state that if you go down to 0 you lose, not “whomever has the least amount of life whenever you both get too bored to keep playing loses.”

11

Actually, The Tim, FoW, blue card, and strip mine will most definitely NOT force a draw. It will lose to either of my options.

Also, I thought of a foil to the double rack deck. A mountain, goblin vandal, some other creature draw would win. Back to the drawing board.

12

Enderw24 I don’t know the official Magic rules for a stall, mostly because they don’t happen thanks to the run out factor. More over I’m not sure in this modified 3 card version if a stall is a draw or a win to the highest life. That’s why I included the possibility that he meant most damage before a stall occured not reduction to 0 life. It isn’t exactly Magic being talked about.

iamthewalruns(:3= I’m not sure what City of Traitors, Pox, Nether Spirit or Goblin Vandal do. I suspect they are after the time I actively played and bought cards. It occurs to me Pox must be a black card that forces you to discard a black card as part of casting cost and Nether Spirit comes back from the graveyard. In this case if your opponent goes first they refuse to play the Strip Mine. You either agree to sit there and wait or play the Lotus and then sit there and wait since its been countered. Remember the cards are known to both parties and so perfect plays are allowed. As for the City of Traitors (I assume it is a land) I guess that would beat the counter deck. IIRC strip mine can’t get rid of the potential to get mana from the land as mana effects are the fastest ones.

I’ll admit the proof is dependent on the evil counter deck. Still I still don’t believe a best deck exists in this scenario. You cannot depend upon going first or the other person playing badly. With those factors removed I doubt seriously you can find a deck that only has itself as counter deck. I just can’t offer logical proof any longer because there appears to be ways around the evil counter deck that are decks that may actually win.

13

Sorry.

City of Traitors: Land, with the text: “When you play another land, sacrifice ~this~. ; {Tap}: Add two colorless mana to your mana pool.”

Pox: A sorcery for BBB that says: “Each player loses a third of his or her life, then discards a third of the cards in his or her hand, then sacrifices a third of the creatures he or she controls, then sacrifices a third of the lands he or she controls. Round each loss up.”

Nether Spirit: A 2/2 for BB1, with the ability: “At the beginning of your upkeep, if ~this~ is the only creature card in your graveyard, you may return ~this~ to play.”

Goblin vandal: A 1/1 for R, with the ability: “R: Destroy target artifact defending player controls and prevent all combat damage ~this~ would deal this turn. Play this ability only once each turn and only during the declare blockers step and only if ~this~ is attacking and unblocked.”

and one more, used in this example:

Lion’s Eye Diamond: Artifact for 0 with text: “Sacrifice ~this~, Discard your hand: Add three mana of any one color to your mana pool. Play this ability only any time you could play an instant.”

Basicall, a poor mans black lotus.

These are all from http://www.crystalkeep.com/magic/rules/summaries.html, which has full listings for the current wordings of all Magic cards.

I agree that the counter deck would beat the pox one. For some reason I was overlooking the fact that if the Nether Spirit doesn’t get to the graveyard somehow, it won’t come back. The deck: lotus, lotus (I assume no restricted list here, but if there is one, then lotus, Lion’s Eye Diamond), and nether spirit would work against he counter deck, but would likely suck against other decks. Anything packing Swords to plowshares or graveyard removal, for instance.

14

Also, life is almost never used as a tie-breaker anymore in competitive magic. Not to say that it couldn’t be for this one, but it would be atypical.

15

Wall of Roots. That’s what that wall is. (It was a matter of personal pride for me not to look this up, otherwise I would have included it above).

16

Bah, 3 cards, amatuers… i only need 2, mountain and…
Mana Clash, or whatever it was called, red sorcery, one mana … something like, both flip a coin, both call out heads or tails, if u dont get what u called for, u loose one life… if u dont both get what u called for, do it again…
i win 20 times, u dead!

17

I don’t think it’s possible with three cards. Force of Will is the card that makes it impossible. Take Force of Will out of the lineup and it might be doable.

Enjoy,
Steven

18

OK. Interesting discussion all. My assumptions for the format are that each player is a good, competent player, and will not make mistakes. If it is not to a player’s advantage to cast a spell or attack, they won’t. If both players find themselves in this situation, it is a draw.

Here is my most efficient beatdown deck.

Pendlehaven, Eladamri’s Vineyard, Basking Rootwalla. With this deck, you can attack with a 5/6 creature everyturn, plus, if you opponent can’t spend the 2 green mana, they’ll take an additional 2 ponts of mana burn each turn.

However, that loses to:

Foil, Nether Spirit, Island. This goes one better than the Force of Will deck. You can counter their first spell and get a unkillable 2/2 into play. This is difficult to top with 3 cards. The trick is to not give a counter target.

Such as: Mishra’s Factory, Strip Mine, Quicksand. Typically, you use the Strip on their mana source if that will cripple them, then use the Quicksand to power the Factory to attack with. If they drop quick creatures, then you kill them with Quicksand and power the Factory with the Mine. However, this gets run over by the Rootwalla deck.

The Pox, Lotus, Nether Spirit deck won’t succeed here. Versus Rootwalla, it will draw, since therre is no reason for the Walla player to cast a spell. If the Pox player Poxes first, then all the Walla player will discard Vineyard and cast Rootwalla, which will end in a draw, since neither player can get past the other’s creature. Versus Foil, obviously a draw, since the Foil player can counter Pox, but can’t get Spirit into play on it’s own, so neither player should cast any spells. Versus all Factory, again a draw, since the Factory can’t get past the Spirit, and the Spirit can’t get past the Factory.

The double Rack deck will beat Foil, since it can race better. It will lose to Rootwalla, I think, since the extra damage from the Vineyards will add up too fast. It will beat Factory, since it can again race. Nice. I need to rethink my hierarchy in light of this deck.

–
Justin

19

The problem with the factory deck (or any all land deck I can think of) is that it loses to Stripmine, Stripmine, Rack. (I play strip/rack 1st turn. If any of your cards are stripmine, You can then waste a strip on my 1st strip if you like. If not, I’ll just strip your strip next turn, and play my remaining strip to take out one of your other lands. I can’t think of any land that can do damage on it’s own without mana to power it.)

I really think this turns into rock paper scissors. You’ve basically got 4 deck types:
0 mana card (Foil deck, never actually uses the island so it’s 0 mana. Loses to 3 land decks with nothing to counter.)
1 mana card (Pox or Rootwalla, both lose to foil, because foil counters the better of your two spells, and the other one alone is never enough to beat the nether spirit. Special case is double-rack, which can be handled with vandal)
2 mana cards (Vandal, Always loses to foil, unless your one spell is uncounterable somehow.)
3 mana cards (loses to strip/strip/rack.)

20

I haven’t come up with the ultimate deck, but here’s an odd deck… it never wins against anyone, but if it plays first, it forces a draw against every deck yet mentioned:

mishra’s workshop
sphere of resistance
phyrexian walker
it does lose to
3xmishra’s factory