Hi do you have a breakdown or primer for these deck lists? Reading through the whole deck list myself would take forever and it only does me so much good without an experienced player's opinion on each card.
Shoutout to all the players who guessed that everyone would run Thassa's Oracle and preemptively made a viable deck in 20 minutes with a way to disrupt it, you guys are the real heroes
The kid in the top 4 here, I realized after I passed the turn that cavern doesn’t care about chancellor but for some reason my brain just didn’t comprehend it sooner. Sadly I never got another turn with 2 lands so that was entirely my fault but I did feel pretty bad about it. Later someone wanted to buy the prizes from me for a play set of full art ragavans I was hesitant at first since I won it but the monkeys were calling to me. After that I traded those and what other cards I didn’t use in for a tundra so at the end of the day I wasn’t too upset about the mistake. It was fun meeting you guys and thanks for signing my playmat and giving me my first dual ❤️
Well done! You were holding the torch for the Thoralce players there :) I'm happy you had a good time and that you got to trade your prizes for something as cool and historic as a Dual Land! See you at the next Magiccon!
@@Woutva Or by playing the rack immediately since it cost 1 mana and he had two opportunities to play it - and when on the play GQ - > Rack into draw is better imo than passing. On T2 - after being Ghost Quartered himself, and having no way to win without rack in play I believe he is either supposed to pass without playing a land or by playing a land and rack.
To be fair, it only worked because people didn't realize that they would need to hold their Ghost Quarter. If The Rack had been on turn one and then held back the Ghost Quarter, that player would have had a way to kill their opponent. While the Inkmoth player would have been able to hold and force a draw, there should have been a rule against holding onto your win condition indefinitely.
@@Woutva Keep in mind, we have more information than the two players do, so it's much easier for us to come up with a way to win than it is for either of them. If he has no clue that inkmoth as the wincon, he has no reason to hold up ghost quarter and wait for it.
@@markcargill1304 If you reveal the rack before ppl put down 2 cards he draws. Cause they will just never ver make their hands small enough to take dammage.
And here we see a demonstration why Ghost Quarter is permabanned in 3 Cards Blind. This was so fun and entertaining, I loved the variaty of strats :D Kudos to the builders and congrats to the winner!
That was brilliant. The winner had the same idea as most, which is to make sure your opponent can't do anything, but she counters everyone else because it's famously hard to stop your opponent's lands from doing things, plus the infect allowed it to outpace other 1 power creatures, and opens up an extra slot in the deck as you kinda don't need mana
Actually everyone that caught the strategy and had a Ghostquarter (as most decks in the semi-final had) could at least draw against that deck. Feels strange seeing how they all played next to each other that no one managed to scout the 4 cards in the lands deck and hold Ghostquarter for Inkmoth. Even the finals opponent ran their Ghostquarter straight into hers instead of forcing a draw by holding it (or winning if she makes a mistake and plays a second land) Feels a bit staged, at least in the form of some rules forbidding to pass with no play at all that was not shown in the video. Not taking away from that deck being smart but I don't see how neither the semi-finals nor finals opponent managed to scout a 4 card deck in a tournament played at one long table. Both had a Ghostquarter and the Rack could easily force a draw and Slitherblade a win by just not running Ghostquarter out into her Ghostquarters
@@Neon-chan2015 I think the rack is a mistake. It's a cool idea, but it loses to your opponent just choosing to do nothing. I think a better include is to swap mutavault for cavern of souls and swap the rack for hexdrinker. If the opponent doesn't just say "land go", you slam hexdrinker and race. If they do just play a land and pass, you blow it up with ghost quarter and get back on the hexdrinker plan next turn. It's proactive, it's faster than pretty much any other creature, and will even eventually get through the stall deck by just paying into the level up cost every turn. TBH, I'm not sure how you'd beat it other than just running creature removal which it seems like nobody did.
@@casteanpreswyn7528 He wrote three paragraphs talking about how the deck could be better, not that it isn't smart. Different things. He took the idea the deckbuilder had and expanded it further.
It is pretty genius against the field. Cuts off the opponent's mana generation to prevent thoracle wins, can't be griefed or thoughtsiezed against, and still presents a relatively fast clock in this format.
@@rayndeon1yeah but if anyone had held their ghost quarter vs her and she held her inkmoth nexus its a draw, if either plays their land first its gg for them
@@BludMun 2 ghost quarters are still outnumbered by 3 ghost quarters! The brilliance was adding the third land, it made her deck immune against everything but her own deck.
If you all like this, there is a guy who runs a RU-vid channel called "three card blind", which is basically this but with 3 cards. He runs monthly tournaments and its really cool
People have been "playing" this type of format on forums and such for a long time but it's still very fun! I even helped score a 5cb on the Pauper subreddit for a bit.
It could lose if the two last players had held their ghost quarter. But I think something like 2 Ghost quarter 2 inkmoth is better, it seems like nobodys deck could function against 2 ghost quarters
@@whgeek I think the big issue is that decks that were strong against control, like monkeys were knocked out by the sheer amount of combo Thassas included.
@@whgeek I think the best bet is probably chancellor of the annex, hexdrinker, ghost quarter, and cavern of souls. Chancellor makes grief uncastable and when combined with a turn 1 ghost quarter for any islands it completely shuts off thoracle decks. Hexdrinker eventually outpaces the rack for damage since you'll never play the chancellor, and even outruns your idea for second inkmoth nexus. Cavern of souls makes other chancellors useless and stops any counterspells. I think it might lose to a more tuned stall deck though. Maybe something like cavern of souls, ghost quarter, inkmoth nexus, wall of shards? Ghost quarter stops all thoracle chicanery outside of specifically 3 lands and thoracle, cavern of souls makes chancellor not a problem, and inkmoth nexus ignores the cumulative upkeep cost of wall of shards. That still loses to double ghost quarter double inkmoth nexus though.
@@andrewb378 I was thinking the best deck would be leyline of sanctity, razortide bridge, cavern and thoracle - I realistically don't see a way to stop it other than turn 1 thoracle
@@notrkm Oh that's quite good. Could be stopped with upkeep silence or consign to memory/trickbind targeting the thoracle trigger. A stall deck could potentially incorporate strict proctor which would turn off thoracle entirely while also turning on grief but only as a 3/2... Could possibly also use unsubstantiate as a way to counter an uncounterable thing?
in semis the slither blade player might've taken it if they held the ghost quarter for the nexus - definitely more depth and sequencing to the format than it seems at first
The difference between this and regular 3cb (other than having 4 cards and no banlist) is that you don't know your opponent's deck, so he had no idea that holding the Ghost Quarter was the play. For all he knew, he was up against Thoracle again
Player Here that lost with the sliverblade, the tournament was really chaotic, which was fun, but you really didn't get the chance to look at the actual decks... Same can be said for the finals match
a lot of games had suboptimal plays or just flat out mistakes. the thassa's oracle player passed probably because he didn't realise cavern of souls would prevent it from being countered. if the guy in the finals had played the rack, he would have won, etc.
@@MrPiotrV He probably wouldn't have won, because Moth Girl needs to do 10 infect hits, while the rack will only ping for 2 in Moth girls upkeep. As moth girl will get to hit first, rack will hit 10 infect hits before Moth girl hits 0 life
Yeah, when the rules were first laid out I paused the video to think of what I would have ran. If I had played against the girl that won I probably would have beaten her and likely any Oracle deck, but any deck with Thoughseize on the play would have ruined me.
@@JustRightPinedo Would have realistically been a coinflip tbh, if Grief doesn't get the first turn, its swamp would just get sniped and that's game over
@@Zakading perhaps, I presume you run Swamp, malakir rebirth, Grief and Not Dead After All. If you're OTD they cannot initiate the stack during your mainphase so even if you say swamp, Grief pitching rebirth you can float the mana before/in response to them blowing up your land... 7 turns to 20 or less if you get the +1 counter. It's a super interesting format nonetheless.
I've heard of 3 card monty before, amazing how one card makes a HUGE difference. This sounds like such a fun quick idea. Well done and well played. 3 Ghost Quarter and an Inkmoth nexus is so sick.
Oh heck, yeah! This is very similar to 3-Card Blind format and seeing something like that played in real life is super neat! Also, seeing the same sort of archetypes develop in this that you see in 3-Card Blind despite the vastly different card pools and players who've probably never played something like this before is really interesting.
I love the All Lands strategy! It's a genius way of showing how to approach problem solving! First you analyze the main problem (here it's limited ressources due to only having 4 cards) then you decide on an approach (either you make yourself win, by having more/better ressources, e.g. Thassa's Oracle/infect, or the other player lose by decreasing their ressources, e.g. counterspells/ land destruction). In a game of Magic, it doesn't matter how good your spells are if you can't cast them, so land destructions basically makes the other player unable to play the game. After you've chosen your strategy, look at it from the outside ("what could stop me?", counterspells can't deal with lands, so only another piece of land destruction) and adjust accordingly (have more land destruction). Bam. Win the game. Truly genius!
The problem there is you never have to play a card in the game, so you can just draw the game since rack would do zero damage (3- oponent cards in hand). In this format you can basically guarantee only one win con, mana to play it, and the rest being protection, so his opponent would have very little reason to risk ever playing a card till they knows what the last card in hand is. Especially once you factor in knowing that if it was a one mana threat they likely would of played it before rack since rack doesn't have value in that situation.
Three Card Blind is a small format that's a lot like this! Players submit 3-card decks and the judges for the format run through the gameplay assuming both players are making the optimal plays to determine which of the 2 decks wins. Hopefully this comment gets some velocity and they get some traffic for it because it's a really awesome community! You can find them right here on RU-vid.
The 3 card blind Discord found Chancellor of the Tangle, Flooded Grove, Thoracle, Gutshot. That probably sweeps this event if you can find such niche cards in 20 minutes
@@10freekie2 The first one does, but hand disruption is so heavily punished by this ruleset that it might be worth taking your chances. Hand disruption is really only good on the play, so having only a 50% chance of being effective isn't a good place to be. Might be worth it to just hope all those players lose their 50/50s before they face you or in your match
Ghost Quarters, Laboratory Maniac, Thassa's Oracle and Storm Crow are banned and will never be unbanned There are ≈20 more cards banned by the community
The last Ghost Quarter of the winning deck cant really be used since you cant use the Inkmoth Nexus anymore if you do, rendering you unable to win. Running Dunes of the Dead (creates a 2/2 when it dies) would be better i think.
They could probably get away with just running two Ghost Quarters and use something else in that slot, but might as well go all-in. And hey, can't say it didn't work!
Excellent strats, looks like lotta fun. So many cool strats in deck design: Using OP cards that have downsides that aren’t downsides in absence of a library (ghost quarter), OP card in opening hand effects, rack (kill weenie meta in a format without artifact/enchantment removal)… the winner’s strategy was simple and beautiful.
Its cool to see this. I thought as far as "ooh, Thassa's goes crazy" and it's fun to see how the difference between me and a good magic player is that the finalists all took the next step and thought "how do I beat Thassa's"
T2 is just very slow in general. Expecting that it is still in your hand and castable is a long stretch. I had thoughtseize swamp chancellor one drop in my deck so I was not really impressed by thassa. It is indeed very much the level 1 thought…
I really respect you guys going out and encouraging lots of different and novel ways to play MTG at conventions and the like, it helps keep the community engaged and highlights just how great the game is. Great job! 💖
8:15 technically that was free win for slither blade player, just never play your own ghost quater until the opponent plays their nexus. 9:44 that ones a forced draw as it again completely impossible for them to ever attack with the nexus if their opponent just hold ghost quater in hand. This is just a modern version of the 3 card magic format as seen here. www.youtube.com/@MTG3CardBlind with on extra card, where you forgot to ban Ghost quater, and thasas oracle, and labrator maniac. Technically the rack is on the changable banlist. They also banned inkmoth nexus recently
One of the first top decks we had in a similar forum game was Island, 0cc artifact, An Offer You Can't Refuse, Thassa's Oracle. It would have beaten any of these decks, it turns out. In case you're wondering how it beats Chancellor, you play the 0cc artifact, and in response to the counter trigger, you counter it yourself with the Offer.
Hmm, IS there a way to beat that when it goes first? I thought "countering the Oracle specifically", but the only 0-cost "counter target spell" I know is "Force of Will" which isn't available in Modern. When it goes second, of course, there's the bazillion ways to discard a card from the opponent's hand.
In theory, you can stop it by evoking Subtlety. Making it a viable list would be tricky, though; the remaining two cards somehow need to cover both "how do I keep the thing Subtlety exiled from getting recast" AND "how do I win".
@@TzizenorecForce of Negation works, but giving up two of your four cards hurts. A somewhat more effective but also more specialised answer would be Archive Trap. They've played three spells, so exile the Thoracle for 0, and you have three cards left to win with.
you can never sac the 3rd GQ anyway since if you do, you can't animate Inkmoth Nexus. I agree a 2nd Nexus is better. That 3rd GQ might as well have been a Wastes
that was really clever, having triple ghost quarter was super smart. maybe you could play double ghost quarter and 1 other land for some other type of redundancy, but this is really smart, too great video, and congrats to the winner! she deserved it :D
That winning deck was genius! When they mentioned Thassa's Oracle I thought for sure it would be one of if not the best thing you can be doing, so to then have players pause to think "is there anything even more broken I can do?" was really heads up!
I will say it again: this is the best mtg channel on YT. Btw: my first thought was tron lands and some big payoff like Karn, but might have been too slow for this meta.
I think the best version of the inkmoth deck would be 2 Quarter 2 Inkmoth. You can never use the 3rd quarter without being unable to inkmoth so having a backup inkmoth in case of another quarter matchup would make more sense
Still can't beat the "second-place" deck if that deck is played correctly. Also, the second-place deck had the same problem (can't use the Mutavault after using the Ghost Quarter), and the fix in that case is even more potent: Swap out the Mutavault for a Memnite.
@@Tzizenorecsadly can be countered. Personally I'd go with 1 ocelot pride 2 ghost quarter and 1 cavern. Turn 1 cavern and ocelot if going first if going second ghost if they show blue since that means they can't thoracle, otherwise we do the turn 1 play. We outrace moth since first strike prevents her blocking and it's ability copies itself quickly enough that we win before 10.
I’ve been thinking about this for an hour and I have a deck that beats all the top four decks and I think is pretty consistent. Chancellor of the Annex, Lotus Bloom, Ghost Quarter, Thoracle. Lotus bloom protects you from opponents’ ghost quarters, against other annex decks you save your ghost quarter to pay for lotus bloom and win on turn 3, and against any other deck annex + t1 ghost quarter probably locks them out
@@kerrickfanning6910 You'll have to keep your Ghost Quarter on the field for a full opposing turn in order to get Lotus Bloom through Chancellor, making you vulnerable to any Ghost Quarter+Chancellor setup.
The problem is the Grief deck is dead to losing a coinflip against Thassa's Oracle + Thoughtseize and is always dead to any gameplan including Chancellor of the Annex
@@Falterfire If you play Swamp - Grief - Grief - Undying Evil (or any of the other ones that give +1/+1 and don't take your life) you tie against a Thoughtseize - Thoracle on the play (or win if they use life as a tiebreaker), and win if you are on the play. Always dies to Annex but outraces 4 land strats so pretty Rock Paper Scissors at that point, finals had 2 Annex decks and the counterspell variant of Thoracle that wins against Grief on the play, so the Rock Paper Scissors of this format was hard on Grief.
Yeah grief needs 3 other cards: black card to exile with evoke, mana and undyint evil effect. So it hasn’t any protection against a chancellor even on the play or a thoughtseize or counterspell on the draw
@@AlexG0080it wouldn’t outrace 2 ghost quarters inkmoth and chancellor. So wouldn’t that be the best? Or would that lose against 3 ghost quarters? I think it does?
The Ghost Quarter Inkmoth deck was the best one. Edit: oh, ha, and then she won! That's good news, I was right. That's rare - one might even say MYTHIC-RARE.
THANK YOU ! I had a lot of fun watching. I first was jealous, cause I would have loved to participate. Thank you for your creativity and for your love of this game.
This is a really cool and engaging idea, gotta say this kind of challenges are way better that just playing for price or X format vs Y format gimmick for this kind of event. People seem more excited to play wacky formats.
Wow!!! That was actually a lot more interesting and creative than I was expecting. I was thinking of using: Land, Land, Slippery Bogle, Spirit Mantle (Or something along those lines.) Definitely would not have won!
Greatest format ever created. I did not expect it to be sooo diverse. Man you guys are putting out banger video after banger video. Still my favorite MTG channel on RU-vid.
The best list my brain could concieve with only modern legal cards is. Cahncelor of the forge Gemstone Caverns Leyline of anticipation Burning inquiry Every opponent is usually going to want to go first, and if you win the die roll, you can let them go first. You put leyline into play, make a goblin with forge, then put cavern in play pitching forge. On their upkeep cast burning inquiry to make them discard 3 random cards. Thinking through the format the only things i can think this loses to are force of negation and chancellor of the annex the latter of which is the issue.
Oh, yep. Could still be stopped by Consign to Memory, and loses to the FTK that another player mentioned, but beats most of the decks played in the video (including the two finalists). Main downside of using a Bridge is that you have no mana for a counterspell of your own between turns.
This is a pretty interesting puzzle. My immediate thought before seeing what other people came up with would be plains, chancellor of the annex, angel's grace, aether vial.
The slitherblade deck in the semi's actually had counter-play and would have won a bo3; play a land and slitherblade, then do not play ghost quarter and just swing, forcing out Inkmoth nexus, only then do you play ghost quarter to destroy it.
I haven’t watched the video yet, but I’m so excited about this! After I saw your short on this a while back, I spent hours creating a google sheet on different decks trying to figure out how close to “solved” I could get the metagame
Yeah im curious too! I didn’t find an invincible deck yet. Even Leyline of sanctity, blue bridge land, cavern of souls, oracle still loses to a stifle effect like consign to memory.
@@CardmarketMagic Haha, yes! Island, Mishra's Bauble, An Offer You Can't Refuse, Thassa's Oracle. Beats anything except free counter magic on the play, and anything but free counter magic or a thought seize effect on the draw. It's by no means the "best" deck, but it's the deck that beats most players' initial ideas and is certainly among the best. I have a whole excel sheet I've been tracking different decks with.
The winner could have easily been beat by the 2nd place finisher. He just had to play his other land first, play the rack, and sit on the ghost quarter until the nexus comes down. I guess it’s a draw though if she plays nothing
My first thought for a 4 card deck was gemstone caverns, chancellor of the annex, cavern of souls, thoracle. Edit: I have had a new thought. 2x ghost quarter and 2x chancellor of the forge.
i feel for the guy in the quarters who didn't realize chancellor "counters", and had the cavern for the win. Wonder why nobody played consign to memory to get around the thassa+cavern instawin combo. Good video ;D
3 ghost quarters is really smart in a format without power. In traditional 3-card or 4-card magic, that deck is pretty bad because lotus, lotus, broken 6-drop is a pretty common deck. I love land only decks though. They're sooo good against anti-spells decks.
Technically in the finals opponent could just wait and hold their quarter in hand, eventually she'll have to play inkmoth and it's a draw/ game for him
To be fair she shouldnt have even got to the final, as she was flat out unable to win the semi's if the oppoent held their ghost quater in hand the same way.
@@starp130 You still should have waited I think, you had chancellor protecting you from anything she plays next turn and she would have to reveal more of her game plan.
@@jacobisbell9388 That should've been what I do, and it would've won me the game. Sadly I didn't, partly because it was really chaotic, so I didn't win. Definitely was the right line to wait there tho
hmm. Grief, not dead, swamp, shrieking affliction could be something. When you need to pop a chancellor you can evoke not dead into it. Pay and have affliction as your backup t2. That beats any chancellor deck and the lands deck. But does lose to the strix-thoracle on the draw. But only on the draw. 2x memnite, ghost quarter, chancellor is a cool one. beats any thor deck, beats the lands deck, beats rack I think?
This looks SO fun! Thanks for sharing it. Also the dude's shirt at like 4:50 or so is so sweet. I want one. Also the person at 547 with the choker seems really cool. They have a channel or something?
