Seven Solitaire Formats for Magic: the Gathering

Magic is a social event.  Getting together with four friends on Sunday night to play Magic feels like a waste of time.  Not because it isn’t a fun-filled night of flipping cards.  But by the time you pack it in for the night, ready to go to bed and get an early start in the morning, you realize that it isn’t dark out.  It is, in fact, morning, and time to go to work.  Where did that time go?  The night flew by too fast to be caught.

Likewise, Magic is a lonely activity.  Every experienced player knows gaps where they were the only person still playing.  Why buy more packs?  Why continue to make decks?  I couldn’t tell you.  All I know is that some of us are driven to keep the party alive, even when we’re Billy Idol, it’s 1981 all over again, and we’re dancing with ourselves.

For those lonely times when your friends wise up to the pusher dealing cardboard crack, or just the times when you’re in a draft and graced with the mixed blessing of getting a bye, here are seven Magic Solitaire formats you might enjoy.  While none of them are better than playing a game against another human, at least you can only lose to yourself.

And, in case you’re wondering, yes, I added these seven formats to the ever growing Multiplayer and Casual Format Gateway.  That may seem odd, since solitaire is the opposite of multiplayer.  But, most of these formats can be played with multiple teammates, all working against an ‘artificial intelligence’.  It will be good training for when the Singularity comes; we’ll need people that know how to fight back against AIs using analog means, since we won’t be able to trust any robot turncoats.

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Playing Your Pet

Number of players: One
Requires a custom deck?:  Not initially
Complexity: Low
Feels like I’m playing Magic?:  A little

Playing Your Pet is one part Solitaire, and one part a series of diagnostic tests to see how your deck runs.  Originally written by Beth Moursund, for Duelist #7, the tests are themed around playing against various pets in your zoo of a house.  Your Goldfish doesn’t do anything except swim around and look pretty, so your goal is to see how fast you can trash an opponent who does nothing (and yes, this is where the term Goldfishing comes from.)  Your Turtle hides in a shell behind an Ivory Tower and a full set of Circle of Protections, and forces you to overwhelm its defenses.  Your Snake constricts you with an early pair of Black Vises, threatening to kill you if you can’t free yourself.  Your Parakeets, Rabbits and Rats all begin the game with animals of their own.  Your Dog plays something approaching a normal game of Magic, flipping random lands off a deck and performing the appropriate trick.  Your Cat always wins, since cats don’t play Magic.

A word of caution about the article, which can be found here.  Duelist # 7 was written in 1995.  There was such a thing as a ‘Magic World Championship‘ by this point, but Magic strategy was murky at best.  So when Beth says “A more typical fast deck will [win against the goldfish in] seven or eight [rounds] fairly consistently,” You should take that advice, and the rest of the advice in this article, with a tablespoon of skepticism.  By ’97, players were racing out of the game by round three or four off the back of ProsBloom, Sligh and Suicide Black.  Heck, in ’95, you could lose to a deck full of Time Walks, Timetwisters and Moxen as early as round one.  The only reason Beth doesn’t mention this, is because nobody back then would let you play with that deck anyway.

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Mana Maze

Number of players: One
Requires a custom deck?: Likely
Complexity: Medium (though, parsing MaRo’s explanation can be a challenge)
Feels like I’m playing Magic?: No.

Mana Maze was originally written by Mark Rosewater for Duelist #4.  It featured a way to play Magic by making piles of cards, and  using those cards to eliminate other cards.  For example, you could tap two Swamps (thus discarding them and revealing the new cards underneath them) to Terror your Serra Angel (freeing up another two cards in the process.)

It’s an interesting idea, but most decks don’t contain the proper resources to eliminate all of its cards.  I’m aware MaRo didn’t consider destroying all the cards in front of you to always be your win condition.  But if you present me with a format similar to 52-card solitaire, and I do not get rid of all my cards, then I will never be fully satisfied.  A clear board should be my goal; I shouldn’t be creating goofy half-measure goals because the game mechanics are far from perfect.

These floating goals are reminiscent of MaRo’s writing style: full of suggestions, light on answers.  The rules to Mana Maze don’t tell you how to play, but how you could play depending what deck you might own.  It suits the MaRo of ’95, because he likes to create, collaborate and give hints as to how to adapt your ideas to his ideas.  Some of us, though, want to play a game, not make one.  If that’s your attitude, Mana Maze still works fine, as long as you make a Mana Maze deck that can go the distance, but isn’t busted (a single Ashnod’s Altar, for example, would break this format.)

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Magic Solitaire

Number of players: One
Requires a custom deck?: Most decks will require light alterations
Complexity: Medium
Feels like I’m playing Magic?: Nope.

Solitaire Magic, in a nutshell, is a more reasonable version of Mana Maze.  Written for Duelist Magazine #34 by Micahel Mikaelian, it operates in a similar fashion to Mana Maze with a few exceptions.  Most notably: You stack the piles as if you were playing a game of 52-card solitaire; your left over cards form a separate deck, which you flip over three at a time;  all spells, no matter their casting cost, only require one mana to play; and, creatures can attack each other.

The end result is a game that feels like you’re playing solitaire with Magic cards.  And, depending on the deck, you can have an equal chance at success, as you do at failure.  It makes for an amusing diversion.  You can find it here if you’re so inclined.

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Horde

Number of players: Any number
Requires a custom deck?: Yes.
Complexity: Medium to Medium-High, depending on the deck.
Feels like I’m playing Magic?:  Sure.  Also feels like a cooperative board game.

In ‘Horde’, one player builds a deck ahead of time filled with token creatures, and peppered with spells.  Each turn, the Horde deck flips token creatures off the top of the deck onto the battlefield, until it flips a spell, and casts that spell.  Players work together to defend against the horde of token creatures while attacking the deck directly.  Every point of damage dealt moves a card from the Horde deck to its graveyard.  When the Horde deck is out of cards, the players win… assuming they weren’t first massacred by the Horde.

Horde Magic first appeared on players radars during Innistrad, so it made sense for people to associate the Horde with a pile of token zombies and cards like Lord of the Undead.  You can make your Horde deck using any creature type, though. 3/3 Elephants ramp up the danger level.  Soldiers tokens are plentiful, with numerous tribal cards floating around, and should be just as dangerous as long as you increase the ratio of soldiers to the number of spells in the deck.  Using Ally tokens will result in a swift beating.  And while I know it isn’t as sexy to use a pile of random tokens from your collection with no inherent theme, it is a practical choice.  Here’s a good way to put all your booster chaff to work.

You can find the Wizards rules to Horde Magic here, or a a boiled down version of the rules here.  Horde Magic was original created by Peter Knudson, and his follow up article added more to the discussion, including dealing with scaling, problems with Planeswalkers, and a potential banned list for cards that tend to break the format (for example, Mind Funeral, or Ensnaring Bridge.)

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Challenge Decks:  Face the Hydra, Battle the Horde, and Defeat a God

Number of players: Any number
Requires a custom deck?: Requires purchasing a custom deck.
Complexity: Medium
Feels like I’m playing Magic?:  Sure.

Building off the popularity of the Horde Deck, Wizards created their own Challenge Decks, one for each set in Theros block (and possibly for future blocks as well.  Guess we need to wait to see what pops up.)  Face the Hyrda features a Hydra deck with multiple snapping heads, and whenever a head is killed, two more could take its place.  Battle the Horde is an onslaught of Minotaurs rushing out of their caves at top speed and colliding into the players.  Defeat a God features the Planeswalker Xenagos, who claimed a position of godhood in the Theros pantheon, and is now turning his attention on the players who could act as potential pretenders to his throne.

For the most part, all three decks sound like video games, and play like board games.  Nothing wrong with that.  They won’t replace your regular game, but they make for a change of pace.  And, while I haven’t tried this myself yet, I suspect that a few modifications to how each deck operates can add spice to your regular multiplayer game.  For example, in a four player game, you could add ‘Face the Hydra’ as a fifth player, except, instead of starting the game with three heads, the Hyrda starts with no heads, and can never be ‘killed’.  Since the Hydra is aggressive by its very nature, players who insist on sitting on their hands will eventually die to a row of snapping jaws.

If I’m to judge by Amazon buyer reviews, the feedback is nothing but positive four and five star reviews, with the occasional one star review by someone expecting more from the battlemat (it’s just a folded up paper guide) and one negative review from a person who expected a normal Magic deck, evidently.  Want some more reviews?  Here are three more.

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Aaron’s Solitaire

Number of Players: One
Requires a custom deck: No.  More than one deck would make things more interesting, though.
Complexity: Medium
Feels like I’m playing Magic?: Yes.

There are a number of solitaire variants out there that go through the motions of explaining how to play Magic against your own deck, or against another deck.  Many of them are clunky, but I think Aaron Sherman got it right because he didn’t try for a perfect simulation.

Each turn, your imaginary opponent flips over the top card of your deck and casts it.  Since your opponent gets an early jump while you struggle to assemble your mana base, it retains a natural advantage.  That advantage is squandered by the way your imaginary opponent approaches combat, though.  It attacks whenever it can, and always blocks matching its largest creature against your smallest one.  The end result is curiously close to balanced.  You can find Aaron’s Solitaire here.

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Deep IQ

Number of Players: One. More with a few alterations.
Requires a custom deck?: No.
Complexity: Medium-High
Feels like I’m playing Magic?: Definitely.

Out of all the method’s of playing solitaire I tested these past couple weeks, Deep IQ was, hands down, the closest I came to playing a normal game of Magic.  That’s because Rick Moscatello, who created Deep IQ for InQuest Magazine’s December ’96 issue, understood that Magic isn’t a game of back and forth plays.  Magic, ideally, is a game of linear growth, starting with an earnest early game, continuing into a slugfest of a mid-game and ending with an explosive end game.  To mimic this growth, Deep IQ begins round one on Chart I, with a two in ten chance of affecting the board, and a nine in ten chance of moving on to Chart II for round two.  Deep IQ continues this way until it hits Chart VI, and begins to fire off one blockbuster after another.

Further, Deep IQ puts token creatures into play by giving you a starting stat (for example, 2/2), then asking you to roll on a separate creature ability chart, with a positive or negative modifier depending on how far into the game we are.  This does mean you will need to make attacking and blocking decisions for Deep IQ, but, as the original designer put it, “You can cheat if you want, but cheating to beat a die and a piece of paper is about as gratifying as kissing your sister.”  Besides, most attacking and blocking decisions are self-evident, since Deep IQ only ever plays with French Vanilla Creatures.  Deep IQ even has an answer for what to do when you cast a land destruction spell, like Craterize.  Since cards like that are meant to hinder the opponent, just knock Deep IQ back one stage.  (There’s no mention of what to do when you cast Mind Rot, though I suspect it’s the same thing.  Personally, I prefer putting a -2 modifier on Deep IQ’s roll for each card discarded, and removing a -1 modifier every turn.  After all, discard doesn’t set a person’s tempo back so much as weakens their options.)

The end result feels like your regular Friday Night magical bout, minus the wizard hats and boxing gloves.  Sometimes Deep IQ has the advantage, and sometimes you do, but who will win remains a mystery.  You can find original flavor Deep IQ here.  Deep IQ is dated, however.  I find the references to banding, flanking and phasing to be charming.  But I must admit that there’s been power creep in the intervening 15 years of Magic history, and it shows in some of Deep IQ’s choices.  More recently, Bruce Richard updated the Deep IQ charts to represent the sort of spells and power level that would come with a player of Modern Magic.