The Magic: the Gathering Multiplayer and Casual Format Gateway

Welcome! This page is for Magic players who are ready to warp the rules and get more mileage out of their beloved game.  Each entry on this page is a classic Magic variant beloved throughout the community. I try to provide enough information so you can get a taste for each format. Toward the end of each entry, there are links to other websites when you’re interested enough to seek more details.  I’ve played most of these formats, but I’m an expert in few of them, so when you’re ready to move on, I send you to an expert.

 

Why only Forty-Seven?

The thirty-three (update: Now Forty-Seven) formats on this page represent the most popular ones out there, but there are many, many others. I do plan to return to this list, and revise it with relative frequency, but it will take time.  Also, I prefer quality over volume, and there are thousands of Casual Formats and House Rules for Magic. It would be impossible for me to list every Casual Format in existence, since they’re created faster than I can update this list.

That’s okay.  My goal isn’t to catalog every good idea, but to catch what I can and present it in a digestible fashion.  Hopefully, the end result should be more choices than you will ever need.  Bookmark this page, and return next season.  There should be more formats by then.  In the meantime, enjoy the entrants that are already on this list.

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Table of Contents:

The Nine Basics
Nine Popular Limited Formats
Eight Popular Deck Construction Variations
Nine Popular Alternative Rules
Seven Political Formats
Seven Solitaire Formats

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The Nine Basics

 

What is Free-For-All, FFA or Cutthroat?

Chances are, Free-For-All is what you already do when you got together with friends to play multiplayer Magic. Players take turns, clockwise around a table. Whenever a player’s life total reaches zero or less, they are eliminated, and the game continues until one player is left, who is deemed the winner.

Most Magic writers don’t write articles about Free-For-All, since it’s the most intuitive way to add extra players to a game.  That said, many writers are absorbed in the politics of FFA.  Richard Garfield’s classic article on Games and Politics still holds weight (Click here, then click the link that says “Issue 17”.)  But if you want a more recent take on this subject, Kelly Digges focuses on how to employ FFA politics without losing friends, while Daryl Bockett is more focused on winning the political game.

 

What is Attack Left/Right/Both?

Many Free-For-All games are lengthy slugfests.  In a five player game, attacking one player leaves you vulnerable to four players.  Attacking, however, is how most decks win.  As a result, FFA often devolves into success through combo or control, and can take hours to resolve.

Attack Left/Right/Both fixes this glitch by restricting the number players any one player can attack.  Before the game begins, everyone agrees they can only attack either the player to their left, their right, or both the player on their left and right, but no one else. Personally, I prefer both, because it mitigates the big drawback of Left/Right: If one person in five experiences a slow start, they will succumb to a fast death by early creatures.  At least in Attack Both, the left player and the right player can show mercy, and attack another player who poses a greater threat.

For a better understanding of how one small change can impact your game, I suggest Bruce Richard’s article: Learn to Attack Right.  Or, you can follow Kelly Digges as he explores both attack left and right.  Interestingly, when given a choice, both Bruce and Kelly prefer right.  If you’re wondering why, go to Bruce’s page;  it’s the first point he makes.

 

How do you Draft?

Most Magic writers assume you know how to draft.  Thankfully, Ted Knutson doesn’t take your knowledge for granted in this beginner’s guide to drafting, and Jeff Cuningham’s follow-up guide to intermediate draft strategies does an excellent job bringing amateurs up to speed with the rest of the table.  In fact, I’m guessing that between both those articles, you’ll get the equivalent knowledge of drafting every week for three months.  If you just want a basic ‘how-to’ guide, though, there’s a step by step explanation of how to draft at Wikibooks. The only thing I would add to these three articles is that most drafts are conducted in reverse chronological order now, starting with a booster pack of the third set, then one from the second, then the first set.

 

 

How do you play Sealed?

Sealed is another way to say “Open 6 booster packs and make a 40 card minimum deck using those cards and an unlimited number of basic lands.” For more on how to build a winning sealed deck, Jeff Cunningham writes a strong article, even if it is a little dated (only the card references are dated, though.  Everything else rings as true now as it did then.  A word of warning, though.  Creatures are more powerful today then they were in 2006, and common removal is worse.  Just keep that in mind when Jeff explains that Hill Giant is a staple choice.)  If you want a more modern version of the same article, Olivier Ruel covers similar ground, and Iain Bartolomei provides us with a walkthrough, and his thinking process when making choices for sealed.

 

 

What is Team Sealed?

Team sealed is a tournament environment where teams of three players (usually) split 12 booster packs to construct three separate 40 card decks among them. This 2014 Team Sealed primer should fill in the gaps. In theory, team sealed can feature any number of players (in fact, I’d love to see an eight vs. eight team sealed match. Obviously, each team would need to have more booster packs than 12. A 36 pack booster box per team sounds appropriate.) Two person teams are infrequent, since that’s the domain of Two-Headed Giant.

 

 

What is Two-Headed Giant (2HG)?

Two-Headed Giant is a two versus two format, where each two person team shares one life total (set at 30 life) and takes their turns at the same time, untapping, drawing, and attacking simultaneously. Tournaments that feature 2HG are often two person team sealed affairs.  But 2HG is a common choice for any casual game that involves four Magic players, since the format reduces down time among players, and plays fast (compared to Free-For-All). This Two-Headed Giant FAQ covers all the tricky details. Don’t feel you need to read all the rules in one go, though. There’s a lot of intricacies in how players attack and block which you can fudge until later.  For a less nuts and bolts, more entertaining read, I suggest checking out Laura Mills and Anthony Alongi’s double-headed article on how two-headed giant is fun/challenging.  A word of warning, though: Two-Headed Giant has seen numerous rules changes since 2005.  Mills and Alongi’s advice makes a good diversion, but they’ll naturally have some facts wrong.  The FAQ is the final word on how to play.

 

What is Team Draft?  

In team draft, two (usually) teams of players spread evenly throughout the same pod, drafting picks.  When Wizards first used the Team Draft format for the Pro Tour, it came with a no talking rule.  That was… impractical.  Players would create elaborate hand gestures to signal to their teammates what they were doing.  While that may be awesome, it made more sense to let teammates talk freely, so, today, Team Draft normally uses a Rochester Draft.

For an excellent strategy guide delving into the grit of Team Draft, I recommend this article by Darwin Kastle.  If you’d like a play by play, Kuan-Kuan Tian gives us a walkthrough.

 

 

What is Rochester Draft?

In a Rochester Draft, players gather their booster packs in a pile.  One pack is opened at a time and spread, face up.  Players then go around a table, making their picks.

I love Rochester Draft, since there’s a greater sense of control when drafting.  Did a player first pick an Icy Manipulator?  Well, that’s your warning.  You can either value Shatter higher, or accept the circumstance and move on with your plan.  Many Rochester Drafts act like a dance of complicated footwork between sparring tumblers… which is also the major drawback of Rochester.  It takes time.  An eight person Rochester Draft is approximately eight times longer than an eight person booster draft.  It makes a good two to four player draft format, but if you don’t have three hours to kill before deckbuilding, don’t start an eight person Rochester draft.

For more details on how to play, and some strategy, this Rob Doughery article should suffice.  The article is a little old, but Rochester is an old format, with few changes since its conception.  MTGFormats has a video tutorial, you may want to try instead.

 

 

What is Grand Melee?

Grand Melee rules are (often) employed in multiplayer games of eight or more players.  It prevents those games from devolving into hyper-confusing messes that take far too long to resolve.  In Grand Melee, players only attack and influence the game to the players on their right and their left.  For example, if I cast Wrath of God it will destroy my creatures, and the creatures my opponents control to my left and my right, but won’t do anything to the rest of the table.

Since each player can only effect a portion of the game at a time, multiple players can play simultaneously, as long as a two player buffer is maintained between each active player.  The more players involved in a Grand Melee, the more ‘active player tokens’ may pass around the table and between hands.  To learn more about the first Grand Melee, go to this reprinted Richard Garfield article from the Duelist (though, there are odd quirks of early Magic in this article.  Richard includes rules for how to handle ante, gives all spells a range of two, and his original game involves attack left only.  I do, however, like his rule about how the player who kills the most players is the winner, though I fear that would lead to players adding and hording instant speed direct damage spells to kill steal.  I should note, that’s not a problem in attack left, since the person to their right will always get the points.)  The exact details of who goes when often causes arguments, so I’m also linking to the comprehensive rulebook.  Just scroll to rule 807.

 

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Nine Popular Limited Formats

 

Mini-Masters (Pack Wars)

Number of Players: 2+
Prep time: Quick
Draft time: None
Skill or Casual: Very Casual

 

In Mini Masters, players crack one booster pack, add three lands of each type, shuffle and play.  Wizards loves this format, since it encourages players to snap open… just… one… more… pack.  I’m not a fan of fretting one’s hard earned money on a throwaway game, but if you were already planning on cracking open some boosters, you might as well play a game with them.  At least, it makes more sense to me than sleeving one card, and hiding the fourteen other pieces of cardboard shipping material in a box under your bed.  To learn more about Mini Master, go here.

Mini-Masters is also popular among tournament organizers, since they use the format as a pick-up side game.  Many tournaments, however, are elimination events with players adding another pack to their card pool, then cutting back to a 30 card deck, for each match they win.  Jack, the Mind Sculptor walks us through this process in the tutorial/documentary video he made for Grand Prix Vegas’ Modern Masters Mini Masters side event.

 

 

Solomon Draft
Number of Players: 2 (Maybe 4)
Prep time: Quick
Draft time: Somewhat Fast
Skill or Casual: High Skill

Two players shuffle six booster packs into a single pool.  Player A reveals the top eight cards of the pool, and separates those cards into two piles.  Player B then chooses one of those piles, and passes the rest of the cards to Player A.  Then Player B separates the next eight cards into two piles, and so on, and so forth.

The skill intensity of the format can make even pro players flinch.  Whenever I suggest it, most players pass.  I love the idea.  I just wish I could get someone to play it with me.  You can find more information on Solomon Drafting here.  Brian David Marshall also posted four person rules for Solomon Drafting, but I can’t promise anything; I’m skeptical of any webpage that dates back to 2000.

 

 

Duplicate Sealed
Number of Players: 2+
Prep time: Depends.  But at least Moderate.
Deck construction time: Slower than usual
Skill or Casual: Very Skill

Ever play sealed deck and wonder how another player would build with your exact same pool?  That would be duplicate sealed.  One sealed pool is opened, and every player creates their forty card deck using the same pool of cards (it is very likely that players will use proxies to represent cards they do not own.)  Sometimes, the sealed pool is constructed as a difficult puzzle to solve, like how Aaron Forsythe crafted a duplicate sealed event that took place in the 2006 Magic Invitational.  Not old enough for you?  Randy Buehler reports from the 2000 Invitational about how Mark Rosewater crafted what might be the worst duplicate sealed pool ever.  One where a 3/3 creature with echo for was considered a bomb, and many players were splashing white for Pearled Unicorn.

 

 

Winston Draft
Number of Players: 2
Prep time: Quick
Draft time: Somewhat Fast
Skill or Casual: A little Casual

Winston resembles Let’s Make a Deal, the classic Monte Haul excuse to give away cash prizes, goats and giant rocking chairs.  Two players shuffle six boosters into a pool, and place three cards from that pool into three face down piles.  Player A starts by looking at pile number one.  That player can then take that card, or put it back, put another face down card on top of it, and look at pile two.  If they don’t like that pile, they add a card and move to pile three.  Finally, if they don’t like pile three, they add a card to pile three, and blindly take the top card from the pool.  Player B follows Player A, etc., etc., until all the cards are drafted, and it’s time to build decks.  For a more detailed look, Aaron Forsythe spells it out for us here (then scroll down.  He doesn’t talk about Winston until halfway into the article.)  Or, perhaps you’d prefer an instructional video featuring Mark Rosewater?

 

 

Back Draft  (Inverse Draft)
Number of Players: 2+
Prep time: Quick
Draft time: Normal
Skill or Casual: Skill

Back Draft players don’t keep the cards they draft; they draft the cards they want their opponent to play.  This will usually result in the worst card becoming first pick, and the bombs picked last.  The format is kind of goofy, but its also very skill intensive.  As opposed to a normal draft, where the bombs are yoinked out of packs and windmill slapped on the table before anyone gets a look at them, everyone knows which bombs each player will be saddled with (just go clockwise around the table, counting backwards from fifteen.)  If you know Jake will get a Frost Titan, you can jam the rest of Jake’s deck with non-blue cards and no fixing.  The resulting deckbuilding challenge should be a spectacular frustrated dance.  For some more advice, Anthony Alongi breaks the format down for us here.

 

 

Rotisserie Draft
Number of Players: 2+
Prep time: Substantial
Draft time: Excrutiating
Skill or Casual: Heavy Skill

In a Rotisserie Draft, every card from a set, a block, or possibly the history of Magic is represented.  Every card.  The catch, however, is that for each card, there’s only one copy.  Players take turns claiming their card, either by taking it off a table, out of a binder, or just writing it down on a list.  Players then construct their deck based on their picks, but, since most people don’t have access to every Magic card, many groups proxy.

It’s a very cool way to look at any particular format, since each pick is a miniature puzzle.  But… each pick is a miniature puzzle.  You could spend days working out the next best pick.  And some players do, with participants writing down their choices on a community clip board, or an bulletin board online.  Whether the draft is completed in an hour, or over the course of a month, the end result can be fascinating.  Dave Guskin does an excellent job detailing the results of a Rotisserie Draft conducted by Wizards employees in 2010, in which every card ever printed was up for grabs.  For a more limiting draft, rhagon gives us a look at an eight person Rotisserie of Innistrad he (she?) attended.  The first picks in any one Rotisserie draft is arguable, but can be broken down into a choice between a small selection of obvious choices.  What I find really interesting, though, is to see players’ twenty-third choice.  In rhagon’s Innistrad Rotisserie, seat one, pick one went to Garruk Relentless.  Seems reasonable.  Somewhere down the line, though, that same player picked and played Spidery Grasp, and maybe it was the best card for that slot.

 

 

Reject Rare Draft
Number of Players: 2+
Prep Time: Considerable
Draft Time: Normal
Skill or Casual: Depends

In a reject rare draft, players pool together their worst rares, make ‘packs’ of 15 Magic cards from them, then draft.  The idea is that this is a fun way to dump your unwanted cards, and give the gift of terrible rares to your friends.  I don’t see any reason why a particular playgroup can’t extend this policy to quite bad uncommons, if the the group agrees.  Reject commons, however, defeat the point of the reject draft.  But that’s my opinion, and I’m not the boss of you.

Reject Rare Drafts tend to garner plenty of attention when they happen.  Partly because it can be tricky gathering and giving away so many terrible rares, but also because ‘What cards are the worst cards in Magic‘ is such a contentious issue.  Few of us can agree on what the best cards are, even when we play with those best cards.  Until you play Reject Rare Draft, however, that which makes a card terrible remains a theory.  I’m going to link to Mark Gottlieb’s third Reject Rare article, since that will lead you back to his second and first articles as well.

 

Continuous Draft
Number of Players: 4, 6, 8+
Prep Time: Quick
Draft Time: Somewhat fast, but frequent
Skill or Casual: Both

In a Continuous Draft, players open three booster packs, look at their cards and lock one.  Then they shuffle and pool together the remaining 44 cards with their round one opponent, and randomly determine who will be Players A and B.  Player A flips over the top four cards of the pool and takes one of them.  Player B takes two of the remaining face up cards and passes the fourth card to Player A.  The two players then switches roles, with Player B flipping over and first picking a card from those four, etc., etc..  When the players are done drafting, they build their decks and play a match.  After the match is over, each player removes their basic lands, locks a new card, shakes hands with their round two opponent, shuffles the remaining 44 cards with them, then drafts again.  The tournament continues in this fashion until a player emerges with the most match wins, or players get tired of seeing the same cards pop up in one continuous draft.

There aren’t a lot of articles with depth on Continuous Drafting… which is kind of crazy, since it’s a very popular casual tournament format.  Lots of chatter online about ‘this wacky format that Game Store X hosted’, but no real content.  The best I can do is point to this Scott Wills article, and tell you to scroll down halfway through, though, it’s only a couple paragraphs.

 

 

Cube
Number of Players: 2+
Prep Time: Substantial
Draft Time: Normal
Skill or Casual: Normal

A cube is a box of pre-selected cards intended to be shuffled, broken down into 15 card packs and drafted.  Many players take great pride in the choices they make for their cubes.  Many other players dump a pile of cards in a box, and filter as needed.

Unlike Continuous Drafts, there’s an abundance of cube content on the internet, with many players writing at great lengths about their personal cubes, and offering tips and suggestions on what makes a cube great.  There’s a lot of websites you could go to, but cubedrafting.com makes a good place to start.  Magic Online has a tradition of opening up a super-powered cube every year’s end.  To get a whiff of that Holiday Cube’s 2012 decklist, click on the link.  If your looking for a good guide to cube construction, Tom LaPille’s Cube FAQ should do the trick.

 

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Eight Popular Deck Construction Variants

 

 

Tribal Wars

Prep time: Modest
Cost: Modest (Rares that effect your tribe will be a high priority, but many of your cards can be found in the bargain bin…. assuming you don’t go with Goblins, or can pretend that Sliver Queen does’t exist.)
Skill or Casual: Both

In Tribal Wars, each player chooses a creature type, and one-third of each players’ decks must contain that creature type.  For example, a sixty card Dwarf deck must contain twenty Dwarves.

Simple.  But the Magic community sure does love asking the question, ‘Which creature type is best?’  If you’re interested, there’s a community on the Wizards boards eternally answering that question.

 

 

Singleton (Highlander)

Prep time: Modest
Cost: Average (There are only so many expensive cards printed each year.  To cut down on cost, you may want to stick to Standard or Block.)
Skill or Casual: A little more Skill

In Singleton land, no card in any player’s deck may be a duplicate (with the exception of Basic Lands.)  Singleton does a great job infusing games with a sense of variability, and encourages players to reach out to cards they otherwise wouldn’t get a chance to play.  If you’re tired of Standard, want a bit more variability in your games, or just want an excuse to enjoy Magic with a less efficient deck, Highlander makes a fine change of pace.   Ron Vitale wrote a good article on the format (though he says players need to build a 100 card minimum deck.  I agree that’s more fun, but rules like that tend to confuse players as to what the purpose of the format is.  I don’t feel it’s a requirement to playing Singleton, and it appears that Magic Online agrees with me.  I suggest asking the players in your group and agreeing on an appropriate minimum deck size.)  Also, if you want some help with where to start, you can poke through Deckstats.net, which yields thirteen pages worth of player decklists.

 

 

Pauper

Prep Time: Average to Fast
Cost: Cheap
Skill or Casual: Both

Don’t want to spend a bucket o’ bills on cards?  Then Pauper is for you.  Each player constructs their deck using only commons.  Sometimes uncommons.  It depends.  As of Theros, Magic features 5,181 commons, so there’s plenty of variety to choose from.

I should point out this format doesn’t appear on the Casual Magic Formats page at Wizards.com.  Gee, I wonder why.  Something to do with the implosion of the game if everyone played Pauper?  Let’s just say I don’t expect Wizards to print Pauper Duel Decks any time soon.

Whether Wizards formally acknoledges it or not, Pauper is on this list since it’s a classic, and popular, format.  More popular than quite a few other choices on this page, at least.  Wizards may not want to remind you that Pauper is a thing, but it’s prominent enough to warrant inclusion on Magic Online, and  maintains its own banned list to keep the format healthy (it turns out that, in the absence of anything that can stop it, the best storm cards are too good for the format.)  Looking for some ideas?  PDCMagic.com is an entire website dedicated toward the subject.  Perhaps you’d like a bit of strategy?  JustSin and the MTGO Academy dig deep into the format, with an Introduction to Competitive Pauper.

 

Rainbow Stairwell

Prep time: Lengthy
Cost: Average (Like Singleton, sticking to Standard or Block may help reduce overall deck costs.  Or maybe not.)
Casual or Skill: Skill

In Rainbow Stairwell, players construct their decks using a mana base which balances all five colors, and fields a minimum of six cards for each color, plus six artifacts.  Furthermore, those six cards must consist of a card with a converted mana cost of one, a two casting cost card, etc., all the way to six.  Or in other words, your deck must contain a card with a casting cost of one for each color and an artifact with a cost of one.  A card with a casting cost of two for each color, and an artifact with a cost of two.  Etc., etc., until you top it off with a six cost card for each color, and a six cost artifact.  For a more thorough breakdown, MTGSalvation’s Wiki should help.

I’ve never played Rainbow Stairwell myself, but it sounds fascinating, and I’m sure I missed out on a lot of fun nights.  The obvious conversation for Rainbow Stairwell writers will always be “What is the best card to run for each casting cost/color combination.  Pete Jahn delves into that question, but his write-up comes from a time when Kamigawa was the new hotness.  Abe Sergeant’s article is older than that by one year and gives us a sample breakdown of what he thinks would be a good build.  (Rainbow Stairwell was very popular last decade, but fell out of favor since.  That doesn’t mean it isn’t fun, or that it can’t bounce back.  But it does help explain why I’m citing a number of older articles.)  For something more recent, Ben McDole plasters in our grooves.  And, if you’re curious as to how the ever-increasing mana costs of Magic can be applied to Rainbow Stairwell, or what to do with RS in a multicolor environment?  Adam Styborski tackles both these problems in Stairwell to Compleation.

 

 

Prismatic (5-Color Magic)

Prep time: Considerable
Cost: Potentially High
Skill or Casual: Both

Prismatic is a big deck format in which players must play with cards from all five colors. 5CM was originally created by a group of friends who enjoyed casual games of Magic played in a certain way, with certain deckbuilding restraints.  Other players liked what they were doing, and the format became very popular.  A committee was established.  It popped up in Magic pro-tour tournaments.

5-Color Magic, however, wasn’t intended for a mass audience.  It included, among other things, contentious rules for ante.  It also featured its own banned and restricted list, but that list wasn’t geared toward preventing degenerative play, and was based around cards the original 5CM crew didn’t enjoy.  As the format gained in popularity, different groups wanted 5CM to be different things.  Drama ensued.  The rise and fall of 5CM makes for interesting reading, and Abe Sergeant guides us through the unfortunate details in his article The Death of a Casual Format, which is one part obituary, and one part cautionary tale.

The format is still fun to play, even if its glory days are over.  If you’re interested, you have two paths you can take.  The original 5-Color rules committee are still in operation, and can be found at 5-color.com.  They suggest 300 card decks with a minimum 25 cards of each color.  Magic Online, however, has its own version called Prismatic (which you can learn more about here) and encourages 250 card decks, with 20 cards of each color.  Both versions are similar in concept, but their attitudes are very different.  While Prismatic focuses on a simple, stream-lined format,  the 5CM crew offer numerous odd delights, such as optional rules for ante, errata for cards like Chaos Orb that wouldn’t normally operate well in the confines of modern magic, three ‘promotional’ cards that players are welcome to proxy, and a rule that states “Players with no non-proxy permanents may not speak.”

 

 

Commander (EDH, Elder Dragon Highlander)

Prep Time: Lengthy
Cost: Potentially High
Skill or Casual: Both

Elder Dragon Highlander is the new big deck darling of the casual Magic community.  In EDH, players choose a Legendary Creature and call that creature their Commander.  They then build a 99 card deck which must share colors with their Commander, using the previously mentioned Singleton format further up this list.  When the game begins, players set their Commander in the ‘Command Zone’.

Player continues as normal, except whenever a player could cast a sorcery, they may instead cast their Commander from the Command Zone.  If the Commander would be destroyed or exiled, it returns to the Command Zone, and may be cast again, at any point, for a cumulative penalty of for each time he or she is cast this way.

Oh, and each player begins the game with 40 life (though they can lose the game if they take 21 damage from the same Commander.)  This life buffer allows for mammoth, over the top spells to shine.  It also makes for over-confident players, open to an early game blitz, like the one that comes from my own Isamaru, Hound of Konda deck.  Woof.

Commander is very popular among Magic veterans.  It’s also very popular with the Magic marketing team, who printed two sets of five decks, each featuring exclusive cards designed for casual multiplayer play, and a number of wedge Legendary Creatures (Creatures that feature three colors, only two of which are allied.  If those Legendary wedge creatures weren’t printed in this product, wedge players would be stuck with only one choice for their Commander.)  Meanwhile, Wizards learned their lesson from 5-Color Magic.  While they support Commander, they refuse to integrate the format into their rulebook, and will never host an official tournament, instead deferring all judgments to the wisdom of the grassroots EDH rules committee.  To learn more about Elder Dragon Highlander, go to mtgcommander.net.  That website’s forum is also something to behold, currently featuring 162,000 posts on 9,400 topics.

 

Choose Your Own Standard (Choose Your Own Block)

Prep time: Modest
Cost: Similar to Standard.  Many older cards are cheaper, but old keystone cards can be pricey.
Skill or Casual: More Skill

Choose Your Own Standard started as a suggestion by Mark Rosewater, who noticed a shift in how we approach Magic as it ages through the years.  Many players long to play with cards from older sets, but don’t want to open the floodgates of Modern or Vintage, whose formats lean toward repetitious play of the same four ‘best decks’ featuring expensive cards unlikely to fall out of favor for a long, long time.  Mark’s suggestion?  Each player creates their own Standard, choosing two blocks and a core set, and builds their decks using only those cards.  Do you like Shards of Alara and Invasion Blocks?  Smash them together and make a deck.  Choose Your Own Block is the same thing, except players are limited to a single block.

In 2007, players spied a glimpse of how this format worked, when Choose Your Own Standard joined the Magic Invitational.  Here’s the decklists from that event.  I find it rather interesting that many players chose to run Ice Age, due to the combined powers of Counterspell,  Brainstorm ,  Force of Will and sometimes Swords to Plowshares.  Despite the interest in the format, something intangible was left to be desired.  Mr. Rosewater addressed this issue in a mailbag article that popped up a year later:

As Magic gets older and older, I believe there is going to be need for a format that gives access to all of Magic (well, most of Magic) without allowing all of it at once. Choose Your Own Standard was my suggestion to fill that void. The format got very good feedback from the players. The problem is that while I believe the void in question is coming, I don’t think it’s quite here yet. As such, no one other than me inside Wizards is really looking to fill it.

For fans of CYOS I think time is on our side. I believe when the void comes that this format will have some legs to be able to step up (see it has legs, thus it can step up) and try to fill the void. If you enjoy the format I strongly urge you to try and find people to run it locally. Like most homebrewed formats, I think this one’s going to take some time to ferment. But don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about it. I still bring it up from time to time.

Maybe the time is coming?  A half a decade passed since Mr. Rosewater’s wrote his article, after all.  As an aside, I should point out that Wizard’s casual format page now encourages all players involved to agree to two blocks, and build around them.  So, if both Time Spiral and Innistrad are chosen, all players must build their decks using cards from Time Spiral and Innistrad.  It can be an annoying restriction.  Each of us, after all, want to do our own thing.  It could also be the right choice.  After all, if everyone chooses Ice Age for the counterspell suite, then we aren’t choosing our own Standard anymore.  The best two potential blocks to form a sing;e Standard are choosing us, and the format devolves into the same four decks, in the same way Legacy already does.

 

 

Vanguard

Prep Time: Quick
Cost: Cheap.  (Some cards cost double digits, but each player only needs one.  Also, most players won’t care if you proxy.)
Skill or Casual: Both

In Vanguard, players choose an avatar to represent themselves.  Each Avatar comes with a bonus ability for that player, and, since not all abilities are equal, each Avatar also comes with a starting hand size modifier, and a starting life modifier.  If you count all the virtual cards from Magic Online, there are 106 different Avatars to choose from.  Though, I should point out that a few of those Avatars are intended to work online, and not in paper magic world.  Akroma, Angel of Wrath Avatar, for example, parses out two random abilities to each creature that enters the battlefield under your control.  Two Captain’s Calls later, and you’d be lost in a memory issue nightmare.  Momir Vig, Simic Visionary Avatar is next to impossible to use (though, not impossible.  Say hello to the Real Life Momir Vig Random-Permanent-for-Casting-Cost Generator.)  If you’d prefer to stick to physical cards, though, here’s a rundown of those 32 cards and their abilities.

If you’re interested, Robby Rothe wrote an article about Vanguard.  Then he upped the ante by designing 15 more cards.  I couldn’t tell you if the cards (which focuses on modern Planeswalkers, like Ral and Chandra) are balanced or not, but they sure look awesome.

 

~

 

Nine Popular Alternative Rules

 

 

Star (Pentagram, Five Points)

Number of Players: 5 or 7 (theoretically, 9)
Prep Time: Quick
Rules Baggage: Moderate
Speed compared to cutthroat: Somewhat Faster
Skill or Casual: Both

Oh, star, I love you.  Star is a reason to aim for five on your Magic game night.  It allows for elements of both multiplayer and duel decks to shine.  Propaganda is still a bomb in this format, but so is Rakdos Cackler.  All that, and when the game would grind into a two or three player slugfest, it ends, giving players a chance at another game.

Before a game of Star begins, each player is handed one of five basic lands at random.  The player who receives a Mountain chooses where they want to sit at a round table (optimally), and the rest of the players take their appropriate places in White, Blue, Black, Red, Green order.  The White player goes first, then play continues to skip every other player in clockwise order (or, in other words, from White to Black to Green to Blue to Red, back to White.)  There are no limits to your range, but you may not attack your allies, which are the players to your left and right.  The first player to eliminate both their enemies (the two players across from you) is the winner.  On occasion, this results in two players winning simultaneously (for example, Blue and Red could both be eliminated from a game, leaving White, Black and Green behind.  If Black is then eliminated, then Green and White win together.)

Anthony Alongi wrote an article on Star, but you might feel it’s dated, since it comes from 2005.  Kelly Digges has a solid article, and is a tad more recent.

 

Emperor

Number of Players: 6 or 10 (Theoretically 14, or, Unrealistically, 18)
Prep Time: Quick
Rule Baggage: High
Speed compared to Cutthroat: Fast
Skill or Casual: More Casual (Decks designed to abuse Emperor devolve the format.)
Gender Biased Format Name?: Yes.  (I tried writing ‘Emperor/Empress’ throughout this entry, but it made the next two paragraphs read like a mess.  I apologize about favoring the word ‘Emperor’, but that’s the name of the format.  Better to be consistent.  I do it under protest, though.)

Players break up into two teams, and one player on each team claims the role of Emperor, then claims a chair for the country of their choice.  Those two Emperors sit across from each other from the center of a long, cafeteria-style table (optimally).  The remaining four players represent Generals who sit to their Emperor’s right and left.  Teams take turns simultaneously, untapping, drawing cards, and attacking with their creatures all at the same time.  Each General’s range is one, meaning they can target and effect their Emperor, and the General that opposes them.  Each Emperor’s range is two, meaning they can target and effect all the Generals, but not the opposing Emperor… not until one of the Generals are eliminated.  At this point, the game tightens, and ranges begin to overlap.  For a 10 player game, add two Captains on all four ends.  Each Captain’s range is one, the Generals’ range becomes two, and the Emperor becomes three.

As for ‘How does the Emperor attack a player with their creatures?’… that’s complicated, and contentious (I’ve played Emperor many times with many groups.  I don’t know of a single group that’s agreed on this point.)  Since few people can agree on this rule, I suggest going to this page at Wizards.com dedicated to the ins and outs of this format, and sticking to the official interpretation.  Anthony Alongi also wrote a very good article on the subject, but it’s ten years old at this point, so take his explanation of the rules with some trepidation.

 

 

Chaos Magic

Number of Players: 2+
Prep Time: Mild to High
Rules Baggage: Moderate
Speed Compared to Cutthroat: Slower?  It kind of depends.  Players can be eliminated out of nowhere.
Skill or Casual: Casual

Before a game of Chaos Magic begins, one player assembles a deck of oddball cards with unique effects written on them.  When the game begins, the first card from the Chaos stack is flipped over.  If the card is an Instant or Sorcery, put it on the stack.  If it’s a permanent, it’s put in the Command Zone and affects play until it is replaced with another card from the chaos deck.  Either way, the active player is always in control of the card’s ability.  For example, if Fervor is revealed, all creatures gain Haste until a new chaos card is revealed (but only on your turn.  If you play a Prodigal Pyromancer, don’t wait until the end of your opponent’s turn to use its ability, because it won’t be able to do it then.  May I suggest putting Mass Hysteria in your Chaos Deck instead?)   When is a new Chaos card revealed?  I like The Ferret’s plan in his article on the subject:  Roll a six sided die at the beginning of each player’s turn.  If a six pops up, a new Chaos card is revealed.  That may not seem fast enough to you, but, trust me… a little chaos goes a long way.

If you don’t want to bother assembling a Chaos Deck, you could always go to MTG Deckbuilders, which features two charts with 100 separate chaotic effects on each.  Roll a one hundred sided die and get cracking (don’t want to bother finding a one hundred sided die either?  Here’s a good online die roller, you lazy curmudgeon.)

 

 

Planechase

Number of Players 2+
Prep Time: Quick
Rule Baggage: Moderate
Speed Compared to Cutthroat: A little Slower
Cost: Mid to High
Skill or Casual: Casual

Planechase, a product heavily influenced by Chaos Magic, asks players to assemble a stack of Plane cards, each with their own global effect.  In order to jump to another Plane, players roll the planar die (Players get one free roll each turn.  The second roll costs .  The third roll costs .  The fourth , etc., etc.)  One in six chances shuttles the game to another plane.  A different one in six chance causes the chaos effect of the Plane to trigger.  That Chaos effect, by the way, is a very good piece of design.  While players never know how beneficial or dangerous their next planar jump might be, the chaos effects is almost always good for the active player, who will opt to roll the planar die whenever they have bonus mana kicking around (or whenever they are desperate.)  Without the chaos effect, players would find a Plane everyone was comfortable on and settle in, refusing to roll the planar die.  What’s the point of a Planechase if you aren’t chasing each other through the Planes?

In theory, before the game begins, each player selects a number of Planes that work well with their deck and shuffle them into the community Plane deck.  I’ve never seen anyone do this.  Most players shuffle in every Plane they own.  I could make some wild assumptions about how the development staff of Wizards, culled from the brightest stars of the Pro Tour, aren’t geared for appreciating chaos for the sake of chaos.  But I don’t honestly know if that’s true or was a factor.  It’s at least as likely that marketing felt they would make more money if they convinced players that everyone was responsible for supplying their own Plane cards, as opposed to relying on one player’s purchases.  Or maybe Wizards’ playtesting proved that players who were more inclined to shuffle all the cards together didn’t need incentive to do that.  They’d use the product in the way that felt natural to them no matter what Wizards told them to do.  It’s the rigid thinkers in our community who need a set of rules to play the game they way they like to play it.  I don’t know which of these theories are correct, if any of them.  Maybe a little of all three.  I wouldn’t worry too hard about it, as long as players understand that they aren’t ‘playing the game wrong’ if they shuffle in all the Planes they own.  In fact, I’d say those players are doing it right.

Most game reviews of Planechase are very positive (including this one).  The biggest barrier to entry, however, is the cost.  Chaos Magic might cost a five dollar bill at the discount rare bin of your local game store.  Planechase Planes, however, are tied to eight Duel Decks, which increase in value over time.  I suggest bypassing the decks, and buying a set of Planechase cards on the secondary market, filling gaps as you go along.  I should warn you if you do, though, that you’ll be missing out on a number of special cards printed exclusively for the product.  Only Fractured Powerstone interacts with the Plane cards, but all of them are designed with the casual crowd in mind.

 

 

Archenemy

Number of Players: 4 is ideal.  3 and 5 are acceptable.  (6+ with multiple Archenemies.)
Prep Time: Quick
Rule Baggage: Moderate
Speed Compared to Cutthroat: Faster
Cost: Mid to High
Skill or Casual: Casual

When Planechase released, it was a Grade A product from Wizards of the Coast.  Then, Archenemy appeared, and Planechase became an A- product.  Wizards topped themselves, and raised the bar of quality in one year.

In Archenemy, one player plays the evil Mastermind, while the other players gang together to oppose him or her.  In order to equal the power of three players, the Mastermind starts at 40 life, and flips over the top card of the Scheme deck every turn.  Sometimes he or she draws four cards.  Sometimes the Mastermind’s pet dragon descends on the table.  Either way, things are gonna get rough for the makeshift allies.

The Archenemy schemes are well designed.  I remember playing the Molten Core Raid Deck from World of Warcraft’s trading card game.  It featured a similar mechanic, where most of the players were fighting a series of monsters and encounters, while penetrating the hide of Ragnaros, the Fire Lord.  It was okay, but only as a diversion.  One of the major problems of the WoW Raid Decks, or, at least this one in particular, was that, in order to keep the players in check, the Raid Deck kept wiping the board.  But if you wipe my board every other turn, I don’t feel like I’m playing an interactive game.  I’m playing “All my creatures are suspended Rift Bolts to the head.”  That’s not fun.

Schemes, on the other hand, don’t blow all the players out, all the time.  Sure, some of the effects are capable of doing that, but those cards are inconsistent.  The Scheme deck isn’t the boss deck.  It turns any other deck into a boss deck.  The only real problem with the scheme deck is that it’s so much fun to run, that everyone wants to be the Archenemy all the time.

Again, there’s the cost factor.  Here’s a few more reviews if you still aren’t sure if this game is for you.  I was surprised to find a number of my fellow reviewers wrote negative reviews. (Actually, what surprised me most was the number of reviewers who reviewed the game based on the cards, and not based on playing the game.  About five non-reviews for every real review.  Welcome to the Internet.)  But, in hindsight, it makes sense.  Your experience with Archenemy will be based on how well the Schemes support your deck.  Play with a hodgepodge of starter decks, and the Archenemy will reign supreme.  Play with finely crafted vintage dynamos, and the Schemes will get less lovin’ than a rooster in a dairy farm.  Most of the negative reviews hinge on game balance issues.  So amateurs and power gamers alike, be wary.  Or borrow someone else’s deck before playing Archenemy.

 

 

Fat Stack

Number of Players: 2+
Prep Time:  Depends
Rules Baggage: Mild
Speed Compared to Cutthroat: Slower
Skill or Casual: Casual

Take a pile of Magic cards.  Remove all lands and cards that produce mana (like Manalith and Dark Ritual) and put those cards in another pile.  Shuffle both piles, separately.  Now, whenever a player would draw a card (including their opening hand), they either draw from the spell pile, or the mana pile.

MTGFormats.com contains a decent video tutorial for Fat Stack.  For advice on building a Fat Stack, the cool people on this forum thread do a good job helping a newcomer out.  Personal experience tells me that Fat Stacks aren’t as common as Cubes.  I can understand why, since a good Cube can lead to weekly events, that last for years.  A good Fat Stack, however, won’t have that sense of depth, and might lead to a fun couple of games every other month.  Fat Stacks, however, are much easier to construct, and more forgiving to their creators (any player can draw any spell, so it’s okay if everything isn’t perfectly balanced.)  If you’re thinking of building a cube, but aren’t sure where to start, then maybe you should build a Fat Stack first?  After messing around with the Fat Stack for a while, you’ll gain a better understanding of what pieces of the Magic puzzle work best for you.  The worst that could happen is that you grow to like Fat Stack more than Cube.  Heaven forbid.

 

 

Mental Magic (Reverse Mental Magic)

Number of Players: 2+
Prep Time: Quickish
Rule Baggage: Ponderous
Speed Compared to Cutthroat: Quick
Skill or Casual: Super-Duper Skill

Shuffle a pile of random Magic cards together, then deal seven cards to each player.  Don’t get bent out of shape over what you’ve been dealt.  Those cards are not those cards.  Trust me.

Players may play the cards in their hands in one of two ways.  They may:

1). Play the card face down as a land.  These special lands tap to produce one mana of any color, but aren’t saddled with a name or type.  They aren’t basic, but I don’t even think they’re ‘non-basic’.  Just play it cool, boy.  Real cool.

2). Cast the card in their hand by paying its mana cost.  When a player casts a spell, though, they must name a different card with the exact same mana cost, and the spell they cast becomes that spell on the stack.  For example, if I had a Fiend Hunter in my hand, I could cast it as a Paladin en-Vec for , but not as Rebuke, since that card costs .  I couldn’t cast it as a Fiend Hunter, either.  We got to dig deeper than that.

Oh, and there’s one more rule:  Once a spell is cast in a game, it can’t be cast again.  If I Unsummon your Paladin en-Vec, you need to name a new spell when you pay .  Some groups won’t even allow the same spell to be cast in the same night.    For some added variance, play Reverse Mental Magic, which asks players to name the worst possible spells your opponent could cast.

Mental Magic is tough.  Nothing makes you feel more stupid than having every tool at your disposal, and still failing.  Still, the challenge is invigorating, and you feel super proud when you can out think your opponent through sheer trivial knowledge of the game.  That is, until you realize that the only thing you won was proof that you’ve wasted more time playing this game than your opponent.

Whatever.  It’s still fun.  If I gave you a Leatherback Baloth, what would you do with it?  Believe it or not, there are six other cards in the game with a cost of .  How many of them could you cast?

Mike Flores wrote an excellent article on this subject.  It’s over a decade old now, though, so read it with caution.  For some examples of ways to abuse this format, Travis Woo found multiple dastardly combos in his article Breaking Mental Magic (though, you may want to avoid reading it if you’d rather beat players on your own terms.)

 

 

Type IV (DC 10)

Number of Players: 2+
Prep Time: Depends
Rules Baggage: Ponderous
Speed Compared to Cutthroat: Quick
Skill or Casual: Very Casual

Another entrant in the Fat Stack family.  Grab a pile of Magic cards and shuffle them together.  Deal cards as normal.  Players may only cast one spell per turn (including instants during your opponent’s turns), but they have access to an infinite mana pool.  Cards that naturally go infinite, like Jade Mage or Fireball are capped at ten activations, or ten mana.  But everything else?  Go crazy.

Like Fat Stack, some players spend years crafting a perfect Type IV deck, and some players grab a chunk of cards out of their ‘extras’ box and give the pile a couple quick shuffles.  My personal Type IV stack contains only 75% Magic cards.  The rest are orphaned cards from other games.  Is your best card under Arrest?  Get Out of Jail Free will take care of that.  Now that I take a second look at that card, it appears that I keep Get Out of Jail Free until needed or sold.  Good to know.  I guess it’s immune to discard.  That is, until I sell it for a can of soda in my next game.

 

Kelly Digges covers all the points that I didn’t.  If you google Type Four Decklists, you should come across a good selection of leaping off points, but this forum post based on one player’s 300 card monster should make a good fist stop.

 

 

Wizard’s Tower

Number of Players: 2+
Prep Time: Minor
Rules Baggage: Moderate
Cost:  Same as a draft.
Speed Compared to Cutthroat: Slower
Skill or Casual: Casual

Wizard’s Tower (which you can read about here) is the latest format to charge out of the Wizards offices.  I’m sure players will like it, and will be deemed popular enough to belong to this list.  How could I know that?  Well, it’s pretty similar to an old format my friends and I invented about a decade ago called Wind Tunnel, and we wasted many, many evenings playing that game…

In Wizard’s Tower, each player opens three boosters, shuffles in a pile of lands (For every player, add two basic lands of each type.)  Then the players shuffle their piles into one large library tower, and we deal 3 cards to each player.  Give players a chance to mulligan, then turn seven cards face up on the table into a courtyard.  On each player’s draw step, they draw one card from the courtyard, and one card from the top of the tower.  When the courtyard empties, flip seven new face up cards into it from the tower.

I’d pass along more links, but the format is brand new (Ryan Miller posted about this in July of 2013) so there aren’t any other real articles of value to mention.  Sorry about that.  Of what’s out there, though, it looks like many players are interested in building their own pre-built towers, instead of constantly cracking booster packs.  What should one put in a Wizards tower, and how would that be different than the sort of things one puts in a Fat Stack?  Hmm… I’m not sure.  Do those two rules variations even need to use a different deck?  Or do you get a bonus game for every Fat Stack you make?

 

~

 Seven Political Formats

~

Assassins

Number of Players: 4+
Prep Time: Quickish
Rules Baggage: Mild
Speed Compared to Cutthroat: Faster
Skill or Casual: Both
Political: Shenanigans

Free for all Magic takes time.  That’s okay, as long as the game is fun to play.  Unfortunately, you can’t control the attitudes of other people sitting around the table.  Two hour games lead to cranky players.  And cranky players get defensive.  Why did you kill my creature?  Why are you attacking me?  Can’t you see I’m trying to end this game?!

Thus enters Assassins, a variant which first saw print in The Duelist #8.  In Assassins, each player is given a mark and is tasked with killing their secret opponent.  Whenever a player kills their mark, they gain that dead player’s mark as their new secret opponent.  The person who kills the most marks wins the match (though, special consideration is given to the last player standing.  It counts as a tie-breaker.)

Assassins alters the game in two important ways.  The first is that players don’t waste as much time whining their way out of an attack.  Since killing a mark is each player’s most important goal, and no one knows whose mark is whose, then little is accomplished by complaining.  If you’re the mark, then no amount of pleading will stop your assassin from trapping you in a dingy alley, tackling you to the ground, and stabbing, stabbing, stabbing their way to victory.

That’s not to say politics is dead.  Far from it.  In an open-ended game, politics can drag as players attempt to maintain a sense of stability.  When players hang their hat on a threat and an objective, though, conversation picks up.  Players can’t waste the game hiding.  They need other players in order to survive the oncoming slaughter.  Which leads us to our second important change that Assassins brings to the game.  Since the player who kills the most marks gets the most points, aggressive decks are rewarded.  If you kill three opponents in a five player game before the fifth player turns on their control engine, then you win.  Three kills beats one kill plus last man standing tie-breaker.

For the most commonly accepted rules of Assassins, see Adam Styborski’s version (It’s the top section of his article.  If you want want Adam’s version without the article, you can go here instead.)  Technobabel wrote a another take on the format, with some variations on the classic rules.

All four of those sites include some variation on “First write everyone’s name down on a slip of paper, and put those names into a hat.”  That’s a bad idea for two reasons:

1.)  Depending on where you play, some players might not remember who everyone is at the table.  And it won’t do to ask people their names after you pull your mark out of the hat.  Lucky for you, you’re playing Magic, and probably own excess chaff cards.  In a five player game, give each player a card, face up, to represent themselves (five basic lands, perhaps?) .  Shuffle a duplicate of each of those cards, and pass those cards out face down.  The face down card represents each player’s mark.  In the rare event that no one brought enough extra duplicate Magic cards with them, a deck of 52 playing cards should do.

2.)  Odds are, when you pass out marks, that someone will get themselves.  I’d explain why, but the math for this would take up it’s own article.  The important take away is that each time you hand out marks, you’re more likely to force a redo than be ready to play.

You’ve probably seen this problem work itself out before.  It happens whenever a group of gift-givers decide to go ‘Secret Santa‘.  This is easy to work around, though, if players can access smartphones.  Go to drawnames.com, type in everyone’s avatar name and e-mail address and hit ‘Send’.

If there aren’t enough smartphones available to make this a simple option, there are other work arounds.  Here’s one: Assign avatars at random, face down.  Let each player look at their face down avatar, then give the pile of marks to one player, face down, tell them to pick one that isn’t their avatar, and pass along the rest.  After each player chooses their mark, reveal all avatars.  If you do this, then only the last player could get their own mark, reducing the chance of a redo (in an eight player game, the odds of redo are 12.5%.  Much better than the sixty percentile range with the original ‘names in a hat’ method.)

 

Assassins and Thugs

Number of Players:  5+
Prep Time: Quickish
Rules Baggage: Mild
Speed Compared to Cutthroat: Faster
Skill or Casual: Both
Political: Shenanigans

While looking through the information online for Assassins, I realized I never played it the right way.  Kind of.  What really happened was my friends and I picked up Assassins, saw that someone was likely to get themselves when drawing lots, and adapted the rules to handle that.  It never occurred to us that we were doing something unique.  I’m sure a number of other playgroups made the same decisions we did, but I can’t find them online anywhere, so I guess I need write the rules out myself.

When a game of Assassins and Thugs begins, players choose their marks secretly, and at random.  Whenever a player dies, all players reveal their roles.  Whoever has that player as their mark (whether or not they dealt the final blow) is that player’s assassin.  Any player who has their own card as their mark is a petty thug.  The assassin benefits the most, gaining six life, and drawing three cards for a fulfilled contract.  The thugs kick the dead man and loot his corpse, with each thug gaining two life and drawing one card for their ministrations.  After the bloody mess is tossed into the local water supply, all the remaining players hand back their mark cards, and the marks are handed back secretly, and at random.

Players don’t play for points in this version of Assassins.  You want to kill other players because it will influence your position in the greater game.  Sometimes, this will result in a slower game, and sometimes it will result in a faster game; all out swinging isn’t so bad if you know it will result in a six point life gain (and deny another assassin their six points of life.)  Thugs might sit on their hands, since any player death will result in them gaining two life and a card.  But… any player death will result in the thugs gaining two life and a card.  Woe be to a player who shows weakness with three active thugs at a table, eager to receive new contracts.

 

The Hunt

Number of Players: 3+
Prep Time: Quickish
Rules Baggage: Mild
Speed Compared to Cutthroat: Fast? Slow? Depends on the players, really.
Skill or Casual: Both
Political: Less than Cutthroat?

Way back in 2002, when Magicthegathering.com was brand-spanking new, Anthony Alongi wrote about a format called The Hunt, which also solved a number of problems with Assassins.  When The Hunt begins, each player claims a random secret mark, but unlike Assassins, each hunter’s range encapsulates themselves and their mark.  Furthermore, if they attack their mark, or target their mark’s things, then that mark can attack and target their hunter for the rest of the game.  Whenever any player dies, that player’s hunter gains the hunted dead’s marks.

If, when drawing or claiming marks, you happen to draw yourself, then you become a rogue.  Rogues aren’t limited by who they can attack and target.  They still need to be judicious, however.  Since each player they stab at enters into their range, becoming a player who can target and attack in response.

The format sounds engaging.  It probably doesn’t work when Johnny, Combo Player comes a-callin’… but if no one abuses the rules, it should be fun.  I wish I could link to someone besides Mr. Alongi.  But, outside his article, I can’t find a reference to The Hunt anywhere.  I don’t suppose you’d be interested in helping to resurrect the format?  It’s only mostly dead.

 

 

Bang! Magic

Number of Players: 4-7 (More, with rules adjustments)
Prep Time: Quickish
Rules Baggage: Medium
Speed Compared to Cutthroat: Faster
Skill or Casual: More Skill
Political: Complicated

Take the political complications of Bang! and overlay it onto a game of Magic: the Gathering.  What’s that?  You never heard of Bang!?  Bang!’s got a pile of awards, including the Origin Awards 2003 winner for Best Traditional Card Game.  It’s funny how a card game can be so popular that it spawns six expansions, four unofficial expansions and a dice game, yet still not be recognizable to the public at large.  Do yourself a favor: If you never played Bang!, seek out a copy.  Here’s some reviews (Its also the first game I ever wrote a review for, though you’ll excuse me if I don’t link to it.  The other reviews are much better.)

The rules, in short, for a five player game of Bang! Magic:  Before the game begins, get a Plains, an Island, two Swamps and a Mountain.  Shuffle them together, and pass one out to each player, face down.  Players then look at their role card, and the player with the Plains reveals it.  That player is the Sheriff, who begins the game (often with more cards, and more life than the other players.  I suggest five life for each other player, and a card for every two other players.  Season to taste.)

The players with Swamps are Outlaws.  The Outlaws wins the game if the Sheriff is dead.  The person with the Island, however, is the Deputy.  Both the Sheriff and the Deputy win the game if all the Outlaws and Renegades are dead.  Who’s the Renegade?  The Renegade holds the Mountain.  He or she needs to kill everyone except the Sheriff, then kill the Sheriff in order to win.  It’s a tough job, but it’s a linchpin in how the game operates.  Whenever it looks like one side might be winning, the Renegade will switch sides and shut down the operation.

This would all go much easier for the Deputy if he could show his card to the Sheriff.  But, unless the Outlaws got a fast start, all the players will claim they’re the Deputy, bringing Outlaws and Renegades to justice.  The Sheriff should seek to keep all other players in a stranglehold.  After all, the Sheriff’s only got one friend at the table, and three enemies.  That said, a Sheriff who kills without provocation is a fool.  Not only is the Deputy the Sheriff’s only ally at the table, but the penalty for killing the Deputy is steep: Discard your hand.  Close calls might be worth the risk, however.  Any player who kills an Outlaw (even if its another Outlaw) draws three cards.

I can’t find any one writer on the internet who’s perfectly defined the rules for this format (though this forum post at mtgsalvation.com sums it up concisely, and this longer one picked up a lot more traction with responses.)  Part of the reason why establish writers shy away from Bang! Magic, I think, is because the people who are playing Bang! Magic are already familiar with the game of Bang!, and think you should just buy a copy of that game and adapt the rules.  I can also understand why major Magic websites would balk at recreating the rules of a published game.  If you’re curious, though, The rules for Bang! are free for anyone to read on the internet, and they include a few extra nuggets, like how to scale the game up to seven players.

I should also point out that Adam Styborski also… um… simplified and rewrote these rules to be more Magic generic (It’s the second format on the page I linked to, called Usurpers, below the rules for Assassins.)  Many readers pointed out to Adam that the rules he posted was a reinterpretation of one of the best selling traditional card games of all time.  Adam claimed ignorance.  In the original article, after all, he did say the rules were explained to him by a friend.  He just thought his friend made the rules up himself.  Whoops.

 

 

Throne Magic

Number of Players: 4+
Prep Time: Moderate to High
Rules Baggage: Heavy
Speed Compared to Cutthroat: Similar
Skill or Casual: Skill
Political: Devilish

Do you like secret roles?  I got your secret roles right here.  Throne Magic spins off Bang! and lightly touches Game of Thrones, adding further roles and multiple layers of complexity.  At the beginning of the game, Role Cards are randomly passed out, face down.  Then, the player with the King flips over his/her Role Card, claims the Throne (and, possibly, some Holdings) and begins the game.

What is the Throne, and what are these Holdings?  Here, let me show you the Throne of the Ancient King as an example:

 

 

Thrones and Holdings are beneficial cards that hang out in the command zone, but can be attacked as if they were a Planeswalker controlled by the Throne or Holding’s controller.  If a player successfully deals combat damage to a Holding, then they gain control of it.  If they deal combat damage to the Throne, though, no one controls it, and it moves to the center of the table.  On the King’s turn, he or she may attack the Throne to get it back.  No one can block for an uncontrolled Throne, but since the Throne triggers during the upkeep, in this scenario, the King effectively lost the Throne’s benefit for a turn.  If, however, the attacker is a Claimant (such as the Usurper, or the Ogre King), that player may reveal their Role Card when they deal combat damage to the Throne and gain control of it for themselves.

There’s more.  Much more, including rules for passing creatures back and forth, four Seasons which change between player turns, seventeen possible Roles, seven possible Thrones, nineteen Holdings, and rules for drafting which cards players will play with in any one particular game.  For some reason, Magiclampoon.com, the site where Throne Magic was originally hosted, is falling apart.  They haven’t posted a new article since February 2013, and that November most of the website went blank.  Thankfully, the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine saved the rules to Throne Magic, and all nine articles which spawned that rules set.  In the comments section, when Throne Magic was first introduced, one reader made the disparaging comment that “Wizards will probably steal this.”  I sure hope they do.  Now that Throne Magic is no longer being developed by Magiclampoon, it would be great to see Wizards collaborate with the format’s creators and spread their ideas to a wider audience.

 

 

 

The Dark Melee

Number of Players: 3+ (Technically, 7 or more.  But no one’s looking.)
Prep Time: None
Rules Baggage: Mild
Speed Compared to Cutthroat: A little faster?
Skill or Casual: Both
Political: Shenanigans

Heretics, dark magics and evil curses.  Let’s return to 1994, a time when decadence ruled in Babylon 5, a show about… space diplomacy… which pierced the terrible veil of our televisions.  A time when the dark powers of the Acropolis featured the… magical sounds… of Yanni’s pan flute.  And where, exactly did Carmen Sandiego go?  Welcome to The Dark!

Oh forget it.  Let’s face it:  1994 wanted to be punk-goth, but it didn’t know how to do it.  Probably because, like The Dark, there wasn’t a real focus.  “We’re scary, because we say so” doesn’t work for youth culture, and it didn’t work for Magic, either.  Mostly, if you take away the occasionally creepy (occasionally goofy) artwork, you’re left with a pile of spells that forced you to lose life and sacrifice permanents.  And, since most people didn’t want to do that, most people didn’t play most cards from The Dark.  Good Magic design had a long way to go.

That said, one of the better things to pop out of The Dark may not have been a card, but a format.  Will Chase, in InQuest Magazine, took the concept of sacrifice and bargaining to the players.  In The Dark Melee, any player can call a bounty on another player’s head.  From that point on, if that cursed player died, the player who killed him would gain an amount of life equal to the bounty.  Foul magic, however, comes with a price.  The player who set the original bounty on a player’s head also loses half the amount claimed, rounded down.  If, when a player with a bounty died, and the original claimant’s life total was less than half the bounty… well, let’s just say that slaying one person in The Dark Melee could result in a cascade of finalized contracts.

There are other rules.  In theory, you’re supposed to play with seven or more people.  But really, that’s just an excuse to extend the original article into an explanation of how to play Grand Melee.  There’s no real reason for the rules of Grand Melee if you don’t want to use them.  I’m sure claiming bounties is more fun with more people at the table, but that doesn’t mean dark favors don’t listen to indicting whispers in a four player game.

The other rules snag is that players are supposed to play with cards from Revised and The Dark only.  Yeah.  While that sounds interesting, it’s impractical post-Millennium.   You can choose to ignore that rule, or, if you want something similar, enforce that players must build decks from Magic sets with a horror or decline theme to them.  By my count, that’s Antiquities, The Dark, Fallen Empires, Ice Age, Apocalypse, Shadowmoor, Eventide, Innistrad and New Phyrexia, or any card that includes the word ‘Phyrexian’.  Feel free to be strict about the sets, but loose with the flavor, or be loose with the sets, but strict with the flavor.

The Angry Gamer from ‘I Remember Banding’ adds his own perspective on the format, and includes screen shots of InQuest magazine as well.  If your group allows it, feel free to be creative with the bounties, too.  “Anyone who kills this traitor can draw four cards!” makes a good bounty.  Make sure you have two cards to discard, though.  You don’t want to cross the collector.

 

~

 

Octant

Number of Players: 8
Prep Time: Quick (Though, wrapping everyone’s head around the concept takes time)
Rules Baggage: Heady
Speed Compared to Cutthroat: Slower
Skill or Casual: Skill
Political: Tricksy

In Octant, eight wizards sit on eight corners of a cube–bear with me now–striking along the cube’s seams.  Each Wizard only has access to the other three wizards they can ‘see’ along the edges of the cube.  Whenever a wizard defeats another, that wizard may choose to stay where they are, move to the defeated wizard’s corner, or straddle both corners, increasing their threat range.  From that point on, as long as a corner remains open, any wizard who can see that corner may move to it on their turn, or take up the space of both corners.  Play until only one wizard remains.

The geometry of the game is cool, but impractical.  I mean, you could program this as a computer game… and it would work, too, as long as the game designer made the menu system practical and responsive.  But the game isn’t practical in real life without anti-grav, or some sort of two-storied glass gameroom contraption.  That’s why we need to cheat to make the system work.  Let’s say that four players sat on top of a cube, and were arranged like this:

 

These four players can only ‘see’ along the cube’s seams.  So Player A could only attack and target Player B and Player D.  With me so far?  Good.  Now pretend the bottom of the cube is using the same four letters:

 

Once again, Player A can only attack Player B and Player D.  But they can attack one other player: the other Player A.  The same is true for the other players.  The top Player B can attack the bottom player B.  And so on.  Now that we’ve got this idea in your head, let’s separate the cube into two layers, and set the layers side by side, and push the two layers together.

 

The same targeting rules still apply.  Both Player As can target their table’s Player D and Player B, and the other table’s Player A.  If Player A kills the other Player A (for example), that player can stay in their seat, move to the other Player A’s table, or take up both spaces simultaneously.

Octant was first designed by Anthony Alongi, in an article where he picked up a dictionary and designed a bunch of Magic formats based on the words his finger happened to graze across.  Of the four formats he came up with, people really took to Octant.  So much so, that he wrote a follow up two weeks later, that includes an excellent map that you should take a look at before trying out the format.  A year and a half later, Alongi followed up with yet another article on Octant strategy.

 ~

Seven Solitaire Formats

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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.

 ~

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.)

 ~

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.