Alternative Multiplayer Ideas

So a bunch of us were talking, and I've been hearing some pretty interesting ideas for 'alternative' casual formats. A few examples include:

-World Effect: A world effect enchantment (like confusion in the ranks, grip of chaos, Vernal Bloom, etc.) sits in the middle of the table, and is not affected by the game, but is always activated.

-Deck Swap: When everyone has selected a deck to use, everyone then swaps it with a random opponent's deck and play with that one instead.

-In-Game Deck Transfer: At the beginning of your turn, swap decks with either a random player or the player of your choice (cannot be yourself if it's your choice.)

-Vanguard: Proxy a Vanguard card of your choice and play in the Vanguard format!

-Unhinged Constructed: Do you have unhinged cards? Care to build a deck with them?

---

So, who's up for a little fun?

World Effect will be brutal..

Emperor?

2 Headed?

Those are pretty standard.


Discount Deck Dueling?

Common Race?

HighLander Format?

The Thing?

Ask for clarification and I'll add more details... personally I like The Thing

I am not familiar with "the thing" please add details.


some other varents...

attack to the left can only effect the player to your left.
Chaos rules all (take all decks for game shuffel them together then deal 60 cards to each player then play)
Tribal (must play a tribe eg goblins,elves,merfolk ect
life exchange. every turn each players life total beomes whatever the player to the right of them life total was
screw agro can't play any spells for the first five turns
all land drop (you can play all of your lands at any time)
gushing knowlege at the end of every turn you draw cards until you hand has 7 cards in it.
love burn life can't be gained.


One final note Unhindged is a pain in the *** to deal with. if we play unhindged I STRONGLY suggest the banning of both "stop that" and "number cruncher" as both of these cards can cause greff example how how is a "flick" and the ever so famous "whats your life total? whats that creatures power? how much damage am I taking? quetions. all of which the player has to answer and the gotcha is in effect.

The Thing

The Thing is somewhat simple... requires X players and an Observer. (i think we can play without an Obs though)

Basically, you deal out 1 card to every player face down and say something like: the person with the 1 artifact is The Thing. Just find a way to denote secretly who it is.

Nobody is allowed to say what their card is, and if they're the Thing or not... this is where the observer can be helpful but not needed.

The Object of the game is for the other players to kill The Thing before getting wiped. (again, you arent supposed to know who it is)

The Thing can do special things (no pun intended), and if someone catches him they get tipped off more or less, feel free to declare people the Thing whenever you want... but remember, you may be wrong or be following a witch hunt.

The Thing Can:

Draw extra cards
Say the wrong life total (its still what it ACTUALLY is)
Hide their hand/cards in their hand
Return cards to hand from GY
Put RFGed cards into GY instead.
Untap thier land(s) / lie about Casting costs and mana (but if somebody notices...)

If the Thing Decides to reveal himself (voluntarily), he doubles his life and draws a new hand if he wants.
If the Thing gets caught in the act, well... I didn't think this far ahead

Generally, no real spellrange, alliances are allowed (just know The Thing may very well be your ally), and blocking for others is allowed.

Feel free to modify the rules, I kinda stitched this together myself... comments and suggestions would be nice

So after experiencing that exciting 7 player hidden teams match a bunch of us had the other day, I'd really like to try it in a larger setting. For those of you who may have missed it, here's the breakdown:

Each player is handed out a face down card. These cards are all either a different basic land, a single coloured spell to match the colour of each land, and an artifact.
Everyone who was dealt a land flips it face up. These players are now allied with the face down players that match their colour. The face-down artifact player is on his/her own.
The interesting part of this team setup is that the face up players do not know who they are allied with, nor can anyone say who their ally is. The face down players all know who their teammate is (or whether they have one at all) but they are not allowed to say, even after they are killed.
The last team standing wins, and there is no spell range. But beware! You may make friends with those not on your team, or you may inadvertantly kill your ally! The trick is to watch each others' moves carefully to try and discover who's on which side. Players can lie, bluff, feign and ally with whomever they like, but remember that you only have one teammate, and one player is all on his own!

When we played this at the student center, I was the lone player and I managed to team up with one of the face up guys (Colt) for over half the game, so he didn't distrupt my plays, we managed to take out half of the board, and I almost snapped back and killed him if not for one of the other players killing off my Disciple of the Vault, leaving him at one health to come back on and kill me. All and all it was a really fun multiplayer style and like I said, I would love to try this with more players and bigger teams.

I was looking at that when you gys were playing and it looks like alot of fun.

I think that if we were to play on this upcoming meeting, if we have enough players, we should divide up somewhat and get different formats going at once. That way there's something for everybody!

Anyway, something fresh off V's Crazy-Chopping Block

Communism Chaos Format

-Free For All Game (Alliances can be Made)

-All Players Take their turns at the SAME TIME

-Whenever a player gains life, all players gain that much life.
-Whenever a land is played, all players can put a land into play if its the same type (nonbasics can copy nonbasics)
-Whenever a player would draw a card outside of the draw step, each player draws a card

-All Attackers must be declared at the same time by all players (once agreed and set)
-All Defenders must be declared at the same time (again, once agreed upon)

-World Effects hit all players

Big Bad Wolf and the 3 Little Piggies

-3 versus 1

-the lone player gets 2x the life
-lone player may draw an extra card each draw step or may shuffle a card from GY into library
-Lone player may play an extra land a turn

-the team has a united turn (a la Two-Headed Giant)
-team can block for each other
-team can only play 2 lands total, one gets left out
-only 2 players can draw during their draw phase, one gets left out

Anyway lemme know what you think

The 3v1 doesn't work, we tried it. The single player has way too much power.

mmk, rebalace? take out the extra land drop?

Back to the drawing board QQ

Seemed better in theory... Oh well

Some other fun mutiplayer formats I have seen/tried....

Timmy johny spike dave.

this is a ffa game where each person plays a deck in assoication with the sterotypical demographic. (timmy is BIG creatures johny is COMBORIFIFIC Spike is win at all costs and Dave is win while grinding your opponent in the ground winning isn't enough you MUST crush them ) now becase you are forced in to a certain type of deck.

Timmy gets to start at 40 life and can all land drop on the first turn. must be playing a big creature deck

Johny gets 2 free muligans and start with 30 life must be playing a combo that that is fun (can be good too but FUN is prioity)

Spike get no advantages except he must use a Teir 1 or teir 1.5 deck.

Dave starts at 10 life but starts with 4 Pithing needels and meddeling mages in play naming whatever cards he wants. he may discard a card to change the name on any of these type of cards. he can't attack with the meddeling mages for all intensive purposes they all have may not attack or block on them.


MTG countdown.

you have to beat your opponent 20 times. once you bet them they restart their side of the game at 19 life 18 life ect all the way down to 0

I dunno this might exist but i like playing like this.

Not multiplayer just random.

You have a deck with no lands in it and every turn you get 1 land that can act as every color and this keeps going up till you have 10 lands then just levels out there.

It makes things very interesting cause you can use any card color u want.

Alternately, undead, I'd suggest having to choose a specific land type.

There's still the freedom, but more strategy involved.

Well ya but you can choose that land to be any color when it comes into play and it just stays that color.

May I suggest that this land limits at the casting cost of your highest spell?

I would hate to not be able to hardcast my Autochrlothon Wurm


Legend Mode:

Deck can only have one Legend, and one copy of it (players must announce their legend before the game, to stop doubles from being used.)

Players start with 50 Life.

Players start with an Additional card in hand (search your library for said card), this is BEFORE drawing opening hand.

If your Legend would be removed form the game or put to GY from Lib/Hand, you may pay half you life and shuffle it back into your library.

When the legend deals combat damage to a player, put Legend counters on that player equal to damage dealt, if the player has 20 of these they lose.

If a Legend blocks another Legend, all damage to players done by the Legend (trample or effects) is reduced to 0 for the turn.

If your Legend is in your GY, you get 5 Legend Counters each Upkeep.
If your Legend is RFGed, you get 5 Legend Counters each Upkeep.

This would be way more interesting (and my interesting I mean fun) if you allowed people to start with their legend in play.

Ya I was thinking that too, but an Akroma turn one might hurt a bit more than my turn one Isumaru, right?

I guess we could test

*shudder* turn one Phage

well you would just have to have a list of pre aproved legends (phage is oddvously out I mean its just too busted to start auto in play.... but funny as hell if I turn one Vanishing charm too phase it out......)

Another suggestion might be you get your chapion for free on Turn = its converted manacost? so you would get Isharu turn 1 while arcoma would have to wait until turn 6 to come in too play.

Star Format
-------------

Requires 5 players.

Two people sitting next to you are your "allies" (NOT TEAMED )
Two other people are your opponents.

When a player has 0 opponents, they win! [There hypothetically be more than 1 victor)

There can be options for tiebreakers, such as a subgame with only half a deck each, 10 life, and a starting hand of 4.


--------A---------
E--------------B
---D--------C-----

A is teamed with B and E, A must kill D and C.
B is teamed with A and C, must kill E and D
C would be teamed with B and D, and they must kill E and A.
D is teamed with E and C, must kill A and B.
E is teamed with A and D and must kill B and C.



Allied means that you aren't affected by cards that say "opponent".

Simple, yet fun.
Anyone wanna test

VARIATION: Each player plays a monocoloured deck and sits in their respective spots in regards to the other colours.
A deck MUST only contain one colour, for example: Mono red deck CANNOT have Figure of Destiny, as it is white also.

I think someone mentioned this at the last meeting:

Emporer star format...

(borrowing your diagram V, sorta)



--------------xAy---------
xEy----------------------xBy
-------xDy-------xCy-----



the letters: A,B,C,D and E are the emporers, each x and y are that letters generals. Same rules as star format

or if we have 25 people...



--------------vxAyz---------
vxEyz------------------------vxByz but i think this one might be a bit ridiculous, v and z are also generals
--------zxDyv-------zxCyv-----


with that ^ format, each player in each team could play a mono colour, so each team would have all 5 colours between them



each team could be a single colour, ie, xAy are all red, (or vxAyz).

star format could also work with tribal?





just dont ask me how the seating would work out...

Lol now ur thinking

And ya, that was me mentioning that idea... but everyone thought crazy old V was just spewing nonsense as normal

It would take FOREVER, but would be epic.

V wrote:

Lol now ur thinking

And ya, that was me mentioning that idea... but everyone thought crazy old V was just spewing nonsense as normal

It would take FOREVER, but would be epic.

lol, yeah it would


is there any other formats mentioned already that could be mashed together?

like an emporer game (3v3 for simplicity's sake), but each teams decks are shuffled together and dealt out to that team (or well, all creatures shuffled and dealt, same for land and spells, but done seperatly so people can still actually play stuff)






hmm,


what about in a 1v1 game, or any size game for that matter... have a deck not being played by anyone, made up of random enchantments that effect all creatures or spells, or whatever. And every turn (after turn 1), 1 is put into play, (or maybe every second turn in case things get too crazy). It could also contain spells, and if any spell affects a player, a dice could be rolled to determine the player.

eg, at the begining of turn 2 a card is drawn by any player from the spell deck and put into play under no ones control, but it still affects everytihng in play.

example card: howling mine.


example of a spell: lightning helix. a dice is rolled, if its even player A takes it, if its odd player B takes the damage (a dice could be rolled for another player to gain the life)

the same could actually be done with creatures or lands, player who gets original control is determined by dice roll.


it seems staying up to 5am has had some use :/

That sounds a lot like the Goody Bag format. I think I mentioned it last tuesday.

Basically, a goodie bag (pile of cards) is gathered by one or more people.

At the begining of every player's turn, after the untap step, but before upkeep, they flip up the top card of the goodie bag deck. It's treated as a spell under their control.
Priority is not passed during the goodie bag step, which means no one can respond to it, and no one can untap, and play something before flipping.
Goodie bag spells are never played, nor do they come into play. They simply resolve (if instant or sorcery), or are treated as already in play (this is to avoid storm decks and the like taking advantage).
Once a card is flipped, the effects of the previous card end. Only one goodie bag card is in effect at any time.

The goodie bag effects should be interesting (not too powerful, or mundane), and balanced (overwhelm tends to favor some decks far more than others).
A few examples from mine: Mass Hysteria, Land Aid '04, Cultural Exchange

It tends to add some variety to games, though I definetly wouldn't advise it for any more than 4 player.

Lol ya that can prove to be fun.

Hopefully certain decks cant take advantage of it too much

What about the old fashioned, pass your deck to the left, you play with that deck for the game

Respawn Magic:
------------------
Each player starts with 20 life
When you kill a player, you gain a point.
When you lose, you "respawn" with half the life. Shuffle all perms/GY/RFG/Hand into library except X, where X is your respawn. Put those cards into hand and draw to 7. Take 3 turns then the game continues as normal.
First person to the target points wins.

Combo decks and infinites need their own rules though

Would 3 turns on 10/5/3/2/1 life be enough (i assumed you round up) be a bit too little for some decks? For others, yeh sure they're ready to kickass and chew bubblegum (but they'd obviously be all outta gum)... but some... those poor, poor slower decks...

Thats the point, you fall behind and you become a huge target for everyone else.
Plus it speeds up the point system.

I suppose if we find it to be too harsh, we can boost the turns or instead of shuffling X permanents, those chosen ones stay in play.