A new format

So, I have been trying to do a format for a while that captured the flavor of a mental duel for a while. My first attempt was a dismal failure and devolved into "burn deck wins". I just thought of another way to do a format like this, but I'm on vacation and I don't have my cards with me and this format would not work in untap and I need someone to test it. So, without further ado, I present to you Magic Duels (I know this is taken, I'll come with something better later.)

Deck building:
This format can actually be layered on top of all the popular constructed formats I know about. (Vintage, Legacy, Modern, Frontier, Standard, EDH) so you can use the banlist/building restrictions of that format in addition to...... Each player must bring two decks. A 40-card deck with only creatures and a 60-card deck with only non-creature spells and lands. You can go above 40 and 60 if you aren't playing edh, but it's not a good idea.

Other than that this format really only changes the way you draw cards/mill. Whenever you draw a card, you may choose to draw from any of three decks. Your creature deck, your spellbook/library or your opponent's creature deck. If you draw from your creature deck, you may choose to put it onto your hand or immediately cast it without paying its mana cost (if it has X in its mana cost, you may pay it. If it has an alternative mana cost you may pay that.) If you draw from your opponent's creature deck, you can't put it into your hand and you have to cast it.

If a spell would cause you to mill cards, you choose which of your decks is affected. Also, you do not lose the game from being milled unless both of your decks are emptied. Cards from different decks are put into different graveyards, but when a card says "your graveyard" it means both. If a card causes you to search your library, you choose which one.

The following cards are banned:
Both Emrakuls
Griselbrand

And that's it! Could someone please test this for me? If you have Lord of the Pit, could you please test that too?

Comments

  • It seems as a cool idea, but I don't know how it would work. The most obvious strategy for me here is to build a 40-card low-costed-creature-based deck and the other only 60 lands – just because you get to choose which deck you draw from, you draw only 3 or 4 lands and then you obliterate your opponent with a swarm of aggresive creatures. There is no topdecking either, so you just can't draw lands in the lategame.

    Seems like a cool and strategically different format with lot of fun options, which could be really fun to play, but it would need some additional restrictions to eliminate the strategy I explained (and maybe some other ones, too).
  • edited January 2017
    @Flatfish I think you missed something: No matter which creature deck you draw from you don't pay the mana cost for that creature, unless they have an X, in which case you can pay the X. But unless you are running a cantrip creature or good card draw, you only get one creature per turn.

    I just realized how broken that was with cantrips. Hmmm.

    I see your point, but when I was working on this, I thought the degenerate deck might blue/black Mill. Where you mill out your opponent's creature deck by getting creatures exclusively from it and with mill spells, so that you have lots of creatures, and they don't have quite as many. Then, your opponent has to draw from your creature deck and gets Lord of the pit or something of that ilk.

    Also, I hate top-decking. It's boring. So that's a bonus.

    What restrictions do you mean?
  • This needs to go back to the drawing board.
  • My immediate thought was a GB with giant tramplers and efficient kill spells.
  • Well at least it's diverse.
  • I have a new format too! It uses only cards from M15 onwards and has no banned list so my greedy corporate overlords can sell more cards that are broken without good removal and counterspells! It's Called Frontier ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

    In all seriousness, cool format bro. You should probably ban all the OP huge creatures though... freecasting is too good with Craterhoof Behemoth and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger.
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