MTG Cardsmith Community Forums
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?
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?
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
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).
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?
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.