I myself enjoy playing Magic the Gathering - mainly EDH, as it usually allows for a nice game in a nice group, and is not so much focused on tournament and winning. At least in the right group. But then comes the problem - I can actually only play on MTGO (online), as I rarely make it to the local game meetup on time. Of course, you can just play with a few buddies, but then you need decks. But then there is the problem that several people play with foreign, unknown decks - and EDH decks do have a thematic or mechanical alignment that you need to know to use them meaningfully and well. This then favors the person who built and knows the decks.
Therefore, I have recently dealt with a few multiplayer variants of Magic that can be well set up as a spontaneous game round, but also satisfy my second passion - deck building.
There is of course the best known and probably most widespread - the Cube. Here, someone builds a large stack of cards into a Cube, from which drafts are drawn. There are several problems with this, however. The first problem: the Cube must be very well balanced, as you are doing a draft - i.e. randomly assembling cards into booster packs from which the players then build their decks. Essentially, you are putting the design into the Cube that you would also put into a Magic set. This can be a lot of fun, but it does require a lot of effort. Of course, you can get net lists of Cubes and get the cards - but usually you want your own Cube. The second, more serious problem for me: you are doing one of the Limited formats, Draft or Sealed. So mix the whole Cube (Problem 3 - how do you mix 500 cards?), pay attention to rarity (not necessarily identical to the original rarity, but rather a weighting in A/B/C cards), then assemble and prepare "Boosters" from it, then you can start with the game. Sorry, no, first comes the draft. And then the deck building. Oops - then you quickly lose the beginners, because casual players can maybe quickly learn how to play, but how to draft or build a deck, that's a bit more involved. So Cube is out for me.
Then I stumbled across the Stack Format and was immediately enthusiastic. I don't really want to design my own set - I just want to play with cool cards and do it in such a way that you can also include casual players after the latest open round (i.e. a round where all decks are open, so you can explain things and help each other). The design aspect is there - I can think about the cards that should be included, as much or as little as I want - and the setup when you want to play is also low. And through the automatic mana fixing in the format, beginners also have fun, because they usually get something to play that also has an impact. There are actually only two problems left: on the one hand, you have to mix 500 cards again and then draw extracts from which you then don't know how the game with the community deck will turn out, and on the other hand, despite mana fixing, there are problems in creating a consistent game - it is simply much more random. Deck design is almost non-existent, there is not even a preliminary selection of colors.
Another casual format from the Stack family is Big Box Magic (or Commie Box Magic as it is now called). There is also a common library, but divided by colors. And the player builds his color identity through the selection of his 12 lands beforehand. What I like about this: I can at least give a rough alignment, because the colors do play quite differently. And through the land selection, I already have a rough idea of how I want to play - unfortunately, this can quickly come into conflict with the reality of the drawn cards. I bet on blue-white with green splashes, but get only 3-green fat guys at green, it quickly becomes sad.
In addition, both formats also have a problem: it is not even remotely something like Commander. Yes, they are Singleton formats (at least if the Stack/Cube designer wants that), but there are no Commanders. And that led me to design my own variant, a mix of Commander and the two Stack formats. My attempt to build a common basis from the ideas with which you can play Magic more as a social game spontaneously, without much setup, with design options for the players and with deck building options for me. And without having to mix 500 cards (at least at once).
The basic idea is a common library like in Commie Box Magic (i.e. the 5 colors as their own stacks - and in my case really only monochromatic cards) and a common graveyard. The graveyard is divided by colors just like the library, and there is a 6th stack with artifacts and non-standard lands and a corresponding graveyard. All libraries and graveyards are common property - but always filtered according to the color identity of the player concerned. I decided to select 70 cards per color and lay out 30 standard lands for each color. With many players, you should probably lay out a larger land stack, otherwise it is too quickly empty.
Color identity is derived from the selection of the Commander by the players. I have a set of dragons - the Shard and enemy color dragons, of which the two with the same primary color are always bundled. That's enough for up to 5 players - each can choose a primary color and then their command dragon. If you want more than 5 players, I have a set of Guild Commanders, two per Guild. That goes up to 10 players, should be completely sufficient for my purposes. The Guild Commanders are also suitable if several players want the same primary colors and there is no agreement on the distribution of the dragons. Or if you just want to play with two instead of three colors - this does limit a bit, but has the advantage that players can develop a feel for the two colors in focus faster, simply because the number of cards is smaller. The dragon variant is also ideal for 2HG game variants - the two players of a team take the dragons with the same primary color, the team covers all 5 colors with this, but still has synergies. With this, up to 5 teams of two can be set up.
The game is then first designed from the selection and distribution of the commanders. Then each player draws his hand from the library - of course only from the color-matched stacks. To do this, each player can draw 3 or 4 cards from the actual card stacks and then fill his hand to 7 from the lands. Drawing is done in turn, since the library stacks are used jointly - so player one draws the first card, player two the first, until everyone has the first - then the round for the second card and so on. This way, each player can steer which color (or whether he needs artifacts) he wants to draw and also when and how many lands and which lands he wants. This should give everyone a playable starting hand, without major mulligan rules.
The game itself is designed just like normal EDH - you start with 40 life, there is commander damage from 21, poison counters from 10 and so on. Everything as usual. Special features only when drawing cards, with all cards that reference the library and with all cards that reference the graveyard. There is one more special feature with the commander - there is no tuck. The commander always goes to the command zone, never to the library - otherwise someone else could draw my commander and not be able to play it due to lack of matching mana.
Card drawing comes in two variants: the standard drawing of cards and the drawing of cards triggered by cards or abilities. With normal drawing in the card drawing phase, the player can choose from which part of the library he wants to draw. Here, all colors of his color identity and the artifact stack are available. A player can either draw a card in his color identity, a land in his identity, or a colorless card. Additional drawing of cards happens the same way, except that the artifact stack is not available. The reason is simple: all players share the artifact stack and it would simply be too quickly empty if you could always draw from it, artifacts are after all often the "jokers" in Magic. If a stack is empty, you can no longer draw from it - since each player has at least 300 cards to draw from through his colors (two color stacks, two standard land stacks and the artifact stack in the Guild variant, 400 cards in the Dragon variant), you should always be able to draw something. Whoever can no longer draw anything first also loses as in normal EDH.
What about cards that refer to the library? For example, with tutors (I myself avoid them in my stack) or those that go to the top cards of the library? These behave just like additional drawing of cards, but without lands - so directly to the colored stacks of your own color identity. In addition, the player must choose a color of the color identity before triggering the action - Scry 3 therefore only looks into the stack of one color (because only non-lands are in the stack in question, distributing over several stacks would then be too powerful). The stack designer should avoid cards that, for example, refer to lands or non-lands - in a selected stack there are always only non-lands. Some cards are therefore simply not compatible with this format. What about the opponent's library? The same - only a color of the opponent's color identity is chosen. And yes, your own library and an opponent's library can overlap. Top manipulation therefore often has more the character of "taking something away from an opponent" than the character of "preparing something for the next turn" - Hellsight is therefore rather an offensive tool. After all, every opponent with overlapping color identity comes into the potential "enjoyment" of my prepared card. This opens up completely new political strategies!
And the graveyard? Everything is in there together. Simple solution: the graveyard is sorted by colors just like the library. Cards that go to the graveyard are placed on the stack of their color. My graveyard is then all graveyard stacks from my color identity - and in addition the artifact graveyard. An opponent's graveyard is all stacks in his color identity - and in addition the artifact graveyard. Reanimation can therefore without further ado bring back cards that originally belonged to someone else! Even if the number of creatures in the graveyards of your opponents is asked - simply take the common color identity of the opponents and then count the creatures in the matching graveyard stacks and in the artifact stack. Yes, the Stare from the 6th district can thus turn out to be quite monstrous!
The designer of the stack should of course design according to the format - for example, mill phrases like the Archive Trap make absolutely no sense, as it is not clear whose cards you are milling away due to the divided libraries. Small mill effects are ok, but they don't really make sense either - it's more that you accept them because you want the card in there for other reasons. In general, you should avoid them. The same goes for cards that talk about owners in graveyards or libraries or exiles (which is also divided, but since you don't often access it, that part is rather irrelevant) - "bring all creatures in graveyards under the control of their owners into play" is pretty stupid here, because who is the owner of jointly used graveyard stacks? So when designing, always pay attention that the cards can also be played here without conflicts or too much head scratching.
In general, I have set the motto "Good-Stuff-Deck with Theros-God as an idea" as a basis for each color stack. This gives the color stacks a bit of character and the players can decide through the color choice in which direction their game should go. For the artifacts, I focused on the colorless helper lands and otherwise of course a lot on equipment and helper artifacts with low costs. Also because of the above rule with access to the artifact library only at the time of the primary card drawing - otherwise a Nin-player quickly grabs all the weapons ...
A drawback of the format is the poor support for gold cards - so far only as commanders, otherwise only monochromatic cards. An idea would be to give the commander - at least in the Guild version - a private library of gold cards, which is then only controlled by this one player. This makes it a bit more complicated, but also offers the opportunity to design a real Guild identity and thus give the Commander choice even more meaning. However, you quickly get into the situation from above that casual players are overwhelmed with the evaluation of the private libraries and more experienced players are clearly favored. I'll have to test a bit first before I decide on that - best first without this Guild library. Also saves time and cards if I do that first.
The nice thing about the format: the setup is as simple/complex as with one of the more complicated social games like Settlers - 5 boxes with 70 cards and 30 lands, one box per color. Separate the lands and lay them down, mix 70 cards and lay them down. Then mix the 100-box with the artifacts and colorless lands and lay them down. Commanders on the table for selection, and then you can go.
Magic plays its advantage here that cards can often be well understood when you just read the text - I have therefore also paid attention to only use German cards. Maybe I will also go through the selection again and sort out overly complicated cards (or cards with keyword properties without explanatory text) and replace them with simpler cards. Even if I then have to sacrifice some beloved cards. I have already only one Planeswalker per color in there, for example.
Whether the format works will of course only be shown by game tests. I will report whether top or flop.