magicthegathering

Prime Time for Prime Slime is the second of my "reinventing the past" deck lists. It is actually my first commander precon deck - Mimeoplasm - just spiced up to 11. It kinda is funny how I stuck with the theme of the deck, transitioning it from the precon to Ooze tribal and later reanimator, then turned it into Muldrotha combo and again turned it back to Mimeoplasm, when the Prime Slime secret lair came out (I love the art style), going full on Necrotic Ooze combo this time. It is a ton of fun to play, which is why some of the old stuff from my collection made it's way into that deck. #EDH #MtG #MagicTheGathering

Kaalia of the Blast is one of my "lets recreate original commander" decks. The idea is to keep close to the original structure - one commander with the focus of the deck, a supporting commander that could become the main with some changes, and a big dragon in the same colors. And have the game plan of one of the originals, too. So in a way an updated Kaalia with a bit more focus and dedication, but still Angel/Dragon/Demon beatdown. #EDH #MtG

Abdel, Agent of the Iron Throne is my latest high-power, near-competitive creation. The deck has a very linear combo plan with a lot of redundancy in the parts, and above all both combo element and combo payoff in the command zone. What is lacking in interaction due to the colors is replaced by resilience. I like linear combo because it gives the game a clear plan and, for example, makes mulligan decisions much easier.

Tin Elves - Tin Elves. My last artifact combo deck for Magic the Gathering. Felt super solid in the last game. The deck goes hard on artifact combos, but uses a number of elements that also work super well for an aggro strategy. If my combo pieces get shot down, I just attack with a horde of Thopters. And Emry as Commander helps me get around the Commander tax because her Affinity-to-Artifacts ability is worth its weight in gold in this deck - and since she's also a combo piece, the deck has very good chances of coming back from behind. I'll probably still stabilize the list a bit, but the composition seems to be a real hit. Probably going to Bologna with it.

Golos is on a pilgrimage to find the most efficient combos to run in his deck - and I am helping him to achieve his goal. My last decklist, which I am working on. It's going pretty hard towards cEDH. The first games already felt really good, even though a bit of the explosive combo feeling was missing. But that might not be bad in my meta either, we play longer games. Therefore, the list is more focused on answers and less on T2 combo-win. But from what the list does, it fully goes in my preferred direction - not suicide combo, but first see what's possible, then strike when no one can answer enough.

Wow, Pauper Comes to Paper - with unified legality. Unfortunately, two of my favorite commons are banned: Hymn to Tourach and High Tide. Too bad. But still nice to finally have a unified legality for cards.

The London Mulligan will be the official mulligan in Magic starting with Core Set 2020. Great. We tried it in Commander and it was completely fine. And it was also good in Pauper. Of course, there are certainly a few decks that benefit excessively, but that can be regulated otherwise. The new mulligan simply helps to avoid "non-games" due to multiple bad starting hands. There's nothing more annoying than losing a game in the mulligan because every hand was without lands or only lands.

A Force to be Reckoned With - the new card "Force of Vigor" has just hit two of my decks hard. Jhoira as an artifact storm deck and Paradox Arcum as an artifact combo are both quite dependent on their artifacts and enchantments, such a card can just turn them off. Instant speed. For free. Ouch. If other lists go stronger on mana dorks instead of mana rocks, they have enough green cards to get FoV active. And then I'm out. Jhoira might still be able to hold on, but Storm usually has several vectors, but since artifacts only become instant-speed with Shimmer Myr (and it remains vulnerable as an artifact), Arcum is really hard hit.

May 20, 2019 Banned and Restricted Announcement - Wizards of the Coast just neutralized two of my decks for me - Izzet Blitz needs the free spells to pump its creatures or activate direct damage and Skred Delver needed them to fill the hand in the midgame. Ouch. Okay, lately I've mostly played Tron (or GB Tortex if I was in the mood for wild board states), but still, Skred Delver was always my favorite deck because of its explosive comebacks.

I like the new MTG Mulligan variant that is to be tested in London. Definitely, it must be seen whether this does not favor combos too much, but the current mana system and the structure of the current Mulligan simply lead to non-games too often, especially in my favorite format EDH. And it just feels stupid when you have to go down to 4 and still have a crappy hand, or then just scoop - and the others can discard their good starting hands because they would otherwise have a game with N-1 players, where one watches. Of course, in multiplayer, you can directly offer the other a further 7-card Mulligan, but the new variant would not make this necessary - I can always choose the best N cards from 7, so a 4-card Mulligan is bearable.

Whenever I look at EDH decks, I actually want to build something crazy that has massive combo potential and relatively high stability against various other decks. Slobad - Self-Mill/Eggs (Competitive) (Commander / EDH MTG Deck) does exactly that, if I interpret the list correctly. It's amazing how a rather "cozy" general can be bred into a combo monster.

I don't really play MTG anymore (except online), but EDH is still my favorite format and I always check out interesting decks. Reinventing The Commander 2015 “Seize Control” Pre-Con, Part 2: It Seemed So Innocent… provides an interesting perspective on an Izzet deck focused on non-creatures. It really looks fun and is not the typical Mizzix or Melek Wahl. And it provides an interesting theme for the color combination that doesn't necessarily have to be based in Ravnica.

January 19, 2015, Banned and Restricted Announcement | MAGIC: THE GATHERING. Ouch. I really feel sorry for Pod players - their investments in Modern decks are now completely down the drain. And Treasure Cruise is making a banning sweep all the way down to Vintage - when was the last time a card was restricted in Vintage? Intense.

magefree/mage. Keep an eye on it - client and server in Java and cross-platform, AI integrated in the server and rule control with the cards (though not all cards, so potentially a problem with EDH). Oh, it's about Magic the Gathering.

Deckmaster: A MTG Variant Format by Jim Bowie. Interesting Magic variant that turns the cards into a deckbuilder similar to Star Realms, but still allows the use of the very interesting Magic card pool. Build your own Deckbuilder. I could have thought of that myself, given my preference for deckbuilders and Magic.

Getting started in legacy- Legacy on a Budget - Legacy Type 1.5. Bookmarked because Legacy might become interesting someday. Affinity is particularly appealing to me.

Cool idea: Decks for every Ravnica Guild. And each deck led by the Guild Leader. Probably not the best decks for the respective guild, but with many on-flavor cards.

Will You Fight the Hand that Feeds? : Daily MTG : Magic: The Gathering. Hmm, God of Ramp. That sounds like a nice card in a Blinking Rhino (Roon) deck. Specifically because you can downgrade the Goddess back to an enchantment by blinking creatures if someone comes with creature removal. And since she is legendary, she could also fit wonderfully in Captain Sisay - I still have a Full-Art Alter from her that also calls for its own deck ...

Mogis, God of Slaughter by Jarvis Yu. I don't care about Standard - I want him as a finally usable BR General in EDH. So evil. T4 indestructible Enchantment that makes opponents sacrifice their creatures. Oh so evil. Could definitely replace Purphoros as my favorite EDH god.

Magic for Fun

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.

Commie Box Magic is another variant with a central library. The rules are further expanded and, in my opinion, more complex than in the Stack. I would probably prefer it. Especially because the simpler mana fixing in the Stack makes gold cards playable - you have the right mana ready in a few rounds, even if you currently don't have any of the colors of the gold card.

The Stack and Back : Daily MTG : Magic: The Gathering - hmm, the format sounds very interesting to do something meaningful with the large card collection. Could also be very fun as a Pauper variant, or in a version with a correspondingly weighted mix by rarity. The deck building is eliminated, which makes it easier to get people involved who are new to MTG - you can simply play what is written on the cards. There is no mana screw, because you can simply take a suitable land card in the draw. The game should become much more reactive as a result - few opportunities to pre-plan, since even if you know the stack, you don't know which card someone else might get. And the advantage: deck imbalance is purely a function of chance. Magic becomes even more similar to a board game. I think this is a project for my collection.

Fishing in Modern: Top 64 at Grand Prix Antwerp by Raphael Levy. Very nice report about a good (and especially affordable) Modern Fish Deck. I'm considering getting it - I already have some of the cards, many are not so expensive, and with Modern as an eternal format, you can play it problem-free for more than a year. Moreover, Merfolk is right up my alley - on MTGO I play a Heroic Deck that works with buffs, sometimes also with a Sliver Deck (which works similarly to Merfolk). And in paper, my Standard Deck is a Nivix Cyclops Deck - which also works with buffs, albeit rather temporary ones.

Drawing Attention : Daily MTG : Magic: The Gathering. Great article about what card draw in Magic the Gathering actually is and how to deal with it. Why is the game structured the way it is, what influence do the different colors have on card draw and how important are cards compared to other resources such as life points?

Tokens zum Ausdrucken is the alternative to making them yourself with the designer - simply select the appropriate tokens and print them. You can even collect several and print them together. Advantage: they are the original tokens in terms of design. Disadvantage: they are the original tokens in terms of design (sometimes you want to be a bit more individual). And only tokens, not any card proxies or homemade creations.

Welcome | Magic Set Editor. Create your own Magic cards - on the one hand ideal for creating tokens, or also for proxies (as long as they are accepted in the game round), or of course also for your own creations that you want to play with (this also only works, of course, if your own game round agrees). Use slightly stiffer, springy cardboard (or original cards - e.g. basic lands) and cut out the prints and glue them on, then put them in the sleeves and you're ready to go.

Magic Plugin for LackeyCCG. Drin was drauf steht - a plugin that allows MTG under LackeyCCG.

LackeyCCG - Play any CCG Online, or make your own. Mac or PC.. Looks interesting, an alternative to Cockatrice and allows playing any CCGs over the Internet, not just MTG. Just like with Cockatrice, only the game table and the cards are simulated - players must ensure compliance with the rules themselves. Therefore, not a real competitor to the Magic Online client - but of course much cheaper, as you simply use cards and do not buy them. And it runs on Win, OSX and Linux.

Forge - Slightly Magic. Really practical software for Magic beginners like me. You can assemble decks, use ready-made decks, get randomized decks - and then play them against an AI. The AI isn't the strongest, but hey, I'm far from that too. It's all in Java and actually runs on Windows, OSX, and Linux alike. Nice to give your own deck a test run, especially if you don't have Magic players nearby (or they don't feel like testing your crazy creation). Oh, and it's open source too.