Magic: The gathering game formats
Bring-your-own-deck formats
These formats can be used with any deck
Two-Headed Giant
In this format, Players join up in teams of two with a shared life total of 40 points. Players do not share mana or effects, but they attack and block as if they were one player.
Emperor
Divide yourselves up into teams of 3, and choose a player to be the Emperor. The emperor sits inbetween his two teammates, the Generals.
Generals can only target the people on either side of them, and Emperors can target anyone except the other emperor.
Emperors cannot attack.
Generals can only attack the person in front of them, meaning that the emperor cannot be attacked or targeted until one of his generals is killed.
Players can "pass" creatures through an ability called "Marching".
Marching-Tap: target teammate gains control of this creature. Play this ability only during your upkeep.
Last Emperor standing wins.
Star
You need at least 4 players for this one, 5 is best. Here's how it works: The people beside you are your allies. The rest are your enemies. This means that your allies won't be allied with each other, only with you. The winner is the first person with no enemies remaining.
Bitch
Works like a chaos multiplayer game (spells can go anywhere, players can attack anyone) but when you die, you switch decks, take 3 turns outside the game, and join in on your fourth turn
under the control of the player who killed you. You are now thier bitch, and they control who you attack, how you attack, and how you block. You are also honour-bound to use spells in your hand to thier advantage.
The bitch cannot disobey the master, ever.
If another player kills a bitch, they now control the bitch.
is a player kills a master, all bitches under that player's control are free.
first person to control the entire table wins.
Musical magical chairs
Again, starts out like a normal chaos multiplayer game (see above) but at the beginning of the game, you roll a die ( a D6 or a D4 works best), and that decides how many turns you have.
When the timer runs out, roll another die. That roll determines how many seats you move over. If it worked correctly, you should be playing someone else's deck, and you inherit thier hand, board position and life total. Repeat the above steps until the game ends.
when a player dies, thier seat becomes empty. The player is still in the game, so they might end up playing someone else's deck when the dice rolls, and someone else gets the empty seat.
the winners are the player and owner of the last deck standing.
Build-your-own-deck formats
These formats require that players build a special deck.
Booster draft
For this format, each player needs 3 unopened booster packs (or other assortment of 15 cards).
Each player opens a booster pack, and picks
one card from it. Then they pass the now 14-card pack to the player beside them.
at no time should you show another player your pack or the cards you pick!
This process continues until all boosters have been opened and players have a collection of 45 cards they have picked themselves.
Players then make and play with a 40 to 60 card deck (40 cards is best) using only the cards that they have drafted. Players may choose to bring thier own land, or the organizer may choose to supply it.
varients include sealed deck, which uses a tournament pack and 3 boosters with no card passing, and Reject Rare, where instead of 15-card packs, players are given 3 packs containing 15 really bad rare cards. (Reject Rare makes for some hilarious games)
the Highlander Hundred
Players build a deck made of exactly 100 cards, and are allowed absolutely NO duplicates, meaning each card (other then basic land, of course) must be differant.
Varients include Highlander 60 and Highlander 200.
Pauper's Magic
This format really levels the playing field. Each player builds a deck of however many cards they want, but here's the catch:
You are allowed no rare cards, and only up to 10 uncommons.
You are allowed no more then 7 of each basic land, and no more then 2 of each nonbasic card.
These are all the varients I can think of, feel free to add your own!
back to
Magic: the gathering
Stumble!