When you are playing with a large group of friends, more often than not, one person will have a collection that allows him to build decks that no one can beat. As much as we don’t like it, it happens. Aside from playing limited every week, how do you counteract the guy with the best deck in the room? Simple… take away his card pool. Force him to play with your cards. Better yet, force everyone to play with everyone else’s cards. In that vein, today’s formats are all shared deck formats, meaning that everyone draws from the same deck.

Before you begin any of the following formats please remember that these formats are all shared card formats, and that it’s probably a good idea to write down who brought what, just to be sure everyone gets their own cards back at the end of the night.

Arena Magic

For the first format of the night, Arena Magic, forget what I said about sharing one deck. This format has you share six decks. Arena Magic is generally played with four or more people (A two-player version of this game isn’t very fun).

In the Arena Magic format, five of the six decks should be dedicated to separate colors of Magic. You’ll have one white deck, one blue deck, etc. The color decks should not contain any lands. Deck number six contains lands, artifacts, and possibly a few gold cards. It should contain more lands than anything else, though. When building the sixth deck, be sure to add lands that produce multiple colors, artifacts that produce mana, and an equal number of each type of basic land. It is a great idea to have multiple dual lands in this deck. This doesn't have to mean Godless Shrine and the like. Cards like Urborg Volcano or Ancient Spring are very good. The Ravnican Karoo's are also excellent additions to this deck. Ravnica also gave us the line of signets, which should also probably grace the middle deck. The sixth deck can hold gold cards, but it is generally advised to keep those limited. Hybrid cards (Lurking Informant, et al) count as gold cards. Remember to keep anything non-land in this pile to a minimum, so everyone has the best chance to draw enough mana sources.

As for the five color decks, there is really no restriction on what you can add. The only real rule of thumb should be to try and keep the decks as equal in power as possible. If your blue deck has 15 Force of Wills and 11 Time Walks, no one is going to draw from any other deck. The other general rule is to make the decks big enough. There is no set rule saying that each color deck needs to be X cards big and the land deck should be Y cards big. The number of cards you need in each deck will depend greatly on how many people are playing. Six decks of thirty cards each may be fine for a 2-3 person game, but that won’t come anywhere close to cutting it for 6-8 players. The land/artifact deck should be much bigger than the color decks. You want to be sure you have enough lands for everybody.

Placing the decks on the table may be a little tricky, especially when playing with a larger number of people. When playing, be sure to put a colored marker or note or something on each deck so everyone knows where he/she is drawing from. An easy way to lay the decks out is with the land deck in the middle, and the other decks placed in the star pattern found on the back of the Magic card. Colored beads still help, though. Or, you can embrace your inner-child and go back to arts and crafts class by cutting out a "playmat" to put the decks on with construction paper of the five different colors.

Gameplay is relatively simple. All standard Magic rules apply, except the modification of the draw rule mentioned above. With more than two players, any multiplayer variations you want to add may be applied. This format is fun with an Emperor match set-up , because the decks often aren’t very synergistic. If you don’t like the teamwork aspects of an Emperor match, mass free-for-all works too.

The only slight deviation from normal Magic rules is the drawing of your opening hand. Randomly determine who goes first. That player then draws one card from a pile of his or her choice. Going in turn order (usually clockwise), each player draws one card from any pile. Players continue drawing in this way until everyone at the table has seven cards. Then any player(s) that wish to take a mulligan may do so. If one person is taking a mulligan, he or she simply shuffles each card in hand back into the correct piles and draws six new cards, each card from any pile. If more than one person wishes to mulligan, each player shuffles the cards back simultaneously. Then the mulliganing player closest to the starting player draws one card from any pile. Then the next player draws one, and so on until everyone who took a mulligan has six. Repeat this process until everyone is happy with their hands.

When it is a draw phase, or whenever a spell or ability would cause a player to draw a card, that player may draw from any pile. Also, if you would draw multiple cards (via Careful Study or something like that), each specific draw can come from a different pile. Both draws don’t have to be blue for example. You could draw one from the land/artifact pile and one from the blue pile.

The strategy of Arena Magic lies in deciding which pile to draw from. For your initial hand draw, I always start by drawing from the land/artifact pile for at least three cards. That way I can use the lands I draw to dictate which pile(s) I draw from. If I draw Swamp, Swamp, Urborg Volcano, I’ll draw my fourth and probably fifth cards from the black pile. Card six will probably come from the red pile. With my last card, I’ll look at the casting costs of the cards in my hand. If the cost of my cards is high, I’ll go for the fourth land. If the cost of my cards is low, and I can play a spell by turn three (this is generally a slower format), I may take another color card. If I do draw the fourth spell, usually my first draw step is going to be from the land pile. Unfortunately, drawing three lands that produce a common color is somewhat rare.

The way you play the game depends on the opening colors you draw. Theoretically, you should never get mana screwed, because you always know you can draw from a land pile. It is possible to draw a bunch of artifacts from that pile, so be sure to have enough lands. Color screws do happen, but because you can draw from each color it doesn’t happen too often. Double colored cards (Keening Banshee and the like) are the main cause of color problems. The one thing to remember is to draw a good mix of land and spells. Once you hit five lands, most players have a tendency to draw nothing but colored cards. This strategy is fine until that Goliath Spider pops up, and you have to draw three lands before you can play it. Even though the format is somewhat slow, losing that much tempo still hurts. If the board is stable and you already have a spell you can play that turn, don’t be afraid to go for land number six. Who knows, you could flip up Masticore from the land/artifact pile.

That’s it for Arena Magic. I’m not to sure how the name fits. Perhaps it comes from the idea of a gladiator arena, where combatants face each other with common weapons to fight to the death for victory? At any rate, Arena Magic is a fun little format.

Pros-Arena format fits just about every multiplayer variant, essentially eliminates mana screws, and makes everyone play different colors that they might normally avoid, eliminates cardpool discrepancies.

Cons-Color screws are possible, and Arena slower format so games tend to drag out. Also, drawing opening hands and mulliganing takes a while, luck a somewhat large factor.

Musical Chairs

This one may be pushing the shared deck idea a little. When most people think of shared deck, they think of one giant deck in the middle of the table that everyone draws off of. In this multiplayer variant, everyone has their own deck. The trick to this format, however, is that you will most likely play with every deck at the table at least once.

This format works best with a large group, generally with five or more players. Musical Chairs is very simple to play. It starts out just like a normal multiplayer game of Magic. When you start, however, set a timer for five to ten minutes. Exactly how long you set the timer for can be determined after you get a feel for how fast your group plays. When the timer goes off, the active player finishes his/her turn and rolls a six sided die. Every player then moves that number of seats to the left. Life totals, permanents in play, and hands stay with the deck. Play then resumes with the person to the left of the person who rolled. Turn order will stay the same, but the decks will be different.

When a deck dies with you in that seat, don’t worry. You as a player are still in the game. Simply scoop up the cards in front of you and wait until the buzzer goes off again. If the next movement sets you behind a deck that is still in the game, you get to keep playing. If you get rotated to a dead seat, you have a good opportunity to go to the bathroom. Or, if you are playing with my group, you get to go and get everybody a soda. But remember that in a few minutes you’ll probably be right back in the game.

The strategy of this game is fairly interesting, because you are attacking decks that you could potentially be playing later on in the game. Players have even been known to Fireball themselves as the buzzer went off, just because they knew someone else would have to deal with it. Although, as irony and maybe fate would have it, the person who Fireballs himself can roll a six (with six people in the game), and wind up in the exact same seat. Other craziness from my playgroup involved one person Devour in Shadowing an 8/11 Forgotten Ancient, dying from losing the 11 life, then winding up with the Ancient deck on the next rotation.

Musical Chairs is a great party game. You’ll be laughing all night with this variant. Nothing beats one person going off for massive damage against a certain deck, then suddenly having to play that deck. Because this is more of a “for fun” format, the decks should reflect that. Don’t come in with Heartbeat Combo and expect it to be as much fun as it would be with some weird Zombie tribal deck or something like that. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t bring good decks, but it’s always a good idea to keep the fun aspect of the game in the foreground as much as possible. If you just play to eliminate everyone else, your game isn’t going to be much fun, and it will probably end before you get to rotate a few times. Part of the fun of this format is playing every deck at the table.

When the game comes down to just two decks, the two players currently playing those decks will finish out the match. But, since this is a homebrew format with no formal rules, if you want to keep rotating, you can. If you chose to let the two players finish it out, though, you still feel like you’ve assisted with the win, because odds are you’ve played the deck at least once.

When you are looking for a great party game with a large group of people, Musical Chairs is definitely the game for you.

Pros- Extremely fun, you’ll be laughing all night, wacky plays happen with regularity, and even if you die you aren’t necessarily out of the game.

Cons- Need a large group, can take hours to finish (which may not be a bad thing).

Mental Magic

Some of you may have already heard of this variant. This game is great for those of you who know the game pretty well. Newer players may want to have Gatherer active while playing.

Mental Magic supports any number of players, from 2 to 854, although 854 people may have a hard time fitting around one table. You may need two. Anyway, you will also need two decks. One deck must consist of random (or maybe not, see below) cards with no basic lands. This is the “Tank.” The other deck is made up entirely of basic lands. To begin the game, each player draws seven from the tank. Mulligans are not allowed. The turn structure is exactly the same as regular Magic except for one difference. The draw phase is split. During each player’s draw phase (and the first person to play also gets a draw phase), that player draws one card from the tank. Then he or she takes the top card from the land deck and puts it face up on the table, just like they would be in a normal game of Magic. Lands do not go into your hand.

The part of Mental Magic that makes it extremely interesting is this rule: No card can be played as printed. When you play a card, you must cast it as a different card that has the exact same casting cost (this includes color requirements). For example, if I have a Devoted Retainer in my hand, I can cast it as anything that costs W. Isamaru, Hound of Konda would be a good choice, or better yet, Empty-Shrine Kannushi (more often than not you'll be four or five colors). Or I can play it as a Swords to Plowshares. Just because a card started out as a creature, doesn’t mean it has to end up that way. The same rule applies for instants and sorceries. Shock can become a Raging Goblin. One thing to note about that rule, however, is that everything is played at sorcery speed.

Another important rule is that spells may only be used once. For example, if my opening hand has three cards that cost R, I can’t play Shock three times. In long games, it can be tough to keep track of who has played what. What I find works best is to write down what has been cast already. Also, I like to use index cards to essentially “proxy” up any creatures I cast. I’ll write down P/T and any abilities that creature has, then put the index card on top of the card I used to cast it.

One other important rule to remember is that basic lands don’t actually count as basic lands. They can be tapped for any color mana, and they can’t be searched out by effects. So Sakura-Tribe Elder is just a 1/1 dork in this format. This means that landwalk abilities don’t work, and Karma hits for 0 because no one controls a swamp. In reality, your land deck can be made up of just about any type of card. This rule does work well with sunburst, however. Because mana can be any color, your Snow Fortress suddenly becomes a 5/5 flyer in Skyreach Manta. Remember that you must copy mana cost exactly. So Keening Banshee can become an Abyssal Specter, but not an Abyssal Hunter. Their converted mana cost is the same, but the actual mana cost is different. Fun fact: there is no possible way to play Firemane Angel in this format.

Players share a common graveyard. If the tank becomes exhausted, shuffle the graveyard and use that as the new tank.

When building the tank, it is a good idea to vary the casting costs of you spells. Just make sure that you don’t include any costs that are unique (Firemane Angel for example). Include multi-colored cards, just limit the number of 1UB cards. Whoever plays Psychatog first usually wins.

For an even bigger challenge, play Type 2 Mental Magic or even block Mental Magic. Block might get a little tough with more than two people, though. Any way you play it, Mental Magic is a great test of your Magic knowledge.

Pros-Great challenge, very fun with people who know the game well

Cons-Newer players may be quickly overwhelmed, keeping track of all played spells is difficult.

There you have it; three formats for you to try out the next time you get together with a large group of people. Just make sure you go home with the same cards you showed up with!

~lionden_56~

You can discuss this article in the MDV forums here.

Articles Spotlights from 2006
The Games People Play - Tactical Magic.
If I worked at R&D
The Beginner’s Guide to Rogue
Druid Week Primer
Opting In: Ravnica
MDV Idol: Finale!
Avatar Week Primer
Delusions of Mediocrity: Getting Stuffy in Here.
Raiding Ravnica: Guildmages and You!
Lands-More than Mana: Part One