In this article, Stairc outlines a new variant format with stakes higher than normal Magic. Also, advice on buying cards with gold.
The Pitch
Imagine a salesman coming up to you and saying, "Step right up, because have I got a deal for you! It's a brand new game with infinite replay value, deep strategy, and over twenty years of content. And what will this game cost you? Nothing! You can play it with the cards you already have."
Sound good? Then let me tell you a story.
The Origins
As a game designer, I spend at least half my time worrying about how to cost stuff. I'm working on a fantasy card game right now called Faeria, and the team has spent countless weeks discussing the core economics underlying the game. It's a lot of work, and it also means that we can't design a lot of cards we'd like to because we might not be sure what the right cost for a hard-to-evaluate ability is.
On the other hand, when I'm playing a game it's completely different. If I find something is undercosted as a player, I get to have fun winning with it. If I'm the designer, I have to fix it.
I decided to try something out. Could I make a game where players set the cost for each card themselves? Some sort of auction perhaps, so figuring out how much a card should cost becomes part of the game. We designers would suddenly be able to make all the cool stuff we've wanted to and spend more time on making the game as fun as possible. Meanwhile, players would have a huge opportunity for strategy by figuring out how much they should bid on each card.
I slapped together some quick rules. Since I was only trying to figure out if the process of setting your own prices for cards would be engaging, I decided to test out the concept with an existing card game: Magic: the Gathering. Why make hundreds of new cards and new rules to test one idea? If the gameplay proved even remotely fun with Magic cards, I could look into building the standalone game I was thinking about.
I called up my friend Carson for a quick test.
Four hours later, it was 2 AM and we were still playing.
As you can guess, things were more than just "remotely fun." Even after the night dragged us away from our games, we went home and kept cooking up changes to the rules and tweaks to the cards we were using. This wasn't just a test for a game concept. It wasn't just a new way to play Magic. It was basically a whole new game you could play with the Magic cards you already owned.
Here’s what I ended up with after a few weeks of polishing, dozens of playtests, and hours of lost productivity.
High Stakes Magic
The Nutshell
Instead of building decks and managing mana, each turn players bid on cards revealed from a shared stack called the auction block. Players get to assemble their strategies while they’re playing the game.
How Does it Feel?
It depends on the auction block you put together, but in ours the game feels both tense and chess-like. As you get an equal chance to bid on every card revealed, and you know what your opponents have access to because you saw them purchase it, the game becomes a unique experience of card evaluation and counter-play. For a detailed discussion of a lot of our experiences testing the format, you can listen to episode four of the Remaking Magic podcast.
The Rules
Gameplay follows the normal rules of Magic, save for the following exceptions:
1) Players begin the game with 10 gold and no starting hand. Gold is a currency used to purchase cards that come up for auction. At the end of each player's turn, all players gain 3 gold.
2) Players do not bring decks to the table. Instead, a single stack of cards called the auction block is shuffled and placed on the table.
3) The draw step is replaced with the auction step. At the beginning of the auction step, reveal the top card of the auction block. The active player may then bid an amount of gold for that card, including zero. In turn order, each player may top the high bid. Each player may only bid once. The bidding ends when all players have had the opportunity to bid. The high bidder loses gold equal to the high bid and purchases the card.
Note: Players cannot bid more gold than they possess.
Note: If no player bids on a card, it is placed on the bottom of the auction block and the auction step repeats.
4) Upon purchasing a card, the purchasing player may choose either to cast the card immediately without paying its mana cost, regardless of timing rules, or to put the purchased card into their hand. Players may cast cards in hand without paying their mana costs. However, once a card is in hand, it must follow the normal rules as to when it can be played.
For example, a player might purchase a Grizzly Bears during the auction step. They then have the option to cast the spell immediately without paying its mana cost or put it into their hand. Once in hand, the Grizzly Bears can only be played when it is legal to play it card type.
5) If the purchased card wasn't a creature card, repeat the auction step. This process repeats until a player purchases a creature card.
6) The auction block is considered a communal library for the purpose of card effects. For example, Sage Owl's effect allows you to rearrange the top four cards of your library. In High Stakes, this allows you to rearrange the top four cards of the auction block. Similarly, Memory Lapse counters a spell and returns it to the top of the auction block. You can probably see how such library manipulation effects have wildly new strategic applications in High Stakes, as they allow you to manipulate the auctions to your advantage.
7) Likewise, whenever an effect causes a player to draw cards, that player puts that many cards from the top of the auction block into their hand. Like all cards in hand, they will be able to be cast without paying their mana costs.
8) At any time, and as many times per turn as they desire, a player may spend one gold to add one mana of any color to their mana pool. This allows players to pay for certain costs, like kicker, cycling, or equip costs. It also makes cards like Mana Leak rather interesting.
9) Players play with their hands revealed. This is to prevent people from having to memorize cards they've already seen purchased at auction by the other players.
The game has only been tested in a two-player format so far. It's recommended that you play the game as a two-player duel before testing anything else.
Why It's Fun
I've been addicted to playing High Stakes for the last few months. Here are a few reasons why.
First, High Stakes provides the draft-like experience of evaluating card choices and crafting your strategy while you're playing the game. You don't have to separate the drafting experience from the gameplay, you can just grab your auction block and start playing.
Second, I get to enjoy playing with cards in my collection I never have before, because almost every card is worth at least one gold. Chimney Imp has been a great card in our block, and I've had even more fun with Witch-Maw Nephilim. Wurmskin Forger might even be one of the least playable cards in Modern, but here he's a powerhouse that combos with all our counter-loving cards.
Third, High Stakes makes even cards we're familiar with feel new again. Cards like Figure of Destiny and Evernight Shade work with the gold system in interesting new ways. Scrying lets you control the auction and bid more intelligently. There are many, many more examples and I've found myself spending hours pouring through the game to discover hidden gems.
Fourth, each game is an extraordinary new challenge. The correct value for each card naturally changes based on the board state and every game is different. Also, because I have a chance to buy each card, there's not much room for frustration. There was always a way I could have won.
Fifth, it's very fun to build an auction block. It gathers all the fun of building a custom limited environment, like designing your own cube, in a new and elegant way. Designing a great cube is highly complex, but High Stakes lets you skate around worries of converted mana cost and color. As long as you keep some major ratios balanced, you can mostly include any card that looks fun.
Building an Auction Block
A few months ago, I made the mistake of introducing High Stakes to Reuben Covington, my co-host on the Remaking Magic podcast. For a while, every recording was delayed as we tried out the latest versions of his ever-changing Auction Block. In the process we've discovered some guidelines that will help you construct your own.
That's it. Just make sure you have lots of cool strategies to build around, stick to 50% creatures and 15% removal spells, make sure few of your creatures are useless in combat against the other creatures in the block and make sure you don't include lots of cards that stall the board or make the game go on forever. Oh, and card draw is super powerful, so bear that in mind.
Our Auction Block
Here’s the current form of the block Reuben and I have been testing for a few months now. It's very long, so I'm going to place it in a spoiler. Because our current block tends to use smaller creatures, we've decided to start our games at 13 life instead of 20 for fast games. We use the full 20 when we want a more epic back-and-forth.
Final Thoughts
I've been having an absolute blast playing High Stakes, so much that it's been seriously interfering with my productivity. Every game feels completely fresh, every auction provides brand new considerations to the card's value based on the board state. It's a wonderful mix between having no idea what cards are going to show up and having extraordinary control over how you react to them. Except for card draw effects, any card that's killing you is doing so because you decided to buy something else instead.
I've also spent hours going through my collection and searching Gatherer to find cards that could be cool for the format. Can we add spirits to our block and take advantage of both Kamigawa and Innistrad's spirit tribal? What about adding in bounce effects in combination with lots of enter the battlefield triggers? Hey, Æther Adept can bounce itself and then be recast in an infinite cycle of creatures entering the battlefield! That could be cool with Herd Gnarr.
I even got to play with Chimney Imp... and it was awesome.
Magic feels fresh and strange again, skill-testing and tense. I feel like I'm rediscovering the game I love, but in a new way that just happens to be played with the cards I already have. Whole shoeboxes of junk cards are calling to me, alive with possibilities.
Welcome to the auction. We hope you find a bargain.
Disclaimer
Since Magic is decades old, I'm sure a lot of awesome people have already have been enjoying similar ideas. If you're one of those lucky people, please post your ideas and discoveries. I'd love to hear what you've come up with.
Editor's note: A previous version of rule 3 was unclear regarding cases where players have zero gold. The rule has been updated to address this.
Imagine a salesman coming up to you and saying, "Step right up, because have I got a deal for you! It's a brand new game with infinite replay value, deep strategy, and over twenty years of content. And what will this game cost you? Nothing! You can play it with the cards you already have."
Sound good? Then let me tell you a story.
The Origins
As a game designer, I spend at least half my time worrying about how to cost stuff. I'm working on a fantasy card game right now called Faeria, and the team has spent countless weeks discussing the core economics underlying the game. It's a lot of work, and it also means that we can't design a lot of cards we'd like to because we might not be sure what the right cost for a hard-to-evaluate ability is.
On the other hand, when I'm playing a game it's completely different. If I find something is undercosted as a player, I get to have fun winning with it. If I'm the designer, I have to fix it.
I decided to try something out. Could I make a game where players set the cost for each card themselves? Some sort of auction perhaps, so figuring out how much a card should cost becomes part of the game. We designers would suddenly be able to make all the cool stuff we've wanted to and spend more time on making the game as fun as possible. Meanwhile, players would have a huge opportunity for strategy by figuring out how much they should bid on each card.
I slapped together some quick rules. Since I was only trying to figure out if the process of setting your own prices for cards would be engaging, I decided to test out the concept with an existing card game: Magic: the Gathering. Why make hundreds of new cards and new rules to test one idea? If the gameplay proved even remotely fun with Magic cards, I could look into building the standalone game I was thinking about.
I called up my friend Carson for a quick test.
Four hours later, it was 2 AM and we were still playing.
As you can guess, things were more than just "remotely fun." Even after the night dragged us away from our games, we went home and kept cooking up changes to the rules and tweaks to the cards we were using. This wasn't just a test for a game concept. It wasn't just a new way to play Magic. It was basically a whole new game you could play with the Magic cards you already owned.
Here’s what I ended up with after a few weeks of polishing, dozens of playtests, and hours of lost productivity.
High Stakes Magic
The Nutshell
Instead of building decks and managing mana, each turn players bid on cards revealed from a shared stack called the auction block. Players get to assemble their strategies while they’re playing the game.
How Does it Feel?
It depends on the auction block you put together, but in ours the game feels both tense and chess-like. As you get an equal chance to bid on every card revealed, and you know what your opponents have access to because you saw them purchase it, the game becomes a unique experience of card evaluation and counter-play. For a detailed discussion of a lot of our experiences testing the format, you can listen to episode four of the Remaking Magic podcast.
The Rules
Gameplay follows the normal rules of Magic, save for the following exceptions:
1) Players begin the game with 10 gold and no starting hand. Gold is a currency used to purchase cards that come up for auction. At the end of each player's turn, all players gain 3 gold.
2) Players do not bring decks to the table. Instead, a single stack of cards called the auction block is shuffled and placed on the table.
3) The draw step is replaced with the auction step. At the beginning of the auction step, reveal the top card of the auction block. The active player may then bid an amount of gold for that card, including zero. In turn order, each player may top the high bid. Each player may only bid once. The bidding ends when all players have had the opportunity to bid. The high bidder loses gold equal to the high bid and purchases the card.
Note: Players cannot bid more gold than they possess.
Note: If no player bids on a card, it is placed on the bottom of the auction block and the auction step repeats.
4) Upon purchasing a card, the purchasing player may choose either to cast the card immediately without paying its mana cost, regardless of timing rules, or to put the purchased card into their hand. Players may cast cards in hand without paying their mana costs. However, once a card is in hand, it must follow the normal rules as to when it can be played.
For example, a player might purchase a Grizzly Bears during the auction step. They then have the option to cast the spell immediately without paying its mana cost or put it into their hand. Once in hand, the Grizzly Bears can only be played when it is legal to play it card type.
5) If the purchased card wasn't a creature card, repeat the auction step. This process repeats until a player purchases a creature card.
6) The auction block is considered a communal library for the purpose of card effects. For example, Sage Owl's effect allows you to rearrange the top four cards of your library. In High Stakes, this allows you to rearrange the top four cards of the auction block. Similarly, Memory Lapse counters a spell and returns it to the top of the auction block. You can probably see how such library manipulation effects have wildly new strategic applications in High Stakes, as they allow you to manipulate the auctions to your advantage.
7) Likewise, whenever an effect causes a player to draw cards, that player puts that many cards from the top of the auction block into their hand. Like all cards in hand, they will be able to be cast without paying their mana costs.
8) At any time, and as many times per turn as they desire, a player may spend one gold to add one mana of any color to their mana pool. This allows players to pay for certain costs, like kicker, cycling, or equip costs. It also makes cards like Mana Leak rather interesting.
9) Players play with their hands revealed. This is to prevent people from having to memorize cards they've already seen purchased at auction by the other players.
The game has only been tested in a two-player format so far. It's recommended that you play the game as a two-player duel before testing anything else.
Why It's Fun
I've been addicted to playing High Stakes for the last few months. Here are a few reasons why.
First, High Stakes provides the draft-like experience of evaluating card choices and crafting your strategy while you're playing the game. You don't have to separate the drafting experience from the gameplay, you can just grab your auction block and start playing.
Second, I get to enjoy playing with cards in my collection I never have before, because almost every card is worth at least one gold. Chimney Imp has been a great card in our block, and I've had even more fun with Witch-Maw Nephilim. Wurmskin Forger might even be one of the least playable cards in Modern, but here he's a powerhouse that combos with all our counter-loving cards.
Third, High Stakes makes even cards we're familiar with feel new again. Cards like Figure of Destiny and Evernight Shade work with the gold system in interesting new ways. Scrying lets you control the auction and bid more intelligently. There are many, many more examples and I've found myself spending hours pouring through the game to discover hidden gems.
Fourth, each game is an extraordinary new challenge. The correct value for each card naturally changes based on the board state and every game is different. Also, because I have a chance to buy each card, there's not much room for frustration. There was always a way I could have won.
Fifth, it's very fun to build an auction block. It gathers all the fun of building a custom limited environment, like designing your own cube, in a new and elegant way. Designing a great cube is highly complex, but High Stakes lets you skate around worries of converted mana cost and color. As long as you keep some major ratios balanced, you can mostly include any card that looks fun.
Building an Auction Block
A few months ago, I made the mistake of introducing High Stakes to Reuben Covington, my co-host on the Remaking Magic podcast. For a while, every recording was delayed as we tried out the latest versions of his ever-changing Auction Block. In the process we've discovered some guidelines that will help you construct your own.
- Make sure your auction block is about 50% creatures. You want to frequently be flipping noncreature cards to make the auctions more exciting. You might want to stay closer to 60% if your prefer a little less variety in your auctions, or drop down below 50% if you want to buy tons of cards each auction. 50-60% is probably a good baseline though.
- Make sure few, if any, creatures are useless in combat. The rule about auctioning until you reveal a creature is to ensure that the player behind on the board has a chance to buy a crucial blocker and stabilize. Including Squire in your auction block alongside a bunch of 6/6 creatures won't lead to a great experience. In general, you'll want to keep the power level of your creatures to affect the board state somewhat similar. Our auction block uses mostly creatures ranging between 2/2 and 4/4, with some notable outliers that have cool abilities.
- Make sure there are lots of cool strategies to build around in your auction block. Try out interesting artifacts alongside an Etched Champion. If your auction block uses a lot of +1/+1 counters, add in Abzan Battle Priest. These cards add new twists to the auction, because they make cards with synergy more desirable.
- Make sure removal is about 15% of the auction block. Additionally, this removal works best when it has limitations. Pacifism can be destroyed later by purchasing an enchantment-destruction effect. Pillar of Light works only on creatures of a certain toughness. Since players play with their hands revealed, you always know what answers your opponents have. If your opponent purchases a Pillar of Light, you can suddenly try to avoid buying creatures with high toughness. You can protect your most expensive creature investments by playing around the opponent's answers.
- Avoid including cards that easily draw you more than one card when played. Even a Divination is extremely powerful, since your cards in hand can be played for free. Ordeal of Thassa, on the other hand, provides a great reward to work towards.
- High Stakes encourages board stalls if you aren't careful. You shouldn't include any cards like Wall of Frost or Guardian Lions. Include cards that push the game to an end, like creatures with flying and cards that prevent your opponent from blocking. Additionally, you're going to want to avoid cards like Agent of Masks which do their best to slow the game down as much as possible.
That's it. Just make sure you have lots of cool strategies to build around, stick to 50% creatures and 15% removal spells, make sure few of your creatures are useless in combat against the other creatures in the block and make sure you don't include lots of cards that stall the board or make the game go on forever. Oh, and card draw is super powerful, so bear that in mind.
Our Auction Block
Here’s the current form of the block Reuben and I have been testing for a few months now. It's very long, so I'm going to place it in a spoiler. Because our current block tends to use smaller creatures, we've decided to start our games at 13 life instead of 20 for fast games. We use the full 20 when we want a more epic back-and-forth.
- 1 Abzan Battle Priest
- 1 Accorder Paladin
- 1 Adaptive Snapjaw
- 1 Agoraphobia
- 1 Ainok Bond-Kin
- 1 Alms Beast
- 1 Ancient Ooze
- 2 Angelic Edict
- 1 Curse of Chains
- 1 Primal Visitation
- 1 Dead Weight
- 1 Drake Umbra
- 1 Sudden Demise
- 1 Flurry of Horns
- 2 Wee Dragonauts
- 2 Kiln Fiend
- 1 Fluxcharger
- 1 Young Pyromancer
- 1 Prescient Chimera
- 1 Distortion Strike
- 1 Vigean Hydropon
- 1 Sylvok Replica
- 1 Suicidal Charge
- 1 Phantasmal Dragon
- 1 Phantom Beast
- 1 Apex Hawks
- 1 Thrummingbird
- 1 Surveilling Sprite
- 1 Soulcatcher
- 1 Serum Raker
- 1 Sultai Flayer
- 1 Whirlwind Adept
- 1 Jeskai Windscout
- 1 Prey Upon
- 2 Hunt the Weak
- 1 Savage Punch
- 1 Omenspeaker
- 1 Architects of Will
- 1 Augury Owl
- 1 Voice of the Provinces
- 1 Stromkirk Noble
- 1 Truefire Paladin
- 1 Gorgon's Head
- 1 Daggerback Basilisk
- 1 Deathgaze Cockatrice
- 1 Thornweald Archer
- 1 Kederekt Creeper
- 1 Azorius Justiciar
- 1 Lyev Skyknight
- 1 Pacifism
- 1 Keening Apparition
- 1 War Priest of Thune
- 1 Aven Cloudchaser
- 1 Vindicate
- 2 Sundering Growth
- 1 Coursers' Accord
- 1 Ravenous Baloth
- 2 Herd Gnarr
- 1 Scoria Elemental
- 1 Elusive Krasis
- 1 Battering Krasis
- 1 Crocanura
- 1 Madcap Skills
- 1 Cliffrunner Behemoth
- 1 Tuskguard Captain
- 1 Mer-Ek Nightblade
- 1 Longshot Squad
- 1 Vanquish the Foul
- 1 Sea God's Revenge
- 1 Drown in Sorrow
- 1 Kessig Recluse
- 1 Barrage of Boulders
- 1 Barrage of Expendables
- 1 Sigil of the Nayan Gods
- 1 Monstrous Carabid
- 1 Marrow Chomper
- 1 Spread the Sickness
- 1 Quiet Contemplation
- 1 Skinwing
- 1 Marsh Casualties
- 1 Oran-Rief Recluse
- 1 Mardu Skullhunter
- 1 Aggravate
- 1 Breath of Darigaaz
- 1 Rain of Embers
- 1 Force Away
- 1 Mogis's Marauder
- 1 Reverent Hunter
- 1 Murder Investigation
- 1 Write into Being
- 1 AEther Adept
- 1 Temur Runemark
- 1 Flame Slash
- 1 Kuldotha Ringleader
- 1 Crumbling Colossus
- 1 Mardu Heart-Piercer
- 1 Gruul Nodorog
- 1 Roaring Primadox
- 1 Frost Lynx
- 1 Cavalry Pegasus
- 1 Xathrid Necromancer
- 1 Warden of the First Tree
- 1 Fleetfeather Sandals
- 1 O-Naginata
- 1 Darklit Gargoyle
- 1 Figure of Destiny
- 2 Wirewood Savage
- 1 Symbiotic Beast
- 1 Thought Eater
- 1 Windwright Mage
- 1 Blood Artist
- 1 Hellkite Hatchling
- 1 Tar Fiend
- 1 Thromok the Insatiable
- 1 Mind Rot
- 1 Wurmskin Forger
- 1 Gather the Townsfolk
- 1 Traitorous Blood
- 1 Goblin Assault
- 2 Ordeal of Thassa
- 1 Evernight Shade
- 1 Innocent Blood
- 1 Ageless Entity
- 1 Corpsejack Menace
- 1 Caldera Hellion
- 1 Nimbus Swimmer
- 1 Witch-Maw Nephilim
- 1 Battlefront Krushok
- 1 Chronicler of Heroes
- 1 Shinewend
- 1 Argentum Armor
- 1 Bronzebeak Moa
- 2 Liliana's Specter
- 1 Empty the Warrens
- 1 Haze of Rage
- 1 Grapeshot
- 1 Mark of Mutiny
- 1 Auriok Windwalker
- 1 Capsize
- 1 Gilded Lotus
- 1 Brain Pry
- 1 Pride of the Clouds
- 1 Necropouncer
- 1 Dual Casting
- 1 Phyrexian Vault
- 1 Future Sight
- 1 Furnace Whelp
- 1 Mikaeus, the Lunarch
- 1 Wild Guess
- 1 Moonglove Changeling
- 1 Thornscape Battlemage
- 1 Hardened Scales
- 1 Demonmail Hauberk
- 1 Carnage Gladiator
- 1 Gorehorn Minotaurs
- 1 Ordeal of Erebos
- 1 Travel Preparations
- 1 Hand of Death
- 2 Cruel Edict
- 1 Valorous Charge
- 1 Reckless Abandon
- 1 Pyrotechnics
- 1 Break Asunder
- 1 Bramblecrush
- 1 Resounding Wave
- 1 Resounding Silence
- 2 Ride Down
- 1 Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
- 1 Spectral Procession
- 1 Curse of the Swine
- 1 Kamahl's Summons
- 1 Guttersnipe
- 1 Righteous Charge
- 1 Curse of the Nightly Hunt
- 1 Curse of Stalked Prey
- 1 Curse of Chaos
- 1 Curse of the Pierced Heart
- 1 Pillory of the Sleepless
- 1 Lust for War
- 1 Chimney Imp
- 1 Mana Leak
- 1 Doubling Season
- 1 Suspension Field
- 1 Journey to Nowhere
- 1 Bone Splinters
- 1 Centaur Glade
- 1 Mobilization
- 1 Phantom Warrior
- 1 AEther Figment
Final Thoughts
I've been having an absolute blast playing High Stakes, so much that it's been seriously interfering with my productivity. Every game feels completely fresh, every auction provides brand new considerations to the card's value based on the board state. It's a wonderful mix between having no idea what cards are going to show up and having extraordinary control over how you react to them. Except for card draw effects, any card that's killing you is doing so because you decided to buy something else instead.
I've also spent hours going through my collection and searching Gatherer to find cards that could be cool for the format. Can we add spirits to our block and take advantage of both Kamigawa and Innistrad's spirit tribal? What about adding in bounce effects in combination with lots of enter the battlefield triggers? Hey, Æther Adept can bounce itself and then be recast in an infinite cycle of creatures entering the battlefield! That could be cool with Herd Gnarr.
I even got to play with Chimney Imp... and it was awesome.
Magic feels fresh and strange again, skill-testing and tense. I feel like I'm rediscovering the game I love, but in a new way that just happens to be played with the cards I already have. Whole shoeboxes of junk cards are calling to me, alive with possibilities.
Welcome to the auction. We hope you find a bargain.
Disclaimer
Since Magic is decades old, I'm sure a lot of awesome people have already have been enjoying similar ideas. If you're one of those lucky people, please post your ideas and discoveries. I'd love to hear what you've come up with.
Editor's note: A previous version of rule 3 was unclear regarding cases where players have zero gold. The rule has been updated to address this.
Well, the reason I asked is that if you don't combine the graveyards, then the dredge player gets to mill the single library solely into his own 'yard, meaning he is the only one who reaps any advantages from linear synergies of graveyard based effects like Threshold etc., etc.
So basically you're saying tribes didn't fit well with your design goal of favoring highly diverse creature p/t totals, so as to allow a player on the ropes to find a blocker to "recover" with? I see what you're saying.
Agreed! Same for me. I have a knack for memorization and recall of cards and while many of my friends are in fact much better MtG players than me, few of them have my recall, and they all gave up on Mental Magic when it was clear that the playing field was ridiculously tilted in my favor. Still hoping someday I'll find someone else with thousands of cards rattling around in their brain from a misspent youth and can actually try out Mental Magic for real!
Exactly. Fortunately, there are only 47 cards in all of Magic at the time of this article that reference the draw step. It's not a huge limitation.
That's fine. When you buy a card, normally you want to be the one benefiting from it. You don't really want to buy a card to fill a graveyard only to turn on your opponents' threshold creatures or give your opponent a chance to cast flashback spells. Separate graveyards actually make for fine gameplay here.
Essentially yes. Most tribes are full of lots of little creatures. They also, due to the flavor of the tribe, often all do similar things - and we want a lot of diversity in our action block. I'd be interested to hear how a higher tribal theme plays in practice though. If you give it a try, let me know.
If you give it a try, let us know how it goes.
For example, let's say a card shows up that you think is a good buy at 5 gold. In the old system, it would often go like this:
Player 1: I bid 0 gold.
Player 2: 2 gold.
Player 1: 3 gold.
Player 2: 5 gold.
Player 1: 6 is probably too much. You can have it.
Currently the system (as described in the article) runs like this:
Player 1: I'll bid 4 gold...
Player 2: Hmm... Okay, I'll bid 5 gold and take it.
It's much faster, and the single decision on the price has more impact. Shaving 30 seconds off of every auction, when there's more than 1 auction every turn on average, also cuts about 10 minutes off of a game where each player gets to take 7 turns. That's a big difference, and we found that the strategy behind how much you bid feels more important when you can't just raise your bid for the same card later. You have to think deep, and the auctions go faster. A lot of win all at once.
2) Yep.
3) Yep.
I propose the following:
60 card singleton + 60 per player: 10 of each color, 10 colorless including nonbasic lands
separate deck of 50 lands + ten fetchlands i.e. terramorphic expanse and evolving wilds
Begin game
Gold added to Each players gold pool equal to 10 + 5 X (number of players)
Each player is dealt one basic land card at random.
This sets their color identity.
Begin round one
Players may spend 10 gold to draw a land card at random, possibly adding another color to that players color identity. This counts as a land entering the battlefield for purposes of landfall and the like, but there is no restriction on how many lands may be played on each turn, except how much gold you possess.
Effects that let you play additional lands instead discount land purchases by two gold.
Players may only cast colorless cards and cards in their color identity.
If you come into possession of a permanent or spell outside of your color identity, or sell the last land in that particular color, you still retain control of said permanents and spells.
Should they return to your hand, however, you will need to purchase the appropriate land to cast them.
Player one untap
Player one upkeep
Begin Auction Phase
Sell Step: Any player may sell cards to Auctioneer for gold equal to the cards CMC, +1 for uncommon +2 for rare +3 for Mythic rare.
You may sell back lands for 5 gold apiece.
Cards that decrease casting cost instead multiply the amount of gold received by an amount equal to 1 + (amount of mana casting cost would be reduced by) ie Dragonspeaker Shaman would allow you to sell dragons back at triple their converted mana cost.
Sold cards are placed on the bottom of their respective decks.
A number of Bid Steps equal to (number of players) + (number of rounds passed) + 1
Bidding starts at half the converted mana cost of the card, rounded up. x2 for uncommon, x2.5 for rare, x3 for mythic rare.
Players bid in clockwise seating format.
Cards that do not receive a bid are placed on the bottom of the Auction Block.
Next bid begins with player seated clockwise from last bids winner.
Cards that allow for card draw instead give Coupon counters to purchase one card up for auction without spending gold or Competing with buyers.
Any time an effect would let you draw an additional card, it adds that many coupon counters to your pool.
Cards that draw multiple cards are restricted to 2 per 120 cards.
Cards that allow for repetitive card draws, i.e. Arcanis the Omnipotent are outright banned.
Using a coupon causes you to pass the next Bid Step, as well as the next Income Phase.
If you have multiple coupons, you may use one, then you skip a Bid Step, then you may use another.
Unlike the player's personal cards, there is no graveyard for the Auction Block.
If a card would cause cards to be put from a library into the graveyard, instead receive a number of rotation counters equal to the number of cards it would 'mill'.
This specifies the number of times you may rotate the card up for auction to the bottom of the auction block without giving other buyers the chance to bid.
This does not end the current bid step.
You may still bid this step.
You may not rotate again this step.
You skip the next Bid step, as well as the next Income Phase.
Cards that search a library, instead let the caster choose a card to put up for auction from the Auction Block immediately.
Cards that exile cards from a library, instead add those cards to the controllers Private Reserve, unless otherwise stated.
At the beginning of the next match, each player begins with their private reserve in hand.
End auction phase
main phase one
play any number of spells in hand within your color identity without paying their mana costs.
you may use the lands you have available for alternative costs or kickers or the like.
combat
main phase two
Income Phase
Players add gold to their pool equal to 3 + (2 x number of rounds passed)
end of player one's turn
begin player two's turn
untap
upkeep
Auction
etc
after final player ends turn, end of round one declared,
begin round two
It sounds a lot more complicated than it is, but just flat-out drawing and milling would not only wreck the flavor of auctioning, it would seriously tip the balance in one players favor an ever-snowballing "Wait for a mill or draw card, do nothing else first to bid big wins the game" type scenario. In altering the draw mechanics, you must alter ALL the draw mechanics.
All the normal rules apply. You can cast a creature if you have it and the game continues from there.
Only if the creature has Haste, and if it's the person's turn who bought it. If it's Player 1's turn and Player 2 bought the creature, player 2 can play it - but you can't attack if it's not your turn. Player 2 would be able to attack with the creature on his or her next turn of course, even if it didn't have haste (since it entered play during the opponent's turn) but then player 1 has a guaranteed chance to buy a blocker during the auction on Player 2's turn.
I reccomend not putting cards that break the format in your auction block. Phage doesn't really break it, because she can be blocked and killed in lots of ways, but Blightsteel probably does. Of course, it's your auctionblock so it's up to you if you enjoy that gameplay or not. Having a single "I win" card in the auction block can be very interesting, because all players have a chance to buy it... So keeping a gold advantage is very important, and does allow added comeback potential. I think that's too big a swing for my own enjoyment, but it has merits - especially if you start players at higher life totals or include more ways to deal with that kind of monster (such as oblivion ring and swords to plowshares).
The auction step replaces the draw step. Unless a creature has haste, the summoning sickness rule ensures that in a 2-player game, both players will have a chance to buy a creature before one gets to attack. If it' in a multiplaeyr game, politics can put added pressure on the "threat" at the table. I haven't tested multiplayer much, but I did get a PM from someone who's been using their cube as an auction block and said even turn 1 Inkwell Leviathan was kept in check by the fact the person who bought it had to go down to 0 gold and the rest of the table united against him.
Not sure what you mean by this.
Yes. All the other rules of magic apply, as stated in the article. The auction step replaces the draw step. There's still an upkeep step, a main phase, a second main phase and so on.
Unless, of course, player A already has cards (like, if it's not turn 1). Additionally, player A did get to do something - bid on the cards. That's the core strategic element of gameplay.
As stated in the article, it starts with the active player and moves from there in turn order.
Currently the game has been extensively tested with 2 players but I haven't played with more. The current rules state that at the end of each player's turn, all players gain 3 gold. This does mean that more players means more gold for everyone. You might want to read the article more closely, a lot of your questions are answered there.
EDIT - I've gone over your proposed variant. It seems like you've got a lot of extra rules you probably don't need. Random color identity in a 2 or 3 player game means there will be lots to colored spells coming up that no one is going to want to buy, or that they're just automatically going to go to the people who are already having their color identity. Resell rules, cost reduction multiplier rules, rotation counters to mill the auction block... When you add this much complexity to a game, it makes the game a lot harder to learn. You want to be sure the game is vastly improved to compensate. I don't really see the benefits of all these extra rules.
Still, you should give the format a playtest or two. I'd like to hear how it plays in practice.
Also, yes, if you run out of cards in the auction block you shuffle both graveyards in and use them as the new pile.
Also, currently you have gold act as mana, have you considered doing the reverse as well? Shuffle some lands (or maybe mana elves instead) into the auction block and let people devote resources to increasing their buying power.
Edit: Oh, and it occurs to me that going down to 0 gold is incredibly dangerous because your opponent immediately gets to tutor up all the non-creature spells they can afford and then the best creature. They just get to keep bidding 0 until they find whatever it is their looking for, and make sure they find the creature last. I'm not sure if the rules really intend for this to happen.
That said, we love the card draw effects and always try to snap them up. It just depends on the experience you're looking for. I have a hunch we'll be making a second auction block that plays very differently from the one in the article too.
As for going to 0, yes - it's super dangerous. You can afford to do it when bidding on a creature (because the auction ends after a creature is purchased and you'll get 3 gold at the start of the next turn, before the next auction) but if you do it while it's not your turn and bidding on a non-creature, your opponent can pick free cards off the top of the deck. If you do it while it's your turn, they only have to pay 1 gold per card (because they still have to raise your bid of zero). It's an added layer of risk/reward strategy.
This is a very, very interesting format indeed. It could even be played alongside normal games of Commander, since the cards from the auction block are revealed face-up and could easily be distinguished from drawn cards. It can find an audience from the same people who play Planechase+Commander games.
As for building the auction block, there are TONS of ways to do it. I'm already dreaming of a mercenary auction block, where the communal deck is composed of nothing but legendary creatures that you "pay" to join your cause (again, it would be a refreshing addition to a normal Commander game).
I like it!
The situation where all players have 0 gold while the auction is continuing has not ever showed up in testing but it does need an answer. The reason it almost never happens is because when one player is at 0 gold, the other player only has to spend 1 gold to buy each card that shows up. The auction is probably going to end before one player runs out of gold.
The current rules about neither player bidding, which say to auction again, are designed as a safety valve so that if a designer includes a useless card in his block - players have an inbuilt way to say "let's not play with this card". However, it does create problems when both players have 0 gold. I'd either suggest either immediately ending the auction if both players are at 0 gold, or change the rules so that bidding "0" is a legitimate first bid - and that if no one raises the bid the player that bid "0" gold gets the card for free. Both would solve the problem, though the second is more elegant (since it just tweaks an existing rule rather than adds a brand new rule).
For constructing an auction block, there are no limits whatsoever. You can build a block however you like. You can build it singleton, like Commander, or you can put in 10 copies of a card you like. You can also shuffle several booster packs together and try playing with their contents. The only limits are what you think will make the best experience for your players.
Note: If player bids on a card, it is placed on the bottom of the auction block and the auction step repeats.
And I think it is missing the word "neither", which makes good sense.
This looks like fun. Thanks for the concept.