Had a shared victory and a straight win with an RB aggro deck that surprised me.
Shared win: An opposing Rouse the Souls cantrip deck with Intangible Virtue casts Rouse (1 of 7+ copies in the deck).
- Parley reveals my Volcanic Fallout. I have a second one in hand. He cannot kill me despite my low life else I wipe his army. He cannot cast Virtue or Favorable Winds else I wipe.
- He casts Altar of Dementia. I have 4+ Shatter Devils in my deck. I allow Altar to resolve and he knows as soon as it mills me a card, I will Fallout.
- Game progresses he is reduced to 1 damage. Another player is around 20 life with reach defense. By accord, the Rouser mills that player for 14 and we share the win.
Some players may not like the hostage shared victory, but we had fun with it.
To add to Charmer's comment, random land gives gameplay more personality. It gives incentive to play mono/2-color and makes CC matter. Otherwise everyone ends up playing a mishmash of 5-color.
I use a simple spreadsheet that calculates average mana costs, double mana symbols, card functions like kill, artifact removal, ld, etc. It would work for any large deck variant like Danger Room. I can post a clean template if people are interested.
@ NathanIW, sounds like you got a cool board in the works. I ended up laminating a Publisher print out of 5 colored squares. Looks a lot nicer than the beads. I'll have to update my site.
@ noshadowkick, I think I had a coworker tell me about Danger Room. Did you hold a session at a recent con or something? (Pax maybe?)
As for the gold decks, I think you guys are onto something. I like the deck "unlock" idea a lot!
@ OP: I doubt most sincere Christians would say they routinely witness burning bush or hear voices. If someone claims this, you shouldn't believe it. Even if they are legitimate, there is no reason to put faith in your fellow man. At the most, such claims are better used to cause you to reflect inwardly and seek God yourself, not waste time determining someone else's veracity.
Well, the nature of casual playgroups is that there's always someone who likes strange strategies. And one player in this case absolutely loves both Dimir and Golgari and milling both himself and others. So it's definitely in. I can't have a Return to Ravnica themed game and not have the mechanics that the most reliable attendee of game nights likes the most. I also know that no one hates mill as everyone has, at some point, made a mill deck during a cube draft and loved it.
This group is also not a magic group per se, but a general gaming group at which Magic features regularly. And it has literally never been normal formats other than tenchester cube draft. So there's not really going to be expectations or normal magic play or the conditioning that dueling has on expected win rates. The group has lots of stories about various board, miniature and roleplaying games that "came down to that one die roll".
The only negative experience I can ever recall from Magic with this group was mana flooding or mana screw. In short, not being able to play the actual spell cards. Shouldn't be an issue with Commie Box.
Maybe this is a larger topic for Commie Box. How do you design differently when the audience is made up of Magic regulars? How about when it's casual board game people who only play magic every so often? I'm so far removed from the normal magic experience that sometimes I forget people having expectations forged in dueling at FNMs.
If you think it will work well for your group, definitely go for it. I game with some pretty spikey players, so I have to keep the odd rules to a minimum.
I have a small simple Commie Box I play with my kids. "The full history" is definitely for vets.
I'd just skip those cards. Odd rules raise eyebrows when they don't go in a person's favor.
Moreover, people will be digesting "OMG there's more than one library." Adding rules for certain cards or dice rolling will make them check out.
Remember, the hardest part about multiplayer testing is that 3/4 of the table loses. Most people have a hard time being objective about a loss. You want the games to be close so people KNOW it was a fair and epic fight. "I lost to a Balstrude Spy dice roll" will be 100% feel bad.
I recommend fun > including a card in the set. If a card will confuse your players, axe it.
As for mill wincons:
They are inherently a tier 2 strategy that some people love, and other people hate.
In Big normal MTG, mill rarely works outside of oddball drafts.
It's also not a particularly interactive strategy.
Consider how the community reacted to Dimir in RTR limited.
If you rewind time and play it forward and matter and energy will always have the same positions, the spacial location of matter and energy is in a direct correlation to their temporal positions, otherwise matter and energy would have no reason to keep assuming an exact position just because of the time coordinate you are on.
Isn't that kind of at the heart of what's in question? I don't think even modern science would assert that was the case for inanimate existences given indefinite time... Much less so for animate existences which may or may not be able to exert independent forces on predictions.
Consider also that an omnipotent force may not perceive time in a linear fashion (at least not without using a manifestation that can do so). Even if there is no alternate outcome, it may be because there is not an alternate existence rather than a result of an entirely rigid universe. Not trying to reiterate the argument presented earlier, just suggesting that time travel scenarios don't help solve it.
Zeus and his friends would not be pleased with you if you spent your life worshipping the Christian version of god.
Again we come to an issue of motives.
If one truly rejects one god due to the fear of another god, one god has been chosen as superior.
If there is a god that insists on the usage of specific incantations for salvation, regardless of our knowledge, then that god is indifferent to our motives. The idea that there is one correct religion is often common ground for both adherents of particular faiths and those who reject the pursuit of religious truth as pointless. On either side, theology is often used to rationalize other motives.
If there is a god that judges on the basis of motives, only the person that chooses among those motives and that god will have insight into its judgment.
@ Crimeo: We've never had problems with lands and spells being in different sleeves. We don't mix spells and lands. Been playing our variant for years, works great.
Did you infallibly create U#404 where mankind builds computers?
No, but I am saying God did not either. The goal of creation was not for man to create computers. He may have known it would happen, but that doesn't mean He made it happen. Creation was inherently built to allow fallibility: He imparted humanity with that authority. But that doesn't mean He designed creation to be falliable.
He did not forbid man making computers. Or doing evil for that matter. Man decided to do both. But that doesn't mean He impelled man to do either.
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Shared win: An opposing Rouse the Souls cantrip deck with Intangible Virtue casts Rouse (1 of 7+ copies in the deck).
- Parley reveals my Volcanic Fallout. I have a second one in hand. He cannot kill me despite my low life else I wipe his army. He cannot cast Virtue or Favorable Winds else I wipe.
- He casts Altar of Dementia. I have 4+ Shatter Devils in my deck. I allow Altar to resolve and he knows as soon as it mills me a card, I will Fallout.
- Game progresses he is reduced to 1 damage. Another player is around 20 life with reach defense. By accord, the Rouser mills that player for 14 and we share the win.
Some players may not like the hostage shared victory, but we had fun with it.
Overly trusting isn't a flaw?
@ NathanIW, sounds like you got a cool board in the works. I ended up laminating a Publisher print out of 5 colored squares. Looks a lot nicer than the beads. I'll have to update my site.
@ noshadowkick, I think I had a coworker tell me about Danger Room. Did you hold a session at a recent con or something? (Pax maybe?)
As for the gold decks, I think you guys are onto something. I like the deck "unlock" idea a lot!
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/138161/firefly-the-game
If you think it will work well for your group, definitely go for it. I game with some pretty spikey players, so I have to keep the odd rules to a minimum.
I have a small simple Commie Box I play with my kids. "The full history" is definitely for vets.
Moreover, people will be digesting "OMG there's more than one library." Adding rules for certain cards or dice rolling will make them check out.
Remember, the hardest part about multiplayer testing is that 3/4 of the table loses. Most people have a hard time being objective about a loss. You want the games to be close so people KNOW it was a fair and epic fight. "I lost to a Balstrude Spy dice roll" will be 100% feel bad.
I recommend fun > including a card in the set. If a card will confuse your players, axe it.
As for mill wincons:
- They are inherently a tier 2 strategy that some people love, and other people hate.
- In Big normal MTG, mill rarely works outside of oddball drafts.
- It's also not a particularly interactive strategy.
Consider how the community reacted to Dimir in RTR limited.Cool, I'll be curious to hear how it goes. If your crew has fun, I will put some gold stacks together myself.
Isn't that kind of at the heart of what's in question? I don't think even modern science would assert that was the case for inanimate existences given indefinite time... Much less so for animate existences which may or may not be able to exert independent forces on predictions.
Consider also that an omnipotent force may not perceive time in a linear fashion (at least not without using a manifestation that can do so). Even if there is no alternate outcome, it may be because there is not an alternate existence rather than a result of an entirely rigid universe. Not trying to reiterate the argument presented earlier, just suggesting that time travel scenarios don't help solve it.
Again we come to an issue of motives.
If one truly rejects one god due to the fear of another god, one god has been chosen as superior.
If there is a god that insists on the usage of specific incantations for salvation, regardless of our knowledge, then that god is indifferent to our motives. The idea that there is one correct religion is often common ground for both adherents of particular faiths and those who reject the pursuit of religious truth as pointless. On either side, theology is often used to rationalize other motives.
If there is a god that judges on the basis of motives, only the person that chooses among those motives and that god will have insight into its judgment.
Regarding broken gameplay: EDH has high starting life to slow down gameplay. Shared decks achieve that effect through variable card quality.
Any constructed fixed mana variant that doesn't have something to slow down the game will allow quicker victories, which some people won't like.
No, but I am saying God did not either. The goal of creation was not for man to create computers. He may have known it would happen, but that doesn't mean He made it happen. Creation was inherently built to allow fallibility: He imparted humanity with that authority. But that doesn't mean He designed creation to be falliable.
He did not forbid man making computers. Or doing evil for that matter. Man decided to do both. But that doesn't mean He impelled man to do either.