It's a bulk rare cube of 500 or so cards but only going back to original Ravnica block.
There are some gold cards, but generally speaking people are having no problem getting four colours of mana out without using gold cards to do it. They just concentrate on picks that only ever have a single coloured mana symbol in their casting cost unless they have one dominant colour.
I also tried it with my core set silverblack cube (one of each of ALL the uncommons and commons from M12, M13 and M14) and the same thing happened again. Pick the best card per pack, value anything with more than one coloured mana symbol a lot lower unless it's your dominant colour and ignore archetypes you might have discovered through previous play of the cube. The people who do blue-black control, or mono red aggro or any other archetype that would be reliable with normal mana rules just get run over by the people who go four colour good stuff.
It's a bulk rare cube of 500 or so cards but only going back to original Ravnica block.
All-rare cube? I mean it's a cool idea but what kind of archetypes are in it? Seems to me that drafting from only rare cards across multiple blocks in M1.0 would just result in 2-color goodstuff decks, no?
Another question would be how important those archetypes really are if it is a custom cube used for various formats?
There are some gold cards, but generally speaking people are having no problem getting four colours of mana out without using gold cards to do it. They just concentrate on picks that only ever have a single coloured mana symbol in their casting cost unless they have one dominant colour.
I see. That looks like an immediate extension of traditional drafting rules to avoid multiple colored mana symbols on cards, unless the player is already invested in the color in question. No need for lands just gravitates towards overloading the deck with colors, especially when there is a general implicit agreement among the participants that this is a way to go.
However, 4-color goodstuff decks are still far less consistent in their game plan, are more demanding in forcing tough decisions to have access to all colors, and thus also more error-prone.
Recently I proposed a new way to build decks for M2.0, following normal rules of drafting and adding "mostly-lands" to your sleeves upside down after the draft so that you always see which cards are supposed to be maindeck and which are support cards only to step in when mana flood hits.
I believe (and my testing supports that) that consistently drafted 2-color deck (maybe with some splash) generally perform better than hotch-potch ad hoc decks that try to do everything at once. Try it and you'll see.
I also tried it with my core set silverblack cube (one of each of ALL the uncommons and commons from M12, M13 and M14) and the same thing happened again. Pick the best card per pack, value anything with more than one coloured mana symbol a lot lower unless it's your dominant colour and ignore archetypes you might have discovered through previous play of the cube. The people who do blue-black control, or mono red aggro or any other archetype that would be reliable with normal mana rules just get run over by the people who go four colour good stuff.
While I acknowledge that M2.0 encourages different dynamics among cards (and that is kind of a point of M2.0, expanding options for everyone), I'm not convinced that if you draft an aggressive and consistent BU or monoR deck that you stand no chance against rainbow decks. I don't claim to know where that balance is but from the very beginning of testing with M2.0, I've been observing that the more colors you run, the more problems you invite on yourself...
... It does ruin 5-10% of games, but it also creates a lot of games that are interesting because one player has an advantage that is not insurmountable. Maybe one player hits 3 lands on turn 3 but doesn't hit 4 until turn 6; or someone that only wants to ever draw 4 lands gets 6. Those games are more common than the ones that are ruined by extreme flood or extreme mana shortages.
Sure but that does not mean such games aren't a complete coin toss either. I understand that breaking an old habit is one of the most difficult things one can face and that experimenting with new things cannot be forced. I heard arguments advocating mana screw/flood in the name of variance, deckbuilding/shuffling skills, risk/thrill and whatnot so many times before, I actually made an effort to meet conservative players half-way. Check post #26 of this thread for the "Magic Wildcards" variant - maybe you'll like it
That said, if you want to experiment with a different way of handling multicoloured cards, take the symbol that appears first in their mana cost (so Watchwolf, which is printed GW, is considered ONLY able to become a Forest). For cards with no mana cost, use your existing rules for completely colorless cards. That balances things and stops multicolored cards being OP.
That seems problematic because gold cards have a fixed order of printing mana symbols in mana costs. It doesn't strike me as fair why, for example, all Selesnya-aligned cards should only be arbitrarily considered just green for channeling all of a sudden...
As mentioned above, mechanics heavily relying on use of lands, such as Retrace or Landfall, should rather be scaled down than left semi-broken. There's enough extra variance that goes with M2.0 to make certain mechanics in it disproportionately better than others, even if it affects only a handful of cards (or maybe because of it).
Hi charmer, I tested M2.0 and it is great! It's more fun, it's easy to learn for newer players and it solves a problem I had with the game long enough (aka mana screw/flood).
Glad to hear that. In fact, everyone has that problem but a lot of people have been convinced that screw/flood are important, necessary, and even part of the fun Took me years to see through that...
What I realized is that card draw becomes even more important in M2.0 than in M1.0. When you're not missing any land drop, but "sacrifice" handcards for them (sometimes a tough decision!), you need to figure out how many lands you want to end up with.
Indeed. The spell density is higher in M2.0 and without ramp, there might not be enough time for players to hit 7+ lands at all in a Constructed game.
I mostly play Commander and it's very nice to have nearly none dead draw in the late game, but normally I end up with 10+ lands in play, with M2.0 it's rather eight or nine to cast every spell in my deck. Perhaps I have to get used to the new rules and therefore the new playstyle a bit more, but my blue decks especially worked well due to card draw (I think), the others were more often in topdeck-mode.
Did you recognize a similar tendency and do you have a solution for the "problem"?
Even when the dynamics in M2.0 are a little different, the card advantage remains the main vehicle to victory, especially in mono blue or in decks with blue. We've discussed measures against the spell density in this thread that include lowering the size of the opening hand or lowering the playset size.
Another option might be to make it that players don't draw a card every other turn - that might give aggro decks some edge against control if it proves to be necessary with you deck pool. Other than that, I'd try to improve the other decks to deal with blue more effectively
Anyway, M2.0 really shines in drafts where not everything is fine-tuned in a deck. For Commander specifically, I'd recommend the universal build style that uses "mostly-spells" and "mostly-lands". It's compatible with M1.0, M2.0, and with Magic Wildcards (see post #26) so that you can experiment a lot without rebuilding your decks too much. Check the OP for details.
I started a similar thread on Riptide today actually. I don't think most players are open to fundamental changes to the game of this magnitude, and I can respect that. I'm certainly open to it though.
While I like the ideas presented by M2.0, it seems a little complicated. One of the hardest selling points I've found with these types of house rules is the natural instinct of most people to reject additional rule bloat. So while I can be convinced to try almost anything, I'm not sure I'd be able to get my playgroup to buy in.
The idea that I tossed out on Riptide was one I had read somewhere recently (not entirely my idea so I won't take credit). But it's very simple and it seems like it largely addresses mana flood/screw while adding some addition decision points in the game. It isn't as good as your rule is for mana screw/flood specifically. But I think it's a vast improvement over the core rules, and I think it adds more decision points to the game as well - both positive things. I'd be curious to get your input Charmer as you've clearly put a lot of thought into changing the game and your clearly open to making significant changes to the core game (sacrilegious or not). Here's the rule:
After your untap step, you may remove a card in your hand from the game. If you do, draw a card.
What I like best about it is that it's a very simple house rule that no one will claim is overly complicated. But it has far reaching implications on the game. If you are screwed or flooded, you can draw your way out of it pretty easily with no real sacrifice (though you need to think about what to pitch so it involves some thinking unlike your draw step). If you get into a board state where you need an answer to something, you also can try and draw into it. I understand that card selection is part of the game - I'm not suggesting it be removed entirely (and I don't feel like this rule does that) - but games that get ruined by screw/flood and similar situations where someone has a card that just wins the game if not immediately answered - it's all feel bad IMO (coming from a casual player's perspective). Reducing some of that can only help make the game more fun I think.
For what it's worth, I'm looking at this rule from a limited perspective (cube specifically). So I'm not overly concerned with the boost this gives combo (as I can control how much combo exists in the card pool very easily). Cube is also largely singleton, so I don't see the increase in consistency as a major concern either (in fact, it could be a benefit to some arch types). Though this last point is very speculative on my part.
After your untap step, you may remove a card in your hand from the game. If you do, draw a card.
I am definitely all for simplicity but I'm afraid this rule is a little broken. As it is now, everyone is motivated to use it every turn to dig through their decks for just the right cards, regardless of their strategy, and more importantly, regardless of mana problems. It is basically a way to speed games up, improving consistency for everyone, while removing screw/flood as a side effect. In fact, it does not even necessarily remove mana screw.
However, if you limit this rule to, say, 3 uses per game, you'll end up with something similar to Magic Wildcards (described in post #26), except weaker. That way, you'll mostly want to save the wildcards for when you really need them and this variant might be more acceptable to players otherwise opposed to M2.0 and similar modifications. Let's tweak the rule a little:
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may exile a card from your hand. If you do, draw a card. Use this rule only X times in one game.
There :). I'll test it as another minimalistic way to tackle screw/flood.
As for the complexity of M2.0, the OP of this thread might look intimidating but the basic idea is really simple - every cards can a be a source of mana. The rest is only to recount all possible interactions with various cards and mechanics. Maybe I'll try to compress the rules in an easy-to-handle cheatsheet ;).
After your untap step, you may remove a card in your hand from the game. If you do, draw a card.
I am definitely all for simplicity but I'm afraid this rule is a little broken. As it is now, everyone is motivated to use it every turn to dig through their decks for just the right cards, regardless of their strategy, and more importantly, regardless of mana problems. It is basically a way to speed games up, improving consistency for everyone, while removing screw/flood as a side effect. In fact, it does not even necessarily remove mana screw.
However, if you limit this rule to, say, 3 uses per game, you'll end up with something similar to Magic Wildcards (described in post #26), except weaker. That way, you'll mostly want to save the wildcards for when you really need them and this variant might be more acceptable to players otherwise opposed to M2.0 and similar modifications. Let's tweak the rule a little:
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may exile a card from your hand. If you do, draw a card. Use this rule only X times in one game.
There :). I'll test it as another minimalistic way to tackle screw/flood.
As for the complexity of M2.0, the OP of this thread might look intimidating but the basic idea is really simple - every cards can a be a source of mana. The rest is only to recount all possible interactions with various cards and mechanics. Maybe I'll try to compress the rules in an easy-to-handle cheatsheet ;).
Cheers.
Thanks for the reply. The simpler you can present the M2.0 rules, the easier they will be to get people to try and digest. Just my 2 cents.
As far as my suggestion being broken... it very well could be, but I think it's important to qualify that to some extent. If the objective is to keep Magic still playing like Magic, then yes, a rule like that will most like alter the game too much. But if that is not the goal (keeping Magic still playing like 1.0), then as long as both players equally benefit, it isn't technically broken. I realize that's semantics to some extent, but Ancestral Recall is broken because it grossly favors the person playing it. A rule change does not do that, so can't technically "break" the game (all it can do is change it).
Now whether the change makes the game more or less playable is certainly open to debate. I honestly don't think it's a bad thing for the correct play most of the time to be for guys to take advantage of the exile/draw step. Everyone always draws a card every turn in 1.0. Would anyone willing skip that step (outside decking yourself)? So I'm perfectly fine with the exile/draw step being similar. 95% of the time, it is probably correct to do it unless you have the nut draw and literally don't want to replace any cards in your hand.
But would that be a bad thing for the game? The ideal scenario IMO is for your deck to play in an optimal fashion. Whatever you designed it to do, that is what it should do when you play it. How many decks have you built that literally only play out correctly 1 out of 5 times? Maybe it's a bad deck (fair enough), but maybe it just boils down to the fact that the game of Magic can be extremely random. The 4-of rule is there to add consistency, but even with that there are simply times when you draw 3 copies of card "A" and you never get card "B" and you just lose because you have a bad mix of stuff. How is that a quality game of Magic when that happens? I don't see the appeal.
Adding an additional draw mechanic (that doesn't change number of cards, only helps with quality) seems like a positive effect from a consistency standpoint. It certainly could favor certain decks (combo in particular), but outside combo, are certain arch types helped more than others? Aggro decks will more reliably curve out. Control decks will more reliably draw what they need to stabilize. Seems pretty fair at a high level anyway.
It's all theory-crafting of course (and that's worth little honestly), but in the end does the game really suffer by becoming more consistent? Scry is one of the best mechanics ever and that's because of what it does to card quality. I think it's something that should be expanded upon in a global way personally.
... I honestly don't think it's a bad thing for the correct play most of the time to be for guys to take advantage of the exile/draw step. ...
Okay, in so many words, I believe you're trying to say that you're not ready to give up the idea. And there's no need to either.
All I'm saying is that with M2.0, I only tried to remove mana problems. M2.0 does that but plays differently from M1.0, also increasing consistency but maybe more importantly, adds new cards to card pools to compensate for the "lost" variety (as variety is often cited as a reason why mana problems are "necessary").
Your variant (let's call it TurboDraw (TD) for now speeds everything up but in terms of mana problems, it just cuts the rate of screw/flood in half. So if all players can filter cards each turn, if one of them still gets screwed, they might lose because of that ever so quickly, even if it's just for one turn. Plus, you don't get to enjoy to play with a wider selection of cards.
On the upside, TD is super simple. You know what to do next, right :)? Start testing. But - you should closely look for negative effects and listen closely to negative reactions. Use the scientific method, know what I mean?
I'm sorry for the necrobump but I really wanted to comment. I have read this thread and I think the discussion has been great. We have experienced mana screw/flood in our games for a long while and have been trying to work with ways of getting rid of it, WHILE also allowing for more useful cards in our deck (i.e. cards that actually do something, and aren't just boring basic lands). However I was wondering about a way to get rid of using basic land cards entirely (i.e. not using them at all in the game, as the landchanneling rule still requires them).
I therefore wanted opinions on the following type of rule for commander games (as that is what we play almost exclusively), which we have been trying to test.
So it would be something like: "Whenever you could play a land, you may instead exile a card from your hand. If you do, put a colorless land token with "t: Add 1 to your mana pool." and "t, Sacrifice this: Add to your mana pool one mana of any color in your commander's color identity."
In practice we've been playing the cards either face down or upside down (if morph cards are being used) when doing this. We keep our nonbasics in our decks but don't use the basic lands. We have noticed that this makes colored mana costs more expensive, but I'm not sure how much this has ultimately affected our gameplay as everybody has more potential land cards to play and the large edh deck size seems to ensure that everyone has enough cards to exile for a desperately needed mana source. Nobody plays a pure colorless deck (yet), so idk how this would affect that kind of gameplay. I have a suspicion the above rule could make affinity/eldrazi stuff even more overpowered? We also didn't know how to handle searching for a basic land effects, but the ideas in this thread have been great.
You guys in this thread seem to be pretty experienced and knowledgeable, so I basically wanted to get some opinions/criticisms of this.
chochky, your EDH system seems fine as long as you play decks with many color (and thus not many basics to remove), otherwise you will need to sacrifice many cards to cast most of your stuff. If you go down from 40 to 30 lands, it helps remove mana flood quite a bit, but at only 20-10 lands you might start to get color-screwed quite a bit.
Also, you need to watch out for bounce/graveyard shenanigans since you don't replace the cards. Making the original card unusable for the rest of the game seems key to avoid unintended effects (though it might be interesting to discover these).
While I'm at it, I tried out the original Magic2.0 idea and I discovered it makes the decks that rely on combo/synergy much better. For instance, UW Heroic where you need to draw a good balance of creatures and spells to target them is much more forgiving when you can balance your hand by turning some into land drops. The consistency is also miles better when you turn a 60 cards deck into a 36 cards one, and still quite noticeable when you add the sideboard to that (51 cards).
That means you really can't turn a normal deck into a Magic 2.0 one without great imbalance. 2.0 really needs other deck building rules like 60 cards, no sideboard, maximum 3 copies of each card.
That makes the format much harder to try and test out.
I'm sorry for the necrobump but I really wanted to comment. I have read this thread and I think the discussion has been great. We have experienced mana screw/flood in our games for a long while and have been trying to work with ways of getting rid of it, WHILE also allowing for more useful cards in our deck (i.e. cards that actually do something, and aren't just boring basic lands). However I was wondering about a way to get rid of using basic land cards entirely (i.e. not using them at all in the game, as the landchanneling rule still requires them).
I therefore wanted opinions on the following type of rule for commander games (as that is what we play almost exclusively), which we have been trying to test.
So it would be something like: "Whenever you could play a land, you may instead exile a card from your hand. If you do, put a colorless land token with "t: Add 1 to your mana pool." and "t, Sacrifice this: Add to your mana pool one mana of any color in your commander's color identity."
In practice we've been playing the cards either face down or upside down (if morph cards are being used) when doing this. We keep our nonbasics in our decks but don't use the basic lands. We have noticed that this makes colored mana costs more expensive, but I'm not sure how much this has ultimately affected our gameplay as everybody has more potential land cards to play and the large edh deck size seems to ensure that everyone has enough cards to exile for a desperately needed mana source. Nobody plays a pure colorless deck (yet), so idk how this would affect that kind of gameplay. I have a suspicion the above rule could make affinity/eldrazi stuff even more overpowered? We also didn't know how to handle searching for a basic land effects, but the ideas in this thread have been great.
You guys in this thread seem to be pretty experienced and knowledgeable, so I basically wanted to get some opinions/criticisms of this.
Hello and thanks for sharing the idea. Let’s discuss:
[a] At the beginning, the idea of M2.0 was to solve 2 problems: (1) remove the secondary luck factor and (2) free up the space in decks for new cards. If you can channel basic lands from other cards and they can no longer block off anyone from participating in the game, the problems are solved IMHO. In other words, basic lands are not a problem per se, it’s the fundamentals of the Magic mana system that necessitate (1) and (2).
[b] To increase the appeal of the modification, the rules behind it had to be as simple as possible, adding minimum of new mechanics and elements to the game.
[c] Finally, interactions with the existing Constructed also kind of matters - that having never been a goal of M2.0 notwithstanding.
Now, looking at your solution, it seems problematic, because:
it introduces a new card type outside what the magic rules provide, thus necessitating a token
interactions with tokens are tricky, consider Aether Snap, flickering and bouncing - these break the original intent and need yet another workaround for the mod to function.
the mechanic seem unintuitive to only get colored mana by sacing; and you mentioned that you haven’t yet looked into what ramifications does this have for mana curve etc.
mana base, especially in Commander, can easily be completely non-basic; doesn’t this defeat the purpose of the mod since you can “get rid of using basic land cards entirely” this way?
So, your mod somewhat solves (1) and (2) but leaves [b] and [c] even more problematic than M2.0. That said, I’ve kind of moved past M2.0, considering how much irrational resistance to the mod I’ve met. Players often don’t what to ponder what exactly changes under M2.0 rules and how and thus typically just reject the idea flat out, seeing it as cheating or whatever.
Luckily, the discussion in this thread inspired me to go beyond the original concept to simplify it even further. Check out the wildcards and the universal build style (need a better name for that) compatible pretty much with everything.
While I'm at it, I tried out the original Magic2.0 idea and I discovered it makes the decks that rely on combo/synergy much better. For instance, UW Heroic where you need to draw a good balance of creatures and spells to target them is much more forgiving when you can balance your hand by turning some into land drops. The consistency is also miles better when you turn a 60 cards deck into a 36 cards one, and still quite noticeable when you add the sideboard to that (51 cards).
That means you really can't turn a normal deck into a Magic 2.0 one without great imbalance. 2.0 really needs other deck building rules like 60 cards, no sideboard, maximum 3 copies of each card.
That makes the format much harder to try and test out.
Yeah. The idea behind M2.0 is now fully implemented though and it works good if you play it in isolation. But the interaction argument made me kind of disengage from M2.0 in favor of the minimalistic approach to fix (1) and (2) mentioned above that has a higher chance to win over more players.
couple questions:
Q1: What about colorless cards({C}), what land would they make?
The allowed basic land type is determined from the color identity of the card so even cards like Orzhov Signet would help you make a land you need.
Regarding truly colorless cards without any color in their identity, until recently, I've been using this workaround:
"If you want to convert a card with no color identity (certain artifact cards, colorless cards such as Eldrazi, or land cards with no mana symbols in their rules boxes), you need to reveal one additional card from your hand that has a color identity in order to make the conversion. The colored card then determines which basic land types are available for the conversion. Additionally, the revealed colored card should remain revealed until you play/cast it and should not be used again to enable conversion of another colorless card - another copy of that card that has not been revealed in this way could be used though."
As a changelog, I've updated the OP with the following:
* ETA: As a validation of these ideas, consider the Vancouver mulligan: http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/ptori/vancouver-mulligan-rule-2015-07-31 It is a very minor patch to the rules but it is an official acknowledgement that Magic rules can screw anyone from participating in the game which is especially frustrating and visible at big tournaments.
I've added the additional rule b) as mentioned in the previous post:
b) If you want to convert a card with no color identity, reveal it and take Wastes instead one of the traditional basic lands.
Following the rule concerning Landfall, I've also added this:
ETA: g) Similarly, the exiled cards (as a result of applying the M2.0 rule) cannot be used for Ulamog brood's Eldrazi cards such a Blight Herder. Only use the normally exiled cards to benefit from this mechanic.
M2.0 is supposed to help with mana problem, not to power up mechanics that happen to overlaps with its rules.
ETA: g) Similarly, the exiled cards (as a result of applying the M2.0 rule) cannot be used for the Ulamog brood's Eldrazi cards such a Blight Herder. Only use the normally exiled cards to benefit from this mechanic.
this says nothing about Misthollow Griffin or whether Eternal Scourge counts as a card "such as Blight Herder" since the herder de-exiles an opponent's cards rather than your own.
Landfall is also somewhat ill-defined. For example, Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle doesn't say landfall on the card, but the trigger is very similar. What about Sire of Stagnation? 'Landfall', whether named as such or not, also covers a huge variety of interesting cards which players of this new format would be forced to miss out on (unlike Retrace, which is reasonably limited in the number of cards it appears on). You also don't specify how cards like Courser of Kruphix work or why cards like Azusa, Lost but Seeking are okay to let run rampant despite having been a centerpiece in competitive modern decks at one point. Does converting cards use the stack? What is the ability's source?
ETA: d) Searching your library for a basic land is done by revealing cards from the bottom of your library and taking the first card of the color that matches the land type you are searching. Then shuffle your library.
This new rule removes the lengthy searches for lands because you no longer need to figure out which card in the deck is currently the least useful to be used as a land. That extra level of complexity and the time delays are not necessary, especially in Commander.
What about Panglacial Wurm? What if I use Nature's Lore and need to search for a Forest? That's not necessarily a basic land, and I have a legitimate reason for playing that card since the forest comes in untapped unlike for Rampant Growth.
ETA: e) If you converted a multicolor-identity card using the M2.0 rule and want to play the basic land the same turn, it comes into play tapped. If the multicolored card was of 3 or more colors, the basic land type is determined at random out of those colors.
This new rule scales back the power of multicolored cards, which were previously too strong in M2.0 to the point that the best strategy for a constructed deck was to only use multicolored cards. Now, you need to be extra careful not to put too much gold cards into a deck as otherwise any dedicated monocolored deck will overrun you easily.
While I appreciate the attempt at balancing, the line "If you converted a multicolor-identity card using the M2.0 rule and want to play the basic land the same turn, it comes into play tapped." causes problems. What if I convert the card early-on in my turn and then decide to play it later (say I want 7 lands for Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant's ability; yet another specific card you would need to rein in)? Keeping track of a specific card in a player's hand is technically allowed, but nigh-impossible in practice. While I appreciate an answer along the lines of "just don't cheat", it's very possible that even I can't remember which of the seven lands in my hand I got from a multicolored card.
What you want is a set of rules that can be described in natural game terms. I propose the following...
~~~~~
1 - All cards in players' hands have terramorph.
(Reveal this card and move it to your command zone to choose a basic land card you own from outside the game which could produce a color of mana in this card's color identity, reveal that basic land card, and put it into your hand. If this card has two or more colors in its color identity, the next land you play before the end of your next turn enters the battlefield tapped. If this card has three or more colors in its color identity, move a second card in your hand to your command zone. You may not terramorph a card with three or more colors in its color identity if you do not have at least two cards in your hand. You may terramorph a card at any time you have priority, and doing so does not use the stack.)
2 - If a card would allow you to search a player's library for a basic land card then you may instead choose a basic land card from outside of the game that fulfills the effect's criteria. Treat that basic land card as the card that was found. (you may do so for any effect that could find a basic land, regardless of whether that effect is restricted to only finding basic lands).
*** Comprehensive Ruling, for when it's important *** (spliced together from the actual MTG comprehensive rules on 'cycling' and 'morph')
Terramorph
M2.0a Terramorph is a static ability that functions only while the card with terramorph is in a player’s hand.
M2.0b Any time you have priority, you may reveal a card in your hand with terramorph and note the colors in its color identity. Move the revealed card to your command zone, then move a second card from your hand to your command zone if the number of colors noted is 3 or higher. If you do, choose a basic land card you own from outside the game which could produce a color of mana in the revealed card's color identity, reveal that basic land card, and put it into your hand. Finally, if the number of colors noted is 2 or higher then the next land card you play enters the battlefield tapped if it is played before the end of your next turn. This is a special action; it doesn’t use the stack (see rule 115; terramorphing a card is an eighth special action).
M2.0c Although a card can be terramorphed only if the card is in a player’s hand, the ability continues to exist while the object is on the battlefield and in all other zones. Therefore objects with terramorph will be affected by effects that depend on objects having one or more abilities. This is not typically relevant in Magic 2.0 since, by default, cards only have terramorph while in a player's hand.
~~~~~
I chose the "Channeling Land" variant you mentioned because it is the cleanest in terms of allowing lands to be in your hand at some point (which many cards care about) and in terms of not interfering with the basic process of playing lands. I replaced the 'random land' bit for 3+ color cards with losing an extra land simply because it was easier to implement that way.
From there you can construct a straightforward banlist consisting of all problem cards; most of the cards you've addressed specifically would not really be worth playing anyways with your changes. Note that I do not at any point try to refer specifically to the land card obtained; doing so can become messy quickly. The closest I come is the bit about the next land played this turn entering the battlefield tapped.
There are some gold cards, but generally speaking people are having no problem getting four colours of mana out without using gold cards to do it. They just concentrate on picks that only ever have a single coloured mana symbol in their casting cost unless they have one dominant colour.
I also tried it with my core set silverblack cube (one of each of ALL the uncommons and commons from M12, M13 and M14) and the same thing happened again. Pick the best card per pack, value anything with more than one coloured mana symbol a lot lower unless it's your dominant colour and ignore archetypes you might have discovered through previous play of the cube. The people who do blue-black control, or mono red aggro or any other archetype that would be reliable with normal mana rules just get run over by the people who go four colour good stuff.
All-rare cube? I mean it's a cool idea but what kind of archetypes are in it? Seems to me that drafting from only rare cards across multiple blocks in M1.0 would just result in 2-color goodstuff decks, no?
Another question would be how important those archetypes really are if it is a custom cube used for various formats?
I see. That looks like an immediate extension of traditional drafting rules to avoid multiple colored mana symbols on cards, unless the player is already invested in the color in question. No need for lands just gravitates towards overloading the deck with colors, especially when there is a general implicit agreement among the participants that this is a way to go.
However, 4-color goodstuff decks are still far less consistent in their game plan, are more demanding in forcing tough decisions to have access to all colors, and thus also more error-prone.
Recently I proposed a new way to build decks for M2.0, following normal rules of drafting and adding "mostly-lands" to your sleeves upside down after the draft so that you always see which cards are supposed to be maindeck and which are support cards only to step in when mana flood hits.
I believe (and my testing supports that) that consistently drafted 2-color deck (maybe with some splash) generally perform better than hotch-potch ad hoc decks that try to do everything at once. Try it and you'll see.
While I acknowledge that M2.0 encourages different dynamics among cards (and that is kind of a point of M2.0, expanding options for everyone), I'm not convinced that if you draft an aggressive and consistent BU or monoR deck that you stand no chance against rainbow decks. I don't claim to know where that balance is but from the very beginning of testing with M2.0, I've been observing that the more colors you run, the more problems you invite on yourself...
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Sure but that does not mean such games aren't a complete coin toss either. I understand that breaking an old habit is one of the most difficult things one can face and that experimenting with new things cannot be forced. I heard arguments advocating mana screw/flood in the name of variance, deckbuilding/shuffling skills, risk/thrill and whatnot so many times before, I actually made an effort to meet conservative players half-way. Check post #26 of this thread for the "Magic Wildcards" variant - maybe you'll like it
That seems problematic because gold cards have a fixed order of printing mana symbols in mana costs. It doesn't strike me as fair why, for example, all Selesnya-aligned cards should only be arbitrarily considered just green for channeling all of a sudden...
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As mentioned above, mechanics heavily relying on use of lands, such as Retrace or Landfall, should rather be scaled down than left semi-broken. There's enough extra variance that goes with M2.0 to make certain mechanics in it disproportionately better than others, even if it affects only a handful of cards (or maybe because of it).
OP updated.
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Glad to hear that. In fact, everyone has that problem but a lot of people have been convinced that screw/flood are important, necessary, and even part of the fun Took me years to see through that...
Indeed. The spell density is higher in M2.0 and without ramp, there might not be enough time for players to hit 7+ lands at all in a Constructed game.
Even when the dynamics in M2.0 are a little different, the card advantage remains the main vehicle to victory, especially in mono blue or in decks with blue. We've discussed measures against the spell density in this thread that include lowering the size of the opening hand or lowering the playset size.
Another option might be to make it that players don't draw a card every other turn - that might give aggro decks some edge against control if it proves to be necessary with you deck pool. Other than that, I'd try to improve the other decks to deal with blue more effectively
Anyway, M2.0 really shines in drafts where not everything is fine-tuned in a deck. For Commander specifically, I'd recommend the universal build style that uses "mostly-spells" and "mostly-lands". It's compatible with M1.0, M2.0, and with Magic Wildcards (see post #26) so that you can experiment a lot without rebuilding your decks too much. Check the OP for details.
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While I like the ideas presented by M2.0, it seems a little complicated. One of the hardest selling points I've found with these types of house rules is the natural instinct of most people to reject additional rule bloat. So while I can be convinced to try almost anything, I'm not sure I'd be able to get my playgroup to buy in.
The idea that I tossed out on Riptide was one I had read somewhere recently (not entirely my idea so I won't take credit). But it's very simple and it seems like it largely addresses mana flood/screw while adding some addition decision points in the game. It isn't as good as your rule is for mana screw/flood specifically. But I think it's a vast improvement over the core rules, and I think it adds more decision points to the game as well - both positive things. I'd be curious to get your input Charmer as you've clearly put a lot of thought into changing the game and your clearly open to making significant changes to the core game (sacrilegious or not). Here's the rule:
After your untap step, you may remove a card in your hand from the game. If you do, draw a card.
What I like best about it is that it's a very simple house rule that no one will claim is overly complicated. But it has far reaching implications on the game. If you are screwed or flooded, you can draw your way out of it pretty easily with no real sacrifice (though you need to think about what to pitch so it involves some thinking unlike your draw step). If you get into a board state where you need an answer to something, you also can try and draw into it. I understand that card selection is part of the game - I'm not suggesting it be removed entirely (and I don't feel like this rule does that) - but games that get ruined by screw/flood and similar situations where someone has a card that just wins the game if not immediately answered - it's all feel bad IMO (coming from a casual player's perspective). Reducing some of that can only help make the game more fun I think.
For what it's worth, I'm looking at this rule from a limited perspective (cube specifically). So I'm not overly concerned with the boost this gives combo (as I can control how much combo exists in the card pool very easily). Cube is also largely singleton, so I don't see the increase in consistency as a major concern either (in fact, it could be a benefit to some arch types). Though this last point is very speculative on my part.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
I am definitely all for simplicity but I'm afraid this rule is a little broken. As it is now, everyone is motivated to use it every turn to dig through their decks for just the right cards, regardless of their strategy, and more importantly, regardless of mana problems. It is basically a way to speed games up, improving consistency for everyone, while removing screw/flood as a side effect. In fact, it does not even necessarily remove mana screw.
However, if you limit this rule to, say, 3 uses per game, you'll end up with something similar to Magic Wildcards (described in post #26), except weaker. That way, you'll mostly want to save the wildcards for when you really need them and this variant might be more acceptable to players otherwise opposed to M2.0 and similar modifications. Let's tweak the rule a little:
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may exile a card from your hand. If you do, draw a card. Use this rule only X times in one game.
There :). I'll test it as another minimalistic way to tackle screw/flood.
As for the complexity of M2.0, the OP of this thread might look intimidating but the basic idea is really simple - every cards can a be a source of mana. The rest is only to recount all possible interactions with various cards and mechanics. Maybe I'll try to compress the rules in an easy-to-handle cheatsheet ;).
Cheers.
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Thanks for the reply. The simpler you can present the M2.0 rules, the easier they will be to get people to try and digest. Just my 2 cents.
As far as my suggestion being broken... it very well could be, but I think it's important to qualify that to some extent. If the objective is to keep Magic still playing like Magic, then yes, a rule like that will most like alter the game too much. But if that is not the goal (keeping Magic still playing like 1.0), then as long as both players equally benefit, it isn't technically broken. I realize that's semantics to some extent, but Ancestral Recall is broken because it grossly favors the person playing it. A rule change does not do that, so can't technically "break" the game (all it can do is change it).
Now whether the change makes the game more or less playable is certainly open to debate. I honestly don't think it's a bad thing for the correct play most of the time to be for guys to take advantage of the exile/draw step. Everyone always draws a card every turn in 1.0. Would anyone willing skip that step (outside decking yourself)? So I'm perfectly fine with the exile/draw step being similar. 95% of the time, it is probably correct to do it unless you have the nut draw and literally don't want to replace any cards in your hand.
But would that be a bad thing for the game? The ideal scenario IMO is for your deck to play in an optimal fashion. Whatever you designed it to do, that is what it should do when you play it. How many decks have you built that literally only play out correctly 1 out of 5 times? Maybe it's a bad deck (fair enough), but maybe it just boils down to the fact that the game of Magic can be extremely random. The 4-of rule is there to add consistency, but even with that there are simply times when you draw 3 copies of card "A" and you never get card "B" and you just lose because you have a bad mix of stuff. How is that a quality game of Magic when that happens? I don't see the appeal.
Adding an additional draw mechanic (that doesn't change number of cards, only helps with quality) seems like a positive effect from a consistency standpoint. It certainly could favor certain decks (combo in particular), but outside combo, are certain arch types helped more than others? Aggro decks will more reliably curve out. Control decks will more reliably draw what they need to stabilize. Seems pretty fair at a high level anyway.
It's all theory-crafting of course (and that's worth little honestly), but in the end does the game really suffer by becoming more consistent? Scry is one of the best mechanics ever and that's because of what it does to card quality. I think it's something that should be expanded upon in a global way personally.
Just something to noodle on.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
Okay, in so many words, I believe you're trying to say that you're not ready to give up the idea. And there's no need to either.
All I'm saying is that with M2.0, I only tried to remove mana problems. M2.0 does that but plays differently from M1.0, also increasing consistency but maybe more importantly, adds new cards to card pools to compensate for the "lost" variety (as variety is often cited as a reason why mana problems are "necessary").
Your variant (let's call it TurboDraw (TD) for now speeds everything up but in terms of mana problems, it just cuts the rate of screw/flood in half. So if all players can filter cards each turn, if one of them still gets screwed, they might lose because of that ever so quickly, even if it's just for one turn. Plus, you don't get to enjoy to play with a wider selection of cards.
On the upside, TD is super simple. You know what to do next, right :)? Start testing. But - you should closely look for negative effects and listen closely to negative reactions. Use the scientific method, know what I mean?
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I therefore wanted opinions on the following type of rule for commander games (as that is what we play almost exclusively), which we have been trying to test.
So it would be something like: "Whenever you could play a land, you may instead exile a card from your hand. If you do, put a colorless land token with "t: Add 1 to your mana pool." and "t, Sacrifice this: Add to your mana pool one mana of any color in your commander's color identity."
In practice we've been playing the cards either face down or upside down (if morph cards are being used) when doing this. We keep our nonbasics in our decks but don't use the basic lands. We have noticed that this makes colored mana costs more expensive, but I'm not sure how much this has ultimately affected our gameplay as everybody has more potential land cards to play and the large edh deck size seems to ensure that everyone has enough cards to exile for a desperately needed mana source. Nobody plays a pure colorless deck (yet), so idk how this would affect that kind of gameplay. I have a suspicion the above rule could make affinity/eldrazi stuff even more overpowered? We also didn't know how to handle searching for a basic land effects, but the ideas in this thread have been great.
You guys in this thread seem to be pretty experienced and knowledgeable, so I basically wanted to get some opinions/criticisms of this.
Also, you need to watch out for bounce/graveyard shenanigans since you don't replace the cards. Making the original card unusable for the rest of the game seems key to avoid unintended effects (though it might be interesting to discover these).
While I'm at it, I tried out the original Magic2.0 idea and I discovered it makes the decks that rely on combo/synergy much better. For instance, UW Heroic where you need to draw a good balance of creatures and spells to target them is much more forgiving when you can balance your hand by turning some into land drops. The consistency is also miles better when you turn a 60 cards deck into a 36 cards one, and still quite noticeable when you add the sideboard to that (51 cards).
That means you really can't turn a normal deck into a Magic 2.0 one without great imbalance. 2.0 really needs other deck building rules like 60 cards, no sideboard, maximum 3 copies of each card.
That makes the format much harder to try and test out.
Hello and thanks for sharing the idea. Let’s discuss:
[a] At the beginning, the idea of M2.0 was to solve 2 problems: (1) remove the secondary luck factor and (2) free up the space in decks for new cards. If you can channel basic lands from other cards and they can no longer block off anyone from participating in the game, the problems are solved IMHO. In other words, basic lands are not a problem per se, it’s the fundamentals of the Magic mana system that necessitate (1) and (2).
[b] To increase the appeal of the modification, the rules behind it had to be as simple as possible, adding minimum of new mechanics and elements to the game.
[c] Finally, interactions with the existing Constructed also kind of matters - that having never been a goal of M2.0 notwithstanding.
Now, looking at your solution, it seems problematic, because:
So, your mod somewhat solves (1) and (2) but leaves [b] and [c] even more problematic than M2.0. That said, I’ve kind of moved past M2.0, considering how much irrational resistance to the mod I’ve met. Players often don’t what to ponder what exactly changes under M2.0 rules and how and thus typically just reject the idea flat out, seeing it as cheating or whatever.
Luckily, the discussion in this thread inspired me to go beyond the original concept to simplify it even further. Check out the wildcards and the universal build style (need a better name for that) compatible pretty much with everything.
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Yeah. The idea behind M2.0 is now fully implemented though and it works good if you play it in isolation. But the interaction argument made me kind of disengage from M2.0 in favor of the minimalistic approach to fix (1) and (2) mentioned above that has a higher chance to win over more players.
Check out the concept of the Joker card.
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Q1: What about colorless cards({C}), what land would they make?
Q2: Also a lot of artifacts(if not all) only cost generic, would you choose any one type of land for this?
The allowed basic land type is determined from the color identity of the card so even cards like Orzhov Signet would help you make a land you need.
Regarding truly colorless cards without any color in their identity, until recently, I've been using this workaround:
However, I was aware of the Barry's land discussion: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/whatever-happened-barrys-land-2009-02-09
I knew sooner or later this will get implemented and now it is: Wastes
So it is time to finally update the M2.0 rules as follows:
The answer is the same as for the question 1.
Thank you
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I've added the additional rule b) as mentioned in the previous post:
Following the rule concerning Landfall, I've also added this:
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Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
For example...
this says nothing about Misthollow Griffin or whether Eternal Scourge counts as a card "such as Blight Herder" since the herder de-exiles an opponent's cards rather than your own.
Landfall is also somewhat ill-defined. For example, Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle doesn't say landfall on the card, but the trigger is very similar. What about Sire of Stagnation? 'Landfall', whether named as such or not, also covers a huge variety of interesting cards which players of this new format would be forced to miss out on (unlike Retrace, which is reasonably limited in the number of cards it appears on). You also don't specify how cards like Courser of Kruphix work or why cards like Azusa, Lost but Seeking are okay to let run rampant despite having been a centerpiece in competitive modern decks at one point. Does converting cards use the stack? What is the ability's source?
More rules means more mess. Case in point:
What about Panglacial Wurm? What if I use Nature's Lore and need to search for a Forest? That's not necessarily a basic land, and I have a legitimate reason for playing that card since the forest comes in untapped unlike for Rampant Growth.
While I appreciate the attempt at balancing, the line "If you converted a multicolor-identity card using the M2.0 rule and want to play the basic land the same turn, it comes into play tapped." causes problems. What if I convert the card early-on in my turn and then decide to play it later (say I want 7 lands for Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant's ability; yet another specific card you would need to rein in)? Keeping track of a specific card in a player's hand is technically allowed, but nigh-impossible in practice. While I appreciate an answer along the lines of "just don't cheat", it's very possible that even I can't remember which of the seven lands in my hand I got from a multicolored card.
What you want is a set of rules that can be described in natural game terms. I propose the following...
~~~~~
1 - All cards in players' hands have terramorph.
(Reveal this card and move it to your command zone to choose a basic land card you own from outside the game which could produce a color of mana in this card's color identity, reveal that basic land card, and put it into your hand. If this card has two or more colors in its color identity, the next land you play before the end of your next turn enters the battlefield tapped. If this card has three or more colors in its color identity, move a second card in your hand to your command zone. You may not terramorph a card with three or more colors in its color identity if you do not have at least two cards in your hand. You may terramorph a card at any time you have priority, and doing so does not use the stack.)
2 - If a card would allow you to search a player's library for a basic land card then you may instead choose a basic land card from outside of the game that fulfills the effect's criteria. Treat that basic land card as the card that was found. (you may do so for any effect that could find a basic land, regardless of whether that effect is restricted to only finding basic lands).
*** Comprehensive Ruling, for when it's important *** (spliced together from the actual MTG comprehensive rules on 'cycling' and 'morph')
Terramorph
M2.0a Terramorph is a static ability that functions only while the card with terramorph is in a player’s hand.
M2.0b Any time you have priority, you may reveal a card in your hand with terramorph and note the colors in its color identity. Move the revealed card to your command zone, then move a second card from your hand to your command zone if the number of colors noted is 3 or higher. If you do, choose a basic land card you own from outside the game which could produce a color of mana in the revealed card's color identity, reveal that basic land card, and put it into your hand. Finally, if the number of colors noted is 2 or higher then the next land card you play enters the battlefield tapped if it is played before the end of your next turn. This is a special action; it doesn’t use the stack (see rule 115; terramorphing a card is an eighth special action).
M2.0c Although a card can be terramorphed only if the card is in a player’s hand, the ability continues to exist while the object is on the battlefield and in all other zones. Therefore objects with terramorph will be affected by effects that depend on objects having one or more abilities. This is not typically relevant in Magic 2.0 since, by default, cards only have terramorph while in a player's hand.
~~~~~
I chose the "Channeling Land" variant you mentioned because it is the cleanest in terms of allowing lands to be in your hand at some point (which many cards care about) and in terms of not interfering with the basic process of playing lands. I replaced the 'random land' bit for 3+ color cards with losing an extra land simply because it was easier to implement that way.
From there you can construct a straightforward banlist consisting of all problem cards; most of the cards you've addressed specifically would not really be worth playing anyways with your changes. Note that I do not at any point try to refer specifically to the land card obtained; doing so can become messy quickly. The closest I come is the bit about the next land played this turn entering the battlefield tapped.
- Rabid Wombat