Greetings fellow multiplayer enthusiasts! My name is Cz and today I'll be speaking to you about effectively managing a multiplayer game. As someone who's been playing multiplayer Magic for virtually his entire life, I've gathered many useful tips and tricks throughout that time with respect to finishing multiplayer games at a reasonable pace. I'm not talking about ways to pressure people into making bad decisions nor to make people uncomfortable by "forcing" them to act quicker. I'm just here to provide some simple tips and tricks that I find useful to keep the game going at a steady pace. I'll admit that when I typically join new playgroups, especially larger ones, the games tend to run a little long. I too have "suffered" (I'm using the term loosely lol) through the occasional 3 hour game in my youthful days and I'd prefer not to relive those experience again if possible. Nowadays I can almost always finish an 8+ player game in under 45 minutes which isn't bad all things considered. This is true for any format, even casual ones such as draft (say, if we're Cubing). I feel as though there may be people out there who could benefit from my knowledge and may find it useful to improving the quality of their own games.
Before I begin, I want to warn the reader that I will often make references to weaker and inexperienced players throughout this guide. While I realize that is a straight up insult, I want to to stress that it's not supposed to be something that you're ashamed of. I was TERRIBLE at magic back when I first started playing. If you knew how Regeneration worked then you already made me look like a chump. The point is that takes a lot of time and effort to become a truly solid Magic player. I'm still far from a "pro" myself. Being a weaker player is nothing to be ashamed of because that's going to comprise all of us at some point in our Magic careers. It took me 7 years to learn how to build real decks; it doesn't happen overnight. There's no shame in not being the best player in the room.
Setting up the Game
One the most critical parts of having a smooth multiplayer game is to come prepared. To me, this means acquiring 3 things:
1) A big bag of dice,
2) A fresh piece of paper and a writing utensil,
3) A clean playing surface.
I have carried out this routine so many times by now that it's become ingrained in my body. Without even thinking about it, I will instinctively prepare these 3 things before the start of every game. While you may be reading this and thinking "thanks for nothing Sherlock," I still feel as thought they're important preparations to make.
Dimension the Dice
Investing in a big set of dice from one of your local gaming shops is easily the best investment that a multiplayer fanatic could ever make. It's virtually impossible to have too many of them, especially in bigger games. Years of experience has taught me that almost every deck will need them for something, be it counters or tokens, but that almost no one will ever bring anything to represent the pieces themselves. People could honestly be playing "Token.deck" with 100 token producers and pure Vivid lands (Vivid Marsh for example) and they still wouldn't have anything to use to represent counters/tokens lol. If you want to save yourself a lot of time and hassle, get a big bag of dice and bring it to every game. You'll be a hero every time.
Gooooooooooooal!
One thing that I've always believed strongly in is that every multiplayer game should have a "score keeper." I also believe that it should be the most experienced person at the table. While it's perfectly fine if people want to keep track their own life totals I'd still never play a game where I didn't have a big sheet of paper beside me that had them all. This ironically contradicts my next piece of advice but it's a "necessary evil" in my experience. More on this later though, back to the matter at hand! As I was saying, years of experience has taught me that players, especially newer ones, tend to miss things that happen during the game. A lot of people don't know what Syphon Soul does and they might not hear when someone plays it. I (the most experienced player) know precisely what the card does and so I'll almost never forget to tick everyone down 2 and to tick John up by 10 or whatever. Another example that I've seen time and time again is Swords to Plowshares. Removal all starts to look the same after awhile and so many players forget that StP gains them life. I've corrected people many times by reminding that they're actually at a much higher life total than they previously thought. What I will strongly suggest is that you pretend like the "score keeper" has everyone's best interests in mind. For example, when someone plays Soul's Attendant, I don't make them tell me that they're saying "yes" to the trigger. When a creatures comes into play I tick them up a life. Period. If they want to remind me, that's fine. Still, I'd never punish anyone for missing the trigger. I'll always tell people what their actual life total "should be" so that they can correct it to account for any triggers that they may have forgotten about. Multiplayer games can get chaotic, political, and even completely sidetracked by personal discussions. People shouldn't be punished for trying to socialize lol. For what it's worth it's basically gotten to the point where people in my playgroups have stopped keeping track of their life total altogether. Most people find it much easier to let the most experienced player (i.e. me) handle it since I typically do a better job at it and it lets them concentrate on other things. It works, so if you have someone willing to put forth the time and effort to doing it, then I strongly recommend that you have one.
No Dessert Until You Clean Your Room
Every game of Magic should start on a completely flat, clean surface. No phones, no books, no iPods, no extra cards, no sideboards, no nothing. Everything that you have on that table/floor/whatever that isn't a player's deck is just going to get in the way. Games go long, people play a lot of lands, board states get cluttered, etc. You don't want anything around that will obstruct people's view because it just makes the game that much more complicated. People constantly have to ask what creatures people have out, how big they are, etc. You always want to have a nice, open view of everything if possible. Now, I realize that people will usually want to bring out snacks and whatnot and that's obviously fine. Just try to move the bowls (or whatever) away once they're empty. Some people might be thinking "but Cz, you JUST told us to have a big piece of paper that tracks life totals. That's going to eat up space!" Ok, you caught me. While it's true that a life pad takes up critical space I also believe that it's an essential component to the game. The one question that people ask more than anything else (in my experience) is "what is everyone at?" Being able to "point and click" rapid fire answers to each player saves minutes (don't laugh, it adds up) of wasted time trying to pry the information from everyone. The ability to do a "roll call" in under 10 seconds is well worth the lost space.
Starting the Game
While this section may seem very simple I do believe that it's worth discussing the basics of getting a game underway. My personal ritual is to grab a stack of lands (from my deck, a Cube, a land box, etc.) and to shuffle them up alongside a single spell. After I've sufficiently randomized the pile I'll deal the cards out to the players 1 at a time until someone gets dealt the spell. That player will play first and turn order will proceed clockwise from there. I do not recommend having each player flip the top card of his or her deck and letting the person who flips the highest CMC spell play first. I've seen that method used a lot but it's not even close to being something that's fair, randomized. Each player will draw a 7 card starting hand and have the option to take a free mulligan if they so desire. Future mulligans will result in drawing one fewer cards for each one taken. Each player will start the game with 20 life points and each player will draw a card on his or her first turn.
Playing the Game
How you play the game can be just as important as how you set it up. There are many tendencies that I've acquired over the years to keep my play going at a reasonable pace. I typically try and share these tips with other players, as I find them to be extremely effective ways to keep the game on track. They are:
1) Using names,
2) Passing the turn when you've finished interacting with your opponents,
3) Cut the newbs some slack.
It's Greg Right?
The first trick, and probably the most important one of them all, is to just know everyone's name. CRAZY RIGHT? As sad as it sounds you have no idea how effective it is when it comes to keeping a game going. One thing that I've consistently noticed is that people do not pay attention to when their turn starts... ever. People will have passed the turn and the other player won't know about it for a full minute >.<. This is one of those things that eats tens of minutes of time for nothing, which again, really adds up in the long run. If you want someone to listen to you the 100% guaranteed way to get an instant reaction is to say "Joe, it's your turn." Not "hey, you're up." Not "I pass the turn." You MUST say the person's name if you want them to catch it every single time. Remember, you are not playing against a single opponent who is focusing all of his/her attention on you. Only a fraction of it will be headed your way. You need a system in place to get players to pay attention to when their turn starts and that can only be achieved by using a person's name. Trust me; it's the only thing that works.
As a side note, I don't recommend using a "token" to track the active player's turn. They don't work. Maybe if you're all poker players who grew up passing the dealer button it might happen but otherwise these gimmicks just hemorrhage time and confuse people. No one ever remembers to pass it because it's not something that they're used to do doing. No one grew up playing Magic and passing a "token" of some sort to track whose turn it is. It's not part of the game so it doesn't feel natural. Don't try and make people adopt it. They won't.
Meep-meep! (Says the Road Runner)
Another "big one" in my mind is keeping the game moving once you've finished interacting with your opponents. I'm going to share a quote that I heard a few weeks back, and it's something that I'm incredibly proud of. Ready? Here goes: "Wow, how is it already turn 5?" Simple huh? The first few turns of any Magic game are typically devoid of meaningful interactions. When you tap out to play a Cultivate you don't actually have to sit there and find the lands + shuffle your deck before you pass the turn. You're not interacting with anyone after all. Play the card, announce what you're searching for and pass the turn. Finish resolving it while the next player goes. The first ~4 turns of the game shouldn't take more than a minute each even in huge 8+ player games. Plan your plays ahead of time and pass the turn as soon as you've stopped interacting with the other players. There's almost no decisions to make since you should only really have 1 spell that's castable at the time. Play your land, play your creature (if any), play your draw spell (if any) and pass. Turns should start and end in seconds. A fair amount of them will simply be: draw, play a land, "go Tyler." Seconds! Don't sit around and think, don't make people watch you search for your Rampant Growth, just pass the turn and keep the ball rolling. I'm telling you, games can get shaved in half when the first 5 turns are over in the first 5 minutes. Now, one thing I will say is that I'd only recommend using this guideline if people are capable of playing at a brisk pace. If you're playing a card like Demonic Tutor it can't be to see what the table does before you make your selection. The search target(s) should be in your hand by the time the next player has untapped his/her lands and drawn a card. You can't spend the next 5 minutes mulling over what to take, gaining more and more information the longer you wait. This suggestion is designed to shave a few seconds off of the opening turns; it's not designed to give you unlimited time to make decisions.
Another minor suggestion is to not wait until end of turn to do everything. Let me preface this by saying that I realize how stupid that sounds. Believe me, I play Magic at a competitive level and I understand that what I'm saying is "bad advice" from a purely rational standpoint. Good players will always wait until the last possible second to make decisions. After all, why would you make one using imperfect information if you're weren't required to? Look, let's all be honest with each other for a second. You don't actually have to crack that Evolving Wilds at end of turn. Yes, the 100% optimal play is to wait until EOT to do it, but it really doesn't matter. What other players do in the interim isn't actually going to influence what you fetch. Don't pretend like it will. I strongly urge that if gathering additional information won't influence the decision at hand that you simply make it at everyone else's convenience. I mean, there used to be a time where everyone in my playgroup would spin their Sensei's Divining Top at end of turn. If you thought that it was bad with 1-2 players, try it with 8. "Shoot me now." (Don't lie, you all thought it.) Do everyone a favor and do it while the person directly preceding you is taking their turn. Yes, EOT would be better, but that just wastes so much time and it usually doesn't matter at all. If you legitimately have to hold up mana for counters/removal, so be it, but we all know that you don't need to bluff everything at all times. Even though it's not the right play, it's the courteous play. Just make it, I promise you that you won't regret it as long as everyone is willing to sacrifice a bit of value to save a ton of time.
David vs Goliath
Cutting the newbies some slack is something that a lot of people might not agree with but I really believe that it's an important aspect of a big multiplayer game. I don't expect everyone to get on board with this suggestion however and I wouldn't blame you if this didn't strike you as a worthwhile practice. Still, before I explain what it is, let me explain the theory behind it. Multiplayer Magic, to me, is all about fun. If every person at the table isn't having a good time then I personally feel as though I failed somewhere along the way. Granted, I can't stop someone from playing Winter Orb or whatever, but I don't want the experience to be ruined for anyone for factors beyond the cards themselves. At some point during your game a new player is going to make an obviously bad play. How people handle these situations will ultimately vary but I don't personally believe in the whole "learn through failure" system that some other people advocate. Making an idiotic mistake in front of your friends is embarrassing and it makes people feel bad. The right thing to do, in my opinion, is roll back the play and provide an explanation as to why it was a mistake. Until these people become more familiar with the rules there's no need to watch them make fools of themselves. Help them make the correct plays and ensure that every game is a learning experience for them. Positive reinforcement works much better than the negative kind in my experience and people tend to learn more, faster when they're having fun.
Another minor suggestion that I have concerns mana screw. I have a somewhat controversial way of handling it. If you don't like it, that's fine, ignore me. When I see a newer player stuck on lands and discarding cards I immediately propose that we allow him or her to flip for a land (put the other cards he or she reveals on the bottom of his or her library) instead of drawing a card next turn. Some people are probably screaming at their monitors in disgust because that's not part of the game. I wouldn't blame you. Still, I'd rather play imperfect Magic with a bunch of people who're all having fun than watch a new player wallow in misery as he or she spends 30 minutes not casting spells. These people are not experienced deckbuilders and they rarely-if-ever play enough lands. Yes, it's their own fault, but who cares? Not me. I value everyone's enjoyment more than I value the sanctity of the game. Again, I want to stress that this isn't a hard rule and it's not something that I let the good players at the table abuse. Not that anyone has ever tried to mind you, we have an implicit "gentleman's agreement" that it's reserved for newbs, but even if they did I wouldn't allow it.
Handling Rules Disputes
I'm going to go ahead and assume that you're probably not going to be playing with a pack of judges all of the time and so you'll inevitably encounter situations where a rules dispute will arise that no one will be completely certain about. While it's easy enough to say "just make a forum post and wait for a response" the reality is that it's A) not always an option and B) a bit too time consuming. You don't really want to put the game on hold while you wait for a response from someone trustworthy enough to believe. What I encourage you to do in these situations is to simply let the most experienced player act as the "head judge" in these situations and to make a ruling based on the input provided. I do not recommend leaving it up to the group. Singular experts tend to make better decisions than groups of people and so you're usually going to be better off letting the person with the most experience with the game have the final say. Right or wrong everyone should simply grit their teeth and roll with it. I strongly recommend that you investigate what the actual is at your earliest convenience and that you announce to the table at a future time if possible. This is a great learning opportunity for everyone that shouldn't be overlooked. Oh, and cut the decision maker some slack even if he or she was wrong! As long as they gave it their best effort that should be all that matters.
Tips to Newer Players
This sections is specifically directed at newer players. I'm somewhat hoping that you'll have been directed to this thread from one of your more experienced friends, since I can't see getting this message across to you otherwise. A lot of the suggestions that I was giving earlier were mostly directed towards experienced players, and so I wanted to cover some small things that might be useful to someone who's newer to the game. The 3 things that I want to cover are:
1) Only make obvious decisions,
2) It's always your turn,
3) Don't overextend.
Decision, Decisions...
Quick question before we jump into this: It's the start of your turn and you draw a card. It's Terror. The first thing that you do is try look at every creature in play and ask everyone what they all do. Does this sound like you? If so, then you're exactly the kind of person that this message is directed towards. Less experienced players tend to feel "compelled" to play their removal/theft/bounce/burn/whatever spells as soon they draw them. This seems to be especially true for hard removal. Whenever I see a newer player draw a card that reads say "destroy target artifact," they immediately look at every artifact in play and try to decide whether or not they should destroy it. I'm going to teach you a secret, one that all the good players use. Just pass the turn. Don't read every card, don't convince yourself that you need to play it, just sit back and pass the turn. When I say that "you should make obvious decisions," what I'm actually saying is that "you shouldn't make non-obvious decisions." Ok, that's confusing as Hell, but that's why I didn't word it that way to begin with lol. If you don't know what the artifacts in play are doing, that's probably because they're not making you miserable. If a card isn't making you miserable/threatening to destroy you, it's probably not important enough to remove. When there's a card out there that's actively hurting you, then it will be made obvious to you (at some point anyways) and that's when you'll want to go ahead and use your removal on it. Don't force yourself into plays that you simply don't need to make. You're not helping yourself. If you truly need to play removal spell, you'll know it. If you're trying to weigh the merits of a bunch of non-obvious options, the reality is that you're probably making a bad decision no matter what you choose. They're probably all "wrong." If you don't know what you want to remove immediately, then I strongly suggest that you just calmly pass the turn.
On that note, I want to talk about how you should go about answering threats. Let's say that Bob plays a 5/5 Dragon. It's very big and scary and that makes us afraid D:. What I'll see a lot of newer players do is just immediately kill it on the spot. Like, before the person can even explain what the card does someone will have Doom Bladed it. That is not what you want to be doing in a multiplayer setting. What most people tend to overlook is the fact that every creature is a potential win condition for you. Ok, not quite, but the point is that unless that Dragon is swinging at you, why would you care about it? Why wouldn't you want it to survive to kill off the other players? This is so crucial yet it's often completely overlooked by less experienced individuals. My advice to you, as a newer player, is to hold out playing removal for as long as possible. Do not kill that Dragon until it has actually attacked you. There's no need to if it was just going to be sent at Ted. That card can and often will do a ton of work for you, so it's in your best interest to let it live for as long as possible. Do not jump the gun and destroy it prematurely.
Break's Over, Get back to Work!
This, again, is mostly directed towards newer players. I'm always under the impression that players with less experience with the game aren't actively thinking about it unless it's their turn. Moreover, they seem to invent decision trees for themselves that don't actually exist. I'll give you an example. I'm always trying to help newer players learn, and so I'll often give players advice about what their best course of action to take is. And yes, before you ask, that does include plays that will actively screw myself over if that's what's in their best interest. Anyways, a lot of times I'll look at a player with 3 lands in play, a Cultivate in hand, and then some miscellaneous 5 and 6 drops. The obvious decision is to play the Cultivate and pass, which is something that they should have planned to carry out much earlier. I mean, there's basically nothing to even consider. There are no alternatives, no difficult choices, nothing. Why is this hard? Anyone who thought about what to do for more than 5 second would have come to the only conclusion available. Still, I used to consistently find myself in situations where newer players were taking a long time to reach simple, automatic conclusions such as these. My advice to you, to everyone, is to think about your turn before you find yourself "under the gun." I'm willing to bet that if you took 20 seconds to think about what you're doing on your next turn that it would be apparent and obvious way more often than it isn't. You don't have to wait until you draw your card + saw what everyone was doing to start creating a plan. You can always adjust it as needed but you should still be thinking about your next set of steps while the other players are taking their turns. Don't be that "deer in the headlights" player who has no idea what to do and ultimately passes the turn without doing anything (after having taken way too long to do so). Show everyone a bit of respect by not waiting until the last possible second to start thinking about what your plan should be. Speaking from years of personal experience, this is one thing that I wish more players would do. If you find yourself taking long turns where you ultimately do very little/nothing then you should probably ask yourself why it takes you so long to realize that you didn't have a good play to make to begin with. Why didn't you know that already? Most of this guide has been discussing things that experienced players can do to help newer ones. This is something that you can do for them. Please take the time to think through your options beforehand so that you have a good idea of what your next turn will look like.
It Doesn't Twist That Way
Finally, let's talk about overextending. What I typically see from newer players is that they get excited and play out their entire hand only find themselves on the receiving end of a Wrath of God. From there they never truly recover and do little more than "hang in there" without ever having a meaningful impact on the game. Multiplayer magic is a marathon, not a sprint. If you put yourself in a situation where you have everything on the line then you're just asking to get blown out by mass removal. Another common mistake thing that I consistently see is people who play out all of their creatures but who never do anything with them. They don't attack and they're not really being attacked so it feels like they're basically playing cards for no reason. If you don't need any more board presence just stop adding on to it! Keeping creatures in your hand is very important and will prevent you from ever being shut out of the game. For example, I find that having 2 "big" creatures in play is usually more than enough. It makes attacking you very difficult since you can always block their 2 worst creatures with your best ones which makes it difficult for people to profitably engage you. They could have 5 creatures out and it still wouldn't be worthwhile. 2 is also enough to put on some pressure if needed. If someone is playing that Control/Combo deck then 2 creatures is more than enough to force him to cast that Damnation or whatever. Get it out of his hand so that you can drop another set of beaters and repeat as needed. Now, this obviously isn't relevant if people in your meta aren't big on mass removal. At that point you're probably better off just playing everything as you draw it. Still, I've seen far too many games drag on because everyone overextended into mass removal. Take your time to draw it out before you commit too seriously to anything. Don't put yourself in a nigh-unwinnable situation because you jumped the gun. Try to ensure that you'll always have action even if you do get nuked a few times.
Conclusion
Let's wrap this up quickly. As I've said before, the goal of this thread was to provide the reader with some insights on how to manage their multiplayer games slightly more efficiently. Whenever I comment about the fact that I play with 8-10 people on average, the typical reaction that I get is "wow, 1 game must take all night." That simply isn't the case at all, as even the biggest groups can still grind through many games over the course of a play session. It's not about pressuring people into making decisions either, just simple tips and tricks that can keep the ball rolling at all times. Not everything that I've said here will appeal to everyone, and I completely understand if you're opposed to some of the suggestions that I've provided. Again, a lot of them are simply "necessary evils" in my mind if you want to have fast, fun games of Magic with all of your friends. It's doesn't always lead to perfect play, but it's close enough that you can still feel like a genius when you best your friends and family in battle. I hope that you've all taken something from having read this, and that you consider it to have been time well spent. Until next time fellow fanatics!
About the dice thing. We tend not to use them. They are great, but we tend to keep everything either written down, or using face down cards of appropriate color.
I'm trying not to get too hung up on small details if possible. The idea behind that tip was that you should come prepared with everything that you'll need to play the game. It doesn't matter whether it's dice, extra cards, or glass beads, the idea is that you have something that you can use to represent tokens and counters. That being said, I'm not sure that I follow your logic. Facedown cards suck up much more time than dice do. What's faster, getting passed a pile of cards and putting one under each of your creatures every time you activate your Gavony Township, or ticking up a die by 1? Dice and facedown cards have the same initial time sink of reaching for + placing the object the first time that it's used, but for every subsequent time that it's used dice are much faster. Reaching for cards and placing under things takes seconds, whereas turning a dice takes a fraction of a second. Putting your first token from Awakening Zone takes a bit of time, but ticking your die up by 1 every other turn is faster than grabbing a new token. I'm just not seeing how using facedown cards could ever be faster than using dice.
Getting a game under 45 minutes depends mostly on what kind of deck people are playing.
I wasn't trying to provide a timeframe for how long a game should take. I was merely providing some evidence (albeit anecdotal) that it's possible to have fast and interactive multiplayer games, even with large playgroups. While I realize that 3 player games can take 2+ hours, it doesn't have to be like that. 8 player games can indeed end in 30 minutes, and while deckbuilding is a big part of that, the overall pace of the game is going to be relevant as well. This may not turn 2 hour games into 45 minute games, but it may shave them down to 1.5 hour games.
I think you maybe should make a mention about how to decide which player will be starting.
To be honest, I wasn't even aware that this was a real thing. We've just always rolled a die. I'm not going to lie, but I was somewhat horrified to read how your playgroup handles it lol. I would never agree to that practice. It's not randomized (i.e. fair), it divulges information about your deck to other players, and it provides you with free information that you can use to your advantage with respect to planning your initial set of plays (based on what you've shipped to the bottom of your deck), etc. I can't say that I would ever recommend that practice when you could simply roll a die lol.
The mulligan side is very interesting, and I´d like to hear more details about how you deal with it.
As I've said before, the one thing that I will not create are "rules." I will never say that "we handle mulligans by doing X." As such, our mulligan rules are very casual. If you look at a hand that you don't want, you're basically allowed to ship it. While we try to "suggest" that you only take one freebie, we've never stopped people from going back again if their next 7 is horrible. We don't make anyone reveal anything either. There's no prizes on the line, we could care less about ensuring that their hands are actually bad. Still, what I will say is that there's a implicit agreement amongst the "pros" to not (ab)use these lax mulligan rules. When one of the "good" players, (such as myself) at the table mulligans, we typically go down to 6 cards. While we could go to 7 if we wanted, there's a "silent agreement" that we don't. We really don't need to after all. So, in the interest of leveling the playing field we basically play the game normally without making it obvious to the rest of the players. This goes back to what I was saying throughout my thread. These "tips" aren't really there for the experienced players.
Otherwise I like the spirit of the game as you described it, like corrrecting obvious things if people missed an event.
Casual magic should be fun for everyone. We don't want to punish the players who haven't memorized 10, 000 cards like some of us have. If people are making clearly incorrect plays, we'll always allow them to take it back and suggest the best course of action. And, again, I want to stress that we're impartial when we do so. You better believe that people have said "why don't you Replicate that Shattering Spree a few times to destroy my Caged Sun and his Extraplanar Lens? If you don't have any more plays then you probably should." The goal is never to manipulate them, just to highlight what the better play is.
One aspect you could possibly cover if you wanted, is how to handle instant speed and the stack.
I wanted to, but I couldn't think of a good way to explain it. I'll tell you one thing for now; we don't sit around while people decided whether or not they want to respond to everything that's played. The only time that we explicit state "does anyone want to respond to X" is when someone to equip a creature with a card like Lightning Greaves or Sword of Feast and Famine (as an example). If it's a simple matter of playing a spell, we basically just announce it and describe the card if needed. We don't "stop the game" unless something important is happening that could really screw over someone who didn't realize that X creature was getting Hexproof or something similar.
It's very tricky sometimes giving out advices, because you actually should keep quiet, period. I mean, what do you do when a newer player wants to be fair and attack the person with the most life when everybody else knows the other guy is just ready to play a creature with Flash, or reverse all damage to the attacker's head. I mean, sometimes it is obvious to us when we see the mana is available to cast all these spells, and he's playing that deck with that particular card he normally plays at that particular occasion. So what do you say to your newbie? Like: "I wouldn't do this if I were you?". No, we´d rather say: "You can attack any of us, then if you want to know, Peter has got the most life of all of us". He attacks, gets nuked, and we should feel good that we´ve been impartial. Difficult decision!
This is one instance where we (the experienced players) would never say anything. You're not Maxmillian Pegasus. You can't see what's in other player's hands and you shouldn't try to act like you can. If you want to play around some "would-be" spell(s), by all means. That's up to you. Still, I would never dissuade someone from attacking simply because he COULD have an answer.
Still, I'd like to touch a few things with respect to this subject. First of all, I don't like the idea of saying that "X has the most life." That makes it sound like he's the biggest threat, or that life is somehow a measure of who's winning. When asked about life totals, I will simply state a name a number in turn order. "Bob 11, Nicky 23, Rod 7, etc." Pointing out who's high and who's low doesn't seem fair, and so I would try to avoid that if at all possible. Intentional or not, you may be having a large influence on their decision. In the interest of fairness I wouldn't qualify the totals at all. A name and number is all they should need to make a decision for themselves.
Moreover, I think that the biggest mistake that people make in multiplayer is trying to play around removal. I don't really understand people's logic to be honest. Creatures are horrible because they have a painfully slow clock, they're vulnerable to removal, and they usually can't effectively fight past other creatures. The only upside to playing them is that you can field a couple good creatures and start going to town on the people who don't have much defense. Like, every aggro player should implicitly team up against the Combo/Control decks, field a few number of relevant threats, and force the Combo/Control players to win or die. They should attack them non-stop until they've all lost, at which point the creature decks can carry out their creature battles. The thought of playing an aggro deck and not attacking into defenseless players isn't a pleasant one for me. I will unabashedly slam my guys into them all day. They have an answer? That's fine, I made them have it. They don't have an answer? Well, they're just dead lol. I can still play other creatures if needed, and as long as the other aggro players can see that the path is "all clear," then everything should always work out in my favor. Aggro players who don't attack are players who don't want to win in my mind.
I don't think people realize how badly you can screw over the Control players by just attacking them. I don't even care if someone cheats and shows me the removal spell. I'll still attack them. Use it. This is especially true if your creature isn't even the best one of the field. Like, when I have a 4/4 and other players have big 6/6s, I will slam my 4/4 into anyone that I can. They kill it? That's fine, it just means that the 6/6s are free to get in. More often than not they won't kill it, because they basically can't afford to. People are way too passive in multiplayer.
Are you putting a dice on 3 and a dice on 2 to represent a 3/2 creature? Or are you "assigning" a type of dice for a certain token type and then increment the dice to represent their number? How do you differentiate a tapped token from an untapped one? Sorry if the question is trivial, I´m just trying to get a visual on it.
"Assigning" the token to the dice. As far as tapped vs untapped goes, just put tapped "creatures" off to 1 side. I'll concede that it's not optimal, but I don't think face down cards work any better. It's still rather difficult to keep track of what is what unless you have the physical token card itself. That's simply not practical enough to even bother with. Dice is the lesser of many evils in my experience.
This is tricky in some situations, when a player explicitely asks for things like: "should I really attack each turn when able?"
I'll give you a tip; try to act like a real Judge. Judges don't answer hypothetical questions, nor can they provide you with any strategic advice. They can, however, explain to you how a card works after it's been played. If someone clearly misplays a spell, then you can somewhat step in to try and help them and "correct" the situation, kind of like a real judge would. Maybe there's a better time/way to play the spell, and so maybe they should consider that alternative. Still, I don't think that you should ever tell someone to "attack each turn if able" or something. While I enjoy talking about multiplayer theory, and will happily discuss it with anyone who asks, I wouldn't impose my point of view on others during the game itself. I would never actively say "you should attack the Control players" if the aggro player wanted some advice on what to do. There's simply no impartial, unbiased, correct advice that you can give. The "right" thing to do will vary from person to person. I know that a lot of people will read my statement about attacking in multiplayer and think I'm crazy. The best strategy is to just sit back and do nothing until every kills each other off. Right? Not everyone shares the same opinion on this sort of thing, and so the best way to handle is to let people play for themselves. If Billy wants to attack the guy at 26 rather than the guy at 15 with a Necropotence in play, that's fine. That's his choice that he made. If he wants to sit back and do nothing, that's also fine. People have to play for themselves for the most part. The only time that you should step in is if people are missing small interactions or plays that might not have been obvious to someone with less experience.
And maybe I should make something else clear. When I say that we'll help newer players make the right decisions, that doesn't mean telling them to kill X over X with Terror. If someone wants to use spot removal on a card, that's fine. What I'm talking about is not Replicating Shattering Spree when there's clearly important targets left to hit, or forgetting to target the 5/5 Demon with Hex and choosing a mana dork instead. Clear omissions that no one would make. I'm not talking about "well you should kill that Dragon instead because it's bigger." If someone wants to use spot removal on a legal target, that's their choice.
But the guys consistantly raising their voice are generally left alone. Players rather attack the quiet silent guy to avoid the bull****.
I'll share a bit of story. My younger brother recently started playing Magic with his friends, and I was eventually invited to play with them after basically building their cube. They had one player who we'll call "James" who always threatened removal should anyone mess with him. Every game, all game, if someone was moving to attack him he'd "warn them" that removal was coming if they did. Now, flashback 5 years ago, and that was me in that seat. The Black player with mana untapped, why would you ever mess with him? Well, the truth is that the guy who talks the most is probably the guy who has to bluff a defense because he doesn't actually have it. If 2 players slam with with 5 dudes he's just going to die. So, every game all game I would attack James. He rarely if ever had it, and was usually the first person to lose. After a few games he started shutting up, since he realized that we were all seeing right through him. He couldn't bluff a defense any more, he actually needed the goods. No more was he building 8drop.deck with every Force imaginable (Verdant Force, Magmatic Force, Celestial Force). I attack the loud, manipulative players non-stop until they learn. Drawing attention to yourself might be a decent way to "hide" in some metas, but the best way to counteract that is to not let them get away with it. Do everything in your power to make him lose. If he tries to rally people against you, remind them that you're not hurting them at all, just "James." Why should they help him when you're not a threat to them? Why would they waste their removal for no reason? Fight fire with fire :P. I'm not a manipulative player, I don't try and get people to team up against other ones like I used to when I was a kid. Still, if someone is trying to control the game so that he can win it, I definitely won't sit back and do nothing. Just remind everyone that you're only going after the loudmouth. You don't have to try and get anyone to team up on him or anything, just don't give anyone a reason to rally to his defense. They usually won't.
Great Article Tich. I don't always agree with you, but this is well written. I would definitely not recommend your 'Get up Rocky' section to anyone, but I think you expected as much. To me, mana screw and shuffle screw are just a part of the game that everyone needs to deal with. Sometimes you will lose to screw, other times you will topdeck a god hand and smack the whole table down. I also find keeping strict rules in place can help a player learn to build their decks better, with having way too little mana being the most common mistake for noobies.
Great Article Tich. I don't always agree with you, but this is well written. I would definitely not recommend your 'Get up Rocky' section to anyone, but I think you expected as much. To me, mana screw and shuffle screw are just a part of the game that everyone needs to deal with. Sometimes you will lose to screw, other times you will topdeck a god hand and smack the whole table down. I also find keeping strict rules in place can help a player learn to build their decks better, with having way too little mana being the most common mistake for noobies.
If you live in an adaptive meta that will learn from their mistakes and compensate for them in future decks, then I completely agree with your reasoning. We all started off playing 19 land decks filled with 6 drops, and we all learned the hard way why it doesn't work. Those kinds of "growing pains" are important to experience if you plan to improve yourself as a Magic player.
What I will say is that there are some players who don't intend to ever improve their level of play. They only play the game for social reasons, and have no desire to improve themselves as player. As long as they have a deck and know the rules enough to hang out with their friends and play the game, they're happy. All the mana screw in the world won't get them to change their habits. Every now and then you'll be playing with someone like that, and so sometimes it's nice to have a contingency plan that can keep the game "fun" for everyone.
If you live in an adaptive meta that will learn from their mistakes and compensate for them in future decks, then I completely agree with your reasoning. We all started off playing 19 land decks filled with 6 drops, and we all learned the hard way why it doesn't work. Those kinds of "growing pains" are important to experience if you plan to improve yourself as a Magic player.
What I will say is that there are some players who don't intend to ever improve their level of play. They only play the game for social reasons, and have no desire to improve themselves as player. As long as they have a deck and know the rules enough to hang out with their friends and play the game, they're happy. All the mana screw in the world won't get them to change their habits. Every now and then you'll be playing with someone like that, and so sometimes it's nice to have a contingency plan that can keep the game "fun" for everyone.
That is a good point. I guess my playgroup is very static and we rarely get new people out so we don't really have to worry about this.
Although my mates can moan at me alot because I am the "slow guy" in my group. Thats generally due to me having alot of options in my decks(thanks to you guys for that). Its usually me calculating exactly what I need to do to possibly win from the current position.
The problem that I personally have with that approach is that it's basically an exercise in futility. How can you ever truly calculate what you need to do in order to win when N opponents are drawing X random cards per turn and all have hands with threats and answers in them? Can you actually plan a way to play around all of their potential top decks and tricks? At the end of the day you're going to need to get lucky to win; it's not usually going to be some carefully planned ordeal that will snag a victory. The reality is that you're probably just wasting everyone's time far more often than you're not, since game states tend to change wildly every few turns.
In addition, I don't think that you can reasonably see the lines that you'll need to take in order to win. I'll concede the fact that it's possible that you just play the same deck over and over, but something tells me that you change it up enough that you'll never truly get comfortable with any one build. As someone who frequently cubes and who has exactly 0 decks sleeved up at any one time (I build them all on the spot when I play), I can tell you that I always forget about X card in my deck and how drawing it could drastically improve my position. I doubt you're any different; we're all human after all.
Anyways, the point that I'm trying to make is that your friends are probably "justifiably mad" at you if you take the time to plan ahead every turn. I'm not saying that you can't ever take the time to plan for a line that could win you the game, but that's basically only going to be useful if it's something that you can immediately act upon. If you're planning 2-3 turns ahead, I legitimately think that you're probably just wasting time. I've played with a lot of "slow" players in my day, and I can tell you that there's basically no legitimate justification for it in my mind. If you're a player with a strong familiarity with the game (i.e. you're not someone who's still learning it) then you should be more than capable of playing at a brisk pace. There's a lot, and I do mean a LOT of time during everyone else's turn that you can spent plotting and planning, so I really do advocate not waiting until it's your turn to start doing it. Even if you can't see all the lines that your deck has, you should still know its basic shell. I mean, if you're playing a Sliver deck, you have a pretty good idea of the kinds of cards that you're going to draw. What your actual draw step yields might change your lines slightly, but it shouldn't come as some massive shocker that will change everything. You should have a good idea of what you should be playing already, so any new information should only give you a bit of pause at most.
A little off topic, but the one thing I hate in my meta is one of my mates says "kill it" or "its dead" as he plays spot removal to one of my cards I have just brought out. Most of the time I probably cant respond to it.
This annoys me for a different reason. Every creature in play is a potential win condition for everyone else. When Bob plays a 5/5 dragon, that's a 5/5 Dragon that could be attacking Ted for me. Why would I kill something like that? I mean yeah, if it heads my way then sure, but why not wait and see?
I like a lot your guides, thanks for taking the time to make this, specially the part to add newby players to the game.
Just a question. ¿How do you recomend to manage the begining draw when there are 4 or more players? My friends and I let our selves to have 1 free muligan at the begining and the only person who draws on the first turn is the last player on the round.
I like a lot your guides, thanks for taking the time to make this, specially the part to add newby players to the game.
Just a question. ¿How do you recomend to manage the begining draw when there are 4 or more players? My friends and I let our selves to have 1 free muligan at the begining and the only person who draws on the first turn is the last player on the round.
I know your question isn't aimed at me, but I'll answer it.
In multiplayer games, everyone draws on their first turn. Seasoned multiplayers realize that the first few turns are spent mana-fixing and laying out defenses rather than aggressively attacking, so the draw matters little in the grand scheme of things.
A free mulligan is common, as well.
Cz's guides are good stuff and have spurred many a shopping trip for myself and others.
Cheers!
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If in the area, check out Gamers N Geeks and Mini War Games in Mobile, Alabama and Underhill's Games in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.
I know your question isn't aimed at me, but I'll answer it.
In multiplayer games, everyone draws on their first turn. Seasoned multiplayers realize that the first few turns are spent mana-fixing and laying out defenses rather than aggressively attacking, so the draw matters little in the grand scheme of things.
A free mulligan is common, as well.
Cz's guides are good stuff and have spurred many a shopping trip for myself and others.
Cheers!
Thanks again krichaiushii we gave the last person on our games the chance to start drawing because I sugested it after watching that the last player seems to have a certain kind of disatvantage when playing againt 3 or more players :S I don't know maybe its just me and I'm wrong.
Just a question. ¿How do you recomend to manage the begining draw when there are 4 or more players? My friends and I let our selves to have 1 free muligan at the begining and the only person who draws on the first turn is the last player on the round.
Everyone should draw a card on their first turn. The advantage of playing first is drastically mitigated in a multiplayer but the loss of card advantage is significant.
If your meta wants to roll with a free mulligan rule, that's fine. It's difficult to strike a balance between something that'll work for both the pros and the newbs. The best argument for the free mulligan rule is that an overpowered deck is always going to be overpowered and a bit of extra consistency isn't going to significantly effect that. Conversely, you don't want newer players to feel compelled to keep 2 land hands and whatnot to avoid going down to 6. That will typically end poorly for them and could easily ruin the game for multiple people. The idea here is that a free mull will never help the pros that much but it will save the newer players from a ton of grief.
Thanks again krichaiushii we gave the last person on our games the chance to start drawing because I sugested it after watching that the last player seems to have a certain kind of disatvantage when playing againt 3 or more players :S I don't know maybe its just me and I'm wrong.
You'd be surprised. Personally I think of multiplayer Magic as being something closer to a poker table. Who's on your left and who's on your right tends to matter much more than you're staring position. Position is key in both games and some games are going to be won or lost based on your proximity to the strong and/or weak players.
In addition, there are plenty of cards and strategies that benefit from going last. I want to cast Pox when you all have 4 lands but I only have 3. If I'm on the play then I don't have a great opportunity to nail everyone. Land Tax is the same thing. What? Is no one going to play a second land? Yeah right! Arguments can be made wither way but at the end of the day it's not usually a very big deal in my experience. In theory is could be if you played in some severely warped meta dominate by degenerate combo or aggro decks but I mean that's not going to be the case very often. Insofar as people are mostly just playing a fair game of Magic then turn order advantage should vanish almost instantly. Your relative position to the other players is what will quickly matter the most.
I was not aware of this! Has that always been there?
Yes, actually that's the only reason we decided to let the free mulligan thing be like it is, we never took the time to think if it was fair or not.
We manage life points at 20 as any normal magic 1vs1 game. You guys do the same? Not sure if this is offtopic -.-
To Cz: it would be awosome if you added to your guide what kind of rulling's you play with your group or you recomend from your own experience, just the main ones like how you decide who starts, how you manage the first draw phase, life points, etc.
Yes, actually that's the only reason we decided to let the free mulligan thing be like it is, we never took the time to think if it was fair or not.
We manage life points at 20 as any normal magic 1vs1 game. You guys do the same? Not sure if this is offtopic -.-
To Cz: it would be awosome if you added to your guide what kind of rulling's you play with your group or you recomend from your own experience, just the main ones like how you decide who starts, how you manage the first draw phase, life points, etc.
Yeah we always do the 20 point life total. I know that some people like to do 40 ala EDH, which is fine, it's just not something that interests us. The problem with a 40 life start or whatever is that you can't really pressure anyone period. It's so pointless to "start the game" before turn 4 or whatever because your dorky 2/2 for 2 isn't going to accomplish anything. At that point you may as well just play the greediest build filled with the most powerful stuff because realistically people can't stop you from doing something insane and greedy. At least with 20 life you have the option of pressuring someone who needs to be stopped.
Very good suggestion on the rulings questions! I'll add them.
I was not aware of this! Has that always been there?
No, it hasn't always been there. I don't remember this rule being there back in 6th edition. In fact, multiplayer rules were pretty minimal for a long time.
No, it hasn't always been there. I don't remember this rule being there back in 6th edition. In fact, multiplayer rules were pretty minimal for a long time.
My bad then :S, I forgot I started playing magic again practically recently lol and that is when I first took a look at the rules... I can say I was introduced to magic in Onslaught since I bought my first intro pack at that point (clerics so bad at that time T-T) lol I still have the box and all... but I never really played a lot on that time so I will say I first checked the rules when I started playing constantly arround M11 and Scars.
Clerics were Bad? BAD? I have awesome memories of playing an 80ish card cleric deck around the Onslaught era. The only thing that it did was turtle up and prevent all combat damage heading its way. It basically never lost a game but it took like 3 hours for it to win. Ok, sure, everyone had the worst decks imaginable but we still all had fun :embarrass:.
Clerics were Bad? BAD? I have awesome memories of playing an 80ish card cleric deck around the Onslaught era. The only thing that it did was turtle up and prevent all combat damage heading its way. It basically never lost a game but it took like 3 hours for it to win. Ok, sure, everyone had the worst decks imaginable but we still all had fun :).
Lol ok.. maybe not bad, but omg I got bored as you said it was like...
Me: How your deck wins?
Him: I can hit you with my... i dont know 13/13 trample in turn whatever, or I can counter your spells; What can you do with your deck?
Me: Weeeeell I can... slow the game and prevent damage like all the game you know...
Him: ¿And how do you win?
Me: Well I'm not sure... never got to that... my friend's mom always came home before we got to finish the game... But it's cool... you know? Not bad for my first deck right? Right!? Want to play? Hello?
So yes... I used the word bad in a wrong way, but trust me a clerics deck it's not good to introduce yourself to magic and make friends, at least not at that time
Greetings fellow multiplayer enthusiasts! My name is Cz and today I'll be speaking to you about effectively managing a multiplayer game. As someone who's been playing multiplayer Magic for virtually his entire life, I've gathered many useful tips and tricks throughout that time with respect to finishing multiplayer games at a reasonable pace. I'm not talking about ways to pressure people into making bad decisions nor to make people uncomfortable by "forcing" them to act quicker. I'm just here to provide some simple tips and tricks that I find useful to keep the game going at a steady pace. I'll admit that when I typically join new playgroups, especially larger ones, the games tend to run a little long. I too have "suffered" (I'm using the term loosely lol) through the occasional 3 hour game in my youthful days and I'd prefer not to relive those experience again if possible. Nowadays I can almost always finish an 8+ player game in under 45 minutes which isn't bad all things considered. This is true for any format, even casual ones such as draft (say, if we're Cubing). I feel as though there may be people out there who could benefit from my knowledge and may find it useful to improving the quality of their own games.
Before I begin, I want to warn the reader that I will often make references to weaker and inexperienced players throughout this guide. While I realize that is a straight up insult, I want to to stress that it's not supposed to be something that you're ashamed of. I was TERRIBLE at magic back when I first started playing. If you knew how Regeneration worked then you already made me look like a chump. The point is that takes a lot of time and effort to become a truly solid Magic player. I'm still far from a "pro" myself. Being a weaker player is nothing to be ashamed of because that's going to comprise all of us at some point in our Magic careers. It took me 7 years to learn how to build real decks; it doesn't happen overnight. There's no shame in not being the best player in the room.
Setting up the Game
One the most critical parts of having a smooth multiplayer game is to come prepared. To me, this means acquiring 3 things:
1) A big bag of dice,
2) A fresh piece of paper and a writing utensil,
3) A clean playing surface.
I have carried out this routine so many times by now that it's become ingrained in my body. Without even thinking about it, I will instinctively prepare these 3 things before the start of every game. While you may be reading this and thinking "thanks for nothing Sherlock," I still feel as thought they're important preparations to make.
Dimension the Dice
Investing in a big set of dice from one of your local gaming shops is easily the best investment that a multiplayer fanatic could ever make. It's virtually impossible to have too many of them, especially in bigger games. Years of experience has taught me that almost every deck will need them for something, be it counters or tokens, but that almost no one will ever bring anything to represent the pieces themselves. People could honestly be playing "Token.deck" with 100 token producers and pure Vivid lands (Vivid Marsh for example) and they still wouldn't have anything to use to represent counters/tokens lol. If you want to save yourself a lot of time and hassle, get a big bag of dice and bring it to every game. You'll be a hero every time.
Gooooooooooooal!
One thing that I've always believed strongly in is that every multiplayer game should have a "score keeper." I also believe that it should be the most experienced person at the table. While it's perfectly fine if people want to keep track their own life totals I'd still never play a game where I didn't have a big sheet of paper beside me that had them all. This ironically contradicts my next piece of advice but it's a "necessary evil" in my experience. More on this later though, back to the matter at hand! As I was saying, years of experience has taught me that players, especially newer ones, tend to miss things that happen during the game. A lot of people don't know what Syphon Soul does and they might not hear when someone plays it. I (the most experienced player) know precisely what the card does and so I'll almost never forget to tick everyone down 2 and to tick John up by 10 or whatever. Another example that I've seen time and time again is Swords to Plowshares. Removal all starts to look the same after awhile and so many players forget that StP gains them life. I've corrected people many times by reminding that they're actually at a much higher life total than they previously thought. What I will strongly suggest is that you pretend like the "score keeper" has everyone's best interests in mind. For example, when someone plays Soul's Attendant, I don't make them tell me that they're saying "yes" to the trigger. When a creatures comes into play I tick them up a life. Period. If they want to remind me, that's fine. Still, I'd never punish anyone for missing the trigger. I'll always tell people what their actual life total "should be" so that they can correct it to account for any triggers that they may have forgotten about. Multiplayer games can get chaotic, political, and even completely sidetracked by personal discussions. People shouldn't be punished for trying to socialize lol. For what it's worth it's basically gotten to the point where people in my playgroups have stopped keeping track of their life total altogether. Most people find it much easier to let the most experienced player (i.e. me) handle it since I typically do a better job at it and it lets them concentrate on other things. It works, so if you have someone willing to put forth the time and effort to doing it, then I strongly recommend that you have one.
No Dessert Until You Clean Your Room
Every game of Magic should start on a completely flat, clean surface. No phones, no books, no iPods, no extra cards, no sideboards, no nothing. Everything that you have on that table/floor/whatever that isn't a player's deck is just going to get in the way. Games go long, people play a lot of lands, board states get cluttered, etc. You don't want anything around that will obstruct people's view because it just makes the game that much more complicated. People constantly have to ask what creatures people have out, how big they are, etc. You always want to have a nice, open view of everything if possible. Now, I realize that people will usually want to bring out snacks and whatnot and that's obviously fine. Just try to move the bowls (or whatever) away once they're empty. Some people might be thinking "but Cz, you JUST told us to have a big piece of paper that tracks life totals. That's going to eat up space!" Ok, you caught me. While it's true that a life pad takes up critical space I also believe that it's an essential component to the game. The one question that people ask more than anything else (in my experience) is "what is everyone at?" Being able to "point and click" rapid fire answers to each player saves minutes (don't laugh, it adds up) of wasted time trying to pry the information from everyone. The ability to do a "roll call" in under 10 seconds is well worth the lost space.
Starting the Game
While this section may seem very simple I do believe that it's worth discussing the basics of getting a game underway. My personal ritual is to grab a stack of lands (from my deck, a Cube, a land box, etc.) and to shuffle them up alongside a single spell. After I've sufficiently randomized the pile I'll deal the cards out to the players 1 at a time until someone gets dealt the spell. That player will play first and turn order will proceed clockwise from there. I do not recommend having each player flip the top card of his or her deck and letting the person who flips the highest CMC spell play first. I've seen that method used a lot but it's not even close to being something that's fair, randomized. Each player will draw a 7 card starting hand and have the option to take a free mulligan if they so desire. Future mulligans will result in drawing one fewer cards for each one taken. Each player will start the game with 20 life points and each player will draw a card on his or her first turn.
Playing the Game
How you play the game can be just as important as how you set it up. There are many tendencies that I've acquired over the years to keep my play going at a reasonable pace. I typically try and share these tips with other players, as I find them to be extremely effective ways to keep the game on track. They are:
1) Using names,
2) Passing the turn when you've finished interacting with your opponents,
3) Cut the newbs some slack.
It's Greg Right?
The first trick, and probably the most important one of them all, is to just know everyone's name. CRAZY RIGHT? As sad as it sounds you have no idea how effective it is when it comes to keeping a game going. One thing that I've consistently noticed is that people do not pay attention to when their turn starts... ever. People will have passed the turn and the other player won't know about it for a full minute >.<. This is one of those things that eats tens of minutes of time for nothing, which again, really adds up in the long run. If you want someone to listen to you the 100% guaranteed way to get an instant reaction is to say "Joe, it's your turn." Not "hey, you're up." Not "I pass the turn." You MUST say the person's name if you want them to catch it every single time. Remember, you are not playing against a single opponent who is focusing all of his/her attention on you. Only a fraction of it will be headed your way. You need a system in place to get players to pay attention to when their turn starts and that can only be achieved by using a person's name. Trust me; it's the only thing that works.
As a side note, I don't recommend using a "token" to track the active player's turn. They don't work. Maybe if you're all poker players who grew up passing the dealer button it might happen but otherwise these gimmicks just hemorrhage time and confuse people. No one ever remembers to pass it because it's not something that they're used to do doing. No one grew up playing Magic and passing a "token" of some sort to track whose turn it is. It's not part of the game so it doesn't feel natural. Don't try and make people adopt it. They won't.
Meep-meep! (Says the Road Runner)
Another "big one" in my mind is keeping the game moving once you've finished interacting with your opponents. I'm going to share a quote that I heard a few weeks back, and it's something that I'm incredibly proud of. Ready? Here goes: "Wow, how is it already turn 5?" Simple huh? The first few turns of any Magic game are typically devoid of meaningful interactions. When you tap out to play a Cultivate you don't actually have to sit there and find the lands + shuffle your deck before you pass the turn. You're not interacting with anyone after all. Play the card, announce what you're searching for and pass the turn. Finish resolving it while the next player goes. The first ~4 turns of the game shouldn't take more than a minute each even in huge 8+ player games. Plan your plays ahead of time and pass the turn as soon as you've stopped interacting with the other players. There's almost no decisions to make since you should only really have 1 spell that's castable at the time. Play your land, play your creature (if any), play your draw spell (if any) and pass. Turns should start and end in seconds. A fair amount of them will simply be: draw, play a land, "go Tyler." Seconds! Don't sit around and think, don't make people watch you search for your Rampant Growth, just pass the turn and keep the ball rolling. I'm telling you, games can get shaved in half when the first 5 turns are over in the first 5 minutes. Now, one thing I will say is that I'd only recommend using this guideline if people are capable of playing at a brisk pace. If you're playing a card like Demonic Tutor it can't be to see what the table does before you make your selection. The search target(s) should be in your hand by the time the next player has untapped his/her lands and drawn a card. You can't spend the next 5 minutes mulling over what to take, gaining more and more information the longer you wait. This suggestion is designed to shave a few seconds off of the opening turns; it's not designed to give you unlimited time to make decisions.
Another minor suggestion is to not wait until end of turn to do everything. Let me preface this by saying that I realize how stupid that sounds. Believe me, I play Magic at a competitive level and I understand that what I'm saying is "bad advice" from a purely rational standpoint. Good players will always wait until the last possible second to make decisions. After all, why would you make one using imperfect information if you're weren't required to? Look, let's all be honest with each other for a second. You don't actually have to crack that Evolving Wilds at end of turn. Yes, the 100% optimal play is to wait until EOT to do it, but it really doesn't matter. What other players do in the interim isn't actually going to influence what you fetch. Don't pretend like it will. I strongly urge that if gathering additional information won't influence the decision at hand that you simply make it at everyone else's convenience. I mean, there used to be a time where everyone in my playgroup would spin their Sensei's Divining Top at end of turn. If you thought that it was bad with 1-2 players, try it with 8. "Shoot me now." (Don't lie, you all thought it.) Do everyone a favor and do it while the person directly preceding you is taking their turn. Yes, EOT would be better, but that just wastes so much time and it usually doesn't matter at all. If you legitimately have to hold up mana for counters/removal, so be it, but we all know that you don't need to bluff everything at all times. Even though it's not the right play, it's the courteous play. Just make it, I promise you that you won't regret it as long as everyone is willing to sacrifice a bit of value to save a ton of time.
David vs Goliath
Cutting the newbies some slack is something that a lot of people might not agree with but I really believe that it's an important aspect of a big multiplayer game. I don't expect everyone to get on board with this suggestion however and I wouldn't blame you if this didn't strike you as a worthwhile practice. Still, before I explain what it is, let me explain the theory behind it. Multiplayer Magic, to me, is all about fun. If every person at the table isn't having a good time then I personally feel as though I failed somewhere along the way. Granted, I can't stop someone from playing Winter Orb or whatever, but I don't want the experience to be ruined for anyone for factors beyond the cards themselves. At some point during your game a new player is going to make an obviously bad play. How people handle these situations will ultimately vary but I don't personally believe in the whole "learn through failure" system that some other people advocate. Making an idiotic mistake in front of your friends is embarrassing and it makes people feel bad. The right thing to do, in my opinion, is roll back the play and provide an explanation as to why it was a mistake. Until these people become more familiar with the rules there's no need to watch them make fools of themselves. Help them make the correct plays and ensure that every game is a learning experience for them. Positive reinforcement works much better than the negative kind in my experience and people tend to learn more, faster when they're having fun.
Another minor suggestion that I have concerns mana screw. I have a somewhat controversial way of handling it. If you don't like it, that's fine, ignore me. When I see a newer player stuck on lands and discarding cards I immediately propose that we allow him or her to flip for a land (put the other cards he or she reveals on the bottom of his or her library) instead of drawing a card next turn. Some people are probably screaming at their monitors in disgust because that's not part of the game. I wouldn't blame you. Still, I'd rather play imperfect Magic with a bunch of people who're all having fun than watch a new player wallow in misery as he or she spends 30 minutes not casting spells. These people are not experienced deckbuilders and they rarely-if-ever play enough lands. Yes, it's their own fault, but who cares? Not me. I value everyone's enjoyment more than I value the sanctity of the game. Again, I want to stress that this isn't a hard rule and it's not something that I let the good players at the table abuse. Not that anyone has ever tried to mind you, we have an implicit "gentleman's agreement" that it's reserved for newbs, but even if they did I wouldn't allow it.
Handling Rules Disputes
I'm going to go ahead and assume that you're probably not going to be playing with a pack of judges all of the time and so you'll inevitably encounter situations where a rules dispute will arise that no one will be completely certain about. While it's easy enough to say "just make a forum post and wait for a response" the reality is that it's A) not always an option and B) a bit too time consuming. You don't really want to put the game on hold while you wait for a response from someone trustworthy enough to believe. What I encourage you to do in these situations is to simply let the most experienced player act as the "head judge" in these situations and to make a ruling based on the input provided. I do not recommend leaving it up to the group. Singular experts tend to make better decisions than groups of people and so you're usually going to be better off letting the person with the most experience with the game have the final say. Right or wrong everyone should simply grit their teeth and roll with it. I strongly recommend that you investigate what the actual is at your earliest convenience and that you announce to the table at a future time if possible. This is a great learning opportunity for everyone that shouldn't be overlooked. Oh, and cut the decision maker some slack even if he or she was wrong! As long as they gave it their best effort that should be all that matters.
Tips to Newer Players
This sections is specifically directed at newer players. I'm somewhat hoping that you'll have been directed to this thread from one of your more experienced friends, since I can't see getting this message across to you otherwise. A lot of the suggestions that I was giving earlier were mostly directed towards experienced players, and so I wanted to cover some small things that might be useful to someone who's newer to the game. The 3 things that I want to cover are:
1) Only make obvious decisions,
2) It's always your turn,
3) Don't overextend.
Decision, Decisions...
Quick question before we jump into this: It's the start of your turn and you draw a card. It's Terror. The first thing that you do is try look at every creature in play and ask everyone what they all do. Does this sound like you? If so, then you're exactly the kind of person that this message is directed towards. Less experienced players tend to feel "compelled" to play their removal/theft/bounce/burn/whatever spells as soon they draw them. This seems to be especially true for hard removal. Whenever I see a newer player draw a card that reads say "destroy target artifact," they immediately look at every artifact in play and try to decide whether or not they should destroy it. I'm going to teach you a secret, one that all the good players use. Just pass the turn. Don't read every card, don't convince yourself that you need to play it, just sit back and pass the turn. When I say that "you should make obvious decisions," what I'm actually saying is that "you shouldn't make non-obvious decisions." Ok, that's confusing as Hell, but that's why I didn't word it that way to begin with lol. If you don't know what the artifacts in play are doing, that's probably because they're not making you miserable. If a card isn't making you miserable/threatening to destroy you, it's probably not important enough to remove. When there's a card out there that's actively hurting you, then it will be made obvious to you (at some point anyways) and that's when you'll want to go ahead and use your removal on it. Don't force yourself into plays that you simply don't need to make. You're not helping yourself. If you truly need to play removal spell, you'll know it. If you're trying to weigh the merits of a bunch of non-obvious options, the reality is that you're probably making a bad decision no matter what you choose. They're probably all "wrong." If you don't know what you want to remove immediately, then I strongly suggest that you just calmly pass the turn.
On that note, I want to talk about how you should go about answering threats. Let's say that Bob plays a 5/5 Dragon. It's very big and scary and that makes us afraid D:. What I'll see a lot of newer players do is just immediately kill it on the spot. Like, before the person can even explain what the card does someone will have Doom Bladed it. That is not what you want to be doing in a multiplayer setting. What most people tend to overlook is the fact that every creature is a potential win condition for you. Ok, not quite, but the point is that unless that Dragon is swinging at you, why would you care about it? Why wouldn't you want it to survive to kill off the other players? This is so crucial yet it's often completely overlooked by less experienced individuals. My advice to you, as a newer player, is to hold out playing removal for as long as possible. Do not kill that Dragon until it has actually attacked you. There's no need to if it was just going to be sent at Ted. That card can and often will do a ton of work for you, so it's in your best interest to let it live for as long as possible. Do not jump the gun and destroy it prematurely.
Break's Over, Get back to Work!
This, again, is mostly directed towards newer players. I'm always under the impression that players with less experience with the game aren't actively thinking about it unless it's their turn. Moreover, they seem to invent decision trees for themselves that don't actually exist. I'll give you an example. I'm always trying to help newer players learn, and so I'll often give players advice about what their best course of action to take is. And yes, before you ask, that does include plays that will actively screw myself over if that's what's in their best interest. Anyways, a lot of times I'll look at a player with 3 lands in play, a Cultivate in hand, and then some miscellaneous 5 and 6 drops. The obvious decision is to play the Cultivate and pass, which is something that they should have planned to carry out much earlier. I mean, there's basically nothing to even consider. There are no alternatives, no difficult choices, nothing. Why is this hard? Anyone who thought about what to do for more than 5 second would have come to the only conclusion available. Still, I used to consistently find myself in situations where newer players were taking a long time to reach simple, automatic conclusions such as these. My advice to you, to everyone, is to think about your turn before you find yourself "under the gun." I'm willing to bet that if you took 20 seconds to think about what you're doing on your next turn that it would be apparent and obvious way more often than it isn't. You don't have to wait until you draw your card + saw what everyone was doing to start creating a plan. You can always adjust it as needed but you should still be thinking about your next set of steps while the other players are taking their turns. Don't be that "deer in the headlights" player who has no idea what to do and ultimately passes the turn without doing anything (after having taken way too long to do so). Show everyone a bit of respect by not waiting until the last possible second to start thinking about what your plan should be. Speaking from years of personal experience, this is one thing that I wish more players would do. If you find yourself taking long turns where you ultimately do very little/nothing then you should probably ask yourself why it takes you so long to realize that you didn't have a good play to make to begin with. Why didn't you know that already? Most of this guide has been discussing things that experienced players can do to help newer ones. This is something that you can do for them. Please take the time to think through your options beforehand so that you have a good idea of what your next turn will look like.
It Doesn't Twist That Way
Finally, let's talk about overextending. What I typically see from newer players is that they get excited and play out their entire hand only find themselves on the receiving end of a Wrath of God. From there they never truly recover and do little more than "hang in there" without ever having a meaningful impact on the game. Multiplayer magic is a marathon, not a sprint. If you put yourself in a situation where you have everything on the line then you're just asking to get blown out by mass removal. Another common mistake thing that I consistently see is people who play out all of their creatures but who never do anything with them. They don't attack and they're not really being attacked so it feels like they're basically playing cards for no reason. If you don't need any more board presence just stop adding on to it! Keeping creatures in your hand is very important and will prevent you from ever being shut out of the game. For example, I find that having 2 "big" creatures in play is usually more than enough. It makes attacking you very difficult since you can always block their 2 worst creatures with your best ones which makes it difficult for people to profitably engage you. They could have 5 creatures out and it still wouldn't be worthwhile. 2 is also enough to put on some pressure if needed. If someone is playing that Control/Combo deck then 2 creatures is more than enough to force him to cast that Damnation or whatever. Get it out of his hand so that you can drop another set of beaters and repeat as needed. Now, this obviously isn't relevant if people in your meta aren't big on mass removal. At that point you're probably better off just playing everything as you draw it. Still, I've seen far too many games drag on because everyone overextended into mass removal. Take your time to draw it out before you commit too seriously to anything. Don't put yourself in a nigh-unwinnable situation because you jumped the gun. Try to ensure that you'll always have action even if you do get nuked a few times.
Conclusion
Let's wrap this up quickly. As I've said before, the goal of this thread was to provide the reader with some insights on how to manage their multiplayer games slightly more efficiently. Whenever I comment about the fact that I play with 8-10 people on average, the typical reaction that I get is "wow, 1 game must take all night." That simply isn't the case at all, as even the biggest groups can still grind through many games over the course of a play session. It's not about pressuring people into making decisions either, just simple tips and tricks that can keep the ball rolling at all times. Not everything that I've said here will appeal to everyone, and I completely understand if you're opposed to some of the suggestions that I've provided. Again, a lot of them are simply "necessary evils" in my mind if you want to have fast, fun games of Magic with all of your friends. It's doesn't always lead to perfect play, but it's close enough that you can still feel like a genius when you best your friends and family in battle. I hope that you've all taken something from having read this, and that you consider it to have been time well spent. Until next time fellow fanatics!
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
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Cheers!
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I'm trying not to get too hung up on small details if possible. The idea behind that tip was that you should come prepared with everything that you'll need to play the game. It doesn't matter whether it's dice, extra cards, or glass beads, the idea is that you have something that you can use to represent tokens and counters. That being said, I'm not sure that I follow your logic. Facedown cards suck up much more time than dice do. What's faster, getting passed a pile of cards and putting one under each of your creatures every time you activate your Gavony Township, or ticking up a die by 1? Dice and facedown cards have the same initial time sink of reaching for + placing the object the first time that it's used, but for every subsequent time that it's used dice are much faster. Reaching for cards and placing under things takes seconds, whereas turning a dice takes a fraction of a second. Putting your first token from Awakening Zone takes a bit of time, but ticking your die up by 1 every other turn is faster than grabbing a new token. I'm just not seeing how using facedown cards could ever be faster than using dice.
I wasn't trying to provide a timeframe for how long a game should take. I was merely providing some evidence (albeit anecdotal) that it's possible to have fast and interactive multiplayer games, even with large playgroups. While I realize that 3 player games can take 2+ hours, it doesn't have to be like that. 8 player games can indeed end in 30 minutes, and while deckbuilding is a big part of that, the overall pace of the game is going to be relevant as well. This may not turn 2 hour games into 45 minute games, but it may shave them down to 1.5 hour games.
To be honest, I wasn't even aware that this was a real thing. We've just always rolled a die. I'm not going to lie, but I was somewhat horrified to read how your playgroup handles it lol. I would never agree to that practice. It's not randomized (i.e. fair), it divulges information about your deck to other players, and it provides you with free information that you can use to your advantage with respect to planning your initial set of plays (based on what you've shipped to the bottom of your deck), etc. I can't say that I would ever recommend that practice when you could simply roll a die lol.
As I've said before, the one thing that I will not create are "rules." I will never say that "we handle mulligans by doing X." As such, our mulligan rules are very casual. If you look at a hand that you don't want, you're basically allowed to ship it. While we try to "suggest" that you only take one freebie, we've never stopped people from going back again if their next 7 is horrible. We don't make anyone reveal anything either. There's no prizes on the line, we could care less about ensuring that their hands are actually bad. Still, what I will say is that there's a implicit agreement amongst the "pros" to not (ab)use these lax mulligan rules. When one of the "good" players, (such as myself) at the table mulligans, we typically go down to 6 cards. While we could go to 7 if we wanted, there's a "silent agreement" that we don't. We really don't need to after all. So, in the interest of leveling the playing field we basically play the game normally without making it obvious to the rest of the players. This goes back to what I was saying throughout my thread. These "tips" aren't really there for the experienced players.
Casual magic should be fun for everyone. We don't want to punish the players who haven't memorized 10, 000 cards like some of us have. If people are making clearly incorrect plays, we'll always allow them to take it back and suggest the best course of action. And, again, I want to stress that we're impartial when we do so. You better believe that people have said "why don't you Replicate that Shattering Spree a few times to destroy my Caged Sun and his Extraplanar Lens? If you don't have any more plays then you probably should." The goal is never to manipulate them, just to highlight what the better play is.
I wanted to, but I couldn't think of a good way to explain it. I'll tell you one thing for now; we don't sit around while people decided whether or not they want to respond to everything that's played. The only time that we explicit state "does anyone want to respond to X" is when someone to equip a creature with a card like Lightning Greaves or Sword of Feast and Famine (as an example). If it's a simple matter of playing a spell, we basically just announce it and describe the card if needed. We don't "stop the game" unless something important is happening that could really screw over someone who didn't realize that X creature was getting Hexproof or something similar.
This is one instance where we (the experienced players) would never say anything. You're not Maxmillian Pegasus. You can't see what's in other player's hands and you shouldn't try to act like you can. If you want to play around some "would-be" spell(s), by all means. That's up to you. Still, I would never dissuade someone from attacking simply because he COULD have an answer.
Still, I'd like to touch a few things with respect to this subject. First of all, I don't like the idea of saying that "X has the most life." That makes it sound like he's the biggest threat, or that life is somehow a measure of who's winning. When asked about life totals, I will simply state a name a number in turn order. "Bob 11, Nicky 23, Rod 7, etc." Pointing out who's high and who's low doesn't seem fair, and so I would try to avoid that if at all possible. Intentional or not, you may be having a large influence on their decision. In the interest of fairness I wouldn't qualify the totals at all. A name and number is all they should need to make a decision for themselves.
Moreover, I think that the biggest mistake that people make in multiplayer is trying to play around removal. I don't really understand people's logic to be honest. Creatures are horrible because they have a painfully slow clock, they're vulnerable to removal, and they usually can't effectively fight past other creatures. The only upside to playing them is that you can field a couple good creatures and start going to town on the people who don't have much defense. Like, every aggro player should implicitly team up against the Combo/Control decks, field a few number of relevant threats, and force the Combo/Control players to win or die. They should attack them non-stop until they've all lost, at which point the creature decks can carry out their creature battles. The thought of playing an aggro deck and not attacking into defenseless players isn't a pleasant one for me. I will unabashedly slam my guys into them all day. They have an answer? That's fine, I made them have it. They don't have an answer? Well, they're just dead lol. I can still play other creatures if needed, and as long as the other aggro players can see that the path is "all clear," then everything should always work out in my favor. Aggro players who don't attack are players who don't want to win in my mind.
I don't think people realize how badly you can screw over the Control players by just attacking them. I don't even care if someone cheats and shows me the removal spell. I'll still attack them. Use it. This is especially true if your creature isn't even the best one of the field. Like, when I have a 4/4 and other players have big 6/6s, I will slam my 4/4 into anyone that I can. They kill it? That's fine, it just means that the 6/6s are free to get in. More often than not they won't kill it, because they basically can't afford to. People are way too passive in multiplayer.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
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"Assigning" the token to the dice. As far as tapped vs untapped goes, just put tapped "creatures" off to 1 side. I'll concede that it's not optimal, but I don't think face down cards work any better. It's still rather difficult to keep track of what is what unless you have the physical token card itself. That's simply not practical enough to even bother with. Dice is the lesser of many evils in my experience.
I'll give you a tip; try to act like a real Judge. Judges don't answer hypothetical questions, nor can they provide you with any strategic advice. They can, however, explain to you how a card works after it's been played. If someone clearly misplays a spell, then you can somewhat step in to try and help them and "correct" the situation, kind of like a real judge would. Maybe there's a better time/way to play the spell, and so maybe they should consider that alternative. Still, I don't think that you should ever tell someone to "attack each turn if able" or something. While I enjoy talking about multiplayer theory, and will happily discuss it with anyone who asks, I wouldn't impose my point of view on others during the game itself. I would never actively say "you should attack the Control players" if the aggro player wanted some advice on what to do. There's simply no impartial, unbiased, correct advice that you can give. The "right" thing to do will vary from person to person. I know that a lot of people will read my statement about attacking in multiplayer and think I'm crazy. The best strategy is to just sit back and do nothing until every kills each other off. Right? Not everyone shares the same opinion on this sort of thing, and so the best way to handle is to let people play for themselves. If Billy wants to attack the guy at 26 rather than the guy at 15 with a Necropotence in play, that's fine. That's his choice that he made. If he wants to sit back and do nothing, that's also fine. People have to play for themselves for the most part. The only time that you should step in is if people are missing small interactions or plays that might not have been obvious to someone with less experience.
And maybe I should make something else clear. When I say that we'll help newer players make the right decisions, that doesn't mean telling them to kill X over X with Terror. If someone wants to use spot removal on a card, that's fine. What I'm talking about is not Replicating Shattering Spree when there's clearly important targets left to hit, or forgetting to target the 5/5 Demon with Hex and choosing a mana dork instead. Clear omissions that no one would make. I'm not talking about "well you should kill that Dragon instead because it's bigger." If someone wants to use spot removal on a legal target, that's their choice.
I'll share a bit of story. My younger brother recently started playing Magic with his friends, and I was eventually invited to play with them after basically building their cube. They had one player who we'll call "James" who always threatened removal should anyone mess with him. Every game, all game, if someone was moving to attack him he'd "warn them" that removal was coming if they did. Now, flashback 5 years ago, and that was me in that seat. The Black player with mana untapped, why would you ever mess with him? Well, the truth is that the guy who talks the most is probably the guy who has to bluff a defense because he doesn't actually have it. If 2 players slam with with 5 dudes he's just going to die. So, every game all game I would attack James. He rarely if ever had it, and was usually the first person to lose. After a few games he started shutting up, since he realized that we were all seeing right through him. He couldn't bluff a defense any more, he actually needed the goods. No more was he building 8drop.deck with every Force imaginable (Verdant Force, Magmatic Force, Celestial Force). I attack the loud, manipulative players non-stop until they learn. Drawing attention to yourself might be a decent way to "hide" in some metas, but the best way to counteract that is to not let them get away with it. Do everything in your power to make him lose. If he tries to rally people against you, remind them that you're not hurting them at all, just "James." Why should they help him when you're not a threat to them? Why would they waste their removal for no reason? Fight fire with fire :P. I'm not a manipulative player, I don't try and get people to team up against other ones like I used to when I was a kid. Still, if someone is trying to control the game so that he can win it, I definitely won't sit back and do nothing. Just remind everyone that you're only going after the loudmouth. You don't have to try and get anyone to team up on him or anything, just don't give anyone a reason to rally to his defense. They usually won't.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
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If you live in an adaptive meta that will learn from their mistakes and compensate for them in future decks, then I completely agree with your reasoning. We all started off playing 19 land decks filled with 6 drops, and we all learned the hard way why it doesn't work. Those kinds of "growing pains" are important to experience if you plan to improve yourself as a Magic player.
What I will say is that there are some players who don't intend to ever improve their level of play. They only play the game for social reasons, and have no desire to improve themselves as player. As long as they have a deck and know the rules enough to hang out with their friends and play the game, they're happy. All the mana screw in the world won't get them to change their habits. Every now and then you'll be playing with someone like that, and so sometimes it's nice to have a contingency plan that can keep the game "fun" for everyone.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
That is a good point. I guess my playgroup is very static and we rarely get new people out so we don't really have to worry about this.
The problem that I personally have with that approach is that it's basically an exercise in futility. How can you ever truly calculate what you need to do in order to win when N opponents are drawing X random cards per turn and all have hands with threats and answers in them? Can you actually plan a way to play around all of their potential top decks and tricks? At the end of the day you're going to need to get lucky to win; it's not usually going to be some carefully planned ordeal that will snag a victory. The reality is that you're probably just wasting everyone's time far more often than you're not, since game states tend to change wildly every few turns.
In addition, I don't think that you can reasonably see the lines that you'll need to take in order to win. I'll concede the fact that it's possible that you just play the same deck over and over, but something tells me that you change it up enough that you'll never truly get comfortable with any one build. As someone who frequently cubes and who has exactly 0 decks sleeved up at any one time (I build them all on the spot when I play), I can tell you that I always forget about X card in my deck and how drawing it could drastically improve my position. I doubt you're any different; we're all human after all.
Anyways, the point that I'm trying to make is that your friends are probably "justifiably mad" at you if you take the time to plan ahead every turn. I'm not saying that you can't ever take the time to plan for a line that could win you the game, but that's basically only going to be useful if it's something that you can immediately act upon. If you're planning 2-3 turns ahead, I legitimately think that you're probably just wasting time. I've played with a lot of "slow" players in my day, and I can tell you that there's basically no legitimate justification for it in my mind. If you're a player with a strong familiarity with the game (i.e. you're not someone who's still learning it) then you should be more than capable of playing at a brisk pace. There's a lot, and I do mean a LOT of time during everyone else's turn that you can spent plotting and planning, so I really do advocate not waiting until it's your turn to start doing it. Even if you can't see all the lines that your deck has, you should still know its basic shell. I mean, if you're playing a Sliver deck, you have a pretty good idea of the kinds of cards that you're going to draw. What your actual draw step yields might change your lines slightly, but it shouldn't come as some massive shocker that will change everything. You should have a good idea of what you should be playing already, so any new information should only give you a bit of pause at most.
This annoys me for a different reason. Every creature in play is a potential win condition for everyone else. When Bob plays a 5/5 dragon, that's a 5/5 Dragon that could be attacking Ted for me. Why would I kill something like that? I mean yeah, if it heads my way then sure, but why not wait and see?
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
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Just a question. ¿How do you recomend to manage the begining draw when there are 4 or more players? My friends and I let our selves to have 1 free muligan at the begining and the only person who draws on the first turn is the last player on the round.
In multiplayer games, everyone draws on their first turn. Seasoned multiplayers realize that the first few turns are spent mana-fixing and laying out defenses rather than aggressively attacking, so the draw matters little in the grand scheme of things.
A free mulligan is common, as well.
Cz's guides are good stuff and have spurred many a shopping trip for myself and others.
Cheers!
Krichaiushii on PucaTrade.
Thanks again krichaiushii we gave the last person on our games the chance to start drawing because I sugested it after watching that the last player seems to have a certain kind of disatvantage when playing againt 3 or more players :S I don't know maybe its just me and I'm wrong.
Everyone should draw a card on their first turn. The advantage of playing first is drastically mitigated in a multiplayer but the loss of card advantage is significant.
If your meta wants to roll with a free mulligan rule, that's fine. It's difficult to strike a balance between something that'll work for both the pros and the newbs. The best argument for the free mulligan rule is that an overpowered deck is always going to be overpowered and a bit of extra consistency isn't going to significantly effect that. Conversely, you don't want newer players to feel compelled to keep 2 land hands and whatnot to avoid going down to 6. That will typically end poorly for them and could easily ruin the game for multiple people. The idea here is that a free mull will never help the pros that much but it will save the newer players from a ton of grief.
You'd be surprised. Personally I think of multiplayer Magic as being something closer to a poker table. Who's on your left and who's on your right tends to matter much more than you're staring position. Position is key in both games and some games are going to be won or lost based on your proximity to the strong and/or weak players.
In addition, there are plenty of cards and strategies that benefit from going last. I want to cast Pox when you all have 4 lands but I only have 3. If I'm on the play then I don't have a great opportunity to nail everyone. Land Tax is the same thing. What? Is no one going to play a second land? Yeah right! Arguments can be made wither way but at the end of the day it's not usually a very big deal in my experience. In theory is could be if you played in some severely warped meta dominate by degenerate combo or aggro decks but I mean that's not going to be the case very often. Insofar as people are mostly just playing a fair game of Magic then turn order advantage should vanish almost instantly. Your relative position to the other players is what will quickly matter the most.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
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O.O
I was not aware of this! Has that always been there?
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Yes, actually that's the only reason we decided to let the free mulligan thing be like it is, we never took the time to think if it was fair or not.
We manage life points at 20 as any normal magic 1vs1 game. You guys do the same? Not sure if this is offtopic -.-
To Cz: it would be awosome if you added to your guide what kind of rulling's you play with your group or you recomend from your own experience, just the main ones like how you decide who starts, how you manage the first draw phase, life points, etc.
Yeah we always do the 20 point life total. I know that some people like to do 40 ala EDH, which is fine, it's just not something that interests us. The problem with a 40 life start or whatever is that you can't really pressure anyone period. It's so pointless to "start the game" before turn 4 or whatever because your dorky 2/2 for 2 isn't going to accomplish anything. At that point you may as well just play the greediest build filled with the most powerful stuff because realistically people can't stop you from doing something insane and greedy. At least with 20 life you have the option of pressuring someone who needs to be stopped.
Very good suggestion on the rulings questions! I'll add them.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
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No, it hasn't always been there. I don't remember this rule being there back in 6th edition. In fact, multiplayer rules were pretty minimal for a long time.
My bad then :S, I forgot I started playing magic again practically recently lol and that is when I first took a look at the rules... I can say I was introduced to magic in Onslaught since I bought my first intro pack at that point (clerics so bad at that time T-T) lol I still have the box and all... but I never really played a lot on that time so I will say I first checked the rules when I started playing constantly arround M11 and Scars.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Lol ok.. maybe not bad, but omg I got bored as you said it was like...
Me: How your deck wins?
Him: I can hit you with my... i dont know 13/13 trample in turn whatever, or I can counter your spells; What can you do with your deck?
Me: Weeeeell I can... slow the game and prevent damage like all the game you know...
Him: ¿And how do you win?
Me: Well I'm not sure... never got to that... my friend's mom always came home before we got to finish the game... But it's cool... you know? Not bad for my first deck right? Right!? Want to play? Hello?
So yes... I used the word bad in a wrong way, but trust me a clerics deck it's not good to introduce yourself to magic and make friends, at least not at that time