How do you handle house rules in your playgroup (if you have any)? Are they more like loose social conventions (e.g. land destruction and infinity combos are generally frowned upon and no one builds decks with that because they don't want to cause groans or bad blood), or do you have strict rules (e.g. land destruction and combos are expressly forbidden by some sort of explicit agreement)? Or do you even have certain in-game house rules, such as "Basic lands are indestructible", "Sol Ring can't be cast before turn 3" or "If a combo could be repeated infinitely, the player may only repeat it X number of times."? How did you come up with the rules? Are there disputes about how to apply the house rules? If so, how do you resolve these disputes?
EDIT: To clarify, I am not asking so much about which specific house rules you have (although you are welcome to give examples or otherwise elaborate) but rather about the character of your house rules. How strictly are they codified?
Riku of Two Reflections - Copy, then copy again | Shattergang Brothers - Token Sac&Recur | Gahiji, Honored One - Multiple attack steps | Karametra, God of Harvests - Landfall, Creaturefall, Shroud | Ruhan of the Fomori - Stop hitting yourself | Zurgo Helmsmasher - Equipment&Wraths | Crosis, the Purger - Dragon Tribal Reanimator | Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - No stax, just tap and untap fun | Anafenza, the Foremost - Enduring Ideal Enchantress | Sharuum, the Hegemon - Sphinx Tribal Control | Noyan Dar - Spellslinger | The Mimeoplasm - Counterpalooza
Lists can be found here.
Still convinced the guy on Beseech the Queen is wearing a Mitra-type hat. Wake up sheeple!
- Scoop only in sorcery speed
- Try not to play combo decks
- We abondoned the bannlist save for several cards like solring and prophet of krulphix, so don't abuse the other ones too hard.
- You may take back actions as long as no new information was revealed
- You may take upkeep triggers even after you drew a card if it was obvious you'd be going to use them (Like paying for pacts, or "upkeep may draw a card"
- If you forgot a forced trigger and new information was revealed you have to take the worst outcome for you
- As long as your land count't isn't below 34, you may basicly stop mulligaining at 5 scry 1, so you don't need to start with 2 or 3 cards (as long as its not abused)
- Unwritten Rule: Pacts made are quite binding, we had broken pacts 2 times in the last several years^^
Thanks! What do you mean by "try not to play combo decks"?
Riku of Two Reflections - Copy, then copy again | Shattergang Brothers - Token Sac&Recur | Gahiji, Honored One - Multiple attack steps | Karametra, God of Harvests - Landfall, Creaturefall, Shroud | Ruhan of the Fomori - Stop hitting yourself | Zurgo Helmsmasher - Equipment&Wraths | Crosis, the Purger - Dragon Tribal Reanimator | Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - No stax, just tap and untap fun | Anafenza, the Foremost - Enduring Ideal Enchantress | Sharuum, the Hegemon - Sphinx Tribal Control | Noyan Dar - Spellslinger | The Mimeoplasm - Counterpalooza
Lists can be found here.
Still convinced the guy on Beseech the Queen is wearing a Mitra-type hat. Wake up sheeple!
I play a store most of all and no one there is really into house rules at all, outside of weird individual quirks (one player will scoop if anyone plays a Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger for an example) that come up from time to time. We just play Commander straight with all the cards and strategies that allows, MLD, Combo, Stax, Aggro, Control, Tempo name your flavor of magic and it will show up at some point at some level of power.
I much prefer this and am glad that people don't want to try and be finicky with a lot of house rules stuff.
One we sometimes play with is if you have no lands in hand. Reveal your hand (to prove it) and take a free mull. Of course we do not always use that rule. I just find it fair. The spirit of the game is to play and have fun. No fun if you cannot cast anything for seven turns because you are not drawing into land.
If you are playing a high cmc deck however, and do not draw lands for 7 turns. Time to rethink your deck.
If people are sick of reading about stuff just stop taking part. You have 100% control over what you read. Simic Ascendancy isn't going to get banned just because you didn't tell someone to shut up on the internet.
We don't have house "rules", but generally people don't play anything too nasty. It's mostly built on the majority of our players being relatively new/bad/on a budget - not many people restricting deckbuilding based on actual principles, which makes it a little bit shaky at times. But on the plus side, people aren't trying to narrowly circumvent the rules. Occasionally people will have more competitive decks, but generally not powerful enough that the other players ganging up on them doesn't give everyone a fair shake.
Personally I've stopped using mass LD, and generally avoid anything that ends up creating an unpleasant play experience (by which I mean I disassemble it afterwards - I'll still play it until the end of the night usually).
Generally I think outlawing certain specific things is not an ideal way to go since I think, if you've got people who were previously breaking those rules they'll probably just want to get as close to breaking them as possible - ideally I think everyone should just have the same understanding of how they want games to go. But of course that's a bit unrealistic.
EDIT: To clarify, I am not asking so much about which specific house rules you have (although you are welcome to give examples or otherwise elaborate) but rather about the character of your house rules. How strictly are they codified?
Tamanoa - Welcome to the Jungle
Lists can be found here.
Tamanoa - Welcome to the Jungle
Lists can be found here.
I much prefer this and am glad that people don't want to try and be finicky with a lot of house rules stuff.
If you are playing a high cmc deck however, and do not draw lands for 7 turns. Time to rethink your deck.
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
Personally I've stopped using mass LD, and generally avoid anything that ends up creating an unpleasant play experience (by which I mean I disassemble it afterwards - I'll still play it until the end of the night usually).
Generally I think outlawing certain specific things is not an ideal way to go since I think, if you've got people who were previously breaking those rules they'll probably just want to get as close to breaking them as possible - ideally I think everyone should just have the same understanding of how they want games to go. But of course that's a bit unrealistic.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6