In this article, Stairc outlines a new variant format with stakes higher than normal Magic. Also, advice on buying cards with gold.
The Pitch
Imagine a salesman coming up to you and saying, "Step right up, because have I got a deal for you! It's a brand new game with infinite replay value, deep strategy, and over twenty years of content. And what will this game cost you? Nothing! You can play it with the cards you already have."
Sound good? Then let me tell you a story.
The Origins
As a game designer, I spend at least half my time worrying about how to cost stuff. I'm working on a fantasy card game right now called Faeria, and the team has spent countless weeks discussing the core economics underlying the game. It's a lot of work, and it also means that we can't design a lot of cards we'd like to because we might not be sure what the right cost for a hard-to-evaluate ability is.
On the other hand, when I'm playing a game it's completely different. If I find something is undercosted as a player, I get to have fun winning with it. If I'm the designer, I have to fix it.
I decided to try something out. Could I make a game where players set the cost for each card themselves? Some sort of auction perhaps, so figuring out how much a card should cost becomes part of the game. We designers would suddenly be able to make all the cool stuff we've wanted to and spend more time on making the game as fun as possible. Meanwhile, players would have a huge opportunity for strategy by figuring out how much they should bid on each card.
I slapped together some quick rules. Since I was only trying to figure out if the process of setting your own prices for cards would be engaging, I decided to test out the concept with an existing card game: Magic: the Gathering. Why make hundreds of new cards and new rules to test one idea? If the gameplay proved even remotely fun with Magic cards, I could look into building the standalone game I was thinking about.
I called up my friend Carson for a quick test.
Four hours later, it was 2 AM and we were still playing.
As you can guess, things were more than just "remotely fun." Even after the night dragged us away from our games, we went home and kept cooking up changes to the rules and tweaks to the cards we were using. This wasn't just a test for a game concept. It wasn't just a new way to play Magic. It was basically a whole new game you could play with the Magic cards you already owned.
Here’s what I ended up with after a few weeks of polishing, dozens of playtests, and hours of lost productivity.
High Stakes Magic
The Nutshell
Instead of building decks and managing mana, each turn players bid on cards revealed from a shared stack called the auction block. Players get to assemble their strategies while they’re playing the game.
How Does it Feel?
It depends on the auction block you put together, but in ours the game feels both tense and chess-like. As you get an equal chance to bid on every card revealed, and you know what your opponents have access to because you saw them purchase it, the game becomes a unique experience of card evaluation and counter-play. For a detailed discussion of a lot of our experiences testing the format, you can listen to episode four of the Remaking Magic podcast.
The Rules
Gameplay follows the normal rules of Magic, save for the following exceptions:
1) Players begin the game with 10 gold and no starting hand. Gold is a currency used to purchase cards that come up for auction. At the end of each player's turn, all players gain 3 gold.
2) Players do not bring decks to the table. Instead, a single stack of cards called the auction block is shuffled and placed on the table.
3) The draw step is replaced with the auction step. At the beginning of the auction step, reveal the top card of the auction block. The active player may then bid an amount of gold for that card, including zero. In turn order, each player may top the high bid. Each player may only bid once. The bidding ends when all players have had the opportunity to bid. The high bidder loses gold equal to the high bid and purchases the card.
Note: Players cannot bid more gold than they possess.
Note: If no player bids on a card, it is placed on the bottom of the auction block and the auction step repeats.
4) Upon purchasing a card, the purchasing player may choose either to cast the card immediately without paying its mana cost, regardless of timing rules, or to put the purchased card into their hand. Players may cast cards in hand without paying their mana costs. However, once a card is in hand, it must follow the normal rules as to when it can be played.
For example, a player might purchase a Grizzly Bears during the auction step. They then have the option to cast the spell immediately without paying its mana cost or put it into their hand. Once in hand, the Grizzly Bears can only be played when it is legal to play it card type.
5) If the purchased card wasn't a creature card, repeat the auction step. This process repeats until a player purchases a creature card.
6) The auction block is considered a communal library for the purpose of card effects. For example, Sage Owl's effect allows you to rearrange the top four cards of your library. In High Stakes, this allows you to rearrange the top four cards of the auction block. Similarly, Memory Lapse counters a spell and returns it to the top of the auction block. You can probably see how such library manipulation effects have wildly new strategic applications in High Stakes, as they allow you to manipulate the auctions to your advantage.
7) Likewise, whenever an effect causes a player to draw cards, that player puts that many cards from the top of the auction block into their hand. Like all cards in hand, they will be able to be cast without paying their mana costs.
8) At any time, and as many times per turn as they desire, a player may spend one gold to add one mana of any color to their mana pool. This allows players to pay for certain costs, like kicker, cycling, or equip costs. It also makes cards like Mana Leak rather interesting.
9) Players play with their hands revealed. This is to prevent people from having to memorize cards they've already seen purchased at auction by the other players.
The game has only been tested in a two-player format so far. It's recommended that you play the game as a two-player duel before testing anything else.
Why It's Fun
I've been addicted to playing High Stakes for the last few months. Here are a few reasons why.
First, High Stakes provides the draft-like experience of evaluating card choices and crafting your strategy while you're playing the game. You don't have to separate the drafting experience from the gameplay, you can just grab your auction block and start playing.
Second, I get to enjoy playing with cards in my collection I never have before, because almost every card is worth at least one gold. Chimney Imp has been a great card in our block, and I've had even more fun with Witch-Maw Nephilim. Wurmskin Forger might even be one of the least playable cards in Modern, but here he's a powerhouse that combos with all our counter-loving cards.
Third, High Stakes makes even cards we're familiar with feel new again. Cards like Figure of Destiny and Evernight Shade work with the gold system in interesting new ways. Scrying lets you control the auction and bid more intelligently. There are many, many more examples and I've found myself spending hours pouring through the game to discover hidden gems.
Fourth, each game is an extraordinary new challenge. The correct value for each card naturally changes based on the board state and every game is different. Also, because I have a chance to buy each card, there's not much room for frustration. There was always a way I could have won.
Fifth, it's very fun to build an auction block. It gathers all the fun of building a custom limited environment, like designing your own cube, in a new and elegant way. Designing a great cube is highly complex, but High Stakes lets you skate around worries of converted mana cost and color. As long as you keep some major ratios balanced, you can mostly include any card that looks fun.
Building an Auction Block
A few months ago, I made the mistake of introducing High Stakes to Reuben Covington, my co-host on the Remaking Magic podcast. For a while, every recording was delayed as we tried out the latest versions of his ever-changing Auction Block. In the process we've discovered some guidelines that will help you construct your own.
That's it. Just make sure you have lots of cool strategies to build around, stick to 50% creatures and 15% removal spells, make sure few of your creatures are useless in combat against the other creatures in the block and make sure you don't include lots of cards that stall the board or make the game go on forever. Oh, and card draw is super powerful, so bear that in mind.
Our Auction Block
Here’s the current form of the block Reuben and I have been testing for a few months now. It's very long, so I'm going to place it in a spoiler. Because our current block tends to use smaller creatures, we've decided to start our games at 13 life instead of 20 for fast games. We use the full 20 when we want a more epic back-and-forth.
Final Thoughts
I've been having an absolute blast playing High Stakes, so much that it's been seriously interfering with my productivity. Every game feels completely fresh, every auction provides brand new considerations to the card's value based on the board state. It's a wonderful mix between having no idea what cards are going to show up and having extraordinary control over how you react to them. Except for card draw effects, any card that's killing you is doing so because you decided to buy something else instead.
I've also spent hours going through my collection and searching Gatherer to find cards that could be cool for the format. Can we add spirits to our block and take advantage of both Kamigawa and Innistrad's spirit tribal? What about adding in bounce effects in combination with lots of enter the battlefield triggers? Hey, Æther Adept can bounce itself and then be recast in an infinite cycle of creatures entering the battlefield! That could be cool with Herd Gnarr.
I even got to play with Chimney Imp... and it was awesome.
Magic feels fresh and strange again, skill-testing and tense. I feel like I'm rediscovering the game I love, but in a new way that just happens to be played with the cards I already have. Whole shoeboxes of junk cards are calling to me, alive with possibilities.
Welcome to the auction. We hope you find a bargain.
Disclaimer
Since Magic is decades old, I'm sure a lot of awesome people have already have been enjoying similar ideas. If you're one of those lucky people, please post your ideas and discoveries. I'd love to hear what you've come up with.
Editor's note: A previous version of rule 3 was unclear regarding cases where players have zero gold. The rule has been updated to address this.
Imagine a salesman coming up to you and saying, "Step right up, because have I got a deal for you! It's a brand new game with infinite replay value, deep strategy, and over twenty years of content. And what will this game cost you? Nothing! You can play it with the cards you already have."
Sound good? Then let me tell you a story.
The Origins
As a game designer, I spend at least half my time worrying about how to cost stuff. I'm working on a fantasy card game right now called Faeria, and the team has spent countless weeks discussing the core economics underlying the game. It's a lot of work, and it also means that we can't design a lot of cards we'd like to because we might not be sure what the right cost for a hard-to-evaluate ability is.
On the other hand, when I'm playing a game it's completely different. If I find something is undercosted as a player, I get to have fun winning with it. If I'm the designer, I have to fix it.
I decided to try something out. Could I make a game where players set the cost for each card themselves? Some sort of auction perhaps, so figuring out how much a card should cost becomes part of the game. We designers would suddenly be able to make all the cool stuff we've wanted to and spend more time on making the game as fun as possible. Meanwhile, players would have a huge opportunity for strategy by figuring out how much they should bid on each card.
I slapped together some quick rules. Since I was only trying to figure out if the process of setting your own prices for cards would be engaging, I decided to test out the concept with an existing card game: Magic: the Gathering. Why make hundreds of new cards and new rules to test one idea? If the gameplay proved even remotely fun with Magic cards, I could look into building the standalone game I was thinking about.
I called up my friend Carson for a quick test.
Four hours later, it was 2 AM and we were still playing.
As you can guess, things were more than just "remotely fun." Even after the night dragged us away from our games, we went home and kept cooking up changes to the rules and tweaks to the cards we were using. This wasn't just a test for a game concept. It wasn't just a new way to play Magic. It was basically a whole new game you could play with the Magic cards you already owned.
Here’s what I ended up with after a few weeks of polishing, dozens of playtests, and hours of lost productivity.
High Stakes Magic
The Nutshell
Instead of building decks and managing mana, each turn players bid on cards revealed from a shared stack called the auction block. Players get to assemble their strategies while they’re playing the game.
How Does it Feel?
It depends on the auction block you put together, but in ours the game feels both tense and chess-like. As you get an equal chance to bid on every card revealed, and you know what your opponents have access to because you saw them purchase it, the game becomes a unique experience of card evaluation and counter-play. For a detailed discussion of a lot of our experiences testing the format, you can listen to episode four of the Remaking Magic podcast.
The Rules
Gameplay follows the normal rules of Magic, save for the following exceptions:
1) Players begin the game with 10 gold and no starting hand. Gold is a currency used to purchase cards that come up for auction. At the end of each player's turn, all players gain 3 gold.
2) Players do not bring decks to the table. Instead, a single stack of cards called the auction block is shuffled and placed on the table.
3) The draw step is replaced with the auction step. At the beginning of the auction step, reveal the top card of the auction block. The active player may then bid an amount of gold for that card, including zero. In turn order, each player may top the high bid. Each player may only bid once. The bidding ends when all players have had the opportunity to bid. The high bidder loses gold equal to the high bid and purchases the card.
Note: Players cannot bid more gold than they possess.
Note: If no player bids on a card, it is placed on the bottom of the auction block and the auction step repeats.
4) Upon purchasing a card, the purchasing player may choose either to cast the card immediately without paying its mana cost, regardless of timing rules, or to put the purchased card into their hand. Players may cast cards in hand without paying their mana costs. However, once a card is in hand, it must follow the normal rules as to when it can be played.
For example, a player might purchase a Grizzly Bears during the auction step. They then have the option to cast the spell immediately without paying its mana cost or put it into their hand. Once in hand, the Grizzly Bears can only be played when it is legal to play it card type.
5) If the purchased card wasn't a creature card, repeat the auction step. This process repeats until a player purchases a creature card.
6) The auction block is considered a communal library for the purpose of card effects. For example, Sage Owl's effect allows you to rearrange the top four cards of your library. In High Stakes, this allows you to rearrange the top four cards of the auction block. Similarly, Memory Lapse counters a spell and returns it to the top of the auction block. You can probably see how such library manipulation effects have wildly new strategic applications in High Stakes, as they allow you to manipulate the auctions to your advantage.
7) Likewise, whenever an effect causes a player to draw cards, that player puts that many cards from the top of the auction block into their hand. Like all cards in hand, they will be able to be cast without paying their mana costs.
8) At any time, and as many times per turn as they desire, a player may spend one gold to add one mana of any color to their mana pool. This allows players to pay for certain costs, like kicker, cycling, or equip costs. It also makes cards like Mana Leak rather interesting.
9) Players play with their hands revealed. This is to prevent people from having to memorize cards they've already seen purchased at auction by the other players.
The game has only been tested in a two-player format so far. It's recommended that you play the game as a two-player duel before testing anything else.
Why It's Fun
I've been addicted to playing High Stakes for the last few months. Here are a few reasons why.
First, High Stakes provides the draft-like experience of evaluating card choices and crafting your strategy while you're playing the game. You don't have to separate the drafting experience from the gameplay, you can just grab your auction block and start playing.
Second, I get to enjoy playing with cards in my collection I never have before, because almost every card is worth at least one gold. Chimney Imp has been a great card in our block, and I've had even more fun with Witch-Maw Nephilim. Wurmskin Forger might even be one of the least playable cards in Modern, but here he's a powerhouse that combos with all our counter-loving cards.
Third, High Stakes makes even cards we're familiar with feel new again. Cards like Figure of Destiny and Evernight Shade work with the gold system in interesting new ways. Scrying lets you control the auction and bid more intelligently. There are many, many more examples and I've found myself spending hours pouring through the game to discover hidden gems.
Fourth, each game is an extraordinary new challenge. The correct value for each card naturally changes based on the board state and every game is different. Also, because I have a chance to buy each card, there's not much room for frustration. There was always a way I could have won.
Fifth, it's very fun to build an auction block. It gathers all the fun of building a custom limited environment, like designing your own cube, in a new and elegant way. Designing a great cube is highly complex, but High Stakes lets you skate around worries of converted mana cost and color. As long as you keep some major ratios balanced, you can mostly include any card that looks fun.
Building an Auction Block
A few months ago, I made the mistake of introducing High Stakes to Reuben Covington, my co-host on the Remaking Magic podcast. For a while, every recording was delayed as we tried out the latest versions of his ever-changing Auction Block. In the process we've discovered some guidelines that will help you construct your own.
- Make sure your auction block is about 50% creatures. You want to frequently be flipping noncreature cards to make the auctions more exciting. You might want to stay closer to 60% if your prefer a little less variety in your auctions, or drop down below 50% if you want to buy tons of cards each auction. 50-60% is probably a good baseline though.
- Make sure few, if any, creatures are useless in combat. The rule about auctioning until you reveal a creature is to ensure that the player behind on the board has a chance to buy a crucial blocker and stabilize. Including Squire in your auction block alongside a bunch of 6/6 creatures won't lead to a great experience. In general, you'll want to keep the power level of your creatures to affect the board state somewhat similar. Our auction block uses mostly creatures ranging between 2/2 and 4/4, with some notable outliers that have cool abilities.
- Make sure there are lots of cool strategies to build around in your auction block. Try out interesting artifacts alongside an Etched Champion. If your auction block uses a lot of +1/+1 counters, add in Abzan Battle Priest. These cards add new twists to the auction, because they make cards with synergy more desirable.
- Make sure removal is about 15% of the auction block. Additionally, this removal works best when it has limitations. Pacifism can be destroyed later by purchasing an enchantment-destruction effect. Pillar of Light works only on creatures of a certain toughness. Since players play with their hands revealed, you always know what answers your opponents have. If your opponent purchases a Pillar of Light, you can suddenly try to avoid buying creatures with high toughness. You can protect your most expensive creature investments by playing around the opponent's answers.
- Avoid including cards that easily draw you more than one card when played. Even a Divination is extremely powerful, since your cards in hand can be played for free. Ordeal of Thassa, on the other hand, provides a great reward to work towards.
- High Stakes encourages board stalls if you aren't careful. You shouldn't include any cards like Wall of Frost or Guardian Lions. Include cards that push the game to an end, like creatures with flying and cards that prevent your opponent from blocking. Additionally, you're going to want to avoid cards like Agent of Masks which do their best to slow the game down as much as possible.
That's it. Just make sure you have lots of cool strategies to build around, stick to 50% creatures and 15% removal spells, make sure few of your creatures are useless in combat against the other creatures in the block and make sure you don't include lots of cards that stall the board or make the game go on forever. Oh, and card draw is super powerful, so bear that in mind.
Our Auction Block
Here’s the current form of the block Reuben and I have been testing for a few months now. It's very long, so I'm going to place it in a spoiler. Because our current block tends to use smaller creatures, we've decided to start our games at 13 life instead of 20 for fast games. We use the full 20 when we want a more epic back-and-forth.
- 1 Abzan Battle Priest
- 1 Accorder Paladin
- 1 Adaptive Snapjaw
- 1 Agoraphobia
- 1 Ainok Bond-Kin
- 1 Alms Beast
- 1 Ancient Ooze
- 2 Angelic Edict
- 1 Curse of Chains
- 1 Primal Visitation
- 1 Dead Weight
- 1 Drake Umbra
- 1 Sudden Demise
- 1 Flurry of Horns
- 2 Wee Dragonauts
- 2 Kiln Fiend
- 1 Fluxcharger
- 1 Young Pyromancer
- 1 Prescient Chimera
- 1 Distortion Strike
- 1 Vigean Hydropon
- 1 Sylvok Replica
- 1 Suicidal Charge
- 1 Phantasmal Dragon
- 1 Phantom Beast
- 1 Apex Hawks
- 1 Thrummingbird
- 1 Surveilling Sprite
- 1 Soulcatcher
- 1 Serum Raker
- 1 Sultai Flayer
- 1 Whirlwind Adept
- 1 Jeskai Windscout
- 1 Prey Upon
- 2 Hunt the Weak
- 1 Savage Punch
- 1 Omenspeaker
- 1 Architects of Will
- 1 Augury Owl
- 1 Voice of the Provinces
- 1 Stromkirk Noble
- 1 Truefire Paladin
- 1 Gorgon's Head
- 1 Daggerback Basilisk
- 1 Deathgaze Cockatrice
- 1 Thornweald Archer
- 1 Kederekt Creeper
- 1 Azorius Justiciar
- 1 Lyev Skyknight
- 1 Pacifism
- 1 Keening Apparition
- 1 War Priest of Thune
- 1 Aven Cloudchaser
- 1 Vindicate
- 2 Sundering Growth
- 1 Coursers' Accord
- 1 Ravenous Baloth
- 2 Herd Gnarr
- 1 Scoria Elemental
- 1 Elusive Krasis
- 1 Battering Krasis
- 1 Crocanura
- 1 Madcap Skills
- 1 Cliffrunner Behemoth
- 1 Tuskguard Captain
- 1 Mer-Ek Nightblade
- 1 Longshot Squad
- 1 Vanquish the Foul
- 1 Sea God's Revenge
- 1 Drown in Sorrow
- 1 Kessig Recluse
- 1 Barrage of Boulders
- 1 Barrage of Expendables
- 1 Sigil of the Nayan Gods
- 1 Monstrous Carabid
- 1 Marrow Chomper
- 1 Spread the Sickness
- 1 Quiet Contemplation
- 1 Skinwing
- 1 Marsh Casualties
- 1 Oran-Rief Recluse
- 1 Mardu Skullhunter
- 1 Aggravate
- 1 Breath of Darigaaz
- 1 Rain of Embers
- 1 Force Away
- 1 Mogis's Marauder
- 1 Reverent Hunter
- 1 Murder Investigation
- 1 Write into Being
- 1 AEther Adept
- 1 Temur Runemark
- 1 Flame Slash
- 1 Kuldotha Ringleader
- 1 Crumbling Colossus
- 1 Mardu Heart-Piercer
- 1 Gruul Nodorog
- 1 Roaring Primadox
- 1 Frost Lynx
- 1 Cavalry Pegasus
- 1 Xathrid Necromancer
- 1 Warden of the First Tree
- 1 Fleetfeather Sandals
- 1 O-Naginata
- 1 Darklit Gargoyle
- 1 Figure of Destiny
- 2 Wirewood Savage
- 1 Symbiotic Beast
- 1 Thought Eater
- 1 Windwright Mage
- 1 Blood Artist
- 1 Hellkite Hatchling
- 1 Tar Fiend
- 1 Thromok the Insatiable
- 1 Mind Rot
- 1 Wurmskin Forger
- 1 Gather the Townsfolk
- 1 Traitorous Blood
- 1 Goblin Assault
- 2 Ordeal of Thassa
- 1 Evernight Shade
- 1 Innocent Blood
- 1 Ageless Entity
- 1 Corpsejack Menace
- 1 Caldera Hellion
- 1 Nimbus Swimmer
- 1 Witch-Maw Nephilim
- 1 Battlefront Krushok
- 1 Chronicler of Heroes
- 1 Shinewend
- 1 Argentum Armor
- 1 Bronzebeak Moa
- 2 Liliana's Specter
- 1 Empty the Warrens
- 1 Haze of Rage
- 1 Grapeshot
- 1 Mark of Mutiny
- 1 Auriok Windwalker
- 1 Capsize
- 1 Gilded Lotus
- 1 Brain Pry
- 1 Pride of the Clouds
- 1 Necropouncer
- 1 Dual Casting
- 1 Phyrexian Vault
- 1 Future Sight
- 1 Furnace Whelp
- 1 Mikaeus, the Lunarch
- 1 Wild Guess
- 1 Moonglove Changeling
- 1 Thornscape Battlemage
- 1 Hardened Scales
- 1 Demonmail Hauberk
- 1 Carnage Gladiator
- 1 Gorehorn Minotaurs
- 1 Ordeal of Erebos
- 1 Travel Preparations
- 1 Hand of Death
- 2 Cruel Edict
- 1 Valorous Charge
- 1 Reckless Abandon
- 1 Pyrotechnics
- 1 Break Asunder
- 1 Bramblecrush
- 1 Resounding Wave
- 1 Resounding Silence
- 2 Ride Down
- 1 Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
- 1 Spectral Procession
- 1 Curse of the Swine
- 1 Kamahl's Summons
- 1 Guttersnipe
- 1 Righteous Charge
- 1 Curse of the Nightly Hunt
- 1 Curse of Stalked Prey
- 1 Curse of Chaos
- 1 Curse of the Pierced Heart
- 1 Pillory of the Sleepless
- 1 Lust for War
- 1 Chimney Imp
- 1 Mana Leak
- 1 Doubling Season
- 1 Suspension Field
- 1 Journey to Nowhere
- 1 Bone Splinters
- 1 Centaur Glade
- 1 Mobilization
- 1 Phantom Warrior
- 1 AEther Figment
Final Thoughts
I've been having an absolute blast playing High Stakes, so much that it's been seriously interfering with my productivity. Every game feels completely fresh, every auction provides brand new considerations to the card's value based on the board state. It's a wonderful mix between having no idea what cards are going to show up and having extraordinary control over how you react to them. Except for card draw effects, any card that's killing you is doing so because you decided to buy something else instead.
I've also spent hours going through my collection and searching Gatherer to find cards that could be cool for the format. Can we add spirits to our block and take advantage of both Kamigawa and Innistrad's spirit tribal? What about adding in bounce effects in combination with lots of enter the battlefield triggers? Hey, Æther Adept can bounce itself and then be recast in an infinite cycle of creatures entering the battlefield! That could be cool with Herd Gnarr.
I even got to play with Chimney Imp... and it was awesome.
Magic feels fresh and strange again, skill-testing and tense. I feel like I'm rediscovering the game I love, but in a new way that just happens to be played with the cards I already have. Whole shoeboxes of junk cards are calling to me, alive with possibilities.
Welcome to the auction. We hope you find a bargain.
Disclaimer
Since Magic is decades old, I'm sure a lot of awesome people have already have been enjoying similar ideas. If you're one of those lucky people, please post your ideas and discoveries. I'd love to hear what you've come up with.
Editor's note: A previous version of rule 3 was unclear regarding cases where players have zero gold. The rule has been updated to address this.
No, only when someone purchases a noncreature card. Once a creature card is purchased at auction, the step doesn't repeat and the turn progresses as normal.
For example, if the first card revealed for auction is a Young Pyromancer, after it's purchased there won't be any more auctions that turn. If the first card was any noncreature, like a drake umbra, you auction again after it's purchased. You keep doing this until someone purchases a creature card.
Glad to hear.
The original design just had 1 card auctioned per turn (instead of players drawing 1 card each turn, like in normal magic). However, if you needed to buy a blocker and some cool-but-irrelevant-right-now card like Doubling Season came up? You might have more gold, but it wouldn't help you develop the board. The person that bought the first creature, if he or she got lucky, might get several free turns of attacks.
So instead we decided to guarantee that a creature would go up for auction each turn. It also adds a lot of suspense to the game, because when a card like Doubling Season is revealed you know it's not going to be the last card auctioned this turn... And you don't know what the next cards are going to be. It both keeps the game more open for including a larger variety of cards and makes the auction steps a lot more exciting.
You're correct. When rule 3 mentions the active player bidding first, that means "the player whose turn it is". Rule 3 describes the bidding order from there. However, each player can only bid (or decline to bid) once. This makes the auction a lot faster and just play better in general.
Here's an example of the process in a two player game.
[Doubling Season is revealed for auction]
Player 1: Hmm... I'll bid 5 gold for this. Are you going to let me have it, or will you pay 6?
Player 2: I'll pay 6 and take it.
Player 1 doesn't get an opportunity to bid again on the card. This gives player 1 an incentive to place the correct bid first, instead of players meaningless bidding too low on cards in the hopes of getting a bargain. It significantly speeds the auction and makes the decision of what to bid matter a lot more.
And don't worry, I'm happy to answer questions. I hope you have as much fun with the format as I have.
I notice the sample you provided doesn't have any cantrips in them (from what I could see anyway) they seem like they could be pretty sweet, and not too powerful. Basically just letting players bid on the next card down, and with scry and stuff you can play some sweet mindgames. whispers of the muse seems particularly cool, letting players either run it off as a cantrip, or spend 5 gold for a free card. Seems like it could be balanced enough, though I could see it being a bit much.
I do almost feel like it would be best to build an auction block with no mana sources and no mana requirements, meaning you could essentially abolish rule 8. How important of a dynamic have you found it to be?
Cantrips I haven't been particularly interested in because it's really just "buy a random card". It can be fun if you want that element of uncertainty in the game, but I prefer players to have at least a bit better of an idea of what they're getting. Even cards like Wild Guess, you buy it to try and turn another inexpensive card - such as a weak speculative one you picked up for 1 gold - into somethnig that's likely going to have much greater value. Cantrips just aren't my favorite for the experience I like in my own auction block, but if you want a less predictable experience then they'd be worth trying out.
Whispers of the Muse makes things more interesting via buyback though. Being able to turn 5 gold into 1 card whenever you like provides some interesting flexibility.
I've found it to be absolutely awesome. Not only is the rule essential for cards like your own Whispers of the Muse example, it allows extraordinary gameplay with cards like Evernight Shade and Warden of the First Tree that add a whole new meaning to your gold total. You could absolutely build an auction block that doesn't use this rule, but your options are going to be significantly restricted. Equipment, Cycling, Buyback, Kicker, many activated abilities, X spells and all sorts of other options suddenly vanish if you get rid of this rule.
It also adds a whole new dimension to the auction itself, because if your opponent pays for a Warden of the First Tree you can set intentionally-low prices at auction in order to force them to buy up cards (or give them to you for cheap) in order to strain their gold supply. The difference between your opponent having 4 gold and 3 gold when they have a Centaur Glade out is huge.
TLDR; You can absolutely make an auction block without any of the abilities that would require this rule. However, I think it's absolutely worth it.
The fact you set your own price for each card in High Stakes makes a huge difference in the core experience, versus picking which of 5 cards to buy for a fixed price in Ascenscion. This also gives High Stakes a much higher skill ceiling than Ascencion. It's also much more interactive, since you can actually attack the other player (which also creates a lot more tension).
Ascenscion also tends to involve a lot more waiting between decisions. This is because you only buy cards on your turn, whereas High Stakes involves you in each player's turn during the auction step.
Ascencion is a neat game (and its spiritual successor, Star Realms, is phenomenal) but the experience between it and High Stakes feels pretty different. If you like Ascenscion though, you'll probably also like High Stakes. While the experience is different, the core fun of building a strategy as you play is the heart of both games.
I'm personally going to make a Peasant auction block and call this format High Market (referring to Mercadia) or something because I personally find the High Stakes name unsexy. I prefer something that has more Vorthosian substance. Infact, after I'm done I'm doing a forum thread with my decklist.
Have you tried the Theros block Hero cards? I'm personally considering inserting a variety of tokens into the deck rather than vanilla creatures since mana costs don't matter anyways (even if I consider adding some devotion cards as well).
EDIT: What about land cards with utility btw? They can provide mana a good bit.
EDITEDIT: I additionally see your auction block is 200 cards. Do you find that the optimal size?
1) Large enough so you don't get bored of seeing the same cards too often.
2) Small enough so that the build-around cards in your block (like Young Pyromancer or Corpsejack Menace, any card that rewards you for playing a certain type of effect) are nearly guaranteed to show up in the same game as cards that support them. Build-around cards are great for the format, because they change how you value cards. However, it feels bad to buy a build-around card like Undead Warchief and have only a 2% chance of seeing another zombie in a given auction... Meaning you'll probably never get the chance to get a benefit from the build-around you invested in. When a player buys a build-around, they want to build around it. Our 200-card block is pretty big, so our build-around themes tend to be very easy to support (such as instants/sorciers matter, +1/+1 counters matter and so on). A smaller block could take advantage of more narrow build-arounds.
Overall, I wouldn't worry about your block being "too small" at first. Even a 60 card block is going to last you a good number of games before the situations start repeating themselves too often. After all, different board states and different combinations of cards and gold totals add a lot of replayability. If you do end up playing your block so often that it starts wearing thin, that's great - the format's probably a runaway hit with your play group. You can spend more time building a larger block then.
Have you tried any of the Theros block hero cards or any utility lands? I'm personally going to use a lot of cards with activation costs so lands are actually possibly usable here. Using a mix of Zendikar block spell lands and a Leechridden Swamp.
Also interesting to see "colors matter" cards, such as normal slam dunks such as creatures with protection or intimidate. When all colors are readily available, it's much easier to answer a White Knight than if you were a normal black deck.
We haven't tried hero cards or utility lands, but they could definitely be played with. Colors matter is also going to be less annoyig here than in most environments, you're correct.
Also, what if you included cards with Dredge and changed Dredge to "whenever a player would win an auction for a card, they may instead mill the top X cards of the auction block (where Dredge = X) to put this card from the graveyard into their hand"? Could engineer some interesting graveyard strategies this way. To go with this rule though, I'd have the players share a graveyard, so that one person's dredging might accidentally help an opponent's graveyard strategies (flashback spells perhaps?).
How did you arrive at the "three gold per player per turn" rule? Does this tend to lead to games where the first really powerful couple spells suck up all the gold and then each player is just piking it out with 3 or 6 gold per turn? Or do players in practice "pass" on a lot of cards that don't help their particular board state?
Have you tested Tribal effects in your auction blocks much? Particularly conflicting tribes, such as making it possible to go with "Goblins" or "Elves", but at the expense of going with "Warriors" or "Shamans" which are split between them? In three or more player games this would be particularly interesting as it would almost function like Draft, in that by going for a particular strategy first you would encourage other players to not bother to bid on the cards representing that synergy, since they know they are already lacking in that, thereby allowing you to get your hands on your synergies more cheaply.
Kudos on an interesting format! Reminds me of Mental Magic from back in the day - ever hear of that?
Quick Answers.
As stated in the article, the auction step [replaces the draw step.
As stated in the article, all the other rules of MTG apply. However, this one will matter even less than in normal magic.
So, why not change the rule? Because changing this rule is an extra change you have to explain to MTG players, and since the rule really doesn’t matter there’s no need to change it.
Since all the other rules of MTG apply, players have their own graveyards. This is important if you include cards that interact with the graveyard in your block, like flashback spells. Same goes for exile.
That sounds like a neat series of house-rules to make dredge cards more interesting in this format. It’s a lot of added rules to put in just to make one ability work, so for the official version I probably wouldn’t include it, but you should give it a try and let us know how it plays. You can do all sorts of cool things with house rules.
A whole lot of playtesting. We tried all sorts of different income structures for how much gold players gain and when they gain it. This proved to be the best for a whole host of reasons.
It depends on the players and the auction block. Due to the presence of non-creature cards, which mean the card you’re currently bidding on isn’t going to be the only card up for auction this turn, auction steps have a lot of variance. It also depends on how much your opponent is bidding. If they over-bid on a lot of cards, you’re likely to let them purchase those cards. If they under-bid, you’re likely to be the one spending a lot of gold and getting a lot of discount goodies.
Oddly, tribal often doesn’t work that well in our block because in MTG tribal tends to be designed to power up an army of a lot of little creatures. Goblin tribal is very hard to work in for that reason, though a block that was full of lots of tribes would probably have a lot of creatures about the same size and would likely work well. We’ve tried to work in a subtle amount of beast tribal, since beasts are a very diverse tribe with lots of sizes, but MTG doesn’t have many tribal cards that work perfectly for our existing auction block.
Thanks. I happen to love Mental Magic actually. Studying that game is the best simulation I think of what being a real wizard would feel like, infinite power bat your finger tips… If you can memorize the spells. Prepring a “spellbook” feles great too, as you search through all the MTG cards and figure out which ones you’ll want to memorize for which costs.
Unfortunately, the skill gap in actually playing it between someone that’s prepped and someone that hasn’t is very punishing. Makes it difficult to find a good game, and actual gameplay often results in frustration (as because there’s always a way out, almost everything is an on-board trick you feel frustrated for not being able to remember). I’ve had a lot more fun preparing to play the format than actually playing it.