People interested in Commie Box often request deck lists to get started. This is roughly based on what I added to my own box from THS, which is now around 15,000 cards.
So the cube I want to transform into the beginning of a commie box has a lot of gold cards. Like nearly a third, and all 10 2 colour combinations and no 3 colour combinations. So if a player does a two colour mana base, they literally have 9 out of 10 gold cards not be good for them. If they do a three colour mana base, it's still 7 out of 10 gold cards that aren't good for them.
I don't really like the idea of a gold library where 70-90% of draws are dead draws. Neither do I really like someone going for a blue card and then getting a gold card.
This is a Ravnica themed experience, so just cutting them doesn't work either.
Some ideas:
1) All gold cards have Realmcycling - Discard this card: Draw a card from your Realm <-- this won't take me very far though, as if you're doing two colour and only 1 out of 10 will be in colour, it basically makes the gold deck into a Realmcycle deck with a small chance of getting a playable. Not good enough.
2) 10 more decks (groan) that separate the guilds rather than one gold deck. This is a lot of table real estate, but it would certainly make sure you got a card of your guild. Maybe the thing to do would be to separate
3) When you draw from the gold deck, name a guild and reveal (or just look at) cards until you reveal a card of that guild and put it in your hand. Do something with the rest of the revealed cards-- put them on the bottom shuffled, in the box, whatever. <-- with one in ten colours being what you want, you could be revealing a while, so maybe I'd add some artifacts in there and make the revealing end when you either get your guild or an artifact. It really wouldn't take too many artifacts to get the average reveal down to five cards or less.
4) Have people declare a guild when they make their mana base. They get a deck of gold cards of that guild shuffled as their own personal library. Roll for order of picking or something. Or the loser of the last round picks first.
I'm leaning towards option 3 and putting all the artifacts, hybrid cards and split cards, into the gold deck (making them represent about 23% of the cards in the gold box). So if you go "Gruul" and start turning cards. If you hit a gruul card, an artifact card, a split card where either side is gruul, red or green, or a hybrid card where either cost is red or green, you stop and that's your card.
It might be too much of a delay, but it might also be fun. It should be down to less than 5 cards to cycle through given the mana symbols of the cards involved. I could always just find another 10% of artifacts and make it even faster.
As I type this though, 4 is really growing on me though. Picked Dimir? Here's 30 cards from the Dimir box. Give them a shuffle. You can draw from that as well if you don't want to get a blue, black or artifact card.
A friend just bought some new board games, so we ended up trying out a couple of those and didn't get to the cube last night. So it'll probably happen tomorrow or next week. Anyway, a question:
In another thread about separate lands, it was suggested to roll a dice. A d10 is best where 1-4 is land library and 5-0 is non land library. Preserves the odds the card was intended for.
There's actually very little mill in the decks (though it is a thing with Dimir and self mill with Golgari) so I'm thinking of making a milled out rule where library to graveyard effects go on your guild library and realm (using the die roll above) and if both are empty when you have to draw a card, you lose. It puts milling someone out back in as a viable strategy for Dimir, but still less reliable than in striaght-up GTC draft.
I figure since I'm going to have individual libraries for gold cards, I may as well use them.
I'd just skip those cards. Odd rules raise eyebrows when they don't go in a person's favor.
Moreover, people will be digesting "OMG there's more than one library." Adding rules for certain cards or dice rolling will make them check out.
Remember, the hardest part about multiplayer testing is that 3/4 of the table loses. Most people have a hard time being objective about a loss. You want the games to be close so people KNOW it was a fair and epic fight. "I lost to a Balstrude Spy dice roll" will be 100% feel bad.
I recommend fun > including a card in the set. If a card will confuse your players, axe it.
As for mill wincons:
They are inherently a tier 2 strategy that some people love, and other people hate.
In Big normal MTG, mill rarely works outside of oddball drafts.
It's also not a particularly interactive strategy.
Consider how the community reacted to Dimir in RTR limited.
Well, the nature of casual playgroups is that there's always someone who likes strange strategies. And one player in this case absolutely loves both Dimir and Golgari and milling both himself and others. So it's definitely in. I can't have a Return to Ravnica themed game and not have the mechanics that the most reliable attendee of game nights likes the most. I also know that no one hates mill as everyone has, at some point, made a mill deck during a cube draft and loved it.
This group is also not a magic group per se, but a general gaming group at which Magic features regularly. And it has literally never been normal formats other than tenchester cube draft. So there's not really going to be expectations or normal magic play or the conditioning that dueling has on expected win rates. The group has lots of stories about various board, miniature and roleplaying games that "came down to that one die roll".
The only negative experience I can ever recall from Magic with this group was mana flooding or mana screw. In short, not being able to play the actual spell cards. Shouldn't be an issue with Commie Box.
Maybe this is a larger topic for Commie Box. How do you design differently when the audience is made up of Magic regulars? How about when it's casual board game people who only play magic every so often? I'm so far removed from the normal magic experience that sometimes I forget people having expectations forged in dueling at FNMs.
Well, the nature of casual playgroups is that there's always someone who likes strange strategies. And one player in this case absolutely loves both Dimir and Golgari and milling both himself and others. So it's definitely in. I can't have a Return to Ravnica themed game and not have the mechanics that the most reliable attendee of game nights likes the most. I also know that no one hates mill as everyone has, at some point, made a mill deck during a cube draft and loved it.
This group is also not a magic group per se, but a general gaming group at which Magic features regularly. And it has literally never been normal formats other than tenchester cube draft. So there's not really going to be expectations or normal magic play or the conditioning that dueling has on expected win rates. The group has lots of stories about various board, miniature and roleplaying games that "came down to that one die roll".
The only negative experience I can ever recall from Magic with this group was mana flooding or mana screw. In short, not being able to play the actual spell cards. Shouldn't be an issue with Commie Box.
Maybe this is a larger topic for Commie Box. How do you design differently when the audience is made up of Magic regulars? How about when it's casual board game people who only play magic every so often? I'm so far removed from the normal magic experience that sometimes I forget people having expectations forged in dueling at FNMs.
If you think it will work well for your group, definitely go for it. I game with some pretty spikey players, so I have to keep the odd rules to a minimum.
I have a small simple Commie Box I play with my kids. "The full history" is definitely for vets.
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WHITE DECK
BLUE DECK
BLACK DECK
RED DECK
GREEN DECK
TRAVELERS
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=505894
How would you say the gameplay/board states differs between the two?
I don't really like the idea of a gold library where 70-90% of draws are dead draws. Neither do I really like someone going for a blue card and then getting a gold card.
This is a Ravnica themed experience, so just cutting them doesn't work either.
Some ideas:
1) All gold cards have Realmcycling - Discard this card: Draw a card from your Realm <-- this won't take me very far though, as if you're doing two colour and only 1 out of 10 will be in colour, it basically makes the gold deck into a Realmcycle deck with a small chance of getting a playable. Not good enough.
2) 10 more decks (groan) that separate the guilds rather than one gold deck. This is a lot of table real estate, but it would certainly make sure you got a card of your guild. Maybe the thing to do would be to separate
3) When you draw from the gold deck, name a guild and reveal (or just look at) cards until you reveal a card of that guild and put it in your hand. Do something with the rest of the revealed cards-- put them on the bottom shuffled, in the box, whatever. <-- with one in ten colours being what you want, you could be revealing a while, so maybe I'd add some artifacts in there and make the revealing end when you either get your guild or an artifact. It really wouldn't take too many artifacts to get the average reveal down to five cards or less.
4) Have people declare a guild when they make their mana base. They get a deck of gold cards of that guild shuffled as their own personal library. Roll for order of picking or something. Or the loser of the last round picks first.
I'm leaning towards option 3 and putting all the artifacts, hybrid cards and split cards, into the gold deck (making them represent about 23% of the cards in the gold box). So if you go "Gruul" and start turning cards. If you hit a gruul card, an artifact card, a split card where either side is gruul, red or green, or a hybrid card where either cost is red or green, you stop and that's your card.
It might be too much of a delay, but it might also be fun. It should be down to less than 5 cards to cycle through given the mana symbols of the cards involved. I could always just find another 10% of artifacts and make it even faster.
As I type this though, 4 is really growing on me though. Picked Dimir? Here's 30 cards from the Dimir box. Give them a shuffle. You can draw from that as well if you don't want to get a blue, black or artifact card.
Cool, I'll be curious to hear how it goes. If your crew has fun, I will put some gold stacks together myself.
Drown In Filth
Balustrade Spy
Undercity Informer
In another thread about separate lands, it was suggested to roll a dice. A d10 is best where 1-4 is land library and 5-0 is non land library. Preserves the odds the card was intended for.
There's actually very little mill in the decks (though it is a thing with Dimir and self mill with Golgari) so I'm thinking of making a milled out rule where library to graveyard effects go on your guild library and realm (using the die roll above) and if both are empty when you have to draw a card, you lose. It puts milling someone out back in as a viable strategy for Dimir, but still less reliable than in striaght-up GTC draft.
I figure since I'm going to have individual libraries for gold cards, I may as well use them.
Thoughts?
Moreover, people will be digesting "OMG there's more than one library." Adding rules for certain cards or dice rolling will make them check out.
Remember, the hardest part about multiplayer testing is that 3/4 of the table loses. Most people have a hard time being objective about a loss. You want the games to be close so people KNOW it was a fair and epic fight. "I lost to a Balstrude Spy dice roll" will be 100% feel bad.
I recommend fun > including a card in the set. If a card will confuse your players, axe it.
As for mill wincons:
- They are inherently a tier 2 strategy that some people love, and other people hate.
- In Big normal MTG, mill rarely works outside of oddball drafts.
- It's also not a particularly interactive strategy.
Consider how the community reacted to Dimir in RTR limited.This group is also not a magic group per se, but a general gaming group at which Magic features regularly. And it has literally never been normal formats other than tenchester cube draft. So there's not really going to be expectations or normal magic play or the conditioning that dueling has on expected win rates. The group has lots of stories about various board, miniature and roleplaying games that "came down to that one die roll".
The only negative experience I can ever recall from Magic with this group was mana flooding or mana screw. In short, not being able to play the actual spell cards. Shouldn't be an issue with Commie Box.
Maybe this is a larger topic for Commie Box. How do you design differently when the audience is made up of Magic regulars? How about when it's casual board game people who only play magic every so often? I'm so far removed from the normal magic experience that sometimes I forget people having expectations forged in dueling at FNMs.
If you think it will work well for your group, definitely go for it. I game with some pretty spikey players, so I have to keep the odd rules to a minimum.
I have a small simple Commie Box I play with my kids. "The full history" is definitely for vets.