I’ve said that 25% of games end to mana screw, 25% of games end to mana flood, 25% of games end to an unanswered bomb, and the other 25% of games are the reason you play Magic in the first place! Those numbers may not be 100% accurate (as it is a commonly believed fact that 65% of statistics are made up on the fly), but you get the picture—the Battle Box experience (and my Danger Room stack in particular) aims to create those fun, interactive games nearly every time.
Battle Box eliminates mana screw, mana flood, and non-interactive play, but at the expense of not being able to build your own deck. For some players, especially Johnnies/Jennies, this is a major downside, possibly even an intolerable one. It occurred to me that it would be possible to combine elements of regular Magic with elements of Battle Box to create a format with no mana flood or mana screw (although color screw is still possible), but which still allows players to build their own decks. All you have to do is split the deck into two parts, one for land and one for everything else. This isn't so much a new format as it is a modifier which can be applied to any format.
To play Split Deck Magic, use the following rules:
EDIT: I will edit this list of rules as needed to incorporate revisions and clarifications.
The deck is split into two parts: the library and the atlas. The library must include at least 30 cards (20 in Limited, 50 in Commander), and may not contain any lands. The may only contain lands. The library and atlas combined must include at least 60 cards (40 in Limited, 99 in Commander). The standard rule of no more than four copies (one in Commander) of non-basic lands still applies.
Whenever you draw a card, you may choose to draw it from your library or your atlas. If you would draw more than one card at once, including when you draw your starting hand, you may draw them from both decks in any combination, and you may draw cards one at a time, looking at each before deciding which deck to draw the next card from. When drawing your starting hand, make your decision whether or not to Mulligan after drawing all seven cards. If you Mulligan, shuffle both decks separately.
If a spell or effect causes you to look at the top card of your library, you may look at the top card of your library or your atlas. If the spell or effect causes you to look at multiple cards, you may split them between the decks. For example, if you Scry 2, you may look at the top two cards of your library, the top two cards of your atlas, or one from each.
Cards which allow a player to look at or reveal cards in a library and then perform actions contingent on whether those cards are lands or non-lands (e.g. Druidic Satchel or Animist's Awakening) are banned.
If a spell or effect causes you to place or shuffle cards into your library, lands always go to the atlas, and everything else goes to the library.
If a spell or effect allows you to search a library for a land, you search the atlas instead. If a spell or effect allows you to search a library for card types excluding lands, you search the library but not the atlas. If a spell or effect would allow you to search for a card which might be a land or another type of card (e.g. Demonic Tutor), you may search the library, the atlas, or both. After searching, shuffle only the deck(s) which you searched.
If a spell or effect would cause you to take cards directly from the top of your library and place them into your graveyard, you may take them from your library, your atlas, or both, in any combination. You may do so one card at a time, looking at each card before deciding where to take the next card from.
I think that these rules cover all of the scenarios where separating your lands from your library matters, but please let me know if you can think of scenarios which require additional rules.
I also came up with an alternate version of these rules which has the advantage of ensuring that each player gets at least one new land and one new spell each turn, but at the expense of increased complexity and greater probability of color screw. I personally like this version better, but I wanted to present the other version first because it requires fewer changes from the normal rules.
EDIT: I have since come to the conclusion that these rules change the game too much, resulting in too many broken cards. However, I will leave them up for those who wish to continue experimenting with them.
To play this version, modify the rules above as follows:
Starting and maximum hand size are five cards instead of seven.
When you draw cards, you always draw them from your library, never your atlas.
Any time you would place a land from your hand onto the battlefield, you instead place the top card of your atlas directly onto the battlefield.
Cards which allow a player to play more than one land per turn, or place lands from his or her hand onto the battlefield, are banned. Cards which allow a player to place a fixed and finite number of land cards from his or her library directly onto the battlefield are still legal.
You may never have land cards in your hand. If a spell or effect would cause you to put a land into your hand, you place it on top of your atlas instead. If you would put multiple lands into your hand, you may put them on top of your atlas in any order. If the same spell or effect would also cause you to shuffle your atlas, do so before placing the lands on top. For example, Armillary Sphere would function as follows: "Search your atlas for up to two basic land cards, reveal them, and exile them. Shuffle your atlas, then place the exiled lands on top of your atlas in any order."
You do not lose the game due to an empty atlas. If your library is empty when you would draw a card, you lose the game as you normally would.
Cards with effects triggered by lands entering the battlefield are banned.
I like the looks of this so far, and I hope that my group is willing to try it out this upcoming week.
Off the bat, I would like to nitpick at your commander numbers. I typically run well over 37 lands in my commander decks, my latest running 42. Your minimiums of 33 lands and 66 nonlands (+1 commander) adds up to 100, which essentially dictates the EXACT quantities of both in a commander deck, making it necessary to modify ANY commander deck that is not to this ratio.
My recommendation for commander would be: minimium 33 lands (atlas)
minimium 50 nonland cards (library)
Tiny Titans (50 card EDH) Still leads to non-cookie-cutter matches due to the singleton rule. Replacing all the lands in the deck with spells should only add MORE variety to the match.
Thank you for the feedback! Please let me know how things go if you try it, including the tweaks you made and how they worked out.
In retrospect, I think you are correct that setting the exact ratio of lands to non-lands is probably too restrictive. I don't want to loosen things up too much, though, because knowing that you can always draw exactly as much land as you want changes deck-building logic considerably: in general, you are not going to need nearly as many lands. You don't really need 20-30 lands in a 60-card deck or 30-45 in a 100-card deck, but you do need to draw enough lands early in the game so that you don't miss any drops, which is what determines the land ratio in monolithic decks. In a split deck, you really only need enough land to cast the highest-CMC card in your deck, plus a few spares in case your opponent is running land destruction. There still needs to be a minimum number of cards in the library, or someone could make a huge atlas with a tiny library in order to maximize the chances of a turn-1 or -2 win. There might also be some sort of weird land-driven combo which could achieve the same by having a tiny atlas with a huge library, but that would probably best be handled by banning the land(s) involved.
With all of that in mind, here's a revised proposal:
You must have at least 30 cards in your library (50 in Commander, 20 in Limited), and your library plus your atlas must total at least 60 cards (99 in Commander, 40 in Limited). Since splitting the deck eliminates mana-screw, I think these minimum library size should be much higher, but I'd like to see how things work out in practice before making any conclusions.
That's looking good so far.
This morning we ran into two problems: Courser of Kruphix and Aluren. Maybe it was the fact that it was a game of two-headed dragon (two-headed giant with teams sharing a single mana pool) but we bust it out turn two and there was no way for the other side to recover.
We ran Courser looking the library (not atlas) so as not to empty the atlas.
I haven't checked too heavily into landfall cards or the effect this has on the gitrog monster, but the modified rules would make exploration far too broken as it would grant 2 lands each turn.
Lastly beware of the Laboratory Maniac and Selective Memory combo.
Courser of Kruphix should be banned by the rule "Cards which allow a player to look at or reveal cards in a library and then perform actions contingent on whether or not those cards are lands (e.g. Druidic Satchel or Animist's Awakening) are banned." It sounds like maybe that rule needs to be rephrased to make it more clear. Any suggestions?
I'm on the fence about how to handle cards like Exploration under the modified rules. The simplest, easiest solution would be to ban cards which allow putting additional lands onto the battlefield after the first each turn. I'd rather not do that, though, because I don't want to ban cards like Evolving Wilds, Elvish Pioneer, or Rampant Growth. However, I can't think of a simple rule which differentiates between those cards and cards like Exploration or Walking Atlas, which are overpowered when there is effectively always a land in your hand. Any ideas? The good news is that any rule which would ban Exploration would also ban The Gitrog Monster.
I should have thought of the Laboratory Maniac combo; thank you for catching that. Fortunately, those cards are unique enough that banning Laboratory Maniac under the modified rules should prevent any problems.
I also should have considered Landfall cards under the modified rules. I don't see them as a problem in the first version of the rules, but they would definitely be overpowered under the modified rules, where they're guaranteed to trigger every turn.
Based on your feedback, I think that the modified rules need the two following additional rules:
Cards which allow you put more than one land onto the battlefield per turn are banned. (This would replace the rule against cards which let you put an unlimited number of cards onto the battlefield.)
Cards with non-mana effects which trigger when lands are put onto the battlefield are banned.
All things considered, these rules cut too many elements from the game, but the modified version of the rules is broken without them, so I'm now thinking that the first version of the rules is the way to go.
There is a difference between being allowed to play an additional land (exploration) and putting lands onto the battlefield (elvish pioneer)
Banning only additional land plays (Exploration) isn't enough, as there are alternatives like Manabond and Burgeoning that are worded differently.
You should probably ban Life from the Loam. Getting to dredge exactly 3 lands from the Atlas and then cast Loam to get 3 lands is too good. In fact, maybe all Dredge cards should be banned.
As if Dredge wasn't broken enough before. This deck is just stupid when you can always start with 1 land and 6 nonland, Dredge only from the nonland pile, and can choose to draw more land if you ever need them.
I also don't fully understand why these cards are over powered. They require you to have the cards in hand which means you had to have been getting additional draws anyways. I'd have more of an issue with stuff like multch.
There's something I should have made clear up front, but better late than never: I don't own this. Nobody is ever in charge of a rules variant (unless it's a sanctioned format, in which case Wizards are very much in charge). People can take these ideas and modify them however they like. I hope that many, many people try many variations. If enough people try enough versions, eventually most of the kinks will get ironed out and a rough consensus will form as to the best way to play with a split deck. I see any debate here as part of that process of gradually feeling our collective way towards an ideal implementation. In that process, arguments based on actual experience (e.g. "We tried this and the results were that.") should always carry greater weight than speculative arguments, no matter how well-reasoned. Also, my ideas don't carry any extra weight--I may have come up with the initial idea, but others can have (and hopefully will have, and so far have had some) even better ideas for improving it. EDIT: My point in saying this is that it's OK to agree to disagree. If you think a rule should be changed or a card should be banned (or not) and I disagree, then go ahead and do things your way. Better yet, try it both ways and then share your experiences.
You should probably ban Life from the Loam. Getting to dredge exactly 3 lands from the Atlas and then cast Loam to get 3 lands is too good. In fact, maybe all Dredge cards should be banned
I agree that Life from the Loam should probably be banned, but I'm not convinced that Dredge should be categorically banned.
A little background for the group (many of you have certainly thought this through already, so apologies to those of you who have): One of the biggest sources of potential problems with these rules is that they eliminate uncertainty from cards which were designed and costed with some amount of uncertainty in mind. Animist's Awakening was designed and costed under the assumption that most people have about 40% land in their decks, which means that if you spend 5 for X, you should get about 2 lands on average, and if you spend 1 for X, you have worse than even odds of getting a land. Maybe sometimes you do better, maybe sometimes you do worse, but in the long run the outcomes will be about average. With a split deck, you are instead guaranteed to get X lands of your choice, no matter what X is. If you cast this spell on turn 3, then you have 6 mana to spend on turn 4 (plus 2 extra mana to spend on turn 3 if you cast 2 or more instant or sorcery cards during your first two turns).
Mechanics like Dredge also benefit from this reduction in uncertainty, but in a much more dilute and indirect way. At best, using Dredge with split decks lets you cycle through your deck more quickly than you would otherwise be able to, but you still have to pay casting costs, and you'd better hope your opponent doesn't have any milling effects to use against you.
Other mechanics gain an advantage comparable to, if not better than, Dredge. For example, card draw, Loot, and Scry are each more likely to give you what you need with a split deck, since you don't have to worry about getting land when you need a spell and vice-versa.
As if Dredge wasn't broken enough before. This deck is just stupid when you can always start with 1 land and 6 nonland, Dredge only from the nonland pile, and can choose to draw more land if you ever need them.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but you still have to pay the casting costs for the cards you dredge into your hand, and you need to get some cards into your graveyard before you can really get the Dredge train rolling. You have stuff in your deck to help with both of those, but the only way that a split deck enhances the process is by slightly increasing the number of Dredge cards you can put into your graveyard each time you discard directly from your library. That's not an insignificant advantage, but nor do I think it is game-breaking, especially considering that other effects like card draw, Loot, and Scry benefit just as much, if not more.
Battle Box eliminates mana screw, mana flood, and non-interactive play, but at the expense of not being able to build your own deck. For some players, especially Johnnies/Jennies, this is a major downside, possibly even an intolerable one. It occurred to me that it would be possible to combine elements of regular Magic with elements of Battle Box to create a format with no mana flood or mana screw (although color screw is still possible), but which still allows players to build their own decks. All you have to do is split the deck into two parts, one for land and one for everything else. This isn't so much a new format as it is a modifier which can be applied to any format.
To play Split Deck Magic, use the following rules:
EDIT: I will edit this list of rules as needed to incorporate revisions and clarifications.
I also came up with an alternate version of these rules which has the advantage of ensuring that each player gets at least one new land and one new spell each turn, but at the expense of increased complexity and greater probability of color screw. I personally like this version better, but I wanted to present the other version first because it requires fewer changes from the normal rules.
EDIT: I have since come to the conclusion that these rules change the game too much, resulting in too many broken cards. However, I will leave them up for those who wish to continue experimenting with them.
To play this version, modify the rules above as follows:
Off the bat, I would like to nitpick at your commander numbers. I typically run well over 37 lands in my commander decks, my latest running 42. Your minimiums of 33 lands and 66 nonlands (+1 commander) adds up to 100, which essentially dictates the EXACT quantities of both in a commander deck, making it necessary to modify ANY commander deck that is not to this ratio.
My recommendation for commander would be:
minimium 33 lands (atlas)
minimium 50 nonland cards (library)
Tiny Titans (50 card EDH) Still leads to non-cookie-cutter matches due to the singleton rule. Replacing all the lands in the deck with spells should only add MORE variety to the match.
In retrospect, I think you are correct that setting the exact ratio of lands to non-lands is probably too restrictive. I don't want to loosen things up too much, though, because knowing that you can always draw exactly as much land as you want changes deck-building logic considerably: in general, you are not going to need nearly as many lands. You don't really need 20-30 lands in a 60-card deck or 30-45 in a 100-card deck, but you do need to draw enough lands early in the game so that you don't miss any drops, which is what determines the land ratio in monolithic decks. In a split deck, you really only need enough land to cast the highest-CMC card in your deck, plus a few spares in case your opponent is running land destruction. There still needs to be a minimum number of cards in the library, or someone could make a huge atlas with a tiny library in order to maximize the chances of a turn-1 or -2 win. There might also be some sort of weird land-driven combo which could achieve the same by having a tiny atlas with a huge library, but that would probably best be handled by banning the land(s) involved.
With all of that in mind, here's a revised proposal:
You must have at least 30 cards in your library (50 in Commander, 20 in Limited), and your library plus your atlas must total at least 60 cards (99 in Commander, 40 in Limited). Since splitting the deck eliminates mana-screw, I think these minimum library size should be much higher, but I'd like to see how things work out in practice before making any conclusions.
This morning we ran into two problems: Courser of Kruphix and Aluren. Maybe it was the fact that it was a game of two-headed dragon (two-headed giant with teams sharing a single mana pool) but we bust it out turn two and there was no way for the other side to recover.
We ran Courser looking the library (not atlas) so as not to empty the atlas.
I haven't checked too heavily into landfall cards or the effect this has on the gitrog monster, but the modified rules would make exploration far too broken as it would grant 2 lands each turn.
Lastly beware of the Laboratory Maniac and Selective Memory combo.
Courser of Kruphix should be banned by the rule "Cards which allow a player to look at or reveal cards in a library and then perform actions contingent on whether or not those cards are lands (e.g. Druidic Satchel or Animist's Awakening) are banned." It sounds like maybe that rule needs to be rephrased to make it more clear. Any suggestions?
I'm on the fence about how to handle cards like Exploration under the modified rules. The simplest, easiest solution would be to ban cards which allow putting additional lands onto the battlefield after the first each turn. I'd rather not do that, though, because I don't want to ban cards like Evolving Wilds, Elvish Pioneer, or Rampant Growth. However, I can't think of a simple rule which differentiates between those cards and cards like Exploration or Walking Atlas, which are overpowered when there is effectively always a land in your hand. Any ideas? The good news is that any rule which would ban Exploration would also ban The Gitrog Monster.
I should have thought of the Laboratory Maniac combo; thank you for catching that. Fortunately, those cards are unique enough that banning Laboratory Maniac under the modified rules should prevent any problems.
I also should have considered Landfall cards under the modified rules. I don't see them as a problem in the first version of the rules, but they would definitely be overpowered under the modified rules, where they're guaranteed to trigger every turn.
Based on your feedback, I think that the modified rules need the two following additional rules:
All things considered, these rules cut too many elements from the game, but the modified version of the rules is broken without them, so I'm now thinking that the first version of the rules is the way to go.
Banning only additional land plays (Exploration) isn't enough, as there are alternatives like Manabond and Burgeoning that are worded differently.
You should probably ban Life from the Loam. Getting to dredge exactly 3 lands from the Atlas and then cast Loam to get 3 lands is too good. In fact, maybe all Dredge cards should be banned.
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Mana Confluence
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Grand Coliseum
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Putrid Imp
4 Faithless Looting
4 Breakthrough
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Bridge from Below
4 Narcomoeba
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Ichorid
As if Dredge wasn't broken enough before. This deck is just stupid when you can always start with 1 land and 6 nonland, Dredge only from the nonland pile, and can choose to draw more land if you ever need them.
EDIT: My point in saying this is that it's OK to agree to disagree. If you think a rule should be changed or a card should be banned (or not) and I disagree, then go ahead and do things your way. Better yet, try it both ways and then share your experiences.
I agree that Life from the Loam should probably be banned, but I'm not convinced that Dredge should be categorically banned.
A little background for the group (many of you have certainly thought this through already, so apologies to those of you who have): One of the biggest sources of potential problems with these rules is that they eliminate uncertainty from cards which were designed and costed with some amount of uncertainty in mind. Animist's Awakening was designed and costed under the assumption that most people have about 40% land in their decks, which means that if you spend 5 for X, you should get about 2 lands on average, and if you spend 1 for X, you have worse than even odds of getting a land. Maybe sometimes you do better, maybe sometimes you do worse, but in the long run the outcomes will be about average. With a split deck, you are instead guaranteed to get X lands of your choice, no matter what X is. If you cast this spell on turn 3, then you have 6 mana to spend on turn 4 (plus 2 extra mana to spend on turn 3 if you cast 2 or more instant or sorcery cards during your first two turns).
Mechanics like Dredge also benefit from this reduction in uncertainty, but in a much more dilute and indirect way. At best, using Dredge with split decks lets you cycle through your deck more quickly than you would otherwise be able to, but you still have to pay casting costs, and you'd better hope your opponent doesn't have any milling effects to use against you.
Other mechanics gain an advantage comparable to, if not better than, Dredge. For example, card draw, Loot, and Scry are each more likely to give you what you need with a split deck, since you don't have to worry about getting land when you need a spell and vice-versa.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but you still have to pay the casting costs for the cards you dredge into your hand, and you need to get some cards into your graveyard before you can really get the Dredge train rolling. You have stuff in your deck to help with both of those, but the only way that a split deck enhances the process is by slightly increasing the number of Dredge cards you can put into your graveyard each time you discard directly from your library. That's not an insignificant advantage, but nor do I think it is game-breaking, especially considering that other effects like card draw, Loot, and Scry benefit just as much, if not more.