I was wondering if it's just a local thing, but in my local area people and stores play a game called pack war. People participating buy a booster pack, and everyone cracks their pack. Highest converted mana cost wins all competing packs. So if 4 people played, and I pulled a 7 CMC card while other people only pulled a 5 or a 6, the person with the 7 cmc card takes all the packs. My local game store likes playing this with people after an FNM, mildly addicting, and usually the winner gets great cards. I pulled 3 fetchlands this last friday from one of these games.
That's not how we play pack wars at my store. We play with packs as though they were decks, and you have no cards in starting hand. You draw one card per turn and you have infinite mana. Winner takes both packs.
That's not how we play pack wars at my store. We play with packs as though they were decks, and you have no cards in starting hand. You draw one card per turn and you have infinite mana. Winner takes both packs.
This is what I commonly know as pack wars.
The other is more like the "Credit card game" for packs.
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We pack war and the person that pulls the card worth the most money gets all the cards.
We kind of do that, but it's based on playability rather than on expense (so an extremely playable, but cheap rare like Slagstorm could best something like Liliana Vess).
In my shop every once in a while we will play pack wars. Two people buy a pack, opens it up and then that's there hand. Ever turn they can put a basic land of their choice into play instead of drawing a card (since you don't have libraries) and play from there. Once someone wins, the two players keep their packs and either open two new packs or that's it.
I was wondering if it's just a local thing, but in my local area people and stores play a game called pack war. People participating buy a booster pack, and everyone cracks their pack. Highest converted mana cost wins all competing packs. So if 4 people played, and I pulled a 7 CMC card while other people only pulled a 5 or a 6, the person with the 7 cmc card takes all the packs. My local game store likes playing this with people after an FNM, mildly addicting, and usually the winner gets great cards. I pulled 3 fetchlands this last friday from one of these games.
We occasionally do something similar at my local, but instead of highest CMC, it goes by the monetary worth of the pack.
My mate and I just use it as a method for opening packs. Buy 1 each, shuffle in some lands, and play a game with a 25-30 land "deck". Its just an interesting way to slowly see a pack, especially revealing Rares. Then you just keep whatever packs you bought, no "winner takes all" thing.
We call this minimaster.
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"No Terravores were hurt in the making of this post." ~ kalkris
We pack war and the person that pulls the card worth the most money gets all the cards.
Yo I live in the same area (can you guess who I am by my avatar? :p) and I confirm this, It's all about who opens the biggest money rare. Sure, sometimes sucky steals such as losing a fetch to the other guy's lotus Cobra happen, but most of the time if you lose, you're giving a crap rare you never would have used anyway to the person who actually opened something good.
One of my closest friends (Shane) is quite addicted to buying packs in general, but he'll never turn down a chance to pack war. He loves it.
Personally, I rarely ever indulge in the practice, as I rarely buy packs in general. But when I actually do buy a pack, it's because my will broke down and my friend convinced me to join a pack war he already was about to do (it's always the more the merrier with these things, as the increase in your chance of losing based on the total number of packs being opened is balanced out by the added possibility of winning more cards off a "success")
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The way I played it as a event was our group chipped in for a booster box of m11, and each of us got one pack and opened it without looking at the cards, took out the tip card and then shuffled in 5 of each land and then faced off and after each match we would trade up to three cards with the person and face the next person.
My wife and I play a game with packs ("The Pack Game") with the following rules:
1. Your pack is your hand, minus the land and token.
2. There is no library. Cards that draw cards have no effect. If a card is put from the battlefield, hand, or graveyard into the library, it is exiled.
3. You can play one basic land of any type each turn. If you have a nonbasic land in your pack, you can play it as your land for the turn.
4. The player who goes second can switch one basic land for another during his/her upkeep once in the course of the game.
A lot of the strategy comes from playing your basic lands in the right order to curve out creatures and have the right spells available. It's fun and I recommend it.
Each participating player opens their pack
Starting with 1 player s/he reveals the cmc of the 1st card
Then each player in succession reveals cards until the cmc has been beaten
Ties are settled by going to the next card with the highest cmc
The winner receives all of the cards and the person with the lowest cmc of all of the packs, pays for all of them.
Example with MBS:
P1: Opens with a Hexplate Golem (sweet a 7 cmc!)
P2: Opens and keeps revealing until he matches a 7 cmc, if he does then they use the next highest cmc as a tie breaker. P2, kept going until he revealed a Kemba's Legion.
P1: Goes through his pack and also has a Kemba's Legion. (If P1 didn't have anymore 7 cmc cards and P2 also did not have anymore 7 or greater cmc cards they would count their 6 cmc cards as a tie breaker.)
P2: Continues and cannot match or beat another 7 cmc.
P3: Opens his pack and his highest cmc was 2 sixes a Fangren Maurader, and a Kuldotha Flamefiend.
In this example P1 wins all three packs with his 2 seven cmc cards, P3 loses and pays for all three packs, and P2 just came for the lols.
For MBS Blightsteel Colossus is an autowin, unless someone else also opens one (I have seen multiple cases of MBS packwarred and have yet to see this.
One pack war story:
A friend of mine was doing pack wars with a dealer, after a case and a couple of boxes my friend was ready to go home. The dealer suggested one more gamble, that they pack war a whole fat pack. Naturally rules needed to be adjusted so I suggested that they just use the cmc of only the rares and include foil rares as well (typically foils count just the same as any other card anyway, so this wasn't revolutionary except that it allowed someone with a foil rare to have an extra card so to speak). The dealer started with a Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, and my friend one-upped him with a Praetor's Council, then the dealer cracked his own Praetor's Council which my buddy met with a pack containing a Blightsteel Colossus and Praetor's CouncilFoil. My friend cracked the next pack assuming that his victory was a foregone conclusion and hit a Blightsteel ColossusFoil, which put the last nail in the coffin. The dealer just gave him the rest of the packs.
We play the game gamble like you say, 4 players open a booster each, and the person with the lowerest converted mana cost, needs to pay for all 4 packs.
First time I played, it was in a 8 pack game... I opened a Nantuko Shade, I was not impressed spending 8 boosters on a Shade
I've seen a funny one though, 2 players were playing pack gamble, first dude opens a Sun Titan, and he was happy, he was yelling that 6cc was unbeatable while the other person was opening his booster. What the player B get? Grave Titan.
Player A had to pay for the 2 boosters because if the CC was the same, they refer to the price.
Well, there is any other way to do it. Buy 3 booster boxes, leaving you with 108 boosters. Each of you grab 40 boosters, making a 40 booster 'deck' You draw a hand of 7 boosters. Now, you can play the boosters as lands or the spell depicted on it. So in an example, you can play Sarkhan from DTK as a Frontier Biovac or the planeswalker. Same goes for creatures. It is an expensive format though. you have 27 boosters left after that. So 3 games of Wizard's Tower, or some nice draft. Inspired by loadingreadyrun's Friday Night series episode "The Return"
This is what I commonly know as pack wars.
The other is more like the "Credit card game" for packs.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=537903
We kind of do that, but it's based on playability rather than on expense (so an extremely playable, but cheap rare like Slagstorm could best something like Liliana Vess).
Lands WUBG
EDH:
Doran WBG
We occasionally do something similar at my local, but instead of highest CMC, it goes by the monetary worth of the pack.
We call this minimaster.
"No Terravores were hurt in the making of this post." ~ kalkris
Article posted on DailyMTG about Pack Wars/Minimaster. This is what I do when I feel like having fun with opening packs.
Currently Playing
1994 Magic The Rack
Type 1: B/W Zombies
Modern: Kuldotha Red
Legacy: Pox, Oath
Vintag: 10 Proxy Merfolk
Pauper: Pestilence, UG Threshold
EDH: Karn, Roon, Sliver Queen, Xiahou Dun, Arcanus
Yo I live in the same area (can you guess who I am by my avatar? :p) and I confirm this, It's all about who opens the biggest money rare. Sure, sometimes sucky steals such as losing a fetch to the other guy's lotus Cobra happen, but most of the time if you lose, you're giving a crap rare you never would have used anyway to the person who actually opened something good.
One of my closest friends (Shane) is quite addicted to buying packs in general, but he'll never turn down a chance to pack war. He loves it.
Personally, I rarely ever indulge in the practice, as I rarely buy packs in general. But when I actually do buy a pack, it's because my will broke down and my friend convinced me to join a pack war he already was about to do (it's always the more the merrier with these things, as the increase in your chance of losing based on the total number of packs being opened is balanced out by the added possibility of winning more cards off a "success")
:EDH:
WR Gisela, Blade of Goldnight (HOLD/100) WR
WB Teysa, Orzhov Scion (HOLD/100) WB
1. Your pack is your hand, minus the land and token.
2. There is no library. Cards that draw cards have no effect. If a card is put from the battlefield, hand, or graveyard into the library, it is exiled.
3. You can play one basic land of any type each turn. If you have a nonbasic land in your pack, you can play it as your land for the turn.
4. The player who goes second can switch one basic land for another during his/her upkeep once in the course of the game.
A lot of the strategy comes from playing your basic lands in the right order to curve out creatures and have the right spells available. It's fun and I recommend it.
Each participating player opens their pack
Starting with 1 player s/he reveals the cmc of the 1st card
Then each player in succession reveals cards until the cmc has been beaten
Ties are settled by going to the next card with the highest cmc
The winner receives all of the cards and the person with the lowest cmc of all of the packs, pays for all of them.
Example with MBS:
In this example P1 wins all three packs with his 2 seven cmc cards, P3 loses and pays for all three packs, and P2 just came for the lols.
For MBS Blightsteel Colossus is an autowin, unless someone else also opens one (I have seen multiple cases of MBS packwarred and have yet to see this.
One pack war story:
A friend of mine was doing pack wars with a dealer, after a case and a couple of boxes my friend was ready to go home. The dealer suggested one more gamble, that they pack war a whole fat pack. Naturally rules needed to be adjusted so I suggested that they just use the cmc of only the rares and include foil rares as well (typically foils count just the same as any other card anyway, so this wasn't revolutionary except that it allowed someone with a foil rare to have an extra card so to speak). The dealer started with a Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, and my friend one-upped him with a Praetor's Council, then the dealer cracked his own Praetor's Council which my buddy met with a pack containing a Blightsteel Colossus and Praetor's CouncilFoil. My friend cracked the next pack assuming that his victory was a foregone conclusion and hit a Blightsteel ColossusFoil, which put the last nail in the coffin. The dealer just gave him the rest of the packs.
First time I played, it was in a 8 pack game... I opened a Nantuko Shade, I was not impressed spending 8 boosters on a Shade
I've seen a funny one though, 2 players were playing pack gamble, first dude opens a Sun Titan, and he was happy, he was yelling that 6cc was unbeatable while the other person was opening his booster. What the player B get? Grave Titan.
Player A had to pay for the 2 boosters because if the CC was the same, they refer to the price.
This is how we do it. Open a pack (without looking at the cards)...shuffle in 3 of each basic land, and play the game out. Winner takes both packs.
I like some of the other ideas here though.
This sounds extremely un-fun to me. >.<'