So, I think everyone agrees that one of the worst things that can happen in an EDH game is where a player gets randomly killed early in the game and then has to sit and wait for 30 minutes to an hour while the rest of the players finish the game. Many of us get so little time to play magic, so when we finally do carve out time for it, we would rather not spend it sitting around watching other people play.
Respawn Magic is not new, it is a format that was written about by Kelly Digges 5 years ago on the mothership as a format that allows players to play an endless multiplayer game on a loop. I recently saw a comment from a Reddit user that describes similar rules to respawn magic, except that instead being an endless game decided by points, the game ends when there is only one player left standing that hasn't died in that game. I definitely prefer this myself, since I like games to end so I can try out different decks in a night.
Rules:
Begin a game of normal multiplayer EDH. All normal rules apply.
Whenever a player loses the game, note the player responsible for their demise (dealt the last point of damage, milled the last card, etc.). The defeated player is now a minion of the player that defeated them.
If a player is defeated by their own actions (paid a lifepoint cost down to 0 life, used an effect to draw the last card in their library, etc.), or it cannot be agreed upon who defeated that player, that player may respawn as a minion to no one. They are still ineligible to win the game.
The defeated player returns their Commander to the command zone, shuffles all cards they own back into their library, ends any continuous effects on the current game that were caused by cards they own, and resets their life back to 30. This player is no longer eligible to win the current game.
The defeated player then draws a new hand of 7 and resolves any mulligans they wish as normal. Then that take player takes 3 consecutive turns that are separate from the turn cycle of the current game. While resolving mulligans and taking the 3 turns, the player and all cards they own are considered to be phased out and do not phase in, meaning they are unaffected by any effects in the current game, such as Stasis or Mana Flare, and the current game will not be affected by anything the minion is doing during these 3 turns. Tokens are not destroyed by being phased out in this way.
At the point when the defeated player would have taken their next turn in the turn cycle of the current game had they not been defeated, that player and all cards he or she owns phase in and they begin their fourth turn.
The respawned player, which will be referred to as a minion, is now part of the current game, but cannot attack the player that defeateded them, cannot deal any damage to the player that defeated them, and any effects that specify an opponent will not affect the player that defeateded them. Minions can target the player that defeated them and can still target that player's spells and permanents, and can still deal damage to that player's permanents. Any of the minions effects that do not deal damage to players will still affect the player that defeated them.
A player that defeated another player and turned them into a minion can still attack that minion and deal damage to them, but cannot treat them as an opponent for card effects. If a minion is defeated by the same player that last defeated them, they are removed from the game (bad minion!).
If a minion defeats another player, that player is considered to have been defeateded by the player that defeateded that minion, and will become a minion to that player.
If a minion somehow manages to defeat the player that most recently defeated them (such as by causing them to draw from an empty deck or targeting them with Door to Nothingness), that player loses minion status and becomes eligible again to win the game, and the player they defeated becomes their minion.
Minions that were defeated by the same player cannot attack each other, deal damage to each other, or consider each other opponents for effects.
If a non-minion defeats a minion, that minion will respawn as a minion of the player that most recently defeated them.
The game ends when all but one player have become minions. The last non-minion player in the game is considered the winner.
Any player may concede from the game at any time. If a player concedes, they are removed from the game and cannot rejoin the game as a minion.
So some of the things I like about this, aside from the obvious fact that it keeps people from having to sit out of the game and watch:
1. It encourages you to kill people. Normally the social aspect of commander tells us that killing people early is not cool because it ends the game early for that person, which always felt awkward to me because the goal of the game is to kill people but doing it the wrong way can get you in trouble, but these rules remove that problem and also reward you with a teammate if you kill someone.
2. Rewarding a kill with a minion keeps the momentum of the game going. Usually in order to kill someone you have to commit a lot of resources to a big haymaker, and either you peter out and don't have enough resources to kill the other players, or they use the turn of mercy you gave them to answer your haymaker and reset the game, which is partially why games can take so long, because everyone has to rebuild again after someone dies. Having a teammate join your side to fight with you speeds up that process of rebuilding to your next haymaker play and helps keep games from getting bogged down in attrition.
3. Having a minion that has no vested interest in whether you win or lose the game (minions can never win, even if the player that beat them wins) can create an interesting tension. Will your newly acquired minion accept your role as their conqueror and support you on their path to victory, or might they actually be waiting to spitefully betray you at an opportune moment with something like a Wrath or Counterspell?
What are people's thoughts? Is there anything I should add/remove? Does this look like a fun way to play? If someone knows of an official ruleset for this format that already exists and has been posted somewhere, please post a link.
[Thanks to Reddit user NukeUtopia for inspiring this format]
Edit: Updated the rules after receiving some input on them. Added in the terminology for what a minion is to make it more flavorful and tweaked how minions interact with their master and with other minions. Also removed all terminology of teams to remove the perception that minions win if their master wins.
I have always liked being able to rejoin games, since sometimes you just get dealt a crappy hand (even after numerous mulligans) and can't protect yourself when another player happens to go off early. This is certainly a clear way of laying down the rules for respawning, particularly when it comes to winner eligibility.
The main problem I see is that this variant doesn't differ significantly enough from Archenemy in terms of "teammates", which creates the issue of strong decks/hands/players getting even stronger as they build their team. Conversely, weak decks/hands/players might feel even more pressure as they face a growing team of opponents. And this problem is only exacerbated if one player tries to exploit the format variant, purposefully killing people off to make a team.
For example, in a 4-person FFA, player 1 kills player 2 on t8. Now, players 3 and 4 are not only facing each other, but also the combined power of players 1 and 2. Essentially, players 3 and 4 still have 3 opponents each while players 1 and 2 only have 2 opponents each. Now, let's say that player 3 succumbs to the combined power of players 1 and 2, and is eliminated, respawning as a teammate of player 1 or 2. This leaves player 4 with 3 opponents, while player 1 (who is still undefeated and thus "in the game") out has one opponent to worry about.
And this pattern just gets worse when more players have died and/or there are more players at the table. I just don't see how this can stay balanced.
Whenever my playgroup used a respawning variant, the respawned players just came back after their 3 free turns. They couldn't win, sure, but they weren't tied/linked/teamed up with another player. They were free to act and attack as they pleased. The winner was still the last undefeated player standing, but this way, in my opinion, keeps the playing field more level for the people still in the game (i.e., the undefeated players).
Some very interesting concerns raised, thanks guys.
One concern is that the game would become unbalanced in favor of the person who gets the first kill. For me that's a feature, not a bug. Hear me out. I think one of the main reason multiplayer games go so long is because it's often strategically bad to be the first person to kill someone else. In order to kill someone with a haymaker, you usually have to commit a lot of resources in one turn and are left tapped out and shields down for the rest of the turn cycle, if not multiple turn cycles, making it easier for your opponents to either cripple or kill you. Even though everyone in EDH loves haymakers and bemoans combo kills, the game is setup in a way that makes combo kills the optimal play and haymakers for chumps. To me, that's bad game design. With this system, players are rewarded for killing people and a snowball effect is created that pushes the game to a conclusion, rather than constantly resetting players back to 0 advantage and 0 momentum. Yes, if you're not killing people and progressing the game, you might all of a sudden find yourself facing 3 players solo, but that's because you weren't being proactive enough in ending the game by killing other players.
The fact that minions (I've now decided this is what I'll call respawned players) can't win the game, even as a team, also helps to lessen the archenemy feel and gives the minions more autonomy in their actions. It might look like 1 against 3 if 1 player has killed 2 others, but 1 of their minions might decide to betray their master out of spite and turn it into 1 on 2 on 1. And if both minions decide to turn against the villain (because people do hold grudges in EDH) it can actually look much better for the player that's behind. So it's really up to the players how imbalanced they want the game to be (just like normal multiplayer).
Also I think the other concerns that were raised tie into the above concern about turning the game into archenemy. Respawned players aren't teammates in the traditional sense of having a shared goal with their teammate (because respawned players can't win the game). They have merely been neutered of the ability to attack the player that killed them. The reason for this again comes back to encouraging players to actually kill each other (rather than sitting around trying to combo off). Aside from trying to win the game, one of the primary reasons to kill an opponent in multiplayer is to remove that player as a threat. If you expend a ton of resources to kill someone, only to have them come right back and start attacking you again, well what's the point?
There is also a reason for the 3 turns and 30 life. Yes, I agree that 3-4 turns in a vacuum often won't be enough to catch a player up to the rest of the table. Again, feature, not bug. Getting killed should have consequences, even in a game that features respawning. If you get killed, you shouldn't get to come back in instantly with the same amount of resources as everyone else, for me that cheapens what it means to get killed. It would also create too much of an imbalance in the power structure if they came back into the game fully powered, which is a legitimate concern. Other players should still have a chance to reign in the top player if they act quickly, even if it means killing off their freshly spawned minion player and taking him or her as their own. It also creates the feeling that you are now a minion (I've decided I'm going with this as the name of the format), that you are below the other players in the game that have not died yet.
It was good for me to go through those, I think I might include a rule that says that a player is allowed to attack their own minion, seems like a flavorful way to punish a traitorous minion, but of course dealing with a minion would leave you open to your actual opponents, so I like the tension it creates.
My suggestion: put together a handful of previously constructed "minion" decks that the revived player can play with that are smaller, lower-powered and generally just not the same deck the person was already playing with. Maybe the player who killed them and their permanents have Protection From Their Own Minions so they can't be targeted by their *****? I like the idea of a minion getting a handful of free turns to set up and support their master, but I agree that the dynamics between the players who are still "in the game" and the minions needs to be addressed.
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I've updated the rules in the OP to be cleaner and address some things that were brought up. Like I removed everything about minions being on the same team as the person that defeated them and just defined how they interact. Also added in a spicy way for a minion to get back in a game as a real player.
Anne Noise, I don't like the option of building minion decks because I want this to be a thing that any playgroup can play with the decks they already have for normal EDH. I am kinda thinking about allowing a player to switch decks when they die, just for the sake of people that have multiple decks they want to try out in a game, but the flavor on that feels kind of iffy, but what do you guys think?
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Respawn Magic is not new, it is a format that was written about by Kelly Digges 5 years ago on the mothership as a format that allows players to play an endless multiplayer game on a loop. I recently saw a comment from a Reddit user that describes similar rules to respawn magic, except that instead being an endless game decided by points, the game ends when there is only one player left standing that hasn't died in that game. I definitely prefer this myself, since I like games to end so I can try out different decks in a night.
Rules:
So some of the things I like about this, aside from the obvious fact that it keeps people from having to sit out of the game and watch:
1. It encourages you to kill people. Normally the social aspect of commander tells us that killing people early is not cool because it ends the game early for that person, which always felt awkward to me because the goal of the game is to kill people but doing it the wrong way can get you in trouble, but these rules remove that problem and also reward you with a teammate if you kill someone.
2. Rewarding a kill with a minion keeps the momentum of the game going. Usually in order to kill someone you have to commit a lot of resources to a big haymaker, and either you peter out and don't have enough resources to kill the other players, or they use the turn of mercy you gave them to answer your haymaker and reset the game, which is partially why games can take so long, because everyone has to rebuild again after someone dies. Having a teammate join your side to fight with you speeds up that process of rebuilding to your next haymaker play and helps keep games from getting bogged down in attrition.
3. Having a minion that has no vested interest in whether you win or lose the game (minions can never win, even if the player that beat them wins) can create an interesting tension. Will your newly acquired minion accept your role as their conqueror and support you on their path to victory, or might they actually be waiting to spitefully betray you at an opportune moment with something like a Wrath or Counterspell?
What are people's thoughts? Is there anything I should add/remove? Does this look like a fun way to play? If someone knows of an official ruleset for this format that already exists and has been posted somewhere, please post a link.
[Thanks to Reddit user NukeUtopia for inspiring this format]
Edit: Updated the rules after receiving some input on them. Added in the terminology for what a minion is to make it more flavorful and tweaked how minions interact with their master and with other minions. Also removed all terminology of teams to remove the perception that minions win if their master wins.
The main problem I see is that this variant doesn't differ significantly enough from Archenemy in terms of "teammates", which creates the issue of strong decks/hands/players getting even stronger as they build their team. Conversely, weak decks/hands/players might feel even more pressure as they face a growing team of opponents. And this problem is only exacerbated if one player tries to exploit the format variant, purposefully killing people off to make a team.
For example, in a 4-person FFA, player 1 kills player 2 on t8. Now, players 3 and 4 are not only facing each other, but also the combined power of players 1 and 2. Essentially, players 3 and 4 still have 3 opponents each while players 1 and 2 only have 2 opponents each. Now, let's say that player 3 succumbs to the combined power of players 1 and 2, and is eliminated, respawning as a teammate of player 1 or 2. This leaves player 4 with 3 opponents, while player 1 (who is still undefeated and thus "in the game") out has one opponent to worry about.
And this pattern just gets worse when more players have died and/or there are more players at the table. I just don't see how this can stay balanced.
Whenever my playgroup used a respawning variant, the respawned players just came back after their 3 free turns. They couldn't win, sure, but they weren't tied/linked/teamed up with another player. They were free to act and attack as they pleased. The winner was still the last undefeated player standing, but this way, in my opinion, keeps the playing field more level for the people still in the game (i.e., the undefeated players).
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One concern is that the game would become unbalanced in favor of the person who gets the first kill. For me that's a feature, not a bug. Hear me out. I think one of the main reason multiplayer games go so long is because it's often strategically bad to be the first person to kill someone else. In order to kill someone with a haymaker, you usually have to commit a lot of resources in one turn and are left tapped out and shields down for the rest of the turn cycle, if not multiple turn cycles, making it easier for your opponents to either cripple or kill you. Even though everyone in EDH loves haymakers and bemoans combo kills, the game is setup in a way that makes combo kills the optimal play and haymakers for chumps. To me, that's bad game design. With this system, players are rewarded for killing people and a snowball effect is created that pushes the game to a conclusion, rather than constantly resetting players back to 0 advantage and 0 momentum. Yes, if you're not killing people and progressing the game, you might all of a sudden find yourself facing 3 players solo, but that's because you weren't being proactive enough in ending the game by killing other players.
The fact that minions (I've now decided this is what I'll call respawned players) can't win the game, even as a team, also helps to lessen the archenemy feel and gives the minions more autonomy in their actions. It might look like 1 against 3 if 1 player has killed 2 others, but 1 of their minions might decide to betray their master out of spite and turn it into 1 on 2 on 1. And if both minions decide to turn against the villain (because people do hold grudges in EDH) it can actually look much better for the player that's behind. So it's really up to the players how imbalanced they want the game to be (just like normal multiplayer).
Also I think the other concerns that were raised tie into the above concern about turning the game into archenemy. Respawned players aren't teammates in the traditional sense of having a shared goal with their teammate (because respawned players can't win the game). They have merely been neutered of the ability to attack the player that killed them. The reason for this again comes back to encouraging players to actually kill each other (rather than sitting around trying to combo off). Aside from trying to win the game, one of the primary reasons to kill an opponent in multiplayer is to remove that player as a threat. If you expend a ton of resources to kill someone, only to have them come right back and start attacking you again, well what's the point?
There is also a reason for the 3 turns and 30 life. Yes, I agree that 3-4 turns in a vacuum often won't be enough to catch a player up to the rest of the table. Again, feature, not bug. Getting killed should have consequences, even in a game that features respawning. If you get killed, you shouldn't get to come back in instantly with the same amount of resources as everyone else, for me that cheapens what it means to get killed. It would also create too much of an imbalance in the power structure if they came back into the game fully powered, which is a legitimate concern. Other players should still have a chance to reign in the top player if they act quickly, even if it means killing off their freshly spawned minion player and taking him or her as their own. It also creates the feeling that you are now a minion (I've decided I'm going with this as the name of the format), that you are below the other players in the game that have not died yet.
It was good for me to go through those, I think I might include a rule that says that a player is allowed to attack their own minion, seems like a flavorful way to punish a traitorous minion, but of course dealing with a minion would leave you open to your actual opponents, so I like the tension it creates.
Anne Noise, I don't like the option of building minion decks because I want this to be a thing that any playgroup can play with the decks they already have for normal EDH. I am kinda thinking about allowing a player to switch decks when they die, just for the sake of people that have multiple decks they want to try out in a game, but the flavor on that feels kind of iffy, but what do you guys think?