Hello all. Lately, I've been tired of playing Commander games and most people don't really have a casual 60-card deck to play against mine when I go out to drafts. For this reason, I'm going to mention a format that has fallen out of favor for some time but I hope people will start picking it up as something to do, especially if you have a ton of casual rares / mythics that you don't know what to do with. The format is Type 4 and it is very enjoyable. You will have some memorable games for sure due to some crazy interactions with cards you thought would never happen. And, it's quite skill intensive, with lots of stack interactions and again, funky card interactions.
You can only play one spell a turn: Obviously with infinite mana there's a catch. The catch here is you can only play one spell a turn. This makes instants or cards with flash really a commodity. There are variations to get around this rule, which I'll share mine later. One spell a turn means every turn, yours and your opponents, so if you play a creature on your turn, you can still play an instant on your opponents turn, whether it would be a counter or a draw spell.
Variations to the rule - For my stack, I play with these exceptions:
-Morph doesn't count as your spell for the turn. Includes playing the morph and morphing it.
-Alternate casting cost doesn't count as your spell for the turn. Includes cards like the traps from Zendikar, the Bringers from Fifth Dawn (and cards casted with Fist of Suns in play), Thwart, Phyrexian mana. Stuff like that. You'll hear me mentioning ACC a few times, which will be short for "Alternate Casting Cost."
-Cards that have 0 in their casting cost don't count as your spell for the turn. In addition, if you can reduce the cost of cards to 0 through certain means, they don't count either. Examples are the Pacts from Future Sight, the keyword Convoke, and in the super rare occasion you get Altar of Shadows to have that many charge counters on it.
-Unearth doesn't count as your spell for the turn. Flashback DOES count as your spell for the turn (unless the flashback is not a mana cost).
-Non-basic lands don't count as your spell for the turn.
-Forecast, Suspend, and Channel are not spells, they are activated (or triggered? I don't recall atm) abilites. When a spell resolves from suspend, however, that doesn't count as your spell for the turn. This makes Ancestral Visions and Mind Stab pretty awesome.
-If the card states "You may cast this without paying its casting cost", then it does not count as your spell for the turn. Examples of the exception would be Spelljack, the ability on Djinn of Wishes or the trigger from Intet, the Dreamer. Cards that don't fit the exception are cards casted through Yawgmoth's Agenda and the activation of Muse Vessel.
That was a lot of exceptions (I think I got them all...), but understand that there are only a few examples of certain exceptions so you won't see it occur often. I find that with these rules it helps tip the balance and allows games to eventually end. You can add your own exceptions as well. I've played with one stack where all counterspells countered regardless of how much the opponent paid. This allows cards like Runeboggle and Mana Leak to be used.
-Formats-
In the past, I've seen people play Type 4 in various ways. People receive their own stack and played. People have opening hands of 3 or 5. Personally, I find the most adaptable method is to have everyone draw from one large stack, and to play sudden death (no one has an opening hand). This allows cards like Drastic Revelation, Heightened Awareness to be great card drawing engines, and library manipulation such as Discombobulate, Nivix, Aerie of the Firemind, Noxious Revival, and Enigma Sphinx to be fun.
Each player also has their own graveyard. If a card gets exiled, it goes into the exiled pile. For my stack personally, cards that get "put on the bottom" also get exiled as the stack is so large it makes it easier. It also allows cards like Deglamer and Reito Lantern to be more effective.
I also have my own personal rule of no tutors in the stack. It's a lot different if you prepare a type 4 stack for every player to personally play but for sharing one entire stack there are no tutors whatsoever. The only library manipulation comes from stacking the first few cards on top and that's it.
Also, creatures with landwalk are considered unblockable. The upside to having a million swamps for your Mutilate is that you are vulnerable to an opponent with Filth in the graveyard!
Those are the rules and variations/exceptions to them. Each and every type 4 stack is different based on the person that makes them so hopefully this will inspire those that want to play a different form of multiplayer to create a stack and try it out. I'll talk more about which types of cards are great for the stack, balancing the power of the stack, and share some really nutty interactions / stories with card combinations with my stack. Understand that creating a Type 4 stack takes some time to build, and is also not very cheap (having a cube and a type 4 stack is very difficult to manage). Most rares and mythics you want in the stack because of the card's inherent power level, and Type 4 is about playing the ridiculous powerful fatties / cards free of mana restrictions! It's also a really great way to escape mana screw woes for sure!
Edited for grammar and card tags and additional rules I neglected.
Yes, one way to quickly make a type 4 stack is to throw every fatty you have into the stack, counterspells, cool spells and artifacts / enchantments and be done with it. However, as you play with the stack you will discover that some cards perform better than others, and some cards are just outright impossible to answer if you don't build the stack correctly. Here I'll talk about some finer adjustments to consider when building your stack.
Have Plentiful Ways to Deal With Indestructibility / Regeneration
Indestructibility is going to be backbreaking most games, but you don't want it to be every time. Cards like Darksteel Colossus or Spearbreaker Behemoth you want a good amount of answers for, and not just one Swords to Plowshares. Be sure to add in cards that just don't destroy creatures but exile them, such as Condemn or Unmake. There's always an answer to every threat, and make sure the stack has it. Morphling seems really tough to deal with, but Sudden Death or Final Judgement will deal with it just fine.
On the same note, make sure you have creature removal that says "does not regenerate." Regeneration will still be a commodity, making cards like Yavimaya Hollow or Asceticism good, but it won't make a creature like Rhox impossible to deal with.
All this should be in proportion to what you have to answer, so if you have a high count of indestructible creatures, be sure to have a high amount of "Exile" instead of "Destroy." Sometimes, you don't even have to destroy them, but just nullify them. Cards such as Crowd Favorites or even the lowly Dawnglare Invoker can just tap creatures infinitely, and Dawnglare Invoker even gets around shroud / hexproof on creatures!
Have Cards that Make People Discard
You'll run into times where one person just seems to be drawing the draw spells all the time, or they'll have a really difficult card to deal with (IE Arcanis the Omnipotent or Pride of the Clouds). Having hand disruption, though really unsavory, is VERY necessary. Some cards off the top of my head that stand out are Mind Stab (ACC Suspend), Haunting Hymn, or channeling Ghost-Lit Stalker. If you want to be really nasty, you can play Cabal Conditioning and Identity Crisis.
Graveyard Removal is Important!
Recursion is strong in this format, as it is in all formats, but recurring ridiculous card after ridiculous card can be impossible without some sort of graveyard hate. They also deal with cards like Filth, Glory, Anger, Wonder, and Genesis. Be sure to include some in your stack, proportional to how much recursion you have. Otherwise, too much graveyard hate leads to them being dead cards. Some good examples are Creakwood Ghoul, Necrogenesis, and Stonecloaker.
Not Every Fatty is a Good Fatty
When you first start off, any and every fatty creature will be fine. But when you start increasing the power level of your stack, you'll be more and more picky with your fatty or "finisher" creatures. Ancient Silverback was cool, but now doesn't really hold its weight to a Consecrated Sphinx or a Grave Titan. When you think of big creatures to include, think of those that have evasion or some game-warping effect. Kaervek the Merciless will draw the attention and ire of everyone on the table. Child of Gaea has regeneration and tramples. Even Benthic Behemoth is great because it's essentially unblockable and in 3 turns knocks a person out.
Also, when deciding creatures, creatures that have inherent card advantage built in them are great because they are going to be taking up that one precious spell slot. For example, Sunscape Battlemage double kicked is quite effective in producing a lot of efficiency for you as your one spell for the turn. Kill a flyer and draw two cards is amazing. Again, not every creature can be like that but you'll want your creatures to either fit one of the criteria above or create card advantage.
Make your Spells Flashy and Fun
Counterspells are important to keep balance in the game and are another way to answer ridiculously difficult creatures such as Progenitus or Inkwell Leviathan. Plain counterspells are fine to have, which make the more flashy counterspells shine even more. Even tricky counterspells that don't count as your spell for the turn become key components to land that game breaking turn. Examples are Decree of Silence, Spelljack, Pact of Negation, Thwart, Swift Silence, Force of Will, Desertion, and Mindbreak Trap (the only actual "counterspell" to deal with Emrakul :D)
A good amount of instant speed removal is also necessary to maintain a good game state. There are tons of removal spells in the game of magic, so be sure to pick removal spells that have an extra surprise or utility to them. Examples are Annihilate, Expunge, Violet Pall, Exile, Agonizing Demise, and Cinder Cloud.
As for your other instant spells, have the same mind set as you do when picking which creatures to put in. Does the card generate card advantage? Does the card wildly change the game state to benefit the caster? Instant card draw is always an include. Wizards hasn't printed very much of late so you'll have to look back into older sets for them, but even still sorcery card draws are good. As a rule of thumb for me, however, the card will need to net three after resolution, so cards like Sift or Compusive Research aren't good enough but Concentrate or Breakthrough are fine. Other really interesting instants to consider are Memory Plunder, Captain's Maneuver, Urza's Rage and Stonewood Invocation.
Sorceries, enchantments, and artifacts have to also be considered carefully as they take up the one spell slot for your turn. They have to be ridiculously powerful, even more so for sorceries, as they don't help develop board presence most of the time. Some really powerful and swingy sorceries to consider are Cruel Ultimatum, Brilliant Ultimatum, Insurrection, and Storm Herd. Enchantments and artifacts have to be extremely effective at creating absurd game states or balancing them. However, be sure that you have a good proportion of answers to deal with the enchantments and artifacts you put in. Some powerful enchantments and artifacts are Thought Reflection, Baneful Omen, Privileged Position, Legacy Weapon, all the Sword equipment, Umezewa's Jitte, and Scepter of Insight (Mind's Eye is too degenerate with infinite mana).
I hope you enjoyed reading this and found it to be helpful to creating your type 4 stack. Understand that the stack is a preference of cards, the creator's preference, so every stack is going to be different. I have worked on my stack over the course of 6 years and it's still an ongoing project, as long as new cards are being printed. Now, I'll share with you some really hilarious stories that I've experienced with my stack. I'll try to have card tags inputed for all the previous ones and will include them in the stories here. If I haven't gotten your attention with this format yet, maybe listening to some of these stories will.
-There was one player that had the only creature in play. On his turn he played Biorhythm. In response, another player tried to kill it with a removal spell. In response to that, someone played and replicated Thunderheads for 10 billion. That player won with 10 billion life.
-Someone replicated Thunderheads at the end of someone's turn while he had a Carnage Altar in play for a billion. Everyone conceded.
-Someone replicated Thunderheads at the end of someone's turn while he had Electropotence in play (Thunderheads... who would have thought would be a combo card?).
-One player who had absolutely nothing on the board obtained every permanent on the board through Memnarch on his turn, only to have it all be wiped away by Legacy Weapon the next turn. Talk about riding high and sinking really low.
-Yet another Thunderheads story. Someone replicated Thunderheads for a billion only to have it be countered by Swift Silence.
-I have tried to win the game with Biorhythm having the only creature in play but got thwarted when someone casted Word of Seizing against me.
-Someone had Lich's Mirror on the board and on the next opponent's turn flashed in Wydwen, the Biting Gale, then put 20 activations of her ability on the stack to trigger Lich's Mirror and go back to 20 with a full grip.
I don't use the ACC as free spells, I want as little errata as possible so that anyone who plays Magic can just pick up and play. I am recently regretting that decision, as it stops a lot of really fun effects - but that's something I'm just going to have to acknowledge.
It sounds like you're in tune with recent sets, please peruse my Type 4 stack and make some suggestions.
Rules of Type 4
Every player has infinite mana: Infinite color, infinite basic land type, if it has an X in the cost, you pick a number and its legal. This makes cards like Fireball or Blaze too powerful so I personally ban them from the stack, as the opponent needs to hold a counterspell or lose. However, it makes cards like Mutilate, Bane of the Living, Dwarven Catapult, Breakthrough, Delay / Ertai's Meddling etc. really good. Also, things like Thunderheads, Shield of the Ages, Combat Medic, Panacea go from almost useless to ridiculous.
You can only play one spell a turn: Obviously with infinite mana there's a catch. The catch here is you can only play one spell a turn. This makes instants or cards with flash really a commodity. There are variations to get around this rule, which I'll share mine later. One spell a turn means every turn, yours and your opponents, so if you play a creature on your turn, you can still play an instant on your opponents turn, whether it would be a counter or a draw spell.
Variations to the rule - For my stack, I play with these exceptions:
-Morph doesn't count as your spell for the turn. Includes playing the morph and morphing it.
-Alternate casting cost doesn't count as your spell for the turn. Includes cards like the traps from Zendikar, the Bringers from Fifth Dawn (and cards casted with Fist of Suns in play), Thwart, Phyrexian mana. Stuff like that. You'll hear me mentioning ACC a few times, which will be short for "Alternate Casting Cost."
-Cards that have 0 in their casting cost don't count as your spell for the turn. In addition, if you can reduce the cost of cards to 0 through certain means, they don't count either. Examples are the Pacts from Future Sight, the keyword Convoke, and in the super rare occasion you get Altar of Shadows to have that many charge counters on it.
-Unearth doesn't count as your spell for the turn. Flashback DOES count as your spell for the turn (unless the flashback is not a mana cost).
-Non-basic lands don't count as your spell for the turn.
-Forecast, Suspend, and Channel are not spells, they are activated (or triggered? I don't recall atm) abilites. When a spell resolves from suspend, however, that doesn't count as your spell for the turn. This makes Ancestral Visions and Mind Stab pretty awesome.
-If the card states "You may cast this without paying its casting cost", then it does not count as your spell for the turn. Examples of the exception would be Spelljack, the ability on Djinn of Wishes or the trigger from Intet, the Dreamer. Cards that don't fit the exception are cards casted through Yawgmoth's Agenda and the activation of Muse Vessel.
That was a lot of exceptions (I think I got them all...), but understand that there are only a few examples of certain exceptions so you won't see it occur often. I find that with these rules it helps tip the balance and allows games to eventually end. You can add your own exceptions as well. I've played with one stack where all counterspells countered regardless of how much the opponent paid. This allows cards like Runeboggle and Mana Leak to be used.
-Formats-
In the past, I've seen people play Type 4 in various ways. People receive their own stack and played. People have opening hands of 3 or 5. Personally, I find the most adaptable method is to have everyone draw from one large stack, and to play sudden death (no one has an opening hand). This allows cards like Drastic Revelation, Heightened Awareness to be great card drawing engines, and library manipulation such as Discombobulate, Nivix, Aerie of the Firemind, Noxious Revival, and Enigma Sphinx to be fun.
Each player also has their own graveyard. If a card gets exiled, it goes into the exiled pile. For my stack personally, cards that get "put on the bottom" also get exiled as the stack is so large it makes it easier. It also allows cards like Deglamer and Reito Lantern to be more effective.
I also have my own personal rule of no tutors in the stack. It's a lot different if you prepare a type 4 stack for every player to personally play but for sharing one entire stack there are no tutors whatsoever. The only library manipulation comes from stacking the first few cards on top and that's it.
Also, creatures with landwalk are considered unblockable. The upside to having a million swamps for your Mutilate is that you are vulnerable to an opponent with Filth in the graveyard!
Those are the rules and variations/exceptions to them. Each and every type 4 stack is different based on the person that makes them so hopefully this will inspire those that want to play a different form of multiplayer to create a stack and try it out. I'll talk more about which types of cards are great for the stack, balancing the power of the stack, and share some really nutty interactions / stories with card combinations with my stack. Understand that creating a Type 4 stack takes some time to build, and is also not very cheap (having a cube and a type 4 stack is very difficult to manage). Most rares and mythics you want in the stack because of the card's inherent power level, and Type 4 is about playing the ridiculous powerful fatties / cards free of mana restrictions! It's also a really great way to escape mana screw woes for sure!
Edited for grammar and card tags and additional rules I neglected.
Yes, one way to quickly make a type 4 stack is to throw every fatty you have into the stack, counterspells, cool spells and artifacts / enchantments and be done with it. However, as you play with the stack you will discover that some cards perform better than others, and some cards are just outright impossible to answer if you don't build the stack correctly. Here I'll talk about some finer adjustments to consider when building your stack.
Have Plentiful Ways to Deal With Indestructibility / Regeneration
Indestructibility is going to be backbreaking most games, but you don't want it to be every time. Cards like Darksteel Colossus or Spearbreaker Behemoth you want a good amount of answers for, and not just one Swords to Plowshares. Be sure to add in cards that just don't destroy creatures but exile them, such as Condemn or Unmake. There's always an answer to every threat, and make sure the stack has it. Morphling seems really tough to deal with, but Sudden Death or Final Judgement will deal with it just fine.
On the same note, make sure you have creature removal that says "does not regenerate." Regeneration will still be a commodity, making cards like Yavimaya Hollow or Asceticism good, but it won't make a creature like Rhox impossible to deal with.
All this should be in proportion to what you have to answer, so if you have a high count of indestructible creatures, be sure to have a high amount of "Exile" instead of "Destroy." Sometimes, you don't even have to destroy them, but just nullify them. Cards such as Crowd Favorites or even the lowly Dawnglare Invoker can just tap creatures infinitely, and Dawnglare Invoker even gets around shroud / hexproof on creatures!
Have Cards that Make People Discard
You'll run into times where one person just seems to be drawing the draw spells all the time, or they'll have a really difficult card to deal with (IE Arcanis the Omnipotent or Pride of the Clouds). Having hand disruption, though really unsavory, is VERY necessary. Some cards off the top of my head that stand out are Mind Stab (ACC Suspend), Haunting Hymn, or channeling Ghost-Lit Stalker. If you want to be really nasty, you can play Cabal Conditioning and Identity Crisis.
Graveyard Removal is Important!
Recursion is strong in this format, as it is in all formats, but recurring ridiculous card after ridiculous card can be impossible without some sort of graveyard hate. They also deal with cards like Filth, Glory, Anger, Wonder, and Genesis. Be sure to include some in your stack, proportional to how much recursion you have. Otherwise, too much graveyard hate leads to them being dead cards. Some good examples are Creakwood Ghoul, Necrogenesis, and Stonecloaker.
Not Every Fatty is a Good Fatty
When you first start off, any and every fatty creature will be fine. But when you start increasing the power level of your stack, you'll be more and more picky with your fatty or "finisher" creatures. Ancient Silverback was cool, but now doesn't really hold its weight to a Consecrated Sphinx or a Grave Titan. When you think of big creatures to include, think of those that have evasion or some game-warping effect. Kaervek the Merciless will draw the attention and ire of everyone on the table. Child of Gaea has regeneration and tramples. Even Benthic Behemoth is great because it's essentially unblockable and in 3 turns knocks a person out.
Also, when deciding creatures, creatures that have inherent card advantage built in them are great because they are going to be taking up that one precious spell slot. For example, Sunscape Battlemage double kicked is quite effective in producing a lot of efficiency for you as your one spell for the turn. Kill a flyer and draw two cards is amazing. Again, not every creature can be like that but you'll want your creatures to either fit one of the criteria above or create card advantage.
Make your Spells Flashy and Fun
Counterspells are important to keep balance in the game and are another way to answer ridiculously difficult creatures such as Progenitus or Inkwell Leviathan. Plain counterspells are fine to have, which make the more flashy counterspells shine even more. Even tricky counterspells that don't count as your spell for the turn become key components to land that game breaking turn. Examples are Decree of Silence, Spelljack, Pact of Negation, Thwart, Swift Silence, Force of Will, Desertion, and Mindbreak Trap (the only actual "counterspell" to deal with Emrakul :D)
A good amount of instant speed removal is also necessary to maintain a good game state. There are tons of removal spells in the game of magic, so be sure to pick removal spells that have an extra surprise or utility to them. Examples are Annihilate, Expunge, Violet Pall, Exile, Agonizing Demise, and Cinder Cloud.
As for your other instant spells, have the same mind set as you do when picking which creatures to put in. Does the card generate card advantage? Does the card wildly change the game state to benefit the caster? Instant card draw is always an include. Wizards hasn't printed very much of late so you'll have to look back into older sets for them, but even still sorcery card draws are good. As a rule of thumb for me, however, the card will need to net three after resolution, so cards like Sift or Compusive Research aren't good enough but Concentrate or Breakthrough are fine. Other really interesting instants to consider are Memory Plunder, Captain's Maneuver, Urza's Rage and Stonewood Invocation.
Sorceries, enchantments, and artifacts have to also be considered carefully as they take up the one spell slot for your turn. They have to be ridiculously powerful, even more so for sorceries, as they don't help develop board presence most of the time. Some really powerful and swingy sorceries to consider are Cruel Ultimatum, Brilliant Ultimatum, Insurrection, and Storm Herd. Enchantments and artifacts have to be extremely effective at creating absurd game states or balancing them. However, be sure that you have a good proportion of answers to deal with the enchantments and artifacts you put in. Some powerful enchantments and artifacts are Thought Reflection, Baneful Omen, Privileged Position, Legacy Weapon, all the Sword equipment, Umezewa's Jitte, and Scepter of Insight (Mind's Eye is too degenerate with infinite mana).
I hope you enjoyed reading this and found it to be helpful to creating your type 4 stack. Understand that the stack is a preference of cards, the creator's preference, so every stack is going to be different. I have worked on my stack over the course of 6 years and it's still an ongoing project, as long as new cards are being printed. Now, I'll share with you some really hilarious stories that I've experienced with my stack. I'll try to have card tags inputed for all the previous ones and will include them in the stories here. If I haven't gotten your attention with this format yet, maybe listening to some of these stories will.
-I've had one player go infinite with Arcanis the Omnipotent and Sneak Attack.
-There was one player that had the only creature in play. On his turn he played Biorhythm. In response, another player tried to kill it with a removal spell. In response to that, someone played and replicated Thunderheads for 10 billion. That player won with 10 billion life.
-Someone replicated Thunderheads at the end of someone's turn while he had a Carnage Altar in play for a billion. Everyone conceded.
-Someone replicated Thunderheads at the end of someone's turn while he had Electropotence in play (Thunderheads... who would have thought would be a combo card?).
-One player who had absolutely nothing on the board obtained every permanent on the board through Memnarch on his turn, only to have it all be wiped away by Legacy Weapon the next turn. Talk about riding high and sinking really low.
-I've had a player Wild Ricochet a Cruel Ultimatum of which he was being targeted at.
-Yet another Thunderheads story. Someone replicated Thunderheads for a billion only to have it be countered by Swift Silence.
-I have tried to win the game with Biorhythm having the only creature in play but got thwarted when someone casted Word of Seizing against me.
-Someone had Lich's Mirror on the board and on the next opponent's turn flashed in Wydwen, the Biting Gale, then put 20 activations of her ability on the stack to trigger Lich's Mirror and go back to 20 with a full grip.
-In a long game, someone played Chainer, Dementia Master, then reanimated Ancestor's Chosen and Smokespew Invoker to gain infinite life then reanimate every creature in every graveyard.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=366773
I don't use the ACC as free spells, I want as little errata as possible so that anyone who plays Magic can just pick up and play. I am recently regretting that decision, as it stops a lot of really fun effects - but that's something I'm just going to have to acknowledge.
It sounds like you're in tune with recent sets, please peruse my Type 4 stack and make some suggestions.
Mid-Tier: Marchesa Aggro Rose Asmadi Get Dire Tymna Ikra Woke Women Tiana Aura Angel Ruric Thar SMASH Smasher Kraum Mana Positivity Zur Slides
Filthy Casual: WUBRG Jodah WUBRG WUBRG Fatties WUBRG Gahiji Vigilant Vengeance Ezuri Mysterious Morphs