This came to me in the shower today, and so I thought I'd share it, even if somebody already had the idea. I need to draw a diagram to explain properly, though...
This is probably a really confusing image.
For lack of a more descriptive name, let's call the format "Star Team". (I was going to go with "Star Captains", because it sounds cool, but it's less descriptive by far).
Players in Star Team
Star Team features five teams of eight, one for each of the five colours. These teams are all structured like this-
A "King/Deity", with a 250 card, singleton monocolour deck (in the teams colour)
A "General/Admiral/Overlord/Etc", with a singleton 250 card deck containing only cards of the teams colour (including multicolour cards of all five colours).
Two "Commanders", each with a 100 (or 120)-card singleton deck, one of which contains the team's colour and multicoloured cards of both of its allied colours, and one containing the team's colour and multicoloured cards of both of its enemy colours.
Four "Captains/Soldiers", each with a 60-card singleton deck, containing cards of the team's colour and multicoloured cards of one other colour.
With me so far? (Multicolour doesn't work like Multicolour in Commander; it only cares about symbols in the spell's mana cost)
The image I posted above has just gotten a BIT more complex, and now looks like this-
Star Team is played in teams, of course, and the last team standing is victorious, a departure from "Star", where you have to simply eliminate your two enemy colours. I never much liked that about Star, so... Out it goes.
To make the game a bit more flavourful, the different members of each team start out at different life totals. The "Deity" himself begins each game with 200 life, his "General" with 100, his "Commanders" with 50, and his "Captains" with 20. There are rules for mana and combat, as well, but first...
That table looks pretty weird, though, right?
Combat and spells and mana sharing are divided into "zones" in Star Team. The map of Zones looks like this (the black lines represent a zone border).
What the heck is going on?
In Star Team, creatures have to move around to attack distant players. A creature moves through one zone every turn (teams take their turns as a group, for simplicity's sake) (creatures with Haste move two zones per turn). For the White "Deity" to attack the Red "Diety" with his army of six 1/1s, he has to travel through at least six zones. His army can take any path it chooses, as well, so as to avoid creatures "on the way" that might choose to block.
Red's Red-and-White player, for example, could choose to block when the creatures reach the Red/White warfront. One of the higher-ranking Red players could ORDER him to block, but he doesn't have to. He could side with White, even, and add his creatures to White's army. (Not that he would. For White to win, every member of every other team must fall.)
Spells and activated abilities have to move through the zones, too. You can cast a spell in any zone you choose, but it has to travel there before it resolves (every zone has its own stack). Spells travel two zones every turn, but instants and spells with Flash (and most activated abilities) travel three zones every turn.
Obviously, spells resolving will get very complicated, very quickly. The movement of spells and creatures takes place at the beginning of every turn (creatures don't enter combat until the appropriate combat phase, though), and any spells that are targeting that zone (or something IN that zone) resolve (in the same order they would in normal Magic; in reverse-casting order).
Abilities or spells that would normally affect the entire board are now limited to affecting the contents of a central zone, and any zone touching that zone. If you wish to target a different zone with an ability (for example, Jace Beleren's +2 ability), you may, but the ability will have to travel to the target "central zone" before it resolves.
Spells and abilities do "seek their targets". If you target a creature with a spell, your spell will always move along the shortest possible path toward that creature, no matter where that creature goes. This means that players can delay the effect of, say, a Lightning Bolt by running their creature around the board, but only for so long. The controller of a creature does choose which zone that creature moves to at the beginning of every turn, though (these happen in turn order, starting with the team who's turn is beginning). Player's don't declare a six-zone-long attack and then find themselves locked into it.
Thoughts? Am I missing a rule that needs to be present?
Also, what should the banlist for this look like? What should the most "extravagant" decklists look like? Am I crazy?
Did you figure out the part where it makes it possible for everyone to keep up with everything going on?
I get what you're going at, with the different "ranks" of players with different deck power levels/counts (which is neat), but I'm pretty confused reading this post, and I can't imagine actually playing it.
You'd need to have several non-playing participants acting as "facillitators" and judges, methinks. As much as I'd actually like to play it, I imagine I'd need to co-ordinate with several local stores to put it together. Designing the decklists would be interesting, thought. I was thinking of building them as vintage decks, of course, with a few extra rules. (For example, the entire "White" decklist (all eight white decks) could only have one copy of any Vintage-resticted cards (like a Mox or Lotus).)
Yeah, you would have to have independent people presiding the entire game, but even then I think it would require them a lot of brain space to keep up with it. This is something that might work as an electronic game since it could keep tabs, but it would have to be programmed from the ground up around the entire format.
This looks awesome!! I would love to play this. As for keeping up with what's going on, on the battlefield. I'd leave it to the players. I mean, you've got a hierarchy built in, to give it a war feel, why not just further the war feel.
king-General-Commander-Scout
Let it work like a hierarchy, the information has to travel from zone to zone. So say for example White King throws a Wrath of God at Black King, it would have to pass through Black/splash white's zone, so Black/Splash white would be able to give a warning. But if black/splash white is dead then there wouldn't be an ally there to give a warning, so why should black get a warning? This would also give stronger reasoning to protect your "Subordinate" decks.
This would also mean that you could play more politics into the game, the kings can parley with ally colors but only if they have a creature in an ally color zone with that colors player still in game. Allowing you to pull off sneak attacks, and Alliances. Ultimately only can live though so there's going to have to be betrayal somewhere, adding more dynamics to the game.
Spells having to take a direct route is great for this, you're going to have to play with more strategy because of this.
If your scouts die, then the king doesn't have eyes on the contested zone anymore. If the commander dies he loses eyes on his border, etc...
I definitale like that idea, but that makes it near-exclusively a Digital format. You couldn't practically do that on a real table. You'd have to announce that something is coming, unless you have two or three judges per team making sure everything runs smoothly.
This is probably a really confusing image.
For lack of a more descriptive name, let's call the format "Star Team". (I was going to go with "Star Captains", because it sounds cool, but it's less descriptive by far).
Players in Star Team
Star Team features five teams of eight, one for each of the five colours. These teams are all structured like this-
With me so far? (Multicolour doesn't work like Multicolour in Commander; it only cares about symbols in the spell's mana cost)
The image I posted above has just gotten a BIT more complex, and now looks like this-
Star Team is played in teams, of course, and the last team standing is victorious, a departure from "Star", where you have to simply eliminate your two enemy colours. I never much liked that about Star, so... Out it goes.
To make the game a bit more flavourful, the different members of each team start out at different life totals. The "Deity" himself begins each game with 200 life, his "General" with 100, his "Commanders" with 50, and his "Captains" with 20. There are rules for mana and combat, as well, but first...
That table looks pretty weird, though, right?
Combat and spells and mana sharing are divided into "zones" in Star Team. The map of Zones looks like this (the black lines represent a zone border).
What the heck is going on?
In Star Team, creatures have to move around to attack distant players. A creature moves through one zone every turn (teams take their turns as a group, for simplicity's sake) (creatures with Haste move two zones per turn). For the White "Deity" to attack the Red "Diety" with his army of six 1/1s, he has to travel through at least six zones. His army can take any path it chooses, as well, so as to avoid creatures "on the way" that might choose to block.
Red's Red-and-White player, for example, could choose to block when the creatures reach the Red/White warfront. One of the higher-ranking Red players could ORDER him to block, but he doesn't have to. He could side with White, even, and add his creatures to White's army. (Not that he would. For White to win, every member of every other team must fall.)
Spells and activated abilities have to move through the zones, too. You can cast a spell in any zone you choose, but it has to travel there before it resolves (every zone has its own stack). Spells travel two zones every turn, but instants and spells with Flash (and most activated abilities) travel three zones every turn.
Obviously, spells resolving will get very complicated, very quickly. The movement of spells and creatures takes place at the beginning of every turn (creatures don't enter combat until the appropriate combat phase, though), and any spells that are targeting that zone (or something IN that zone) resolve (in the same order they would in normal Magic; in reverse-casting order).
Abilities or spells that would normally affect the entire board are now limited to affecting the contents of a central zone, and any zone touching that zone. If you wish to target a different zone with an ability (for example, Jace Beleren's +2 ability), you may, but the ability will have to travel to the target "central zone" before it resolves.
Spells and abilities do "seek their targets". If you target a creature with a spell, your spell will always move along the shortest possible path toward that creature, no matter where that creature goes. This means that players can delay the effect of, say, a Lightning Bolt by running their creature around the board, but only for so long. The controller of a creature does choose which zone that creature moves to at the beginning of every turn, though (these happen in turn order, starting with the team who's turn is beginning). Player's don't declare a six-zone-long attack and then find themselves locked into it.
Thoughts? Am I missing a rule that needs to be present?
Also, what should the banlist for this look like? What should the most "extravagant" decklists look like? Am I crazy?
My pet, really super tentantive, in development, 40-man format- Star Team!
Modern-
RWG"Frigga" (Allies)GWR
Standard-
"Kendra" (RabbleRed)
EDH-
WUR Zedruu ControlRUW
RUG Riku GUR
BGW Ghave WBG
RWB Kaalia BWR
CUBE-
Khans of Tarkir Procedural Cube
I get what you're going at, with the different "ranks" of players with different deck power levels/counts (which is neat), but I'm pretty confused reading this post, and I can't imagine actually playing it.
My pet, really super tentantive, in development, 40-man format- Star Team!
Modern-
RWG"Frigga" (Allies)GWR
Standard-
"Kendra" (RabbleRed)
EDH-
WUR Zedruu ControlRUW
RUG Riku GUR
BGW Ghave WBG
RWB Kaalia BWR
CUBE-
Khans of Tarkir Procedural Cube
My pet, really super tentantive, in development, 40-man format- Star Team!
Modern-
RWG"Frigga" (Allies)GWR
Standard-
"Kendra" (RabbleRed)
EDH-
WUR Zedruu ControlRUW
RUG Riku GUR
BGW Ghave WBG
RWB Kaalia BWR
CUBE-
Khans of Tarkir Procedural Cube
king-General-Commander-Scout
Let it work like a hierarchy, the information has to travel from zone to zone. So say for example White King throws a Wrath of God at Black King, it would have to pass through Black/splash white's zone, so Black/Splash white would be able to give a warning. But if black/splash white is dead then there wouldn't be an ally there to give a warning, so why should black get a warning? This would also give stronger reasoning to protect your "Subordinate" decks.
This would also mean that you could play more politics into the game, the kings can parley with ally colors but only if they have a creature in an ally color zone with that colors player still in game. Allowing you to pull off sneak attacks, and Alliances. Ultimately only can live though so there's going to have to be betrayal somewhere, adding more dynamics to the game.
Spells having to take a direct route is great for this, you're going to have to play with more strategy because of this.
If your scouts die, then the king doesn't have eyes on the contested zone anymore. If the commander dies he loses eyes on his border, etc...
My pet, really super tentantive, in development, 40-man format- Star Team!
Modern-
RWG"Frigga" (Allies)GWR
Standard-
"Kendra" (RabbleRed)
EDH-
WUR Zedruu ControlRUW
RUG Riku GUR
BGW Ghave WBG
RWB Kaalia BWR
CUBE-
Khans of Tarkir Procedural Cube