What the Heck is This?
Very different from normal Magic. Most format like Commander, Pauper, 2HG and similar all feel like normal magic with some significant tweaks. Auction Magic is basically an entirely different game that you just happen to be able to play with the cards you already own.
Quick Description
Instead of building decks and managing mana, players use a new currency called gold to bid on cards revealed from an auction stack while they’re playing the game – assembling their strategies even in the midst of combat.
How Does it Feel?
It depends on the auction block you put together (the stack of cards used to bid on), but how we’ve been playing it – the game feels both tense and chess-like. As you get an equal chance to bid on every card revealed, and you know what your opponents have access to because you saw them purchase it, the game becomes a unique experience of card evaluation and counter-play. For a detailed discussion of a lot of our experiences testing the format, you can listen to episode four of our Remaking Magic podcast.
Design Goals
1) Give players the experience of evaluating card choices and crafting their strategy (similar to drafting) while playing the game.
2) Provide players with a chance to enjoy playing with cards in their collection they've never enjoyed before (Chimney Imp is a great card in this format).
3) Make old cards we're familiar with seem interesting and new again.
4) Provide skilled players with an extraordinary new challenge.
5) Create the fun of building a custom limited environment, like designing your own Cube, in a new and accessible way (designing a great cube is highly complex).
The Rules
Gameplay follows normal rules of magic, save for the following exceptions:
1) Players begin the game with 10 gold. Gold is a currency used to purchase cards that come up for auction. At the end of each player’s turn, all players gain 3 gold.
2) Players do not bring decks to table. Instead, a single stack of cards called the Auction Block is shuffled and placed on the table.
3) The Draw Step is replaced with the Auction Step. During the new Auction Step, the top card of the Auction Block is revealed. The active player (the player whose turn it is) may then bid an amount of gold for that card. After the bid is placed, the next player may either bid a higher amount of gold or decline to bid. The process continues until all other players have declined to raise the bid. Once all other players have declined, the player with the highest standing bid purchases the card.
Note: No player can bid more gold for a card than he or she currently possesses.
Note: If neither player bids for a card, it is placed on the bottom of the Auction Block and the Auction Step repeats (flip over another card and bid on it again)
4) Upon purchasing a card, the purchasing player may choose to either play the card immediately without paying its mana cost (even if such a card could not normally be played at this time), or to put the purchased card into his or her hand. Player may play cards in hand without paying their mana costs. However, once a card is in hand, it must follow the normal rules as to when it can be played.
For example, a player might purchase a Grizzly Bear during the Auction Step. He or she then has the option to cast the spell immediately, without paying its mana cost, or put it into his or her hand. Once in hand, the Grizzly Bear can only be played when it is legal to play it card type (in this case, a creature).
5) If the purchased card was a noncreature, repeat the auction step (flip over another card and bid on it again). This process repeats until a creature card is purchased.
6) The Auction Block is considered as a communal library for the purpose of card effects. For example, Sage Owl’s effect allows you to rearrange the top four cards of your library. In Auction Magic, this allows you to rearrange the top four cards of the Auction Deck. Similarly, Memory Lapse counters a spell and returns it to the top of the Auction Deck. You can probably see how such library manipulation effects have wildly new strategic applications in Auction Magic, as they allow you to manipulate the auctions to your advantage.
7) Likewise, whenever an effect causes a player to draw cards – that player puts that many cards from the top of the auction deck into his or her hand. Like all cards in hand, they will be able to be cast without paying their mana costs.
8) At any time, and as many times per turn as he or she desires, a player may spend one gold to add one mana of any color to his or her mana pool. This allows players to pay for certain costs, like Kicker, Cycling or Equip costs. It also makes cards like Mana Leak rather interesting.
9) Players play with their hands revealed. This is to prevent people from having to memorize cards they’ve already seen purchased at auction by the other players.
Note: The game has only been tested in a 2-player format so far. It's recommended that you play the game as a 2-player duel before testing anything else.
Sample Auction Block
This is the auction block Reuben (Doombringer) and I are currently playing with and it’s been a lot of fun. We’re constantly changing things up, and it’s entirely possible that by the time you read this we’ll have already changed it again. In any case, it’s been a lot of fun. You can give it a quick try by using such free tools as Cockatrice (google Woogerworks and check out their Cockatrice program if you aren’t already familiar, it’s a great way to test out MTG ideas for free).
The block is mostly singleton right now, save for a few cards that enable specific strategies, in order to try out as many cards as possible. However, you can have as many copies of various cards as you like in your block. Additionally, the block is currently exactly 200 cards. This isn’t a rule either, we just felt like running a block of 200 cards.
Building your Auction Block
Building an auction block is a lot of fun. You get to comb your collection for cards that might never have seen play before. Orcish Oriflamme is a pretty terrible card, but is it worth 1 gold? Probably. Chimney Imp turns out to be very cool too, because its death can force your opponent to put a key card they’re saving in hand (like a removal spell or a Trumpet Blast effect) back on top of the Auction Block. Suddenly you’ll have a chance to purchase that card again, and your opponent might have wasted a lot of gold buying it in the first place.
Building an Auction Block is also a lot easier than building a deck or cube. You don’t have to worry about the mana curve or color balance, if you think a card is cool you can just put it in. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone’s ideas, and I hope to get to try out a lot of new auction blocks created by you wildly talented designers soon.
Just to get you started, there are a few guidelines we figured out through trial and error in order to make sure the auction block is as fun as possible.
1) Make sure your auction block is about 50% creatures. You want to frequently be flipping noncreature cards to make the auctions more exciting. You might want to stay closer to 60% if your prefer a little less variety in your auctions, or drop down below 50% if you want to buy tons of cards each auction. 50-60% is probably a good baseline though.
2) Make sure few, if any, creatures are useless in combat. The rule about auctioning until you reveal a creature is to ensure that the player behind on the board has a chance to buy a crucial blocker and stabilize. If you’re including Squire in your Auction Block alongside a bunch of 6/6 monsters – this won’t lead to a great experience. In general, this means keeping the power level of your creatures to affect the board state somewhat similar. While you can have a few outliers for variance and fun, as well as to keep people saving their removal spells, in general you’re going to want to stick to creatures of roughly the same power level. Our auction block uses mostly creatures ranging between 2/2 and 4/4, with some notable outliers (and most of those creatures have very cool abilities).
3) Make sure there are lots of cool strategies to build around in your Auction Block. Try including a bunch of interesting zombies and then adding in Undead Warchief. Try including lots of cool artifacts and then also include Etched Champion. or similar. If your Auction Block uses a lot of +1/+1 counters, try including Abzan Battle Priest. Herd Gnar rewards you for buying lots of token-generation cards, Young Pyromancer makes all the instants and sorceries you buy more valuable… In general, try layering in a ton of cool strategies. It keeps the game a lot more interesting.
4) Make sure removal is about 15% of the auction block, (assuming you have VERY few must-kill creatures, which is a good idea). Additionally, this removal works best when most of it is limited in some way. Pacifism can be destroyed later by purchasing an enchantment-destruction effect. Pillar of Light works only on creatures of a certain toughness. Tragic Slip requires a creature to have already died this turn in order to be maximally effective. Resounding Silence can only deal with attacking creatures. These limitations on the removal mean that the opponent has options to play around them. If your opponent purchases a Pillar of Light, you can suddenly try to avoid buying creatures with high toughness (though that means your opponent will be the one getting them). This also allows players to try to protect their most expensive investments into creatures by playing around the opponents’ answers.
5) Finally, Auction Magic tends to encourage board-stalls if you aren’t careful. You shouldn’t include any cards like Wall of Frost, Guardian Lions or similar. We made this mistake and it made us sad. Make sure you include cards that help the game come to an end, like creatures with evasion (such as flying) and cards that prevent your opponent from blocking. Additionally, you’re going to want to avoid any cards like Agent of Masks which do their best to slow the game down as much as possible.
6) Avoid including cards that draw you more than 1 card when played. Even a Divination is extremely powerful, since your cards in hand can be played for free.
That’s it. Just make sure you have lots of cool strategies to build around, stick to 50% creatures and 15% removal spells, make sure few of your creatures are useless in combat against the other creatures in the block and make sure you don’t include lots of cards that stall the board or make the game go on forever. Oh, and card draw is super powerful – so bear that in mind.
Other than that, have fun adding stuff to your block. Also, it’s worth noting that while creatures shouldn’t be useless – noncreature cards can because you’re going to keep auctioning until you get a creature card. You can afford to include all sorts of weird noncreature cards in your block without messing things up.
Final Thoughts
I’ve been having an absolute blast playing Auction Magic; so much that it’s been seriously interfering with my productivity. Every game feels completely fresh, every auction provides brand new considerations to the card’s value considering the existing board state. It’s a wonderful mix between having no idea what cards are going to show up and having extraordinary control over how you react to them. Excepting card draw effects, any card that’s killing you is doing so because you decided to buy something else instead.
I’ve also spent hours going through my collection and searching Gatherer to find cards that could be cool for the format. Can we add spirits to our block and take advantage of both Kamigawa and Innistrad’s spirit tribal? What about adding in bounce effects in combination with lots of ETB triggers? Hey, Æther Adept can bounce itself and then be recast in an infinite cycle of creatures entering the battlefield! That could be cool with Herd Gnarr…
And I got to play with Chimney Imp. And he was awesome.
Magic feels fresh and strange again, skill-testing and tense. I feel like I’m rediscovering the game I love, but in a new way that just happens to be played with the cards I already have. Whole shoeboxes of junk cards are calling to me, alive with possibilities.
Welcome to Auction Magic. We hope you find a bargain.
Since Magic is decades old, I’m sure a lot of awesome people have already had similar ideas to this format and have probably been enjoying similar gameplay for years. If you’re one of those lucky people, please post your ideas and discoveries. It’ll be great to hear what you’ve come up with.
This sounds great! I can't wait to convince my friends to give it a go!
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This actually sounds really awesome! I have a few questions about the format, though:
1) What happens when the auction deck has no more cards in it and the turn-based action of the auction step rolls around? Does the player whose turn it is lose the game?
2) If, for example, Bob can't draw cards because of an effect, and the turn-based action of the auction step occurs, what happens? Can the top card of the auction deck still be auctioned for? If Bob wins the bidding, can Bob put the auctioned card(s) into his hand? What happens if Bob is the active player?
3) Is the graveyard communal as well? Who owns the cards in the auction deck?
And lastly,
4) Could a variant exist where instead of spending gold to add mana to your mana pool and spending it, there would be a deck specifically devoted to lands (one for each player or communal, doesn't matter), where a player would be able to pay some amount of gold to draw or put into their hand a land card from the land deck once each turn? Or was this already tested and not as fun as it was hoped to be? Of course, there would have to be lands that produce all sorts of types of mana in the deck unless the auction deck explicitly doesn't have a color or two.
Wow this sounds cool. I'm counting down the days till a Custom Set pops up that gives this format the conspiracy treatment.
I just thought of one.
Auction Property Sorcery
Auction a card from your hand, starting with the next player in turn order. The player who wins the auction gains ownership of that card, puts that card into his or her hand, then gives you gold equal to his or her bid.
CR rules entries for the format could also be written if need be.
How to use card tags (please use them for everybody's sanity)
[c]Lightning Bolt[/c] -> Lightning Bolt
[c=Lightning Bolt]Apple Pie[/c] -> Apple Pie
Vowels-Only Format Minimum deck size: 60 Maximum number of identical cards: 4 Ban list: Cards whose English names begin with a consonant, Unglued and Unhinged cards, cards involving ante, Ancestral Recall
This actually sounds really awesome! I have a few questions about the format, though:
1) What happens when the auction deck has no more cards in it and the turn-based action of the auction step rolls around? Does the player whose turn it is lose the game?
Good question. We've never come close to encountering this in testing. I'd say yes, the active player (the player whose turn it is) loses the game. However, I recommend building your stacks so that this never happens.
2) If, for example, Bob can't draw cards because of an effect, and the turn-based action of the auction step occurs, what happens? Can the top card of the auction deck still be auctioned for? If Bob wins the bidding, can Bob put the auctioned card(s) into his hand? What happens if Bob is the active player?
The auction step replaces the draw step. Effects that interact with the draw step have no effect, because there is no draw step in Auction Magic. Additionally, auctioning cards isn't drawing cards - so the auction will still proceed even if a player can't draw cards.
3) Is the graveyard communal as well? Who owns the cards in the auction deck?
Graveyards are not communal. You each have you own. As for the owner of a card, it's the person that obtained the card from the stack (whether through auction or card draw). This 'who owns the card' thing can possibly create memory issues, so you might want to avoid having too many of those effects in your auction block.
And lastly,
4) Could a variant exist where instead of spending gold to add mana to your mana pool and spending it, there would be a deck specifically devoted to lands (one for each player or communal, doesn't matter), where a player would be able to pay some amount of gold to draw or put into their hand a land card from the land deck once each turn? Or was this already tested and not as fun as it was hoped to be? Of course, there would have to be lands that produce all sorts of types of mana in the deck unless the auction deck explicitly doesn't have a color or two.
Such a variant could absolutely exist. However, we tested something similar to that and it ended up creating a lot of added complexity. Suddenly players had to have decks of land cards in addition to the auction cards. Also, it's really interesting when Looming Shade and friends feed off your gold rather than lands. It makes the game feel very different and creates added puzzles for how to manage your purchases. That said, I'd be interested to see how it played for you. I just happened not to prefer that version.
Wow this sounds cool. I'm counting down the days till a Custom Set pops up that gives this format the conspiracy treatment.
I just thought of one.
Auction Property Sorcery
Auction a card from your hand, starting with the next player in turn order. The player who wins the auction gains ownership of that card, puts that card into his or her hand, then gives you gold equal to his or her bid.
CR rules entries for the format could also be written if need be.
Wow, conspiracy auction would be awesome. If people come up with these projects, we'll definitely talk about them on our podcast.
Would there be an interest in doing this on the boards? We can sign up 4/5 players - use a random card generator and play a game over the course of a month and see how that goes?
I'd be interested in seeing how that goes. The delay between auction bids might take a long time though. Might be best to modify the rules slightly for a boards version so that the active player bids once, and then each successive player has a chance to raise the previous bid or pass... Once.
Example... It's player 1's turn. He bids 4g for a card. Player 2 decides to bid 5g. Since all players have bid once, player 2 has the highest bid and purchases the card.
This means that each auction would be over as quickly as possible, while still preserving the integrity of the format. To further control things, I'd recommend keeping it to 2 players for a faster game too (and that's how it's been tested so far).
Thanks. Game speed can depend a lot on the auction block. If it's one that encourages board stalls like Wall of Frost - it can take a while. Games with the auction block shown above tend to last about 15 minutes on the short end to 30 minutes on the long end. Games with extremely high-powered cards that resemble cubes or just lots of huge creatures can go a lot faster. However, we also spend a lot of time discussing the inclusion of certain cards while playing and analyzing the design in general; or explaining the thought process behind our bidding decisions mid-match. Hard to say how long it'd take just to play it.
I'd be happy to play some on cockatrice. Just had oral surgery today though, so today isn't best for me.
I've written a draft of the hypothetical CR entries for the Auction Magic variant. Let me know what you think.
90X. Auction Magic
90X.1. In the Auction Magic variant, players bid for cards with a currency called gold. The Auction Magic variant uses all the normal rules for a Magic game, with the following additions.
90X.2. An Auction Magic game may be a two-player game or a multiplayer game. The default multiplayer setup is the Free-for-All variant with the attack multiple players option and without the limited range of influence option. See rule 806, “Free-for-All Variant.”
90X.3 The Auction Deck
90X.3a Instead of normal game materials, the game is played using a special deck called the auction deck. This deck consists of any number of cards from which cards are auctioned over the course of the game, and is kept in the command zone. At the beginning of an Auction Magic game, the auction deck is shuffled. Players don't draw from the auction deck as part of the pregame procedures. All other pregame procedures are followed. See rule 103.
90X.3b The draw phase is replaced by the auction step. Effects that refer to the draw step don't apply, and abilities that would trigger at the beginning of the draw step don't trigger. As a turn-based action of the draw step, the active player puts the top card of the auction deck up for auction, during which all players may bid on it. See rule 90X.4, "The Auction Step".
90X.3c Even though players don't have libraries, each player still has his or her own graveyard and hand. The battlefield, exile, and command zones are still shared between all players.
90X.3d Effects that refer to a player's library use the auction deck. If a player would draw a card, he or she draws a card from the auction deck instead. If a player is instructed to put a card from his or her library into another zone, he or she puts a card from the auction deck into that zone.
90X.3e Cards in the auction deck have no owners.
90X.3f If a player is unable to put the top card of the auction deck up for auction due to an empty auction deck since the last time state-based actions were checked, he or she loses the game. Similarly, if a player has attempted to draw a card from an empty auction deck since the last time state-based actions are checked, he or she loses the game. (See rule 704, "State-Based Actions.")
90X.4. The Auction Step
90X.4a Rather than a draw step, the beginning phase of a turn instead has an auction step. This step occurs immediately after the upkeep step, before a player's main phase.
90X.4b First, the active player puts the top card of the auction deck up for auction. To do so, he or she puts the top card of the auction deck into the exile zone face up. Then, bidding for the card starts at a bid of 1 gold. Starting with the active player and in turn order, each player may top the high bid. The bidding ends when each player declines to bid in succession. The high bidder then puts the exiled card into his or her hand. Then if no player placed a bid on the card, it is put on the bottom of the auction deck, and this process is repeated until a card that is put up for auction is put into a player's hand or until each player agrees to stop auctioning cards. If a noncreature card that was put up for auction is put into a player's hand, that player reveals cards from the top of the auction deck until he or she reveals a creature card, then puts all cards revealed this way into his or her hand. All cards that are put into a player's hand this way are "auctioned off to" that player. This turn-based action doesn't use the stack.
90X.4c Second, if any cards were auctioned off to a player as part of the turn-based action of the auction step, that player may choose to cast any number of them. Casting a spell this way follows the normal rules for casting spells (see rule 601, "Casting Spells"), except that any timing restrictions imposed by the types of these cards are ignored.
90X.4d Third, any abilities that trigger at the beginning of the auction step and any other abilities that have triggered go on the stack.
90X.4e Fourth, the active player gets priority. Players may cast spells and activate abilities.
90X.5. Gold
90X.5a In the Auction Magic variant, players bid and spend gold to perform various actions. A player may bid gold as part of the process of auctioning a card. A player may spend 1 gold to add one mana of any color to his or her mana pool. A player may spend gold this way any time he or she has priority, whenever he or she is casting a spell or activating an ability that requires a mana payment, or whenever a rule or effect asks for a mana payment, even if it's in the middle of casting or resolving a spell or activating or resolving an ability.
90X.5b Players begin the game with 10 gold. As part of the cleanup step, there is a third turn-based action: after damage is removed from permanents and "until end of turn" and "this turn" effects end, each player gets 3 gold.
90X.5c When bidding, a player may not bid more gold than he or she currently possesses.
90X.5d If a rule or effect would cause a player to have less than 0 gold, his or her gold total becomes 0 instead.
90X.6. Some effects may allow a player to put a card that's not in the auction deck up for auction. Bidding for a card put up for auction this way follows all the rules for putting a card up for auction as described in rule 90X.4b, with the following exceptions.
90X.6a Each player other than the player who put the card up for auction may bid on the card.
90X.6b If a card owned by a player that is put up for auction this way is auctioned off, the high bidder loses an amount of gold equal to the high bid, and the owner of that card gains an amount of gold equal to the bid of the high bidder. The high bidder then becomes the owner of the card auctioned off this way.
90X.6c If a noncreature card is auctioned off this way, no other cards are put into the high bidder's hand.
90X.6d If no player bids on the card, the card is put back into its previous zone. The ownership of the card doesn't change, and abilities that trigger from that card changing zones don't trigger.
90X.7. Some effects may allow a player to put multiple cards up for auction simultaneously. If at least one of these cards is not in the auction deck, bidding for cards this way follows all the rules for putting a card up for auction as described in rule 90X.6, except that if a player wins the auction, all cards put up for auction this way are auctioned off to that player.
90X.8. Some effects may allow a player to put one or more cards up for auction simultaneously from the auction deck. Bidding for cards this way follows all the rules for putting a card up for auction as described in rule 90X.8b, except that if each card that's auctioned off to the high bidder this way is a noncreature card, that player reveals cards from the top of the auction deck until he or she reveals a creature card, then puts all cards revealed this way into his or her hand; and if no cards are auctioned off this way, the cards are put onto the bottom of the auction deck in a random order.
90X.9. Each player plays with his or her hand revealed.
90X.10. Players cast spells without paying their mana costs. This is considered an alternative cost. However, the converted mana cost of a spell remains the same as it would be in a regular game. Additional costs may be paid as normal.
90X.11. If multiple players would win the game simultaneously, instead the player with the highest gold total or each player tied for the highest gold total wins the game. If multiple players would lose the game simultaneously, instead the player with the lowest gold total or each player tied for the lowest gold total loses the game.
90Y. Commander Auction
90Y.1. In the Commander Auction variant, players bid for cards with a currency called gold. The Auction Magic variant uses all the normal rules for an Auction Magic game, with the following additions.
90Y.2. A Commander Auction game may be a two-player game or a multiplayer game. The default multiplayer setup is the Free-for-All variant with the attack multiple players option and without the limited range of influence option. See rule 806, “Free-for-All Variant.”
90Y.3. A Commander Auction game cannot be played unless the auction deck contains a number of legendary creature cards greater than or equal to the number of players in the game. Each card in the auction deck must have a different English name.
90Y.4. Pregame Procedures
90Y.4a At the beginning of a Commander Auction game, after the starting player has been determined, each player is given 10 gold. Then, the auction deck is shuffled, and cards from the top of the auction deck are revealed until a legendary creature card is revealed. Beginning with the starting player and in turn order, omitting each player who already has a card designated as their commander, each player may bid gold for the revealed card, following the steps described in 90X.4b, except that if no player bids on the card, the player with which the bidding for that card began designates the card as his or her commander and puts that card face up into the command zone. The high bidder loses gold equal to the high bid, designates the revealed card as his or her commander, and puts that card face up into the command zone. This process is repeated until each player in the game has designated a card as their commander. Each card that is put into the command zone this way becomes owned by the player who designated it as his or her commander. This designation is not a characteristic of the object represented by the card; rather, it is an attribute of the card itself. The card retains this designation even when it changes zones.
90Y.4b Then, each player sets his or her life total to 40.
90Y.5. If a commander would be put into its owner's graveyard or into the exile zone from anywhere, the owner of that card may put it into the command zone instead.
90Y.6. A player may put his or her commander card up for auction, but only if an effect allows him or her to do so, and only if the card is in the command zone. Putting a commander card up for auction this way follows all the normal rules for putting a card up for auction (see rule 90X.6), except that if the high bidder's commander card is in the command zone, the high bidder's commander card exchanges it with the commander card of the player who put it up for auction this way. If either half of the exchange can't be completed, the exchange doesn't occur.
90Y.7. A player that's been dealt 21 or more combat damage by the same commander over the course of the game loses the game.
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How to use card tags (please use them for everybody's sanity)
[c]Lightning Bolt[/c] -> Lightning Bolt
[c=Lightning Bolt]Apple Pie[/c] -> Apple Pie
Vowels-Only Format Minimum deck size: 60 Maximum number of identical cards: 4 Ban list: Cards whose English names begin with a consonant, Unglued and Unhinged cards, cards involving ante, Ancestral Recall
Excellent work! I mean, I'm not a judge or anything, but the technical explanation seems spot-on. I haven't gone fully over the commander rules yet - but I plan to soon.
I'm pretty excited about trying this format, so I built my own auction block. It's mostly random, but I attempted to adhere to StairC's guidelines and include some overlapping themes as well. This block is 110 cards total, with one copy of each card. I just finished it, so I have not yet played with it, but I hope to do so soon.
1) What happens when the auction deck has no more cards in it and the turn-based action of the auction step rolls around? Does the player whose turn it is lose the game?
The auction deck is shared and it would be pretty random for whose turn it is when the auction deck runs out. Seems like either the game should just be a draw, or you shuffle all graveyards back into the auction deck. Ideally you should have enough cards so you do not run out. Maybe keep some extra cards in reserve to start a new auction deck. This second deck could have much higher power level bombs so that if the game drags on this long, it should end very quickly after the deck change.
And lastly,
4) Could a variant exist where instead of spending gold to add mana to your mana pool and spending it, there would be a deck specifically devoted to lands (one for each player or communal, doesn't matter), where a player would be able to pay some amount of gold to draw or put into their hand a land card from the land deck once each turn? Or was this already tested and not as fun as it was hoped to be? Of course, there would have to be lands that produce all sorts of types of mana in the deck unless the auction deck explicitly doesn't have a color or two.
I think keep the pay-gold-for-mana mechanic, but also include some mana producing cards in the auction catalog.
Some mana producers could raise some interesting questions. You don't have to pay mana for spells, so how much gold is a mana producer worth for just mostly activated abilities and additional costs? For this format, I sort of like best the cards like City of Brass, Forbidden Orchard, or Workhorse that instead give you mana at the cost of a different resource.
I've written a draft of the hypothetical CR entries for the Auction Magic variant. Let me know what you think.
[...]
90X.4b First, the active player puts the top card of the auction deck up for auction. To do so, he or she puts the top card of the auction deck into the exile zone face up. Then, bidding for the card starts at a bid of 1 gold. Starting with the active player and in turn order, each player may top the high bid. The bidding ends when each player declines to bid in succession. The high bidder then puts the exiled card into his or her hand. Then if no player placed a bid on the card, it is put on the bottom of the auction deck, and this process is repeated until a card that is put up for auction is put into a player's hand or until each player agrees to stop auctioning cards. If a noncreature card that was put up for auction is put into a player's hand, that player reveals cards from the top of the auction deck until he or she reveals a creature card, then puts all cards revealed this way into his or her hand. All cards that are put into a player's hand this way are "auctioned off to" that player. This turn-based action doesn't use the stack.
[...]
Woah! That is a huge change in your rules when purchasing a noncreature card. I haven't listened to the podcast yet, but based on the first post that is not at all what should happen when a noncreature card is purchased.
The auction deck is shared and it would be pretty random for whose turn it is when the auction deck runs out. Seems like either the game should just be a draw, or you shuffle all graveyards back into the auction deck. Ideally you should have enough cards so you do not run out. Maybe keep some extra cards in reserve to start a new auction deck. This second deck could have much higher power level bombs so that if the game drags on this long, it should end very quickly after the deck change.
All these ideas (except maybe the graveyard one cause it could have some logistical issues and it's possible to run out of cards in the auction block and the graveyard simmultaneously) are probably better than the answer I gave. Just calling it a draw, or giving the win to the person with higher life total, makes sense. The new stack of super-cards seems fun too, but i doubt players would ever actually get to use it.
Some mana producers could raise some interesting questions. You don't have to pay mana for spells, so how much gold is a mana producer worth for just mostly activated abilities and additional costs? For this format, I sort of like best the cards like City of Brass, Forbidden Orchard, or Workhorse that instead give you mana at the cost of a different resource.
Just the night before last I was talking about adding Gilded Lotus for this reason. It's very interesting to add some mana producing cards to the auction block. I think it'd probably be a good idea if you have a lot of kicker, cycling, equip and similar. Equip costs in particular need a lot of mana support. Shades work similarly well here.
I've written a draft of the hypothetical CR entries for the Auction Magic variant. Let me know what you think.[...]
90X.4b First, the active player puts the top card of the auction deck up for auction. To do so, he or she puts the top card of the auction deck into the exile zone face up. Then, bidding for the card starts at a bid of 1 gold. Starting with the active player and in turn order, each player may top the high bid. The bidding ends when each player declines to bid in succession. The high bidder then puts the exiled card into his or her hand. Then if no player placed a bid on the card, it is put on the bottom of the auction deck, and this process is repeated until a card that is put up for auction is put into a player's hand or until each player agrees to stop auctioning cards. If a noncreature card that was put up for auction is put into a player's hand, that player reveals cards from the top of the auction deck until he or she reveals a creature card, then puts all cards revealed this way into his or her hand. All cards that are put into a player's hand this way are "auctioned off to" that player. This turn-based action doesn't use the stack.
[...]
Woah! That is a huge change in your rules when purchasing a noncreature card. I haven't listened to the podcast yet, but based on the first post that is not at all what should happen when a noncreature card is purchased.
Wow, okay, missed that. Yeah - that would throw off everything. Did you misunderstand me TC - or is this a new idea you have for the gameplay? If so, I'd like to hear your reasoning. Personally, I don't think it'd work because suddenly noncreature cards are worth insane value - instead of being slightly dangerous propositions to bid on (because you're spending gold to buy them before seeing the next card(s) which adds an appealing tension to the gameplay). Am I missing something, or did I just not explain myself well in the opening post?
Just wanted to throw out a couple of Conspiracy-style ideas. Note that these are rough ideas and the card and mechanic names are just placeholders:
Deadly Stakes 1B
Sorcery
Target player loses 3 life and you gain 3 life. Raise the Stakes-When you purchase this card, the next card to be bid on this turn gains "When you purchase this card, target player loses 3 life and you gain 3 life."
Fiery Bid 2R
Sorcery
~ deals 3 damage to target creature or player. High Bid~ deals 5 damage to that creature or player instead if you spent five or more gold counters to purchase it and if you cast it immediately after you purchased it.
Both these ideas are really interesting. Like the concept and name of Raise the Stakes in particular. Making the next bid more exciting is design space worth playing around in. What about an effect that auctions extra cards and you purchase them as a bundle?
High Bid seems a bit like Kicker in this iteration. Paying more gold for a bigger effect already has things supporting it in Magic's existing card base. I do like the concept of variable gold purchases influencing the effect though. There's probably something we can do with it.
I'd be interested in seeing some cards that gain you gold whenever you do [X] and similar. Or a card like Cogwork Librarian and similar ideas. Suddenly my head's abuzz with inspiration. You guys are awesome.
Blood Claim1B Instant
Target player loses 2 life and you gain 2 life. Stake your Claim -- When you next win an auction this turn, you may return CARDNAME from your graveyard to your hand. (You must cast this spell before the card to be auctioned is revealed.)
Brainstorming for some bizzaro additions and cards that play differently because of the format:
The self-shuffling of Beacon of Destruction and Beacon of Unrest could play well because the shuffling could also mix back any cards put on the bottom of the library. Possibly Beacon of Tomorrows, although additional turn effects should probably be watched carefully.
Serum Visions has interesting implications. I like the unknown draw first, followed by deck stacking. You are bidding on a currently unknown card, and then getting to rig the next auction.
Both these posts have a lot of similar great ideas, so I’ll respond to them both as a unit.
Of all these card suggestions, Brain Pry especially makes me smile. It’s so useful in this format. You get a free card by intentionally naming something wrong, or you can take something specific out of their hand (since people play with hands revealed). Great find. I’ll probably be including it in my own auction block right away.
I’m not sure how I feel about very random effects like Vision Skeins, because the more such effects there are the less skill is involved in this super skill-intensive format. However, some auction blocks with more random elements like that are a great idea. The game is so skill-based in our current stack that the same people almost always win. Setting aside some high variance cards like this is a great way to customize your stack’s excitement-vs-skill-level. The cheaper (monetary value) cascade spells could also be very fun here, as you’ve mentioned. They have more control over their end value than drawing random cards, so they might be a good mixture.
One thing I’d caution though is an overreliance on cards that put things on top of their owner’s library, or close to the top. It’s cute in this format, because they get reauctioned, but one of the most fun moments of the auction is not knowing what you’re going to be bidding on. Bidding on the same card that was bid on before, because it’s been put back on top, can mess with the excitement if it happens too often.
I think some cards like Meddling Mage could be fun, but you’d want them very easy to remove. So, nevermore probably wouldn’t be great.
As for the mechanic Silvercut came up with called, “Stake your Claim” - I think options to increase your value on the next auction are very cool. Cards that change the value of next auctions are definitely going to help keep the format fresh. Here are some ideas based on that.
Alchemy Lab
Artifact
Whenever you purchase an artifact at auction, gain 1 gold.
Gilded Idol
Artifact
Whenever a card is revealed for auction, before you bid on it, you make exile Gilded Idol. If you do, you may immediately purchase the revealed card for 0 gold.
Packaged Gnome
Creature
When Packaged Gnome is revealed for Auction, reveal two additional cards from the top of the auction block. The player that purchases the Packaged Gnome also purchases the revealed cards.
2/2
Auctioneer
Creature
T, Auction the top card of the deck.
2/1
Resell
Instant
Exile target creature. Its controller gains gold equal to that creature’s power.
I Think a clean easy name that combines all these elements might be "High Stakes" easy to remember and easy to say instead of "hey you wanna play standard" you could easily say " HEy, you wanna play High Stakes?"
Very different from normal Magic. Most format like Commander, Pauper, 2HG and similar all feel like normal magic with some significant tweaks. Auction Magic is basically an entirely different game that you just happen to be able to play with the cards you already own.
Quick Description
Instead of building decks and managing mana, players use a new currency called gold to bid on cards revealed from an auction stack while they’re playing the game – assembling their strategies even in the midst of combat.
How Does it Feel?
It depends on the auction block you put together (the stack of cards used to bid on), but how we’ve been playing it – the game feels both tense and chess-like. As you get an equal chance to bid on every card revealed, and you know what your opponents have access to because you saw them purchase it, the game becomes a unique experience of card evaluation and counter-play. For a detailed discussion of a lot of our experiences testing the format, you can listen to episode four of our Remaking Magic podcast.
Design Goals
1) Give players the experience of evaluating card choices and crafting their strategy (similar to drafting) while playing the game.
2) Provide players with a chance to enjoy playing with cards in their collection they've never enjoyed before (Chimney Imp is a great card in this format).
3) Make old cards we're familiar with seem interesting and new again.
4) Provide skilled players with an extraordinary new challenge.
5) Create the fun of building a custom limited environment, like designing your own Cube, in a new and accessible way (designing a great cube is highly complex).
The Rules
Gameplay follows normal rules of magic, save for the following exceptions:
1) Players begin the game with 10 gold. Gold is a currency used to purchase cards that come up for auction. At the end of each player’s turn, all players gain 3 gold.
2) Players do not bring decks to table. Instead, a single stack of cards called the Auction Block is shuffled and placed on the table.
3) The Draw Step is replaced with the Auction Step. During the new Auction Step, the top card of the Auction Block is revealed. The active player (the player whose turn it is) may then bid an amount of gold for that card. After the bid is placed, the next player may either bid a higher amount of gold or decline to bid. The process continues until all other players have declined to raise the bid. Once all other players have declined, the player with the highest standing bid purchases the card.
Note: No player can bid more gold for a card than he or she currently possesses.
Note: If neither player bids for a card, it is placed on the bottom of the Auction Block and the Auction Step repeats (flip over another card and bid on it again)
4) Upon purchasing a card, the purchasing player may choose to either play the card immediately without paying its mana cost (even if such a card could not normally be played at this time), or to put the purchased card into his or her hand. Player may play cards in hand without paying their mana costs. However, once a card is in hand, it must follow the normal rules as to when it can be played.
For example, a player might purchase a Grizzly Bear during the Auction Step. He or she then has the option to cast the spell immediately, without paying its mana cost, or put it into his or her hand. Once in hand, the Grizzly Bear can only be played when it is legal to play it card type (in this case, a creature).
5) If the purchased card was a noncreature, repeat the auction step (flip over another card and bid on it again). This process repeats until a creature card is purchased.
6) The Auction Block is considered as a communal library for the purpose of card effects. For example, Sage Owl’s effect allows you to rearrange the top four cards of your library. In Auction Magic, this allows you to rearrange the top four cards of the Auction Deck. Similarly, Memory Lapse counters a spell and returns it to the top of the Auction Deck. You can probably see how such library manipulation effects have wildly new strategic applications in Auction Magic, as they allow you to manipulate the auctions to your advantage.
7) Likewise, whenever an effect causes a player to draw cards – that player puts that many cards from the top of the auction deck into his or her hand. Like all cards in hand, they will be able to be cast without paying their mana costs.
8) At any time, and as many times per turn as he or she desires, a player may spend one gold to add one mana of any color to his or her mana pool. This allows players to pay for certain costs, like Kicker, Cycling or Equip costs. It also makes cards like Mana Leak rather interesting.
9) Players play with their hands revealed. This is to prevent people from having to memorize cards they’ve already seen purchased at auction by the other players.
Note: The game has only been tested in a 2-player format so far. It's recommended that you play the game as a 2-player duel before testing anything else.
Sample Auction Block
This is the auction block Reuben (Doombringer) and I are currently playing with and it’s been a lot of fun. We’re constantly changing things up, and it’s entirely possible that by the time you read this we’ll have already changed it again. In any case, it’s been a lot of fun. You can give it a quick try by using such free tools as Cockatrice (google Woogerworks and check out their Cockatrice program if you aren’t already familiar, it’s a great way to test out MTG ideas for free).
The block is mostly singleton right now, save for a few cards that enable specific strategies, in order to try out as many cards as possible. However, you can have as many copies of various cards as you like in your block. Additionally, the block is currently exactly 200 cards. This isn’t a rule either, we just felt like running a block of 200 cards.
Building your Auction Block
Building an auction block is a lot of fun. You get to comb your collection for cards that might never have seen play before. Orcish Oriflamme is a pretty terrible card, but is it worth 1 gold? Probably. Chimney Imp turns out to be very cool too, because its death can force your opponent to put a key card they’re saving in hand (like a removal spell or a Trumpet Blast effect) back on top of the Auction Block. Suddenly you’ll have a chance to purchase that card again, and your opponent might have wasted a lot of gold buying it in the first place.
Building an Auction Block is also a lot easier than building a deck or cube. You don’t have to worry about the mana curve or color balance, if you think a card is cool you can just put it in. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone’s ideas, and I hope to get to try out a lot of new auction blocks created by you wildly talented designers soon.
Just to get you started, there are a few guidelines we figured out through trial and error in order to make sure the auction block is as fun as possible.
2) Make sure few, if any, creatures are useless in combat. The rule about auctioning until you reveal a creature is to ensure that the player behind on the board has a chance to buy a crucial blocker and stabilize. If you’re including Squire in your Auction Block alongside a bunch of 6/6 monsters – this won’t lead to a great experience. In general, this means keeping the power level of your creatures to affect the board state somewhat similar. While you can have a few outliers for variance and fun, as well as to keep people saving their removal spells, in general you’re going to want to stick to creatures of roughly the same power level. Our auction block uses mostly creatures ranging between 2/2 and 4/4, with some notable outliers (and most of those creatures have very cool abilities).
3) Make sure there are lots of cool strategies to build around in your Auction Block. Try including a bunch of interesting zombies and then adding in Undead Warchief. Try including lots of cool artifacts and then also include Etched Champion. or similar. If your Auction Block uses a lot of +1/+1 counters, try including Abzan Battle Priest. Herd Gnar rewards you for buying lots of token-generation cards, Young Pyromancer makes all the instants and sorceries you buy more valuable… In general, try layering in a ton of cool strategies. It keeps the game a lot more interesting.
4) Make sure removal is about 15% of the auction block, (assuming you have VERY few must-kill creatures, which is a good idea). Additionally, this removal works best when most of it is limited in some way. Pacifism can be destroyed later by purchasing an enchantment-destruction effect. Pillar of Light works only on creatures of a certain toughness. Tragic Slip requires a creature to have already died this turn in order to be maximally effective. Resounding Silence can only deal with attacking creatures. These limitations on the removal mean that the opponent has options to play around them. If your opponent purchases a Pillar of Light, you can suddenly try to avoid buying creatures with high toughness (though that means your opponent will be the one getting them). This also allows players to try to protect their most expensive investments into creatures by playing around the opponents’ answers.
5) Finally, Auction Magic tends to encourage board-stalls if you aren’t careful. You shouldn’t include any cards like Wall of Frost, Guardian Lions or similar. We made this mistake and it made us sad. Make sure you include cards that help the game come to an end, like creatures with evasion (such as flying) and cards that prevent your opponent from blocking. Additionally, you’re going to want to avoid any cards like Agent of Masks which do their best to slow the game down as much as possible.
6) Avoid including cards that draw you more than 1 card when played. Even a Divination is extremely powerful, since your cards in hand can be played for free.
That’s it. Just make sure you have lots of cool strategies to build around, stick to 50% creatures and 15% removal spells, make sure few of your creatures are useless in combat against the other creatures in the block and make sure you don’t include lots of cards that stall the board or make the game go on forever. Oh, and card draw is super powerful – so bear that in mind.
Other than that, have fun adding stuff to your block. Also, it’s worth noting that while creatures shouldn’t be useless – noncreature cards can because you’re going to keep auctioning until you get a creature card. You can afford to include all sorts of weird noncreature cards in your block without messing things up.
Final Thoughts
I’ve been having an absolute blast playing Auction Magic; so much that it’s been seriously interfering with my productivity. Every game feels completely fresh, every auction provides brand new considerations to the card’s value considering the existing board state. It’s a wonderful mix between having no idea what cards are going to show up and having extraordinary control over how you react to them. Excepting card draw effects, any card that’s killing you is doing so because you decided to buy something else instead.
I’ve also spent hours going through my collection and searching Gatherer to find cards that could be cool for the format. Can we add spirits to our block and take advantage of both Kamigawa and Innistrad’s spirit tribal? What about adding in bounce effects in combination with lots of ETB triggers? Hey, Æther Adept can bounce itself and then be recast in an infinite cycle of creatures entering the battlefield! That could be cool with Herd Gnarr…
And I got to play with Chimney Imp. And he was awesome.
Magic feels fresh and strange again, skill-testing and tense. I feel like I’m rediscovering the game I love, but in a new way that just happens to be played with the cards I already have. Whole shoeboxes of junk cards are calling to me, alive with possibilities.
Welcome to Auction Magic. We hope you find a bargain.
Since Magic is decades old, I’m sure a lot of awesome people have already had similar ideas to this format and have probably been enjoying similar gameplay for years. If you’re one of those lucky people, please post your ideas and discoveries. It’ll be great to hear what you’ve come up with.
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Lead Tesla, a community set designed by everyone and led by me, over at Goblin Artisans. Index of articles here!
My custom sets:
Caeia Block (Released - Beta)
Generals of Dareth (In Design)
1) What happens when the auction deck has no more cards in it and the turn-based action of the auction step rolls around? Does the player whose turn it is lose the game?
2) If, for example, Bob can't draw cards because of an effect, and the turn-based action of the auction step occurs, what happens? Can the top card of the auction deck still be auctioned for? If Bob wins the bidding, can Bob put the auctioned card(s) into his hand? What happens if Bob is the active player?
3) Is the graveyard communal as well? Who owns the cards in the auction deck?
And lastly,
4) Could a variant exist where instead of spending gold to add mana to your mana pool and spending it, there would be a deck specifically devoted to lands (one for each player or communal, doesn't matter), where a player would be able to pay some amount of gold to draw or put into their hand a land card from the land deck once each turn? Or was this already tested and not as fun as it was hoped to be? Of course, there would have to be lands that produce all sorts of types of mana in the deck unless the auction deck explicitly doesn't have a color or two.
I just thought of one.
Auction Property
Sorcery
Auction a card from your hand, starting with the next player in turn order. The player who wins the auction gains ownership of that card, puts that card into his or her hand, then gives you gold equal to his or her bid.
CR rules entries for the format could also be written if need be.
[c]Lightning Bolt[/c] -> Lightning Bolt
[c=Lightning Bolt]Apple Pie[/c] -> Apple Pie
Vowels-Only Format
Minimum deck size: 60
Maximum number of identical cards: 4
Ban list: Cards whose English names begin with a consonant, Unglued and Unhinged cards, cards involving ante, Ancestral Recall
Good question. We've never come close to encountering this in testing. I'd say yes, the active player (the player whose turn it is) loses the game. However, I recommend building your stacks so that this never happens.
The auction step replaces the draw step. Effects that interact with the draw step have no effect, because there is no draw step in Auction Magic. Additionally, auctioning cards isn't drawing cards - so the auction will still proceed even if a player can't draw cards.
Graveyards are not communal. You each have you own. As for the owner of a card, it's the person that obtained the card from the stack (whether through auction or card draw). This 'who owns the card' thing can possibly create memory issues, so you might want to avoid having too many of those effects in your auction block.
Such a variant could absolutely exist. However, we tested something similar to that and it ended up creating a lot of added complexity. Suddenly players had to have decks of land cards in addition to the auction cards. Also, it's really interesting when Looming Shade and friends feed off your gold rather than lands. It makes the game feel very different and creates added puzzles for how to manage your purchases. That said, I'd be interested to see how it played for you. I just happened not to prefer that version.
Wow, conspiracy auction would be awesome. If people come up with these projects, we'll definitely talk about them on our podcast.
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Example... It's player 1's turn. He bids 4g for a card. Player 2 decides to bid 5g. Since all players have bid once, player 2 has the highest bid and purchases the card.
This means that each auction would be over as quickly as possible, while still preserving the integrity of the format. To further control things, I'd recommend keeping it to 2 players for a faster game too (and that's how it's been tested so far).
Thoughts?
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
The Dungeon Master's Guide - A Podcast for those that love RPGs and Game Design
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I'd be happy to play some on cockatrice. Just had oral surgery today though, so today isn't best for me.
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
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90X.1. In the Auction Magic variant, players bid for cards with a currency called gold. The Auction Magic variant uses all the normal rules for a Magic game, with the following additions.
90X.2. An Auction Magic game may be a two-player game or a multiplayer game. The default multiplayer setup is the Free-for-All variant with the attack multiple players option and without the limited range of influence option. See rule 806, “Free-for-All Variant.”
90X.3 The Auction Deck
90X.3a Instead of normal game materials, the game is played using a special deck called the auction deck. This deck consists of any number of cards from which cards are auctioned over the course of the game, and is kept in the command zone. At the beginning of an Auction Magic game, the auction deck is shuffled. Players don't draw from the auction deck as part of the pregame procedures. All other pregame procedures are followed. See rule 103.
90X.3b The draw phase is replaced by the auction step. Effects that refer to the draw step don't apply, and abilities that would trigger at the beginning of the draw step don't trigger. As a turn-based action of the draw step, the active player puts the top card of the auction deck up for auction, during which all players may bid on it. See rule 90X.4, "The Auction Step".
90X.3c Even though players don't have libraries, each player still has his or her own graveyard and hand. The battlefield, exile, and command zones are still shared between all players.
90X.3d Effects that refer to a player's library use the auction deck. If a player would draw a card, he or she draws a card from the auction deck instead. If a player is instructed to put a card from his or her library into another zone, he or she puts a card from the auction deck into that zone.
90X.3e Cards in the auction deck have no owners.
90X.3f If a player is unable to put the top card of the auction deck up for auction due to an empty auction deck since the last time state-based actions were checked, he or she loses the game. Similarly, if a player has attempted to draw a card from an empty auction deck since the last time state-based actions are checked, he or she loses the game. (See rule 704, "State-Based Actions.")
90X.4. The Auction Step
90X.4a Rather than a draw step, the beginning phase of a turn instead has an auction step. This step occurs immediately after the upkeep step, before a player's main phase.
90X.4b First, the active player puts the top card of the auction deck up for auction. To do so, he or she puts the top card of the auction deck into the exile zone face up. Then, bidding for the card starts at a bid of 1 gold. Starting with the active player and in turn order, each player may top the high bid. The bidding ends when each player declines to bid in succession. The high bidder then puts the exiled card into his or her hand. Then if no player placed a bid on the card, it is put on the bottom of the auction deck, and this process is repeated until a card that is put up for auction is put into a player's hand or until each player agrees to stop auctioning cards. If a noncreature card that was put up for auction is put into a player's hand, that player reveals cards from the top of the auction deck until he or she reveals a creature card, then puts all cards revealed this way into his or her hand. All cards that are put into a player's hand this way are "auctioned off to" that player. This turn-based action doesn't use the stack.
90X.4c Second, if any cards were auctioned off to a player as part of the turn-based action of the auction step, that player may choose to cast any number of them. Casting a spell this way follows the normal rules for casting spells (see rule 601, "Casting Spells"), except that any timing restrictions imposed by the types of these cards are ignored.
90X.4d Third, any abilities that trigger at the beginning of the auction step and any other abilities that have triggered go on the stack.
90X.4e Fourth, the active player gets priority. Players may cast spells and activate abilities.
90X.5. Gold
90X.5a In the Auction Magic variant, players bid and spend gold to perform various actions. A player may bid gold as part of the process of auctioning a card. A player may spend 1 gold to add one mana of any color to his or her mana pool. A player may spend gold this way any time he or she has priority, whenever he or she is casting a spell or activating an ability that requires a mana payment, or whenever a rule or effect asks for a mana payment, even if it's in the middle of casting or resolving a spell or activating or resolving an ability.
90X.5b Players begin the game with 10 gold. As part of the cleanup step, there is a third turn-based action: after damage is removed from permanents and "until end of turn" and "this turn" effects end, each player gets 3 gold.
90X.5c When bidding, a player may not bid more gold than he or she currently possesses.
90X.5d If a rule or effect would cause a player to have less than 0 gold, his or her gold total becomes 0 instead.
90X.6. Some effects may allow a player to put a card that's not in the auction deck up for auction. Bidding for a card put up for auction this way follows all the rules for putting a card up for auction as described in rule 90X.4b, with the following exceptions.
90X.6a Each player other than the player who put the card up for auction may bid on the card.
90X.6b If a card owned by a player that is put up for auction this way is auctioned off, the high bidder loses an amount of gold equal to the high bid, and the owner of that card gains an amount of gold equal to the bid of the high bidder. The high bidder then becomes the owner of the card auctioned off this way.
90X.6c If a noncreature card is auctioned off this way, no other cards are put into the high bidder's hand.
90X.6d If no player bids on the card, the card is put back into its previous zone. The ownership of the card doesn't change, and abilities that trigger from that card changing zones don't trigger.
90X.7. Some effects may allow a player to put multiple cards up for auction simultaneously. If at least one of these cards is not in the auction deck, bidding for cards this way follows all the rules for putting a card up for auction as described in rule 90X.6, except that if a player wins the auction, all cards put up for auction this way are auctioned off to that player.
90X.8. Some effects may allow a player to put one or more cards up for auction simultaneously from the auction deck. Bidding for cards this way follows all the rules for putting a card up for auction as described in rule 90X.8b, except that if each card that's auctioned off to the high bidder this way is a noncreature card, that player reveals cards from the top of the auction deck until he or she reveals a creature card, then puts all cards revealed this way into his or her hand; and if no cards are auctioned off this way, the cards are put onto the bottom of the auction deck in a random order.
90X.9. Each player plays with his or her hand revealed.
90X.10. Players cast spells without paying their mana costs. This is considered an alternative cost. However, the converted mana cost of a spell remains the same as it would be in a regular game. Additional costs may be paid as normal.
90X.11. If multiple players would win the game simultaneously, instead the player with the highest gold total or each player tied for the highest gold total wins the game. If multiple players would lose the game simultaneously, instead the player with the lowest gold total or each player tied for the lowest gold total loses the game.
90Y.1. In the Commander Auction variant, players bid for cards with a currency called gold. The Auction Magic variant uses all the normal rules for an Auction Magic game, with the following additions.
90Y.2. A Commander Auction game may be a two-player game or a multiplayer game. The default multiplayer setup is the Free-for-All variant with the attack multiple players option and without the limited range of influence option. See rule 806, “Free-for-All Variant.”
90Y.3. A Commander Auction game cannot be played unless the auction deck contains a number of legendary creature cards greater than or equal to the number of players in the game. Each card in the auction deck must have a different English name.
90Y.4. Pregame Procedures
90Y.4a At the beginning of a Commander Auction game, after the starting player has been determined, each player is given 10 gold. Then, the auction deck is shuffled, and cards from the top of the auction deck are revealed until a legendary creature card is revealed. Beginning with the starting player and in turn order, omitting each player who already has a card designated as their commander, each player may bid gold for the revealed card, following the steps described in 90X.4b, except that if no player bids on the card, the player with which the bidding for that card began designates the card as his or her commander and puts that card face up into the command zone. The high bidder loses gold equal to the high bid, designates the revealed card as his or her commander, and puts that card face up into the command zone. This process is repeated until each player in the game has designated a card as their commander. Each card that is put into the command zone this way becomes owned by the player who designated it as his or her commander. This designation is not a characteristic of the object represented by the card; rather, it is an attribute of the card itself. The card retains this designation even when it changes zones.
90Y.4b Then, each player sets his or her life total to 40.
90Y.5. If a commander would be put into its owner's graveyard or into the exile zone from anywhere, the owner of that card may put it into the command zone instead.
90Y.6. A player may put his or her commander card up for auction, but only if an effect allows him or her to do so, and only if the card is in the command zone. Putting a commander card up for auction this way follows all the normal rules for putting a card up for auction (see rule 90X.6), except that if the high bidder's commander card is in the command zone, the high bidder's commander card exchanges it with the commander card of the player who put it up for auction this way. If either half of the exchange can't be completed, the exchange doesn't occur.
90Y.7. A player that's been dealt 21 or more combat damage by the same commander over the course of the game loses the game.
[c]Lightning Bolt[/c] -> Lightning Bolt
[c=Lightning Bolt]Apple Pie[/c] -> Apple Pie
Vowels-Only Format
Minimum deck size: 60
Maximum number of identical cards: 4
Ban list: Cards whose English names begin with a consonant, Unglued and Unhinged cards, cards involving ante, Ancestral Recall
Great to have you on the project.
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Removal
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The auction deck is shared and it would be pretty random for whose turn it is when the auction deck runs out. Seems like either the game should just be a draw, or you shuffle all graveyards back into the auction deck. Ideally you should have enough cards so you do not run out. Maybe keep some extra cards in reserve to start a new auction deck. This second deck could have much higher power level bombs so that if the game drags on this long, it should end very quickly after the deck change.
I think keep the pay-gold-for-mana mechanic, but also include some mana producing cards in the auction catalog.
Coalition Relic, Darksteel Ingot, Gilded Lotus, Lotus Blossom, Manalith, Meteorite, Phyrexian Lens, Unstable Obelisk, Ur-Golem's Eye
City of Brass, Exotic Orchard, Forbidden Orchard, Gemstone Mine, Grand Coliseum, Mana Confluence, Mirrodin's Core, Reflecting Pool, Rupture Spire, Tarnished Citadel, Transguild Promenade, Vesuva
Some mana producers could raise some interesting questions. You don't have to pay mana for spells, so how much gold is a mana producer worth for just mostly activated abilities and additional costs? For this format, I sort of like best the cards like City of Brass, Forbidden Orchard, or Workhorse that instead give you mana at the cost of a different resource.
Woah! That is a huge change in your rules when purchasing a noncreature card. I haven't listened to the podcast yet, but based on the first post that is not at all what should happen when a noncreature card is purchased.
All these ideas (except maybe the graveyard one cause it could have some logistical issues and it's possible to run out of cards in the auction block and the graveyard simmultaneously) are probably better than the answer I gave. Just calling it a draw, or giving the win to the person with higher life total, makes sense. The new stack of super-cards seems fun too, but i doubt players would ever actually get to use it.
Just the night before last I was talking about adding Gilded Lotus for this reason. It's very interesting to add some mana producing cards to the auction block. I think it'd probably be a good idea if you have a lot of kicker, cycling, equip and similar. Equip costs in particular need a lot of mana support. Shades work similarly well here.
Wow, okay, missed that. Yeah - that would throw off everything. Did you misunderstand me TC - or is this a new idea you have for the gameplay? If so, I'd like to hear your reasoning. Personally, I don't think it'd work because suddenly noncreature cards are worth insane value - instead of being slightly dangerous propositions to bid on (because you're spending gold to buy them before seeing the next card(s) which adds an appealing tension to the gameplay). Am I missing something, or did I just not explain myself well in the opening post?
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Deadly Stakes
1B
Sorcery
Target player loses 3 life and you gain 3 life.
Raise the Stakes-When you purchase this card, the next card to be bid on this turn gains "When you purchase this card, target player loses 3 life and you gain 3 life."
Fiery Bid
2R
Sorcery
~ deals 3 damage to target creature or player.
High Bid~ deals 5 damage to that creature or player instead if you spent five or more gold counters to purchase it and if you cast it immediately after you purchased it.
High Bid seems a bit like Kicker in this iteration. Paying more gold for a bigger effect already has things supporting it in Magic's existing card base. I do like the concept of variable gold purchases influencing the effect though. There's probably something we can do with it.
I'd be interested in seeing some cards that gain you gold whenever you do [X] and similar. Or a card like Cogwork Librarian and similar ideas. Suddenly my head's abuzz with inspiration. You guys are awesome.
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Blood Claim 1B
Instant
Target player loses 2 life and you gain 2 life.
Stake your Claim -- When you next win an auction this turn, you may return CARDNAME from your graveyard to your hand. (You must cast this spell before the card to be auctioned is revealed.)
Brainstorming for some bizzaro additions and cards that play differently because of the format:
The self-shuffling of Beacon of Destruction and Beacon of Unrest could play well because the shuffling could also mix back any cards put on the bottom of the library. Possibly Beacon of Tomorrows, although additional turn effects should probably be watched carefully.
Speaking of shuffling, I wonder if cards like this would be fair or worthwhile: Molten Psyche, Lantern of Insight, Mnemonic Nexus, Barishi, Elvish Soultiller, Loaming Shaman, Rooting Kavu.
Serum Visions has interesting implications. I like the unknown draw first, followed by deck stacking. You are bidding on a currently unknown card, and then getting to rig the next auction.
Speaking of unknown, how well would the erratic and unknown trigger of cascade stand up? Some of the cheaper (monetary value) cascade cards might have a nice new life here. Ardent Plea, Bituminous Blast, Captured Sunlight, Demonic Dread, Deny Reality, Enlisted Wurm, Stormcaller's Boon, Violent Outburst
These have a similar erratic nature that could help punish players that are holding a bomb card in hand: Burning Inquiry, Urza's Guilt, Dark Deal, Flux, Incendiary Command, Mindslicer, Smallpox, Head Games.
Since hands are revealed, would these cards be too good? Cabal Therapy, Brain Pry, Conjurer's Ban, Meddling Mage, Nevermore, Runed Halo, Voidstone Gargoyle
Of all these card suggestions, Brain Pry especially makes me smile. It’s so useful in this format. You get a free card by intentionally naming something wrong, or you can take something specific out of their hand (since people play with hands revealed). Great find. I’ll probably be including it in my own auction block right away.
I’m not sure how I feel about very random effects like Vision Skeins, because the more such effects there are the less skill is involved in this super skill-intensive format. However, some auction blocks with more random elements like that are a great idea. The game is so skill-based in our current stack that the same people almost always win. Setting aside some high variance cards like this is a great way to customize your stack’s excitement-vs-skill-level. The cheaper (monetary value) cascade spells could also be very fun here, as you’ve mentioned. They have more control over their end value than drawing random cards, so they might be a good mixture.
One thing I’d caution though is an overreliance on cards that put things on top of their owner’s library, or close to the top. It’s cute in this format, because they get reauctioned, but one of the most fun moments of the auction is not knowing what you’re going to be bidding on. Bidding on the same card that was bid on before, because it’s been put back on top, can mess with the excitement if it happens too often.
I think some cards like Meddling Mage could be fun, but you’d want them very easy to remove. So, nevermore probably wouldn’t be great.
As for the mechanic Silvercut came up with called, “Stake your Claim” - I think options to increase your value on the next auction are very cool. Cards that change the value of next auctions are definitely going to help keep the format fresh. Here are some ideas based on that.
Alchemy Lab
Artifact
Whenever you purchase an artifact at auction, gain 1 gold.
Gilded Idol
Artifact
Whenever a card is revealed for auction, before you bid on it, you make exile Gilded Idol. If you do, you may immediately purchase the revealed card for 0 gold.
Packaged Gnome
Creature
When Packaged Gnome is revealed for Auction, reveal two additional cards from the top of the auction block. The player that purchases the Packaged Gnome also purchases the revealed cards.
2/2
Auctioneer
Creature
T, Auction the top card of the deck.
2/1
Resell
Instant
Exile target creature. Its controller gains gold equal to that creature’s power.
What do you think?
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1 Accorder Paladin
1 Adaptive Snapjaw
1 Agoraphobia
1 Ainok Bond-Kin
1 Alms Beast
1 Ancient Ooze
2 Angelic Edict
1 Curse of Chains
1 Primal Visitation
1 Dead Weight
1 Drake Umbra
1 Sudden Demise
1 Flurry of Horns
2 Wee Dragonauts
2 Kiln Fiend
1 Fluxcharger
1 Young Pyromancer
1 Prescient Chimera
1 Distortion Strike
1 Vigean Hydropon
1 Sylvok Replica
1 Suicidal Charge
1 Phantasmal Dragon
1 Phantom Beast
1 Apex Hawks
1 Thrummingbird
1 Surveilling Sprite
1 Soulcatcher
1 Serum Raker
1 Sultai Flayer
1 Whirlwind Adept
1 Jeskai Windscout
1 Prey Upon
2 Hunt the Weak
1 Savage Punch
1 Omenspeaker
1 Architects of Will
1 Augury Owl
1 Voice of the Provinces
1 Stromkirk Noble
1 Truefire Paladin
1 Gorgon's Head
1 Daggerback Basilisk
1 Deathgaze Cockatrice
1 Thornweald Archer
1 Kederekt Creeper
1 Azorius Justiciar
1 Lyev Skyknight
1 Pacifism
1 Keening Apparition
1 War Priest of Thune
1 Aven Cloudchaser
1 Vindicate
2 Sundering Growth
1 Coursers' Accord
1 Ravenous Baloth
2 Herd Gnarr
1 Scoria Elemental
1 Elusive Krasis
1 Battering Krasis
1 Crocanura
1 Madcap Skills
1 Cliffrunner Behemoth
1 Tuskguard Captain
1 Mer-Ek Nightblade
1 Longshot Squad
1 Vanquish the Foul
1 Sea God's Revenge
1 Drown in Sorrow
1 Kessig Recluse
1 Barrage of Boulders
1 Barrage of Expendables
1 Sigil of the Nayan Gods
1 Monstrous Carabid
1 Marrow Chomper
1 Spread the Sickness
1 Quiet Contemplation
1 Skinwing
1 Marsh Casualties
1 Oran-Rief Recluse
1 Mardu Skullhunter
1 Aggravate
1 Breath of Darigaaz
1 Rain of Embers
1 Force Away
1 Mogis's Marauder
1 Reverent Hunter
1 Murder Investigation
1 Write into Being
1 AEther Adept
1 Temur Runemark
1 Flame Slash
1 Kuldotha Ringleader
1 Crumbling Colossus
1 Mardu Heart-Piercer
1 Gruul Nodorog
1 Roaring Primadox
1 Frost Lynx
1 Cavalry Pegasus
1 Xathrid Necromancer
1 Warden of the First Tree
1 Fleetfeather Sandals
1 O-Naginata
1 Darklit Gargoyle
1 Figure of Destiny
2 Wirewood Savage
1 Symbiotic Beast
1 Thought Eater
1 Windwright Mage
1 Blood Artist
1 Hellkite Hatchling
1 Tar Fiend
1 Thromok the Insatiable
1 Mind Rot
1 Wurmskin Forger
1 Gather the Townsfolk
1 Traitorous Blood
1 Goblin Assault
2 Ordeal of Thassa
1 Evernight Shade
1 Innocent Blood
1 Ageless Entity
1 Corpsejack Menace
1 Caldera Hellion
1 Nimbus Swimmer
1 Witch-Maw Nephilim
1 Battlefront Krushok
1 Chronicler of Heroes
1 Shinewend
1 Argentum Armor
1 Bronzebeak Moa
2 Liliana's Specter
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Haze of Rage
1 Grapeshot
1 Mark of Mutiny
1 Auriok Windwalker
1 Capsize
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Brain Pry
1 Pride of the Clouds
1 Necropouncer
1 Dual Casting
1 Phyrexian Vault
1 Future Sight
1 Furnace Whelp
1 Mikaeus, the Lunarch
1 Wild Guess
1 Moonglove Changeling
1 Thornscape Battlemage
1 Hardened Scales
1 Demonmail Hauberk
1 Carnage Gladiator
1 Gorehorn Minotaurs
1 Ordeal of Erebos
1 Travel Preparations
1 Hand of Death
2 Cruel Edict
1 Valorous Charge
1 Reckless Abandon
1 Pyrotechnics
1 Break Asunder
1 Bramblecrush
1 Resounding Wave
1 Resounding Silence
2 Ride Down
1 Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
1 Spectral Procession
1 Curse of the Swine
1 Kamahl's Summons
1 Guttersnipe
1 Righteous Charge
1 Curse of the Nightly Hunt
1 Curse of Stalked Prey
1 Curse of Chaos
1 Curse of the Pierced Heart
1 Pillory of the Sleepless
1 Lust for War
1 Chimney Imp
1 Mana Leak
1 Doubling Season
1 Suspension Field
1 Journey to Nowhere
1 Bone Splinters
1 Centaur Glade
1 Mobilization
1 Phantom Warrior
1 AEther Figment
Are you designing commons? Check out my primer on NWO.
Interested in making a custom set? Check out my Set skeleton and archetype primer.
I also write articles about getting started with custom card creation.
Go and PLAYTEST your designs, you will learn more in a single playtests than a dozen discussions.
My custom sets:
Dreamscape
Coins of Mercalis [COMPLETE]
Exodus of Zendikar - ON HOLD
Not recently but as discussed in my podcast Re-Making Magic we have been developing it into a stand alone game.
Are you designing commons? Check out my primer on NWO.
Interested in making a custom set? Check out my Set skeleton and archetype primer.
I also write articles about getting started with custom card creation.
Go and PLAYTEST your designs, you will learn more in a single playtests than a dozen discussions.
My custom sets:
Dreamscape
Coins of Mercalis [COMPLETE]
Exodus of Zendikar - ON HOLD
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
The Dungeon Master's Guide - A Podcast for those that love RPGs and Game Design
Sig-Heroes of the Plane
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
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