The "Promote to General" is for, let's say, you've added a rare legendary into your deck spending 20 points. The promotion cost is an additional cost on top of that to move that card into the position as your deck's general. This seemed like a good thing to put a point cost value on because promoting a powerful Voltron style general could give you a big advantage against other low power decks.
Your idea about mismatched decks is a good point. I need to think of a good way to work something like that in. Now that I think about it, you could just add in some arbitrary starting amount of points to build your deck on a point/buy system.
I have come up with a homebrew spin on Pauper Commander called Rags to Riches. In this format you start with a Pauper Commander deck and after winning you earn and trade in points to upgrade the rarity of the cards in your deck. This idea is not completely original. I have seen other variants of it mentioned before -- usually without much detail. But what I have done to make it more cohesive and manageable is I've created an app to facilitate tracking the points & trading in points. It is free on Google Play & has no ads or anything - called MTG Rags to Riches. It also lets you change the difficulty on how fast you gain points, because at the default difficulty it would take quite a few games before your deck really gets leveled up to a normal strength non-pauper commander deck.
I am looking for feedback from others on the point values & rewards. Currently this is how I outlined everything.
buy a new common : costs 5 points
buy an uncommon : costs 10 points
buy a rare: costs 20 points
buy a mythic: costs 30 points
promote a card to general: costs 20 points
The point reward list is a bit longer. What I tried to do is balance rewarding a small amount for losing, more for winning, and even more if you win if unusual circumstances.
lost game: 5 points
won game: 10 points
flawless win: 15 points
game was a draw: +9
opponent decked: +20
Knock out more than one opponent at once: +15
win with one attack phase: +20
win a game with over 80 life: + 15
win a game with over 100 life: + 20
win a game while at negative health: +40
Anyway, as I said, this is an experiment. Me and my friend are going to try it out so I'll be refining the points values as I go.
Your idea about mismatched decks is a good point. I need to think of a good way to work something like that in. Now that I think about it, you could just add in some arbitrary starting amount of points to build your deck on a point/buy system.
Thanks for the tips.
I have come up with a homebrew spin on Pauper Commander called Rags to Riches. In this format you start with a Pauper Commander deck and after winning you earn and trade in points to upgrade the rarity of the cards in your deck. This idea is not completely original. I have seen other variants of it mentioned before -- usually without much detail. But what I have done to make it more cohesive and manageable is I've created an app to facilitate tracking the points & trading in points. It is free on Google Play & has no ads or anything - called MTG Rags to Riches. It also lets you change the difficulty on how fast you gain points, because at the default difficulty it would take quite a few games before your deck really gets leveled up to a normal strength non-pauper commander deck.
I am looking for feedback from others on the point values & rewards. Currently this is how I outlined everything.
The point reward list is a bit longer. What I tried to do is balance rewarding a small amount for losing, more for winning, and even more if you win if unusual circumstances.
Anyway, as I said, this is an experiment. Me and my friend are going to try it out so I'll be refining the points values as I go.