WCB Vaults - my musings on Multiplayer Magic

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Multiplayer Variants

Plane of Bounty

Use cards like Howling Mine, Mana Flare, etc. and place them as 'automatic' cards in the center of the table. They speed up the game and make it more exciting. One house rule is that they can be disenchanted or gotten rid of if a player feels like doing so.

Plane of Chaos

Create a list of 6-10 "effects" (even numbers) with 50% good and 50% bad effects in the list. Think Stasis, The Abyss, etc. for bad and Howling Mine, Attacking Creatures get +1/+1, etc for the good effects. At the start of each round (starting with the person who went first at the beginning of the game), or even a the start of each player's turn, roll dice to determine the effect that is in play.

Rise of the...

Build 'theme' decks and each player takes one to use. for example, I am in the process of making goblin, elf, zombie, and wizard decks. Each deck is single-colored with only monsters of that type (or themed for use with that type) allowed. Similarly, most of the spells (barring color basics like counterspell, disenchant, etc.) are also themed towards each particular creature type.

'Masochistic Magic'

where each player builds a deck with the worst cards he/she can think of and then gives the player on the left uses that deck when the game starts. Certain rules should be set for deck construction such as mana ratio and number of creatures/spells so that each deck is actually playable, but the object is to find the worst critters and spells to include so that they player to your left is stuck trying to play it...of course your deck that you inherit will probably be just as bad...

Pack Magic

This variant is just as fun in one-on-one and multiplayer. Each person buys 4-6 packs of the latest expansion (or agreed on expansions). Each player opens his/her packs and without looking and shuffles all the cards they have into a deck. Cards can be played, or used as 'mana' (i.e. if played this way, they become land which produces mana the color of the card; artifact and land become colorless, and multicolor cards produce mana of whatever colors the card is). Starter decks can also be used this way if everyone agrees to buy them (though they actually come with land so the rule that uses the cards for mana is usually not used).

Vault Whispers - Musings on Multiplayer

Feeding Time!
Lord of the Pit was a spendy critter, requiring sacrificial creatures to satiate his hunger each turn or he'd hurt the person who controlled him. When Fallen Empires introduced us to Breeding Pit, it gave the Lord of the Pit something to eat each turn for the cost of only two black mana.

My experiences with Magic the Gathering have mainly been from a multiplayer perspective. Here, where I live, there is a small gaming community. For a time, we tried to organize regular DCI tournaments, but my core group of friends were mostly just interested in having fun and quickly fell out of the tournament scene. There are still tournaments that go on nowdays - run by our local games store - but from what I can tell the attendance us usually about a half dozen or so on average. I haven't been into the Magic scene for a while now either. Most of my friends have moved away, or (like myself) have families and responsibilities that limit the amount of time we spend playing. I still have my old decks, but haven't bought any MtG cards since the Timespiral block for the most part.

This is my take on Magic from a multiplayer perspective.

Our multiplayer groups were usually 3 - 4 of us sitting around someone's bachelor pad playing in various states of altered minds and having fun doing so. Our games usually lasted from a half-hour to one or two hours on average, though three to four hour games were not uncommon either. We once had a nine player game that lasted for 9 hours - I wound up getting eliminated about about 4 hours into the game and dozed on the floor next to one of my friends who was so drunk he had problems keeping his head from hitting the floor (we were playing on the carpet since we didn't have a table big enough). Remarkably, he managed to stay in the game longer than I did and was even one of the last few players that were eliminated if I remember correctly. Fun times indeed...

Earthquake and Circle of Protection: Red cards

Old School Burn...
This combo fueled an entire deck theme. Red/White with lots of protection from red critters and other mass-burn spells like Inferno. A black variant used C.O.P. Black and Pestilence to the same effect.

Multiplayer Magic is a totally different beast than competetive Magic. From a time perspective, multiplayer tends to last a lot longer than competetive games do.

Game time in multiplayer games is actually due to a number of factors. The main reason for that is that in multiplayer, nobody wants to be the first to extend themselves by attacking. Usually, most multiplayer games build for a few rounds until someone either a) pisses someone else off enough to where they begin attacking each other, b) someone builds their combinations up enough to where they feel confident they can start taking on opponents, or c) someone plays a spell that effects everyone and either gets ganged up on, or starts waging war against the first person who tries to stop them. The other members of the game usually wait the process out seeing who comes out on top and building their own resources up in the process. Usually the first folks who start scrapping are the ones who don't win in the end.

Another factor that contributes to game time is that strategic playing involves a larger number of cards. You need to be up on what each opponent is doing and that can involve analyzing and keeping track of a large amount of cards on the board.

Got No Life?
This combo used to be a hot one to pull off, but I think it has seen errata since then that renders it unplayable. Nothing like switching life with your opponent when you have no life!

The draw to multiplayer? You see a lot of card combinations that would never even be considered in a competetive tournament deck. One of the main reasons I got out of playing tournaments was that (to me) there were perhaps two or three deck themes that dominated the scene. If you didn't play one of them (or a variant at least) then you didn't stand much chance of winning. Of course having to keep up with the current set rotation was another reason I kept out of it. Having many of my old cards become worthless in Type II turned me off.

You'll never see a Karma deck, or a deck that relies on creating massively huge Khabal Ghouls, or a deck that uses Earthquakes and Infernos along with Circle of Protection; Red in a tournament...not even Type I, or Classic or whatever they are calling it nowdays. Those are the combos that I find fun though. Show me someone who can creatively create a deck around coin-flip cards exclusively (I have a friend who has one), or a person who uses Blue as an excuse to make a Prodigal Sorcerer Deck and I'll show you fun decks to play against (or play with)!

Vice, Vice Baby...
Before Black Vice was put on the restricted list, there were a few different deck themes used 4 Vices and 4 Mines to keep their opponents in the hurt zone. Often, these decks would also be built around Armageddon or Stasis to prevent opponents from emptying their hands too quickly.

So what does happen when you combine the two playing styles? My advice...don't! Don't even think about playing a competetive tournament deck in muliplayer. Oh no, it's not a threat...simply the fact that most competetive decks are not meant to last in a long running game. They generally build their resources fast and use them all to annihilate their opponent. Usually, from what I've seen, some kid will want to play with one and will go all out in a frenzy of destruction against one or two other players. True, they can usually take out one, perhaps two other opponents fairly quickly, but then they find themselves up against other players whose decks have had a few turns to build (remember, multiplayer folks like to watch when the combat doesn't involve them directly). Having spent most of their resources early, these competetive decks usually can not effectively compete against card combinations that they are not prepared for or used to seeing. Oh, there have been a few times where the competetive deck has been rugged enough to hold out and I can remember a time or two where such decks have won, but the majority of the time they seem to fail mid-game against multiplayer decks that have gotten their combos and enough mana to power them.

Conversely, my decks wouldn't hold up at all in a tournament most likely. Too many of them require 3-4 rounds of building (assuming they are not mana shorted of course) before they can seriously pose a threat. Many competetive decks are in control of the board by then and will quickly take me out. I've got a couple decks that do OK I guess.

An Irresistible Party
Talk about killer parties! This combo was a 2 card, low cost Wrath of God for your opponent only! It may have had errata issued at some point.

Team games are the most fun in my opinion. I've tried variants, but the most fun is a 4 or 6 player game where there are teams of 2-3 players on each side. There are a ton of house rules that you can use, and the variants for this are many. Having a team member also means that you have to watch your deck choice though. My Recycler, for example, is a bad choice in a team environment due to the fact that the Gravepacts can do as much harm to my team mate as they do to the opposition. I've seen more than one team game degenerate into a free-for-all simply due to the fact that one player plays a spell that hurt their team mate enough to cause them to retaliate...and the war was on.

All in all, multiplayer Magic is fun. Plain and simple. It allows for more creative card combinations, and it allows for the use of cards that normally wouldn't see the light of day in a constructed environment. Of course everyone is entitled to an opinion, and this is mine, but I hope you enjoyed reading my ramblings on the subject. If you have any comments, feel free to email me at: byakhee333@yahoo.com

Feel free to email me if you have any comments or questions.

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