Hunt Theory

[krichaiushii]

Since my thread on Emperor Theory went so well, I am curious about strategies used in decks for the multiplayer variant called The Hunt or Assassins.

The Hunt (or Assassin) consists of everyone sitting in a circle and choosing a card that represents them. Those cards are placed facedown and each player chooses one randomly. The card chosen is the player you must eliminate. Should you draw your own card, you are Rogue and free to target anybody. If you have an odd number of people, one is inevitably Rogue. Should you eliminate your target, you can then go Rogue. The last player left standing wins, though it is possible to work out a scoring system based on how many other players you eliminate.

The catch is that you can target only the player (and his permanents) you are hunting, and the permanents of the player hunting you. Rogues can target anyone and anything, but can only be attacked/targetted by those they attack directly. The best part is that noone knows who is who's target until someone strikes...

Global spells (Wrath of God, Earthquake) do not count for targetting persons, so playing one of these cards does not invite retaliation by everyone (just those hunting you...).

The same goes for artifacts with global effects (Howling Mine, Copper Tablet), even if the global effect is damaging (again, Copper Tablet).

This also means that regardless of how detrimental it is to your game, blue mages can only counter spells that target them or their permanents, or anything cast by their target or attacker.

For example, if I am Rogue, no one can do anything to me or my permanents, unless its through a global effect (Tranquility). Therefore, I could (and have, once) get three Megrims into play that noone could touch (no green players that day...) so I can wait until I have a Windfall in hand to kill most everybody.

Conversely, if I am patiently hunting someone in the above game, and I see the three Megrims out, I can only hope someone plays a Tranquility, or that whomever is hunting the Megrim player strikes soon, because my Disenchants cannot target the Megrims, as I am not hunting that player!

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All that being said, do you just take a regular chaos deck into the Hunt and hope for the best, or do you take in a combo deck, and hope to be the Rogue? Monocolor, or multicolor? And lastly, do you choose decks before choosing targets, or do you wait for target assignments before choosing decks (to best take advantage of being Rogue...)?

I myself prefer a standard chaos deck, with a black component (Wall of Souls is some good in this game).
Creatures and utility round things out, based on colors I am running. Some form of global affecting spells are included, as well... just in case.

Any comments? Card preferences? Rules variations? Decks?

 

[Spiderman]

The couple time I played Hunt/Assassin was slightly different. We played (if I remember correctly) that if you kill your target, then you get THEIR target, instead of going Rogue (so the initial Rogue will eventually become a Hunter and Target once he kills someone). You got points for how many of your targets you killed plus a few for being the survivor. I think you were only limited to attacking your target; spells could be cast willy-nilly and affect everyone (I'm hazy on this though).

Playing this way, I think I played a pretty much control type deck or one that had a LOT of creatures and stuff (not beatdown or fatties, just creatures that pretty much stuck to the mana curve). Since spells could affect everyone, I had to be aware of the whole "game board" (I think there were four people playing) to make sure someone didn't get the upper hand.

 

[rYaNsPVT]

i like your suggestions for a totally different multiplayer gameplay... as in, it's FUN!!! i dunno if folks in here will like it, but i jst wnt an evolution to the gameplay of Magic...