Junk Diver

[bryson430]

Not sure if this has been discussed before...but...it is very casual...

It's a variant that allows you to play cards that never normally leave the suitcase.

Basically, you make the worst possible deck that you can out of your worst cards. Then, you exchange decks with your opponent and play. Multiplayer is even better.

There are a few rules:

Got to be 5-colour.
Has to include 4 of each basic land.
No cards with ccc or higher (Thats Aysen Highway out, then)
Has to have at least 3 creatures of each colour
Has to have at least 3 artifact creatures and 3 artifacts
No cards that don't have valid targets (ie: No Goblin Shrine without goblins)
Colour spread must be even.



Beyond that, it just needs to be terrible...favorite cards so far:

Clergy of the Holy Nimbus
Rust
Mana Clash
etc, etc


I'll dig out the deck soon and post it...see if you can think of the worst possible cards you could play....

 

[train]

Snow covered lands...

 

[Azreal the Soulmaster]

what wrong with snow-covered lands, If I had them all my decks would be entirely snow-covered lands. my black deck only has 3 snow-covered swamps

 

[WickedBoy6]

I just think he means just as game-mechanics go, Snow-covered lands was a pretty bad idea. It really inly interacted with two sets, and Alliances didn't even do much with them then.

I'd like to include Bulwark to that list. I may like red, but burn's supposed to EMPTY your hand to do more damage than Bulwark ever could.

Bulwark - 3RR - Rare
Enchantment - Urza's Saga
At the beginning of your upkeep, Bulwark deals to target opponent damage equal to the number of cards in your hand greater than the number of cards in his or her hand.
"It will be the goblin's first bath, and its last."

 

[Nightstalkers]

Throw in those Brass Cities and Tarnished Citadels instead of some lands...

What fun!!

 

[Azreal the Soulmaster]

oh I know!! put in a play set of thran turbines, with nothing else that has activated abilities requiring a cost

 

[Nightstalkers]

how s'about that red card that:

take another turn after this one. you lose the game after that turn.

HAHAHAHAHA

the idea of screwing over your opponent with a crap deck is just elegant.

 

[bryson430]

Here we go then....

Oh, one other rule: aside from basic land, every card is restricted.

G:
Centaur Veteran
Rime Dryad
Hornet Cobra
Village Elder
Durkwood Boars
Rust
R:
Goblin Digging Team
Orcish Artillery
Chandler
Flare
Sluggishness
Accelerate
U:
Cephalid Aristocrat
Phantasmal Terrain
Twiddle
Reef Pirates
Balduvian Shaman
Drake Hatchling
W:
Hipparion
Rashida Scalebane
Clergy Of The Holy Nimbus
Green Ward
Cold Snap
B:
Morgue Thrull
Cyclopean Mummy (My favorite!)
Giant Slug
Painful Memories
Transmutation
A:
Wall Of Spears
Soldevi Steam Beast
Battering Ram
Arena Of the Ancients
Helm Of Chatzuk
Draconian Cylix
Voodoo Doll
M:
Earthlink

4 Forest
4 Mountain
4 Swamp
4 Plains
4 Island

 

[train]

Here it is...

G:
Rime Dryad
Hornet Cobra
Durkwood Boars

R:
Goblin Digging Team
Orcish Artillery
Chandler

U:
Cephalid Aristocrat
Reef Pirates
Balduvian Shaman

W:
Hipparion
Rashida Scalebane
Clergy Of The Holy Nimbus

B:
Morgue Thrull
Cyclopean Mummy
Giant Slug

A:
Wall Of Spears
Soldevi Steam Beast
Battering Ram
Arena Of the Ancients
Helm Of Chatzuk
Voodoo Doll

4 Forest
4 Mountain
4 Swamp
4 Plains
4 Island

 

[Spiderman]

I've heard and played with this variant before, only we did it by point-drafting and regular booster draft... We only had 4 people total so it got old after playing a person a couple times because you knew how you were going to build the deck again once you played. Still interesting though.

 

[train]

I tried to make sure they got no flyers, very little regeneration and no spells...artifacts they had to have though...

 

[bryson430]

Sorry to keep adding rules...

I thougt this one goes without saying...but...

Gotta be 60 card decks.

Glad you like my choice of creatures...

PS: Is Rust the worst card ever?

 

[Rooser]

No, Ember Shot is the worst card ever.

So you didn't specify that the creatures had to have any power at all or that they couldn't be walls. So just find 18 creatures that can't do any damage to an opponent and make sure the rest of the cards aren't burn spells...

 

[bryson430]

Originally posted by Rooser
No, Ember Shot is the worst card ever.

Just looked it up on Crystalkeep (I don't own one) Yes, that is truly terrible cost-wise. But 3 damage...that almost counts as useful...

It seems more fun to me to make your opponents play a card that makes them angry due to it's uselessness:

p1: (taps a land)I use my Helm of Chatzuk to give my village elder banding!
p2: A-ha! (taps a forest) I play Rust!
p1: (taps another land) ok, now I give it banding.
p2: alright then...



...rather than make them play something with a really stupid casting cost

As for creature power, we did discuss some kind of formula for ensuring that it was actually possible to kill your opponent, but it was far too convoluted. We just play on the assumption that no-one will try and fiddle the game that way...it is casual, after all.

I suppose the "spirit" of this game is to individually "cherry-pick" really bad cards for their utter, utter badness, not play the metagame and design a deck that cannot work...most of the fun comes in defeating your opponent with an unblocked clergy of the holy nimbus, or yare-ing all his creatures onto your rashida scalebane...or whatever. It's about not knowing how bad the next card will be..or watching his face when he draws a cold snap...


PS: must put Yare in there somewhere.

 

[NorrYtt]

We recently had a tourney where the object was to build the worst deck possible. My deck looked like

Spells (32)
4 Turf Wound
4 Solfatara
4 Accelerate
4 Panic
4 Stun
4 Tahngarth's Glare
4 Break Open
2 Ember Shot
2 Erratic Explosion

Creatures (5)
4 Scarred Puma
1 Chicken Egg

Artifact (4)
4 Urza's Bauble

Land (19)
4 Ravaged Highlands
other assorted lands that produce R and suck


Each deck had to have a viable kill condition. My kill condition requires you to hit your opponent with 2 Erratic Explosions revealing Ember Shot each time, then you have to draw the Ember Shots and burn the opponent out for a total of 20 damage. Of course, this means getting to the Ember Shots at the bottom of your deck after each Explosion, and if one whiffs, say on Urza's Bauble (which happened a couple times, boy was that funny), you can't deal 20 points to your opponent, and you will most like die to decking first because of all your cantrips. Tahngarth's Glare doesn't help your Explosions either.

Apparently, the tourney judge that this was too narrow a win condition, so he made me add a creature that could actually attack for a full twenty points if unhindered, so I chose Chicken Egg for this slot.

Anyway, that's the worst deck I could come up with in about an hour from my common box that had a non-zero chance of dealing 20 damage to the opponent. I'm not sure who 'won' that tournament, but my deck got to the finals against a very similar deck. Break Open was the most played card

 

[WickedBoy6]

Is Unglued included? As cool as some of it was, there was quite a bit of junk in it, as well.

 

[Nightstalkers]

now theres an idea... Unglued!!!!

 

[WickedBoy6]

Well, think about it...Honestly, how many times have you played Lexivore, Clam-I-Am, or Jalum Grifter? (I actually used Chaos Confetti in a match once. Still probably the greatest Magic moment in Mt. Eden High School history)

 

[train]

I actually had a friend say he thought buying up as many chaos confetti's as possible, tearing them into pieces and throwing them as confetti at his wedding would be neat...

I agreed!!!...

 

[WickedBoy6]

GOD I wish my girlfriend liked Magic. That just SCREAMS "romance".