H
Howling_Fang
Guest
Lately, I have become bored with constructed decks. I play exclusively amongst my friends, and I find that either people are playing a deck I built, are building a deck from my cards or have an inferior collection and the game is no fun for either of us. To get around this problem I have come up with the following variant (note, in some respects it bares similarities to some of the other "One Big Pile" variants).
The first task which must be undertaken is building the piles that everyone will be playing out of. I have constructed 11 piles: 1 for each colour (no lands), 1 for each colour of land, and artifacts. The spell piles are made up of 100+ cards, and I have included no
duplicates. I tried to keep a balance between creatures and spells, half of each. In the land piles (of 30+ cards), I have included any of the non-basic lands for that particular colour (eg. Treetop Villages in Green pile, Ruins of Trokair in White, etc.), no duplication of the non-basics. In addition I have put dual-type lands in the land piles of both colours (ie. Mogg Hollows in both Red and Green piles). The artifact pile is composed of, well, artifacts, and I also threw in all the non-basic lands that are five colour or non-colour specific (eg. City of Brass, Quicksand, etc.). Once completed, shuffle thoroughly.
During play players start with the standard seven card hand. Whenever any player is allowed to draw a card, he may draw from any pile. The starting hands are drawn in the reverse order of play (ie. the player going last draws first, this gives the leader a double advantage, but that's how we've been doing it). Play as per usual in all other respects.
Some things that might help:
1. Do not use the library manipulation spells (Impulse, tutors, etc.).
2. When players draw multiple cards, they must declare from which piles they will draw from before they draw any cards. This prevents looking at your first card and having it influence your following draws.
3.. Graveyards are not shared, this allows the people who choose black to use their graveyard recursion cards.
I have found that the games have been remarkably well balanced, both in duels and in multi-player. It provides the ability to change the focus of your cards in mid-game. You never get mana screwed as you can draw a land as need be. In fact, we have found that a large part of the skill of the game is deciding which pile to draw from.
Well that's all folks.
Howling Fang
The first task which must be undertaken is building the piles that everyone will be playing out of. I have constructed 11 piles: 1 for each colour (no lands), 1 for each colour of land, and artifacts. The spell piles are made up of 100+ cards, and I have included no
duplicates. I tried to keep a balance between creatures and spells, half of each. In the land piles (of 30+ cards), I have included any of the non-basic lands for that particular colour (eg. Treetop Villages in Green pile, Ruins of Trokair in White, etc.), no duplication of the non-basics. In addition I have put dual-type lands in the land piles of both colours (ie. Mogg Hollows in both Red and Green piles). The artifact pile is composed of, well, artifacts, and I also threw in all the non-basic lands that are five colour or non-colour specific (eg. City of Brass, Quicksand, etc.). Once completed, shuffle thoroughly.
During play players start with the standard seven card hand. Whenever any player is allowed to draw a card, he may draw from any pile. The starting hands are drawn in the reverse order of play (ie. the player going last draws first, this gives the leader a double advantage, but that's how we've been doing it). Play as per usual in all other respects.
Some things that might help:
1. Do not use the library manipulation spells (Impulse, tutors, etc.).
2. When players draw multiple cards, they must declare from which piles they will draw from before they draw any cards. This prevents looking at your first card and having it influence your following draws.
3.. Graveyards are not shared, this allows the people who choose black to use their graveyard recursion cards.
I have found that the games have been remarkably well balanced, both in duels and in multi-player. It provides the ability to change the focus of your cards in mid-game. You never get mana screwed as you can draw a land as need be. In fact, we have found that a large part of the skill of the game is deciding which pile to draw from.
Well that's all folks.
Howling Fang