Star Commander

[CubJay]

I've had a load of fun in the past with the simple variant that combines Commander with Star. It needs five people but hey sometimes you've got five people instead of four, it happens.

If you're not familiar with Star, the rules are simple: each player has two allies sitting next to them and two enemies across from them, just like the colour wheel. A player wins when their enemies are elimimated (note: your allies are not teammates like in two headed giant - they can't block for you or anything like that, they're just opponents who don't need you to lose).

I find it leads to faster, more dynamic games, since you only need to beat two opponents to win, and fewer people trying to kill you means it's safer to extend into attacks. Keep it in mind if you ever happen to have four friends to jam with

[Mimicvat]

I've found this generally better than 5 player FFA. It can also be fun to try and colour align such as in the normal Star format.

So try and have a blue, or predominantly blue, player "opposing" the red and green focused players, with the white and black focused players to either side.

[Treamayne]

Do you use the color requirements?

Original Star would have decks of W, U, B, R, G (sitting in WUBRG order, as per card backs) and also had a "no-artifacts" (but this is the days of Revised/Ice Age - though the article did say use what rules your playgroups agree to use) but most I have played Star with since then just agree on how to handle artifacts/colorless. Also, many Star Commander players extend the theme to one of the following (per game):

WU, UB, BR, RG, GW
WB, UR, BG, RW, GU
WUB, UBR, BRG, RGW, GWU
WBR, URG, BGW, RWU, GUB

(note: your allies are not teammates like in two headed giant - they can't block for you or anything like that, they're just opponents who don't need you to lose).

In original Star, this is not the case. There was a rule called "Blocking en-passant" (from the Chess term for a pawn capturing en-passant). Example: If I am playing Blue, my allies are W and B. However, for W to attack B he has to "pass" my area. In this case, I would make first blocking choice, anything I did not block (or anything I block with Trample) would then continue on to attack B.

It makes for interesting politics, because while they are both technically my allies, I also don't want them to win before me. So, extending the previous example, If R is already dead, I would be trying to prevent W from killing B before I could kill G.

IIRC, original rules for Star were printed in Duelist issue 3 or 4.

[CubJay]

Do you use the color requirements?

Personally I don't, mostly out of convenience. I don't generally plan ahead of time to play star; more often I play it because as mimicvat said, it's generally better than 5 player free-for-all. If I knew for sure ahead of time though, it would be fun!

In original Star, this is not the case. There was a rule called "Blocking en-passant" (from the Chess term for a pawn capturing en-passant). [...]

I did not know that! Does it treat effects that refer to "opponents" or "teammates" in the same way? That could open up some interesting options with the Battlebond cards.

IIRC, original rules for Star were printed in Duelist issue 3 or 4.

That might be why I didn't know them... I was born only a month or two before the first issue! My earliest encounters with Magic (around 1999, playing with my brother's cards) were, shall we say, sort of freeform XD

[Treamayne]

Treamayne wrote: ↑21 hours ago
In original Star, this is not the case. There was a rule called "Blocking en-passant" (from the Chess term for a pawn capturing en-passant).

I did not know that! Does it treat effects that refer to "opponents" or "teammates" in the same way? That could open up some interesting options with the Battlebond cards. I've been a (very) casual player for a while now but

Star did not consider the allied colors teammates in the way 2HG of the era did (they were allies, as opposed to teammates). However, with Emperor, 3HG and other "team" formats rising since the inception of Star, I think an argument could be made for either decision. I would imagine the playgroup could agree to test it working that way, then decide if they want teammate to apply after trying it once or twice.

There was even what was called allied victory (If I am U and you are B; with both R and W knocked out of the game, when Green dies we have met this criteria for two winners).

Opponent (e.g. target opponent) always had to mean the player of one of the two colors you have to defeat, not an ally. It puts interesting emphasis on if a spell or ability says "target opponent" or "target player", since if I want to mess with an "ally" combat step to keep them from winning before I do, I need a target player card, or something that does not say "creature an opponent controls."