Design Challenge: New Multiplayer Formats!

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barbecube
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Post by barbecube » 3 years ago

So, when I suggest playing multiplayer MTG, people tend to gravitate toward certain formats which I'm not a huge fan of, mainly because they are structured around teams, which are a poor fit for my play group size, or they involve elimination, which I don't like because it can sideline one player or a few players for even the majority of a game. That seems unfair and unfun to me.

I'd like to try and find some multiplayer variants that don't have these problems! So here is a challenge to all of you:

Design a M:tG format. The requirements are:
  • It is a multiplayer (accommodates three or more players) format.
  • It is a free-for-all (no teams, no specialized player roles) format.
  • There is no player elimination during the course of the game. All players are in the game, playing, until the end condition is reached and some amount of winners and/or losers are identified. (We'll assume that cards that trigger single-player game outcomes are handled in some way that makes this work, either through bans, errata, or rules changes.)
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spacemonaut
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Post by spacemonaut » 3 years ago

barbecube posed this challenge to me a short while ago, and here's what I shared back then:

Scissors Paper Rock: Three players. You win (and play ends for everybody) when the player to your left is eliminated. You may only attack to the left. Turn order goes to the left. Naturally the player to your right is trying to stop you from doing that before they eliminate you themselves.

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Post by spacemonaut » 3 years ago

Today, @folding_music posted in custom cards about a for-fun exercise they'd do with their friends:
folding_music wrote:
3 years ago
One cool idea we did have was to pool all the cards that say "You win the game" into a chaos stack of its own, deal one to the centre of the table before the first turn, like everyone controlled it, and then see if we could all mutually win at once <3 multiplayer casual magic, at the least the type I remember, was all about demonstrating yr deck and the idea of winning tended to get lost quickly.
I got to thinking about barb's challenge and saw potential in this for a well-developed format that would meet it. First, here's what I inferred from folding_music's post:
  • everyone builds decks not being sure which alternate win condition they're going to be dealt with.
  • a single pile is built with alternate win conditions: barren glory, helix pinnacle, etc.
  • a win condition gets revealed randomly from that pile at the start of the game.
  • the game ends when every player has won during the same turn, or every player wins in a row during their own turns. players don't vanish once they win, so they can help others win after they've won themselves.
Here's how I'd develop it further into a format to match this challenge:
  • There's about 40 alternate win conditions in the game. Several of them make you win. Build a pile out of most of them. I've put my drafted recommendations at the bottom of this post.
  • As the game starts, create your objective deck: it is 5 cards randomly chosen from the list of win conditions and shuffled face down. Put a Doom Blade face down at the bottom. (Or your choice of some other thematic card: All is Dust, Wrath of God, etc.)
  • At the start of the game, and every 5 rounds (or N*5 turns, where N is the number of players), deal out the top card of the objective deck into the objective zone, so that over the course of the game you'll have up to 5 win conditions available. These are the objective cards.
  • Everyone "owns" each objective card. They may cast a copy of those cards any time (within timing rules) as long as they don't already control a spell or permanent that's a copy of that objective card.
  • Players can can spend mana as though it were mana of any type (WUBRGC) to interact with the objective cards and their copies.
  • The game ends in defeat for all players when any player loses the game, or when the Doom Blade is dealt into the objective zone at round 25.
  • The game ends in victory for all players when, within the space of N consecutive turns, every player has won the game at least once, where N is the number of players. "Winning the game" is not victory, and doesn't mean anything except that you've contributed to potential victory. This means players stick around after they "win" and are available to help other players win.
  • Players can play alternate win condition cards in their decks, but their "wins" only count if they share a name with a revealed objective card.
The objective is for all players to work together to achieve victory and avoid defeat. Despite this there are no teams and all players remain opponents for rules purposes. This means they can attack each other with Hellkite Tyrant for example.

Some further options that others brought up:
  • The objective deck could be built like this: take 5 win conditions and shuffle the Doom Blade into them, then put that pile face down. Take another 5 win conditions, shuffle them, and put them on top. Now you have a pile of 11 cards. The first 5 are safe, but after that you might encounter the Doom Blade at any time. You could try to win before turn 25, or you could try to push your luck to make additional win conditions available.
  • Instead of losing the moment the Doom Blade is dealt, once it's dealt you have N turns to win, where N is the number of players—giving you a last chance so to speak. Extra turns consume this allowance.
Anyway, implications and reasoning:
  • Limiting you to 5 win conditions means you can't just bank on one specific win condition like Helix Pinnacle eventually appearing. It might not be in the pile at all.
  • Imposing a time limit means you can't just pass turns forever chipping away at a win condition like Helix Pinnacle: you'll need to find a way to work faster at it than normal.
  • Multiple possible win conditions being available means you're not stalled if you can't work with the first win condition that came up. Naturally you're not also locked out of options by color.
  • The limit to casting only one copy of an objective card means that everyone can own a Barren Glory, but you can't just cast four copies of Biovisionary—you can get one, but you'll have to sort the others out yourself.
  • Everyone doesn't have to win by the same win condition; players can pursue different win conditions.
Recommended win conditions (21):

Casomedes
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Post by Casomedes » 3 years ago

Check out my narrative style homebrew and let me know what you think: https://sites.google.com/view/guildenvoy/home

It is called Guild Envoy. I haven't had a chance to playtest yet, so if you get to, let me know what you find.
barbecube wrote:
3 years ago
So, when I suggest playing multiplayer MTG, people tend to gravitate toward certain formats which I'm not a huge fan of, mainly because they are structured around teams, which are a poor fit for my play group size, or they involve elimination, which I don't like because it can sideline one player or a few players for even the majority of a game. That seems unfair and unfun to me.

I'd like to try and find some multiplayer variants that don't have these problems! So here is a challenge to all of you:

Design a M:tG format. The requirements are:
  • It is a multiplayer (accommodates three or more players) format.
  • It is a free-for-all (no teams, no specialized player roles) format.
  • There is no player elimination during the course of the game. All players are in the game, playing, until the end condition is reached and some amount of winners and/or losers are identified. (We'll assume that cards that trigger single-player game outcomes are handled in some way that makes this work, either through bans, errata, or rules changes.)

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barbecube
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Post by barbecube » 3 years ago

Quoting the OP apparently doesn't indicate that you read it. Thanks for this off-topic contribution.
formerly willows

Casomedes
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Post by Casomedes » 3 years ago

barbecube wrote:
3 years ago
Quoting the OP apparently doesn't indicate that you read it. Thanks for this off-topic contribution.
Oh, my bad I thought I put the "No death" alt. rules on the website.
No Death Version:
-Players with 0 or less life are not removed from the game. Instead they grant players with positive life totals 2 adoration counters.
-Game continues until one player earns 10 adoration, or other players lose with enmity.

Players could stilll be removed with emnity, but enmity tends to be a player choice rather than something inflicted on them.

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