Casually Competitive Format Idea
General forum
Posted on Aug. 15, 2018, 9:57 p.m. by TriusMalarky
Hey, I've been thinking a little bit, and I wanted a competitive but casual format to play with friends. Here are two ideas:
Prism(Not Prismatic): FFA, 4+ players, players have politics and winning conditions based on the colors in their decks.
Ageless: Any card that's been printed with a black border(meaning even if it hasn't been printed in a Modern legal set, if the most recent printing has a black border it's legal) and the most recent version must be Common or Uncommon.
I realize Prism is a lot like Star, and Ageless is a weird Pauper, but I wanted something different than those two.
I think both those formats are fine, but I would first cast my gaze on existing offerings that have been developed to see if they fit my need before creating a new format.
I would second Canadian Highlander. It is a format, frequently described as Cube Constructed, where you are able to run wild, the best decks are about a dozen and anything can run well and spike a tourney. I have played against and with anything, from Grixis Artifact Aggro to UR Enigma Drake tempo, to hard Esper control with planeswalkers.
I am personalyl playing the UR Enigma Drake tempo right now and winning some too. The format is incredibly fun.
I like the rule you have set up with pointed cards can be proxies, that helps a lot. I am currently sporting a Volcanic Island proxy and a Time Walk proxy, because they are super expensive, but I can go without the volc for sure.
August 16, 2018 2:54 a.m.
TriusMalarky says... #4
I hadn't seen Highlander before. It looks like it would be fun. Like Commander without the Commander, basically? Also, I think the points cards can be proxies seems great.
I'll run that by my friends. I still think Ageless seems fun(banning infect, storm, and cards like Sensei's Divining Top and Skullclamp. Prism seems like it can be great, but it's complicated so I don't know if they'll catch on as much. Thanks for the feedback, though! :)
August 16, 2018 7:30 p.m.
TriusMalarky: It's 100 card singleton but that's basically where its similarities with commander stop. It's more like vintage with 100 card decks.
We have found it especially good to get into after playing a lot of commander where you haev some really powerful cards lying aroung but don't have a playset of them. And becasue it's only 20 life per player, you don't run into the aggro problem that you would with commander.
That and it lets you play all of the dick cards you don't want to run in commander. One of my friends has a deck which is about running out a bunch of artifact ramp and then playing a bunch of MLD, one of his favourite being Wildfire. My girlfriend has a super efficient abzan beatdown +1/+1 counters deck. I run a 5 colour monstrosity (list is here for reference) built around super value creatures and removal.
As an edh combo player (I can't not put at least one infinite comob in every deck I play), I find it really refreshing to have a format where I can run a completely comboless list which just revolves around wrecking hands and boardstates and then beating face.
August 16, 2018 8:26 p.m.
Literally anything is good. As mentioned, besides the 100 card singleton, it has nothing in common with Commander:
1/ Everything legal in Vintage is legal in Highlander - you get to play a lot of broken stuff that you cannot in Commander.
2/ Points list - but not every single broken thing at once. The list works great at curbing power level and is diligently curated. Do you want to run Flash and Protean Hulk? Congrats that is ten points and you cannot play any other pointed cards.
3/ No commander indentity restriction - ever wanted to run Birthing Pod in your Breya, Etherium Shaper deck? Well, in CanHan you can! Splashes are extremely common.
4/ 1v1, 20 life - a lot of aggro stragies are invalidated in commander just because you have to work through 120 life. A lot of infinite combo strategies available in Commander are invalidated in CanHan, because there are no other opponents to focus on. Also, you single target Counterspell in commander does nothing to 2 out of 3 opponents. Here, its effects are amplified.
5/ Literally anything is possible - decks are limitless, viable strategies are wide. It is a brewer's paradise.
For example, to counteract enpc's lack of combos in the deck, here is one with 15:
enpc says... #2
Depending on each player's card pool and the number of players you want in each game, I have found Canadian Highlander to be a fun format. We house rule that you can run any points card (check out the rules here) can be a proxy, however no non-points cards can be. It means that you can run some stupid broken builds without breaking the bank. For example, I run a 5 colour deck which sports a proxied Ancestral Recall that makes up 5/6 of the deck's actual paper cost.
The other thing about it is taht becasue it's a one-v-one format, you can play all the cards that you would be hated out for playing in a multiplayer setting, because that's the nature of of the format.
August 15, 2018 11:27 p.m. Edited.