Mental Magic

The Kitchen Table forum

Posted on Jan. 27, 2016, 2:33 a.m. by TheRedMage

Hey! Did you ever try playing Mental Magic? Mental Magic is a format that rewards you from knowing many cards. Here is the idea:

• You take a stack of random cards. usually we just collect the dregs left on tables from people opening packs and pulling the rare at FNM, but you can also "curate" your own Mental Magic stack if you want. It doesn't matter which cards are in, just that it has a good variety of costs.
• You put the stack between you and your opponent. This is going to be your shared library. You both draw hands from it.
• The graveyard is also shared.
• You may play any card in your hand face down. That card is now a nonbasic land with ": Add or a mana of any color to your mana pool" (playing a card like this counts as your land drop).
• This is the important part: You may play any card from your hand as any other card with the same exact cost. There are a few different schools of thought on how to do this, but the way we play it usually means exact cost, mana symbol by mana symbol. For example, I cannot cast Gudul Lurker as Mental Misstep because the mana symbol is different. Like in normal magic, costing and not having a cost are two different things (so I can suspend a Forest as Ancestral Vision, but not cast it as Pact of Negation).
• My suggestion is to limit the cards you can use to the legacy cardpool, but you can try different formats and see what it looks like (the cards you physically have can be all from Battle for Zendikar]], it doesn't matter - what I mean is that you can cast Blisterpod as Exploration, but not Fastbond since Fastbond is banned in legacy)
• However, you cannot play cards as other cards that have already been played. If my opponent plays a Culling Drone as Dark Confidant, I cannot also cast Dark Confidant, and he can't either.
• Also, cards cannot be played as themselves.
• Cards "lose track" of what they had been cast as if they go to a hidden zone (hand or library) but retain memory of their identity if they go to a public one (graveyard or exile). If my opponent casts Read the Bones as Painful Truths, for example, I can then use Snapcaster Mage to flashback Painful Truths from the shared graveyard. However, if I cast Culling Drone as Dark Confidant and my opponent counters it by using a Mist Intruder as a Remand, the card will forget it was a Dark Confidant. I can then recast it as Doom Blade (but not Dark Confidant again since Dark Confidant was already chosen this game).

I know that similar versions of this format are around, but this is how we play it (usually at the Denny's we all end up to after FNM). Have you ever heard of Mental Magic? If so, do you play differently, and how? If not, try it! It's a lot of fun and a good way to check how many cards do you actually know.

julianjmoss says... #2

Mental misstep should work because it is one mana, you are just paying 2 life for it. It's cmc is one

January 27, 2016 3:33 a.m.

TheRedMage says... #3

It's not a cmc problem. Mental Misstep doesn't cost , it costs . You can play it by using a card that costs (so I guess exactly Gitaxian Probe).

In the end, the phyrexian mana symbol is a hybrid mana in which half is a colored mana and half is two life. If we are not allowing casting Deathless Behemoth as Spectral Procession or Blistercoil Weird as Shock, why would this be different?

That said, this is not a sanctioned format and everyone has their own house rules. This is how we play, but other people can play differently.

January 27, 2016 4:32 a.m.

-Fulcrum says... #4

Seems fun.

January 27, 2016 4:38 a.m.

fluffybunnypants says... #5

I love playing mental magic. It's a lot of fun with the right group of players.

January 27, 2016 8:44 a.m.

canterlotguardian says... #6

We used to play it all the time at my former LGS. It's super fun.

January 27, 2016 9:09 a.m.

Caligula says... #7

Hahaha @PreZchoICE1. I remember you teaching me this.

January 27, 2016 9:52 a.m.

TheRedMage says... #8

Is there any card that you have found to be especially good in this format? There was a period in which I would always try to cast Triumph of Ferocity if I had a card.Did any of you ever have something similar?

January 28, 2016 1:31 a.m.

PreZchoICE1 says... #9

ye I remember the clash I had on Saturday night when I was pie-eyed too Caligula

January 28, 2016 11:05 a.m.