@DreadKhan, Giving benefits for losing a line sounds nice, but I designed this to benefit faster decks that find 40 life formats difficult to thrive in. 40 life formats also give ramp decks a lot of breathing room to setup for massive threats. Giving certain benefits to losing a line can make aggro’s job harder and make ramp’s job easier than before. Because losing a line is so detrimental this format encourages running more interaction and early game bodies to maintain the starting advantage. The mana separation ensures players are only playing one-drops on turn one, two-drops on turn two, etc. As for combo-kill decks, players are still guaranteed a chance to remove the combo on their following turn whereas in typical EDH, the entire table just dies in the scenario no one has an immediate answer to an unexpected combo.

That’s at least part of my rationale with some of these design decisions.

Mana Maze is an offshoot of commander with the same deck building criteria. I like hashing out concepts like these until I get tired of messing with them. It would be a waste to delete what I've written and brainstormed, but don't expect this to be balanced or air tight with the rules either as its more about hashing out an idea than ushering in a new format. Concept is to weaken the strength of ramp to pump out threats but still give it a use for making it easier to hold up interaction. In addition, provide advantages to running aggro cards that would normally only accel in 20 life formats while restricting snowbally and combo-kill decks from being able to take out the full table in a single turn. The goal isn't to speed up the game or eliminate certain strategies but to reign them in a little while making sure things still feel like commander. None of this may seem apparent or may even be contradictory at first. (Double land drops? Insanity for sure.)

In Mana Maze players play as their commander (or partner pair) overseeing their own respective mana-domains each consisting of the frontline, the backline, and the reserve. Unlike Commander where each player's life total is set to 40, each player's frontline has a life total of 20, their backline also has a separate life total of 20, their reserve has its own life total of 1, and players themselves have no life totals. Players lose the game when their reserve's life total reaches 0.

When playing lands, players must choose to play those lands either on their frontline or their backline. Players may play up to two lands per turn, but they can only play one land on the frontline and one land on the backline per turn. (These lands still exist on the battlefield, there just needs to be a distinction that they're in separate groups.)

When casting spells or paying mana costs for effects or abilities players must choose whether they'll use mana produced by their frontline, backline, or reserve when paying off any mana cost. Players can not combine mana created from two or all of these mana pools when casting a spell or paying an ability.

If a land would enter the battlefield, and it's not a land that player played as their first two lands this turn, that land is treated as being a part of that player's reserve. Any mana not produced from a player's frontline or backline is considered reserve mana such as mana produced by mana rocks and mana dorks.

If a source would cause a player to lose life that player's frontline will lose life equal to the life they would have lost instead. If a player's frontline has 0 or less life their backline will lose that much life instead. If a player's frontline and backline both have 0 or less life, that player's reserve will lose that much life instead. When gaining life players can choose to have either their frontline or backline gain that much life as long as that respective life total has 1 or more life. A life total can not gain life if it has 0 or less life nor can a reserve's life total ever gain life. (Any effect that checks for a player's life total will always be measured by the frontline's life total or the backline's life total if the frontline's life total is 0, or the reserve's life total if both are 0 or less.)

Whenever a frontline or backline collapses, (their life total becomes 0 or less,) all lands that were a part of it will each gain a desolation counter and will become a part of that player's reserve instead. Whenever a land with a desolation counter is tapped for mana, that land becomes exiled. Whenever a player's frontline or backline collapses, that player can not lose life or gain poison counters until the end of their next turn. (This is to give players a chance to react in the face of a sudden massive catastrophe.) Players can not play lands on their frontline or backline if those respective life totals are 0 or less.

Players start the game with 14 cards in hand, they have a maximum hand size of 14, and they draw two cards instead of one card at the beginning of their draw step. (They can also play up to two lands per turn instead of one as well but only one on frontline and one on backline.) If a player's frontline has collapsed, their maximum hand size becomes 7, they only draw one card at the beginning of their draw step, they can only play one land per turn instead of two, however; they get an emblem with "nontoken creatures you control enter untapped with your choice of haste or reach until your next turn." If a player's backline has collapsed, their maximum hand size becomes 1, they lose the ability to play lands, and at the beginning of their draw step they discard a card, create a treasure token, and then draw a card. In addition, after their backline collapses they get an emblem with, "You may cast your commander from the command zone as if it was in your hand once per turn."

It takes 10 or more poison counters on a frontline or backline to cause it to collapse. (It takes 1 poison counter on a player's reserve for them to lose the game.) It takes 11 or more commander damage on a frontline or backline to cause it to collapse. All other rules regarding commander still apply.

If any of you mess around with this ridiculous idea feel free to let me know, especially regarding how you somehow managed to get other people to agree on playing this. (Why the heck is it called Mana Maze?? I liked the sound of it, and it's probably a maze just reading through all of this.)