Pattern Recognition #278 - Conspiracy Draft

Features Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

13 April 2023

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Good day everyone! My name is berryjon, and I welcome you all to Pattern Recognition, TappedOut's longest running article series. I am something of an Old Fogey and a definite Smart Ass, and I have been around the block quite a few times. My experience is quite broad and deep, and so I use this series to try and bring some of that to you. Be it deck design, card construction, mechanics or in-universe characters and the history of the game. Or whatever happens to catch my attention each week. Which happens far more often than I care to admit. Please, feel free to talk about my subject matter in the comments at the bottom of the page, add suggestions or just plain correct me.

And Welcome back everyone! So, today's article wasn't planned, but rather came about as I was given a response to last week's article about The Monarch Mechanic and how it played out. I would also love more commentary here to help the site out, but there is a limit to how much I can do that. Anyways, the comment was basically "What the Freylise is Conspiracy? And why is it a Draft?"

So, that's what I'm going to talk about today!

Conspiracy was a set released in the summer of 2014, and was designed by Shawn Main, a runner up in the Great Designer Search #2, and worked for Wizards for a few years before moving on to other opportunities. He admitted that he liked Multiplayer games, including the still-developing Commander, as well as the Drafting experience. So to that end, he petitioned for a set that combined both of them, and it was approved for release as a Premiere set for that year, which is to say it was an 'extra' set, and not part of the four-sets-for-Standard that Wizards works on. This allowed it to do things that wouldn't work in Standard, or Modern (and it would have an effect in Legacy and Vintage) - and Commander wasn't a big thing then either.

To that end, Conspiracy was designed and printed with cards that looked at how the Draft itself worked, and how that affected the game. Here, allow me to show you;

Paliano, the High City

This card explicitly refers to the Draft portion of the game, where each player is rotating cards through their pool for cards to select and put into their deck. A lot more has been said about the nuances of Drafting elsewhere by other people so I'll skip the details of that to focus on what made Conspiracy different. In this case, when you pick Paliano out from your pack, not only do you choose a (legal) colour, but so do the players who are in the draft to the left and right of you, and Paliano can tap for those colours when you get down to playing.

There are two important parts to this. First is that in a normal draft, players draft their cards secretly. They don't announce what they have to the other players. However, with these sorts of cards, they are revealed when they are drafted. This is because some part of them requires that their existence be public knowledge so that future or current decisions can be made with the knoweldge that, yes, this card is what you say it is, and you're not cheating and saying that you drafted a Cogwork Librarian, when in fact you did not.

Second is that some of these cards required player participation when you reveal that you've drafted them. For the example of the High City, you need to reveal that you drafted so that the players to your sides can inform you of what colours they are choosing.

This aspect to the game created some interesting dynamics as some cards rewarded late drafting, while others were better if you drafted them earlier, giving you more time to take advantage of them. But of course, there are still seven other people drafting, so don't take too long thinking about things.

The second thing was the titular Conspiracy cards themselves. Legal in no other format - not even Vintage or Legacy - Conspiracies themselves were a new card type that you drafted like any other card in the pack, but they did not go into your deck. Rather, Conspiracies existed independently of your 40-card Deck, and they existed in the Command Zone. Now, you don't have to use all the Conspiracies you draft, but you have to reveal them at the start of the game, during pre-game set up. They were inherently colourless, so that didn't matter. Now, some of these Conspiracies just did a thing, and that was that. Sentinel Dispatch just made a 1/1 token at the start of the game, while Advantageous Proclamation actually reduced your minimum deck size to 35!

Now, there was also a caveat to that. There was also Hidden Agendas, which make the B5CCG player in me smile with nostalgia. But that is that and this is this. Hidden Agenda was a keyword for a Conspiracy that meant that the card entered the Command Zone face down during the pre-game set up, and a card name was noted and attached to that card. When the card was turned face up (at the same speed that you would flip a Morph), the noted Card name became relevant, and something different or additional would happen.

These cards introduced a new degree of uncertainly into the mix of a draft game. You never know if the cards in your opponents deck will actually do what they say they do! It was fun! In a way, as you still had to draw the card in question to get the most out of your hidden Agendas.

But all that was just in the pregame. We haven't actually started a game yet.

And here's where things really get amazing. In a normal Draft environment, players then get paired off for the usual 1v1 games. However, in a Conspiracy draft? Well, you don't move at all. You stay sitting right were you are, and you get your basic lands, you sleeve your cards (if you want), and you start playing an 8 player game right there.

That's right, Conpisracy is a multiplayer format. And I'm not talking the four players of Two Headed Giant or Commander, but a full 8 person pod then rolls up and starts duking it out in a free-for-all.

But once you're playing the game, there are actual mechanics on the cards that come into play. The first and the one that shows up the least in Commander or Vintage/Legacy is Dethrone. This keyword states that whenever a creature with it attacks the player with the highest life total (or any of them if there are multiple players tied for it), then that creature gets a +1/+1 counter on it. Note that this happens on the attack, and not on damage. So Scourge of the Throne swings for the first time at the player with the highest life total, it will be as a 6/6 and not as a 5/5.

Sadly, this mechanic was symbol:RU, with a dash of on Marchesa, the Black Rose, an absolute workhorse in a deck that exploits such counters, and from New Capenna, we got Park Heights Maverick in . The other colours got repeat mechanics, like Morbid.

In addition, we got Parley. You probably recognize this one from Selvala, Explorer Returned. Sadly, the design space on this card is very narrow, and it probably won't see any serious reprints in the future. But it did help the then-card-draw restrictive in drawing an extra card - at the cost of everyone else doing so as well.

Finally, we also got Will of the Council. This mechanic is the Voting Mechanic. As the players represent in the abstract, the ruling Council of Fiora, under King Brago (Long may he reign) as they jockey for power and prestige, this is where they, as a group, have to come to a decision, whether they like it or not. This is represented by the players being given a choice and having to make a decision, complete with internal diplomacy. Council Guardian, for example, is a large creature who can gain protection from non-, but what that is, is up to the results of the other players trying to minimize their disadvantages while advancing those of the other players.

Now, I've only done one proper Conspiracy Draft. But I can tell you a few things about it. The initial drafting can take more time than usual as the 'other players matter' cards cause people to stop thinking about what they're doing, and look at someone else. Deal Broker can grind things to a total halt as people may or may not fight over that chosen card. And given that this could be Brago, King Eternal, Dack Fayden, Marchesa, the Black Rose or other powerful and useful cards.

After that, the game, when it starts? It takes forever. Now, Draft decks tend to be less complicated than other multiplayer focused decks - I'm looking at YOU, Commander - but an 8 person table takes a long time to go around, especially once combat starts. There won't be 15 minute turns of Chulane going around in circles - we've all seen one of those, haven't we? But with one attacker, and 7 defenders, even the promise of Dethrone doesn't help, save in the early game or in the endgame. In the middle, it's players cleaning up the weak links at the table, while avoiding becoming one. Waiting for a person to decide who to attack and with what can be aggravating when it's the same logic coming from half the table because it seems like they are so bored waiting for their turn to come around that they mentally check out, then they have to start over when their turn comes around.

Keep track of things, make a plan, and update the plan as the turns advance. Don't wait until the previous player ends their turn before you start. please, I'm begging you.

The Draft is slow, which is often why an 8 player draft pod got broken down into 2 four player tables, with some rotation between rounds if time allowed for it. And yes, allocate a lot of time for the game. This could take a whole FNM to go down.

After that though? The wheeling and dealing was actually pretty fun, assuming you aren't or have the asshole at your table. The multiplayer focused cards deliver on their interactivity, though I wish there was more of them. Keeping Parley in and Dethrone in symbol:RU didn't help either of them as while "Draft Archetypes" were a thing, and still are, this left everything else in something of a lurch.

Sadly, its nature as a draft-only format did hurt when it came to long term viability, and the limits of print-runs of the cards. But quite a few of these cards and associated abilities have seen second life in other formats. Like Commander, which is as far from Draft as I think you can get and still be playing Magic.

But most importantly, it was popular with the player base. Enough so that a couple years later, a follow up set, Conspiracy: Take the Crown, which refined the idea, introduced Goad and Monarch into the game to encourage combat, and was, in general, an all-round improvement on the idea.

I should cover that at some point.

So in summation, if you ever find yourself with a box of Conspiracy, a lot of friends, and time to have? Go ahead. Crack that box and those packs and play a game. You won't regret it.

Thanks for reading. Join me next week when I talk about something else. What, exactly, I don't know yet. I'm always open to suggestions, like this one was the result of feedback. Seriously people, talk back to me. Don't just leave me hanging here!

Until then please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job, but more income is always better. I still have plans to do a audio Pattern Recognition at some point, or perhaps a Twitch stream. And you can bribe your way to the front of the line to have your questions, comments and observations answered!