New Concept: Moba Mtg
Deck Help forum
Posted on March 7, 2015, 9:59 p.m. by FuneralofGod
New format I'm creating called: MOBA Mtg
Players have a champion (legendary creature) that begins the game in play. If the champion is destroyed, the champion is placed on "cool down" meaning it will return to play at the beginning of its controllers next upkeep. Champions cannot switch controllers, be exiled, sacrificed, or be returned to a player's hand or library. Effects that suggest these actions simply do nothing. Decks are 15 cards and have no land. Your champion's mana cost is your mana pool, and the mana doesn't empty until your next turn. The untap step restores your mana pool. Your champion is not considered "on the battlefield" (thus you have no mana) until your first turn begins. Champions take their turns in order of CMC, lowest first. Champs tied for cmc will roll off each time they conflict. The game is multilayer oriented, with an emphasis on teams. 2v2, 3v3, or 4v4 is best. Players may pilot multiple champions. Max copies of a card is 3. Starting hands are 3 cards. You cannot include legendary creatures in your deck - only your champion must be legendary. Defeating an enemy Champion allows you to draw 1 card or place one land (from a side pool of basics - only your Champ's color identity may be placed). When your champion dies, you discard your hand. At the beginning of your next turn you will draw a new hand of 3 cards. If your champion dies and you have no cards left to draw in your deck - you lose. Simply running out of the deck doesn't kill you on its own. Teams also have a standard life total of 40 - if you lose it all, and the game is over.
Any suggestions to my new format are appreciated. Cardpool for MOBA Mtg is modern-based, and a relative power level is appreciated.
No Banlist yet but it will likely be very extensive.
Just play Emrakul, the Aeons Torn with a bunch of big artefact creatures and you will destroy.
March 7, 2015 10:24 p.m.
Okay, so there's three things to consider when designing a format. I'll discuss these as they relate to your format point by point.
- Is it easy to pick up on/play?
For this, the short answer is NO. There's a lot of rules and it doesn't play well with MTG rules at all. This is a completely new card game with a number of restrictions and leaves me with questions. If a player decides to pilot both, say, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre and Oloro, Ageless Ascetic, do they get to use 2 decks of 3 cards? What is the point of land if I already have a champion with a high CMC? How many cards will be banned? Why have a 15 card deck when my champion is Gisela, Blade of Goldnight? Why wouldn't I just want to play Grimgrin, Corpse-Born or Visara the Dreadful and win by locking down my opponents? And so on.
- Will people want to play my format? Is there a reason to outside of 60 card?
Again, I can't see too many people wanting to play this. I could be wrong, but it seems like a playcircle kind of thing. EDH, for example, gives you a deckbuilding challenge which forces creativity. Pauper forces you to play commons and thus gives you a fun restriction to build around. This doesn't play like magic and I don't know that people will really want to hear the full description or the undeniably massive banlist that results from having such an unusual format.
- How does this make Magic more fun?
I'm not sure how, as this doesn't really pass as Magic. It's Pack Masters with a legendary creature that starts in play. Yay?
So in review, this is a very complicated format that really needs refining before you make it. Consider what makes other formats so successful before you retry this. Good luck to you in the future.
March 7, 2015 10:35 p.m.
I feel like any new format should focus on deck building restrictions, followed by rules defining teams (and you don't even attempt to explain why this would be a multiplayer format other than "MOBA"), and less on new rules.
First, MTG is designed for turn based play, and messing with that messes with everything else.
Second, MOBAs are as much about positioning yourself as what skills you use. The only thing like that in MTG is in multiplayer formats that use limited range of influence (rule 801). Solution: make MTG a board game (sort of)
The only way I can see any of this working is if you use a commander and mark you position on a board or grid (you could even make custom maps to play on). You could move your commander around the board at the end of your turn, your commander's power and toughness define your range of influence (in squares on a grid) and how many spaces you can move. A player who is defeated comes back next the their base after skipping their next turn (low starting life total) The only way to win is to deal some large amount of damage to the enemy base which would be treated as a player.
I think I would play something along those lines. You could probably get away with using your tiny leaders decks or edh decks to play without any other rules changes so it would essentially be an add-on to a normal multiplayer EDH game.
I'll stop there. I don't really want to highjack a thread or anything.
March 8, 2015 12:20 a.m.
mathimus55 says... #8
There are so many ways for a t1 kill it's not even funny. Why only a 15 card deck? And what is the point if you can't lose by running out of cards to draw with only a 3 card opener? Phenax, God of Deception would be an instant mill out with Glacial Wall and Wall of Souls, Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur would essentially let you win automatically, there's just so many busted things to do turn 1 before the opponent has a chance to do anything and prevent them from doing anything with very little variance.
March 8, 2015 12:43 a.m.
Seraphicate says... #9
Wouldn't this just make any cards like Progenitus and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn completely broken in this format? ._.
March 8, 2015 7:02 a.m.
This litterally kills the entire concept of mana curve too. Casting cost is now an irrelevance as you can simply begin with a high casting cost Leader on the board and be able to cast most anything starting turn one. There is just too many concepts running counter the basic structure of mtg to be playable with magic cards. That said, it is not my intention to knock the creative work you've done here. I think you canntake this in two directions to make something solid out of this.
Firstly, you can adapt the idea to streamline better with mtg rules, while sticking to your (rather fun) idea of running 4v4 team matches that are leader centric, but this will likely look like a commander sub-format.
Second is much more work intensive, but it would be amazingly cool if you took your game structure and simply created a TCG for it. But what I'm proposing here is nothing short of a buisiness venture and I'm well aware that isn't everyones cup of tea.
Cheers, there's some potential behind these ideas. Keep working on it :)
March 8, 2015 10:48 a.m.
FuneralofGod says... #11
Thanks 1empyrean for the feedback. I will develope in that direction but fear I might end up with a different game entirely. Good suggestions either way.
And also to PVal. The kinks need be worked out, but I'll keep working
March 8, 2015 12:14 p.m.
Cool, but yeah, my suggestion was essentially to scrap your idea and stick with something more familiar. I like playing mobas, so I have actually been toying around with my board game idea for a while.
If you want something closer to your original suggestion, then model the rules after Hearthstone (I assume I don't need to explain) and make it a format where you use only cards from the most recent set or block. That way, you keep some kind of mana curve and have a smaller card pool to test your ideas with.
March 8, 2015 4:34 p.m.
FuneralofGod says... #13
Yeah the mana curve needs to remain a core aspect. I like hearthstone since resources are earned at a standard pace and no chance of mana screw.
Another option I considered is to use the board game format and have CTF-esque locations on the board (lands) that can be conquered to earn the land and provide yourself with mana. Players would have no mana out of the gate until they claimed certain squares. Squares could be reclaimed by other players by challenging the current controller of the square.
A third concept could be in the new 'deckbuilder' style of card games. I've played a lot of Ascension lately and it makes me wonder how mtg could be incorporated.
FuneralofGod says... #2
A few recent decks I've posted are examples of Moba Mtg lists
March 7, 2015 10:04 p.m.