Horde Magic
General forum
Posted on May 22, 2013, 12:58 p.m. by MindAblaze
Hi guys, I remember reading an article on DailyMTG a while back about Horde Magic. It's essentially a multiplayer format where everybody faces off against the horde, who is a drone. The goal is to win an attrition war against the zombie horde, who's life total is the size of the horde.
Let's say the horde is...zombies. You fill out the deck with zombie creatures like Undead Warchief
, Death Baron
s, Cemetery Reaper
s, Undead Alchemist
s and any other zombies you want. Spice to flavor with instants and sorceries to make the game interesting.
The deck grows based on how many players you have (100 is a good number for three opponents facing the horde.) Usually what you would do is fill 30-50% of the deck with cards, and have the rest be tokens. More non-token cards makes the game last longer, and harder, depending on the zombies.
The game starts with the horde throwing out seven cards off the top of their library, (it can also be they draw a "hand" of seven and they play one each turn, if that seems more fair) and then each defending player takes their turn. Each horde turn that follows is simply flipping cards off the top of the library until you hit a non-token card, putting everything on the battlefield (with summoning sickness) Horde creatures attack players randomly by dice roll usually. The goal is to attack the Horde, and for each life they lose, that many cards go to their graveyard. When there are no cards left in the horde library and the horde has been destroyed, or all the defending players have died, the game ends.
I'm wondering, did anyone read this article? Has anyone tried it, or would they be interested? I have played it solitaire against two decks and my decks do alright against it, but sometimes you chain six or seven tokens and then a lord and you're hard pressed to win.
MindAblaze says... #4
Any of the popular tribes would work, even the less mainstream ones like insects, spiders and squirrels if you wanted to could be used. Goblins would be really fun, I just suggested zombies because there are 5/5 and 2/2 tokens to work with.
May 22, 2013 2:01 p.m.
I have built a Horde deck with friends, and we found using tokens was a bit on the easy side. We wanted it to play more like the board game Arkham Horror, where the players rarely win the game, but when they do, it's a real achievement. So we put in 4x Army of the Damned (flashback happens the turn after it's cast, we decided), 4x Endless Ranks of the Dead , a couple Zombie Apocalypse s, the best zombies we could find, and off we went...
May 22, 2013 2:37 p.m.
BrownBagDinner says... #6
Sometime I want to make a Horde deck consisting of changeling tokens and the scariest lords from various tribes. When M14 comes out we can achieve a similar effect with slivers.
May 22, 2013 2:49 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #8
One of my friends built a Zombie horde deck and a random Green creature horde deck for our group to play against. We've only done it a few times, and the games varied widely between very close calls (which are fun) and games where the horde never had a chance (which are kind of stupid). We haven't lost yet. Someone sent me a list (I can't find it right now) for a 9-Layers of Phyrexia horde deck that looks really hard to beat, but we haven't tried it out yet.
May 22, 2013 4:18 p.m.
MindAblaze says... #9
I've often wondered how difficult it would be to make an unbeatable Horde deck. 9-Layers of Phyrexia...gives me the creeps just thinking about it.
When you do play, how many players take on the Horde?
May 22, 2013 4:34 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #10
We do a team of 3. Since there's usually 4 of us when we get together, that means one person just handles the physical manipulation of all the horde's cards (which helps a lot). I think 3-on-1 was also the basis for Adam Styborski's original article on the format.
May 22, 2013 4:43 p.m.
MindAblaze says... #11
I believe so, Serious Fun has had some great options for mixing up the experience of the game in the past. Do you tailor your deck choices to play the Horde or is it something you do more randomly? I've had friends pick a Mill deck, and I feel it kind of cheapens the experience.
May 22, 2013 4:50 p.m.
In my opinion, random decks make for a better experience. I don't feel that cherry-picking anti-Horde cards adds something worthwhile. It's no tournament. I want it to be an uphill battle, and so I'd rather strengthen the Horde if needs be.(let them have some more of a stronger card or simply 50 more altogether).
May 22, 2013 4:58 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #13
We just grab whatever Commander decks we feel like playing and go for it. Sometimes that makes it slightly more difficult for us if one person has a deck that isn't really a team-player (for example, lots of effects that deal damage to everyone...).
May 22, 2013 5 p.m.
Kinetik615 says... #14
never heard of this before but im very very intrigued on it. and imagining a horde deck of slivers................
May 23, 2013 1:03 p.m.
MindAblaze says... #15
yeah, like a horde of Genestealers coming at you. Scary stuff. Slice N Dice...
Commander decks hey? That's probably a good idea, I would think that potential power level would make it too easy. All depends on the decks I guess, and how strong the horde is.
May 23, 2013 1:45 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #16
Yeah, the main reason we use Commander decks is simply because that's what the original design of the format had in mind, but you can do whatever with it.
May 23, 2013 2:42 p.m.
Seems like a fun game mode, I just have one question:
What happens when the defending decks has a Sphere of Safety ? Do your Horde decks, include mana-base?
May 23, 2013 3:49 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #18
Part of the rules for the Horde is that it always has mana available and can use it to pay any additional cost.
I'm surprised no one has posted the original article yet: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/sf/165
May 23, 2013 3:52 p.m.
MindAblaze says... #20
lol, I linked to the archive but was too lazy to try and find it. thanks man.
May 23, 2013 4:02 p.m.
linkofhyrule says... #21
From the article: "Cons: The average player probably doesn't have fifty or more tokens lying around,"
I must not be very average.... I have about 700 tokens to use, in a very broad spectrum... some of which I think are quite unusable in Horde due to being */* with nothing defining the power/toughness (Oozes, mostly)
ErebusX says... #2
hmm, i never read it, but this concept sounds interesting, although perhaps it needs some tweaking...
May 22, 2013 1:56 p.m.