New "Vintage" Casual Format: Limitless Singleton Stack
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Hey all,
A while back, I made a format that's been really fun. I play it with my Vintage buddies a lot. It basically enables you to get in a round of magic with any group, even if you are the only one with cards...kind of like Cube. Different from Cube, there's no drafting or deck building. It's one 200-card deck that you all play from. Here are the rules, and I'll break down some interesting tidbits:
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200 card deck: 30 red, 30 white, 30 green, 30 black, 30 blue, 30 artifact, 20 multicolor/hybrid, 0 land
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No more than one copy of any card
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No sideboards or any zones other than exile, graveyard, library, hand, battlefield
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Any player may only play 1 spell during any turn
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Everyone has unlimited mana of all colors at any time (no mana burn)
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Everyone uses the same library, graveyard, exile
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No X spells that target an opponent (fireball, braingeyser, etc.) or abilities that are pumpable for infinite power (shivan dragon, etc.)
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No spells or abilities that directly end the game (Enter the Infinite, "You Win the Game" effects, etc.)
You start the game like any other in drawing 7 cards. There is no mulligan; you keep what you get. Phases are the same and max hand size is still 7. Everyone starts at 20 life. You play until last-player-standing. Every spell is a bomb, from any set. We playfully call this format "Nuclear Magic" because it's often haymaker answering haymaker with infinite mana and one spell a turn. Cast Emrakul on your turn? I shrink him 15 activations of my flowstone overseer. Cast Progenitus? I respond in your EoT with Terminus.
One REALLY fun aspect of this is the shared library and grave. Really unplayable cards become broken. Example: Misinformation - the one-mana black instant that returns 3 cards from an opponent's graveyard on top of their library in any order. Well, mi casa es su casa in this game, so I can EoT stack the next 3 draws to be the best and worst from our shared graveyard. I will redraw that Obliterate you cast, the next player can draw that crappy Cockatrice (It's fun to throw in some dud-ish cards like this given the shared zone interaction), and the 2nd opponent can have that psychatog (now that the other 20 cards from a quickly building grave had already been exiled with it). If you thought Brainstorm was strong now, just wait until you play with a 200 card bomb deck and a shared library! Even a card with cycling can be DEVASTATING as you throw off your opponent's math on their carefully stacked topdecks that they planned to screw you with while setting themselves up!
Abilities get the benefit of infinite mana, so a derpy card like Crowd Favorites instantly goes from your unplayable chaff binder to a bomb that can tap down the battlefield indefinitely until killed!
Commander cards fit well with the multiplayer format, and everything from Alpha to the latest set is legal. No banned or restricted list! You might choose to allow ante cards or not - you own ALL the cards, so you get back the ante at the end anyway. Playgroups will determine what's TOO good, even in a deck where all the cards are busted. I like to keep a side pile of 10 cards per color just to swap cards in and out over time to keep the stack fresh.
Be creative with your stack and dust off the unplayable garbage to bring them to new life. Here are several cards I love to play in my stack (keep in mind - one spell a turn and infinite mana with shared zones!!!):
Misinformation
Citanul Flute
Psychatog
Aven Fateshaper
Iridescent Angel
Sprout Swarm
Skull Rend
Hail of Arrows
Diabolic Servitude
Multani, Maro-Sorcerer
Sire of Insanity
Master of CrueltiesThe list goes on and on! So many "useless" cards reborn!
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Looks fun. Sounds a lot like Type 4 we used to play back in the early 2000's except that type 4 limited us to 1 spell per turn.
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@khahan Yeah, Type 4 was the inspiration for this format, but instead of drafting decks, you play with one shared library and grave, which makes for REALLY fun interactions/play lines and makes ungodly-awful cards like "Whisk Away" into a brutal turn of fortunes. The haymaker aspect of Type 4 is intact, but the shared zones really makes this format amazing.
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If you don't have [[Yet Another Aether Vortex]] in the stack, you absolutely should. Maybe active player controls the creature? We used to play Type 4 with this card always in play and it was a blast.
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@revengeanceful In my stack, I don't use unglued cards, but that you certainly could. I like cards that interact with the one library, one grave feature particularly. There are some neat combos like Temporal Spring a ridiculous creature your opponent controls, then on their upkeep follow up with Summoning Trap. Cards like Apprentice Necromancer that are usually limited in use become pretty nutty when you can reanimate any creature your opponent controlled and you killed.
You can build any number of stacks to play with out of your chaff boxes of terrible cards, which I like even more than Cube or regular Type 4. Cards that were absolute ass can be absurdly great with a shared library and grave!
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@thewhitedragon69 said in New "Vintage" Casual Format: Limitless Singleton Stack:
@khahan Yeah, Type 4 was the inspiration for this format, but instead of drafting decks, you play with one shared library and grave, which makes for REALLY fun interactions/play lines and makes ungodly-awful cards like "Whisk Away" into a brutal turn of fortunes. The haymaker aspect of Type 4 is intact, but the shared zones really makes this format amazing.
Maybe its regional. The t4 we played in my area was what you are describing - shared library, shared graveyard, infinite mana. Just 1 spell per turn per person seems to be the main difference.
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@khahan Interseting. The Type 4 versions I've heard of are here:
https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Type_4
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/serious-fun/fourth-type-2009-07-28Both versions have infinite mana and a 1-spell-per-turn limitation. Both draft 60 card decks from a pile though. A shared zone game is great, and the 200 card deck keeps things interesting enough game after game. The balance between colors also helps.
