Dead and Dreaming: A Commander Deck for Magic: The Gathering

by Randy

Greetings! Today I wanted to write about Magic: The Gathering, Commander format (rules here). It's a fun multiplayer Magic format that allows for longer, more social games, varied and often thematic decks and interesting interactions. I'm going to talk about the format and also about my first and favorite deck.

Why Commander?

I'm a casual Magic player; it's all kitchen table for me. Though I do get excited about new sets (really looking forward to Avacyn Restored, by the way!), I'm not the guy who buys two cases of boosters going after the newest mythic rare cards. Nor am I going to spend the money necessary to buy these on the secondary market. True, sometimes I may spend up to five bucks on a card every now and then, but that is indeed the exception. And where the Standard and Modern formats thrive on this, and, indeed, the hobby game industry as a whole is supported by this, it's just not for me. And for Commander, it's just not necessary.

The Commander format has players create 100-card decks with no more than one copy of anything but Basic Land cards, and with a Legendary creature as the commander, or general. The general is not shuffled into the deck; it is put in a command zone and may be cast from there at any time. If the general dies, it is put back into the command zone and is immediately castable again (though each death raises the cost by 2 mana). This means that creature is always reliably available, and strategies will develop around that creature.

Theme Decks!

I'm a sucker for thematic decks. And when you are making a large singleton deck, you are able to choose cards based on theme instead of four copies each of the eight "power" cards everyone else is using. Aside from the land cards, a typical Commander deck has about 60-65 unique cards that can be drawn from 19 (and counting!) years of Magic history; that leaves a lot of room to express the theme, and get in the utility cards that make it viable. So... what does a theme deck look like?

Behold... Cthulhu!

Okay, actually Nyarlathotep...

My first and favorite Commander deck is called "Dead & Dreaming", and is Cthulhu-themed (for an explanation of Cthulhu, click here). I got the idea from the card Wrexial, the Risen Deep (very Cthulhu-inspired!) and chose to go with that. I had some initial assistance from my wife Angie, who is far better at building decks than I am. Over the last few months, though, I have made a lot of changes.

The first thing needed for my theme were huge monsters, especially of the alien, godlike or aquatic persuasion. I chose to go with several Eldrazi for this. Eldrazi were introduced in the Rise of the Eldrazi set of the Zendikar block. They tend to be huge and expensive, and usually have the Annhilator keyword (meaning that when they attack, the opponent must sacrifice permanents equal to the Annhilator value before blockers are declared). In addition to Eldrazi, there are also a couple leviathans and a legendary octopus.

Every deck also needs small creatures, so there are plenty there. They provide the cultist and minor beasts role. A lot have utility powers that are useful, such as allowing creatures to become unblockable (Cephalid Pathmage), changing land types (Tidal Warrior), making copies of creatures (Evil Twin) and Infectors (creatures who deal damage as -1/-1 counters to creatures, or Poison counters to players). Most of these carry along the theme, though not all.

As for the rest, the Instants, Sorceries, Artifacts and Enchantments have a lot of horrific effects. Artifact/creature destruction, boardwiping and card drawing are a given. There are some the give Infect, or effectively make little creatures huge. Several Eldrazi tribal spells made it in, most of which create Eldrazi spawn (0/1 creatures that you may sacrifice for colorless mana). In addition, one of my all-time favorite Instant spells is in there: Tainted Strike.

What's so cool about that? Well, it's a very simple card. It is an Instant that costs 1 Black, and gives a creature +1/+0 and Infect. This is a really fun surprise card to throw down. Since Infect is a big mechanic in my deck (Poison counters will eliminate a player; in our group, we have rules that 20, rather than the standard 10, will take out a player). It is always fun to see two other players attacking each other and playing this on one of their guys, either resulting in a creature getting a lot of -1/-1 counters, or the player getting more Poison counters. I have even kept myself from being eliminated by playing this on a creature attacking me, causing it to do its damage as Poison counters and not as life damage. Nifty!

Well, I'll let you look at my deck list. I am not in any way saying that this is especially powerful, or anything at all like that. I am just saying that this is a thematic deck that I have had a great time playing and refining.

My Theme Deck: Dead and Dreaming




Card art from Wrexial, the Risen Deep


Commander:
Wrexial, the Risen Deep

Planeswalkers:
Jace Beleren
Liliana Vess

Artifacts:
Sol Ring
Darksteel Ingot
Dimir Signet
Contagion Engine
Dreamstone Hedron
Everflowing Chalice
Venser's Journal
Quicksilver Amulet
Hedron Matrix
Konda's Banner
Grafted Exoskeleton

Instants:
Not of This World
Virulent Swipe
Memory Plunder
Undying Evil
Consume the Meek
Tainted Strike
Tragic Slip

Enchantments:
Corrupted Conscience
Mind Control
Eldrazi Conscription
Bloodchief Ascension
Snake Cult Initiation
Conspiracy
Glistening Oil
Phyresis
Inexorable Tide

Sorceries:
Life's Finale
Skittering Invasion
Corpsehatch
Mass Polymorph
Treasure Hunt
Dead Reckoning
Reduce to Dreams
Diabolic Tutor
Sleep

Creatures (Small):
Hand of the Praetors
Skinrender
Pawn of Ulamog
Solemn Simulacrum
Aetherplasm
Triskelion
Hedron Crab
Aether Figment
Gomazoa
Kraken Hatchling
Mortician Beetle
Cephalid Pathmage
Hex Parasite
Evil Twin
Tidal Warrior
Guard Gomazoa
Plague Stinger

Creatures (Large):
Wrexial, the Risen Deep
Stormtide Leviathan
Artisan of Kozilek
Kederekt Leviathan
Lorthos, the Tidemaker
Phyrexian Vatmother
Deep-Sea Kraken
Scrapdiver Serpent
It That Betrays
Hand of Emrakul
Pathrazer of Ulamog
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre

Lands:
Swamp x 11
Island x 11
Dimir Aqueduct
Eldrazi Temple
Sunken Ruins
Darkslick Shores
Reliquary Tower
Command Tower
Tainted Isle
Dreadship Reef
Haunted Fengraf
Terramorphic Expanse
Eye of Ugin
Jwar Isle Refuge
Halimar Depths

So... that's it, as it is currently. What do you think? What's your favorite commander?

Do's and Don't's For Teaching Someone To Play Magic the Gathering

by Julian

I was watching Nerdcore Rising the other night (documentary about a nerdy DJ called Frontalot) and one scene has a time lapse video of a dude teaching someone Magic the Gathering and stumbling through about 2 hours in the attempt.  It was sad to watch but I’ve seen others struggle with the same problem.  Now I know Magic has about a million and half rules, but explaining it really does not have to be such a daunting task.  It doesn’t require a detailed flow chart matrix and a weekend seminar.  You can teach your friend, your mom, or your kid to play magic in 15-20 minutes by using the right kind of decks and ignoring a whole host of rules they won’t really need until much much later.

Frustrated? Confused?  I'm here to help.

BUILDING THE DECKS

First start with the right decks.  This goes a long way to making the game easy to explain.  You don’t have to debate the complexities of Ice Cauldron if it isn’t the deck.  I recommend building two training decks for explaining to the new player.  Here are some do's and don’t's for the deck building:



I love this card and I'm still unsure about how it works!

DO build mono-colored decks with only basic land.  Need a mana, tap a land. Any land.

DON’T include non-land mana sources or lands that do special effects.  Keep the equation symbol.   Mana comes from tapping lands and this is the only thing lands do. Period.

DO include these five types of cards: lands, creatures, enchantments, sorceries, and instants.  New players need to get familiar with the different card types.

DON’T include artifacts or planeswalkers.  Artifacts come in a variety of types and basically mimic other card types like lands, creatures, or enchantments.  Players will easily get artifacts once they understand the other cards.  Don’t bog them down for now.  Plansewalkers should also be avoided as they are extremely rare and work like no other card.

DO include lots of creatures.  Make it a creature heavy deck.  If new players only get one solid thing out of their first few games it should be the basics of how combat works.

DON’T include creatures with tap effects.  Again, keep it simple.  Creatures tap to attack. That’s it.

DO build a deck with a strong theme and cards that work together.  New players should see how cards can build on other cards as part of the fun of Magic.  Tribal decks can be a good choice.

DON’T build a deck with complex cards, upkeep, or alternate win conditions.  To start, Magic is about summoning creatures and fighting it out.  A few spells for variety and creature boosting is fine, but don’t make them deal with fancy graveyard effects, deck milling, or anything that requires an upkeep.  Focus on solid, straight forward effects.

TEACHING THE GAME

Now that you’ve good built good decks for explaining the game, here are some tips for actually teaching it:

Shove aside your vast Magic knowledge and focus on the basics.

DO tell them the story of magic, but make it quick and simple.  You are both wizards summoning creatures and casting spells to try and defeat your opponent.  Tell them the theme of the deck they are about to play to help them be excited about the type of wizard they are.

DON’T explain their entire deck before they start.  They don’t need to know every card or special ability.  Tell them about haste or deathtouch when a creature hits the battlefield that has it. 

DO explain the cards in this order: Lands (you play one a turn and they are how you cast any spells). Creatures (you summon them, they stick around and your main way of attacking your opponent).  Enchantments (these are permanent effects that modify the game or specific creatures).  Sorceries and Instants (These are effects that happen right now and go away.  They are essentially the same card types except instants you can play out of turn, in response to things, and during combat).

DON’T explain the stack or resolving multiple card effects until it comes up in the course of play.

DO explain the following basics of combat.  Creatures tap to attack.  The defending player may assign untapped creatures to block.  If unblocked, attacking creatures deal their power in damage to the defender.  If blocked, an attacking creature fights the creature that blocked it.  They each hit each other at the same time with their power.  Any creature that takes a hit equal to or greater than its toughness dies and goes to the graveyard.

DON’T explain blocking one attacker with multiple creatures.  For the first game or two, just let it be that one creature blocks one attacker.

DO play with hands revealed for the first few games or at least the first several turns.  New players will have lots of questions about their cards and this will just speed up the explanations.  Likewise, they can see what you are considering and you can explain your choices and why you made them.

DON’T tell them what to do on every single turn.  Give them guidance for the first several turns, answer any questions they ask, and then let them explore their own deck.  Part of the fun of magic is discovery and you will ruin their first play experience if you hold their hand every step of the way.

Please let me know if you find these tips helpful or not and share any tips of your own in the comments!

Magic in a Box!

by Randy

Hello, hello! Happy holidays to everyone out there! I hope everyone is having a great time celebrating with their families, and hopefully playing a few games, too. Today I wanted to share a gift idea and craft project. This is a Christmas gift that my wife and I put together for Katie, who just turned six. We introduced her to Magic: the Gathering this year, and she has been craving more!

Angie and I have played Magic for a few years now. Though initially we were hesitant to start playing a collectible card game, we have had a blast with this. Currently, our preferred format for playing is Commander, which is a multiplayer format we feel works great for casual players like us. Katie also showed interest, and, earlier in the year, set a goal to learn to read better so that she could play Magic with us (I'll let Angie relate more on that later, if she wants to!). Now, she wants to play Commander. And Angie came up with the idea to make a Commander deck for her for Christmas with Damia, Sage of Stone as the general.

Here's where I come in: I made a box for the deck. I started with a standard small corrugated cardbox that you can pick up at any card shop. I have been a miniature painter for years, but I haven't really done much in the way of character painting. Still, I decided that on every face, I would paint an interpretation of a card that appears in her deck. I was pretty happy with the results, for the most part. If you click on the name of the piece, it will take you to the card listing in the Magic: The Gathering card database, the Gatherer.

Howlpack Alpha: We picked up the Mayor of Avabruck/Howlpack Alpha card at the Innistrad prerelease and Katie loves this card. Her favorite deck thus far has been a green one that has a variety of effects that create Wolf tokens and this seemed like a no-brainer to put in her Commander deck.

Damia, Sage of Stone: This is the general of her deck (for what that means, check out the Commander Rules). This was the first side I painted, and sadly my least favorite; it was a bit later in painting that I "found my groove". If you check the link, this is the one that diverges the most from the card art.

Wydwen, the Biting Gale: A fun and tricky fairy to throw in. I don't feel I did the shimmery pieces justice, but whatever. I'm happy with the background, and I feel it came out okay.

Prized Unicorn: In a six year old girl's deck, a unicorn is practically obligatory. Not only is this card pretty, it's also super useful; I've seen many games won by use of this card. I was really happy with this piece, too. This one is tied with the next one for being my favorite.

Full Moon's Rise: This is a utility card that boosts Werewolf creatures, of which there are a few in the deck. I really liked the card art for this one and thought it would be great for the front of the box and with a Magic logo glued on top. I liked my results on this one!

I also did a top for Katie's box. This is not my favorite piece, but gets the point across. Here it is:

So that's it. Katie loved it, and the deck. If we feel particularly ambitious after a few rounds of play and tweaking, I may ask Angie (who is building the actual deck) to post the deck list. If we do, please note that it isn't a deck focused on power combos or designed for super-competitive play, it is instead focused on simple rules and ease of play for a beginner.

For those interested in something like this as a creative project, I want to point out that the box itself is one that you can find at any card shop for around a dollar. The paint I used for this one was tube acrylics (Reeves brand) applied with Citadel brand brushes, with the help of a Privateer Press P3 Wet Palette. If you work with acrylic paint at all, I highly recommend use of a wet palette (Google it and you will find both commercially available ones, as well as instructions for making your own). Prior to painting, I used a non-photo blue colored pencil to lay down the lines to start with. These pencils are super light and will not show up even with heavily thinned layers of paint. Here is another similar box I made for my son for his Super Mario Bros. trading cards:

Anyway, that's that! Any other gamer geeks out there who did game-themed crafts for holiday gifts? We'd love some links!

Our Magic Habit!

by Randy

Ever have a habit? A full-on, I REALLY NEED something. Whatever that something is. Well, I can tell you that my wife and I were there with Magic: The Gathering. Well, more her than me. But we were both pretty stupid about it.



I had first came into contact with Magic in the early 90's, shortly after its release. I was hanging out with my friend Al and he whipped out a couple of decks and offered to teach me to play. I was initially a little opposed to it, but we played a few games and had fun. I never got really into it because I always considered it a "rich kid wins" game. Again in the mid-90's, I was a night manager of a coffee shop in Lexington, Kentucky, and a coworker mentioned that since there was a comic shop down the hall from us, we should each grab a starter deck. If each of us only ever bought one booster at a time, and only when the others did the same, we wouldn't need to worry about the whole money pit the game was.

It was around that time I really started to see the extent to which it was truly a huge money pit. Being so close to the comic shop, a few kids would see us play on slow evenings and talk about their decks. "My red deck blah blah blah...". Red deck? You mean you make decks of just one color!?! Yeah, I know. Utter noob. I really knew nothing about deck construction. We played that way for a short time before getting bored, before I even got to understand much about the depth of the game.

Fast-forward ten or so years. Moreso a gamer than ever. Further, my frequent visits to game shops for other games (boardgames and RPGs) has increased my exposure to M:tG. I still, ven more than before, consider it a "rich kid wins" game. But now I'm married. Katie has been born, and my available time for gaming has decreased. Several friends are pretty into Magic, and Angie is starting to want to play. I am definitely apprehensive about it, and convince her we don't want to go there. For awhile. Then... XBox 360 comes along, and the Duels of the Planeswalkers game releases as a downloadable arcade game. For those of you who don't know, Duels of the Planeswalkers is Magic. And who starts playing that game? If you guessed Angie, you win!



For quite a while, Angie raves about it. Eventually, I relent and try it; I kinda like it. And so it began. We started with some pre-made starter decks for the Conflux block. She had JUnd: Appetite for War and I had Bant: On the March. Soon, that wasn't enough. And then we started buying cards out of the penny and nickel bins. Some quarter rares. And then... the boosters. The booster packs are definitely what get you.



Opening a booster is like getting a fix. And much like a fix, there are diminishing returns. Now, I'm not going to make light of something serious like drug addiction by continuing too far down that path with the analogies, but there is definitely something addictive. So a booster... for those of you not familiar, a Magic booster has 15 cards: one rare, ten commons, three uncommons, one basic land. After opening the first 5-10 from a given block, you're going to seeing mostly the same commons and uncommons. And it's just going to be the rare that excites you. But you need to get more! Because you want the maximum number of a given rare for deckbuilding. And that can add up.

And it did. Short trips to the Magic shop for "just a few quarter rares" often ended in bringing home a handful of boosters. Trips to Target to pick up prescription medications often ended in -you guessed it- a few boosters, as well. They're everywhere. And when you're in it it, you see it. After all, it's just one pack, right? Angie, again, was always particularly bad about this. But I was an enabler. And I did it, too. The last set we purchased was Scars of Mirrodin, and we had already started being more cautious about it. And we still ended up with three Fat Packs ($25 sets with I believe 9 boosters each), a few fistfuls of boosters, as well as what we each got at the pre-release and release days. They don't call it "cardboard crack" for nothing!

I'm not sure how much we've spent on Magic over the last two years, but it was quite a bit. I am happy to say that now we have moved on. We shook the addiction. Anyway, now we're looking for a replacement. We've been playing a little Warhammer: Invasion lately. It's not a CCG (collectible card game) like Magic; it's an LCG... a Living Card Game. What does that mean? It means that you don't have to buy boosters, that's what! There's the base game, and then there are monthly releases. The monthly release has twenty new cards with three copies of each; it sort of expands like a board game. So far, I like the format. The jury is still out on the game, though. I'll cover Warhammer: Invasion and Living Card Games in another post, though.



In regard to Magic... we still like the game. We certainly have plenty of decks, and loads of cards to make new ones. Heck, I even think we'll continue to purchase their annual multiplayer format releases, as well as duel deck sets that interest us. But beyond that? Nothing. A little too much for us!

Review of Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer

Hello! Tonight, I wanted to share my thoughts on one of the recent games in the

deckbuilding genre, Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer by GaryGames. My

family recently picked this up at a local gamestore. Funds have been tight, so we

actually traded a handful of Magic cards in for store credit. Our daughter thought it

was rad that we traded five cards in for that. She said, "You traded in FIVE cards and

got that game!?! That wasn't smart of them... there's like over a hundred cards in that

box!" But... on to the game.

As I mentioned, Ascension is a deckbuilding game. What does that mean? For those of you familiar with Dominion, this is a game using the same basic mechanic. For those of you new to the concept, here's how it goes. You start the game with a deck. A small deck. On your turn, you acquire cards for your deck. Purchased cards typically go into your discard pile, which you shuffle when you get through your deck. This adds purchasing power for better cards and easier acquisition of point cards. You shuffle a lot. The concept started with Dominion, and has been popping up in other games like Thunderstone and Ascension. It's a good mechanic, and it makes games that use it easy to teach since you begin the game with a premade deck of just a couple different kinds of  cards.

Ascension works for 2-4 players. It has a board to organize the cards. There is a deck

of characters and monsters to defeat or purchase, and some spiffy plastic crystals to

track Honor (victory points). Six cards are laid out on the board, and these are either
going to be characters which go in your deck (purchased with Runes),  monsters to defeat
(using Power) or constructs, which are cards that go through your deck that you may play
into your play area and they stay in effect indefinitely. Most characters will provide
Power and/or Runes. Runes are the currency you use to buy cards, and Power is what you
use to defeat enemies. You can buy as many characters or constructs and/or fight as many
enemies as you have the Power and Runes for in your turn.

I like this game quite a bit. It is simple. Ascension is much less of an endeavor to set
up than Dominion is. We own all the released sets for Dominion, and it really seems like
a monumental undertaking to set up. Ascension, on the other hand, just requires you to
grab a starting deck, lay out the board, shuffle the card supply and count out the Honor
crystals. The simplicity of this makes it much more likely to hit the table if just my
wife and I are playing. Additionally, the possibility of buying characters and fighting
enemies in the same turn is nice, especially compared to Thunderstone's clunky dungeon
mechanic.

So... anyone else have thoughts about Ascension? About deckbuilding games? Let us know!

Top 5 games I can't wait to play with my kids (when they're ready!)

Alright... so this is a family gaming site, I wanted to come back
around to the family aspect. One of the motivating factors for
starting the blog was that our 4 year old (now five year old) daughter
was starting to be able to play strategy games with us. We're so
excited that she shows interest in games like we do, and we feel that
this is the beginning a wonderful trend. So tonight, I'm going to talk
about the top 5 games that I can't wait to play with Katie and Jack...
when they're ready, of course!

1. Dungeons & Dragons
What can I say? I'm a geek at heart and love D&D and its various
incarnations (Pathfinder, Gamma World, d20 Modern, etc.), and I want
to share that at some point with my kids. Katie is already coming up
with imaginative narratives on her own, I can only imagine what that's
going to be like when she's a couple years older. I have a suspicion
she'll make a great dungeon master. Heck, at 15 months she was barely
talking, but used sign language to tell us there was a big orange
dirty monster friend sleeping under our house, while looking through
the crawlspace grating! That was weird. But the point is that she has
had an active imagination from early on. And Jack? Time will tell, but
I can totally see my mischevious little guy playing a rogue.

   

2. Settlers of Catan
Okay, so Katie already plays this. But to tell the truth, I can't wait
until Jack is old enough and we all can play together. I'm not going
to go on about this one, but it gets #2.



3.Agricola
Agricola is an amazing game, but can also be complex. For those of you
not familiar with Agricola, it is a farming game where each player is
managing their own farm. You build your farmhouse, plant and sow
crops, manage livestock... what you would expect if you were managing
your own family farm. It is rich in strategy and executes its theme
well.I imagine that Katie will be able to play the family version
(without minor improvements and occupations) in about a year; I see
reading as the biggest barrier at the moment. They'll both love the
animeeples and veggiemeeples, for sure!

 

4. Magic
Angie and I tend to play Magic a lot. We've taken a break since she
has been student teaching, but (as I mentioned in my last post) it's
something we enjoy quite a bit. Both Jack and Katie have shown
interest in the cards, but as with Agricola, reading is far more a
barrier here. Both have a good deal of focus, so I think they will
both have the temperament for this soon. The reading and comprehension
of terms may put this several years down the road.

 

5. Memoir '44
The only Days of Wonder to make the list ( I suspect if I did a top
ten, there'd be more), Memoir '44 is a World War II battle game. It
plays a lot quicker than other games in this genre (Axis & Allies, for
example, usually takes about 6 hours). It focuses on recreating
specific battles during this war. The base game only focuses on
Europe, but expansions add the Mediterranean and Pacific theatres and
corresponding troop types. Despite the genre, it is a simple game;
expect to play no more than 45 minutes per session. Already this game
is used in classrooms to teach history, and I believe that playing
this could be a great way to start discussions on history. As with the
previous entries, I see reading as the biggest barrier since you use
strategy cards to do everything.



So... yeah. I'm really excited about doing this with my kiddos. If you want to see another person excited to play games with his kids, check out Cool Factor 5. This was another of our blog challenge series. What games do you play with your kids? What games are you excited to play with your kids? Let us know!

Tweaking the System: Magic: The Gathering, Campaign-style

Hello again! Today's topic is the next in the series of challenges we are doing with our friend who does the Cool Factor 5 blog. Make sure that after you read this, you check him out. The link follows the post. Today's topic is a way we play a game that varies from the way the rules state.



Magic: The Gathering. Every gamer you know has an opinion on it. Love it or hate, it's probably the most profitable game out there and has a strong following that should ensure its persistence for years to come. But my first impression of the game wasn't great.

A skeptical start

I first encountered Magic as a teenager. A friend had a couple decks and we played a few games. It was interesting, the art was fun, but it really didn't capture my imagination. A few years later when I was managing a coffee shop, a couple fellow employees decided to try it out. There was a comic shop down the hall and we decided to each grab a starter deck, and then only expand when we all decided to pick up a booster to keep it fair. By this time, I had already written the game off as a "rich kid wins" game, but was willing to play around to pass an hour every now and then on slow nights. It was okay... I'm not sure we played more than a few times before getting bored.

So... the early experiences weren't stellar, and I made it a point to avoid the game. The people I knew who played spent a lot of cash on it, and that never seemed like a great idea. And so a decade passed.

A new beginning

Recently, my wife got hooked on the XBox 360 game Magic: Duels of the Planeswalkers. One thing led to another and pretty soon she harassed me into picking up a couple premade decks and play. Grumbling, I eventually conceded and tried it out. She and I have played fairly regularly for the last year now. This past year, we decided that since we mostly just played each other, we could come up with an ongoing game with some persistent elements that carried over from game to game... sort of a campaign.


Campaigning, Planeswalker-style!

For those of you unfamiliar with Magic, the premise is that you are planeswalking wizards fighting for supremacy. You win by either attacking your opponent and depleting his hit points (the basic game starts you with 20) or depleting their deck (referred to as your spellbook). Decks are usually 60 cards and assembled with cards that (ideally) synergize with one another. Our variant had us starting out as novice planeswalkers. We started with 10 hit points, a hand size of 5 (instead of 7) and had a pool of 90 random cards to assemble our decks. As we played, we both gained random cards and had the option to spend cards to increase hand size, hit point total and gain other benefits that extended beyond the present match. The mechanic we used was that we spent rare cards to gain these benefits. I'm not going to exhaustively go through the exact mechanical details, but we loved this format. In particular, it helped me learn more about the art of building decks.


Anyway... I hope this encourages you to look at the games you currently own and try something new. Angie and I had a blast with this, and I expect we may try a new campaign at some point in the future. What are some variants and house rules you have tried or would like to try for games you like? Tell us! And visit Cool Factor 5 to see what he's trying. And to give credit where credit is due, that guy gave us some ideas for how to structure our campaign. Thanks, Julian!