Magic Formats, Part VII Finale

The Weepies

These formats technically exist and are just shy of being too pathetic to share.

Pack Wars is about trying to make a playable deck out of a booster pack. It’s fifteen cards with no rhyme or reason and I’m supposed to shuffle in seven basic lands and act that like the short unsatisfying game divorced almost entirely from my skills as a player is a thing that people do and that I should buy another pack and do it again. It isn’t. I shouldn’t. Fuck you.

Type 5 is Pack Wars, except you use more boosters and don’t bother shuffling in lands, you just open packs and start using spells as lands that tap for their converted mana cost. Irrationally, I’m not as offended by this much quicker hand to mouth model of opening booster packs. Perhaps I’ve transcended into some higher plane of unfamiliar ur-disgust.

Type 4/DC 10 are two ridiculous formats that only work in a well manicured environment. Mana is infinite, but you can only cast one spell per turn. I believe they are also singleton formats. Activated abilities can be activated infinitely. The only difference, I think, is that DC10 has a stated limit of setting X equal to 10, while Type 4 relies on more counterspells. I much prefer DC10. I don’t mean to dismiss this format out of hand, it’s just that it seems like it could be fun, but I certainly don’t have the cards to pull it off.

Landless is, according to the account I have, the result of two people trying to play Magic without any lands. They got a good compromise going, and I’m pretty interested. Like Type 5, Type 4, and DC 10, it’s a landless format, and like Type 5, you can play spells as lands. However, a spell played as a land only gives one mana of one of its colors. After it’s played as a land, that card can’t be used for anything else and acts like a non-basic land until it changes zones.

Magic Formats, Part VI

Revolutionaries

There are also formats which are decidedly more difficult to get into. These formats usually have deck construction requirements which require multiple players to create specific decks in order to play, in addition to having tweaked play rules.

Singleton is a deck building restriction for duels or multiplayer that say that with the exception of basic lands, you may only have one of each card in your deck. Just like the Limited formats, Singleton ensures that a deck is overall less consistent than it could be and encourages a player to work with cards they might not normally work with.

Commander is the much loved granddaddy of alternative formats. It’s a Singleton format the proscribes a 99 card deck with a 100th, Legendary Creature card (The eponymous Commander) that limits what other colors can be included (or even referenced) by other cards in the deck. The Commander hangs out in the Command Zone where he/she can be cast whenever their owner could cast a creature spell. If the commander would be exiled or destroyed, they may be put into the Command Zone again. The rules of Commander are myriad, but intuitive and fun. Each player starts with 40 life, and that goes a long way towards keeping games long, swingy, and exciting.

Star is quite possibly the least revolutionary of the revolutionaries, simply requiring five monocolored decks of each of the five colors. Players square off in a circle representing the colors on the back of a Magic card: white, blue, black, red, and green. The goal of each color is to kill off their enemy colors. A player doesn’t have to do this themselves; if the White and Red players have both been eliminated, then the White player can win if the Black player is eliminated and the Red player can win if the Blue player is eliminated. Green in this scenario is screwed. It’s a flavorful format that tends to be quicker than most multiplayer formats as there isn’t much hidden information and objectives-based games tend to be quicker than “last man standing” matches.

Godzilla is a format built for fatties. In each 75 card deck, at least 20 of them must be 4/4 creatures or larger. Each player has three individual turns where they can’t interact with another player. Players earn a point for removing other players, being the last man standing, votes from other players for good gamesmanship, and of course, for constructing your deck to have the biggest creatures you can (every total 40 points of power and toughness [above 140] of creatures in your deck gives you an additional point).

Then, before we get to the depressing formats, we get to The Cube. The Cube is a draft format designed to accommodate eight players. It’s a singleton format composed of cards hand selected to create a specific play environment. Each player takes three ‘packs’ of fifteen cards at random from The Cube and drafts normally to make a deck. Players then play normally.

Magic Formats, Part V

Detailing

There are also a number of ‘formats’ which can be easily applied on top of most normal games of Magic—multiplayer or duel—to change how the game plays.

Planechase is the best of these. Ideally, each player has their own deck of double-sized plane cards, but I’ve found that pulling from a common pile tends to make things more interesting. None the less, Planechase requires a few special cards, but otherwise works with any other format. It isn’t an alternative way to play so much as a way to infuse additional randomness into how you’re already playing. In a nutshell, there’s a plane card that gives a regular effect for as long as its face up. As a special action, a player can roll a planar die (1D6). If they get a Planeswalk symbol (1), they can put the current plane on the bottom of the planar library and reveal the next plane from the top of that library. If they roll Chaos (6), they activate a special ability of that plane instead. Other results do nothing.

House Rule: In order to (partially) circumvent the unreliable planeswalking system, my group uses two planar die, with a player having the option of choosing which applies. This makes walking away and activating chaos abilities more reliable, instead of leaving players at a hobbling plane on a streak of bad luck with no hope of egress (though that certainly still happens).

Respawn Magic is a multiplayer variant where a player may reenter the game once they’re eliminated. They lose a point for being eliminated (or conceding) and whichever player controlled the effect that eliminated them gains a point. Whenever they reenter, they get three immediate, free turns and then resume playing in the main game. Respawn Magic is fun and flexible, allowing latecomers and players who’ve been eliminated by a run of bad luck to enter the game and come up to speed. It also helps prevent stalemates and allows kamikazie runs on winning players to break their hold on the board. Respawn Magic doesn’t work so well with formats where eliminating other players matters (Archenemy, Ukatabi Kong, Star [see Monday's article]), but it’s great for any other sort of running game.

The Rumble Rule is a helpful rule to keep multiplayer (or even some duels) games from bogging down. It is only good in limited format games, or games where all players have a sideboard. Whenever a player deals damage to another player or gives them a poison counter, they get a rumble point. Whenever a player has twenty rumble points, they may immediately take a card from their sideboard/unused card pool and exile it. They may cast that card at any time they could normally play it from exile without paying its mana cost (though any non-zero values of “X” must actually be paid for.). It encourages players to be aggressive and to attack, even when the board state might not be optimal.

Assassins can spice up almost any multiplayer game. Players are given the name of another player to eliminate. That other player is their mark. Whenever you eliminate your mark, you get a point and that player’s mark. If you were their mark, gain a point and discard that mark without getting another one. If someone else removes your mark, you get no points. The last player standing gets 1.5 points.

House Rule: Colorbind Assassins: Alternatively, each player can choose a basic land to represent them. A basic land corresponding to each player is shuffled into a pile and dealt to each player. This game proceeds just like a regular game of Assassins, except that your mark can be any player with a basic land of that type in play. Whenever you eliminate a player who controls that basic land type, you gain one point and may switch your mark for his. A player with no basic land types may be anyone’s mark. Last player standing earns 1.5 points.

Magic Formats, Part IV

Fundamental Tweaks

Howevercomma beyond the reach of these safe variations, there are yet more ways to shake up a game. The first, of course, is multiplayer.

Booster drafts, by default are a form of multiplayer. The official rules assume you have four to eight friends that both play Magic and that you want to play Magic with (while I, personally, find the number to be closer to two and a half, depending on just what I've been drinking.), but that's surmountable. Drafting is great fun in that you're playing the game before you play the game. Trying to figure out who's pulling what, where that game breaking card went, and just who the hell is stealing all of your Black is usually as much fun as playing Magic itself, even if the format, as designed, eventually breaks down into a series of duels.

The simplest fix for this is Multiplayer Group Drafting, which is just drafting with a fourth booster pack per person to soften the edges of those times when you end up with some poor-quality late picks in the third round.

The best way to shake up your game in multiplayer is with “Plug and Play” multiplayer formats. While it’s certainly possible to optimize decks for these formats, for the most part, a regular 60-card duel deck can work in this format without major tweaking. Two-Headed Giant, Emperor, Archenemy, Ukatabi Kong, and Zero Sum are all multiplayer formats that work well with an existing deck, and fundamentally change much of how the game operates.

Two Headed Giant is probably one of the oldest variations on this theme. It features two teams of two players each who share a life total and work to reduce their opponents’ life total to 0. The players share a turn and attack together. Two Headed Giant is fun and lets two players work together without concern that the weaker link will be eliminated. However, its rules are sometimes complex due to the nature of players sharing life totals and turns.

Emperor is another venerable format in which six players form two teams. Each team consists of an Emperor flanked by two Generals. The Generals can only attack and target players adjacent to them and Emperors may cast spells on any adjacent player and any player adjacent to them. This means that the first General to fall exposes his Emperor, and the loss of an Emperor is the loss of a game. Allies can also transfer creatures to adjacent friends by tapping them. Once the range of influence and attacking options become familiar, Emperor is a fun and flavorful method of play.

Archenemy is one of the summer filler releases, designed to put focus on multiplayer formats and entice players to buy something during the summer. Archenemy doesn’t seem to have been successful in that respect, but it’s still a fun format. Instead of a free for all or team versus team match, a deck of Archenemy cards make one player powerful enough to take on all comers. A one-versus-all format, Archenemy is long on flavor, but short on actual innovation. Let’s face it though, if you read the flavor text on all of your schemes as you set them into motion, everyone wins!

Ukatabi Kong is an unusual format where one player is randomly (and secretly) selected to be Ukatabi Kong and the rest are hunters. If another player kills the Ukatabi Kong, they win the game and gets points for each other player eliminated before them. When the Ukatabi Kong is the last player standing or has a total of 20 power worth of creatures on the board, they win instantly and gain points equal to the number of players eliminated plus the number of players who started the game. After several rounds, points are totaled and winner declared.

Finally, Zero Sum is an interesting format where each player divides their life total between left and right sides, defaulting at 10 each (10/10). Whenever they take damage from a player immediately to their right or left, the corresponding side takes that much damage and their opposite side gains that much life. A player at full health who’s hit by a Serra Angel from the left would then have a life total of 6/14. A player is only killed whenever one of their life totals is at -10, representing twenty damage from a single player (and of course, poison, decking, concessions, Doors to Nothingness, etc.). Whenever a player takes damage from a player not directly to either side of them, the damage is applied equally to both halves of their life and nothing changes.

Magic Formats, Part III

Solomon Drafts are conducted with only two people, but instead of passing packs, all players put the cards from their boosters into a common pile. Then each player takes turns drawing eight cards and separates them into two face-up piles. The other player picks which pile they want and the player who separated them gets the other pile. Then, they switch roles and continue until all of the cards have been drafted. While this doesn’t quite have the mystery of a regular draft, it does make players make hard decisions before the game starts and tests each player’s ability to correctly gauge the value of their cards.

The Winston Draft is another two player favorite. In the Winston Draft, like in the Solomon Draft, each player’s boosters are shuffled together into a single pile. Three cards are drawn face down from that one to make three smaller piles. Each player in turn may look at each of the smaller piles in turn and either take that pile or pass to look at the next pile. If they take it, another face-down card is taken from the main pile to put in its place to start a new pile. If they opt to look at the next pile, they still add another face down card from the main pile to that one. If the player doesn’t want any of the three piles, they take a single card from the top of the main pile.

Winston Draft preserves quite a bit of mystery of drafting while still being interactive. However, it is slow and slightly more random than a standard draft.

Winchester Draft is much quicker, but loses quite a bit of that mystery. In it, each player has their own pile made up of their own booster packs. When the draft begins each player puts two cards from their main pile into two face-up piles in front of them (making four face-up piles, two for each player.). Each player in turn then chooses a pile—theirs or an opponents—and takes it. Then, on each subsequent turn, the players switch order and put another two cards from their main piles onto their own face-up piles (making a new pile if the old one was selected last turn) and choose one to add to their card pool, repeating until all main piles are empty and all cards are chosen.

The Continuous Draft (no direct link) is the final two player draft. It also features three booster packs. Each player opens their own booster packs, but unlike the Winston and Solomon Drafts, they peruse their cards before hand and choose one to put aside; it won’t be in this draft and it won’t be in this game. Then, with a 44 card pile, the first player reveals the top four cards of their pile and chooses one. The other player then chooses two of the remaining cards, and the first player takes the last. The other player then reveals four cards from their pile and the process repeats itself until all cards have been chosen. The Continuous Draft is quite quick and open. In fact, in the format it suggests drafting with other players before matches. This is great for a mercurial draft environment for players who are eager to see what a new set or play environment holds.

Back Draft (again, no direct link) is a fun twist on any drafting format. Instead of drawing the best possible, you take the worst cards you can. Whenever you face off against an opponent, the two of you switch card pools and they make the best deck they can with your terrible cards and the both of you try to win. Back Draft sees rarely-used cards hitting the field and clunky, non-synergistic decks trying to take each other down.

While luck is a larger factor in Limited formats than it is in non-Limited formats, the ability to judge cards for their worth and anticipate the strategies of others is far more potent than it would be in other games. It’s also less susceptible to net decking and simply following a metagame, though powerful cards do tend to be powerful cards, regardless of what decks one plays for or against.

Naturally, Limited and Set-based card pools work with one another. Random packs of cards from a specific set can be found for $4(+) and work with most of these variations. They're transparent and quite equivocal and work very well with the stated rules to create controlled environment for sanctioned play.

Magic Formats, Part II

Limitations as Challenges

Of course, a player can (theoretically) choose the best cards of these formats and make a finely-tuned deck that plays the same (or almost the same) in each game. Because of Magic's rather rapid turnaround time (especially when speaking of duels), this gets boring rather quickly.

An alternative is artificially limiting a card pool through Limited formats. Limited formats can be constructed or drafted and rely heavily on randomized booster packs of 15 cards from a particular set. Ideally, one booster pack from each of a block’s sets, but since a block’s sets are usually released several months apart, it’s rare for a block that’s in vogue to have all of its sets out at once.

None the less, in constructed limited, approximately six boosters from the block are used by a player to put together a constructed deck of sixty cards. Any unused cards are used as sideboard options. This means that powerful rares will rarely ever be duplicated, and even potent uncommons won’t usually have more than one copy in a Limited Constructed deck.

The jewel in the eye of limited is the draft. Drafts are usually held with four to eight players (though two is also possible, see the Solomon Draft and Winston Drafts below), and as a format incorporating multiple players, they provide new and different challenges.

In a regular draft, each player starts with three booster packs. They then open up a booster pack, select a card from it, and pass the remaining cards to their right. They then look at the cards they received from their left, choose another, and pass the remaining cards to their right. Players repeat this process until each player has fifteen cards and all cards from each player’s first pack has been chosen. Then, players open their second pack and repeat this process, passing to the left instead. After the cards from the final packs have been passed (to the right this time) and selected, each player has a pool of roughly 45 cards). From that pool, they can add any number of basic lands to make a deck of at least 40 cards, with any unused cards acting as a sideboard.

The games from that point forward are standard duels, but just like with Limited Constructed, they tend to have fewer rares and uncommons than a non-limited deck.

Variations on even these themes is common.

Rochester Draft is an open variation on a draft. Instead of secretly passing each pack of cards around the table, a Rochester Draft has the first player put their first pack face-up on the table. After a short period of orientation, the first player picks a card, followed by the second, until the eighth player picks a card. Then, the eighth player picks another card, followed by seventh, back up to the second player, who takes the remaining, fifteenth card. After the first pack is opened, the second player’s first pack is opened and the second player makes the first pick, followed by the third. This time, the first player chooses after the eighth, and chooses twice, and the order is reversed from the eighth back to the third, who takes the final card. After each player opens their first pack, the order reverses; the eighth player chooses after the first player, the second player makes two picks in a row, and the eighth player takes the remaining fifteenth card. The third pack is drafted just like the first.

This format is slower than a regular draft, but it’s more open and allows players to see what others are doing. It also makes sure that players who pick later get some compensation. While the player to open a pack will usually get the best card from it, a player who gets the eight pick gets two mid-level cards from it while everyone else gets the leftovers. Rochester can also be more sociable, as normal drafts technically prohibit talking during the draft.

Rotisserie Drafts are like Rochester Drafts, except that instead of laying out one pack, the players lay out one of each card from a set, block, or even all of Magic, and allow players in order from first to last to pick a card. Then, the last player makes a second pick and each player back up to the first makes a second pick, just like Rochester Draft (except with one giant ‘pack’ instead) The process repeats until either all cards or a specific number of cards for each player are chosen. Because there are about as many commons per set as there are rares, but rares only appear with about one tenth of the frequency of commons, Rotisserie Drafts allow players to play with a higher concentration of rares than a normal limited environment. While this defeats some of the purposes of a Limited format, its one-of, or Singleton, quality helps blunt the effect of multiple copies of powerful rare cards.

Magic Formats, Part I

Damn, there are a lot of Magic formats, some official, and a great number less official. Changing up formats is a great way to add variety to Magic and to get those cards that aren't so great in a duel (one on one game) into play.

Most formats differ in terms of how many players there are, how decks are constructed, how life totals are tallied, which other players you can attack, and what your victory conditions are. The baseline game of Magic starts with two players (a duel), each with a deck constructed of to 60+ cards drawn from most of the cards in Magic's history (with a general limit of four of each card). The players begin with twenty life and play lands and spells in an effort to reduce their opponent's life total to 0 (or to achieve a few other game states that removes their opposition from the game.)

Standard Variations

Of course, changing these assumptions changes the way the game is played. Part of the fun of games is exploring the cause and effect; exploring the fullness of the rules. One of the advantages of Magic is that the cards are the rules and exploring the rules is a never-ending quest, as there are always more cards. None the less, when “more cards” simply doesn’t suffice in terms of broadening one’s play horizons, new conditions and variations often do.

The simplest variation is simply not playing with every card. Granted, most players do this simply because they don’t own every card. That, however, is a natural limitation, and one that follows a player no matter what format they play. Artificially limiting the card pool is a horse of a different color. By definition, more available cards mean more available options means more optimal choices. By eliminating some cards from the pool, optimal choices are cut down and players must find new optimal choices within the new set.

The publishers of Magic, Wizards of the Coast, know this and officially support many formats where this is the case. Most common is the Standard format. It usually consists of the last two blocks to have been released, plus a core set. These cards only stretch back about two years, meaning that Wizards can control the Standard format better than any other format. This might seem ominous at first glance, but in fact it allows them to manipulate the format in such a way that most players can enjoy participating in it.

Next to that is the Extended format. As it might sound, the Extended format is simply the Standard format with a slightly longer reach, usually incorporating a few more older blocks and another core set.

Unlike Extended and Standard, the Modern format begins at one block, Mirrodin, and incorporates all subsequent blocks and core sets instead of measuring backwards from the most recent block.

On the other hand, Vintage and Legacy formats incorporate all Magic cards by default, with subtle differences in the list of cards they ban and restrict distinguishing them from one another.

Block formats only allow cards from particular blocks, sometimes with the option of adding cards from a related core set.

The Game's the Thing: Pandemic

Guys, Pandemic is great. If you like getting around with a few friends to play a game that lasts about an hour, has everyone work together, and immerses you in a setting with little colored blocks and a map of the world, then you like gaming. If you don't like those things, you're a subhuman lizard and should be banished to the depths of Earth.

In Pandemic, you and your cohorts (one to three of them, according to the official rules) are specialists from the Center for Disease Control racing the clock to beat four deadly diseases which threaten the whole globe. Each of you has a specific skill (represented by role cards) and specialized knowledge (represented by cards) to help you treat and cure those diseases and save the world.

Pros:
Immersion - Using just tiny blocks, cards, and rules, Pandemic gives you that feeling that you're gathering important information on a disease and watching infection spread around the globe. When you arrange to meet up with another guy in Madrid so you can hand him the last piece of data he needs to cure the Blue/Star Disease, it feels like you're jet-setting specialists meeting where the rain falls mainly on the plain.

Tales of Lucio Pavlec: In Which Lucio Pavlec Makes an Appearance pt 6 of 6

“Eye of Thr’r’r’rn. No doubt about it.,” Lucio tossed it carelessly to Lanay, “I wouldn’t be seen in any respectable circles with this thing.”

She gave it a disdainful once-over, “I used to have one of these when I first started out,” she passed it, in turn, to Dire Fox, “Mine was smaller though.”

The Halfing continued rubbing the back of his head with one hand while balancing The Eye with the other, “Wow,” his tone was almost reverent, “This thing is almost valuable because of how uniquely worthless it is. This is the sort of thing you mug someone to make them take.”

He put it back on the pedestal without thinking, dodging a poison dart as he did so, “So did we find anything that might tell us about this “Ghost’? Or did we just waste a week?”

Lanay sighed wearily, “Ugh, waste. Let’s split up the equipment we found, give those villagers their stupid money back, and never speak to one another again.”

Tales of Lucio Pavlec: In Which Lucio Pavlec Makes an Appearance pt 5 of 6

“Well, technically, it’s fire resistant. It would’ve protected you from anything a mere warlock could conjure. That was the point, right?”

“No! It wasn’t the point!” She paused the gulp down the potion the wizard offered, and immediately regretted it whenever it almost made her feel too good to be angry, “The point was to keep you from burning me!”

Lucio Pavlec seemed genuinely confused, “I don’t think they make rings that strong. I actually took that one off of a guy I burned to death.”

“I am never,” she stepped over the charred remains of the leviathan snake-thing that U’rn Daali had called “The Most Ultimate Serpent King” and took long, angry steps towards the dais, ”working with you again!”

“Oh,” Lucio was suddenly unconcerned, as if realizing their conversation was just a long joke, “Everyone says that.”

By the pedestal behind the altar, Dire Fox skeptically examined the warped black shape that the inhabitants had so revered, “I think is that eye they were talking about.”

“Is it rigged?”

The Halfling nodded, “Yeah, but not too well. It’s actually taking me longer to decide if it’s worth the time to deactivate the traps.”

He looked up to notice her unsympathetic expression.

“I’m serious! It would almost be worth it to just grab this thing and just count on my ability to dodge the darts,” he sniffed the air, “I think they’re drakesblood.”

“That’s pretty deadly,” she didn’t know much about poisons, but drakes were just behind dragons and just above lizards in the hierarchy of reptilian threats (all of which were above Yuan-Ti), and it was hierarchy which had served her well so far.

“Yeah,” he ran his fingers around the seam where the black thing met the pedestal’s stone, “but I’m mostly immune.”

“Then why not just take it then?”

“Well, technically,” he smiled, “I’m only resistant.”

Next Chapter

Tales of Lucio Pavlec: In Which Lucio Pavlec Makes an Appearance pt 4 of 6

She glanced at Dire Fox, he gave an innocent shrug with a deliberate blink. Good. That meant he had about two minutes until he could free himself of his own restraints. She nodded to an archway on the right. She could fae step there and run while he slipped away from the guard. The antechamber would be the best place to meet back up so he could remove her chains and they could escape.

If negotiations didn’t work. She continued addressing their reptilian host, “We’ve seen your antechamber, your spires, your streets; we know you’ve encountered The Ghost before and he’s what we’re looking for.”

U’rn Daali slithered down the steps below the altar, “We do not trust surface. Send many down. Many Yuan-Ti die.”

“The Ghost was leading them.” She explained calmly. She didn’t know much about these guys, but if they were anything like the tree lizards back home, they respected confidence and strength, not timidity, “And you cannot have him; he is ours to punish.”

The serpent-man slid up into her face, spreading his jaws wide to show his fangs. For her part Lanay remained as impassive as she could. After a few seconds of becoming intimately acquainted with the inside of a Yuan-Ti’s mouth, she was grateful he withdrew.

He looked thoughtful now, “Maybe…” he looked at her closely, “…maybe…”

“Thank Sehanine,” she thought, “This is going to work.”

Then she saw a shadow in the empty rows of the gallery above the altar and thought of the worst thing that could happen right now; if Lucio Pavlec had somehow tracked them down to rescue them.

“Excuse me,” his voice burst from the darkness above, “I’m looking for a primitive culture that can set me up for an easy joke about hide armor.”

With a regretful glance at Dire Fox, she closed her eyes and began shifting into the Feywild to escape what was to come. Sadly, Lucio was quicker on the draw than she anticipated. Her last thought before vanishing completely into another realm was just how little this burning sensation felt like ‘fire immunity.’

Next Chapter

Tales of Lucio Pavlec: In Which Lucio Pavlec Makes an Appearance pt 3 of 6

“It was the strangest thing.”

“It does sound weird. Not ‘remember your name’ weird, but you’re almost describing regret. From Lucio.”

“I know. So, then, as if he’d just remembered something, he asked if I was the one he burned with that gout of flame when ‘we were fighting those grimlocks’.”

Dire Fox winced.

“I’d like to think that woman survived--”

“You mean you’d like to think he’d remember it if someone he was traveling with had died.”

“Yes,” she nodded, “However,” she looked at the new ring on her hand, “I figured she’d probably never work with him again…”

The Halfling smiled, “…and you certainly are.”

“So I don’t see why I wouldn’t want immunity to fire.”

“Oh certainly. How many times has he almost burnt you?”

“Only three, but if one thing improves your reflexes, it’s dodging sheets of fire. You?”

“Twice, well, two and a half.”

She laughed, a few short yelps as Elves did, “Is that a short joke? From you?”

He chuckled and shook his head, “No. We were fighting this warlock—“

This time, the sounds of her mirth were loud enough to bounce off the darkening trees. She covered her mouth, but not her smile as he continued, “and he just lays down this roiling wall of flame,” he motioned forward, his hands crawling out to simulate tongues of flame, “I dodge it—barely—but then the warlock just…” he turned his hand inward to show the flame turning around, “right back at me,” he shook his head, “never saw it coming. Figure it’s worth half.”

“Yeah, half.”

Next Chapter

Tales of Lucio Pavlec: In Which Lucio Pavlec Makes an Appearance pt 2 of 6

“You didn’t have to kill him, you know.”

“Well, I didn’t have to not-kill him, Val. You heard the judge; their muddy little grub hole doesn’t even consider Galeb Duhrs ‘murderable.’”

Dire Fox had known Lanay for a while now. The first few times they’d met, he couldn’t figure out why Lucio called her “Lanay.” It wasn’t until he and Lucio had done a few jobs with another duo that he realized the wizard called every Elf he met the same name. He didn’t know if it was an Elvin nickname or simply the name of the first Elf he ever worked with. None of them had ever seemed to mind, well, any more than anyone else bothered about what Lucio called them, so he supposed it couldn’t have been that derogatory.

“That doesn’t make it right,” Lanay countered, “Your lack of empathy is appalling.”

“Huh. My empathy is fine,” he crossed his arms almost petulantly and they rode in silence for a moment.

Finally, Dire Fox spoke up, “Look, Lanay, what else did you learn about this guy?”

She shrugged. While they’d once passed a night with a glass of strawberry wine and discussion of a commonly despised wizard, their subsequent attempts at personal conversation had been awkward and sometimes confrontational. They could talk about Lucio behind his back, but he didn't feel like he needed to tempt a childish, violent, and powerful mage to stand behind them and cast the wrong spells on purpose.

Still, superficial conversation was better than none, “They said that they initially just took his actions at face value; he’d meet some adventurers, get a fat advance, then come back a few days later with the advance ready to spend.”

“No doubt with the addition of whatever his ‘unfortunate friends’ were carrying.”

She nodded, “Probably. The town was fine with that; most adventurers buy some expedition equipment then blow out of town and are never seen again,” she shook her head, "he paid them handsomely to live like a king, and they didn't give it a thought until the well dried up."

“Ghoulish,” Dire Fox looked past Lanay and saw Lucio’s horse veering off the path towards some flowers. Arms crossed as they were, he was trying to twist his torso to pull the reins and direct it back on track, but to no avail. The Halfling looked back to better enjoy the Human’s inner conflict between continuing with his brooding and not losing time in the pursuit of a rogue warlock.

He turned forward, satisfied that shortly, Lucio wouldn’t have any excuse to continue his posing. Maybe then he’d get over this spell and become some other, more tolerable form of terrible company.

From behind him, they heard a shout, “My horse is hungry and he’s going to eat for a while now!”

He and Lanay glanced back simultaneously to see Lucio, arms still crossed and looking back the way they came, away from them, with his horse grazing peacefully on some flowers by the side of the road, “Oh, don’t worry about me, I’ll catch up!”

Next Chapter

Tales of Lucio Pavlec: In Which Lucio Pavlec Makes an Appearance pt 1 of 6

“Aw man, these idiots!” Lucio Pavlec angrily jerked a chair away from the table, turning it backwards to he could straddle it as he joined his cohorts, “I’ve reasonably explained to everyone in the local magical community--even the slack-jawed Globs who are part of that rolling, trinket-peddling sideshow that passes for a trade caravan outside,” he took a minute to wave with faux friendliness at a pair of the aforementioned Galeb Duhrs, who took his ethnic slur in classic, stoic stride,“ and no one is interested in talking about this ‘Ghost.’ This is a massive waste of time.”

The Elven woman and the Halfing shared a knowing glance before the Halfing spoke up with a cheerful unflappability that had seen most tests Lucio could pose, “Everyone I talked to seemed straightforward enough; he was here for four months, escorted adventurers to the ruins for a steep fee. Almost never returned with any of them.”

Lucio looked away sullenly, “They probably thought you were him,” he then turned to regard his companion suspiciously, “where have you been since we last crossed paths, Dire Fox?”

The Halfing suppressed a sigh. He’d repeated his name to Lucio until the point of exhaustion, but the wizard was simply too self-absorbed or intentionally offensive to have remembered it. Probably both. When they had first met, five years and three sojourns ago, his appellation had been “Little Guy,” but Lucio hadn’t even bothered to remember that. At least this was a step up.

“I’ve been amongst civilized people, Lucio. The kind with manners.”

“Funny, I don’t remember seeing you there.”

“I learned that he actually was a Halfling,” the Elven woman offered, heading off another round of sniping. The information put a smirk on Lucio’s face while it earned her a pointed glare from Dire Fox.

“But,” she added, “He was a mage,” the news reversed her companions’ expressions, while she passed a secret grin to Dire Fox before capping it off, “probably a Warlock.”

Dire Fox returned the smile. Very little could derail Lucio’s lifelong mission to annoy, harass, and bring trouble to those who chose to align themselves with him, and warlocks were one of those things. Despite every irritating facet of his personality, nay, his existence, Lucio Pavlec did have a work ethic and had apparently never looked highly upon those who’d simply borrowed power through an oath. Maybe this time, things wouldn’t go quite so poorly.

The floors of the bar rumbled slightly as a third Galeb Duhrs entered. The two who had been waiting began a slow, but direct trip towards the table of the three adventurers. Their friend noticed and turned his stocky, rocky body for the same destination.

Maybe not.

Next Chapter

It's the Magic: Cubic Leagues

My favorite Magic format is the Cube Draft. There's only one of each card, you can manage what unfun cards are or aren't in it, it's multiplayer by default, it negates fiscal and net decking advantages; it's just tops.

However, it occurs to me that its stable format allows for a different type of play; true League play. Most of you are familiar with fantasy sports leagues, where you measure the performance of players throughout the season and the victory of your imaginary team is affected by the performance of real-world players over a season. In some leagues, a computer game like Madden is used to that players can focus more on the trading, buying, and the interactive portions of the game.

The Draft
A Magic Cube league would incorporate many of those ideas. The players pull their three 'booster packs' of fifteen, and draft as normal (taking one from their pack, then passing the pack to their left or right until all cards are chosen).

The Season
After The Draft, each player makes a 40 card deck out of his or her drafted cards (their roster) and there is a series of games (most likely multiplayer, but some one on one as well) constituting The Season. A player's deck may change between games as they switch out cards from their roster.

Trade, Recruiting, and Retirement
At the end of The Season, players can try to shuck off some of the cards that aren't pulling their weight. Each player can offer up to twice their ranking - 1 cards from their roster (1st place can offer 1, 2nd place can offer 3, 4th 5, 5th, 7, etc.).

Trade
Players discuss any terms of negotiation for trading offered cards. It doesn't have to be 1:1, but any trades made exist within the game and are binding (ie, you can't offer money, nor can you offer a future service (such as the forfeiture of a game) and renege later.). After Trade, players return any untraded cards they want to keep to their roster.

Recruitment/Retirement
Then Recruitment begins. Recruitment is basically another draft, with all offered cards being retired and a new card being recruited for each retired card. Seating places the player with the highest (numerical) ranking is the first player, with the next-highest (numerical) ranking on his right, descending to the player ranked 1st.

A regular draft begins, save for a few additions:
-There is only one booster, with one card in it for each card being retired.
-First player 'opens' and takes first pick, then passes right.
-Direction does not alternate, as there is only one pack.
-A player cannot draft more cards than they have retiring, and only takes one pick at a time.
-A player may opt not to pick during a round, but must pick to end recruitment.

Replicants
Once per season, starting with the highest (numerically) ranked player, a player may suggest that one of their offered, untraded cards is a replicant. Only one card may be suggested as a replicant. That player recruits normally and at the end, instead of being shuffled back into The Cube with the rest of the retired cards, the replicant is removed from the cube and a new card of the same color, from the same collection, suggested by that player, and ratified by The Cube owner, is shuffled in to replace it.

Optional(ha-ha!) Rule: Ante
Play some or all Cube League games with ante. Losers simply recruit the difference as if it was a retiring card and the winner gets additional (mandatory) offers for their spoils(which will be retired if no one trades for them).

Example: Arthur, Bruce, Clark, and Diana play a league game and ante up. Bruce wins, and has a roster with three extra cards while Arthur, Clark, and Diana are each short a card on their roster. Whenever Trade starts, Bruce offers his maximum of one of his cards for trade (2x1st place-1), plus the three he won for ante. Arthur is 4th and can offer up to seven cards, but only puts up one. Clark offers no cards. Diana offers two. No one trades, so recruitment begins. 

All seven offered cards are retired. A booster of seven cards is drawn out of the cube. Arthur was 4th, so he is the first player for recruitment. He takes one card (his limit), Clark has no retiring cards, so he's playing Wii and Diana is the next player. She takes one card and passes to Bruce. Bruce takes the first of his four picks and passes back to Diana (Arthur's completed all of his picks so he's out, and likely playing Wii Sports or something). Diana takes her second (and last) pick and the other three are Bruce's.