new magic idea

Jon Miller · May 31, 2003, 17:42

I lot of us like playing magic

wouldn't it be cool if we could play together?

all we would need is a spreadsheet program and 3 people (more would be cool)

one person would be the GM and would keep track of the decks and randomness

the other two would play

in order to simulate rarity there could be some sort of random card drawing mechanism

(I have given quite a bit of though to all of these things and would be interested in trying it)

who else is interested? if others are (or even if no one posts before I get bored again) I will post my ideas about how to do things)

Jon Miller

Jon Miller · May 31, 2003, 18:53

here is what I was thinking

everybody who was playing would get the same chance at the cards we were playing with (obviously not all), than people would make decks with them and see who was the best at apolyton

each card would have a rarity number which a random number (0-99) would be compared to, you would get that card if you were higher than it (this would be done 4 times)

than people could make decks and play as outlined above (I thought about it while walking home, it would work (As long as trustworthy GMs were found))

my ideas for rarity would be to divide the cards into 4 erras (As well as the rarities)
c u r
a 16 32 64
b 32 48 72
c 48 64 80
d 64 80 96

people could of course trade and do what they wanted with the cards they were playing with

than decks and tourneyments could be made

Jon miller

Jon Miller · May 31, 2003, 18:54

this idea mostly comes from me wondering how I would fare against some of you

Jon Miller

DinoDoc · May 31, 2003, 20:18

If you can decide on a format, I'd love to play.

Jon Miller · May 31, 2003, 22:28

I was thinking of something like

no more than 4 copies of any card in a deck (except lands)
standard rules
60 or more cards in a deck
no ante cards

and let a rarity system keep people from putting too many broke cards in a deck

Jon Miller

loinburger · May 31, 2003, 22:59

Type 1 rules (e.g., no ante cards, no more than 1 copy of certain broken cards like Fork or Sol Ring, all other bets are off)? Or Type 2 (only cards from recent expansions and the standard edition)?

I could make a shuffling/drawing program for the GM's...

Jon Miller · May 31, 2003, 23:08

type 1 would be better

and thanks (I know you are more skilled with that sort of thing than I, I was just thinking of using Excel)

Jon Miller

DinoDoc · May 31, 2003, 23:12

Are we limited to cards we own in making decks for the game?

loinburger · May 31, 2003, 23:19

JM: I was just thinking about the mechanics of gameplay -- the GM really ought to be in charge of drawing cards for the players (if players draw cards for themselves then the temptation would be too great to conveniently draw a Dark Ritual or Black Lotus or whatever right when they really need it), which means that he'll need some sort of program to handle the process. Ideally it would also be able to track the cards in each player's hand, for purposes of deciding which cards are randomly discarded (e.g. if a player is struck by a Hypnotic Spectre) or just to keep people from cheating ("Honest, I really did have a counterspell in my hand!"). The players would just need a spreadsheet or text file or whatever to track their decks as need be.

I've got finals in ten days, but I can take care of programming the necessaries after that. I imagine it'll take a while for people to arrange their decks etc. anyway.

DD: I certainly hope not, seeing as how I don't own any.

DinoDoc · May 31, 2003, 23:22

Quote:

Originally posted by loinburger
(if players draw cards for themselves then the temptation would be too great to conveniently draw a Dark Ritual or Black Lotus or whatever right when they really need it),

Black Lotus and other 0 cost mana generators really should be banned from our game.

Jon Miller · May 31, 2003, 23:28

Quote:

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Are we limited to cards we own in making decks for the game?

that would be hard to put down

I was thinking of some sort of rarity thing where everyone would have the same chance to have access to a card (but might not) so that everyone wouldnt' neccesarily be making uber decks

like if serra angel is a recent rare, there would be a 35% chance of getting one (x4 for 4 tries) so you would likely have 1 or 2 (if you wanted more, you would trade with someone else to get more (and they would get some card of yours))

this would make rarity still matter and would take care of thre all being uber decks

HJon Miller

loinburger · May 31, 2003, 23:28

We could play Type 1.5 rules, where the cards on the Type 1 Restricted list are banned. I'd suggest that, actually -- how many Yawgmoth's Bargains do you really need to crush somebody, particularly if you've also packed your deck with various Tutors?

Jon Miller · May 31, 2003, 23:28

Quote:

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Black Lotus and other 0 cost mana generators really should be banned from our game.

by my idea of using rarity, none (or maybe 1) would be in play ever

Jon Miller

Jon Miller · May 31, 2003, 23:30

Quote:

Originally posted by loinburger
JM: I was just thinking about the mechanics of gameplay -- the GM really ought to be in charge of drawing cards for the players (if players draw cards for themselves then the temptation would be too great to conveniently draw a Dark Ritual or Black Lotus or whatever right when they really need it), which means that he'll need some sort of program to handle the process. Ideally it would also be able to track the cards in each player's hand, for purposes of deciding which cards are randomly discarded (e.g. if a player is struck by a Hypnotic Spectre) or just to keep people from cheating ("Honest, I really did have a counterspell in my hand!"). The players would just need a spreadsheet or text file or whatever to track their decks as need be.

I've got finals in ten days, but I can take care of programming the necessaries after that. I imagine it'll take a while for people to arrange their decks etc. anyway.

DD: I certainly hope not, seeing as how I don't own any.

I think you could take care of everything with spreadsheets (and a radom number generator and a sort), but you are right a program would be better

Jon Miller

Jon Miller · May 31, 2003, 23:31

Quote:

Originally posted by loinburger
We could play Type 1.5 rules, where the cards on the Type 1 Restricted list are banned. I'd suggest that, actually -- how many Yawgmoth's Bargains do you really need to crush somebody, particularly if you've also packed your deck with various Tutors?

using my rarity idea, many of those cards would be rare, so hopefully there would not be many (among those who were playing) and it would not be broken (but a rare card here or two that might be in play and make things exciting)

Jon Miller

loinburger · May 31, 2003, 23:52

I agree with the rarity idea, but if the Restricted cards aren't banned, then at the very least they should probably receive their own special "rarity" category, particularly since IIRC some of the cards on the Restricted list aren't actually "rare."

Jon Miller · May 31, 2003, 23:55

ok, sounds lkike a good idea

Jon Miller

Jon Miller · June 1, 2003, 00:09

according to my rarity idea, this would define the rarities that people would have a chance at

a Seventh Edition
b Classic (Sixth Edition)
b Fifth Edition
c Fourth Edition
c Revised Edition
d Alpha, Beta, Unlimited

a Onslaught block Scourge Legions Onslaught
a Odyssey block Judgment Torment Odyssey
a Invasion block Apocalypse Planeshift Invasion
b Masques block Prophecy Nemesis Mercadian Masques
b Urza block Urza's Destiny Urza's Legacy Urza's Saga
b Tempest block Exodus Stronghold Tempest
b Mirage block Weatherlight Visions Mirage
b Ice Age block Alliances Homelands Ice Age
c Fallen Empires
c The Dark
c Legends
c Antiquities
d Arabian Nights

I am not sure if the invasion block should be a or b

Jon Miller

Jon Miller · June 1, 2003, 00:14

so if it was decided to play with the Black Lotus card (I think we shuold only play with the cards we want to, to make things easier) everyone would have 4 tries for the card

so someone would say that they would like the Black Lotus - Alpha, Beta, Unlimited - R to be played with

than the try that everyone would be attempting would be to get higher than a 96 (with random numbers between 0-99)

every person would have 4 attempts at this (each try they would have a 3% chance of making)

so if there were 10 people playing, there would be a good chance that someone woudl have a black lotus

Jon Miller

DinoDoc · June 1, 2003, 00:41

Anyone care to help me come up with a decent to good sliver deck for this game? Preferablly a 5 color one so I can try to take advantage of the Sliver Queen/Overlord.

Jon Miller · June 1, 2003, 00:45

why don't you see what cards you end up with first (

)

Jon Miller

DinoDoc · June 1, 2003, 00:47

I need one IRL anyway.

Jon Miller · June 1, 2003, 00:50

hmm, yah

that is cool

is there another thread I can give suggestions in (I have played them only, never had the cards to make one)

Jon Miller

Urban Ranger · June 1, 2003, 02:18

I have a better idea. Assign a number of points to each player, and assign costs to various cards according to rarity etc. So you can have a Beta Black Lotus if you want, but it'd be very expensive and the rest of your deck will be cheapo cards.

Ben Kenobi · June 1, 2003, 21:09

Dinodoc:

PM me, and I can give you a hand.

What cards do you already have, and which ones do you need?

As for this Magic game idea, why don't we try sealed deck?

This way no one can complain about an unfair advantage. All we would need is a proper seed for the card rarity so people don't get Black Lotus too often.

Finally, we should stick with the Restricted cards depending on the block that we play, so again to reduce the power of cards like Black Lotus.

I'd definitely play with these ideas considered.

SnowFire · June 1, 2003, 23:48

I wish I had looked at this thread earlier. Everyone, go to
www.e-league.com
and download Apprentice. It's a Freeware Magic shuffler. No pictures, but it does have every card ever made and easily allow you to tap, draw, etc. There are no rules either- you can move phases along and everything, but you do all the ajudication yourself. There need not be a GM for deck drawing, because the program handles that- but things like death from combat damage, etc. are handled by you.

If you don't want unlimited "Build whatever deck you want" stuff, there's also a sealed deck option. We can say "You have one Starter pack of 4th edition + 2 Boosters of Chronicles" for old school, or a nice modern "1 starter of Onslaught, 2 boosters of Legions, 2 boosters of Scourge."

Edit: I will say that I'm not a huge fan of too much cross-temporal mixing though. I like sealed decks with synergy. For instance, the Invasion block's theme was "Color matters" and has lots of color hosers, but also really encourages you to play multiple colors with mana-fixers and off-color abilities.

As for trading, that could get a bit dicey. Especially with Sealed deck play. Say there are 6 players. 4 of them don't trade much or just a little. Player A, however, has an excellent Blue & White evasion deck, while Player B has a powerful Black & Green destruction + stompy deck. Player A says to Player B "I'll give you all my Green & Black cards in exchange for all your Blue & White cards." As a result, Player A & B's decks are far more powerful than everyone else's, since it's like they drafted twice the number of packs!

Jon Miller · June 2, 2003, 00:21

I like corss temporal stuff, but we can do things

Jon Miller

Jon Miller · June 2, 2003, 00:30

don't no how to work it

Jon Miller

Daz · June 2, 2003, 06:46

One more thing.

There is a great freeware program that would help immensly.

Its called Magic Suitcase and has all cardlists, you can playtest your deck (shuffle and draw randomly) and there is stats about the deck (%of rares, ucommons and commons).

I havent chacked it for 5 years but it should be available...

We could play it without the "dealer", but no cheating...

Ben Kenobi · June 2, 2003, 13:12

Well I downloaded the Apprentice program and got the error: this program must run under Win32. I downloaded the patch first for WinME, so I'm not sure what I did wrong.

Any clue snowfire?