So, Eric and I were chatting today and we had the bright idea to start some topics that could generate some interesting debate. This is not such a thread. Not yet.
The conversation got me thinking about how Magic is a terrible two-player draft game. Yes yes, you can Grid Draft or Quilt or play Holleywood Squares or whatever, but it is missing some fundamentals. For one, there are perhaps too many colors. Secondly, too many of the cards that we value are great for their general purpose application. When I think of what I want in a dueling environment, I want a lot of picks and decisions to be made based on what the opponent is doing. If my opponent has Dark Confidant and Nimble Mongoose, all of a sudden I want Electrickery. If I have Electrickery, maybe now he wants Spellstutter Sprite. etc. etc.
Narrow cards come at their cost though. Namely, you want to see a lot of them and pick the ones you need (stay with me). Secondly, if you want narrow answers, you need to know that your opponent has a high probability of playing the type of thing that you narrowly answer.
Enter Microdrafting.
It's very vague right now, but the basic idea is that you play with small decks. Say, 15 - 20 cards. 10 life points.
My original idea was to have a stack of very cheap, interactive cards (almost everything under CMC 3), and lay out, say, 100 on the table (the actual card pool can be larger). You would then play the thing Rotisserie style.
The type of cards would all be very punchy, and life total management would be a big issue. Stuff like Meddling Mage, Mental Misstep, Inquisition of Kozilek, Spellstutter Sprite, Flickerwisp, Whipflare, Dismember, etc.
Burn would obviously have to be restrictive due to the decreased life total.
Well, after thinking about that for a while, an idea popped into my head:
Duplicate Battle Royale
In this format, each player would be given an identical stack of, say, 150 cards. They each create their first micro deck and battle each other. Winner keeps using his deck, and the loser puts the cards from his deck back in the box, not to be used for the rest of the session. Then he builds another micro deck to try and take down his opponent's deck. Keep retiring the cards from the losing decks, and play until one player wins 3/4/5 games/matches (whatever).
Also, winner of each game would be able to retire and replace up to three cards after each match. So if they brought in a narrow card to beat their opponent, they could switch to something more general for the next matchup.
The whole thing would be a really strategic and tactical resource management exercise.
So that's my format brew for the day. Thanks for your input!
The conversation got me thinking about how Magic is a terrible two-player draft game. Yes yes, you can Grid Draft or Quilt or play Holleywood Squares or whatever, but it is missing some fundamentals. For one, there are perhaps too many colors. Secondly, too many of the cards that we value are great for their general purpose application. When I think of what I want in a dueling environment, I want a lot of picks and decisions to be made based on what the opponent is doing. If my opponent has Dark Confidant and Nimble Mongoose, all of a sudden I want Electrickery. If I have Electrickery, maybe now he wants Spellstutter Sprite. etc. etc.
Narrow cards come at their cost though. Namely, you want to see a lot of them and pick the ones you need (stay with me). Secondly, if you want narrow answers, you need to know that your opponent has a high probability of playing the type of thing that you narrowly answer.
Enter Microdrafting.
It's very vague right now, but the basic idea is that you play with small decks. Say, 15 - 20 cards. 10 life points.
My original idea was to have a stack of very cheap, interactive cards (almost everything under CMC 3), and lay out, say, 100 on the table (the actual card pool can be larger). You would then play the thing Rotisserie style.
The type of cards would all be very punchy, and life total management would be a big issue. Stuff like Meddling Mage, Mental Misstep, Inquisition of Kozilek, Spellstutter Sprite, Flickerwisp, Whipflare, Dismember, etc.
Burn would obviously have to be restrictive due to the decreased life total.
Well, after thinking about that for a while, an idea popped into my head:
Duplicate Battle Royale
In this format, each player would be given an identical stack of, say, 150 cards. They each create their first micro deck and battle each other. Winner keeps using his deck, and the loser puts the cards from his deck back in the box, not to be used for the rest of the session. Then he builds another micro deck to try and take down his opponent's deck. Keep retiring the cards from the losing decks, and play until one player wins 3/4/5 games/matches (whatever).
Also, winner of each game would be able to retire and replace up to three cards after each match. So if they brought in a narrow card to beat their opponent, they could switch to something more general for the next matchup.
The whole thing would be a really strategic and tactical resource management exercise.
So that's my format brew for the day. Thanks for your input!
