General Cubelets, Dandân, and other shared deck formats

[ellogeyen]

Now my brain is wondering what else you could share.

An idea that sounds dumb but might be kinda neat would be sharing a single life total. Bring back the rule that you only die if you have 0 life at the end of a phase (instead of immediately dying when you hit 0), and you might have something. You might need to start at a much lower total for it to work, but there might be some interesting tension hiding there.

Sharing a hand?

Sorcery-speed things can only be cast during your turn, instant-speed things only on your opponent's turn, so every card can be played by only one player each turn. Faithless Looting becomes a whole different card in this context.

 

[LadyMapi]

I like it, and I like how it completely transforms some other cards:

 

[LadyMapi]

Wait a second:

 

[ravnic]

It's not entirely a shared-deck format, but I have been theorizing something kind of comparable. Haven't made an actual card list and playtested it yet though, but the broad strokes are:

- Small decks, 10 cards, maybe a few more, with no lands
- Lower life total, let's say 10 for consistency
- Drawing from an empty deck makes you lose 1 life
- Starting hand size is lower, in the ballpark of 5
- The player going second gets a free Wastes into their hand

Make a deck either by just grabbing some random cards from the cube, or use a quick draft-method to get enough cards, you won't use them for more than one round. The game starts with a collection of basic lands, and maybe some curated set of nonbasics, in exile. The gimmick is that, once on your turn at sorcery speed, as a special action, you can swap a card in your hand, with any card in exile. You are basically exchanging them, but from a rules POV, it's more accurate to say that the two cards perpetually become copies of each other, but even that is probably not entirely accurate. Any references to the exiled card persist on the new one, you don't lose any counters. In effect, it doesn't become a new object, they just magically took the place of each other in the game.

The level 0 gameplay of this is pretty basic. You have to swap cards in your hand with the lands so you can actually play spells. Later in the game, you can throw away the cards in your hand to pick up the cards your opponent tossed away earlier, and they can do likewise, so there is some tension between which cards you expose to your opponent and what color you want to move into.

When you take the card pool into account, it can get pretty crazy. If you Swords to Plowshares a creature, you can choose to swap it with a card in your hand, in effect stealing it. You can keep rebuying the same flashback spell over and over by discarding a card. Flickerwisp turns into a Show and Tell, and Rebound also becomes a cheat mechanic, but importantly one that your opponent can easily disrupt. Playing around a Banisher Priest or Suspend can get really strange.

I tried this recently. I just grabbed ~50 old core set cards and put two of each basic into what we called "the bazaar". I then sat down with my gf and told her "once per turn, sorcery speed, you can exchange one card in your hand with one from the bazaar."

It worked extraodinarily well. Mana problems didn't exist really, but there was a fight for resources. I took both islands early, so she couldn't use her blue catds, forcing her to trade away good cards like Thieving Magpie which I could later pick up.

And even with these simple cards, thanks to "the bazaar", there were always tons of decisions to make and stuff to do in every turn.

I would recommend doong this with lower conplexity cards, as the format can very quickly lead to decision paralysis.

 

[alvoi]

I tried this recently. I just grabbed ~50 old core set cards and put two of each basic into what we called "the bazaar". I then sat down with my gf and told her "once per turn, sorcery speed, you can exchange one card in your hand with one from the bazaar."

Ooh I really like this idea! Were you playing with a shared deck or two different piles of cards?

 

[ravnic]

We has a shared deck. It has a really cool dynamic, you can grab both of a land early and thus mostly force your opponent to trade away their cards of that color. Sweet tension.

We didn't share the graveyard, because I don't like the dynamic of randomly losing the value of my Anarchist I had traded for. Oh, and I forgot to mention we started with 10 life only to encourage people to play more proactively.

 

[alvoi]

We has a shared deck. It has a really cool dynamic, you can grab both of a land early and thus mostly force your opponent to trade away their cards of that color. Sweet tension.

Yeah it's interesting, you have to balance well the colours though, for otherwise the first few land picks become trying to steal the most powerful lands. You could also add something like Manalith in the deck, just so that there is always hope to find the missing colour, idk

Anyway, I really like the idea, also because you can do it as you did with core set cards hence starting with very simple cards but you get a lot of depth to the format since you add more layers of play. Lovely idea

 

[Mown]

I tried this recently. I just grabbed ~50 old core set cards and put two of each basic into what we called "the bazaar". I then sat down with my gf and told her "once per turn, sorcery speed, you can exchange one card in your hand with one from the bazaar."

Yeah that was the basic idea, and I imagine it works pretty well just like that, but then I decided to get weird with it.

 

[ravnic]

Yeah it's interesting, you have to balance well the colours though, for otherwise the first few land picks become trying to steal the most powerful lands. You could also add something like Manalith in the deck, just so that there is always hope to find the missing colour, idk

Anyway, I really like the idea, also because you can do it as you did with core set cards hence starting with very simple cards but you get a lot of depth to the format since you add more layers of play. Lovely idea

I've added an Utopia Tree and, more spicy, a Fellwar Stone to the mix.

 

[Velrun]

Library Things

Here you go <3

 

[StrionicAdventurer]

OUTSTANDING. I really wanted an Adventure card for Library Things, but Tempest Hart was too far off-theme (though a great mechanical match).

Hearth Elemental is perfect, and will likely replace Surreal Memoir (which is mechanically a good fit, but flavorfully it's leaning very hard on the word "Memoir".)

 

[blacksmithy]

this is a nice tarmogoyf

 

[NimbusToad]

I was batting around an idea for a randomized emblem mechanic. Something like this:

You start the game with these cards face-down in the BONUS ZONE:

1 Furnace of Rath
1 Heartbeat of Spring
1 Intruder Alarm
1 Lightmine Field
1 Maelstrom Nexus
1 Rites of Flourishing
1 Teferi's Puzzle Box
1 Trinisphere
1 Vedalken Orrery
1 Winter Orb

Once a turn, during their turn, at sorcery speed, players may choose to shuffle the BONUS ZONE and reveal the top card. Cards on top of the BONUS ZONE are in play.

I'm picturing adding this mechanic to a fairly vanilla battlebox-type shared deck minigame. I want some cards to push the game forward, some to stall it, and some to create chaos. Any thoughts, refinements, card suggestions?

 

[Brad]

I was batting around an idea for a randomized emblem mechanic. Something like this:

You start the game with these cards face-down in the BONUS ZONE:

1 Furnace of Rath
1 Heartbeat of Spring
1 Intruder Alarm
1 Lightmine Field
1 Maelstrom Nexus
1 Rites of Flourishing
1 Teferi's Puzzle Box
1 Trinisphere
1 Vedalken Orrery
1 Winter Orb

Once a turn, during their turn, at sorcery speed, players may choose to shuffle the BONUS ZONE and reveal the top card. Cards on top of the BONUS ZONE are in play.

I'm picturing adding this mechanic to a fairly vanilla battlebox-type shared deck minigame. I want some cards to push the game forward, some to stall it, and some to create chaos. Any thoughts, refinements, card suggestions?

I think that having one emblem in play for the entire game makes more sense than changing the emblem periodically. If it's a shared deck, the decks should theoretically be able to exploit the emblem to a similar degree.

I'd probably go a bit more mild with the effects. Howling Mine OR Exploration, rather than Rites of Flourishing. I'd like to see the emblem have an impact on the game without completely warping it, but that's just me.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I was batting around an idea for a randomized emblem mechanic. Something like this:

You start the game with these cards face-down in the BONUS ZONE:

1 Furnace of Rath
1 Heartbeat of Spring
1 Intruder Alarm
1 Lightmine Field
1 Maelstrom Nexus
1 Rites of Flourishing
1 Teferi's Puzzle Box
1 Trinisphere
1 Vedalken Orrery
1 Winter Orb

Once a turn, during their turn, at sorcery speed, players may choose to shuffle the BONUS ZONE and reveal the top card. Cards on top of the BONUS ZONE are in play.

I'm picturing adding this mechanic to a fairly vanilla battlebox-type shared deck minigame. I want some cards to push the game forward, some to stall it, and some to create chaos. Any thoughts, refinements, card suggestions?

So, remember Planes? The card type? They came with a pretty cool mechanic where one Plane card with a game-altering ability affected all players at once, and you could roll a die on your turn to planeswalk to (that is, draw) a new Plane. The first roll on each of your turns was free, each additional roll in the same turn cost a cumulative 1 mana (so second roll in a turn cost , third roll cost , etc.) They actually came with special dice with four blank sides, a chaos symbol, and a planeswalker symbol. I think you could use those for this idea very well. E.g. planeswalk = bury current effect card and reveal the next, chaos = shuffle current effect card and graveyard of effect cards first before revealing a new one.

 

[Rusje]

I was batting around an idea for a randomized emblem mechanic. Something like this:

You start the game with these cards face-down in the BONUS ZONE:

1 Furnace of Rath
1 Heartbeat of Spring
1 Intruder Alarm
1 Lightmine Field
1 Maelstrom Nexus
1 Rites of Flourishing
1 Teferi's Puzzle Box
1 Trinisphere
1 Vedalken Orrery
1 Winter Orb

Once a turn, during their turn, at sorcery speed, players may choose to shuffle the BONUS ZONE and reveal the top card. Cards on top of the BONUS ZONE are in play.

I'm picturing adding this mechanic to a fairly vanilla battlebox-type shared deck minigame. I want some cards to push the game forward, some to stall it, and some to create chaos. Any thoughts, refinements, card suggestions?

I would make it before the untap step you may change the emblem. In this way one avoids double dipping in the anthem. If the emblem holds for both persons then one can go wild with the emblems.

 

[Warped]

Long time no post for me, but I miss this place dearly! I've been working on a mono black shared deck format and was looking for some extra sets of eyes for the revised draft I have. It's based around Ovalchase Daredevil. The full card rundown is on the tappedout page description. I know this is a cube forum but I was wondering if I should make a dedicated thread here for this project. Anyways, here's the list!

https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/ovalchase-black-metal-1/?cb=1703039591

 

[StrionicAdventurer]

I've been tinkering with another one of these concepts, looking for a mono-red Forgetful Fish-like experience. I'm calling this one "Bird by Bird."



This one leverages the shared graveyard (similar to the Ovalchase Daredevil design from Warped above) to create little minigames between players trying to recur different types of Phoenix while managing their opponent's board and manipulate the top card of the deck. Since different Phoenixes have different requirements, my hope is that players will have to make tense choices about which ones to recur, rather than being able to quickly snowball a big army of birds out of nowhere.

Damage is dealt strictly in increments of 2 and 4, for easy tracking of life totals. The most influential card in the current design is undoubtedly Spellpyre Phoenix, whose recursion minigame requires a certain density of cycling cards in the deck. There's a chance I might cut this card in favor of two more Firewing Phoenix in order to free up some card slots, or Kuldotha Phoenix if I decide I want to start putting Treasure and Blood tokens in the mix. But I actually think cycling is good for the environment (and of course this whole concept is totally untested, lol).

 

[Hathaway]

I've added an Utopia Tree and, more spicy, a Fellwar Stone to the mix.

Do you have a list for this? Sounds like a great way to jam a game or two over coffee.

 

[ravnic]

Do you have a list for this? Sounds like a great way to jam a game or two over coffee.

It's not really been tested yet, but the one game was very fun and super deep.

https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/TheBazaar

 

[LadyMapi]

I stumbled on this thing recently.

I really like the Blood damage rule (it's positively inspired) and the cheeky Divert/Ricochet Trap tech.

 

[Tavahka]

That blood damage rule is so clever! Thematic and concise. I love it. Really gets wheels turning in my brain too.

 

[StrionicAdventurer]

The new Ravnica releases have some fun new cards for my Library Things project. I've collected about half the cards I need for this minigame, and I remain delighted by it, although I've never played it.

Most importantly: this guy



He'll be replacing Laboratory Maniac for now. I want the pivot into self-mill to be a real victory condition in this game, and Living Conundrum is more flavorful and also (in my opinion) a more interesting way to win the game like this.

Next up we've got



Replacing Monster Manual, which was very flavorful and reasonably functional, but also kind of expensive for a card I already own (and don't want multiple copies).

And of course:



Replacing Flamekin Village, which is just kind of a land card. I might put the Simic and Gruul Clue Room Lands in here, too, but the game is simply incomplete without Library.

The longer I look at this list (and the bigger the Maybeboard grows) the more I think I might transform the project from a shared-deck minigame to a 180-card RUG Cube for Grid Drafting. That would make it easier to drop cards like Thunderous Wrath, which is fun in a shared-deck format but doesn't have any Library flavor. That flavor concern seems to be the thing I like most about tinkering with this project, so it might be time to lean in.

 

[Warped]

I've finally had some more time to devote to working on the monoblack tower again, and I am torn! As much as I love Ovalchase Daredevil, I think that Grim Reminder is way cooler as a concept card wincon wise. It's also much cooler to play around with reshuffles and Misinformation. I'm in love with it, but I'm not sure how creatureless tower will resonate with most players.

I'm still weary of how much game knowledge I want players to have regular access to, since the recipe for good tension is ensuring some level of unknown elements in the game state. To this end, I understand cards like Grim Reminder, Psychotic Episode and Lantern of Insight give away a lot of information. I'm still on the fence about the lantern, but I'm pretty okay with one time knowledge giveaways like Mishra's Bauble, mindgames from Misinformation, and 1 time setup from Brainstone.

Full hand checks and continual knowledge I'm more concerned with, but I think if I run enough cantrips and other filtering effects I can still make for an exciting environment where you need to take risk when plays are made. With enough filtering, deckout as the other "wincon" to fight over can be more obtainable without taking too much time as well. To this end I think finding a slimmer library size might help speed games along, so 60-70 cards is my current goal.

StrionicResonator is spot on about cyclers, and in dandan they are one of my favorite ways to interact in the Memory Lapse, Metamorphose, Brainstorm, and Predict wars. I see it as similar in my format, and I am looking to add a healthy amount of it to keep the game fluid and more interactive.