General Microsealed for 5 - Feedback Requested

[MULRAH]

Hi all,

I'm interested in your thoughts on this variant format I want to try out with my players soon. I'm hoping you can notice issues or provide suggestions in advance of our session, so it avoids stumbling out of the gate.

This idea is based on Jason's Microsealed format but tweaks it for my group of five players, which includes both Magic veterans and newer players who would probably prefer it if we just skipped all the drafting and deckbuilding and handed them a deck to play. This variant tries to find a satisfying middle ground that challenges the veterans while also giving new players the opportunity to explore and learn.

Building on the original rules for Microsealed, I am considering the following:

1. A 360-card cube is divided five ways, such that every player starts with 72 cards in their pool.
2. Players each build a 15-card deck from their pool. The last person to arrive is the fifth player and is advised to hold off on building their deck.
3. The first four players pair off to play an initial round of best-of-3 matches. The fifth player can freely observe these matches but should also be preparing his deck so he can play as soon as a match is over.
4. At the end of each match, the loser may either a) take over the winner's deck or b) create a new deck. Either way, his losing deck is retired.
5. Whoever is playing the winning deck continues to play in a new match against whoever has been sitting out, observing matches, and building a new deck (initially the "fifth player" noted above, but it will rotate as the session goes on).
6. Whenever a player plays the same deck for two matches in a row, that deck will be retired at the end of the second match.
7. If a player would ever take back a deck that they built previously, that deck is immediately retired.
8. Match wins will be tracked for both players and decks. At the end of the session, players add their wins to those of all the decks they built. The player with the most wins is declared the winner of the session!

Some thoughts:

• I am hoping this approach will create a self-regulating semi-cooperative metagame in which players who struggle with deckbuilding can take over and learn from good decks, which will reward successful deckbuilders with "free" wins while also forcing them to dig deeper into their card pool more quickly. Eventually, they'll scrape the bottom of the barrel, and the decks they create will start losing.
• I like how--in theory--there can be a "deck to beat" over the course of the evening that everybody is trying to take down. A deck that goes 5-0 might be "oppressive," but the only way it would be so dominant would be if everybody had gotten the chance to play it, knowing full well that, while they might be getting a guaranteed win with a very powerful deck, they are also contributing wins to the player who initially built it.
• The main conundrum I see here is the lack of tension in a matchup where a player is playing a weak deck he just built against a better deck he built previously (now being played by someone else). That player will not care about the outcome of the match, as he'll get a "win" either way.

Thanks for any feedback you can provide!
- Chris

 

[Jason Waddell]

I think your ideas on the whole sound sensible. My biggest concern is with the "newer players who probably prefer if we just skipped all the drafting and deckbuilding" part. Microsealed is perhaps intimidating in such a setting. Ultimately you know your playgroup and what they can handle though.

I am a bit confused about rule 6 though. How does that occur in this context?

 

[MULRAH]

Hi Jason,

Thanks for your reply. Really, the play preferences come down to:

1. Veteran player who plays extensively on MTGO, is game for most everything, but is less inclined to engage in something like a bunch of precons
2. Experienced player who prefers drafting and enjoys deckbuilding
3. Less experienced player who likes sealed and deckbuilding, probably thinks drafting takes too long
4. Newer player who prefers not to draft and is intimidated by deckbuilding, even though he tends to put together winning decks that contradict his claims of ineptitude

I feel like Microsealed has the potential to hit on all these players preferences. Player 4 could potentially build one 15-card deck that loses and then play his opponents' decks the rest of the evening, which would basically be his dream of playing nothing but precons. Player 1 could be be forced (much to his enjoyment) to build a new deck after every match while his other decks rack up wins in the hands of other players.
Rule 6 would come up if the loser of a match chooses not to take over the deck of the winning player. Then the winning player would keep his deck for a second match versus the current "fifth player," while the loser becomes the new "fifth player," observing the other match and preparing a new deck.
- Chris

 

[MULRAH]

Ah, rule 6 should be tweaked to "If a player would ever play a deck for a third time in a row, that deck is immediately retired." That way, the match loser still has the option to take over the deck.

 

[safra]

I really like your scoring system. I think this has a lot of promise.

 

[Knifethrower]

If deck wins were some fraction of player wins (1/2, 3/4) then play would always be more important than decks in your scenario of concern.

 

[MULRAH]

If deck wins were some fraction of player wins (1/2, 3/4) then play would always be more important than decks in your scenario of concern.

This is a good idea. I think I'm going to give 1 point per per game won by a player and 1 point per match won by that player's deck(s). If you go 2-1 with your own deck, you get 3 points, and your opponent gets 1. If I go 2-0 with someone else's deck, I get 2 points, the deckbuilder gets 1, and my opponent gets 0 (and then has the tempting option of taking over the deck I just beat them with). Etc.

 

[MULRAH]

Hey everyone,

We tried this last night, and it went over very well! We had five players who each built two or three decks on the evening. I had been hoping the metagame would be a factor, as we typically don't see this manifest itself in a single draft. In the second round, I got my ass kicked by the eventual winner, who built a deck with the sole intent of beating the deck I was playing and then subsequently lost to a deck designed to beat it.

That same player built a flexible deck with a variety of answers in the first round that changed hands all the way through the evening, racking up points for that player the whole time. Despite it being "the deck to beat," I don't think anyone really metagamed against it, which paved the road for this player's ultimate victory and will hopefully be a lesson to everyone else for future sessions. I know that sounds like the metagame was not a factor, but I think the deck's relatively easy path to victory was circumstantial.

Just in case, I'll probably assign the last session's winner to be the person who sits out the first round of matches next time. This will allow other players' decks the opportunity to emerge early as "the deck to beat/play," and it will push the premise that the metagame matters, because I guarantee you this player will be designing his first deck to beat whatever he saw in the first round.

The main challenge in this format is probably scheduling. The faster players tend to be the better players. They finish their rounds earlier and have more time to prep for their next game. Slower players end their matches feeling like they don't have time to build a new deck, incentivizing them to take over the winning player's deck. There was a big lull last night as the two fastest players were waiting for another match to conclude, as they were scheduled to face both the other players next; I probably should have just had those two play against each other, which might have flipped things a bit, giving the other two players the chance to finish their match and then observe the faster/better players.

As an aside, we saw eleven different decks built over the course of the evening, including niche "one-card" decks like 5C Draco and tight synergy decks I thought might have a hard time emerging from sealed pools (e.g., Monored Goblins). It was great to see such diversity, and players all seemed interested in the puzzle of both building a single deck and how to balance the deployment of their whole pool.

All in all, this might have been my favorite evening of Magic so far! It really took things in an exciting new direction, and I can't wait to try the format again. Thanks, Jason, for such a great idea and to everyone else for their suggestions on this thread!

- Chris

 

[simic]

@MULRAH if you remember, when you did this, were people allowed to modify the winner's decks they took? (So I lose to someone, take their deck, and can then sideboard in cards from my pool before/after game 1?)

 

[MULRAH]

I highly recommend encouraging sideboarding in microsealed.

1. With such a vast pool relative to your deck, sideboarding offers a lot of choice and just a couple changes can flip your deck from being a loser to being unbeatable in a particular matchup. This skill, which provides marginal advantage in other limited formats, is absolutely essential here.
2. I used to be worried about variety in microsealed, as playing the same 15-card deck repeatedly can get old quickly. That was before I realized how important sideboarding is. Now that I do it more proactively, microsealed sessions do not get old. Sideboarding three cards is like swapping out twelve cards in a 60-card deck, and in many cases it feels like you are playing something completely new.

That said, the instance you're describing never came up in our game. I primarily came up with that rule for the one player in the group who was not into deckbuilding. (Microsealed takes the deckbuilding to the extreme, so it's pretty much the opposite of what he wanted). He could make a deck once (the best deck possible with his pool) and then play with others' decks once his deck lost. He had no interest in tweaking decks, so sideboarding did not come up.

Sorry for the late reply! I hope this response helps in some way.