Two randomized libraries. 60-card minimal spell library & 30-card minimal land library
Rules:
Both libraries are randomized.
Each player starts the game with only one spell from the top of their library. Every instance of "draw a card" has the player choose which library to draw from. Spells and lands are placed in their respective libraries if they are sent back to a library. Mill cards can only target the spell library. Only one mulligan (for one spell card) is allowed at the start.
Benefits:
Mana flood & mana drought are completely eliminated. Everyone gets to play the game every game.
No one starts off with card disadvantage.
Every strategy has to be developed a lot slower, which leads to more interaction. No more pre-determined outcomes based on hand size/quality.
The variance is increased by having two randomized libraries (90 cards worth).
A 60-card spell library means a lot more action cards to build upon.
The choice of spell or land is all up to the player.
A 30-card randomized land library means mono-color decks have the mana advantage they were always supposed to have (consistency).
Sacrifices:
Some cards will have to be banned because they were designed with lands and spells in the same library in mind ( like Warp World). There are hundreds of useless cards in mtg currently, so sacrificing some to create a better product is a great tradeoff, especially when cards get redesigned all the time.
My first question for you is... Have you tried playing this way?
It's hard to say exactly what without trying myself, but I feel like there are a lot more pros and cons than what you listed there. This kind of major rules change would have a significant impact on how decks get built. You say it would encourage longer games with more interaction, but I could see the opposite happening. For example, you could build burn decks that don't get any dead draws because most of them don't need more than 3 lands to work.
Maybe if people start playing this way, it could become a new format, but I think I've seen people propose similar things in the past.
My first question for you is... Have you tried playing this way?
It's hard to say exactly what without trying myself, but I feel like there are a lot more pros and cons than what you listed there. This kind of major rules change would have a significant impact on how decks get built. You say it would encourage longer games with more interaction, but I could see the opposite happening. For example, you could build burn decks that don't get any dead draws because most of them don't need more than 3 lands to work.
Maybe if people start playing this way, it could become a new format, but I think I've seen people propose similar things in the past.
The same could be done with life gain, land destruction, discard, prevention, etc.
Having to first draw three lands means you aren't getting more spells until later. Burn and aggro have always been fast, but with this setup, they can't just throw their entire hand on the field in 1-2 turns (they have to first build a hand). It all depends on the match-up though. for example, say a mono red deck only needs two-three lands and they've chosen to draw one land and the next two turns draw spells. Having an established meta, players are going to be watching out for simple strategies like this and can easily counteract them with life gain attached to bodies. Either enter the battlefield creatures or lifelink works. A red player now has to think about what to use their limited resources on at this time (the opponent or their creatures/permanents. Two shocks is diminished by just playing a Kitchen Finks, Martyr of Sands, Teyo, the Shieldmage or even a creature deck with Auriok Champion. Three mana wouldn't help against a deck that has something like Tarmogoyf or a weenie deck with the same (or lower) curve. Mid-range just catches up in a hurry, especially if they're using ramp. At that point, it's a race. I like that type of interaction. A whole bunch of tradeoffs.
Say Wizards did use this setup, they can now add cards and design cards around it and remedy any issues that would come up.
Yes, I've been testing this out since 2016 with friends while still playing the normal way. The sacrifice above is the only thing that needs addressing. It's the primary way we play now when playing paper magic. I tried Arena for a couple of weeks and it's real fun (love the animations and sound effects), but I don't miss being handcuffed by my mana in the slightest.
Historically, there have been numerous proposals for alleviating mana screw. Going as far back as 1996, I can recall a letter written to Duelist suggesting a new draft-like (draft wasn’t a thing yet) format where non-land cards could be played as a land card for the colors on their casting cost. (Notably, gold cards can be played as dual or triple color lands.) Dual decks have been proposed as well, not sure when I first heard about them though. There were variations ranging from 60-X for the spells and lands decks all the way up to an actual shared 5C lands deck to draw from. Then there is the well-received omniscience draft format that eschews lands entirely. I don’t recall any of the proposed methods actually restrict you to a starting hand of 1 card. Closest would be omniscience draft that starts you off with three. There might have been one before, I just don’t remember.
If I’m understanding the rules of this format, the key cards to watch out for are the ones that allow a player to draw additional cards or cantrips. I suppose the ones that generate additional card value such as the upcoming Adventure cards would be a thing too. To that end, I imagine cards like Narset, Parter of Veils would be an all star, especially when combined with a card similar to Howling Mine.
The other problem is knowing if a card your opponent draws is a land or a spell depending entirely on which deck you draw. This could influence strategies like hand targeting spells and how they’re played.
Would be interesting to see how it all plays out as a side format, like Brawl.
I'm pretty sure the "cards library/ lands library" thing has been tried as far back as the beginning of MTG, by Richard Garfield no less. It's a fine system and there's no reason not to do it, but it'll never be an actual competitive format.
As a casual format, there's no reason not to play this way. It works as intended to alleviate flood/screw. It kinda needs to stay casual though. Otherwise it unfairly favors strategies that can get by with only a few lands.
Random land drops is a massive part of the game's balance beyond color screw. It ensures that a 7 drop is much more risky to play and that low count land decks such as red aggro easier run out of fuel.
You can absolutely change the game around playing like that and it works, its just VERY different kind of game, as many MANY cards change in nature and functionality.
Randomness in itself is a good and bad thing for magic.
If you want to eliminate randomness from lands entirely you would simply allow players to choose like 10 lands and play them at will from the sideboard, so you are guaranteed to have all the colors and quantity of mana you want.
However you need to errata a ton of cards and change the entire game around that fact, which is not something that is really "worth" doing these changes as the game functions pretty well as it is and the games you lose for being mana screwed give mechanics that fix and help with finding lands a much bigger appeal (like land-cycling, scry, fetchlands and so on).
----
Lands are also utility cards, which is a problem as they are not "just" mana sources.
If you want to make a deck full of lands, you would need to change the game to ensure they are actually only mana sources, or even go as far and only allow basic lands in them, so nobody can mess with it.
If you want utility lands, you have to play them as "spells", not in the land deck.
Simply having 2 decks to shuffle is also annoying, if you are able to tutor in both libraries its an extra level of handling them.
Always separating them would require like 2 different colors of sleeves or something, which is also a problem.
Many issues with the approach, but it CAN work.
In Limited for example , like a Draft playing like this is really great, as you can put basic lands in a land deck and ensure nobody is screwed over, they can always play lands, and if a set is designed to take that in account, it would be good (you cant really do stuff like "landfall" etc.).
----
With magics vast card pool radical changes to the games mechanics come at a pretty heavy cost, which is often the biggest argument against any changes, as they need to have tremendous upsides to counteract these costs.
You can absolutely change the game around playing like that and it works, its just VERY different kind of game, as many MANY cards change in nature and functionality.
Randomness in itself is a good and bad thing for magic.
If you want to eliminate randomness from lands entirely you would simply allow players to choose like 10 lands and play them at will from the sideboard, so you are guaranteed to have all the colors and quantity of mana you want.
However you need to errata a ton of cards and change the entire game around that fact, which is not something that is really "worth" doing these changes as the game functions pretty well as it is and the games you lose for being mana screwed give mechanics that fix and help with finding lands a much bigger appeal (like land-cycling, scry, fetchlands and so on).
----
Lands are also utility cards, which is a problem as they are not "just" mana sources.
If you want to make a deck full of lands, you would need to change the game to ensure they are actually only mana sources, or even go as far and only allow basic lands in them, so nobody can mess with it.
If you want utility lands, you have to play them as "spells", not in the land deck.
Simply having 2 decks to shuffle is also annoying, if you are able to tutor in both libraries its an extra level of handling them.
Always separating them would require like 2 different colors of sleeves or something, which is also a problem.
Many issues with the approach, but it CAN work.
In Limited for example , like a Draft playing like this is really great, as you can put basic lands in a land deck and ensure nobody is screwed over, they can always play lands, and if a set is designed to take that in account, it would be good (you cant really do stuff like "landfall" etc.).
----
With magics vast card pool radical changes to the games mechanics come at a pretty heavy cost, which is often the biggest argument against any changes, as they need to have tremendous upsides to counteract these costs.
MTG will never become a giant in the esports realm with mana flood and mana drought. Variance is fun and interesting, but being handcuffed by having mana in a the spell deck is counterproductive. Watching people lose games (like LSV in a grand finals) because of a design flaw is not fun or fair. Some card game is going to eventually going to fix those flaws while containing a deep gameplay experience. Many are looking to uproot MTG as is already known.
Many have been looking to uproot Magic for ages. Many have also experimented with other systems for "fixing" the mana system, and I would argue those fixes have not really improved those games. Made them different sure, but better not at all. You could go give Kaijudo a try if you'd like and see how it goes, it has a different land system. Or any number of other games. None of them have really lasted for any length of time.
As well calling it a design flaw is not really accurate. It's a design that has pros and cons, it isn't 100% bad, or even majorly so.
Many have been looking to uproot Magic for ages. Many have also experimented with other systems for "fixing" the mana system, and I would argue those fixes have not really improved those games. Made them different sure, but better not at all. You could go give Kaijudo a try if you'd like and see how it goes, it has a different land system. Or any number of other games. None of them have really lasted for any length of time.
As well calling it a design flaw is not really accurate. It's a design that has pros and cons, it isn't 100% bad, or even majorly so.
That's because most of those games were either marketed very poorly during their circulation, had power creep issues due to lack of proper playtesting, lacked good Organized Play (let alone a Judge Program), or they were tied to source material that was mostly restricted toward its own time constraints. It's not so much that these games' resource systems for "fixing" Magic's mana system are terrible when a lot of times the LGS doesn't want to take the risk of investing their resources into a game that may or may not sell.
Most of it has to do with building an active community outside of social media cause without it you're going to have difficulty finding playgroups for specific games at your LGS. Unfortunately technology has made us more lazy which I blame on these games becoming more casual oriented than competitive. On one hand If your game is too competitive then you're only looking to get more Solitaire plays out of your experience which tends to make players more reclusive rather than inclusive. It's sort of a balancing act as you can't really have it both ways.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
This 'fix' like so many before it has fundamentally failed to correctly identify the problem and only address the problem. This 'fix' is more trying to eliminate the mana system as a dynamic part of the game rather than fix its problem.
The problem of the mana system is screw and flood. To fix screw you want some way to ensure decks can consistantly hit land drops 1-3(4) on turns 1-3(4) without giving an unfair advantage to decks that only want 3 or 4 lands. And to fix flood you want a method of turning excess lands into a resource that doesn't invalidate other strategies or encourage land stuffing.
This 'fix' appears to address the initial problems, constantly hitting early land drops and not hit too many excess lands. However it ignores the secondary portion of those problems. Not giving an advantage to decks that want minimal land and making running lands an actual cost. It has its second portion to address this, starting with only 1 card in hand. That might adress those problems but it also radically changes how the game is played and what strategies are viable. This in turn creates not a fix that can be applied to all of magic but instead creates a format that might have fixed mana problems.
Look, this has been proposed since the stone age of MTG. I'm going to ignore your suggestion to have players start with only one card in hand because it is absolutely ludicrous (so I play a ramp deck and start with a 6-drop in hand. whats my game plan?).
The problem with your "solution" of two decks is that it eliminates one of the core mechanics of the game, wich is risk management. If I can draw lands consistently I can play high-CMC cards consistently, without regards to the risk if I ever get that many lands. At the same time, I could run decks that top out at 3 drops and have a perfect game 90% of the time. I think you are completely wrong suggesting the meta would be slower, everyone would be playing RDW because it could perform near perfect every single game. Good deck builders try to minimize risk of having a flood or drought scenario by increasing deck flow in some way. The other end of the spectrum are high risk high reward decks, which are less consistent but maybe feel more rewarding. Your solution would take those nuances away.
If you are convinced that you are on to something, just playtest this. Take 5-10 decks and play them against each other again and again. Then come back with some (anecdotal) evidence. You would be the first to report that this method improved the game.
Also stsrting out with so few spell resourcesmeans that card draw(blue) becomes super powerful or going first and thoughsiezing your oppoant effectivly mind twists your opponant.... the player to draw a divination effect first or strips the oppants resources first will have an advatage. This also exacerbates the advantage of the player going first significantly. Also this system realy rewatds player to not play any spell over 3/4 mana....the games where your opening hand is a 4 drop means you lose. Also any lands that tap for more than 1 mana, draws a card, become even more broken.
Just play a deck of 4 the rack all of the 1 to 3 mana effects in the game like it a few sinkholes/ smallpox effects and 1 mana hand destruction and go to town... just kidding. There would need to be a banned list of over 1000 cards for this to work so spikes don't just break the game. You would need to ban any land with an effect other that genersting mana, and all lands that could produce more than 1 mana, all cantrips with cost of 2 or less, all discard with cost 2 or less any planeswalker less than 4 mana...the player to get their Wrenn and Six or Liliana of the Veil first would just wreck house. Lets see this format would need to ban any aggressive ramp or draw effects, and any etra tuurn card....since with an opening hand of 1 would actually magnify their power.
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Problems:
Mana flood & mana drought
Solution:
Two randomized libraries. 60-card minimal spell library & 30-card minimal land library
Rules:
Both libraries are randomized.
Each player starts the game with only one spell from the top of their library. Every instance of "draw a card" has the player choose which library to draw from. Spells and lands are placed in their respective libraries if they are sent back to a library. Mill cards can only target the spell library. Only one mulligan (for one spell card) is allowed at the start.
Benefits:
Mana flood & mana drought are completely eliminated. Everyone gets to play the game every game.
No one starts off with card disadvantage.
Every strategy has to be developed a lot slower, which leads to more interaction. No more pre-determined outcomes based on hand size/quality.
The variance is increased by having two randomized libraries (90 cards worth).
A 60-card spell library means a lot more action cards to build upon.
The choice of spell or land is all up to the player.
A 30-card randomized land library means mono-color decks have the mana advantage they were always supposed to have (consistency).
Sacrifices:
Some cards will have to be banned because they were designed with lands and spells in the same library in mind ( like Warp World). There are hundreds of useless cards in mtg currently, so sacrificing some to create a better product is a great tradeoff, especially when cards get redesigned all the time.
It's hard to say exactly what without trying myself, but I feel like there are a lot more pros and cons than what you listed there. This kind of major rules change would have a significant impact on how decks get built. You say it would encourage longer games with more interaction, but I could see the opposite happening. For example, you could build burn decks that don't get any dead draws because most of them don't need more than 3 lands to work.
Maybe if people start playing this way, it could become a new format, but I think I've seen people propose similar things in the past.
Art is life itself.
The same could be done with life gain, land destruction, discard, prevention, etc.
Having to first draw three lands means you aren't getting more spells until later. Burn and aggro have always been fast, but with this setup, they can't just throw their entire hand on the field in 1-2 turns (they have to first build a hand). It all depends on the match-up though. for example, say a mono red deck only needs two-three lands and they've chosen to draw one land and the next two turns draw spells. Having an established meta, players are going to be watching out for simple strategies like this and can easily counteract them with life gain attached to bodies. Either enter the battlefield creatures or lifelink works. A red player now has to think about what to use their limited resources on at this time (the opponent or their creatures/permanents. Two shocks is diminished by just playing a Kitchen Finks, Martyr of Sands, Teyo, the Shieldmage or even a creature deck with Auriok Champion. Three mana wouldn't help against a deck that has something like Tarmogoyf or a weenie deck with the same (or lower) curve. Mid-range just catches up in a hurry, especially if they're using ramp. At that point, it's a race. I like that type of interaction. A whole bunch of tradeoffs.
Say Wizards did use this setup, they can now add cards and design cards around it and remedy any issues that would come up.
Yes, I've been testing this out since 2016 with friends while still playing the normal way. The sacrifice above is the only thing that needs addressing. It's the primary way we play now when playing paper magic. I tried Arena for a couple of weeks and it's real fun (love the animations and sound effects), but I don't miss being handcuffed by my mana in the slightest.
If I’m understanding the rules of this format, the key cards to watch out for are the ones that allow a player to draw additional cards or cantrips. I suppose the ones that generate additional card value such as the upcoming Adventure cards would be a thing too. To that end, I imagine cards like Narset, Parter of Veils would be an all star, especially when combined with a card similar to Howling Mine.
The other problem is knowing if a card your opponent draws is a land or a spell depending entirely on which deck you draw. This could influence strategies like hand targeting spells and how they’re played.
Would be interesting to see how it all plays out as a side format, like Brawl.
As a casual format, there's no reason not to play this way. It works as intended to alleviate flood/screw. It kinda needs to stay casual though. Otherwise it unfairly favors strategies that can get by with only a few lands.
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My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
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Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
Randomness in itself is a good and bad thing for magic.
If you want to eliminate randomness from lands entirely you would simply allow players to choose like 10 lands and play them at will from the sideboard, so you are guaranteed to have all the colors and quantity of mana you want.
However you need to errata a ton of cards and change the entire game around that fact, which is not something that is really "worth" doing these changes as the game functions pretty well as it is and the games you lose for being mana screwed give mechanics that fix and help with finding lands a much bigger appeal (like land-cycling, scry, fetchlands and so on).
----
Lands are also utility cards, which is a problem as they are not "just" mana sources.
If you want to make a deck full of lands, you would need to change the game to ensure they are actually only mana sources, or even go as far and only allow basic lands in them, so nobody can mess with it.
If you want utility lands, you have to play them as "spells", not in the land deck.
Simply having 2 decks to shuffle is also annoying, if you are able to tutor in both libraries its an extra level of handling them.
Always separating them would require like 2 different colors of sleeves or something, which is also a problem.
Many issues with the approach, but it CAN work.
In Limited for example , like a Draft playing like this is really great, as you can put basic lands in a land deck and ensure nobody is screwed over, they can always play lands, and if a set is designed to take that in account, it would be good (you cant really do stuff like "landfall" etc.).
----
With magics vast card pool radical changes to the games mechanics come at a pretty heavy cost, which is often the biggest argument against any changes, as they need to have tremendous upsides to counteract these costs.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
MTG will never become a giant in the esports realm with mana flood and mana drought. Variance is fun and interesting, but being handcuffed by having mana in a the spell deck is counterproductive. Watching people lose games (like LSV in a grand finals) because of a design flaw is not fun or fair. Some card game is going to eventually going to fix those flaws while containing a deep gameplay experience. Many are looking to uproot MTG as is already known.
As well calling it a design flaw is not really accurate. It's a design that has pros and cons, it isn't 100% bad, or even majorly so.
Most of it has to do with building an active community outside of social media cause without it you're going to have difficulty finding playgroups for specific games at your LGS. Unfortunately technology has made us more lazy which I blame on these games becoming more casual oriented than competitive. On one hand If your game is too competitive then you're only looking to get more Solitaire plays out of your experience which tends to make players more reclusive rather than inclusive. It's sort of a balancing act as you can't really have it both ways.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
The problem of the mana system is screw and flood. To fix screw you want some way to ensure decks can consistantly hit land drops 1-3(4) on turns 1-3(4) without giving an unfair advantage to decks that only want 3 or 4 lands. And to fix flood you want a method of turning excess lands into a resource that doesn't invalidate other strategies or encourage land stuffing.
This 'fix' appears to address the initial problems, constantly hitting early land drops and not hit too many excess lands. However it ignores the secondary portion of those problems. Not giving an advantage to decks that want minimal land and making running lands an actual cost. It has its second portion to address this, starting with only 1 card in hand. That might adress those problems but it also radically changes how the game is played and what strategies are viable. This in turn creates not a fix that can be applied to all of magic but instead creates a format that might have fixed mana problems.
The problem with your "solution" of two decks is that it eliminates one of the core mechanics of the game, wich is risk management. If I can draw lands consistently I can play high-CMC cards consistently, without regards to the risk if I ever get that many lands. At the same time, I could run decks that top out at 3 drops and have a perfect game 90% of the time. I think you are completely wrong suggesting the meta would be slower, everyone would be playing RDW because it could perform near perfect every single game. Good deck builders try to minimize risk of having a flood or drought scenario by increasing deck flow in some way. The other end of the spectrum are high risk high reward decks, which are less consistent but maybe feel more rewarding. Your solution would take those nuances away.
If you are convinced that you are on to something, just playtest this. Take 5-10 decks and play them against each other again and again. Then come back with some (anecdotal) evidence. You would be the first to report that this method improved the game.
UR Mizzix of the Izmagnus ~~~ Build your own win-condition: Finite Spellslinging
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