Magic is a great game, except for all the "feels bad" moments in it.
1. Mana screw - can't play because no mana
1.1 Land Destruction - It makes mana screw so much worse when you're already behind
2. Mana flood - Can't play because all mana
3. "Storming" - Everyone else doesn't get to play while one person plays Magic Solitaire
4. Extra Turns - Yet another time where everyone else has to wait while one person plays repeatedly.
5. Someone else plays your turn - "Worst fears" indeed, this absolutely sucks!
6. Having your stuff permanently stolen - There's a reason theft is a crime in real life. I can deal with red "borrowing" your guys, but blue outright taking them permanently sucks so much it makes people want to quit just to spite the thief.
7. Getting your spells countered (hard counters, buyout counters are ok)
8. Forced to Exile / Sacrifice permanent - Sacrifice is fine if it's your own choice, but nobody should be able to force you to do it.
9. Forced to Exile / Discard from hand - It's torture to have to watch as your opponent decides what you won't get to play. Being forced to pick isn't really better.
Edit: Important addition 10. Tutors make the game worse because they make combos far too easy to pull off, and decrease the variety of games when included in decks. This is especially noticeable in singleton formats like Commander.
Rule changes for this new variant to fix these issues.
1 & 2. Land cards are no longer required for every deck, instead, any card can be played as a basic land corresponding to any of its colors. Mechanically, you will put the card down and cover it with a basic land that are kept near the game area for everyone to use. This way you are truly using that card as a land, rather than it going to the graveyard where you could still have access to it.
3. Any cards with the "Storm" mechanic, even if they don't mention it by name, e.g. Aetherflux Reservoir are banned.
4. Any cards which grant (an) extra turn(s) are banned.
5. Any cards which allow a player to control another player or play their turn for them, e.g. Mindslaver, Emrakul, the Promised End are banned
6. Any cards which allow a player to permanently take control of a permanent another player owns, e.g. Role Reversal, Blatant Thievery, etc. are banned.
7. Hard counterspells (those without an "unless it's controller ..." clause) are banned, e.g. Force of Will, Counterspell, etc. are banned, but soft counters like Mana Leak, Complicate, Clash of Wills and similar are still allowed,
8. Any Cards which forces other players to Exile or Sacrifice a permanent, e.g. Plaguecrafter, Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God, etc. as well as Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, and anything else with Annihilator are banned.
9. Any card where a player can force another to exile or discard from their hand, e.g. Yarok's Fenlurker, Duress etc. are banned.
Edit: Important addition 10. Tutors (any card that allows you to search the entire remainder of your library for a card) are banned. This will make combos far less dominant especially in singleton formats such as Commander.
The point of all this is that you will have options when bad things happen to you, and you will get to play. These rules could be applied to standard as well as eternal formats to make softcore variants of them.
What do people think of these rule changes to make Magic more approachable to a casual gaming audience?
So... your approach to make magic more friendly to casuals is to remove almost every point of interaction?
1/2. This change would disproportionately help decks that only want one or two land in a game. Goblin Charbelcher decks already get away with running like... 2 lands, and your change completely eliminates that. A burn deck is guaranteed to always hit 3 land, then draw nothing but gas the rest of the game. I could go on...
3/4/5. I don't know why this would need to be a hard/fast rule. Casual is a social contract, you shouldn't need to formally tell people to not be a jerk if the group finds the play style frustrating.
6/7/8/9. That is... basically all the removal options outside of destroy/damage. I get the distinct impression that you're still pretty new to the game, but I can assure you that removing all of the means to stop combo is NOT going to help make your format more casual.
If you're looking for some casual formats, I'd recommend Type 4 or Horde. They address most of the complaints you seem to have while NOT breaking the game.
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I noticed you decided to ban counterspells but not ban actual combo. Sure, you decided to get rid of Storm, but what do you do against Show and Tell -> Emrakul? You can't put anything in to make them sac her, you can't counter Show and Tell, so you just lose if you don't have an O Ring in hand? How is that "getting to play"?
I get points 1 and 2. I think it is a bad idea to try to "fix" them but I understand where you are coming from. But most of the other points are just "I lost to something; ban it". You are going to have a pretty difficult uphill climb if that is your approach since you are going to lose to something. There are far too many cards that just win and you have taken out some of the best answers to those cards.
Your mantra isn't "you will get to play". Your mantra is "I will get to play". You don't seem to care about what makes a good game; you just care about yourself and not getting stopped.
I would legitimately be interested in hearing if you can ever get something like this off the ground. And, then, how long your group plays with these rules. I know I wouldn't come near it because I think these rules are terrible but maybe you can find enough like-minded people who have fun with it.
Sure, you decided to get rid of Storm, but what do you do against Show and Tell -> Emrakul?
Emrakul would be banned, either because anything with Annihilator printed on it is in violation of the no forced sacrifice rule, or if you meant the other one, Emrakul, the Promised End then because all cards that take control of a player are banned.
Also these rules are in addition to existing ban lists. Any format that already bans Show and Tell would still ban it in the softcore version of that format.
3/4/5. I don't know why this would need to be a hard/fast rule. Casual is a social contract, you shouldn't need to formally tell people to not be a jerk if the group finds the play style frustrating.
You say that, but actually a lot of people play supposedly casual formats like EDH with decks that just get increasingly spiky every chance they get.
6/7/8/9. That is... basically all the removal options outside of destroy/damage. I get the distinct impression that you're still pretty new to the game, but I can assure you that removing all of the means to stop combo is NOT going to help make your format more casual.
No, that's not even close to all the removal options. For creatures, B still has destroy target, U has bounce to hand for tokens, soft counters for everything else. W still has exile target, G still has fight and destroy target flier, and R still has direct damage. All of them still have a removal for creatures. As for other types, that's what the color pie is for. Some lack effective removal for certain types just like they always have. B for example can't do target enchantment removal, but that's always been the case.
Sure, you decided to get rid of Storm, but what do you do against Show and Tell -> Emrakul?
Emrakul would be banned, either because anything with Annihilator printed on it is in violation of the no forced sacrifice rule, or if you meant the other one, Emrakul, the Promised End then because all cards that take control of a player are banned.
Also these rules are in addition to existing ban lists. Any format that already bans Show and Tell would still ban it in the softcore version of that format.
Ok, Griselbrand then. Or, hell, just Inkwell Leviathan.
What formats is Show and Tell banned in that would use this ruleset? Show and Tell isn't banned in anything it is otherwise legal in.
In any case, you have basically cultivated a ruleset that allows combo to run rampant with basically nothing to stop them. You upset the balance so negatively that if enough people actually played, you would either need more bans akin to Storm or you would need more rules to stop them.
Clearly you didn't read my edit, where I added a 10th rule banning tutors. You'd have to be pretty damn lucky to get a combo without them in a singleton format like Commander, which by the way bans Griselbrand already.
Your mantra isn't "you will get to play". Your mantra is "I will get to play". You don't seem to care about what makes a good game; you just care about yourself and not getting stopped.
I would legitimately be interested in hearing if you can ever get something like this off the ground. And, then, how long your group plays with these rules. I know I wouldn't come near it because I think these rules are terrible but maybe you can find enough like-minded people who have fun with it.
This reflects my impression of the intention of such rules quite accurately. I don't play competitive Magic, only Limited and Cube. A piece of advice I can give you from the perspective of having a Cube with most of the mean things in it (Tinker, Control Magic, Treachery, Hymn to Tourach, both Emrakul, Armageddon, Strip Mine, Smokestack and so on) is the following:
If you encounter a strategy you don't know how to beat, play it yourself. You'll learn much about the game and the weaknesses of most strategies. When you understand how to beat a strategy, you adjust your deckbuilding to the possibility of having to defeat said strategy, making your decks and decisions better overall.
I like Magic exactly because of the plethora of interaction it provides. I wouldn't take anything away from it (even though mana screw and mana flood are actually annoying). If I were to decide, I guess I would even like to bring back Manaburn.
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1. Mana screw - can't play because no mana
1.1 Land Destruction - It makes mana screw so much worse when you're already behind
2. Mana flood - Can't play because all mana
3. "Storming" - Everyone else doesn't get to play while one person plays Magic Solitaire
4. Extra Turns - Yet another time where everyone else has to wait while one person plays repeatedly.
5. Someone else plays your turn - "Worst fears" indeed, this absolutely sucks!
6. Having your stuff permanently stolen - There's a reason theft is a crime in real life. I can deal with red "borrowing" your guys, but blue outright taking them permanently sucks so much it makes people want to quit just to spite the thief.
7. Getting your spells countered (hard counters, buyout counters are ok)
8. Forced to Exile / Sacrifice permanent - Sacrifice is fine if it's your own choice, but nobody should be able to force you to do it.
9. Forced to Exile / Discard from hand - It's torture to have to watch as your opponent decides what you won't get to play. Being forced to pick isn't really better.
Edit: Important addition 10. Tutors make the game worse because they make combos far too easy to pull off, and decrease the variety of games when included in decks. This is especially noticeable in singleton formats like Commander.
Rule changes for this new variant to fix these issues.
1 & 2. Land cards are no longer required for every deck, instead, any card can be played as a basic land corresponding to any of its colors. Mechanically, you will put the card down and cover it with a basic land that are kept near the game area for everyone to use. This way you are truly using that card as a land, rather than it going to the graveyard where you could still have access to it.
3. Any cards with the "Storm" mechanic, even if they don't mention it by name, e.g. Aetherflux Reservoir are banned.
4. Any cards which grant (an) extra turn(s) are banned.
5. Any cards which allow a player to control another player or play their turn for them, e.g. Mindslaver, Emrakul, the Promised End are banned
6. Any cards which allow a player to permanently take control of a permanent another player owns, e.g. Role Reversal, Blatant Thievery, etc. are banned.
7. Hard counterspells (those without an "unless it's controller ..." clause) are banned, e.g. Force of Will, Counterspell, etc. are banned, but soft counters like Mana Leak, Complicate, Clash of Wills and similar are still allowed,
8. Any Cards which forces other players to Exile or Sacrifice a permanent, e.g. Plaguecrafter, Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God, etc. as well as Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, and anything else with Annihilator are banned.
9. Any card where a player can force another to exile or discard from their hand, e.g. Yarok's Fenlurker, Duress etc. are banned.
Edit: Important addition 10. Tutors (any card that allows you to search the entire remainder of your library for a card) are banned. This will make combos far less dominant especially in singleton formats such as Commander.
The point of all this is that you will have options when bad things happen to you, and you will get to play. These rules could be applied to standard as well as eternal formats to make softcore variants of them.
What do people think of these rule changes to make Magic more approachable to a casual gaming audience?
1/2. This change would disproportionately help decks that only want one or two land in a game. Goblin Charbelcher decks already get away with running like... 2 lands, and your change completely eliminates that. A burn deck is guaranteed to always hit 3 land, then draw nothing but gas the rest of the game. I could go on...
3/4/5. I don't know why this would need to be a hard/fast rule. Casual is a social contract, you shouldn't need to formally tell people to not be a jerk if the group finds the play style frustrating.
6/7/8/9. That is... basically all the removal options outside of destroy/damage. I get the distinct impression that you're still pretty new to the game, but I can assure you that removing all of the means to stop combo is NOT going to help make your format more casual.
If you're looking for some casual formats, I'd recommend Type 4 or Horde. They address most of the complaints you seem to have while NOT breaking the game.
My Friend Code is: 0146-9645-8893
I get points 1 and 2. I think it is a bad idea to try to "fix" them but I understand where you are coming from. But most of the other points are just "I lost to something; ban it". You are going to have a pretty difficult uphill climb if that is your approach since you are going to lose to something. There are far too many cards that just win and you have taken out some of the best answers to those cards.
Your mantra isn't "you will get to play". Your mantra is "I will get to play". You don't seem to care about what makes a good game; you just care about yourself and not getting stopped.
I would legitimately be interested in hearing if you can ever get something like this off the ground. And, then, how long your group plays with these rules. I know I wouldn't come near it because I think these rules are terrible but maybe you can find enough like-minded people who have fun with it.
Emrakul would be banned, either because anything with Annihilator printed on it is in violation of the no forced sacrifice rule, or if you meant the other one, Emrakul, the Promised End then because all cards that take control of a player are banned.
Also these rules are in addition to existing ban lists. Any format that already bans Show and Tell would still ban it in the softcore version of that format.
You say that, but actually a lot of people play supposedly casual formats like EDH with decks that just get increasingly spiky every chance they get.
No, that's not even close to all the removal options. For creatures, B still has destroy target, U has bounce to hand for tokens, soft counters for everything else. W still has exile target, G still has fight and destroy target flier, and R still has direct damage. All of them still have a removal for creatures. As for other types, that's what the color pie is for. Some lack effective removal for certain types just like they always have. B for example can't do target enchantment removal, but that's always been the case.
What formats is Show and Tell banned in that would use this ruleset? Show and Tell isn't banned in anything it is otherwise legal in.
In any case, you have basically cultivated a ruleset that allows combo to run rampant with basically nothing to stop them. You upset the balance so negatively that if enough people actually played, you would either need more bans akin to Storm or you would need more rules to stop them.
This reflects my impression of the intention of such rules quite accurately. I don't play competitive Magic, only Limited and Cube. A piece of advice I can give you from the perspective of having a Cube with most of the mean things in it (Tinker, Control Magic, Treachery, Hymn to Tourach, both Emrakul, Armageddon, Strip Mine, Smokestack and so on) is the following:
If you encounter a strategy you don't know how to beat, play it yourself. You'll learn much about the game and the weaknesses of most strategies. When you understand how to beat a strategy, you adjust your deckbuilding to the possibility of having to defeat said strategy, making your decks and decisions better overall.
I like Magic exactly because of the plethora of interaction it provides. I wouldn't take anything away from it (even though mana screw and mana flood are actually annoying). If I were to decide, I guess I would even like to bring back Manaburn.