The Forgotten Ways To Play Magic: The Gathering

[Music] foreign [Music] what are the Forgotten formats of Magic the Gathering no it's not ones like Frontier tiny leaders though they are no longer played by well much of anyone the trauma that formats like those created still haunts many Magic the Gathering players to this day yes yes I know I've always known Frontier side events will be held at GP San Jose as well as many other GPS throughout the year no no a forgotten format is one that you maybe have faint memories of maybe a decade or even longer ago you even jammed a game or were at least invited to do so at your local game store but what are they presented here are the top eight forgotten formats forgotten ways to play Magic the Gathering the first in our obscure and forgotten magic formats dates from an ancient era known as the 1990s a time when 60 card formats were all their age and Elder Dragon Highlander was little more than a twinkle in Sheldon memory's eye the format of which I speak Army magic Army magic is a multiplayer format that uses 150 card three color Decks that ideally resemble a fantasy Army created by Jamie Wakefield and first popularized in an article he wrote for Sky magazine ah Sky magazine in Army magic each deck needs a supreme commander this is a legendary creature that grants all your other creatures plus two plus two when it's on the battlefield and if it dies causes its controller to lose 10 life unlike commander in Army magic your Supreme Commander starts off shuffled into your deck with everything else you also start with 50 life instead of 40 and the color identity of your Supreme Commander isn't really relevant another odd rule is that you cannot cast any non-creature spells without having some sort of spellcaster type creature on the battlefield for example clerics Wizards shamans Druids and presumably warlocks if you control a legendary creature though this rule no longer applies in order for creatures to attack you must control a creature with greater power than them you also have no maximum hand size Army magic doesn't so much resemble a magic the Gathering format as a huge tabletop strategy game I'm not gonna lie to you that seems pretty cool and I'm very tempted to try an episode of Shuffle up and play where we do army magic commander of course has some similar pulses running through it though not to the same degree if Army magic seems like your jam then I sincerely encourage you to find a few friends and give it a try hey maybe you can recruit some of the Warhammer 40K players who are going to start playing Magic the Gathering after those Warhammer Commander decks are released I'm just kidding no one from Warhammer is going to learn magic the Gathering because of a commander deck coming up next we have the only format with a name more ridiculous than tiny leaders and that is rainbow stairwell but unlike tiny leaders there's still at least three people who play this format so what exactly is it rainbow stairwell is a 60 card Singleton format that is all about the color Pie as with other Singleton or Highlander formats a rainbow stairwell deck can only contain one copy of Any Given card other than basic lands but wait there's more a rainbow stairwell deck must contain six cards from each color and six colorless cards ranging in Mana value from one to six for example the black cards in your deck might be a dark ritual at one Mana Doom blade at two Mana Liliana of the veil at three Mana all the way up to a massive six Mana spell like grave Titan multi-color cards are illegal in Rainbow stairwells so you truly are building a Stairway of cards in each color slowly ascending in power as the game goes on this format really serves to highlight what each color does at different levels and can be a fun and informative way to expand your understanding of the entire magical rainbow see what I did there no well that's fine because you probably won't see Rainbow stairwell played at your local game store anytime soon huh you know I just remembered another way you may not know of that you can play Magic the Gathering no it's not part of our official list it's part of the ad read brought to you by what not and would you like to play Magic the Gathering with post Malone what not and post Malone are giving one lucky fan a chance to play against boasty in a game of Magic the Gathering one on one and with the winner walking away with one hundred thousand dollars Mana e Mana the post Malone magic battle so how does this work on August 4th post Malone will have a live stream on the whatnot app during the Stream post will host a giveaway and a winner will be randomly selected to play him to enter you will need to create a whatnot account so that you can view the live stream during the stream enter by clicking the enter giveaway button on your screen this is important you must be in the Stream to enter and present to win the giveaway that's it put Professor I I've learned Magic the Gathering from watching your channel I'm obviously not skilled enough to win a game of Magic the Gathering especially against post Malone well don't worry because Magic Pro Reed Duke will train the winner in the event that they are new to Magic so no experience is even required after the stream whatnot will contact the winner via email and organize next steps the selected winner will be flown out to Los Angeles for the main gameplay on August 11th streamed live from the whatnot app the format will be Commander best two out of three games and the winner will take home one hundred thousand dollars in cash and on top of all of that there will be other giveaways and special guests to look forward to on the stream so make sure to sign up for a whatnot account and bookmark the stream ahead of time to be notified when posting goes live why you too can feel just like a rock star will you be running in circles around post Malone I know this isn't proper grammar but I was told by my kid said that it is a reference to his music sunflower is is that right did I do that right I don't know can we I don't know next on our list of Forgotten formats is Prismatic a two-player format with quite robust decks if you always thought Commander decks were too slim at 100 cards then this is the format for you each Prismatic deck is composed of no less than 250 cards though it can have more than 250 if you want and it must have at least 20 cards of each color unlike rainbow stairwell multi-colored cards are legal and Prismatic and they can help reach the quota for any one color in the cards casting cost but only one so let's say you want to play anguished on making you can count it as one of your 20 White cards or one of your 20 black cards but not both this is not a Singleton format so you could play multiple copies of anguished on making some counting as white and some is black for the quota you may of course play more than 20 cards of a giving color so long as you have at least 20 or more of each color another notable aspect of the format is its Mulligan rule instead of whichever standard Mulligan rule is currently in use each player gets a big deck Mulligan where if their opening hand has 0 1 6 or 7 lands they may Mulligan for free if a player does every other player May Mulligan at the same time regardless of what is in their hand or if they've had their opportunity for a free Mulligan already once everyone has had the opportunity to Big Deck energy Mulligan regular Mulligan rules apply once more so as you can see many forgotten formats bear superficial similarities to the more commonly played formats you know and love in fact many of the popular formats today were forged in the fires of these forgotten formats and that very well may be the case with Emperor emperor in some ways is reminiscent of two-headed giant in that it is a team format where players try to eliminate multiple opponents while protecting not just their own battlefields but their allies battlefields as well that however is where the similarities end unlike Two-Headed Giant teams are composed of three players each with their own starting life total of 20 and one of those players is the Emperor the emperor sits between their teammates or lieutenants in fact where players sit is very important in this format think of the setup like a hexagon with the Emperors on the far points a player may only attack another player that is one side away from them so Emperors cannot attack anyone at first while lieutenants may only attack the lieutenant sitting across from them if a lieutenant is eliminated then that player's Emperor is exposed to attack though the emperor is now able to attack as well spells that Target have a slightly longer range than attacking Crete teachers being able to affect the player next to the nearest opponent a fireball cast by a lieutenant for example can hit either the lieutenant across from them or the opposing Emperor spells that affect everyone like Blasphemous act or toxic Deluge act normally the game ends when one Emperor is defeated now it should be pointed out that Emperor is a format that can easily be grafted onto other formats like Commander if you find yourself with six players at your next Commander Knight instead of breaking up into PODS of three consider playing a round of Emperor it can add a little extra zest while keeping the game running at a faster Pace than it usually would Magic the Gathering is a game of strategy limited by variants and hidden information without question those limitations are the key to the game's success so what if we did away with them and in their place created a format with such serious restrictions that you can throw variants to the wind you see for every ambitious and creative way to play Magic the Gathering like Army magic there is a strict and overly defined format like three card blind in three card blind a player builds a number of decks composed of three cards each of these three card decks must be entirely functional meaning all Mana sources necessary are contained within creature lands like inkmoth Nexus really shine in this format those three cards compose your hand which is visible to your opponent at all times with those three cards you play a game of magic oh my God I'm literally as I'm recording this remembering that someone made me play this with them like 10 years ago I totally vaguely remember this thing with three card decks wild unlike other formats games that end in a draw are quite common in three card blind because this is a format with heavy limitations cards that Force discard are very powerful indeed while cards that Force an opponent to discard multiple cards are banned building multiple three-card decks is key as the goal of the game is to test them out against one another each deck gaining points based on their number of Victories and draws now if you ask me variance and hidden information are a big part of what makes Magic the Gathering fun but that doesn't mean you shouldn't give three card blind a try and if it sounds like your cup of tea grab a friend and Shuffle Up In fact three card blind has the additional virtue of being a viable Solitaire format allowing you to try and get a better grasp of how certain cards interact with one another did you think we were done with color Shenanigans no our next forgotten format is all about the color pie but in a very different way than the other formats we've discussed today pentagram or five point is a five-person multiplayer format where each player has a mono colored deck one for each of the five colors in Magic each player is randomly assigned to color and turn order is determined by that color white always goes first followed by black then green blue and finally red no it's not wuburg order the goal of each player is to eliminate their two enemy colors for example if you're assigned red you want to eliminate both white and blue you are also not allowed to attack your ally colors and cards that mention opponents only apply to players playing your enemy colors making deals with allies and thwarting enemies is a big part of the game's fun as is the ability to show off each color's strengths now pentagram doesn't strictly require monocolored decks so it can be a great way to spice up your commander Knight we've all been stuck in five player games that move too slowly and pentagram is a great way to speed those games up and add an additional level of political strategy energy now our next forgotten Magic the Gathering format is slightly better known to the populace than most of the others on this list but it is by no means ubiquitous if you're pointing at the screen saying come on I know that format at least acknowledge that the vast vast majority of Magic Gathering players do not know this format though they should because it's a lot of fun and it's one that incorporates the draft experience into a game of magic I'm speaking of course of wizards Tower to play Wizards Tower you will need 9 unopened packs and 80 basic lands 16 of each basic land type the packs are all opened and shuffled together with the lands to create the central deck then each player is dealt three cards each player May discard as many of the three cards as they want and draw that many from the central deck once each player has done so the discarded cards are placed on the bottom of the central deck the top seven cards of the central deck are then placed face up on the battlefield and every turn each player takes a card from among the face up cards as well as a card from the central deck once all the face up cards are taken another seven are laid down other than that the game is played like any other game of magic it can be either one versus one or multiplayer and each player shares the same library in graveyard so cards that affect those zones affect them for everyone the game continues until only one player remains take it from me the professor Wizards Tower is a fun chaotic and all-around great format this format gets really wild with packs from many different sets adding a chaos draft element to the equation and it can even be played with a cube up next is a format that still has a little life in it on Magic online but outside of which is only a faint memory in the mind of most magic players and that format is Tribal wars another 60 card format Tribal wars is all about hey you guessed it tribes in Tribal wars each 60 card deck must contain at least one-third creatures that share a type this can be anything from goblins to elves to soldiers though the one-third rule makes tribes like eyes and Starfish a lot more difficult if not impossible sorry spice 8 rack I could find no evidence of brush wag constructed being possible let alone viable in Tribal wars merfolk however is quite strong beyond having what works out to 20 creatures of any one given creature type in your deck Tribal wars otherwise follows the rules of any other competitive format from Modern to Vintage and anything in between and yeah that means you can do modern Tribal wars pioneer Tribal wars and so forth if you like attacking with a horde of similar creatures then try out Tribal wars though do be warned cards like coat of arms might seem like a great idea as an include but they will likely help out your opponents just as much as you be careful when deck constructing alright I have one more bonus forgotten format to discuss now this one you have probably heard of a long long time ago but forgot even existed and that format is standard standard is a format where you construct a 60 card deck and 15 card sideboard using only what they still do standard since when I guess not all formats are as forgotten as I might have thought who knew well I hope very much this video has been of some interest and help to you is there a forgotten format that I didn't mention that you think is cool and worthy of if not a comeback being known by the magic population let me know in the comments below thanks again to whatnot for sponsoring this video remember what not and post Malone are giving one lucky fan a chance to play against postie in a game of Magic the Gathering one-on-one with the winner walking away with a hundred thousand dollars detail in this video's description but mark my words this is one way to play Magic that you don't want to forget about huh see what I did there because it's the videos about forgotten so don't don't forget this thank you for sponsoring the video what not [Music] [Music] on the next episode of Dragon Shuffle Up in play hey what's up it's Shuffle up and play and today I'm joined by tapito claws George and Chef PK of YouTube Fame we are playing with level seven Commander Dexter so used to have only like one free player at the table and now it's like actually you didn't attack yet move to the Clare attackers what kind of tribal deck is this it's it's great it's great thanks red player who can read it don't do it don't do it red player fight red player fight red player fight that's a seven huh all right untap he said with his true name Nemesis don't

Channel: Tolarian Community College

Views: 183,477

Keywords: magic: the gathering, mtg, wizards of the coast, tolarian community college, casual magic

Id: IyqoM5Pmu5o

Length: 18min 59sec (1139 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 29 2022