For the most
part, Magic rules and spells work
the same in multiplayer games as they do in a one-on-one game. To play a
two-on-two game, start with the following basic multiplayer rules:
1.
Everybody
sits around a single table, with team partners sitting across from each other.
After the first player takes his or her first turn, play moves around the table
to the left.
2.
A
player’s creatures can attack only the opponent to his or her right. If that player is eliminated, they can
then attack the remaining opponent.
3.
If a
player is eliminated, all his or her permanents are removed from the game. The
game continues until both players on one team are eliminated.
4.
Table
talk is not allowed. You can’t tell your partner what’s in your hand, what your
next move is going to be, or what you want him or her to do. This makes the
game more interesting, because you have to pay attention and make educated
guesses about what you think will help your partner and harm your opponents. It
also prevents one partner from “running” a partnership, leaving the other
partner out of the picture.
Multiplayer Variants
This section
describes several multiplayer Magic
variants. Don’t worry if the variant descriptions mention rules or terms you’ve
never heard of; those are explained in the next section.
DCI Two-on-Two
Four players • Two teams
Although this
format isn’t actually sanctioned by the DCI™ players’ organization, the DCI
does recommend it as an interesting variant. In this format, you and your
partner sit next to each other, across from your two opponents. The left player
of one team takes the first turn, and then play passes to the left, so one team
will have the first and fourth turns while the other team will go second and
third. You may attack only the player across from you; if that player is
eliminated, you may then attack your remaining opponent. Moving creatures is allowed (see “Moving Creatures” for how this
works), and moved creatures attack the player across from your partner. Spell
range is unlimited, table talk isn’t allowed, and life totals aren’t shared.
Typically you
and your partner will want to gang up on whichever of your opponents is more
vulnerable. Once that player is eliminated, the two of you will have a big
advantage against your remaining opponent. Because table talk isn’t allowed,
you need to think about which opponent to beat on first, then play accordingly
(possibly by removing that player’s creatures first). This strategy cuts both
ways, however. If the other team gangs up on your partner, you need to rush to
the defense, using creature destruction on the creatures that are dealing the
most damage to your partner and using cards like Fog and Healing Salve to keep
your partner in the game as long as possible.
Two-Headed Giant
Four players • Two teams
Two-Headed
Giant is a variant of DCI Two-on-Two or basic two-on-two multiplayer Magic. In Two-Headed Giant each team
represents two “heads” of a giant. The giant has an initial life total of 40,
and damage dealt to either player is deducted from the giant’s total. Your
creatures can attack any opponent, so moving creatures isn’t allowed. You win
by reducing the opposing giant’s life total to 0.
Emperor
Six or ten players • Two teams
An Emperor
game is a contest between two teams. Each team has one emperor (seated in the
middle) and two generals (seated one on each side of the emperor). The
left-hand general of one team takes the first turn, and then play passes to the
left, balancing the advantage of going first with having all the opposing team
members take their turns next. The spell
range is limited to one—that is, your spells and abilities can affect only
you and the players sitting one seat to your left or right (the two players
right next to you). You can attack only players on your immediate left or
right. Because of this, until a general is knocked out, neither emperor can be
attacked. Moving creatures is allowed. Each player starts with 20 life; life
totals aren’t shared. If a general is eliminated, the remaining players on that
team continue to play normally. When an emperor is eliminated, that team loses.
You can also
play Emperor with four generals per team, sitting two on each side of the
emperor. Spell range is still limited to one.
Free-for-All
Best for three to six players • No teams
The
Free-for-All format is exactly that: you’re on your own against the world. Your
creatures can attack any other player, and spell range is unlimited. The last
player left standing wins!
Melee
Best with six to ten players • No teams
If you try to
play Free-for-All with six or more players, you’ll quickly realize that it
isn’t practical. There are too many permanent effects to keep track of and too
many choices of whom to attack. Melee is a structured Free-for-All with rules
to address these problems. You can attack only the player to your left, and
spell range is usually limited to one, though you can also try it as two. The
object is to knock out the players to your left. Whenever the player to your
left is knocked out, you get 1 point, even if someone else eliminated that
player. You also get 2 points if you’re the last one in the game. In the end,
the player with the most points wins, even if he or she isn’t the last
remaining player.
Grand Melee
Fifteen or more players • No teams
A Melee game
with fifteen or more players graduates to Grand Melee status and requires some
complicated arrangements to keep the game from bogging down. Though anyone can
enjoy playing in a Grand Melee, we recommend that you don’t try to run one
until you’ve played a few regular Melee games and are ready for a challenge. If
complex logistics don’t appeal to you, skip ahead to the next format.
The main
difference between Melee and Grand Melee is that you need to have two or more
players take their turns at the same time; otherwise the game takes far too
long. To decide how many turns should happen at the same time, divide the total
number of players by one plus the number of players within spell range. (If you
use a spell range of two, for example, the number of players within spell range
would be five: you, the two players on your right, and the two players on your
left.) Round down. Space the turns out evenly among all players.
EXAMPLE: If you’re playing with
twenty-eight players and a spell range of two, you’ll start the game with four
turns happening simultaneously (1 + 5 players within spell range = 6, and 28
players ÷ 6 = 4.66, rounded down = 4).
Below is a
“number of starting turns” chart for up to forty players using a spell range of
two:
|
Number of Players |
Number of Turns |
|
36
to 40 |
6 |
|
30
to 35 |
5 |
|
24
to 29 |
4 |
|
18
to 23 |
3 |
|
12
to 17 |
2 |
|
11
or fewer |
1 |
Players’ spheres of influence—the spheres
around each player created by the spell range on both sides of that player—are
never allowed to overlap. After a player finishes his or her turn, the player
to that player’s left can’t start his or her turn if doing so would put a
player into two spheres of influence at the same time. The player whose turn it
would be waits until he or she could start a turn without the spheres
overlapping.
As players are
eliminated, you’ll eventually need to reduce the number of simultaneous turns
in the game or else the game will grind to a halt. You’re forced to do this
when the number of turns multiplied by the number of players within spell range
is greater than the number of players in the game. You probably should reduce
the number of simultaneous turns before you’re forced to, though—otherwise, the
game will slow down because of spheres of influence bumping into each other.
It’s best to reduce the number of turns as soon as the number of players still
in the game would give you one less turn using the starting game formula.
EXAMPLE: If you’re playing with
twenty-eight players and a spell range of two as in the last example, you’ll
have to move from four simultaneous turns to three when there are nineteen
players left in the game (4 turns x 5 players within spell range > 19
players in the game). However, you’d be better off eliminating a turn when
there are twenty-three players left (1 + 5 players within spell range = 6, and
23 players ÷ 6 = 3.83, rounded down = 3).
There’s no
absolutely fair way to eliminate a turn. When the number of turns needs to be
reduced, the turn in the spell range of the last person eliminated is removed
instead of being passed at the end of the current player’s turn. This will
often result in a player receiving one less turn than the other players nearby.
EXAMPLE: In
a game with twenty-four players and four simultaneous turns, the next person to
be eliminated will reduce the turns to three. The turn in that player’s spell
range will disappear after the player currently using it completes his or her
turn.
When a player
is eliminated, that player immediately removes all cards he or she owns from
the game. (This may affect players in other spell ranges.) All cards that
player controls but doesn’t own are put into their owners’ graveyards. For
purposes of calculating spell range, the eliminated player still counts as
occupying a position. For purposes of creatures attacks, that player doesn’t.
However, you can never attack a player outside of your spell range.
EXAMPLE:
Bob is to your left and Susan two to your left. Ted is three to your left,
which is outside of your spell range. During your main phase you eliminated Bob
with direct damage. Now during your combat phase you may attack Susan with your
creatures. If you’d also eliminated Susan with direct damage, you still couldn’t
attack Ted, because he’s outside of your spell range.
When a turn
passes in the spell range of an eliminated player, that player’s position is
removed.
EXAMPLE:
To continue the last example, after eliminating Bob and attacking Susan with
your creatures but not eliminating her, the turn would pass to Susan. Then,
Bob’s position would be removed, and Susan would become the player to your
immediate left. Ted would then be in your spell range.
Two-Color Star
Five players • No teams; two opponents
If you want to
try something a bit out of the ordinary, you might play Two-Color Star, a
variant for five players. First, assign each player two friendly colors; the
five friendly-color pairs are white-blue, blue-black, black-red, red-green, and
green-white. Then each of you should build a deck using only cards that are of
your assigned colors—plus lands, of course! Both of your friendly colors should
be reasonably well represented in your deck. You can’t use artifacts or cards
of the other three colors in your deck.
Next, figure
out which is your enemy color. If you’re playing white-blue, your enemy color
is red; for blue-black, it’s green; for black-red, white; for red-green, blue;
and for green-white, black. Your opponents are the players using your enemy
color in their decks. For example, if you’re playing blue-black, your enemy
color is green, so the green-white and red-green players are your opponents.
The two players who aren’t your opponents (in this case, white-blue and
black-red) aren’t really your allies either; they’re neutral. You’re competing
against them, but you don’t get any benefit from hurting them.
Once you’ve
all figured out who your opponents are, sit in a circle like this, so that your
neutral players are the two players next to you and your opponents are the two
players across from you:
In Two-Color
Star, you attack only your opponents with your creatures, but spell range is
unlimited. Moving creatures isn’t allowed (because you have no teammates).
You win if
you’re the first to knock out both of your opponents. For example, if you’re
playing green-white, you win if both the black-red and blue-black players are
knocked out. Ties are possible if no one wins when the first two players are
knocked out. For instance, if both the white-blue and black-red players are out
and the blue-black player is eliminated, the green-white and red-green players
both win at the same time, making the game a tie.
One Deck
Four or more players • Two-on-Two or Melee
One Deck is a
variation of Two-on-Two or Melee. This is a great variant when not everyone has
a deck available. You need just one deck of at least 120 cards for a
four-player game. Add at least twenty cards for each additional player.
Decks for One
Deck games typically use all five colors, but you can build a deck using fewer
colors if you want. Avoid using spells that require two mana of the same color
in their mana or activation costs; that way each player will have a better
chance of being able to play the cards he or she draws. You should also reduce
the number of one- and two-mana spells. Such cards are usually good only in the
early game, and it may take a while to get even one land of a particular color.
If you’re using a five-color deck, you may want to prohibit attacking for the
first three turns or increase the opening hand (and hand-size limit) to ten
cards. This will reduce your chances of ending up with the wrong color mana to
cast your spells.
A One Deck
game works like a normal Two-on-Two or Melee game except that every player
draws from a common library and uses a common graveyard. (If the deck runs out
of cards, the game’s a draw.) The difference between a card’s controller and
its owner is eliminated; if you control a card, you’re its owner, no matter who
drew or played the card. For example, if you play Raise Dead, you can select
any creature card from the graveyard. If you steal a creature with Ray of
Command and then Unsummon that creature, the creature will go to your hand
because you’re the current controller of that creature card. When building a
deck for One Deck, add Classic™ cards
such as Gravebane Zombie, Gravedigger, Sage Owl, and Relearn to take advantage
of the common library and graveyard.
In One Deck
Melee, to the victor go the spoils. When the player to your left is eliminated,
at the end of your turn you gain control of all his or her permanents and you
get the cards in his or her hand. (Discard down to the appropriate hand size if
you have more cards.) It doesn’t matter who administered the final blow; at the
end of the turn, the player to the eliminated player’s right gets the
eliminated player’s stuff.
General Rules and Terms
Not sure what we mean by phrases like “moving creatures” or “spell range”? This section details some of the rules and terms common to most multiplayer variants.
Attack Right and Attack Left
In some
multiplayer games, your creatures are allowed to attack only the player on your
right or the player on your left. This rule limits only your creatures’
attacks; it doesn’t affect the spells you play or your choice of targets for
your creatures’ abilities. Because play always passes to the left when a
player’s turn is done, attack-left formats and attack-right formats produce
slightly different games; games that use attack right are slightly more
defensive, while those that use attack left are mostly offensive.
Moving Creatures
In some team
formats, you can move your creatures to your teammate’s territory—the space in front of your teammate where his or her
cards go. This allows your creatures to block for your teammate and attack the
opponents next to your teammate. You move creatures as part of declaring your
attack; to move a creature, simply place it in the territory to which you’re
moving it. Moving a creature counts as that creature’s attack for that turn and
follows the same restrictions; if a creature can’t attack, you can’t move it
either. Moving a creature doesn’t tap it, though.
Your moved
creatures remain under your control—that is, you decide whether they attack or
block, when to use their abilities, and whom they attack during your turn. But
they can block attacks only for the player whose territory they occupy; they
can’t block for you. Your moved creatures can attack only the players next to
the player whose territory they occupy, not the players your creatures can
normally attack. However, your moved creatures still attack during your combat
phase, not your teammate’s, so your moved creatures and your teammate’s
creatures can’t attack together.
Spell Range
In some
multiplayer games, your spells can affect only players sitting close to you;
this is stated as a spell range and is typically one or two. For instance, if
the rules for a game say that the spell range is one, a Wrath of God will
destroy only creatures controlled by you and by the players sitting one seat
away on either side (the players right next to you); other players’ creatures
are unaffected. Similarly, if you control a Howling Mine in that game, only you
and the two players sitting next to you get to draw an extra card every turn.
Furthermore, your target choices are limited to you, the players sitting next
to you, and the permanents in front of each of you, no matter who controls
them.
When spell
range is unlimited, you can choose any legal target for your spells, and
untargeted spells affect every player’s territory.
Player Elimination
In multiplayer
variants, whenever a player is eliminated, all permanents he or she owns are
removed from the game (unless stated otherwise in the rules for that variant).
Permanents controlled by the eliminated player but owned by someone else are
put in their owners’ graveyards. Creatures that have been moved to the
eliminated player’s territory but are controlled by other players are moved to
their controllers’ territories.