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PolyCon XXIII Pre-register for PolyCon XXIII for $25: (18 and over only Minors must use minor form) 
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Special Magical Seasonings
by Kellen Snook Magic is awesome! - for about the first three months. But after a while, games start to get stagnant. You will already be familiar with all of your friends and their playing styles, and unless you mix it up, chances are most matches will be settled just based on the choice of deck. Eventually the craving sets in, the lust for new formats. Well, my friend, today is your lucky day! Here at Game Theory we are officially sanctioning the magic variant, and it is much much harder to find a duel than a game of emperor. Below are some good friendly formats for large groups of players, and some house rules that will make it more fun. Two Headed Giant This is the easiest format to start off with. Grab a duel deck and a friend, and pair off against two others. You and your friend have a shared pool of 40 life. Whenever either of you is hit, it deducts from this shared pool. You also take your turns together. So when both of you are done with your pre-combat main phase, you can attack. All attacking creatures attack as one group, and any creatures either defender owns can be used to block (as long as all blocking is legal). That is it! A very simple format, and yet one that promotes teamwork. Feel free to show your teammate your hand and coordinate strategies. One of the other nice aspects of this format is that it works in larger groups. You could try a 3 headed giant game (with 60 life) or have a free for all with 3 teams of 2.
Tips and Tricks: On the same note, cards that set your life total can become DEVASTATING. Playing a biorythm or blessed winds is a brutal way to cut down on opponents life. It is highly reccommended that these card be banned in your group, or be prepared for some very cruel combos. Cards that target "each opponent" will trigger for each player on the enemy team, so they become twice as good. Sizzle anyone? And don't forget the beloved poison counters. We have a house rule that for each player past the first, you need 5 additional poison counters to finish them off. So 15 for a two headed giant, 20 for a three, etc. Give it a shot and bust out those Pestilences! Emperor The big daddy of 6 player games. Emperor is a strange format, only playable by groups of 6. Players are distributed into 2 teams of 3. Play goes in a clockwise circle, starting with the emperor of the team that goes first. Each team will consist of an emperor, sitting in the middle, and two lieutenants sitting on either side. The emperor is immune to attack until either flanker is dead. What makes emperor interesting is attack range and targeting range. The lieutenants can only attack across until the enemy lieutenant is dead. After this, they can swing on in to the emperor. However, this opens up the lieutenant to retribution from the emperor, who has had some time to freely build up his side. Targeting range also stops the games from being too short. You are only allowed to target people up to 1 seat away from you. So the emperor can only target his friendly lieutenants, and the lieutenants can target the emperor and the enemy lieutenant sitting across from them. This stops one side from simply building 3 burn decks and sending numerous fireballs at the enemy emperor's head. Global effects still affect everyone.
House Rules: Well, there you have it. I hope that these two formats will spice up your playing group. If you want to try out more, google "peasant magic" or "chaos magic" to find some very different ways to play magic.
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