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Bugs: Recent Topics Paging, Uploading Images & Preview (11 Dec 2020)

Recent Topics paging, uploading images and preview bugs require a patch which has not yet been released.

× Talk about collectible card here.

"The Danger Room" - MTG variant for boardgamers

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27 Dec 2012 21:22 - 28 Dec 2012 19:46 #140328 by dragonstout
So there's this format that Vintage player Brian deMars invented earlier this year that's been picking up steam: "THE DANGER ROOM". The appeal here for you guys is that

1) you just have a fixed stack (i.e. like Cube, there's no "higher expenditure wins" or "need to keep buying to keep up"; it's more boardgame-like)
2) there is also no deckbuilding, for people intimidated by that
3) unlike Cube, and connected to the prior point, *very* little commitment is required
4) only 2 players are needed, once again unlike Cube
5) Danger Room introduces some rules to "fix" the "problems" that a lot of people around here were recently saying they had with Magic's mana system
6) these Danger Room lists are very cheap (around $100 I'd say, so cheaper than buying say X-Wing + expansions)

Here are the two articles posted so far about the Danger Room, with lists:
Brian DeMars - Enter The Danger Room
Douglas Linn - Introducing a New Format Called The Danger Room

Basically, it's "stack" Magic (i.e. everyone plays from the same big stack), but with the added proviso that everyone has a separate deck of 10 specific lands, and can play one of those lands each turn, and *nothing* in the danger room is allowed to increase or decrease the amount of mana you have. The power level is also tweaked to be significantly less powerful than Cube: LOTS of funky-ass cheap forgotten rares.
Last edit: 28 Dec 2012 19:46 by dragonstout.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Matt Thrower, Ska_baron, Dair, bioball, Bull Nakano

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28 Dec 2012 00:31 #140339 by Bull Nakano
This format looks fantastic. I used to play a lot of dc10, which is similar in that players play off one stack, however in my deck there were predominant (non-lethal) combos and deck manipulation. This theory of deck construction and the mana cache both sound excellent, I will probably throw one of these together, thanks for posting this!

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28 Dec 2012 01:48 #140341 by jeb
We used to do this all the time with 5Color decks. You had to ignore stuff like Enlightened Tutor though, as manipulating the top of the deck is not so hot when you are both drawing off it. Not to mention Demonic Consultation.

Looks good though. I would play this in a heart beat.

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28 Dec 2012 01:58 #140342 by Bulwyf
This sounds cool. I'll check it out and thanks for the heads up.

-Will

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28 Dec 2012 10:08 #140365 by Matt Thrower
This has rekindled my long-dead interest in M:tG. It sounds amazing. I sold most of my cards ages and ages ago, but now I'm thinking I might proxy up some of those dual lands on artscow, beg round friends for spare commons and uncommons, and build myself a stack for this.

Anyone see any reason why it wouldn't work multi-player with one of the older formats (like Emperor)?

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28 Dec 2012 10:11 #140366 by dragonstout
Yeah, big-stack Magic has been around forever. The key changes for this are the clever Mana Cache (with the ETB tapped Invasion lands) and the hard line about no tutoring or messing with mana in the stack. I also thought that for the Magic n00bs, having a couple nice lists would be helpful (you'll want to go to adventureson.com or somewhere else via tcgplayer to pick up the commons, don't pay more than 3 cents for the majority of them).

DC10, referred to by Bull Nakano, is even nuttier: everyone has infinite mana! I'm a cuh-razy purist...to me even the Danger Room crosses my line to "not Magic" (I really do like the normal mana system!), so DC10 practically gives me a heartattack. Which is pretty much the point of it after all :-)

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28 Dec 2012 10:19 - 28 Dec 2012 10:24 #140367 by dragonstout

MattDP wrote: This has rekindled my long-dead interest in M:tG. It sounds amazing. I sold most of my cards ages and ages ago, but now I'm thinking I might proxy up some of those dual lands on artscow, beg round friends for spare commons and uncommons, and build myself a stack for this.

Anyone see any reason why it wouldn't work multi-player with one of the older formats (like Emperor)?

At the bottom of the first article, there is actually a section specifically talking about using it with Emperor:

One thing that is kind of cool about having the more balanced big deck is that it provides a pretty sweet compilation of cards for playing Emperor Magic a format that while really cool in theory has almost always been abhorrent to play in real life. The problem with Emperor is that a lot of types of cards and effects tend to simply take over the game and end it—or one of your teammate's decks is terrible or somebody's is too geared for multiplayer and it ends up turning into a bloodbath. Breaking up my big deck which is for the most part evenly balanced and providing everybody with even access to mana actually fixes most of the problems that caused that format to fall out of popularity.

plus lots more about Emperor.

Artscowing those dual lands is more expensive than buying the real thing. Just checked on tcgplayer, and the prices for those cards range from 19 cents to 43 cents, if I wanted to buy 6 of each for Emperor purposes. I think a lot of the cards on both of these lists are available for 2-3 cents each; as the second article said, I'd rather pay someone 2-3 cents to send me a card than look through my collection to find it anyway.

I *definitely* bet you can get a ton of that "crap" for free from MTG-playing friends.
Last edit: 28 Dec 2012 10:24 by dragonstout.
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28 Dec 2012 16:07 #140386 by Gary Sax
I love reading the guy's original article on how he constructed Danger Room. It sounds like he is tapping exactly what I always enjoyed about Magic before I quit.

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28 Dec 2012 19:09 #140399 by Bull Nakano
Yeah, dc10 is sort of like Fluxx with Magic cards. It's got more game to it but you could still just lose because another player draws what they needed (actually that sort of sounds like Magic with Magic cards..).

I went through what's left of my collection and pulled out a stack to form into a deck, I'm really excited to see this fella finally get his day in the sun:

The following user(s) said Thank You: Ska_baron, Space Ghost, dragonstout

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03 Jan 2013 21:09 #140687 by bioball
Wow, I think THIS is the format of MTG I've been looking for and what I kinda wanted The Cube to be. I also like that its easy for one person to build, you can teach new players magic, and it doesn't really require a hard core knowledge of drafting.

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07 Jan 2013 23:20 #140946 by Stonecutter
This sounds AWESOME and I want to build one of these.

As I haven't bought a magic card in almost 15 years, does anyone have a deck list for this that would be printable that ALSO lists the sets the cards are from?

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08 Jan 2013 06:10 - 08 Jan 2013 06:21 #140968 by Bull Nakano

Stonecutter wrote: This sounds AWESOME and I want to build one of these.

As I haven't bought a magic card in almost 15 years, does anyone have a deck list for this that would be printable that ALSO lists the sets the cards are from?


Those two articles and this forum post are the only things on the net I can find written on the format. That's making me feel like writing about it, but typing my decklist would be murder.

I compiled this from reading the article, applying some of my own design touches, digging through what's left of my collection, and ordering about $6 of singles. After that I have a box that's pretty well balanced as far as power goes (I think), and should be able to play Magic from it for the next 70 or 80 years.

I would guess you could compile a 500 card danger room for about $50 if you were thrifty and avoided cards priced over $0.25 (and mostly stuck to cards priced $0.03-$0.06).

But I can't imagine the amount of work compiling one would be if I didn't have 90% of the cards already just waiting to be thrown together.

Maybe this will help, here are rough estimates of what's in my danger room as percentages

50% creatures - I made sure of this, it's actually slightly over 50 but I think half the stack is what you want to get that "game of magic" feel. now dissecting how to compile your creatures is another thing. I'll try to remember to write about it later, but put in about 2% finishers (dragons) and 5% threats (powerful creatures slightly smaller than 5/5)

5% removal spells - probably a little more actually. you want these to be around to deal with the big daddies that you can't answer with a 3 point burn spell. Things that say Destroy or Exile. Don't forget wrath of god effects.

10% burn spells - useful spells that can most often kill small creatures or be used to deal that last blow to your opponent. burn that targets just creatures is good, burn that targets just players should be VERY limited. Don't forget pyroclasm and fireball effects.

5% equipment - maybe a little less? you don't want a ton of this stuff, but you want a couple of them to show up each game.

5% counter spells - maybe a little more? you want these to show up every game but never in abundance. you always want to worry "why does he have that blue up?"

5% disenchant effects - this will depend on the amount of artifacts and enchantments you include in your stack, for example, in mines i was very surprised i had way more enchantments than artifacts!

ok here's the tough part...

20% awesome magic cards! - Yeah I know, but this is the fun part. you need creatures, and you need answers to problems, but here's where you get to play some real fun cards, going through a handful of my stack I see psychic venom, act of treason, cauldron dance, elder mastery, quicksilver dagger, war barge, steal artifact, puppet strings, goblin war drums, curfew, make a wish, bandage, and armadillo cloak. You'll want to include draw spells and pump spells, I don't know what the percentages are, I actually think combat tricks should be right along side counterspells as reasons to agonise over doing anything!

magiccards.info is a fantastic database for searching information. here's some tips to find types of cards in the advanced search on there (search in rules text field):

Removal (only search sorcery and instant)
"destroy target" creature
"exile target" creature
"destroy all" creatures

Burn (only search sorcery and instant)
"damage to target"
"damage to each"

Equipment (only search artifacts)
equip

Counterspells (only search instants)
"counter target"

Disenchants (search only instants and sorcery)
"destroy target" enchantment
"destroy target" artifact

Combat Tricks (search only instants)
"target creature gets +"
"prevent the next"

You'll see when you break it down in this manner it's much less imposing to select 25 cards out of the 171 results for "counter target".

For that last 20% look at the lists in the two articles in the OP, think of what makes magic FUN for you. For the creatures, build on a curve. Don't have a ton of 1 drops, don't have a ton of things that cost 6+.


As you can see that was written with no prior thought, but maybe it helps you? If you have any questions just ask, I'll try to help.
Last edit: 08 Jan 2013 06:21 by Bull Nakano.
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09 Jan 2013 23:49 - 14 Jan 2013 01:16 #141160 by dragonstout

Stonecutter wrote: As I haven't bought a magic card in almost 15 years, does anyone have a deck list for this that would be printable that ALSO lists the sets the cards are from?

As noted, both of the articles have lists. The sets are not listed, BUT: any Magic singles site worth its salt lets you input a big list of cards all at once, and it will then show you what sets all those cards are in. Try Coolstuffinc, or Starcitygames, or ChannelFireball, or TCGPlayer. I dunno how printable it'll be, though.

Edit: except for TCGPlayer, though, the other three listed all have WAY overpriced commons, i.e. 25 cents or more instead of 2 to 8 cents.

Edit 2: At Coolstuffinc, this feature is called "Deck Builder".
Last edit: 14 Jan 2013 01:16 by dragonstout.

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13 Jan 2013 22:22 #141456 by Bull Nakano
I just played my first match whit my danger room. It was so incredibly fun! As someone who has burned out and become jaded about Magic, this was such a good feeling. The games evolved, and felt like GAMES. There was luck with draws, back and forth creature battles, counter wars, and imposing creatures on both sides. At one point Mahamoti Djinn stared across the board at a Sengir Vampire with Unholy Strength (complete with burning pentagram). It just felt like what Magic was designed to feel like as opposed to an incremental advantage poker with goblins.

In the three games we played two cards already got cut, one because it was a double (oops), and the other, Fire//Ice, because it could be used for mana disruption or even a possible virtual time walk if played between turns 3-5.

Something I want to keep an eye on is card advantage, particularly in removal spells. I don't know how good of an impact on play it has to have a lot of Nekrataal variants or spells that destroy two target permanents.

After playing this, I'm feeling I can just chuck the rest of my cards, this is simple and provides everything I've wanted from this game for the past 20 years.
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13 Jan 2013 22:41 #141457 by Gary Sax
Wow! Makes me want to buy a good danger room list of cards.

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