Thursday, April 07, 2005

Moving Gordon and a Fun Magic Format

Hello, all you happy humans.

Over the weekend, I helped my most wonderful friend Gordon move. As I get older (I know I'm only 27, but bear with me) this sucks more and more. And of course, after 70-degree temperatures all week, what do we have on Saturday...snow. That's right, snow. You have just got to love Central Ohio...or not. Whatever.

So Gordon got moved. He and his wife Stacie have a lovely new house and couldn't be happier. Here's hoping they will be there for a long time...or at least for a couple of years.

Also, this weekend I bought Magic Online. It's pretty fun, and I'll be using it to get my Magic fix on a more regular basis. I'm hoping it will release some of my competitive juices so that I don't end up being such a prick when I play poker. (I'm not a prick all of the time, but I can be, and I don't like it. Let's just say that I like to win. I like to win a little too much for friendly competition, and I'm trying to cool off the intensity that goes with that. Not remove the intensity, just tone it down for when I'm with my friends.) I like playing so far, but not enough to sell my cards for Magic Online money. Someday, maybe, but today is not that day. My username is GL2270. Look me up if you're online...

Speaking of Magic... Wait a minute, I forgot something:

***WARNING: THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPHS CONTAIN MAGIC: THE GATHERING CONTENT. READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.***

That's better. Anyway, I thought I'd post an idea for a fun, casual format based on the Rainbow Stairwell Singleton format on Magic Online. For a semi-primer on the format, read Bennie Smith's article from MagicTheGathering.com today.

I'm thinking, since I maintain a collection for three - sometimes four - people (our cards are pooled into one for the sake of the greater good or something), it would be a bit tedious for us to attempt to "build" decks for the format. So, how about we draft the decks? Here's the deal, a pre-determined number of people (four, five, six, 415) show up. Then, we Rochester draft (lay out the "packs" of cards face up, each player picks one until all cards are gone). I figure we lay the "packs" out one of two ways:

Pack Structure 1: Construct packs by color (making 7 packs: red, green, white, blue, black, artifact, gold). Each player has to conform to the rules of deck-building (i.e. They can only draft one 1cc green card, etc.).

Pack Structure 2: Construct packs by casting cost (making 6 packs: 1cc, 2cc, 3cc, 4cc, 5cc, 6cc). Again, you would have to draft by deck-construction rules - only one card of each color.

Also, we will include multi-colored or "gold" cards. This should allow for some fun choices. Afterwards, we will finalize the decks with basic land. Just basic land. This should make it interesting and random, which is part of the idea. At the end of the draft, you will have 42 cards. Add 29 lands, and you have a 71 card monstrosity. I plan on inviting some friends over in the coming weeks and trying it out. I will probably post the results in my Magic blog, so stay tuned.

Until next time, watch your back. I'm sure someone's following you...

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