New Magic: The Gathering Format - ClusterF@#$
Well, I’m late, but whatever. I said I’d post something every week and I’m damn well not going to stop yet. I also said I’d share ClusterF@#% with you, so here we go.
So what is ClusterF&!$ and how do I play the greatest and worst Magic: The Gathering format ever?
Remember when Wizards announced that they were changing all the rules and you could now sanction ANYTHING for FNM? Remember that one little line in there that read “all of the above?” That’s ClusterF$@( in a nutshell.
I came up with ClusterF#*! a few months before that announcement. I was playing EDH and we were also playing with Planechase, using a communal deck of one of every plane card, you know, the one every group has and uses for planechase instead of the way Wizards’s little inserts tell you to play it?
Well, we often also used a communal Scheme deck. This deck had two of every Archenemy scheme printed, and instead of playing a 2+V1 game of archenemy, we would often just play 1V1 EDH, with both of us drawing the top card from the scheme deck and both of us using the same planar deck.
So there we were, playing an already complicated format made more needlessly complicated and I asked: “why don’t we include the schemes?” I was told it made an already needlessly complicated format unbearably complicated. To which I replied, “You want an unplayable format, I’ll give you an unplayable format.”
And thus was ClusterF$*@ born.
Many players, the more the better. I would say three is minimum, but you’re already playing this thing, so you might as well go balls deep and play one-on-one if you really want to, who’s going to stop you?
A planar deck. Ideally, this will contain one of each of the 74 Plane Cards.
A scheme deck. Ideally, this will contain two of each of the 45 Scheme Cards.
The Vanguard Deck. Ideally, this will contain one of each of the 32 (if I counted right) Vanguard cards that have actually seen print. If you want to mock up versions of the MTGO Vanguard cards and bring the pool up to 106, Go for it. They can be found here if you want to see them all.
The Hero Deck. Ideally this will contain all the Hero cards that were given out at events during the Theros block a little over a year ago. There were over twenty of these, and things get complicated with the equipments, since there were those stickers. Hope you thought ahead and stuck those to sleeves and snagged extras of the equips! I don’t have a link for these, you’ll just have to find them. Ask around your local store or try Googling it.
The Challenge Decks. Remember the other part of Theros block? The Hydra, the Minotaur Horde, and Xenagos? These were little automaton decks similar to the horde format that you could purchase. You’re going to want all of these.
Your favourite M:tG Format. While ClusterF%@# was designed with EDH in mind, you could play casual legacy or any other decks you want. Don’t cry to me when things explode in your face, though.
Optionally, Conspiracy cards are a thing and should be worked in to the best of your ability.
Now, the first thing you need to understand is that this is a cutthroat multiplayer format.
There are 3 Teams, labelled A, B & C.
Team A: The Archenemy. This is the guy in your group that either everybody hates, that has the best deck, that has the most expensive deck (with beta duals, foil shocks, judge promos [and he’s not a judge]) or whoever won the last game (if you’re all sadistic enough to subject yourself to this more than once).
Team B: The Team Whose Name Doesn’t Fit Their Letter (Or “Everyone Else”). This is every human at the table who isn’t on Team A.
Team C: The Challenge Decks. That’s right. There is one team that is all three of the Theros block challenge decks. That means Polukranos, Xenagos and every minotaur under Mogis’s hoof band together to beat you.
Everybody on Team B starts with 40 life (or whatever your format dictates). Team A starts with 40 life, plus 20 life for each member on Team B past the first (if B=2, A starts at 60. B=3, A is 80. B=4, A is 100. And so on).
Before play begins, Team A sits at one side of the table (hope it’s long). Team B sits at the other. Team C is placed somewhere on the side where you can actually have someone perform the necessary functions.
Give the entire (ideally 90 card) Scheme Deck to Team A.
Give each player one Vanguard card. Randomly. Or pick your favourite waifu. Whatever. You should probably also split the pile of conspiracies you can get a hold of between all players, too.
Give each member of Team B one random Hero card. Maybe two. I never really intended for this to be balanced. You’re the heroes, you need something in exchange for the bad guy’s schemes.
Put the Planar deck in the centre of the table where everyone can mess with it. Make sure that at the very least, everyone can roll their planar die.
First mulligans are free, you draw at the beginning of the first draw step, all the other multiplayer variant rules. ALL OF THEM! After resolving mulligans, reveal the top card of the planar deck.
Team A plays first. At the beginning of their upkeep, they reveal the top card of their scheme deck. Then their turn progresses as normal.
Team B plays second. All players play simultaneously.
Team C plays next. Resolve each in turn that they were beat up at Game Days around the world. That means THE HYDRA plays first, then THE MINOTAUR HORDE, then XENAGOS, GOD OF THE PARTY. For simplicity’s sake (or maybe the opposite), the challenge decks are immune to each other.
The winner is the last team standing. You’ll find that you may not be able to crush the archenemy quickly enough, since you’ll need their help to fight the three monsters. You may also feel that, as the archenemy, you don’t want the monsters dead before you finish off the B Team. If Team B wins, you may want to go all-in on Conspiracy and keep going until only one of you stands.
Remember the spirit of ClusterF^#(. That is, the more times you have to call for a judge, the better the game is.
blakekathryn
ellievsbear
snowghoul
dailybridgerton
gracieabrams
romaincrisis
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
theartofmadeline
