Note: Due to the limitations of the site, I don't know of a way to post the tokens that are in this deck. So, in the list, I have swamps, but those are actually Zombie Tokens. As for the Mountains, those correspond to these tokens: 3x Demon, 2x Vampire, 1x Dragon, 1x Wurm, 1x Hellion. You can use whatever tokens you choose.
:::GUIDE TO HORDE MAGIC:::
One of the many reasons I love Magic is its incredible depth. There are always new ways to use your Magic cards, and you can create vastly different experiences just by changing some of the rules.
Those tokens floating around those packs always seem to have a very limited use. Well, not anymore!
Introducing Horde Magic!
Horde Magic is a format sharing similarities with Planechase, Two-Headed Giant, and Archenemy. It involves players playing cooperatively against a Horde deck, which is a preconstructed Magic deck consisting of 60% creature token cards.
The goal of Horde Magic is to survive the onslaught of Zombies. The Horde deck has no life total, so the only way to win is to uh not die. Eventually the deck will run out of cards and youll be able to breath sight of relief.
Zombies generally dont do a lot of thinking. They just want you dead. So in Horde Magic, the Horde has no decisions to make, and thus the Horde deck also doesn't require a pilot to run. This creates unique co-op gameplay, which many are likely to really enjoy. Additionally, you can battle the Horde deck solo.
To play Horde Magic, each player needs a Commander deck. Any other Magic deck will do, but Horde Magic was developed to play with the multitude of Commander decks that people own.
There can be anywhere between one and four Survivors, which are the players teaming up to defend against the Horde. The number of Survivors determine the number of cards in the Horde deck, as the difficulty needs to scale accordingly. The Survivors have a collective life total of 20 life per player, and everybody loses when that life total becomes 0.
The number of Zombies youll face over the course of the game is based on the number of Survivors. For three Survivors, take your 100 card Horde deck and remove a random 25 cards, bringing your Horde deck to a total of 75. The Horde starts with no cards in hand and no permanents on the battlefield.
The Survivors get 3 turns to set up their defenses before the Horde takes a turn. Just like in Archenemy and Two-Headed Giant, the Survivors take turns simultaneously. After the 3 turn set-up, the Survivors and the Horde alternate turns.
On each of the Zombies turns, the top card of their library is flipped over. If the card is a Zombie token, then another is flipped over. Cards are flipped over until a non-token card is revealed. Sometimes the card is a Bad Moon, sometimes its a Souless One, and sometimes its even a Plague Wind. At that point, all of the tokens flipped this way are cast, and the non-token card is cast last. NOTE: I've added artifact equipment cards to the deck to be dropped as loot. When one is flipped, continue on as if it were a token that was flipped. Once the flipping is over, the players can decide who gets the loot. If they are unable to decide, they may roll on it to decide.
Then the Zombies enter combat. Since Zombies are generally brainless, they come charging in without thinking twice. All Zombies have haste and must attack each turn if able. Thats just how they roll. Since the survivors are on a team together, when the Zombies attack, they attack every player at the same time, just like in Two-Headed Giant, and when any of the survivors choose to block, they block for the whole team.
You, as the Survivors, win when the Zombie deck cant flip over anymore Zombies, and the Horde doesnt control any more Zombies. You can use anything at your disposal to stem the bleeding, from Walls, to Wrath of Gods, to blocking with huge fatties. However, if you and your teammates feel that you have adequate defenses for the next Zombie attack, you can also attack the Horde at its source. Zombies cant block, and have no life total, so its safe to go on the offensive if you think you can survive the next wave of Zombies.
For each point of damage done to the Horde, the Horde mills one card off the top of their deck.
The Survivors are victorious when all the Zombies in play are dead, and the Horde deck has run out of cards. The Horde wins when the Survivors life total becomes 0.
- The Zombie deck is built so that, hopefully, the Horde deck is not presented with any decisions. In order for the deck to gather the co-op experience, many awesome Zombie cards were omitted. However, there are lots of cards that the Survivors might play that cause the Horde to make a choice (such as Fact or Fiction or Chainers Edict). In this case, the Horde makes this choice as randomly as possible.
- The Zombie tokens and cards from the Horde deck use the stack, so you can respond to them coming into to play, or counter them.
- The Horde has infinite mana, so cards like Propaganda and Mana Leak dont work. Sorry!
- If you return a permanent to the Hordes hand, it gets cast again on their next main phase.
- There are a LOT of Magic cards in existence. If something doesnt work the way its supposed to, just come up with the most fair way to execute the card. If you cant, cycle it. This is a casual format.
- If the Survivors control a Planeswalker, flip a coin at the beginning of combat. If it comes up heads, the Horde randomly allocates one Zombie per point of loyalty for each Planeswalker the Survivors control, starting in a random order (in case there are multiples).
When you have more Survivors, the Horde becomes easier to defeat. So the number cards that the Survivors face is determined by players.
- Solo 45 Cards
- 2 Players 60 Cards
- 3 Players 75 Cards
- 4 Players 100 Cards
The Horde deck is 100 cards, so just shuffle and take a chunk at random.
Banlist:
- Aether Flash
- Aurification
- Barbed Foilage
- Caltrops
- Crawlspace
- Dueling Grounds
- Dread
- Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
- Ensnaring Bridge
- Eradicate
- Grindstone
- Haunting Echoes
- Island Sanctuary
- Lethal Vapors
- Leyline of Singularity
- Magus of the Moat
- Mind Funeral
- Moat
- No Mercy
- Platinum Emperion
- Platinum Angel
- Silent Arbiter
- Solitary Confinement
- Stormtide Leviathan
- Surgical Extraction
- Tainted Aether
- Teferis Moat
- Time Stretch
- Trepanation Blade
- Urabrask the Hidden
