-- Maybeboard now consists of many of the comment suggested cards :) Thank you for commenting! --
What is "One-Man Show?"
One-Man Show is simply a format where you pick one nonland card in all of magic, and that is your One-Man Show. With that single card, and any amount of basic lands, you construct your deck of exactly 60 cards (no more, no less, no sideboard). In the above example, I chose the card Shriekmaw. I can only choose one card, and so, other than basic lands, that is the only card I am allowed to use at all.
What happened to AEther Adept?
AEther Adept was a lot of fun, but if AEther Adept is on the play, the opponent can opt out of playing anything which will cause the AEther Adept player to get milled out. This is because AEther Adept's ability must always have a target, even if that means itself if there are no other targets.
How are matches played?
- After some playtesting, we've come up with some new rules for competitive play.
- At the beginning of a match, each player reveals three decks that they are going to use throughout the match. These three decks are called the stockpile.
- Games are played in a sort-of knockout fashion. As one deck beats another deck, the losing deck is knocked out and the losing player must choose between one of his or her two remaining decks in his or her stockpile to go against the opponent's winning deck.
- In the proceeding game, the player that won the round beforehand is not allowed to change decks, and doesn't automatically go first or second. A die is still rolled. This allows the losing player to pick up a deck that might hopefully metagame the winning deck.
Each time two decks are pitted against each other, we have thought of the following ways to make the match as fair as possible.
- A die is always rolled to see who goes first in this submatch that can last up to two rounds.
- If either deck loses on the play, it's knocked out.
- If either deck loses on the draw, a second round is played with the loser on the play.
- If neither deck manages to lose on the play, both decks are knocked out and each player must choose a new deck to play among their stockpile of three decks.
- Based on these rules, there can be drawn one interesting conclusion. If a deck is on the play, it has everything to lose and nothing to gain. If a deck is on the draw, it has everything to gain and nothing to lose. It's actually better to go second, because then your deck doesn't have a chance at getting knocked out.
- The playtesting team is considering adding a turn limit to the games to weed out stall strategies. 10-15 turns for each player should be plenty of turns for a game to end. This is still only being considered, and isn't final yet. --- UPDATE: After several posts about a turn limit being detrimental to the game, it has been decided to not add a turn limit.
Things to know about the format
- Four-drops are an uncommon strategy because it's just too slow. An example of a possible four-drop that might be good enough to compete is Ghor-Clan Rampager. Maybe even Magus of the Disk, but both of those, especially magus, seem a bit slow.
- One-drop strategies are definitely viable, and in fact, pretty strong.
Soldier of the Pantheon
is decent, but there's honestly not a lot of multicolor going on in this format, because multicolor requires a bit of luck with only basic lands at your disposal. However, Boros Reckoner is extremely good at metagaming this format and
Soldier of the Pantheon
wins that matchup all day long.
- The interesting part of this format is that you will not find counterspells unless your opponent is a troll, because a deck full of counterspells can't actually win the game unless it's something like Countersquall, which will only defeat other non-creature decks. There aren't very many non-creature decks.
- Draw-power isn't common in this format. Probably the most viable deck that includes draw-power is
Baleful Strix
, but being multicolor is a huge disadvantage. You can easily lose due to getting mana screwed. When a
Baleful Strix
deck works, however, it's very, very strong.
- Tokens are very powerful in this format. There are very few decks that can defeat a Spectral Procession deck. Spectral Procession should be regarded as a tier 1 strategy that defeats almost all other creature strategies. I've only found one creature matchup that has a chance at beating it, and that's against Bloodghast. Bloodghast is actually a very elegant strategy and pretty tough to beat too. Hedron Crab has been known to be able to defeat Spectral Procession.
- At first I thought mill strategies weren't viable, but then people suggested Altar of the Brood and Hedron Crab. They're pretty good. Altar of the Brood is an interesting meta-game choice as it dodges most interactive strategies like
Banisher Priest
.
- I don't think a storm deck could really happen.
- A lot of degenerate play isn't even viable in this format, and it turns out that this format can actually be a lot of fun to play theoretically. You can take a pile of basic lands and just proxy all nonbasics as the card of your choice, then play!
What's the Banlist? (Include all functional reprints)
Very Powerful, probably ban-worthy (this is a growing list, and is referred to as the "shitlist")
Generic Baning
- All cards with the text "Name a card" are not allowed. Variations like, "Name a nonland card" are also not allowed, obviously. Use your common sense here.
- Any card with a similar effect to
Slaughter Games
, Surgical Extraction,
Memoricide
isn't allowed. Specifically, the ability to exile all of a given card from the hand and library. Squadron Hawk is allowed though, just to clarify.
- All cards costing 0 mana are not allowed. ie: Memnite
- All cards with the "Ripple" keyworded ability.
- All cards from Un-Sets.
Now it's your turn!
- Comment here with some interesting strategies, as I'd love to try to see if there actually exists an unstoppable One-Man Show!
- Want to help with the banlist/shitlist? Let me know! We're trying to develop a team to playtest decks on cockatrice. We had three people working together on November 23rd for at least 6 hours and got a lot of insight towards the metagame and what cards are probably too good.
Current list of people that want to help with playtesting on cockatrice and/or untap.in
