Intro
Super grateful to original poster Church24860! Original decklist here: https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/zombie-horde-deck-co-op-mtg-variant/ Much of the detail below about game play is pulled from his original post.
I plan to update as our playgroup runs through this new variant with adjustments to the deck and alternate opinions on expansion of difficulty, etc.; if interested, detailed description of format found here: https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Horde_Magic
Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated - playgroup has asked for oppressive!
Horde Variant for Commander
This is a variant form of magic that is best played with 1-4 people using commander (EDH) decks. 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 NOT DIE! Eventually the deck will run out of cards and you’ll be able to breath a collective sigh of relief.
Participants
Horde Magic is divided up into two factions: The Horde (the deck that runs automatically) and The Survivors (the players).
Win conditions
-
The Horde wins if The Survivors' group life total is reduced to zero or below.
-
The Survivors win if The Horde has no cards in its library, no cards in its hand, and no creatures on the battlefield.
Basics to Gameplay
The Horde
-
The Horde has no player, it pilots itself. It consists of up to 55x Zombie 2/2 B and 5x Zombie Giant 5/5 B shuffled into the list above.
-
The Horde has an infinite amount of mana at all times, so cards like Propaganda and Mana Leak don’t work. HA!
-
If you return a permanent to the Horde’s hand, it gets cast again on their next main phase.
The Survivors
-
Each Survivor contributes 20 life to the group life total (i.e. 4 players? 80 life).
-
Set up: The Survivors have three turns to set their defenses before The Horde gets its first turn.
-
After set up, turns alternate in a similar fashion as the Two-Headed Giant variant: The Survivors are a team and all take their turn simultaneously (i.e. each complete their 1st main phase before moving to combat, etc). The Survivors also attack and block as a team.
-
Number of Survivors: when you have more Survivors, the Horde becomes easier to defeat. To counter this, the number of cards that the Survivors face and the life total they each contribute is determined by the amount that have decided to face the Horde (i.e. Solo: 40 life – 50 Cards; 2 Players: 30 life each – 60 Cards; 3 Players: 25 life each – 75 Cards; 4 Players: 20 life each – 100 Cards). 2:3 ratio - nontoken to token (1 Giant Zombie per 11 Zombies) suggested, but adjust as needed to manage difficulty.
Playing a turn for the Horde
-
The Horde's Commander is cast when the Survivors' setup step is complete. It will be recast by the Horde when able (i.e. each main phase, remember infinite mana); however, commander tax limits how many turns before it can be recast - said another way, if the commander dies once, the Horde must wait a turn cycle before recasting it a second time; the number of turn cycles increase with each death of the commander.
-
The Horde's turn starts by revealing cards from the top of its library until a non-token card is revealed. All revealed tokens are then cast. The revealed non-token is cast. Then, if applicable, The Horde casts any cards that can be cast from its graveyard as well as any cards it has in its hand.
-
All creatures controlled by The Horde have Haste and "This creature must attack each turn if able."
-
The Horde has no life total. Damage dealt to The Horde causes that many cards from the top of The Horde's library to be put into its graveyard.
Please Note: There are a LOT of Magic cards in existence. If something doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to, just come up with the most fair way to execute the card. If you can’t, cycle it. This is a casual format.When survivors cast cards like Fact or Fiction or Chainer's Edict the Horde must make the choice as randomly as possible.
Banned cards: Cards that break the horde deck, such as Crawlspace, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, Mind Funeral, Platinum Angel, Stormtide Leviathan, ect., are banned because they simply make the game unfun. The whole idea is to battle a nearly endless legion of undead.
Suggestions to adjust the difficulty of The Horde
Depending upon the number of players and/or the type of decks being used by The Survivors, it may be necessary to adjust some of the aspects of the game in order to set the difficulty of the game to a preferable level. The following are ways to adjust the difficulty and power level of The Horde:
-
ELiminate the commander tax for the Horde
-
Adjust the number of turns The Survivors have to prepare.
-
Adjust the amount of life each of The Survivors contributes to the team.
-
Exile a random portion of the Horde Deck prior to the first turn.
-
Card Selection during Horde Deck deck construction and/or a sideboard.
-
Replace random choices by The Horde with consensus decisions by The Survivors.
-
Allow tokens to remain in the graveyard instead of ceasing to exist.
-
Allow or disallow The Survivors to attack The Horde during their set-up turns.
-
Adjust the token to non-token ratio.
Endless variant!!!
Each time the Horde loses, reshuffle and restart with an emblem giving all it’s creatures +1/+1, and seeing how many rounds the Survivors last.
*oversized*
