New Format - Communal Tower
Challenges and Articles forum
Posted on June 24, 2013, 12:34 a.m. by EvenDryke
Communal Tower is a new format originally proposed by onehitterquiter. Here are the basics according to the original thread.
Basic Rules of Communal Tower:
All players share a single deck and library. This means that everybody draws from the same deck, and interacts with the same graveyard as if it were their own.
There are no basic lands in the deck. Instead, each player may discard any card from their hand to get a basic land of their choice once per turn. A pile of basic lands should be set aside for each Communal Tower game.
After seeing the original thread, I immediately built a deck and started playtesting it with a couple of friends. I have to say, it is some of the most fun I have ever had in Magic.
After playing it for a while, I do have a few amendments to the rules that I would like to humbly suggest. I feel that they make the format much more fun, and clear up a little confusion that we had while playing.
Proposed Rules for Communal Tower:
All players interact with the same library and graveyard as if it were their own.
The deck contains no basic lands. Instead, once per turn a player may choose to discard a land to put a basic land of their choice into play under their control.
If a player chooses not to discard a card for a basic land, they may instead choose to discard a card from their hand to draw two cards from the library once per turn.
The library contains only one copy of each card, with a minimum of 120 cards total.
Proxies are allowed.
The player who originally cast or discarded a spell is considered the spell's "owner," and all effects which refer to to a spell's owner will affect the player who first cast or discarded it. For example, returning a creature to it's owner's hand will return it to the original caster's hand regardless of who currently controls it.
Suggestions to Enhance your Experience:
Plenty of graveyard interaction! Since discarding cards is a central mechanic of the format, cards that interact with the graveyard are highly recommended. Flashback, dredge, unearth, and reanimate spells all work fantastically.
Anything with delve is banned. I experimented with using Logic Knot in my tower for a while, but it ultimately ended up working as a Counterspell that also exiles all cards from the graveyard. All that graveyard interaction is pointless if things keep getting exiled.
Anything that causes you to shuffle the library is banned. Shuffling is not fun. Especially when that library has upwards of 120 cards. Unfortunatly, this means no Emrakul, the Aeons Torn in the communal tower deck. Tutor spells are firmly banned by extension.
Keep the relative power level high! Cards like Jace, the Mind Sculptor , Tarmogoyf , and Black Lotus can make things very interesting indeed, even more so when there is only one of each to be had in the deck. I have to give a very hearty recommendation to planeswalkers in general, as they are very fun to use in this format.
Include some color fixing. This makes multicolored spells, and spells such as Garruk, Primal Hunter a lot more caste-able, and means players will be less frustrated with having to keep on discarding just to get the right colors.
I love the Communal Tower format because it balances the game significantly (everybody has access to the same cards), and it emphasizes strategy.
Players with a good technical knowledge of Magic are favored, and those who can understand the value of a card will preform very well. It is a test of skill and foresight as apposed to a test of how much you are willing to pay for those super badass broken cards.
It is also a format where you can either be very serious and competitive, or just goof around with your friends and have a great time.
I cannot endorse this format enough. The cherry on top is that like in EDH, cards that are normally unplayable are now viable and fun(like Manalith and Chandra, the Firebrand )!
Just to reiterate, this format was not my idea, and I take no credit for it. onehitterquiter is the creator, and his thread about it can be found here. I posted this thread to help get the format the exposure it deserves.
My Communal Tower deck: Communal Tower
I actually had never heard of mental magic until your comment. It sounds interesting, and just might be my next gimmick.
I would say that this differs from mental magic in that the idea is to put as much thought and effort into building your communal tower deck as you would into any other deck, and every card you include should be there for a good reason. Even if that reason is simply that the spell is fun to play with.
You could absolutely play communal tower with a pile of this 'n that, which I did at first, but to me it is much more fun to play it with a constructed deck. And building the deck is just as fun as playing with it if you're into that sort of thing.
And then of course there is the idea of discarding cards instead of playing them face down, which adds the graveyard interaction element to communal tower. That's one of my favorite parts of the format.
KingSorin says... #2
This sounds a lot like mental magic without the mental element. I think a good way to do this is to get a booster box, toss out the land and the tokens, and play with that, provided you have the funds to buy one, or you have one, like at a birthday party if people chip in to get someone a box, this could be a fun way to use it. Even better is if you don't open any of the packs. That would make an interesting format.
June 24, 2013 7:06 p.m.