5 FFA DECKS
Deck Help forum
Posted on April 9, 2013, 7:09 p.m. by TwentyFive_Shmeckles
hi,
my friends and i really started to enjoy playing a free for all games of the summer, but as we have had different amounts of time to spend on magic during the school year our decks have become less and less evenly matched. we usually play either last man standing wins, where you can cast spells and attack at any one, or we play a star format, (http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/sf6) where spells that say "opponent" effect all 4 other players (however we are willing to change tis if need be). we also play that before the opponent you are attacking declares blockers, the mutual ally can declare blockers. then after the mutual ally declares blockers damage is dealt to the blocked and blocking creatures. after this happens, any unblocked creatures or creatures with trample that are still alive can be blocked by creatures of the player you are attacking. we do play with the proposed alternate turn order.
what i am looking for are 5 mono colored decks that are fair and evenly matched in BOTH formats. the decks do not have to be great decks (preferably NOT OP decks) just evenly matched with a nice curve and some really fun cards. feel free to use any cards from magics history in your decks. full deck list would be nice, but even just 5 basic ideas with a couple of cards that we could turn into the 5 decks would still be appreciated.
remember, the #1 goal is to make the decks evenly match in both formats.
i'm really excited to see what you guys come up with!
Thanks!
TwentyFive_Shmeckles says... #3
@xkaze: ok that sounds fun! we tried it with proxies of these 5 (http://www.wizards.com/magic/starter/starter/starter_pcd.asp) a while back, but it didnt work too well. the decks were not fairly matched and we also found we wanted 60 card decks. so now we came here. if the decks work really well then it would be worth investing in the real cards. Could you point me toward the 5 decks you used?
thanks!
April 9, 2013 7:35 p.m.
DancesWithGoblins says... #4
You could follow some of the "stereotypes" of the colours:
Black - Vampires (Child of Night , Vampire Nighthawk )
Red - Burn (Searing Spear , Fireball )
Green - Ramp (Rampant Growth , Thragtusk )
White - Soldiers (Ballyrush Banneret , Odric, Master Tactician )
Blue - Merfolk (Coralhelm Commander , Master of the Pearl Trident )
Other stereotypes: Lifegain, Control, Pump, Infect, Artifacts, Mid-range (can be most colours)
April 9, 2013 7:52 p.m.
I couldn't tell you what they all, I never saw the boxes of them, just the cards. All I know is that it was 8th edition haha. If it helps, each color did the following:
Red: Goblins Goblins Goblins
Blue: Counterspells, Draw Power, Flying guys
Black: Discard
Green: Get big dudes out and turn them sideways as quick as you can
White: Lifegain
April 9, 2013 7:58 p.m.
I run this type of deck in EDH. Here are links to my five Mana Star EDH decks:
Mana Star: Great White
Mana Star: True Blue
Mana Star: Seeing Red
Mana Star: In the Black
Mana Star: Green-Eyed Monster
Check them out and let me know what you think.
April 9, 2013 8:02 p.m.
TwentyFive_Shmeckles says... #8
lol wow that is similar to what we have now! right now we are running black vampires, red burn with fire breathing, green elves (with Creator Hoof and Primordial hydra), white is lots of weak dudes/tokens and damage prevention (with nomads assembly and hedron field purists), and blue is some wall of frost, cyclonic rift, Blustersquall, and builds up to stormtide leviathan and clone.
green is immediately teamed up on and eliminated because it builds too quickly and powerfully, black then starts crushing white with murder on the few key things like odric and red just burns blue to the ground right over the walls. we tried putting counterspells in blue but then red could never do anything big. black usually wins it all, no matter who is playing with what deck.
with your ideas, it seems that green is now weak and blue will just become the new "green", still leaving black victorious because of its ability to remove whites key creatures. however, if we take out black removal, then there is nothing checking white from destroying every game.
any thoughts?
April 9, 2013 8:15 p.m.
DancesWithGoblins says... #9
Unless you leave mono coloured, you're always gonna have advantage problems.
I'd advise you take the decks you have and get weaker/ stronger replacement cards. Then roll a dice, if the player wins, he gets the stronger version of the deck, weaker if he doesn't. Make it so that the decks can win sometimes but not always. Or, it could be entertaining to have dual coloured duels, to decide who gets the stronger cards. You get to play your friends individually, you get to play dual coloured, you get 5 FFAs and you get mono coloured.
April 9, 2013 8:22 p.m.
TwentyFive_Shmeckles says... #10
@xkaze:
thanks, i think i found them. they seem a little simple and repetitive, but they could still be fun. i'll give them a try next weekend!
wow these look really fun and fair! the only downside is that none of us are really edh players, but i think these might make it worth getting into the format! i'm really excited to try these out, i think because of the # of different cards each game will be very different and fun. as i look at these decks i see one that matches each one of the 5 of us very well. my one friend loves artifacts and tokens and will be thrilled the the white. another love the black deck. i personaly am a green player through and through, and the green definatly looks like a lot of fun. i would be worried about red and blue because they are a bit weaker for the free for all version but i don't think it will be a problem because one of us likes attacking at every one every turn no matter what, so at least the red deck will make him a strong threat that no one wants to draw the focus of, and the last one of us is a fairly smooth talker who might be able to get the blue deck through the early game where it seems weaker than the others. i'll definitely bring these to my friends on saturday! i have very high hopes for these decks! (and even if they don't work at first, i think with some changes these decks have enough potential we could make them work)
thanks so much!
April 9, 2013 8:37 p.m.
TwentyFive_Shmeckles says... #11
thats a good point you bring up. while there will always be color advantages, i think that they can be minimized. you have some decent suggestions as to how to make them more even. i may try some of that with Kirtanian's decks if they are not working as well as i hope they will. thanks for the help
April 9, 2013 8:42 p.m.
The decks I posted do actually exist in Real Life, not just in theory on Tappedout. It is true that they still need quite a bit of playtesting and editing to make them as fun and fair as possible. If you do use them I would love to hear what your group thinks of them and please post to the decks any ideas you have for changes.
I want to make them better than they are but it is somewhat rare for me to have exactly 5 people to play Mana Star, so they don't see as much table time as I would like.
Another side note is that each deck is built with the commander that is listed in mind, but there are additional legendary creatures in each of the 5 mana-star decks that could potentially be the commander. We have had some fun exploring how the decks play with other commanders also.
Kazekiri says... #2
I play a version of this called colors. Each person has a monocolored deck of one of the 5 colors. We sit in a circle, as labeled by the color of the decks (W,U,B,R,G). White always plays first and it goes in the star pattern. The goal is to knock out your two opponents first. What we found to be the best balanced for the decks is that someone went out and bought 5 starting decks that were monocolored from an older set (I think it was 8th Edition). It was really fun and we put in a prize for it too!
April 9, 2013 7:21 p.m.