Neighborhood Format: Better Than Commander!
The Kitchen Table forum
Posted on April 10, 2022, 10:40 p.m. by juliusthejules
Title: Neighborhood Format
By: Julius the Jules
Deck type: Constructed
Deck size: A minimum of 60 cards with no max as long as you don't need assistance shuffling.
Hand and hand size: You draw 10 cards to begin with instead of 7. Both players skip their 1st draw phase. Hand size is unlimited. Draw normally.
Banned cards with abilities/effects:
-Any card that causes Drawing extra cards
-Any card that causes Milling
-Any card that causes Discarding
-Any card that affects hand size
Life: Place facedown 20 cards to the side to act as your Life. You lose Life based on the number of unblocked Attacks, which you then draw and keep that amount of cards in your hand as if you drew them (like draw card effects, but you are simultaneously losing Life, yet gaining cards to play in your hand). You lose when you are attacked one more time after no Life cards are left (but not as soon as you run out of Life cards, usually 21 attacks).
Note: Creature Power and Toughness are used for Blocking other Creatures only.
Banned cards with abilities/effects:
-Any card with Life Gain or causes Life Gain
-Any card with Burn effects (or causes Life to be lost other than by attacks).
-Any card with abilities to affect Life changes (Gain or lose Life)
Playing & Using Lands: You can only play 1 Land at a time. Lands don't tap, but rather are used to pay for any Mana cost for every card you want to play with that Mana cost (I.E. You have 4 swamps, you can play anywhere from 1, 2, 3, or even all 4 allocated Abyssal Specters if you draw or gain them from a card effect. Also can be played with 2 swamps and 2 Lands of any color, or when you produce Mana from any non-banned source).
Banned cards with abilities/effects:
-Any card that has abilities capable of infinite use (I.E. Duskmantle Guildmage, Flame Spirit, etc.)
Note: Cards with Heroic are the exception to the rule and are thus allowed.
-Any card that taps Lands or affects their untapping (I.E. Winter Orb, etc.)
-Any card that produces infinite Mana
All other rules not changed in this format are unaffected.
Other banned cards:
-Any card with Ante
-All Power 9 cards
-All cards needing dexterity
-All Unsanctioned set cards (I.E. cards with silver borders, cards with acorn seals/icons, etc.)
And that is the Neighborhood Format!
Interesting idea, but I have some points to lay down.
It seems like the focus is strongly on creature combat, since that's the only way to actually affect life totals, or really interaction at all. You play creatures, you attack with creatures, you Murder creatures. There's no discard, no mill, and no burn. There's also no potential to go infinite, and taken as broadly as possible, that includes virtually every activated ability.
I'm going to ask for some clarification on how mana works here; I'm not quite understanding.
Also, I see two main decks arising. Aggro will be go-wide, multi combat, and control will be turbofog/pillow fort, also with going wide.
April 10, 2022 11:58 p.m.
Not to nitpick but two creatures in Grubbernaut's card list are illegal in this format. Eyetwitch can include discard. And Gingerbrute can provide lifegain. But your plan for cheapest, fastest creatures with some utility is a good plan.
April 11, 2022 5:32 p.m.
I think this format could easily be replaced by just using Rule 0. Call the format Battlecruiser or Stomp or something. And inform players its a 60 card constructed format following Modern rules and that the deck can only have win conditions based around the combat turns and creature-based damage. Any card or win condition not in the spirit of the format gets a house-ruled banning. Ban on group votes.
April 11, 2022 5:43 p.m.
TheOfficialCreator says... #6
It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood - not here's my take on the format idea.
While I think the idea itself is pretty neat, the application of it does need a bit of work, since like other users have said, the format would quickly become polarized with only a few styles of play even being effective. I think perhaps that allowing card draw to exist in the format would open up a new way for players to expand their strategies (though of course I'm biased because I do love some good card draw :P)
I'm interested to see how this format develops in the future!
April 12, 2022 10 a.m.
I'll go with a approach and see if multicolor is viable.
Infiltrators!
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SCORE: 1 | 10 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER
April 12, 2022 2:59 p.m.
MortisAngelus says... #8
I read about half of the rules....
But so essentially combining heartstone and Pokemon TCG on steroids, but with more life and an unreasonable ban-list tbh.... You essentially eliminate 40 % of all magic cards it feels like. The rules are also so different from magic's core rules that the cards available are not really designed for this; it would be better to make a whole new game all together imho.
But perhaps I'm wrong. I was also sceptical to EDH back in the day, and that turned out amazing; but on the flip-side EDH don't really change any core-rules except for the commander aspect and the singleton rule.
Grubbernaut says... #2
Sounds rough, my man. It is literally impossible to ban "any card that has abilities capable of infinite use." Does that mean any activated ability? Or infinite mana. How do you define infinite? Can I still Breach + LED + Brain Freeze? I'm limited by my deck size, even though I'm definitely winning the game. Does infect work? Double strike? Why don't lands tap? Where do the "life cards" go if there's an effect preventing the draw? Do cards that don't actually draw cards, but put them directly into your hand work? Does trample do anything? Do cost reduction clauses on cards affect the number of lands needed to cast them? Can effects that remove cards from hand but don't actually discard them work as normal?
Here's a list.
Mono B Kill
April 10, 2022 11:47 p.m.