Puschkin

Rule #1: Avoid control target permanent cards.
I have to disagree on this one. It's becoming annoying if too many players do that, however, these days there are way too many ridiculous cards out there, especially among creatures. While stealing something might ruin the rare hour of glory when a creative deck got "off", most of the time you steal something something very lame like a tinkered third turn Darksteel Colossus or an out of control Forgotten Ancient or Vulturous Zombie. You have to admit that it doesn't need creative decknbuilding skills to get those. I run a few stealers in some of my deck specifically to keep the ridiculous in check. It teaches my buddies to maybe go for less gameturning cards. Which in turn allows myself to play some older, weaker but nicer cards that need some brain to be worthwhile.

Rule #2: Avoid lame combos.
Fully agree

Rule #3 (High casting costs)
Erm, sure, but that's how beginner's decks are build anyway ;)
However, the game has gotten very fast, even in multiplayer. While you have more time and can affotd to run some high casting cost stuff, you can't be too slow either! Even midrange decks can get overrun easily without breaking a sweat. See, these days it is super easy to drop just three or so creatures that beef each other up just because they share a creature type or block mechanic. Often times I can't even afford to play a Darksteel Ingot turn 3 because I desperately need a blocker ... turn 3! In Multiplayer!

Rule #4: (Mass) Destruction
While this is important, games aren't exactly interesting if every player packs literally more destruction than permanents!
Since you won't be able to remedy that and players will never retire their goddamned Wraths (pun intended) I began adjusting my decks and started packing more cards, especially creatures, that have CIP or LP effects or that can be used in respones to destruction. That way, they have already payed for themselves, even when destroyed.

Rule #5: (Exilers and so on)
This is actually a vicious cirlce and linked to #4: Players pack too much (mass) removal, so players responded and switch to indestructible stuff, hexproof and so on. The response to that is Swords to Plowshares, Gravepacts and other nasty stuff. Again, this is a logical progression, but not exactly good for play! I don't want to play unnerbving cards like Balance in multiplayer but the mindset of both #4 and #5 are forcing me to do just that!

Rule #6: Get THOSE cards:
See 4 & 5. I say, using cards like Invisible Stalker and then piling pumping spells on it is in no way better than #2. Don't be THAT guy!!!

I try to escape that vicious circle of #4-6, both for the sake of my playgroup's health and for my own sanity. It's not easy but it can be done. There are several solutions, I already named one in #4, but there are more. Here are two of my decks that was specifically designed to counteract #4 and #5:
http://www.mtgvault.com/puschkin/decks/pump-up-the-wham/
http://www.mtgvault.com/puschkin/decks/trample-brontale/

Rule #7: Don’t play Armageddon, Winter Orb and their ilk
Mostly agree, don't fully cut players off their mana, that doesn't generate interesting games. However, due to #3 and the general high powerlevel of modern high casting cost stuff, I'd say it should be allowed to play something like Keldon Firebombers, just to keep everyone in check. It should be possible to play midrange decks with mana curves that end at 5-6 mana.

Rule #8: You need to protect against flyers.
This is a minor rule and can be covered with enough removal and other tricks. After all, you have to be prepared for flyers no less than for shadows, unblockables, landwalkers and similar stuff that might be less frequent in cards but equally frequent in actual play thanks to #6. And you can't prepare for EVERYTHING.

Rule#9: Think BIG.
Yes and know, as I just said, you can't be prepared for everything. I would revise this rule and be more specific:
Focus less on set values ("deal 3 damage to target player or creature") and instead look for variables in cards ("deal 1 damage for each creatrue in play"). Because in multiplayer, those numbers will be bigger. Of course this might lead to the flatout stupid cards like the Forgotten Ancient I mentioned earlier, but that's how you should think when building multiplayer decks.

Rule #10: Let it go!
While I generally agree with that sentiment, rules are rules and if you constantly let it go, people will never learn anything. My suggestion: Keep a website with rulings open at all times, most questions can be answered right away by just reading the erratas and card rulings of the cards involved. And for the cases that doesn't work, determin a judge for that evening. He decides and everybody else accepts his decision, no matter what. If he makes biased decisions constantly, chose someone else next time. And whoever thinks he got screwerd is invited to make further investigations THE NEXT DAY!
And I want to extend the "let it go" mentality to something else: If someone betrayed you ingame or killed you for nothing or made idiotic decisions that affect you negatively and so on ... keep your revenge fantasies to the current game! Don't hold a grudge for the rest of the evening!
Many times it went like this: Player A plays a hated deck and pisses off Player B. Next game Player B plays his Legacy tournament deck just to stick it back to Player A. NEXT game, Players C and D bust out their combo decks because they had no fun those first 2 games ... this can go on until you realized that it is 4 in the morning and nobody had fun so far, which is idiotic! So: Calm down, don't hold on grudges and if you absolutely have to play a stinker deck, announce that in advance. It is much better for everyone involved (and can even be fun!) if everybody plays their degenerate decks at the same time!

Rule #11: Looking at top cards after losing
Aw, come on! You'd have to be a shaolin monk to be able to resist looking at it! Yes, don't make a big story out of it, especially don't do the "if I only drew X, you would all be dead by now" nonsense, but if the very next card is what you were waiting for, it can be interesting to know for everyone.
BTW, the true reason to not do it (or to look but without telling enybody) would be that you don't want let your opponents know what your deck is capable of. Shutting up increases the chances to win with that deck for the next games.

Rule #12: Metagaming
Of course that's important, however, that's not specific for multiplayer! In fact I might be inclined to say that it is a lot less important than in 1-on-1 (where sideboards are allowed). Also, I don't play multiplayer/casual to win, I play for the heck of it, and if I want to play that Marble Priest deck, no amount of wall-hate will stop me :)

Rule # 13: Table Talk
Of course. I could write an entire book about it. And that's not an exaggeration.

Rule # 14: Fuel your engine
Yes, you have to be a both a very experienced deckbuilder and multiplayer before you whould considering subthemes or combos that are spread across 4+ cards.
HOWEVER, I noticed a trend recently where deckbuilders tend to overstuff their decks with their "engine" (or basic idea), totally neglecting other parts of deckbuilding like lifegain, carddraw, recursion, removal etc. At the very least you should check if those basic effects are available within your theme (so if your theme is soldiers and first strike, try to find a first striking soldier with lifelink so that you cover life gain etc.) and if you can't find anything, you should seriously consider adding something out-of theme. Nobody will dismiss you or your deck if you run a wizard in your soldier deck because you wanted carddraw. In fact it's modern plague that players think your deck is garbage if it doesn't 100% match creature type X or block mechanic Y.


BigGeorge, thank you for giving me an opportunity to release this wall of text :)
You might be interested to check out my decks or at least the challenge I put up recently
http://www.mtgvault.com/puschkin/decks/obscure-card-challenge-occ/
Because I think we think very much alike and would be compatible to each other's playgroups :)

Now I posted my Mesmeric Orb deck which qualifies as "self mill" even though I am sure it's not what you expected/wanted ...
http://www.mtgvault.com/puschkin/decks/occ-bring-it-on/

Jessie, made your Aura Finesse / Aura Graft deck (although techinically it's an Arcanum Wings deck), you'll love it!
http://www.mtgvault.com/puschkin/decks/occ-wings-of-change/

I haven't forgotten about the other ones and will be busy Vaulting today.

I said my suggestions are directed at flavour. He summons beasts, not elementals. And an overrun is like a stampede, something that is a thing with dinosaurs.

Suggestions aim more for flavour than for effetiveness:

* Untamed Wilds instead of Harrow (harrowing involves humans)

* Predatory Hunger instead of Setessan Tactics

* Please make room for a single Fossil Find :)

* Forests can be replaced with (some of them even improve the deck:)
- Jungle Basin
- Slippery Karst
- Tranquil Thicket
- Heat of Yavimaya

* If splashing red is an option:
- Crag Saurian
- Dromosaur
- Shivan Raptor
- Magmasaur
- Macetail Hystrodon

and consequently any combination of:
- Rugged Highlands
- Karplusan Forest
- Taiga
instead of Forests

* I think the original Garruk Wildspeaker is a way better Bradywalker than the one you have there.

And currently those 3-colour cycles are done to death. That's how Type II works ;)

I could make that a new project. I provide the deck structure with slot description and I try to make it as universal as possible. So you could take and say "okay, now we build five decks with the current Tarkir colour cycles" but you could go with mono-coloured or whatever.

Thats been about 15 years ago ... I will have to rebuild everything from scratch.

What I did:
You know that we are usually 5 people and that we like to play Pentagram. Original Pentagram rules say that each player has a mono-coloured deck, playing against the opposing colours. This is problematic because of the color-hate cards. But when you say "no color hosers", you'll get into endless debates what counts as color hosers and what doesn't. Even if you manage that it is easy to abuse the other colour's weaknesses, for example, you know that red has no way to eliminate enchantments.

So, what I did is that I built 5 mono-colour decks, one of each colour. To make them as fair and interesting to play as possible I gave them all the same deck structure. I made an Excel sheet and before deciding cards I designed a deck structure, dividing the deckspace into slots and assigning specific rules for each slot. For example each deck should have a slot "cc1 creature with a standard ability that represents the colour", so, blue got Flying Men (I did that before the colour ability shift), white got Tundra Wolves, green got Llanowar Elves, red got Raging Goblin and black got ... I forgot, probably Insidious Bookworms. Then each deck had a slot for a single creature mass swiper, so white got Wrath of God, red got Earthquake, green got Hurricane, black got Hellfire? Blue doesn't have mass removal, so I took the closest thing to it that is typical for the colour: Evacuation. I also include slots with cycles of cards, for example each deck should have a Storage Land of it's colour or each deck could have it's Titan.

That way, the decks were not only well balanced, they were also ideal representatives of their colour's strengths and weaknesses without abusing it.

But who does that? Did you ever build two decks you found here on Vault and play them against each other?

But this is indeed generally a fun way to play. Everybody has a different style of how to build decks (and different power levels). When you get into arguments regularly in your group, like, "your combo decks ruin everything" or "your decks are too strong" or "your decks are not fun" ... then I can only recommend that you take turns playing just decks from a single deckbuilder. Then decks should be more about the same powerlevel (at least the designer knows which decks are good against each other) and definately of the same style.

Yes, but unlike the Talismans I don't have the option to not get damage when using it. This could be problematic early on when I don't have (many) lifegainers and/or Darien.

Maybe Grand Coliseum.

Thanks, that was the idea about the Obscure Card Challange. I rarely use the usual/obvious strategies and cards anyway. But it seems like only a handful of Vault users appreciate this.
Meh, that won't stop me :)

Thank you!

I am a bit confused about what you say of Threshold - the cards you linked have the fateful hour mechanic, not threshold. Anyway, the Thraben Doomsayer is excellent, I'll try to work him in somehow.

Made another Personal Incarnation deck, this time a version with Darien, as requested:
http://www.mtgvault.com/puschkin/decks/occ-the-darien-crusades/

Made the Darien version as well:
http://www.mtgvault.com/puschkin/decks/occ-the-darien-crusades/

I'll do the self-mill first.

We are all getting older ...

What are you waiting for then?

The burn deck could be slow and would still win because of the lack of copyable things :)

But of course, the typical deck you run into will have enough stuff to copy. BUt if sideboards are allowed, second and subsequent games are what'll become interesting :)

The opponent could ruin everything by not playing anything that Jessie could copy. The worst enemy this deck could face isn't a deck with enchantment removal, it' a far more common thing: Burn decks.

That would be an entirely different deck I suppose. For example, in that deck I would include lifegain to keep on going and it would certainly not run Blasphemous Act ect.