One of the incredible things about Magic is how much is packed into each card. Almost any other game that includes interactions between cards can be thought of as a derivative of Magic. The only games that beat it to the punch were the 52-card-deck games, and only trick games like Spades, Bridge or Hearts could really be said to have cards “interact;” the rest are just straight up comparisons of value, like in poker or War. Nowadays, Magic covers so much ground that even the trick games can be done with Magic cards, as occurred to me when looking at Avatar Games Enterprises’ Mysticards game.
Mysticards is a fairly standard trick-taking game, but done with a special deck with six colors of ten cards each. You still have to follow suit when possible, and there’s a trump color, but all of the cards have special effects in addition to their rank – for instance, Deceiving Sirens, the Blue 8, forces the next player in the trick to show you two cards from their hand and you get to choose which they play. Other cards can change the color of the trump suit (which is randomly selected at the start of the game), grant bonus and penalty points to the team that takes them, or modify the value of your partner’s card in that trick. It makes for a lot of strategy, all in a game that is likely to go over well even with non-gamers.
While this is a pretty good game on its own, and I did pick up a copy for myself, it’s not even like I needed to. See, Mysticards sets the stage for an interesting… well, I wouldn’t call it a Magic variant, but rather a different game, playable with Magic cards. Instead of using the standard Mysticards deck, you could actually build your own – ten cards of each color plus ten artifacts, with mana costs from 1 to 10. (Because the higher mana costs are a little tight in some colors, you may just want to re-label a few heavy cost cards to suit your own desires; using X spells as the 10s is also a good solution, as you’ll see below.)
The interactions between Magic cards have as much potential as anything another company could create. Starting with the simplest cards: if the Green 1 is Giant Growth and you play it in the same trick as your partner plays a creature, it adds 3 to the value of your partner’s card. If the Green 3 is Viridian Shaman, it nullifies an opposing artifact card, which could be a Mindslaver an opponent intended to use on your partner. The Black 3, Dark Banishing, nullifies an opposing non-Black, non-artifact creature card (easy enough) and the Blue 4, Control Magic, lets you win the trick with an opponent’s massive non-spell card.
Allow me to present a hastily-assembled sample deck, and the effects of the cards in it:
White:
Demystify (Rank 1; nullifies an enchantment card already in the trick)
Purge (Rank 2; nullifies a black or artifact creature card already in the trick)
Angelic Blessing (Rank 3; add 3 to the rank of partner’s creature)
Wrath of God (Rank 4; nullifies all creature cards in play)
Radiant, Archangel (Rank 5; gains 1 rank for each other flying creature in the trick)
Ruham Djinn (Rank 6; loses 2 ranks if White is the most common color in the trick)
Konda, Lord of Eiganjo (Rank 7; can’t be nullified by anything that “destroys”)
Myojin of Cleansing Fire (Rank 8; nullifies all other creatures in the trick)
Bringer of the White Dawn (Rank 9; may re-activate a nullified artifact in the trick)
Soulscour (Rank 10; nullifies all non-artifact permanent cards in the trick)
Blue:
Hydroblast (Rank 1; nullifies a Red card)
Flash Counter (Rank 2; nullifies an opponent’s instant card)
Shifting Sky (Rank 3; choose a new trump color after this trick)
Control Magic (Rank 4; an opponent’s creature in the trick counts as your card)
Higure, the Still Wind (Rank 5; may be switched with your creature in the trick at any time)
Zanam Djinn (Rank 6; loses 2 ranks if Blue is the most common color in the trick)
Blatant Thievery (Rank 7; an opponent’s permanent in the trick counts as your card)
Decree of Silence (Rank 8; cards opponents play for the rest of the trick don’t have special abilities)
Denying Wind (Rank 9; look at an opponent’s hand and choose 7 cards they can’t play this trick, to a minimum of 1 playable card)
Broodstar (Rank 10; +1 rank for each artifact in the trick)
Black:
Deathlace (Rank 1; Black becomes trump after this trick)
Enfeeblement (Rank 2; reduces an opponent’s creature’s rank by 2)
Dark Banishing (Rank 3; nullifies an opponent’s black or artifact creature)
Kagemaro’s Clutch (Rank 4; reduces an opponent’s creature’s rank by the number of cards in your hand)
Beacon of Unrest (Rank 5; may re-activate a nullified creature or artifact card)
Goham Djinn (Rank 6; loses 2 ranks if Black is the most common color in the trick)
Minion of Leshrac (Rank 7; nullifies
Reiver Demon (Rank 8; nullifies all previous nonblack, nonartifact creatures)
Plague Wind (Rank 9; nullifies all opponents’ creatures)
Sickening Shoal (Rank 10; nullifies one creature)
Red:
Pyroblast (Rank 1; nullifies a Blue card)
Giant Strength (Rank 2; increases partner’s creature’s rank by 2)
Shunt (Rank 3; changes the target of an opponent’s card)
Anarachy (Rank 4; nullifies all White cards)
Fissure (Rank 5; nullifies an opponent’s creature)
Halam Djinn (Rank 6; loses 2 ranks if Red is the most common color in the trick)
Kilnmouth Dragon (Rank 7; gains 3 ranks for each Dragon you reveal as you play it)
Insurrection (Rank 8; gain control of all creatures in the trick)
Furnace Dragon (Rank 9; nullifies all artifacts)
Fault Line (Rank 10; nullifies all non-flying creatures)
Green:
Patron of the Hunt (Rank 1; play face-down and reveal at end of trick to increase partner’s creature’s rank by 3)
Predator’s Strike (Rank 2; increase partner’s creature’s rank by 3)
Viridian Shaman (Rank 3; nullify an artifact)
Citanul Centaurs (Rank 4; can’t be targeted by other cards)
Spitting Gourna (Rank 5; play face-down and reveal at end of trick)
Sulam Djinn (Rank 6; loses 2 ranks if Green is the most common color in the trick)
Penumbra Wurm (Rank 7; becomes a rank 7 Black card if nullified)
Towering Baloth (Rank 8; play face-down and reveal at end of trick)
Decree of Savagery (Rank 9; increase partner’s creature’s rank by 4)
Krosan Cloudscraper (Rank 10; play face down and reveal at end of trick)
Artifacts:
Distorting Lens (Rank 1; choose a new trump at the end of the trick)
Tawnos’s Weaponry (Rank 2; increase partner’s creature’s rank by 1)
Ersatz Gnomes (Rank 3; an opponent’s card loses its color)
Heartseeker (Rank 4; if partner’s card is a creature, nullify an opponent’s creature)
Mirari (Rank 5; duplicate the effects of any instant or sorcery)
Mindslaver (Rank 6; choose what an opponent plays this trick)
Darksteel Gargoyle (Rank 7; can’t be nullified by anything that “destroys”)
Aladdin’s Ring (Rank 8; nullifies an opponent’s creature of rank 4 or less)
Suncrusher (Rank 9; can nullify an opponent’s creature, but loses 1 rank)
Engineered Explosives (Rank 10; nullifies all cards of a rank of your choice)
There are a few weirdnesses about this: For one, it’s a little tricky to remember that creatures are judged by mana cost and not power and toughness, and that pump spells now modify that statistic. If you wanted, you could count creatures as a rank equal to their power and toughness (although that restricts you to only X/X). For another, card drawing and damage-dealing/life-gaining don’t have a context here, so you have to avoid those cards unless you want to use them as bonus points (like Natural Spring, the Green 5, being worth 80 bonus points to the team that takes it). It’s almost as much of a game to build the thing as to play with it.
There are also plenty of intricacies to think about when constructing your deck. You can see in mine that Blue has a lot of ways to take the other guy’s cards, but there aren’t many Blue cards worth taking, so they are most useful when played off-suit. The same goes for many of Black’s removal spells. That tends to balance things out a little, as these cards are less impressive in most situations. The use of morphs in Green make your opponents uncertain as to what they’re up against, and I went with a full complement of Djinni in the colored 6-slots, cards that are much better once other players have used up the other cards of that color.
If you want to build your own deck, you can create your own dynamics. The possibilities are practically limitless, just because of the selection of cards available to us. Even the six-by-ten format isn’t set in stone. Want to throw in Gold cards that can be played as either color? Go for it! Split cards that can be either side? Why not? It’s your game, you make the rules.
Looking at the legions of other games on display at Gencon really makes you realize that there’s definitely something to be said for the depth of Magic cards – they can mimic almost any other card game with a little ingenuity. Even outside the game they were made for, there’s not much these cards can’t do.
That’s it for today; I’ll be back tomorrow with… well, I don’t even know yet! Hope you like surprises!
Signing off,
Andy Clautice
andy dot clautice at gmail dot com