[Type 4] Chaos Stack / Critical Mass

[WhiteWolf]

The idea of a Critical Mass / Chaos Stack was first proposed by Harlequin if I'm correct, so props should go to him.

I immediately liked the idea of such a stack but I changed the trigger for when the next card is turned. Harlequin counts the spells played per turn and when the 'critical mass' for that turn is reached the card gets turned. For our play group I changed the trigger. In casual games we don't want to be bothering with keeping track of spells per turn and with 'critical mass' the players have some sort of control when the next card gets turned. So to simplify and randomize the system we roll a six-sided dice at the beginning of each turn. On a 1 or 6 the next card gets turned.

For reference here's my Chaos Stack:

Apocalypse
Arena of the Ancients
Biorythm
Bottomless Pit
Charmed Griffin
Checks and Balances
City of Solitude
Confusion in the Ranks
Delirium Skeins
Dovescape
Dreamborn Muse
Dream Halls
Elkin Lair
Enter the Dungeon
Eureka
Exhume
Eye of the Storm
Eyes of the Watcher
Furnace of Rath
Gate to the Aether
Grand Melee
Horobi, Death's Wail
Howling Mine
Humility
Hunted Wumpus
Incoming!
Innocent Blood
Lethal Vapors
Mnemonic Nexus
Moat
Molder Slug
Nature's Resurgence
Nullstone Gargoyle
Oath of Ghouls
Pillar Tombs of Aku
Portcullis
Pox
Roar of Reclamation
Show and Tell
Silent Arbiter
Sway of the Stars
Teferi's Puzzle Box
Temporal Cascade
The Abyss
Timesifter
Topsy Turvy
Uba Mask
Unifying Theory
Warp World
Wheel of Fortune
Windfall
Winds of Change
Yet Another Aether Vortex

Apocalypse is the only wrath effect I use. I think wrath effects are too 'unfun' because it wipes away the nice armies people have build up. Apocalypse however is in because it really blows up the world and one of them in a whole stack isn't bad. The draw-sevens I'm probably going to cut to one (Sway of the Stars). In the long term I'm afraid the effects are too much alike. Also the 'Eureka' effects (Wumpus, Show and Tell, .... ) could be cut to only Eureka. I think the most fun card in the stack is Timesifter.

Anyway, I just wanted to see who of you uses a Chaos / Critical Mas Stack, wich trigger they use and especially wich cards. The last one could be quiet interesting because a lot of cards could come up other people didn't think about.

WhiteWolf

[Mr. Type 4]

Has anyone experimented with suspend cards in a critical mass stack? It might be cool if these things would turn up and then get suspended (removing a counter on the upkeep of the person's turn it was when it flipped up - although if you do it this way there could be a problem if that person dies), leading to some insanity a few turns down the road. 

WHAT IF you removed a time counter everytime you got critical mass???

Sounds pretty fun to me.

[RaZe]

I run all but A.Vision on my Chaos stack. Although the trigger of the Chaos stack is via Die Roll, kinda like Whitewolfs system but only once per rotation. And the Chaos stack is treated like another player that it has it's own upkeep and stuff for suspend and other shinnanigans. It's nice when you know wheel of fate is gonna be played in 3 turns. Gives you time to set up your hand/board. Plus house rules are that any card from the chaos stack can be countered/destroyed by any player. It makes gives a lil suspense to the game knowing Living End is about to resolve, while your opponent has Compulsion. But are tempted to let it resolve as you have 8 1/2 tails, glarecaster and vampiric dragon in yours. Plus god knows what might flip over from the chaos stack after Living End resolves.

[Harlequin]

I put Hypergenesis, and wheel of fate in the crit stack.  But in my stack they hit automatically.  Essentially, I'm too cheap to put a real Eureka and a real wheel of fortune in my Type 4 stack =/

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

Timesifter, Gate to the Aether, Furnace of Wrath etc, are fun (they are in our chaos stack, too). You totally have to put  a Shared Fate in there.  Also, some sort of hand revealing effect like Revelation can make things really interesting (or perhaps Zur's Weirding). 

We have semi-board clearing effects in the form of Inferno and Soulscour (which I think are more interesting than something that just wipes out everything).  We also play with the rule that chaos spells can't be countered (athough they can be responded to and permenents can be destroyed once they have entered play, although they are subsequently shuffled back into the stack). 

We also do the thing with the 1/6 at the start of each palyer's turn after each player has had at least 1 turn (2nd time around).  It doesn't really matter, but for 6 we flip the top card of the stack and for 1 we flip the bottom card.

[WhiteWolf]

Mr. Type 4: Using the Suspend cards in a Chaos stack is indeed a good idea In hadn’t thought of yet. I might try that. I’m a litlle afraid it will add another element to the game to keep track of and it will get to much. The already insane plays and the dice throwing/Chaos stack are already pretty complicated sometimes.

Gandalf_The_White_1: Timesifter is by far my favourite “Chaos Card” and Gate to the Aether and Furnace of Wrath are great too. They have a huge impact on the game. Shared Fate is a very interesting suggestion and I’m sure going to add that! Thanks! It looks like another card that totally turns a game upside down. Revelation seems a bit too ‘whatever’ but Zur’s weirding I’m surely going to add. The ‘Revelation’ part is cute but the drawdenial part is what makes it really interesting. Thanks again for the tip. I’m sure there are still a lot of great Chaos cards out there … I really recommend Incoming! from Unglued. I do however recommend errata (the only errata in my stack L ) for 3 (or something) permanents. In the beginning we palyed it without the errata and although putting half your deck into play looks insanely fun, it creates some irreparable game states (Somehow I don’t think I had to clarify that … ). Sometimes non-erratad Incoming! is still fun when we have a booze-induced Magic-night. Try resolving those absurd stack situations when you’re drunk …

I’m very wary of board-clearing effects in my chaos stack. At the moment I only have Apocalypse for the one-randomness factor and it truly blows up everything. In my opinion it really sucks when everybodys stuff gets randomly blown up. Allright, this happens often with the ‘normal’ stack but there it has a ‘tactical’ purpose. It’s fun to randomly gain extra turns for instance but it’s no fun to see your nicely set up board position randomly get blown apart without even the ability to counter (Chaos cards are untouchable under my rules).

WhiteWolf