Making the best Wagic box

[Toad]

I'm not sure the Wagic concept is known out of France, so here are the basis ... The goal is to make a card pool (no specific criteria) used for casual play and / or team games. This is pretty similar in the concept to Type 4 stacks, except games are handled exactly as a Magic game. Cards are drafted among the players according to various draft methodes (usually, Salomon Draft).

I've designed a first box with some friends, and It's currently 1400 cards from every single set. We just basically picked every single good card from each expansion, and put them all together. It's a really good stack, but somehow problematic when we want to move with it (It takes up 2 full Deckmaster boxes).

So I've decided to work on a smaller box, including the 60 best cards from each colour, 50 artifacts and 40 gold cards, along with 25 non basic lands. I have exported the lists in separate text files (Apprentice format).

Black
Blue
Red
White
Green
Gold
Brown
Lands

If you have some comments that could make my lists better (basically, cards I have forgotten), I'd appreciate

[Geet]

Blue:
Brainstorm
Intuition

Artifacts:
Black Vise
Mana Vault

Lands:
[card]Maze of Ith[/card]
Tolarian Academy
City of Brass

[Matt]

I ain't lookin through all that, but the battlemagi and familiars from Planeshift are awesome.

[Nefarias]

Solomon Drafts are the Fact or Fiction drafts, right? How does that work with so many cards and more than two players? Some friends and I used to have a Big Box that was far from completion, and we just all made random boosters and (obviously) booster drafted it.

@geet: Cards good in Type 1 aren't necessarily good in draft, though some of your suggestions are sound.

[Aeneas]

You could use a Call of the Herd and an Earthcraft.  Perhaps you could go for a Fyndhorn Elves.

The artifacts could possibly use a Tangle Wire and definately Mana Crypt and AEther "#1" Spellbomb.

This seems like a real fun casual format.

[Toad]

I've been away from my computer for the entiere week end, thanks for the replies.

Intuition is quite average only because all the decks are full of 1-offs, but It's a potential candidate. There are too few shuffling effects to make Brainstorm good.

Black Vise and Mana Vault are indeed strong.

Maze of Ith is great, as is City of Brass. And there are probably too few artifacts to make Tolarian Academy strong. I'll have to check that.

The Battlemagi. Yeah, I forgot about them, they are definitive inclusions (at least the good ones with 187 effects for creatures / artifacts / enchantments).

Call of the Herd goes in, Aether Spellbomb too. These are strong.

*****

About Solomon Drafts. I'm not sure this is the exact name for our draft technique but that's how we call it. Each player randomly choses a pile of card (same amount of cards for every player), usually 60 or 80 cards for 2-vs-2 games, depending on the depth you want to give to your games (we usually go for 80 cards).

Each player splits his cards into 2 piles of 30 or 40 cards, placed in front of him face down. Then, simultaneously, each player flips the top card of each of his piles. So you have 8 piles of 1 card. First drafter picks one pile. New cards from each piles are flipped, forming 7 piles of 2 cards and 1 pile of 1. Second drafter picks one entiere pile (that is, 1 or 2 cards). And you keep going. You can sometimes pick piles of 10 average cards that have not been picked for many flips, and you usually have to choose between quality (good cards tend to be picked early, hence small piles) or quantity (but average cards). All the players won't end up with the same amount of cards drafted. This is a team draft, so all the teammates are drafting in the same side of the table, that way :

A1 A2
B2 B1

You draft clockwise (or counter-clockwise) without rebounds. This usually takes 1 hour for 80 cards. It is a really fun draft techniques and my casual partners, who don't like booster draft or rochester draft, like that a lot because of the interactions between the players while drafting.

Once all the cards have been drafted, players design 40 (for 60 initial cards) or 60 (80) cards decks by adding basic lands. Then game starts, with the teammates facing each other

A1 B1
B2 A2

You attack the player on your left, and defend on the right. Spells have no range and hit every player (like Wrath effects). 40HP, shared by the team. Games usually last 1h30.

The strongest draft archetype for this format is UWb + RB(u or g). UW is strong at board control and countering (Wrath of God effects are game breakers), and RB packs good aggressive creatures and targetted creature control. If black offers too many removal, some can be splashed for the UW deck. If green gives good removal and utility (Naturalize, Regrowth, All Sun's Dawn, Elvish Lyrist ...), It should be splashed into the RB deck. Expensive sorcery speed draw (Deep Analysis and such) goes into RB. Green tend to be strong in early game to proceed fast beats, but white's mass removal are far better and the 40HP limit is too much for green.

[Geet]

Intuition I believe is better than you think.  I use it in type 4, which also only uses 1 ofs, and it is still quite powerful.  Just go get 3 of your bombs.  And if you have a Genesis in your deck, even better.

Brainstorm is pretty good for draft, even without shuffling.  It digs 3 cards deep and gets you the answer you need right NOW.

You're right about the Tolarian Academy though.  I miscalculated the artifact ratio.

[Matt]

The Seals from Nemesis are good. Also Chromatic Sphere and blue could probably use a Boomerang or Undo or something. Suq'Ata Lancer is a good flanker, and the black flankers (both of whose names escape me) are both solid.

The black part of the Deep Analysis cycle (Crippling Fatigure IIRC) would be good.

Green needs a Beast Attack. Grizzly Fate could also work.

Artifacts: Grafted Skullcap, Coat of Arms, Meekstone, Jester's Cap, Monkey Cage, Bonesplitter, Bottle Gnomes, Pyrite Spellbomb/Aeliopile, Fellwar Stone,  Caltrops, Mind Stone.

Lands: Karakas, Faerie Conclave, Desert, Lake of the Dead, Barbarian Ring, Centaur Garden, Cabal Coffers, City of Brass/Thran Quarry/Undiscovered Paradise/Mirrodin's Core, Crystal Vein, Gaea's Cradle, either the Saga or Onslaught cycling lands, Glacial Chasm, Pendlehaven, Ice Floe, Keldon Necropolis/Rath's Edge, Kor Haven, Petrified Field, Reflecting Pool, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale (!), Volrath's Stronghold.

[Toad]

There are so many good cards It's pretty hard to keep every colour down to 60 cards, but that's my goal.

Seal of Cleansing is already an auto inclusion in White, as is Seal of Fire for Red. Seal of Doom could probably find its way easily into the Black list, probably over Hatred, which is only half decent considering the amount of spot removal and burn packed by Red and Black, or over Barter in Blood. I'm not a big fan of Seal of Strength, as creature combats are not common and pump tricks thus become useless. Giant Growth is just there for the old school context. Seal of Removal is better than the green one, but Blue has already better bounces (Echoing Truth, Boomerang, Repulse) and  the 60 cards limit is hindering.

Suq'Ata Lancer is great, indeed. It could be used over Recoup. Arc Lightning should go in too, It's a strong weenie sweeper. The Black best flankers are [card]Cadaverous Knight[/card] and [card]Fallen Askari[/card].

I had never heard about Crippling Fatigue. It's pretty solid.

Beast Attack is good but the GGG casting cost is quite prohibitive, considering Green is usually under drafted and confined to splashes. It would probably never see play. Grizzly Fate is better, but competes with Bearscape and Centaur Glade in the "green card that produces tokens" spot.

I'll post an list of the updates soon

[combo_dude]

Actually, there was quite a cool draft format that my brother, a friend, and I tried once: we pooled our various collections temporarily, and we went through them and took out 20 cards of each colour and 10 artifacts/nonbasic land each. We then shuffle up each colour and place them face-down separately, and we go around the table each taking the top card of a colour (you add lands afterwards, making a 40-card deck). This was pretty cool as I loaded blue with several Merfolk of the Pearl Trident and other such treasures, while the Red had Dragons and the Green had mana acceleration...but despite the random picks, it was quite strategy based in the draft (you had to put in as much as possible once you had your respective piles of crap). Just wondering whether this would work for this sort of game?

[Matt]

Ahhh, I hadn't noticed you were keeping it to 60 of each color. That kicks Beast Attack out, yeah. Fallen Askari is still really good, since he takes out either two 2-drops or trades with as much as a 4-drop. I also HIGHLY recommend Undo, probably over Echoing Truth.

[Toad]

I have slightly updated the decklists yesterday evening and It's becoming a really good draft box.

Red

-1 Pulse of the Forge
-1 Recoup
-1 Dwarven Miner (not enough non basic lands)
+1 Thunderscape Battlemage
+1 Suq'Ata Lancer
+1 Arc Lightning
+1 Keldon Vandals

Considering Blind with Anger and Hammer Mage.

Borderline cards : Covetous Dragon, Magma Jet, Threaten.

Black

-1 Hatred
-1 Pox
-1 Phyrexian Negator
-2 random weak removal
+1 Fallen Askari
+1 Coercition
+1 Seal of Doom
+1 Eastern Paladin
+1 Western Paladin

I'll add Crippling Fatigue too, just need to find room. Nightscape Battlemage didn't make the cut, the kickers are too weak compared to the other Mages. The Paladins are strong additions.

Borderline cards : Animate Dead, Living Death, Drain Life (not so).

Green

-1 Tooth and Nail
-1 Rude Awakening
+1 Grizzly Fate
+1 Thornscape Battlemage
+1 Bearscape

I don't remember what else I cut. Saproling Burst looks underpowered in the colour, especially with only 1 Pandeburst. Multani, Maro-Sorcerer is banned.

Borderline cards : Wall of Blossoms (not so), Land Grant. Living Wish has to go too.

Artifacts

-5 Mirrodin talismans
+1 Bonesplitter
+1 Grafted Skullcap
+1 Cursed Totem
+1 Aeolipile
+1 Meekstone (?)

Borderline cards : Ensnaring Bridge (fats are fun!), Smokestack (no lands = no fats).

White

-1 Kabuto Moth
+1 Northern Paladin
+1 Southern Paladin
+1 Sunscape Battlemage

I don't remember what else I cut. The Paladins are really interesting creatures, 3/3 bodies that double with removal.

Borderline cards : Auriok Salvagers, Pulse of the Fields

Blue

-1 Frantic Search (awful)
+1 Boomerang

Blue now has Time Elemental, Waterfront Bouncer, Boomerang, Capsize and Man-o'-War for bounce, along with Aether Spellbomb. It should be enough.

Borderline cards : Windfall

UPDATED LISTS

Blue cards (60)
Red cards (60)
White cards (60)
Black cards (60)
Green cards (60)
Artifact cards (50)
Gold cards (40)

Decklists are hosted on a french MTG, lists should be in French but you can change the display language by clicking on the "Changez de langue" link on the top right of the deck frame.

[amuraivel]

I am interested in your Wagic box.

I cannot access the lists, can you post them?  THere is a page error.

I just taught my wife how to play (blood-thirsty, card-counting, odds-mising math teacher), but have only a keeper T1 deck. 

Playing T1 is a bit too overpowered to make for a fun casual game with the wife.

I am looking to assemble something akin to Ben Bleiweiss's Big Box, but I would like to keep it to decent cards rather than just one of everything ever printed of circa 700 different cards.


Any ideas or links,


Amuraivel

[Toad]

I deleted the old lists because they were slightly outdated... I'm just starting to update the box after Saviors of Kamigawa (which has excellent cards!), so far I've sorted Blue, White, Black, Red and Green cards. I still have to do Browns and Golds. 60 cards per color was a bit too few so I'm electing 65 cards from each colour now.

I'll post the current lists tomorrow from work, I don't have my Excel spreadsheet there

And yeah, Wagic is a very good thing to teach Magic to beginners who want to have fun. My girl friend actually likes it, despite finding standard Magic boring. When playing together, we don't use lands. Basically, spells can be played face down on the board as lands, so you are never mana screwed, and she can filter away cards she doesn't like/understand easily.

[amuraivel]

What is "Wagic" exactly is it just cards from a block?

Or is it the top 60 casual type cards?  Are there multiples?

@ Toad: As for the list, je serais très  obligé.


Does anyone else have a list of the "top" 500 magic cards, or "top" 100 creatures, spells, artifacts, &c. type list?



Amuraivel

[Toad]

Wagic is a casual variant we play a lot in France. You just pick the best cards from each colour, without casting costs considerations (that means stuff like Verdant Force and Akroma are included, and actually very strong. My box  is limited to :

* 65 cards per colour
* 40 gold cards
* 50 artifacts
* a dozen of lands (not tweaked yet)

It's a highlander format. Depending on the average playskills of the players involved or the amount of time we have to play, we either draft the pile, or randomly divide it.

[Toad]

Here is the list I'm currently using : http://www.mtgpics.com/toad/wagic.txt
I have not finished to list the Artifacts, lands and the Gold/Split cards. I'll update the text file when I'm done with that.

I have not included Saviors of Kamigawa yet, since I'm still testing these cards (testing casual boxes is tech!). Some are auto includes :

Nikko-Onna
Kagemaro, First to Suffer
Jiwari, the Earth Aflame
Arashi, the Sky Asunder

and some are still tested :

Ghost-lit Raider
Twincast
Hand of Cruelty
Ghost-Lit Stalker
Adamaro, First to Desire
Rending Vines
Manriki-Gusari
Mikokoro, Center of the Sea

Now everyone is free to design his own box and there is no optimal box, It just depends on what you want to do. For example, I've banned all the land destruction cards from my box (Stone Rain and such), and some strong cards like Jokhulhaups are errated so they don't destroy lands. Some friends have a box with very little Wrath effects (I'm using a lot, probably close to 20), allowing more creature combat tricks. Some have banned counterspells to keep the game really fun. Etc... It's just a question of playstyles.

[amuraivel]

This is a good start.

I am looking at building a box 'o fun, mostly around creatures and commons based on the standard rules of magic.



Amuraivel

[TheAlpha]

Does anyone have an updated list, I'd like to try this out

[RaZe]

My friend has a Wagic Box. It's quite fun. I'd build one but it's too expensive for me so I just made a T4 Stack.

It's pretty much a general concept but we try to keep in theme of the color.

Green for Mana Accel and Beatsticks. Elves, Birds, Utility Walls and Creatures like Uktabi Orangutans to Silvos. Toothing by 4 turn in casual Wagic is a bomb.
Red can have all the Burn spells. For creatures the best seem to be Dragons, Goblins, Viashino Heretic and Kumano. Oh and the Flanking Knights from the Mirage block.
White is Swords, Wraths, Angels, Soldiers, Knigts. Think white weenie and Angel Stompy with Akroma...LOL. Don't forget disenchant effects.
For black think Mono-Control Black or Sui Black.
Blue is for Palinchron, Meloku, Tinker. Clones are pretty sick too.

I generally prefer having a lot of utility creatures in the Box so as every card you draft of your colour is playable and not dead if it doesn't go with tthe theme your deck is falling to.

[Matt]

Does anyone have an updated list, I'd like to try this out

Um, build your own? And you'll figure out what's good or not quickly?

[Toad]

Making your own box is very interesting. My list is fairly outdated, I forgot to update it since Kamigawa or so. Ill try to update it ASAP 

[Harlequin]

I'm going to be building one of these out of all the unhinged cards I got from waterbury, and the Benefit tourny.  Mostly highlander unhinged but with some 4-ofs like Snot.  I'll Need to fill in some wholes in the deck, but assuridly they will be crazy cards.  Like my all time favorite: Homarid Spawning Pit.

[parallax]

I'm going to be building one of these out of all the unhinged cards I got from waterbury, and the Benefit tourny.  Mostly highlander unhinged but with some 4-ofs like Snot.  I'll Need to fill in some wholes in the deck, but assuridly they will be crazy cards.  Like my all time favorite: Homarid Spawning Pit.

Ah, Homelands. The first Un- set.

[Matt]

...do you mean Fallen Empires?