Magic: The Gathering, the way it was meant to be played Part IWhen it was created, magic wasn't about tournaments, DCI ratings, or tournament tunned decks, it didn't even have a format structure, it was about the gathering, it was about a group of friends just playing and interacting with each other, it wasn't about combos or 3 turn clocks, it was about fun.
That's something that took me time to relearn, when I started to play I didn't went to tournaments, my first deck was a green fatty deck, I mean it in all senses, it had only large creatures, and it had like 150 cards in it, then I went to my first tournament, and as you can imagine, I got my ass handed by a Prosbloom deck.. so I started to play control, and I headed to the dark side of magic, tounaments, I won a lot, but it wasn't the game I liked, so I left them.
Then, almost 6 years later, a trading card game store opened near my house, and I started to organize Type 1 tournaments, we had a pretty cool metagame, there was about 20 people every week, with almost 16 different decks (4 Sligh decks
), and every one of them had a chance of winning.
Everything was going fine, but then the administrator of the mall raised the rent.. not a 10%, not a 20%.. not a 50%.. it raised it to the double, you know why? because it's was going to be christmas soon.. asshole..
So that's was my position one year ago.. my Type 1 league had nowhere to play, I was short on money so I couldn't play Type 2.. and I just can't stop playing, I mean it's in my blood, I started to play when I was ten years old, now I'm eighteen... but then I had a great idea, I called all my playmates, then I called Pizzahut, it was going to be multiplayer night at my house.
Some friends brought beer and nachos, then we played like 6 hours.. and damn, it was the most fun magic related evening in my life, so now we do it every other week, we are playing the game the way it was meant to be played, and it is just too fun.
That's my advice to every player out there, relearn how to have fun with magic, you will feel more rewarded if you have fun with your friends than if you win a booster box at a tournament (well... winning a booster box is not bad, but with all the effort that you must do to achieve it, you might as well buy it)
And it's been a year since that, and I have learned a lot, free-for-all magic is totally different to duels, you might say that it's all in the politics, or that it's all in the deck you are playing, but you can't build a deck that is going to win 99% of the time because FFA is too random and self-balancing, and politics do matter but there is always going to be a newbie or a mindless suicidal in the group.
Anyway there are some guidelines that might help you to be prepared for a multiplayer carnage:
An eye for an eye:it doesn't work, you will only start borderline wars if you do mindless retaliation, if someone beats you with a Hundroog, just take the damage and whine, but if you play like Anthhony Alongi and throw the whole game for the window just to take revenge you are never going to win, you will always take some damage or will lose certain permanents in a multiplayer game , and this takes me to the next guideline;
And this too, shall pass:for every permanent you play, for each threath that you put in the table, there will be at least one answer waiting around the table, that's why recurssion is a great strategy in multiplayer, so remember that you can't rely in just one plan for the victory, you need a plan B, C and D, in duels you need a totally focused deck, with a straight path to victory, but there are a lot of things that count on duels that doesn't count in multiplayers;
And you thought that you knew it all 
Card Advantage, Board Advantage, Tempo Advantage. Those are the pilars of magic theory, if you get any of this advantages in a duel is pretty probable that you are going to win (if you have tempo advantage you are going to win in the early game, if you have board advantage you are going to win in the midgame, and if you have card advantage you are going to win the late game)... but in multiplayer those pilars crumble because they don't apply as well as they do in duels
Let's do some math:
Your starting hand: 7
Your opponent(s) starting hand(s): 7
if you are playing a duel you and your opponent are tied in card advantage, but add just more opponent and you are 7 cards behind, and each time that the table goes one time around you are going to be one more card behind (for each opponentbeside the first).
Technically it's not card disadvantage, but there is a card disparity, that's why if you have a deck filled with spot removal you are going to lose every single time, you can't keep up with the card disparity. And it get's worse if you try to win tempo advantage, because tempo advantage is often related to card disadvantage so just don't do it.
You might try to add some card drawing, but you need to spend time to set it up, and you are going to lose because you are not developing your board side, so everyone is going to gang up on you (unless you are a master at diplomatics... and if you are, go to work in the ONU to stop the wars around the world, don't waste your time playing magic).
(Anyway there are two cards that break part of this guideline; Minds Eye and Rhystic Study, they allow you to maintain card parity, but not to get card advantage)
I know that I just said that board advantage doesn't exist in multiplayer, again let's do some math:
your creatures in play: 2
your opponent(s) creatures in play: 1
if you are playing against one opponent you have board advantage, if you are playing against two you are tied, against three you are down.. anyway no one is going to attack you, even if every one at the table knows that if they gang up on someone, he may have a great board position, but he/she is going to lose anyway.
But they don't do it because you have a complex board position, everyone expects to do the most in their respective combat phases, so if you have at least one way to negate part of the effect of their attack, they are going to avoid you. So if you want to have a long life spam you need some kind of moat:
Psychological Moats (these are not moats per se, but they act like one)1.-
No Mercy:No one is going to spend their creatures like they where burn spells against you (unless you and someone else are the only two still standing), and it has the plus that it's not player unfriendly, it says: "just avoid me and I will not harm you"
2.-
Propaganda:Some people is just too lazy to do the math so they will just avoid you, but this card is not so intimidating, like No Mercy, so don't rely on it
3.-
Sun Droplet:If you have one in play someone is going to attack you to realize that he did nothing to you, and if you have more than one in play your opponent's will need to kill you in just one blow, or they will not be able to. (get this cards while you can, they will be as popular as congregate inside the "lifer comunity")
4.-
Collective Restraint:An excellent card, but it needs no be used in a especific deck, that's why it isn't rated higher. (I use it in a domain/turboland deck, it lets me breath long enough to set up my massive
ordered migrations..
I'm going South BEWARE.. I just love to say that)
5.-
Nova Pentacle:One of the most fun cards in multiplayer (and it's even more fun for the polititians, you just need someone that agrees with you about wich creature must leave the table now.. and the fun part is that: "I didn't killed it.. he did"), best played in a creatureless deck or in a deck filled with untargeteables (gigapede anyone?)
6.-
Constant Mists:Use it once and no one is going to attack you when you have 2 mana open, you are going to need a steady suply of lands, so I recomend it with a Weathered Wayfarer or a Land Tax in play (the fun fact about this card is that if you use it too often in your decks everyone is going to use after a while... and it gets pretty boring after some time)
7.-
Moment's Peace:The first one is a surprise, the one waiting in the graveyard is a permament fog (because everyone tries to make the most of their respective combat phases) The trick with this card is to use only when the attack threathens your life spam, dont use it if you are at 20 life and they are attacking you with a bear.
8.-
Maze of Ith:It negates the effect of almost every creature, and it also lets you screw with other dudes combats, and they deal pretty well with one of the most common threaths in kitchen tables around the world: Akroma, normally it spells doom for almost everyone.. but the dude with the Maze of Ith. It also lets you do some interesting plays when you attack (they work pretty good in response to a fog effect)
9.-
Avenger en Dal:It may save you in two ways, you might remove a creature attacking you, or you may remove your own creature if someone throws an ugly spell at it during combat (you still lose the creature but you gain some life in the process)
10.-
Kor Haven:It looks like a bad Maze of Ith at first glance, but then you read “prevent all the combat damage that would be dealt by target attacking creature” and you notice that it is missing something... yup it can recieve combat damage, funny isn’t it?
[EDIT=TYPOS]
Poll
