Mental Magic

[Anusien]

I'm just starting to get into mental magic, and I'm curious the way a few things are done in most places:

Shared Library or No?  Flores says no because of cards like Sylvan Library and Top, but I like it for that effect.

Lands in your stack?  Do you put in cards to be played as non-basics (or could you play Evermind as a land?)

Your lands, what type are they?  How do you handle things like Angel, Foil, Daze and landwalk?

Do you have a set stack or just grab a random stack of cards?  If you have a set stack, what is the cost breakdown?

What format/banned list do you play with?

[Twaun007]

When I was enrolled at KSU I witnessed two guys playing magic with out cards at the local card shop, Is this mental magic? If so, how are you sopposed to pimp out your deck? All kidding aside though could someone please post or direct me to the rules of mental magic. Watching those guys play just confused the hell out of me.
Thanks

[Jank Golem]

I am not really that experianced with mental magic, but I can tell you how I usually play. I do not do shared library becasue of things like brainstorm and top. I play with some non-basic lands to make things interesting. The non-basic lands are considered non-basic lands and the cards you play face down are basics with no land type, so no landwalk. I play with a stack with even numbers of colors, not sure what the cost breakdown is though. I play with the 1.5 banned list and change things if they are too powerful.

[JDawg13]

The way we do Mental Magic is pretty much straight from the Flores articles.  No shared library because there's enough cards in the stack to make two decks, so why not do it that way?  We don't have any lands in it, but if we were to have them in, they could be any non-basic land.  The cards we put facedown as land are neither basic nor nonbasic, so Foil, Daze, Landwalk, etc. don't work.  We have a set stack, and the way I put it together was to find a bunch (like six or seven) of cards of each reasonable casting cost, and fewer of the more obscure ones, and none of the ones we always have trouble thinking of cards for, like 4B, 4W and 4R.  For our banned list, we play with the Type 1 list, minus the restricted list.  In addition, tutors (and really anything that requires you to search your library) are banned because they're too flexible, Exploration and Argothian Enchantress are banned because Flores claims they're both ridiculous and we don't really miss them at all anyway.  I think that's it.

[Anusien]

Flore's Intro to Mental Magic
We've just been playing a random collection of cards people had on them, which incidentally left us without double color casting costs or 2B.  We do the same with lands, but play with a shared library because it's more skillful (Top is nuts here becuase it trumps all Mirage style tutors), and will probably add some non-basics to the stack.

[The Atog Lord]

Flores Rules are by far the best set of rules I've seen for Mental Magic.

My only question is whether to use 1.5 rules or t1 - restricted cards. Unless anyone knows Flores' saying otherwise, I've been using T1-restrictedcards myself, because that's what was initially meant by 1.5

Yeah, I love mental.

Rich

[Jacob Orlove]

T1 minus restricted cards is important, because FoF into flashback Deep Analysis is just dumb. You really do need to ban Argothian and Exploration, though.

My stack was a little bit heavier on blue cards, just because they're so much better than nonblue ones, and I also emphasized costs like 2CC over 3C, because those cards tend to be much more interesting.

[Tash]

Hmm.. our group uses the T-1 restricted list as the banned list. and got rid of such things like Graveyard manipulation (I.E. Recoup, reclaim, Cards with flashback etc.) because that would just be stupid. Play something as Deep Analysis and someone else flashes it back?

It gets messy.

Also, we banned tutors. But that's a given, because it's retarded being able to tutor, along with the Wishes, because that's also retarded.

[The Atog Lord]

Standard Flores Rules bans Enchantress and Exploration, and deck searching.

A number of the graveyard issues are cleanly solved by having separate libraries and graveyards.

Flores Rules also has an elegent solution to cards like Duress -- they take only those cards whose actual card type is vulnerable to duress. In other words, except for cards in play and on the stack, cards use their printed card types.

[Mr. Type 4]

I like that duress rule, it really gives some value to what the actual cards are in the stack and could be very influential as to which cards you lay down as lands.

Think to the Flores rules goes to a discussion of richard Garfield Phd, though, and not to a nice breakdown of how to manage a good mental magic game.  Does anyone have a link to a good article on that?

I've played a number of times with random cards and a rule stating that a card can only be played once per game, and then no other player could use it.  It's a different dynamic which often makes you want to play certain spells first so you get to do them first, and is a true skill tester when you need to find creative uses of cc's that other people have used late game. 

Chuck Norris doesn't sleep, he waits.

[Jacob Orlove]

I've played a number of times with random cards and a rule stating that a card can only be played once per game, and then no other player could use it.

I have never seen a mental magic game that did not use that rule.

[Mr. Type 4]

Shows how much I know.  I've never played with a real stack of cards meant to give me a nice palatte of Mental cards, but I've jumpd in  with random people a bunch of times, and a lot of them didn't have this technology. 

I'm sure the professionals all do it right. 

[GAUDARD]

I've found that when people take the time to even out the CCs in a deck it is a lot more balanced. If anyone that has done this has some type of formula that would be great to know. Also how big? 100? 200?

[Jacob Orlove]

When I built my stack, it was ~4 each of W, 1W, WW, 2W, 1WW, 3W, 2WW and the same for all the other colors. Then I added some higher cost and gold stuff, but only for cards where it was at least somewhat reasonable (eg plenty of 3UUs, not so many 3UUBs). Add in some artifacts at each cost from 1-6 or so and some lands to play as nonbasics, and you're set. If you want to make the stack better, though, just add a bunch of blue cards.

[The Atog Lord]

If you want to make the stack better, though, just add a bunch of blue cards.

That's generally good deckbuilding advice.

[Komatteru]

Being the Mental Magic guru, I use these rules:

1) Anything restricted is banned.  The race for Sol Ring is worse than the race for Skullclamp actually...

2) Cards that manipulate the library are banned: one shot effects that do something are ok (like Brainstorm and Visions), but permanents that manipluate draws are gone.  They allow one player to screw over the others, and since this is supposed to be fun, it doesn't work well.  This includes but is not limited to the following cards: Sylvan Library, Abundance, Sensei's Divining Top, etc.  I can't think of others off the top of my head.

3) Super-tutors such as Gifts Ungiven and Intuition are banned.  These require an opponent to make a choice, and as such, are completely ridiculous.  You would have to declare  Gifts Ungiven is even more nuts because it works off names, not casting costs.  We haven't had anything about Diabolic Tutor or Grim Tutor come up, but as those don't require an opponent to figure out what you've gotten, so I guess they'd be ok.

Wishes are ok, but they have to get cards from the mental stack.  That makes them really limited.

4) Once a card changes zones, it ceases to be that card.  However, we have one exception here: dreding keeps that card into your hand.  If you dredge up Darkblast, the card in your hand can only be played as Darkblast until it hits another zone.

5) Flashback is ok.

I made my stack by going through a common box and selecting one or two cards of each casting cost (sometimes more if the cost was a popular one, like 2U or 2G for instance).  Anyone who's played with me can confirm that my Mental stack is, in fact, amazing.

6) Exploration is fine if you play it so that it can only let you play real lands from your hand.  In fact, that mostly makes it unplayable.

7) I allow Enchantress.  If Skullclamp is legal, Enchantress is fine.

Play something as Deep Analysis and someone else flashes it back?

That cannot happen because you can't flash back Deep if it's already been played.

[Kowal]

How did I not notice this thread until now?

I allow restricted cards.  The only one that's truly gamebreaking is Fastbond.  The effects of Timetwister and Wheel of Fortune allow for recoveries you don't get to have in other mental magic games, and if you're really worried about Sol Ring there's a way to remove it with almost every card in the stack.

For the record, Jacob built my stack.  I think he gave it to me for a birthday present or something, but due to some unfortunate circumstances Meddling Mage stole the Delif's Cones out of it.  What a whorebag!

Also, I like to keep certain cards that concern library and graveyard manipulation banned.  No Replenish, Death or Glory, Gifts Ungiven, Recoup, etc.  That said, I do like to include Squee and flashback.  I haven't really thought about Dredge, but I think the way I'd do it is you'd announce Dredge naming a Dredge card with that cost, and then you'd have to pick something else to name when you actually cast it since, say, Darkblast was already named.  I treat Squee the same way.

I enjoy both shared library and separate library, and the same goes for graveyards.  Brainstorm isn't such a big deal since there are a million ways to draw the card I try to hide for myself, and Sylvan is only a problem if your hand is full of red and black cards so you can't remove it.  I'd be far more worried by something like Treasure Trove being active.

Sunder is the best card ever.  Seriously.  I've seen Jacob win so many games with this card that I think about it at night when I touch myself.

[Jacob Orlove]

Yeah, any time a game would require thinking I'm just like "whee Sunder GG" instead.

[Anusien]

There's a problem with requiring memory of the card once it moves to a hidden zone.  Dredging Cremate as Darkblast and keeping it Cremate raises problems if you have two Cremates in your stack, for example.

I agree with Kowal on the way he runs most things.  We're currently on the Legacy banned list, but we've been allowing Intuition and Gifts; we're scrubs so it hasn't been much of an issue.

We actually run a shared graveyard and library.  There's always a lot of manuvering with 3U cards to avoid giving the other guy a free Deep Analysis.  There's also a lot of manuvering with the singleton B spells, because you can Lose Hope a one drop, get it back as Darkblast and still have Ghastly Demise in your hand.  Screwing the other guy with Top and Sylvan Library is part of the fun, especially because it tests you in a unique way.

Does anyone run real lands in their stack?  I like it, because you can turn around and get stuff like Miren, Mikokoro, Quicksand, Maze of Ith...

[forests failed you]

I've made rules modifications for Mental Magic that seem to be working out pretty well.  Here is how we do it in Michigan.

We use the normal type one restricted list.

Shared deck.

Banned cards:

Any Tutor
Any card that manipulates the top of the library.  Ie Top, Sylvan Library, Brainstorm.

Our rule is that you can bounce something from play once it is in the played zone, so "Repel" to boucne something on top, or "Memory Lapse"  but you can't play effects that allow you to put cards from your hand purposely on top, or rearrange the order of the top of the library ie Discombobulate, Sage Owl.

Fastbond
Yawgmoth's Will
Exploration
Enchantress


It actually works out pretty well and the games are almost always close.

Just thought I'd throw that out there in case anybody is interested.

If you ban the tutors and library manipulaton restricted cards are not that big of a deal.

[Anusien]

How about people handling Hybrid mana?

[Jacob Orlove]

How about people handling Hybrid mana?

Play it as any combination of the colors--so Dimir Guildmage can be Drain or Hymn or Hibernation Sliver.

Yes, this makes Hybrid cards really good. Better than making them unplayable.

[Auracon]

Just out of curiosity. I'm recently getting into mental magic and because I'm mostly a t1 or t2 player I find I forgot or never knew the cards from the middle sets (mirage, some urza cards, etc.). I was hoping to get some advice on how to practice for mental magic. I don't just want to memorize random cards, but is there another way to go?

Also I find mental magic really increases deckbuilding skills (or maybe its the other way around) since many good deckbuilders also happen to be great mental magic players.

[The Atog Lord]

Just learn some cantrips. There's really nothing else worth casting.

[Jacob Orlove]

Just learn some cantrips. There's really nothing else worth casting.

Depending on the rules set, you may also want to know Flashback cards. Also, you'll need to learn a few good threats. I like Teferi's Honor Guard, but sometimes you just want something mana efficient. As a simple exercise, go through the casting costs for each color (U, 1U, UU, 2U, 1UU, 3U, 2UU, etc up to about 6 mana). FOr each cost where you can't think of a single good spell (or can only think of one situationally good card), look up some good options. It's much more important to be able to cast *something* with unfamiliar costs than it is to learn another good spell at 2U.

[Mr. Type 4]

Now that Dissension is out you can build a really classy Mental Stack that uses hybrid cards from all of the guilds.  The guildmages are an extremely versitile set as I'm sure you can think of good cards from all of BB UU RR GG or WW.  I'd like to build a set similar to Jacob's guidelines, but go 3 of each common casting cost insted of 4 and then throw in 1 of each hybrid card with a different casting cost. That sounds really fun.   

[Jacob Orlove]

What I really want to do is build a deck with nothing but the common/uncommon hybrid cards.

[ashiXIII]

I think I need to build a stack for this. My friends and I usually just grab a random stack of cards that are laying around, and with the most recent block being Ravnica, most of them end up being gold. So, we sit their like "uhh... What's 1RRW?" Needless to say, it's not very fun. Can anyone list their stack on here so I have an idea of where to start? Thanks.

[Jacob Orlove]

A good basic stack is anywhere from 2-4 each of U, 1U, UU, 2U, 1UU, 3U, 2UU, 4U, 3UU, 4UU, and the same for all the other colors. Try to keep a good balance between the high mana and low mana cards; a lot of one and two mana spells in particular will give people more flexibility to either respond to opposing plays or to go aggro very quickly. Include whatever gold and artifact cards you like (stay away from unique costs like 1RRW though)--I like 6 cost artifacts because Mindslaver is SUCH a beating, but there are good options at pretty much every casting cost now.

Like I have said in the past, if you want to make the stack better, add more blue cards.

[ashiXIII]

Yeah, the blue cards in this format are a house. There are a lot of good cards in other colors as well, but the blue cards (obviously) are much better at creating card advantage, which is what this format is all about. Anyway, thanks for the suggestion.