Chaos Stacks

[Nomad]

Intro
Some people will doubtless have played Chaos Magic- the one with the d200 roll at the start of each turn.  We had a lot of fun with it before the local game shop turned crap, and before the fun kids moved away to college.  It's a multiplayer format that messes with the rules by adding an extra phase at the start of each turn.  I think there's an Apprentice module for it, but I just can't find it anywhere on google  Actually, here is google's cached page

But it takes forever.

So we present Chaos Stacks, an easy, fast moving way of getting the same thing.

Instead of time consuming lookup tables for die rolls, we just roll a d6 at the start of each turn (to avoid pointlessness, we begin with 2 unmolested turns around the table before beginning rolls), and turn over a new card from the stack on a roll of 1 or 2. Occasionally we've made it a 1, 2 or 3, but I'm not sure that makes the game better.  The new card replaces the old, and takes effect immediately (and only then, if it's a one-shot effect), and stays until replaced.

What goes into the Stack?
Whatever you like.

I've avoided overmuch mass destruction, so there's no direct Wrath, nor Armageddon, nor 'haups.  Balancing Act is fun, and so's Possessed Portal, and Pox.  But there's good things too, like:
Reviving Vapours (everyone gets a card and gains the life for it's mana cost)
Mirari's Wake (we've tried having this for active player only and for everyone, not much to choose between)
Future Sight (likewise)

My stack has ~110 cards in it right now, so it's not yet quite so variable as the look up table version, but quite similar given the duplicate rolls and stuff.

Of the cards, some highlights, since I cannot be arsed to type out 100+ cards:
Sulphuric Vortex (I think there are 2)
2 Tempest of Light
Kormus Bell
Stabilizer
Tainted AEther
Urza's Armour
Sacred Ground (affects everyone together)
Kark's Thumb (rarely of any consequence)
Karma
Mystic Decree
2 Grip of Chaos
Iron Maiden/Wheel of Torture (hit everyone)
Death Match
Defence Grid
Eon Hub
Patriarch's Bidding
Trinisphere
Water Gun Balloon Game
Necrogen Mists
Blood Moon
Confusion in the Ranks
2 Pendrell Mists
Horn of Plenty
AEther Rift
Abundance
Staying Power
Grand Melee
Sunken Hope
Urza's Armour
Gate to the AEther
Planar Chaos (really appropriate)
Gale Force
Sands of Time (apply to this untap step)

There's a few really devastating cards, like:
Biorhythm
Enter the Dungeon
Transcendence
Rare-B-Gone
Thieve's Auction

but mostly it's relatively minor stuff, which keeps it sensible.

I might make up some cards for it, like the effect that used to move each life total one player to the left.

We have experimented with the phase setup, and have basically concluded it's best for the effect to go just before other upkeep effects would go on the stack - so the new one will always be the one to hit - but that you can respond to the new Chaos card coming in (with instantaneous mana burn if required to avoid Transcendence death, for example)

Works well with 5-6 players, maybe more if you have attentive players...

[Matt]

I like how the best Chaos effects are almost all very cheap cards.

The way I play is to insert the Chaos phase before the untap step. Sometimes you turn over Exhaustion and fuck someone over.

[ReAnimator]

I have one of these stacks, however when we play it usually only triggers once per round, so everyone has the same problem/bonus during their turn.
I've got quite a few token generators like raise the alarm and a bunch of creature sacrifice effects like nausea and innocent blood.

fun times.

some people like to play with the 'auction critters' like ghazban ogre and rainbow vale, so when they are flipped up they go straight into play untill they are distroyed. I even saw a stack with a ghazban ogre with INDESTRUCTABLE! written on it so that no matter what someone would have the little guy beating someone up. =)