TYPE ONE DCI! (TYPE ONE AND A QUARTER!)
Make your own banned / restricted list with your friends, then take a week to make a deck, and play a fun tournament!
1) Players sit in a circle and randomly determine who starts the elimination (banning/restricting) process.
2) The starting player chooses to ban or restrict any card.
3) After the starting player chooses to ban or restrict a card, each player marks that card as being banned or restricted on his own list.
4) The turn rotates clockwise, giving each player in the circle a chance to ban or restrict any card he or she chooses.
5) This proceeds until each player is given an equal number of opportunities to ban or restrict cards until the total number of banned and restricted cards totals 50 or slightly above.
* 5 players would each get 10 turns in banning/restricting the card of his or her choice. (50 Bannings/Restrictions Total).
* 6 players would each get 9 turns of banning/restricting the card of his or her choice. (54 Bannings/Restrictions Total).
* 7 players would each get 8 turns of banning/restricting the card of his or her choice. (56 Bannings/Restrictions Total).
* 8 players would each get 7 turns of banning/restricting the card of his or her choice. (56 Bannings/Restrictions Total).
* 9 players would each get 6 turns of banning/restricting the card of his or her choice. (54 Bannings/Restrictions Total). Etc.
6) Once a card is restricted, it CANNOT be banned.
7) Once a card is banned, it CANNOT be restricted.
8) The same card cannot be restricted or banned twice.
9) Cards not on the list, such as Zephyr Falcon or Chimney Imp may be restricted or banned.
10) Ante Cards, as well as Chaos Orb and Falling Star are banned before the tournament starts, and they may not be restricted or named.
A) After the bannings/restrictions are chosen, players have a pre-determined amount of time in which to build their decks. (Usually 1-2 weeks).
B) Deck construction rules are normal. Players may use any number of proxies (as some cards, ex. Mox Pearl, may not be restricted or banned).
C) The winner of the previous tournament recieves 1st seat in the DCI elimination (banning/restricting) process. 2nd place gets 2nd seat, etc.
D) Others (not previously seated at the elimination process table) may enter into the tournament as long as they recieve the current banned/restricted list and other (if needed) rules.
E) Any of the rules above your playgroup may change, after all, it's a casual format. You can play for prizes if you want though.
The following cards are here for a helpful list of cards which your playgroup might consider restricting/banning.
Vintage Restricted List:
* 1) Ancestral Recall
* 2) Balance
* 3) Black Lotus
* 4) Black Vise
* 5) Burning Wish
* 6) Channel
* 7) Chrome Mox
* 8) Crop Rotation
* 9) Demonic Consultation
* 10) Demonic Tutor
* 11) Dream Halls
* 12) Enlightened Tutor
* 13) Entomb
* 14) Fact or Fiction
* 15) Fastbond
* 16) Frantic Search
* 17) Grim Monolith
* 18) Gush
* 19) Imperial Seal
* 20) Library of Alexandria
* 21) Lion’s Eye Diamond
* 22) Lotus Petal
* 23) Mana Crypt
* 24) Mana Vault
* 25) Memory Jar
* 26) Mind Twist
* 27) Mind’s Desire
* 28) Mox Diamond
* 29) Mox Emerald
* 30) Mox Jet
* 31) Mox Pearl
* 32) Mox Ruby
* 33) Mox Sapphire
* 34) Mystical Tutor
* 35) Necropotence
* 36) Personal Tutor
* 37) Regrowth
* 38) Sol Ring
* 39) Strip Mine
* 40) Time Spiral
* 41) Time Walk
* 42) Timetwister
* 43) Tinker
* 44) Tolarian Academy
* 45) Trinisphere
* 46) Vampiric Tutor
* 47) Voltaic Key
* 48) Wheel of Fortune
* 49) Windfall
* 50) Yawgmoth’s Bargain
* 51) Yawgmoth’s Will
Legacy Banned List:
* 1) Bazaar of Baghdad
* 2) Earthcraft
* 3) Goblin Recruiter
* 4) Hermit Druid
* 5) Illusionary Mask
* 6) Land Tax
* 7) Mana Drain
* 8) Mishra's Workshop
* 9) Metalworker
* 10) Mind Over Matter
* 11) Oath of Druids
* 12) Replenish
* 13) Skullclamp
* 14) Worldgorger Dragon
Others:
* 1) Arcbound Ravager
* 2) Auriok Salvagers
* 3) Brain Freeze
* 4) Brainstorm
* 5) Dark Confidant
* 6) Dark Ritual
* 7) Darksteel Colossus
* 8) Force of Will
* 9) Gifts Ungiven
* 10) Grapeshot
* 11) Grim Tutor
* 12) Goblin Charbelcher
* 13) Goblin Welder
* 14) Hurkyl's Recall
* 15) Ill-Gotten Gains
* 16) Intuition
* 17) Jotun Grunt
* 18) Mindslaver
* 19) Null Rod
* 20) Orim's Chant
* 21) Smokestack
* 22) Stifle
* 23) Tendrils of Agony
* 24) Tormod's Crypt
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The idea got spawned by me thinking it would be really cool to be able to play some old decks that still had guidelines but were still 'broken' in their own way, for instance, Tinker.dec, or old T2 Academy.
Some basic strategy:
Banning or Restricting Yawgmoth's Will (and subsequently Tendrils) is probably the most important decision and will usually be made first. Restricting Will makes it so that no one can ban it, I.E., that combo will most likely be a viable choice.
You'll notice that there are 51 cards on the Vintage Restricted list, and I had a general ending period of about 50. This is because if Will gets banned first, you can reliably not worry about some of the cards on the Restricted List, and begin to ban archetypes that you don't particularly like (such as Dragon or Belcher) if you choose to do so.
If Will gets restricted, you're probably going to follow along similiar lines to the Vintage Restricted list - although you'll have some people that simply ban everything and don't restrict anything, and that's fine too. It's for fun, afterall, and if all you were doing was playing Vintage, there'd be no reason to play this format.
For a variation, you can make a "INDESTRUCTIBLE" variant, where a player can choose instead to make it so that a card cannot become banned or restricted, although I would heavily advise that this clause is included only on things which are not on the restricted list.
The primary reason I enjoy this format is because it allows me to take deck construction skills to the next level - being able to ban what other people are allowed to use against me. Although I don't intend on using this often, it is a vital strategy. For instance, if I wanted to play Stax, I could ban Drain and Hurkyl's Recall. Once the elminations are done, it's also fun to see what evolves as the best possible deck you can build.
For instance, you might have the following deck choices to pick from because no one picked up on them:
Academy
Balance-Rack.dec (heh)
4x Gush GAT
4x Burning Wish Long without Will or Tendrils
Metalworker Staff
UW Fish
Ichorid
The question is: What's the best deck? And what's your sideboard going to look like? What do you expect everyone else to play? Etc.
The format is as balanced as you make it.
