While a lot of LUs are casual-only, some Limited Universes were officially sanctioned Wizards of the Coast events, so this is not some fly-by-night fun time.

However, they haven’t been a major presence in places I’ve been playing (or online from what I can research and tell). That’s sad. So, as a writer, I have a chance to fix that! I want to delve into them more fully here in order to tell you about what they can do, and discuss the practical implications and applications.

Therefore, the goal of this article is to serve as a Primer for you to use and come back to as you build and grow your own Limited Universe.

So what is this thing anyway?

Excellent question!

Shortly put, this is a limited, self-contained, causal format that often allows players to trade, ante, or otherwise bring cards into the LU on a restricted, limited, or non-existent basis.

What do I mean with the key trigger terms?

1. Limited – A Limited Universe is just that. It is limited. You have booster packs or a tournament pack or whatever. You make an initial investment of product, and then that is your card pool for the rest of the experience. Suppose you have a LU where folks can start with any 6 booster packs they want. You crack them, make decks from them, and then fight against them. Just like limited.
2. Self-Contained – Unlike other formats, you may never bring any card from outside of the LU into it, nor can you take cards from it out of the LU. You can’t add cards from another other source or location. Only other players get their initial card pool as well, and that’s it. However, within that restriction, there are trades to move cards around. I’d also recommend considering ante as another way to keep the format fresh and the cards flowing.

And that’s pretty much it.

Why Limited Universe?

Limited Universes are a ton of fun, and where I’ve had some of my best games. I’ve been in Limited Universes that were quite detailed, with points given to wins and losses, and those points were used to purchase certain things. I’ve played in very simple league-like Limited Universes. There are many differences.

Plus you get a chance to have this janky deck at first, and then over time you make trades, bring in new cards, and your deck slowly, but effectively, transforms into a better deck over time. That’s a really fun experience. It’s playing an RPG like Skyrim or D&D. You start at level one, and then slowly over time, your character builds up and becomes this uber-powerful weapon for good (hopefully). It’s the same. Start small, and build up.

Meanwhile, you might as well do something with your boosters, right? Did you buy a booster box of the latest set? You can just set aside the last packs for your LU investment so you won’t have to lay out any additional funds.

Like other limited formats, LUs are innately fair. There is no “Have” and “Have Not.” You don’t have folks buying up more and more singles and cracking more and more booster boxes for their stuff. However, the problem with a lot of limited play is it’s a single day or tournaments. It’s harder for some players to outlay the cash for that. But by stretching out a Limited Universe across weeks, with folks shuffling a few games at the card store with others LU players, or a few games at your local kitchen table, you get the ability to make that investment last beyond a day. And folks can’t “buy” a great deck or a win.

So the format is awesomely balanced, changing, and a blast to play!

Now, within that simple structure we outlined above, there is a ton of flexibility. Don’t believe me? Here are just a few examples.

Points of Flexibility

• Some LUs add in rules and ways to bring in other cards. Perhaps each week you can bring one common from a Standard legal set into your card pool. Or perhaps everyone adds in another booster pack every couple of weeks or whatever. This is not uncommon. The Self-Contained aspects are lessened by this addition.
• Some LUs prevent trading.
• Some LUs create non-ante reward systems for winning your games rather than ante. Win three matches and add a free common to your card pool or something like that.
• I played in an LU once where you were allowed to add in four non-rare lands that only made mana (like Simic Guildgate or Coastal Tower) to help enable you playing your deck.

Deck Construction:

You may play any card you crack or acquire legally. If you have five Grizzly Bears, then you can run them all.

While some LUs obviously vary, most require a 60 card deck, not a 40 card one.

Within those constraints, most other Magic rules apply, such as 7 cards in your opening hand and 20 starting life.

So, I’ve actually played in multiple versions of Limited Universes, and I’ll go over a few variants, questions and rules for you here today.

Sample Universe Rules:

Shop Talk — I once played in an intricate online LU that used points and gave them to players. If you beat your opponent you got two points, and if you lost, you still got one point. You could exchange those points for various degrees of booster packs, non-basic lands, and so forth. Older boosters cost more points than newer ones. That format used the point system to bring in new cards, and didn’t allow any trading, but a simple three points was enough for a Standard booster pack. The goal of that format was a little different, no ante or trading .Instead, you brought in more and more points as you played. This method also rewarded players for playing. The more games you played, the more you were rewarded, as opposed to someone wo might only play a couple of games each week but get a new booster pack or card at the same rate as the other players. That’s one interesting variant of the Limited Universe concept that worked for that group, and I really enjoyed playing in it.

Leagues — Leagues have been a common fixture in Magic Online, as well as real life, and are a simplified take on the LU experience. It’s very elegant. Begin with the amount of product you would have in a Sealed event. Register, and make a sealed deck. Then play against other folks in the first week. At the end of the first week, everyone can buy another pack and add it to their collection, and change their decks. And that happens each week for four or six weeks. There are no trades or ante. Only the new packs are allowed. Then, at the end, winners are chosen based on overall record. In order to make it fair, usually you only allow players to play a certain number of games each week. Let’s say you have a five week league. You only allow folks to play five games each week. At the end, whoever has the best record with their (up to) twenty-five games is declared the winner. (You often will let players play additional games past five, but only the first five count, and that helps other players who may not have collected their five yet that week). I have seen leagues that were official sponsored events with DCI credit.

Continuous Draft — Another official DCI event was the Continuous Draft. The CD is a bizarre take on the LU that tosses out a lot of the expected rules, and it was used as the format of choice for a season of play at your local game store by Wizards. You purchase three booster packs, and remove the basics and tokens and such. Then you sit across from another player. You shuffle your three packs together with your foe’s. After they are good and shuffled, you determine who goes first, and that person flips over four cards from the pile, and then selects one card to take. The other player takes two, and the first player grabs the final card. Then the second player flips four, grabs the first and fourth cards and it rotates until every card is drafted. Build a deck with the stuff you drafted. Play that match. Then at the end of the match, for the next round you shuffle and draft and build again. There aren’t any new cards added, but you can play this Continuous Draft over one day, or many weeks. It’s an absolute blast, and you have to be sharp for the draft and the cards you grab and build. You see every card your foe drafted, so your deck will be different, but there’s a good give and take with the draft, deck-building, and then each match from then on.

And those are just three takes on the Limited Universe concept that I’ve personally played in. There are a bunch more. And you can spin your own off. You could do a Continuous Draft, but add in another booster pack each week to make it epic. You could run a League but with ante. You could have a Shop, but instead of having folks spend their points, they take them and use them to level up, and only folks of a certain level could do things (and you’d let people get more points for beating folks of higher levels, so I beat a player with a 9-3 record and level 3, maybe I get three or four points instead of the normal 2).

Another thing you could do is veer off into other directions with basic rules. You could change up the starting life total or hand size. It’s all up to you!

How does trading work?


Trading can be interesting depending on the rules of who keeps what when everything is said and done. Financial value can be wonky compared to play value. If my deck needs some early aggressive pressure, then I could easily trade a rare with some market value, like Traverse the Ulvenwald, for some early pressure like Gibbering Fiend and Olivia's Bloodsworn. Those aren’t trades that normally make sense for Magic, trading some cheap, chump cards worth a quarter each for a four dollar rare. But here? For my B/R aggro deck? It may make a lot of sense.

I’ve seen Limited Universes where you have to make public any trades, or they had to be approved by a majority of other players. You don’t want folks looking at trading as a way to curry favors or to make one-sided problems for others in the LU. Having a visible trading system, or a way to self-police that is certainly a wise precaution.

This format emphasizes flexibility. Whatever Limited Universe rules your playgroup agrees to, you do them. However, as a baseline, I’d suggest any 6 booster packs, 60 card deck, trading and ante allowed, one new booster pack every two weeks, and otherwise, no additional cards or incentives. So let’s consider ante.

The Ante Question:

All right, let’s talk about the bugbear in the room. As I’ve said before, Ante is a dirty four-letter word to most players. So that’s fine. But within the context of a Limited Universe, ante does have some added value.

1. The fear and result of losing a card from your deck give you a reason to keep trading, churning cards, and more. It adds to the power and gravity of the match, and gives it an added element.
2. You get an additional avenue to explore for acquiring cards beyond what you open and trade for.
3. It invests the Limited Universe with a “winning matters” theme, which helps to give it additional purpose. It’s nice as a way to reward those who are winning matches, and to keep things moving. It also helps to justify adding in more cards later, like a pack every week or two weeks.
4. As I mentioned above, rewards that are game-based, and not time based, better support people who are playing the LU more often. Ante supports that.

So ante gives momentum, meaning, alternate routes to explore for card acquisition, and a sense of loss that needs to be fixed so decks are never fixed and always in a state of flux. I recommend trying out ante in your Limited Universe at first. If you don’t like it, then set it aside.

Now, with ante involved, I’d want basic lands to not be included in the ante. That’s just cruel. Shuffle your libraries and flip over the top card. Whatever is revealed is up for ante, and if someone flips a basic, they just keep flipping until a non-basic something is revealed. That’s the ante. Winner gets the loser’s ante.

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some anticipated questions about Limited Universes, all spelled out for you!

Where and When do you Play?

There are a few options for you. I actually think the best may be your local game store. If you have a place to play and hangout, then, as folks meet up and play normal Magic during the week, you can have those folks play a game or two of the Limited Universe as well. It allows folks to play on their schedule, and it can make it a lot easier for you to get 7 or 8 people involved in the project. You can even hack together a central place to record wins and losses, like a poster or something to track how folks are doing.

Another option is to add it to your normal Magic Night festivities. Does your play group have a weekly game session? Then you could have folks bring booster packs to this week’s session, open them up collectively and chat about what they got, and then make some trades, build some decks, and play. You can play a few games each week with them, and crack and add cards together. The benefit of this is that everyone is doing it together, and it’s more of a shared experience, but I’ve found it’s often harder to get folks invested.

I’ve seen one LU that played in FNM each week at their LGS, and then either before, during the rounds, of after play a few games, pick up and add in new cards and get their games in that way. That combines the best of both worlds (large potential group, and everyone doing it together)

So whatever best fits your playgroup and needs is fine. But those are three suggestions I have for you.

I’d recommend keeping these decks and card pools in the same location. Where do you folks play? That’s where I’d keep them. That way, if Bob swings by the LGS when Susan is there, and they want to get in a game or two, or even just make some trades, they won’t be hindered if they forget their decks and card pool. (I’d do the same if you have a central home or apartment where everyone in your playgroup comes to hang out. I used to host daily Magic events in my two-bedroom apartment in my residence hall when I was an RA at WVU, so that was a perfect location for playing and storing your stuff).

Who keeps the cards after the LU is over?

There are a few options available. One way to add an overall incentive to your Limited Universe is to give the game a fun “winning matters” incentive by having folks do something similar to a money draft at the end. Whoever won, picks the first card from everything in the draft. So that money mythic that a player cracked will likely head to that player as their prize. Then 2nd place picks the next card and so forth. You can let the person who lost overall get the first pick in the 2nd round and reverse the order. Then the winner, picking last at the back of the second flips the order and picks first for the third round and so forth.

Another way is simply to let folks keep what they have. Whatever you opened, traded for, and such is yours. Good job! You get to keep it. It’s simple, it makes sense, and people can keep their deck together if they want to. Hey, you built it after all, so keeping it is cool.

You could do other things as well if you wanted to. From winner takes everything to people keep their decks but their not-in-deck-cards are drafted or bequeathed to the winner, there are other options to talk about.

Just make sure you talk about what you’re doing post-LU with the cards so folks know going in. If you are keeping your cards post-LU, then trading values will reflect that. If it’s winner takes all, then I’m not keeping this sexy Thing in the Ice which I’m not using for my G/R beats deck. No reason to try to get any value from it either, it’s just trade fodder for more burn and dorks.

What if someone wants to play, but either can’t or won’t due to the cost of the initial buy-in?

I get that. It happens. When someone looks at the sticker price of the format as 6 boosters, they may like the idea of the format more than the entry fee. That happens for lots of casual limited formats. It’s one thing to buy into a limited tournament where you are playing all day, keep your cards, and have a chance at getting awesome prizes. But for this? I hear you.

So what if you have someone who wants to play and is committed to the project but can’t afford it? There are a few options. Most playgroups have some players who make enough money to help out and pitch in. I’ve done that myself for others. If everyone keeps their cards after it’s over, then one player could pay for another’s entry fee, and then just keep their cards after it’s said and done (although that keeps them from keeping their deck together).

A better solution might be having the player trade cards to the other player for entry boosters. If you are doing 6 boosters, then trade a few cards to another player for them to pick up your boosters. $3.50 a pack, roughly, is around $22 with tax and such. You can trade around that much money in cards in order to own the stuff you invest in the LU.

I find this to be a better way for a few reasons, but ultimately, it eliminates the potential for a player ,who won’t keep their cards post-LU, from trading their expensive cards for the cheap powerful cards, that someone is stuck getting back. I’d hate to invest $22 in a player with the understanding that I get his cards at the end, only to wind up with a bunch of commons that cost $5 total. Other players traded for the good and expensive cards, to keep, and I get nothing. Trading stuff removes that potential snag.

Which booster packs?

This is entirely up to your own group to determine, but I recommend letting people add in whichever Vintage-legal sets they want to. If they want to grab sets that better fit their own play style, then that’s fine. Maybe they want 2 pack each from Scars of Mirrodin block.

What about Masters sets? Maybe they want to try and open a money card from Eternal Masters. That I’d recommend against. The starting level of power that an Eternal Masters or Modern Masters set contains is prohibitive. Considering the price of that product, it also has a bit of a “Rich get Richer, Poor get Poorer” vibe for me. I’d disallow Unglued and Unhinged as well. However, I would allow obscure formats like Portal 2 or the Alara Block Foil Boosters. That way if someone really wants to pimp out their card pool they can.

How do you handle lands and mana?

Add any basic lands you need to your own card pool. As mentioned above, I have seen formats that let people add a limited number of mana-only lands to their card pool at the beginning. Mana-only excludes cards that do something else, like Volrath's Stronghold, or cards like Celestial Colonnade. It needs to be just mana, like Adarkar Wastes or Gruul Turf. These cards are added at the beginning, and cannot be traded or lost in ante. I’d recommend starting with 4 of those, and then move up. Also, for those who want to toss in colorless mana needs from Oath of the Gatewatch, (or other places as well) Wastes would be legal to add in as well. I would also allow any number of those basic lands to be Snow-Covered Lands in case someone is dipping into the wayback box for Ice Age Block packs.

What about non-booster product?

You certainly can do non-booster product as well. Back when starter decks (later called tournament packs) came with three booster packs worth of cards as well as lands and such, I remember that you could start with one of those and three boosters, or just two of those. That’s fine.

You could also do a very different take on the Limited Universe with different starting product. What if each player could purchase one of the preconstructed starter theme decks? You could grab something like Forged in Battle from Born of the Gods or the Abzan Siege one from Khans of Tarkir. These tend to have some value out of the box with a set theme, but always have room for improvement. (I’d want to stay clear of the really good Event Deck line that is designed to be picked up and played immediately in a tournament)

And you could add in a booster pack or two immediately or perhaps one each week instead. That gives you fodder to trade and stuff to try and massage your deck immediately. Doing a theme deck would be very doable.

For something both harder and better, if you can find them, do one of the older 40 card (or 30 card) intro packs from the Core Sets. That gives you a starting place, but those were inevitably wonky. (Some of those were given away for free and could be easily attainable). But a 40 card deck like Arcanis’s Guile from Tenth Edition sounds cool. Then grab a few booster packs to push your decks up to 60 cards and there’s more of an opportunity to guide this process with your initial entry, but you still have the randomness of that project as well. Kind of like modern Prerelease Tournament with the starter packs that are of each color or guild or what not.

However, this approach, even the half and half one jut mentioned, does remove the truly limited aspect of the format, which gives you an unknown potential creation. If I pick up six Shadows over Innistrad boosters, will I wind up B/R Vampires? U/B Zombies? W/B control? I just don’t know until I crack those packs. That’s the exciting part of this.

Should we Track This Stuff?

That’s totally up to you! I know folks who love charting the progress of their LUs and they have everyone record their initial card pool, current deck lists, additions, and even trades. There’s a subgroup of Magic players out there that love seeing this stuff (I’m one of them! I have an excel spreadsheet with every one of my cards from Abe’s Deck of Happiness and Joy, a deck of more than 3000 cards, divided by color and such). I get it!

It’s also a nice way to make sure no one is adding cards illegally to their pool, or making really bad and unfair trades for their friend and buddy.

Final Rewards?

If you are letting everyone keep their stuff at the end rather than doing a draft with the winners getting things, then it does make sense to have some built in rewards for those that do well. You could build that it in the beginning. Why not have everyone chip in and buy a booster box, and then the packs that are left over are divided 2 to 1 to the winner and runner up? Maybe you all bought a box of Magic Origins or something and then after getting some Origins cards in your first set, you set aside the leftovers for the winner.

Or you could so something as simple as the winner gets shotgun seating for a month, or everyone buys the winner a nice dinner, or whatever. You can set up something fun.

I have seen LGS’s set it up similarly to a tournament if all of the product is purchased through them. So whatever the normal store credit or prize that your LGS sets up for a limited even could extend to this project as well. Based on size, product picked up, and how long it lasts, you could see a winner getting a nice bit of store credit or product.

In fact, I’ve seen LGS’s sponsoring versions of the LU, and tracking it themselves, keeping it here, and so forth, with themselves providing rewards for the top finishers. They’ll let folks only play a certain number of games/week (like up to five).

Character Sheet for your Limited Universe:

Group Name -

Starting Pool -

Deck Size -

Trading? -

Ante? -

Additional Cards Allowed -

Who Gets Cards at End -

Any Additional Rules –

Here’s my suggested starter rules for you if you are interested:

Group Name – Abe’s Starting Rules

Starting Pool – 6 boosters of any kind

Deck Size - 60

Trading? - Yes

Ante? - Yes

Additional Cards Allowed – 1 booster/two weeks

Who Gets Cards at End – Winner draft

Any Additional Rules – None

Again, this sub-genre of Magic is so flexible it can address any concerns you may have. If your playgroup reads this primer, and then is really wondering about the feasibility of mana making, then add in mana-making only non-basics, as mentioned before. Worried about trading too much? Then come up with a good LU that doesn’t have trading as a part of it. (I’ll brainstorm one possible solution for you right now — begin the LU with a giant Rochester Draft of all of the cards opened face-up and drafted by the group — that way people can carve their own decks. Then let each person add one Standard common to your card pool each week — no trades or ante) Worried about the initial outlay of money? Then if some of the initial suggestions above don’t content you, how about if you created your own booster packs out of Standard legal cards? You could do something wacky like give folks 20 pulls out of a bad rare box to use as the foundation of your LU. Your rules and projects are limited only by your imagination! Whatever concerns you have, you can change things up to fit it!

And that’s it. Limited Universes are limited only by cards, not by your imagination. Why not try one out and see how it goes? It’s a great change up for the card store or the kitchen table, with equal merit in both. Crack some packs, commiserate over the junk you opened, rejoice over the bombs you found, then build a deck, shuffle up, play some games, trade some cards, and hang out with friends. Is there really anything better to do with this game than that?