I've been playing Magic for over fourteen years, mostly on the kitchen table. I've been exposed to practically every casual format out there, but ever since I read Steven Menendian's great introductory article years ago, few casual formats have resulted in as much enjoyment for me as a round or two of Type 4 (or "Limited Infinity," for those of you who appreciate long names).

I won't talk too much about how great this format is, or how a T4 game works, since both Steven and ManaNation's own Abe Sargent have written great articles with those details, but suffice it to say that T4 is quite possibly the most insane and fun casual format out there, and it's no surprise, given that unlimited mana is a dream that few of us have experienced. The lack of mana worries lets T4 stacks use cards that would never otherwise see play outside Sealed or Draft; some of the most powerful, splashiest spells in Magic. But even T4 has limits to what cards it can accept. There are cards that are too narrow, totally useless in the setting, or even too powerful.

Do you sometimes wonder if you'll ever find a way to play Coalition Victory outside a fun deck? Did you ever think you'd find a place for that Mana Matrix you opened back in 1994 in that pack of Legends? Are you disappointed that your foil Akroma, Angel of Fury can't join her traditional White counterpart in the stack because she has Firebreathing?

Argh. Not even Type 4 wants me.

Fortunately, good readers, given the right set of house rules, even T4 can find a place for deviants such as these. And getting to use atypical cards is one of the best aspects of this format.

Building on the Basic Rules

At its heart, this format only has two primal rules that never change:

1. Infinite mana: You can produce any amount of mana of any color and types you want at any time (including snow and colorless mana).
2. The Rule of Law: Each player can't cast more than one spell each turn (including one during each opponent's turn, of course).

Those are the two cardinal commandments of T4; everything else is malleable. But precisely because it's a casual format, different groups tend to come up with their own unique mix of house rules to add playing complexity and increase the viable card pool. Those familiar with the playing culture of T4 know that if you enter a game, it's polite to ask the stack's keeper what the group's house rules are to avoid possible conflict and misunderstandings.

However, while anyone can mix up any set of fun rules and use them, it helps to remember that every house rule fundamentally alters your T4 gameplay, some in ways that aren't immediately apparent. If you need proof of how a single rule can affect the game, look at the controversy M11 caused. Further, every new rule also changes the value of certain cards, giving you new considerations for drafting and stack inclusion.

For my discussion, I'd like to focus on a number of different house rules (plus variants) T4 advocates have come up with over the years of this format's kitchen-table evolution, and discuss how incorporating them changes your T4 game and affects your choices regarding eligible cards for the stack. The best kinds of T4 playing experiences come when you understand how game dynamics change with rules inclusions, and how the contents of the stack can be manipulated specifically to take advantage of whatever unique rules you're using.

At the very least, this should give you new ideas about how to play T4, and give more options to those who are still developing their own stacks or are interested in doing so but don't know where to start.

The Alternative-Cost Law

You may play one alternative-cost spell per turn in addition to your standard spell.

This is the most common house rule used by T4 circles, to the point that it might be considered unusual if your group doesn't use it. With this rule, besides your standard spell per turn, you may also cast one spell that has an alternative cost, whether it be paying life, discarding or exiling an extra card from your hand, sacrificing a permanent, or conditions where you can pay it for a lower mana cost.

The basis of this rule is that in standard Magic, spells with alternative costs are meant to be cheaper if you are capable of paying those alternative costs, allowing you to play more spells than your mana would normally allow. With that in mind, the net effect of this rule in T4 makes more sense: If you have an alternative-cost spell, during each turn, you have the potential of playing two spells per turn instead of one (one hard-cast "main" spell plus one alternative-cost spell).

This rule can be considered the favorite T4 house rule, because it has two important effects: First, it increases the value of many cards in the stack, giving you interesting options during stack construction, and changing the priority considerations when drafting. Without this rule, for example, Force of Will might as well be an ordinary Counterspell, and in fact in some cases is strictly worse (say, if it gets hit with Parallectric Feedback or Draining Whelk). With this rule active, Force of Will is one of the top picks in any stack.

Surprise! I kick ass in any format.

Second, it makes for more interesting play interactions. A round of T4 becomes more exciting and unpredictable if there's the surprise potential of someone who you thought was tapped out suddenly chucks out a well-timed alternative-cost spell. You can never count someone out unless he or she has cast two spells per turn, and that makes advance planning more valuable. If you play with any extra rules, it should be this one.

Here are just a few examples of the many cards with higher value thanks to this rule:

• Dream Halls
• Fist of Suns
• Misdirection
• Snapback
• the Prophecy avatars (e.g. Avatar of Woe)
• the Alliances exile cycle (e.g. Force of Will)
• the Coldsnap double exile cycle (e.g. Commandeer)
• the Fifth Dawn Bringer cycle (e.g. Bringer of the Black Dawn)
• the Kamigawa Shoal cycle (e.g. Shining Shoal)
• the Zendikar Traps (e.g. Ricochet Trap)

Alternative-Cost Law Variant

You may play one alternative-cost spell per turn in addition to your standard spell. Spells that cost or are cast via Suspend (or similar mechanics) are considered alternative-cost spells.

This supplement to the alternative-cost rule was made during Time Spiral block, primarily to allow better use of 0-cost spells, notably the Pacts from Future Sight (e.g. Pact of Negation), and cards with Suspend (e.g. Ancestral Vision). Suspend and 0-cost spells both allow you to play spells essentially for free, so by counting them as alternative-cost spells, they fulfill their intended function.

Guess what? I'm not dead yet.

The rule might also cover any other cards whose costs are reduced completely to 0 due to mechanics on the card itself, like cards with Convoke (e.g. Sundering Vitae), and should also include any future cards with similar mechanics.

Note this does not count spells that you can cast without paying the mana cost due to the effect of another card. Those spells can be cast for free regardless of whether you already used your alternative spell for that turn, because it's considered to be part of the resolution of the effect of the previous card (e.g. Memory Plunder, Bituminous Blast), to allow such spells to function as they're printed. So you could conceivably cast Memory Plunder on a player (your standard one spell that turn), and when he tries to Dismiss it, you can pitch a card to Force of Will (your alternative-cost spell that turn), and when the Memory Plunder resolves, you can still cast that Conflux you've been eyeing in the guy's graveyard.

Alternative-Cost Law Variant

You may play one alternative-cost spell per turn in addition to your standard spell. Any spell whose cost has been reduced by any degree is considered to be an alternative-cost spell.

The idea here takes the more generic concept that reducing the cost of a spell allows you to cast more spells and applies it to the T4 arena. This means that if any spell has had its cost lowered by any effect, even by just 1 colorless mana, such as tapping a creature for Convoke, or exiling a graveyard card for Delve, or having even a single artifact in play for Affinity, then that spell can be played as an alternative cost spell.

To take advantage of this house rule when constructing your stack, take into consideration all spells that reduce their own cost due to some inherent mechanic (e.g. Broodstar), and any permanents that reduce the mana cost of other spells (e.g. Semblance Anvil). Under usual T4 rules, those cards are useless due to players having infinite mana. With this house rule, those permanents now have a different function, effectively adding to the number of spells you can cast per turn by changing normal cards into alternative-cost cards.

The number of groups using this rule variation is somewhat rare, because it adds a lot of complexity to stacks. High-powered stacks don't normally have room for all of the options opened up by this house rule, but weaker or more immature stacks have enough slack to allow cards that take advantage of the functionality. It's an excellent way to speed up the play of budget stacks and also makes those stacks easier to build. On the other hand, if you own the kind of mature stack that flirts with insanity like Glory, or Door to Nothingness, or Legacy Weapon, this rule will likely be unnecessary and would only dilute your card pool.

If you want even more complexity, you can also rule that any spell that's had its cost increased by any degree is no longer an alternative-cost spell. So if someone casts Feroz's Ban, for example, Bringer of the Blue Dawn is no longer an alternative cost spell.

Examples of cards now viable thanks to this rule:

• Grand Arbiter Augustin IV
• Helm of Awakening
• Mana Matrix
• Stone Calendar
• any spell with Affinity (e.g. Assert Authority)
• any spell with Convoke (e.g. Autochthon Wurm)
• any spell with Delve (e.g. Death Rattle)
• the Planeshift Familiars (e.g. Nightscape Familiar)
• the Tempest Medallions (e.g. Jet Medallion)

The Domain Law

Each player is considered to have one of each basic land in play. (They may also be snow lands, if desired.)

This house rule often comes with certain natural assumptions, such as the term considered meaning you're treated as having full Domain, but the lands aren't really there, meaning they can't be bounced, sacrificed, enchanted, or destroyed. They're there for the sake of just being there.

Why?

The reason this simple rule was created is to give relevance to cards that: (1) Check for the presence of basic lands and (2) Count the number of permanents you have in play.

Still too vague? Let's get more specific, then. If this rule is active, all Landwalk cards become more powerful, since their Landwalk ability will always be active (meaning Inkwell Leviathan just got more ridiculous). Some cards, notably the Domain cards, check to see what basic land types you have in play. So, with this rule, Domain cards always have their full effect. Also, even if you can't interact with them, they're still technically there, so cards that check for the number of permanents you control will always count those five basic lands.

So I'm unblockable in Type 4 now? Oh, yeah. This'll be fun.

One of the downsides to this variant is that it's easy for newer players to forget that they have Domain. We've had a game where the less experienced player failed to counter an Inkwell Leviathan because he thought he could block it with his Crowd Favorites, not realizing it was unblockable with this house rule in effect.

Here are examples of cards that become significant with this rule:

• Snuff Out
• Submerge
• all cards with Landwalk or enabling Landwalk (e.g. Filth)
• all cards with Domain (e.g. Worldly Counsel)
• all cards that count your permanents (e.g. Myojin of Seeing Winds)

Domain Law Variant

Each player is considered to have X of each basic land in play. (They may also be snow lands, if desired.)

Some people who use this variant decided if you're going to pretend that you have lands in play, let's not stop at just one of each. This variant matters for those spells that count the number of lands of a certain type, like the classic Nightmare.

Whee! How much damage can I do?

Beware of making the number too high, which can end up making some cards much too powerful. Molimo, Maro-Sorcerer is likely the biggest Trampler you'll ever see. Using Myojin of Seeing Winds might result in decking yourself. Karma could kill all your opponents in one or two turns. Thus, most groups settle for a number no higher than ten.

Here are some cards that could make the cut if this rule is implemented (depending on what value you decide on):

• Fire Dragon
• Last Stand
• Howl of the Night Pack
• Primal Bellow
• Flow of Ideas
• Mutilate
• Vedalken Shackles
• Corrupt
• Korlash, Heir to Blackblade
• Typhoon

The Land Cost Law

If a cost requires a player to bounce, sacrifice, exile, or discard land cards, assume that any player can pay those costs at any time.

This rule was created in part or in whole by those groups who wanted to use the alternative costs for cards like Gush, Thwart, and Foil in their stacks. Later, the rule expanded to include cards with land sacrifice upkeeps or costs (e.g. Gargantuan Gorilla).

Note that this rule is relevant only if manipulating lands are needed to pay for costs; that is, to cast spells or pay for abilities. It has nothing to do with resolving actual card effects that affect lands. So if you were to cast Din of the Fireherd, and the opponent's only real land is a Maze of Ith, he'd have to sacrifice the Maze.

More examples of cards that you should consider with this rule:

• Fireblast
• Flooded Shoreline
• Infernal Denizen
• Wand of the Elements
• all cards with Retrace (e.g. Spitting Image)

I need to offer one special piece of advice concerning Retrace cards. While there are only a few Retrace cards that might make it into the stack, reusable cards like these increase the value of the graveyard as a resource. This is something I should talk about in a future article, but for now it's enough to say that your stack needs to have enough cards that can deal with that kind of reusable graveyard evil.

Recently, some of the practitioners of this rule added another clause, and it simply states, "Players may trigger Landfall once during their turn." Obviously, this variation was made by those players who wanted to use their better Landfall cards, even if not many of them make the T4 cut.

I'm intended to be very, very annoying.

Land Cost Law Variant

If a cost requires a player to bounce, sacrifice, exile, or discard land cards, assume that any player can pay those costs at any time. This applies to any cost requiring a nonspecific discard.

The idea behind this rule variant is that since you can discard "virtual" lands to pay for costs, you can also discard the same "virtual" lands to pay for any discard costs, such as from Spellshapers. This makes activated abilities with discard costs much more powerful, allowing players to use them without decimating their valuable hand. For example, Mageta the Lion can Wrath the board every turn with impunity.

A word of warning: If you use this rule, some cards become much more powerful to the point of being too strong or broken for most stacks, because those cards use discarding cards in hand as a limiter. Compulsion becomes a strictly better Treasure Trove. Mind Over Matter can tap any opposing permanent forever or keep your own permanents perpetually untapped. Mindless Automaton is no longer so mindless, and can not only gain infinite +1/+1 counters, but can also draw you however many cards you need.

Evaluate card power carefully if you decide to try this particular variant. The Spellshapers are a good place to start looking for good cards, since their abilities restrict themselves by requiring tapping, and there are enough of them to give yourself a lot of choices.

Mmm. So many delicious cards.

Though my own playgroup has never tried this house rule, I've played a game with another group using this rule once. Let me tell you one thing: I've never had so much fun with Jaya Ballard, Task Mage before.

Here are examples of cards you should consider with this rule variant:

• Amugaba
• Hypochondria
• the Dreams cycle from Torment (e.g. Devastating Dreams)
• the Spellshaper cards (e.g. Stronghold Biologist, Stronghold Machinist)

Parting Words and Gifts Ungiven

That's only three house rules and some of their variants. Are there more out there? Yes. Many more. Will I be discussing more of them here? Yes. That's what the whole "Part I" thing seems to suggest. But there are so many rules and subtle variants that I'm not even going to try to cover them all.

What I do hope is that this has given you new insight into how to freshen up your T4 game, and I hope has given you readers a springboard to make up your own variations . . . at least until I bring up more in my next article.

And if you play T4 pretty regularly, what house rules does your own group use? I'm always interested to get more ideas from the community. If it's fun enough, I'd certainly love to write about it.

Come back next Thursday for part two of Ritchie's series!