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Main » Articles » Introducing Viral Magic

Introducing Viral Magic

Mark Wischkaemper
Posted on April 15, 2020
 Reddit

And so we continue on, shackled to our homes, no in-person school, no work, minimal interaction with anyone other than our family. Arena and MTGO players have plenty to do, but those of us who thrive on the togetherness of Magic are having a tough time of it. Sure, we can play Magic alone, even with Commander decks, but it's just not the same as hanging out with our friends and slinging some actual cardboard.

But we also have some wonderful technology. Facetime, Skype, Zoom, and other video-chat options abound, and most of us carry a supercomputer in our pockets capable of providing just such screen-based interaction. Last week I hung out with three different groups of friends from my kitchen, earbuds jammed in my ears.

This got me thinking. What if I want to try to play Magic with a friend via video chat? I suppose we could, but there are two major problems. First, you need an extra hand to hold your phone or your hand of cards. This can be mitigated with a tripod or other such device, but not all of us have one of those. Second, and this is the doozy - how do we know no one is cheating? In real life, I can see if you draw a card from your library, then toss it aside and put the card you want in your hand. But if it's off camera, I can't see that. I'm sure we all have a friend we know might be unscrupulous like that. Or you are. I'm not judging.

So now let's talk about cookie dough. Cookies are great. They come from dough, which has to be assembled from ingredients. Then it has to be portioned and baked, and poof! Cookies. What I'm going to present here today is cookie dough - I think I've got the basic ingredients right, but I actually need you - yup, I'm talking directly to you, right now - to help turn it into cookies. Let's crowd-source this idea.

I'm calling it Viral Magic. It's a format designed to be played with real cards over video chat on a phone with no extra requirements - you need a phone capable of video calls, a deck, and a table. A chair is probably helpful. Here's the basic idea:

  • Each player constructs a 30-card singleton deck using the Pioneer card list.

  • The deck must be entirely non-land. No lands are allowed - including things that turn into lands.

  • Additionally, each player has a five-card land deck. This deck may consist of any combination of basic lands, so it can be five Forests, or two Plains, and Island, and two Swamps, or four Wastes and a Mountain, or any other combination of the deck-builder's choice. It is face up next to the face-down library.

  • Life totals start at 20.

  • The game begins differently from normal. Each player pile shuffles their 30-card deck one-handed, keeping the deck visible on camera at all times. A first player is chosen. On that player's turn, they draw a hand of three cards which is always revealed. Basically, you turn over three cards at the bottom of your battlefield. That's your hand, and yes, your opponent can see it all the time.

  • That player then proceeds with their turn as normal. They may play a land from their land deck of their choice, but only one per turn. All normal step rules apply.

  • At the end of their turn, if they've ended up with more than three cards in their hand, they discard down to three.

  • The next player begins their turn by drawing three cards, playing a land of their choice, and going through their turn.

  • On your draw step, you draw up to three cards in hand. This means if you played nothing last turn, you won't draw any cards. If you played three cards, you'll draw three cards.

A few specific things to deal with:

  • Viral Magic's maximum hand size is three. This can be adjusted by cards which adjust hand size, but unless you have something that changes it, you have to discard down to three at end of your turn.

  • No mulligans. You get what you get and you don't throw a fit.

  • Lands are illegal in all forms except your five basics. If you have a way to play an extra land on your turn, that's fine, but nothing that transforms into a land or adds a land to your battlefield outside of those five basics is allowed.

  • Additionally, stuff that messes directly with lands is blanket banned. A good example is Mind Grind. If you cast this on your opponent, they will 100% of the time mill their entire library. That's not fun. Additionally, Stone Rain or anything that destroys a land fizzles. One of my best friends put it this way: "Lands have indestructible, Hexproof, and cannot be sacrificed."

  • However, we need some judgment calls, because Assassin's Trophy is a thing. My thought is Assassin's Trophy just got a lot better because the downside doesn't work, but it's possible we all do a bunch of testing and decide it's just too rough. There are other cards that care about lands; feel free to run them, and the land part just doesn't work.

  • Here's another way to look at it: the five lands you have to the side are effectively in your hand. So figure you start every game with 5 lands in your hand. You can play them in any order because they're in your hand. If you have an Explore-style effect that lets you play an additional land from your hand, and you still have a land to play, you can. But if something lets you search your library for a land and put it into play from there, that doesn't work, because there are no lands in your library.

Formats take months of play-testing and a lot of play-testers to make work. I've had a week and two other people. So the dough is still very much dough. But we've done a bit of testing and a bit of deck-building, and we found it fun and an interesting deck-building challenge. Here are some of the things we've discovered.

Mill has the potential to be strong, because "mill five" is a huge chunk of a 30 card deck. However, an interesting side effect of the "draw up to three" rule is if you have three cards in hand, you don't draw - and therefore can't lose just because you have no cards in your library. So it's strong, but not overly so. This deck was built by my dad, who is quite spikey and has always loved the idea of making a mill deck that actually wins games.

Mill | Viral Magic | Mark Wischkaemper

Reanimator was where I went, because a lot of the reanimator spells are 5 mana. It also has the potential to be strong (a Worldspine Wurm in a five-mana format has quite the effect) but it's shockingly hard to actually get your targets in the 'yard. Because you can't draw past your three automatically, there's no automatic way to get a discard. Self-mill is an option, but super risky because you can't run a million targets so you're more likely than not to just mill the stuff you need. I also liked the idea of clogging the board with Deathtouch creatures.

Reanimator | Viral Magic | Mark Wischkaemper

One way to deal with the mana limitation is to go around it. Nothing says you're not allowed to make more than 5 mana, you just can't have more than five lands. Why not run some 9-drops? This deck was built by my good friend James, who is an excellent deck-builder, excellent player, and all-around excellent guy.

More Mana | Viral Magic | James

While 5 mana is a limitation in some ways, it's also nice to have perfect mana for the deck you've constructed. There can be a lot of fun in a deck designed to cast a lot of cards and sacrifice its own stuff for value, while never having to worry about having the right colors. This deck was also built by James.

Sacrifice | Viral Magic | James

Unsurprisingly, fast Red-based decks are pretty good. My attempt started with Izzet Spellslinger, and it worked well. There's some risk, because if all you get are pump spells and no creature, it's a problem, but when it works, wow. It can be shockingly fast.

U/R Spellslinger | Viral Magic | Mark Wischkaemper

So let's do this. Please try the format, and mess with it however you like. Then use the comments down below to post your results - do you find any problems? Is it fun? Too easy to break? Honesty is what's needed to make something like this work. A few suggestions:

Limit the card pool more. Got a pal you drafted with at FNM before we got locked down? Each of you has to build your deck only from your limited card pool you drafted that night. You and a friend each have six packs you've been looking to crack? Crack 'em and build your decks from those pools. You can try Modern, Standard, Pauper, or any other format's card pool you like; I like Pioneer because it is accessible but still deep enough for a singleton deck, but I think Pauper could be very fun.

If you're willing, try playing the format without trying to win. Instead, see if you can make something work - a specific tribe, or combo, or archetype. See if you can figure out how to break it! Then tell us so we can adjust accordingly.

If nothing else, Viral Magic gives you a reason to bust out your collection and do some building. It also gives you a reason to reach out to a friend and throw down a challenge.

Let us know how it turns out.

Thanks for reading. Stay safe.

TAGS articles, casual, kitchen table, decklist, format, mark wischkaemper, singleton, new format, 04152020, viral magic

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