Valentine's Day is over and I know we all feel a little love in our hearts. My beautiful wife Kim had a very special request this Valentine's, Rock Band and Guitar Hero for PS3, Whoa! We spent all day Valentine's rocking out! Now there's a real geek's girl! Now back to our regularly scheduled program...

Today we'll be taking a look at Pentagram, the exciting game where 5 players pit their favorite color against one another for fame and fortune. Ok, no fortune, and the fame will only extend to your playgroup, but it is fun!

Pick up a Magic card, any card at all, turn it over and take a look at the back. Ever notice the 5 colored circles in the shape of a pentagram, and the order they are in? This order is very important to Magic: The Gathering. Each color has two allies, which are located just to the left and right of the color, and two enemies, located directly across from the color. For example, white's allies are blue and green, and white's enemies are black and red. This order is also very important to the Pentagram format!

In the Pentagram format you will need exactly 5 players, one for each of those 5 colored circles. Each player should have a mono colored deck, one from each of the five colors. Ideally this would be a set of decks constructed by the local community for the purpose of playing Pentagram, more on deck construction later.

Each players color should be determined randomly, drawing from a random stack of one of each lands works wonderfully. Players sit in the order of the pentagram on the back of every Magic card, white, blue, black, red, green. Turns go in star order, white, black, green, blue, red, so an enemy color always plays just after you! The object of the game is to eliminate both of your enemy colors, so if you are playing white you would win by eliminating both black and red. It is possible for you and an ally to have a shared victory by eliminating all three of your enemies. White and blue could have a shared victory by first eliminating green and black then eliminating red.

You may target any legal target with spells and effects. Both of your enemies are "opponents" for purposes of a card that asks for an opponent, so no Archive Trap on your allies, and Avatar of Will only look at your enemies hands.

Since your allied colors aren't your opponents, you also can't attack them. You may only attack your enemies and their Planeswalkers.

Deck Construction

In a pinch you can use just any 5 decks to play Pentagram, but building 5 mono colored decks and keeping those around just for Pentagram can be a lot of fun!

Anthem Games in Tampa, Florida has a set of these decks that has evolved over the years by the local community. You can stop by Anthem any time and play these. Each deck is designed with cards that are trademarks of the respective colors. Reset buttons abound to keep the game in check. They each have 24 lands, 20 of which are basic. Each color gets a Lorwyn Planeswalker as well. One colorless artifact per color, and each deck gets a few hate cards specifically for its enemies!

White is all about control and life gain. With plenty of removal and plenty of life gain you can advance your life total enough to keep yourself out of the range of both your enemies, then lay down a fatty and commence the beat down. Land Tax makes for a great comeback after an Armageddon. Mass removal makes for some serious card advantage. White's artifact of choice, Jade Statue, is a great sort-of creature after a Wrath. Ajani Goldmane can gain you lots of life, and make one seriously big Avatar token after gaining all that life!

Love it or hate it, blue is one of the most powerful colors in the game. This blue deck has all the spellsl a control player would ever need. Lots of counter spells and plenty of card draw. Take some extra turns and bounce anything that gets in your way to victory. Add some great tricksy tricksy creatures and blue has what it takes to control the whole game. Long game plans include a Capsize Stasis lock, and never ever forget “Superman”, Morphling. Blue chooses Icy Manipulator as it's artifact to keep anything pesky at bay, and Jace Beleren can give you that serious card advantage that blue needs.

Black, victory at any cost. Black will do whatever it takes to win the game, and makes no bones about it. With a little tutoring, some graveyard recursion, plenty of removal, and some of that oh so black life syphon, black will beg borrow or steal to get the job done. Black gets the awesome Nevinyrral's Disk for an artifact to get rid of permanents that black has no way to deal with, and Liliana Vess discards enemies down to nothing, tutors up that card you need, then returns all those juicy creatures back from black's favorite zone, the graveyard, just in time for huge win!

Red, if it's in the way, burn it. If it threatens you, burn it. Jaya Ballard says "Of course you should fight fire with fire. You should fight everything with fire." Needless to say, red is packed with plenty of direct damage. Apocalypse is there get out of the hole red is sure to dig itself into, and Wheel of Fortune gives red some card draw it so desperately needs. Some nice big trademark red dragons, and even the recurring Squee to get in there. Powder Keg helps get rid of those things Red just can't get rid of, and Chandra Nalaar is one big finisher!

It's big, it's huge, no I mean really really big! B.F.M. should have been a green card! This green deck is full of huge fatties, and ways to make them even fatter. Green doesn't care what you cast, it will just plow right over (or under) it. With a little card draw, and just enough removal to take out your best cards, this green deck will make a dent in your life total in no time at all. Green gets Loxodon Warhammer for an artifact to add green's trademark Trample with a little lifeline on the side. Garruk gives you a little mana ramp, maybe a few Beast Tokens, and makes for a great Overrun finisher.

So now you've seen a great set of Pentagram decks, but what strategies should you use? Politics is a big part of any multiplayer game, and Pentagram is no different. What is different, however, is who you need to be political with. While your allies can't attack you, they can target you with spells, and help out your enemies. You have two allies, but those allies both have allies who are you enemies! Should you team up with one ally and go for a shared victory? How will your other ally respond to this? The interactions can become complex quickly. Join me next week where I'll be presenting a play by play of a recent –EPIC- Pentagram game I played an Anthem Games in Tampa, Florida, and perhaps you'll get a good idea of how a real game of Pentagram goes.

I'm very interested in hearing about other formats people are playing. If you are playing a non-sanctioned format other than EDH or Pentagram I would love to hear about it. Leave me a comment below this story and tell me all about it. Be sure to leave your email address so I can contact you. Your format could be featured here soon!

That's it for this week. I'll be judging Pro Tour San Diego this weekend, February 18-21, so if you're around find me and say hi! Until next week this is Dale Lovelace telling you there is more than one way to play!