Manaball

Hi!  If you find yourself on this page, there's a chance you're interested in casual alternative Magic: The Gathering formats.  I hope you'll like what you see here.  This is Manaball...

First of all, here is the Manaball* itself, which is always in play.  I'm not sure my rules formatting is exactly right, but hopefully it makes sense enough...

And the special rules of the format:

1.  60-card deck minimum; up to 4 copies of any single card.**

2.  The equipment card Manaball begins in play.  Any player can play its equip ability if it is unattached OR attached to a creature they control.  It is owned by no one and controlled by a player only if it is attached to a creature controlled by that player.

3.  Whenever they could play a sorcery, a player may tap an untapped creature they control to have it fight a creature with Manaball attached.

4.  When a creatures deals combat damage to a player while holding the Manaball, its controller gets a goal.  A player may only score one goal per turn.  When a player has 5 goals, they win the game.

5.  Players can't win or lose the game for any other reason.

And that is pretty much it!  There's probably a need to ban some cards that are easy to abuse...but I think that's getting ahead of things a little.***  I'll edit this page if needed...but for now, I'm just hoping to learn more about how this format plays out for others who try it.  If you do -- or even if you just have some theorycrafted contributions to share -- please leave a comment here or contact me at the gmail address jlinneman (although leaving a comment is probably a quicker way for me to see it).

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you enjoy!

* I made this version of the card using the site MTG Cardsmith.  I probably should have checked first to see if I'm technically allowed to post the image here.  I will check at some point.  The site is great, although I really just threw this together quickly.  It may not be very aesthetically pleasing.  However...I'm thinking that part of the fun here will probably be making your own Manaball cards (if you want to), so please don't feel trapped by my poor effort...

** I see this as a great place to further customize the format, however.  I like the idea of creatures, at least, being singleton so that each one seems like an individual player.  A system of distributing the availability of legends...or even all creatures, for that matter...among players in a group seems like a great first step in campaign play for this format.

*** I like the way it was approached in an article about the Wacky Races format over at the Card Kingdom Blog, where author Tom Anderson notes that folks will probably be able to figure out what stuff they just shouldn't play because it isn't fun.  There's definitely no need to take away anyone's fun with Manaball because I anticipate something that isn't actually even a problem.  I'll quote Anderson here (seriously, that's a really good article and you should check it out)...with my (obvious) edit in brackets...

"The popularity of Commander has helped us normalize the pre-game discussion, and that tool is going to be even more important when you’re diving into a fan-made, vibes-driven format like this one. There’s no single authority governing [Manaball], and no one right way to read the rules or play the game."