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Old-Wizard.com Variant Rules for Magic: The Gathering

Tired of playing the same old Magic games? Do all your friends decks have an Archbound Ravager, a Psychatog or a Mirari’s Wake? Do you lay awake at night and secretly wish you could find a way to put a Leviathan or a Polar Kraken in a deck and still stand a chance of winning a game? Well, dust off those blue powerhouse critters because your pals at Old-Wizard have created some rules variants for Magic: The Gathering that will let you once again put those big baddies in a deck just like it you did back in the days when Ice Age was the newest expansion set.

In all started one summer day while sitting around playing Magic, Zeromage with his Green/White Mirari’s Wake deck, and Tlax with his Affinity deck, they realized that they had played this same game a hundred times before. They began to get nostalgic for the times when they didn’t really know anything about power combos and they had so few cards that they had to make decks with nothing but a few starter decks. Back then a Cosmic Horror was a great card. Once you finally got it into play your opponent was finished. And when Tlax became the first of the two to get a 7/7 Elder Dragon Legend it was almost enough to make Zeromage quit the game completely out of fear of playing against it until he got one of his own.

As time passed, we became wiser in the ways of Magic. Tlax constructed a Direct Damage deck, which was all but unstoppable, until Zeromage built his now legendary Merfolk deck. Soon, those rudimentary decks were replaced with increasingly more deadly combos and more expensive power cards and this is how we've been playing Magic ever since. Then one day as we were leaving our favourite gaming store, hands full of expensive power cards, we decided we wanted to go back to the good old days, if only for a week or two.

So we made up ten rules for deck construction that you and your friend, assuming you have one, can use to make old school decks to challenge each other with. Why ten you ask? Well, as J.F.K. once said, “Some people look at life and ask why? Me, I ask why not?” Besides, ten is just an easy number to keep track of. Unless you’re a banjo playing inbred, most of us have ten fingers and toes, there are ten commandments, etc. So without any further adieu here they are, Old-Wizard’s ten deck building rules you can use to bring back old school magic:

1. Each deck must have at least 3 colours.

2. No deck may have more than 3 duplicate basic lands. This forces you and your opponent to use funny non-basic lands like Svyelunite Temple.

3. No deck may include more than 1 of any card besides a basic land, except basic lands (See rule #2).

4. No deck may include more than 3 instants/interrupts.

5. No deck may include more than 3 sorceries.

6. No deck may include more than 3 artifacts, and each artifact must have a casting cost of 5 mana or higher. We have to admit, we have an obsession with non-basic lands and artifact equipment cards.

7. No deck may have more than 3 enchantments.

8. No deck may have more than 1 artifact creature.

9. Each deck must include at least 3 creatures with a casting cost of 8 mana or higher.

10. Each deck must include at least 1 legend.

There are many more possibilities when coming up with deck building restrictions between you and your friends in order to spice up your magic games. After all, variety is the spice of life (and all this time we thought it was Oregano). At Old-Wizard we’ve tried challenging each other by both of us making a deck with 4 Lords of the Pit, or each making decks with 4 Apocalypses in them. Something crazy like that to force us to make an obscure Magic deck and see who can do it better. Feel free to send us your ideas and if you’re lucky we’ll post them up for all of cyberspace to see.

-Zeromage