Magic Tech

Object

The object of the game is to run your opponent out of cards. The main way to do this is to attack their library or "stockpile" with your creatures.

Setup

You and your opponent will need standard Magic decks with the following adjustments:

Your deck can be any size of 60 cards or less.

Rules Changes

The rules for this variant are significantly different, as it uses mostly the rules from the BattleTech CCG. Here are some of the key changes:

Turn Sequence

Your turn is divided into five phases: untap, draw, upkeep, deploy and missions. Perform your untap, draw and upkeep phases as normal; note that your draw phase comes before your upkeep phase. During your deploy phase, you may play cards from your hand to the table. Except for the first player's turn, each player can make two deployments per turn. To deploy a card, place it face down on the table. All cards must be deployed before they can be used, even instants. You may never play a card from your hand without deploying it first.

So how do you pay for your cards? Just like normal during your deploy phase, you can tap your lands for mana. It can either be used to pay for activation costs of cards in play or to put counters on a face down deployed card. Once a card has enough counters, you can cast it by turning it face up. Note that a sorcery can still be revealed during your turn, while an instant can be revealed whenever you want. Lands are considered to have a cost of zero; you can deploy a land and immediately turn it face up for use. You can deploy up to two lands per turn.

There are special rules governing spells requiring colored mana: if you have the appropriate basic land in play, you can ignore colored mana symbols, treating them as generic mana. If you do not have the right basic land in play, each colored mana symbol costs three generic mana.

Also during your deploy phase, you can relocate activated creatures that began your turn in play. Creatures on patrol can be moved to guard specific cards, and creatures defending specific cards can be moved on patrol. You can protect your stockpile or any card you have in play, even those under construction. Finally, revealed creatures remain in the deploy area until the end of your turn. Creatures with immunity to summoning sickness can go on patrol immediately (see below).

Going To Battle

After the deploy phase comes the mission phase, when you're able to attack your opponent's stuff. You can perform as many missions as you want, treating each as a separate attack. You can send more than one creature on a mission. Also, you can play any cards during a mission that could normally be played during an attack (instants, etc.). Note that you can attack with a creature, resolve that battle, then attack with another one or more if you wanted.

For resolving attacks, it's important to know that every permanent has attack, armor and structure values. A creature's attack value is determined by its power. Armour is how much damage a creature absorbs, decided by its toughness, and structure or the amount of damage to kill it is equal to its casting cost. Lands have no attack value and an armor and structure of three. All other permanents have no attack value and an armor and structure value each equal to their casting cost.

Each time damage is applied to a card, it is first applied to the card's armor value. Any excess is applied as structure damage; use counters to denote this. Creatures do not heal at the end of turn; they can only have damage removed by healing spells or effects. Whenever a card has counters equal to or greater than its structure value, it is destroyed. If you manage to damage your opponent's deck, they must discard one card from their deck for each point of damage it takes. At the end of a mission, all creatures involved become tapped.

Blocking works like this: untapped creatures on patrol can block any attacking creatures they could normally block in a game of Magic - taking into account flying, landwalk, protection, shadow, etc. If an untapped creature is guarding a card, it can block any creature attacking that card, regardless of any evasion abilities the attacker has. However, a guarding creature can only block creatures attacking its card. An untapped creature on patrol cannot be the target of an attack. Tapped creatures, however, can be.

Every two damage dealt to a card under construction results in one mana counter removed from the card and the card is revealed. If the card has no counters and is dealt damage, bury it.

Any time a card or effect states, "pay X life" or "lose X life," scrap that many cards instead, putting cards from the top of your library into your graveyard or scrapheap.

Treat trample, rampage, banding, flanking, phasing and first strike as you would when normally playing Magic. A creature with regeneration may pay its regeneration cost to remove one damage counter during your upkeep phase. You can ignore poison counters.

For each point of life you gain, you may put the top card of your scrapheap under the bottom of your stockpile. 

Lastly, the end phase. Place any creatures you've activated this turn on patrol. Don't worry about discarding; there's no hand size limit.

Banned & Restricted List

When playing this variant it is usually decided what type you will be playing. So if playing Type 1, Type 1.5, Type 2, or Extended Magic Tech then, follow that format’s Banned and Restricted List.

Mulligan Rules

Standard “Paris” Mulligan is used for this variant.

Before each game begins, a player may, for any reason, reshuffle and redraw his hand, drawing one less card. This may be repeated as often as the player wishes, until he has no cards left in his hand. After the participant, who plays first, mulligans as often as he likes, the decision of whether to mulligan passes to the other player. Once a player passes the opportunity to mulligan, that player may not change his mind.

History

This variant was created by Steve Zamborsky.