Imagine a different magic. One without lands, perhaps. Or one where cards aren't held in hand, or with completely different rules of combat.

Illustrate with an example or two. See how much you can change, but still feel like magic.

I created Support Troops, Crossbow Infantry and SkyKnight for this challenge.
The concept is Magic Wars which is basically magic but with a more tactical combat system.
You have combat and support creature supertypes and they go into the respective creature rank/line on the battlefield - Combat or Support.
Certain cards/abilities would target creatures in certain ranks but creatures would still be assigned to attack players directly to keep the flavour of magic combat mostly intact.
Otherwise, the game works exactly like a normal game of magic.
Oh, there is an additional rank/line called the command zone which is where Planeswalkers, enchantments, artifacts, etc would be played.
Also added (((Combat Readiness))).

Added Abbey Monk, Aura Destabilizer, Mind of the Machine and Furrious Hellkitten to the batch. The question I'm asking is: What if, during the sixth edition rules change, Magic decided to simplify the rules by shutting off the text of all tapped permanents. Before the sixth edition rules changes, Artifacts didn't work when they were tapped (and blocking creatures dealt no combat damage if they were tapped. Yeah. Confounding). Here, I'm assuming that the team liked the idea, but found it oddly restrictive that some permanents were tapped when they were shut off and some were not, so, instead of removing the rule, they extended it.

I'm being lazy and riffing off of Camruth's Idea by adding two new keyword abilities - Assault and Reserve on the following cards (((Barbarian Raiders))) and (((Ready Reserves))).

I haven't thought of any cards, but rules changes I'm curious about (which anyone else is welcome to tweak and make examples for) include:

• Remove the 4-of rule. I hate this rule. I'm so used to it I never think about it, but it just seems so inelegant. Can't cards be balanced so you can play "20 lightning bolts, 20 raging goblins, 20 mountains"? Admittedly, I don't think we could get there from here: no-one would play 20 grizzly bears, they'd play 20 tarmogoyfs, and then there'd REALLY be a bidding war on expensive rares. Some cards you naturally only want so many: lots of pro deck lists run less than 4, or run 4 plus one or two tutors, but not 4 tutors. But some (cf. lightning bolt) you'd probably run LOTS. One option is to design above-the-curve cards so they're slightly anti-self-synergistic. Another is to have many cards (or an inherent mechanic) which hoses multiples. Another is to have "basic" cards where you can have any number, and "legendary" cards where you can only have (or play?) one.

• Remove life total, and say the defending player must block if they can. But I can't think of a good winning condition if they don't block. Lose when you run out of creatures and just have a lot of cheap cantrip chump blockers for non-aggro decks to keep playing? ALL creatures mill when they're unblocked, and there's no outright anti-mill cards? I quite like that idea -- since you CAN win by milling, why have a separate life total?

• Remove hand size limit. This makes very little difference anyway.

Whenever the 4 card limit comes up, I point at netrunner; which worked perfectly well without one. The way it mainly did it was by your wanting to have at least some of a whole bunch of different stuff in a deck; so there wasn't usually room for more than 6 or 8 of a single card in a deck. The cards were mostly very well balanced. This lead to a sales problem, however.

I have no issue with the four-of limit. I think it's a great way to balance, actually, and it makes it much easier to ensure deck diversity.
I also would never want hand size to be unlimited, because it DOES make a difference.

I wholeheartedly support the four-of-limit, as a way to maintain deck and gameplay variance. Otherwise, inevitably, someone will be able to break the game.

Future Future Future league results:

3rd place
4x Tendrils of Agony
26x Black Lotus
30x Ancestral Recall
defeated by a bad draw.

2nd place
60x Chancellor of the Dross
defeated by sideboarded 15x Leyline of Sanctity

1st place
60x Rocket-Powered Turbo Slug

­Chancellor of the Dross doesn't target, by the way.

Damn. :P

On the subject of 4x+: I have no problem with it... but it would require a radical change in how we play and think of Magic. Netrunner is a good example of how to get the work done. (I don't blame Netrunner's mechanics for why Netrunner didn't succeed. In the early days of CCGs, no card game succeeded except Magic. Lot5R seems to be the exception to that rule. I'm guessing that it had to do with flavor. You wanted an environment that could absorb as many nerds as possible. Fantasy was a given. Runner up? Fantasy in an Asian setting). Also, I don't have a problem with 1x everything, like in Commander.

The biggest thing that 4x has going for it is that it is easy, and makes sure that decks don't become 30x. It's easy, because I can just take the 15 best cards I can think of and make a deck out of them. And occasional tournament quality 30x decks... well, I think you know why that's terrible. What if that was the deck to beat? And to compete at your local tournament scene, you had to play that deck? Netrunner worked because there was no such thing as a real tournament environment. When Magic got a tournament environment, that's when the 4x hammer got dropped. For an example of how frustrating this would all be, make an Affinity deck, have a friend make an Affinity deck, and play them against each other for the next year.

No max hand size: Will probably happen in our lifetime. In GDS2, one of the questions was "If you could change any rule...". Evidently, removing maximum hand size was the number one answer. It was my suggestion as well. Why? Well it punishes slow starts... so it's a win-more mechanic. Having more cards in hand also speeds up the game, unlike what popular opinion would tell you. If I have a 15 cards in hand, but only 4 are relevant, then it doesn't matter that I have an extra 8 cards. If, however, I have 7 cards in hand, and each turn I draw three cards, and I can only play one card per turn... well, then each turn I will have to decide which of my most worthless cards are the least worthless. That's a lot of time dedicated towards something you don't really care about... and it hurts to boot.

I also wish the upkeep step could be removed, and all upkeep triggers be placed in the first main phase. It won't impact gameplay much.

The end step could be like the draw phase, wherein end-of-turn effects would trigger but players can't activate new abilities or play spells. That would remove the unintuitive shenanigans of casting end-of-turn instants AFTER the beginning of the end step.

Regeneration is too much trouble to be worth it and should be phased out.. you know, like phasing.

The "Can't be blocked" restriction of protection is unintuitive. This hilarious article parodies it nicely.

I agree that the max hand rule should be removed.

The fundamental rule I'm changing is:

> 102.2. In a two-player game, a player's opponent is the other player.

See Infectious Tendrils and Prejudiced Attention for how that might work out.