Clash on Beledin: Clash and the rules of Pile Magic
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| Skeleton | Clash and the rules of Pile Magic | Set Mechanics |
Clash on Beledin is a custom Magic: the Gathering set designed for out-of-the-box play with the custom, alternate Pile Magic ruleset. Design on Clash began in late summer 2013. Playtesting and development began in August 2014. The set is now near a complete, finished state as of the spring of 2018.
First things first though... what is Pile?
Background
Pile was developed in the winter of 1999, shortly following the release of the Mercadian Masques expansion. From one interesting afternoon playing Magic at a local game store, with a giant communal 'deck' (or 'pile') composed of 1 of each card in it's owner's collection, Pile was born. Designed for multiplayer but playable in duels, Pile exists in a space somewhere between Cube and sealed deck. Power level fluctuates. Luck rules the day. Game states you'd never dream would occur appear before your vary eyes. Cards of varying rarities and power levels have been custom selected for Pile, which has been growing slowly almost every expansion since 1999, and now numbers well in excess of 3000 cards. Cards are chosen for mechanical uniqueness, power, synergy with the ruleset, and open-endedness. Narrow tribal cards, arcane cards, snow cards and many other parasitic mechanics are poor fits for the format.
The piles
What sets Pile apart from regular magic more than anything else, is that Pile is played with a shared library and a shared graveyard, and that spells and lands are not mixed together.
In regular Magic, each player has a single library and a single graveyard, and their deck contains a mix of both spells and lands. In Pile, individual libraries are replaced with a single spell deck and a single land deck, while individual graveyards are replaced with a spell graveyard and a land graveyard. All of these are shared by all players. If a card refers to an opponent's library or graveyard, it also refers to your own and vice versa.
The Spell Deck is composed entirely of nonland cards, hence the name. A majority of them are creatures. The colors are evenly balanced.
The Land Deck is composed entirely of lands, about half of them basic. The colors are evenly balanced.
The Spell Graveyard is where all nonland cards go when they are put into the graveyard.
The Land Graveyard is where all lands go when they are put into a graveyard.
In Clash on Beledin only Pile play, the Spell Deck is comprised of 225 cards and the Land Deck is 75 cards - the 300 cards in Clash on Beledin.
Starting the game
When you start the game, designate one player as the dealer. This player searches out basic lands for other players during the game, adds to decks if they get low, and takes care of the exile zone.
The dealer will take a chunk of the spell deck (usually a stack a couple inches high - 75 cards or so), and the land deck, then shuffles them. (DO NOT SHUFFLE THEM TOGETHER!) The dealer will then deal to each player four spells and three lands face-down. Players play with 20 life and 3 fetch counters (more on that later)
The draw
If a spell or effect says 'draw a card' you may choose which of the piles to draw from.
Fetch counters and fetching?
Each player begins the game with three fetch counters. Players can use these at sorcery speed to do one of two things:
Search the land pile for the basic land of your choice. OR Cycle a card in hand for free (drawing a card from either deck)
When you have no fetch counters remaining you can no longer do this (unless you happen upon a way to get more), so use them wisely!
Ownership
You might be asking yourself 'in a format where most of the players don't own the cards, who's the owner?' Ownership is 'bestowed' when a card is played from a player's hand. If there are corner cases where a question might arise, use your best judgment.
Search
The only card search that is legal in Pile is basic land search. Anything else, such as tutors, become... problematic in multiplayer environments. Any card that searches for a specific type of basic land, i.e. 'Search your library for a Forest...' are errata'd to search for a basic land only. No fetching dual lands in this format, folks.