this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2023
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Design a really cheap MTG format (mtgzone.com)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by counterspell@mtgzone.com to c/mtg@mtgzone.com
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Heirloom Format

  • Inspired by the MTGO budget format Heirloom but with paper price limits

  • Minimum deck size: 60 cards

  • No more than 4 copies of any card, except basic lands

  • Cards can be of any rarity

  • The legal card pool rotates a month after each Standard set release based on card price thresholds checked on Scryfall with the following search:

f:vintage ((rarity:c and eur<=0.1) or (rarity:u and eur<=0.2) or ((rarity:r or rarity:m) and eur<=1)) and tix<=0.05

  • Common cards under 0.1 EUR/0.05 tix

  • Uncommon cards under 0.2 EUR/0.1 tix

  • Rare cards under 0.3 EUR/0.2 tix

  • Mythic cards under 0.6 EUR/0.5 tix

  • Very low barrier to entry with decks costing less than $10, unlike Pauper where some "budget" decks still cost $60+

  • If the format was popular enough to influence card prices, rotations would ban the most used cards, preventing the metagame from becoming stagnant

  • Lets you play with cards that are bad in other formats but become viable here

  • Encourages creativity in deckbuilding with quirky card choices

  • Games decided by wits and luck rather than coin

I'm excited to hear your ideas for cheap MTG formats!

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[–] counterspell@mtgzone.com 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Ideas to shake up the meta:

  1. Rotate the legal card list monthly instead of after each regular set release.
  2. Each rotation, ban the top 1% most played cards for a number of rotations. Or a random number of rotations for each card so they don't all become legal again simultaneously.
  3. Set a limit on the max number of copies allowed of each card. The limit could be randomized each rotation.
  4. Limit the number of rares/mythics allowed per deck.
  5. Require a minimum number of cards from the latest sets.
  6. Have occasional flashback weekends using previous cardpool rotations.
  7. Sometimes change to a different base cardpool like a block format or a format other than vintage.