Have
you ever played this multiplayer EDH / Commander variant that
involves 8+ players playing the same game? Everyone sits in a
square, and the players across from each other play a turn at the
same time. Once both of their turns are over, the turns pass
clockwise. Each player can only affect players to their left
and right, and any other player basically doesn't exist to them. So,
if someone sitting two seats away from you casts Wrath of God, your
creatures would not be destroyed. There is a soft three minute
time limit, which actually makes many of the annoying decks unable to
be played. Once there are about 5 people left, you go down to
one player taking a turn, and at 4 players, it turns into a 4 way
free for all.
Also,
Time Warp effects are blanked, so if someone casts Temporal Mastery,
or connects with the Medomai the Ageless, no extra turns are taken.
Combos are also limited, and can only go through to three
repetitions. If a player does something like Kiki-Jiki and
Pestermite, or even Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood, they only
occur three times, and then cannot occur anymore.
For
a tournament, you would win a pack for every person you knock out.
It is extremely fun, and the games are interesting because once
you knock out a player, you are facing off against a board state that
you have only had secondary effect on. You end up playing the
games very fast, because of the time limit, two-turn system, and lack
of combos / time warp. You would expect a 10 person game to be
slow and take a long time, but it is usually done in an hour and a
half or so.
We play Grand Melee every Sunday, starting around 7:30 usually. The buy-in is $5, but for $7 instead you will also receive a booster pack of your choice.
There is a special ban list to this as well, which has all pretty much happened as a result of the tournaments. This is in addition to the normal EDH ban list.
- Armageddon / Ravages of War
- Primal Surge
- Omniscience
- Collective Voyage
- Deadeye Navigator
Update for 7-12-14 - We decided to rule the Nephilim as legendary, so they may be built around. We figured, WTF not?
