Our Take On Planechase, the New Multiplayer Magic

You’re probabally aware by now we are a pretty geeky lot, one of the things that we really geek out on is quasi-popular trading card game Magic: the Gathering. We don’t tournament play or anythingn like that but we had casually played for pretty much as long as we have known each other and we have a few nights a month of spell flinging multilayer fun. The problem (social status aside) with Magic is that to be honest it can be a little,well, not fun. Blue basically runins the game and over complex or competitive net decks are almost totally banned form our table. Don’t get me wrong we all like playing and building the decks etc there is just a whole bitch level of Magic we try to avoid.

What is Planechase?

We’ve always been disappointed with Wizards for not embracing the casual multiplayers and while good old Vanguard was nice and fun it wasn’t varied and often was not different to normal Magic. Well Wizards have really stepped up to the plate with the latest multilayer ruleset, Planechase.

From a marketing perspective Wizards have really been putting an emphasis on the Planeswalker mythos, introducing the cards, mini-sites and novels all aimed at highlighting the “your an important sup0er powered wizard”. With this comes the expansion on the Planes themselve and the idea that Plansewalkers can indeed travel between them. As any good warrior will tell you however terrain is an extreamly important part of any battle and in Planechase we see the different magical worlds have massive strategic impacts on Magic.

The game is played as a multilayer “free for all” meaning you can target and attack whoever you want. Many other multiplayer rules such as a free mulligan and drawing if your first continue but while ever you battle your do so “on a plane”.

Planes are oversized Magic cards (like Vanguard but smaller) that have global effects that are constantly in play. These effects are often themed around the story of the various places such as 4th Sphere of Phyrexia is “sacrifice a non-black creature in your upkeep” and Stronghold Furnace on Rath os “All sources deal double damage”. All Planes also have a second “Chaos” ability which is usually a powerful positive or negative effect triggered by a dice roll, we’ll come to that in a minute. The Chaos abilities are often things related to the Planes primary power, i.e. The 4th Sphere one puts a 2/2 zombie token into play.

The first Plane is decide at random with the first player turning one of his separate “planes” deck cards over and from here on play commences as normal with whatever additional effect that Plane has. As a sorcery a player can choose to role the Planechase die. This is basically a d-6 with 4 blank sides, one Chaos symbol and one Plansewalk symbol. To roll the dice you have to pay mana equal to the amount of times the die has already been rolled this turn, basically first roll is free second roll costs 1, third roll costs 2 etc.

If this lands blank nothing happens, if it lands Chaos that Planes Chaos ability immediately activates, if its Planeswalk the person whol rolled the dice turns his/her top Plane over and now your fighting there.

An interesting twist is that many Planes have “When you Planeswalk to or from” effects meaning a Plansewalk in the middel of your turn could bring a great advantage or penalty.

So how does this effect the game? Well it makes it a shitload more fun. Planechase really mixes it up for Magic, a new plane can completely topple you from a winning position to a losing one and visa-versa and some Chaos effects can totally change the game, one for example is “you can’t cast spells until a player has Plansewalked” and in one of our games this ability was triggered three times between four players before someone managed to ‘walk away.

It can also massively speed games up and slow them down and altering the pace of Magic makes the game more enjoyable and strategic as well as giving you an almost infite possibility to come back from nothing that does not always exist in standard Magic games, in our first game the player who had mana stalled at the start came back to win because Plane effects had slowed other players down for him to catch up.

It’s also great having random combo’s develop from nowhere, this is the result of a Plane from the Artefact deck and a creature from my zombie deck, comblicious! In case you can’t see the picture my zombie is Corpse Harvester and the active Plane is Goldmeadow. Zombie army!

At the moment the game is available only in precons and we did pitch the four preconsturcted decks against each other so let’s answer the questions that everyone is no doubt asking.

Which Planechase Deck is the Best?

We were playing four player, all decks in and out of three games the artifact deck was the one that didn’t manage a win, however it was usually the one coming in at second so in my honest opinion Wizards have done a really good job of balancing these decks off against each other. I think when all the chips are down Zombie Empire or Strikeforce are the best decks, they are a little faster and the kill cards in them are a little easier to play, especially in free for all. The Elemental Thunder has the best Plane cards I think but the Artifact deck has Darksteel Reactor and Cranial Plating so the balance is definitely there.

You can find a full list of the decks and their cards here at the official Wizards site.

In Summary…

Planechase adds a whole new level of fun to MtG, if you like playing TCGs in a fun multiplayer environment then this really is one for you, the decks are relatively cheap (£15-17 on eBay) and it’s literally all you need to play. After the fun we had with the few games last night I guarentee we will play again and we will also give some contsrtucted ago alongisde the Plane effects.

Oh one more note, with Magic 2010 being release they swept away mana burn. Lol yeah no more Vineyard decks. There are a lot of rule changes coming in for old players so be sure to keep an eye on them!