Episode 01: How It All Started
A note from the author: Before reading this episode I highly recommend you check out the rules. They are very unique and I find it helpful for players that are being introduced to Revolution to read the rules, then the story of how we got here, and then check out the rules once more.
How we got here
Our group of friends met through playing local sanctioned magic in the 2000’s. We focused on playing competitive decks and were always trying to win each game and tournament we played in. While winning wasn’t necessary, it was always the desired result. Over the years we tried different formats within the competitive scene and every few years focused on a new one. Commander was never on our minds during this time.
As the world closed with Covid restrictions our group of friends decided to play regularly at each others homes but were faced with odd numbers and uneven game times when we played 1 on 1. Eventually we decided to try Commander and jumped right in to playing the most competitive decks we could put together.
We were hit with a few major problems with the format though:
We frequently had 3 or 5 people getting together which distorted the 4-player multiplayer game in strange ways
The general game play felt like a resource tug of war with board states being completely wiped away and the game rarely progressing in any linear way
One player may get taken out of a game early and then have to sit watching while the game continued to be played for another hour
The most competitive decks (all of them really) were focused on achieving an infinite combo, which just left us wanting more when the game was done
With these problems in mind we began trying different variations of Commander for groups of 3 or 4 players, and another for a group of 5 players (Star). Both of which centered around have only 1 or 2 targets to eliminate in order to claim victory. Our overall enjoyment of each game played skyrocketed, and while there were challenges everyone was wildly happy to play together in this new way.
With these two new play styles we created and refined our rules to create a more clear objective in game play and help bring additional balance to the game play by addressing the next two major problems we were running into:
The power level of random cards would create very unbalanced boards and lead to heavily favored/weighted board states that were not enjoyable for everyone else
Combos were still the most viable way to win and we were still wanting more when the games were done.
Our next steps reduced the cardpool in an effort to easily remove nearly all drastically overpowered cards (which were nearly always the most expensive, rarest, and oldest cards in the Commander pool) and to effectively ban game winning combos.
We ended up with a generally balanced card pool and play styles that promoted player interaction and combat damage. We achieved a war of attrition play style that is somewhere in between Commander and Brawl and created a set of rules that help accomplish the following:
Reduce subjective politics
Minimize ambiguity of the FFA multiplayer format
Eliminates sidelining players while the game continues for others
We don't know what we don't know
We have thought this through over the past 2 years in incredible detail, but with over 19,000 card available and an endless amount of personal preferences and play styles, we are sure that more changes will need to be made to the format.
If you have ideas we want to hear them! Send us a note on our contact page and our team will reply, read, review, and discuss every idea brought to us.
Who this format is for (or more specifically, who it isn't for)
This format is not for players that want to play with legacy cards. It’s not for combo players. It’s not for self-mill players (it’s banned as a win condition). It’s not players that want to build infinite loops as a way to win.
We build this format to interact with each other in ‘fair’ ways with a preference toward combat interaction, that create exciting board states and fun game endings.
