Episode 02: 1 Target Opponent Explained
My name is Gil, I’m one of the founders of Revolution and an avid nerd to all things strategy whether it’s actualized in board, card, or video game form. As a MTG player, I’ve exclusively played in 1on1 competitive formats for over 12 years but fell in love with the Commander format during the closures due to the pandemic. A synonymous journey for millions of people for sure!
Whether it’s real-time strategy games, fighting games, or MTG itself, I have always encountered flaws with the multiplayer “Last Man Standing” (LMS) system. In a typical LMS match, players who are constantly active and engaging their opponents are essentially handicapped against players who are passive and uninvolved. Why? Toward the end of the match, active players have expended most of their resources eliminating each other while the least involved player is still fully equipped and can swoop in for the easy kill. In other words, doing less is somehow doing more.
So, what if there was a system that rewards players for being involved? This is where Revolution takes the grand stage and showcases its one-target opponent system. It goes like this; each player's target opponent is the player who preceded them in turn order and the game concludes once any player eliminates their target. (Rules section contains further details)
Some of Revolution’s key improvements for LMS include but are not limited to the following:
No Gang-Ups: In LMS, two or three players forging a pact to eliminate another player can be a common occurrence. Whether the alliance was formed from a joint threat assessment or pure emotion it’s not fair for the receiving player. If someone is so skilled that it requires multiple people to eliminate them, then that player should be rewarded for their skill not punished. In Revolution, the compulsion to construct long-term agreements is removed since players don’t share the same enemy and therefore personal agenda. However, you may find that players interact to save their non-target opponents from elimination which, in my opinion, is a more healthy multiplayer environment.
No More Sidelining Players: In LMS, players get knocked out of the game one by one which means one or two unfortunate people have to sit on the bench waiting for the conclusion. I don’t think there’s anything less entertaining than getting eliminated early in the match and having to wait one-two hours for the next one to begin. In Revolution, the game immediately concludes after any player is eliminated. No sidelines, no timeouts, just a pod that keeps on playing together!
No More Ambiguity or Randomness: In LMS, a player may roll a die as a determinant for whom they attack or interact with. This mainly occurs for two reasons: one, it’s very difficult to identify the largest threat throughout the beginning stages of the game. Two, the person doesn't wish to be accused of bullying or blamed for being biased. I believe behaviors like this are inevitable when each player has the insurmountable task of defeating multiple opponents. In Revolution, the objective is simplified, making it clear and justified why a player chooses to interact with another. Therefore, when players are attacked or when a player’s permanents are removed there are fewer negative reactions.
Aggro Decks Are Viable: In LMS, aggressive creature decks devote their focus to eliminating a single opponent and then tend to drop drastically in staying power. This type of deck is an important archetype in 1on1 constructed play and omitting it in multiplayer formats harms deck diversity. In Revolution, aggressive decks have the more attainable goal of diminishing one 30-point life total as opposed to two or three 40-point life totals. After exercising hundreds of matches, my playgroup found that the aggressive decks encompassed a healthy portion of the metagame but did not have an exceptionally high win percentage.
In conclusion, the playgroup and I are eternally grateful for the Commander format which helped sustain public interest in MTG while competitive tournaments were suspended in stasis during the Pandemic. At first, we were entertained with the table politics of Commander but eventually it started to have an undesirable impact on our gaming experience. Therefore, we crafted this format to trim down the verbal exchanges and shift focus back to sleeved cardboard that’s on the table.