Melee

Keyword Granting Creatures

So when looking through creatures that grant keywords in typal abilities, I’ve noticed that most creatures have the keyword and grant it to other creatures, but some just grant it to all that have the type. For example, Drogskol Reinforcements, a Spirit, has “Melee” and “Other Spirits you control have melee.”On the other hand, Lancer Sliver just has “Sliver creatures you control have first strike.”Why is there a difference? Is there a specific formatting or rules reason that all typal keyword-granting abilities don’t just follow the Lancer Sliver version? The latter seems simpler.

For clarity, the template is the creature has the ability and then grants the ability to “all other creatures you control”. Slivers use the old template because when you have a bunch of them, it’s easier to add up all the effects.

Creatures Drogskol Reinforcements First Strike Keywords Kindred / Typal Lancer Sliver Melee Melee Reinforcements Rules Sliver Spirit Templating Your Hand

Experience in Grand Melee Games

Have you ever played a Grand Melee game of Magic?

I have played quite a number of Grand Melee games. Some quite large.

Grand Melee Melee Melee

Multiplayer Balance

Wouldnt you rather call it "bad design" when a colour is inherently worse in multiplayer which was played since probably the very beginning?

White is not worse in multiplayer. It’s worse in certain multiplayer formats, especially Commander where the life total change to 40 has a big impact. White was not underpowered in the popular early multiplayer formats (Grand Melee, Star Magic, Emperor, etc.).

Colors Commander Commander Grand Melee Melee Power Level White

Multiplayer Format Mechanics

Speaking of multiplayer, do you know whether the predator-prey relationship of Vampire: the Eternal Struggle works well in Magic? It seems reasonable in theory as a way to make the game less political, but no one seems to do it. (In V:tES you can normally only attack the player to your left.)

There’s a multiplayer format called Grand Melee that used to be popular. In it, you attack to the left. Your spells had a range of one (you could only affect yourself and the player on your right and left). The format still had a decent amount of politics in it.

Commander Eternal Grand Melee Melee Spells Vampire

Views on Multiplayer

Why do you dislike multiplayer?

I don’t dislike multiplayer. I dislike politics in my Magic. Two-headed Giant, Emperor, Grand Melee - there are plenty of multiplayer formats without a lot of politics.

Commander Giant Grand Melee Melee Two-Headed Giant

Coining 'Kerfuffle'

As silver-border is your baby, could you do the honors of coining a separate name for Brawl where silver-border is legal? Maybe a sillier synonym for fight/brawl/tussle/melee/etc?

I dub Brawl with silver-bordered cards Kerfuffle. : )

Brawl Fight / Bite Melee Un-sets

Three-Player Format

Is there any multiplayer format designed around three players dueling each other?

Not that’s gotten a lot of attention. Grand Melee is my favorite way to play with three players. You sit in a circle and get a point each time you kill a player to your left plus a bonus point for being the last player standing. (There’s more rules when playing with more than three players.)

Commander Grand Melee Melee Rules

Desert's Standard Power

Is Desert to strong for Standard?

It’s definitely too strong for Pauper Grand Melee.

Grand Melee Melee Pauper Power Level Standard

Italian Translation Issues

Here is another curiosity on the Italian version of mtg: the cards "melee" (ice age) and "hand to hand" (tempest) were both translated as "Corpo a Corpo", meaning there is actually two different cards with the same name, at least in Italian. =)

FYI

Hand to Hand Ice Age Melee Tempest Your Hand

Commander and Politics

"I don’t like a lot of politics in my Magic (although I truly get while others really enjoy it) so Commander is never really going to be my format." Then you're playing with the wrong group. Our group has no politics. We just do a bunch of stupid things like dismembering goblin arsonists or flinging squirrels at each other.

It is impossible without strict guidelines (such as Emperor or Grand Melee) for any Magic game with three or more players to not have politics. Perhaps you have a group agreement ahead of time but then you’ve just shifted the politics to the pregame. Be aware that I understand that there’s a lot more to Commander than the politics but there’s enough politics that it’s not my cup of tea. Once again,. that doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s awesome the format exists and that I don’t work hard to design for it, it’s just not how I choose to play.

Commander Goblin Grand Melee Melee Squirrel

Arcane Melee Query

You've talked before about the push to reduce board complexity by phasing out cards that make players have to look at their opponent's side of the table to know what's going on with their own cards (e.g., Crusade as opposed to Glorious Anthem). If that is the case, what's the deal with Arcane Melee?

The default is to have cards only affect your stuff but from time to time a spell is more interesting if it affects everyone. Note that Arcane Melee is a rare so it has very little impact on board complexity especially in limited where, on top of everything else, it’s not a good spell.

Arcane Melee Glorious Anthem Limited Melee Phasing Rares