He had rules for including the core sets and other Magic releases (Commander decks, Battlebond, etc.) and I basically streamlined it to be a little more intuitive. One of my friends from the LGS, Brian Kinnel, came up with the basic premise of a format where players pick cards from various sets. It’s a casual format to play with friends, so it’s really up to you to define what the nuances should be! Although I haven’t tried it yet, I also think it could be cool to try out a version of this format that doesn’t have a banned list, which would allow for some really busted cards to come into play. The other deck construction guideline that I’ve decided to start with is to simply use the Legacy Banned List to cull cards like Library of Alexandria, Skullclamp, and Tolarian Academy from the mix. In Timeline, basic lands are not “free rolls,” which means that you’ll need to select basic lands as a choice from a set if you want them in your deck! You may take more than one of each basic. I’ve been calling it “MTG Timeline.” The idea behind the format is fairly elegant: Build a singleton deck that features exactly one card (no more, no less) from every unique MTG expansion:Īll together, the finished product will result in a 78-card Highlander deck with a neat twist on basic lands. Today, I’d like to share a format that I’ve been working on that has proven to be a ton of fun. Show me an MTG variant and I’m immediately interested in thinking about how that format works and some sweet deck that I’d love to put together. I love casual and creative formats that get players thinking outside the established and familiar ways of things. Tournaments are great, tracking the metagame is useful, and grinding is a way of life, but at the end of the day I want to spend more time doing things in Magic that I truly enjoy. One major overhaul in the way I play Magic is to focus on having more fun and staying creative.

Mtg card sets by year