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How to play Magic: The Gathering as a Deck Building Game.
Unlike traditional formats where decks are constructed prior to play, or a Cube where players develop their strategy in draft before the game begins,
this variant incorporates the draft into the gameplay itself.
Think of it as an in-game draft.
Core Concepts
No "Pay-to-Win": Like a Cube, this format is entirely self-contained. Your success isn't determined by your personal collection or your wallet, but by your ability to evaluate cards and build a cohesive engine faster than your opponent.
Level Starting Field: Players begin with simple 10-card starter decks and compete to acquire cards from a shared central Market to evolve their strategy in game to eliminate their opponents.
Dynamic Deck Construction: You don't just "play" your deck; you evolve it on the fly in the game. Every turn is a pivotal decision: do you buy a cheap utility creature now to stabilize the board, or save your mana to snag a game-ending Mythic before your opponent can?
Skill-Based Drafting: While traditional Cubes are drafted before the game starts, Active-Draft requires you to draft while you play. You must constantly pivot your strategy based on the shifting lineup of available cards and your opponent's board state.
Deck Evolution: As the game progresses, your deck naturally matures as you culling basic lands and weak starters and "tech" into specific archetypes—like Landfall, Aggro, or Control—based on the cards as they come up through the game and as you respond to your opponents' strategies.
The Economy: Players use Mana to buy cards from the Lineup to add to their Library. A card’s purchase price is equal to its Mana Value. When a card is purchased, it is placed in the player's Graveyard and later shuffled into their Library.
Vanguard & Reserve System: To maintain high game velocity, Creatures and Permanents enter the battlefield one turn, move into active combat the next turn, and then cycle to the Graveyard, preventing board stalls and ensuring deck turnover.
You must buy cards from a central Market to improve your deck’s efficiency and power, eventually using them to attack and reduce your opponents' Life to zero.
This game variant follows all the Official Rules of Magic: The Gathering (MTG) unless otherwise stated below.
Setup
Starter Decks
Each Player is to be given a Starter Deck of a single color consisting of:
5 Basic Lands, all the same color.
2 Creature cards that each have a mana value of 1.
2 non-Creature non-Land Spells that each have a mana value of 1.
1 non-Land Permanent that has a mana value of 1.
ℹ️ I believe this should be a Creature for every color except Blue, which should likely use an Enchantment here.
ℹ️ It is highly recommended that starter decks do not include any spell or ability that counters spells or destroys permanents.
The Market
The Market Deck: A shuffled pile of assorted MTG cards (Creatures, Sorceries, Artifacts, etc.), not including Basic Lands.
The Lineup: 5 cards from the Market Deck, face-up, in the center of the table.
Refilling: Whenever a card is bought or removed from the Lineup, immediately replace it with the top card of the Market Deck. The Lineup should always contain 5 face-up cards.
The Market shall also include 5 equal stacks of Basic Lands, one for each type of Basic Land.
The Game Master may decide before the game to limit these stacks to a finite number based on the number of players, or if these stacks should be unlimited in size.
The Market should also include a stack of Wastes as a sixth equal stack of Basic Land cards if any cards in any Starter Deck or in the Market Deck include any cards that require Colorless Mana.
Starting Hand
Before beginning the game, each Player shall shuffle their starting deck and draw a starting hand of 4 cards.
Life
For 2–3 Players, each Player starts with 20 Life.
For 4+ Players, each Player starts with 30 Life.
Battlefield Zones and Permanent Lifecycle
The Battlefield is divided into three distinct areas for each player: The Reserves (positioned to the player's right forward position), The Vanguard (positioned to the player's left forward position), and The Lands (positioned closest to the player).
Whenever a Land enters the Battlefield, it must be placed into The Lands.
Whenever a non-Land Permanent is successfully cast or enters the Battlefield, it must be placed into The Reserves.
At the end of the Combat Phase, move all Permanents located in The Vanguard to the Graveyard.
Except Permanents matching one of the below cases which shall remain in The Vanguard until destroyed, exiled, or otherwise removed per normal MTG rules:
Legendary supertype
Planeswalker or Battle type
Case, Class, Equipment, Plan, Saga, or Wall subtype
Defender or Level Up keyword
use Quest Counters
If a Permanent has one or more Totem Armor or Umbra Armor Enchantments, then one such Enchantment may be removed to the Graveyard instead.
If a Permanent has one or more Shield Counters, then a Shield Counter may be removed instead.
Once a Battle has been defeated, the owner may in future turns cast pay its casting cost to directly cast the reverse side of the card.
The reverse side of the card is still subject to removal from the Vanguard at the end of combat.
During the player’s End Step, all Permanents currently located in The Reserves are to be moved to The Vanguard.
Tokens follow the same movement rules as Permanents but are exiled/removed when they would enter a Graveyard.
New Buy Phase
After each Player's second Main Phase, before the End Step, there is now a new Buy Phase.
The Player may tap their untapped Lands and use abilities in this Phase to generate more mana.
The Player may Exile one card from their hand in this Phase to generate 1 mana of any color.
The Player may use any unused Mana to buy one card from the Market Lineup.
For non-Land cards, the buying cost is equal to its mana value.
For Basic Land cards, the buying cost is 1 mana of any color.
For non-Basic Land cards, the buying cost is 2 mana of any color.
The card bought in the Buy Phase is to be added directly to the Player's Graveyard.
Hand Cycling
At the beginning of each Player's End Step, the Player must discard their whole hand to their Graveyard and draw a new hand of 4 cards.
Standard MTG rules for a Draw Step at the start of each Player's turn remain as is.
Market Cycling
Once per turn, during the Buy Phase, the current Player may discard a card to move a card from the Lineup to the bottom of the Market Deck.
During any End of Turn, if all 5 cards shown in the Lineup have Mana Value greater than or equal to 3 plus the number of Lands on the battlefield belonging to the Player with the most Lands, all the cards in the Lineup shall be moved to the bottom of the Market Deck.
Additional Rules Overrides
A Player does not lose the game if they attempt to draw a card from an empty Library. Instead, the Player merely shuffles their Graveyard and places the cards face down in their Library and continues to draw cards.
If a Player must draw a card from their empty Library and they have zero cards in their Graveyard, then they do lose the game.
Threshold and Flashback
When shuffling the Graveyard to replenish their Library, the Player may choose to set out up to 7 cards to remain in their Graveyard, but they must move at least as many cards to their Library as cards they need to draw.
