Life-sized Mage Wars!
What You'll Need
-a large open room or field (the arena)
-Cones (to distinguish zone borders)
-White Undershirts that can be drawn on (these are the zone-conjurations with activated abilities, the creature-conjurations, as well as creatures)
-Mats of different colors that can be drawn on (these are the zone conjurations with static abilites, and zone enchantments)
-Fabric Markers of different colors
-Labeled Equipment, including Rings (wristbands), helmets (hats), gloves/mittens, vests, cloaks (capes), shoes/boots (preferably slip ons)
-Bean bags with different numbers on them of different colors (for ranged attacks)
-Flag football belts with only one red/blue/green/yellow flag for each creature, plus a black flag for each mage (for hindering, quickcast and action markers)
-8x11" paper proxies with velcro on both sides (creature enchantments; attached to the front and back of the shirt. A creature reveals an enchantment attached to themself or an opposing creature by attaching it to their shirt by velcro. Friendly enchantments go on the front of the shirt, enemy enchantments on the back.
-Frisbees with card proxies taped to them (incantations)
-Three Referees: One for mana/channeling, one for damage/life, and one for initiative/actions/time
The Game Round
1. Upkeep
Steps: Revealing enchantments, Adding effects, Removing effects
This works as normal, however, all creatures are effected by upkeep simultaneously. The order of events in each creature's upkeep is automatically optimized, so regeneration always happens before burn and rot damage, enchantments can be revealed, etc.
2. Planning
Each creature, familiar and spawnpoint thinks of spells they want to cast this round that they can cast. They are allowed to change their minds as much as they want until the spell is cast. (unless they have spellbind)
3. Quick cast phase
The Mages each have the option to use their quick cast action to cast a quick spell. To use their quickcast, a Mage simply drops their black (or maybe some other color) spot marker on the ground before their feet.
4. Action Phase
All creatures take their action phases simultaneously, and each action phase is divided into steps. Creatures can choose to pass on each step.
a. Ready Marker step: this is the step when a mage can use their quickcast or creatures' activated abilities can be used. Mages leave their Action Marker Flag in their zone and run around the arena, picking up their quickcast marker flag from wherever they left it last round and ordering creatures to activate their abilities. Creatures are able to activate their own abilities without prompting. However, the Mage is the major strategist of a team, and it is (often, but not always) good to listen to them. At the end of this step, Mages return to their zones and reattach their action marker flags. This is also when creatures can reveal enchantments on themselves or opposing creatures.
b. Movement Step: creatures can move up to two zones away from the zones they started in that round. If you're a creature and you start in or enter a zone with one or more enemy creatures, they can try to grab your Action marker flag before you leave the zone. If they succeed, you can only move a total of one zone during that action phase.
c. Ready Marker Step
d. Battle Steps: Each Mage takes turns choosing zones for a battle step. At the end of each Battle Step there is a Ready Marker Step.
Battle steps go in order of range. So first the mages take turns choosing zones they want melee and 0-ranged attacks to be done in, then they take turns choosing zones for range 1 attacks, then range 2 and so on. If an attack lands somewhere outside of its range, then it does not have any effect and counts as no damage. Each zone's Battle steps last for 5 seconds each. Unless a creature has doublestrike, triplestrike, sweeping, or are under the effects of Battle Fury, they are not allowed more than one attempt to attack. So if you're throwing a beanbag, you can only throw it once per round. If you're trying to tag someone, you can only attempt it once. To do this you can run around the zone chasing the enemy creature for five seconds. Extra strike traits and Battle Fury extend this time-limit for the individual attacking creature under its effects by five seconds each time they make a successful strike, but the attack ends when the creature runs out of extra strikes.
If an attack makes contact in the chest or belly of a creature or conjuration it is critical damage. If it makes contact anywhere else it is normal damage. If it misses then there is no damage.
Quick cast phase
The Mages each have the option to use their quick cast action to cast a quick spell. To use their quickcast, a Mage simply drops their black (or maybe some other color) spot marker on the ground before their feet.
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Obviously this format would not be so balanced with the actual cards. I'm thinking that a lot of cards would need to be reworked for this format. For instance, mandatory enchantments wouldn't work. They'd have to be incantation versions. For instance, instead of Nullify, you could have
Void-Dispel: Destroy target enchantment attached to a creature, or reverse the effects of the last incantation that targeted a creature.
Also conjurations attached to a creature are human players, regardless of whether they have an activated ability or not. For instance, a Tanglevine prevents an enemy creature from leaving the zone. Conjurations can move around in their own zones, but cannot dodge attacks and cannot leave their zone.
Things like that.
