(Old) Battlebox: Ay Ya Wanna Go for a Rip?
Mainly interested in cremates and cycling.
This began as a 98% carbon copy of Ben Stark's battle box as the style of the slow, drawn-out advantage game is a relaxing environment to enjoy late at night. As time moved on, I started playing with more and newer players and needed a board game form of Magic that played more to the board and ended quicker. This battlebloc is my answer.
General guidelines I follow when I (re)build the battlebloc:
-Each player has half the pile as a deck
-Opening hand is usually 4 or 5 cards
-Players begin with a land deck consisting of 1 of each basic land and 1 of each allied-colored `gain land' (common land cycle first printed in Khans of Tarkir)
-Favor creatures spells over non-permanent spells in deck construction
-No cards search libraries
-No cards alter mana cost of other cards
-No cards allow a player to place more than one land into play per turn
-No cards produce mana or tokens that produce mana
-Few cards alter cards on top of the opponent's deck
-Kicker, flashback, and cycling and their distant cousin keywords are excellent keywords for cards in the battlebloc to have
-Spells should be flexible, modal spells are excellent in this respect
-Spells should have restrictive mana costs in order for land drops to require decision-making
-Avoid enemy-colored cards because they are easy to cast when dual lands are allied-colored
-No cards interact with lands (e.g. stone rains and boomerangs)
Additions I have thought about but didn't commit to:
-`Scry lands' instead of Invasion tap lands or Khans tapped lands. Ultimately I decided against this in my more basic environment but would reconsider in a slower battle box format