Primer Overview:

I. What is Trading Post?
II. How Do You Play?
III. Tips for Designing Your Own List
IV. Final Thoughts

I. What is Trading Post?

Trading Post is a self-contained deckbuilding game variant format of Magic the Gathering for up to 4 players. This is not a traditional cube and is not drafted as such. Players start with only basic lands in their deck, and gradually build their deck during the game rather than before the game. This variant plays more like a board game such as Dominion, Ascension, DC Deckbuilder, Clank, etc. The experience is a bit of a grindy, tug-of-war feel as one player responds to another's deck by adding counters into their own deck.

The rules are heavily inspired by the Deckmaster format created by Jim Bowie over a decade ago, with a slight twist.

If you enjoy grindy, interactive games and trying to piece together a deck on the fly, I highly recommend trying out Trading Post!

Jim Bowie's Deckmaster Article:
http://www.manaleak.com/mtguk/2011/09/deckmaster-a-mtg-variant-format-by-jim-bowie/

If that link does not work, try the Wayback Machine link:
https://web.archive.org/web/20201203043635/http://www.manaleak.com/mtguk/2011/09/deckmaster-a-mtg-variant-format-by-jim-bowie/

II. How Do You Play?

In this variant, each player starts with a 15 card starter deck consisting of 3 of each basic lands.

On your turn, a central market of 6 face-up cards from the master deck is always available to purchase.

On your draw step, you
will draw cards so that you have five cards in your hand.

During your cleanup step each turn (not your opponents'), in addition to discarding down to hand size limit of 5, you can choose to discard as many cards as you want. Discarding your whole hand is often the best thing to do early since you always draw back up to 5 cards and want to get to good cards quicker. However, instants still work on opponents' turns if you save them, and some cards are best held onto for the perfect time.

If you ever have to draw from an empty deck of cards, you do not lose the game.
Instead, you shuffle your discard pile and continue drawing as if the deck had not run out of cards. In this variant, cards are not gone for long.

You only have lands to start, so you will want to purchase cards from the market with which your deck will be built. To purchase a card, you can discard at sorcery speed a number of cards from your hand equal to the mana value of the card you want to purchase. The cards discarded can be either lands or nonlands and the discarded cards do not need to share any traits with the card you are purchasing. You can purchase as many or as few cards as you want on your turn. Purchased cards are sent to your graveyard when bought. They will be reshuffled into the deck when your deck runs out of cards. Once a card is purchased, its spot in the Market is immediately replaced by another card from the master deck.

So far, these rules all match up with the Deckmaster formula. Trading Post differs in that it gives players a little more control of the market.

On your turn, you can pay 4 generic mana to "ban" a card from the market. Instead of being available for purchase,
the card is instead placed in the Market's discard pile and can no longer be purchased. Its spot in the market is refilled immediately. You can ban as many cards as you want per turn so long as you can afford it. This gives players the ability to search for a card they would rather purchase or to deny opponents the opportunity to purchase cards that counter the deck you are building.

Everything else is normal Magic rules. One land per turn. Starting life is 20. Last deck standing wins.

III. Tips for Designing Your Own List

While the original Deckmaster format used simple cards and effects to highlight the gameplay, I wanted to push this format to the limit and create a higher powered version.

The idea behind this list was to create a powerful, unique Magic experience by taking advantage of this variant's unique rules for deckbuilding. This list attempts to showcase the strategies that get more powerful in this format without completely breaking it.

Token producers, etb abilities, and casting spells in general perform better in this format because you get to see the same cards over and over again. Similarly, sacrificing creatures is less of a drawback in this format since if you sacrifice a nontoken card, you will get it back without having to do any extra effort.

Mana Values are very important to the list. An ideal mid-game turn of Trading Post should look like this: Play a land, cast a spell, buy a card. This ensures you don't fall behind on board while also giving your deck new tools. Because of this, 3MV cards are the sweet spot and can range from generically very powerful cards to very synergistic workhorse cards.

4MV cards need to be worth skipping out on casting a spell. 5MV cards need to be worth skipping both casting a spell and skipping a land drop. Because of the high cost of purchasing 4MV and 5MV cards, having too many in the list can lead to stagnant games where no one wants to lose tempo by purchasing from a market clogged with 4MV and 5MV cards. For this reason, you have to be careful not to include too many 4MV and 5MV cards. Anything 6MV and above is not obtainable through normal play.

On the other end of the spectrum, you have to walk the fine line of making 1MV and 2MV cards worth being in the list (which is not a given since casting spells starts on turn 4). You also have to make sure the 1MV and 2MV cards aren't too powerful to not give the player who buys the card a huge advantage since you can buy two 2MV cards on your turn without missing land drops.

There are some solutions in the list to alleviate the Mana Value issues. Cards that allow you to draw an extra card on command in a future turn (such as clues or Spellbombs) are very good in this format, and luckily they can be found at 1MV or 2MV. They help you look for specific cards you bought while also making it easier to buy 4MV and 5MV cards from the market without falling too far behind on board.

Keep in mind color pips in mana costs when building a list. Through normal play, you can never cast a color pip intensive card like Phyrexian Obliterator since it requires 4 of the same pip, and we only have 3 of each basic lands to start with. Cards that require 3 of a single color pip depletes you from casting more of that color on your turn, so be aware that the card has to be worth that sacrifice.

On the other hand, many magic cards are designed with the idea that adding more colors makes the card difficult to cast, such as The First Sliver. In Trading Post, however, more colors is not difficult at all, so that drawback is negated. Be aware that Atraxa, Praetors' Voice may as well be colorless in this format and balance accordingly.

Because the format can be so grindy, you need to make an extra conscious decision to support aggressive strategies when building your list. Aside from putting good creatures into lists, you have to keep a closer eye on removal and life gain than usual.

Removal is very important in this format. Magic is more fun when people are interacting with each other. Removal is especially important when you want unconventional threats that take advantage of weird rules flying around. Removal makes Magic feel like magic, allowing players to feel like they can actively counter each other with the deckbuilding aspect of gameplay. You do not want too much removal however, as that leads to games taking forever and all threats being neutralized before they were ever, well, threatening. You should especially be weary of sweepers for this reason. I have about 25% of the list being any removal, about 10% of the list being specifically sweepers. That seemed to hit the sweet spot for me.

Life gain is good in that players always feel like they have a shot of a comeback if they can get a life gain card at the right time. However, too much life gain leads to enormous board stalls and super long games. In this format, once you buy a life gain card, you can continually play it over and over. If aggressive strategies cannot possibly outspeed the life gain and removal strategy, the life gain strategy makes games long, slow, and unengaging.

Lastly, some aspects of magic do not translate well to Trading Post and should be avoided if you want to build your own list.

Exile effects can be good and necessary in this format. Consider that removing a creature in this format usually only gains a tempo advantage since the opponent can get that creature back just by waiting. If an opponent's creature is getting out of hand and has a strong ETB effect, it can feel like you have no chance at a comeback. Exile effects like Banishing Light can alleviate this issue by forcing your opponent to answer your answer and interact, rather than just wait for their strong creature to come back.

However, exile effects that permanently exile threats like Swords to Plowshares are unfun because players get to recast the exile spell over and over and over again for very little initial investment, each time denying your opponent not only the card in that moment, but also the fabric of their deck they have been trying to build. Permanently exiling your opponents threats costs them the usual tempo of removal effects, plus additional tempo of a wasted turn buying the exiled card initially, plus the wasted opportunity cost of casting those discarded spells used to pay for that card. Being able to do this multiple times throughout the game gives more tempo boosts than Time Walk. I strongly suggest that permanent exile effects should come at the cost of exiling itself, such as Hanged Executioner. Even then, keep these effects at a minimum. The fun of this format is trying to build an engine better than your opponents. It can be fun to fight against opponents throwing wrenches into the engine, but it is not fun to fight opponents removing key components permanently.

On the subject of Time Walk, be very careful with extra turn effects. Chaining Time Walks together has been a core strategy for many constructed decks, but in this format it only takes one Time Walk card to chain into itself. If you want to include extra turn effects, I suggest they exile themselves or have a huge drawback like Savor the Moment.

Cards that have a scaling X in their costs or effects heavily advantage whoever buys the card, because the format is so grindy that you will end up with 10 mana easily in many games. Casting 10 mana spells against 5 mana spells is just too busted almost regardless of what spells they are.

Direct damage spells like Lightning Bolt are also dangerous. If you have too many in the list, then a deck that gets lucky can defeat their opponents without their opponents having a chance to counteract the deck through deckbuilding, especially since too much life gain, the natural counterpaet to burn spells, leads to sluggish games. I try to keep direct damage effects to 2 damage at most as the rule of thumb.

Bounce effects (and instant speed bounce effects especially) are very strong in this format. A player who accumulates a critical mass of bounce spells has an enormous tempo advantage. Consider that bounce usually does not generate card advantage, but in this format, it does. Bounce denies opponents an extra draw in their draw step since players always draw up to 5 cards regardless of how many they started with.

Conversely, counterspells are weaker since opponents can see you bought the card, and you have to sacrifice a possible future draw by holding the counterspell up. If you do not counter a spell that round, you are penalized by drawing one less card than you would have. Counterspells are still nice includes to counter ETB effects, though, so creative counterspells are encouraged. For example, Saw It Coming helps alleviate this issue by not taking up a hand slot if you foretell it.

IV. Final Thoughts

I love deckbuilding card games and Magic the Gathering. This format strikes a healthy medium between both for me.

Trading Post provides a self-contained experience much like traditional cubes, without the massive time investment of drafting before playing games. It shares this trait with other Magic variant formats such as Battle Box. But unlike Battle Box, Trading Post also heavily rewards good and clever deckbuilding skills while playing.

I hope anyone reading this gives Trading Post a try. You might just fall in love with it like I did.