Once upon a time, my friends and I would get together every weekend to play games. Usually we would try to start playing a complex tabletop strategy game, but then somehow end up playing Magic for several hours. Now of course all my friends all live too far off, and Magic is a bit passé. Still, setting up a complex strategy game and then just playing Magic can be fun, and the following combination of the two is an excellent way to get some use out of those thousands and thousands of cards you probably have sitting in a box somewhere.
Step 1: Take some lands, and arrange them to form a map similar to Fig. 1. The exact shape and arrangement is not important, however it is recommended that you try to balance out the ratios of mana colors, use as many dual color lands as you can, and try to create as few borders as possible between opposing colors. The lands creating this map are known as Top Lands.
Step 2: Build a 30 card Region deck under each of these Top Lands, with these restrictions. Each deck should have the same number of lands, 10 is a good number. None of the lands in any of these decks should be able to produce mana of any color the Top Land cannot produce. The rest of these decks should be comprised of only permanents (artifacts, creatures, and enchantments).
Step 3: Each player now builds a Spellbook composed solely of non-permanents (instants, interrupts, and sorceries). The exact number of cards in these Spellbooks should vary depending on the number of players and the size of the map. A good formula to determine this size is: (Number of Top Lands in the map)/(Number of players)*10=Spellbook size. So, if 4 people are playing on an 8x10 map, they should each have a Spellbook of roughly 200 cards.
Step 4: Each player then chooses some board game pieces to represent their Mages. Each player's pieces should follow some theme. For example, one character could use Clue pieces, one could use Chess pieces, and so on. Each player should have about 3 Mages, but very large games may benefit from more.
Step 5: Finally, each player chooses a number of Region Decks as their starting controlled Regions. Each player can have just one, the entire map can be divided up, or each player can start with some percentage of the total. If 4 or fewer people are playing, ownership of Region Decks can be indicated by facing them towards their owner, and unowned decks can simply be flipped over, as seen in Fig. 2. For larger groups, other methods are needed, such as using Risk counters or pieces of colored string as seen in Fig. 3. After each player has chosen their Regions, placed their Mages on them, and Fortified any of their starting Regions they wish to (see below), the game begins.
On each player's turn, they can Fortify or De-fortify any Region they have a Mage in, and then may either Move or Attack with each of their mages. Definitions of all these terms follow.
fortify/De-fortify: Exchange non-permanent cards between a Region deck and you Spellbook.
Move: Move a Mage from one of your Regions to an adjacent Region you control.
Attack: Move a Mage from one of your Regions to an adjacent Region you do not control. If no one controls this region, it becomes yours. If it is controlled, the controller may opt to simply cede control of it, withdrawing any of their mages in that region to an adjacent region they control, or they may opt to defend it as follows:
The attacking player takes the deck the he just moved from, and adds in any cards he chooses to out of his spell book, along with the Top Lands of any of his Regions he chooses. It is recommended that a spare copy of every Top Land is kept handy so that this can be done without disrupting the map.
If the defending player has any Mages in the region being attacked, he may add cards to the Region deck being attacked in the same fashion. Otherwise, no cards may be added from the Spellbook, but Top Lands may still be added.
The two players then draw 7 cards and begin playing a standard game of Magic, however the defending player starts with the Top Land of his deck already in play, and may go first. Additionally, during his untap phase, the attacker (or defender if a Mage is present in the defending deck), may choose to retreat.
If a player retreats, his opponent may choose to take any non-permanents in the retreating player's hand or discard pile (graveyard), and use them to fortify the region. If both players have a Mage present, these cards may instead be added to the Spellbook.
If nobody chooses to retreat, the winner may also take non-permanents in the loser's deck (library) in this manner.
In ether case, the winner gains control of the deck being attacked, and the loser must withdraw any Mages present to an adjacent Region he controls. If no such Regions exist, the Mages in question are removed from the game.
Should this game end in a draw, all Mages are withdrawn, all non-permanents in either deck are used to fortify the defending Region, and the defending Region becomes unowned.
When a player loses control of their last Region, they are eliminated from the game, and their entire Spellbook is awarded to the player who defeated them. In the highly unlikely event that a player loses his last Region to a draw, the entire contents of his spellbook are used to Fortify the region instead. When only one player remains, the game is over.
In addition to using different map shapes, such as those shown in Fig. 4, there are a number of optional rules that can add some spice to War Magic.
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