By Frezon

It’s the beginning of your free-for-all Magic night. You and three friends just started your first game.  It starts off with you putting Leyline of Anticipation onto the battlefield, and Bob, the guy next to you, is first to play.  He plays Time Walk, and Mike counters that with Pact of Negation.  Joe, across from you, Wild Ricochet’s the Time Walk, which Mike responds to with a cycled Decree of Silence.  Then, at the end of the turn, you play Intet, the Dreamer, which on your turn you proceed to smack Joe with, followed by a Lurking Predators from your hand and a Tower of Eons from the top of your deck, which you proceed to activate.  Your turn ends with you having 2 cards in your hand, 30 life, and a ridiculous board position.

All on turn one.

And all with no lands, moxen, or Black Lotus in sight.

Welcome to Type 4.

Hi, I’m Jack, Frezon on the web pretty much everywhere except Twitter, where I’m @lordfrezon, and today I’m here to discuss Type 4. Type 4 is the most ridiculous format available.  You can do all the things mentioned above and more, with no restrictions on mana cost or colors you can play.  And the best part is, unlike regular formats which can run you hundreds of dollars just to build a competitive deck; Type 4 uses all those bottom rung bulk rares which cost way too much to cast and so they were never competitive.

So how do you play?  Simple.  Assemble a deck of about 300 fatties, counterspells, removal spells, add in some  just plain awesome spells and creatures. Then get a few friends together and go to town! Everyone starts with 5 cards in hand, 20 life, infinite mana of every color and type, and the ability to only cast one spell a turn.  Let me repeat that real quick, as those were the basic rules:

• Everyone starts with 5 cards in hand, 20 life
• Players have infinite mana of every color and type
• Players may only cast one spell a turn

Other than that, the rules are mainly based on preference.  When you play, you can draft the stack, divide it into equal decks, or do my personal favorite of just using one communal stack and graveyard.  Sure, this makes for some complex situations like when you cast Living Death, but your group can make on the fly rules decisions.

[caption id="attachment_13416" align="alignright" width="295" caption="Not a type 4 stack, but still quite impressive"][/caption]

Admittedly, I’ve simplified a bit, but going into the full extent of all the variances of the rules, stack construction, and deck building would take months to read, so I’m just going to go over the main points of what to play.

Fatties: No Type 4 stack is complete without things like dragons, angels, and every green creature that you just wanted to play, but was just too expensive, even for EDH / Commander.  Hitting people with a gigantic beatstick is just one of the many pros of the format, and it’s always hilarious to see a Mayael the Anima being activated, because you know something awesome is coming.

Removal: Of course, once Mayael activates, you want to be the one holding the Wrath for the Inkwell Leviathan it spawned.  Mass creature destruction is great in Type 4, and spot removal is also necessary for the format.  Remember, instant removal is nearly always better because of the one spell a turn limit, so your sorcery speed removal better be at the Violent Ultimatum level (which, by the way, is great).

Awesome spells: The rest of Violent Ultimatum’s seven mana brethren are equally awesome (except Clarion, as traditionally the stack is singleton.  However, if you think it would be fun for someone to draw it with no targets or wanted to include multiples, go nuts), as are spells like Stich in Time and Debtors Knell.  However, one thing you should watch out for is the card draw and tutors.  Keep your one shot card draw like Soul’s Majesty as the norm, and make your repeatable card draw constrained to one card a turn (hey, Staff of Insight is playable now), and make tutors either constrained as to what they can get or cut them altogether.  I remember when someone played Tower of Fortunes and just…won.  Demonic Tutor is bonkers as well.  Remember the rule to counter the tutored spell, not the tutor?  What happens when I find Urza’s Rage (aka the best counterspell ever) and just kill you and your grip of spells?  Yeah, not fun.

Counterspells: So, yeah, these are good.  Especially those with card draw attached.  Arcane Denial and friends are great for this, but the absolute nuts is Overwhelming Intellect.  Counter your spell and draw seven cards?  That seems good.  Also, I have to give a shoutout to spells like Time Stop and Mindbreak Trap, which can stop anything (well, except split second, but whatever).  But yeah, with all the bombs running around, it’s not fun if no one has an answer.  Unless it’s your bomb.  Then it’s fun.

Utility Creatures: These can go into any of the above categories, but I decided to make a separate section for them.  Obvious examples are your Avatar’s of Woe, your Archivists, and all those Level up creatures.  Basically, if it has an awesome ability or if you think it would be cool, toss it in and see what people think.  One of my friends plays freaking Chimney Imp in his stack, so do what you want.

Believe me when I say that this is the most fun format ever invented.  I found it on the Mothership and on a myriad other sites, and when one of my friends expressed a boredom with Magic, I turned him straight to Type 4.

So, as I conclude, I urge you to try this out.  Pull out your junk rare binder and just grab some stuff to play with.  The nutty rules interactions that come up are so much fun, and it’s always a blast to play.

Have fun!