Breaks & Battle Boxing

This is a piece I wrote a few weeks ago & was saving for a blank content slot!

I've been playing competitive Magic online & in person almost nonstop for the past 3 months, and want to be entering my Worlds prep with a fresh perspective and excitement to get back to the grind and dive deep into competitive formats.

So, in keeping with the "take care of yourself" philosophy over here at Ryan C's MTG, I'm going to be taking a bit of a break from back-to-back-to-back weekend tournaments and serious strategy content!

This week, I want to share with you all my favorite casual way to play MTG: Battle Box! Specifically, MY battle box.

The Benefits of Box

If you don't know about Battle Box, here is a great summary of the rules and structure. I won't be giving a "primer" just because you should read that link instead! It does a great job of explaining how box works.

Note: This primer says starting hand size is 4 cards, but we've always played with 3. Trust me, it's not too few. 4 is way too many.

I like box because it's a very easy and quick way to play Magic - games can sometimes go long, but you can set up within seconds and don't have to think about which deck to play or whether the matchup is balanced -- You just start playing!

I also like Box because it incentivizes the same adaptability and flexible thinking that limited does. You don't get to choose your cards, just what you do with them. Since both players are playing with the same deck, in a well constructed box most games tend to be even and tightly contested.

Box has also specifically been a great format to play iteratively with roommates - both of my roommates play, but Mora & I specifically have played 443 games of Box, and I'm ahead 226-217. I know because we track it.

Yeah, even at my most casual, I'm still tracking results 😂. Sue me!!!!*

In all seriousness, playing Box with Mora has made me significantly better at Magic. Not only does it reward tight technical play, resource management, and dynamic evaluation of roles throughout a game, it also can get quite fun to bluff when played iteratively.

My box is HUGE. Boxes can be fun at any size, but it's true. Look at this thing:

Partially, this is a result of having played so much with Mora that we need a lot of variety in our games, but still, we will play around specific cards and try to get soul reads on each other. There's no better feeling than naming a card you haven't seen out of the literal thousand possible, and getting it right.

Before getting into some of my favorite cards, I want to talk a bit about box-building philosophy. The last advantage I've yet to mention is that Box is cheap and easy to build! I mean it -- if you want, the sleeves can be the most expensive investment you make. You can build an awesome box with your draft chaff or the random Magic cards you already own & wish you didn't. In fact, that's kind of what I try and use my box for -- Cards that I loved in limited or always wanted to make work but never did, and that don't have much of a home in constructed or in more powerful cube-esque formats. (This "island of misfit toys" concept is partially why I've struggled as time goes on to keep it at a manageable size!)

Box Design Philosophy

My core belief when it comes to Battle Box is that you want as many resources to matter as possible. This, I believe, provides for the most dynamic gameplay. Since each player is drawing from the same card pool, the best games happen when each player has a set of cards that wants them to prioritize different things, and the players have to negotiate which resource matters the most, and whose gameplan is going to triumph unless it's disrupted.

Think of this as "who's the beatdown?", but on multiple different axes.

Here is a short list of conceptual 'resources' you can think about when building your box - going from universal and fundamental down to more abstract and nebulous.

Card Advantage

I believe most box designers include FAR too many ways to gain card advantage. The issue is that card advantage is baked into the design principles already! The advantage of drawing from a deck of all spells and being guaranteed 10 free land drops is that you never FULLY run out of gas.

This means that in a box full of card draw or on-board 2-for-1s, card advantage simultaneously becomes overly powerful and trivially easy to accomplish. You want your players caring desperately about this resource, not being able to abuse it.

IMO, card advantage in box should only be accessible through tight gameplay or exploitation/prioritization of synergies. You need to be worried about running out of cards, and the only way to do that when both players get a spell every turn is to make card advantage extremely effortful to acquire.

Life Totals

Another fundamental part of box design is that both players will typically have a functional start to the game, and enough things to do early. This makes aggressive starts difficult, but it's important that players think of life totals as a key resource to fight over.

I've found the best way to do this is to add in a lot of 'reach' to the box - things like burn that can go to the face, evasion or ways to universally grant it, and minimizing the availability of lifegain so that it becomes a valuable ability, not just an afterthought.

If you do this right, creatures that get in some free damage early but risk getting outclassed in the lategame become more than blanks, and getting off to a good start will matter.

Mana

Again, this is a core aspect of box design - Players will have access to 10 mana and 3 sources of all 5 colors eventually. But it's still important to make mana costs matter.

Taplands are meant to be a key restriction. You want your players to have to think carefully about how to develop their mana, and think about whether they want to prioritize development speed now or later.

Good ways to do this are...

including modal cards with incremental ways to spend mana for small benefits (think kicker), that force the player to think about whether the small benefit now is better than getting a tapped land drop "out of the way"

Including difficult mana costs that are better "on curve" than off curve. Something like Strangleroot Geist is an incredibly powerful card that nonetheless forces a player to make a sacrifice in their early mana development to maximize it.

Card Selection/Flexibility

Could fall under the umbrella of card advantage, but I believe this deserves its own section. One of the dangers of box is when players end up drawing too many of the same type of card in a spot where that card isn't valuable. There have to be ways of using situational cards or at least filtering through them to avoid these games, even if they will still happen sometimes anyways.

Tempo and Board Presence

Also could fall under the umbrella of life totals, but I do think this is slightly different. Cards that provide infinite 'value' need to be... sufficiently inefficient, so as to be attackable. Cards like Nightfire Giant shouldn't be the best card in your box, which means cards like Silent Departure and Fanatical Strength should be there to punish them.

Zones

I like games of Magic where moving cards between zones leads to interesting interactions, and battle box is no exception. There are two big zones I think box designers should make sure to incorporate: the graveyard and the (top of the) library.

In my box, possibly the strongest design principle is that card advantage is earned through the graveyard. Traditional card draw isn't allowed, but flashback spells and other things that recur from the yard definitely are. This gives the zone an identity and a place in the game. "Anything relevant in yard?" is one of the most common questions Mora and I ask each other, along with "Cards in hand?"

I also try to include mechanics like Delirium and recursion spells like Spellkeeper Weird and Mourner's Surprise so that graveyard hate (also a must-include!) feels relevant and provides interesting choices. Just be careful about too much recursive card advantage!

I also think the top of the library is an under-utilized resource in box design. With players sharing the same library, mechanics like Scry become vastly more interesting and complex. How do I order with Architects of Will? What if my opponent has a looter in play? Should I use my Sinister Starfish to dig to good cards for me, or prevent them from reaching my opponent? Is this Griptide better used as a tempo spell or a pseudo-mind-control? (or even a sneaky way to deny a crucial draw step by targeting my own guy?)

Information

The flow between hidden and revealed information is one of my favorite parts of a game of Magic. There's a reason Thoughtseize and Gitaxian Probe are some of my favorite constructed cards, and I try to include as many cards like this as possible in the box.

Hidden information mechanics are also great includes, as long as you have enough cards to make a compelling package. Right now I have morph and foretell packages in the box, which add an interesting layer of skill if you know which specific cards are in the list, as Mora and I both do. I'm trying to figure out whether a disguise package is worth it.

My Babies

Now the fun part! I'd like to take the rest of this space to rant about some of my favorite box cards. These are cards that I think check a lot of the boxes above in terms of incentivizing gameplay that cares about resources across multiple dimensions, while adhering to the power level of my personal box and the fundamental structure of box games. Let's get into it!

Trading post is Mora's favorite card in the box, and I'm quite partial to it as well. It quite explicitly asks players to trade between different types of resources, synergizes strongly with artifacts, provides incentive to flexibly spend an additional mana every turn for a small bit of value, and offers significant card advantage, but at a huge tempo cost (4 mana upfront investment, 1 mana per turn additional, and life loss if you want to use goats to chump block).

Optionality! Early board presence! Lategame relevance! Opportunistic synergy! Top-of-library Shenanigans! This card might not have it all, but it has a lot.

Extort is one of my favorite box mechanics. Not only does it pressure life totals and make cheap creatures like this one relevant into the lategame (since you're guaranteed to have a spell to cast every turn), it also tests your ability to make tradeoffs between mana and value

In box, you're almost always sacrificing a real creature to this, but you're also guaranteed to nab a real spell and not a useless land. It's a cheap body that's relevant in the lategame and provides interesting decisions based on unknown information. 10/10 box card!

Remember when I said life totals should be relevant? In my box, the possibility of instant death begins at 7 life. The mere presence of this card adds to the strategic complexity of games, and it also makes for some good stories (I have topdecked this to kill Mora from exactly 7 life not once, but twice). Worst case, it's a very clunky removal spell, which feels like a fair tradeoff for the "instant win" power level without being useless otherwise.

Speaking of generating fun stories, I love including alternate win conditions in box. The tricky part is they have to be self-supporting. This is a respectable defensive card that can win the game on its own if left unchecked. It also has counter synergies, without being an ounce too powerful. Fantastic include.

Combat tricks are fun, but a combat trick that adds a whole other layer of decision-making to your box games is even better! The presence of this card makes it possible, though quite unlikely, to do something while tapped out, which generates fun stories and interesting decisions. Yeah, you probably shouldn't play around it. But what if they're reallllllly obviously representing it??

One of my greatest limited disappointments was this card being pretty mid in its' original format. Luckily, I get to make a home for it here where a bear that leaves behind a marginal equipment can play a useful role in almost any game and lead to lots of interesting decisions!

Oh, did I mention there are un-cards in here? Remember, box is a fun, casual format! But secretly, this card is a goldmine of strategic depth. Which resource matters most: your life total, your opponent's, or cards? Moreover, which resource do THEY think matters? And even if you correctly figure out both of those things, then the mindgames begin. Sometimes both players know exactly what the controller of this spell wants, and it's just about trying to play mind games. Other times, the decision is incredibly nuanced, and you have to decide how you're going to get a leg up based on your perception of their perception of the game...

Incidental mill, a solid body, and some interesting top-of-library shenanigans, and a card that palys dramatically differently in box compared to its' normal uses... how can I feed you a bad draw step here? What if I can set up a way to blink this at the end of your turn? Can I disrupt your scry? Lots to consider...

The absolute king of the alternate-win-con minigame. This card is sometimes useless, and sometimes can lead to a win out of nowhere because you were playing an entirely different game than your opponent. There are enough ways to manipulate life totals in my box that this card is on average quite bad, but there's no way I'm cutting it -- The play patterns it incentivizes are far too fun, and the times when you win with it (or, the times when you get the soul read on your opponent because you suss out what they're up to) are incredibly sweet.

This is what I mean when I say I want people to work hard for their card advantage in my box. In a normal game, this is a below-rate 3-drop with a ludicrously expensive flashback option, but sometimes, you can manage a game towards it being awesome. Also a payoff for graveyard hate as well as incidental mill.

Another minigame legend, this time erring on the side of slightly too good, but way too fun not to include. House rule for this one is that newer players get to look at some cards from the box before they name something, but Mora and I have to do it from memory. This is probably too much card advantage for a normal card, but a sweet mindgames card that tests bluffing ability, managing hidden & revealed information, and leads to some sweet stories? It's staying in.

Now here's a true un-card that belongs in a box. Mora & I live with a third roommate who also plays Magic, just not as competitively, so it's a hilarious and fun experience to get him to intervene in a game he has no personal stake in. The card's potentially strong, but on average underpowered, which is perfect for a silly include. You'd rather have the player who loses the game be the one who had the most fun, all other things held equal. (If any box card doesn't work in a particular situation, like for example if there is no one else around for this one, you get to cycle it for free).

This card is a gameplan unto itself, sometimes a total blowout, and sometimes a total dud. On average, it's pretty good, but certainly not overpowered. That's exactly what we're looking for!

I want my expensive haymakers in box to be exploitable, require at least some setup and skill, but still be powerful enough to consistently (in expectation) generate advantage. This card is perfect for that, as well as for generating fun stories. Do you wish for greater destruction?

I haven't talked about this yet, but wraths are an important part of the box ecosystem. You want them to be prevalent enough that players need to be careful deploying to the board willy-nilly, but rare enough that falling behind matters, and your opponent usually won't have it... unless they do. This is one of my favorite wraths, because it incentivizes deploying a little bit of material yourself, and counting mana carefully.

Let's party like it's 1999! The rule change on this card hasn't come up yet, but I'm looking forward to the story when it does. In the meantime, it has a super high floor by cycling and adding a rectangle to the board. Perfect box include.

Can you tell I like bears with upside? (yes, obviously, Bear with Set's Mechanic is in the box). This card adds some interesting decisions and hidden (from both players!) information to the game, as well as some fun stories where you had to hit a certain low-likelihood outcome and did.

Are you feeling frisky??? This card is serviceable enough as a Centaur Courser to not be an embarrassing performer, but when one player decides it's correct to activate it, which is rare, it completely warps the game. The gameplay tension created by this card, which is most of the time just a boring vanilla creature, is immaculate.

This is what I mean when I say box is home of the draft chaff! This card wouldn't see play in casual constructed or cube, but it's an awesome box card. A little clunky as a creature, but with some great optionality and the occasional well-earned 2-for-1.

I love a good build-around in box. But wait, you say, how can a card be a build around when your deck is always the same and your opponent always has the same cards that you do? Oh, my sweet summer child. This card lets you sculpt both your draws and sometimes your opponents', fill your graveyard, and generally incentivizes playing a long game. The cost is fair: it costs a full card and 3 mana with zero board impact. Almost every game you lose while this card sat in play for many turns will feel like you could have won if you had made better decisions - the card's just that powerful. But then again, you set yourself pretty far behind by casting it on turn 3, didn't you?

Another fun/silly one, if a bit ageist. This card is another gameplan build-around, in that you can basically pretend your life total doesn't matter assuming you get to resolve this card on turn 8. It does nothing to the board... you have to generate that value on your own through tactics. I am a year older than Mora, so you could technically say I'm rigging things in my favor in our infinite box battle, given that once every million games or so the extra life point will matter.

Another card, like griptide, that has its context radically shifted by playing with a shared library. Casting this on an attacker vs. casting it on a blocker is a very different play, and deciding how to use it is always interesting.

A card that incentivizes you to play a weird mix of aggro, tempo, and control, depending on when you can get in with it and how many times. Also gives your opponent the opportunity to use their free rectangles creatively, all while being powerful, but definitely not too powerful.

Cascade is an awesome box mechanic, but it has to go on effects that aren't worth a full card on their own. This is perfect - it can be used offensively or defensively and is situationally incredible, but generally not worth an entire card - that's why you get to spin the value wheel as well!

Conclusion

That's enough of showing you my babies, but I hope you can see why Battle Box is my favorite format to both play and design for. It's a home for all the misfit limited cards and weird, junky rares that I love, as well as an amazing skill-builder for gameplay and a generator of fun stories.

Please let this inspire you to create your own-- I'd love to play it!