by Lime Blue Cube

Created on: August 05, 2008

So you're tired of playing Standard, or Extended or whatever other competitive formats you usually play. And although you love drafting and limited, the idea of paying for new packs every time you want to play doesn't appeal to your wallet. So you and a bunch of buddies are looking for a new format. Well, DC-10 very well might be the answer.

DC-10 is a little known constructed format that is extremely fun, and easy to both teach and learn. There are a few basic rules that you need to know, and you can easily teach the Magic variant in less than thirty seconds.

Rule 1 - The Deck
All players play with a communal deck. Usually, it is a random section of cards taken from a bigger stack that is stored in a box. Just take a chunk out and you're ready to play. Every so often (about 20 games with a 350 card stack) you should pile-shuffle the stack, just to keep games fresh. Any card that says "your library," or "an opponent's library," refers to the same library. Also, when the deck gets low on cards, simply shuffle in more cards from the greater stack.

Rule 2 - The Graveyard
All players put their cards into the same graveyard. Any card that says "your graveyard," or "an opponent's graveyard," means the same lone graveyard used by all players.

Rule 3 - Starting Hand Size
So as not to make games be too short, all players have a starting hand size of zero cards, alongside their normal maximum had size of seven cards.

Rule 4 - Infinite Basic Lands
All players have infinite basic lands. This means you can tap unlimited lands for unlimited mana. You CAN enchant these lands with cards such as Hostile Realm or Genju of the Realm. This does not mean however, that you should not include nonbasic lands. They can make gameplay fun, especially lands such as Prahv, Spires of Order.

Rule 5 - No Play/Draw Rule
After deciding who goes first, that player simply commences his turn by drawing a card. He does not skip his draw as he already has no cards in hand and that would defeat the purpose of the play/draw rule.

The rest of DC-10 is simply the same as normal Magic, same phases, same life totals, same other rules. Any player may play a flashback ability, and when clashing, the active player takes his actions first.

How do you go about making a stack? You first will need a whole bunch of penny sleeves (as rares make a DC-10 stack more fun, and the higher percentage of rares, the higher amount of fun you will have). Another thing you will require is a box to put it in (Those fat pack boxes work really well). You also must only include one copy of each card. That's right, DC-10 is a singleton format.

What sort of cards should you put in a DC-10 stack? Well, any rares are good candidates, but they should not be too situational. Also, almost anything with X in its mana cost is not good. However, there are some exceptions. Example, Profane Command or Fireball are not good candidates, while Thrive is.

The creatures you select should be very powerful, Akroma and Darksteel Colossus are good candidates, but so are Court Hussar and Magus of the Moat. Heck, Even Duskdale Wurm is a good idea.

In order to see if your stack is okay, play a few games with it. We have found that cards like Pulse of the Grid are not good candidates, but Counsel of the Soratami is fine.

Try to make your deck have lots of creatures, a fair amount of removal and some counter magic. Hand disruption is not very powerful because the hand sizes are so low, so keep cards like mind rot out of the stack.

Aside from these basic guidelines, DC-10 is a great new and fun format to try out, and should be considered by magic players both old and new.

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