The nights are starting to get cooler, the gardens are starting to get ready for harvest and in my case, those who are in school are starting to have their thoughts drift back to classrooms, homework, and settling back in. However, while this means that a lot of my cards are going to be packed up in the move, I get a chance to come back to a great format to play when you don’t have a lot of materials on your hands: Mental Magic!

So how do you go about playing Mental Magic? It’s really easy to set up for; all you need is a stack of random magic cards. Generally my friends and I will just play with cards left over from a draft, or even random piles of commons that we have lying around. This makes it incredibly easy to play on the go, as you could even just pick up whatever cards you can find, and you have a game ready to go!

Now for the rules of Mental Magic

1. The game is played exactly the same way as a normal game of Magic, with mana, hand limits, the stack, etc; with the only difference being how the spells function.

2. Each card may be played in one of two ways. It may be played face down as a “Utopia” land. A Utopia may tap for any type of mana, and may be instantly changed to any basic land of its controller's choice. Because of this rule, players generally do not need to worry about the number of lands in their stack, as essentially every card can be used as a mana source.

3. The other way a card can be played is as a normal spell. The twist in Mental Magic is that you may play a card in your hand as ANY other card in Magic with the same mana cost EXCEPT the card that it is. For example, if you have Stone Rain in your hand. You may then play it as Act of Treason, Blood Moon, Cunning Sparkmage, or anything else that costs . Additionally, you may remove it from the game as a Simian Spirit Guide, suspend it as a Rift Bolt, or return it from the graveyard on your upkeep as Squee, Goblin Nabob!



4. Once a card has been named, or “templated”, it may not be template again by any player for the rest of the game. So if you cast “Lightning Bolt”, then no other player may use Lightning Bolt for the rest of the game. Additionally, once you return “Squee” from your graveyard, no other player may cast him, or even use that ability again! Also, if a card is moved from its zone (with the exception of the stack), the card loses its templating. This means that if your “Venerable Monk” is Unsummoned, then you cannot cast it again as Venerable Monk, but instead will have to use it for something else, such as Stormfront Pegasus.

5. Finally, one rule that has been generally accepted is that any card with converted mana cost seven or greater may be played as any other card with converted mana cost seven or greater in the color. This prevents you from getting stuck with completely unplayable cards, and lets you find some of the larger fatties when you need them. This means that if you have a card that has the mana cost , then you may play it as Akroma, Angel of Wrath, which has the mana cost .

And that’s it! While this may seem very complicated at first, it just takes a little bit of getting used to! Let me walk you through the start of a sample game for some ideas:

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Mental Magic Game Between Josh and Ian.

Turn 1 (Josh)
Josh: Play Utopia, Play spell as Ancestral Recall.
Ian: Remove a Blue card to play a spell as Misdirection
Josh: Return the Utopia to my hand to play a spell as Daze, targeting “Misdirection”.
Ian: Daze Resolves, Misdirection is countered, Ancestral Recall Resolves.
Josh: Plays a cost spell as Mox Emerald. Plays a spell as Nimble Mongoose. Ends the turn.

Turn 1 (Ian)
Ian: Plays Utopia, plays spell as Black Lotus, sacrifices the Black Lotus to play as Arc Runner, attacks with “Arc Runner”
Josh: Blocks with “Nimble Mongoose”
Ian: Casts as Beserk on Arc Runner, killing Nimble Mongoose and doing 9 to Josh. Ends the turn.

Turn 2 (Josh)
Josh: Plays Utopia, plays as Rite of Flame, Plays as Seething Song[/card], plays Empty the Warrens storming for 3. Ends the turn.

And so on and so forth…

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So now that you see the basic idea of how the game works, players going back and forth, trying to come up with good threats and stringing together strategies, while at the same time defending themselves. You quickly learn some things that work, and some things that don’t. Here are a few suggestions I have based on the games that I have played:

Tip #1 – Cards in Mental Magic are very very good. When your cards can be whatever you want, that just makes them even more powerful. As such, trying to find cards that draw you cards, or remembering spells that “cantrip” (draw you another card when you play them) are very important.

Tip #2 – When you can’t think of something that gets you more cards, you can often remember abilities that will also work to give you additional card advantage. Abilities such as Flashback, Dredge, or Madness all work very well in that you can try to re-use important spells.

Tip #3 – While cards are important, mana development is also very crucial. As you could see in my example game, when I bounced the Utopia to my Daze, it hurt my tempo a lot. Because fixing is never a problem, you need to just get as much mana as you can very quickly. Likewise, be wary of land destruction as a strategy. It is very powerful because if you know a lot of good destruction spells, you can easily cripple a player from the start!

Tip #4 – Don’t be afraid to try combo! I have spent countless games trying to work up storm counts to hit a large Dragonstorm or Mind’s Desire. Remember, if you are clever enough, every card in your hand should be able to help you. Trying to learn and string together big combos is a very powerful tool.

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Well, that’s it for this week!

If you have any suggestions for other Mental Magic tricks, stop by our forums and give us your advice! I hope that everyone heading back to school has a good transition, and I will see you all next week!

Until then!

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