"Planechase is too random. The planes become the central factor of the game rather than a strategic addition."
Axioms:
- Randomness is not bad. This is not chess. Variance is a design feature and not a bug. But games should not feel like they are ALWAYS decided by randomness.
- The more skilled player should win more often than the less skilled player.
- The less skilled player should always have a chance of beating the more skilled player if luck goes their way.
Variant:
Games play as normal, with the following changes to the turn sequence and planar die use:
1. On each players turn, at the beginning of the end step, that player makes a mandatory roll of the planar die. The player may then pay 1 generic mana to re-roll the die. When the player stops paying mana, the last roll of the die resolves. This is the only time at which the planar die can be rolled.
Reasoning:
- The madatory free roll means that sometimes players will planeswalk from planes that they want to stay on which reduces the possibility of abuse.
- The planar effect is guaranteed to only happen at most once per turn.
- Rolling the planar die adds a new strategic question, "Spend mana during the turn to advance your boardstate. Or save it for a better chance at getting the planar die result you want."
2. The die-roll uses the stack, as does any planar card effect. The card "Fractured Powerstone" loses the text, "Roll the planar die. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery," and gains the text, "If this is the first time this turn that this effect has resolved, roll the planar die. Activate this ability only on your turn."
Resoning:
- Players should be able to respond to planar die effects.
- The planar die should only be rolled by the player whose turn it is.
- If a player gets a die roll they like, other players should not be allowed to force them off it. It is more likely to get a roll that you don't want than a roll that you do.
- Fractured Powerstone should still have some relevance, but should not remove all randomness from the planar die roll. The "end step" change to the planar die roll invalidates any use of Fractured Powerstone as written. Any change that makes Fractured Powerstone infinitely activate-able destroys the randomness in the roll.
3. When players planeswalk to a plane, the "timer die" is reset to 1. At the beginning of the end step, the timer die increases by 1. At the end of the end step, if the timer die has hit its maximum value, the current player planeswalks to the next plane.
Reasoning:
- Players are guaranteed to eventually planeswalk from a plane. If the plane is beneficial, you have a limited time to exploit it. If the plane is detrimental, you only have to suffer through it for a short time. The timer die needs playtesting, but as a first trial, I suggest 1D4. This means that after 4 turns, two for you and two for your opponent in a 1v1 game, you are guaranteed a planeswalk to the next plane.
- The separation between increasing the timer die and the forced planeswalk allows for players to have a chance to roll the planar die if they want to try for the chaos effect. This separation may be unnecessary since players can respond to the planeswalk trigger and the current player gets to stack the "timer increase" and "planar die roll" effects as they want. More rules savvy players would need to refine this.
4. Following a turn in which a chaos effect triggered or a player planeswalked, play passes to the next player.
Reasoning:
- Taking extra turns is fun. Taking infinite extra turns is too easy and is not fun for the opponent, especially when coupled with free "spells" from the plane cards. If the timer die is 1D4, you can take, at most, 4 turns in a row. In those 4 turns, you can get 1 chaos effect.
Advantages to this variant:
- Game warping by plane effects is reduced. Players can't get multiple chaos effects or multiple plane effects during a single turn.
- Randomness is reduced, but not eliminated. Players aren't stuck at the mercy of the dice, but some variance is preserved to increase strategic options.
- Powerful effects can happen, but potential for abuse is reduced. The rules allow for big, splashy effects of all sorts, but limit effects that tend to be un-fun for opponents such as infinite turns, infinite planeswalking, or infinite activations of the chaos effect of a plane.
Disadvantages of this variant:
- Some planes lose power. Because chaos and planeswalk effects trigger during the end of a turn, some plane effects are made of no effect. "Until end of turn" effects move from affecting the players turn to affecting the opponents turn. Some of these interactions could be (mostly) corrected if changed to read "until the end of your next turn." This would increase the power of most of them, especially in multi-player.
- "Izzet Steam Maze" - Cost reduction for sorceries is useless at end-of-turn or during the opponents turn.
- "Kessig" - Giving creature trample during opponents turn is useless. The chaos effect becomes defensive rather than offensive.
- "Krosa" - Gaining WUBRG during end-of-turn has much less use. (Corrected with "At the start of your next main phase, ..."?)
- "Orochi Colony" - Making a creature unblockable on opponents turn is useless.
- "Otaria" - "take an extra turn after this one" is negated by the Rule 4 above. (Corrected with "At the end of your next turn, ..."?
- "Quicksilver Sea" - Does the chaos ability from allow sourcery-speed cards to be played during end-of-turn?
- "Selesnya Loft Gardens" - Mana doubling is less useful on your opponents turn.
- "Sokenzan" - Extra combat phase goes to the opponent, if I understand the rules interaction correctly, though you get the untap. (Corrected by ... what?)
- "The Great Forest" - Trample on opponents turn is useless.
- "The Zephyr Maze" - Chaos ability becomes defensive.
- "Velis Vel" - Chaos ability is less useful on opponent's turn
- Some planes gain power.
- "Stairs to Infinity" - Because the planar die only takes effect once per turn, there "draw a card every time you roll the planar die" ability becomes more powerful as you don't have the chance of planeswalking while drawing cards.
- Variant is rules fiddly. This is a major change to how Planeschase works. It would have to be explained any time a new player tires to play. While I think most of the rules are simple to understand, there may be unintuitive rules interactions.
