Starting Your Own League

Whether you are new to Magic: the Gathering or a seasoned veteran you will likely find league play very fun. The concept is fairly simple. You open a few booster packs to use as your starting pool of cards and hold a few tournaments using the same pool of cards. You can add a new booster pack to your pool each time you meet. The number of starting packs, how many times the league meets, which sets, prizes, kitty money and all those types of things can be decided upon by your group.

How to start

Begin by setting the ground rules. Here is an example:

• Start with 6 packs. (3 Scars of Mirrodin, 3 Mirrodin Beseiged)
• Open 1 new pack each session, alternating sets.
• The new pack is opened at the end of each session. (This allows the most time to tweak your deck for next time)
• $5 a session (per person) to a prize fund.
• $10 payout each session to 1st place.
• Meet for 6 sessions every other week.
• Pay out remaining prize money at the end (50% to 1st, 30% to 2nd, 20% to 3rd).

All of these ground rules are negotiable so be sure your playgroup agrees with everything. Not everyone likes playing for money, especially if the limited skills among the group are unbalanced. Not everyone wants to meet 6 times. This may be too few for some, too many for others. Some groups might only meet once a month; others, once a week.

The point is, you should find the right rules for your playgroup to ensure everyone has a good time and they keep coming back. Afterall, a league with no members is not a league.

Observations

I have personally enjoyed meeting every two weeks. My playgroup meets once a week on Wednesdays; you’re shocked, I know. This 2-week downtime gives us plenty of time to tweak our decks and playtest on the off weeks.

I am new to the $10 weekly payouts and I am concerned that the same player will take 1st place weeks 4, 5 and 6 gaining more than their fair share of prize money. It’s not really about the money for me but I do like having a cash incentive so that everyone puts in effort when they build their decks.

Keep the card pools near where they are. The decks get pretty boring if everyone has too many cards. There will probably be someone who gets a bad pool and someone who gets a good pool. That’s life and the element of chance has always been a part of limited play. However, this format is about having fun so don’t be afraid to tweak the ruls to accomodate certain situations.

Many sessions will come down to tiebreakers so I recommend using software like WER, DCI Reporter or an equivalent. Calculating tiebreakers manually isn’t impossible but it isn’t the most fun thing you can do either. Whichever method you employ you should keep record of tiebreakers for the night and also across all of the league sessions.

Make sure everyone plays each other an equal number of times or close. It’s not fun having to play the same people over and over again. If you have a small league (4-6 people) you can do a round-robin each session. If your group is larger you can try to get in a full round-robin session every two sessions. If you let the software randomize you each week it is likely the same group of people will play each other in the second round, third round, etc.

Have fun!