By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Monday, January 31, 2005 - 09:39 am:

Already posted it exclusively on Neorift to increase traffic there but it failed. So, not wanting to deny you this wonderful multiplayer variant, I post it here at Phyrexia.

Dear Phyrexians, Puschkin and his playgroup of oldschoolplayers proudly presents the Peasant Rebellion!

Here is how it goes:
Every player chooses the deck he will play. It is important that he does this before determining the roles! The players should NOT choose combo-decks*.

Then you determine secretly the roles. Draw different basic lands for example. There is one Emperor, three peasants and one traitor. Whoever draws the emperor card reveals it to all players. The other players dont reveal their identity and all of them are considered peasants.

Now play starts with the emperor. The emperor plays against all four peasants(but secretly he plays together with the traitor). If the emperor is slain, all three peasants win, even those that are dead. If all peasants are dead, the emperor and traitor win, even if the traitor is dead.

Every player can attack each other player. There is no blocking for other players or other cooperation rules you might use. Otoh there are also no range limits.

During the first five turns, the emperor cannot be attacked (but he can attack himself). He cannot be tragetted by the peasants. The peasants cannot destroy any of the emperors permanents except that they can destroy attacking creatures through blocking. The Emperor's seplls cannot be countered. These effects end when the emperor starts his sixth turn.

At any time, the traitor may choose to reveal his identity. When he does this, he can counter one spell, bury one permanent and the emperor gets 5 life. These effects are unstoppable, he can destroy untargetable and indestructable permanents, the effects do not use the stack.

There are two Variants we are experimenting with. You should use one of them to balance things out, without either of those options its too hard for the emperor/traitor team to win:

VARIANT A
The Emperor knows from the beginning who the traitor is! He looks at all cards the other drew. This variant involves the most possibilities for bluffing on the side of emperor/traitor. Personally I prefer this variant.

VARIANT B
The emperor does NOT know who the traitor is. But, as long as the traitor has not revealed himself, the emperor draws one additional card each turn!
In this variant you have to time the revealation of the traitor VERY carefully since it also means that you lose the extra card. This variant invloves more randomness since the emperor will attack random peasants until the traitor reveals himself. And if the emperor has a very fast and aggresive deck, the extra card can be devastating. Thats why I prefer variant A, but my playgroup seems to favor variant B. Just try out both.

Have fun! We had much fun using these rules. Generally the traitor reveals his identity on turn six but we had very different games. Learn to bluff the other players.

* Because the emperor cannot be touched at all during his 5 first turns, he would have 5 turns to combo everybody out.

By Isaiah (Apprentice) on Monday, January 31, 2005 - 02:59 pm:

Thanks! I will try it out in my playgroup.

-Apprentice

By Blessing of the (Nightmare) on Monday, January 31, 2005 - 04:27 pm:

I'm gonna try it also

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Tuesday, February 15, 2005 - 09:24 am:

Any results?

By Apprentice (Apprentice) on Tuesday, February 15, 2005 - 02:34 pm:

Actually, I haven't had a chance to use it yet, it seems lately I have to force my friend to play with me due to my high win percentage...

But when I do my Unhinged Booster Draft I will definatly try it out.

-Apprentice

By Archive Digger (Xdritex) on Tuesday, February 15, 2005 - 11:00 pm:

That sound freaking awesome! I will indeed look forward to trying to get my group to play this.

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Wednesday, June 08, 2005 - 09:49 am:

And? Did you try it out? Results?

By Apprentice (Apprentice) on Thursday, June 09, 2005 - 08:07 am:

Yeah, I just used it too with Varient A. We found if alot of fun with all of the bluffing, a perfect game for our metagame.

Can the Emporer be hurt by Pestilence within the first 5 turns??

Also how could you add more players? Are there any ways to do that?

I was a peasant and our team won, it was nice . Basically everyone focused thier energy on me (I was staying alive with a Zorb) so that the other peasants could get ready. Then they sung and won. It was alot of fun alltogether.

-Apprentice

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Thursday, June 09, 2005 - 08:54 am:

Yes, the Emperor can be hurt by Pestilence, Earthquake and so on.

So far we did not find out any way to play this with a different number of players. Maybe 4 Peasants vs. 1 Emperor abd 2 Traitors without the bonus of neither Variant A nor B would be fair. But if you have so many players, I dont know if gameplay would be enjoying because they would all gang up on one to reduce the number or opponents fast. You could introduce the rule that people can block attacks for other players (but have to tap their blocking creatures). And nobody would attack the first 5 turns because the odds that you hit one of your mates is almost as big as hitting the right one.

So, no, no real solution to play with any other number than 5 players.

By Apprentice (Apprentice) on Thursday, June 09, 2005 - 10:27 am:

Ok then, thanks! We will play Varient B soon, we thought it might be fun as well.

-Apprentice

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Friday, October 13, 2006 - 04:49 am:

I just checked this out because Apprentice referred to it. And I noticed that the rules abov don't state that the emperor starts with 30 life!
Thats not a late addition, we always play it that way, I just forgot to mention it! So, if you ever tried this out and if the emperor/traitor still won, kudos to you

Thats also why it is fair that Earthquakes and so on can hit the Emperor even during the first 5 turns.