Conspiracy!

Wizards of the Coast have done a great job over the past few years of releasing a new multiplayer game variant. We have had Planechase, that allows players to give themselves a setting for the game to take place, and move from plane to plane during the game. We’ve seen Archenemy, and interesting variant format that saw one player take on the role of archenemy with three other players working together to defeat them. More recently was saw the Commander format take off to such a level of popularity that Wizards of the Coast have committed to annual releases for that format.

The mid-year multiplayer release slot is still open, with Commander’s annual releases moved to the November slot.

2014’s release is another brand-new format called Conspiracy.

This format is designed for players to draft the cards from the set, and then play a free-for-all multiplayer game with those cards. Unlike normal 8-player drafts, Conspiracy can have 6-player drafts. This seems like a better number as six players is usually the functional maximum in a free-for-all format; any more players and the game state becomes too complex. Also this set will be sold in 36-pack booster boxes, and six player drafts mean you will get two drafts from each box.

The new set will have 210 cards, including 65 brand-new cards. New cards have been a feature of multiplayer releases and tend to be cards that play well in game with multiple players. Interestingly, some of these cards will not be legal in Vintage or Legacy. This is unusual as these are “eternal” formats where any black- or white-bordered card printed can be used, subject to a banned/restricted card list. With Conspiracy, 13 of those new cards are immediately banned. I wonder why? The set is advertised as being black-bordered.

The set is due for release on 6 June, so we’ll find out then. View the official announcement (with 2 preview cards!) here.