Setting: In 2 - headed giant the setting arrangement would look like this:
O O ==== X = 1 team, O = the other team, ==== is the table. X XTurn Order: There are two choices for turn order. One is to go around the table in a circle, at start of the game one person of a team would start then the next turns goes to the other team. The other choice is have one player start, then his opponent across from him would go, then his partner would go, then the opponent across from his partner, and finally back to the first player with turns taken in this manner. Examples:
Choice 1: Choice 2: X-->X 1st turn player from team O X X 1st player from team O ^ | 2nd/3rd players from team X ^\ /^ 2nd player from team X | | 4th turn player from team O | X | 3rd other player from O O<--O Repeat |/ \| 4th other player from X O O Repeat. Life and Death: Both players share their life totals, typically starting at 40 life. In the case that one player is run out of cards, he is considered dead and play continues normally, for example one person is decked his partner is still alive and with the full group life and their opponents would both get their turns for each turn of the now one man team. It should be noted before the game or tournament if the cards of a player stay in play if they die of deck death.Playing area: For this type of tournament the playing field for a team is split into 3 sections. Each player has a section to place their land, non-creature artifacts, and enchantments. Only the player who controls that section may use cards their. The remaining section is where both players of the team will place their creatures.
Spells and Effects: The players are considered to be one person in terms of being effected by spells or effects that effect life and creatures. Effect that deal with a player’s hand, library, land, artifacts or enchantments are considered to effect the in dividual and not the team. For example Pox will reduce the teams life total by a third, reduce total number of creatures on a team by a third, reduce each player’s land by a third, and reduce each players number of cards in hand by a third. Infernal Contract will reduce your teams life by half, and Kaervek’s Spite will sacrifice all of your teams creatures, the caster’s hand, caster’s land, caster’s artifact and caster’s enchantments.
Attacking and Blocking: As all creatures of a team are placed into the same area, they are automatically considered shared for the purposes of blocking. For attacking though there are 3 options (these need to be selected before the game or tournament starts). The first is that only the player who controls the creature can declare it an attacker during their turn. The second is that a player can chosen to attack with any creature that his team controls (optional rule to this choice is that a creature may not attack if your partner declared it an attacker during his last turn). The third choice is that a player may only declare an attack if his partner did not during his last turn (exception: if your partner has died do to deck death you may declare attacks as normal on your second turn following his death or on your first turn if your partner did not attack their last turn).
Shared Restrictions: To get around the power of multiple of the same card above 4, some tournaments have used shared restrictions of team decks. A team would only have 4 Lightning Bolts and for Type one only one member of the team could have a Black Lotus.
Table Talk: Players may discuss almost anything in reference to their creatures. Any thing else should be discouraged. It is not illegal to look at your partners hand, but it is illegal to look at your opponents hand or talk to your partner about cards in their hand. (The exception is that you may discuss where to put a creature enchantment card as long as your opponents know what the card is. Examples: “Which creature should I Giant Growth” would be acceptable, while responding the opponents Tar Pit Warrior would NOT be an acceptable.
Sealed Deck - For Sealed Deck trading cards with partner is acceptable. Return to Main Web Page.