Introduction
I've always enjoyed fun games of Magic: The Gathering. I've written a few posts to the MTG-STRAT list lately trying to show fun decks. However, many of you many be wondering what the heck defines a "fun" deck. After all, you certainly felt a lot of fun when you got to win that scholarship in the JSS, or one of the bigger prizes in the PT. However, there are some players out there that don't play in any sort of tournaments. Hard to imagine, isn't it? Well, its true. I live in the southern end of a place called the Salinas Valley, and here is about the most isolated place you can get from any sort of cool Magic tournaments (For goodness sakes, even Antarctica has Arena down there! Just look at WotC's site!). Living in this area where all the Magic players don't play in tourneys gives me a very unique perspective on the situation of Magic and fun games within.

These rules are intended to let you play what can easily be defined as a fun game. You can use Portal, Unglued, and even the oversized cards--which you could never use in a tournament. If you follow these rules, and your opponent plays with them, you should both have a fun time playing a fun game of Magic. From this point on, what I have been calling fun games will be refered to as "TX", for Type X. You can even host a small tourney with these rules and see how much fun it can be. You have to admit that it would be pretty fun to see a Thallid/Ogre deck actually win a tourney. Give these rules a try, they'll make a cool Magic game for you.

In case you want to know, these rules have been play-tested. As I said, I live in an area where all the players don't go to tourneys. We also don't have any stores that sell Magic within 50 miles. Because of this, players not only don't play tourney style, they also don't have a lot of cards. Those of us who do have a lot of rares and tourney-quality cards keep on our honor to keep these cards at lw levels in our decks. Those who use Wrath of God in their decks use only one because they only own one of that card! Therefore, we've played with these rules extensively, many of us being forced by our collections to abide by these rules, while the rest abide to be fair.

There's been a lot of nostalgia lately. For those of you who want to capture the feeling of the old days when you began (when you collections were small, and your cards weren't powerful) then you could try following these rules. They often give you the feeling of being a beginner again. Take note, this doesn't mean you become a scrub following these rules, you just have to play very differently and build your deck very differently from the way you are used to for tourney play. The nostalgia isn't in missing the old days when the cards were cool--you just miss being weaker than you are now, and not knowing what was going to happen. These days, you follow the T2 rules and you know what will happen before you even get into a room of players or a tourney--you'll see Sligh, 5CG, Bounce decks, and all those other stale and popular decks. When you walk into a room of TX players, you don't know what will happen. You may have every card in the entire game memorized, but try anticipating a deck full of Sea Serpents and Tidal Warrios that actually works! There are over a thousand cards out there. You won't be able to predict the decks made of them. The environment is fair yet highly unstable...just like the "Good old days" used to be for you. That's what you missed--the fairness and the unstable environment. TX offers that.

For fun or for nostalgia, you'll enjoy the TX format of playing Magic. The only way you wouldn't have fun is if you are a stone-faced tourney player that will never want to use anything less than a money-making rank-scoring deck. If you aren't that type of person, TX will be fun for you.

New Rules

• "Removed From Tournament": This rule appears within the errata'd text of certain overpowered cards, or ones that would otherwise become unplayable. Cards such as Blacker Lotus, instead of being ripped up, now are just removed from the tournament so that their owners can play with them again. When a card is removed from the tournament, it is no longer part of the owner's deck or sideboard and cannot be put into either until the tournament is over. Such a card is not considered removed from the game for purposes of retrieving such a card with other cards such as Jeweled Bird (see errata). Rather, such a card is not even part of the tournament anymore and cannot be for the duration of the tournament its "remove from tournament" text was used in.
• 70-Deck Rule: This rule may be employed by a judge at any time before the tournament begins, so long as the players know about its employment. This rule makes it so that each player must have at least 70 cards in their deck.
• No Sideboard: No sideboards are allowed in the Type X tournament.
• No Ante: Waging of ante will not be permitted at any time during a Type X tournament. Ante cards themselves may be used because of their errata.
• Sets Usable: The following sets may be used within the Type X tournament: Beta, Unlimited, Revised, 4th Edition, 5th Edition, Chronicles, Portal, Portal Second Age, Unglued, Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Legends, The Dark, Fallen Empires, Ice Age, Homelands, Alliances, Mirage, Visions, Weatherlight, Tempest, Stronghold, Exodus. Promotional book and Dragoncon cards such as Nalathni Dragon and Arena may be used as well. The normal-sized Arena cards can also be used.
• No What-The?!? Cards: Since the Magic-backed poker deck was not listed as a set that can be used, no cards from it may be used. Cards that are not of a type in Magic (Sorcery, Land, Summon, Creature, Enchantment, Instant, Artifact, Artifact Creature, Interrupt) may not be used within decks. Such cards are the token creatures from Unglued. However, such cards can be used to represent token creatures. You just can't shuffle them into your deck.
• Oversize-ONLY Rule: If any player wishes to use a deck of oversized cards, then they may do so only if their entire deck is constructed of oversize cards. They must still follow the errata, banned, and restricted lists, and may not use any oversize Astral Set cards. All distances of linear measurement listed on oversize cards is doubled (For example, the Chaos Orb must be flipped from two feet up.)

Restricted List Explained
You may recognize a lot of the restricted cards as too powerful. The other cards, you may notice as your favorites for winning tournaments. The reason many of the favorite tourney cards being restricted is because the point of Type X is to be able to have fun playing Magic, not to win all-out every time you shuffle your cards. In fact, the best way to have fun is to try to not use a single one of these cards listed in the restricted list. It will make for a more pleasant gaming experience, and a very fair one, between you and your opponent. If you are wondering why certain cards that are tourney favorites got banned, its because without them many tourney-calliber decks of their respective colors would not exist without them, or would otherwise be seriously weakened. If you consider using such cards fun, then you are still able to use one each in your Type X deck, and you shold be happy for that.

Banned List Explained
Some cards just have to banned in every tournament. In this banned list, the cards that are banned were done so for different reasons. One reason is the force-you factor. This means that some cards were banned because they force opponents do to things they wouldn't want to do, like balance cards on their hands or follow stupid motions because of the Motion Sensor or Beauracracy. If you want to do the hokey-pokey to keep your knight alive, that's your choice. However, your opponent will not have fun if you force him or her to keep their hands together just to keep from having to discard three cards. Another factor is the shut-out factor. This factor allows you to totally cancel an entire playing strategy with one card that will be impossible to overcome unless the opponent has a card to stop it. Examples include Moat, Ensnaring Bridge, and others like that. If a person goes up against these cards and didn't pack the right stuff to get rid of it, then they're screwed. Type X isn't about being prepared for everything like normal tourneys are. Its about having fun and being able to play with a fun deck. Wrath of God is powerful, but at least a person can overcome its effects in time, which is why its on restricted while Moat is banned. Other cards were banned because of the total-random factor. Cards like Ricochet and Amulet of Quoz just make the entire game and the point of winning up to a random thing such as a coin flip or dice roll.

Errata List Explained
If any of you have ever wanted to use those old ante cards, here's your chance finally. With these errata, Portal cards become legal that were once non-sorcery sorceries, and ante cards become usable. The errata here is just a way to make cards you couldn't otherwise play with playable. Other cards here, such as Channel and Mind Twist, were errata'd to make sure they are now balanced. Channel now becomes a one time shot card, being removed from the tourney once you use it. Will you use the channel in your hand to win with the fireball early in the rounds, or will you save it and hope to draw these tow cards in the final match? Errata makes it more fun, so that all of your opponents don't have to suffer a fast channel/whatever death on the first turn.

WARNING:

I am not God! I am not a god! I am not any type of diety to any sort of race or culture...unless you count those moldy Spam containers that bow to me. Anyway, I make mistakes just as a human would. If you don't like a certain part of these rules, or I made a spelling error, then please tell me. I'm not perfect, and as such a creation of mine can be no more closer or farther from perfection than any other human being's creation. If you have any suggestions, questions, or comments about the Type X rules, then e-mail me at madcanine@yahoo.com and I'll see how I can help you out. I'll be revising these rules if I get enough suggestions on how to make them more fun.