Magic already has dozens of formats, why do we need another?

Because “dozens of formats” is a misnomer; each format is a variant of one of two categories: constructed or limited. Conspiracy bends this pattern with gameplay elements that occur during drafting—and to a lesser extent, Commander with its color restrictions—but neither is bold enough to break from it entirely. It’s time we have a new format that is unafraid to break from tradition and embrace a world of fresh possibilities. This clarifies what this new format is not, but we must also determine what it is.

Rally is a format that combines the deckbuilding and gameplaying elements of Magic into one seamless experience rather than two distinct ones. Players begin each game with a basic deck that evolves and adapts as they play, similar to non-Magic “deck builder” games like Dominion or Ascension. Drafting is part of the turn, occurring simultaneously with the rest of the game rather than sequentially.

Why should I invest into Rally?

There’s a handful of reasons:

• Rally is cheaper. If you’ve ever played Omniscience draft on Arena, then you’re familiar with just how gamebreaking it is to change how players interact with mana in a game of Magic. Mana costs are one of the essential balance knobs that Wizards uses to determine power level of different cards with the best (and often most expensive) cards being lower in mana cost. Doing away with mana costs entirely (or partially as is the case in Rally) means cards widely to be considered terrible are suddenly powerful; and a format built atop cards that no one else wants is inherently cheaper.
• Rally is fast. Most games of Rally finish in the same time as a game of Standard because the deck creation process happens in parallel with the gameplay.
• Rally is accessible. There is no meta or net-decking or really any kind of centralized data on the format yet (and likely not for quite some time). Strategies of deck building need only consider the 10 options available at any given time rather than the hundreds if not thousands of possible cards available in other formats.
• Rally is intuitive. Reading the rules for the first time often shocks players (especially the “sacrifice all your lands” bit), but testing has shown that very few players stumble on the rules after their first two turns.

Each of these facets combines into a single format that is ideal for casual play in-between rounds of a local tournament. The games are quick enough to fit between rounds, can be enjoyed without extensive knowledge of the format, is easy to learn, and cheap to implement. Personally, we’ve had a lot of success bringing a Rally cube to pre-releases to play between rounds as there’s no consensus of what kind or powerlevel of deck players should bring.

But will I enjoy playing Rally?

Obviously, we have no way of answering that question for you and you’ll need to try it out for yourself to truly answer that question for yourself. But what we can guarantee is the excitement of reevaluating cards that have been sitting in binders or atop shelves or buried under shoe boxes for months and realizing that innocuous commons like Vitu-Ghazi Inspector or Meria’s Outrider are actually incredibly powerful.

The very first Rally cube ever designed was created by simply looking at all the forgotten cards in our collection and we heartily recommend you do the same. Put some cards together, grab a friend or three and try it out!