Hunsberger's Solitaire

The basic scenario for this game is that you are a mage that has been entrapped on another plane, and if you do not free yourself soon, your soul will be lost for all eternity. You must fight with whatever means necessary to free yourself from this domain. In this dimension you float in a fathomless chaos devoid of substance and order, a panoply of color and thoughts surround you as you fight to gain your freedom. Mana color does not exist here, as all colors exist in one. You need only to concentrate on the color you wish and it can be tapped and put into use to secure your freedom. The task is mighty. Already you can feel your form begin to fragment, chunks of thought spin off into the One. You begin to feel its pull. Resist.

Starting the Game

The game is begun by dealing cards into what is called the Timer deck. The object of the game is to do as many points of damage as you can before the cards in the Timer deck run out. The size of the Timer deck is fifteen cards. These cards are dealt off the top of your main deck and are put in a small pile to the player's right. Main decks can be any size. Larger decks can present problems because you are less apt to draw useful cards before your Timer deck runs out.

If you feel you have too many cards in your main deck, the following variant works quite well. Shuffle well and take the first sixty cards that come into your hand and play a couple of games. Sixty seems to be a minimum for main decks as you are apt to run out of cards before you make it through your Timer deck with any less. Some interestingly high scores have been yielded this way. You don't necessarily need a bunch of "great" cards in your deck to get a high score. You just need a lot of luck and a few correct decisions.

The next step is to flip the top card of your Timer deck, placing it on top of the pile, and deal three cards from your main deck. Place these cards face up in a horizontal row next to your Timer deck. These four cards form your hand. Reserve space above your hand for what are called Save slots. These two spaces will hold cards, which can stay out when all the other cards go to the graveyard. The object of the game is to do the maximum amount of damage possible to your imprisoning enchantment in the amount of time allowed for by the Timer deck.

Turn Sequence

Flip timer card and deal three new cards from main deck.

Untap cards.

 Cast spells, summon creatures and do damage with spells, artifacts, by tapping land, or creatures *

Place new cards in save slots and discard cards they replace (except in cases of multiple lands). Save cards can have spells, enchantments, and sorceries cast on them. This does not count as another card as it is played on a card in Save slot.

Discard all the cards in your hand (except for cards in the Save slots).

* A card does not have to be in a Save slot to attack, just summoned.

Step-By-Step

Flip Timer card

You do this to start your turn. Flip the top card in your Timer deck and then deal three cards from your main deck and lay them next to the Timer deck to form your hand. If the card you flip from your Timer deck is a land you may, if you wish, move it to an Save slot immediately and flip the next card in your Timer deck without dealing a completely new hand.

Untap

All lands that were tapped during the attack phase now become untapped.

Cast spells, summon creatures and do damage with spells, artifacts, by tapping land, or creatures

This is the portion of your turn where you cast spells and summon creatures to do damage to the enchantment that has imprisoned you. To cast a spell or summon you need only have the appropriate amount of mana. All mana is colorless in this realm. This is mainly to keep the people who use one or two color decks from cleaning up with the points. Besides this game is hard enough to win already. You can attack with as many spells and creatures as you cast with available untapped mana. This will allow you to make multiple attacks using creatures in your Save slots as well as creatures in your hand.

When you summon a creature, it has no summoning sickness, unlike in the regular Magic: the Gathering rules. When all of your mana is exhausted you then survey the damage you have done. You will find that most enchantments are not usable in this game. The only enchantments you can use are ones that affect your summoned creatures. Some enchantments have special abilities that are listed in the section marked Special Rules etc. When you summon a creature you denote its state by tapping it or turning it sideways, for a creature must attack the turn it is summoned. After you attack with a creature, you discard it immediately.

Spells also function differently than the regular game of Magic: the Gathering in that if a spell has an offensive capability you can use that spell to do damage. This is done by paying your mana for the spell and doing damage equal to the amount of mana you used to cast it. If you have a spell like Stone Rain, you could spend the three mana and do three points of damage to the enchantment. These are generally sorcery spells and they have to have something on the card which says something like, "...destroy target..."

Place new cards in Save slots and discard cards they replace

You may, at this stage of your turn, place any cards you wish to save in the Save slots. They will replace the existing card that will then be placed into the graveyard. The exception is if the card is a land and you already have one land of that exact same color (yes, color matters here). You may then add this card to that stacked land. The stacks are limited to two cards. You can have two stacks of different colors in the Save slots but they cannot be mixed.

If at any time you realize that you have mistakenly put too much land in a stack you take mana burn equal to the excess by discarding the appropriate number from the Timer deck. You do not have to move cards up to the Save slots immediately upon drawing them. You can use them and then move cards into their place. For example, if you draw two plains, and have a forest and Disintegrate in your Save slots, you can tap the two plains, the forest and use the Disintegrate (doing two damage), then move the two tapped plains to the Save slot currently occupied by the now expended Disintegrate.

Discard all the cards in your hand

Discard all cards that are not in your Save slots at this point. They all go face up to the graveyard. Spells which retrieve objects and creatures from the graveyard (Reconstruction, etc.) as well as Raise Dead spells work on this plane.

Ending the Game

The game ends when you are out of Timer cards, pure and simple. You flip your last Timer card and finish out the turn and that's it. If you run out of cards in your main deck keep drawing cards from your Timer deck, trying to score points, until you have exhausted them. Tally up your score and if you have scored more than forty points of damage you have successfully escaped the mage's imprisoning enchantment. If you find that you are beating this goal regularly bump it up ten or so. This game was designed to be used with a sixty-card deck straight out of the shrink wrap so customized decks may not be suitable.

To give a standard for high scores, scores are denoted by the number of cards in the deck and the number of points as such: 60/45 (meaning sixty cards, forty five points).

Another variant for those who regularly surpass forty damage is to try and score as many points as you have cards in your main deck after dealing the Timer deck (deck size - fifteen) or try to score as many points as you have cards in your main deck.

Special Rules and Exceptions

Instant Death

If, at any time during the game, you have 8 mana producing lands out you are dead from extreme mana burn. You lose.

History

This variant was created By Jeffery Hunsberger