5 Color Mirror
Old School Magic Battle Box - Magic from 1994 re-imagined
5 Color Mirror is a creation based on an imagination of how the game of Magic card game could look like if it would be designed to be more similar to a stand alone board game.
“One of the things I really like about games is that many time, once the designer has designed them, people take the ideas beyond where the designer anticipated.”
– Richard Garfield, Ph.D.
This is my attempt to build on and improve the game play of 5 Color Mirror.
Hypothesis
- Lands and mana system are an important part of game of Magic. 1
- Needing to mind your mana adds suspense as well as strategic depth by needing to adapt your role between aggro and control. 2
- Memorable games aren’t those where things go perfectly but little bit wry, and you still somehow manage to win, or die trying.
Design philosophy
In no particular order:
- Mana is available as definitive but at the same time as finite resource.
- Luck factor is decreased by not having to draw into the right mana.
- Mana denial contributes to board game mechanic called scarcity. 3
- One should not aggressively just “curve out” on play by making certain land play orders always the best play.
- Mana curve is adjusted to support decision taking process so that multiple choices are available for the players to take.
- Too narrow or overly powerful cards are avoided, while preferring “dual-use cards”. While weaker they offer more choices.
- Decks concentrate more on lands and creature interactions as they offer the most opportunities for interactive game play within the old school card pool.
- Both players need to know the decks and track the played cards to play around. “Gotcha!”-elements and bluff are part of the game.
- Every color has from 7 to 9 spells to ease up memorizing what has been played, and what is left.
- Colors and mana pips are balanced as mana hosing is a key game play element.
- Double cost spells should be impactful enough for them to warrant their slot as producing that second colored mana always comes with a cost.
- Old school card pool: Alpha to Fallen Empires strikes a good balance for flavor, art, design and power level.4
Rules
- Starting life is 7 instead of 20: Lower starting life of 7 widens the pool to include cards that conventional 20 life constructed Magic wouldn’t normally use.
- The 9 extra cards are added to your starting hand.
- No maximum hand size.
- Mana burn is in effect (loss of life for unspent mana when phases ends). It is easier to leave mana burn rule to be as we want to explore every obscure card from that era to build this format: Power Surge etc.
- No sideboarding. The whole point is to decide in pre-constructed mirror match who is the better player.
- Best of three so that both players have a chance to go from play or draw.
- No mulligan. The hand defines the role, and good players know how to play with it. Good luck!
The 9 extra starting cards (same for both players)
Main deck (same for both players)
Colors are not conciously built to present their central color pie defined functionality, but in overall:
- Green is a balance between utility, aggressive and defensive creatures.
- Red is the most dangerous color with good threats. Or helps you the most to choose “Gear 1”: “Going all-in”.5
- White focuses on prevention, life gain and support.
- Black is resilient and endures but at the same time consumes its player slowly. Black is midrange with green. Their card selection contribute the most to “Gear 2”: “Suppression”.
- Blue manipulates and attempts with white to establish control in the late game with great answers. Or go for “Gear 3”: “Inevitability”.
Playtest notes and changelog
[2025-11-09 Sun] Version 1.0. Initial release
- Version 1.0. Looks good on paper but is untested. Now requires playtesting with friends…
- First curve slot on green (4 permanents) and on white (3 permanents) are crowded, making the first turn land plays usually as Forest or Plains. Consider flattening the curve on those colors:
[2025-12-13 Sat] Version 1.1 changes
- Cut: Nafs Asp as something needs to be done to green’s permanent curve. Add: Sandstorm.
- Cut: Grizzly Bear as it is a vanilla offering little choice. Add: Crumble as a dual-use utility spell.
- Cut: Erhnam Djinn as it is too aggressively costed. Derelor is already pushing it. Add: Wanderlust as it generates energetic game. For that end…
- Cut: Cursed Land as it lacks proper interaction after having been played. Add: Animate Dead since we lack interaction with graveyard.
- Cut: Black Knight as black color requirement needs to be made deeper. Add: Order of the Ebon Hand as it has the black mana activated abilities.
- Cut: Icatian Infantry as curve on 1 is clogged. Add: Mesa Pegasus. This spreads the curve and is an answer to flyers.
- Cut: Samite Healer as it we need to make white color “deeper”. Add: Combat Medic as its ability scales. Toughness of 2 is also welcomed as we have a lot of 1/1s.
- Cut: Alabaster Potion as it offers only life gain, though it scales. Add: Healing Salve which is also a combat trick an thus offers more interesting play choices.
- Cut: Counterspell as we already have plenty of counters and offers little to no ways to play around. Add Phantasmal Terrain as it fixes mana and interacts with many other mechanics in the deck.
- Cut: Spell Blast as it offers little to no ways to play around. Add: Power Sink as it also helps to recover the lost Rainbow Vale(s), which after obtaining both, are usually just held as a “hostages” and stagnating the game play.
- Cut: Fountain of Youth was already cut in Version 1.0 as it prolonged the games needlesly. Add: Soul Net.
- Cut: Savaen Elves as it had in the end only three targets. Add: Spitting Slug as it has good power-cost ratio and an ability to boot.
| Color | CMC1 | CMC2 | CMC3 | CMC4 | CMC5 | CMC6 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| White | 4 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 10 |
| Blue | 4 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 11 |
| Black | 3 | 6 | 0 (1) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 10 (11) |
| Red | 2 | 2 | 4 (1) | 0 | 2 | 0 | 10 (11) |
| Green | 3 | 0 | 4 (1) | 0 | 2 | 2 | 11 (12) |
[2026-02-27 Fri] Version 1.2 changes
- Switch Desert to starting hand to stop non-games that sometimes occurred by opponent being able to “curve out”. Move Jalum Tome to deck as it was always the last card to be played from starting hand cards.
- Add: Safe Haven as it offers some protection for creatures in logn games. This brings the total number of cards to 57.
Future considerations
- First turn City of Brass into a threat and then into a second turn Blight or Order of the Ebon Hand might warrant moving City of Brass into the main deck.
- Verify what is a good split between spells and creatures?
- Verify what is a good balance of power vs. tougness for high mana curve creatures:
- Green: Craw Wrum, 6/4
- Red: none
- White: Wall of Swords, 3/5 or none?
- Black: Derelor, 4/4
- Blue: Sea Serpent, 5/5
- What is best creature:spell:land=deck size -ratio? I have now 20:36:1=57. Do I need more spells? Less creatures?
- What is the minimum (elegant) deck size attainable vs. play enjoyment?
- When testing, observe what is the most common color getting hosed. Usually it has been red.
- Consider: Natural Selection as the library manipulation spell.
- Consider: Scavenger Folk.
- Consider: Sea Serpent.
- Consider: Blaze of Glory.
- Consider: Cutting Siren’s Call if it proves too swingy with its “gotcha”.
- Consider: Cutting Unsummon as its mechanic is already displayed by Boomerang.
- Consider: Arena.
- Consider: Elven Lyre.
- Consider: Giant Strength.
- Consider: Helm of Chatzuk.
- Consider: Order of Leitbur.
- Consider: Repentant Blacksmith.
- Consider: Seasinger.
- Consider: Vodalian Knights.
- Consider: Wall of Swords.
