The Madison Jyhad League

A System for Playing Jyhad

Setup

League would require at least 6 players to get started (and have run well). Each player buys a starter and 3 boosters (their choice). After opening their cards, a player has one week to draft in 3 vampires of their choice from outside their sealed cards.

Marking the Cards

After opening their cards, each player permanently marks their cards with a permanent marker or pen with a special, unique symbol (for example, mine was an 'o', another person used a Cross, another a woman-symbol) in the bottom left of the card. These marks symbolize current ownership of cards. If a card changes ownership, the new owner places their mark to the right of the most recent mark.

New players must mark their cards in front of the league organizer, or two other league members.

Trading

Trading of any league cards for any other league members cards is allowed. As this is a change of ownership, the new cards must be marked by the new owner. Trading is highly important, not only for ranking (below) but as preparation for future games. Intelligent players often trade for cards that their deck can't use but that they know could be devastating to their deck.

Ranking

A player with more league cards is said to be higher ranked than a player with fewer league cards.

Playing

A league game is defined as any Jyhad game played with only league cards for ante.

The highest ranked player at a league game sits down first (a disadvantage), and in order of rank the remaining players choose their predator/prey out of the players seated. Thus, the lowest ranked person gets the final choice of who their predator or prey will be (an advantage). After seating is determined, the highest ranked player determines who goes first.

Deck Construction

Players may make decks as per normal Jyhad rules (12 minimum Crypt, 40 + 10*players crypt max). The rest of the cards are sideboard and trade-stock. A player always has the option to change their deck composition between games, and many times has to (to stay under maximum size).

Protected Ante

three cards are set in the ante pile. This pile is face up or face down, depenging on a vote of the table. This pile can be looked at by its own if the table allows.

When someone is ousted, their predator looks at the cards in the ante pile and returns one of them to their original owner. The owner then looks at the remaining cards and returns one to his deck. The remaining cards go to the predator. (Thus, if someone played a High Stakes, the predator would win 2 cards) Since ownership has changed, these cards are marked, even if they will be traded back to their original owner immediately.

Winning the League

At the end of the League, the winner is the player with the most league cards. Because each card has a value in the league, it is not uncommon to see a common, useful card like a Bum's Rush traded for 2 uncommons or rares. Good trading is almost as important as good playing.

Notes

It is important to note how important trading is for playing in this league format. Few people will be able to get ahold of many cards for their strategy in just their sealed decks, but trading can alleviate that. Also, new players (who can join anytime with this system) are at a large disadvantage since they will have already missed the early trading when everyone had something that someone else could use. This system also allows people to "bottom out". If someone wants to make a new league deck, they turn in their current league cards as a prize for the winner.

League members should be able to play each other at any time they want to get together (phone lists are helpful) and there should also be set times to increase the amount of large games seen. Another important thing to mention is that a league member need not play in league games if they don't want to. By intelligently choosing who you play and who you don't, your chances of winning increase.

Any house rules your group uses should work out just fine. Card limit players should note that due to the limited supply of cards and the way trading works, card limits in this environment would be superfluous.

Adrian's Commentary on the League

Towards the end of the league, people had begun to fear playing me (and would often refuse) because I had 4 ante cards in my deck...

If anyone else has league rules that they use, I would love to see them, post them and e-mail them to me so I can add them to my alternate Jyhad games archive.

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