If you are reading this, you may be thinking “Archenemy, I know that variant, and it sucks.” Well, if you haven’t actually played it, I suggest you try it before passing judgment. But even if you have play it already, there is more than one way to play archenemy, and I hope after reading this you might try some of the other ways.

It might seem weird writing about Archenemy when it’s kind of the Summer of Planechase 2.0, but I haven’t written about the format yet, and it wasn’t until April that I was able to get the schemes I wanted and try the game for real. I had tried it last year on Duels 2012, but it’s not the same with computer players (the game’s online base having decreased to 0 whenever I go to play). Since I’ve been able to get plenty of Duels 2012 and real-life play, and I keep hearing this format get a bad rap compared to Planechase, I’d like to defend it, and throw out some other ways of playing you might not be aware of.

Let the Good Times Roll

First of all, if you don’t know anything about Archenemy, read this. The short of it is that it is a Team vs. Team format, where the Archenemy is a single player on their own team versus what I call the Opposition, is best set at 3 players. The Archenemy gets 40 life and a scheme deck of at least 20 schemes where no scheme can be in the deck more than twice; the Archenemy takes the first turn and a scheme is “set into motion” - flipped up and activated - at the beginning of their first main phase each turn. The Opposition each has their own 20-point life total and takes their turns consecutively like two players would in Two-Headed Giant. When the Archenemy attacks, they can attack multiple players, and those players can only block creatures which are attacking them (they can’t block for their partners).

Archenemy is fantastic because, for the most part, it really evokes the flavor of the Big Bad being fought by the team of Heroes. After all, a lot of the schemes are really crazy and fun effects (fun at least for the Archenemy, that is). But the Archenemy has less life than the combined life total of the Opposition and if you disregard the scheme effects, draws only 1 card each turn to the Opposition’s 3; so the Opposition can feel great for beating the Archenemy and their schemes, and the Archenemy can feel all-powerful beating the three other players out to get them. Plus, most of the names, flavor text, and art of the Archenemy schemes really fits the format.

Also, some players really hate 4-player games for some reason. I understand 3 player games, but I guess a good number of the players at the card shop I used to frequent preferred 5-6 player games over 4 player ones. Perhaps switching a 4-player free-for-all game to an Archenemy one could make it easier for these players to find enjoyment.

Touch and Go

I will admit, though, the format has some negatives going for it. Most of these are avoidable. For instance, Wizards dropped the ball on some of these. Some of them tend to help the Opposition more than the Archenemy, and that is inherently against what the schemes are supposed to do for the format. The worst offender is Approach My Molten Realm, which doubles all damage dealt until your next turn, which includes damage dealt to you by your opponents. This scheme usually results in the archenemy dying before their next turn. Solve this by not buying these schemes. I can understand wanting every planar card for Planechase (but even this isn’t necessary for a fun Planar Magic game), but you only need enough schemes for a single scheme deck; if you want variety, you can get enough for two scheme decks, but that’s still only 20 of the 45 schemes, so you can avoid ones like this when getting your Archenemy gear together. Some schemes don’t work as well for Commander anyway (e.g., I Delight in Your Convulsions and Rotted Ones, Lay Siege), so you wouldn’t want to have those around if you plan on running this format with the Commander format.

Another issue is that the “choose self or others” schemes also really only work well if you’re playing a 4-person game and when you haven’t taken anyone out yet, as they’re balanced to do either X to that player if they choose self or X/2 to the other two players if they choose others. The target player can still choose others when there’s only 1 or 2 of them, and the scheme really sucks in that case. To this I suggest a table errata so that the text works fine with 3 players, with 2 players only the X happens to the target player of the other player (instead of the other player getting X/2), and so that self is not an option when there’s only a single player left. Alternatively, you could try to avoid these too; but some of the fun schemes have this mechanic.

Another thing to think about changing are extra turn effects for The Opposition. The format works like Two-Headed Giant, where if one player would take an extra turn, all three do, but unless your Opposition players seem to really need help, having three players all get extra turns is really crazy. I would suggest using a kitchen table errata for this if you find it unbalances things too much in favor of The Opposition.

The life totals are balanced, but what about for Commander? I’ve heard several different suggestions, and there didn’t seem to be an agreement. You could stick with the Archenemy’s 40 life and everyone else can deal with having 20 life instead of their usual 40 (40/20/20/20 split), or you could just double everything to fit with Commander (80/40/40/40), but this tends to make games last too long and too in favor with the Commander. The most common suggestion I hear is 60/30/30/30 (some playgroups actually play with 30 life for Commander anyway to make the games not last ridiculously long, so this isn’t a bad suggestion). There’s also the question of whether or not to keep the Commander Damage rule when playing Archenemy.

Finally, the balance isn’t always there. Magic is almost always better when everyone feels like they made a good effort in the game and made an impact, and when everyone felt like they had an equal chance of winning. This is even more true for Archenemy. If it’s a blowout either way, the game just isn’t as fun. This can happen to the Archenemy, too, believe it or not, as some of the coolest schemes can be completely dead in the early game (e.g., Behold the Power of Destruction), and too many dead schemes can really set the Archenemy back beyond any help. Related to this is the use of combo decks by the Archenemy, as the Archenemy’s higher life total and use of schemes make combo decks fair a lot better than other decks and will have a much greater-than-even chance of winning than other decks would; as this can bother playgroups, I suggest agreeing on whether combo decks are allowed here or not. Then again, in other playgroups, it seems only the combo decks have a chance of winning as the Archenemy; and for players that hate combo, teaming up against an Archenemy with a combo deck would make winning truly feel like a good event. So, as I said, test the waters by asking the players before just diving into a game.

Shake it Up

One of the easiest ways of renewing the Archenemy format is in how you construct your scheme deck. The format really was meant to be played with a normal Magic deck and at least a 20-scheme scheme deck designed to work with the normal deck. If you find the Archenemy is winning to often, though, there are several ways you can work on this: You can make the scheme deck highlander, so two copies of a scheme can’t make it in (good for limiting the putting into motion of the extra turn scheme), you can buy more than 20 scheme cards and have the Archenemy randomly select 20 schemes for their scheme deck, you can have the Archenemy use all of the schemes (like with making it highlander, this results in each scheme coming up less often), or you could have the Opposition players create a scheme deck for you (certainly winning as the Archenemy would feel better.

Another way to play Archenemy is the “Superpvillian Rumble” format, as described by Wizards in rule 904.12: it’s the Planar Magic version of Archenemy, where each player has their own 20-scheme scheme deck instead of just one player. To be honest, I’ve heard bad things about this variant, and it obviously requires a lot of extra cards (at least 80 schemes…), but it’d at least be worth a try.

Then there’s Balance of Power, as described in this Gathering Magic article by Mike Cannon. After a couple turns of set-up, someone is randomly chosen as the Archenemy. Whenever a player leaves the game, they can come back in and get another few turns of set-up like in Respawn Magic. When the Archenemy leaves the game they can return to the game as a regular player, and the player that took them out becomes the new Archenemy. Whenever you defeat an Archenemy, you get two points, and whenever an Archenemy defeats another player they get one point. You play for a set time and the player with the most points wins. This format has the same positives and negatives as respawn Magic: Getting taken out of the game isn’t so bad when you can shuffle up and return (even with a new deck, if your table allows that) instead of having to wait an hour for Round 2; but this also means that the game will probably have to last longer than at least 2 regular games in order to really be worth it, and not everyone is willing to put that much time into it.

Finally, there’s Planar Invaders by Adam Styborski of Serious Fun at Daily MtG. I wrote about this with my Planechase 2.0 article earlier this summer, as it requires both Planar Magic planes and Archenemy schemes. In this format, there are two teams, the Invaders and the Natives (defenders probably too easily confused in Magic-speak with creatures with defender). The players on the Native team pick one plane, which serves as the plane the game takes place on. Unlike Planar Magic, the plane never changes. The Invaders choose 10 scheme cards and are not allowed more than one copy of the same scheme in this scheme deck. During the Native’s turn, any member of that team can spend {4} to activate the Chaos ability of the planar card (this can only be done once per turn); and during the Invader’s turn, any member of that team can spend {4} to set a random scheme from the 10 scheme deck into motion (again, can only be done once per turn). The teams share their turns just like in normal Archenemy, and the Invaders take the first turn. Also like in Archenemy, players cannot block for their teammates. The format’s for any number of players that can form teams, but 6 is probably a desired minimum.

And, as I mentioned before, if you have 6 players exactly, I think the format would best evoke an invasion of a plane if you added the Emperor format, as the emperors are essentially commanding the two different armies - the creatures - of their generals, and there are two different battlezones on the single plane. Of course, now you’d be combining 3 different formats (4 if you’re running Commander decks), so that can be complicated for people who have to learn them all. As long as you have all of the required pieces, I think this format does a great job of evoking the feeling of fighting off Invaders from the 5th Dimension.

Let’s Go

Archenemy seems to disappoint a lot of players, but I think if you haven’t tried it, you really should ignore all of that and give it a shot. If you have tried it and liked it, spread the word. For instance, a lot of players at the card shop I played at this last year hated 4-player Commander tables. If they really hated it that much, we could have tried Archenemy to shake things up. While we had the silly you-win-store-credit prize, we could have just split the prize amongst us all, or had the Archenemy get it if they win and the other three players split it if they won. Anyway, the point is that if someone has all of the schemes (or at least all of the ones that are good for Commander), suggesting switching up Commander nights every now and again might be a good idea. It’s always good to renew the games a bit to keep everything fresh. If you found the balance to be off when the Archenemy picked their own schemes for their scheme deck, try the other suggestions I’ve given. And if you’re tired of Archenemy, perhaps you should try one of the two variants I talked about. The format really offers a lot more than it appears at first glance.