Grand Melee

Template:Navigation CR Grand Melee is a casual multiplayer format for Magic: the Gathering where you can play a game with ten or more players at the same time. It is a variant of Free-for-All.

Players sit around the table exactly as they would for a Free-for-All game, choosing their seats randomly. Unlike that variant, however, each player has a "range of influence" of 1. This means their spells and abilities can affect only themselves and players within one seat of their own: the player directly to the left and the player directly to the right. For the most part, everyone else in the game is treated as though they didn't exist. For example, if you play Wrath of God, it'll destroy only the creatures controlled by you and your two neighbors, and if you play Coalition Victory, it'll cause only your two neighbors to lose the game. Furthermore, players are allowed to attack only the player immediately to their left.

The most innovative twist in Grand Melee is that the variant allows multiple players to take turns at the same time! Rotating "turn markers" keep track of which players are currently taking turns. Each turn marker, which can be represented by a button or coin or anything else you have handy, represents an active player's turn. There is one turn marker for each full four players in the game, meaning a Grand Melee game with 16 players has four turn markers, while a game with 15 players has three turn markers.

The player who starts the game gets the first turn marker. The player four seats to that player's left (the fifth player) takes the second turn marker, and so on until all the turn markers have been handed out. Each turn marker is assigned a number in this way. Then all players with turn markers start their turns at the same time. When a player ends his or her turn, that player passes the turn marker to the player on his or her left. A player can't receive a turn marker if the player the three seats to his or her left already has one. If this is the case, the turn marker waits until the player four seats to his or her left takes the other turn marker. If an effect gives a player an extra turn and that player currently has a turn marker, he or she holds on to the marker and takes that turn. If it's not that player's turn, however, that player instead takes the extra turn immediately before his or her next turn.

If a player leaves the game and that player's leaving would reduce the number of turn markers in the game, a turn marker is removed. This doesn't happen immediately; turn markers are removed only between turns. The turn marker that's removed is the one closest to the departed player's right. If more than one player has left the game and there are multiple turn markers that could be removed, remove the marker with the lower number.

The last player to survive wins!