Casual

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Casual refers to Magic: The Gathering players who are in various ways either less experienced, enfranchised, or competitive.[1]

Description

Casual players play playing Magic without an attempt to enter a DCI-sanctioned tournament. Casual players, making up a significant majority of the customer base for the game, are generally more concerned about having fun than winning. Casual games are often played with theme decks that possess a unifying idea, image, or motif, repeated or developed throughout. Kitchen table or “cards I own” is the most popular way to play the game.[2]

Casual Constructed

Casual Constructed is Magic play where the decks tend to be lower in power level, synergy, and polish.[1] These decks tend not to be "netdecks" (i.e., decks people copied from other people, usually on the internet) and are more influenced by what cards individually appealed to the deck builders. They are sometimes labeled with a format name (usually whatever format happens to include all the cards in the deck) but nowhere close to the potency of competitive decks.

Casual formats

Casual formats or variants are mostly invented by players. Some of them, like Commander, have been endorsed by Wizards of the Coast and received official rules and ban lists. Others like Conspiracy Draft were conceived by Wizards to mix up the gaming experience.

While some casual formats are sanctioned for Magic Online, people have started playing these formats with real cards (e.g., Pauper). Like the DCI-sanctioned formats, most casual variants are Constructed, Limited, and Multiplayer formats.[3]

Rules

There are a few casual variants which are described in the comprehensive rules:

From the Comprehensive Rules (June 7, 2024—Modern Horizons 3)

  • 900. General
    • 900.1. This section contains additional optional rules that can be used for certain casual game variants. It is by no means comprehensive.
    • 900.2. The casual variants detailed here use supplemental zones, rules, cards, and other game implements not used in traditional Magic games.

References

  1. a b Mark Rosewater (January 10, 2022). "Even More Words From R&D". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
  2. Mark Rosewater (May 4, 2021). "In terms of popularity or volume of play is the...". Blogatog. Tumblr.
  3. Wizards of the Coast (August 11, 2008). "Casual Formats". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.

External links