As this year’s CAWS reaches its end, I can’t help but noticing that wherever I look on the forum, we always (or so) play Codex the usual way. Both players pick their Codex, randomize first player, and there we go !
Obviously it’s a very good way to play, and the one intended by Sirlin, for what we know. And yet, most of card games I know of, whether collectible, living, tradable or so, have several formats to play with. And I think Codex is perfectly designed to do the same - and maybe even more so !
Why that ? Because of Codex’s specificity: you don’t pre-build a X-cards deck before the game, but you do so while you play. This offers varieties of format than even Magic can only dream of.
For now I suggest 4 alternative formats that fit, imho, to a ‘competitive’ approach and so could lead to a tournament. There must me may more options I didn’t think of, though, so any idea is more than welcome.
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Random pick
This has been played several times, and even once as a tournament. This may lead to very unbalanced games, but generally it forces us to try and find out combos and synergies with specs we don’t play together. -
Driver, not the car
Each player builds his Codex as usual and submits it to the organizer; then, they randomly recieves one of the submitted Codexes, but not theirs, and plays with it throughout the whole tournament. Eventually, you sum up hom many games you won and how many games your deck did, and the best total wins the tournament. -
Draft
Ne deck required to enter the tournament. Instead, after pairing, each player chooses their specs alternatively: P2 chooses starter and first spec, P1 picks starter and two specs, P2 selects their last two specs, then P1 ends it by choosing their last spec and starts the game. To represent counter-drafting strategy, P1 and P2 must have different specs, ie when a player chooses a spec, the other can’t pick it. -
Worst Possible Codex
You choose what your opponent plays ! It can work either as draft - except you pick your opponent’s specs instead of yours -, as Driver, not the car (but this time, you sum up how many times you win and how many times your deck loses ! This one is my absolute favorite) or as standard - you build your Codex for the whole tournament, but you play against it and not with it.
I believe it should be quite exciting to play this kind of tournaments, and I’m fine organizing some if there are enough attendance. I really hope there will be !