Here are the links to all three of Nick Floyd's original designs. Forgetful Fish: docs.google.com/document/d/1nLLsrRfv6qRvri8zIHnxqUjOeUGS-o_izVicthyRzYM/edit Rock-Paper-Scissors: docs.google.com/document/d/1z2AEeOtbwzM_dplDE-60iUjH0_pbZXd8_-smYEATovc/edit Trippin': docs.google.com/document/d/1Cf4NFx1ZlHE1ISS7aYYnbrBTR6H30yYbKax5iubK3qI/edit
This is the original creator, Nick Floyd. I’m thrilled it caught a following finally. Try the other two, especially the three player RPS if you enjoy multiplayer like Commander.
@RhysticStudies Let's see if this cast works. Nick, I took a look at your other variants and I absolutely love the design of Trippin'! Alongside a Forgetful Fish set, I am absolutely making and modifying a Trippin' set to play with my campus playgroup. If I'm not mistaken, these three games are built around the concepts of card advantage, board state, and game politics, correct? I'm inspired to go make my own custom format!
A funny line, but I just stopped checking that email and should have changed it. But I’m thrilled it caught a following. Try the other two, especially RPS if you enjoy multiplayer like Commander.
I think I may have found Nick Floyd's email. Sam emailed what was provided in the document, but I think it was misspelt based off of what was shown in the video.
"the second response ignore's Floyd's message" is such a succinct way of describing interacting on a forum post 80% of the time. People just seem incapable of answering the question asked or not reading every post as an opportunity to offer unsolicited advice.
I didn't see it at the time, but watching Sam's video made me see the post about "Playing Magic Solitaire" was likely a dig at me. "Please try my games." "Nah, play by yourself ya loser." Ouch. Well, if it was an insult, I guess I won in the end. Dandan lives!
Nick Floyd, You are the man who plants trees not knowing their shade, we will take up your Forgetful Fish/Dandan and pass it on. And thank you too RS for another delve on the Treasure Cruise
Yeah, the shared deck archtype opens up so many possibilities. I might have to make a discord for brewing, discussing, and finding games in this space if one doesn't exist yet. The last list I was working on centered around three copies of Shahrazad, which opens up some very interesting gameplay if you're into that.😅
Some time in the early 2000s I was sitting around at Sci-Fi city in Orlando, waiting for our big multiplayer casual MTG games to start. Some guy I didn't know asked if I wanted to play a fun magic variant and it was this very format. I wish I remembered his name, but he was well known at the time for building funky decks. He had a set of decks centered around Rock Lobster, Scissors Lizard, and Paper Tiger all designed to play a 3 player free-for-all. He had an entire deck made from non-standard sized magic cards. We played a couple games and he absolutely crushed me every time. I slowly started getting the idea of timing my spells around when I could draw or deny him from drawing. I even won one game where I resolved an early dandan and had enough counters and removal to properly sequence enough swings. I felt super accomplished that I had finally figured out the process of the format. This video brought back a lot of memories. I hope that guy is still doing well, still making weird decks and weird formats, and playing with weird cards.
That was me! Nick Floyd. Those were the variant decks I posted. Forgetful Fish, Trippin, and Rock, Paper, Scissors online in 2016. You played RPS. I still have the giant deck too. I’m hoping people try my other variants too.
@@NicksMagicstorytime Holy shit, really? What are the fucking odds??? That's awesome to hear man. Those weird quirky formats were fun to play on the occasionally times we played. I didn't truly appreciate the quirks of variant formats back then as I was still learning the game itself.
@@overmused Yeah. Small world. I lived in Orlando for 6 months in 2000 working for the mouse and a year and a half in 2004-2005 going to school. It is cool to reconnect with someone I introduced my variants to back then. Magic is my favorite game of all time because it is so modular and robust. I love experimenting with weird variants. I hope people discover the other two and try them out too.
When I started playing in 1998 I did'nt understand the card's art, I thought the two boats was some sort of broken hour glass and did'nt pay too much attention to the background. Many players in my region used to play mono blue, almost all of them had a few copies in the sideboard. Once I was watching a mono blue mirror and was able to recognize the giant fish lurking bellow... it was terrifying! I told the players and them where surprised as well, imagine swimming in those waters with a creature of that size lurking bellow. Those were the days of OG MTG art.
Just wanna shout out Braden who taught you DanDan, I sold off all my commander decks to him during SCGcon dallas last year, used those to finally buy into my favorite modern decks. Dude was a blast to talk to through the whole process, had a lot of cards to sell so we were talking for nearly an hour. Then he convinced me to get a playset of onslaught wooded foothills for jund, still my favorite part of the deck to this day
Did you consider modifying the email address linked in the Google Doc? The Reddit account he made to post it has an I in his last name but the version in the doc did not. I'd really love for Nick, wherever he is right now, to be able to find out that people are loving his format.
I saw and I'm thrilled. Thanks everyone. Try the other two. And maybe I'll make docs for a couple other variants I've deigned, though they may not be as "polished" as those three.
I can't believe that a small idea like that ended up leading to and blossoming into my most played game of my entire life, DotA2. I was just left in awe. I love this RUclips channel sooo much. Don't ever stop making content bro. You're a gem.
This is my favorite video you've covered. The Game within Game message, the history and respect for Nick, the exposure of such a cool sub game of magic. Thank you for your art.
I built a forgetful fish deck last year, and it is far and away the best variant I've played in a while. I've had some epicly long games going back and forth with the stack.
As a hobbyist game designer, it never occurred to me to make a separate game out of existing magic cards, but that is kind of amazingly brilliant. This isn't even really a different game, so much as a "scenario" as it would be called in tabletop wargames. The rules are all exactly the same except the cards are set ahead of time and the one tweak of sharing a library. We played a few shared library magic games back in the day, but never stumbled onto this kind of interesting interaction, so it quickly lost our interest. I hope people keep brewing games like this, with Magic's huge catalog, there are innumerable other derivative games that could be quite fun. I like how you called out Commander as another example. Now the most popular format, it came from one person's idea to change a few rules.
Additionally, there's a half-dozen other "scenarios" in Nick's primer... not to mention those other two formats mentioned, each with their own handful of variations
I collect the artwork Drew Tucker, Dandan has been a favourite of mine for a while, I'm sure you an imagine the big ol' smile on my face when I saw this in my feed
Ah geez I'm going to have to try this now aren't I? Your ability to constantly put the spotlight on all the little ways to love Magic is amazing as always.
I've been waiting for the day you cover this weird little format. I got into it a few years ago and I'm so glad it's getting the recognition it deserves! It's a really beautiful format
Dude I'm so excited to try this out. I hope Nick sees how many people tried it and loved it. This seems like such a fun way to experience magic and a great way to re/introduce people to the game. And also thank you Sam for another great video. And for introducing me to Dandân 🐟
I tried this format today with my friend and it was a blast! We played the tempo variant that you listed as a "fan favorite" and we had a ton of fun throughout 3 games. We proxied the deck (shh) and will definitely keep it on hand for future games. Thank you for sharing this story!
I'm so stoked to see someone dig up the pre-dota history of MOBAs, I haven't heard the name Aeon of Strife in years and years. You always find the relevant angle and give us quality content about MTG. The videos you make are in a league of their own.
Great vid about the history of the deck and thanks for linking my vid in the description! ❤️ Found out about this format, after someone bought my foil Dandân on Cardmarket. I googled why anyone would pay 10 buck for such a silly card. 😂 The format sparked my interest and I just had to build this deck myself! Played with several people already and even some who haven’t played Magic in years or don’t even play Magic. Their feedback was throughout positive. The restrictions of the deck and repeating cards/effects make it easy for anyone to understand. The intricacies of the interactions come with experience, as you’ve also mentioned. Bringing it everywhere with me since a quick round be played within around of 20-30 mins!
I'm really happy I jumped on the dandan train early. Its popularity is beginning to pick up and its gonna start getting pricey instead of just being a 30$ deck
Luckily for unsanctioned formats such as this, creative / cash-strapped players always have the option for custom proxies. I saw a really cool hand-drawn deck for this format awhile back on reddit, though sadly I don't have a link or anything since it seems my Google-Fu might be weak and a quick search hasn't yet turned it up. Huzzah for alternatives!!
@J4mieJ while absolute pro-proxy and i would never turn someone down or call someone out for proxying even at a real event, its not a choice i typically make for myself personally. All power to anyone that wants to though!
Quite the insightful video on a lesser-known MTG variant. And the closing line about the designer's email address was a stroke of genius. Keep up the good work.
My partner and I play chess together for fun every once in a while. Neither of us really know any "chess strategy," and we can start to overthink our moves, which sucks the fun out of it. To loosen up, we'll play a variant we call "Dumbass Chess." We make up new rules together, like we can take two turns at once, or we must protect a particular piece. I'm glad you shared Nick's game variant!
This sounds super fun. Do you have any favorite rules to share? It would be cool to make a "spin the wheel" where any 2-3 rules generate bizarre chess minigames
If you aren't averse to other types of chess, I highly suggest you try out some of the smaller Shogi variants. They might require you to make your own cardboard/plastic/wooden pieces, but the games are so cool and the shogi thing of being able to redeploy captured pieces is a nice layer to chess-type gameplay! I recommend Judkins Shogi, Mini Shogi, Kyoto Shogi, Goro Goro Shogi. These are the ones I played with friends for a while and have made wooden pieces for. Tori and Whale Shogi variants look fun too, though I didn't have opportunities to try them out
I'd also like to suggest you try Thai/Cambodian chess called "Makruk" - it's like an in-between chess variant settled in time aomewhere between original Indian rules and modern European ones. You can play it with regular chess set too!
This format sounds absolutely fantastic. One aspect I always loved about magic was original deckbuilding. But when you're building a Dandan deck, you're not just designing one half of the game, you get to design the entire game. Also since you're sharing a deck it's always fair (except maybe that the deckbuilder knows the deck better), which usually isn't easily achieved in casual formats. I also just adore how easily it's for magic players to get into, despite offering quite the different experience.
This feels special to me cause my nickname growing up was Dandan and it was an inside joke around the lgs to sneak a dandan into my deck box or in my bag constantly lmao One day someone gave me a foil Dandan and have kept it and cherished it to this day haha
Great video about a lot more than just a single game format... I did wish that it ended with Nick hearing about the formats good health, but I guess we'll just to have to wait for a follow-up one day :)
@@NicksMagicstorytime I'm so glad that you have seen it! I think it's so important that creators get to know their effort was more than worth it! And this video will have introduced so many more players to it (myself included!). Thanks for putting all that work into the original document/design!
Once again, that was a hell of a journey Sam and I had no idea this format existed. I've always been fascinated by the illustration on this card back when I discovered the game. It was way different than any kind of sea serpent or kraken or leviathan, have always found something mysterious but also vulnerable and familiar in this creature. Somehow reminds me of my koi fishes to be honest. Cool and intriguing format for sure. Cheers!
Definitely going to get some forgetful fish lists. Looks really fun. Captures the out of the box card game vibe that I think a lot of less active magic players love. Gives you a nice taste of magics complexity, but without confusing new players. Makes the cat and mouse poker back and forth statistics games of magic a lot more clear and approachable. Honestly a great design
This kind of stuff is why I love Magic. Being able to look at the game's history and it's backlog of tens of thousands of cards and using it to invent your own format. It allows you to embrace the feeling of being a game designer, like using a video game engine and making a game with stock assets. I've played a couple other card/board games recently that use a "shared deck," in addition to other Magic fan-formats like Judge's Tower and Battle-Box. Those formats have all been super fun, and really re-sparked my enthusiasm for this game in general. Will definitely try Dandan. I also made the 'convenient' mistake of purchasing a deckbox that holds two "80+" card decks instead of 100+. I was originally intending to use it for commander, but now I have another use for it.
I actually did something similar to this in YuGiOh. A friend and I played the same Exodia list, but the idea was to force your opponent to win with Exodia. We called it Exodia hot potato and it the most fun either of us have every had in YuGiOh to this day.
@@fortidogi8620 its a constant guessing game of what exodia pieces you need to give your opponent. You need to keep track of what you tutored from your deck already and what your opponent has given you. There ends up being a lot of nuance involved
My five cents on why Dandan is so cool is that it takes away a lot of the stuff that is frustrating about MTG. Since both use the same Deck, it’s basically impossible to get Mana Screwed, a lucky or unlucky hand bears little to no weight and your opponent can’t steamroll you because they spent Mom’s last three paychecks on strictly better cards. The whole concept just sort of levels the playing field, and that makes it feel so satisfying.
This reminds me of one of my first magic decks. It became known as the “blue schlong” and consisted almost entirely of counters and bounce spells with the only creatures being Wall of Frost and Shipbreaker Kraken as a late game bomb as well as some manifest for early pressure.
Thanks Rhystic Studies for introducing this format to everyone. Just bought my own copy of cards needed to play Forgetful Fish. These are the kinds of things that make me love mtg and really highlight the beauty of the game mechanics plus the joy of collecting the paper prints. Extra bonus that Nick Floyd is in the comments too!
@@DigitalinDaniel you want a deck where sometimes, opening the right morph punishes your opponent. Unstable Hulk is the only example I have right now of a hard, negative unmorphing. Liege of the Pit is also a possibility. With the manifest mechanic, I can also imagine a game where you control the top of the library so that your opponent gets a bad card to manifest and then unflip, like Archfiend of the Dross
I played this the first time last month. I’ve got a buddy that has been collecting Dandan forever. Drew Tucker taught an art class at our college and he just really liked the art.
Oh my god, this is incredible. The amount of thought that's gone into this format is so endearing, now I really wanna mess around with the concept of a shared deck.
I just want to say that I appreciate your use of white border lands in the video. I know some people want all their cards to match, or at least be black border. But when I build a deck I actually like to have individual versions for every card, when that’s possible of course. That includes my basic lands, and even in EDH decks. I see white border lands like whitewall tires on a classic car. It adds an element of class. I don’t want all my cards to be white border, but a world with no white border cards is a less interesting world to me.
Possibly the best MTG Documentary around, watched this so many times. I have been looking forward to my Dandan deck arriving even more than most of my high end Commander cards.
I love this video so much. I've never played Dandan but I'm gonna proxy a deck ASAP. To Nick Floyd: Thank you, people are enjoying your super fun format
As someone who just has started to put my feet in the lake of game design, this is an awesome video and one of my favorites of this channel! And that's hard to say
This might be a great format to teach an absolute noob. It's slow enough to learn each card and it's nuances, and fast enough to not be overwhelming. I like it!
Dandan is an interesting concept. Thank you for sharing this. It's fun to see so many variaties pop-up over time. In a way this format is similar to one of my favorite commander decks: Way back in the first Innistrad, the rivalry between Gisa and her brother Geralf inspired me to make a deck featuring them both (their joined card did not yet exist) - the twist being that you could also play a game with only this deck and just two players. One player plays Gisa as their commander and the other plays Geralf, you both play from the same library and the same graveyard. The deck features a lot of stitched monsters that could be played from graveyards or needed you to discard cards in addition to put them onto the battlefield, which would not just be a boost for you but also a threat if your opponent has the means to reanimate whatever you discarded. Back then Grimgrin was the commander whenever I played it as a regular EDH deck. However, nowadays I play it with the card Gisa and Geralf and just put that card aside whenever we play this alternative version of one-on-one commander with just this deck.
after quite some testing: Vision charm is not an issue. And it doesn't stop players from playing more than 1 dandan. As 2 dandan present a significant clock and make blocking dandans futile. sure if your opponent has one of the 2 charms, then that's bad for you. but that's always true.
I feel genuinely bad for him, as all he wanted to do was share his 'child' with the world and he went vastly ignored. Now, its finally getting the ever deserved attention he so wanted it to gain all that time ago. I'm absolutely going to be trying dandân, and making it a staple in my group!
I thought I saw you at magic 30 in Philly! I was too nervous to say hi, but now that I've seen some of those pictures and the area you were sitting I know it was you. I wish I said hi, but maybe another day. I love your videos so much, they've changed my perspective on magic the gathering and I can't thank you enough.
I've always loved designing games, especially card games, and watching this has inspired me to design a new format. Great video, also probably gonna pick up a Forgetful Fish deck myself!
When I was a kid, I used to design games all the time and I’m still amazed at some of the ones I created. Sadly, every game I’ve made was lost to time (probably because of how disorganized I was as a kid). I’m also an old YuGiOh player though, but stopped playing anything new around 2014. However, I distinctly remember an old YuGiTuber video where these guys play with a “War Duel” shared deck of terrible cards. A couple years ago, a tweaked the concept with some old cards I had laying around. All super simple cards, no tutoring, no extra deck, starting hand size of 1. It’s the closest I’ve ever felt to the game I played when I was 7 or 8 years old. Recently, I’ve started designing my own cards to put in the deck. Some of them are even Magic cards adapted to YuGiOh counterparts. It’s funny how I’m coming back to a form of my game design roots 20 years later.
Relatable ADHD stuff ngl. When I went to a Magic club regularly I had a bunch of Magic variants with my boyfriend at the time, some I made some he made. He made something similar to this but around plague rats and black removal/weakening spells instead. My one I remember most fondly was just combining it with chess, where moving each piece required casting a spell first. Some turns your opponent couldn't move at all. Other turns you'd deliberately cast stuff with no target just to make another chess move. We also had a variant of Yugioh with OG manga inspired "rules", aka it was vibes based and normal monsters had whatever effects you could justify based on the flavour text and the card art. Which made them a lot more powerful than the effect monsters 😁 haha
recently played this at SCG Philly with some friends - not only was it some of the most fun (winning games with both combat, and decking, crazy manipulations). The best part for me was playing at the center and having people walk by and comment about how much they love dandan! Such a niche game that had a following :) Thanks for bringing more attention to it!
i was on tapped out, and found these decks around when they came out. i used the ideas of them to build my own little game, built around a conspiracy, where everyone shares a deck. Things like this make me happy, it really just pushes magic over the edge from just a game into a system you can use for different projects
Somebody else waits for a new video of Rhystic Studies as the new season of your fav series? These videos are great, I am even checking right now card stocks to make my own Dandan deck
Wonderful video, such a cool and unique way to play Magic! I want a Dandan deck now! It also makes me want to work on my own format in the hopes that it becomes even half as popular as Dandan so that one day a youtuber like you might make a video on it :)
Designing cube is a one-of-a-kind experience and I really love how you put the effort of designing something new within the game into words. Thank you!
Quick note on the Aeon Of Strife Anecdote. The game is actually predated by LAPD Future Cop which has the same mechanics and gameplay, and likely served as inspiration
Thanks! It feels really great to see that this finality got noticed by the community. I knew it had potential to find a following. It was always so much fun. The other two I have released are also great. I really love my Rock, Paper, Scissors one. Has some of the same feel as Forgetful Fish/Dandan.
This is such a special video. As a software engineer with an English degree and an undying love for games, the storytelling, the creativity, the history, and the nostalgia all coalesce to make something that leaves me with all the good feels.
i’m not super into magic but this was still an incredibly done video. it didnt overstay its welcome, had absolutely amazing research even in the places where it didnt need it like the backstory of mobas and having the HD card art alongside a watermark; it’s all just incredibly well done
A format I like to play with a friend of mine is something we call The Promo Pack Game. Each player’s deck is three cards, you start with 5 life, and in place of lands, you always have infinite mana. You start with two cards in your hand, Rock Paper Scissors for who goes first. The games are obviously over fast, but it’s a more entertaining way to open promo packs. I got destroyed by a turn one Shivam Devastator last Sunday. Playing with regular packs makes things even more interesting as you can use the cards in your two set or draft packs to form 3-4 decks, which can open the door to some really cool synergy potential.
Here are the links to all three of Nick Floyd's original designs.
Forgetful Fish:
docs.google.com/document/d/1nLLsrRfv6qRvri8zIHnxqUjOeUGS-o_izVicthyRzYM/edit
Rock-Paper-Scissors:
docs.google.com/document/d/1z2AEeOtbwzM_dplDE-60iUjH0_pbZXd8_-smYEATovc/edit
Trippin':
docs.google.com/document/d/1Cf4NFx1ZlHE1ISS7aYYnbrBTR6H30yYbKax5iubK3qI/edit
Hell yeah!
Thanks for the links!
please do an analysis of RPS and Trippin'
Honestly, I'm excited to try out the format!
Imagine an Artifact creature based Dandân
This is the original creator, Nick Floyd. I’m thrilled it caught a following finally. Try the other two, especially the three player RPS if you enjoy multiplayer like Commander.
Whoa, this is awesome! Can I cast @RhysticStudies here for attention?
It doesn't seem to work. But let me still try to bring this comment to the top.
I love the game you've created nick :)
@RhysticStudies Let's see if this cast works.
Nick, I took a look at your other variants and I absolutely love the design of Trippin'! Alongside a Forgetful Fish set, I am absolutely making and modifying a Trippin' set to play with my campus playgroup.
If I'm not mistaken, these three games are built around the concepts of card advantage, board state, and game politics, correct? I'm inspired to go make my own custom format!
the most in-character reply possible lol. Love your variant man
"it seems nick floyd had memory lapse up" is such a banger line...
For reaaal 😂
Lapse piles on the stack are one of my favorite parts of Dandan.
How? It's wack.
A funny line, but I just stopped checking that email and should have changed it. But I’m thrilled it caught a following. Try the other two, especially RPS if you enjoy multiplayer like Commander.
@@NicksMagicstorytime THE MAN HIMSELF!?
@@NicksMagicstorytime the myth the legend the forgetful fish????
I hope this video finds Nick Floyd someday... totally printing a proxy deck and gonna bring it with me to music festivals
Yes please do.
@@adintijerina7596 oh , sorry... sure ill stop... my bad
praying he finds this and accepts an interview. would love to hear his reaction on how his esoteric format has found a receptive audience
@@who_what interview or not, I really just want him to have the knowledge that his format has found success 🥺
I think I may have found Nick Floyd's email. Sam emailed what was provided in the document, but I think it was misspelt based off of what was shown in the video.
Hey Sam, Cal here. It was great to play with you & show you this silly little thing. Can’t wait to play again. Loved the vid. :)
Knew I'd see you here ;)
Sounds kinda gay.
this video spurred my interest in this! Thanks for showing them this game and helping further pass along DanDan!
Would be funny to see a Dandan game on Playing With Power
"the second response ignore's Floyd's message" is such a succinct way of describing interacting on a forum post 80% of the time. People just seem incapable of answering the question asked or not reading every post as an opportunity to offer unsolicited advice.
I didn't see it at the time, but watching Sam's video made me see the post about "Playing Magic Solitaire" was likely a dig at me. "Please try my games." "Nah, play by yourself ya loser." Ouch. Well, if it was an insult, I guess I won in the end. Dandan lives!
Nick Floyd, You are the man who plants trees not knowing their shade, we will take up your Forgetful Fish/Dandan and pass it on.
And thank you too RS for another delve on the Treasure Cruise
I feel like Dandan started out of a desire to give previously useless but mechanically interesting cards a home.
(An islandhome, in this case.)
Yeah, the shared deck archtype opens up so many possibilities. I might have to make a discord for brewing, discussing, and finding games in this space if one doesn't exist yet.
The last list I was working on centered around three copies of Shahrazad, which opens up some very interesting gameplay if you're into that.😅
As somebody who designs micro-games, I know that struggle. Glad Nick got his work out into the world.
Some time in the early 2000s I was sitting around at Sci-Fi city in Orlando, waiting for our big multiplayer casual MTG games to start. Some guy I didn't know asked if I wanted to play a fun magic variant and it was this very format. I wish I remembered his name, but he was well known at the time for building funky decks. He had a set of decks centered around Rock Lobster, Scissors Lizard, and Paper Tiger all designed to play a 3 player free-for-all. He had an entire deck made from non-standard sized magic cards.
We played a couple games and he absolutely crushed me every time. I slowly started getting the idea of timing my spells around when I could draw or deny him from drawing. I even won one game where I resolved an early dandan and had enough counters and removal to properly sequence enough swings. I felt super accomplished that I had finally figured out the process of the format.
This video brought back a lot of memories. I hope that guy is still doing well, still making weird decks and weird formats, and playing with weird cards.
That was me! Nick Floyd. Those were the variant decks I posted. Forgetful Fish, Trippin, and Rock, Paper, Scissors online in 2016. You played RPS. I still have the giant deck too. I’m hoping people try my other variants too.
@@NicksMagicstorytime Holy shit, really? What are the fucking odds???
That's awesome to hear man. Those weird quirky formats were fun to play on the occasionally times we played. I didn't truly appreciate the quirks of variant formats back then as I was still learning the game itself.
@@overmused Yeah. Small world. I lived in Orlando for 6 months in 2000 working for the mouse and a year and a half in 2004-2005 going to school. It is cool to reconnect with someone I introduced my variants to back then. Magic is my favorite game of all time because it is so modular and robust. I love experimenting with weird variants. I hope people discover the other two and try them out too.
Man every time I feel like putting magic behind me forever... here comes Samsâm with the beautiful message of fun, community-driven gameplay
one does not simply stop playing mtg
When I started playing in 1998 I did'nt understand the card's art, I thought the two boats was some sort of broken hour glass and did'nt pay too much attention to the background. Many players in my region used to play mono blue, almost all of them had a few copies in the sideboard. Once I was watching a mono blue mirror and was able to recognize the giant fish lurking bellow... it was terrifying! I told the players and them where surprised as well, imagine swimming in those waters with a creature of that size lurking bellow. Those were the days of OG MTG art.
I thought the same thing about the art!
I am nostalgic for this kind of mtg art appreciation. Love that you shared this story !
I was in Philly, like two tables from Sam, while Braden and Cal were teaching him Dandân. This has now become another cool memory from Philly.
Just wanna shout out Braden who taught you DanDan, I sold off all my commander decks to him during SCGcon dallas last year, used those to finally buy into my favorite modern decks. Dude was a blast to talk to through the whole process, had a lot of cards to sell so we were talking for nearly an hour. Then he convinced me to get a playset of onslaught wooded foothills for jund, still my favorite part of the deck to this day
Did you consider modifying the email address linked in the Google Doc? The Reddit account he made to post it has an I in his last name but the version in the doc did not. I'd really love for Nick, wherever he is right now, to be able to find out that people are loving his format.
I was so sad when my email to him bounced back :(
Give it a shot, we're waiting on your results!
I sent an Edit Access Request to Nick Floyd, and I included a link to this video in the request. Hopefully he sees it!
@@thomascheckie2394 that's a smart idea.
I saw and I'm thrilled. Thanks everyone. Try the other two. And maybe I'll make docs for a couple other variants I've deigned, though they may not be as "polished" as those three.
The original Memory Lapse is probably in my top 5 favorite card art, so seeing it so prominent in this video put on smile on my face.
It gives me immense joy that the creator of the format saw his work to fruition
I can't believe that a small idea like that ended up leading to and blossoming into my most played game of my entire life, DotA2. I was just left in awe. I love this RUclips channel sooo much. Don't ever stop making content bro. You're a gem.
This is my favorite video you've covered. The Game within Game message, the history and respect for Nick, the exposure of such a cool sub game of magic.
Thank you for your art.
this
I built a forgetful fish deck last year, and it is far and away the best variant I've played in a while. I've had some epicly long games going back and forth with the stack.
As a hobbyist game designer, it never occurred to me to make a separate game out of existing magic cards, but that is kind of amazingly brilliant. This isn't even really a different game, so much as a "scenario" as it would be called in tabletop wargames. The rules are all exactly the same except the cards are set ahead of time and the one tweak of sharing a library.
We played a few shared library magic games back in the day, but never stumbled onto this kind of interesting interaction, so it quickly lost our interest.
I hope people keep brewing games like this, with Magic's huge catalog, there are innumerable other derivative games that could be quite fun.
I like how you called out Commander as another example. Now the most popular format, it came from one person's idea to change a few rules.
Additionally, there's a half-dozen other "scenarios" in Nick's primer... not to mention those other two formats mentioned, each with their own handful of variations
I collect the artwork Drew Tucker, Dandan has been a favourite of mine for a while, I'm sure you an imagine the big ol' smile on my face when I saw this in my feed
Ah geez I'm going to have to try this now aren't I? Your ability to constantly put the spotlight on all the little ways to love Magic is amazing as always.
I've been waiting for the day you cover this weird little format. I got into it a few years ago and I'm so glad it's getting the recognition it deserves! It's a really beautiful format
Two videos in a row what a blessing😭
Just when I was about to go the f*ck to sleep - this drops!
Same. Let's share in the joy.
Dude I'm so excited to try this out. I hope Nick sees how many people tried it and loved it.
This seems like such a fun way to experience magic and a great way to re/introduce people to the game.
And also thank you Sam for another great video. And for introducing me to Dandân 🐟
I tried this format today with my friend and it was a blast! We played the tempo variant that you listed as a "fan favorite" and we had a ton of fun throughout 3 games. We proxied the deck (shh) and will definitely keep it on hand for future games. Thank you for sharing this story!
I'd always thought that Dandan referred to the Jaws theme.
Dandan Dandan Dandan Dandan Dandan Dandan
Dandân player for years. Love the attention it's getting
Two players, one Deck.
The legendary Danger Room format!
Two Wizards One Deck 😮
I'm so stoked to see someone dig up the pre-dota history of MOBAs, I haven't heard the name Aeon of Strife in years and years. You always find the relevant angle and give us quality content about MTG. The videos you make are in a league of their own.
Every single video on this channel is gold of the most refined purity. I can’t wait to try Dandán.
Great vid about the history of the deck and thanks for linking my vid in the description! ❤️
Found out about this format, after someone bought my foil Dandân on Cardmarket. I googled why anyone would pay 10 buck for such a silly card. 😂
The format sparked my interest and I just had to build this deck myself! Played with several people already and even some who haven’t played Magic in years or don’t even play Magic. Their feedback was throughout positive. The restrictions of the deck and repeating cards/effects make it easy for anyone to understand. The intricacies of the interactions come with experience, as you’ve also mentioned. Bringing it everywhere with me since a quick round be played within around of 20-30 mins!
I'm really happy I jumped on the dandan train early. Its popularity is beginning to pick up and its gonna start getting pricey instead of just being a 30$ deck
Luckily for unsanctioned formats such as this, creative / cash-strapped players always have the option for custom proxies. I saw a really cool hand-drawn deck for this format awhile back on reddit, though sadly I don't have a link or anything since it seems my Google-Fu might be weak and a quick search hasn't yet turned it up. Huzzah for alternatives!!
@J4mieJ while absolute pro-proxy and i would never turn someone down or call someone out for proxying even at a real event, its not a choice i typically make for myself personally. All power to anyone that wants to though!
Quite the insightful video on a lesser-known MTG variant. And the closing line about the designer's email address was a stroke of genius. Keep up the good work.
I've actually designed a mono black variant that focuses all around Barrow Ghoul, it's an absolute blast. I have a video up for it.
This is a fantastic dandan variant! Check it out!! ruclips.net/video/13OVmKN0eXw/видео.html
TAKE MY LIKE
everyone go subscribe to this it’s actually so cool❤
@@bionicnomad ❤ thanks so much!
I did a GU version that focuses on Temporal Spring, Reclaim, and Memory Lapse. Soothsaying and Long-Term Plans are other notables.
My partner and I play chess together for fun every once in a while. Neither of us really know any "chess strategy," and we can start to overthink our moves, which sucks the fun out of it. To loosen up, we'll play a variant we call "Dumbass Chess." We make up new rules together, like we can take two turns at once, or we must protect a particular piece. I'm glad you shared Nick's game variant!
This sounds super fun. Do you have any favorite rules to share? It would be cool to make a "spin the wheel" where any 2-3 rules generate bizarre chess minigames
If you aren't averse to other types of chess, I highly suggest you try out some of the smaller Shogi variants. They might require you to make your own cardboard/plastic/wooden pieces, but the games are so cool and the shogi thing of being able to redeploy captured pieces is a nice layer to chess-type gameplay!
I recommend Judkins Shogi, Mini Shogi, Kyoto Shogi, Goro Goro Shogi. These are the ones I played with friends for a while and have made wooden pieces for. Tori and Whale Shogi variants look fun too, though I didn't have opportunities to try them out
I'd also like to suggest you try Thai/Cambodian chess called "Makruk" - it's like an in-between chess variant settled in time aomewhere between original Indian rules and modern European ones. You can play it with regular chess set too!
Glad to see a quality, in-depth video on this format! Great work!
I really hope more people give Dandan a shot, it’s a lot of fun!
This format sounds absolutely fantastic. One aspect I always loved about magic was original deckbuilding. But when you're building a Dandan deck, you're not just designing one half of the game, you get to design the entire game. Also since you're sharing a deck it's always fair (except maybe that the deckbuilder knows the deck better), which usually isn't easily achieved in casual formats.
I also just adore how easily it's for magic players to get into, despite offering quite the different experience.
This feels special to me cause my nickname growing up was Dandan and it was an inside joke around the lgs to sneak a dandan into my deck box or in my bag constantly lmao One day someone gave me a foil Dandan and have kept it and cherished it to this day haha
This video has had massive waves on the magic community, even less than 2 weeks later, great work Sam!
This is awesome, on my way to build many dandan decks. Thanks for introducing us.
i love how there is ALWAYS SOMETHING NEW to talk about
been playing dandan for over a year, absolutely love the format its great fun!
I quite literally applauded at the ending. Well done. You have The way with words. Cheers.
Great video about a lot more than just a single game format... I did wish that it ended with Nick hearing about the formats good health, but I guess we'll just to have to wait for a follow-up one day :)
It took this video to find out that people were finally trying it. I’m thrilled that I created something people enjoy. Thanks!
@@NicksMagicstorytime I'm so glad that you have seen it! I think it's so important that creators get to know their effort was more than worth it! And this video will have introduced so many more players to it (myself included!). Thanks for putting all that work into the original document/design!
You are an astounding storyteller. The last chapter of this video gave me chills, and teary eyes. Thanks for making these videos
Appreciate how you manage to remind me how much I love this game with every video. Excellent writing
Once again, that was a hell of a journey Sam and I had no idea this format existed. I've always been fascinated by the illustration on this card back when I discovered the game. It was way different than any kind of sea serpent or kraken or leviathan, have always found something mysterious but also vulnerable and familiar in this creature. Somehow reminds me of my koi fishes to be honest. Cool and intriguing format for sure. Cheers!
I played Dandan for the first time in September of 2022 thanks to a friend who had it built in paper. Lovely stuff!
Definitely going to get some forgetful fish lists. Looks really fun. Captures the out of the box card game vibe that I think a lot of less active magic players love. Gives you a nice taste of magics complexity, but without confusing new players. Makes the cat and mouse poker back and forth statistics games of magic a lot more clear and approachable. Honestly a great design
This kind of stuff is why I love Magic. Being able to look at the game's history and it's backlog of tens of thousands of cards and using it to invent your own format. It allows you to embrace the feeling of being a game designer, like using a video game engine and making a game with stock assets. I've played a couple other card/board games recently that use a "shared deck," in addition to other Magic fan-formats like Judge's Tower and Battle-Box. Those formats have all been super fun, and really re-sparked my enthusiasm for this game in general. Will definitely try Dandan. I also made the 'convenient' mistake of purchasing a deckbox that holds two "80+" card decks instead of 100+. I was originally intending to use it for commander, but now I have another use for it.
I actually did something similar to this in YuGiOh. A friend and I played the same Exodia list, but the idea was to force your opponent to win with Exodia. We called it Exodia hot potato and it the most fun either of us have every had in YuGiOh to this day.
thats hilarious, tell more
@@fortidogi8620 its a constant guessing game of what exodia pieces you need to give your opponent. You need to keep track of what you tutored from your deck already and what your opponent has given you. There ends up being a lot of nuance involved
This is by a wide margin the very best Magic content on youtube.
My five cents on why Dandan is so cool is that it takes away a lot of the stuff that is frustrating about MTG. Since both use the same Deck, it’s basically impossible to get Mana Screwed, a lucky or unlucky hand bears little to no weight and your opponent can’t steamroll you because they spent Mom’s last three paychecks on strictly better cards. The whole concept just sort of levels the playing field, and that makes it feel so satisfying.
The free mulligan when having < 2 or > 5 land certainly helps too :)
Cannot wait to try this out, what a brilliant idea
This reminds me of one of my first magic decks. It became known as the “blue schlong” and consisted almost entirely of counters and bounce spells with the only creatures being Wall of Frost and Shipbreaker Kraken as a late game bomb as well as some manifest for early pressure.
Thanks Rhystic Studies for introducing this format to everyone. Just bought my own copy of cards needed to play Forgetful Fish. These are the kinds of things that make me love mtg and really highlight the beauty of the game mechanics plus the joy of collecting the paper prints. Extra bonus that Nick Floyd is in the comments too!
Braden rules!! They used to work here in Philly, I miss them!
I love how your videos put the beauty of these games in front of everything.
This makes me want to make a similar red artifact deck, like a weird "Built From Scratch, Trash For Treasure" Daretti sorta scrapyard battle.
My idea is about morph and the card Break Open. I'll test yours if you test mine
@@androkguz Why would you want to help your opponent morph?
@@DigitalinDaniel you want a deck where sometimes, opening the right morph punishes your opponent. Unstable Hulk is the only example I have right now of a hard, negative unmorphing. Liege of the Pit is also a possibility.
With the manifest mechanic, I can also imagine a game where you control the top of the library so that your opponent gets a bad card to manifest and then unflip, like Archfiend of the Dross
@@androkguz Slipstream Serpent is basically the Dandan of morph haha
Wall of Deceit could be funny, wrestling for an attacker.
I played this the first time last month. I’ve got a buddy that has been collecting Dandan forever. Drew Tucker taught an art class at our college and he just really liked the art.
just built this deck a couple months back, it’s pretty sweet! great video, really love the music
that cardkingdom plug at the beginning was ingenious. i dont think i ve ever seen an ad in a video that also served as a means of introduction.
Oh my god, this is incredible. The amount of thought that's gone into this format is so endearing, now I really wanna mess around with the concept of a shared deck.
I just want to say that I appreciate your use of white border lands in the video.
I know some people want all their cards to match, or at least be black border. But when I build a deck I actually like to have individual versions for every card, when that’s possible of course. That includes my basic lands, and even in EDH decks.
I see white border lands like whitewall tires on a classic car. It adds an element of class. I don’t want all my cards to be white border, but a world with no white border cards is a less interesting world to me.
Holy Crap, I remember playing Magic with Braden at Gamers Heaven. Never would have expected him to be on one of your videos. Good job guys!
Possibly the best MTG Documentary around, watched this so many times. I have been looking forward to my Dandan deck arriving even more than most of my high end Commander cards.
I remember watching anzidmtg stream dandan during a tournament once, and wishing that it would catch on, I guess today might be the day!
This is so great
Thanks prof for directing towards this video, and thanks rhystic studies for highlighting this masterpiece
I love this video so much. I've never played Dandan but I'm gonna proxy a deck ASAP. To Nick Floyd: Thank you, people are enjoying your super fun format
Great video! I love weird synergies with unpopular cards, but a whole ttg format?! You blew my mind 👏🏻
As someone who just has started to put my feet in the lake of game design, this is an awesome video and one of my favorites of this channel! And that's hard to say
This might be a great format to teach an absolute noob. It's slow enough to learn each card and it's nuances, and fast enough to not be overwhelming. I like it!
I love your professional feeling introduction to more fun and obscure parts of the game.
Dandan is an interesting concept. Thank you for sharing this. It's fun to see so many variaties pop-up over time.
In a way this format is similar to one of my favorite commander decks: Way back in the first Innistrad, the rivalry between Gisa and her brother Geralf inspired me to make a deck featuring them both (their joined card did not yet exist) - the twist being that you could also play a game with only this deck and just two players. One player plays Gisa as their commander and the other plays Geralf, you both play from the same library and the same graveyard.
The deck features a lot of stitched monsters that could be played from graveyards or needed you to discard cards in addition to put them onto the battlefield, which would not just be a boost for you but also a threat if your opponent has the means to reanimate whatever you discarded.
Back then Grimgrin was the commander whenever I played it as a regular EDH deck. However, nowadays I play it with the card Gisa and Geralf and just put that card aside whenever we play this alternative version of one-on-one commander with just this deck.
I love how this format turns deck optimization from competitive strategy to game design with only a few rules.
My man, you pushed the price of dan Dan up 30% already
after quite some testing: Vision charm is not an issue. And it doesn't stop players from playing more than 1 dandan. As 2 dandan present a significant clock and make blocking dandans futile.
sure if your opponent has one of the 2 charms, then that's bad for you. but that's always true.
What an absolute treasure. A truly lovely story and format. Thank you immensely for sharing.
I feel genuinely bad for him, as all he wanted to do was share his 'child' with the world and he went vastly ignored. Now, its finally getting the ever deserved attention he so wanted it to gain all that time ago. I'm absolutely going to be trying dandân, and making it a staple in my group!
You'll be happy to know he commented on this video!
I thought I saw you at magic 30 in Philly! I was too nervous to say hi, but now that I've seen some of those pictures and the area you were sitting I know it was you. I wish I said hi, but maybe another day. I love your videos so much, they've changed my perspective on magic the gathering and I can't thank you enough.
I've always loved designing games, especially card games, and watching this has inspired me to design a new format. Great video, also probably gonna pick up a Forgetful Fish deck myself!
I would like to see more custom games like this, it is a strength of non-digital games, every player is also a developer. and that's just awesome.
When I was a kid, I used to design games all the time and I’m still amazed at some of the ones I created. Sadly, every game I’ve made was lost to time (probably because of how disorganized I was as a kid).
I’m also an old YuGiOh player though, but stopped playing anything new around 2014. However, I distinctly remember an old YuGiTuber video where these guys play with a “War Duel” shared deck of terrible cards.
A couple years ago, a tweaked the concept with some old cards I had laying around. All super simple cards, no tutoring, no extra deck, starting hand size of 1. It’s the closest I’ve ever felt to the game I played when I was 7 or 8 years old.
Recently, I’ve started designing my own cards to put in the deck. Some of them are even Magic cards adapted to YuGiOh counterparts. It’s funny how I’m coming back to a form of my game design roots 20 years later.
Relatable ADHD stuff ngl. When I went to a Magic club regularly I had a bunch of Magic variants with my boyfriend at the time, some I made some he made. He made something similar to this but around plague rats and black removal/weakening spells instead.
My one I remember most fondly was just combining it with chess, where moving each piece required casting a spell first. Some turns your opponent couldn't move at all. Other turns you'd deliberately cast stuff with no target just to make another chess move.
We also had a variant of Yugioh with OG manga inspired "rules", aka it was vibes based and normal monsters had whatever effects you could justify based on the flavour text and the card art. Which made them a lot more powerful than the effect monsters 😁 haha
recently played this at SCG Philly with some friends - not only was it some of the most fun (winning games with both combat, and decking, crazy manipulations). The best part for me was playing at the center and having people walk by and comment about how much they love dandan! Such a niche game that had a following :)
Thanks for bringing more attention to it!
My takeaway here is: If someone is excited to want to share something with you, let them.
i was on tapped out, and found these decks around when they came out. i used the ideas of them to build my own little game, built around a conspiracy, where everyone shares a deck. Things like this make me happy, it really just pushes magic over the edge from just a game into a system you can use for different projects
Somebody else waits for a new video of Rhystic Studies as the new season of your fav series? These videos are great, I am even checking right now card stocks to make my own Dandan deck
Wonderful video, such a cool and unique way to play Magic! I want a Dandan deck now!
It also makes me want to work on my own format in the hopes that it becomes even half as popular as Dandan so that one day a youtuber like you might make a video on it :)
Designing cube is a one-of-a-kind experience and I really love how you put the effort of designing something new within the game into words. Thank you!
Quick note on the Aeon Of Strife Anecdote.
The game is actually predated by LAPD Future Cop which has the same mechanics and gameplay, and likely served as inspiration
Thank you for this video. Without it i wouldn’t have found this great puzzle of a format
I own a Forgetful Fish deck! Thank you Nick Floyd!
Thanks! It feels really great to see that this finality got noticed by the community. I knew it had potential to find a following. It was always so much fun. The other two I have released are also great. I really love my Rock, Paper, Scissors one. Has some of the same feel as Forgetful Fish/Dandan.
This is such a special video. As a software engineer with an English degree and an undying love for games, the storytelling, the creativity, the history, and the nostalgia all coalesce to make something that leaves me with all the good feels.
i’m not super into magic but this was still an incredibly done video. it didnt overstay its welcome, had absolutely amazing research even in the places where it didnt need it like the backstory of mobas and having the HD card art alongside a watermark; it’s all just incredibly well done
I love this format and made my own 90 card variety that is blue white and plays with approach of the second sun
Your research work is absolute gold. Thank you for all your effort.
God, imagine making a banger format that might change magic and almost going completely unnoticed
A format I like to play with a friend of mine is something we call The Promo Pack Game. Each player’s deck is three cards, you start with 5 life, and in place of lands, you always have infinite mana. You start with two cards in your hand, Rock Paper Scissors for who goes first. The games are obviously over fast, but it’s a more entertaining way to open promo packs. I got destroyed by a turn one Shivam Devastator last Sunday.
Playing with regular packs makes things even more interesting as you can use the cards in your two set or draft packs to form 3-4 decks, which can open the door to some really cool synergy potential.