On Friday, August 4th Magic players from around the nation will gather together to face off in the 1DH Ironman challenge. Ironman Magic is rarely played–for obvious reasons–so I’ve provided a short history of the format and an overview of the Minneapolis event.

A Brief History of Ironman Magic

A search for Ironman Magic brings up very few results, and the practice of tearing up Magic cards during actual game play seems to have hit a peak in 2003. In other words we are doing something very rarely seen in the MtG community. Those brave few who have played Ironman Magic have tended to play sealed, not constructed. I have not found any evidence of anyone playing Commander Ironman, and certainly we will be the first to play 1DH Ironman. In short, this is exactly the kind of thing that can only happen at a Grand Prix!

In 2003 Gottlieb wrote an article for the mothership, and an article appeared on Starcity Games called Magic For the Criminally Insane. In 2014 there was a sealed tournament in Australia and another in Ontario in 2015. Finally, if you want to see some video of cards being torn in half you could go here for Innistrad with full art basics or here for Modern Masters pack wars. The last post on this thread claims there is an Ironman sealed tournament in London each year, but I couldn’t find any confirmation. Still, it was fun reading the thread warning players to DO NOT ATTEMPT OR ENGAGE IN THIS FORMAT EVER and seeing commenters describing Ironman as “scary” and “ballsy” and “crazy.”

The Social Contract

Before we get started I do want to let everyone know that the Minneapolis Commander group adheres to “social contract.” We ask that players keep this in mind when they are making deck selections and card choices. This means that cards like Realm Razer and Dimensional Breach are out of bounds. The same could be said for a turn-five infinite Oblivion Ring combo.

Several players I’ve talked to have said they plan on playing an already-existing 1DH deck for the Ironman games and are hoping other players weren’t going to go overboard specifically building for this format. I will keep that in mind as I build a new deck since my two–a graveyard deck and a blink deck–are inherently terrible in Ironman. Players who are bringing an existing deck may want to check for cards like Deadeye Navigator which are normally great, but worthless in Ironman.

Of course, the social contract doesn’t mean kiddie gloves either. Mike is bringing a mill deck after all. If you have questions then DM me on Twitter.

The 1DH / Dollar General Format

I think most people reading this are familiar with the 1DH / Dollar General format. However, you may want to review Alex Szeto’s primer found here. The Friday night gathering is a celebration of #1DH, and it will be fun to bring as many players together as possible for this unique event.

At this point there is no official price guide for the format, but players in the Minneapolis group use “mid” prices rather than “low” prices if a website separates them. We also ask that players use one price guide rather than scouring several sites hoping to find one that will list a desired card below a dollar. Players have chosen to use a variety of price guides including Deckstats, Coolstuff, and EDHREC which now includes Card Kingdom prices.

Ironman Rules for GP Minneapolis

Commanders can not be ripped. Commanders can not go to the graveyard or the exile zone. If a commander would be destroyed or exiled, it goes directly to the Command Zone.

Any card that goes to the graveyard is ripped. This includes permanents destroyed from the battlefield or instants and sorceries cast by a player. It also includes all cards discarded from a hand, or milled from a library.

Any card that is exiled is destroyed is ripped. This includes permanents exiled from the battlefield, and instants and sorceries exiled while on the stack. It also includes cards exiled from a hand, or exiled from a library.

Cards do go to the graveyard or exile zone as normal and these actions can trigger effects; however, cards are immediately torn up and can not be reclaimed with spells (like Wildwood Rebirth) or abilities (as on Snapcaster Mage).

If more than one game is played each player must still have 99 cards in the library. Torn cards must be replaced by the appropriate number of basic land cards.