Custom match options for alternative rules and special game modes

[xenohedron]

The XDHS would like to have additional control of game parameters and historical rules for special drafts which could be optionally enabled when starting a new match or tournament, such as the following:

• Custom starting life total [implemented in Add custom options for starting life total and starting hand size #11259]
• Custom starting hand size [implemented in Add custom options for starting life total and starting hand size #11259]
• Custom mulligan type and number of free mulligans [already implemented]
• Damage on stack
• Mana burn
• Previous versions of legendary rule / planeswalker uniqueness rule / companion mechanic
• Global or player-specific effects from emblem versions of cards [implemented in new feature: Emblem Cards #10498]
• Players start with specific cards in specific zones
• Anything else?

However, putting all of these features into the new table / new tournament dialog boxes would get unnecessarily cluttered for normal events (those dialogs already have a lot of parameters). So I propose hiding these override parameters in another dialog box that can be accessed from new table / new tournament.

• Create new dialog to hold these parameters [implemented in Create new "custom options" button/dialog, consolidate game-modifying options there #10768]
• Move mulligan overrides there
• Move Emblem Card initialization there
• Move Planechase option there

[artemiswkearney]

Worth noting that emblem cards can be used to implement mana burn via [[Yurlok of Scorch Thrash]], although having it as a direct option would be cleaner from a tournament organization and UI perspective

[github-actions]

Yurlok of Scorch Thrash - (Gatherer) (Scryfall) (EDHREC)

{1}{B}{R}{G}
Legendary Creature — Viashino Shaman
4/4
Vigilance
A player losing unspent mana causes that player to lose that much life.
{1}, {T}: Each player adds {B}{R}{G}.

[alexander-novo]

I think it would make sense to have planechase in this menu as well.

It would also be nice to have an option for special modes which require specifying an additional deck. Like planechase, so you can control which planes are used (rather than just all of them). Or Treasure Cruise, Momir, etc. I've been thinking about adding treasure cruise, but I didn't know if I wanted to hardcode the deck.

[Susucre]

There are a few cubes with custom rules that could benefit from:
-> Drawing the last card of their library does not make players lose the game. (this could be a custom emblem with replacement effect)
-> Each player starts with a specific card in play. (Again, stretching the custom emblem on a per card basis would work). For instance I know of cube lists that have players starts with Pillar of the Paruns, and another with Descent into Avernus.
-> Shared library and graveyard. This is quite the change for the game engine, so probably entirely out of scope there.
-> custom starting cards in hand. (3 with an omniscience semblem for instance)

Also, I would like if the graveyard ordering rule was disabled by default unless there is a card that cares for it in a deck, or it is specifically enabled in the game's option. But it is quite minor.

[alexander-novo]

I don’t think shared library and graveyard is out of the question. But I think this issue is more about rules changes you can add to any game. For a shared library you’d probably want a specific game mode like dandan

[JayDi85]

For info, what will be done someday:

• combined table and tourney (current implementation uses two different versions);
• store full table and tourney settings in text format like json (it's includes a save and load feature, server's settings for leagues mode/ratings, etc);
• simplified mode of new game dialog with most popular game modes (see mtga with banners as example);
• advanced mode of new game dialog with full settings lists and groups (see IntelliJ IDE settings dialog as example);

[xenohedron]

For info, what will be done someday:

This all makes good sense as a long-term rework. It does seem like a much bigger scope, so I think for the time being we should still proceed as I described here.