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There are two main ways to handle attacking, depending on which your playgroup prefers:

• When a player declares attackers, he or she may attack any number of opponents simultaneously. For example, John may have his Tundra Wolves attack Billy while his Savannah Lions go after Rachel.
  
  
• When a player declares attackers, he or she must declare which player will be the defending player. The attacker may only attack that player during that combat step.
  In certain multiplayer variants, each player may only attack one or two other specific players. (See Emperor and Melee.)

Your playgroup should decide beforehand whether or not "alliances" or "teaming up" should be allowed. Will you be allowed to tell another player things like, "If you don't attack me this turn, I won't Shock your Jackal Pup ", or "I will attack Bill this turn if you promise not to attack me during your next turn"? Some find diplomatic "table talk" tactics such as these to be a fun, social part of multiplayer Magic, while others feel it ruins the game. It's best to iron out these issues in advance so they don't come up during the game itself--that's never pleasant.

In a regular game of Magic, the starting player does not draw on his or her first turn, a rule that helps lessen the inherent advantage of going first (by basically giving the second player an extra card). In multiplayer games, however, the advantage of going first is generally minimal, so the first player is often allowed to draw on his or her first turn, especially in team formats where going first can actually be a drawback because of the turn structure. Either method is equally valid, so use whichever one your playgroup feels most comfortable with.

In team-based variants, there arises the difficulty of deciding on a fair turn order structure--if all the players of one team take their turns before the next team even gets to start, they'll have a significant advantage. There are a couple methods for making the turn order more fair:

• Start the game with the last player of the starting team going first. (For really large teams, it might be better to let the last two or three players of the starting team go first instead.)
  
• Alternate turns between teams (This is especially good for larger groups with teams of more than three), each team taking one or two turns and then the other team taking the same number.

When a player loses the game in multiplayer, that player is dropped from the game and play continues without them. Many cards which effectively make you win the game in a duel will only make a single opponent lose in multiplayer ( Phage , Door to Nothingness ), so be sure to check your cards.

One of the more important rules issues in multiplayer is what to do with a dead player's stuff. As soon as a player loses, all their stuff immediately vanishes, including spells, delayed triggers that are supposed to go off later, and so on. Thus, if your opponent has a lethal Fireball on the stack pointed at your head, you can kill them in response and emerged unscathed. This is basically for practical reasons--if a player decides to just pick up all their cards and leave, there's not a lot you could do to stop them, so the rules don't even try.

Once a player has left the game, any control-changing effect that's giving them control of something ends, and anything left that they control but do not own (things that were put onto the battlefield already under their control) is exiled. (So something they grabbed with Act of Treason goes back to its normal controller, but something they hit with Rise from the Grave will be exiled.) Any abilities they would control will never be put onto the stack.

On the other hand, when a player wins the game (thanks to Test of Endurance , Coalition Victory , or some such), the game ends. All of that player's teammates, if any, also win, and all of that player's opponents lose.

Many old cards are worded in a way that doesn't take the existence of multiplayer games into account. (For example, the original Black Vise .) As such, you should always check the current Oracle wording of such cards to be sure--there doesn't really seem to be any consistency in how such cards have been ruled to work. Black Vise , for example, only affects one player, but Aura of Silence affects them all.

Each player writes his or her name on a piece of paper and puts the piece of paper in a hat. After all names have been collected, each player chooses a piece of paper from the hat at random and keeps it. This is your "mark". If at any time a player picks his or her own name, the player puts their piece of paper back in the hat and redraws until that player gets a piece of paper that does not have their name on it. This continues until all pieces of paper are taken. Now, each player has an opponents name and an opponent has your name. Players keep their picks secret, and do not reveal who they picked. When you kill an opponent, you receive their piece of paper, again not showing anyone else. The goal of Assassins is to destroy/win against the person whose name you have and the person who has your name. If your mark was killed by someone else, your new mark is the person who killed your mark. Once you have your name and have killed your mark/the person who killed your mark, you announce that you are the winner and reveal your pieces of paper. Gameplay operates the same as in a Chaos game. The more players the better for this format.

Exactly like regular Magic, only with more players. There's no range limit to spells, abilities, or attacks; when a player loses, that player leaves the game. The last player remaining wins.

Emperor is described in detail in the following two articles, but a basic overview of this format is included here.

Emperor Magic
Emperor Strategy

You play with two (or more) teams of three (or more). Each team is arranged with an Emperor in the middle, and a General (or two) on each side. You can only attack opponents sitting next to you, global effects only affect your two nearest opponents and the teammate(s) sitting next to you, and when a team's Emperor is killed, that team loses the game.

A common variant of this variant allows players to "march" their creatures to other allied players as a replacement for that creature attacking that turn. This allows you to help the weaker members of your team if you are strong.

In this variant, you can only attack or target the opponent directly to your left (or right, whatever). When that opponent loses, you can then start attacking the person that was to the left of them, and so on and so forth. The last person remaining wins. Board-affecting spells only affect the player to your left and the player to your right (who is attacking you).

In very large games, it helps make it less boring for the people waiting for their turn to use "turn markers", which allows multiple players to take a turn at once. For example, you have two or three active players at once, with each active player separated by a couple players. If two active players get too close (due to some turns taking longer than others), the following player will need to wait for the leading one to end his or her turn, and that turn marker to move a few players away. Otherwise, you may make it so all turns must end at once, so one player may not end his or her turn until all active players have done the same. You generally do not want active players close enough that one may be attacking the player to his or her left, while the player to his or her right is attacking them as well. As the game gets smaller (as people lose and leave the game), you can remove turn markers.

Variants include:

• The first person to kill their left player, wins.
  
• Players can only attack the one opponent, but their spells may target and affect anyone.

In this (usually 5-player) variant, you may only attack and target the players to your direct left and right. Board-affecting spells only affect the players to your left and right. The first player to eliminate their left and right players, wins.

In Rainbow, the players on your left and right are your "allies", while any other players are your "enemies". The first player to eliminate all of his or her "enemies" wins, and everyone else loses, including his or her "allies". All players are considered your opponents, and you may attack or otherwise hurt your "allies" if you wish (for example, to prevent them from winning before you do). Board-affecting spells or abilities hit the whole table.

If multiple players would win at once (a shared enemy is defeated when the players each have no other enemies left) the player who actually did the killing (dealt the killing blow, milled the last card, whatever) wins. If someone else did, or the player suicided somehow, then the game's a draw between those players.

Optional rules include requiring each player to play with a monocolor deck that corresponds with his or her position on the table in relation to the color wheel. (The black player is between the blue and red players, for example.) This variant is usually only for five players, though if you can work out a color scheme you could do it for other groups, too.

Each player chooses two decks, and chooses one to be their "primary" deck, and another to be their "secondary" deck. The game starts off with everyone playing their primary deck as a normal Chaos game.

Whenever a player loses the game, the player that killed them gets a point (points are used to determine an overall winner). If they killed themselves, either no points are awarded or they lose a point, depending on the rules your playgroup decides to go by. At the end of the current turn, the player that lost the game switches to their "secondary" deck, and gets several turns in a row (Our playgroup usually goes with four, but it depends on how competitive your playgroup is). During these "extra" turns, their spells cannot target any other players or any permanents those players control, and board sweepers do not affect anything other than their board. As well, other players cannot target them until after these turns are complete.

If multiple players die at the same time, the extra turns usually occur in the order that those players would have normally had their turns. However, because they cannot target or be targeted by other players during this time, the order does not really mater.

At the end of these extra turns, it goes back to whoever's turn it should have been next. Play continues normally, except that the player that is now on their secondary deck can target ONLY the player that killed them until that player is killed. Board sweepers from them now affect the whole board, but any targeted abilities and spells can target only that one player or their permanents. If they killed themselves, they are allowed to target all players.

If a player loses when they are on their secondary deck, they are out of the game for good and the player that killed them gains two points.

Play continues until there is only one player left in the game, and then the points are tallied up and the player with the most points wins the game.

Now, as for optional rules:

Killing yourself - Although we have not experienced it much, some people will build a primary deck that's only objective is to kill themselves as fast as possible. Because of this, it may be a good idea to set up penalties for players that kill themselves, such as subtracting points from their score, or either preventing them from killing themselves or banning cards that may cause problems, such as Spoils of the Vault .

"I Win" cards - There are some cards, such as Coalition Victory or Mortal Combat that state explicitly that the player that controls them wins the game. Because this ruins the nature of the format, it may be a good idea to ban these cards in your playgroup.

Don't forget to make sure that you properly adjust the number of turns players get to set up after losing for the first time, or they may just dominate the game as soon as they die! If some decks are immensely more powerful than others, you may also want to set up "handicaps" on certain decks, giving them less free turns than other decks in the game.

Form two or more teams with an equal number of players on each team. Teammates cannot attack each other and are not considered "opponents". When all of the members of a team lose, that team loses. Once all opposing players and teams are eliminated, your team wins.

You form two or more equal teams of X players. For example, teams of two is "Two-Headed Giant". Teams of 3 is "Three-Headed Giant". Each teams starts with a life pool of 15 multiplied by X (the number of players on each team). (So, a 2v2 game grants each team 30 life points, a 3v3 game 45, and so on.) Each player controls his or her cards, and effects still happen to each player individually, but the end result is always applied to the group life total. This is different from a normal Teams game in that instead of each player dying individually, and the rest of the team continuing, the team dies as a team.

The official rules for this format have teammates take their turns simultaneously, which leads to…interesting…rules issues. Be sure to check out the official rules if you're interested.

It's more important than normal in multiplayer to announce your spells clearly and briefly explain what they do. The person several seats down may not know what your spell does, or even have noticed that you played anything. You don't want to move play along before you're sure everyone's ready--doing so can cause problems later on.

Many different things can make a card good in multiplayer; Anthony Alongi coined the term "animal elements" to describe some of the different qualities that can make a card better in multiplayer.

Among these things:

• Cockroach Cards (eg. Genesis , Flood )
  Cockroach cards are persistent--they're the kind of repeatable effects that keep showing up and bug the crap out of everyone else.
  
  
• Gorilla Cards (eg. Rout , Akroma's Vengeance )
  These are the face-smashers, the cards that pound everyone else into the ground and gain massive card advantage in one fell swoop.
  Most board-sweepers fall under this category.
  
  
• Pigeon Cards (eg. Verdant Force , Congregate )
  These cards "feed" directly off of having more players around. The more players there are in the game, the more powerful they are.
  
  
• Plankton Cards (eg. Heartbeat of Spring , Howling Mine )
  Everyone benefits when a Plankton card hits the table--they're global effects that everyone benefits from.
  
  
• Rattlesnake Cards (eg. Seal of Fire , No Mercy )
  Like real-life rattlers, these cards "warn off" other players, telling them to direct their attention elsewhere or suffer the consequences.
  
  
• Spider Cards (eg. Spinal Embrace , Captain's Maneuver )
  Spider cards trap opponents into making bad choices, unaware of the consequences of their actions.

Some very good cards in duel play aren't nearly as hot in multiplayer. Duress , often considered one of the best discard spells of all time, is a good example. In a duel, this helps disrupt the other player, which means a lot when there is only one other player. In a big multiplayer game, however, you're trading tempo and a card to get rid of a single card from a single opponent, while all other players are completely unaffected: not a good deal. Instead of traditional one-player hand disruption, you might want to consider cards like Unnerve that affect all opponents.

Likewise, some cards that are bad in duel become good in multiplayer. Browbeat will virtually never draw you cards in a duel, because your opponent will usually opt to take the damage instead, which makes Browbeat 5 damage for 3 mana. Not a horrible ratio, but not very good either when you'd much rather have the cards and you have countless better ways to deal damage. In multiplayer, however, most people will not want to take 5 damage just to deprive one player of a few cards. They don't want to weaken themselves in the eyes of the other players, and they don't want to be the one who has to bite the bullet. In a duel, the three cards you draw will always be worth more than 5 damage to the opponent, so they take the damage instead, which actually saves them life. But in multiplayer, the three cards you draw are defused over the other players, so they may only result in 1-3 damage to each player, as you have to use those cards on several players, not just one. That makes taking 5 damage less of an option.

Congregate is another good example. It's bad in 1v1, as lifegain almost always is, but in multiplayer, it often gains you so much life that it becomes worth it. Copperhoof Vorrac is another obvious example.

Because each card a player draws is used against two or more players instead of just you, letting other players cast draw spells (or rather, stopping them from getting to draw extra cards), or forcing them to discard is less important. Rather than each single card being a large threat to you, it's only 1/X of as much of a threat to you (with X being the number of additional players), as each card is diluted over all players. This doesn't mean card advantage isn't important, just that it's less important, while things like board control (versus more pinpoint removal), rattlesnake cards, and the ability to kill multiple players before you run out of gas are more important, though drawing cards can give you that extra gas. Be careful letting combo decks draw a lot of cards though, and be willing to force them to discard. Unchecked, some combo decks can kill all players at once, which makes it so the cards they draw are worth as much as they would be in 1v1.

There's a reason many great duel decks don't translate well into multiplayer. A deck's threats may be designed to kill one player quickly, but not take additional players into account (Sligh); a deck's answers may pinpoint and offer a good cost/effect ratio when disrupting one player means winning the game, but may not be as good at disrupting many players at once (Mono-Blue Control); or a combo deck may be able to kill one player quickly, but will then just sit there for several turns with nothing to do while the other players win (Trix).

Here are some suggestions and considerations for each deck type:

Aggro


Control


Combo


Another thing to consider is avoiding being the target. On the one hand, you don't want to seem too weak, or people will attack you (since they lose nothing by doing so but may lose creatures by attacking other players), but on the other hand you don't want to seem too strong either as people will see you as the main threat to them winning. If you are the biggest threat, you need good defense.

Rattlesnake cards are good because they stop people from attacking you, but don't make you seem like a real threat. If you are dropping combo pieces and enablers, people will know you are going to go off soon and they will want to take you out before you can win.

Hence, much of the key to winning at multiplayer is having early defense that make people not want to attack you (rattlesnakes), yet having enough late-game gas to kill multiple players, or all players at once.

By Scrivener

Defense: In short, some way to stop creatures from smacking you to death. This can take many forms. Cheap walls, your own creatures, bounce, burn, life gain, mass removal, lockdown, rattlesnake cards. You must have an answer to creature based strategies.

Two Colors(maybe more): To minimize color hosing. One Absolute Grace is game over for mono-black, but a splash of green gives access to an answer like Naturalize .

Answers: Dedicated ways to deal with troublesome creatures, enchantments, and artifacts. Disenchant , Naturalize , Creeping Mold , Vindicate , Counterspell , Echoing Truth , Terror .

Recovery/Longevity: Some way to accelerate your play, improve your draw and/or recover from a reset button. For me this means some form of...
Draw:
Think Rhystic Study , Theft of Dreams , Opportunity , Yavimaya Elder (Note land thinning accelerates, improves draw, and mana fixes), Mindstorm Crown , Necropotence . Soothsaying Vampiric Tutor .
Graveyard Manipulation:
Think Oversold Cemetery , Spellweaver Helix , Bosium Strip , Eternal Witness , Victimize , Skeleton Shard , Replenish .

Versatility: Avoid cards with narrow uses unless they are win conditions. Rampant Growth is effective, but for the cost Sakura-Tribe Elder gives you a 1/1 body too. Hibernate can be great, but Wash Out is more flexible. Lava Axe is ok, but Fireball clears creatures. You get the idea.

Win condition/Alternate win condition: A method of winning the game. Creature damage, Burn, Combo, decking, "I win" cards. Whatever your method. Also include a second way to win the game in case the first is locked out.

Deck size: Keep it under 70 cards. I know most people say 60 cards and 60 cards only, but this format is slower and requires you to be able to deal with multiple opponents and different styles. As a bonus, this opens the door to late game bombs that might not see play otherwise. Denying Wind can devastate an opponent's entire deck. Mana Geyser becomes a bargain. Time Stretch becomes manageable.