Anyone who's played the wonderful game of Risk will know about Mission Risk. That's a variant where everyone gets some mission cards with various objectives (such as "have control of Asia"), and they try to fulfill the requirements of their mission cards instead of simply trying to conquer the world. Anyone who's played Risk will also know that it leads to heated arguments and torn friendships. My friends and I whip it out whenever we've all agreed that we haven't fought in a while.

Why not apply this idea to a game of Magic? Instead of just trying to be the last player standing like in a traditional chaos multiplayer game, why not have other goals too? To that end, I made sixteen Mission Cards. (You can make more, but sixteen is a good number, because it divides nicely for up to eight players. Playing a three-player game where everyone has five mission cards is a little chaotic, but fun nonetheless.)

Basically, before the game begins, you deal out the desired number of mission cards to each player Whenever your mission has been met, reveal your mission card to everyone and get a mission point. The winner of the game (the last person alive) also gets a mission point. With my group, I usually play a bunch of games until someone gets ten mission points total, when that person wins. This can happen in as short as three or four games, or it may take as long as ten games (though this is rare). It's a very fun and fast-paced format, as a lot of the cards I use encourage aggression - but there are also some tricks around, which is why versatile decks often do well.

Here are the mission cards I use, though feel free to make your own and add or subtract to the ones I have:

Have Six Or More Creatures In Play:
A moderately hard card, some decks will not be able to do this one at all, and some will do it with ease (like a Kamigawa Block Snakes deck).

Kill The First Player To Counter A Spell Or Destroy More Than 1 Permanent With A Single Effect:
Basically, this reads "Beat up on the Control deck." Note that this card triggers on Wrath of God, Pyroclasm, Hull Breach, and a ton more.

Have Thirteen Or More Cards In Your Graveyard:
This is like, Super-Threshold and is much much harder than it sounds. Good luck.

Kill The Player Sitting To Your Left:
Straight and aggressive. Note that "kill" simply means "do the final point of damage." It's possible (and, in a small game, highly probable) that the player to two seats could have "Kill the Player Sitting to Your Right" and could be beating them down all day - and then you finish them with a timely Lightning Bolt and claim your mission point.

Kill The Player Sitting To Your Right:
Self-explanatory.

Deal Twelve Or More Damage, Divided However You Choose, To Two Or More Players This Turn:
This is where the coolest dynamic of Mission Magic comes into play: when your opponents try to stop you from getting Mission Points. If you Alpha Strike someone but send one of your little 1/1s to another player with no blockers, the other players will probably anticipate this card and will try to stop you from getting the mission point.

The game becomes very fun and tense when this happens. If you start attacking someone right from the start, people may anticipate that you have a Mission Card to kill them, and may try to steal the kill from you or protect the person. Thus the game becomes a fine balance of resource management in an effort to score as many mission points as possible while calculating the level of interference you will receive.

Play/Destroy Two Or More Legendary Permanents:
A weird and quirky little card that can be easy or impossible depending on the decks present.

Kill The Player Sitting Three Spots To Your Left:
Self-explanatory.

Kill Two Players:
This can be easier or harder than the player-specific kill cards, depending on your deck. Of course, if you get two other "Kill" cards, this can let you get three Mission Points relatively easily.

Prevent Another Player From Taking Lethal Damage:
One of the benevolent cards, this one can be as easy as Moment's Peaceing an Alpha Strike or Lightning Bolting a big attacker. One of my favorite cards.

Win the Game:
If you win the game, you automatically get a Mission Point, so this card would give you an extra one. This is sometimes a terrible card, but often it is good when you don't have to kill any specific players and can just sit behind a tough defense until you're ready to win.

Kill The First Player To Damage Or Target You Or A Permanent You Control:
The vengeance "oh snap!" card. Very fun.

Destroy Two Or More Artifacts/Enchantments In The Same Turn:
Sometimes hard, sometimes easy. Note that if your creatures block or are blocked by artifact creatures and your creatures deal lethal damage to them, this counts.

Play Four Spells In One Turn:
A personal Erayo that can be very frustrating to achieve for almost any non-combo deck.

Have Twenty-Five Or More Life:
By far the most-hated card, as most decks do not have life gain. Just to make people happy, I've added "(If your deck has no lifegain in it, then you may activate this card by having fifteen life left on your sixth turn.)" This second condition is very easy to achieve - and so this card needs some work. Feel free to replace it with whatever you want.

A few more Mission Card ideas:

Have Nine Or More Cards In Your Hand:
This is cool and difficult at the same time, as you can only get to eight by using just your draw step. (It probably suffers from the lifegain "You have the cards to draw cards or you don't" issue mentioned earlier, though - The Ferrett)

Have Three Or More Creatures In Play With The Same Creature Type:
Another variable difficulty card, but a fun one.

You can choose to play Mission Risk in one of two ways: Deal the cards out, and then select your deck, or be forced to select beforehand. Both ways are fun, and unique, as building decks specifically for Mission Magic can be a cool creative process. Of course, one time I decided to play Ravager Affinity and got dealt the following cards: "Kill The Player Sitting Three Spots To Your Left," "Kill Two Players," and "Deal Twelve Or More Damage Divided However You Choose To Two Or More Players This Turn." I got all three of my mission cards triggered on the same turn. That was fun.

I hope you enjoyed the article and I hope you enjoy the format. Peace.

Owen Leskovar
Prometheon on the Star City and TMD Forums
oleskovar@hotmail.com