ABC decks are "highlander" decks, i.e. there can be only one copy of
each non-basic-land card in the deck.
Rules for construction of ABC decks in general:
1) Pick 26 cards that are not basic lands. The English name of each
card has a "first letter". Each letter of the English alphabet must
be represented exactly once.
2) Add 14 basic lands of your choice. If you need more lands, then
you may substitute one (or more) of the non-land cards (the "letter
cards") with a non-basic land that starts with the same letter.
3) Special letters, Ash and Ll: "Ash" (ae - which incidentally is a
Danish letter) is counted as starting with "A", "Ll" is counted as
an "L".
4) Non-English cards: You may use non-English printed cards, but it
is the spelling of the English version that counts.
5) Legal cards: Any common card that is legal in any sanctioned
format (Vintage, Legacy, Extended, Standard) is legal for Common ABC
constructed (that excludes all silver-bordered sets).
Note that we do, however, allow gold boardered cards.
Questions regarding legality of certain cards may be directed to
Matthias.
In summary: Normally a legal ABC deck always has exactly 40 cards
broken down as exactly 14 basic lands and exactly 26 other cards
(but see also our special X and Q rules below).
Sideboard:
Your deck may (but does not have to) include a 15 card sideboard.
If you have a sideboard then it MUST be exactly 15 cards. There is
no alphabetic restriction on them. They can all start with the same
letter if you want to.
Sideboard use: After the first and the second duel you may swap cards
between your deck and your sideboard, but ONLY on a
"letter-for-letter" or "basic-land-for-basic-land" basis. I.e., when
you have sideboarded, then your deck must still be a legal ABC deck
following the construction rules above.
If, after sideboarding, you find that you made an error (you find a
card in your hand starting with the same letter as one you played
already), then just do not play the offending card and you will be
OK. If you play two cards starting with the same letter, then you
have lost the duel by default.
ABC - common
To get everybody started at a not-too-uneven level, we will start out
this as "ABC common". I.e., we play ABC rules, but you can use only
common cards for the 26 "letter cards". Any card which was once
printed in a set as "common" is considered common, even if it earlier
(or later) was (re)printed as uncommon or rare.
ABC, the X-and-Q rule
For "X" there are only rare cards, and for "Q" there are not commons
in all colours. Therefore we have agreed on the following rules:
1) The Q-rule: If you cannot fit any common Q card into your deck,
you may instead fill that spot by a basic land. I.e., either use
a common or a basic land. Nothing else. You may proxy for
your Q-card.
2) The X-rule: For the X-spot in your deck we allow rares. If you
cannot fix any X-card into your deck, you may instead fill that
spot by a basic land. I.e., either use any X-card, or a basic land.
You may proxy for your X-card.
3) When sideboarding you may substitute Q and X-cards for basic lands
(or the other way around), as long as your deck remains legal. You
must tell your opponent if you do so.
4) We also allow you to use up to 5 proxies (this is in addition to
X and Q proxies) total in your deck + sideboard. But this is
restricted to "real" proxies. Meaning colour prints of the real
cards and not e.g. basic lands with a word scrabbled onto. If you use
proxies then your deck must be in sleeves, and there must be a card
inside the sleeve below the proxy in order to make it as stiff as
a normal card.
ABC, rules and deck-building questions
Matthias is "Master of ABC construction" (see e.g. his
article: "ABC Schüler im Reich der Magie"), so he is available
for questions regarding "ABC legaligy-of-deck" questions. He may
also be willing to give advise on the best card to add in a given
letter slot, but then again, since he will be fighting for his own
rating points you may wonder if you should follow his advise
If you would like to build your first ABC deck, but don't know how
to go about it, then
you will here find some general advise
on how to go about making a new ABC deck. Also, you may find this
ABC deck-build form useful. Arne has
also written a short guide explaining
his abc deck-building strategy. In the meantime here are the
links to the two MtG card search engines mentioned in my write-up.
Bazaar of Wonders
engine,
WotC engine,
and here is the link to
Magic Workstation , described in Arnes guide.
ABC, challenging and reporting results
1) Challenging: Matches are arranged via challenges. Challenges can
be made during casual play nights (where you should always bring at
least one ABC-common deck), or simply by sending an email to one of
the ABC-common players. A challenge
cannot be refused,
and should be played within one week of it being issued (unless the
player is travelling). In order to get the ratings to make sense,
please try to challenge as many different players on the list as
possible before you repeat a challenge.
2) Please report results to me. You can use either the
recording sheet for this, or you
can send results via email. I prefer the latter. If you send email
then please use exactly the format seen
here (cut and paste). The ranker is written in fortran so
format of the input is an issue. Since I have assigned 6 characters
for each name you will need to truncate or add spaces.
3) For the ABC tour we are ranking by matches. I.e. each match is
played "best of three".
4) When you have finished a ranking match then agree with your
opponent who is going to report the result (usually the winner).
Shortly after you (or your opponent) have sent me the result you
should check that it has been recorded correctly in the list of
most recent ABC-common results. If they
have not then feel free to send me a reminder.
5) Remember that the most important thing is to have fun, not to
win. When playing you should keep to the rules, but you should not
be a ``rules rider''. Give your opponent a fair treatment, and
have fun together 
Non-red-ABC
Some classic deck types have turned out to have a pretty hard time
in this format because they rely on a couple of key cards that are
rare or uncommon in order to survive certain aggressive decks
long enough. In order to get a sligtly wider selection of deck
types we have therefore decided to try out this idea:
``Non-red-ABC''.
The rules are identical to those described above, with the following
important additions:
(1) Spells with red mana in the casting cost are not allowed.
(2) Any activaiton cost or other ability that requires red mana
cannot be played.
Examples: You can play a black creature that has a red kicker cost
(if such a fellow exists)
as long as you don't pay the kicker. Paying red mana for kicker
cost is illegal. You can play a green creature with an activated
(tap) ability that requires red mana, but you are not allowed to
activate that ability (e.g. Granger Guildmage). You can play a
sunburst spell including (and counting) red mana because the red is
not in the casting cost.
You cannot have any red card in the deck, even if you are not
planning to play it (e.g. Guerrilla Tactics).
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