The Black Lodge

An Old School(-ish) Magic Format

One-Time Special Event

Friday March 18, 2022

5-10PM Pacific (end time could vary)

Rules Publication Date: Nov 11, 2021

The Black Lodge Rules

The Black Lodge is a special, one-time, Twin Peaks event scheduled to be played the Friday night of Fire Walk With Me, a two-day Old School MtG event with a Twin Peaks theme in Snoqualmie, WA (30 minutes from Seattle). Registration in The Black Lodge is included as part of registration for Fire Walk With Me. The Black Lodge will be held at Volition Brewing, in the center of North Bend WA. This brewery is across the street from Twede's Cafe (aka the RR) and Twin Peaks Pub, a great spot for post-Black Lodge beverages. Volition Brewing is a 10 minute drive from the Snoqualmie Inn and the Salish Lodge.

Registration: Eventbrite. All proceeds go to Childhaven, a nonprofit whose mission is to help children who are the victims of trauma or abuse.

Trailer hyyyype: Fire Walk With Me.

Confirmed artists for Saturday include Drew Tucker, Mark Tedin, Jesper Myrfors, Margaret Organ-Kean, and Anthony S. Waters. Note that Saturday's main event is normal PAC Old School. Friday night is the only event with special rules.

The Black Lodge Overview

There are other worlds. Worlds beyond life and death. Worlds beyond scientific reality. My people believe that the White Lodge is a place where the spirits that rule man and nature reside. There is also a legend of a place called the Black Lodge. The shadow self of the White Lodge. Legend says that every spirit must pass through there on the way to perfection. There, you will meet your own shadow self. My people call it The Dweller on the Threshold. But it is said that if you confront the Black Lodge with imperfect courage, it will utterly annihilate your soul.

--Deputy Hawk Hill

The Black Lodge is an important, mysterious, mystical extradimensional location in Twin Peaks. There, you must face horrors brought on not only by the malevolent sprits who call it home, but also those lurking deep within your own soul. Central to powers associated with The Black Lodge is garmonbozia, or pain and suffering, experienced by all who have a soul. Naturally, garmonbozia is represented by creamed corn.

Garmonbozia

In The Black Lodge event, you choose an Aspect of a character from Twin Peaks or The Black Lodge itself, and venture in to try and accumulate as much garmonbozia from your opponents as you can.

Core Mechanic: Garmonbozia

Players have a special resource, Garmonbozia, which may be spent to activate the abilities of special Vanguard-like cards called Aspects.
Whenever a player wins a game, they earn a number of Garmonbozia equal to the their life total when they win a game, to a maximum of 20 Garmonbozia per game.
Garmonbozia do not reset and are carried throughout the tournament
To "pay X Garmonbozia," you may pay a combination of Garmonbozia from the Garmonbozia you have earned, and your life total. For example, to pay 5 Garmonbozia, you may pay 5 Garmonbozia you have earned, 5 life, or any combination of Garmonbozia and life totaling 5. This represents you spending the pain and suffering of others, or even yourself, to access the powers of your Aspect in the Black Lodge.
Naturally, players in The Black Lodge can't gain life due to spells, effects, or abilities they control.

If your opponent uses Swords to Plowshares on a creature you control, you gain life, but you do not gain life if you Swords your own creature, and Ivory Tower is essentially useless.
Because Mirror Universe relies on one player gaining life and the other player losing life, you can't use your own Mirror Universe to switch life totals with your opponent if they have more life than you. You can use it to switch life totals if they are at a lower life total than you, however, since the player who is gaining life doesn't control the life gain (if you wanted to do that for some reason).

Tournament Structure

The tournament is played in a series of randomly paired rounds. The winner of The Black Lodge is the player with the most Garmonbozia after the final round. This means that, during a game, if you spend Garmonbozia you have earned on abilities, you subtract from the total Garmonbozia you have for purposes of determining the event winner. If you spend life instead, you don't remove Garmonbozia from your earnings, but should you win that game, your reduced life total means you'll earn fewer Garmonbozia of course.

Deck Construction Rules

Players must choose one of the 10 Aspects (see below), which behave similar to a mix of a Vanguard card and a Commander in EDH. Decks are constructed using PAC rules. with the restriction that their deck and sideboard may only contain cards of the two color identities specified on their Aspect card (including lands and artifacts). Note that the Aspects themselves are colorless; for example, having protection from black does not prevent BOB from targeting a creature.

This means, for example, that you can only play the dual land which matches the two colors on your Aspect, you can only play the two on-color moxen, any deck can play City of Brass, and you can only play Sedge Troll if you have both R and B on your Aspect (that's BOB). Note that, following commander rules, abilities or effects may add mana to your mana pool that is not of a color identity shared with your Aspect. For example, if you control a Fellwar Stone and your opponent controls a Mountain, you may tap your Fellwar Stone to add red mana to your mana pool even if your Aspect does not have red in its color identity. The intent is for this to work the same as it does in Commander. See here for more details on color identity.

Aspects

Prior to the event, each player chooses an Aspect that represents their connection to The Black Lodge. This Aspect conveys special powers, and also restricts the colors a player may include in their deck. Aspects are represented by special tournament cards, which players receive at the start of the event. You will be able to receive the Aspect card for your chosen Aspect - they will not run out and force you to play something different than you planned.

Generally speaking, an Aspect's special powers have three costs:

Tapping the Aspect's card
Paying a specified amount of Garmonbozia or life (in any combination)
Discarding a card

Tapped Aspects untap during a player's untap step. Aspects may not be targeted, destroyed, or interacted with in any way. For example, Aspects cannot be Swords'd, Disenchanted, or Orbed. They may not be tapped with Icy Manipulator, nor untapped with Twiddle. If players play subgames because of Shahrazad, they have access to their Aspects for those subgames. Players do not earn Garmonbozia during a subgame or for winning a subgame; however, they may spend Garmonbozia during a subgame if they choose.

Aspect Cards

The image below shows the Aspects you may choose from. Their power is detailed in the rule box, and the two mana symbols on the lower left and lower right portions of the card indicate which colors that Aspect allows you to play. These cards will be printed on large stock, 3.5" by 5", the same size as a Vanguard card. We believe these Aspects are balanced enough, but if any changes are required, they will be announced and shown on this page.

Post-Event Suggested Errata
Following the event, a couple of the Aspects seemed to be a bit overpowered compared to the rest: Mike and The Giant. If you would like to play The Black Lodge in the future, the following errata are recommended:

Mike: Mike's ability to copy spells should only be able to affect instants and sorceries.
The Giant: The mana cost of spells played with The Giant's ability must be paid. If a spell contains X in its mana cost, you may spend mana on X as if you were casting it from your hand.