Chaos Magic

1. The Chaos Phase is between the untap and upkeep steps, and the player whose turn it is rolls on the Chaos List.
2. You MUST make the roll. No matter what, the chaos roll must be attempted.
3. If there are no legal targets, the roll does nothing. Costs must still be paid for any roll result, even if there are no legal targets.
4. No spells may be cast during this phase unless otherwise stated in a roll result.
5. No activated abilities may be used unless they are mana abilities.
6. Triggered abilities occur as normal when triggered during the chaos phase.
7. Any token, counter, or effect, that interacts with a chaos roll may apply to the Chaos List and any Chaos Land rolls.
8. The phase ends after all rolls are resolved.

1. At the beginning of the game, the first player in turn order rolls in Enchant World Land before their turn starts.
2. Enchant World emblems can be targeted as enchantments, and are affected by anything that affects enchantments, like someone casting Tranquility. For this purpose, the emblem is colorless, has a mana value of 0, and enters the battlefield under the control of the player who rolled to create it. If there is an Enchant World emblem in play, it will not be destroyed if a card with the card type Enchant World enters the battlefield.
3. Graveyard order matters. Players may not alter the order of cards in their graveyard.
4. Permanents or players that are phased out may not be targeted by chaos rolls. The mechanics of Hexproof and Shroud also apply to Chaos List effects.
5. For anything concerning color identity, chaos rolls are colorless.
6. The first time a player reaches 0 life or would otherwise lose the game, they instead receive one roll on the Chaos List as a replacement effect. If the result of this roll would prevent them from losing the game in their current state (being at 0 or less life, drawing on an empty library, etc.), the player stays in the game and play continues as normal.

The origins of chaos magic are a bit murky if you look at available resources online currently. Here’s what I know. It originated in 1996 by the entity Fred Frog Media. Back then it was hosted for free download at planeswalker.com, which, at the time, was the home of several Magic: The Gathering related things. The site was foremost home to The Planeswalker League – A Magic: The Gathering players club dedicated to the early days of online play started by Christopher Warden, founder of Dragonstar Studios, who had acquired the source code for the original version of the first visual application to play MTG online, Apprentice. The modern version of Apprentice is a way to play online with virtually any card game there is and can be found here at https://apprentice.nu. It was also the home of the e-zine Land of Destoguardiana, dedicated to all Collectible Card Game things. Then there was The Planeswalker League web chat, and finally, Chaos Magic.

I’m not sure exactly when Chaos magic went live on the site, but it was on its 13th set of additions or changes to the list as of January 1997. The best I can find for the actual creator, and the moniker of Fred Frog Media, is a pair of members on e-league.com from the early days of magic by the users TomVeil, and another account promoting chaos magic and collaboration with TomVeil named KrmtDfrog. Both users were active in e-league tournaments around 2002 that were sponsored by CoolStuffInc.com, with KrmtDFrog being a head judge for some of them. Of the two, I suspect TomVeil is the primary creator, as he was the point of contact for Chaos Magic suggestions for new list entries on the old planeswalker.com site.

I first came across it around the release of Odyssey in 2001. The list here is based off that original list I played with then. I got it from a fellow tournament player between rounds at a local game store when we all needed to kill some time until the next pairings were announced. The first time I played the variant I was hooked. That list had already been expanded from the original 1996 list by the player that gave me the file, from a base Chaos List of 200 entries, to a list of 300. I’ve spent the last 20+ years revising and editing and refining it from there and updating it to modern rules text along the way. In addition to the base Chaos List, there are multiple “Lands” you may be called upon to roll in. These are Persona Land, Wacky Land, and Enchant World Land. These add some higher stakes to the game than the standard Chaos list and have always been part of the variant as far as I’m aware.

I haven’t personally seen this variant mentioned online or in person in about a decade. If you have more information than me about the origin of this format, or if you ARE one of the creators, then please get in touch by emailing info@luckytrashgaming.com

Thanks go to Fred Frog Media (whoever you are) for creating the variant and Victor H. for significant modification before the original text file got to me.