Frequently asked Questions
What is it?: Two-Headed Giant Magic Tournament. (Two players on the same team, sharing life and playing in parallel against other teams of players) Each team gets 30 life points between the two of them. It is an extremely fun way for experienced players to play with players who are just getting good with the game.
Do I need to know what I’m doing?: Since both players play at the same time and can show each other their cards, as long as one of the two players knows what they are doing, nothing is required of the other player. It is the best, most fun way to learn the game.
Do we need to make and bring our own decks? Nope. This is what is called a sealed deck tournament, which basically means that each team gets a fixed number of packs (7) of Magic cards to build the two decks used to play in the tournament.
Why is is called Two headed Giant? Both players share the same (larger) life total of 30 rather then the normal 20 points. Each “head” (player) takes their turns at the same time and can consult with each other, but they play in parallel, not able to share resources such as land or equipment (if you don’t know what those things are, don’t worry about it, your partner will.
Why only one game per match? Two headed Giant takes longer to play, so there is not enough time to do the standard 2-out of 3 games.
Other Rules
- Each team sits together on one side of the table. Each team decides the order in which its players sit. The player seated on the right within each team is the primary player, and the player seated on the left is the secondary player.
- The Two-Headed Giant variant has two unique features:
- Each team has a shared life total, which starts at 30 life.
- Each team takes turns rather than each player.
- With the exception of life total, a team’s resources (cards in hand, mana, and so on) are not shared in the Two-Headed Giant variant. Teammates may review each other’s hands and discuss strategies at any time.
- Teammates can’t manipulate each other’s cards or permanents.
- A player who is dissatisfied with his or her initial hand may mulligan. First, the starting team takes any mulligans. For a team to take a mulligan, each player on that team decides whether to shuffle his or her hand back into the deck and then draw a new hand of seven cards. All players on that team who chose to do so take their mulligans at the same time. After each player on that team who took a mulligan looks at his or her new hand, the team repeats the process, resulting in a hand of one fewer card each time, until the hand size reaches zero cards. Teammates may consult during this process, but a player can’t see the result of his or her teammate’s mulligan before deciding whether to take a mulligan at the same time. Once a player has decided to keep a hand, those cards become his or her opening hand. That player can’t take any more mulligans, but his or her teammate may. Once each player on the starting team decides to keep an opening hand, the other team may take mulligans..
- Teams have priority, not individual players.