Off By One, a casual MtG format

I love low-powered formats. I have a lot of bulk. I enjoy limited play, but it’s not always realistic to try putting together a cube and a group to draft. So I had an idea: I’d just build my own format.

I call it “Off By One”, or +-1.

These are the current working rules:

1. All decks must be exactly 40 cards.
2. No proxies, for reasons that will become obvious.
3. Every non basic-land-card in your deck must have a single handwritten edit that adds or subtracts 1 from a single digit or number word on the card. This can be in the P/T, mana cost, or rules text.
   1. Edits can’t be made to the reminder text on a card. (e.g., Blightreaper Thallid reads, “{3}{G/P}: Transform Blightreaper Thallid. Activate only as a sorcery. ({G/P} can be paid with either {G} or 2 life.)” You can change the ability cost from 3 to 2, but you can’t change the reminder text to allow you to pay 1 life for the Phyrexian mana cost.)
   2. Number words in this case refer to literal numbers (one, two, ten) as well as the words “once” and “twice”. The usage of “once” and “twice” in Magic rules are shorthand for “one time” and “two times”, where the word “thrice” is never used in favor of “three times”. This is an arbitrary distinction. We know what it means, so it allows us to expand our options.
   3. Articles, like “a” and “an” are not treated as number words.
   4. Changes in quantity can and will create conflicts with singular and plural nouns. Changing “one spell” to “two spell” instead of “two spells” but reading it as “two spells” because that makes sense is expected. We get it.
   5. A “zero” or “0” can’t be subtracted from. The Magic rules don’t account for things like negative mana costs or damage.
4. Card text changes are based on the current English version of the card text according to Gatherer.
   1. This is a meaningful distinction because Japanese does not have articles. For example, the EN version of Reach Through Mists reads “Draw a card.” but the JP version reads “カードを１枚引く。”. (Draw 1 card.)
5. No sleeves. This is meant to be a casual and disposable format.
6. There is currently no restriction on rarity for deckbuilding. You can use bulk rares, or expensive ones if you’re willing to render them worthless by writing on them. See rule #2.

This is all so far. There is currently not a banlist, but that may change. Immediately, Phyrexian Censor’s effect, “Each player can’t cast more than one zero non-Phyrexian spell(s) each turn” is game-breaking, and it seems more likely that instead of banning individual cards, individual edits will be banned.