The Tower is essentially a pile of cards that you bring to the table alongside your decks. How it works is that once per 'round' (a round being every player in the game having taken a turn) a card flips over. If it's an instant or sorcery (or a permanent with a comes-into-play ability) it is 'cast' by the Tower. What this means is that it affects every player, whether the cards says "every player," "every opponent," "target player" or just "you." Note that there isn't a copy of the spell for every player - for instance, if Sizzle comes up in a four player game, it's not as though everyone takes nine damage as if each opponent played a copy of Sizzle. Everyone would take three damage. It takes some case-by-case ajudication to have everyone affected by each card in a reasonable way. If a permanent effect comes up, it is in effect for as long as the card is face-up.
The Tower's first card is flipped before the first player's turn. The card isn't flipped until players finish mulliganing and decide on their hand - we don't want people mulliganing based on the Tower's starting effect! Subsequently, cards from the Tower happen between the player who goes last and the player who goes first's turns. Hence, one card per 'round,' giving everyone a roughly equal chance of using/responding to the effects from the Tower. Cards flipped up replace the previous ones, meaning crippling effects won't be in place all game once they show up. However, the Tower will generally have two or more 'pillars.' Cards being flipped should alternate which pillar they go on, so that the cards can be in effect for more than one round (and multiples will be in effect at once.) For instance, if two pillars are in place at once, the first card will go on the first, the second will go on the second, and the third will go on the first, replacing the first card. You can have as many pillars as you want, but more than three can get pretty chaotic. (The most I've played with was six at once, and it was sheer lunacy.)
Cards being flipped from the Tower, and their subsequent effects, functionally have Split second and cannot be responded to. You can be protected from the effects (a Pyroclasm won't hurt a Voice of Law and a Wrath of God won't kill a Darksteel Gargoyle ) but you can't save a counterspell for a really nasty Tower effect, nor can you flicker your AEtherling to dodge a Final Judgment. Indeed, Tower cards can't be countered at all, so tricks like Dovescape or Decree of Silence won't stop the madness. Likewise, permanents on the Tower can't be destroyed or otherwise removed - no matter how much that Humility may be hosing you, throwing down a Tranquility won't get rid of it. You'll have to wait until the next card from the Tower replaces it.
What might a Tower look like? You can see my current list here!
At 225 cards (and counting?) it's probably for the best to host it off-site, as the list here would be rather unwieldy.
SimTower
Want to build a Tower of your own? Thankfully there's no need for it to be difficult or even remotely expensive - I built mine largely out of spare cards I had sitting in boxes, supplemented by a few especially cool cards that I specifically obtained because I thought they would be a fun addition. When making your Tower at first, I recommend you simply comb through your loose cards for anything that feels like a good fit. Generally this will mean anything that says "each player," "each creature," or other global effects: try to avoid targeted effects. Lightning Bolt will be trickier to work than Flamebreak, unless you decide there's a copy for every possible target or that it picks a target at random or somesuch. Of course, you create nuance by selecting cards that aren't always symmetrical, either!
When considering what effects are available, make sure they support (or hinder) a variety of strategies. You don't want a player to be able to build a deck that's never hurt by the Tower, do you? Consider cards that help aggressive creature-based strategies (Mass Hysteria, Dense Foliage, Dictate of Heliod) as well as those that hinder them (Breathstealer's Crypt, Night of Soul's Betrayal, Dueling Grounds.) Don't forget the same for control decks (Arcane Melee vs. City of Solitude,) graveyard-based decks (Ancestor's Chosen vs. Morningtide,) multicolored decks (Knight of New Alara vs. Renounce the Guilds) and whatever else you can think of. This is a matter of personal preference, but I left out any cards that used colored mana for an activated or triggered ability - so Task Mage Assembly is cool but Pestilence not. I figured that way people wouldn't feel left out by something as unavoidable as their deck's colour. Of course, again, that's just personal preference - after all, it's often going to be the case that some cards in the Tower favour some decks much more than others!
My last piece of advice is to not go all-in for only the craziest effects. A Warp World after Mass Polymorph after Ixidron after Upheaval will be pretty fun... maybe the first time. You don't want the game to be all about the Tower turning things upside-down to the point where the individual players's decks are largely irrelevant. Include some subtle effects, or ones that will only occasionally affect any given game, to give players some breathing room, letting them build up and do as their decks are meant to do. That just means there's more for the next lurking board wipe to take away!
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