I was looking at the preview http://mythicspoiler.com/m14/cards/colossalwhale.html

The rules text says "Whenever ~ attacks, you may exile target creature defending player controls until ~ leaves the battlefield".

Does that mean they've officially approved "exile x until y." to mean "Exile x. When y, return all cards exiled with ~ to the battlefield under their owner's control"? Can Oblivion Ring finally say "When ~ enters the battlefield, exile target creature until ~ leaves the battlefield"?

If so, wow! That's so much more elegant. I've been waiting for that change for ages, and didn't think it would happen. It makes so many templates so much easier to read (and I think still unambiguous).

I don't normally squee over template changes, but that one I'm pleased to see!

It's definitely an aesthetic improvement. However, it's only one trigger, so its functionally different from Oblivion Ring: if you were to bounce the O-Ring in response to the first trigger (the ETB), you can put the second trigger (the LTB) on the stack first, meaning the exiled thing will stay exiled and never return. This card only has one trigger, so it cuts that whole loophole out. So, this guy is functionally different from Fiend Hunter.

As to whether it's a good change, I think its great. The loophole was unintuitive and not on purpose. A lot of people are whining that it's dumbing down the game by taking out weird corner cases, but it's so much cleaner and better designed imho.

Yeah, this is a new ability, not an update like indestructible. It's definitely a cleaner ability, but it means anything with the old ability (like Oblivion Ring) probably won't be reprinted again. Also, yay whales!

Doh! Was pleased to see loophole disappear, forgot that meant o-ring would probably need a new name again.

It also means that if I have a Banisher Priest exiling something of yours, and also have a sac outlet like Cartel Aristocrat, I can make your creature can return at faster-than-instant speed. That's probably why they made Banisher Priest say "an opponent controls" along with the new wording: it'd be a bit powerful to have some creatures with continuous effects able to enter the battlefield quicker than you can respond, especially if I have Launch Party or Fling in hand. It's rather less exploitable if it says "an opponent controls". (And also rather less likely to lead to infinite loops.)

I agree with UncleIstvan, it's great to eliminate the loophole.

Agree with the loophole switch. I like the Faceless Butcher + Sacrifice outlet in my EDH reanimator deck... but that loophole will still always exist on that card. Nothing is lost, the game is made less complicated going forward, and that allows Wizards to print more complicated top-down cards. Win-win.

the point isnt the loophole. this most likely forecasts a new trend, their willingness to continue to print more of such cards with this ability. thus this new template facilitates that in a few ways: 1. shorter text. 2. more intuitive text. 3. more intuitive interaction. 4. single ability (more in-line with flicker effects, similar effects that don't take up 2 separate paragraphs.)

I'm certain a huge part of this is the loophole. It may, perhaps, be the point. The fact that it shortens the text of the ability is likely just a nice side effect, since it seems like they tend to print something with a similar effect at least once per block.

I think the removal of the loophole is definitely one of the chief motivators for this change.

Apparently the real reason was that Matt Tabak was bored.

Ha!

Bwahaha.