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Recent updates to Conversation: (Generated at 2026-02-22 13:43:43)
| Conversation: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
| Mechanics |
Recent updates to Conversation: (Generated at 2026-02-22 13:43:43)
The changes to indestructible and unblockable are very sensible for a variety of tiny little niggly reasons that most people won't see. I fully support them.
The legend rule changes... I'm glad Clone is no longer Hero's Demise; although hexproof generals will be even more annoying now, amuseum is right that the problem there is with hexproof or the creature, not the rule in general. I've seen lots of people complaining about the flavour of the new legend rule but I'm not that bothered.
It makes Flagstones of Trokair less good which is a pity, but it makes Kokusho the Evening Star less good which is absolutely fine.
The planeswalker uniqueness rule definitely had to go the same way as legend rule for consistency. I quite like the way it makes extra copies of the card in hand more useful than they used to be.
Eldritch Rites was the most interesting, but it missed out due to rules violations. Consuming Contract was the next most interesting, but it went out in the semifinals. I am astonished and somewhat distressed at the vast amount of votes Revenge of Necromancy is getting... I love Deathrite Shaman style versatility, but Revenge of Necromancy won't do anything unless you can make the opponent discard, so it has the same problems with topdecks and so on as Megrim and Geth's Grimoire but more so.
Most of them sound good to me. As in, I'm not sure the new way is easier/better, but I believe them that they tried it and it does.
The status keywords is always a bit strange. It would be nice if "destroy target unblockable creature" could sensibly target something that "can't be blocked by creatures with >2 toughness and can't be blocked by creatures with <=2 toughness". But there seems to be no good way to do that, so the only way is to make things either like keywords or unlike keywords, and ignore occasional edge cases. So indestructible is a keyword. Unblockable is less like a keyword. Rules say "has defender as long as..." rather than "can't attack as long as..." etc.
I've almost never played any games where the legend rule mattered after deck building, so I don't have any strong opinion about it. I think it makes sense that it's easier to formulate a coherent strategy when you don't have to plan around your opponent having the legend. And the flavour is a little bit worse, but the previous flavour wasn't very good either.
Maybe one way to go would be that new legends oblivion ring previous legends? That way, the "summon Jace" spell works how you expect -- if you summon a grizzly bear, you get a DIFFERENT grizzly bear, but if you summon Jace, Jace stops helping your opponent and starts helping you. But he goes back to helping your opponent when he gets fed up of you. Actually, just "destroy all previous copies" would work even better from a flavour perspective, but leads to bad gameplay of everyone waiting to play their legend second.
Ironically, from a flavour perspective, clone effects are the one thing that SHOULDN'T remove a previous legend. If I summon a vesuvan doppleganger to take on Krenko's powers then I DO get a second copy of Krenko. But I suppose (1.) it would hard to be define copy effects as exceptions from the legend rule and (2.) it would remove one of the balancing mechanism for legendary creatures which are not supposed to co-exist with themselves.
I would have vastly preferred "new legend replaces old," no matter who controlled either. It just makes a great deal more sense to me.
the new one always replaces the old means people would hold on to them as long as possible.
clones as a way to kill legends is a stupid side effect. if geist is a problem, then hexproof is the issue, not the fact that it's legend. also, there's a whole class of normal creature and artifact removal. maybe try playing some of them once in a while, instead of relying on clunky rules loopholes.
I am of two minds re: the legend rules. I think the original rule was better from a strictly flavor point of view, but although it did have downside issues, it also did help keep with controling the less interactive legends. I would have used the World enchantment rule: the new one always replaces the old, which does much of what they are trying to do anyway, while preserving the "legend as a defense" aspect.
Mostly seems sane cleanup. Getting rid of "I play a legend as a kill spell"... well, that's a bit of a shame, but I can see why players of the legends hated it. And in environments with huge numbers of stupidly silly legends, it either didn't matter (because there's such a small chance of a collision) or there's a couple of dominant ones (and it's just metgame pain and they ought to address the problem directly.) And yes, indestructible always was a keyword. The comp rules may disagree, but they were wrong.
So I can see it. "Build a 75 card deck and then choose up to 15 to not play each game" is nice. Going to cause some gnashing of teeth when people choose what to sideboard in their first match, though...
The new Legendary rule is kind of weak. I know there's been a big push to make Legendary 'more fun for players', but I don't see why it's neccessary. Players already like Legendary creatures... one of the reasons why they like them is because they feel unique and special. If everyone has a copy of the latest Jace on their side of the board, it doesn't feel as special any more. We talked about Slivers, and how they could always go back, so it didn't really bother me. But you can't revert rules changes as easily. I guess we're committed to the game having less flavor on this one subject.
Though, that said, I do like how they're implementing the rules. "When you cast a Legend, and you control the same Legend, you get to keep the Legend of your choice" is a strong way to implement it. I can dig that.
'Up to 15 sideboard cards' is just logical. I don't know why they didn't change the 15 or nothing rule years ago. In theory, it's to help prevent cheating... but people shouldn't be disqualified for not wanting to build their sideboard the way they want to build their sideboard. I know they listed another reason for the change, but, to me, it didn't make sense before you bring in the game loss problem.
I'm not sure why Indestructible really needs a keyword, but sure. If it bothers people that much, that seems fine. Meanwhile, removing unblockable makes sense. Multiverse, alone, has had enough discussions over the problems with 'unblockable' when designing cards to warrant a change in the rules. It must be quintuplely problematic for Der Wizards.
The playing of lands is just them cleaning the rules, and feeling the need to explain to the public what they're doing and why. Fine by me... it's an invisible change.
Yeah, I didn't really like any of them.
The article: M14 Rules Update
The gist is that the legendary rule now only applies to creatures when they are controlled by the same player, and that when a legendary creature enters the battlefield, and there is more than one copy of that creature, you get to keep one. This has also been applied to planeswalkers, for the sake of symmetry, if not common sense.
Sideboarding rules have also changed.
Indestructible is now a keyword, and the word "unblockable" has fallen out of use.
Thoughts?
I'm not sure i liked black enchantment at all :D But there are some cool U/B Control contenders and i would like to see that online again. So voted for them.
I kind of like Mass Mummification, but it moves to slow. Really should have removed two counters per turn. Otherwise, I feel most of these cards were the safe cards after a lot of hands got a chance to veto a lot of cards. That's probably fair, but not much fun. :S
Rules text is up for voting, single elimination style: Rules bracket.
To be honest, most of those design don't please me. The only two that do are Eldritch Rites and Demonic Bargain, which are conveniently paired against each other first. :( The other three match-ups at least have one card I prefer over the other.
I wouldn't use High Flying as en evergreen keyword, as it breaks two of my rules. It's an evasion keyword and it's a downside mechanic. It also feels like an overly complicated version of the existing high-flying, and keywords that partly overlap are just asking for trouble IMO.
This one wouldn't work for U/R, but maybe for U alone?
Deflate (Creatures blocking or blocked by this creature gets -1/-0.)
Target creature has prepared.
How about "activity", which sounds like activate?
"Prepared"
Addition/Prediction: A sliver 'lord' (maybe artifact/enchantment) that changes 'slivers you control' to just 'slivers'.
The Art: It's good art but I don't care for them being humanoid. Search 'human' in the Gatherer. More humans that anything else in the game, and eventually, I think, if Wizard's doesn't add more non-humanoid races the preponderance of humans will become much more noticeable. I'm still waiting for someone in Modern to put together a Human Zoo deck. (Noble Hierarchs, Champion of the Parish, Knight of the Reliquary, splash some red for Bolts and Helix.)
The Wording: Didn't even notice that it said "you control" but I'm not super excited about that. All the arguments already made are sufficient expression about my feelings.
Rant: Talking about stuff Wizard's does that is annoying, I can't stand when they just make a card to 'fill a slot'. If a slot has to be filled, that's fine, but don't just throw some text on it and print it. :/
Oh, and High Flying reminds me of Bonded Fetch because I read an article once about how R&D and/or Maro was looking for a keyword for what was essentially 'skill haste': the ability to tap immediately upon playing, but not attacking. Sounds like it'd be a good fit for U/R if only we can think of a suitable keyword. :D
My two cents:
Spellcraft (This costs
less to cast for each spell cast before it this turn.)
**Can go on pretty much anything, but I think it would be fine as a red/blue mechanic (maybe 'bleed' a little into the other colors, or return in a later set in additional colors).
**Cards can be appropriately costed so as to avoid ridiculousness.
Besides, in a game of magic, is there a more perfect mechanic name?
Also, Shift as a power-toughness switcher seems fine and flavorful.
And, the ability of Aether Influence seems good, but a slightly less wordy mechanic name would be preferable, imo. :3
How did bloodthirst or exalted ruin Limited? Your last sentence isn't a complete thought, but if you're saying that's a bad thing, you're missing the point of a core set.
I have been against the way Wizard have been designing their core sets since M11.
M11 was the perfect coreset they ever made in my opinion, simple yet elegant. Trying to fit in Bloodlust, Exalted and now Slivers is ruining the Limited enviroment for new players. And a simple enviroment where archetypes where scaled down to the core foundations of each color.
"They can always go back to the old way if public perception is negative... and I get the impression that Wizards will be tracking this point very carefully."
I strongly suspect that if the change doesn't work out (and the issue of having both types of slivers in Modern and Legacy should totally be considered IMO), there simply won't be any slivers of either type anymore owing to the "things should work the way people expect them" argument prevent the mixing of two types of lords.
My feeling is that if they return old-style slivers, that means no other lords at all in standard during that time, and that is unlikely.
Yeah. It was already on Blistercoil Weird and Wee Dragonauts
For yet one more take on it: Slivers effecting all creatures really puts a monkey-wrench in limited. I assume Jack didn't draft during Time Spiral, otherwise he would have seen this interaction come up all the time. A player with a really cool defensive sliver deck can be shut down by a bad player with a 14th pick Shadow Sliver.
I'm a bit of a grumbler, too. Sure, that's annoying, but that's what slivers do. Players like slivers because they're annoying. Changing slivers to just your creatures gets rid of half the reason that many players adore the card in the first place.
But, whatever. This is an experiment. They can always go back to the old way if public perception is negative... and I get the impression that Wizards will be tracking this point very carefully.
Heh. Okay, I see.
For those who care, this is Mark Rosewater's take on it:
> For the same reason that all our lords now only affect creatures you control. It has less downside, creates less board confusion, and, in general, makes the cards more enjoyable for a larger portion of the audience.