Im sorry if this question is not allowed but Im not sure where else to ask.
My friends and I have a house rule that we like to use. Its very simple, but we would like help writing it in formal language.
We call it soulforge. Each player can soulforge up to three times per game.
In english soulforge means: at the start of your turn you may exchange control of all cards with any player until the end of your next turn.
Its very simple, but were having trouble writing the actual rule.
We have some cornor cases:
* "all cards" means hand, library, graveyard, board, litterally every card.
* we dont want other people to soulforge until after the first soulforge wears off.
* we dont want extra turns to expire the soulforge sooner.
* we want people to be able to soulforge themselves if they want to prevent their next turn from being soulforged away by someone else.
Heres our best attempt:
Soulforge: At the start of your turn, if no player has a Soulforge Emblem, you may choose a player. If you do, you and that player exchange control of all cards; at the beginning of your next turn you get a Soulforge emblem with
"At the end of your turn, if the next turn is not your turn, return all cards exchanged by Soulforge to their owners and destroy this Emblem."
Most importantly, does the rule work the way we want it to?
Secondly, can anyone rewrite it to make it simpler?
This might be better off in Custom Card Rulings (definitely not in the Rulings Forum) and just basically create it like a Plane card that is always in play.
I really think you need to allow corner cases to exist. The big one is the Extra Turns corner case. It can be seen as a detriment to taking an extra turn. Your wording also doesn't seem to prevent players from Soulforging after the previous player since the Emblem isn't created until the beginning of the turn that Soulforge would wear off. For example, with your wording, I could Soulforge, but I don't get an Emblem that turn. Then, on my opponent's turn, they Soulforge too since there still is no emblem. I think you need to create the Emblem right away.
The other issue is that you can't really trigger something to happen right when your turn starts. It would need to be in the upkeep step (technically your wording already occurs in upkeep because of the way the rules work, but you might as well word it that way). This also means then that whatever you exchange won't be untapped for your current turn. I am not sure if you want it to be.
Are you trying to exchange control of just cards on the battlefield or cards in hands, libraries, graveyards, etc.? Your wording suggests the latter, but I am not sure that is what you want to do. Your wording also ignored tokens if you are just exchanging permanents. Magic doesn't use "cards" anymore for things on the battlefield, but when it did, it meant "nontoken".
Also, do you want it to be an Emblem so players can't mess with it? It seems like it might be better gameplay to give people the possibility of interrupting the exchange or ending it early. It also makes writing the rule easier.
Try something like this:
At the beginning of your upkeep, if no player controls an enchantment called "Soulforge" and you have 2 or fewer Soulforge counters, you may create a Soulforge enchantment token with "As ~ enters the battlefield, choose a player. You exchange control of all permanents you control with all permanents that player controls until ~ leaves the battlefield." and "At the end of your next turn, sacrifice ~." If you do, you get a Soulforge counter.
I am sure this isn't exactly what you want, but it highlights some differences that allow this to work. If you want to add in a clause about an extra turn, you can just change the last ability on the enchantment to be "At the end of your next turn, if it is not an extra turn, ...". I know being an enchantment introduces some other issues, but I am sure we can tweak it from here.
I'm a former judge (lapsed), who keeps up to date on rules and policy. Keep in mind that judges' answers aren't necessarily more valid than those of people who aren't judges; what matters is we can quote the rules to back up our answers. When in doubt, ask for such quotes.
Those are some great points.
We do want to switch control of everything except turn order.
We dont want people to be able to counter the effect or anything like that.
Unfortunately we do want it to take effect before the untap step.
Here is what we want it to do in plain english:
"Immediately before their turn, up to three times per game, each player may Soulforge.
Soulforge: Switch game states with a player for three turns, then switch back for one turn, not counting extra turns. During this time No player my Soulforge. "
Any idea how we can write the rule with those features?
My friends and I have a house rule that we like to use. Its very simple, but we would like help writing it in formal language.
We call it soulforge. Each player can soulforge up to three times per game.
In english soulforge means: at the start of your turn you may exchange control of all cards with any player until the end of your next turn.
Its very simple, but were having trouble writing the actual rule.
We have some cornor cases:
* "all cards" means hand, library, graveyard, board, litterally every card.
* we dont want other people to soulforge until after the first soulforge wears off.
* we dont want extra turns to expire the soulforge sooner.
* we want people to be able to soulforge themselves if they want to prevent their next turn from being soulforged away by someone else.
Heres our best attempt:
Soulforge: At the start of your turn, if no player has a Soulforge Emblem, you may choose a player. If you do, you and that player exchange control of all cards; at the beginning of your next turn you get a Soulforge emblem with
"At the end of your turn, if the next turn is not your turn, return all cards exchanged by Soulforge to their owners and destroy this Emblem."
Most importantly, does the rule work the way we want it to?
Secondly, can anyone rewrite it to make it simpler?
Thanks!
I really think you need to allow corner cases to exist. The big one is the Extra Turns corner case. It can be seen as a detriment to taking an extra turn. Your wording also doesn't seem to prevent players from Soulforging after the previous player since the Emblem isn't created until the beginning of the turn that Soulforge would wear off. For example, with your wording, I could Soulforge, but I don't get an Emblem that turn. Then, on my opponent's turn, they Soulforge too since there still is no emblem. I think you need to create the Emblem right away.
The other issue is that you can't really trigger something to happen right when your turn starts. It would need to be in the upkeep step (technically your wording already occurs in upkeep because of the way the rules work, but you might as well word it that way). This also means then that whatever you exchange won't be untapped for your current turn. I am not sure if you want it to be.
Are you trying to exchange control of just cards on the battlefield or cards in hands, libraries, graveyards, etc.? Your wording suggests the latter, but I am not sure that is what you want to do. Your wording also ignored tokens if you are just exchanging permanents. Magic doesn't use "cards" anymore for things on the battlefield, but when it did, it meant "nontoken".
Also, do you want it to be an Emblem so players can't mess with it? It seems like it might be better gameplay to give people the possibility of interrupting the exchange or ending it early. It also makes writing the rule easier.
Try something like this:
I am sure this isn't exactly what you want, but it highlights some differences that allow this to work. If you want to add in a clause about an extra turn, you can just change the last ability on the enchantment to be "At the end of your next turn, if it is not an extra turn, ...". I know being an enchantment introduces some other issues, but I am sure we can tweak it from here.
We do want to switch control of everything except turn order.
We dont want people to be able to counter the effect or anything like that.
Unfortunately we do want it to take effect before the untap step.
Here is what we want it to do in plain english:
"Immediately before their turn, up to three times per game, each player may Soulforge.
Soulforge: Switch game states with a player for three turns, then switch back for one turn, not counting extra turns. During this time No player my Soulforge. "
Any idea how we can write the rule with those features?
Thanks so much!