Okay, so I was making some random mill cards and accidentally typed "Destroy the top N cards..." instead of "Put the top N cards..." and thought I screwed up. But then I took a step back and thought about it. "Destroy" is actually the perfect "keyword" for mill! Here's why:
1. "Destroy" already means something in Magic: "Put into its owner's graveyard." Right now the rules only allow things on the battlefield to be destroyed, but it isn't a far stretch to let that include cards from your library as well.
Edit: To be perfectly clear, "destroy" in the comprehensive rules currently means "move from the battlefield to the graveyard." My suggestion would include changing that definition to "move from the battlefield or library to the graveyard."
2. The problem of finding a word that flavorfully connects to milling is easily solved by using the word "destroy." Think about it. In Magic, your deck is referred to as your "library." Not only that, but the cards themselves, if you look at the back, can represent tomes or spell books. So, then, it makes sense to "destroy" the spell books in someone's "library" to deprive them of the ability to use those spells.
3. It saves space and doesn't require players to learn new vocabulary. "Put the top N cards of target player's library into his or her graveyard" is a whole FIVE words longer than "Destroy the top N cards of target player's library," and doesn't use any new words or confusing templating. It's intuitive because it uses what's already built into the game.
Now, yes there are some issues that come up with this idea, but those issues are easily addressed. Here are a few questions I've encountered so far:
How does this interact with cards with indestructible when the reminder text states "Lethal damage and effects that say 'destroy' don't destroy this?"
The answer to that is simple: Cards in hidden zones don't have abilities. This is the same principle that says that double-faced cards can be face-down in the hand and library. Now, yes, this would require some explanation to newer players. Luckily, indestructible is not a keyword that can appear cards at the same frequency as mill effects are allowed to, discounting instants and sorceries that grant it, which are not problematic in this sense. The likelihood of this question popping up is probably less than that of seeing a creature somehow get both trample and deathtouch, and therefore can be explained by a more experienced player or a judge if there's any confusion.
Edit: Here's another question that's come up, so I thought I'd add it so you guys don't have to read through the whole thread. What happens when a card like Armageddon is played. It says to "destroy all lands," so wouldn't it now effect cards in the library because they can be destroyed?
No. Similar to the answer to the last question, cards outside of the battlefield are referred to differently than if they are on the battlefield. For example, Path to Exile says "exile target creature," while Vile Rebirth says "exile target creature card." Those two cards can't target the same things because a "creature" is different from a "creature card," one being on the battlefield and the other being outside of the battlefield. Taking this principle further, cards in hidden zones have no attributes whatsoever. That means that even if a land card is in your library, while it is, it doesn't count as a "land" or even a "land card." It is simply a card, and as such, it is unaffected by cards like Armageddon.
So if it only saves five words, what's the point in changing up the language? We've been looking for a keyword like Scry, not something that's marginally shorter.
The idea here is optimization and consolidation. The same reason Wizards made indestructible a keyword and unblockable into "can't be blocked." It's to keep things consistent while saving as much space as possible. This change just happens to have a positive effect in both text space and use of existing resources. In this case, I believe that this change is better for the game than creating a new word for players to learn, just to have reminder text for it anyway.
Okay, so how do cards like Narcomoeba work? Do they now say "When this creature is destroyed from your library?" That's a little awkward...
When it comes to that tiny, tiny subset of cards that cares about when it's put into a graveyard from a library, they would basically retain their current wording. That's the best way to keep things clear and consistent. It's similar to how noncreature permanents that care about when they are put into a graveyard from the battlefield (like the Implement cycle from Aether Revolt) spell out "put into a graveyard from the battlefield." Luckily, those cards are very few and far between, so it's not an issue.
What about things that care when they "die?"
"Dies" still means "put into a graveyard from the battlefield." No conflict there.
But it's still a little weird to say "destroy cards from a library."
Just imagine if any card that said "exile the top N cards of target player's library," like Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver, said "destroy" instead of "exile." See? It still works, it just puts the cards into the graveyard instead of exile!
I'm not sure if you know this but "destroy" is already used as a keyword in almost all kill spells Terminate
What if it was something like "pillage"
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern:
URB Grixis Delver URB
WUB Ad Nauseam WUB
(On Lantern Control)"A guy who literally just sits there and mills cards he doesn't like from your library while he slowly, slowly kills you this way."
"If a person's profile includes anime or My Little Pony, feel free to ignore everything they say."
I'm not sure if you know this but "destroy" is already used as a keyword in almost all kill spells Terminate
What if it was something like "pillage"
That's the point. The idea is that mill would play off the fact that "destroy" already means "put into its owner's graveyard." I'm not sure you read my whole post, but I suggest you do so.
I'm not sure if you know this but "destroy" is already used as a keyword in almost all kill spells Terminate
What if it was something like "pillage"
That's the point. The idea is that mill would play off the fact that "destroy" already means "put into its owner's graveyard." I'm not sure you read my whole post, but I suggest you do so.
I did. However having the same keyword for two different actions really doesn't make sense IMO.
What if they just changed the keyword to "mill", since that's what everyone calls it now anyway.
It would also create less confusion with cards such as narcomeaba as you said
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern:
URB Grixis Delver URB
WUB Ad Nauseam WUB
(On Lantern Control)"A guy who literally just sits there and mills cards he doesn't like from your library while he slowly, slowly kills you this way."
"If a person's profile includes anime or My Little Pony, feel free to ignore everything they say."
I did. However having the same keyword for two different actions really doesn't make sense IMO.
What if they just changed the keyword to "mill", since that's what everyone calls it now anyway.
It would also create less confusion with cards such as narcomeaba as you said
Because of all of the real-world definitions of the word "mill," not a single one means anything that could even loosely be translated in-game to "put the top N cards of a library into its owner's graveyard." That's the whole reason it hasn't been keyworded yet. And, again, it would force new players to have to learn extra vocabulary, not to mention every card with the keyword "mill" would need reminder text for it anyway, so it actually fails at its original intended purpose of saving space.
I did. However having the same keyword for two different actions really doesn't make sense IMO.
What if they just changed the keyword to "mill", since that's what everyone calls it now anyway.
It would also create less confusion with cards such as narcomeaba as you said
Because of all of the real-world definitions of the word "mill," not a single one means anything that could even loosely be translated in-game to "put the top N cards of a library into its owner's graveyard." That's the whole reason it hasn't been keyworded yet. And, again, it would force new players to have to learn extra vocabulary, not to mention every card with the keyword "mill" would need reminder text for it anyway, so it actually fails at its original intended purpose of saving space.
Again, I go over all of this in the OP.
Yes but it's not destroying creatures. It's putting them into gy before even getting cast. I just don't understand your reasoning behind renaming it destroy.
It really doesn't make sense intuitively either. When people discard stuff, should it be called destroy because it goes to the yard?
Should counters read "destroy target spell on the stack". Idk that's just my two cents
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern:
URB Grixis Delver URB
WUB Ad Nauseam WUB
(On Lantern Control)"A guy who literally just sits there and mills cards he doesn't like from your library while he slowly, slowly kills you this way."
"If a person's profile includes anime or My Little Pony, feel free to ignore everything they say."
I did. However having the same keyword for two different actions really doesn't make sense IMO.
What if they just changed the keyword to "mill", since that's what everyone calls it now anyway.
It would also create less confusion with cards such as narcomeaba as you said
Because of all of the real-world definitions of the word "mill," not a single one means anything that could even loosely be translated in-game to "put the top N cards of a library into its owner's graveyard." That's the whole reason it hasn't been keyworded yet. And, again, it would force new players to have to learn extra vocabulary, not to mention every card with the keyword "mill" would need reminder text for it anyway, so it actually fails at its original intended purpose of saving space.
Again, I go over all of this in the OP.
Yes but it's not destroying creatures. It's putting them into gy before even getting cast. I just don't understand your reasoning behind renaming it destroy.
It really doesn't make sense intuitively either. When people discard stuff, should it be called destroy because it goes to the yard?
Should counters read "destroy target spell on the stack". Idk that's just my two cents
CGT's reasoning is well explained and I feel like there's some good logic to it. New keywords for milling have been discussed pretty extensively in this forum, but reusing an current keyword is a novel idea (or least one I have not seen before).
It would make sense for "discard" to stay the same. I think for most people (even nongamers) discard is a familiar term that implies "discard from your hand". Also, like "sacrifice", it's something that you are doing yourself ("Discard a card.") or something that you are forcing a player to do ("Target player discards a card.") and not something that you are doing to a player (such as "Discard a card from target player's hand.") and thus maintaining it as a separate keyword would be consistent to how sacrifice is used ("Target player sacrifices a creature." and not "Target player destroys a creature he or she controls.")
Counterspells could read "Destroy target spell.", which I like the sound of and which would also clear up the counter vs. counter issue. (Spells only exist on the stack so you don't need to mention that part.)
Overall, I think this idea has a lot of good potential.
Yes but it's not destroying creatures. It's putting them into gy before even getting cast. I just don't understand your reasoning behind renaming it destroy.
It really doesn't make sense intuitively either. When people discard stuff, should it be called destroy because it goes to the yard?
Should counters read "destroy target spell on the stack". Idk that's just my two cents
I think I see your confusion. You're stuck on the current definition of the word "destroy." My suggestion is that the definition of the word "destroy" is changed to include cards in libraries.
Logic would also imply doing the same for discard and counterspells as you mentioned, but there are some reasons not to do that:
1. Discard and counter already have words. Mill doesn't have that. So changing their langauge is unnecessary.
2. "Discard" is already the most intuitive way to convey what discarding is. Alternative to my suggestion, MaRo has stated that if he could restart Magic, he would use "discard" for both discard and mill, e.g. "Target player discards a card from his or her library." That would keep things consistent between discard and mill, but while it saves space on mill, it adds words to discard. And in any case, implementing that change isn't doable as there are already a lot of cards that care about players discarding cards and their current text wouldn't be clear that they are referring to cards discarded from a player's hand, not library. My suggestion IS doable.
3. "Counter" as it's used in countermagic has a specific meaning that is NOT "put target spell into its owner's graveyard." "Counter" means "prevent from resolving." So my suggestion isn't applicable to countermagic.
This change would cause confusion with the keyword Indestructible. There would be many an argument that an indestructible card should not be able to be milled under your proposed change, as the ability is simply "cannot be destroyed"
This change would cause confusion with the keyword Indestructible. There would be many an argument that an indestructible card should not be able to be milled under your proposed change, as the ability is simply "cannot be destroyed"
Direct quote from my OP:
How does this interact with cards with indestructible when the reminder text states "Lethal damage and effects that say 'destroy' don't destroy this?"
The answer to that is simple: Cards in hidden zones don't have abilities. This is the same principle that says that double-faced cards can be face-down in the hand and library. Now, yes, this would require some explanation to newer players. Luckily, indestructible is not a keyword that can appear cards at the same frequency as mill effects are allowed to, discounting instants and sorceries that grant it, which are not problematic in this sense.
This issue wouldn't even come up that often because the odds of both indestructible cards and mill cards being involved in the same sequence of events are incredibly small. In those cases, this could just be explained the same way someone has to explain what happens when a creature has both trample and deathtouch, for example.
The intent of this to clarify and simplify the wording around mill. I'm going to call it mill to distinguish from destroy.
If the purpose is to make the game easier to understand, then I imagine it likely there would be errata or phrasing changes to cards like Armageddon. After all, you have a word that originally meant to target cards in play. Now the word means to mill as well? When does a card mean to destroy from the battlefield or to mill from the library? How much errata would need to be added and how many players be confused or abuse this? How many more rule changes are required for this kind of change? We're aware of the rules, but isn't the point of the cards wording such that one does not have to know the rules in their entirety to play?
Currently, many players use the word mill to pop the cards off the library into the graveyard. This explanation takes less than a few minutes, a little less if Millstone is handy. Even my nine year old child understands what mill really means yet immediately understood how it's used on one go through in the game despite not being keyworded. I think the difference here is that it's not keyworded. These cards literally explain what is to be done.
My problem here isn't the ousting of mill but rather giving dual meanings to destroy. I don't seeing it simplifying the game as intended, but rather making it more complex as card wording has to be altered to accommodate the intent.
The intent of this to clarify and simplify the wording around mill. I'm going to call it mill to distinguish from destroy.
If the purpose is to make the game easier to understand, then I imagine it likely there would be errata or phrasing changes to cards like Armageddon. After all, you have a word that originally meant to target cards in play. Now the word means to mill as well? When does a card mean to destroy from the battlefield or to mill from the library? How much errata would need to be added and how many players be confused or abuse this? How many more rule changes are required for this kind of change? We're aware of the rules, but isn't the point of the cards wording such that one does not have to know the rules in their entirety to play?
Currently, many players use the word mill to pop the cards off the library into the graveyard. This explanation takes less than a few minutes, a little less if Millstone is handy. Even my nine year old child understands what mill really means yet immediately understood how it's used on one go through in the game despite not being keyworded. I think the difference here is that it's not keyworded. These cards literally explain what is to be done.
My problem here isn't the ousting of mill but rather giving dual meanings to destroy. I don't seeing it simplifying the game as intended, but rather making it more complex as card wording has to be altered to accommodate the intent.
I see what you're saying, but like Tim_T was doing, you're too stuck on what "destroy" currently means. You're looking at my suggestion as though "destroy" would now mean two different things: "put target permanent on the battlefield into its owner's graveyard," and "put the top N cards of target player's library into its owner's graveyard," when in reality it would still mean exactly the same thing: "put something into its owner's graveyard." The only difference is that it's from two different sources.
I can see how that might be weird to players who are used to the way things are and especially to players who use the word "mill," but I'd like you to try a little thought experiment. Take my suggested wording for mill, "destroy the top N cards of target player's library," and compare it to something like Armageddon, like you mentioned. You're worried that Armageddon could now be misunderstood to destroy land cards in libraries, and that's understandable considering how your mind is trained to understand "destroy."
Now take those same two effects, "destroy the top N cards of target player's library," and "destroy all lands," and replace the word "destroy" in both of them with "exile." Suddenly, it works fine. Both of those effects can exist perfectly well under Magic's current templating and there would be no misinterpretation of either effect.
What's the difference, then, between "destroy" and "exile?" I argue that there shouldn't be a difference. One means "put into its owner's graveyard" and the other means "put into exile." Following that logic, it shouldn't matter whether they're being destroyed/exiled from the battlefield or the library.
I personally reinstated "bury" in exactly the same spot as the OP uses "destroy" to mean mill. It's been well-received so far and is consistent with the meaning the word had according to the comprehensive rules.
---
Here is a little homework for anyone pitching "mill" as keyword action. Translate it to the languages Magic is released in and check how much sense it still makes in an internationally released card game.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
You're actually trying to change the MTG rules definition of what "destroy" means. It literally means to move something from the battlefield to its owner's graveyard. SavannahLion isn't getting stuck on anything.
Why would it not just be easier to make "mill" a keyword? More importantly, if they're so worried about making things concise, then they wouldn't keep adding reminder text to every card for the millions of keywords they keep developing. Let's say you managed to get the almighty keepers of MTG to change just the meaning of the term "destroy," how would that not affect a ton of interactions between cards? I'm pretty sure you would have to errata a ton of cards. There are some serious issues this would raise.
As for your thought experiment, I don't see how it makes any sense. Assuming your change to the term "destroy," how would a new player (or any for that matter) know which lands Armageddon destroys or does not destroy. Your first phrase specifically refers to the cards on top of a library as its target. The latter just says to blow some stuff up. According to you, the battlefield and the library are no different so accordingly I should be able to just go blow up all the lands I want in either of those zones. What am I missing?
How can you not see a difference between exile and destroy? They're completely separate zones. One has way more interaction than the other. If there were no difference, they would essentially be the same zone. In that case, cards, like Snapcaster Mage, would either become ridiculously powerful or completely worthless.
You're actually trying to change the MTG rules definition of what "destroy" means. It literally means to move something from the battlefield to its owner's graveyard. SavannahLion isn't getting stuck on anything.
Why would it not just be easier to make "mill" a keyword? More importantly, if they're so worried about making things concise, then they wouldn't keep adding reminder text to every card for the millions of keywords they keep developing. Let's say you managed to get the almighty keepers of MTG to change just the meaning of the term "destroy," how would that not affect a ton of interactions between cards? I'm pretty sure you would have to errata a ton of cards. There are some serious issues this would raise.
As for your thought experiment, I don't see how it makes any sense. Assuming your change to the term "destroy," how would a new player (or any for that matter) know which lands Armageddon destroys or does not destroy. Your first phrase specifically refers to the cards on top of a library as its target. The latter just says to blow some stuff up. According to you, the battlefield and the library are no different so accordingly I should be able to just go blow up all the lands I want in either of those zones. What am I missing?
How can you not see a difference between exile and destroy? They're completely separate zones. One has way more interaction than the other. If there were no difference, they would essentially be the same zone. In that case, cards, like Snapcaster Mage, would either become ridiculously powerful or completely worthless.
You are either horribly misinterpreting everything I've said or you simply aren't reading my posts.
You're stuck on the current definition of the word "destroy." My suggestion is that the definition of the word "destroy" is changed to include cards in libraries.
Direct quote from my reply to Tim_T.
Here is a little homework for anyone pitching "mill" as keyword action. Translate it to the languages Magic is released in and check how much sense it still makes in an internationally released card game.
Because of all of the real-world definitions of the word "mill," not a single one means anything that could even loosely be translated in-game to "put the top N cards of a library into its owner's graveyard." That's the whole reason it hasn't been keyworded yet. And, again, it would force new players to have to learn extra vocabulary, not to mention every card with the keyword "mill" would need reminder text for it anyway, so it actually fails at its original intended purpose of saving space.
Direct quotes from SecretInfiltrator and me.
Now let's address some of your concerns.
Let's say you managed to get the almighty keepers of MTG to change just the meaning of the term "destroy," how would that not affect a ton of interactions between cards? I'm pretty sure you would have to errata a ton of cards. There are some serious issues this would raise.
Can you elaborate on what exactly would need to be errata'd?
According to you, the battlefield and the library are no different so accordingly I should be able to just go blow up all the lands I want in either of those zones. What am I missing?
You completely misunderstood me. I'm not arguing that the library and the battlefield are the same. I'm arguing that, like with "exile", moving a card from either of those zones to the graveyard should be consistent. The things an ability TARGETS, however, ARE different. "Destroy the top card of target player's library" targets a CARD. "Destroy target land" targets a LAND. Since cards outside of the battlefield are not referred to simply by using their card type(ala "Exile target CREATURE" vs "Exile target creature CARD from a graveyard"), targeting LANDS would not affect CARDS not on the battlefield. Therefore, if you understand how Path to Exile is different from Vile Rebirth, you should have no problem understanding how "Destroy the top CARD of target player's library" is different from "Destroy all LANDS."
How can you not see a difference between exile and destroy? They're completely separate zones.
I haven't once argued that they are the same zone. What I am suggesting is that the action words "destroy" and "exile" function consistently with each other. One sends cards from any zone to exile. The other, to the graveyard. So, yes, the graveyard and exile would remain perfectly separate.
AH okay. That makes more sense. I definitely read your OP, but your explanation in that and the one you just posted seem vastly different to me.
I apologize for the confusion, but now that you understand it better, what do you think? Is it doable in your opinion? Of course, it isn't a super high-priority issue, but it's an optimization of language that could make learning the game a bit smoother.
I feel like "Destroy" implies "Permanent." You wouldn't change the text on Pull from Eternity to "Destroy target exiled card." You don't destroy cards, or spells; you destroy the permanents they put onto the battlefield.
I think "Target player mills X" is totally fine and easy to understand. Though I'd prefer "Target player hemorrhages X," it's a little mouthy.
AH okay. That makes more sense. I definitely read your OP, but your explanation in that and the one you just posted seem vastly different to me.
I apologize for the confusion, but now that you understand it better, what do you think? Is it doable in your opinion? Of course, it isn't a super high-priority issue, but it's an optimization of language that could make learning the game a bit smoother.
It's actually fine in general. I just wonder about cards in hidden zones not having abilities. Are you saying they just wouldn't work in the hidden zone or would they just not have any abilities until they left the library? For instance, how would cards like Mystical Teachings work if you want to get Snapcaster Mage? That's a static ability, right?
It's actually fine in general. I just wonder about cards in hidden zones not having abilities. Are you saying they just wouldn't work in the hidden zone or would they just not have any abilities until they left the library? For instance, how would cards like Mystical Teachings work if you want to get Snapcaster Mage? That's a static ability, right?
Cards that search libraries are allowed to reference abilities printed on a card, yes. Those abilities, however, are only visible to the controller of the effect searching through them and only during the time of the searching. Outside of search effects, cards in libraries are textless, attributeless cards.
Now, there can hypothetically be a card with my suggested wording that says "Reveal the cards in target player's library. Destroy all land cards revealed this way. That player shuffles his or her library." That card would be incredibly broken, but it would work under my wording.
I feel like "Destroy" implies "Permanent." You wouldn't change the text on Pull from Eternity to "Destroy target exiled card." You don't destroy cards, or spells; you destroy the permanents they put onto the battlefield.
I think "Target player mills X" is totally fine and easy to understand. Though I'd prefer "Target player hemorrhages X," it's a little mouthy.
That is an awkward corner-case, but I think it fall under the subset of cards I talked about in my OP like Narcomoeba in that it would essentially just keep its current wording. Again, though, they're so few and far between that I wouldn't expect them to be an issue. TBH, I don't expect any cards like that to be printed at any point in the future, barring another Processor theme (which I doubt WotC will come back to any time soon).
It's actually fine in general. I just wonder about cards in hidden zones not having abilities. Are you saying they just wouldn't work in the hidden zone or would they just not have any abilities until they left the library? For instance, how would cards like Mystical Teachings work if you want to get Snapcaster Mage? That's a static ability, right?
Cards that search libraries are allowed to reference abilities printed on a card, yes. Those abilities, however, are only visible to the controller of the effect searching through them and only during the time of the searching. Outside of search effects, cards in libraries are textless, attributeless cards.
Now, there can hypothetically be a card with my suggested wording that says "Reveal the cards in target player's library. Destroy all land cards revealed this way. That player shuffles his or her library." That card would be incredibly broken, but it would work under my wording.
Ok. So you're not trying to state a new way to handle stuff like that, which is what I wasn't sure of because I thought was already true. So for a moment, I thought you might have meant that you're essentially "stripping" text from cards in all libraries regardless of what's going on. In light of that, I'd say we're all good.
I think you're going too far in trying to redefine 'Destroy' as move from any zone into the graveyard. There are actions that move cards into graveyards from other zones that are not currently destruction effects, redefining 'destroy' to encompass all such effects would alter the interaction with indestructible and regenerate. A creature with 0 toughness is moved from the battlefield to its owner's graveyard, this is not a destruction effect, it is a state-based action. Likewise, when a player controls two Legendary permanents with the same name or two planeswalkers with the same subtype, one is placed into the graveyard as a state-based action, it is not destroyed. Redefining all instances of moving a card from any zone to a graveyard as the term 'destroy' would either change how the legend/planeswalker and 0 toughness rules work, or would require carving out these as exceptions in the definition of destroy. Either way, it will lead to confusion among newer and less rules-literate players.
You say that cards in hidden zones do not have abilities, but when cards are revealed to a player from hidden zones, relevant abilities on them are applied. How would your definition of Destroy interact with Indestructible in the case that the card is revealed to a player before being moved to the graveyard? Cases like Thoughtseize and Entomb, would your definition make indestructible cards immune to targeted discard?
Discard in general is not covered by your proposal. It would seem, based on your description, that you would change discard effects into destroy effects. So would Mind Rot turn into "Target player destroys two cards in his or her hand."? That's making it more wordy, and discard effects are not a niche effect, if anything they are more common overall than the mill effects you're trying to make simpler.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
1. "Destroy" already means something in Magic: "Put into its owner's graveyard." Right now the rules only allow things on the battlefield to be destroyed, but it isn't a far stretch to let that include cards from your library as well.
Edit: To be perfectly clear, "destroy" in the comprehensive rules currently means "move from the battlefield to the graveyard." My suggestion would include changing that definition to "move from the battlefield or library to the graveyard."
2. The problem of finding a word that flavorfully connects to milling is easily solved by using the word "destroy." Think about it. In Magic, your deck is referred to as your "library." Not only that, but the cards themselves, if you look at the back, can represent tomes or spell books. So, then, it makes sense to "destroy" the spell books in someone's "library" to deprive them of the ability to use those spells.
3. It saves space and doesn't require players to learn new vocabulary. "Put the top N cards of target player's library into his or her graveyard" is a whole FIVE words longer than "Destroy the top N cards of target player's library," and doesn't use any new words or confusing templating. It's intuitive because it uses what's already built into the game.
Now, yes there are some issues that come up with this idea, but those issues are easily addressed. Here are a few questions I've encountered so far:
How does this interact with cards with indestructible when the reminder text states "Lethal damage and effects that say 'destroy' don't destroy this?"
The answer to that is simple: Cards in hidden zones don't have abilities. This is the same principle that says that double-faced cards can be face-down in the hand and library. Now, yes, this would require some explanation to newer players. Luckily, indestructible is not a keyword that can appear cards at the same frequency as mill effects are allowed to, discounting instants and sorceries that grant it, which are not problematic in this sense. The likelihood of this question popping up is probably less than that of seeing a creature somehow get both trample and deathtouch, and therefore can be explained by a more experienced player or a judge if there's any confusion.
Edit: Here's another question that's come up, so I thought I'd add it so you guys don't have to read through the whole thread. What happens when a card like Armageddon is played. It says to "destroy all lands," so wouldn't it now effect cards in the library because they can be destroyed?
No. Similar to the answer to the last question, cards outside of the battlefield are referred to differently than if they are on the battlefield. For example, Path to Exile says "exile target creature," while Vile Rebirth says "exile target creature card." Those two cards can't target the same things because a "creature" is different from a "creature card," one being on the battlefield and the other being outside of the battlefield. Taking this principle further, cards in hidden zones have no attributes whatsoever. That means that even if a land card is in your library, while it is, it doesn't count as a "land" or even a "land card." It is simply a card, and as such, it is unaffected by cards like Armageddon.
So if it only saves five words, what's the point in changing up the language? We've been looking for a keyword like Scry, not something that's marginally shorter.
The idea here is optimization and consolidation. The same reason Wizards made indestructible a keyword and unblockable into "can't be blocked." It's to keep things consistent while saving as much space as possible. This change just happens to have a positive effect in both text space and use of existing resources. In this case, I believe that this change is better for the game than creating a new word for players to learn, just to have reminder text for it anyway.
Okay, so how do cards like Narcomoeba work? Do they now say "When this creature is destroyed from your library?" That's a little awkward...
When it comes to that tiny, tiny subset of cards that cares about when it's put into a graveyard from a library, they would basically retain their current wording. That's the best way to keep things clear and consistent. It's similar to how noncreature permanents that care about when they are put into a graveyard from the battlefield (like the Implement cycle from Aether Revolt) spell out "put into a graveyard from the battlefield." Luckily, those cards are very few and far between, so it's not an issue.
What about things that care when they "die?"
"Dies" still means "put into a graveyard from the battlefield." No conflict there.
But it's still a little weird to say "destroy cards from a library."
Just imagine if any card that said "exile the top N cards of target player's library," like Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver, said "destroy" instead of "exile." See? It still works, it just puts the cards into the graveyard instead of exile!
What if it was something like "pillage"
I did. However having the same keyword for two different actions really doesn't make sense IMO.
What if they just changed the keyword to "mill", since that's what everyone calls it now anyway.
It would also create less confusion with cards such as narcomeaba as you said
Again, I go over all of this in the OP.
Yes but it's not destroying creatures. It's putting them into gy before even getting cast. I just don't understand your reasoning behind renaming it destroy.
It really doesn't make sense intuitively either. When people discard stuff, should it be called destroy because it goes to the yard?
Should counters read "destroy target spell on the stack". Idk that's just my two cents
CGT's reasoning is well explained and I feel like there's some good logic to it. New keywords for milling have been discussed pretty extensively in this forum, but reusing an current keyword is a novel idea (or least one I have not seen before).
It would make sense for "discard" to stay the same. I think for most people (even nongamers) discard is a familiar term that implies "discard from your hand". Also, like "sacrifice", it's something that you are doing yourself ("Discard a card.") or something that you are forcing a player to do ("Target player discards a card.") and not something that you are doing to a player (such as "Discard a card from target player's hand.") and thus maintaining it as a separate keyword would be consistent to how sacrifice is used ("Target player sacrifices a creature." and not "Target player destroys a creature he or she controls.")
Counterspells could read "Destroy target spell.", which I like the sound of and which would also clear up the counter vs. counter issue. (Spells only exist on the stack so you don't need to mention that part.)
Overall, I think this idea has a lot of good potential.
Logic would also imply doing the same for discard and counterspells as you mentioned, but there are some reasons not to do that:
1. Discard and counter already have words. Mill doesn't have that. So changing their langauge is unnecessary.
2. "Discard" is already the most intuitive way to convey what discarding is. Alternative to my suggestion, MaRo has stated that if he could restart Magic, he would use "discard" for both discard and mill, e.g. "Target player discards a card from his or her library." That would keep things consistent between discard and mill, but while it saves space on mill, it adds words to discard. And in any case, implementing that change isn't doable as there are already a lot of cards that care about players discarding cards and their current text wouldn't be clear that they are referring to cards discarded from a player's hand, not library. My suggestion IS doable.
3. "Counter" as it's used in countermagic has a specific meaning that is NOT "put target spell into its owner's graveyard." "Counter" means "prevent from resolving." So my suggestion isn't applicable to countermagic.
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/156737926208/you-should-use-destroy-as-the-keyword-for-mill
This issue wouldn't even come up that often because the odds of both indestructible cards and mill cards being involved in the same sequence of events are incredibly small. In those cases, this could just be explained the same way someone has to explain what happens when a creature has both trample and deathtouch, for example.
The intent of this to clarify and simplify the wording around mill. I'm going to call it mill to distinguish from destroy.
If the purpose is to make the game easier to understand, then I imagine it likely there would be errata or phrasing changes to cards like Armageddon. After all, you have a word that originally meant to target cards in play. Now the word means to mill as well? When does a card mean to destroy from the battlefield or to mill from the library? How much errata would need to be added and how many players be confused or abuse this? How many more rule changes are required for this kind of change? We're aware of the rules, but isn't the point of the cards wording such that one does not have to know the rules in their entirety to play?
Currently, many players use the word mill to pop the cards off the library into the graveyard. This explanation takes less than a few minutes, a little less if Millstone is handy. Even my nine year old child understands what mill really means yet immediately understood how it's used on one go through in the game despite not being keyworded. I think the difference here is that it's not keyworded. These cards literally explain what is to be done.
My problem here isn't the ousting of mill but rather giving dual meanings to destroy. I don't seeing it simplifying the game as intended, but rather making it more complex as card wording has to be altered to accommodate the intent.
I can see how that might be weird to players who are used to the way things are and especially to players who use the word "mill," but I'd like you to try a little thought experiment. Take my suggested wording for mill, "destroy the top N cards of target player's library," and compare it to something like Armageddon, like you mentioned. You're worried that Armageddon could now be misunderstood to destroy land cards in libraries, and that's understandable considering how your mind is trained to understand "destroy."
Now take those same two effects, "destroy the top N cards of target player's library," and "destroy all lands," and replace the word "destroy" in both of them with "exile." Suddenly, it works fine. Both of those effects can exist perfectly well under Magic's current templating and there would be no misinterpretation of either effect.
What's the difference, then, between "destroy" and "exile?" I argue that there shouldn't be a difference. One means "put into its owner's graveyard" and the other means "put into exile." Following that logic, it shouldn't matter whether they're being destroyed/exiled from the battlefield or the library.
---
Here is a little homework for anyone pitching "mill" as keyword action. Translate it to the languages Magic is released in and check how much sense it still makes in an internationally released card game.
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO
Why would it not just be easier to make "mill" a keyword? More importantly, if they're so worried about making things concise, then they wouldn't keep adding reminder text to every card for the millions of keywords they keep developing. Let's say you managed to get the almighty keepers of MTG to change just the meaning of the term "destroy," how would that not affect a ton of interactions between cards? I'm pretty sure you would have to errata a ton of cards. There are some serious issues this would raise.
As for your thought experiment, I don't see how it makes any sense. Assuming your change to the term "destroy," how would a new player (or any for that matter) know which lands Armageddon destroys or does not destroy. Your first phrase specifically refers to the cards on top of a library as its target. The latter just says to blow some stuff up. According to you, the battlefield and the library are no different so accordingly I should be able to just go blow up all the lands I want in either of those zones. What am I missing?
How can you not see a difference between exile and destroy? They're completely separate zones. One has way more interaction than the other. If there were no difference, they would essentially be the same zone. In that case, cards, like Snapcaster Mage, would either become ridiculously powerful or completely worthless.
Direct quote from my reply to Tim_T.
Direct quotes from SecretInfiltrator and me.
Now let's address some of your concerns.
Can you elaborate on what exactly would need to be errata'd?
You completely misunderstood me. I'm not arguing that the library and the battlefield are the same. I'm arguing that, like with "exile", moving a card from either of those zones to the graveyard should be consistent. The things an ability TARGETS, however, ARE different. "Destroy the top card of target player's library" targets a CARD. "Destroy target land" targets a LAND. Since cards outside of the battlefield are not referred to simply by using their card type(ala "Exile target CREATURE" vs "Exile target creature CARD from a graveyard"), targeting LANDS would not affect CARDS not on the battlefield. Therefore, if you understand how Path to Exile is different from Vile Rebirth, you should have no problem understanding how "Destroy the top CARD of target player's library" is different from "Destroy all LANDS."
I haven't once argued that they are the same zone. What I am suggesting is that the action words "destroy" and "exile" function consistently with each other. One sends cards from any zone to exile. The other, to the graveyard. So, yes, the graveyard and exile would remain perfectly separate.
I think "Target player mills X" is totally fine and easy to understand. Though I'd prefer "Target player hemorrhages X," it's a little mouthy.
It's actually fine in general. I just wonder about cards in hidden zones not having abilities. Are you saying they just wouldn't work in the hidden zone or would they just not have any abilities until they left the library? For instance, how would cards like Mystical Teachings work if you want to get Snapcaster Mage? That's a static ability, right?
Now, there can hypothetically be a card with my suggested wording that says "Reveal the cards in target player's library. Destroy all land cards revealed this way. That player shuffles his or her library." That card would be incredibly broken, but it would work under my wording.
Ok. So you're not trying to state a new way to handle stuff like that, which is what I wasn't sure of because I thought was already true. So for a moment, I thought you might have meant that you're essentially "stripping" text from cards in all libraries regardless of what's going on. In light of that, I'd say we're all good.
You say that cards in hidden zones do not have abilities, but when cards are revealed to a player from hidden zones, relevant abilities on them are applied. How would your definition of Destroy interact with Indestructible in the case that the card is revealed to a player before being moved to the graveyard? Cases like Thoughtseize and Entomb, would your definition make indestructible cards immune to targeted discard?
Discard in general is not covered by your proposal. It would seem, based on your description, that you would change discard effects into destroy effects. So would Mind Rot turn into "Target player destroys two cards in his or her hand."? That's making it more wordy, and discard effects are not a niche effect, if anything they are more common overall than the mill effects you're trying to make simpler.