It probably was that the rules team either didn't know how to make the intended functionality work within the rules, or that it would require too drastic of a rules change to be worth it until M14.
The former is what I mean. 'Banishing Light would not work within the rules' until they could figure out how to set up the rules to achieve the behavior they wanted while having the cards text explain that behavior cleanly.
Second I can mention the Cascade ability; When you cast this spell, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card that costs less. You may cast it without paying its mana cost. Put the exiled cards on the bottom in a random order.
Cascade is different, because the entire effect is resolved within the action of Cascade; it's known exactly when the cards are going to return - plus, resolution is the one period in time when normal zone-change rules are suspended (for example, SBEs aren't checked, so the rule about tokens going "poof" in the graveyard is suspended until the normal rules of Magic reassert themselves).
Oblivion Ring was the first card of its kind of use its mechanic in a long time - before then, it was the Horrors of Odyessy Block. There wasn't any call to modify the comprehensive rules for one card, when ORing worked "well enough", and there just wasn't much room to exploit a single card with instant-speed bounce effects. Now, with a practical guarantee that two or three cards in every set are going to use that technology, it's worth it to update the comprehensive rules to close the edge case of bounce interactions. Not because it's especially powerful, but because the technology has withstood the test of time and, like any other mature technology, has evolved to become more intuitive and user-friendly.
First of all, there is no card in mtg history that hasn't worked, ever. (101.1. Whenever a card’s text directly contradicts these rules, the card takes precedence.)
Steamflogger Boss says hi. Until the rules define the keyword action assemble, his ability does nothing.
Second I can mention the Cascade ability; When you cast this spell, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card that costs less. You may cast it without paying its mana cost. Put the exiled cards on the bottom in a random order.
That until is telling you when to stop the procedure of exiling cards from your library, not when to put the exiled cards back into the library. This is so obvious I'm surprised you even brought it up.
Well there's obviously a deliberate focus on creatures, which are inherently more decision-heavy than other permanents. Spells got depowered, I guess, to make all that attacking-and-blocking business more of a thing. Seems like a wash to me. Preventing the game from taking place was never a terribly entertaining way to play, so having fewer spells to deal with threats and encouraging creature combat is a good move in my book.
Saying that prison, draw/go, and LD decks "prevent the game fromn taking place" is about as sophisticated as saying "creature decks just drop dudes and turn them sideways". Either you have a very narrow view of the game of Magic, or you haven't got the first clue about the playstyles you are critisizing.
These decks put the oppoennt in "low gear". Then they struggle to keep thier defenses up against the threats that do get through, and hope to live long enough to assemble a big win-con or whittle the oppnent down incrimentally. The games are very much alive!
Here's the real issue. A competetive deck vs a noncompeteive deck is not much of a game! This effect is probably exaggerated (or at least more pronounced) when the competeive deck is control or prison or LD (or even combo). When both decks are competeive, there is definately some play.
My only comment on stuff like Oblivion Ring is that they removed some empty rules trivia which really didn't offer much beyond a cute trick to get one over on new players once. Who cares? When the decision is to have one's cake or eat it, or use a timing trick to do both, that's no decision at all.
Read the thread. I outlined the nature of the O-Ring Dilemna a coule pages back. There is plenty to contemplate.
Same deal with the combat damage changes. In a situation where Sakura-Tribe elder blocks Savannah Lions, removing the 'deal damage and sacrifice' decision from the equation is the same thing as adding the 'deal damage' and 'sacrifice' decisions, which is two decisions for the cost of one! Sure, those options existed before, but so did the option to concede. People tend not to bother including that option in the optimal-blocking decision matrix.
You have shown one example where Damage on the stack simplifies the decision process, and take that to represent every other scenario in the game. This is laugahble - I didn't even bother replying when Max first posted this tripe.
And your example is finely cherry picked! Creatures with Power and toughness exactly enough to kill each other, and a blocker which exists primarily to be saced (early). Of course that's an easy call.
Other times it's not so easy. Think of cards like Blood Pet, Moog fanatic, Wild Cantor, Carrion, Fling, Call For Blood, etc. These cards add a lot of depth to combat when players can rspond to damage being assigned - especially when there is more than one attacker and defender.
Case-by-case is no way to approach this subject. You can find acses where stacking damage makes decisiones easier, and I can find opposite cases - there are countless scenarios, and we will never enumerate tham all. At the end of the day, all we can say is that damage on the stack sometimes complictaes attacking/blocking decsisons, and sometimes simplifies it.
But, with damage on the stack, we have a whole new set of scenarios which are sometimes compctated - specifically when damage is assigned and the responses are not obviuos. This is different than deciding how to attack or block, and never simplified by stacking damage! Morph creatures used to add tremendous depth in this area.
Wizards also seem to have become very leery about introducing complex combat maths. They tend not to dig instant speed combat tricks on the board. Hidden in the hand is fine; that's what makes it a trick. But stuff along the lines of Infantry Veteran is no longer loved. That certainly cuts down on some brainwork, but I would say that's a decent tradeoff. Most players don't mind losing as a general thing, but the nature of the loss is crucial. Being able to say 'I should have killed your lions with my snakeman instead of getting the land' is good; people like to reflect on their decisions. Saying 'There were so many permutations I had no idea whhat was going on' is no fun, and the feeling that the decision-making part of the game is inaccessible, concealed behind a wall of maths, is a turnoff. There are those who enjoy that and feel that computation is a skill worth testing, and that's reasonable, but... it's pretty niche. Feel free to engage in bitter mutterings about 'the masses' and 'the lowest common denominator' if it pleases you to do so.
Despite my love for math, I agree that convoluted board states are notfun. But the problem isn't cards like Infantry Veteran. The problem is a reduction of cheap, abundant removal to keep the boards managable. This sort of thing was never a problem until Lorwyn drafts when they really started the creature push. Skilled players where staring at the table and scratching their heads. This lead to the second component of Newb World Order.
One thing I don't especially love is the ditching of drawbacks, along with the way Wizards push certain cards. It was efficient cards with drawbacks that made me feel like I was working stuff out as a new player. Wait a second, maybe it was worth playing Juzam Djinn!
I guess WotC doen't think their large base of new and/or social gamers are interested in that sort of learning process? That's how it looks to me. Mana burn, incidnetlly, offered a solid built in drawback to anything which produces a minimum of) more than one mana at a time. Pain lands and fetch lands are back, maybe WotC is easing of on this?
Exactly this. Neither of these even vaguely dumb down the game.
No, but they are motivated not to improve depth, but rather to avoid pissing off new players who don't know the rules and don't see these setbacks and loses as an opportunity to learn and grow as players. The problem is that this same motivation causes design and rules decsisions which do dumb down the game. These examples are meant to show that WotC does indeed have an agenda to make the game a little softer, and that this type of thinking should be considered when we are analysing other changes to rules and design.
Simple and consistent rules does not mean a less complex or "dumbed down" game.
Chess and Go have very simple rules, for instance. Better, in my opinion, to have very simple rules and allow the positions or interactions to generate the complexities than to make a complex rule set that only a lawyer could love.
MTG does not have simple rules, it never did and never will. The very idea is to make a game where players cutomise decks from hundreds of cards (now thousands). The game is complex by nature. Chess and go are good because of elegance. MTG is good becuase of vast complexities.
But in those examples, you're referring to strategic depth rather than rules complication (there being a difference between complication of rules and complexity of decision-making). Not many chess matches are decided by one player having a deeper understanding of how the horsey moves. Advanced players of those games are reading strategy, not rules.
There is certainly tedious study in all of those games (I've never studied go, so I won't comment on that). In Bridge players have to study elaborate bidding systems. Most chess players study opening sequences early in their careers. Poker player have to memorize odds, tournament players have to mekmorise push/fold charts and sklansky-chubukov numbers. But the point is that is is well understood that to play these games well you have to be willing to do some studying.
Most MTG study isn't reading comprehensive rules! You read the pimers on the decks you want to play (or the decks you have to play against), and integrated in the stratgey tips are reminders of various trciks and interactions that are counterintuitive and/or not obvious (along with advice on when to use them and how to avoid them.
One might resent Wizards for somehow 'catering to the masses' with this approach, in the same way that one might resent Ford for deliberately including mandatory safety features in their vehicles. Those with a desire to die in a vehicular collision have to accept that car companies have no reason to cater to them.
Good analogy, if you consider losing a game akin to dying and maybe taking others with you! Strategy gaming, like any other great skill, require you to fail in order to improve. That's how we learn. But ebven with cars, drivers are expected to know the rules of the road (even counter-iuntuitive rules)! MTG is the only strategy game I know where players routinely enter tournaments without sound knowldege of the rules of play. Player who want to do well are advised to have a judge's level understanding of rules. This will never change. We can embrace this, or try to mitigate it, but it will always be the reality.
Player who want to do well are advised to have a judge's level understanding of rules. This will never change. We can embrace this, or try to mitigate it, but it will always be the reality.
Well thats wrong, at least if you compare the wrong kind of judge (the one that actual is more a player than a judge).
The thing is, even Hall of Famers have a lack of rules knowledge.
Even Kai Budde lacked rules knowledge (and i say it, because i was drafting and playing with him way back in the days).
However, especially in constructed, you will play with your deck VERY OFTEN. That means, if theres some quirky rules interaction, chances that they come up is high and probably will come up in testing so you can look the rules up OR you simply have competent players at your side, or simply a judge to ask, as a fair deal of testing groups will have someone that is indeed a judge.
So you dont really have to know the rules, you will simply run into them by testing your decks, reading some tech or talking with other players // as some jonny type of players are HUGE into quirky rules and getting an edge, these kind of players (like myself) will talk to anybody in reach and impress with the rules knowledge and "you could do this and that play, because its awesome and works !".
The actual good player doesnt need to know the rules that well, they just have to play the deck they have and in professional level of play, you expect a player to know the cards they play , not necessary every card the opponent might have (so the player is free to ask for a judge at any time, new players simply have to learn that, ask a judge, whenever you are uncertain, it doesnt cost any money to do so, it will simply lose you money in prices if you make mistakes that cost you the game, simply because you didnt ask).
Theres even some really good players which dont get the Layers at all.
But they dont have to. The bunch of exmaples that happen often with Blood Moon and its friends are so common, that any raesonable player will simply run into that problems and gets the answer from a judge ; they just accept that answer (and that also means, wrong answers will spread, depending on the judge and how the person actual "understood" the answer of the judge).
still, some pro level players have indeed a really good knowledge of the game rules, but that number is far smaller than you make it to be (or you simply underestimate how complex of a game magic actual is, as the rules required to play the game are indeed few as the most is at least "semi-intuitive" if you get a basic understanding to start with).
Or we can say that the rules past "play one land per turn"-complexity-level aren't as much rules as a diary a of interpretations and opinions (with the occasional intuit fright show mixed into it here and there) more suitable to be memorized than learnt.
It wasnt that Budde couldn't understand, it was because there wasn't much TO understand.
One thing I have noticed: Although I haven't followed all new cards, I have noticed a general trend that WotC won't print any "sacrifice a creature: this creature gains something" abilities anymore. Instead they print "sacrifice another creature". I think the argument they gave for that wording in Blood Bairn was that it was "more intuitive" that way, and that sacrificing a creature to its own ability is "unintuitive".
The thing is, if the change is done purely to make the card "more intuitive", it's a bad change, because it weakens the card. Being able to sacrifice the creature itself makes the ability stronger and more versatile.
To be fair, the change in this case was motivated by flavour, which served to make the card more intuitive. Why should a vampire like Blood Bairn be able to eat itself?
As many of you know, indestructible used to not be a keyword. According to Wizards, however, many players thought indestructible was a keyword at that point, so Wizards changed the rules regarding indestructible and promoted indestructible to being a keyword. It was thanks to what players thought that the rule was changed this way.
No, it's not about being a keyword. It's about being an ability (that the permanent can gain or lose.) Previously "indestructible" was not an ability, but a permanent could have an ability that made it indestructible.
Yes, it was as confusing as it sounds. Even many experienced players were confused.
However, if you had eg. a Darksteel Colossus and someone cast Ovinize on it, it would not be indestructible.
When you understand the reason for this, it's rather clear why. However, many even experienced players would swear that Colossus would still be indestructible, because they were confused about how indestructibility works. (I even saw this several times in these forums, before the rule change.)
What the hell? How is Grizzly Bears with Withstand Death still Indestructible if you cast Ovinize on it?
I could make examples for each of the cards (Perhaps except Carrion, I can't really think of a situation where I wouldn't just sac everything that was about to die anyways).
If you sac before blockers are declared, you can block more creatures, but if you sac after damage is assigned maybe you can kill an attacker. Sometimes you'll get more tokens if you sac the bigger creature that's not going to die. There is no end to the cases where damage-on-the-sac makes for depth.
And I can't believe the rule was changed because WotC thought they were making decisions harder and adding depth! I'm convinced that new players or social gamers felt they were being "ripped off" by a cheap trick, and WotC chnaged the rule to keep them pacified so they wouldn't rage-quit.
What I'm saying is that any resentment of a creator attempting to take their product from a niche audience to a wider one is misplaced. People can think it's a shame, but resenting the content creator or the target audience just doesn't make sense. I don't know if you're resentful of them personally, but certainly there are those who are.
I don't think I resent the new direction of design - I have Legacy and probably wouldn't play in a rotating format no matter how good it looked. I miss the pre-lorwyn draft environments, but again I don't have enough time to play as much Legacy as I'd like as it is, so I'm not really missing much.
I do lament the new direction, and I fear for a game which could lose even more depth, and a community which will never know the great game that MTG could be and once was. And sometimes I resent it when users here are hostile at the suggestion that the game might somehow be losing depth to accomidate players who are less interested in digesting the strategic elements of the game. (I don't mean you).
If you sac before blockers are declared, you can block more creatures, but if you sac after damage is assigned maybe you can kill an attacker.
With damage on the stack you choose between:
* Sacrifice before blockers are declared, get more tokens to block with
* Block, stack damage, sacrifice to get tokens and maybe kill an attacker
Without damage on the stack you choose between:
* Sacrifice before blockers are declared, get more tokens to block with
* Block, don't sacrifice at all and maybe kill an attacker
* Block and sacrifice, getting tokens but failing to kill the attacker
Thus, even in this case, there is still more depth without damage on the stack. Damage on the stack let you have your cake and eat it too. Now you have to choose. In all cases where sacrificing gives interesting options, those options are either also present without damage on the stack or they are made more difficult by having to choose between sacrificing for an effect or successfully dealing combat damage.
Multiple instances of lifelink not stacking is a non-intuitive rule that could easily be changed. I don't think I've seen many people get that interaction right.
To be fair, flavour work best when it is self contained on the card itself. A Sword is intuitive in that it can be wielded by a creature, never mind that Birds of Paradise is a creature that can wield it. Blood Bairn makes sense in concept as an eater of creatures, never mind that the player can feed it a Fire Elemental or a Razor Golem. Cards interacting together to create messed up flavour situations make for amusing stories, (if I truly did need to sacrifice my Emrakul to Blood Bairn to win a game, I would remember that game for a long time,) but cards without an internal flavour consistency feel disjointed and goofy.
Note that I don't believe the "sacrifice another creature:" template is right for every card. Something like Arcbound Ravager for instance is nebulous enough in concept that being able to sacrifice itself could make sense. I'm of the opinion that the template should be chosen based on the concept of the card.
And I can't believe the rule was changed because WotC thought they were making decisions harder and adding depth! I'm convinced that new players or social gamers felt they were being "ripped off" by a cheap trick, and WotC chnaged the rule to keep them pacified so they wouldn't rage-quit.
I suspect that "making things intuitive and not frustrating for new players" was a large part of WotC's motivation for removing damage on the stack... the same basic motivation for changing O-Ring templating. BUT, I still think you're 100% wrong about there being more meaningful decisions with DoS than without.
I play almost exclusively limited, so LOTS of creature interactions, and far and away the most common two cases are:
(1) You control a creature that is going to deal lethal damage to another creature, and also die. You can sacrifice it to gain a useful ability. With DoS you do both 98% of the time. Without DoS you have to choose which one to do
(2) You control a creature that is going to deal lethal damage to another creature, and also die. You have a spell that will either pump it or unsummon it. With DoS you stack damage, then pump/unsummon it. Without DoS you have to either pump it first, and risk getting 2-for-1d, or choose how to use unsummon in a "fair" way.
There are occasional situations in which DoS is a trickier decision. For instance, the classic 2-savannah-lions-attacking-into-your-mogg-fanatic, but with you at a fairly low life total. Without DoS you almost certainly block one and kill the other, preserving your life total. With DoS, you have a choice between blocking, stacking damage, and killing the other lion; vs blocking one and killing the other. One choice 2-for-1ing your opponent, but you take 2 damage, vs maintaining your life total but not gaining card advantage.
But compared to the number of times the more common cases come up, that's clearly an exception.
And I can't believe the rule was changed because WotC thought they were making decisions harder and adding depth! I'm convinced that new players or social gamers felt they were being "ripped off" by a cheap trick, and WotC chnaged the rule to keep them pacified so they wouldn't rage-quit.
I suspect that "making things intuitive and not frustrating for new players" was a large part of WotC's motivation for removing damage on the stack... the same basic motivation for changing O-Ring templating. BUT, I still think you're 100% wrong about there being more meaningful decisions with DoS than without.
I play almost exclusively limited, so LOTS of creature interactions, and far and away the most common two cases are:
(1) You control a creature that is going to deal lethal damage to another creature, and also die. You can sacrifice it to gain a useful ability. With DoS you do both 98% of the time. Without DoS you have to choose which one to do
(2) You control a creature that is going to deal lethal damage to another creature, and also die. You have a spell that will either pump it or unsummon it. With DoS you stack damage, then pump/unsummon it. Without DoS you have to either pump it first, and risk getting 2-for-1d, or choose how to use unsummon in a "fair" way.
There are occasional situations in which DoS is a trickier decision. For instance, the classic 2-savannah-lions-attacking-into-your-mogg-fanatic, but with you at a fairly low life total. Without DoS you almost certainly block one and kill the other, preserving your life total. With DoS, you have a choice between blocking, stacking damage, and killing the other lion; vs blocking one and killing the other. One choice 2-for-1ing your opponent, but you take 2 damage, vs maintaining your life total but not gaining card advantage.
But compared to the number of times the more common cases come up, that's clearly an exception.
To me, damage on the stack falls under the same category as mana burn. They were eliminated not for new players but because they were stupid, niche, mildly abusable rules that limited future design.
Note that I don't believe the "sacrifice another creature:" template is right for every card. Something like Arcbound Ravager for instance is nebulous enough in concept that being able to sacrifice itself could make sense. I'm of the opinion that the template should be chosen based on the concept of the card.
Wizards agrees. They only template with "sacrifice another creature" when the effect (A) applies to the creature with the ability, (like Blood Bairn, Scourge of Skola Vale, Kheru Bloodsucker, and Butcher of the Horde), or (B) simply doesn't make sense flavorwise (like [c]Kheru Dreadmaw -- the crocodile doesn't eat itself). The rest of the time, they use "sacrifice a creature" if there's no reason not to.
One thing I have noticed: Although I haven't followed all new cards, I have noticed a general trend that WotC won't print any "sacrifice a creature: this creature gains something" abilities anymore. Instead they print "sacrifice another creature". I think the argument they gave for that wording in Blood Bairn was that it was "more intuitive" that way, and that sacrificing a creature to its own ability is "unintuitive".
The thing is, if the change is done purely to make the card "more intuitive", it's a bad change, because it weakens the card. Being able to sacrifice the creature itself makes the ability stronger and more versatile.
You might consider that not everyone gets precisely the same things you do out of the game of Magic. For instance, you clearly prefer to maximize the flexibility and power of all cards in all scenarios, which is fine. But many other people, in addition to appreciating the more intuitive templating from a learning standpoint, also appreciate it from an aesthetic perspective. We like the fact that Butcher of the Horde can't eat itself to give itself lifelink, because that's inane.
That doesn't mean our likes are right and yours are wrong, but everybody should at least be on the same page about why Wizards has made certain changes before attempting to discuss whether we like those changes or not.
We like the fact that Butcher of the Horde can't eat itself to give itself lifelink, because that's inane.
If you want to think of it in terms of flavor, then obviously the creature sacrifices itself for the cause. A heroic sacrifice. (Or because the planeswalker controlling it is sadistic.)
Right. Which is why cards like "Sacrifice a creature: you gain 2 life" still can sometimes sacrifice themselves, while "sacrifice a creature: this creature gets +1/+1" can't. The second one can't be "for the cause", because the cause is gone if it's sacrificed itself... there's nothing left to get +1/+1. At least, that's the flavor justification. (Although going by that logic, Kheru Dreadmaw should be able to sacrifice itself and it can't...)
We like the fact that Butcher of the Horde can't eat itself to give itself lifelink, because that's inane.
If you want to think of it in terms of flavor, then obviously the creature sacrifices itself for the cause. A heroic sacrifice. (Or because the planeswalker controlling it is sadistic.)
Which makes perfect sense for a Demon that eats its allies to gain slight advantages...
And I can't believe the rule was changed because WotC thought they were making decisions harder and adding depth! I'm convinced that new players or social gamers felt they were being "ripped off" by a cheap trick, and WotC chnaged the rule to keep them pacified so they wouldn't rage-quit.
I suspect that "making things intuitive and not frustrating for new players" was a large part of WotC's motivation for removing damage on the stack... the same basic motivation for changing O-Ring templating. BUT, I still think you're 100% wrong about there being more meaningful decisions with DoS than without.
I play almost exclusively limited, so LOTS of creature interactions, and far and away the most common two cases are:
(1) You control a creature that is going to deal lethal damage to another creature, and also die. You can sacrifice it to gain a useful ability. With DoS you do both 98% of the time. Without DoS you have to choose which one to do
(2) You control a creature that is going to deal lethal damage to another creature, and also die. You have a spell that will either pump it or unsummon it. With DoS you stack damage, then pump/unsummon it. Without DoS you have to either pump it first, and risk getting 2-for-1d, or choose how to use unsummon in a "fair" way.
There are occasional situations in which DoS is a trickier decision. For instance, the classic 2-savannah-lions-attacking-into-your-mogg-fanatic, but with you at a fairly low life total. Without DoS you almost certainly block one and kill the other, preserving your life total. With DoS, you have a choice between blocking, stacking damage, and killing the other lion; vs blocking one and killing the other. One choice 2-for-1ing your opponent, but you take 2 damage, vs maintaining your life total but not gaining card advantage.
But compared to the number of times the more common cases come up, that's clearly an exception.
This. For an extreme example, let's have a creature that can switch between being 100/1 and 0/100 at instant speed. With damage on the stack, this decision becomes trivial. Without it?
This. For an extreme example, let's have a creature that can switch between being 100/1 and 0/100 at instant speed. With damage on the stack, this decision becomes trivial. Without it?
This card is overpowered for the sake of example.
Well if we badly want the interaction of "dmg stack" back, all the cards that where good with it, simply have to get first strike, then they play more along the line of what dmg stack actual did.
Right now, lots of the cards that had a good dmg stack interaction got reprinted with the same ability, simply as an enters or leaves the battlefield trigger ; which for my taste is quite lame, but it also makes the card most of the time much stronger, as it allows easier "abuse" of the ability, via flicker effects, sacrifice effects etc. etc.
The dmg stack rule was a nickpick rule. Knowing about it was an advantage against newbies and you could quite easily get the blowout combat, simply for the fact that they didnt know the rule interaction ; which was kinda frustrating for the newbie, but then also they felt smart to use the new learned "trick" themself, which then feels good again.
If all the rules would just be intuitive, it would remove this. No frustrating "surprises" , but also no more tricks based on rules.
Magic however has still a lot that isnt intuitive, anything about the Layers and copy effects, lots of stuff, lots of stuff the normal player doesnt care for anyway, until it becomes important (and most the time, an opponent will use that knowledge against them, otherwise most of the complicated rules are simply avoided by the player choosing not to do it).
Much more important things in my perspective are the changes of "may" abilities. Lots of abilities of the older cards where mandatory and currently they print much more "may" versions of the very same card.
I would have simply errata all the old ones with may and let that be, but as it is, the rules should reflect what the common player assumes, even if that is more complicated in detail, as long as it reflects the intuitive idea, complex interactions are much less complicated to explain to the common player.
In order to understand why damage on the stack makes for a richer game you have to contemplate
how it affects the game at all points, not only in attack step where your decision is to push it
ahead or not. Do you put it on the battlefield now ? Does' its on-the-stack ability work better on
defense blocker or offense attacker ? In the deck building. How do I spend my removal, kill that
critter with DoS effect now when he doesn't have the mana available to activate it ? Etc,etc...
In order to understand why damage on the stack makes for a richer game you have to contemplate
how it affects the game at all points, not only in attack step where your decision is to push it
ahead or not. Do you put it on the battlefield now ? Does' its on-the-stack ability work better on
defense blocker or offense attacker ? In the deck building. How do I spend my removal, kill that
critter with DoS effect now when he doesn't have the mana available to activate it ? Etc,etc...
Damage on the stack = a richer game.
Except that all of what you're mentioning applies just as much without damage on the stack. Card evaluations change, strategies change, etc., but unless there's some correlation you can argue for in which all of those things are deeper with DoS rather than just different, then all you've established is that the game is different, not richer.
In order to understand why damage on the stack makes for a richer game you have to contemplate
how it affects the game at all points, not only in attack step where your decision is to push it
ahead or not. Do you put it on the battlefield now ? Does' its on-the-stack ability work better on
defense blocker or offense attacker ? In the deck building. How do I spend my removal, kill that
critter with DoS effect now when he doesn't have the mana available to activate it ? Etc,etc...
Damage on the stack = a richer game.
More decisions =/= deeper gameplay if those decisions aren't all viable.
Look at Torch Fiend for example. Your opponent swings at you with a 8/2. But they also have an artifact on board that will cause problems in the following turns.
The way it is now? I could chump block and sac an artifact, but he'll swing back at me next turn. Maybe I should trade them off. But that artifact is going to start being a pain in my side...decisions.
With DoS? Lol, have my cake and eat it too. Block creature and then sac after applying damage.
With DoS, there are more options, because you can do the things in the first situation or you can do the things in the second situation. But you would never not do both. You have more options, but only one of them is really viable.
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The former is what I mean. 'Banishing Light would not work within the rules' until they could figure out how to set up the rules to achieve the behavior they wanted while having the cards text explain that behavior cleanly.
Edit: quotes screwed up somehow
Cascade is different, because the entire effect is resolved within the action of Cascade; it's known exactly when the cards are going to return - plus, resolution is the one period in time when normal zone-change rules are suspended (for example, SBEs aren't checked, so the rule about tokens going "poof" in the graveyard is suspended until the normal rules of Magic reassert themselves).
Oblivion Ring was the first card of its kind of use its mechanic in a long time - before then, it was the Horrors of Odyessy Block. There wasn't any call to modify the comprehensive rules for one card, when ORing worked "well enough", and there just wasn't much room to exploit a single card with instant-speed bounce effects. Now, with a practical guarantee that two or three cards in every set are going to use that technology, it's worth it to update the comprehensive rules to close the edge case of bounce interactions. Not because it's especially powerful, but because the technology has withstood the test of time and, like any other mature technology, has evolved to become more intuitive and user-friendly.
Clearly. Garfield had Bestow and Planeswalker cards in the toolbox since Alpha, they've just been sandbagging.
They tried it one way. They didn't like how it acted, so they changed it. And what the hell does an eternal format player care that they did?
Steamflogger Boss says hi. Until the rules define the keyword action assemble, his ability does nothing.
That until is telling you when to stop the procedure of exiling cards from your library, not when to put the exiled cards back into the library. This is so obvious I'm surprised you even brought it up.
Saying that prison, draw/go, and LD decks "prevent the game fromn taking place" is about as sophisticated as saying "creature decks just drop dudes and turn them sideways". Either you have a very narrow view of the game of Magic, or you haven't got the first clue about the playstyles you are critisizing.
These decks put the oppoennt in "low gear". Then they struggle to keep thier defenses up against the threats that do get through, and hope to live long enough to assemble a big win-con or whittle the oppnent down incrimentally. The games are very much alive!
Here's the real issue. A competetive deck vs a noncompeteive deck is not much of a game! This effect is probably exaggerated (or at least more pronounced) when the competeive deck is control or prison or LD (or even combo). When both decks are competeive, there is definately some play.
Read the thread. I outlined the nature of the O-Ring Dilemna a coule pages back. There is plenty to contemplate.
You have shown one example where Damage on the stack simplifies the decision process, and take that to represent every other scenario in the game. This is laugahble - I didn't even bother replying when Max first posted this tripe.
And your example is finely cherry picked! Creatures with Power and toughness exactly enough to kill each other, and a blocker which exists primarily to be saced (early). Of course that's an easy call.
Other times it's not so easy. Think of cards like Blood Pet, Moog fanatic, Wild Cantor, Carrion, Fling, Call For Blood, etc. These cards add a lot of depth to combat when players can rspond to damage being assigned - especially when there is more than one attacker and defender.
Case-by-case is no way to approach this subject. You can find acses where stacking damage makes decisiones easier, and I can find opposite cases - there are countless scenarios, and we will never enumerate tham all. At the end of the day, all we can say is that damage on the stack sometimes complictaes attacking/blocking decsisons, and sometimes simplifies it.
But, with damage on the stack, we have a whole new set of scenarios which are sometimes compctated - specifically when damage is assigned and the responses are not obviuos. This is different than deciding how to attack or block, and never simplified by stacking damage! Morph creatures used to add tremendous depth in this area.
Despite my love for math, I agree that convoluted board states are notfun. But the problem isn't cards like Infantry Veteran. The problem is a reduction of cheap, abundant removal to keep the boards managable. This sort of thing was never a problem until Lorwyn drafts when they really started the creature push. Skilled players where staring at the table and scratching their heads. This lead to the second component of Newb World Order.
I guess WotC doen't think their large base of new and/or social gamers are interested in that sort of learning process? That's how it looks to me. Mana burn, incidnetlly, offered a solid built in drawback to anything which produces a minimum of) more than one mana at a time. Pain lands and fetch lands are back, maybe WotC is easing of on this?
No, but they are motivated not to improve depth, but rather to avoid pissing off new players who don't know the rules and don't see these setbacks and loses as an opportunity to learn and grow as players. The problem is that this same motivation causes design and rules decsisions which do dumb down the game. These examples are meant to show that WotC does indeed have an agenda to make the game a little softer, and that this type of thinking should be considered when we are analysing other changes to rules and design.
MTG does not have simple rules, it never did and never will. The very idea is to make a game where players cutomise decks from hundreds of cards (now thousands). The game is complex by nature. Chess and go are good because of elegance. MTG is good becuase of vast complexities.
There is certainly tedious study in all of those games (I've never studied go, so I won't comment on that). In Bridge players have to study elaborate bidding systems. Most chess players study opening sequences early in their careers. Poker player have to memorize odds, tournament players have to mekmorise push/fold charts and sklansky-chubukov numbers. But the point is that is is well understood that to play these games well you have to be willing to do some studying.
Most MTG study isn't reading comprehensive rules! You read the pimers on the decks you want to play (or the decks you have to play against), and integrated in the stratgey tips are reminders of various trciks and interactions that are counterintuitive and/or not obvious (along with advice on when to use them and how to avoid them.
Good analogy, if you consider losing a game akin to dying and maybe taking others with you! Strategy gaming, like any other great skill, require you to fail in order to improve. That's how we learn. But ebven with cars, drivers are expected to know the rules of the road (even counter-iuntuitive rules)! MTG is the only strategy game I know where players routinely enter tournaments without sound knowldege of the rules of play. Player who want to do well are advised to have a judge's level understanding of rules. This will never change. We can embrace this, or try to mitigate it, but it will always be the reality.
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Well thats wrong, at least if you compare the wrong kind of judge (the one that actual is more a player than a judge).
The thing is, even Hall of Famers have a lack of rules knowledge.
Even Kai Budde lacked rules knowledge (and i say it, because i was drafting and playing with him way back in the days).
However, especially in constructed, you will play with your deck VERY OFTEN. That means, if theres some quirky rules interaction, chances that they come up is high and probably will come up in testing so you can look the rules up OR you simply have competent players at your side, or simply a judge to ask, as a fair deal of testing groups will have someone that is indeed a judge.
So you dont really have to know the rules, you will simply run into them by testing your decks, reading some tech or talking with other players // as some jonny type of players are HUGE into quirky rules and getting an edge, these kind of players (like myself) will talk to anybody in reach and impress with the rules knowledge and "you could do this and that play, because its awesome and works !".
The actual good player doesnt need to know the rules that well, they just have to play the deck they have and in professional level of play, you expect a player to know the cards they play , not necessary every card the opponent might have (so the player is free to ask for a judge at any time, new players simply have to learn that, ask a judge, whenever you are uncertain, it doesnt cost any money to do so, it will simply lose you money in prices if you make mistakes that cost you the game, simply because you didnt ask).
Theres even some really good players which dont get the Layers at all.
But they dont have to. The bunch of exmaples that happen often with Blood Moon and its friends are so common, that any raesonable player will simply run into that problems and gets the answer from a judge ; they just accept that answer (and that also means, wrong answers will spread, depending on the judge and how the person actual "understood" the answer of the judge).
still, some pro level players have indeed a really good knowledge of the game rules, but that number is far smaller than you make it to be (or you simply underestimate how complex of a game magic actual is, as the rules required to play the game are indeed few as the most is at least "semi-intuitive" if you get a basic understanding to start with).
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It wasnt that Budde couldn't understand, it was because there wasn't much TO understand.
To be fair, the change in this case was motivated by flavour, which served to make the card more intuitive. Why should a vampire like Blood Bairn be able to eat itself?
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What the hell? How is Grizzly Bears with Withstand Death still Indestructible if you cast Ovinize on it?
Does it not die?
I don't understand.
If you sac before blockers are declared, you can block more creatures, but if you sac after damage is assigned maybe you can kill an attacker. Sometimes you'll get more tokens if you sac the bigger creature that's not going to die. There is no end to the cases where damage-on-the-sac makes for depth.
And I can't believe the rule was changed because WotC thought they were making decisions harder and adding depth! I'm convinced that new players or social gamers felt they were being "ripped off" by a cheap trick, and WotC chnaged the rule to keep them pacified so they wouldn't rage-quit.
I don't think I resent the new direction of design - I have Legacy and probably wouldn't play in a rotating format no matter how good it looked. I miss the pre-lorwyn draft environments, but again I don't have enough time to play as much Legacy as I'd like as it is, so I'm not really missing much.
I do lament the new direction, and I fear for a game which could lose even more depth, and a community which will never know the great game that MTG could be and once was. And sometimes I resent it when users here are hostile at the suggestion that the game might somehow be losing depth to accomidate players who are less interested in digesting the strategic elements of the game. (I don't mean you).
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With damage on the stack you choose between:
* Sacrifice before blockers are declared, get more tokens to block with
* Block, stack damage, sacrifice to get tokens and maybe kill an attacker
Without damage on the stack you choose between:
* Sacrifice before blockers are declared, get more tokens to block with
* Block, don't sacrifice at all and maybe kill an attacker
* Block and sacrifice, getting tokens but failing to kill the attacker
Thus, even in this case, there is still more depth without damage on the stack. Damage on the stack let you have your cake and eat it too. Now you have to choose. In all cases where sacrificing gives interesting options, those options are either also present without damage on the stack or they are made more difficult by having to choose between sacrificing for an effect or successfully dealing combat damage.
Im sure there are many enough that see this this "interpretation" as the best one, me included.
To be fair, flavour work best when it is self contained on the card itself. A Sword is intuitive in that it can be wielded by a creature, never mind that Birds of Paradise is a creature that can wield it. Blood Bairn makes sense in concept as an eater of creatures, never mind that the player can feed it a Fire Elemental or a Razor Golem. Cards interacting together to create messed up flavour situations make for amusing stories, (if I truly did need to sacrifice my Emrakul to Blood Bairn to win a game, I would remember that game for a long time,) but cards without an internal flavour consistency feel disjointed and goofy.
Note that I don't believe the "sacrifice another creature:" template is right for every card. Something like Arcbound Ravager for instance is nebulous enough in concept that being able to sacrifice itself could make sense. I'm of the opinion that the template should be chosen based on the concept of the card.
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I suspect that "making things intuitive and not frustrating for new players" was a large part of WotC's motivation for removing damage on the stack... the same basic motivation for changing O-Ring templating. BUT, I still think you're 100% wrong about there being more meaningful decisions with DoS than without.
I play almost exclusively limited, so LOTS of creature interactions, and far and away the most common two cases are:
(1) You control a creature that is going to deal lethal damage to another creature, and also die. You can sacrifice it to gain a useful ability. With DoS you do both 98% of the time. Without DoS you have to choose which one to do
(2) You control a creature that is going to deal lethal damage to another creature, and also die. You have a spell that will either pump it or unsummon it. With DoS you stack damage, then pump/unsummon it. Without DoS you have to either pump it first, and risk getting 2-for-1d, or choose how to use unsummon in a "fair" way.
There are occasional situations in which DoS is a trickier decision. For instance, the classic 2-savannah-lions-attacking-into-your-mogg-fanatic, but with you at a fairly low life total. Without DoS you almost certainly block one and kill the other, preserving your life total. With DoS, you have a choice between blocking, stacking damage, and killing the other lion; vs blocking one and killing the other. One choice 2-for-1ing your opponent, but you take 2 damage, vs maintaining your life total but not gaining card advantage.
But compared to the number of times the more common cases come up, that's clearly an exception.
To me, damage on the stack falls under the same category as mana burn. They were eliminated not for new players but because they were stupid, niche, mildly abusable rules that limited future design.
Speaking of flavor... You might consider that not everyone gets precisely the same things you do out of the game of Magic. For instance, you clearly prefer to maximize the flexibility and power of all cards in all scenarios, which is fine. But many other people, in addition to appreciating the more intuitive templating from a learning standpoint, also appreciate it from an aesthetic perspective. We like the fact that Butcher of the Horde can't eat itself to give itself lifelink, because that's inane.
That doesn't mean our likes are right and yours are wrong, but everybody should at least be on the same page about why Wizards has made certain changes before attempting to discuss whether we like those changes or not.
Right. Which is why cards like "Sacrifice a creature: you gain 2 life" still can sometimes sacrifice themselves, while "sacrifice a creature: this creature gets +1/+1" can't. The second one can't be "for the cause", because the cause is gone if it's sacrificed itself... there's nothing left to get +1/+1. At least, that's the flavor justification. (Although going by that logic, Kheru Dreadmaw should be able to sacrifice itself and it can't...)
Which makes perfect sense for a Demon that eats its allies to gain slight advantages...
This. For an extreme example, let's have a creature that can switch between being 100/1 and 0/100 at instant speed. With damage on the stack, this decision becomes trivial. Without it?
This card is overpowered for the sake of example.
Well if we badly want the interaction of "dmg stack" back, all the cards that where good with it, simply have to get first strike, then they play more along the line of what dmg stack actual did.
Right now, lots of the cards that had a good dmg stack interaction got reprinted with the same ability, simply as an enters or leaves the battlefield trigger ; which for my taste is quite lame, but it also makes the card most of the time much stronger, as it allows easier "abuse" of the ability, via flicker effects, sacrifice effects etc. etc.
The dmg stack rule was a nickpick rule. Knowing about it was an advantage against newbies and you could quite easily get the blowout combat, simply for the fact that they didnt know the rule interaction ; which was kinda frustrating for the newbie, but then also they felt smart to use the new learned "trick" themself, which then feels good again.
If all the rules would just be intuitive, it would remove this. No frustrating "surprises" , but also no more tricks based on rules.
Magic however has still a lot that isnt intuitive, anything about the Layers and copy effects, lots of stuff, lots of stuff the normal player doesnt care for anyway, until it becomes important (and most the time, an opponent will use that knowledge against them, otherwise most of the complicated rules are simply avoided by the player choosing not to do it).
Much more important things in my perspective are the changes of "may" abilities. Lots of abilities of the older cards where mandatory and currently they print much more "may" versions of the very same card.
I would have simply errata all the old ones with may and let that be, but as it is, the rules should reflect what the common player assumes, even if that is more complicated in detail, as long as it reflects the intuitive idea, complex interactions are much less complicated to explain to the common player.
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how it affects the game at all points, not only in attack step where your decision is to push it
ahead or not. Do you put it on the battlefield now ? Does' its on-the-stack ability work better on
defense blocker or offense attacker ? In the deck building. How do I spend my removal, kill that
critter with DoS effect now when he doesn't have the mana available to activate it ? Etc,etc...
Damage on the stack = a richer game.
Except that all of what you're mentioning applies just as much without damage on the stack. Card evaluations change, strategies change, etc., but unless there's some correlation you can argue for in which all of those things are deeper with DoS rather than just different, then all you've established is that the game is different, not richer.
More decisions =/= deeper gameplay if those decisions aren't all viable.
Look at Torch Fiend for example. Your opponent swings at you with a 8/2. But they also have an artifact on board that will cause problems in the following turns.
The way it is now? I could chump block and sac an artifact, but he'll swing back at me next turn. Maybe I should trade them off. But that artifact is going to start being a pain in my side...decisions.
With DoS? Lol, have my cake and eat it too. Block creature and then sac after applying damage.
With DoS, there are more options, because you can do the things in the first situation or you can do the things in the second situation. But you would never not do both. You have more options, but only one of them is really viable.