I find this particularly odd when older cards have wording like in hatred:
"pay x life: Target creature gets +X/+0 until end of turn." but have been errated to "As an additional cost to cast Hatred, pay X life. Target creature gets +X/+0 until end of turn. ".
Activated abilities on spells are very confusing as seen on Lightning Storm older cards didn't stick to a well defined template which is the reason for the errata on Hatred simply put if you tried to cast hatred normally you would end up not pumping at all, with its old function you would have to hold priority and pay life, also it would essentially be uncounterable which seems like a problem.
I find this particularly odd when older cards have wording like in hatred:
"pay x life: Target creature gets +X/+0 until end of turn." but have been errated to "As an additional cost to cast Hatred, pay X life. Target creature gets +X/+0 until end of turn. ".
During the time when vampiric tutor was first printed, there were plenty of people who mistook it as being able to rearrange your library as long as you had the life for it.
"I'll pay 10 life and put 5 cards to the top of my library."
The card you posted, hatred, has since been fixed.
In order to get the proper wording of an activated ability of a sorcery/instant right, you had to use the wording lightning storm uses, "only if Lightning Storm is on the stack." WotC does not like using the word "Stack" in card rules. Theories as to why this is includes making the card more complex.
Why doesn't this happen more often? Probably because the fact that these are activated abilities would tend to confuse newer players.
This. I still end up having to explain cycling is an activated ability, not casting the spell, in a lot of EDH games. It doesn't help that alternate casting costs like Miracle look similar but are casting the spell.
Lightning Storm is probably the most confusing card that sees regular play in Modern. It is the kind of terrible design-space-at-any-cost card that is characteristic of design from Coldsnap-Eventide Standard. The text box has 8 lines of text and 56 words, one of which is "stack". These cards appeal to a certain type of player who is in the distinct minority amongst Magic players as a whole these days.
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In order to get the proper wording of an activated ability of a sorcery/instant right, you had to use the wording lightning storm uses, "only if Lightning Storm is on the stack." WotC does not like using the word "Stack" in card rules. Theories as to why this is includes making the card more complex.
They don't like using "stack" in rules text for, I believe, two reasons:
1. They want to leave open the possibility that just as the stack supplanted batches, something may someday supplant the stack. If that happens, Lightning Storm might have to be completely reworded to work as intended.
2. According to them, their research shows that a lot of new players simply do not understand the stack. That's part of why they took combat damage off the stack--it removed one of the most common places where the stack became relevant and thus confused said new players.
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Why doesn't this happen more often? Probably because the fact that these are activated abilities would tend to confuse newer players.
Cycling and forecast are not activated abilities on spells. They are activated abilities on cards. A spell is something that can only exist on the stack.
Lightning Storm is probably the most confusing card that sees regular play in Modern. It is the kind of terrible design-space-at-any-cost card that is characteristic of design from Coldsnap-Eventide Standard. The text box has 8 lines of text and 56 words, one of which is "stack". These cards appeal to a certain type of player who is in the distinct minority amongst Magic players as a whole these days.
The problems with Lightning Storm go well beyond it having an activated ability. Chain Lightning has an activated ability, and one that is very similar to Lightning Storm's, but what it doesn't have is all the crazy business with charge counters and variable effects.
Activated abilities on spells, even ones that work on the stack, don't have to be as complex as lightning storm. Take the following for example:
Tap Life WW
Sorcery
Gain 5 Life
U: Tap target creature. Play this ability only while Tap Life is on the stack.
The problem isn't complexity, its Wizards weird aversion to referring to the stack, and the fact that its not all that different from multikicker in practice, except better because you still get the effect if its countered. Basically, that sort of ability isn't needed. Now, stuff like forecast and cycling, there's plenty of design space there.
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Chain Lightning has an activated ability, and one that is very similar to Lightning Storm's, but what it doesn't have is all the crazy business with charge counters and variable effects.
Chain Lightning does not have an activated ability. Activated abilities are any ability in the form "[cost]: [effect]". Chain Lightning has a one-shot effect (CR 610) which gives a player an opportunity to pay mana to create a new copy of the same effect.
Chain Lightning could have been written with an activated ability much like Lightning Storm, but in order to achieve the same functionality that it currently has, it would be even more complicated than LS is; only the person being targeted by CL or controlling the creature being targeted by CL would be able to activate the ability, and you would only be able to activate the ability once. Even that would leave loopholes for strange interactions, such as if the spell (or copies of it) are responded to with other spells or abilities, or if something like Suppression Field is in play.
Writing Chain Lightning with an activated ability would also mean the opponent gets to deal damage with their copy before the original player gets to deal any damage at all, which can change the dynamic of the card a lot.
Technically Splice Into Arcane is almost an activated ability on spells. It's actually more of a free triggered ability but whatever. I do consider kicker to be the closest though and they should totally bring that back. Or Overload or any of the other clones of it.
Activated abilities on spells, even ones that work on the stack, don't have to be as complex as lightning storm. Take the following for example:
Tap Life WW
Sorcery
Gain 5 Life
U: Tap target creature. Play this ability only while Tap Life is on the stack.
The problem isn't complexity, its Wizards weird aversion to referring to the stack, and the fact that its not all that different from multikicker in practice, except better because you still get the effect if its countered. Basically, that sort of ability isn't needed. Now, stuff like forecast and cycling, there's plenty of design space there.
I think you are underestimating the complexity of the card in above, while it may seem simple to you and me, it is not that easy to understand if you are not familiar with the minor details of the rules. First you have to understand the stack, which is a nonessential part of play a game of magic, even if it is useful to know. If someone ignores the stack, in can play in practice a lot like multikicker, like you mentioned, but if I play, the following card:
Simple life ww
sorcery
multikicker u
gain 5 life, then tag up to x creatures where x is the number of times simple life was kicked.
kicked once, and then my opponent kills the targeted creature I don't gain 5 life, but if the same scenario happens with tap life, then I do get the 5 life, because the spell doesn't target, the ability does. While this interaction is simple in hindsight, it is still confusing to a player looking in from the outside why you gain the life with one card but not the other.
Also to use tap life correctly in the current tournament rules, or on magic online to use the tap ability you have to explicitly hold priority, and then tap, otherwise your opponent can just pass priority and the spell resolves without you getting a shot to use the ability. This interaction makes no sense without understanding the priority system, which is also a complicated part of the game. So to understand how a card works you have to explain two concept which are not needed to play a game of magic, and then also have to explain other interactions. This is all on in your words "a simple card".
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Technically Splice Into Arcane is almost an activated ability on spells. It's actually more of a free triggered ability but whatever. I do consider kicker to be the closest though and they should totally bring that back. Or Overload or any of the other clones of it.
Splice is not an activated ability. It is a static ability that can alter the total cost of another spell.
Kicker is not an activated ability. It is a static ability that permits an additional cost for the spell it's on.
Overload is not an activated ability. It is two static abilities, one of which permits an alternate cost for the spell it's on, and the other which alters the text of the spell it's on.
However, if you're hoping to see Kicker again, you're probably in luck. Kicker is such a versatile ability that, despite the fact that it's not an "evergreen keyword", it gets used again and again. (In fact, there are a number of other keywords that could have been implemented as kickers, such as Buyback or Replicate. Doing so would have complicated the text of a large set of related cards, though.)
Technically Splice Into Arcane is almost an activated ability on spells. It's actually more of a free triggered ability but whatever. I do consider kicker to be the closest though and they should totally bring that back. Or Overload or any of the other clones of it.
Splice is not an activated ability. It is a static ability that can alter the total cost of another spell.
Kicker is not an activated ability. It is a static ability that permits an additional cost for the spell it's on.
Overload is not an activated ability. It is two static abilities, one of which permits an alternate cost for the spell it's on, and the other which alters the text of the spell it's on.
However, if you're hoping to see Kicker again, you're probably in luck. Kicker is such a versatile ability that, despite the fact that it's not an "evergreen keyword", it gets used again and again. (In fact, there are a number of other keywords that could have been implemented as kickers, such as Buyback or Replicate. Doing so would have complicated the text of a large set of related cards, though.)
Yeah, and spells also don't have activated abilities because they're not permanents. Only permanents can have activated abilities. Thanks, take everything literally guy. That's why I said "almost" and "closest."
Cards in graveyards aren't permanents and can have activated abilities, such as with Deathless Behemoth. Spells on the stack can have activated abilities, such as with Lightning Storm, but there's no practical reason to do this for the most part so Wizards avoids the complexity.
Activated abilities are easily distinguished by the typesetting "[cost]: [effect]" (the colon is important). Some activated abilities are keyworded, like equip, where "equip n" is simply a shortcut for "n: Attach to target creature you control. Equip only as a sorcery," but the underlying rules are the same. Unfortunately, close doesn't really count when it comes to Magic rules because there are very specific interactions that wind up mattering—imagine if you could Pithing Needle to stop kicker because it's "close" to being an activated ability and you'll see what I mean.
It's a silly card, but I'm happy Lightning Storm exists. I guess I'm in that minority faction!
It's a good card, especially because it shows how flexible the rules are. I'm not much of a Johnny, but I do like cards that do weird or non-standard things with the rules. Hell, ever since Tabak confirmed that "you may cast ~ from the battlefield" is in fact valid, I've been wanting to see something do it even though I know it'll never happen.
The problem, though, is shown most of the times I answer judge calls at FNM. The average player simply doesn't have that good a grasp of the rules, so if you let things get too complex, it just winds up causing bad feelings in players who feel like they got cheated by the game even when it comes to seemingly simple things like "no, you can't Negate a god." End of the day, spells like Lightning Storm are the kind of thing that's best explored in supplemental product rather than main set releases, for better or worse.
Technically Splice Into Arcane is almost an activated ability on spells. It's actually more of a free triggered ability but whatever. I do consider kicker to be the closest though and they should totally bring that back. Or Overload or any of the other clones of it.
Splice is not an activated ability. It is a static ability that can alter the total cost of another spell.
Kicker is not an activated ability. It is a static ability that permits an additional cost for the spell it's on.
Overload is not an activated ability. It is two static abilities, one of which permits an alternate cost for the spell it's on, and the other which alters the text of the spell it's on.
However, if you're hoping to see Kicker again, you're probably in luck. Kicker is such a versatile ability that, despite the fact that it's not an "evergreen keyword", it gets used again and again. (In fact, there are a number of other keywords that could have been implemented as kickers, such as Buyback or Replicate. Doing so would have complicated the text of a large set of related cards, though.)
Yeah, and spells also don't have activated abilities because they're not permanents. Only permanents can have activated abilities. Thanks, take everything literally guy. That's why I said "almost" and "closest."
This entire thread is about activated abilities on non-permanents, with the most obvious example presented in the original post: Lightning Storm has an activated ability which can only be activated while LS is on the stack. Other examples have been given, such as Cycling or Forecast, which are both keywords representing activated abilities that can only be used from your hand (meaning they can't be used by permanents), and many cards with those keywords are instant or sorcery cards, to boot.
The vast majority of the language on Magic cards is very specific, and getting loose with the language gets you in trouble. This can be especially true if you try to cross over between kinds of abilities, as there are a ton of strange things that happen if you attempt to treat a one-shot effect as an activated ability or a static ability as a triggered ability, etc.
People on MTGS may not realize how little your average MTG player knows about Magic and the rules. Joe Dueldeck doesn't know the difference between a spell and a permanent, let alone an activated ability on a spell. He plays with his friends, and maybe half of them know the difference.
Look at how simplified the average Hearthstone card is. This is for a reason.
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In the case of Vampiric Tutor, it's lulzy, because you wouldn't be able to rearrange your library anyway.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
Activated abilities on spells, even ones that work on the stack, don't have to be as complex as lightning storm. Take the following for example:
Tap Life WW
Sorcery
Gain 5 Life
U: Tap target creature. Play this ability only while Tap Life is on the stack.
This is way worse than Lightning Storm in terms of complexity.
Lightning Storm is designed specifically to avoid much clutter as possible, the activated ability only affects the spell itself. With your example card each activation places an object on that stack that is totally independent from the spell. On the other hand Multikicker implements an ability that will be the same 90% of the time without complicating the game state or behaving in ways that make no sense to most players.
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I find this particularly odd when older cards have wording like in hatred:
"pay x life: Target creature gets +X/+0 until end of turn." but have been errated to "As an additional cost to cast Hatred, pay X life. Target creature gets +X/+0 until end of turn. ".
As far as I know there is only lightning storm.
Compare Vampiric Tutor from Visions with Sixth Edition.
Because it causes confusion.
During the time when vampiric tutor was first printed, there were plenty of people who mistook it as being able to rearrange your library as long as you had the life for it.
"I'll pay 10 life and put 5 cards to the top of my library."
The card you posted, hatred, has since been fixed.
In order to get the proper wording of an activated ability of a sorcery/instant right, you had to use the wording lightning storm uses, "only if Lightning Storm is on the stack." WotC does not like using the word "Stack" in card rules. Theories as to why this is includes making the card more complex.
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For example, Constricting Tendrils and Proclamation of Rebirth.
Why doesn't this happen more often? Probably because the fact that these are activated abilities would tend to confuse newer players.
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This. I still end up having to explain cycling is an activated ability, not casting the spell, in a lot of EDH games. It doesn't help that alternate casting costs like Miracle look similar but are casting the spell.
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They don't like using "stack" in rules text for, I believe, two reasons:
1. They want to leave open the possibility that just as the stack supplanted batches, something may someday supplant the stack. If that happens, Lightning Storm might have to be completely reworded to work as intended.
2. According to them, their research shows that a lot of new players simply do not understand the stack. That's part of why they took combat damage off the stack--it removed one of the most common places where the stack became relevant and thus confused said new players.
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Standard: Too poor for this format.
Modern: GW Auras, Living End, WB TurboFog, UB Mill, UR Storm
Legacy: R Burn, GU Infect, RG Lands, B Contamination
Cycling and forecast are not activated abilities on spells. They are activated abilities on cards. A spell is something that can only exist on the stack.
The problems with Lightning Storm go well beyond it having an activated ability. Chain Lightning has an activated ability, and one that is very similar to Lightning Storm's, but what it doesn't have is all the crazy business with charge counters and variable effects.
Activated abilities on spells, even ones that work on the stack, don't have to be as complex as lightning storm. Take the following for example:
Tap Life WW
Sorcery
Gain 5 Life
U: Tap target creature. Play this ability only while Tap Life is on the stack.
The problem isn't complexity, its Wizards weird aversion to referring to the stack, and the fact that its not all that different from multikicker in practice, except better because you still get the effect if its countered. Basically, that sort of ability isn't needed. Now, stuff like forecast and cycling, there's plenty of design space there.
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Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Chain Lightning could have been written with an activated ability much like Lightning Storm, but in order to achieve the same functionality that it currently has, it would be even more complicated than LS is; only the person being targeted by CL or controlling the creature being targeted by CL would be able to activate the ability, and you would only be able to activate the ability once. Even that would leave loopholes for strange interactions, such as if the spell (or copies of it) are responded to with other spells or abilities, or if something like Suppression Field is in play.
Writing Chain Lightning with an activated ability would also mean the opponent gets to deal damage with their copy before the original player gets to deal any damage at all, which can change the dynamic of the card a lot.
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I think you are underestimating the complexity of the card in above, while it may seem simple to you and me, it is not that easy to understand if you are not familiar with the minor details of the rules. First you have to understand the stack, which is a nonessential part of play a game of magic, even if it is useful to know. If someone ignores the stack, in can play in practice a lot like multikicker, like you mentioned, but if I play, the following card:
Simple life ww
sorcery
multikicker u
gain 5 life, then tag up to x creatures where x is the number of times simple life was kicked.
kicked once, and then my opponent kills the targeted creature I don't gain 5 life, but if the same scenario happens with tap life, then I do get the 5 life, because the spell doesn't target, the ability does. While this interaction is simple in hindsight, it is still confusing to a player looking in from the outside why you gain the life with one card but not the other.
Also to use tap life correctly in the current tournament rules, or on magic online to use the tap ability you have to explicitly hold priority, and then tap, otherwise your opponent can just pass priority and the spell resolves without you getting a shot to use the ability. This interaction makes no sense without understanding the priority system, which is also a complicated part of the game. So to understand how a card works you have to explain two concept which are not needed to play a game of magic, and then also have to explain other interactions. This is all on in your words "a simple card".
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Kicker is not an activated ability. It is a static ability that permits an additional cost for the spell it's on.
Overload is not an activated ability. It is two static abilities, one of which permits an alternate cost for the spell it's on, and the other which alters the text of the spell it's on.
However, if you're hoping to see Kicker again, you're probably in luck. Kicker is such a versatile ability that, despite the fact that it's not an "evergreen keyword", it gets used again and again. (In fact, there are a number of other keywords that could have been implemented as kickers, such as Buyback or Replicate. Doing so would have complicated the text of a large set of related cards, though.)
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Yeah, and spells also don't have activated abilities because they're not permanents. Only permanents can have activated abilities. Thanks, take everything literally guy. That's why I said "almost" and "closest."
Cards in graveyards aren't permanents and can have activated abilities, such as with Deathless Behemoth. Spells on the stack can have activated abilities, such as with Lightning Storm, but there's no practical reason to do this for the most part so Wizards avoids the complexity.
Activated abilities are easily distinguished by the typesetting "[cost]: [effect]" (the colon is important). Some activated abilities are keyworded, like equip, where "equip n" is simply a shortcut for "n: Attach to target creature you control. Equip only as a sorcery," but the underlying rules are the same. Unfortunately, close doesn't really count when it comes to Magic rules because there are very specific interactions that wind up mattering—imagine if you could Pithing Needle to stop kicker because it's "close" to being an activated ability and you'll see what I mean.
It's a good card, especially because it shows how flexible the rules are. I'm not much of a Johnny, but I do like cards that do weird or non-standard things with the rules. Hell, ever since Tabak confirmed that "you may cast ~ from the battlefield" is in fact valid, I've been wanting to see something do it even though I know it'll never happen.
The problem, though, is shown most of the times I answer judge calls at FNM. The average player simply doesn't have that good a grasp of the rules, so if you let things get too complex, it just winds up causing bad feelings in players who feel like they got cheated by the game even when it comes to seemingly simple things like "no, you can't Negate a god." End of the day, spells like Lightning Storm are the kind of thing that's best explored in supplemental product rather than main set releases, for better or worse.
The vast majority of the language on Magic cards is very specific, and getting loose with the language gets you in trouble. This can be especially true if you try to cross over between kinds of abilities, as there are a ton of strange things that happen if you attempt to treat a one-shot effect as an activated ability or a static ability as a triggered ability, etc.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
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Look at how simplified the average Hearthstone card is. This is for a reason.
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Those are activated abilities, but the card isn't a spell at the time. (PROTIP: It's only a spell on the stack, e.g. Emrakul, the Aeons Torn's ability stops Doom Blade, but not Shriekmaw or Seal of Doom.)
In the case of Vampiric Tutor, it's lulzy, because you wouldn't be able to rearrange your library anyway.
On phasing:
This is way worse than Lightning Storm in terms of complexity.
Lightning Storm is designed specifically to avoid much clutter as possible, the activated ability only affects the spell itself. With your example card each activation places an object on that stack that is totally independent from the spell. On the other hand Multikicker implements an ability that will be the same 90% of the time without complicating the game state or behaving in ways that make no sense to most players.