Ive always had a big problem with the planeswalker redirect rule. Flavorwise, it makes no sense. If i shoot a lightning bolt at a person, and they dont deflect (counter) it, the lightning should then strike my opponent, not their buddy on the other side of the room. Additionally, there is no logical reason why i cant just point said bolt at their friend in the first place, especially since i can attack them directly with creatures.
This rule adds unnecessary complexity and often confuses new players in my personal experience. It is a flavor fail, and with the recent additions of cards like dreadbore, ruinous path, and hero's downfall the rule makes even less sense, as now i can target planeswalkers with kill spells, but not burn.
This ruling also causes an unfortunate interaction in older formats with cards like leyline of sanctity since now your planeswalkers all have hexproof as well. Giving yourself hexproof should not protect your planeswalkers from lightning bolt. It doesnt protect your creatures, it doesnt protect your lands, the ONLY permanent it protects is planeswalkers, and only from burn spells.
The planeswalker redirect rule should be removed in my opinion, what are all of your thoughts on this?
That with out functional errata a lot of cards or creating a lot of new cards where the only difference to an old one is that you can target a planeswalker, what we got is the best comprimise and it is not going to go away or change.
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Removing the rule without adding anything in its place introduces a whole new bunch of balance problems. You can -3 Karn Liberated or 0 Jace, the Mind Sculptor the turn you play them without worrying about Bolt, for example.
I agree that the rule is ugly, but it's there because burn spells were created much earlier than planeswalkers. The alternative (keeping as much of the current functionality as possible) is to errata every burn spell from "target player" to "target player or planeswalker", but that's a lot of changes.
All games break logical sense for the sake of gameplay somewhere, and Magic is no exception. Planeswalkers left unanswered are game changing and taking away a way to deal with them because someone doesn't like a lack of real world logic in their fantasy world setting is not good for the game. That you can redirect a spell at a Planeswalker is easily explained, and if a player can grasp Planeswalker mechanics and how they work, I'm sure they can grasp the concept of redirecting just fine.
Using a lightning bolt and saying "i bolt jace" works totally fine.
The rule is implecit to make all the old burn spells work with planeswalkers (if they hit players).
At the beginning they especially wanted to avoid any card text to reference planeswalkers on non-rare cards, so the rule also covered that to avoid any generic burn spell from saying "planeswalker" and a newbie doesnt have any idea what a planeswalker is (to that point).
I totally agree that the burn player should have the option to target a planeswalker and not the opponent has the option to defect the burn spell. Otherwise our spells are a bunch of vexing devils.
I totally agree that the burn player should have the option to target a planeswalker and not the opponent has the option to defect the burn spell. Otherwise our spells are a bunch of vexing devils.
That's effectively how it works now. The controller of the burn spell is the one who chooses to redirect or not, not the affected player. Removing the planeswalker redirect rule either takes that option away for most existing burn spells or requires massive amounts of errata.
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306.7. If noncombat damage would be dealt to a player by a source controlled by an opponent, that opponent may have that source deal that damage to a planeswalker the first player controls instead. This is a redirection effect (see rule 614.9) and is subject to the normal rules for ordering replacement effects (see rule 616). The opponent chooses whether to redirect the damage as the redirection effect is applied.
The controller of the burn spell chooses whether to hit the player or the planeswalker. In the OP and several of the responses, it looks as if people are assuming the owner of the planeswalker chooses whether or not to redirect the damage, which is not the case. If you want to hit the player, you hit the player. In effect, Lightning Bolt reads "Lightning Bolt deals 3 damage to target creature, player, or planeswalker" (except in fringe circumstances, like Leyline of Sanctity as you mentioned).
Removing the Planeswalker Redirect rule would have the opposite result that you intend: it would make it impossible to Lightning Bolt a planeswalker.
...Or am I missing something really major? It seems like if a Rules Guru like Kahedron saw the post, and didn't mention that this was a misinterpretation of the rules, who am to do so?
Planeswalkers came out when the game was old. Backwards compatibility with all burn spells is not "unnecessary complexity" for a card type that if not interacted with becomes problematic quickly.
...Or am I missing something really major? It seems like if a Rules Guru like Kahedron saw the post, and didn't mention that this was a misinterpretation of the rules, who am to do so?
I didn't bother reading the OP that deeply. And he doesn't actually go into the mechanics of the rules. Just mentioning the flavor behind it.
Either way my position doesn't change. Without the redirection rule there would be large scale errata to add a "target planeswalker" clause or a bunch of reprints where the only change is to add the "target planeswalker" clause both of which are a lot worse than what we currently have.
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Or just change the rule from "if you target a player, you can redirect to a walker" to "if something can target a player, it can also target a walker"
This comes with several changes. Spells like Searing Blood would no longer be able to hurt a walker and if you remove the 'target' requirement then cards like Gilded Light now work. Cards like Rest for the Weary make no sense. And in general it will be functionally the same.
Or just change the rule from "if you target a player, you can redirect to a walker" to "if something can target a player, it can also target a walker"
This comes with several changes. Spells like Searing Blood would no longer be able to hurt a walker and if you remove the 'target' requirement then cards like Gilded Light now work. Cards like Rest for the Weary make no sense. And in general it will be functionally the same.
Look, i wrote that up in about 5 seconds, wizards would obviously have to put a little more effort into the exact wording of the rule. Lets assume said wording causes no changes with how anything interacts in the game other than burn spells and walkers, would you agree that it would be a net positive change then?
Or just change the rule from "if you target a player, you can redirect to a walker" to "if something can target a player, it can also target a walker"
This comes with several changes. Spells like Searing Blood would no longer be able to hurt a walker and if you remove the 'target' requirement then cards like Gilded Light now work. Cards like Rest for the Weary make no sense. And in general it will be functionally the same.
Look, i wrote that up in about 5 seconds, wizards would obviously have to put a little more effort into the exact wording of the rule. Lets assume said wording causes no changes with how anything interacts in the game other than burn spells and walkers, would you agree that it would be a net positive change then?
You'll be missing out on player burn spells that don't target not being able to damage PWs. WotC did put a lot of thought into making PWs work with old cards and the work-around they come up with is the current rule. Is it perfect? No, but it works well enough.
We already know that if a spell chooses an illegal target it will fizzle. That won't change with planeswalkers. If you target a planeswalker with a life gain spell, they won't gain life because they have loyalty instead so the spell fizzles. Simple.
His wording implicitly states that targeting has to be a factor in the spell's text so Gilded Light is a complete non factor. Gilded Light literally says "you". Not " player".
The loss of the ability for Searing Blood to hit walkers is negligible in my eyes. Strictly speaking, the card's text says "that creature's controller". A planeswalker I control doesn't control my creatures. I do. Ergo only I should be able to take that damage.
The rule change would simply make targeting planeswalkers with non-combat damage far more intuitive. I've been teaching newbies several times and when this situation came up they would ask why they can't target the planeswalker directly with such spells like they can target them with attacks and I could only tell them that I don't know but the rule is certainly clumbsy.
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Lets assume said wording causes no changes with how anything interacts in the game other than burn spells and walkers, would you agree that it would be a net positive change then?
No. It would be a change that accomplishes nothing mechanically and removes zero confusion for new players. Saying "you can target a Planeswalker even though the card doesn't say you can" is no more clear than saying "you can deal the damage to a Planeswalker even though the card doesn't say you can." The definition of wasting time.
So... what's the reasoning for not treating planeswalkers as if they were players? That seems more intuitive than having this redirecting effect.
This is of course in the context of targeting planeswalkers, so rather than all the rules for redirecting damage, a number of clarifying points or restrictions would be needed for things that wouldn't make any sense. (so... if the spell would try to do something impossible like give a planeswalker life - Rest for the Weary - then it either can't target that planeswalker, or it has no effect) Essentially, this is only an issue for spells that deal damage to players (and are currently redirected), so any other spells shouldn't be involved, ideally. The current redirection solution is so inelegant, I don't imagine it would be all that difficult to come up with something more direct and intuitive.
A planewalker should have been a non flying creature with an extra type planewalker... using loyalty as an equivalent to thoughness; this would have clear the whole thing and make lighning bolt, terror, sword to plowshare and pestilence work as intended
So... what's the reasoning for not treating planeswalkers as if they were players? That seems more intuitive than having this redirecting effect.
This is of course in the context of targeting planeswalkers, so rather than all the rules for redirecting damage, a number of clarifying points or restrictions would be needed for things that wouldn't make any sense. (so... if the spell would try to do something impossible like give a planeswalker life - Rest for the Weary - then it either can't target that planeswalker, or it has no effect) Essentially, this is only an issue for spells that deal damage to players (and are currently redirected), so any other spells shouldn't be involved, ideally.
Except that the idea you came up with is very inelegant in its own right, since you have to add so many clarification points. Other than a large-scale errata, the fact is that all of the other ideas on this thread are accompanied by a statement that a simple solution is out there, somewhere is telling on its own, in that the effort expended isn't worth the benefit. The OP dislikes the rule on a purely flavorful basis, but the fact that flavor isn't an overriding prerogative here makes that point moot. Else there'd be a bunch of weird rules restricting players from attaching certain equipment to creatures that obviously can't use them.
So... what's the reasoning for not treating planeswalkers as if they were players? That seems more intuitive than having this redirecting effect.
This is of course in the context of targeting planeswalkers, so rather than all the rules for redirecting damage, a number of clarifying points or restrictions would be needed for things that wouldn't make any sense. (so... if the spell would try to do something impossible like give a planeswalker life - Rest for the Weary - then it either can't target that planeswalker, or it has no effect) Essentially, this is only an issue for spells that deal damage to players (and are currently redirected), so any other spells shouldn't be involved, ideally. The current redirection solution is so inelegant, I don't imagine it would be all that difficult to come up with something more direct and intuitive.
I imagine that's exactly how they arrived at the redirection rule.
Imagine the designers' meeting during Lorwyn:
"OK guys, we're introducing a new card type called planeswalkers. Basically they're like players, you can attack them and they have a loyalty, which is kinda like life. Damage makes them lose loyalty. Any issues?"
"Yes, what about discard? PWs don't have a hand."
"OK, you can't target a PW with a discard spell then."
"What about life gain? Can I ult a PW just by casting some life gain to boost its loyalty?"
"OK, you can't target a PW with a life gain spell then."
"What about things like Hunted Horror? Can I choose to have the tokens ETB under the PW's control? If so, what happens if I cast Innocent Blood? Does the PW sac one creature and my opponent sac another?"
"OK, you can't target a PW with a Hunted creature then."
- this goes on for a while as the other designers come up with various things that you shouldn't be able to do with PWs -
"Phew, this took long enough. I think we've heard enough of what you can't do to PWs. So what can you actually do to PWs?"
- looks at whiteboard with hundreds of crossed-out items, except "Burn" -
"You should be able to burn them. That's all."
"So can we just make one rule that lets you burn a PW?"
QED
Except that the idea you came up with is very inelegant in its own right, since you have to add so many clarification points. Other than a large-scale errata, the fact is that all of the other ideas on this thread are accompanied by a statement that a simple solution is out there, somewhere is telling on its own, in that the effort expended isn't worth the benefit. The OP dislikes the rule on a purely flavorful basis, but the fact that flavor isn't an overriding prerogative here makes that point moot. Else there'd be a bunch of weird rules restricting players from attaching certain equipment to creatures that obviously can't use them.
It seems to me that there should be just about as many exceptions under the proposed change as there are under the current system (since it aims to achieve essentially the same thing, mechanically speaking), with the major improvement being more grokkable rules. I didn't mean to give the impression that each kind of effect would need an exception written out - rather, a broad statement that deals specifically with how the damage is applied to planeswalkers. No need for true exceptions, since the rule would only apply to the damaging spells that are relevant in this context.
Honestly, I responded in this thread on a whim, so it now occurs to me that this may just be an issue of semantics - since the word 'redirect' has mtg-specific meaning as rules text, it may be incorrectly implying that damage in this context is redirected in the same way. I don't know enough about the rule in question to say if that's the case or not. I do know that the rule, as it was explained to me, was odd because it required the player as an intermediary target of sorts when directing a damage spell at a planeswalker. That's the inelegant part.
EDIT: So, perhaps there are problems with a rule that would only apply to damaging spells/abilities that target players, now being able to target planeswalkers. Anathemancer? Damage could be applied directly to the player, but the second part would look at the controller of the planeswalker. If the same effect (if the spell/ability deals damage, it targets the planeswalker. if not, it looks to the planeswalker's controller) was applied everywhere, would anything break?
A planewalker should have been a non flying creature with an extra type planewalker... using loyalty as an equivalent to thoughness; this would have clear the whole thing and make lighning bolt, terror, sword to plowshare and pestilence work as intended
This is an absolutely terrible idea with both loyalty counters and toughness.
With your system a lightning bolt would remove 3 loyalty counters from the planeswalker creature and mark 3 damage on it until the end of turn.
Not to mention the wonderful confusion over attacking and blocking, and other types of counters that can be put on a creature. There is a reason why Planeswalkers that turn into a creature only do it on your own turn and either prevent all damage dealt to them or stop being a planeswalker.
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- H.L Mencken
I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
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- Edgar Allan Poe
Since burning a PW causes a reduction in his loyalty points, shouldn’t he be put in exile rather than the GY, when all loyalty is lost?
I mean, there is no life loss there, no dying, just loss of loyalty.
It’s like Gideon saying: “Hey man, this fight has become too intense for me. Mañana!”, and then using his spark to planeswalk away, thus removing himself from the game.
This rule adds unnecessary complexity and often confuses new players in my personal experience. It is a flavor fail, and with the recent additions of cards like dreadbore, ruinous path, and hero's downfall the rule makes even less sense, as now i can target planeswalkers with kill spells, but not burn.
This ruling also causes an unfortunate interaction in older formats with cards like leyline of sanctity since now your planeswalkers all have hexproof as well. Giving yourself hexproof should not protect your planeswalkers from lightning bolt. It doesnt protect your creatures, it doesnt protect your lands, the ONLY permanent it protects is planeswalkers, and only from burn spells.
The planeswalker redirect rule should be removed in my opinion, what are all of your thoughts on this?
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I agree that the rule is ugly, but it's there because burn spells were created much earlier than planeswalkers. The alternative (keeping as much of the current functionality as possible) is to errata every burn spell from "target player" to "target player or planeswalker", but that's a lot of changes.
P.S. you can, in fact, burn PWs if the card says so. Fated Conflagration
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Sounds like someone lost to some Planeswalkers.
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The rule is implecit to make all the old burn spells work with planeswalkers (if they hit players).
At the beginning they especially wanted to avoid any card text to reference planeswalkers on non-rare cards, so the rule also covered that to avoid any generic burn spell from saying "planeswalker" and a newbie doesnt have any idea what a planeswalker is (to that point).
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The controller of the burn spell chooses whether to hit the player or the planeswalker. In the OP and several of the responses, it looks as if people are assuming the owner of the planeswalker chooses whether or not to redirect the damage, which is not the case. If you want to hit the player, you hit the player. In effect, Lightning Bolt reads "Lightning Bolt deals 3 damage to target creature, player, or planeswalker" (except in fringe circumstances, like Leyline of Sanctity as you mentioned).
Removing the Planeswalker Redirect rule would have the opposite result that you intend: it would make it impossible to Lightning Bolt a planeswalker.
...Or am I missing something really major? It seems like if a Rules Guru like Kahedron saw the post, and didn't mention that this was a misinterpretation of the rules, who am to do so?
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I didn't bother reading the OP that deeply. And he doesn't actually go into the mechanics of the rules. Just mentioning the flavor behind it.
Either way my position doesn't change. Without the redirection rule there would be large scale errata to add a "target planeswalker" clause or a bunch of reprints where the only change is to add the "target planeswalker" clause both of which are a lot worse than what we currently have.
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I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
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This comes with several changes. Spells like Searing Blood would no longer be able to hurt a walker and if you remove the 'target' requirement then cards like Gilded Light now work. Cards like Rest for the Weary make no sense. And in general it will be functionally the same.
Look, i wrote that up in about 5 seconds, wizards would obviously have to put a little more effort into the exact wording of the rule. Lets assume said wording causes no changes with how anything interacts in the game other than burn spells and walkers, would you agree that it would be a net positive change then?
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You'll be missing out on player burn spells that don't target not being able to damage PWs. WotC did put a lot of thought into making PWs work with old cards and the work-around they come up with is the current rule. Is it perfect? No, but it works well enough.
We already know that if a spell chooses an illegal target it will fizzle. That won't change with planeswalkers. If you target a planeswalker with a life gain spell, they won't gain life because they have loyalty instead so the spell fizzles. Simple.
His wording implicitly states that targeting has to be a factor in the spell's text so Gilded Light is a complete non factor. Gilded Light literally says "you". Not " player".
The loss of the ability for Searing Blood to hit walkers is negligible in my eyes. Strictly speaking, the card's text says "that creature's controller". A planeswalker I control doesn't control my creatures. I do. Ergo only I should be able to take that damage.
The rule change would simply make targeting planeswalkers with non-combat damage far more intuitive. I've been teaching newbies several times and when this situation came up they would ask why they can't target the planeswalker directly with such spells like they can target them with attacks and I could only tell them that I don't know but the rule is certainly clumbsy.
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This is of course in the context of targeting planeswalkers, so rather than all the rules for redirecting damage, a number of clarifying points or restrictions would be needed for things that wouldn't make any sense. (so... if the spell would try to do something impossible like give a planeswalker life - Rest for the Weary - then it either can't target that planeswalker, or it has no effect) Essentially, this is only an issue for spells that deal damage to players (and are currently redirected), so any other spells shouldn't be involved, ideally. The current redirection solution is so inelegant, I don't imagine it would be all that difficult to come up with something more direct and intuitive.
Except that the idea you came up with is very inelegant in its own right, since you have to add so many clarification points. Other than a large-scale errata, the fact is that all of the other ideas on this thread are accompanied by a statement that a simple solution is out there, somewhere is telling on its own, in that the effort expended isn't worth the benefit. The OP dislikes the rule on a purely flavorful basis, but the fact that flavor isn't an overriding prerogative here makes that point moot. Else there'd be a bunch of weird rules restricting players from attaching certain equipment to creatures that obviously can't use them.
Imagine the designers' meeting during Lorwyn:
"OK guys, we're introducing a new card type called planeswalkers. Basically they're like players, you can attack them and they have a loyalty, which is kinda like life. Damage makes them lose loyalty. Any issues?"
"Yes, what about discard? PWs don't have a hand."
"OK, you can't target a PW with a discard spell then."
"What about life gain? Can I ult a PW just by casting some life gain to boost its loyalty?"
"OK, you can't target a PW with a life gain spell then."
"What about things like Hunted Horror? Can I choose to have the tokens ETB under the PW's control? If so, what happens if I cast Innocent Blood? Does the PW sac one creature and my opponent sac another?"
"OK, you can't target a PW with a Hunted creature then."
- this goes on for a while as the other designers come up with various things that you shouldn't be able to do with PWs -
"Phew, this took long enough. I think we've heard enough of what you can't do to PWs. So what can you actually do to PWs?"
- looks at whiteboard with hundreds of crossed-out items, except "Burn" -
"You should be able to burn them. That's all."
"So can we just make one rule that lets you burn a PW?"
QED
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Honestly, I responded in this thread on a whim, so it now occurs to me that this may just be an issue of semantics - since the word 'redirect' has mtg-specific meaning as rules text, it may be incorrectly implying that damage in this context is redirected in the same way. I don't know enough about the rule in question to say if that's the case or not. I do know that the rule, as it was explained to me, was odd because it required the player as an intermediary target of sorts when directing a damage spell at a planeswalker. That's the inelegant part.
EDIT: So, perhaps there are problems with a rule that would only apply to damaging spells/abilities that target players, now being able to target planeswalkers. Anathemancer? Damage could be applied directly to the player, but the second part would look at the controller of the planeswalker. If the same effect (if the spell/ability deals damage, it targets the planeswalker. if not, it looks to the planeswalker's controller) was applied everywhere, would anything break?
This is an absolutely terrible idea with both loyalty counters and toughness.
With your system a lightning bolt would remove 3 loyalty counters from the planeswalker creature and mark 3 damage on it until the end of turn.
Not to mention the wonderful confusion over attacking and blocking, and other types of counters that can be put on a creature. There is a reason why Planeswalkers that turn into a creature only do it on your own turn and either prevent all damage dealt to them or stop being a planeswalker.
- H.L Mencken
I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
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I mean, there is no life loss there, no dying, just loss of loyalty.
It’s like Gideon saying: “Hey man, this fight has become too intense for me. Mañana!”, and then using his spark to planeswalk away, thus removing himself from the game.
It doesn't make sense on any level, the redirection rule. As dumb and clunky MtG rules go, it sure is one.