It used to be the case that you could use it to give pseudo-vigilance, until just very recently with the oracle update that came along the release of Journey into Nyx. The intent was to restore the original functionality of when the card was printed in Exodus. At the time, the turn structure was different, there was no occasion to activate an ability while a creature was still considered attacking but after combat damage.
I'm a former judge (lapsed), who keeps up to date on rules and policy. Keep in mind that judges' answers aren't necessarily more valid than those of people who aren't judges; what matters is we can quote the rules to back up our answers. When in doubt, ask for such quotes.
Stay tuned, because Wizards has told us on TheManaDrain.com that they will be revisiting this card and similar cards in the future. They made no promises about what they may do, but this is a complicated issue and the current Oracle text may not be forever.
The intent was to restore the original functionality of when the card was printed in Exodus. At the time, the turn structure was different, there was no occasion to activate an ability while a creature was still considered attacking but after combat damage.
This is not correct. To begin with, they do not issue Oracle text based on "original intent" as such. They go off of the "original ruled functionality," without changing that functionality over rules changes.
In the case of Recon, the trouble is it is very unclear precisely what the original functionality is, and there are suggestions that the way it worked before Journey actually was the original way it worked until a ruling changed that functionality sometime after 5th edition for a short period of time.
This is not correct. To begin with, they do not issue Oracle text based on "original intent" as such. They go off of the "original ruled functionality," without changing that functionality over rules changes.
Not only you are being nitpicky, you also just read me wrong. I did not talk about the "original intent". I talked about the intent behind the change done with the last update. I was saying that the intent behind the recent change was to restore the original rules functionality.
Thanks for the info on how the issue is being followed, though.
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm a former judge (lapsed), who keeps up to date on rules and policy. Keep in mind that judges' answers aren't necessarily more valid than those of people who aren't judges; what matters is we can quote the rules to back up our answers. When in doubt, ask for such quotes.
Good point, I didn't mean to nit. You're right, the issue is one of original ruled functionality. The thing is, Matt has made some comments about this change that suggest he was actually going for original intent -- he's referenced the REMINDER text on the card as one example of why it should not give psuedo-vigilance, and made other comments -- but he's sometimes glib, so it's hard to know exactly what he meant by that.
I thought a common play with it was to give pseudo-vigilance.
I think the concern was more with creatures with first strike hitting and then leaving combat.
The Pseudo-vigilance thing is also an issue that this errata removed, whether it was designed to or not. As it stands, you could swing with all of your creatures, Recon the ones that were unprofitably blocked, let everything else get damage through, and then Recon those all as well so that your entire team got untapped.
I'd link the Wizards site but it appears to be doing something bizarre at the moment and you can't get past the front page. Here's what he actually said in public (he's said more privately to some people):
Reconnaissance (functional)
Why not start with the most notable one? When this Exodus card was created, it had a simple mission. If your attacking creature ended up in a spot you didn't expect—perhaps your opponent cast a surprise blocker or a Giant Growth you didn't see coming—you could bring it home. The rules at the time didn't allow the creature to deal or be dealt combat damage because there wasn't a window to activate the ability.
But along came the Sixth Edition rules and everything changed. Now, there was an opportunity to untap the creature after it had dealt combat damage but while it was still an attacking creature. Sure, the creature was removed from combat, but that hardly seemed to matter. It could be used to efficiently give any of your creatures "pseudo-vigilance."
Time passed.
A lot of time.
Maybe too much time.
Eventually, the card was brought to my attention. Here was a card that didn't just have its functionality shift under a new rules set (such as anything with a sacrifice ability and combat damage going off the stack), it was practically a different card. I'm not sure how much play it got, but if anyone was playing it today, it almost certainly wasn't because of its original design intent. One important goal of Oracle text is staying true to that design intent. So Reconnaissance had (roughly) the same words it always did, but it was a vastly different card. That seemed very wrong to me. We came up with a wording that restored its original functionality.
Old wording:
0: Remove target attacking creature you control from combat and untap it.
New wording:
0: Remove target attacking creature you control from combat and untap it. Activate this ability only before the combat damage step.
End of story? Well, not quite. Because this change made its way to Gatherer before I could tell anyone about it, people started talking. Why were we changing this card so many years after the fact? If this card changed, why didn't Maze of Ith and cards like it change? After all, the functionality is nearly identical. And why wasn't the Vanguard card Oracle changed? (That one's easy: hilariously, my Oracle search failed to find it. Oops.) These are good questions, and ones we take seriously.
So consider this situation still under review. The change is in, and the text you find in Gatherer is correct, but this may not be the last time we talk about this card.
Note that it is not exactly clear to most of us whether Matt is correct when he said there was no such window under 5th edition rules. More to the point, if the cards' functionality changed only because the rules changed - that is expressly NOT a reason to errata the card.
Not to weigh in too loudly on this, but the only debate under 5th edition rules was whether or not the the damage would be retroactively undone (see: Reverse Damage's old wording). On the judge listserv, there was seemingly unanimous agreement that it could be activated after damage.
I honestly think the only reason that we're debating this is because it's unintuitive that a creature that's done dealing its damage remains an "attacking creature."
It looks like Matt may have listened to the complaints about errata policy coming out in the wake of the Recon changes. Or, we've all got big heads and they just came up with a different idea on their own.
Either way, check it out: they stealth removed the stealth errata on Recon! it gives vigilance again.
It looks like Matt may have listened to the complaints about errata policy coming out in the wake of the Recon changes. Or, we've all got big heads and they just came up with a different idea on their own.
Either way, check it out: they stealth removed the stealth errata on Recon! it gives vigilance again.
Might have just been an error when they updated the website for M15.
Either way, for what it does and CMC it's not a big loss to lose the post-dmg untap.
This is not correct. To begin with, they do not issue Oracle text based on "original intent" as such. They go off of the "original ruled functionality," without changing that functionality over rules changes.
In the case of Recon, the trouble is it is very unclear precisely what the original functionality is, and there are suggestions that the way it worked before Journey actually was the original way it worked until a ruling changed that functionality sometime after 5th edition for a short period of time.
Thanks for the info on how the issue is being followed, though.
The Pseudo-vigilance thing is also an issue that this errata removed, whether it was designed to or not. As it stands, you could swing with all of your creatures, Recon the ones that were unprofitably blocked, let everything else get damage through, and then Recon those all as well so that your entire team got untapped.
It was basically Gustcloak Savior + Serra's Blessing on a 1-mana card.
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Look, here's the public post:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:HqqspfTovHkJ:www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/298b &cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
I'd link the Wizards site but it appears to be doing something bizarre at the moment and you can't get past the front page. Here's what he actually said in public (he's said more privately to some people):
Note that it is not exactly clear to most of us whether Matt is correct when he said there was no such window under 5th edition rules. More to the point, if the cards' functionality changed only because the rules changed - that is expressly NOT a reason to errata the card.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:gHHB_McweFIJ:www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/af127 &cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Matt doesn't maintain functionality over rules changes. Or at least he isn't supposed to.
I honestly think the only reason that we're debating this is because it's unintuitive that a creature that's done dealing its damage remains an "attacking creature."
https://www.cubecobra.com/cube/list/p420
Either way, check it out: they stealth removed the stealth errata on Recon! it gives vigilance again.
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=6046
Might have just been an error when they updated the website for M15.
Either way, for what it does and CMC it's not a big loss to lose the post-dmg untap.