I'm personally on the side of "Change the rules, no errata". Now they instantly have a dozen new card designs for red commons since a lot of their old cards like Lightning Bolt suddenly wouldn't hit planeswalkers anymore. They could even print Thundershock , Instant, "~ deals 2 damage to target creature, planeswalker or player." that wouldn't be strictly worse to Lightning Bolt while still only being the power level Shock used to be. This opens them up to make plenty of new spells relevant in eternal formats that will not want to use old burn spells any longer simply by deciding not to do power level errata - something they already dislike doing.
Win-win!
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Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
I'm personally on the side of "Change the rules, no errata". Now they instantly have a dozen new card designs for red commons since a lot of their old cards like Lightning Bolt suddenly wouldn't hit planeswalkers anymore. They could even print Thundershock , Instant, "~ deals 2 damage to target creature, planeswalker or player." that wouldn't be strictly worse to Lightning Bolt while still only being the power level Shock used to be. This opens them up to make plenty of new spells relevant in eternal formats that will not want to use old burn spells any longer simply by deciding not to do power level errata - something they already dislike doing.
Win-win!
Agreed, basically moving forward intentionally printing 'planeswalker' as a target-able source gives them the ability to have answers without errata. Which to me is a simple solution to the issue.
But printing close-to-equivalent-to-existing burn is also a problem. If this errata leads them to avoid errata by printing a new Lightning Bolt, a new Chain Lightning, a new Lava Spike - you’re adding more redundancy/degeneracy to the cardpool and giving people more ways to skirt the 4-of-each-card rule that exists to avoid degeneracy, especially in Burn.
If the new cards are bad nobody will use them. If they’re good people will use them alongside their predecessors and burn will become even more degenerate. There is no middle ground, which they get if they errata the existing ones.
No matter what route WotC takes, Magic is going to have to go through growing pains to properly integrate planeswalkers. Growing pains that, frankly, Magic should have gone through back when planeswalkers were first introduced, but WotC has put off until now. I, personally, think the "Change the rules, no errata" plan will be the best in the long run, and lead to the least confusion.
If this errata leads them to avoid errata by printing a new Lightning Bolt, a new Chain Lightning, a new Lava Spike - you’re adding more redundancy/degeneracy to the cardpool and giving people more ways to skirt the 4-of-each-card rule that exists to avoid degeneracy, especially in Burn.
I can see them making a new Lightning Bolt, but why would they print new Chain Lightnings or Lava Spikes? It's not like WotC needs to print carbon copies of every burn spell ever, but with "or target planeswalker" tacked on.
I'm curious how this will affect something like The Rack, since that's 8-rack's primary way to deal with a resolved planeswalker outside of Mutavault. Also curious how it will affect things like Atarka's Command since the each wording seems like it gets tricky.
Honestly I'd rather they just not errata all of these cards and errata hexproof somehow, since it sounds like Leyline of Sanctity causes a lot of the headaches. I'm sure there are many holes in my argument, but it almost seems like if you had a way of indicating that the replacement effect takes precedence over hexproof then you'd only have to worry about this problem on a handful of cards instead of thousands.
After giving it some thought, I'm on the fence about errata or not to errata. One of my pet peeves is the errata treatment that cards like Dark Ritual or Winter Orb, amongst many others including the "Grand Creature Update", received over the years because WotC didn't think things through.
I would prefer WotC minimizes the errata bull-honky even if that means weakening Lightning Bolt.
However, I definitely don't like the idea that this is WotC's roundabout way of making the first 15 years of Magic cards irrelevant. And I especially don't like WotC's recent hyper-narrow cards like Hour of Devastation. Take this path and I can easily see WotC trying to excite box sales with the non-Standard crowd with an entire set of new "classic" spells specifically tailored for Planeswalkers.
But printing close-to-equivalent-to-existing burn is also a problem. If this errata leads them to avoid errata by printing a new Lightning Bolt, a new Chain Lightning, a new Lava Spike - you’re adding more redundancy/degeneracy to the cardpool and giving people more ways to skirt the 4-of-each-card rule that exists to avoid degeneracy, especially in Burn.
Wizards has no intention of printing a new Lightning Bolt (or Chain Lightning as far as I can tell). It's explicitly too strong under the old rules for Standard, so they wouldn't want to print a new version of that. And since Wizards already prints new burn spells all the time there is always a chance of reundancy, but this would be counterbalanced by a new lowered top power level.
The problem "If new cards are bad nobody will use them." would exist whether my proposal is followed or not - except with my suggestion the likelihood of that is lessened - and the relatively more powerful cards still would not be stronger than what we got in Standard up until now, so at best the newly redundant burn deck would return to the level it already has had before the proposed change.
The only issue here is if there are eternal formats that lose an integral archetype in their meta. I will happily admit that I'm not equipped to judge this, but I feel that eternal formats are robust enough to adapt.
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Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
But printing close-to-equivalent-to-existing burn is also a problem. If this errata leads them to avoid errata by printing a new Lightning Bolt, a new Chain Lightning, a new Lava Spike - you’re adding more redundancy/degeneracy to the cardpool and giving people more ways to skirt the 4-of-each-card rule that exists to avoid degeneracy, especially in Burn.
Wizards has no intention of printing a new Lightning Bolt (or Chain Lightning as far as I can tell). It's explicitly too strong under the old rules for Standard, so they wouldn't want to print a new version of that. And since Wizards already prints new burn spells all the time there is always a chance of reundancy, but this would be counterbalanced by a new lowered top power level.
The problem "If new cards are bad nobody will use them." would exist whether my proposal is followed or not - except with my suggestion the likelihood of that is lessened - and the relatively more powerful cards still would not be stronger than what we got in Standard up until now, so at best the newly redundant burn deck would return to the level it already has had before the proposed change.
The only issue here is if there are eternal formats that lose an integral archetype in their meta. I will happily admit that I'm not equipped to judge this, but I feel that eternal formats are robust enough to adapt.
My question is though will it really change much to modern and vintage? Planeswalkers tend to shine more in standard and edh but the most prominent planeswalker in modern is Liliana of the veil. To my knowledge (which admittedly I am not an expert) planeswalkers aren't running wild in modern or vintage because most of those games want to close the game by turn three. I think if they changed the rule without the errata they can create sideboard worthy planeswalker answers for mono red burn decks that would run into trouble when they face planeswalker heavy decks. Edh in my experience would be fine because using only burn as an archetype is very hard to pull off in multiplayer and most decks I've seen use burn as a form of removal rather than a flat out win condition unless you are some how comboing off. I just think it will cause even more trouble errataing hundreds of damage spells than the confusion of the redirection rule.
My question is though will it really change much to modern and vintage?
You might be right, but if it doesn't then you still got worst case more variants of Shock in a format that already has a lot of strictly better variants like Galvanic Blast. It's an inherent feature of eternal formats that the redundancy of linear strategies like burn decks increases and Wizards hasn't been shy of making functional reprints or minor tweaks of existing burn spells before and won't in the future.
I'm not saying the best case is amazing or necessarily likely, but if the worst case for eternal formats is "nothing much changes", then that's fine, too.
EDIT: I just assume you can print a lot of Shock-level red cmc1 burn spells before they have impact on eternal formats comparable to a single blue cmc1 cardfiltering cantrip.
This assessment of that board wipe is kind of a headscratcher to me.
The big question to me is whether they'll be willing to print more tournament-quality spot removal that doesn't have a burn-to-the-face option--basically removal that a control deck would value more than Lightning Bolt's ability to end a game.
It sucks that red would take the brunt of the hit when it already has the most issues, but since we're already going down the path of not having to explain a damage redirection rule to new players, I'd prefer to also not have to show the oracle text of my Arcbond etc to new and established players.
The awkward thing is that Planeswalkers were designed with burn in mind and burn spells since then were designed to interact with them in their respective environments. What burn spells today consistently get played outside of Lightning Bolt? I'm asking mainly for Modern and Commander. It doesn't seem like they'd have to print many cards to patch up modern, but it's not clear to me how much it affects Commander.
Specifically: Standard is more or less immune to this kind of change. Old iterations of standard already ended. Changing how Blighting works now doesn't affect those thousands of games. Standard going forward would be designed with the changes in mind and with burn spells that are in line with the new functionality, whatever that may be.
Modern feels like the format that would get disrupted the most since the viable card pool is the smallest, though at the same time, it means fewer cards are needed to bounce back. Commander might have more cards affected, but it can adjust as the multiplayer nature can simply put a bit more pressure on attacking planeswalkers as a group.
There will definitely be growing pains in Standard for a year or more - starting with how and whether they errata Ramunap Ruins. It will be a temporary problem (either it will be unable to do something it once was able to do in an earlier Standard, or it will be able to do something not written on the card) - but a problem nonetheless.
This page keeps crashing my browser every time I quote a thread. I'm responding to Crypt Rat.
I don't necessarily consider Hour of Devastation a proper board wipe. While it hits Indestructible (another of WotC's mistakes that is overly abused but let's save that for later), it does so conditionally. Anything bigger than x/5, or Bolas, still lives. Somebody drops this and I just wait for the "finisher", counter that, then push my damage through on my turn anyways.
I believe this card is just another example of WotC's "feel good" design mentality.
I understand why WotC designs these cards, I just don't necessarily agree with them.
Win-win!
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
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Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
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(W/U)(B/R)GForm of Progenitus, Shape of a Scrubland
BRGJund Tokens with Prossh, the Magic Dragon Foil
URGAnimar, the RUG CleanerFoil
RRRFeldon of the Third Path 2.0 Foil
BG(B/G)Not Another Meren DeckFoil
UR(U/R)Mizzix, Y Control and X Burn Spells
(W/U)(B/R)GHarold Ramos - The 35 Foot Long Twinkie (In +1/+1 counters)
UB(U/B)Dragonlord Silumgar
If the new cards are bad nobody will use them. If they’re good people will use them alongside their predecessors and burn will become even more degenerate. There is no middle ground, which they get if they errata the existing ones.
I can see them making a new Lightning Bolt, but why would they print new Chain Lightnings or Lava Spikes? It's not like WotC needs to print carbon copies of every burn spell ever, but with "or target planeswalker" tacked on.
Honestly I'd rather they just not errata all of these cards and errata hexproof somehow, since it sounds like Leyline of Sanctity causes a lot of the headaches. I'm sure there are many holes in my argument, but it almost seems like if you had a way of indicating that the replacement effect takes precedence over hexproof then you'd only have to worry about this problem on a handful of cards instead of thousands.
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I would prefer WotC minimizes the errata bull-honky even if that means weakening Lightning Bolt.
However, I definitely don't like the idea that this is WotC's roundabout way of making the first 15 years of Magic cards irrelevant. And I especially don't like WotC's recent hyper-narrow cards like Hour of Devastation. Take this path and I can easily see WotC trying to excite box sales with the non-Standard crowd with an entire set of new "classic" spells specifically tailored for Planeswalkers.
Wizards has no intention of printing a new Lightning Bolt (or Chain Lightning as far as I can tell). It's explicitly too strong under the old rules for Standard, so they wouldn't want to print a new version of that. And since Wizards already prints new burn spells all the time there is always a chance of reundancy, but this would be counterbalanced by a new lowered top power level.
The problem "If new cards are bad nobody will use them." would exist whether my proposal is followed or not - except with my suggestion the likelihood of that is lessened - and the relatively more powerful cards still would not be stronger than what we got in Standard up until now, so at best the newly redundant burn deck would return to the level it already has had before the proposed change.
The only issue here is if there are eternal formats that lose an integral archetype in their meta. I will happily admit that I'm not equipped to judge this, but I feel that eternal formats are robust enough to adapt.
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO
My question is though will it really change much to modern and vintage? Planeswalkers tend to shine more in standard and edh but the most prominent planeswalker in modern is Liliana of the veil. To my knowledge (which admittedly I am not an expert) planeswalkers aren't running wild in modern or vintage because most of those games want to close the game by turn three. I think if they changed the rule without the errata they can create sideboard worthy planeswalker answers for mono red burn decks that would run into trouble when they face planeswalker heavy decks. Edh in my experience would be fine because using only burn as an archetype is very hard to pull off in multiplayer and most decks I've seen use burn as a form of removal rather than a flat out win condition unless you are some how comboing off. I just think it will cause even more trouble errataing hundreds of damage spells than the confusion of the redirection rule.
You might be right, but if it doesn't then you still got worst case more variants of Shock in a format that already has a lot of strictly better variants like Galvanic Blast. It's an inherent feature of eternal formats that the redundancy of linear strategies like burn decks increases and Wizards hasn't been shy of making functional reprints or minor tweaks of existing burn spells before and won't in the future.
I'm not saying the best case is amazing or necessarily likely, but if the worst case for eternal formats is "nothing much changes", then that's fine, too.
EDIT: I just assume you can print a lot of Shock-level red cmc1 burn spells before they have impact on eternal formats comparable to a single blue cmc1 card filtering cantrip.
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO
The big question to me is whether they'll be willing to print more tournament-quality spot removal that doesn't have a burn-to-the-face option--basically removal that a control deck would value more than Lightning Bolt's ability to end a game.
It sucks that red would take the brunt of the hit when it already has the most issues, but since we're already going down the path of not having to explain a damage redirection rule to new players, I'd prefer to also not have to show the oracle text of my Arcbond etc to new and established players.
The awkward thing is that Planeswalkers were designed with burn in mind and burn spells since then were designed to interact with them in their respective environments. What burn spells today consistently get played outside of Lightning Bolt? I'm asking mainly for Modern and Commander. It doesn't seem like they'd have to print many cards to patch up modern, but it's not clear to me how much it affects Commander.
Specifically: Standard is more or less immune to this kind of change. Old iterations of standard already ended. Changing how Blighting works now doesn't affect those thousands of games. Standard going forward would be designed with the changes in mind and with burn spells that are in line with the new functionality, whatever that may be.
Modern feels like the format that would get disrupted the most since the viable card pool is the smallest, though at the same time, it means fewer cards are needed to bounce back. Commander might have more cards affected, but it can adjust as the multiplayer nature can simply put a bit more pressure on attacking planeswalkers as a group.
Older Magic as a Board Game: Panglacial Wurm , Mill
I don't necessarily consider Hour of Devastation a proper board wipe. While it hits Indestructible (another of WotC's mistakes that is overly abused but let's save that for later), it does so conditionally. Anything bigger than x/5, or Bolas, still lives. Somebody drops this and I just wait for the "finisher", counter that, then push my damage through on my turn anyways.
I believe this card is just another example of WotC's "feel good" design mentality.
I understand why WotC designs these cards, I just don't necessarily agree with them.
Not an easy job.