- They used a Planar Chaos border since it's in the past, before he gets Compleated (minor but possible)
- Starting in Dominaria, they are changing the Legendary rules to be a special symbol with no rules baggage and a new "Unique" keyword. They aren't quite ready to drop that bomb on us, possibly because "Legendary Matters" is a major mechanical theme of Dominaria.
- Regenerate is returning but being functionally changed; this is spelled out on the card and they aren't ready to reveal that yet.
- Because he's such a popular commander, it's a full art card or has some other special treatment (if this is the case it makes me extra sad to not see a legendary on the front of the Artificers deck but what can you do?)
I think "two" is most likely, as I think they'd likely be proud to show off any special border/foiling treatment and overhauling a currently defunct keyword in a supplemental non-booster product is way outside their norm.
Where did they say that Dominaria was going to do that? Can you cite the article?
Sorry, this is me rampantly speculating; no one has SAID anything. MaRo has repeatedly said on his blog that he hates that legendary has rules baggage and it's a constant design struggle on every single set. Even for unsets - lots of Commander players wish Earl of Squirrel was legendary, but casual Squirrel players would hate if it was since they couldn't run multiples or clone it. When people ask what he'd change about Magic if he ruled with an iron fist, "Legendary has no rules baggage and is denoted by a special symbol" ranks just behind "Instant is a supertype, not a type" and way ahead of "Creature-Dog".
Having legendary be a special symbol would allow them to make more things Legendary for commander, without it impacting gameplay. They could then errata all legends printed before Dominaria to have a "unique" keyword, and selectively choose going forward if a legend needs to be "unique" (like most planeswalkers, or Thalia, Guardian of Thraben), or if it'd be fine in limited and casual constructed to let players run multiples. As an added perk, it'd let them do more typings for tribal/casual players - Chromanticore isn't legendary and Oketra the True isn't a cat for many reasons but one of those reasons is that it literally wouldn't fit on the typeline.
So it has to be a new frame for Legendary creatures, right? Dominaria is gonna be a Legendary set at least to some degree so they invented a cool new frame so its more obvious which creatures are Legendary without having to read them
While a more extreme change in the functionality of Legends is possible, the legend symbol and the unique mechanic, I doubt it, for one I don't think MaRo just published their secret well guarded plans for future mechanics in an article about the Great Designer Search, for two it sounds much more complicated than the current legend rule. There maybe changes, again, but I kinda doubt they are gonna be so extreme as to cause functionality changes. Personally I liked the old Time Paradox rules instead of the current Everyone Gets One rules anyway so whatever.
The change to Regenerate is also possible but I highly doubt this as well, for one regenerate was taken out of the game about 2 years ago now, why go back and try to fix something that very few players ever see, especially when it isn't actually broken just more confusing than would be preferred, for two some of the ideas about the fix like changing it to grant indestructible just seems way too radical, this would be a massive functionality change to a massive number of cards
They already changed the way PWs function in a pretty big way at the end of last year, and we pretty much know they are planning a massive change to direct damage spells since they wanna scrap the PW redirect rules for simplicity, just how many massive rules changes, massive erratas and massive functionality changes do you people expect there to be in a one year period?
Also Wizards if your reading, I know its too late to ask but whatever this is please don't make it something stupid. I don't wanna look at new Legendary or Regenerate cards with the same disdain I use when I look at my Thran Dynamo that has CCC instead of just 3
Given they just added Planeswalkers to the Legendary rule and did away with the planeswalker uniqueness rule, suggests to me doing away with the Legendary rule is unlikely. I think the Legendary creatures getting a new frame treatment is the most likely answer at this point.
As for regenerate being too complicated, they put Storm in Mind and Might, I think they are okay with regenerate one last time.
i like the idea of changing regeneration to be more like persist/undying but it has wide reaching ramifications for etb abilities, becoming something of a green/black flicker effect. i could see them changing the rules in the same way they updated the phasing rules, not sure how they would best achieve it though.
i don't think they are removing legendary considering they just errata'd all planeswalkers to be legendary...
the goblin welder art seems to depict a darksteel colossus? the goofy eyes are pretty visible. it would add some value to the deck despite being an invalid welder target, ironically. huh. it could also be an acrbound overseer? really kind of confused. glad to see a solemn reprint here.
the artwork for ezuri is the exact size needed for a normal card frame. so i don't think it will be a full art/borderless art etc. my bet is on legendary card frame. which is actually a good idea imo.
I didn't even consider a spoiler possibly hidden in flavor text, assuming he has that.
Considering we already know know Ezuri's future a spoiler seems unlikely
Well yeah, but to be fair, there could be other hidden gems in the storyline that WOTC could have either witheld or revealed in between that time and when he was taken over by New Phyrexia. Also, not all flavor text centers around the lore of said creature, although that is the case more than 99.99% of the time.
I don't think changing Regenerate to Indestructible works - if anything they might change it to be something more like Persist/Undying.
T: Target Elf gains Renegenerate until end of turn (when that creature dies this turn, its controller returns it to the battlefield tapped under that player's control)
Then it would be an inconsequential wording change to still have that still get hosed by Wrath of God/Terror and such.
Giving regenerating creatures LTB/ETB/Dies triggers is a far less crushing overhaul than the suggested Indestructible change that would remove so much of Renegerate's other functionality (removal from combat, tapping the creature, noninteraction with Wrath/Terror, etc)
It's not entirely out of the realm of possibility, as they have made functional changes to abilities in the past. Phasing just got an update on how it interacts with tokens, and years ago it was updated to no longer trigger leaves play abilities (right after I built the Wormfang Manta deck, too). Lifelink and Deathtouch were changed from triggered abilities to static abilities.
But it feels wrong to me. I would much rather see a keyword be discontinued in current design but left untouched on the cards it was printed for than to completely change how it functions. They've gone that route, too (like Fear->Intimidate->Menace), and I think that is a much smoother process. Big sweeping changes are usually bad for a game. Smaller course corrections are less noticeable but still keep it on track.
1# either something new for legendary creatures and probably get a new rules change or something for dominaria just like Hawk7915 said
Or 2# something to due with how they are going to errat regenerate and that's not very likely because of damnation it got reprinted in MM3 which was after the rule change happen it didn't get some sort of erratation of any sort basicly I think all of ezuri's abilities will have no change what so ever.
So my gut is on what Hawk7915 said.
(Ps I will be udder shock I found damnation not reprinted in masters 25 to present for planar chaos)
My vote is for a unique legendary frame - I think that's moving in a direction they are interested in.
Easier to identify for rules interaction reasons. Flashy for commander support reasons. Aligns with Planeswalkers having a unique frame and being important to the story - so we can have stand-out non-planeswalker characters.
This seems like a good reason - and introducing it with Dominaria - when we are expecting a lot of legendaries (maybe even a legendary theme...) makes a ton of sense for the 25th.
I really hope that a new card frame doesn't come into exsistance with just Legendary Creatures and/or Legendary permanants, let alone something that shows as a marker that they are Legendary. It isn't that difficult to simply look down at the type line and see that it is Legendary. Honestly, I don't see this happening also because Planeswalkers just got the Legendary status, and it would be downright silly to change that once again practically.
Again, I lead towards it being something to replace the functionality of Regeneration as that just makes more sense.
yeah new frame for legendaries could be what's going on. I don't reckon they would make such a big deal of a reworded ability.
surely not to the point of saying "we have something special". also if that was the case they could show the card partially as they did before with other cards
Huey, Dewey and Louie are always dressed in RUG. it is CLEARLY going to be the wedges block Pioneer: WURFaerie fires BRGDragons ModernBGElves WRBurn UR Fires Turns URGift Storm UG Twiddle Storm
I'm not sure that is how it would work, or maybe i don't get something else here. Burning-Tree Emissary enters the battlefield, pay Asceticism ability to grant errated regen (similar to indestructible) for BTE, Goblin Bombardment sacs BTE and than what? BTE goes to graveyard dealing 1dmg and that's it. Either regen or indestructible doesn't protect anything from sacrifice.
Wait, they are changing regenerate? Is that official?
And how is regenerate confusing enough that it needs to be changed?
No, there is no official word that they are changing regenerate. There's just speculation based on some talk from MaRo et al that the mechanic works differently from how you might guess it does. People are frequently confused as to when you havee to activate it, and by the fact that it doesn't leave the battlefield. The rules themselves are not overly complicated, but they are unintuitive - probably in part because it removes damage, which is sort of an "invisible" mechanic.
Regeneration is a bit complicated. It doesn't do anything until the creature dies, then it uses up the "regeneration shield" and worst of all, it taps the creature for... reasons, but only if it actually tried to die. Sure, it's not exactly rocket science, but it isn't very intuitive either.
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They're not changing Regenerate. They don't waste that kind of design time on a mechanic they've already officially stopped using.
Full-art treatment for Legendary creatures sounds right, except for the (small) concern about Commander players wanting every Legendary creature in that form. Of particular interest to me is Teysa, Orzhov Scion who is a very popular Commander which AFAIK has never gotten a reprint and is known to have full-card artwork that was cropped.
I can also imagine that full artwork for Legendaries must be easier on the artists. *shrug* I dunno.
I will bet on the "regeneration rewording" option. We already saw that direct damage is changing soon (removing the damage redirection rule), so I think there will be some other rules changing to ease both the readability and easy understanding of some mechanics. Legendary, while not liked by Maro, is not something difficult to understand and I don't think they will change anytime soon.
By the way, as the Legend "Uniqueness" rule, I do think it would be easier if they somehow templated the Brothers Yamazaki mechanic (but for up to 4 cards). Almost the contrary of what Maro tells he would like to do if the "Unique" keyword.
I'm not sure that is how it would work, or maybe i don't get something else here. Burning-Tree Emissary enters the battlefield, pay Asceticism ability to grant errated regen (similar to indestructible) for BTE, Goblin Bombardment sacs BTE and than what? BTE goes to graveyard dealing 1dmg and that's it. Either regen or indestructible doesn't protect anything from sacrifice.
They were talking about the potential combo if Regenerate were changed to be like Undying (without the counter) which was the suggestion they were replying to. So, it would go like this:
BTE enters
Get 2 mana
Pay 2 mana into Asceticism to "Regenerate"
Sac to Bombardment
"Regenerate" brings the creature back from the graveyard to the battlefield
Get 2 mana
Pay 2 mana to "Regenerate"
And so on and so on.
I too agree that it is very unlikely they will change Regenerate to be something different. They have decided to forgo that in favor of something they feel is better. The most likely candidate so far from the suggestions in this thread is a new frame for Legendary permanents. I think it would be kind of cool and I can't think of anything else it could be.
for those of your leaning towards full art legendaries take note that the ezuri art which was posted has an artist signature in the bottom right hand corner. i'm not sure if planeswalker cards ever feature artist signatures in general but if so i can't imagine they are usually in the middle of the artwork like this. i'm inclined to think that if the "a bit like this" line is alluding to the art being different then that would mean a special foiling or holograph effect.
it's also possible that they will include a secondary ezuri card for commander players, like the oversized commanders, meaning the card could be textless, in a strange language, horizontal, embossed, or any other process they choose. it wouldn't be a legal card but would be a nice bonus for people who want a flashy commander.
I'm not sure that is how it would work, or maybe i don't get something else here. Burning-Tree Emissary enters the battlefield, pay Asceticism ability to grant errated regen (similar to indestructible) for BTE, Goblin Bombardment sacs BTE and than what? BTE goes to graveyard dealing 1dmg and that's it. Either regen or indestructible doesn't protect anything from sacrifice.
If you read what I quoted, you'll see the hypothetical I was responding to. Essentially, someone proposed a new design and claimed it would be "an inconsequential wording change." I was making a point that it would be far from inconsequential. Here is the quote:
I don't think changing Regenerate to Indestructible works - if anything they might change it to be something more like Persist/Undying.
T: Target Elf gains Renegenerate until end of turn (when that creature dies this turn, its controller returns it to the battlefield tapped under that player's control)
Then it would be an inconsequential wording change to still have that still get hosed by Wrath of God/Terror and such.
Giving regenerating creatures LTB/ETB/Dies triggers is a far less crushing overhaul than the suggested Indestructible change that would remove so much of Renegerate's other functionality (removal from combat, tapping the creature, noninteraction with Wrath/Terror, etc)
I personally do not believe they are changing Regeneration; as others have pointed out, they are no longer printing Regeneration on new cards. I think there is far too much speculation going around, but that's what you typically get in the rumor mill.
I was just speaking off the cuff and wasn’t waterproofing my concept. As it is sacrifice effects make regeneration illegal - I would expect the rule change that would come with this would clarify that sacrificed creatures can’t regenerate as well (the same exclusionary text that would make Wrath and Terror still neuter regen, the definition of Sacrifice would as well. Or the Regen text would include ‘if it wasn’t sacrificed...’.
There are other issues with the concept as well... like, Vital Splicer becoming useless. That’s the difference between a design change floated on the spur of the moment in a brainstorm and a design a professional team would hammer out for months.
It is a lot easier to heckle people contributing thoughts than actually venture anything yourself though. Keep heckling, eventually people will stop contributing entirely and you win.
I will bet on the "regeneration rewording" option. We already saw that direct damage is changing soon (removing the damage redirection rule), so I think there will be some other rules changing to ease both the readability and easy understanding of some mechanics. Legendary, while not liked by Maro, is not something difficult to understand and I don't think they will change anytime soon.
By the way, as the Legend "Uniqueness" rule, I do think it would be easier if they somehow templated the Brothers Yamazaki mechanic (but for up to 4 cards). Almost the contrary of what Maro tells he would like to do if the "Unique" keyword.
But why only four? What if I happen to open 6 of them in my sealed/draft pool?
Just an idea here, based off of something I'd heard the other day in my playgroup. Commander is a popular format, and I for one was super stoked when they made the Partner commanders (and would love for them to make more) so the thing heard in my playgroup was "there's a fan format in which you can partner Legendary creatures with the same name, such as Kamahl, fist of krosa, and kamahl, pit fighter. Or teysa, Orzhov Scion and teysa, dominatrix." So what if wizards also heard this idea and thought it'd be a good return for partner, awkward as it would be in a non-commander product? Then errata'ed all the old Legendaries with multiple printings?
Sure, it's far-fetched and I'm more for the Legendary/Unique change or the Legendary card frame change. At least it's more plausible than the "Let's change Regenerate to Indestructible because they kinda work the same!"
(FYI, they don't. Regenerate is a single use "can't be destroyed." Indestructible "until end of turn" presents a whole different beast.)
I don't believe what Maro says is law, but he answered another fans question today on "Regeneration".
Does Regenerate have fans? People at WOTC who want to make it work?
Regeneration doesn’t have many fans in R&D. This is one death that probably isn’t going to be saved. : )
I am not sure if it is R&D that is putting this duel deck together, but I am kind of convinced that the rewording of "Regeneration" is not the surprise is regarding much anymore.
They're not changing Regenerate. They don't waste that kind of design time on a mechanic they've already officially stopped using.
Banding was long-stopped-using, and Phasing is incredibly seldom, but they made major rules changes involving them.
My thinking is that, *if* they’re changing regeneration, they’re changing it because they plan to reintroduce it in its more rules-team-happy form. It wouldn’t just be a change to existing cards but keep it retired. It would be a change the rules team would be happy enough with to unretire it, and start printing new cards with the nu-regenerate at the same time as errating the oldies. Perhaps in Dominaria.
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Given they just added Planeswalkers to the Legendary rule and did away with the planeswalker uniqueness rule, suggests to me doing away with the Legendary rule is unlikely. I think the Legendary creatures getting a new frame treatment is the most likely answer at this point.
As for regenerate being too complicated, they put Storm in Mind and Might, I think they are okay with regenerate one last time.
Considering we already know know Ezuri's future a spoiler seems unlikely
i don't think they are removing legendary considering they just errata'd all planeswalkers to be legendary...
the goblin welder art seems to depict a darksteel colossus? the goofy eyes are pretty visible. it would add some value to the deck despite being an invalid welder target, ironically. huh. it could also be an acrbound overseer? really kind of confused. glad to see a solemn reprint here.
the artwork for ezuri is the exact size needed for a normal card frame. so i don't think it will be a full art/borderless art etc. my bet is on legendary card frame. which is actually a good idea imo.
Well yeah, but to be fair, there could be other hidden gems in the storyline that WOTC could have either witheld or revealed in between that time and when he was taken over by New Phyrexia. Also, not all flavor text centers around the lore of said creature, although that is the case more than 99.99% of the time.
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Protection from Degeneracy
Do not pray for an easy life. Pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.
- Burning-Tree Emissary, Asceticism, and Goblin Bombardment now deals infinite damage. (Not the best combo possible, but the first I thought of)
- Leyline of the Void and Rest in Peace now hose regeneration.
It's not entirely out of the realm of possibility, as they have made functional changes to abilities in the past. Phasing just got an update on how it interacts with tokens, and years ago it was updated to no longer trigger leaves play abilities (right after I built the Wormfang Manta deck, too). Lifelink and Deathtouch were changed from triggered abilities to static abilities.
But it feels wrong to me. I would much rather see a keyword be discontinued in current design but left untouched on the cards it was printed for than to completely change how it functions. They've gone that route, too (like Fear->Intimidate->Menace), and I think that is a much smoother process. Big sweeping changes are usually bad for a game. Smaller course corrections are less noticeable but still keep it on track.
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1# either something new for legendary creatures and probably get a new rules change or something for dominaria just like Hawk7915 said
Or 2# something to due with how they are going to errat regenerate and that's not very likely because of damnation it got reprinted in MM3 which was after the rule change happen it didn't get some sort of erratation of any sort basicly I think all of ezuri's abilities will have no change what so ever.
So my gut is on what Hawk7915 said.
(Ps I will be udder shock I found damnation not reprinted in masters 25 to present for planar chaos)
Easier to identify for rules interaction reasons. Flashy for commander support reasons. Aligns with Planeswalkers having a unique frame and being important to the story - so we can have stand-out non-planeswalker characters.
This seems like a good reason - and introducing it with Dominaria - when we are expecting a lot of legendaries (maybe even a legendary theme...) makes a ton of sense for the 25th.
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Again, I lead towards it being something to replace the functionality of Regeneration as that just makes more sense.
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MAGECRAFT STORM
-Veyran, Voice of Duality-
Protection from Degeneracy
Do not pray for an easy life. Pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.
surely not to the point of saying "we have something special". also if that was the case they could show the card partially as they did before with other cards
Pioneer: WURFaerie fires BRGDragons
ModernBGElves WRBurn UR Fires Turns URGift Storm UG Twiddle Storm
I'm not sure that is how it would work, or maybe i don't get something else here. Burning-Tree Emissary enters the battlefield, pay Asceticism ability to grant errated regen (similar to indestructible) for BTE, Goblin Bombardment sacs BTE and than what? BTE goes to graveyard dealing 1dmg and that's it. Either regen or indestructible doesn't protect anything from sacrifice.
And how is regenerate confusing enough that it needs to be changed?
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No, there is no official word that they are changing regenerate. There's just speculation based on some talk from MaRo et al that the mechanic works differently from how you might guess it does. People are frequently confused as to when you havee to activate it, and by the fact that it doesn't leave the battlefield. The rules themselves are not overly complicated, but they are unintuitive - probably in part because it removes damage, which is sort of an "invisible" mechanic.
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Also, (emphasis mine) clearly implies that the art shown is incomplete, and Legendaries are indeed getting Planeswalker-frame-fullart treatment.
Full-art treatment for Legendary creatures sounds right, except for the (small) concern about Commander players wanting every Legendary creature in that form. Of particular interest to me is Teysa, Orzhov Scion who is a very popular Commander which AFAIK has never gotten a reprint and is known to have full-card artwork that was cropped.
I can also imagine that full artwork for Legendaries must be easier on the artists. *shrug* I dunno.
By the way, as the Legend "Uniqueness" rule, I do think it would be easier if they somehow templated the Brothers Yamazaki mechanic (but for up to 4 cards). Almost the contrary of what Maro tells he would like to do if the "Unique" keyword.
BTE enters
Get 2 mana
Pay 2 mana into Asceticism to "Regenerate"
Sac to Bombardment
"Regenerate" brings the creature back from the graveyard to the battlefield
Get 2 mana
Pay 2 mana to "Regenerate"
And so on and so on.
I too agree that it is very unlikely they will change Regenerate to be something different. They have decided to forgo that in favor of something they feel is better. The most likely candidate so far from the suggestions in this thread is a new frame for Legendary permanents. I think it would be kind of cool and I can't think of anything else it could be.
it's also possible that they will include a secondary ezuri card for commander players, like the oversized commanders, meaning the card could be textless, in a strange language, horizontal, embossed, or any other process they choose. it wouldn't be a legal card but would be a nice bonus for people who want a flashy commander.
I personally do not believe they are changing Regeneration; as others have pointed out, they are no longer printing Regeneration on new cards. I think there is far too much speculation going around, but that's what you typically get in the rumor mill.
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There are other issues with the concept as well... like, Vital Splicer becoming useless. That’s the difference between a design change floated on the spur of the moment in a brainstorm and a design a professional team would hammer out for months.
It is a lot easier to heckle people contributing thoughts than actually venture anything yourself though. Keep heckling, eventually people will stop contributing entirely and you win.
But why only four? What if I happen to open 6 of them in my sealed/draft pool?
Just an idea here, based off of something I'd heard the other day in my playgroup. Commander is a popular format, and I for one was super stoked when they made the Partner commanders (and would love for them to make more) so the thing heard in my playgroup was "there's a fan format in which you can partner Legendary creatures with the same name, such as Kamahl, fist of krosa, and kamahl, pit fighter. Or teysa, Orzhov Scion and teysa, dominatrix." So what if wizards also heard this idea and thought it'd be a good return for partner, awkward as it would be in a non-commander product? Then errata'ed all the old Legendaries with multiple printings?
Sure, it's far-fetched and I'm more for the Legendary/Unique change or the Legendary card frame change. At least it's more plausible than the "Let's change Regenerate to Indestructible because they kinda work the same!"
(FYI, they don't. Regenerate is a single use "can't be destroyed." Indestructible "until end of turn" presents a whole different beast.)
Does Regenerate have fans? People at WOTC who want to make it work?
Regeneration doesn’t have many fans in R&D. This is one death that probably isn’t going to be saved. : )
I am not sure if it is R&D that is putting this duel deck together, but I am kind of convinced that the rewording of "Regeneration" is not the surprise is regarding much anymore.
EDH DECKS
Currently under construction
MAGECRAFT STORM
-Veyran, Voice of Duality-
Protection from Degeneracy
Do not pray for an easy life. Pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.
Banding was long-stopped-using, and Phasing is incredibly seldom, but they made major rules changes involving them.
My thinking is that, *if* they’re changing regeneration, they’re changing it because they plan to reintroduce it in its more rules-team-happy form. It wouldn’t just be a change to existing cards but keep it retired. It would be a change the rules team would be happy enough with to unretire it, and start printing new cards with the nu-regenerate at the same time as errating the oldies. Perhaps in Dominaria.