This only works for trademark, not IP, if I recall correctly.
Pretty much this. Though there could be an argument that their trademark is being infringed here as well, as the cards we play with on Cockatrice bear all the relevant trademarks. (It is a pretty tenuous claim, as they aren't being used for any other purpose than to signify a Hasbro product, which is their point.) If this is the rationale, there are 100s of other sites they need to get shut down though. magiccards.info allowing you to print proxies at the push of a button is a much more significant issue on this point.
I'm just curious what the business motive was. There is no way Cockatrice was a secret, so they made a decision not to shut it down earlier for some reason. I know I've gotten people into/back into the game completely because of Cockatrice. Being able to sell someone that the game has improved, or that they'd like it without having to commit any money upfront is huge. Obviously Hasbro has more information than I do, but this just seems like an odd strategy from my point of view, even if legally speaking it makes sense.
If you think about this, you can clearly say that Cockatrice is not illegal and is just using data that was open source. Saying that Cockatrice steals the Intellectual product of Hasbro is then wrong, since Hasbro itself created Gatherer.
I'm an attorney, I have thought about this.
Where they got the information from is completely irrelevant. The fact they are distributing the information for personal use has nothing to do with the manner in which Cockatrice is using it. No one is accusing Cockatrice of breaking into some secret code and using what they received. Copyright infringement is just unauthorized use of someone else's intellectual property.
Additionally, whether they shutdown every site that is using the information is also completely irrelevant. For copyright they are free to license or freely distribute content to whomever they choose, and they are free to prevent anyone the same way.
Trademark is a different story (which is where a lot of the confusion comes from when people say "They have to defend against X, or they'll lose the ability to do it later.")
I realize this sucks for the players. I also question it as a business decision, but it wasn't your or my call. It was theirs, and they decided to start enforcing their rights for one reason or another. There really is no room in the law, "fair use" or otherwise, for Cockatrice to defend themselves here against the shutdown, they operated until WotC didn't want them to anymore. The damages claim might be dubious, but that is a different issue and one I'd need a lot more details on.
This information is not intended to constitute legal advice nor create any attorney-client relationship and should not be relied upon in lieu of consultation with appropriate legal advisors in your own jurisdiction.
Countersuing requires you actually have a claim to sue under. While the players may not like it, Cockatrice was a blatant violation of of WotC/Hasbro's intellectual property. Why they decided to shut it down now is curious, but they've been within their rights since the first moment Cockatrice existed.
Don't underestimate Diabolic Revelations as a Liliana mana dump. Grabbing a bunch of cards and dropping them all the same turn is a game winner as much as a Fireball can be.
Zombies is weak to lots of artifacts (especially those with a side order of lifegain.) Swords, Batterskull, Grafdigger's are all good targets. I'd probably side in Manic Vandal for decks running Pristine Talisman as well. Bear in mind he is also a human so he can pump your Falkenrath Aristocrat if you need something to sac.
I really like the versatility of Lily. Sometimes she just acts as a 4 mana Dismember, sometimes she is a single use Lashwrithe (particularly explosive with Inkmoth,) but I'm generally happy with both outcomes.
Her -6 is cute, but I rarely use it. I keep a single Consume Spirit and a single Diabolic Revelations in the deck so I have something to pour the mana into, but I'll generally use her -3 before I get around to the -6.
This is my current deck. It is sitting at 61 cards as I playtest as I felt like the 24 lands just wasn't enough to regularly hit the first three land drops but I hadn't figured out what to cut yet, I may end up just leaving it.
If it needs support to make it even playable, it is a bad card. The fact we have to contrive a situation to make it work is evidence of it, not counterevidence.
I'm playing it in my Miracles deck and it does some work, but is still the worst card in the deck and gets sided out most games. I'd be pretty surprised to see it regularly played anywhere else.
Did you consider Manalith pre-Avacyn? It wasn't better either, the "Card on the bottom of the library" doesn't really change much in the calculation.
As said above, the 4cmc is just too crucial in most ramp decks (and the 2cmc tends to be pretty empty other than having reliable ramp.) The card isn't awful, but in most ramp situations it just comes in at the wrong time.
ed: The above situation doesn't make Vessel better than Sphere, it just makes it an interesting choice without the limited drawback. Ramp is always better the earlier you can do it. Sphere isn't any worse if you need a 5 or 6 cmc card, that is just the only way Vessel becomes viable.
I need to miracle Terminus Turn 2/3 or FoD on Turn 2. Otherwise, Turn 3 comes, Blighted Agent or Glistener elf, + Titanic Growth + 2-3 Mutagenic Growth
You can't rely on T4 DoJ in most of my cases. I really had to stop them at Turn 3 or 4.
The worst part...it's 1 Creature that's doing all the Poison Damage. (Either Glistener Elf or Blighted Agent).
Now I'm playing U/W so I don't have access to direct removal at turn 2 like Esper does (if you have Doom Blade/Gftt)
Side 4 Gut Shots. It is also your answer to Thalia.
The threat of a Turn 1 Delver flip is enough to disrupt the entire tempo of a game. Having access to a reliable 1CMC threat is a huge part of Delver's stability, if you take away that it will make it mulligan a lot less reliably and bring its win percentage back down to Earth.
Like I said, the deck isn't completely broken, taking away a few "free wins" is all the deck needs to encourage people to innovate. The Magic metagame is a game of inches and percentages, you don't have to destroy a deck to encourage people to look elsewhere. Banning either Delver or Snapcaster would do this, though I wouldn't suggest doing both and I don't really have a preference on which. Personally, I play Snapcaster in non-Delver decks with good results so I'd prefer to keep it, but I have alternatives if they went that route.
I take issue with your premise that only cards that are completely degenerate should be banned. The card doesn't have to be broken in half to justify banning it, it just has to be good for the health of the game. In this case, the format has gotten stale and, in my opinion, Wizards should be a bit more liberal with their bannings to encourage innovation. I realize this isn't the worst Standard has been, I don't even think it is particularly bad, but there is a definite trend at the top and I don't think letting it get to the point of Jund w/ Bloodbraid Elf, JTMS or Affinity before considering bans is a good philosophy.
We've been seeing Delver dominating Top 8s for months (even when it doesn't win.) No, it hasn't always been 6/8 like this past week, but it has been a good 30-60% in most of the recent Starcity and Standard Grand Prixs. It might be that there are good alternatives to Delver out there, but people aren't playing them. Whether that is because Delver is easier, less variance, or whatever other reason is irrelevant, if the players aren't shaking up the metagame then I have no issue with Wizards doing it for us.
I realize that is not the majority opinion and most people don't like to see cards banned because of concerns for the "secondary market," but I think those worries are overblown. The market is already volatile, with wild fluctuation from week to week, I just don't see the threat of something getting banned stopping people from buying powerful cards up until they are actually banned.
I spoke with Matt Tabek and Toby Elliot at Grand Prix Anaheim about this interaction. They confirmed the "cannot be split" during the same combat step decision, though Toby agreed that the ruling is inconsistent with the way the ruling on Drogskol Reaver would allow multiple card draws on multiple lifelink creatures despite being a single lifegain event. (And suggested to Matt that the rules might need to be fixed to make it consistent.)
Since Divine Deflection does not care about the source of damage, it treats combat damage as one event. The rules are quitre explicit that all combat damage is dealt simultaneously.
I'm following all the discussion here, but this is where the justification is falling apart for me. I also saw this rule, that combat damage is dealt simultaneously, but I'm not getting to the same result that just because it happens at the same time that it becomes a single damage dealing event.
Take for instance, Drogskol Reaver, if you have three creatures (other than Drogskol Reaver to eliminate the double strike complications) attacking, each with Lifelink, you would get to draw a card for each creature's life link ability, despite the fact that you'd gain all of the life at the same time.
Taking that and applying it to Divine Deflection, I don't understand how the timing of the creatures dealing damage changes the character of the damage for the purpose of dealing it via the second effect. If the game recognizes each creature as dealing damage separately, it seems to follow that you'd handle each "trigger" of Divine Deflection separately.
Or put differently. If you have an ability (like Gisela, Blade of Goldnight) that says you prevent half of all damage dealt, rounded up, you'd handle each creature separately. You wouldn't add up all the damage (in this case, 7), halve it, and then round to 4 (dealing three.) You'd halve each creature (the 2/2s each become 1, and the 3/3 would also become 1.) We get the same result in this instance, but it isn't difficult to contrive a situation where it could be different.
Divine Deflection lets you choose one target to redirect damage to. However, damage dealt to players can optionally be redirected to a planeswalker that player controls. If I control Divine Deflection and my opponent attacks me with a 3/3, a 2/2 and a 2/2, and I deflect for W7 (preventing 7 damage) can I redirect the damage from the 3/3 to the planeswalker and the damage from the 2/2s to the player?
I've been playing a Bant Superfriends with her and loving it. Gideon + Tamiyo has just insane synergy. Use her plus and his -2 and you can destroy any creature. Use his +2 and her -2 and you can draw for each creature they have while letting you get free damage in. (And with my deck generally draw into a DoJ/Terminus from the extra cards.)
She is the real deal and I'm happy to have picked up my four, though I'm not sure I'd run four of her in any of the builds I'm looking at current. I'm considering a U/R or U/R/W build as well featuring more board wipes from Whipflare/Bonfire.
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Pretty much this. Though there could be an argument that their trademark is being infringed here as well, as the cards we play with on Cockatrice bear all the relevant trademarks. (It is a pretty tenuous claim, as they aren't being used for any other purpose than to signify a Hasbro product, which is their point.) If this is the rationale, there are 100s of other sites they need to get shut down though. magiccards.info allowing you to print proxies at the push of a button is a much more significant issue on this point.
I'm just curious what the business motive was. There is no way Cockatrice was a secret, so they made a decision not to shut it down earlier for some reason. I know I've gotten people into/back into the game completely because of Cockatrice. Being able to sell someone that the game has improved, or that they'd like it without having to commit any money upfront is huge. Obviously Hasbro has more information than I do, but this just seems like an odd strategy from my point of view, even if legally speaking it makes sense.
I'm an attorney, I have thought about this.
Where they got the information from is completely irrelevant. The fact they are distributing the information for personal use has nothing to do with the manner in which Cockatrice is using it. No one is accusing Cockatrice of breaking into some secret code and using what they received. Copyright infringement is just unauthorized use of someone else's intellectual property.
Additionally, whether they shutdown every site that is using the information is also completely irrelevant. For copyright they are free to license or freely distribute content to whomever they choose, and they are free to prevent anyone the same way.
Trademark is a different story (which is where a lot of the confusion comes from when people say "They have to defend against X, or they'll lose the ability to do it later.")
I realize this sucks for the players. I also question it as a business decision, but it wasn't your or my call. It was theirs, and they decided to start enforcing their rights for one reason or another. There really is no room in the law, "fair use" or otherwise, for Cockatrice to defend themselves here against the shutdown, they operated until WotC didn't want them to anymore. The damages claim might be dubious, but that is a different issue and one I'd need a lot more details on.
This information is not intended to constitute legal advice nor create any attorney-client relationship and should not be relied upon in lieu of consultation with appropriate legal advisors in your own jurisdiction.
Her -6 is cute, but I rarely use it. I keep a single Consume Spirit and a single Diabolic Revelations in the deck so I have something to pour the mana into, but I'll generally use her -3 before I get around to the -6.
This is my current deck. It is sitting at 61 cards as I playtest as I felt like the 24 lands just wasn't enough to regularly hit the first three land drops but I hadn't figured out what to cut yet, I may end up just leaving it.
4 Solemn Simulacrum
4 Sign in Blood
1 Diabolic Revelation
3 Black Sun's Zenith
3 Mutilate
1 Consume Spirit
1 Sorin's Vengeance
2 Go for the Throat
2 Tribute to Hunger
2 Dismember
1 Disciple of Bolas
2 Liliana of the Dark Realms
1 Karn Liberated
2 Lashwrithe
2 Batterskull
21 Swamp
3 Inkmoth Nexus
1 Buried Ruin
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Massacre Wurm
1 Karn Liberated
2 Distress
2 Duress
2 Curse of Death's Hold
1 Batterskull
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Ratchet Bomb
I'm playing it in my Miracles deck and it does some work, but is still the worst card in the deck and gets sided out most games. I'd be pretty surprised to see it regularly played anywhere else.
As said above, the 4cmc is just too crucial in most ramp decks (and the 2cmc tends to be pretty empty other than having reliable ramp.) The card isn't awful, but in most ramp situations it just comes in at the wrong time.
ed: The above situation doesn't make Vessel better than Sphere, it just makes it an interesting choice without the limited drawback. Ramp is always better the earlier you can do it. Sphere isn't any worse if you need a 5 or 6 cmc card, that is just the only way Vessel becomes viable.
Side 4 Gut Shots. It is also your answer to Thalia.
Like I said, the deck isn't completely broken, taking away a few "free wins" is all the deck needs to encourage people to innovate. The Magic metagame is a game of inches and percentages, you don't have to destroy a deck to encourage people to look elsewhere. Banning either Delver or Snapcaster would do this, though I wouldn't suggest doing both and I don't really have a preference on which. Personally, I play Snapcaster in non-Delver decks with good results so I'd prefer to keep it, but I have alternatives if they went that route.
We've been seeing Delver dominating Top 8s for months (even when it doesn't win.) No, it hasn't always been 6/8 like this past week, but it has been a good 30-60% in most of the recent Starcity and Standard Grand Prixs. It might be that there are good alternatives to Delver out there, but people aren't playing them. Whether that is because Delver is easier, less variance, or whatever other reason is irrelevant, if the players aren't shaking up the metagame then I have no issue with Wizards doing it for us.
I realize that is not the majority opinion and most people don't like to see cards banned because of concerns for the "secondary market," but I think those worries are overblown. The market is already volatile, with wild fluctuation from week to week, I just don't see the threat of something getting banned stopping people from buying powerful cards up until they are actually banned.
I'm following all the discussion here, but this is where the justification is falling apart for me. I also saw this rule, that combat damage is dealt simultaneously, but I'm not getting to the same result that just because it happens at the same time that it becomes a single damage dealing event.
Take for instance, Drogskol Reaver, if you have three creatures (other than Drogskol Reaver to eliminate the double strike complications) attacking, each with Lifelink, you would get to draw a card for each creature's life link ability, despite the fact that you'd gain all of the life at the same time.
Taking that and applying it to Divine Deflection, I don't understand how the timing of the creatures dealing damage changes the character of the damage for the purpose of dealing it via the second effect. If the game recognizes each creature as dealing damage separately, it seems to follow that you'd handle each "trigger" of Divine Deflection separately.
Or put differently. If you have an ability (like Gisela, Blade of Goldnight) that says you prevent half of all damage dealt, rounded up, you'd handle each creature separately. You wouldn't add up all the damage (in this case, 7), halve it, and then round to 4 (dealing three.) You'd halve each creature (the 2/2s each become 1, and the 3/3 would also become 1.) We get the same result in this instance, but it isn't difficult to contrive a situation where it could be different.
Does this change if the 3/3 had first strike?
She is the real deal and I'm happy to have picked up my four, though I'm not sure I'd run four of her in any of the builds I'm looking at current. I'm considering a U/R or U/R/W build as well featuring more board wipes from Whipflare/Bonfire.