Additionally, it was a headache to collectors. Fallen Empires was replete with cards with two or four distinct arts, and describing the four different Thallids or Icatian Javelineers was a terrible bother, as well as trying to track down the different copies of the same thing. It's nice how Wizards does it now, with alternate-art promos.
"The set with the new Locus" sells itself quite nicely. Cloudpost is longtime favorite in casual and older formats. "Land Creature" is by itself a very rarely done mechanic. Putting it on the same card as a new Locus is overkill, in my opinion. A new Locus is exciting all by itself with being a Land Creature as well.
It would be different if Land Creatures were used more often, but it's only ever been done once. Doing it for the second time on the second Locus ever printed is too much.
My point exactly. If "Locus" appears on a Land—Locus, it won't be a Land Creature. When we see a Land Creature, we'll see them in droves. Or maybe groves, if they're heavy in green.
I think counters and static X/X are both inelegant ways to do it. I work as a game developer too, and I've been studying Maro's articles for years- were I to be making this card, I'd do it in both the most elegant and grokkable way possible if I could. And I'm guessing that this means that for the player, were it a manland, it would be a continuous X/X instead of static- an ability like the "Land Creature" that has X/X where X = number of locus. Its complicated for the player to remember the power/toughness of static X/X creatures that are set each time they activate when things can change like killing another one, and can lead to headaches.
Personally I figure either the Land Creature or the 'Becomes an X/X until EOT", not the +1/+1 counters or 0/0. Anyway, theres an unaccounted for X/X left, isn't there?
A lone Land Creature would be out of place, even in the Land block. A twist/development as big as that would come in a large expansion, not the small Winter expansion. A Locus-influenced manland I could buy, but it would, at the same time, distract from the allied-dual-manland cycle. I think, in Speculation, sometimes we undervalue the ... I'll call it busyness of a set ... the amount going on at a time. While MaRo might prize innovation, there's also a limit on the amount of healthy innovation, that, should it be pushed too far, can be detrimental to a set's health. The set becomes too busy, and cards start to distract from one another. If there's a cycle of allied-color manlands, having other manlands makes that keystone cycle feel less special, so (admittedly being very very very verrrrrrry far from a professional game designer), even though the Locus you suggest sounds well designed, I'd want to keep either one of them from distracting from the other, lest the LocusManLand overshadow the AlliedManLand or vice-versa.
It all comes back to building an identity for the set. Either "The set with the AlliedManLands" or "The set with the LocusManLand" is a stronger brand than "The set with all those ManLands," and, experience (with Magic, as well as in retail) tells me that the Brand argument will win out. If not, I'll eat my ... something. Not a hat. I've made that mistake one time too many in the past.
Chub Toad and Mistform Ultimus did not receive errata because bushido and changeling both have very specific flavor attached to them.
Cyclone's cumulative upkeep errata was removed because it was printed before Ice Age, and it functions slightly differently than cumulative upkeep. Comparable cards with cumulative upkeep, like Balduvian Fallen, use a triggered ability when the upkeep cost is paid, but Cyclone's effect as printed happens immediately after paying without triggering and passing priority.
Oubliette and Tawnos's Coffin similarly were printed before Mirage, and they function slightly differently than phasing by returning the card tapped.
Undergrowth, Primitive Justice, and Taste of Paradise on the other hand would be nearly functionally the same if they had kicker/multikicker. Ertai's Trickery is really the only difference if they were keyworded, which isn't that big an issue. When fear was keyworded it had a more massive affect on cards like Mind Bend than keywording these three cards would have.
Thank you for the well-reasoned argument that the rest of us CBA'd to put together. I think that the more meta-sense of flavor and branding of tying keywords to blocks prevents this kind of reckless errata. Otherwise, due to all of its innovation, about 1/3 of Alliances would retroactively have keywords from later sets.
I actually thought about that- the fyndhorn / llanowar effect
But I think its kinda unlikely. It wouldn't be very broken- even with vesuva its 12/60 cards. But eh, theres so much more design space for locus I'd be very disappointed if it wasn't the X/X manland kind of deal or something neat like that
Urzatron would likewise take up the same 1/5 of your deck (probably less than half of your manabase), but this would have a higher payoff. With 'Tron, 3 lands in play gave 7 mana, 4 gave (at most) 10, 5 gave 13 and 6 gave 16. With double-cloudpost, 3 would give 9, 4 would give 16, 5 would give 25 and 6 would give 36. Plus, as the pieces are interchangeable, you could conceivably free up a few slots from tutors.
If, however, the new Locus (if it's a land, an assertion of which i remain unconvinced) has simply "T: Add 1 to your mana pool", the scaling is not as crazy. Perhaps that ability alongside "T: Target creature gets +1/+1 until end of card for each Locus in play", so that it scales similarly, and so that it and Cloudpost improve each other.
... then pretty much the only thing left is your example of Chub Toad - and we know the reason it doesn't have bushido is flavor first.
Beyond the immediate flavor of Bushido restricted to Samurai, there's also the, shall we say, meta-level flavor of restricting a keyword to a block (or two or three) unless it becomes evergreen. Kicker is tightly tied to Invasion block, and, now, Zendikar block. To have it (or, to be precise, a variant on it) on a random card from Alliances just seems incongruous, even though it technically could be templated with Multikicker
The functional difference with Ertai's Trickery is a more fitting argument, considering Cyclone is back to where it was before CU.
This reversal of the past update of Cyclone is a good further example of the unlikeliness of errata to PJ.
Anyone think this might just be a functional reprint of cloudpost. Basically saying "You can now run 8 Cloudposts." That seems pretty reasonable to me.
I'd just worry about the implications that'd have on a mana curve. 4 Cloudposts + 4 "Nimbusposts" (plus Vesuva) is just begging to be broken even more than Urzatron ever was.
In the past, Wizards has proven reluctant to do this sort of thing (reword cards out-of-block with block keywords.) See Chub Toad's lack of Bushido, for one example. Also, with Kicker triggers, PJ would become functionally different, which WotC likewise shies away from.
It cannot appear on the type of anything that is non-land
Types do not cross over from one card type to another, barring shenanigans like Tribal. You can't have a "Land - Elf", nor can you have "Creature - Forest". (you CAN have a Land Creature - Forest Elf, because then it is two different types one referring to each, and the elf is not a land type). Nor can you have "Creature - Locus", nor can you have "Instant - Locus".
For it to be in the name of a card would just be ridiculously silly because of the confusion it would cause for judges when it came to cloudpost, and they wouldn't intentionally use a unique word like "Locus" out of its context.
The only way you'll see Locus on a non-land is if its the name of a new illustrator, or if they've gone over the moon and printed a "Tribal Land Instant Planeswalker - Beast Locus Trap Jace"!
I realize it wouldn't carry over on card types, but I don't think it'd be any more confusing than the case of Jungle Shrine relative to the Shrines of Kamigawa block. (Does my Honden of Seeing Winds give me a card for each of my Jungle Shrines?)
I agree that it's quite likely that we're looking at some "Land—Locus", but to say that there's 0% chance that we'll never see the word Locus, a perfectly cromulent English word that exudes something of a unique flavor, in a card's name again because of a single card in a block 5 years ago is a bit of a stretch. Yes we will see other Loci again, in the sense of the subtype, but we will also see a card named "Quest for Evil's Locus" or something like that. Simply because the word has a game meaning does not restrict the use of the word to solely that usage, especially when it appears on a quite limited number of cards (in the case of Shrines, 5; Loci, 1, and 1 because even 2 approaches brokenness, as Vesuva shows).
If Zendikar were anything but the land block, I'd put money on the word appearing in a card title, but, such as things are, it's closer to a toss-up.
I'm not 100 percent sold that it must be a land either, and won't be until we have something spoiled, or we find _______post in the orb for some value of that blank. In a land-based set, it'd be nice to see a repeat of that favorite land mechanic, but it's far from the only possibility.
Until we see otherwise, Locus could appear on a Quest or Instant in its English meaning, just as Shrine (Jungle) and Arcane (Arcane Sanctum) both re-used even newer Subtypes without relating back to the Kamigawa meanings of the words.
^ Now this should be commended...."All versions of a Planeswalker is legal in a format if any variants of the Planeswalker is legal".....I LIKE THIS!
it also makes sense flavourfully...
But it's in no way a tweak of an M10 rules change. It's a wholesale change to a decade-old system of format legality. I'm going with no here.
I think the change is likely some fix for Deathtouch, without creating a Trample loophole. MaGo and the rules team has had a year to figure out a way to smooth over that weirdness in a (hopefully) intuitive and (hopefully) less clunky way.
It seems counter-intuitive, but this is a rather well-known combo from sets past. When the Razer enters the battlefield, the first trigger is put on the stack. At that point, it is on the battlefield, so it can be sacrificed, Lightning Bolted, etc. If that is done before the ETB trigger resolves, the Razer's leaves the battlefield trigger will be added to the stack and (if nothing else happens,) will resolve first, returning nothing to play. The ETB trigger will then resolve, exiling all lands, but the linked ability will be unable to return them. Pretty sneaky, sis.
My point exactly. If "Locus" appears on a Land—Locus, it won't be a Land Creature. When we see a Land Creature, we'll see them in droves. Or maybe groves, if they're heavy in green.
A lone Land Creature would be out of place, even in the Land block. A twist/development as big as that would come in a large expansion, not the small Winter expansion. A Locus-influenced manland I could buy, but it would, at the same time, distract from the allied-dual-manland cycle. I think, in Speculation, sometimes we undervalue the ... I'll call it busyness of a set ... the amount going on at a time. While MaRo might prize innovation, there's also a limit on the amount of healthy innovation, that, should it be pushed too far, can be detrimental to a set's health. The set becomes too busy, and cards start to distract from one another. If there's a cycle of allied-color manlands, having other manlands makes that keystone cycle feel less special, so (admittedly being very very very verrrrrrry far from a professional game designer), even though the Locus you suggest sounds well designed, I'd want to keep either one of them from distracting from the other, lest the LocusManLand overshadow the AlliedManLand or vice-versa.
It all comes back to building an identity for the set. Either "The set with the AlliedManLands" or "The set with the LocusManLand" is a stronger brand than "The set with all those ManLands," and, experience (with Magic, as well as in retail) tells me that the Brand argument will win out. If not, I'll eat my ... something. Not a hat. I've made that mistake one time too many in the past.
Thank you for the well-reasoned argument that the rest of us CBA'd to put together. I think that the more meta-sense of flavor and branding of tying keywords to blocks prevents this kind of reckless errata. Otherwise, due to all of its innovation, about 1/3 of Alliances would retroactively have keywords from later sets.
Urzatron would likewise take up the same 1/5 of your deck (probably less than half of your manabase), but this would have a higher payoff. With 'Tron, 3 lands in play gave 7 mana, 4 gave (at most) 10, 5 gave 13 and 6 gave 16. With double-cloudpost, 3 would give 9, 4 would give 16, 5 would give 25 and 6 would give 36. Plus, as the pieces are interchangeable, you could conceivably free up a few slots from tutors.
If, however, the new Locus (if it's a land, an assertion of which i remain unconvinced) has simply "T: Add 1 to your mana pool", the scaling is not as crazy. Perhaps that ability alongside "T: Target creature gets +1/+1 until end of card for each Locus in play", so that it scales similarly, and so that it and Cloudpost improve each other.
Beyond the immediate flavor of Bushido restricted to Samurai, there's also the, shall we say, meta-level flavor of restricting a keyword to a block (or two or three) unless it becomes evergreen. Kicker is tightly tied to Invasion block, and, now, Zendikar block. To have it (or, to be precise, a variant on it) on a random card from Alliances just seems incongruous, even though it technically could be templated with Multikicker
This reversal of the past update of Cyclone is a good further example of the unlikeliness of errata to PJ.
I'd just worry about the implications that'd have on a mana curve. 4 Cloudposts + 4 "Nimbusposts" (plus Vesuva) is just begging to be broken even more than Urzatron ever was.
I realize it wouldn't carry over on card types, but I don't think it'd be any more confusing than the case of Jungle Shrine relative to the Shrines of Kamigawa block. (Does my Honden of Seeing Winds give me a card for each of my Jungle Shrines?)
I agree that it's quite likely that we're looking at some "Land—Locus", but to say that there's 0% chance that we'll never see the word Locus, a perfectly cromulent English word that exudes something of a unique flavor, in a card's name again because of a single card in a block 5 years ago is a bit of a stretch. Yes we will see other Loci again, in the sense of the subtype, but we will also see a card named "Quest for Evil's Locus" or something like that. Simply because the word has a game meaning does not restrict the use of the word to solely that usage, especially when it appears on a quite limited number of cards (in the case of Shrines, 5; Loci, 1, and 1 because even 2 approaches brokenness, as Vesuva shows).
If Zendikar were anything but the land block, I'd put money on the word appearing in a card title, but, such as things are, it's closer to a toss-up.
Until we see otherwise, Locus could appear on a Quest or Instant in its English meaning, just as Shrine (Jungle) and Arcane (Arcane Sanctum) both re-used even newer Subtypes without relating back to the Kamigawa meanings of the words.
But it's in no way a tweak of an M10 rules change. It's a wholesale change to a decade-old system of format legality. I'm going with no here.
I think the change is likely some fix for Deathtouch, without creating a Trample loophole. MaGo and the rules team has had a year to figure out a way to smooth over that weirdness in a (hopefully) intuitive and (hopefully) less clunky way.