Reworking the type line

Awhile ago in Magic General there was a thread about removing Instant as a card type; proposals were to make Instant a supertype or remove it entirely and instead use flash. I come firmly down on the camp of Instant as a supertype (which would remove flash as a keyword ability).

I began to think about the type line some more and came to the conclusion that it does need some more tweaking. Some things need to be moved and some new things need to be added. The type line as it exists isn't broken per say (other than Tribal) but it could be better.

I must note that in this discussion I'm avoiding Planechase and Archenemy specific additions to the type line.

Supertypes
The current supertypes are Basic, Legendary, Snow, and World. All carry some inherent rules which is fine. Supertypes are meant to convey some difference about the object: a legendary creature is obviously different from a non-legendary creature. Technically supertypes could all be converted into keyword abilities but that would just muddy up text boxes.
Proposed Changes:
  • Make Instant a supertype - Instants are currently pretty much Sorceries with flash. The arguments for this are detailed in the linked thread above.
  • Allow Basic to be applied to objects other than Lands - we've pretty much already got a Basic Creature. The rules currently allow the supertype to apply to just Lands but for no discernible reason. I'm not saying we need Basic Enchantments or Basic Sorceries, but the game can support things other than Lands being Basic.
  • Add a Token supertype - currently the game distinguishes between cards and tokens based simply on cards being a physical Magic card and tokens not. While this works within the rules the tokens that are now in booster packs can distort what exactly is a card for some players. Having a Token supertype can clearly mark what exactly is a token and what isn't.
  • Add a Unique supertype - this is mainly for a change I'll propose later when it comes to the Planeswalker type. Currently the "planeswalker uniqueness rule" is invoked by the Planeswalker type. The rule is very similar to both the "legendary rule" and the "world rule", and since both of those rules are invoked by a supertype it makes since to move the "uniqueness rule" out of the Planeswalker type and into a supertype of its own. I can't see this being applied to anything but planeswalkers at the moment, but maybe in the future there could be some other type that would require the same uniqueness quality that planeswalkers have.

Types
The current types are Artifact, Creature, Enchantment, Instant, Land, Planeswalker, Sorcery, and Tribal. Each of the types has its own rules (except Instant which redefines some of Sorcery's timing rules) and most have their own set of subtypes (Instant and Sorcery share a set as do Creature and Tribal). Types are important because they separate distinct concepts and allow some level of composition (Artifact Creature, Creature Enchantment, etc.). Most of this is fine.
Proposed Changes:
  • Remove the Instant type - this goes along with the proposed change to supertypes above.
  • Remove the uniqueness rule of the Planeswalker type - as detailed above.

Subtypes
The current subtypes are too numerous to mention here. There's a few separate sets of subtypes that can be attached only to certain sets. For example, only enchantments can have either the Aura or Shrine subtype. For the most part subtypes care no rules baggage, except in a few cases:
  • Some of the Land subtypes carry a mana generating activated ability
  • Aura has some very detailed rules and is tied directly to the enchant keyword ability.
  • Equipment and Fortification also have detailed rules and are tied directly to the equip and fortify keyword abilities.
It would be nice to be able to remove the rules baggage from the subtypes, and I suspect it would be doable with the Aura, Equipment, and Fortification subtypes (key the rules off the existence of the appropriate keyword ability). However, the basic land subtypes are actually pretty important. The game went through a time where these subtypes didn't have rules baggage nor exist. It made type changing cards a little wonky with respect to lands. Without the rules baggage for these subtypes cards like Blood Moon would have to specify that the lands get the Mountain ability. It's ugly and inelegant and the current way is very much worth the slight disconnect in having subtypes carry rules weight. Something might be able to be done with adding another supertype, but that gets into some weird rule hacks since currently adding supertypes doesn't change anything else about the card. Type changing is a sticky business.

Tribal
Earlier I stated that the Tribal type is broken. It functions like a supertype but is actually a type. Unlike every other type it can't exist on its own and it serves as nothing more than a holder for creature subtypes. I understand the rules reasons why it needs to be a type and not a supertype, but it's just ugly as it is. The name is even bad: other types are all nouns whereas tribal is an adjective.

So what to do about Tribal? I'm not sure. I've pondered ways to turn it into a supertype but I keep running into the issue of having subtypes attached to a supertype which muddies the distinction between supertypes and types. I've thought about turning Tribal into a keyword ability, something like "Tribal -- Goblin" but I'm not sure if that would work cleanly. Tribal is the ugly hack that has turned into the enigma. I'm going to keep working on it because I believe there is some solution.
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