MTG Salvation

I actually thought about Lotus Vale, Scorched Ruins, and Lake of the Dead. My question is whether they actually would be broken if they worked as printed. They look really scary, but all that sweet, sweet mana does come at a price. They aren't really Black Lotus or even necessarily Dark Ritual. For one thing, they aren't spells, so they don't up storm counts. You can also only use one per turn and you give up your land drop for the temporary mana boost. Now, they do help you cast Ad Nauseam absurdly easy and are painless to draw off of it, but then, the extras are useless and take up deck slots. They're also lands, so they're of limited use in Goblin Charbelcher decks. They also aren't really permanents if any deck cares about that.

On the plus side, they could spawn some kind of break neck suicide deck that casts crazy things, but burns the bridge behind it. They could also go into a Crop Rotation/Knight of the Reliquary toolbox and could be recurred with Life from the Loam or Crucible of Worlds.

Maybe they deserve a fair trial to determine what their real impact would be, rather than just deeming them automatically broken. Now, they could be overpowered, but I really question their use with the obvious culprits.

First turn lotus vale show and tell gg?

I'm not sure how much it would effect Lake of the Dead. The only real difference is you need 2 swamps now instead 1 so it's not usable till turn 3, but it still provides the +3 mana excel either way.

You can already turn 1 show and tell. Lotus veil may make show and tell more consistant, you could really only play the land the turn you want to go off.

I think if either of the first two lands could be played how there are printed they would spawn either a completly new deck or a variation of a current deck that would need to be banned.

I think you're severely underestimating the power of fast mana, especially ones that can't be countered and can't be taxed (by something like Thalia).

Imagine this scenario.
Turn 1.
I play Scorched Ruins, Tap it for 4 and cast Lodestone Golem, or Smokestack, or any number of 3+ mana scary artifacts.

I don't know about you, but I don't want to be put in that situation.

Oh god. Scorched Ruins would make artifact decks ridiculous in legacy. First turn trinisphere, metalworker, or crucible of worlds with wasteland in hand...with mana open for your daze

Quote from Elvish Sniper

Oh god. Scorched Ruins would make artifact decks ridiculous in legacy. First turn trinisphere, metalworker, or crucible of worlds with wasteland in hand...with mana open for your daze

Yeah, crucible would make all of these lands insane if they worked as printed.

Yes they would be extremely broken, because sundial of the infinite (play once and it lets you cheat your whole playsets of these lands in for the rest of the game) and stifle, etc.

Lulz, 4 mana land that enters untapped and has absolutely no drawbacks, ramping you 3 turns ahead of your opponent, for each one you play. You can even use scorched ruins' extra 3 mana more than a normal land to entirely pay for your sundial and its activation cost on the same turn you play it!

Lotus vale is even worse. Ramping you 2 right at the start of the game at once is already way stronger than almost any ramp in the game (even sol ring is banned and does less than that), PLUS it is all colors...

I'll just leave this here....

From Rulings: "4/1/2008: If you don't sacrifice the lands, Lotus Vale never enters the battlefield -- it goes directly to your graveyard."

Same for Ruins... >_>

Quote from flaming infinity

Maybe they deserve a fair trial to determine what their real impact would be, rather than just deeming them automatically broken. Now, they could be overpowered, but I really question their use with the obvious culprits.

When these cards were printed, they worked exactly as they do now. Prior to 6th edition, you could not tap Lotus Vale before sacrificing the lands. These cards are getting the fair treatment they deserve (and would be totally bonkers otherwise).

According to the oracle text, if they worked as printed, than

1. you would be able to use them on turn 1
2. you would not actually have to pay the ETB cost to use them once.

These two things are hugely important, and matter in a lot more scenarios than just storm combos.

Quote from Aquajolt

I'll just leave this here....

From Rulings: "4/1/2008: If you don't sacrifice the lands, Lotus Vale never enters the battlefield -- it goes directly to your graveyard."

Same for Ruins... >_>

Um, from the OP:

My question is whether they actually would be broken if they worked as printed.

I.e. not rulings or errata.
If they worked as printed, then lotus vale = a black lotus just by itself AT WORST, scorched ruins = a bigger colorless black lotus by itself, and both of them work as drawback-free lotus FACTORIES with any of a huge variety of cards that cancel triggered abilities, like stifle trickbind or sundial of the infinite, because you don't even have to lets them sacrifice anymore after using their initial mana. Then play another one turn 2... (in addition to your hordes of artifact monstrosities, etc.)

Quote from Crimeo

Um, from the OP:

My question is whether they actually would be broken if they worked as printed.

X_x Doh! Carry on then.

To provide some content. Yes it would be bonkers. Suicide ramp go!

Quote from Crimeo

Yes they would be extremely broken, because sundial of the infinite (play once and it lets you cheat your whole playsets of these lands in for the rest of the game) and stifle, etc.

Lulz, 4 mana land that enters untapped and has absolutely no drawbacks, ramping you 3 turns ahead of your opponent, for each one you play. You can even use scorched ruins' extra 3 mana more than a normal land to entirely pay for your sundial and its activation cost on the same turn you play it!

Lotus vale is even worse. Ramping you 2 right at the start of the game at once is already way stronger than almost any ramp in the game (even sol ring is banned and does less than that), PLUS it is all colors...

Sundial is cute, but certainly isn't worth a card on its own. Stifle is useful, but might not make the lands worth more than a one of or something. Now, Lodestone Golem was something I thought about with the suicide deck idea. I know Vintage uses it. I'm not totally sure they wouldn't be overpowered. I just think they might be fair enough to actually be tested to find out what they would actually do.

As far as Sol Ring, you can potentially drop 4 of them on turn one or it, land, and any 2 mana, mana rock. They are one and done like a ritual and unlike a ritual, you can't even chain them together. If they are overpowered, they probably have to do their damage in one turn unless you've got some kind of Crucible/Loam package. If nothing else, that would narrow down what would be worth testing with them.

It would clearly be neat to see if they truly are broken in formats where you can easily be run over with 20+ power by turn 3 or have a chance of being killed before you ever take your first turn. I was kind of wondering if some legacy/vintage scene wanted to run a few events to find out once and for all if they would be too broken for formats where everything playable does some kind of stupid ****.

Black lotus is overpowered for a lot of reasons. Waaaay down on the list of reasons is that it adds one to your storm count.

There are so many (more) ways my Karn deck could go bonkers busted if Scorched Ruins if it had a triggered ability instead of a replacement effect. It's already one of my routes to infinite mana, but turning it into a strictly superior Crystal Vein would make me happy all day long.

Quote from Saurus

Black lotus is overpowered for a lot of reasons. Waaaay down on the list of reasons is that it adds one to your storm count.

Yep. They'd be in the top 10 most powerful cards in the game.

Quote from Crimeo

Um, from the OP:


I.e. not rulings or errata.
If they worked as printed, then lotus vale = a black lotus just by itself AT WORST, scorched ruins = a bigger colorless black lotus by itself, and both of them work as drawback-free lotus FACTORIES with any of a huge variety of cards that cancel triggered abilities, like stifle trickbind or sundial of the infinite, because you don't even have to lets them sacrifice anymore after using their initial mana. Then play another one turn 2... (in addition to your hordes of artifact monstrosities, etc.)

The cards do currently work as close to the printed functionality as modern rules allow. Under pre-6th rules, you couldn't activate the mana abilities of these cards until their comes-into-play abilities were dealt with. There has never been a time when Lotus Vale could be used as a land-drop Black Lotus. You can't read pre-6th cards as if they were templated for post-6th, because they're essentially in a different language and need to be translated to make sense.

Now, other cards of course did change functionality to match printed wording when 6th rules came in, so there is a precedent, but these two cards are so egregiously overpowered if played as written that I don't think it's unreasonable for Oracle text to do its best to emulate the original design intent. It's the same way that we don't treat Meditate as having some kind of weird activated ability.

Lotus vale and scorched ruins would be banned in all formats and restricted in vintage. Give up my land drop to have a black lotus? That's a tiny bit more fair in comparison to black lotus itself but still ridiculous. I don't care about storm count. Turn 1 trinisphere, turn 1 lodestone off just ruins by itself, turn 1 liliana of the veil or jace beleren, turn 1 ad nauseam from hand quite easily as you can go lotus vale, tap for black, dark rit, ad nauseam. Or even turn 1 petal, cantrip, LED, dark ritual, lotus vale, infernal, ad nauseam...turn 2 jace, the mind sculptor is fair I hear. Only downside to vale is that it can only be used at sorcery speed, but whatever I'd rather drop a bomb in comparison to hold up mana drain and such anyday.

Well, it is power level errata. If it weren't, we'd have to errata everything affected by adding the stack or adding/removing stacked damage, everything that works differently without mana burn, lifelink/deathtouch and their similar abilities that got affected, make token generators like the hunted creatures get around the token rule they created about ownership, make legends work with the legend rule they were printed with, exclude old walls from defender specific cards, old creatures wouldn't deal damage if tapped while blocking, old artifacts would have their static abilties turn off it they got tapped, and tons of other things. Errataing everything to work as originally intended would make a lot of cards so long you couldn't ever reprint them and it would make a huge mess. It's undeniably power level errata, but I'm ok with carving out an exception if they'd ruin vintage. (seriously, they're effectively banned in legacy and vintage anyway, as much as Grizzly Bears since they're obviously trash as intended) What I was a little concerned with is possibly ruining something cool due to knee jerk reactions about potential power.

Oh, I like the Torpor Orb suggestion. It's as cute as the whole Trickbind/Voidslime/Sundial of the Infinite thing. That would be cool for someone to go 2 card combo for a Gilded Lotus. That would be really funny for casual play considering it's probably as competitive as Torpor Orb/Phage the Untouchable or Eater of Days.

It is not power level errata if it never functioned the way it reads without the errata. It was errataed to preserve its original functionality (or the closest thing to it), which makes it just regular old errata to preserve functionality.

Quote from Cythare

It is not power level errata if it never functioned the way it reads without the errata. It was errataed to preserve its original functionality (or the closest thing to it), which makes it just regular old errata to preserve functionality.

No, it is power level errata. You can trot out the "original functionality" pony if you like, but then you have to explain why Wizards chooses to allow every other card to change functionality as rules change, but does not do so with these few lands. Example: when damage stacked, cards like Mogg Fanatic were amazingly better than afterwards. Their function was allowed to change when the rules changed.

I have more than speculation here: I asked Tebek about this exactly some time ago.

My e-mail:

"Dear Matt Tabak,
Regarding your article "May 2011 Update Bulletin":

I've been playing Magic since Legends. I'm mostly into Vintage, and fairly active on TheManaDrain.

I wanted to e-mail you because I wholeheartedly agree with your general philosophy as you explained it at the end of today's article. That is to say, the card text - not the original function or intent - should control. When the rules change, some cards change. The change in value of older cards is one of the most important reasons to collect and keep a large collection of older oddball cards, and it's the reason I am excited for Oracle updates.

What frustrates me, however, is that this standard has not been universally applied. There are many cards that still have Oracle text that diverges sharply from the printed text. In some cases, like Transmute Artifact, a good argument can be made that the text itself is "uncomputable" in the world of Magic. What does "fail" mean exactly?

But, for others, the text makes perfect computable sense in Magic. For example, take Lotus Vale and Scorched Ruins. There is no reason these cards cannot function exactly as they are written. There is no ambiguity, no undefined terms. Nor have they been printed in any other modified form (ala Mox Diamond). If WotC's goal is to avoid confusion among players by sticking to the original text, and not suprising players with arcane original intent or function, then these cards and their bretheren should be restored as well.

Now, I chose Vale and Ruins as my example specifically because I'm sure WotC would have power level concerns with them. If true, though, this suggests that WotC is not really pursuing an original text objective, but a power level objective. Second, if there are power level concerns, that's the purpose of the banned/restricted list, not the Oracle.

I am very interested in your thoughts on how far the original text approach will go, and what barriers you feel prevent you from applying it universally. I look forward to your comments.

Best Regards,

Me."

His Response:

"Hi You,

Thanks for writing in.

As you've observed, Oracle maintenance is a complicated issue. What I said about text on cards is true: in an ideal world a person, armed only with current Magic rules knowledge, could pick up a Magic card and reasonably figure out what it does. We do try not to develop the cards post-printing by issuing power-level errata, but there are exceptions and competing priorities.

Design intent is a tricky thing to gauge, because we are often working with incomplete information. Often rules text simply doesn't compute, as you aptly put it, given modern Magic rules, and we have to approximate. Early card designers didn't conceive of the precision used in the Comprehensive Rules and templating today. I'd love to tell you there was a set algorithm we use to determine whether or not to take action, but there isn't. Honestly, sometimes we're happy just to leave well enough alone. Take Lotus Vale, for example. If we restored its printed wording and banned it from all formats, what players have we serviced? Are Lotus Vale and Winter Orb the same case? Maybe, but development's concerns about Lotus Vale were stronger, so it got different treatment.

Figuring it out as we go along,

Matt :)"

It's the last line that answers the question: Yes, Matt knows perfectly well that some cards are not allowed to do what the text says, but "development's concerns about Lotus Vale were stronger" so it gets treated differently. That's power-level errata.

Now, I'm not saying Matt is wrong here. Does it make sense to allow Vale and Ruins and the Alliance lands to do what they say they do, only to have to ban at least the first two in Legacy and restrict them in Vintage? That's a judgment call. I'm more of a textual purist so I would go ahead and ban em, but I can see the other side of the coin.

EDIT: If anyone in Colorado is willing, I've been looking to organize a Vintage tourney where these bad boys are played as written, but Vale and Ruins are restricted, for some time. I'd love to see whether they are actually a problem or not. I have no interest in testing them in Legacy because I think it's pretty obvious they would need to be banned immediately. The Alliance lands, not so much, and those are the real losers in this fight.

Quote from damancy

First turn lotus vale show and tell gg?

They have hate for that... JS.

Quote from CMoriarty

Now, I'm not saying Matt is wrong here. Does it make sense to allow Vale and Ruins and the Alliance lands to do what they say they do, only to have to ban at least the first two in Legacy and restrict them in Vintage? That's a judgment call. I'm more of a textual purist so I would go ahead and ban em, but I can see the other side of the coin.

Here's my question. How are Lotus Vale and Scorched Ruins not okay because of development concerns, but Time Vault and Flash having their power-level errata removed was okay?