Post your favorite rules tricks that don't work any more here. Here's mine.
Three-player game in high school. Someone casts Crush of Wurms and swings at me with all three. I use Unnatural Selection to make them all Legends, two die. Similarly, Artificial Evolution to change Unnatural Selection's Wall into something absurd like Ali From Cairo. It's now 1: target creature can't attack.
Damage on the stack tricks are a bit too obvious, so let's not use too many of them. My most creative use of that was to change trample damage from Volrath's Shapeshifter into Phage.
Edit: Clone to smoke legendary creatures after Kamigawa was definitely a thing.
For a few weeks, you could make an infinite/infinite spark double if you had a blank one to copy (due to an anthem effect or similar). As you got more and more of the additional +1/+1 counters as you kept choosing the existing spark double over and over. You could also get arbitrary loyalty on a planeswalker this way.
Being able to hit planesalkers with more of red's burn. Can really feel it when drafting red in cube as cards like Fiery Confluence, used to be able to kill walkers.
Mana Burn had a lot of interactions too, Effects like Heartbeat of spring could damage players that only spend odd amounts of mana. Spectral Searchlight as a way to ping opponents that can't use extra mana at awkward times. In modern, you could pump your Death's Shadow even easier than now, kind of crazy that it wasn't a good deck then. In legacy, a common play was to wasteland their only untapped land in response to a spell, and then they either take 1 from mana burn or get Dazed. And it was always a favorite way to kill yourself instead of letting your opponent do it.
Another trick was being able to spread damage when gang blocked so a postcombat pyroclasm would sweep them.
Mana Burn had a lot of interactions too, Effects like Heartbeat of spring could damage players that only spend odd amounts of mana. Spectral Searchlight as a way to ping opponents that can't use extra mana at awkward times. In modern, you could pump your Death's Shadow even easier than now, kind of crazy that it wasn't a good deck then. In legacy, a common play was to wasteland their only untapped land in response to a spell, and then they either take 1 from mana burn or get Dazed. And it was always a favorite way to kill yourself instead of letting your opponent do it.
Nice. I don't know how I forgot about mana burn as an advantage. Burning the absolute piss out of yourself with Transcendence and bounce spells was fun. Not competitive, but fun.
Spectral Searchlight was printed as it was specifically for mana burn so good point. It was also of course why Mana Drain wasn't strictly better than Counterspell for a while.
I just found out about how Time Vault got abused with Flame Fusillade in a way that was made possible only by power-level errata. That was pretty funny.
Mana also used to go away more often, now you can float mana in the beginning of combat to use at the end of combat. (current rules are more useful when chumpblocking with a mana dork)
Another thing was that exile didn't used to be a zone. It was just "Removed from game". One line was to burning wish or cunning wish for a second copy of the wish repeatedly for extra storm. Or to wish for a flashback spell to use it again. In Vintage, people would even wish for a card they just "lost" to Yawgmoth's Will such as Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, or even the Yawgmoth's Will itself.
More recently, Planeswalkers used to be legendary based on their type, not card name. So barring Mirror Gallery, you couldn't have two Jaces or Lilianas. There's not really a cool rules trick with this, as killing your own planeswalkers is rarely an optimal line. I suppose you could steal theirs with Dominus of Fealty or something and legend rule it with your own planeswalker of the same type.
Another thing was that exile didn't used to be a zone. It was just "Removed from game". One line was to burning wish or cunning wish for a second copy of the wish repeatedly for extra storm. Or to wish for a flashback spell to use it again. In Vintage, people would even wish for a card they just "lost" to Yawgmoth's Will such as Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, or even the Yawgmoth's Will itself.
Not sure how I forgot about that one. I knew a guy who Death Wish'd a card back to his hand that got hit with Spelljack
More recently, Planeswalkers used to be legendary based on their type, not card name. So barring Mirror Gallery, you couldn't have two Jaces or Lilianas. There's not really a cool rules trick with this, as killing your own planeswalkers is rarely an optimal line. I suppose you could steal theirs with Dominus of Fealty or something and legend rule it with your own planeswalker of the same type.
During the dark days of Caw Blade it was common place for many blue decks to also run 1 or 2 Jace Beleren as it was basically 1UU "Destroy JTSM"
Way back in the day when card sleeves were just starting to get used, you could force your opponent to play without sleeves. People would enter Type I (now called Vintage) tournaments and win games/matches by playing Soldier of Fortune because their opponents didn't want to keep shuffling their Power 9 decks.
You used to be able to Momentary Blink a token and it would return to the battlefield, because tokens ceased to exist off the battlefield only as a state based effect, which was not checked during the resolution of Momentary Blink.
There were various rules tricks before Reach was a thing, where creatures were able to block "as though they had flying." Giant Spider could block Treetop Rangers because it blocked "as though" at had flying, so as far as Treetop Rangers was concerned it had flying.
"Substance" was an ability that the Oracle texts of various cards had to make them work under the rules. Newer templating has eliminated the need for it, and it was never printed on a card. Spider Climb used to gain substance if you cast it as an instant.
Way back in the day when card sleeves were just starting to get used, you could force your opponent to play without sleeves. People would enter Type I (now called Vintage) tournaments and win games/matches by playing Soldier of Fortune because their opponents didn't want to keep shuffling their Power 9 decks.
MaRo ruled around the time of Unglued (because of people stripping for Hurloon Wrangler) that the law supersedes the rules of Magic. Kinda wondering how many people got their asses kicked as a form of conceding to a troll shuffle deck. I think the minimum for that these days is a five-year ban from tournaments.
Bury is an interesting one pre-Sixth. It generally meant either sacrifice or destroy without regenerating. In the former case, could it be responded to?
Way back in the day when card sleeves were just starting to get used, you could force your opponent to play without sleeves. People would enter Type I (now called Vintage) tournaments and win games/matches by playing Soldier of Fortune because their opponents didn't want to keep shuffling their Power 9 decks.
MaRo ruled around the time of Unglued (because of people stripping for Hurloon Wrangler) that the law supersedes the rules of Magic. Kinda wondering how many people got their asses kicked as a form of conceding to a troll shuffle deck. I think the minimum for that these days is a five-year ban from tournaments.
I remember a couple of times, in the very early days of Magic, players would pick someone up and toss them out on their backside in front of the store. I don't know if it was a local thing or whether players were more "take matters into their own hands" sort of thing back then.
I remember a couple of times, in the very early days of Magic, players would pick someone up and toss them out on their backside in front of the store. I don't know if it was a local thing or whether players were more "take matters into their own hands" sort of thing back then.
Sounds pretty fair for someone running a Shahrazad deck.
Fat - Ass (donkey shaman) gets +2/+2 as long as you are eating ; someone once asked if you can use mindslaver to control your opponents turn, and win by starving them to death
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Really old, not dieing until the end of a Phase/Step with Mirror Universe being amazing, but making Channeleven more broken. And we had one player who could boomerage throw a chaos orb and sweep nearly half the table, before the rules were set. And to troll new players one guy would use Jester's Cap and put all kands in one pile then really *****ty shuffle so all lands were clumped, would do the same with Jester's Mask but also wreck their hand too.
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Three-player game in high school. Someone casts Crush of Wurms and swings at me with all three. I use Unnatural Selection to make them all Legends, two die. Similarly, Artificial Evolution to change Unnatural Selection's Wall into something absurd like Ali From Cairo. It's now 1: target creature can't attack.
Damage on the stack tricks are a bit too obvious, so let's not use too many of them. My most creative use of that was to change trample damage from Volrath's Shapeshifter into Phage.
Edit: Clone to smoke legendary creatures after Kamigawa was definitely a thing.
Being able to hit planesalkers with more of red's burn. Can really feel it when drafting red in cube as cards like Fiery Confluence, used to be able to kill walkers.
Mana Burn had a lot of interactions too, Effects like Heartbeat of spring could damage players that only spend odd amounts of mana. Spectral Searchlight as a way to ping opponents that can't use extra mana at awkward times. In modern, you could pump your Death's Shadow even easier than now, kind of crazy that it wasn't a good deck then. In legacy, a common play was to wasteland their only untapped land in response to a spell, and then they either take 1 from mana burn or get Dazed. And it was always a favorite way to kill yourself instead of letting your opponent do it.
Another trick was being able to spread damage when gang blocked so a postcombat pyroclasm would sweep them.
Nice. I don't know how I forgot about mana burn as an advantage. Burning the absolute piss out of yourself with Transcendence and bounce spells was fun. Not competitive, but fun.
Spectral Searchlight was printed as it was specifically for mana burn so good point. It was also of course why Mana Drain wasn't strictly better than Counterspell for a while.
I just found out about how Time Vault got abused with Flame Fusillade in a way that was made possible only by power-level errata. That was pretty funny.
Another thing was that exile didn't used to be a zone. It was just "Removed from game". One line was to burning wish or cunning wish for a second copy of the wish repeatedly for extra storm. Or to wish for a flashback spell to use it again. In Vintage, people would even wish for a card they just "lost" to Yawgmoth's Will such as Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, or even the Yawgmoth's Will itself.
More recently, Planeswalkers used to be legendary based on their type, not card name. So barring Mirror Gallery, you couldn't have two Jaces or Lilianas. There's not really a cool rules trick with this, as killing your own planeswalkers is rarely an optimal line. I suppose you could steal theirs with Dominus of Fealty or something and legend rule it with your own planeswalker of the same type.
Not sure how I forgot about that one. I knew a guy who Death Wish'd a card back to his hand that got hit with Spelljack
During the dark days of Caw Blade it was common place for many blue decks to also run 1 or 2 Jace Beleren as it was basically 1UU "Destroy JTSM"
There were various rules tricks before Reach was a thing, where creatures were able to block "as though they had flying." Giant Spider could block Treetop Rangers because it blocked "as though" at had flying, so as far as Treetop Rangers was concerned it had flying.
"Substance" was an ability that the Oracle texts of various cards had to make them work under the rules. Newer templating has eliminated the need for it, and it was never printed on a card. Spider Climb used to gain substance if you cast it as an instant.
MaRo ruled around the time of Unglued (because of people stripping for Hurloon Wrangler) that the law supersedes the rules of Magic. Kinda wondering how many people got their asses kicked as a form of conceding to a troll shuffle deck. I think the minimum for that these days is a five-year ban from tournaments.
Bury is an interesting one pre-Sixth. It generally meant either sacrifice or destroy without regenerating. In the former case, could it be responded to?
I remember a couple of times, in the very early days of Magic, players would pick someone up and toss them out on their backside in front of the store. I don't know if it was a local thing or whether players were more "take matters into their own hands" sort of thing back then.
Sounds pretty fair for someone running a Shahrazad deck.
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