I for one am all in favor of the new change. The idea of Clone or Phantasmal Image being kill spells never made much sense.
It has always made more sense to me than everyone having the same legendary creature on the table.
"I am Thun the LAST troll. Hey i am also Thun the not so last troll. Excuse me don't pay attention to the other guys, i am Thun the last troll." Maybe they should rename him to "the not so last troll"?
The sideboard change is great.
The land change is ok. It kills some fun interactions. But the change is understandable. The old rule was hard to explain.
The legendary creature change is not good but i can live with it. It kills a lot of interactions with clones. But instead of weakening closes it makes them more powerfill now imo. Your opponent has a good legendary on the table? Just copy it and abuse the hell out of it. This change has imo a good chance to backfire. The only part that doesn't make sense at all is if you play the same legendary again and you get to pick which one to sack. They knew their rule sucked. They even adjusted it to get past stuf like pacifism.
The new planeswalker rules are just plain stupid. You can play the same planeswalker and you get to pick which one to sack. Actuallyeveryone gets to play their planeswalkers. Wtf. Is it possible to dumb this down any more?
They way things have been going i expext one of the next rules changes makes sure that everyone always wins.
Once again, you need to be reminded how the "summoning creatures" mechanic is played out, flavor-wise.
You're not summoning the actual creature, you're summoning an avatar of the creature.
This has been explained over, and over, and over again in this thread but many of you are either too lazy to read or just don't care and want to come here to whine and cry.
On a sort-of related note, it seems to me that most of what goes on in the rumor mill on MTGS is just that: whining and crying.
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Old enough to know better, much too young to care.
Once again, you need to be reminded how the "summoning creatures" mechanic is played out, flavor-wise.
You're not summoning the actual creature, you're summoning an avatar of the creature.
This has been explained over, and over, and over again in this thread but many of you are either too lazy to read or just don't care and want to come here to whine and cry.
On a sort-of related note, it seems to me that most of what goes on in the rumor mill on MTGS is just that: whining and crying.
if that is how summoning creatures works then what is the point of legendary creatures. this planeswalkers/legendary rule reminds me of an old saying. if you gona do something do it all the way or not at all. this change feels like a half change which is the worst kind. if clones are a problem nerf clones don't mess up 7 years of design just so you can make a clone for planeswalkers.
Once again, you need to be reminded how the "summoning creatures" mechanic is played out, flavor-wise.
You're not summoning the actual creature, you're summoning an avatar of the creature.
And to me this sounds like a poor excuse in order to explain why the new legendary rules changes are really good instead of bad.
This has been explained over, and over, and over again in this thread but many of you are either too lazy to read or just don't care and want to come here to whine and cry.
Or we ignore it because it is a stupid contrived mechanic that has nothing to do with flavour.
On a sort-of related note, it seems to me that most of what goes on in the rumor mill on MTGS is just that: whining and crying.
Yes as soon as you don't agree with something it's whining and crying. Saves you the trouble of actually reading and responding with anything that remotely resembles a well founded post.
How most competitive players, people writing articles on SCG/CFB, or fellow players I've talked to at my LGS's all think the change is good because it allows players to actually play their cards, and cloning to be a function that it actually intends (to copy something).
The new rules create more complexity and decision-making in Magic, instead of ill-contrived "easy" answers for something that was designed to be difficult to deal with (Thrun, GoST, etc.).
I'll repeat myself that it seems this forum is flooded with people who just need a place to cry when they don't understand or agree with something (check the YMTC thread for more evidence of this).
It's a game. Get over it.
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Old enough to know better, much too young to care.
People need to drop the flavor argument. It doesn't work. This is a card game, and so there will always be room to complain about flavor.
and Visara the Dreadful killing another Visara the Dreadful
and Kamahl, Fist of Krosa blocking Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
and Kamahl, Pit Fighter committing suicidal 2 times
and Olivia Voldaren menacing another Olivia Voldaren
and Grimgrin, Corpse-Born killing another Grimgrin, Corpse-Born on attack
and 2 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn kissing
and 2 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre trying to self destroy
and 2 Kalitas, Bloodchief of Ghet
and 2 Ob Nixilis, the Fallen
and 2 Progenitus
A lot of these were ALREADY possible with the former rules. Visara can kill herself just by being played. Kamahl can commit suicide twice with no problems, you just have to play him twice. Grimgrin can kill himself by being played. So can Ulamog. Etc. Also, Olivia still can't still steal herself, but she can still kill herself under both rules.
Moreover, legendary creatures exploding when a clone made a copy of them never made flavor sense. It is much more flavorful to have an actual copy created that sticks around, and let them duke it out to see which is the 'real' one.
If you're going to argue against this change, argue against the mechanics. Things like the Thespian's stage combo and the relative strengthening of cards like Geist are valid concerns.
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If God spoke to you, and commanded you to kill your own children, would you do it?
If your answer is "No," then your morality does not come from God's commandments.
If your answer is "Yes," then please, please reconsider.
The thing that I dislike most about the change is that, should we play a second copy of our own legendary creature/planeswalker, we get to choose which remains and which goes. I would much prefer it if the change was to effectively keep the rule as-is for what happens when the two same legends/walkers are in play on the same side. That does take out some of the strategic eliminate (there is a downside to killing your own card to replace it with the same, even should you get to use the ability again), but has more impact on deckbuilding than the potential "Jam 4 and go" mentality.
That being said, I'm nowhere near as active in the game as I used to be, so my concern may be non-existent.
But the obvious response: legendary type is a drawback. This latest rule change goes a long way towards removing that drawback. That's pretty much why I hate it.
So do you always hate removing any drawback no matter what? Or is there a specific reason you like this one?
But the obvious response: legendary type is a drawback. This latest rule change goes a long way towards removing that drawback. That's pretty much why I hate it.
I don't know that it removes the drawback so much as changes it. You still can only have one on your side, although the replacement rule does hamper that particular drawback. But we play these cards because they are powerful (one of the great things about the legendary mechanic is that the cards can be more powerful). So when your opponent can also play the card, and gain benefit from it instead of using it as psuedo removal, you still have to deal with that powerful card that you decided to play because you thought it would give you an edge.
I think it would have been perfect had they changed the rule to checking each player individually while maintaining the "both go to the graveyard as a state based action" aspect of the rule.
People need to drop the flavor argument. It doesn't work. This is a card game, and so there will always be room to complain about flavor.
A lot of these were ALREADY possible with the former rules. Visara can kill herself just by being played. Kamahl can commit suicide twice with no problems, you just have to play him twice. Grimgrin can kill himself by being played. So can Ulamog. Etc. Also, Olivia still can't still steal herself, but she can still kill herself under both rules.
Moreover, legendary creatures exploding when a clone made a copy of them never made flavor sense. It is much more flavorful to have an actual copy created that sticks around, and let them duke it out to see which is the 'real' one.
If you're going to argue against this change, argue against the mechanics. Things like the Thespian's stage combo and the relative strengthening of cards like Geist are valid concerns.
yeah it s soo flavorful that can be two of the same creature but not 3 or even 2 if you control both
The thing is if they don't like clones killing legends soo they should have stopped printing them and instead maked a new one like
Clone that don't kill legends2UU
Creature — Shapeshifter 0/0
You may have Clone that don't kill legends enter the battlefield as a copy of any nonlegendary creature on the battlefield.
EDIT:
also we always had Vampire Hexmage + Dark Depths + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
with Green Sun's Zenith + Crop Rotation for support
Thespian's stage is just another support for the deck
Haha, Wizards is so funny. The thing I like most about their explanation for the rule change is this one:
Okay, fair... Followed up by this first example of the new rulings:
Now wait a moment, doesn't this mean that planeswalkers and legendaries become situational disenchants? Wow, great reasoning Wizards! That's some great logic there!
Seriously, I wonder how much eternal playtesting has been done with this new rule. Legacy and even Modern are going to feel this change. I really hope it's not going to be as bad as I think it will be but for the moment I fear for eternal formats.
1. What do you people think Hexproof DOES? I mean seriously. Pause for a minute, and don't give me the technical definition. I'm asking you, what does hexproof DO. In THE GAME.
For example, if someone asked me for a definition of first strike, I'd tell them "It gives me limited evasion, and makes me blockers more resilient", because in most situations people aren't going to chump it unless it's lethal or near lethal(limited evasion), and I choose my blocks, so I will block things I kill(Making my blocker more resilient).
In real game terms Hexproof is a resiliency ability that is WORKING AS INTENDED. Cloning Hexproof creatures is a nifty trick someone came up with that was not WORKING AS INTENDED, and so they made it not that way, and also added functionality to an unfun mechanic which made mirror matches a detriment to playing cards. They obviously want to play around with Legendary, and making Legendary cards more dependable and playable, but still with downsides.
The immediate reaction is to call everyone who likes that idea basically...dumb. To go "OH! SO MY SUPER-SMART ALWAYS PRO PLAY OF CLONING HEXPROOF LEGENDARIES THAT I SAW SOMEONE ELSE DO 4 YEARS AGO NO LONGER WORKS! WHAT WILL I DO NOW THAT I CAN'T COPY THE SAME PLAY IN EDH OVER AND OVER!" does not fit into "NOW THAT I HAVE TO BE CREATIVE IN MY DECK BUILDING AGAIN THIS GAME IS DUMB, AND PEOPLE WHO LIKE THIS CHANGE DON'T UNDERSTAND MY PAIN AND ARE THUS DUMB TOO!" I'm not trying to be insulting, I'm repeating back what you have said for 80 pages now back to you. This is one of the most ridiculous sobfests I've ever seen, and I'm shocked it continues. I've been upset about some stuff, hell, I was SUPER upset at the loss of manaburn, but simplifying that stage of the game has clearly upped my experience more than it's downed it. I was just nostalgic of beating people with Spectral Searchlight which didn't happen to often.
2. You can't claim flavor problems, and then get creative with the flavor problems that already exist. Your also not in charge of writing new rules, so you can't dismiss the rule writers by claiming to out think them at their own job. It doesn't work. I mean, you can do that to me, but in the end it's their job to write the new rules, and you only have to follow them if you play in sanctioned events. If you don't, well, then I'm sure there are tabletop games that didn't get rid of manaburn, I mean, how would that negatively effect the game? it might hurt 1 deck out of 20?
I can easily address any flavor problems you may have.
Your a planeswalker, so you gain your energy from an infinite possibility of space and time, with infinite planes before you, no two may be the same, but it isn't unreasonable to think that some changes might only be the difference of a bird going north or south ONE winter.
If they steal your legendary while having the same legendary then they have transferred the powerbase to their own plane of power, and his singularity changes him, crushing him in the presence of a being more real than himself. The two clash as one faces his doppelganger with only the holder of the reins deciding which one wins(most likely his original one, so not only did he steal your legendary, but then he let you watch as his superior model ripped off your legendary's head and drank it's blood.) The idea that mirror entities would not be kind to each other is not an old one.
Planeswalkers are even easier to explain, since the planeswalker isn't dying at your whim. It makes perfect sense for warring factions to go to the same places for support, and it also makes sense for that support to favor both enemies if it also favors him. By paying some of your power his way, and letting him do what he wants occasionally you vie for his power as well, until one of you wins.(ending the game by killing your opponent, or cutting ties to a similar ally)
This is not so hard to reason out, and I haven't been any more creative than the people explaining away why clones kill legendaries. Some of their explanations have been AMAZINGLY similar to my steal argument. These changes weren't done for flavor but for functionality. It was never intended functionality for clones to have the power to kill legendaries, and now they don't. In addition they have answered, functionally, the horribleness of seeing a mirror deck at an EDH game, and playing legendaries in some competitive events. More an EDH fix, but one I understand, and one I think overall helps the game. Sorry.
Many of you arguing against the rule changes have obviously failed to read the article or attempt to understand the reasoning behind the change.
All of the reasons have been thoroughly discussed and yet you keep coming up with peripheral reasons why you think it's wrong.
You know what might be a better way to spend your time/effort? Read the article, and think how much more interesting Magic is going to be now.
I dread the day when i watch or participate in a game off magic where wizards make the next oops sorry card...JTMS and everybody is playing mirror matches. If this rule was in effect during caw blade era...what a truly lame experience. Plus how lame does the following interaction sound.
P1. Activate my chandra deal one to you redirect to your chandra. play chandra sac old chandra deal one to you redirect to your chandra. I'll attack your chandra with my (insert any legendary permanent lets say squee)
P2. I'll block your squee with my squee.
i did read the article, twice, and a major reason for the rules change was 2 fold.
1. Clone problem
2. People using legendary cards as removal
So what has the change done.
1. Clone problem fixed but now you have weird lame games where powerful unique cards fight themselves.
2. So can't use legendary permanents as removal but its still ok to use them as a disenchant. seriously this is lame excuse. they don't want us to use it as removal but enchantment removal is ok. also please remember that wizards barely play tests modern, almost none for legacy, and zero for vintage so when they say "we have played tested for a year and its fine" they only mean draft and standard with little modern, because they can just ban whatever they miss in the older formats.
Even if you discount these points the scariest thing about this rule change is the oops factor. When wizards make the next "sorry guys" like faeries, Maro public apologized for that, and it happens to be a legendary permanent then that card will be $100+ and there will be mirror matches until the sun crashes, or they ban something. Does this sound familiar, it should because it has already happened and that was with the second incarnation of the legend rule in affect.
correct me if i am wrong, but isn't each player a planeswalker and when you play a planeswalker aren't you getting assistance from that walker. And if that walker is helping me beat my opponent why is that walker also helping my opponent beat me. and when i find out why can't i just tell him to buzz off.
Can't wait for the next Gaea's Cradle or Academy Ruins because those cards would be super fair when played in multiples.
This is not so hard to reason out, and I haven't been any more creative than the people explaining away why clones kill legendaries. Some of their explanations have been AMAZINGLY similar to my steal argument. These changes weren't done for flavor but for functionality. It was never intended functionality for clones to have the power to kill legendaries, and now they don't. In addition they have answered, functionally, the horribleness of seeing a mirror deck at an EDH game, and playing legendaries in some competitive events. More an EDH fix, but one I understand, and one I think overall helps the game. Sorry.
@KageHamusuta
Well clearly you are very knowledgeable about this. So can yo tell me why wizards changed the rules governing two card types, instead of simply halting all printings of clone and then make a clone variant to satisfy blue's color pie needs and at the same time not exploiting the "removal argument".
I dread the day when i watch or participate in a game off magic where wizards make the next oops sorry card...JTMS and everybody is playing mirror matches. If this rule was in effect during caw blade era...what a truly lame experience. Plus how lame does the following interaction sound.
P1. Activate my chandra deal one to you redirect to your chandra. play chandra sac old chandra deal one to you redirect to your chandra. I'll attack your chandra with my (insert any legendary permanent lets say squee)
P2. I'll block your squee with my squee.
Go get, like, Magic Workshop or something, and then build a deck. Copy the deck, and compete both decks against each other. After playing a few games I would like video of this happening for two reasons. 1. It's highly unlikely that it would go exactly like that, as those are TWO cards from the deck. 2. That would actually be quite amusing to me to watch Chandra set herself on fire over two dueling planeswalkers.
I did read the article twice and a major reason for the rules change was 2 fold.
1. Clone problem
2. People using legendary cards as removal
So what has the change done.
1. Clone problem fixed but now you have weird lame games where powerful unique cards fight themselves.
2. So can't used legendary permanents as removal but its still ok to use them as a disenchant. seriously this is lame excuse. if they dont want us to use it as removal but enchantment removal is ok. also please remember that wizards barely play tests modern, almost none for legacy, and zero for vintage so when they say "we have played tested for a year and its fine" they only mean draft and standard with little modern, because they can just ban whatever they miss.
I don't feel that the old version of the rules was inherently bad, but it did end up making interactions between players who shared legendary permanents a game about who could use his or her permanent as a terror more often and not about the cool things the legendary permanents or Planeswalkers themselves could do. In the new version of the rules, a player is still disadvantaged for drawing too many of a Planeswalker or legend, but he or she just has some tools to be able to mitigate it.
There are many reasons the change to the rules is coming about now. The first, along with any change we make to the Comprehensive Rules, is that we believe it provides a better overall game-play experience to our players. The second is that as we print more Planeswalkers, we learn more about them and how they work, and how to better balance them and make them fun. We found that games where players used their Planeswalkers to continuously nullify each other weren't particularly interesting, and overall it made Planeswalkers less fun as a result. The third reason is that we simply print more legends today than we used to, both because they give us opportunities to tell the story of Magic on cards, and because they afford us the ability to grant powers and abilities to cards that we might not want players to have multiple copies of at the same time.
I wanted to highlight some things you seemed to have missed. This change was largely about the actual function of the cards, and was about getting them playable. Legendaries and Planeswalkers are scary, but simply outright killing the other guys guy by playing their guy is very little interaction and doesn't allow you to utilize your tools, your just giving up tools to get rid of his tools. They didn't like that so they changed, and then liked how clone fit better.
Even if you discount these points the scariest thing about this rule change is the oops factor. When wizards make the next "sorry guys" like faeries, Maro public apologized for that, and it happens to be a legendary permanent then that card will be $100+ and there will be mirror matches until the sun crashes, or they ban something. Does this sound familiar, it should because it has already happened and that was with the second incarnation of the legend rule in affect.
Uhm, the oops factor has actually always been LESSENED by being legendary. Currently, to play traditional control in standard, you pretty much need Sphinx's Revelation, and that card is a show runner in about 5 different decks right now. It's cost wouldn't have risen if it was a similarly powered planewalker or legendary, and it's high cost has more to do with it being MYTHIC. This isn't really effecting the oops factor in any significant way since any card has that potential. Also, I think the remove aura thing makes sense in a couple of ways, you "summoned" your guy out of that enchantment trap, exerting the energy to summon them again, and in return they are free to assist you yet again.
correct me if i am wrong, but isn't each player a planeswalker and when you play a planeswalker aren't you getting assistance from that walker. And if that walker is helping me beat my opponent why is that walker also helping my opponent beat me. and when i find out why can't i just tell him to buzz off.
Can't wait for the next Gaea's Cradle or Academy Ruins because those cards would be super fair when played in multiples.
Why WOULDN'T they play both sides? They aren't being summoned as your slaves, your asking for assistance and thus they assist you. When the opponent plays the same guy, it makes sense for their to be a duel to see who's side he actually ends up on. Your vieing for control of the planeswalker now flavorfully adds politics to the magic storytelling functionality of the game.
What's more, I'm not going to try and say that Wizards doesn't make mistakes, but they do eventually learn from them, and they have been learning as of late. I may not say they don't make ANY mistakes, but I wouldn't call them accident prone.
We aren't designing a whole game, and every card designing aficionado I know to any extent has been guilty of accidentally making a broken card because they didn't consider some small aspect of the card. This does power up Gaea's Cradle, and Serra's Sanctum cards that were always powerful, but that is two cards, which can be banned/restricted, only affect older formats, and are nowhere near what they design today for legendary lands, something they have said they are reticent to do. Hell, they are wary of printing lands with the capability of adding more than one mana to your pool in the same turn. Hell, Tolarian Academy was clearly a mistake, which is why it's restricted, which is why this rule doesn't do much to it.
Poking at Gaea's Cradle, Tolarian Academy, and to some extent JtmS is a bit unfair, as they all represent earlier design models that have changed. In a game that stays this transformable, you will have mistakes, I don't believe that this rule is going to be the thing that tips that next design.
Uhm, the oops factor has actually always been LESSENED by being legendary. Currently, to play traditional control in standard, you pretty much need Sphinx's Revelation, and that card is a show runner in about 5 different decks right now. It's cost wouldn't have risen if it was a similarly powered planewalker or legendary, and it's high cost has more to do with it being MYTHIC. This isn't really effecting the oops factor in any significant way since any card has that potential. Also, I think the remove aura thing makes sense in a couple of ways, you "summoned" your guy out of that enchantment trap, exerting the energy to summon them again, and in return they are free to assist you yet again.
I don't see how Sphinx's Revelation has anything to do with legendary. i was referring to JTMS when he was in standard.
I happen to find that using planeswalkers an other legendary permanents as removal is interactive. i have to make choices on how to best use my resources or when making a deck. Do i use this card as removal or do i try an get rid of his creature another way then play mine and force my opponent to have an answer for it.
I noticed that you have conveniently not addressed the clone fixing problem.
"The third reason is that we simply print more legends today than we used to, both because they give us opportunities to tell the story of Magic on cards, and because they afford us the ability to grant powers and abilities to cards that we might not want players to have multiple copies of at the same time."
This is a lame argument because a player couldn't have multiples of legendary cards before and this change does nothing to to change that.
Honesty these legendary changes are a lazy way for wizards to make a new clone that will clone planeswalkers. Like a lot of things in life they took the easy road of changing a few rules to fit what they wanted instead of fixing what they claim was the problem which was clone.
Well, there was also the problem of extra in-hand copies of Legends being dead cards. The replace rule allows for your in-hand card to remain useful, while still preventing you from having more than one at a time. Mechanic-wise, it's rather elegant, IMO.
Well, there was also the problem of extra in-hand copies of Legends being dead cards. The replace rule allows for your in-hand card to remain useful, while still preventing you from having more than one at a time. Mechanic-wise, it's rather elegant, IMO.
This is such a key point to all of this.
The rule change is allowing players to actually PLAY the cards in their hands, rather than holding on to "dead" cards.
Being able to PLAY cards makes the game more fun/interesting.
Of course the narrow-minded creeps in this forum are going to cry/whine/*****/flame for me saying this, but it's the damn truth.
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Old enough to know better, much too young to care.
Uhm, the oops factor has actually always been LESSENED by being legendary. Currently, to play traditional control in standard, you pretty much need Sphinx's Revelation, and that card is a show runner in about 5 different decks right now. It's cost wouldn't have risen if it was a similarly powered planewalker or legendary, and it's high cost has more to do with it being MYTHIC. This isn't really effecting the oops factor in any significant way since any card has that potential. Also, I think the remove aura thing makes sense in a couple of ways, you "summoned" your guy out of that enchantment trap, exerting the energy to summon them again, and in return they are free to assist you yet again.
I don't see how Sphinx's Revelation has anything to do with legendary. i was referring to JTMS when he was in standard.
You were talking about a general oops factor, I already mentioned why JTMS seems like an unfair point, but I'm happy to detail it.
1. JTMS was the planeswalker that broke the bank, this is true. He came out in the 2010 expansion of Zendikar, Worldwake. Prior to this there were about 10 planeswalkers who had seen print, and he is the first with 4 abilities. They were still playing with a new kind of card at the time, a powerful card type, that due to it's flavor nature, was never going to see print below mythic.
2. So three years was the amount of time it took them to break planeswalkers. This is perfect to notice a trend, you see SOME planeswalker was going to do this on SOME level, I'd almost call it inevitable. Planeswalkers are cards that have a number of effects thus putting them as some of the most versatile cards in the game. One was going to have enough utility to completely break the bank, and JTMS won the jackpot.
3. If you look at current trends, planeswalkers just don't get to do what he does. My Liliana of the Dark Realms deck may sometimes hit for 12 points of damage using her middle ability on some innocuous surviving creature after all my Mutilates and Far//Aways open up the field, if she hasn't died to Dreadbore, the first card designed to just take out planeswalkers, but even then I have to pay 3 loyalty for the effect, and that kills her if I just played her.
I happen to find that using planeswalkers an other legendary permanents as removal is interactive. i have to make choices on how to best use my resources or when making a deck. Do i use this card as removal or do i try an get rid of his creature another way then play mine and force my opponent to have an answer for it.
I noticed that you have conveniently not addressed the clone fixing problem.
EDIT: I'm sorry, after reading the thread above I think I see where I "conveniently not addressed the clone fixing problem"...I did not address it because frankly it's NOT a problem. Below states why it's not, and "two unique powerful creatures battling" is also NOT A PROBLEM in my eyes. Now those unique powerful creatures actually battle instead of suiciding into each other, seems like we will see different games now.
Clone fixing problem?? I'm a little lost, this is mostly a good thing that clones DON'T act as removal. I like my clones to...well, clone things. It is their intended function, and I have brought that up. It's a pretty flat response, when clone was originally printed, I doubt anyone in R & D was saying "Hey, look! It works as removal!" or it would have been flavored as a legend killer from the getgo. When I look at the art, flavor, and abilities of Clone I am never under the impression that it wants to kill things. Hell, Evil Twin has that flavor, and is WEAKER against legendaries since he just dies, and doesn't get to assassinate his target.
No one is arguing about whether it's "interactive", playing the game is interactive, what the argument IS is that in the current interaction you hardly get to use these cards. You don't get to add or subtract loyalty, and planeswalker, or legendary face-offs have less to do with who uses their planeswalker or legendary better, and more to do with who gets to play it as removal. In the mirrors you don't even PLAY the legendary since you know your opponent may counter it's abilities by playing his own, and I have witnessed games where both players are holding back legendaries for this reason.
It becomes FAR more detrimental in other formats, and especially In EDH, which is being recognized as a format now. There is nothing wrong with recognizing EDH as a format, but EDH decks are often expensive to build, and seeing someone else at the table with the same Commander often means an autoloss since you will clash-out with that player and not interact with your own general. Your general is your most consistent card in that format, and I'd say 60-75 percent of EDH decks are centered around it's abilities.
"The third reason is that we simply print more legends today than we used to, both because they give us opportunities to tell the story of Magic on cards, and because they afford us the ability to grant powers and abilities to cards that we might not want players to have multiple copies of at the same time."
This is a lame argument because a player couldn't have multiples of legendary cards before and this change does nothing to to change that.
Honesty these legendary changes are a lazy way for wizards to make a new clone that will clone planeswalkers. Like a lot of things in life they took the easy road of changing a few rules to fit what they wanted instead of fixing what they claim was the problem which was clone.
But now I can play multiples of a legendary, even 4 copies, especially if my deck is centered around said legendary, like a Varolz, the Scar-Striped deck. These changes give me a reason to run 4, since I can get past enchantments that shut me down by replacing my Varolz, and since my whole deck is likely counting on playing him.
If Varolz WASN'T legendary, he would be an auto 4 of, and in a centric deck for him he still might be a 4 of even though that means I will ocasionally draw a dead copy of him. This allows me to also play the dead copies to at least have them in the graveyard, so I can at least use them with Varolz ability to pump another creature.
I don't see how this hurts the game, and I don't see how it leads to the next JTMS. There will some day be another JTMS, but it MIGHT NOT BE LEGENDARY!!!! Not every amazingly broken card oops has been legendary, look at mirrodin. They banned NINE CARDS from standard during Mirrodin's stay, and all of them were ridiculous:
the 5 artifact lands(still banned in Mirrodin Block, and Modern) Disciple of the Vault Arcbound Ravager(Still expensive as hell) Skullclamp(Still banned pretty much everywhere) Aether Vial(Still expensive)
In fact I kind of hated Mirrodin, because after these interactions left the field there were about 4 playable deck ranging from Tooth and Nail, Bluepost, Deathcloud, and White control. Before the bans there were 3 playable decks since Ravager was too hard to deal with for control. JTMS does not compare to the "oops" factor of mirrodin, sorry, it doesn't. None of the cards banned during Mirrodin had a legendary factor putting them over the top, which was the problem of some. For example, with ravager and 2 disciples on the field, a sweep spell does not save you.
I play fighting games too, and the most hype fighting game(still) is Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 currently. It's losing a lot of steam, though, as Capcom is not putting in any updates to balance out characters so almost every fight you see on any competitive level is Virgil Dr. Doom and some other character(often Morrigan), and whereas there are players willing to do the work to make a less easy-to-use character viable, the sheer power of that combination has led to multiple mirror matches in the finals. Change is necessary for any long standing game to stay long standing. Without change you eventually figure out the trick is to put your X in the middle since your opponent doesn't have enough options to stop you from tic-tac-toeing to victory, and every game becomes "who gets the middle".
The current legendary rules offer us one way to use those legendaries as removal. Changing that opens up many more options of play, and creates more interesting games. The game will survive, and if the changes prove detrimental...they'll be changed. Magic has always had rules changes, and it has survived far bigger changes than this.
civilwargoat
I dread the day when i watch or participate in a game off magic where wizards make the next oops sorry card...JTMS and everybody is playing mirror matches. If this rule was in effect during caw blade era...what a truly lame experience.
Like a lot of things in life they took the easy road of changing a few rules to fit what they wanted instead of fixing what they claim was the problem which was clone.
How would it be any different? It would still boil down to get my [oops sorry card] out first and stop them from using theirs. If they where to unban Mindsculpter in modern that's exactly what would happen under either rule. And how is "Play JTMS or Get the F Out!" unlame?
There was no easy road. And you are ignoring addressing how to fix it.
Because you only have three options when trying to fix it.
1) All clone variants from a certain point forward to be limited to not copying legendary creatures which leads to...
1a) Not fixing the issue with previous clones.
1b) People, like yourself, complaining how the new clones are inferior since they don't kill legendary's. You know.....just like people are doing now!
2) Errata all clones to either not copy legendary's or not to copy the legendary supertype which leads to...
2a) People complaining that clones don't kill legendary's. Oh look we rehashed 1b in a different way.
2b) Errata is only suppose to be used when a card isn't functioning properly. Copying a creature has never malfunctioned under any rules set. It only interacted badly with the legend rule...twice now.
3) Change the legend rule.
3a) Adds interesting plays by not being a dead card should you draw more copies of it.
3b) Allows clones to copy legendary's, but not too much.
3c) Makes it so multiple players can still play their cool legendary creature and have fun with it.
How it that supposedly smart players have only one way taken away from them on how to deal with legendary mirror matches and instead of thinking "Hummm interesting. Lets see how I can deal with this problem in a new way." nerdrage over it? If interactivity and decision making is gained on a common like Sakura-Tribe Elder how could it not be on more powerful creatures?
And as for why planeswalkers are being adjusted along with the legendary's is because the planeswalker uniqueness rule is a byproduct of being created during the tenure of the 2nd legend rule. It makes no sense to leave the planeswalkers out of the rules change when the very reason they have the rules they do is because of the 2nd legend rule,which is going to be gone soon.
I like the changes. Mostly because it sucks watching your 3rd land drop explode because your opponent is also using Minamo, School at Water's Edge. But from a design point, I also like the changes.
The original design of the Legendary rule, was driven entirely by flavor. Just look at the Legendary creature from Legends, even by the standards of the day, they were not designed more powerful with Legendary as a draw back to keep them from being to powerful. That being said, that is exactly how most legendary permanents have been designed over the coarse of the game. Hand in hand with idea of making Iconic characters seem important and not breaking the game by allowing one player to utilize 3 or 4 copies of a well over normal power level creature. The original, current, and new rules all emphasize this main point, you can't use 3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben at once, but each comes with baggage, to make that work.
Downside of Original rules, if you mirrored an opponents deck, who ever played their legend first, likely would win, as the other player now had a dead card. (ask someone who played during Mercadian Masques block constructed, looking at you Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero)
Downside of Current rules, clones mystically gained the ability to kill legendary creatures, something they couldn't do pre-Kamigawa, please realize the impact that means, for the first 11 years of Magic clones could not do this. Additionally, if you mirrored an opponents deck, somehow your legend turns into a kill spell, but at least its not a dead card.
Downside of New rules, you can now "vigilence" your legends at the cost of a card, you can get death/enters battlefield triggers at the cost of a card, you gain an extra activation of a tap ability if its not a creature or if a creature with haste at cost of a card. (these seem more relevant then say Aura keeping you legend locked down as these can happen every game).
If your opponent has a Bladewing, your bladewing now reads:
Under Original Rules
3bbrr
Sorcery
You may return target Dragon permanent card from your graveyard to the battlefield. (oddly enough includes Bladewing himself)
Under Current Rules
3bbrr
Sorcery
Put each opponents Bladewing in their owners graveyard and You may return target Dragon permanent card from your graveyard to the battlefield. (oddly enough includes Bladewing himself)
Under New Rules
Play the Bladewing you intended to play with.
The new rules, let you play your deck the way you built it to play. Not have to change your strategy, because your opponent is mirroring you.
Are there unintended consequences of these changes, yes. Does Geist of Saint Traft get better in Modern and Legacy, yes because he can't be killed by many of the clones that are popular in those format, is he tremendously more powerful, no. He goes from about a 9.0 on a 10 point scale in Modern to about a 9.2. If you want to talk about massive power swing look at Mox Opal. Did they make these changes to improve the power of these cards? No. They did it because not being able to play the cards as intended, (drop legendary creature and use its powers or attack with it) lead to many unfun situations.
But even better then removing an unfun situation that props up it adds a new layer of choices, that can help separate good and bad players.
Do I hold onto my extra Legend/ or planeswalker until my opponent kills the original one, or do I essentially discard it to gain "extra" use of the one I have?
I keep reading in this thread the idea that its horrible to have each player running a good legend, instead of your killing theirs (or the other way around). If a legend is the central win condition of say a control deck, (looking at you Geist of Saint Traft), and you are in a mirror match, that game could go long and somewhat unbearable even more so then a normal control mirror match goes, as both decks now have less win conditions. This doesn't just negatively effect those running the deck in a tournement, it can effect every player and judge as games keeping going to time. Now both players get their win condition, and can complete a game (hopefully) in a reasonable time.
Are these rules changes perfect? no. Is perfect possible? maybe. If they figure out a better way, they will change the rules again. Are these better then the original rules, yes, you would be hard pressed to find anyone in their right mind that thinks the original way was more fun then either the current or the new rules. Are these better then the current rules, I think yes, and I would ask if you think the sky is falling, to hold your judgement and try out the new rules for a while. I'm willing to bet we will see many powerful legends in Theros to try them out with.
It's kinda hard to have a reasonable argument with the naysayers when they truly believe killing legends with clones is flavourful, mechanically correct and a valid strategy (and not some rules loophole exploit) ...
or that they hate the new rule because it buffs a handful legendary hexproof creatures (A broken keyword), a (Broken) planeswalker and a couple of legendary (Broken) lands that only matter in vintage and legacy...
Clearly these broken cards becoming even more broken under the new rule is M14's fault, and not the fact that they where broken since the beginning.
It's kinda hard to have a reasonable argument with the naysayers when they truly believe killing legends with clones is flavourful, mechanically correct and a valid strategy (and not some rules loophole exploit) ...
or that they hate the new rule because it buffs a handful legendary hexproof creatures (A broken keyword), a (Broken) planeswalker and a couple of legendary (Broken) lands that only matter in vintage and legacy...
Clearly these broken cards becoming even more broken under the new rule is M14's fault, and not the fact that they where broken since the beginning.
Hexproof is no more broken than indestructible, it's mostly cost making it so good.
Geist of St. Traft is only 3 mana but hits for 6 in total when it swings. He has hexproof as well.
Compared to any indestructible legendary(I believe there has been two) and you have a 7 mana that only BLOCKS(or is blocked) as a 8/8 but is normally a 3/3(Konda, Lord of Eiganjo), and a 4 mana 2/2 that ocasionally attacks as a 7/7(Tajic, Blade of the Legion when he's attacking with 2 or more creatures, which is not easy to set up, especially if your focusing on building around indestructible), and neither of them has any good evasion by themselves.
Geist of St. Traft is only 3 mana, has 6 power on the attack, and 4 of that power has evasion. the 4/4 angel token doesn't get hexproof, but spending removal on it equals card advantage to the geist player.
Geist is horribly pushed, and immensely powerful, and he was clearly meant to be both. Invisible stalker recently had a deck in standard, and it stood right next to Predator Ooze because they couldn't be taken out by the same answers. If your opponent brought in the sweeps, they could handle your invisible stalkers, but then they better have an exile handy for your growing predator ooze, and if they had the exile handy, well it probably targets.
Both are handled by sac effects which is why it's a shame that as much praise as Devour Flesh and Far//Away get, people still miss the power and reach such cards can give a deck to deal with hard to deal with threats.
Hexproof is no more broken than indestructible, it's mostly cost making it so good.
Indestructible loses to bounce, shackle/pacifism effects, tap effects, remove from the game effects, -x/-x effects, shuffle-into-library / put-on-bottom-of-library effects. It simply doesn't die to damage and destruction.
and Visara the Dreadful killing another Visara the Dreadful
and Kamahl, Fist of Krosa blocking Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
and Kamahl, Pit Fighter committing suicidal 2 times
and Olivia Voldaren menacing another Olivia Voldaren
and Grimgrin, Corpse-Born killing another Grimgrin, Corpse-Born on attack
and 2 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn kissing
and 2 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre trying to self destroy
and 2 Kalitas, Bloodchief of Ghet
and 2 Ob Nixilis, the Fallen
and 2 Progenitus
makes soo much sense ....
It has always made more sense to me than everyone having the same legendary creature on the table.
"I am Thun the LAST troll. Hey i am also Thun the not so last troll. Excuse me don't pay attention to the other guys, i am Thun the last troll." Maybe they should rename him to "the not so last troll"?
The sideboard change is great.
The land change is ok. It kills some fun interactions. But the change is understandable. The old rule was hard to explain.
The legendary creature change is not good but i can live with it. It kills a lot of interactions with clones. But instead of weakening closes it makes them more powerfill now imo. Your opponent has a good legendary on the table? Just copy it and abuse the hell out of it. This change has imo a good chance to backfire. The only part that doesn't make sense at all is if you play the same legendary again and you get to pick which one to sack. They knew their rule sucked. They even adjusted it to get past stuf like pacifism.
The new planeswalker rules are just plain stupid. You can play the same planeswalker and you get to pick which one to sack. Actuallyeveryone gets to play their planeswalkers. Wtf. Is it possible to dumb this down any more?
They way things have been going i expext one of the next rules changes makes sure that everyone always wins.
You're not summoning the actual creature, you're summoning an avatar of the creature.
This has been explained over, and over, and over again in this thread but many of you are either too lazy to read or just don't care and want to come here to whine and cry.
On a sort-of related note, it seems to me that most of what goes on in the rumor mill on MTGS is just that: whining and crying.
if that is how summoning creatures works then what is the point of legendary creatures. this planeswalkers/legendary rule reminds me of an old saying. if you gona do something do it all the way or not at all. this change feels like a half change which is the worst kind. if clones are a problem nerf clones don't mess up 7 years of design just so you can make a clone for planeswalkers.
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And to me this sounds like a poor excuse in order to explain why the new legendary rules changes are really good instead of bad.
Or we ignore it because it is a stupid contrived mechanic that has nothing to do with flavour.
Yes as soon as you don't agree with something it's whining and crying. Saves you the trouble of actually reading and responding with anything that remotely resembles a well founded post.
How most competitive players, people writing articles on SCG/CFB, or fellow players I've talked to at my LGS's all think the change is good because it allows players to actually play their cards, and cloning to be a function that it actually intends (to copy something).
The new rules create more complexity and decision-making in Magic, instead of ill-contrived "easy" answers for something that was designed to be difficult to deal with (Thrun, GoST, etc.).
I'll repeat myself that it seems this forum is flooded with people who just need a place to cry when they don't understand or agree with something (check the YMTC thread for more evidence of this).
It's a game. Get over it.
I dunno, maybe so a player can only have one copy of it out at any one time?
A lot of these were ALREADY possible with the former rules. Visara can kill herself just by being played. Kamahl can commit suicide twice with no problems, you just have to play him twice. Grimgrin can kill himself by being played. So can Ulamog. Etc. Also, Olivia still can't still steal herself, but she can still kill herself under both rules.
Moreover, legendary creatures exploding when a clone made a copy of them never made flavor sense. It is much more flavorful to have an actual copy created that sticks around, and let them duke it out to see which is the 'real' one.
If you're going to argue against this change, argue against the mechanics. Things like the Thespian's stage combo and the relative strengthening of cards like Geist are valid concerns.
If your answer is "No," then your morality does not come from God's commandments.
If your answer is "Yes," then please, please reconsider.
That being said, I'm nowhere near as active in the game as I used to be, so my concern may be non-existent.
So do you always hate removing any drawback no matter what? Or is there a specific reason you like this one?
Commander:
R Daretti, Scrap Savant
BR Olivia Voldaren
BRG Shattergang Brothers
GUR Riku of Two Reflections
WBG Karador, Ghost Chieftain
I don't know that it removes the drawback so much as changes it. You still can only have one on your side, although the replacement rule does hamper that particular drawback. But we play these cards because they are powerful (one of the great things about the legendary mechanic is that the cards can be more powerful). So when your opponent can also play the card, and gain benefit from it instead of using it as psuedo removal, you still have to deal with that powerful card that you decided to play because you thought it would give you an edge.
I think it would have been perfect had they changed the rule to checking each player individually while maintaining the "both go to the graveyard as a state based action" aspect of the rule.
yeah it s soo flavorful that can be two of the same creature but not 3 or even 2 if you control both
The thing is if they don't like clones killing legends soo they should have stopped printing them and instead maked a new one like
Creature — Shapeshifter 0/0
You may have Clone that don't kill legends enter the battlefield as a copy of any nonlegendary creature on the battlefield.
EDIT:
also we always had Vampire Hexmage + Dark Depths + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
with Green Sun's Zenith + Crop Rotation for support
Thespian's stage is just another support for the deck
All of the reasons have been thoroughly discussed and yet you keep coming up with peripheral reasons why you think it's wrong.
You know what might be a better way to spend your time/effort? Read the article, and think how much more interesting Magic is going to be now.
1. What do you people think Hexproof DOES? I mean seriously. Pause for a minute, and don't give me the technical definition. I'm asking you, what does hexproof DO. In THE GAME.
For example, if someone asked me for a definition of first strike, I'd tell them "It gives me limited evasion, and makes me blockers more resilient", because in most situations people aren't going to chump it unless it's lethal or near lethal(limited evasion), and I choose my blocks, so I will block things I kill(Making my blocker more resilient).
In real game terms Hexproof is a resiliency ability that is WORKING AS INTENDED. Cloning Hexproof creatures is a nifty trick someone came up with that was not WORKING AS INTENDED, and so they made it not that way, and also added functionality to an unfun mechanic which made mirror matches a detriment to playing cards. They obviously want to play around with Legendary, and making Legendary cards more dependable and playable, but still with downsides.
The immediate reaction is to call everyone who likes that idea basically...dumb. To go "OH! SO MY SUPER-SMART ALWAYS PRO PLAY OF CLONING HEXPROOF LEGENDARIES THAT I SAW SOMEONE ELSE DO 4 YEARS AGO NO LONGER WORKS! WHAT WILL I DO NOW THAT I CAN'T COPY THE SAME PLAY IN EDH OVER AND OVER!" does not fit into "NOW THAT I HAVE TO BE CREATIVE IN MY DECK BUILDING AGAIN THIS GAME IS DUMB, AND PEOPLE WHO LIKE THIS CHANGE DON'T UNDERSTAND MY PAIN AND ARE THUS DUMB TOO!" I'm not trying to be insulting, I'm repeating back what you have said for 80 pages now back to you. This is one of the most ridiculous sobfests I've ever seen, and I'm shocked it continues. I've been upset about some stuff, hell, I was SUPER upset at the loss of manaburn, but simplifying that stage of the game has clearly upped my experience more than it's downed it. I was just nostalgic of beating people with Spectral Searchlight which didn't happen to often.
2. You can't claim flavor problems, and then get creative with the flavor problems that already exist. Your also not in charge of writing new rules, so you can't dismiss the rule writers by claiming to out think them at their own job. It doesn't work. I mean, you can do that to me, but in the end it's their job to write the new rules, and you only have to follow them if you play in sanctioned events. If you don't, well, then I'm sure there are tabletop games that didn't get rid of manaburn, I mean, how would that negatively effect the game? it might hurt 1 deck out of 20?
I can easily address any flavor problems you may have.
Your a planeswalker, so you gain your energy from an infinite possibility of space and time, with infinite planes before you, no two may be the same, but it isn't unreasonable to think that some changes might only be the difference of a bird going north or south ONE winter.
If they steal your legendary while having the same legendary then they have transferred the powerbase to their own plane of power, and his singularity changes him, crushing him in the presence of a being more real than himself. The two clash as one faces his doppelganger with only the holder of the reins deciding which one wins(most likely his original one, so not only did he steal your legendary, but then he let you watch as his superior model ripped off your legendary's head and drank it's blood.) The idea that mirror entities would not be kind to each other is not an old one.
Planeswalkers are even easier to explain, since the planeswalker isn't dying at your whim. It makes perfect sense for warring factions to go to the same places for support, and it also makes sense for that support to favor both enemies if it also favors him. By paying some of your power his way, and letting him do what he wants occasionally you vie for his power as well, until one of you wins.(ending the game by killing your opponent, or cutting ties to a similar ally)
This is not so hard to reason out, and I haven't been any more creative than the people explaining away why clones kill legendaries. Some of their explanations have been AMAZINGLY similar to my steal argument. These changes weren't done for flavor but for functionality. It was never intended functionality for clones to have the power to kill legendaries, and now they don't. In addition they have answered, functionally, the horribleness of seeing a mirror deck at an EDH game, and playing legendaries in some competitive events. More an EDH fix, but one I understand, and one I think overall helps the game. Sorry.
I dread the day when i watch or participate in a game off magic where wizards make the next oops sorry card...JTMS and everybody is playing mirror matches. If this rule was in effect during caw blade era...what a truly lame experience. Plus how lame does the following interaction sound.
P1. Activate my chandra deal one to you redirect to your chandra. play chandra sac old chandra deal one to you redirect to your chandra. I'll attack your chandra with my (insert any legendary permanent lets say squee)
P2. I'll block your squee with my squee.
i did read the article, twice, and a major reason for the rules change was 2 fold.
1. Clone problem
2. People using legendary cards as removal
So what has the change done.
1. Clone problem fixed but now you have weird lame games where powerful unique cards fight themselves.
2. So can't use legendary permanents as removal but its still ok to use them as a disenchant. seriously this is lame excuse. they don't want us to use it as removal but enchantment removal is ok. also please remember that wizards barely play tests modern, almost none for legacy, and zero for vintage so when they say "we have played tested for a year and its fine" they only mean draft and standard with little modern, because they can just ban whatever they miss in the older formats.
Even if you discount these points the scariest thing about this rule change is the oops factor. When wizards make the next "sorry guys" like faeries, Maro public apologized for that, and it happens to be a legendary permanent then that card will be $100+ and there will be mirror matches until the sun crashes, or they ban something. Does this sound familiar, it should because it has already happened and that was with the second incarnation of the legend rule in affect.
correct me if i am wrong, but isn't each player a planeswalker and when you play a planeswalker aren't you getting assistance from that walker. And if that walker is helping me beat my opponent why is that walker also helping my opponent beat me. and when i find out why can't i just tell him to buzz off.
Can't wait for the next Gaea's Cradle or Academy Ruins because those cards would be super fair when played in multiples.
This is not so hard to reason out, and I haven't been any more creative than the people explaining away why clones kill legendaries. Some of their explanations have been AMAZINGLY similar to my steal argument. These changes weren't done for flavor but for functionality. It was never intended functionality for clones to have the power to kill legendaries, and now they don't. In addition they have answered, functionally, the horribleness of seeing a mirror deck at an EDH game, and playing legendaries in some competitive events. More an EDH fix, but one I understand, and one I think overall helps the game. Sorry.
@KageHamusuta
Well clearly you are very knowledgeable about this. So can yo tell me why wizards changed the rules governing two card types, instead of simply halting all printings of clone and then make a clone variant to satisfy blue's color pie needs and at the same time not exploiting the "removal argument".
Go get, like, Magic Workshop or something, and then build a deck. Copy the deck, and compete both decks against each other. After playing a few games I would like video of this happening for two reasons. 1. It's highly unlikely that it would go exactly like that, as those are TWO cards from the deck. 2. That would actually be quite amusing to me to watch Chandra set herself on fire over two dueling planeswalkers.
I wanted to highlight some things you seemed to have missed. This change was largely about the actual function of the cards, and was about getting them playable. Legendaries and Planeswalkers are scary, but simply outright killing the other guys guy by playing their guy is very little interaction and doesn't allow you to utilize your tools, your just giving up tools to get rid of his tools. They didn't like that so they changed, and then liked how clone fit better.
Uhm, the oops factor has actually always been LESSENED by being legendary. Currently, to play traditional control in standard, you pretty much need Sphinx's Revelation, and that card is a show runner in about 5 different decks right now. It's cost wouldn't have risen if it was a similarly powered planewalker or legendary, and it's high cost has more to do with it being MYTHIC. This isn't really effecting the oops factor in any significant way since any card has that potential. Also, I think the remove aura thing makes sense in a couple of ways, you "summoned" your guy out of that enchantment trap, exerting the energy to summon them again, and in return they are free to assist you yet again.
Why WOULDN'T they play both sides? They aren't being summoned as your slaves, your asking for assistance and thus they assist you. When the opponent plays the same guy, it makes sense for their to be a duel to see who's side he actually ends up on. Your vieing for control of the planeswalker now flavorfully adds politics to the magic storytelling functionality of the game.
What's more, I'm not going to try and say that Wizards doesn't make mistakes, but they do eventually learn from them, and they have been learning as of late. I may not say they don't make ANY mistakes, but I wouldn't call them accident prone.
We aren't designing a whole game, and every card designing aficionado I know to any extent has been guilty of accidentally making a broken card because they didn't consider some small aspect of the card. This does power up Gaea's Cradle, and Serra's Sanctum cards that were always powerful, but that is two cards, which can be banned/restricted, only affect older formats, and are nowhere near what they design today for legendary lands, something they have said they are reticent to do. Hell, they are wary of printing lands with the capability of adding more than one mana to your pool in the same turn. Hell, Tolarian Academy was clearly a mistake, which is why it's restricted, which is why this rule doesn't do much to it.
Poking at Gaea's Cradle, Tolarian Academy, and to some extent JtmS is a bit unfair, as they all represent earlier design models that have changed. In a game that stays this transformable, you will have mistakes, I don't believe that this rule is going to be the thing that tips that next design.
I don't see how Sphinx's Revelation has anything to do with legendary. i was referring to JTMS when he was in standard.
I happen to find that using planeswalkers an other legendary permanents as removal is interactive. i have to make choices on how to best use my resources or when making a deck. Do i use this card as removal or do i try an get rid of his creature another way then play mine and force my opponent to have an answer for it.
I noticed that you have conveniently not addressed the clone fixing problem.
"The third reason is that we simply print more legends today than we used to, both because they give us opportunities to tell the story of Magic on cards, and because they afford us the ability to grant powers and abilities to cards that we might not want players to have multiple copies of at the same time."
This is a lame argument because a player couldn't have multiples of legendary cards before and this change does nothing to to change that.
Honesty these legendary changes are a lazy way for wizards to make a new clone that will clone planeswalkers. Like a lot of things in life they took the easy road of changing a few rules to fit what they wanted instead of fixing what they claim was the problem which was clone.
This is such a key point to all of this.
The rule change is allowing players to actually PLAY the cards in their hands, rather than holding on to "dead" cards.
Being able to PLAY cards makes the game more fun/interesting.
Of course the narrow-minded creeps in this forum are going to cry/whine/*****/flame for me saying this, but it's the damn truth.
You were talking about a general oops factor, I already mentioned why JTMS seems like an unfair point, but I'm happy to detail it.
1. JTMS was the planeswalker that broke the bank, this is true. He came out in the 2010 expansion of Zendikar, Worldwake. Prior to this there were about 10 planeswalkers who had seen print, and he is the first with 4 abilities. They were still playing with a new kind of card at the time, a powerful card type, that due to it's flavor nature, was never going to see print below mythic.
2. So three years was the amount of time it took them to break planeswalkers. This is perfect to notice a trend, you see SOME planeswalker was going to do this on SOME level, I'd almost call it inevitable. Planeswalkers are cards that have a number of effects thus putting them as some of the most versatile cards in the game. One was going to have enough utility to completely break the bank, and JTMS won the jackpot.
3. If you look at current trends, planeswalkers just don't get to do what he does. My Liliana of the Dark Realms deck may sometimes hit for 12 points of damage using her middle ability on some innocuous surviving creature after all my Mutilates and Far//Aways open up the field, if she hasn't died to Dreadbore, the first card designed to just take out planeswalkers, but even then I have to pay 3 loyalty for the effect, and that kills her if I just played her.
EDIT: I'm sorry, after reading the thread above I think I see where I "conveniently not addressed the clone fixing problem"...I did not address it because frankly it's NOT a problem. Below states why it's not, and "two unique powerful creatures battling" is also NOT A PROBLEM in my eyes. Now those unique powerful creatures actually battle instead of suiciding into each other, seems like we will see different games now.
Clone fixing problem?? I'm a little lost, this is mostly a good thing that clones DON'T act as removal. I like my clones to...well, clone things. It is their intended function, and I have brought that up. It's a pretty flat response, when clone was originally printed, I doubt anyone in R & D was saying "Hey, look! It works as removal!" or it would have been flavored as a legend killer from the getgo. When I look at the art, flavor, and abilities of Clone I am never under the impression that it wants to kill things. Hell, Evil Twin has that flavor, and is WEAKER against legendaries since he just dies, and doesn't get to assassinate his target.
No one is arguing about whether it's "interactive", playing the game is interactive, what the argument IS is that in the current interaction you hardly get to use these cards. You don't get to add or subtract loyalty, and planeswalker, or legendary face-offs have less to do with who uses their planeswalker or legendary better, and more to do with who gets to play it as removal. In the mirrors you don't even PLAY the legendary since you know your opponent may counter it's abilities by playing his own, and I have witnessed games where both players are holding back legendaries for this reason.
It becomes FAR more detrimental in other formats, and especially In EDH, which is being recognized as a format now. There is nothing wrong with recognizing EDH as a format, but EDH decks are often expensive to build, and seeing someone else at the table with the same Commander often means an autoloss since you will clash-out with that player and not interact with your own general. Your general is your most consistent card in that format, and I'd say 60-75 percent of EDH decks are centered around it's abilities.
But now I can play multiples of a legendary, even 4 copies, especially if my deck is centered around said legendary, like a Varolz, the Scar-Striped deck. These changes give me a reason to run 4, since I can get past enchantments that shut me down by replacing my Varolz, and since my whole deck is likely counting on playing him.
If Varolz WASN'T legendary, he would be an auto 4 of, and in a centric deck for him he still might be a 4 of even though that means I will ocasionally draw a dead copy of him. This allows me to also play the dead copies to at least have them in the graveyard, so I can at least use them with Varolz ability to pump another creature.
I don't see how this hurts the game, and I don't see how it leads to the next JTMS. There will some day be another JTMS, but it MIGHT NOT BE LEGENDARY!!!! Not every amazingly broken card oops has been legendary, look at mirrodin. They banned NINE CARDS from standard during Mirrodin's stay, and all of them were ridiculous:
the 5 artifact lands(still banned in Mirrodin Block, and Modern)
Disciple of the Vault
Arcbound Ravager(Still expensive as hell)
Skullclamp(Still banned pretty much everywhere)
Aether Vial(Still expensive)
In fact I kind of hated Mirrodin, because after these interactions left the field there were about 4 playable deck ranging from Tooth and Nail, Bluepost, Deathcloud, and White control. Before the bans there were 3 playable decks since Ravager was too hard to deal with for control. JTMS does not compare to the "oops" factor of mirrodin, sorry, it doesn't. None of the cards banned during Mirrodin had a legendary factor putting them over the top, which was the problem of some. For example, with ravager and 2 disciples on the field, a sweep spell does not save you.
I play fighting games too, and the most hype fighting game(still) is Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 currently. It's losing a lot of steam, though, as Capcom is not putting in any updates to balance out characters so almost every fight you see on any competitive level is Virgil Dr. Doom and some other character(often Morrigan), and whereas there are players willing to do the work to make a less easy-to-use character viable, the sheer power of that combination has led to multiple mirror matches in the finals. Change is necessary for any long standing game to stay long standing. Without change you eventually figure out the trick is to put your X in the middle since your opponent doesn't have enough options to stop you from tic-tac-toeing to victory, and every game becomes "who gets the middle".
The current legendary rules offer us one way to use those legendaries as removal. Changing that opens up many more options of play, and creates more interesting games. The game will survive, and if the changes prove detrimental...they'll be changed. Magic has always had rules changes, and it has survived far bigger changes than this.
How would it be any different? It would still boil down to get my [oops sorry card] out first and stop them from using theirs. If they where to unban Mindsculpter in modern that's exactly what would happen under either rule. And how is "Play JTMS or Get the F Out!" unlame?
There was no easy road. And you are ignoring addressing how to fix it.
Because you only have three options when trying to fix it.
1) All clone variants from a certain point forward to be limited to not copying legendary creatures which leads to...
1a) Not fixing the issue with previous clones.
1b) People, like yourself, complaining how the new clones are inferior since they don't kill legendary's. You know.....just like people are doing now!
2) Errata all clones to either not copy legendary's or not to copy the legendary supertype which leads to...
2a) People complaining that clones don't kill legendary's. Oh look we rehashed 1b in a different way.
2b) Errata is only suppose to be used when a card isn't functioning properly. Copying a creature has never malfunctioned under any rules set. It only interacted badly with the legend rule...twice now.
3) Change the legend rule.
3a) Adds interesting plays by not being a dead card should you draw more copies of it.
3b) Allows clones to copy legendary's, but not too much.
3c) Makes it so multiple players can still play their cool legendary creature and have fun with it.
How it that supposedly smart players have only one way taken away from them on how to deal with legendary mirror matches and instead of thinking "Hummm interesting. Lets see how I can deal with this problem in a new way." nerdrage over it? If interactivity and decision making is gained on a common like Sakura-Tribe Elder how could it not be on more powerful creatures?
And as for why planeswalkers are being adjusted along with the legendary's is because the planeswalker uniqueness rule is a byproduct of being created during the tenure of the 2nd legend rule. It makes no sense to leave the planeswalkers out of the rules change when the very reason they have the rules they do is because of the 2nd legend rule,which is going to be gone soon.
BAfter the lights go out on you, after your worthless life is through. I will remember how you scream...B
The original design of the Legendary rule, was driven entirely by flavor. Just look at the Legendary creature from Legends, even by the standards of the day, they were not designed more powerful with Legendary as a draw back to keep them from being to powerful. That being said, that is exactly how most legendary permanents have been designed over the coarse of the game. Hand in hand with idea of making Iconic characters seem important and not breaking the game by allowing one player to utilize 3 or 4 copies of a well over normal power level creature. The original, current, and new rules all emphasize this main point, you can't use 3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben at once, but each comes with baggage, to make that work.
Downside of Original rules, if you mirrored an opponents deck, who ever played their legend first, likely would win, as the other player now had a dead card. (ask someone who played during Mercadian Masques block constructed, looking at you Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero)
Downside of Current rules, clones mystically gained the ability to kill legendary creatures, something they couldn't do pre-Kamigawa, please realize the impact that means, for the first 11 years of Magic clones could not do this. Additionally, if you mirrored an opponents deck, somehow your legend turns into a kill spell, but at least its not a dead card.
Downside of New rules, you can now "vigilence" your legends at the cost of a card, you can get death/enters battlefield triggers at the cost of a card, you gain an extra activation of a tap ability if its not a creature or if a creature with haste at cost of a card. (these seem more relevant then say Aura keeping you legend locked down as these can happen every game).
Lets compair all 3 legendary rules. With say, Bladewing the Risen.
If your opponent has a Bladewing, your bladewing now reads:
Under Original Rules
3bbrr
Sorcery
You may return target Dragon permanent card from your graveyard to the battlefield. (oddly enough includes Bladewing himself)
Under Current Rules
3bbrr
Sorcery
Put each opponents Bladewing in their owners graveyard and You may return target Dragon permanent card from your graveyard to the battlefield. (oddly enough includes Bladewing himself)
Under New Rules
Play the Bladewing you intended to play with.
The new rules, let you play your deck the way you built it to play. Not have to change your strategy, because your opponent is mirroring you.
Are there unintended consequences of these changes, yes. Does Geist of Saint Traft get better in Modern and Legacy, yes because he can't be killed by many of the clones that are popular in those format, is he tremendously more powerful, no. He goes from about a 9.0 on a 10 point scale in Modern to about a 9.2. If you want to talk about massive power swing look at Mox Opal. Did they make these changes to improve the power of these cards? No. They did it because not being able to play the cards as intended, (drop legendary creature and use its powers or attack with it) lead to many unfun situations.
But even better then removing an unfun situation that props up it adds a new layer of choices, that can help separate good and bad players.
Do I hold onto my extra Legend/ or planeswalker until my opponent kills the original one, or do I essentially discard it to gain "extra" use of the one I have?
I keep reading in this thread the idea that its horrible to have each player running a good legend, instead of your killing theirs (or the other way around). If a legend is the central win condition of say a control deck, (looking at you Geist of Saint Traft), and you are in a mirror match, that game could go long and somewhat unbearable even more so then a normal control mirror match goes, as both decks now have less win conditions. This doesn't just negatively effect those running the deck in a tournement, it can effect every player and judge as games keeping going to time. Now both players get their win condition, and can complete a game (hopefully) in a reasonable time.
Are these rules changes perfect? no. Is perfect possible? maybe. If they figure out a better way, they will change the rules again. Are these better then the original rules, yes, you would be hard pressed to find anyone in their right mind that thinks the original way was more fun then either the current or the new rules. Are these better then the current rules, I think yes, and I would ask if you think the sky is falling, to hold your judgement and try out the new rules for a while. I'm willing to bet we will see many powerful legends in Theros to try them out with.
or that they hate the new rule because it buffs a handful legendary hexproof creatures (A broken keyword), a (Broken) planeswalker and a couple of legendary (Broken) lands that only matter in vintage and legacy...
Clearly these broken cards becoming even more broken under the new rule is M14's fault, and not the fact that they where broken since the beginning.
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Hexproof is no more broken than indestructible, it's mostly cost making it so good.
Geist of St. Traft is only 3 mana but hits for 6 in total when it swings. He has hexproof as well.
Compared to any indestructible legendary(I believe there has been two) and you have a 7 mana that only BLOCKS(or is blocked) as a 8/8 but is normally a 3/3(Konda, Lord of Eiganjo), and a 4 mana 2/2 that ocasionally attacks as a 7/7(Tajic, Blade of the Legion when he's attacking with 2 or more creatures, which is not easy to set up, especially if your focusing on building around indestructible), and neither of them has any good evasion by themselves.
Geist of St. Traft is only 3 mana, has 6 power on the attack, and 4 of that power has evasion. the 4/4 angel token doesn't get hexproof, but spending removal on it equals card advantage to the geist player.
Geist is horribly pushed, and immensely powerful, and he was clearly meant to be both. Invisible stalker recently had a deck in standard, and it stood right next to Predator Ooze because they couldn't be taken out by the same answers. If your opponent brought in the sweeps, they could handle your invisible stalkers, but then they better have an exile handy for your growing predator ooze, and if they had the exile handy, well it probably targets.
Both are handled by sac effects which is why it's a shame that as much praise as Devour Flesh and Far//Away get, people still miss the power and reach such cards can give a deck to deal with hard to deal with threats.
Indestructible loses to bounce, shackle/pacifism effects, tap effects, remove from the game effects, -x/-x effects, shuffle-into-library / put-on-bottom-of-library effects. It simply doesn't die to damage and destruction.
Indestructible isn't even that safe from sweepers
Hexproof is immune to spot EVERYTHING, barring combat damage.
I stand by what i said. Hexproof > Indestructible.
It also doesn't help that they abused it on aggresively costed cards in combination with other abilities.
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