If they just get rid of the PW redirection rule, it weakens all burn cards.
Burn cards existed WELL before Planeswalker cards. We are talking 1993, back when Lightning Bolt read "deals 3 damage to any target". They later added "creature or player" so that newbies would stop bolting enchantments because enchantments would NEVER be creatures...<_< >_>
The first rulebook started off with "You are a Planeswalker". That's right, Chadelicious, when you play Magic, YOU are a planeswalker. That is why many people hated the idea of having planeswalker cards because that would be akin to a two(or more, thanks to superfriends) on one battle, which a bunch of (Jace) them (Jace) were (Jace) as they were (Liliana of the Veil) working out the (Tibalt? oh sure, he can play with you) kinks.
But let's take a look back at burn and why Sligh/Red-deck-wins is so important. The answer is because Burn has been there since the beginning able to melt your face and all of your minions too. Have a Circle of Protection: Red? Flashfires. Ivory Mask? Anarchy. Iona, Shield of Emeria? Nevinyrral's Disk. Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded without the redirection rule? Um... Uh...er...
Now I know what you are probably thinking. "Boohoo! Poor Red-Burn, what about Black? Where is it's artifact removal post-1996? How is it supposed to deal with enchantments? To which I yield to you "yes, Black never got enchantment help, but I misspoke when I said burn. What I meant was "direct damage".
All colors, at one time or another, have had direct damage, the ability to deal to everything that could take damage at that point...but planeswalkers came in after that point. What was the original intent?
Furthermore, let us examine this immersion-wise. A planeswalker CARD has loyalty counters. If you ask too much of it or it gets punched in the face one too many times it flips you the bird and you are back to battling solo. So it stands to reason that if I am stuck in a Hurricane and you are stuck in it too, shouldn't your buddy ol' pal Jace be right there being battered alongside us? Isn't he also feeling the earthquake? If I can Lighting Bolt you, Prodigal Sorceror/Tim you, Unyaro Bee Sting you, Drain Life you, Witch Hunter/Tim you when you are this all powerful planeswalker, why can't I do the same to the planeswalker right next to you on the battlefield?
That is why we've had the redirect rule. Because if I can Zap you or Liliana, Heretical Healer, why not Lilana Vess too while we are at it? We've been able to hit players from the start because there were players from the start. We've been able to hit creatures from the start because there were creatures at the start. There were technically planeswalkers at the start, and I could hit them, but now that they are card permanents I can't?
That is why there has been a redirection rule and simply taking it away would give planeswalkers such a boost in power that TIBALT WOULD BE PLAYABLE, since you can't simply Bolt him out of existence at the end of your opponent's turn after they cast him.
If they just get rid of the PW redirection rule, it weakens all burn cards.
Burn cards existed WELL before Planeswalker cards. We are talking 1993, back when Lightning Bolt read "deals 3 damage to any target". They later added "creature or player" so that newbies would stop bolting enchantments because enchantments would NEVER be creatures...<_< >_>
The first rulebook started off with "You are a Planeswalker". That's right, Chadelicious, when you play Magic, YOU are a planeswalker. That is why many people hated the idea of having planeswalker cards because that would be akin to a two(or more, thanks to superfriends) on one battle, which a bunch of (Jace) them (Jace) were (Jace) as they were (Liliana of the Veil) working out the (Tibalt? oh sure, he can play with you) kinks.
But let's take a look back at burn and why Sligh/Red-deck-wins is so important. The answer is because Burn has been there since the beginning able to melt your face and all of your minions too. Have a Circle of Protection: Red? Flashfires. Ivory Mask? Anarchy. Iona, Shield of Emeria? Nevinyrral's Disk. Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded without the redirection rule? Um... Uh...er...
Now I know what you are probably thinking. "Boohoo! Poor Red-Burn, what about Black? Where is it's artifact removal post-1996? How is it supposed to deal with enchantments? To which I yield to you "yes, Black never got enchantment help, but I misspoke when I said burn. What I meant was "direct damage".
All colors, at one time or another, have had direct damage, the ability to deal to everything that could take damage at that point...but planeswalkers came in after that point. What was the original intent?
Furthermore, let us examine this immersion-wise. A planeswalker CARD has loyalty counters. If you ask too much of it or it gets punched in the face one too many times it flips you the bird and you are back to battling solo. So it stands to reason that if I am stuck in a Hurricane and you are stuck in it too, shouldn't your buddy ol' pal Jace be right there being battered alongside us? Isn't he also feeling the earthquake? If I can Lighting Bolt you, Prodigal Sorceror/Tim you, Unyaro Bee Sting you, Drain Life you, Witch Hunter/Tim you when you are this all powerful planeswalker, why can't I do the same to the planeswalker right next to you on the battlefield?
That is why we've had the redirect rule. Because if I can Zap you or Liliana, Heretical Healer, why not Lilana Vess too while we are at it? We've been able to hit players from the start because there were players from the start. We've been able to hit creatures from the start because there were creatures at the start. There were technically planeswalkers at the start, and I could hit them, but now that they are card permanents I can't?
That is why there has been a redirection rule and simply taking it away would give planeswalkers such a boost in power that TIBALT WOULD BE PLAYABLE, since you can't simply Bolt him out of existence at the end of your opponent's turn after they cast him.
Was this in response to another post? I mean, I don't think anyone brought up the topic of "just getting rid of the PW redirection rule". Yes, if they do that burn becomes weaker in the sense that it no longer works with a card type it never originally worked with. That was the whole point of the redirect rule to begin with. They wanted to make direct damage affect walkers.
Your post is filled with a lot of tangents so I am not entirely sure of what your point is. In one section you started listing off cards that didn't seem to have anything to do with this rule change and I am really not sure what Anarchy, Flashfires, and Iona have to do with planeswalkers at all.
They are tweaking the rule to play better while still (presumably) retaining as much of the current functionality as possible. I am not sure why this should be seen as a bad thing as the current rule is somewhat unintuitive and causes enough confusion that Wizards is looking at cleaning it up a bit.
If you are advocating for the change then I agree that it is a good change. If you are against it I guess I am not sure from your post what parts of the change are of a concern to you?
On a side note, Tibalt's playability has nothing to do with dying to bolt.
I don't understand this. I'm probably missing something.
If they're going to get rid of the PW redirection rule, why don't they just get rid of it? Why do they need to errata anything?
Or are they getting rid of the rule and wanting to errata every card that could previously redirect damage to a PW, so that it can still damage a PW? If so, why not just keep the rule since it's the same end result?
Can someone explain this better?
I feel like these are the questions we should be asking.
If the redirection rule is not doing what they want, they should drop it, and template cards differently from now on.
Mass errata would not cover everything. Sure, adding Planeswalker to Lightning Bolt text will get the job done.
But what about something like Earthquake? Will it be "each creature, player and planeswalker'? This is very different. Or maybe it will be each creature and each player or planeswalker. This is still different, as it can hit multiple planewsalkers. Maybe this kind of effect will not be erratad, and will cease to hit planeswalkers.
It kinda sucks that we are getting this slow-roll. What do they want to achieve?
"That's right, Chadelicious, when you play Magic, YOU are a planeswalker."
I was responding to Chadelicious on page 1, since it looked like no one answered him when he asked "If they're going to get rid of the PW redirection rule, why don't they just get rid of it? Why do they need to errata anything?"
WizardMN, what I was defending/explaining was that there needs to be something in place, be the current rules or revamped ones.
As far as redirect vs what we've seen of the new rules, I think that current rules were the "easy fix", however switching Lightning Strike to say "3 damage to target" and have it imply "creature permanent, player, or planeswalker permanent" is going to shaft newbs even moreso than when they changed lands to just have the symbol but still have Elvish Druids still say "add G to your mana pool" and so the newb goes and tries to search their library for a Forest.
Why do we care about elves? Because I've had to explain how they and Dark Rituals work too many damned times because of changes that were made down the road. Do you remember when they tried to make Dark Ritual a "mana source" type so that it couldn't be countered, and them people were trying to keep it on their battlefield like a land? I do! Instead of just printing (cannot be countered) they decided to leave it (almost, aside from "interrupt" not being a thing anymore) as it originally was. This time around they didn't **** up nearly as bad with the redirect rule, but the rule "fix" is looking like it might be on that level of "let's not consider how difficult this will be for new(er) players to understand".
Don't get me wrong, I get their conundrum. They don't want damage counted on an object for the turn, especially before it transforms into something that would later be able to take damage (see Creeping Tar pit fears on page 1). They also have to worry about people complaining about "all permanents can have counters on them like +1/+1 or -1/-1 counters, why can't we stack damage onto them to just in case?"
The way to answer that is simply to change the rule to "whenever a card would deal damage to a target and the target type is not defined, it is to be assumed that the target is anything that would directly impacted by damage being dealt to it (CURRENTLYPlaneswalker permanents, Creature Permanents, and players).
I cannot stress how important that "currently" is, because without that reminder text, they will be making the same mistake AGAIN. What happens when "Dream" permanents come out and they can only take damage during upkeeps and post combat main phases?
Why this long text: all the rule change said was "target" means "planeswalker, creature, or player" which IS NOT what "target" means right now (it Acidic Slimes the current understanding) and it would contradict too many cards and other rulings.
Just as your complaint for me and my tangents, if you don't understand what I'm saying(/who I'm talking to and in regards to what) you'll be ripe confused.
It's okay here, because we are two people on a forum and there is no prize money at stake, but when you are the DCI? Tourney's and new players depend on you.
TL;DR: I'm for a change for the PW-R rule, but I dislike the beta changes so far; however I know it can definitely be fixed.
As someone who answers rules questions, you can be sure that every single thing that has ever been decided to try and make something easier to understand or to prevent a specific confusion still has not eliminated that very confusion.
I mean, people still ask about the play/into-play thing, and that word isn't even used anymore!
It's hopeless.
I wish that any target actually meant any target. It's already impossible to damage a land/artifact/enchantment (CR 119.1a). Why wasn't that good enough?
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thx it is just a templete change, but this will make walkers way more powerfull, no more killing a planeswalker from a "deal 3 damage to each creature and player" effect
Unless the spell is errataed to say 3 dmg to each target which will include players, creatures and planeswalkers
How can it say "each target" though for a spell that has not targets? What they really need is a term for "damagable permanent/object" (which would be cool and work even if they introduce new damagable permanent/object categories in the future e. g. structures/buildings).
But either way they are going to functionally change those mass burn spells; their options are to make them weaker by eshewing errata or making them stronger by allowing them to hit players and planeswalkers at the same time. The current philosophy on errata would mean they should avoid errata on those cards.
Here is my problem with the proposed errata. Say in the future they want to make new burn spells like "deals N damage to any target", but also variants like "deals N spell target creature or planeswalker" and "deals N damage to target planeswalker or player" which all work fine. But then if they tried "deals N damage to target creature or player" they create a conundrum: They would use a wording which is supposed to be recognized on older cards as something they errata'd and replaced with "any target".
They are actually aware of this kind of problem and have publically discussed the issue regarding the question whether "instant" could be made a supertype which runs into similar problems after errata.
The preferable way would be to eshew errata on all cards and use the new wording going forward but they'd have to find new iconic names for all their baeling burn spells. ;P
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Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
I can't decipher whether Aaron's comment is specific to MTG Arena's in-game card wording or also extends to the rest of Magic. I suppose it's plausible for the rules to be reconstructed such that a spell or ability requiring a target to take damage would know what types of targets are legal for damage dealing.
I'm personally expecting paper Magic changes to involve a lot of eratta to add "or planeswalker" on a lot of cards while removing functionality from others where it was incidentally added: like Earthquake (unless Earthquake is extended to damage all planeswalkers).
Specifically: they're trying to remove an existing rule to make rules simpler to learn, so I'm not expecting a back-end change to allow parsing of "any target". Granted "any target" would still be more intuitive to players than "player, but redirect", so eh...?
None of the stuff in the OP make it clear to me which of these routes they'll go down for paper Magic, though I guess the wording change of that Dinosaur rare might be an indication.
Regarding Earthquake specifically, I expect it to not damage planeswalkers post-change. This is like when Mogg Fanatic was returned to original functionality when damage on the stack was removed.
Interested to see whether cards like Blightning stop being able to hurt planeswalkers or if they add clunky text about ‘if the target was a planeswalker, its controller discards...’ or if they make it able to hurt planeswalkers but if it does so the discard doesn’t happen.
Why couldn't they just change the rules to state the Planeswalkers are considered players? Get rid of the redirect rule, because then it wouldn't be necessary anyway. Then spells that say "target player" could hit the Planeswalker. I'm far from being a new player, but I've never been super strong in my understanding of the deeper rules of Magic. I understand where errata is necessary at time, but if they're going to errata a ton of cards for this, it seems that it's going to get very convoluted.
In large part because planeswalkers don’t have hands or libraries or graveyards or life total, don’t have a next turn, can’t control permanents... all these things have been safe to assume in design for all cards that could target players to date. It’s why I asked the question above about Blightning. Same for Anathemancer, Flames of the Blood Hand, Hit // Run, Friendly Fire...
There’s also the concept of ‘Opponent’ that needs to be defined if pw are termed as players. Something that could target an opponent before... is that now any player other than you or any planeswalker controller by another player?
Why couldn't they just change the rules to state the Planeswalkers are considered players? Get rid of the redirect rule, because then it wouldn't be necessary anyway. Then spells that say "target player" could hit the Planeswalker. I'm far from being a new player, but I've never been super strong in my understanding of the deeper rules of Magic. I understand where errata is necessary at time, but if they're going to errata a ton of cards for this, it seems that it's going to get very convoluted.
Its really simple, cards of all the cards that can target players only a small subsection of them actually have any effect on planeswalkers.
Or are they getting rid of the rule and wanting to errata every card that could previously redirect damage to a PW, so that it can still damage a PW? If so, why not just keep the rule since it's the same end result?
Can someone explain this better?
They're doing this. It's not the same result due to corner cases cards like True Believer or Leyline of Sanctity make. A player that has hexproof/shroud can't be targeted, therefore, you can't target a lightning bolt at them to redirect to their planeswalker with the redirection rule. Under the new rules being implemented, this won't be the case, as you target the planeswalker directly instead of first having to target the opposing player. It makes for more intuitive gameplay, and makes it harder to trip up new players with weird rules interactions that aren't exactly intuitive.
Why couldn't they just change the rules to state the Planeswalkers are considered players? Get rid of the redirect rule, because then it wouldn't be necessary anyway. Then spells that say "target player" could hit the Planeswalker. I'm far from being a new player, but I've never been super strong in my understanding of the deeper rules of Magic. I understand where errata is necessary at time, but if they're going to errata a ton of cards for this, it seems that it's going to get very convoluted.
In large part because planeswalkers don’t have hands or libraries or graveyards or life total, don’t have a next turn, can’t control permanents... all these things have been safe to assume in design for all cards that could target players to date.
For a really nasty example, try Balance, Restore Balance, and Balancing Act. Currently, Planeswalkers are a permanent controlled by a player who has a hand and, ideally, some number of creatures, lands, or permanents. If you counted the Planeswalker instead as a player, the Balance cards would see a player with no hand, lands, creatures, or permanents, and everyone would lose everything. Changing a card to a player just doesn't work. "Player" means someone capable of making decisions and able to control spells and permanents.
As devil's advocate, though, how flavorful would it be to use Door to Nothingness to wipe out a planeswalker? Yes, I know that's a lot weaker than simply killing its controller. But making Jace or Gideon lose the game sounds epic - makes me feel like Nicol Bolas or something.
Seems like a good change. Takes away some of the power of Leyline of Sanctity in being able to protect not only you but your walkers from burn spells.
Some burn spells already specifically mention that they can hit planeswalkers, so this update would simply errata all cards that would previously hit players to also hitting walkers?
Seems like a good change. Takes away some of the power of Leyline of Sanctity in being able to protect not only you but your walkers from burn spells.
Some burn spells already specifically mention that they can hit planeswalkers, so this update would simply errata all cards that would previously hit players to also hitting walkers?
Or do all previous cards simply become worse?
It sounds like Wizards will errata a lot of burn spells. So, most burn spells actually get better since most will allow you to hit Planeswalkers directly. As you said, removing the redirection rule will weaken "player hexproof" effects, as the players can go after Planeswalkers directly instead of attacking the player. As mentioned before, if they errata Hurricane and Earthquake-type effects, your Planeswalkers get affected, so those spells become a little worse.
Removing the Planeswalker damage redirect rule and being able to hit Planeswalkers directly also lines up with the rule that creatures can attack Planeswalkers directly in combat.
I'm actually intrigued by this "player" fix, as it could be just made to be that "if a planeswalker permanent is asked to do something a player could normally do, but it cannot, instead the controlling player is asked to do that instead."
This would take care of the Balance-type card issues as well as deal with things like Fact or Fiction that would reference opponent. A planeswalker cannot have a hand, so the choice will be deferred to the control, same with creatures, or land (or really any permanents).
HOWEVER: it opens up a deliciously fun can of worms in terms of voting: a planeswalker permanent would essentially count as an additional vote/voice for the controlling player.
Pros: Flavorwise, this makes perfect sense. I don't see why your planeswalker pal would ever not agree with you, and if the person feels the character actually would vote differently and decides to pick something different for that planeswalker's choice, all the more flavorful.
This also allows for planeswalkers to fall into "players", "teammates", and "opponents".
Cons: A lot of people think that planeswalkers are already too powerful and this would give them even more.
My hope is that all the extra things that would be able to negatively impact planeswalkers will for the most part balance out the additional liberties they would gain.
I'm actually intrigued by this "player" fix, as it could be just made to be that "if a planeswalker permanent is asked to do something a player could normally do, but it cannot, instead the controlling player is asked to do that instead."
This would take care of the Balance-type card issues as well as deal with things like Fact or Fiction that would reference opponent. A planeswalker cannot have a hand, so the choice will be deferred to the control, same with creatures, or land (or really any permanents).
HOWEVER: it opens up a deliciously fun can of worms in terms of voting: a planeswalker permanent would essentially count as an additional vote/voice for the controlling player.
Pros: Flavorwise, this makes perfect sense. I don't see why your planeswalker pal would ever not agree with you, and if the person feels the character actually would vote differently and decides to pick something different for that planeswalker's choice, all the more flavorful.
This also allows for planeswalkers to fall into "players", "teammates", and "opponents".
Cons: A lot of people think that planeswalkers are already too powerful and this would give them even more.
My hope is that all the extra things that would be able to negatively impact planeswalkers will for the most part balance out the additional liberties they would gain.
Thoughts?
My thought is "Why bother removing the planeswalker redirection rule if you're just going to replace it with a planeswalker making decisions rule?". If they have to make a special rule because of unintuitive interactions, why not keep the one we have? The only reason for removing the rule is to streamline and simplify; there's no point if we can't do that.
The player-as-PW (or PW-as-player, but I prefer the former) can be made to work by having true player be a special type of PW. so you'd have playing PW and non-playing PW. That way, only a few cards need errata to target only playing PW. (Like Balance.)
The benefit is that it's easy to explain:
1. Cards that say "player" now say "planeswalker".
2. Cards that say "player" and make no sense for non-playing PW now say "playing planeswalker".
Done. Easy to grasp. The list of things that do not make sense for non-playing PW are easy to understand: they don't have hand, library, graveyard, they don't own or control permanents, they have no life total, etc
The player-as-PW (or PW-as-player, but I prefer the former) can be made to work by having true player be a special type of PW. so you'd have playing PW and non-playing PW. That way, only a few cards need errata to target only playing PW. (Like Balance.)
The benefit is that it's easy to explain:
1. Cards that say "player" now say "planeswalker".
2. Cards that say "player" and make no sense for non-playing PW now say "playing planeswalker".
Done. Easy to grasp. The list of things that do not make sense for non-playing PW are easy to understand: they don't have hand, library, graveyard, they don't own or control permanents, they have no life total, etc
Right on. It's just as non-intuitive for new players to buy a product emblazoned with YOU ARE A PLANESWALKER and then have to be told that you can't be targeted by Devour in Flames.
[quote from="pierrebai »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/the-rumor-mill/784284-upcoming-planeswalker-redirection-rule-change?comment=50"]The player-as-PW (or PW-as-player, but I prefer the former) can be made to work by having true player be a special type of PW. so you'd have playing PW and non-playing PW. That way, only a few cards need errata to target only playing PW. (Like Balance.)
The benefit is that it's easy to explain:
1. Cards that say "player" now say "planeswalker".
2. Cards that say "player" and make no sense for non-playing PW now say "playing planeswalker".
Done. Easy to grasp. The list of things that do not make sense for non-playing PW are easy to understand: they don't have hand, library, graveyard, they don't own or control permanents, they have no life total, etc
That doesn't make sense. Target player should Just mean "Player or Planeswalker" That way all cards work as intended and cards already written with Planeswalker stay the same. Only in some corner cases does it possibly strengthens a few cards and some of the older cards would just get errata to change it to Target opponent if that's whats needed to make it make sense...and in that senses it may weaken a few older cards (or strengthen)
The player-as-PW (or PW-as-player, but I prefer the former) can be made to work by having true player be a special type of PW. so you'd have playing PW and non-playing PW. That way, only a few cards need errata to target only playing PW. (Like Balance.)
The benefit is that it's easy to explain:
1. Cards that say "player" now say "planeswalker".
2. Cards that say "player" and make no sense for non-playing PW now say "playing planeswalker".
Done. Easy to grasp. The list of things that do not make sense for non-playing PW are easy to understand: they don't have hand, library, graveyard, they don't own or control permanents, they have no life total, etc
So instead of adding the word "planeswalker" to Lightning Bolt (for example) while leaving things like Sulfuric Vortex alone (again, as an example as we still don't know what the change will be) you are suggesting that not only does Wizards errata both cards (so neither technically does what the printed card says since "player" wouldn't be a thing anymore) but now you have to errata a bunch of other cards just to fit into this. Things such as Thoughtseize and Time Warp now receive errata to function exactly as they are printed? That seems heavy handed to say the least and I can's see what benefit that ultimately has over just adding the word planeswalker to a few spells.
Plus, you now have to errata Hero's Downfall and Dreadbore and others to say "Non-Playing Planeswalker" instead of just leaving them as is.
So, the biggest question is "why?". Why make these sweeping, overarching changes to a bunch of cards to preserve existing functionality? How is it complicated to see that Thoughtseize can't target a planeswalker now? How does adding planeswalker to Bolt complicate this interaction to the point where you feel it is necessary to change "player" to "planeswalker" and then still differentiate the two? We already have terms that differentiate the two: "player" and "planeswalker".
It seems like a lot of suggestions here are just making things exceptionally more complicated than they need to be. This particular suggestion seems to want to strive for flavor consistency in-game (Players are Planeswalkers) but game play doesn't care and trying to introduce flavor changes that change nothing about game play seems like a bad idea.
The current rule is "dumb" in that it is unintuitive in a number of situations. As has been pointed out, why can Dawn Charm prevent damage to your planeswalker? And yes, I get the flavor aspect of being able to do so (they are near me so my charm affects them; yay for them). On the flip side, why can my planeswalker currently still be dealt damage by a Bolt through a Personal Sanctuary if I want it to? Why do I even have the choice to have it take damage in that case? I get that with the rules changes, Sanctuary potentially doesn't protect Planeswalkers anymore, but it is a weird corner case interaction now that I can have it take damage from a Bolt if I want it to.
I am fairly certain that the new approach will not be perfect. It will have its downsides just like any change potentially does. But the upsides of this type of change is worth it and I am interested to see what they ultimately end up being.
Burn cards existed WELL before Planeswalker cards. We are talking 1993, back when Lightning Bolt read "deals 3 damage to any target". They later added "creature or player" so that newbies would stop bolting enchantments because enchantments would NEVER be creatures...<_< >_>
The first rulebook started off with "You are a Planeswalker". That's right, Chadelicious, when you play Magic, YOU are a planeswalker. That is why many people hated the idea of having planeswalker cards because that would be akin to a two(or more, thanks to superfriends) on one battle, which a bunch of (Jace) them (Jace) were (Jace) as they were (Liliana of the Veil) working out the (Tibalt? oh sure, he can play with you) kinks.
But let's take a look back at burn and why Sligh/Red-deck-wins is so important. The answer is because Burn has been there since the beginning able to melt your face and all of your minions too. Have a Circle of Protection: Red? Flashfires. Ivory Mask? Anarchy. Iona, Shield of Emeria? Nevinyrral's Disk. Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded without the redirection rule? Um... Uh...er...
Now I know what you are probably thinking. "Boohoo! Poor Red-Burn, what about Black? Where is it's artifact removal post-1996? How is it supposed to deal with enchantments? To which I yield to you "yes, Black never got enchantment help, but I misspoke when I said burn. What I meant was "direct damage".
All colors, at one time or another, have had direct damage, the ability to deal to everything that could take damage at that point...but planeswalkers came in after that point. What was the original intent?
Furthermore, let us examine this immersion-wise. A planeswalker CARD has loyalty counters. If you ask too much of it or it gets punched in the face one too many times it flips you the bird and you are back to battling solo. So it stands to reason that if I am stuck in a Hurricane and you are stuck in it too, shouldn't your buddy ol' pal Jace be right there being battered alongside us? Isn't he also feeling the earthquake? If I can Lighting Bolt you, Prodigal Sorceror/Tim you, Unyaro Bee Sting you, Drain Life you, Witch Hunter/Tim you when you are this all powerful planeswalker, why can't I do the same to the planeswalker right next to you on the battlefield?
That is why we've had the redirect rule. Because if I can Zap you or Liliana, Heretical Healer, why not Lilana Vess too while we are at it? We've been able to hit players from the start because there were players from the start. We've been able to hit creatures from the start because there were creatures at the start. There were technically planeswalkers at the start, and I could hit them, but now that they are card permanents I can't?
That is why there has been a redirection rule and simply taking it away would give planeswalkers such a boost in power that TIBALT WOULD BE PLAYABLE, since you can't simply Bolt him out of existence at the end of your opponent's turn after they cast him.
Your post is filled with a lot of tangents so I am not entirely sure of what your point is. In one section you started listing off cards that didn't seem to have anything to do with this rule change and I am really not sure what Anarchy, Flashfires, and Iona have to do with planeswalkers at all.
They are tweaking the rule to play better while still (presumably) retaining as much of the current functionality as possible. I am not sure why this should be seen as a bad thing as the current rule is somewhat unintuitive and causes enough confusion that Wizards is looking at cleaning it up a bit.
If you are advocating for the change then I agree that it is a good change. If you are against it I guess I am not sure from your post what parts of the change are of a concern to you?
On a side note, Tibalt's playability has nothing to do with dying to bolt.
I feel like these are the questions we should be asking.
If the redirection rule is not doing what they want, they should drop it, and template cards differently from now on.
Mass errata would not cover everything. Sure, adding Planeswalker to Lightning Bolt text will get the job done.
But what about something like Earthquake? Will it be "each creature, player and planeswalker'? This is very different. Or maybe it will be each creature and each player or planeswalker. This is still different, as it can hit multiple planewsalkers. Maybe this kind of effect will not be erratad, and will cease to hit planeswalkers.
It kinda sucks that we are getting this slow-roll. What do they want to achieve?
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I was responding to Chadelicious on page 1, since it looked like no one answered him when he asked "If they're going to get rid of the PW redirection rule, why don't they just get rid of it? Why do they need to errata anything?"
WizardMN, what I was defending/explaining was that there needs to be something in place, be the current rules or revamped ones.
As far as redirect vs what we've seen of the new rules, I think that current rules were the "easy fix", however switching Lightning Strike to say "3 damage to target" and have it imply "creature permanent, player, or planeswalker permanent" is going to shaft newbs even moreso than when they changed lands to just have the symbol but still have Elvish Druids still say "add G to your mana pool" and so the newb goes and tries to search their library for a Forest.
Why do we care about elves? Because I've had to explain how they and Dark Rituals work too many damned times because of changes that were made down the road. Do you remember when they tried to make Dark Ritual a "mana source" type so that it couldn't be countered, and them people were trying to keep it on their battlefield like a land? I do! Instead of just printing (cannot be countered) they decided to leave it (almost, aside from "interrupt" not being a thing anymore) as it originally was. This time around they didn't **** up nearly as bad with the redirect rule, but the rule "fix" is looking like it might be on that level of "let's not consider how difficult this will be for new(er) players to understand".
Don't get me wrong, I get their conundrum. They don't want damage counted on an object for the turn, especially before it transforms into something that would later be able to take damage (see Creeping Tar pit fears on page 1). They also have to worry about people complaining about "all permanents can have counters on them like +1/+1 or -1/-1 counters, why can't we stack damage onto them to just in case?"
The way to answer that is simply to change the rule to "whenever a card would deal damage to a target and the target type is not defined, it is to be assumed that the target is anything that would directly impacted by damage being dealt to it (CURRENTLYPlaneswalker permanents, Creature Permanents, and players).
I cannot stress how important that "currently" is, because without that reminder text, they will be making the same mistake AGAIN. What happens when "Dream" permanents come out and they can only take damage during upkeeps and post combat main phases?
Why this long text: all the rule change said was "target" means "planeswalker, creature, or player" which IS NOT what "target" means right now (it Acidic Slimes the current understanding) and it would contradict too many cards and other rulings.
Just as your complaint for me and my tangents, if you don't understand what I'm saying(/who I'm talking to and in regards to what) you'll be ripe confused.
It's okay here, because we are two people on a forum and there is no prize money at stake, but when you are the DCI? Tourney's and new players depend on you.
TL;DR: I'm for a change for the PW-R rule, but I dislike the beta changes so far; however I know it can definitely be fixed.
I mean, people still ask about the play/into-play thing, and that word isn't even used anymore!
It's hopeless.
I wish that any target actually meant any target. It's already impossible to damage a land/artifact/enchantment (CR 119.1a). Why wasn't that good enough?
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How can it say "each target" though for a spell that has not targets? What they really need is a term for "damagable permanent/object" (which would be cool and work even if they introduce new damagable permanent/object categories in the future e. g. structures/buildings).
But either way they are going to functionally change those mass burn spells; their options are to make them weaker by eshewing errata or making them stronger by allowing them to hit players and planeswalkers at the same time. The current philosophy on errata would mean they should avoid errata on those cards.
Here is my problem with the proposed errata. Say in the future they want to make new burn spells like "deals N damage to any target", but also variants like "deals N spell target creature or planeswalker" and "deals N damage to target planeswalker or player" which all work fine. But then if they tried "deals N damage to target creature or player" they create a conundrum: They would use a wording which is supposed to be recognized on older cards as something they errata'd and replaced with "any target".
They are actually aware of this kind of problem and have publically discussed the issue regarding the question whether "instant" could be made a supertype which runs into similar problems after errata.
The preferable way would be to eshew errata on all cards and use the new wording going forward but they'd have to find new iconic names for all their baeling burn spells. ;P
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I'm personally expecting paper Magic changes to involve a lot of eratta to add "or planeswalker" on a lot of cards while removing functionality from others where it was incidentally added: like Earthquake (unless Earthquake is extended to damage all planeswalkers).
Specifically: they're trying to remove an existing rule to make rules simpler to learn, so I'm not expecting a back-end change to allow parsing of "any target". Granted "any target" would still be more intuitive to players than "player, but redirect", so eh...?
None of the stuff in the OP make it clear to me which of these routes they'll go down for paper Magic, though I guess the wording change of that Dinosaur rare might be an indication.
Regarding Earthquake specifically, I expect it to not damage planeswalkers post-change. This is like when Mogg Fanatic was returned to original functionality when damage on the stack was removed.
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There’s also the concept of ‘Opponent’ that needs to be defined if pw are termed as players. Something that could target an opponent before... is that now any player other than you or any planeswalker controller by another player?
New Player: I Duress Jace.
Old Player: That doesn't do anything.
New Player: Of course it does, Jace is a player so I discard his first ability.
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1) PW redirection rule removed
2) Errata targeted burn spells
3) Earthquake, Blighning and ilk will change functionally.
As devil's advocate, though, how flavorful would it be to use Door to Nothingness to wipe out a planeswalker? Yes, I know that's a lot weaker than simply killing its controller. But making Jace or Gideon lose the game sounds epic - makes me feel like Nicol Bolas or something.
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Some burn spells already specifically mention that they can hit planeswalkers, so this update would simply errata all cards that would previously hit players to also hitting walkers?
Or do all previous cards simply become worse?
It sounds like Wizards will errata a lot of burn spells. So, most burn spells actually get better since most will allow you to hit Planeswalkers directly. As you said, removing the redirection rule will weaken "player hexproof" effects, as the players can go after Planeswalkers directly instead of attacking the player. As mentioned before, if they errata Hurricane and Earthquake-type effects, your Planeswalkers get affected, so those spells become a little worse.
Removing the Planeswalker damage redirect rule and being able to hit Planeswalkers directly also lines up with the rule that creatures can attack Planeswalkers directly in combat.
This would take care of the Balance-type card issues as well as deal with things like Fact or Fiction that would reference opponent. A planeswalker cannot have a hand, so the choice will be deferred to the control, same with creatures, or land (or really any permanents).
HOWEVER: it opens up a deliciously fun can of worms in terms of voting: a planeswalker permanent would essentially count as an additional vote/voice for the controlling player.
Pros: Flavorwise, this makes perfect sense. I don't see why your planeswalker pal would ever not agree with you, and if the person feels the character actually would vote differently and decides to pick something different for that planeswalker's choice, all the more flavorful.
This also allows for planeswalkers to fall into "players", "teammates", and "opponents".
Cons: A lot of people think that planeswalkers are already too powerful and this would give them even more.
My hope is that all the extra things that would be able to negatively impact planeswalkers will for the most part balance out the additional liberties they would gain.
Thoughts?
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Makes a lot more intuitive sense, I feel.
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The benefit is that it's easy to explain:
1. Cards that say "player" now say "planeswalker".
2. Cards that say "player" and make no sense for non-playing PW now say "playing planeswalker".
Done. Easy to grasp. The list of things that do not make sense for non-playing PW are easy to understand: they don't have hand, library, graveyard, they don't own or control permanents, they have no life total, etc
Right on. It's just as non-intuitive for new players to buy a product emblazoned with YOU ARE A PLANESWALKER and then have to be told that you can't be targeted by Devour in Flames.
That doesn't make sense. Target player should Just mean "Player or Planeswalker" That way all cards work as intended and cards already written with Planeswalker stay the same. Only in some corner cases does it possibly strengthens a few cards and some of the older cards would just get errata to change it to Target opponent if that's whats needed to make it make sense...and in that senses it may weaken a few older cards (or strengthen)
Plus, you now have to errata Hero's Downfall and Dreadbore and others to say "Non-Playing Planeswalker" instead of just leaving them as is.
So, the biggest question is "why?". Why make these sweeping, overarching changes to a bunch of cards to preserve existing functionality? How is it complicated to see that Thoughtseize can't target a planeswalker now? How does adding planeswalker to Bolt complicate this interaction to the point where you feel it is necessary to change "player" to "planeswalker" and then still differentiate the two? We already have terms that differentiate the two: "player" and "planeswalker".
It seems like a lot of suggestions here are just making things exceptionally more complicated than they need to be. This particular suggestion seems to want to strive for flavor consistency in-game (Players are Planeswalkers) but game play doesn't care and trying to introduce flavor changes that change nothing about game play seems like a bad idea.
The current rule is "dumb" in that it is unintuitive in a number of situations. As has been pointed out, why can Dawn Charm prevent damage to your planeswalker? And yes, I get the flavor aspect of being able to do so (they are near me so my charm affects them; yay for them). On the flip side, why can my planeswalker currently still be dealt damage by a Bolt through a Personal Sanctuary if I want it to? Why do I even have the choice to have it take damage in that case? I get that with the rules changes, Sanctuary potentially doesn't protect Planeswalkers anymore, but it is a weird corner case interaction now that I can have it take damage from a Bolt if I want it to.
I am fairly certain that the new approach will not be perfect. It will have its downsides just like any change potentially does. But the upsides of this type of change is worth it and I am interested to see what they ultimately end up being.