Technically the same is true for lands (and artifacts as you stated) as units can attack those as well.
Although I agree about lands, they are used mainly as mana source so, I wouldn't recommend going in that direction.
As for artifacts however I will 100% definitely agree that they should have toughness as well, since they are material things on the battlefield, hence it would make sense that they could break, unfortunately though as long as they don't have toughness there is no way of determining how much it takes for each one to get destroyed by an attack.
Thats how good design works if you only explain it once it should be understood intuitive design works without the need for an explanation and on that part both systems the real and the proposed are technically unintuitive.
Which is exactly that, most new players won't need an explanation since they already assume it.
In addition it would be even more unintuitive for the reason of similarity so it would actually increase your problem.
During the period of transition that indeed might be the problem, but that was the problem with redirection rule since planeswalker cards were a new thing back then and older cards didn't have an errata that specifically targeted planeswalkers as well, so they decided to make the 'redirection rule' until the transition ended.
Unifying stuff tend to clean up misunderstandings and make it more streamlined (see interrupts becoming instants , combining Poly/Mono/Cont. Artifacts into one).
I agree, but changing the rules like this will cause a huge balance problems as the games wasn't designed so that creatures could attack one another hence it will pretty much break the game if it were for them to suddenly change, not to mention that most veteran players won't be happy since they have got used to this all these decades.
What you are proposing about changing the rules for creatures can't even happen logically.
I also believe it would diminish choices since it would lead to the answer to any problem being play the better creature/summon which would also lead to less different cards being played.
Firstly is the reason why the rulings can't change for older cards and the only plausible way is to make a new card type.
Admittedly it will never happen of course, just saying that it would be the only way.
Secondly, adding more choices leading to "diminishing" choices is kind of an oximoron don't you think?
The very fact that you think that in heartstone you can protect your creatures, means that you haven't completely comprehend the concept.
There will be a lot of situations where attacking won't be an answer as there would be a blockers in your way, just like regular magic, not at best a couple of creatures with taunt.
So having to think of ways to protect your underlings also adds a strategic value, because simply holding back will not only be enough, but you would also have to hold back in order have blockers to protect your other troops.
Attacking is not an answer to everything in magic games, especially when faced with even more options, if nothing else, you would see players holding of creatures in order to protect others, so pretty much the exact opposite actually happens from what you predicted.
I also think that board state overview gets more complicated while not getting that much more depth if any.
What do you do when you have multiple planeswalkers who get attacked? You stop the game because you find it too complicated or your opponent simply moves the pieces to make it clear who attacks who, why you think there would be any different than that?
Also I have some questions about how you resolve certain scenarios.
Like Player 1 Attacks Player 2'a Creature A with his Creature X and 2's B with his Z. Now can Player 2 Just block X with B and Z with A? Or does a creature being attacked count as blocking creature even though it's not blocking it's just beeing attacked.
No it isn't considered blocking, and yes they can, block each other, to swap combat situations, and this is why you would more often that not players holding back since they will soon realize that attacking is not the answer to everything as they though it is.
When one has to think how to protect your creatures on top of all others, he realized that he has to think even more strategically than that.
So most of the times removals are still the only option, as attacking will not be an answer.
P.s. If thats flavor/intuitive wise the logical thing wouldn't it also be logical that the player can block creatures as well? As every commander has the ability to take a hit if its for the greater good?
Exactly, and that's why it was stated that players could block as well in order to take the damage instead.
The lesson we all learned it that- for some people certain things will be un-intuitive no matter what
You have a point, despite this however, the number of new players who assume that being able to attack to one unit just like the other, should be taken into consideration, which up until now (and probably never.) it hasn't.
when you make a correction for one group a different group is then in the same position.
This is why it's no correction, but addition just like the addition of planeswalker cards, so veteran players won't have to adjust but only the new players.
The best answer is to make it so that the most amount of people can comprehend what you're trying to put forth and for the rest you just have to use baby steps.
And exactly for that reason this needs to be implemented.
Not all new players want to attack creatures with creatures, but yes many do.
I'd argue that most new players assume that you can attack creatures, especially when they see that you can do the same with planeswalkers, why? Because it makes sense, right?
If a unit can comprehend the command to attack on a certain piece, why it wouldn't comprehend it for another?
The game action of taking cards off the top of your deck and putting them into your discard pile is referred to as "Milling" or being "Milled", that's not very intuitive terminology
This has nothing to do with intuitive design at all, we are talking about two completely different things, one relates to how players learn a term, whereas the second is already being used by new players since it makes sense to them, until they learn that they are doing it wrong by the rules.
Magic is the most complex game(from a rules perspective) and it can be overwhelming for new players but, that's why we're patient and try to teach them at every opportunity we have.
Once more, once a rule that makes sense from a common sense perspective is implemented, you won't even have to "teach" them because they would most likely already apply for themselves.
You purposed fix would add more issues that it would solve
First of all, one can't say the addition of an extra card type as "fix" but more like an "addition" just like the planeswalker card type.
Secondly, of course if it were to just pop, it would create balancing issues because the game wasn't designed for that, balancing wise.
the game is too old and too deep to make the kind of changes you're asking
That is why they are not "changes" but additions, players who play vintage legacy or even modern, won't even get affected, so speaking about "history" really falls of the mark here.
You cannot turn the game into something it's not, especially if the proprietors have no desire to do such.
I like how you are acting as if I have the power to do so, despite this would never probably happen since people immediately associate it with yugioh, completely disregarding the fact that in magic you can also block, just like you block to protect your planeswalker from losing loyalty.
Trust me, you really have nothing to be afraid, the idea will never get implemented as the amount of negativity surrounding it is too big for just one person with his silly idea, there is really no reason to get all patriotic.
When people have said that Pokemon and Yugio systems have the ability for creatures to attack creatures you counter with "but in those systems you cannot block the attack, Magic has a system of being able to block the attack"
Of course we do because indeed in pokemon and yugioh you have no ability to block in order to protect your units.
so you have no desire to change those systems to include blocking.
Have you ever considered that I'm not interested in such games to begin with? From what I saw, yugioh, doen't even have an actual combat but comparing numbers that's all.
Do you really think, if we use your concept of a new card type that can attack each other, that behave like a creature but isn't a creature
"That behaves like a creature but isn't a creature" wait? How can it behave like a creature the moment it can attack other pieces of the same card type?
Creatures can't do that, right? You may say 'similarly' but not 'like' a, because 'similarly' implies a certain amount of difference.
New players already apply this as it would makes more sense, you, yourself said that you have to explain to them, not to do that, rather than the opposite, so what you are saying it's kind contradictory don't you think?
"We have these creatures, they can attack players and planeswalkers, and they can block. We have these summons that can attack players, planes walkers, and each other and they can block"-new player "why aren't they just the same thing?"
Because it will mess up the balance of older cards maybe? Why would they need to be the same thing?
If it were to go well, and the old type slowly phased out, then new players would only have to deal with summons, not creatures, that's why.
While veteran players could still enjoy the game exactly the way they were used to while newer player would have more option in regards to their troops.
You claim to have play tested your idea, fine. But I'll wager you play tested with kid gloves on. You and your play group tested it in a manner to make it work, to prove it's feasible. But did you propose it to a third party?
You think with this much negativity and false association with yugioh mechanics it's an easy thing to do?
When it can't even been comprehended to a forum and it is immediately faced as an absurd concept, how do you expect it to go forward?
People have got used to their ways and despise additions, maybe there have been a lot lately and people grew tired of them, the 'Saga' cards are pretty new themselves for example, even for a subtype.
but WOTC will never implement such a sweeping change to the game
Again, one can't pretty much consider this as a "change" but rather as an "addition" but I agree, this would never be implemented, there is too much negativity and association with other games mechanic mistakenly assumed for it to go forward.
To tell you the truth, no one expect it to change.
at this point because you'd literally turn Magic into another game altogether.
I wouldn't say that giving the player more control over his units would turn mtg into a totally different game altogether, but admittedly it would be a huge change in the way the player would now have to also think how they would protect their troops as well, giving an additional layer of strategic thinking.
I have a friend(been playing since 2001) who thinks Planeswalkers do damage to the creatures that attack them.
I can't understand how much damage exactly he thinks they do since they don't really have an 'attack' number, but I can understand why he might think so, I mean when creatures enter combat they deal damage to one another, so that would probably should apply to planeswalkers as well, because it would make sense, but apparently it doesn't, which is a shame.
However there is an exception with certain planeswalkers who have the ability to turn into creatures, but that shouldn't normally apply only to exceptions.
...and was even more confused when Magic had the old PLaneswalker rule.
Maybe because the redirection rule was indeed a stupid thing? Thankfully they changed the rule so it makes much more sense now, hopefully they would keep walking on that path.
I have yet another friend who couldn't grasp that Equipment were not Auras and would get infinitely frustrated that they stayed on the battlefield, he's still bitter about it to this day.
This is a totally unrelated issue, but personally I think that Artifacts should be attacked as well, since they are things on the battlefield, it would make sense to be able to send your unit to attack it, unfortunately they don't have toughness (Which they should, because an item has toughness, just like any material thing, creatures for one.)
Instead of trying to convince "us" that WOTC needs to implement your idea why not just create a new format(in the appropriate threads) and see how it goes. I do that a lot, I love creating new formats, but I don't desire to change the basic game.
If I see that there is a demand, of course I would like to, even though (I don't know exactly how to do that on this forum.)
So if people would indeed want to test out I'm all up for it.
Unfortunately there are no 'summon' cards yet, so if we were to try, we would have to stick to 'creatures' for now.
So if anyone is interested let me know the process of creation so I can test this with a third party as you suggested, I'm all up for it as long as there is not much negativity surrounding the idea.
On the other hand, it saddens me that "Creatures: The Gathering" is a more fitting name for the game nowadays. I wish I had more options for my instants and sorceries, generic "1R Sorcery Deal 3 + expansion mechanic" and "3U Draw 2 + expansion mechanic" got old pretty quick.
And this is exactly why one can't simply put this ruling into existing game, since the game wasn't designed for it.
There would need to be a lot of rebalancing even after something like this were to be put to use, for example making instant or sorceries stronger as to give players a reason still be using them in the same quantity.
That is still not an excuse not to make the game more intuitive.
Again it's too early to talk about the specifics of rebalancing when the very concept sounds absurd to most veteran mtg players.
Of course the game would need to be rebalanced, because of course it wasn't designed this way to begin with but we can talk about the specifics after the initial proposition isn't faced with such negativity because the notion of sending your troops against your opponent's horde sounds absurd.
The part in my post about planeswalkers is related because you can attack planeswalkers with creatures to kill them. Which is the subject of your thread.
You however spend a good chunk of space talking about balancing issues that WoTC won't fix because of money, which is in itself, unrelated, but that's beside the point.
Other games you can attack creatures. In this game you can't.
Even still, in other games you don't have a chance to protect what is being attacked by blocking it.
That's what yugioh does for example. So, attacking in yugioh, compared to attacking players/planeswalkers, is a completely different thing.
That is indeed correct, as there needs to be a huge revamp in order to make the game more intuitive.
Though by presenting the idea of a new card type, will make older cards not being affected by that so, this won't affect legacy, vintage or even modern players. So they could still enjoy it exactly the way they were used to, still.
You can try creating a sub-variant of the game. Where you attack creatures with creatures. See if you can get people to play with you.
Besides my play group, there are a lot of balancing issues that prevent players from doing so in a legal manner since the game by itself wasn't designed this way.
The biggest problem one can think of is creatures with evasion which would essentially get turned into one turn removals since they will usually go by unblocked, not even mentioning unblockables.
Now in my play group, we indeed apply a certain set of rules so the game the game won't break.
Still, the point is not this, it's the negativity that surrounds the very notion because people immediately assume yugioh it terms of battle, completely disregarding the fact that in magic you can also block in order to protect your permanent just like you do with planeswalkers.
We still got a long way to go until this notion is vanished and people detach their mindset from yugioh mentality, until then the only thing we can do is just clearing the picture.
No, attacking other creatures does not make sense. You would need to restructure the whole game. Or play Pokemon or Yughio.
This pretty much sums up the whole experience trying to explain to people over and over that in yugioh and pokemon you don't have a chance to protect your troops because in magic there is something called blocking which allows you to protect your troops.
As long as people have their mindset attached to yugioh, this simple concept will always be faced with negativity because people immediately assume that the game will be dunbed down instead of getting more deep strategy-wise.
If you want to fix the issue that you see then you would need to get rid of planeswalkers.
Seems like you are way of topic, we were discussing about making the game more intuitive, new players already assume that your underlings are able to be commanded to attack other underlings, when we were discussing about planeswalkers, we weren't talking about them gameplay wise, but as a unit that is able to be attacked, which is a good step towards making the game make more sense in that regard.
Now our personal distaste of this card type due to ability reasons is a complete separate matter.
I too have personally happened to quit many MTGA games when I see a planeswalker as a free to play player, but that still has nothing to do with the current conversation about making the game more intuitive.
Planeswalkers are the imbalance in the game. They are sorcery's plus enchantments with a bonus spell as the ultimate. But they aren't going away. They put a marketing face on the company that can sell more supplemental products such as card sleeves, binders and T-shirts. There is too much money to be made to get rid of planeswalkers.
There is no point in commenting further as the post starts to go way of track.
I think you have completely misunderstood the whole topic.
This is not some personal issue, this is about making the game more intuitive.
New players already assume that if you can command your underling to attack one entity, then it would make sense to be able to command it to attack another entity as well.
Planeswalker cards when they were created, made the game walk towards that direction.
Besides it's not only a 'creature' matter, as artifacts should normally have been able to be attacked as well, since they are 'things' on the battlefield.
I'll admit that being able to choose along with your opponent which creatures attack (thus exposed to defensing player.) would be the closest thing that has ever been stated here, but it still far away from making the game more intuitive.
Edit: Besides that, there are also several probelsm with the card you presented as, there is still no way for the "attacking" player to protect his creature once it has been declared as an attacker, so he can't put blockers to protect it from creature that would be blocking it.
If creatures could attack each other, the players with the biggest creature can attack and convert the board advantage into a bigget board advantage.[/qute]
Still there is a thing in magic which called blocking, being able to protect your creatures by blocking the attacking creature.
[quote from="italofoca »" url="/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-general/811570-i-think-its-about-time-someone-says-it?comment=55"]Magic combat is designed so that board advantage only lets you attack the opponent life total which is most of the time is inconsequential to combat.
Not entirely true as there have been for quite some time some cards which are called 'Planeswalkers', so there is still board advantage change.
Actually not because as things stand right now, whoever has the biggest creature can win, but if there was an option to send your smaller creatures to the big one, you could still gain board advantage without having to rely either on a big creature or a removal.
The scenario of beign far behind on board, getting attacked until you are one turn away from losing and eventually turning the game around is far more common in mtg then in any other CG for this reason.
PWs are exceptional high risk, high reward cards. By allowing creatures to be attacked like pws you would actually remove options from the game by forcing all cards to behave like this.
A little vague argument, but we weren't discussing about creatures themselves, but for a new card type so that it wouldn't affect older cards.
Giving more options to the player increases depth and strategy because there would be the additional layer or having to think how you can protect your troops as well.
I understand that allowing you to block for your creatures would limit this snow ballness. But the scenario where you block for your creature is exactly like choosing to not block a attack, this is inconsequential.
Not quite since if you don't block (either with another creature or with your player.) then the creature obviously gets... well.. attacked. Makes sense?
So there would be consequences and that would be part of the additional strategy depth.
This change would only impact the game when one player is so ahead he decides to attack with two creatures - and all this change would do is give a advantage to the player who is ahead.
I never said that it would should be a change just for the sake of chaning, the only thing that was being said was making the game more intuitive.
Secondly even with two creature you would still have problems as the player would probably block himself thus taking the damage so it wouldn't benefit the player in advance to attack just like that.
Not to mention that as things already stand the player who has the advantage gets the benefit because he doesn't have to think whether he should protect his big creature from a swarm of smaller creatures.
This pretty much gives a huge advantage to the player that has the big creature since he won't have to worry whether his underling is gonna be attacked.
I think a game like this, where you can target creatures and act as blocker could be very interesting but the whole combat mechanics would be redesigned to accomodate this. It would be a totally different game.
Remember that before planeswalker cards came into being, the only thing one could attack was the player.
So with a new card type being added, the old cards wouldn't need to be affected thus the 'redesign' would only apply to the new cards.
I agree that if the new card comes into being and the old creatures slowly phase out from future's standard the future standards would be a totally different game from say 'Vintage' but I don't think that is necessarily a bad result, since the only thing that actually done, was the creation of that new card type, so players could still play magic exactly as it was while those who want intuitive innovation could enjoy the game as well.
So it's a win for both.
But it also makes sense that that creature should be able to run away from your attackers thus evading the attackers.
Of course it should, it would also be awesome to have different 'locations' for the player to command his creatures to go so they would evade their attackers. Up to now, players can only give up to three commands to their creatures 'attack player', 'attack planeswalker' and 'block' it would be awesome to have another command saying 'leave area' of course that creature shouldn't be able to target other creatures with it's abilities since it's no longer in that specific area, neither should +1/+1 be applies to creatures since they are not in the same area to receive the buff.
This is still a specific matter in a problem, when there hasn't even been a positive perspective to the base concept.
When most people find the idea of creatures attacking other creatures as absurd, how can we even be able to discuss the details of that matter?
To most veteran mtg players this basic concept comes from the sphere of "doesn't make sense"
So until there can be a comprehension of the basic premise, it's pointless to try and delve into the details for now.
But then, what if your attackers are cats attacking a dinosaur? That doesn't make sense.
What if there are many cats? Why wouldn't a pack of sabretooth's be able to down a T-Rex?
Even small bugs invisible to the eye could make a dent to a huge creature if they all decide to attack together as a swarm, especially when they are commanded to.
How does a wolf even do damage to a Phyrexian Dreadnaught? Doesn't make sense.
Well if they are indestructible it doesn't matter by how many they get attacked, it still won't die due to lethal damage, if they are not, then why wouldn't it?
And once my creature has hit your planeswalker, why is it having to go through defenders on the next turn all over again? Shouldn't he be right there on the planeswalker, trashing him continually? It makes no sense.
It actually makes sense because there is something called "Calling backup" if you see your planeswalker get hit by a swarm of creatures, wouldn't you want to call back up before he loses faith in you?
Blockers are for that reason: To block. If you have killed the first wave, defending player should send the next if he has one available.
But it makes perfect sense in the context of the rules themselves. That is the only "sense" that can be reasonably applied to form a meaningful argument. As for creatures, it makes sense they can't attack other creatures because the rules don't allow it.
Well rules of the game were created as means to represent the combat, that is why there are terms such as 'attacking' or 'blocking'.
It isn't just a game of poker where a pair of two's somehow of better than the King (Which is well beyond the two's combined.)
The rules were meant to represent the current battle as it was unfolding to the current battlefield.
I have no idea why Garfield decided that in his game creatures can't attack other creatures, but it made sense to him from a mechanical point of view, and so it makes sense if you want to play the game he designed.
There are a lot of factors one might be forced to take an action they might not want, I don't know Mr.Garfield personally and magic had been the best tcg there ever was, but we shouldn't lose our common sense just because of something that happened to be or what the end result of something was.
We should always strive to think for ourselves, that is not saying that we shouldn't compromise when needed, but no one should have to in that particular case. MTG is a really great game that we enjoy and love, but at the same time is not that bad to agree that it has flaws.
To be honest I would personally want to ask him as well, but I'm suspecting that the answer would be for balancing reasons, maybe there was some card back then that might completely broke the game and they made that decision because they figured it was the best decision they could make at that particular moment.
Probably if the game was designed today from the scratch all over, they might have made it completely different.
To be honest I wouldn't as well, cause it would probably end up like another hearthstone clone where you don't even have a chance to protect your creatures and the board is a complete cluster**** from the way it constantly changes from turn to turn.
Magic is probably the best tgc that was created, but it could be better, it got an upgrade when planeswalker cards came into being, giving a deeper flavor to the game that made it more intuitive since you were able to do thing that should make sense like being able to command an attack a living being besides the player on the battlefield where it wasn't previously available.
At the same time magic has something that other tcgs don't have: The ability to protect something when it gets attacked, like you should be able to.
Other games I assume they took that feature out due to simplicity but they missed the chance to make their games have a deeper sense of strategy due to that foolish decision.
Being able to attack Planeswalkers with creatures makes sense from a mechanical and lore perspective.
I would like to apologize in advance for sounding kind of heretic, but we believe that being able to attack any living entity with your troops makes sense as well.
Magic’s combat system captures this perfectly well. If you are the attacking force and you wish to stop a retreating force, you need ranged weapons, hence removal spells.
Well there are also troops that might have ranged weapons, no? Plus defending player should always have a chance to block in order to protect something, this doesn't happen with removal.
When an army amasses on the battlefield to attack, they don’t attack individual combatants
Which has been proven in the history of wars to not be an efficient way to victory.
Maybe for you going straight to the overlord might seem the only option but for the rest of the people they usually attack his bodyguards or even using spies, that is how war is actually done.
Active player yells “charge” and sends in the troops(attacking)
I have to apologize but this is not how wars are actually fought, this is more like a caricature of how a person who was never witnessed a war in his life, thinks what war is actually like.
Usually actual wars happen in a long period of time and magic has a good way of representing that with healing the troops at the end of turns and even placing lands which gives a hint that the player might have actually traversed a new land in the process and acquired it's power.
But even if it was actually how you described it, by your own logic, you shouldn't be able to attack planeswalkers as well, since you would have already yelled "charge!!!!" at this point.
If you want your predator drone to drop a bomb on my general, that’s not a massive, infantry attack
It's good to not be absolute about anything as in magic there is the existence of huge creatures who might need more manpower in order to be taken down.
Watch any movie depicting a bronze age, iron age, medieval, or Napoleonic battle. You’ll never see an amassed force targeting individual soldiers in a charge
And this is the issue, the notion of how a war is fought throughout movies, not the actual combat itself.
But the targeting of high value targets is easily represented by either spells or activated abilities. Even archers and infantry gunners(smooth bore musket types) don’t target, they engage in volley fire. Artillery pieces don’t target individuals, they target areas or fortifications.
Either way I’ll leave you be, WOTC will not likely go in the direction you’re suggesting so this entire discussion just idle banter.
Of course it probably won't, here even regular people see even the notion of being able to individually decide who to attack with disgust, imagine how R&D will especially if they would have to create the rulling for the supposed new card type.
To tell you the truth, no one is expecting WoTC to actually implement that, we just wanted to see if the magic community feels, and of course the result was negative, but one would never guess it would be such negative as to have people try to defend an absurd system to this extend.
So if your idea, or one like it, could work, without breaking the game, WOTC designers would explore it.
I don't think so, since it's something that would have had implemented already. Besides we don't think that WoTC actually sees feedback even less from a forum such as this, they are most likely talking about balancing issues to upcomming sets rather than fundamentals.
If you want people to be less negative about your idea spent dozens of hours play-testing it in multiple formats. Work out odd and troublesome interactions. Have a third party play-test it to find stuff you may have missed, take notes and then present your findings. Science it out then get back to us.
Well as a matter of fact we have been doing this for over 5 years, since it made most sense to my fellow pupils, and were negative on the idea of using the actual rules since they claim that it doesn't make sense.
As a result we had to ban several cards (Especially cards who dealt with evasion, for example ublockability was banned since it was used as one turn free removal.)
Still the amount of time doesn't matter, what matters is that by making the game more intuitive, it becomes more friendly to newcomers, not to mention that having to think what underlings you have to protect adds an additional layer of strategy.
Now I won't get into the specifics as it doesn't seem to have the magic community interested.
People come to these forums all they time with their purposed “fixes” for the game, most of which stem from either a newness to the game or a lack of understanding of the game’s design rules.
This is exactly why mtg needs intuitive design so it won't have to teach as much to newcomers who are making assumptions based on what would make most sense.
Most often these ideas are not well received. A large part of the Salvation community is very well versed in the game’s design, rules, and complexity nuance.
True that, and it's kind of apparent as they have gotten so much used to it, that even mention something that may come out of the box is very negatively received.
Magic rules are like scientific peer review, better to be cautious and not screw it up than it is to accept something that needs retroactive fixing(WOTC already screws this up enough as it is).
We are just kind of finding sad that this matter has become so convoluted to begin with, it really should have been a really simple concept, with admittedly a good chunk of additional rules for the supposed new card type.
It's just kind of sad that it hasn't been implemented still. even after the arrival of planeswalker cards which are nearing almost ten years since their creation back at Lorwyn block.
Anyway I digress, I want to thank you though for spending your time reading and replying to this, maybe even if the magic community is negative in this regard at least some members are willing to discuss the issue and not completely disregard it.
Thank you again and have an awesome week
Yeah, not being able to attack an opposing "army" with most of your "army"(creatures), but with some of them (your new creatures, but not really) should be much less confusing than the current, consistent way of dealing with combat.
You do realize that the only reason we decided not to apply them to creatures is so it won't create an imbalance to the game, right?
Not to mention that new player do it anyway even though it's wrong according to the current rules, maybe?
We're either completely talking past each other, or you're trolling hard. Either way, I'm out of this, since I don' see this discussion coming to any constructive result.
It's really unfortunate that you have this negative view about this matter. I would like to thank you though for spending your time reading and replying.
Planeswalkers were a completely new cardtype. Of course they had to come with a bunch of new rules and adjustments to the game, but this was all in the realm of additions, not revamping something that has been an integral part of the game since it's beginning.
Except that this would be a new card type as well, and for that exact purpose.
Now you're talking about introducing a new card type, but frankly that doesn't make much sense to me. You basically want to change how creatures can attack or block, but intend to achieve this with a new "pretty much a creature, but not really" card type?
No we don't want to change how creatures attack or block, we are saying how this new card type would work.
Maybe to you the notion of being able to send your troops against the opponent's might sound absurd, but really it doesn't sound that absurd, especially to new players, also let us not forget that in mtg you can also block.
but intend to achieve this with a new "pretty much a creature, but not really" card type?
Were creatures able to attack other creatures? I think not, so this is definitely a new card type that would function similarly, indeed, but different in that aspect, as to make the game more intuitive.
making things more complicated and less clear (and especially confusing for newer players)
Actually new players who haven't got good grasp of the game, already doing this without even knowing that they are doing it wrong, since I've seem many new players saying that their creature is going to attack this creature and then proceed to blockers.
Trust me it's rather the opposite as it makes it clearer to new players that they can attack any living entity (which they should have been in my humble opinion from the beginning.)
Slapping additional utility onto cards you want to run anyway does not really provide more options though. If the cards that advance your game plan can just double as answers to opposing threads, you remove the need to consider how many/what answers you might need.
First of all this won't always be the case since, once more, defending player will always have chance to block and you wouldn't simply just send your troops to the opposite side if the opponent has an answer, so they wouldn't be used as answers to threats as well so casually as you might think.
Secondly, you won't have unlimited answers anyway, in any situation.
Granted, this adds an additional layer of strategy to combat, but in return it makes deck building more trivial.
It's the opposite rather since as things stand you don't have to think that much of deckbuilding when you simply have to fill the rest of the gap with random removals since there is no other way to get rid of bigger threats, but if you weren't force to cause of this reason, then you would have to double-think the cards you should be putting in your deck, which would rather make deck building more deep than it already is.
So you want to create a whole new type of card that basically acts like creatures but are not creatures. That would never be confusing for new players, right?
Mtg is already confusing to new players, so intuitive design should mitigate this.
Old creature cards have the word “summon” in their type line, So what happens if I have a mix of older and newer cards, more confusion?
Don't get stuck with the word, I used it as an example for any card that acts like a creature but is able to attack other entities, (call them whatever you want.), you are free to make any suggestion.
We merely use the tern since it has been rendered obsolete, it doesn't mean that this should be the absolute.
And by your purposed rules that your summons can only attack other summons, then what’s the point? You’ve created a new card type that is mechanically and flavorfully no different from a preexisting type just to fulfill some unwanted flavor need.
Maybe to you the sound of being able to send your army against another army may not sound appealing. But not everyone shares that feeling.
Say you run a deck full of these summons, that can attack each other, planeswalkers, and players, I’ll just play with creatures that your summons cannot attack. That way if you refuse to run removal I have the advantage.
I don't think we have come to a point where we can discuss rullings, when we aren't even liking the idea of being able to send troops against other troops.
It's just to early to talk about the specifics yet.
Not only that, but we should also consider the imbalances that this would possibly create before even attempting to make suggestions.
My biggest point is this: is the complexity and potential for confusion adding enough play value and fun to be worth it.
In my personal opinion yes, because it adds a layer of intuitive learning to new players that they are able to send their army against their opponent's army as well as other living entities on the battlefield.
You’re so completely blinded by your idea that it seems that you cannot see the negatives.
If we are blinded because we like to play the game as it might make more sense and tweaking with rules here and there in order to make them balanced then we probably are.
And you treat most criticism as though it’s from people who simply cannot grasp your vision.
This is because we have been getting huge negativity simply for suggesting that a player should be able to send his troops against the opponent's as it would make more sense, and instead we are treated like we wanna change it to yugioh or something, because people can't comprehend the idea that in mtg you can block as well in order to protect your army.
We grasp your vision, were just not impressed by it.
I never said that it was an idea that one should be impressed from the fact that you should have been able to send your troops against the opponent's it should simply make sense, not impress.
Creative people tend to be more in love with their creations than those creations deserve.
Well, I don't consider myself as a "creative person" nor that I'm in love with something that should have been there from the beginning.
I simply say that if mtg wants to survive, it should become more intuitive. That's all, it really shouldn't have been that huge deal to begin with.
Now this sound like more than a personal feeling, than actual argument.
This is literally equivalent to "Skyrim belongs to the Nords" argument.
Why should we stick to the old ways when as you yourself suggested mtg was improoved because it was getting imput.
Again let's not forget that before planeswalker cards were even a thing, the only thing you could attack was the player itself, so as a living entity on the battlefield planeswalkers are able to be attacked as well, which was a really good step, do you consider that some negative result?
Do you think that you should only have been able to get rid of planeswalkers with only removals?
Instead how about a mechanic like Fight, or a take on Fight.
Let me stop you right there as it seems you still cannot comprehend the idea yet you claim you do.
In "fight" mechanic, defending player doesn't even have a chance to protect his underlings, since you choose two creature to directly deal their damage to one another, again what you completely missing out is the fact that in mtg you can also block.
I'll skip the next part as it's rambling based on false assumptions, which clearly shows that you haven't understood the whole point and think that this is gonna turn to something like yugioh where you don't even have a chance to protect your creatures by blocking.
For once more, what we are suggesting is more in line with attacking planeswalkers where defending player can still choose blockers in order to protect it than the fight mechanic you are suggesting.
Another big problem with your “summons” is their parasitism. They interact with each other one way, but in all other aspects they might as well be creatures. They are literally creatures with a built in weakness and a ton of rules baggage. Is that necessary?
Again before we are even able to discuss the more specific rullings we should be able to grasp the main concept yet, and that is that a player should have been able to send his troops against his opponent's while the opponent should have a chance to protect his.
The very fact that you even suggesting a fight mechanic means clearly that you haven't understood the whole point.
Let's fight try to get past this negativity of stucking in the old ways and then when we see things more objectively we could talk about the specifics how about it.
Finally, I'm not against said "summons" (whatever you wanna call them.) to be able to attack creatures as well, it was a mere suggestion, as we thought that this wouldn't cause that huge of imbalance because if they were, maybe people would start complaining how they are completely broken, which goes to show that people won't be able to be satisfied with anything, especially change.
I think the mechanical problems have been addressed enough to make it pretty clear, that this proposal is at least problematic and requires changes that are too fundamental to implement without creating a whole new format (if not basically pretty much a different game).
Assuming that you consider mtg to be a completely different game that what it used to be before planeswalker cards came into being then, I agree.
As metter stands it will create huge imbalance with different colors, this is why if such a discussion were to be even made, a new card type should probably introduced that would allow one to do such this, as it would not affect already existing cards.
So I want to focus on the idea that you have to "waste slots in [a] deck to put removals that have nothing to do with the rest of the deck's theme".
If you think of theme in terms of flavor, there are enough options for removal, so you should be able to find something that fits your overall concept.
What we are talking in this specific context is simple:
If you got a vampire deck, you would probably want to add more vampires than removals which would most likely not be Vampire.
If you are playing Aggro you would most likely want to put more cheap drop creatures and battle shenanigans than wasting these slots in order to put removals.
But in both of these two mere instances, you are forced to put removal since it's the only way to get rid of a threat.
This may not have been an issue in the past but with cards like [[Ajani's Pridemate]] this has been increasingly prevalent.
I assume you are rather talking about theme as core strategy though, so it seems you are asking to have answers to more problems without any opportunity costs. And as I see it, that would remove a layer of strategy from the game.
First of all this is the first time we've heard that having more options diminishes strategy.
I wonder if you have the same opinion planeswalkers, so if you weren't able to attack planeswalkers but only be forced to get rid of them with removal, that somehow would increase strategy, or make the game rely more on RNG for the final result?
Cause as things stand you are pretty much on standstill unless one of you draws a removal in order to proceed and this kind of remind poker than actual choice, so unless you think that poker is strategy deep then, we don't know how much this thing can stand on it's own.
If you could just smash everything with the creatures you want to run anyway, that would dumb the game down quite a bit (I'm obviously exaggerating here, but the point should be clear).
Assuming that you have a swarm of creatures I don't see why you shouldn't, I mean in an actual battle you wouldn't want your army to be engaged with opponent's army?
Also to add to that that, having to think the best approach to protect your underlings should probably add strategy, not diminish it.
Sorry but no, it mtg there are a lot of creatures with evasion that it creates a huge imbalance between colors, since defending player's doesn't even have a chance to block in order to be able to protect his creatures.
Not to mention that mtg was designed in such as way as to make it more balanced the way it already is.
- but it was because I played mostly vanilla and French vanilla cards, and because damage stayed on the creatures - I didn't know damage was removed at end of turn either.
In other words you were playing the game according to what made most sense to you right? And assuming your friends were playing the same way probably means that it made sense to them as well, correct me if I'm wrong.
Even if we allowed creatures to block each other when creatures are individually attacked, the game screws up completely as snowballing if you allow them to attack each other.
Jutt to add to that, that that the fact that if something like that were to happen, creature with evasion would probably be used as one turn removal each turn.
You have to necessiate damage to stay on creatures, to make them more limited. This is why Planeswalkers work, by the way. They are simply not the same kind of gamestate as a creature with potentially infinite ability to absorb damage.
Yeah this should probably be the next step of the conversation as the magic community hasn't even accepted the fact that summons should be able to attack other summons in the first place, then we could talk about board state as what you are saying, isn't so crazy after all.
Changing the game rules like this leads either to the Provoke snowball situation if damage is removed as currently (which is a bafflingly unbalanced suggestion) or we'll have damage stay, track it with counters and every creature with other kinds of counters becomes Frankenstein's Monster. It's not a good idea.
This is why a new card type is necessary if we were to even open this pandora's box, cause if it were to be applies to already existing creatures it would create huge imbalance, not to mention that creatures with evasion would probably wreck havoc.
Look at Pokémon, for example - there's a reason Energy is tracked with cards while damage is tracked with counters. It keeps tracking easier.
Although I'm not sure, I suspect that the reason R&D decided to remove damage at the end of turn was because it was time consuming tracking them down on a physical paper game, now with digital, this should probably be a lot easier.
You really want this creature fighting to be a thing? Just go play another card game at that point. It's completely off base to add that to Magic in my eyes. As is, it'll break the game or make board states unreadable.
Not as it currently stands because again, it will create huge imbalance, this is why a new card type should probably be created before we are even allowed to discuss about changing how attacking works.
One thing we need to remmeber though is that before planeswalker cards came into being, the only thing a creature could attack was player itself.
Exactly, this is why it was suggested that evasion should be mitigated, if not in creatures, in summons surely.
So what exactly is the difference between a “creature” and a “summon”?
Other than one is just an obsolete term for the other.
A summon in this context is the term we used to describe an object that is able to act as a creature except it's controller can choose what to attack in attacker's step, that changes nothing for defending player though as he is still able to block as normal.
Summons would most likely be able to attack other summons as well as players and/or planeswalkers and being able to be blocked by defending player's creatures and/or summons.
Edit: We decided to reuse the term exactly because it was rendered obsolete.
Although I agree about lands, they are used mainly as mana source so, I wouldn't recommend going in that direction.
As for artifacts however I will 100% definitely agree that they should have toughness as well, since they are material things on the battlefield, hence it would make sense that they could break, unfortunately though as long as they don't have toughness there is no way of determining how much it takes for each one to get destroyed by an attack.
True, but so is true that you are a creature as well above being a planeswalker.
Same can be said for creatures as you are basically summon them in order to do things for you.
I really don't think that really matters, and secondly planeswalkers themselves are just copies of famous wizards when you call upon them.
Which is exactly that, most new players won't need an explanation since they already assume it.
It's not the same, as you are not able to block in order to protect your creatures at will but have to rely on the choices your opponent makes.
We don't see why not, it's a new card type that functions similarly yet different from creatures.
During the period of transition that indeed might be the problem, but that was the problem with redirection rule since planeswalker cards were a new thing back then and older cards didn't have an errata that specifically targeted planeswalkers as well, so they decided to make the 'redirection rule' until the transition ended.
I agree, but changing the rules like this will cause a huge balance problems as the games wasn't designed so that creatures could attack one another hence it will pretty much break the game if it were for them to suddenly change, not to mention that most veteran players won't be happy since they have got used to this all these decades.
What you are proposing about changing the rules for creatures can't even happen logically.
Firstly is the reason why the rulings can't change for older cards and the only plausible way is to make a new card type.
Admittedly it will never happen of course, just saying that it would be the only way.
Secondly, adding more choices leading to "diminishing" choices is kind of an oximoron don't you think?
The very fact that you think that in heartstone you can protect your creatures, means that you haven't completely comprehend the concept.
There will be a lot of situations where attacking won't be an answer as there would be a blockers in your way, just like regular magic, not at best a couple of creatures with taunt.
So having to think of ways to protect your underlings also adds a strategic value, because simply holding back will not only be enough, but you would also have to hold back in order have blockers to protect your other troops.
Attacking is not an answer to everything in magic games, especially when faced with even more options, if nothing else, you would see players holding of creatures in order to protect others, so pretty much the exact opposite actually happens from what you predicted.
What do you do when you have multiple planeswalkers who get attacked? You stop the game because you find it too complicated or your opponent simply moves the pieces to make it clear who attacks who, why you think there would be any different than that?
No it isn't considered blocking, and yes they can, block each other, to swap combat situations, and this is why you would more often that not players holding back since they will soon realize that attacking is not the answer to everything as they though it is.
When one has to think how to protect your creatures on top of all others, he realized that he has to think even more strategically than that.
So most of the times removals are still the only option, as attacking will not be an answer.
Exactly, and that's why it was stated that players could block as well in order to take the damage instead.
You have a point, despite this however, the number of new players who assume that being able to attack to one unit just like the other, should be taken into consideration, which up until now (and probably never.) it hasn't.
This is why it's no correction, but addition just like the addition of planeswalker cards, so veteran players won't have to adjust but only the new players.
And exactly for that reason this needs to be implemented.
I'd argue that most new players assume that you can attack creatures, especially when they see that you can do the same with planeswalkers, why? Because it makes sense, right?
If a unit can comprehend the command to attack on a certain piece, why it wouldn't comprehend it for another?
And here is the thing, once that's implemented you won't even have to explain it anymore. That's how intuitive design works.
This has nothing to do with intuitive design at all, we are talking about two completely different things, one relates to how players learn a term, whereas the second is already being used by new players since it makes sense to them, until they learn that they are doing it wrong by the rules.
Yet when it does function, is easier for new players to understand and thus transition from other games.
And here is the magic of intuitive design, that you don't even have to tell them because they already apply it most likely since it makes more sense.
Once more, once a rule that makes sense from a common sense perspective is implemented, you won't even have to "teach" them because they would most likely already apply for themselves.
First of all, one can't say the addition of an extra card type as "fix" but more like an "addition" just like the planeswalker card type.
Secondly, of course if it were to just pop, it would create balancing issues because the game wasn't designed for that, balancing wise.
That is why they are not "changes" but additions, players who play vintage legacy or even modern, won't even get affected, so speaking about "history" really falls of the mark here.
I like how you are acting as if I have the power to do so, despite this would never probably happen since people immediately associate it with yugioh, completely disregarding the fact that in magic you can also block, just like you block to protect your planeswalker from losing loyalty.
Trust me, you really have nothing to be afraid, the idea will never get implemented as the amount of negativity surrounding it is too big for just one person with his silly idea, there is really no reason to get all patriotic.
Of course we do because indeed in pokemon and yugioh you have no ability to block in order to protect your units.
Have you ever considered that I'm not interested in such games to begin with? From what I saw, yugioh, doen't even have an actual combat but comparing numbers that's all.
Then tell me a game where you can attack units but are also able to protect them by using your other units?
"That behaves like a creature but isn't a creature" wait? How can it behave like a creature the moment it can attack other pieces of the same card type?
Creatures can't do that, right? You may say 'similarly' but not 'like' a, because 'similarly' implies a certain amount of difference.
New players already apply this as it would makes more sense, you, yourself said that you have to explain to them, not to do that, rather than the opposite, so what you are saying it's kind contradictory don't you think?
Because it will mess up the balance of older cards maybe? Why would they need to be the same thing?
If it were to go well, and the old type slowly phased out, then new players would only have to deal with summons, not creatures, that's why.
While veteran players could still enjoy the game exactly the way they were used to while newer player would have more option in regards to their troops.
Except they wouldn't even need to because by then, it would just be summons.
You think with this much negativity and false association with yugioh mechanics it's an easy thing to do?
When it can't even been comprehended to a forum and it is immediately faced as an absurd concept, how do you expect it to go forward?
People have got used to their ways and despise additions, maybe there have been a lot lately and people grew tired of them, the 'Saga' cards are pretty new themselves for example, even for a subtype.
Again, one can't pretty much consider this as a "change" but rather as an "addition" but I agree, this would never be implemented, there is too much negativity and association with other games mechanic mistakenly assumed for it to go forward.
To tell you the truth, no one expect it to change.
I wouldn't say that giving the player more control over his units would turn mtg into a totally different game altogether, but admittedly it would be a huge change in the way the player would now have to also think how they would protect their troops as well, giving an additional layer of strategic thinking.
I can't understand how much damage exactly he thinks they do since they don't really have an 'attack' number, but I can understand why he might think so, I mean when creatures enter combat they deal damage to one another, so that would probably should apply to planeswalkers as well, because it would make sense, but apparently it doesn't, which is a shame.
However there is an exception with certain planeswalkers who have the ability to turn into creatures, but that shouldn't normally apply only to exceptions.
Maybe because the redirection rule was indeed a stupid thing? Thankfully they changed the rule so it makes much more sense now, hopefully they would keep walking on that path.
This is a totally unrelated issue, but personally I think that Artifacts should be attacked as well, since they are things on the battlefield, it would make sense to be able to send your unit to attack it, unfortunately they don't have toughness (Which they should, because an item has toughness, just like any material thing, creatures for one.)
If I see that there is a demand, of course I would like to, even though (I don't know exactly how to do that on this forum.)
So if people would indeed want to test out I'm all up for it.
Unfortunately there are no 'summon' cards yet, so if we were to try, we would have to stick to 'creatures' for now.
So if anyone is interested let me know the process of creation so I can test this with a third party as you suggested, I'm all up for it as long as there is not much negativity surrounding the idea.
And this is exactly why one can't simply put this ruling into existing game, since the game wasn't designed for it.
There would need to be a lot of rebalancing even after something like this were to be put to use, for example making instant or sorceries stronger as to give players a reason still be using them in the same quantity.
That is still not an excuse not to make the game more intuitive.
Again it's too early to talk about the specifics of rebalancing when the very concept sounds absurd to most veteran mtg players.
Of course the game would need to be rebalanced, because of course it wasn't designed this way to begin with but we can talk about the specifics after the initial proposition isn't faced with such negativity because the notion of sending your troops against your opponent's horde sounds absurd.
You however spend a good chunk of space talking about balancing issues that WoTC won't fix because of money, which is in itself, unrelated, but that's beside the point.
Even still, in other games you don't have a chance to protect what is being attacked by blocking it.
That's what yugioh does for example. So, attacking in yugioh, compared to attacking players/planeswalkers, is a completely different thing.
That is indeed correct, as there needs to be a huge revamp in order to make the game more intuitive.
Though by presenting the idea of a new card type, will make older cards not being affected by that so, this won't affect legacy, vintage or even modern players. So they could still enjoy it exactly the way they were used to, still.
Besides my play group, there are a lot of balancing issues that prevent players from doing so in a legal manner since the game by itself wasn't designed this way.
The biggest problem one can think of is creatures with evasion which would essentially get turned into one turn removals since they will usually go by unblocked, not even mentioning unblockables.
Now in my play group, we indeed apply a certain set of rules so the game the game won't break.
Still, the point is not this, it's the negativity that surrounds the very notion because people immediately assume yugioh it terms of battle, completely disregarding the fact that in magic you can also block in order to protect your permanent just like you do with planeswalkers.
We still got a long way to go until this notion is vanished and people detach their mindset from yugioh mentality, until then the only thing we can do is just clearing the picture.
This pretty much sums up the whole experience trying to explain to people over and over that in yugioh and pokemon you don't have a chance to protect your troops because in magic there is something called blocking which allows you to protect your troops.
As long as people have their mindset attached to yugioh, this simple concept will always be faced with negativity because people immediately assume that the game will be dunbed down instead of getting more deep strategy-wise.
Seems like you are way of topic, we were discussing about making the game more intuitive, new players already assume that your underlings are able to be commanded to attack other underlings, when we were discussing about planeswalkers, we weren't talking about them gameplay wise, but as a unit that is able to be attacked, which is a good step towards making the game make more sense in that regard.
Now our personal distaste of this card type due to ability reasons is a complete separate matter.
I too have personally happened to quit many MTGA games when I see a planeswalker as a free to play player, but that still has nothing to do with the current conversation about making the game more intuitive.
There is no point in commenting further as the post starts to go way of track.
This is not some personal issue, this is about making the game more intuitive.
New players already assume that if you can command your underling to attack one entity, then it would make sense to be able to command it to attack another entity as well.
Planeswalker cards when they were created, made the game walk towards that direction.
Besides it's not only a 'creature' matter, as artifacts should normally have been able to be attacked as well, since they are 'things' on the battlefield.
I'll admit that being able to choose along with your opponent which creatures attack (thus exposed to defensing player.) would be the closest thing that has ever been stated here, but it still far away from making the game more intuitive.
Edit: Besides that, there are also several probelsm with the card you presented as, there is still no way for the "attacking" player to protect his creature once it has been declared as an attacker, so he can't put blockers to protect it from creature that would be blocking it.
Not entirely true as there have been for quite some time some cards which are called 'Planeswalkers', so there is still board advantage change.
Actually not because as things stand right now, whoever has the biggest creature can win, but if there was an option to send your smaller creatures to the big one, you could still gain board advantage without having to rely either on a big creature or a removal.
This is exactly why this should be applied.
A little vague argument, but we weren't discussing about creatures themselves, but for a new card type so that it wouldn't affect older cards.
Giving more options to the player increases depth and strategy because there would be the additional layer or having to think how you can protect your troops as well.
Not quite since if you don't block (either with another creature or with your player.) then the creature obviously gets... well.. attacked. Makes sense?
So there would be consequences and that would be part of the additional strategy depth.
I never said that it would should be a change just for the sake of chaning, the only thing that was being said was making the game more intuitive.
Secondly even with two creature you would still have problems as the player would probably block himself thus taking the damage so it wouldn't benefit the player in advance to attack just like that.
Not to mention that as things already stand the player who has the advantage gets the benefit because he doesn't have to think whether he should protect his big creature from a swarm of smaller creatures.
This pretty much gives a huge advantage to the player that has the big creature since he won't have to worry whether his underling is gonna be attacked.
Remember that before planeswalker cards came into being, the only thing one could attack was the player.
So with a new card type being added, the old cards wouldn't need to be affected thus the 'redesign' would only apply to the new cards.
I agree that if the new card comes into being and the old creatures slowly phase out from future's standard the future standards would be a totally different game from say 'Vintage' but I don't think that is necessarily a bad result, since the only thing that actually done, was the creation of that new card type, so players could still play magic exactly as it was while those who want intuitive innovation could enjoy the game as well.
So it's a win for both.
Of course it should, it would also be awesome to have different 'locations' for the player to command his creatures to go so they would evade their attackers. Up to now, players can only give up to three commands to their creatures 'attack player', 'attack planeswalker' and 'block' it would be awesome to have another command saying 'leave area' of course that creature shouldn't be able to target other creatures with it's abilities since it's no longer in that specific area, neither should +1/+1 be applies to creatures since they are not in the same area to receive the buff.
This is still a specific matter in a problem, when there hasn't even been a positive perspective to the base concept.
When most people find the idea of creatures attacking other creatures as absurd, how can we even be able to discuss the details of that matter?
To most veteran mtg players this basic concept comes from the sphere of "doesn't make sense"
So until there can be a comprehension of the basic premise, it's pointless to try and delve into the details for now.
What if there are many cats? Why wouldn't a pack of sabretooth's be able to down a T-Rex?
Even small bugs invisible to the eye could make a dent to a huge creature if they all decide to attack together as a swarm, especially when they are commanded to.
Well if they are indestructible it doesn't matter by how many they get attacked, it still won't die due to lethal damage, if they are not, then why wouldn't it?
It actually makes sense because there is something called "Calling backup" if you see your planeswalker get hit by a swarm of creatures, wouldn't you want to call back up before he loses faith in you?
Blockers are for that reason: To block. If you have killed the first wave, defending player should send the next if he has one available.
Well rules of the game were created as means to represent the combat, that is why there are terms such as 'attacking' or 'blocking'.
It isn't just a game of poker where a pair of two's somehow of better than the King (Which is well beyond the two's combined.)
The rules were meant to represent the current battle as it was unfolding to the current battlefield.
There are a lot of factors one might be forced to take an action they might not want, I don't know Mr.Garfield personally and magic had been the best tcg there ever was, but we shouldn't lose our common sense just because of something that happened to be or what the end result of something was.
We should always strive to think for ourselves, that is not saying that we shouldn't compromise when needed, but no one should have to in that particular case. MTG is a really great game that we enjoy and love, but at the same time is not that bad to agree that it has flaws.
To be honest I would personally want to ask him as well, but I'm suspecting that the answer would be for balancing reasons, maybe there was some card back then that might completely broke the game and they made that decision because they figured it was the best decision they could make at that particular moment.
Probably if the game was designed today from the scratch all over, they might have made it completely different.
To be honest I wouldn't as well, cause it would probably end up like another hearthstone clone where you don't even have a chance to protect your creatures and the board is a complete cluster**** from the way it constantly changes from turn to turn.
Magic is probably the best tgc that was created, but it could be better, it got an upgrade when planeswalker cards came into being, giving a deeper flavor to the game that made it more intuitive since you were able to do thing that should make sense like being able to command an attack a living being besides the player on the battlefield where it wasn't previously available.
At the same time magic has something that other tcgs don't have: The ability to protect something when it gets attacked, like you should be able to.
Other games I assume they took that feature out due to simplicity but they missed the chance to make their games have a deeper sense of strategy due to that foolish decision.
I would like to apologize in advance for sounding kind of heretic, but we believe that being able to attack any living entity with your troops makes sense as well.
But you can also give them specific order to attempt to attack a specific threatening captain before you go for the overlord, as well, right?
Completely understandable.
Well there are also troops that might have ranged weapons, no? Plus defending player should always have a chance to block in order to protect something, this doesn't happen with removal.
Which has been proven in the history of wars to not be an efficient way to victory.
Maybe for you going straight to the overlord might seem the only option but for the rest of the people they usually attack his bodyguards or even using spies, that is how war is actually done.
Yes, defending player will always have a chance to protect his troops against the enemy horde, we can agree on that.
I have to apologize but this is not how wars are actually fought, this is more like a caricature of how a person who was never witnessed a war in his life, thinks what war is actually like.
Usually actual wars happen in a long period of time and magic has a good way of representing that with healing the troops at the end of turns and even placing lands which gives a hint that the player might have actually traversed a new land in the process and acquired it's power.
But even if it was actually how you described it, by your own logic, you shouldn't be able to attack planeswalkers as well, since you would have already yelled "charge!!!!" at this point.
It's good to not be absolute about anything as in magic there is the existence of huge creatures who might need more manpower in order to be taken down.
And this is the issue, the notion of how a war is fought throughout movies, not the actual combat itself.
We can agree on that.
Which is why no actual war is fought this way.
Of course it probably won't, here even regular people see even the notion of being able to individually decide who to attack with disgust, imagine how R&D will especially if they would have to create the rulling for the supposed new card type.
To tell you the truth, no one is expecting WoTC to actually implement that, we just wanted to see if the magic community feels, and of course the result was negative, but one would never guess it would be such negative as to have people try to defend an absurd system to this extend.
I don't think so, since it's something that would have had implemented already. Besides we don't think that WoTC actually sees feedback even less from a forum such as this, they are most likely talking about balancing issues to upcomming sets rather than fundamentals.
Well as a matter of fact we have been doing this for over 5 years, since it made most sense to my fellow pupils, and were negative on the idea of using the actual rules since they claim that it doesn't make sense.
As a result we had to ban several cards (Especially cards who dealt with evasion, for example ublockability was banned since it was used as one turn free removal.)
Still the amount of time doesn't matter, what matters is that by making the game more intuitive, it becomes more friendly to newcomers, not to mention that having to think what underlings you have to protect adds an additional layer of strategy.
Now I won't get into the specifics as it doesn't seem to have the magic community interested.
This is exactly why mtg needs intuitive design so it won't have to teach as much to newcomers who are making assumptions based on what would make most sense.
True that, and it's kind of apparent as they have gotten so much used to it, that even mention something that may come out of the box is very negatively received.
We are just kind of finding sad that this matter has become so convoluted to begin with, it really should have been a really simple concept, with admittedly a good chunk of additional rules for the supposed new card type.
It's just kind of sad that it hasn't been implemented still. even after the arrival of planeswalker cards which are nearing almost ten years since their creation back at Lorwyn block.
Anyway I digress, I want to thank you though for spending your time reading and replying to this, maybe even if the magic community is negative in this regard at least some members are willing to discuss the issue and not completely disregard it.
Thank you again and have an awesome week
You do realize that the only reason we decided not to apply them to creatures is so it won't create an imbalance to the game, right?
Not to mention that new player do it anyway even though it's wrong according to the current rules, maybe?
It's really unfortunate that you have this negative view about this matter. I would like to thank you though for spending your time reading and replying.
Except that this would be a new card type as well, and for that exact purpose.
No we don't want to change how creatures attack or block, we are saying how this new card type would work.
Maybe to you the notion of being able to send your troops against the opponent's might sound absurd, but really it doesn't sound that absurd, especially to new players, also let us not forget that in mtg you can also block.
Were creatures able to attack other creatures? I think not, so this is definitely a new card type that would function similarly, indeed, but different in that aspect, as to make the game more intuitive.
We never said that this would be a huge change anyway, so here's that.
Actually new players who haven't got good grasp of the game, already doing this without even knowing that they are doing it wrong, since I've seem many new players saying that their creature is going to attack this creature and then proceed to blockers.
Trust me it's rather the opposite as it makes it clearer to new players that they can attack any living entity (which they should have been in my humble opinion from the beginning.)
First of all this won't always be the case since, once more, defending player will always have chance to block and you wouldn't simply just send your troops to the opposite side if the opponent has an answer, so they wouldn't be used as answers to threats as well so casually as you might think.
Secondly, you won't have unlimited answers anyway, in any situation.
It's the opposite rather since as things stand you don't have to think that much of deckbuilding when you simply have to fill the rest of the gap with random removals since there is no other way to get rid of bigger threats, but if you weren't force to cause of this reason, then you would have to double-think the cards you should be putting in your deck, which would rather make deck building more deep than it already is.
Mtg is already confusing to new players, so intuitive design should mitigate this.
Don't get stuck with the word, I used it as an example for any card that acts like a creature but is able to attack other entities, (call them whatever you want.), you are free to make any suggestion.
We merely use the tern since it has been rendered obsolete, it doesn't mean that this should be the absolute.
Maybe to you the sound of being able to send your army against another army may not sound appealing. But not everyone shares that feeling.
I don't think we have come to a point where we can discuss rullings, when we aren't even liking the idea of being able to send troops against other troops.
It's just to early to talk about the specifics yet.
Not only that, but we should also consider the imbalances that this would possibly create before even attempting to make suggestions.
In my personal opinion yes, because it adds a layer of intuitive learning to new players that they are able to send their army against their opponent's army as well as other living entities on the battlefield.
If we are blinded because we like to play the game as it might make more sense and tweaking with rules here and there in order to make them balanced then we probably are.
This is because we have been getting huge negativity simply for suggesting that a player should be able to send his troops against the opponent's as it would make more sense, and instead we are treated like we wanna change it to yugioh or something, because people can't comprehend the idea that in mtg you can block as well in order to protect your army.
I never said that it was an idea that one should be impressed from the fact that you should have been able to send your troops against the opponent's it should simply make sense, not impress.
Well, I don't consider myself as a "creative person" nor that I'm in love with something that should have been there from the beginning.
I simply say that if mtg wants to survive, it should become more intuitive. That's all, it really shouldn't have been that huge deal to begin with.
And this is what is it, another input that would probably help the game become more intuitive.
Now this sound like more than a personal feeling, than actual argument.
This is literally equivalent to "Skyrim belongs to the Nords" argument.
Why should we stick to the old ways when as you yourself suggested mtg was improoved because it was getting imput.
Again let's not forget that before planeswalker cards were even a thing, the only thing you could attack was the player itself, so as a living entity on the battlefield planeswalkers are able to be attacked as well, which was a really good step, do you consider that some negative result?
Do you think that you should only have been able to get rid of planeswalkers with only removals?
Let me stop you right there as it seems you still cannot comprehend the idea yet you claim you do.
In "fight" mechanic, defending player doesn't even have a chance to protect his underlings, since you choose two creature to directly deal their damage to one another, again what you completely missing out is the fact that in mtg you can also block.
I'll skip the next part as it's rambling based on false assumptions, which clearly shows that you haven't understood the whole point and think that this is gonna turn to something like yugioh where you don't even have a chance to protect your creatures by blocking.
For once more, what we are suggesting is more in line with attacking planeswalkers where defending player can still choose blockers in order to protect it than the fight mechanic you are suggesting.
Again before we are even able to discuss the more specific rullings we should be able to grasp the main concept yet, and that is that a player should have been able to send his troops against his opponent's while the opponent should have a chance to protect his.
The very fact that you even suggesting a fight mechanic means clearly that you haven't understood the whole point.
Let's fight try to get past this negativity of stucking in the old ways and then when we see things more objectively we could talk about the specifics how about it.
Finally, I'm not against said "summons" (whatever you wanna call them.) to be able to attack creatures as well, it was a mere suggestion, as we thought that this wouldn't cause that huge of imbalance because if they were, maybe people would start complaining how they are completely broken, which goes to show that people won't be able to be satisfied with anything, especially change.
Assuming that you consider mtg to be a completely different game that what it used to be before planeswalker cards came into being then, I agree.
As metter stands it will create huge imbalance with different colors, this is why if such a discussion were to be even made, a new card type should probably introduced that would allow one to do such this, as it would not affect already existing cards.
What we are talking in this specific context is simple:
If you got a vampire deck, you would probably want to add more vampires than removals which would most likely not be Vampire.
If you are playing Aggro you would most likely want to put more cheap drop creatures and battle shenanigans than wasting these slots in order to put removals.
But in both of these two mere instances, you are forced to put removal since it's the only way to get rid of a threat.
This may not have been an issue in the past but with cards like [[Ajani's Pridemate]] this has been increasingly prevalent.
First of all this is the first time we've heard that having more options diminishes strategy.
I wonder if you have the same opinion planeswalkers, so if you weren't able to attack planeswalkers but only be forced to get rid of them with removal, that somehow would increase strategy, or make the game rely more on RNG for the final result?
Cause as things stand you are pretty much on standstill unless one of you draws a removal in order to proceed and this kind of remind poker than actual choice, so unless you think that poker is strategy deep then, we don't know how much this thing can stand on it's own.
The whole point is that even if you identify them you probably can't do anything until you draw the removal, cause you simply have no other options.
Assuming that you have a swarm of creatures I don't see why you shouldn't, I mean in an actual battle you wouldn't want your army to be engaged with opponent's army?
Also to add to that that, having to think the best approach to protect your underlings should probably add strategy, not diminish it.
Why? Because it would make sense right? This is called intuitive playing, just to clarify.
Sorry but no, it mtg there are a lot of creatures with evasion that it creates a huge imbalance between colors, since defending player's doesn't even have a chance to block in order to be able to protect his creatures.
Not to mention that mtg was designed in such as way as to make it more balanced the way it already is.
In other words you were playing the game according to what made most sense to you right? And assuming your friends were playing the same way probably means that it made sense to them as well, correct me if I'm wrong.
Jutt to add to that, that that the fact that if something like that were to happen, creature with evasion would probably be used as one turn removal each turn.
Yeah this should probably be the next step of the conversation as the magic community hasn't even accepted the fact that summons should be able to attack other summons in the first place, then we could talk about board state as what you are saying, isn't so crazy after all.
This is why a new card type is necessary if we were to even open this pandora's box, cause if it were to be applies to already existing creatures it would create huge imbalance, not to mention that creatures with evasion would probably wreck havoc.
Although I'm not sure, I suspect that the reason R&D decided to remove damage at the end of turn was because it was time consuming tracking them down on a physical paper game, now with digital, this should probably be a lot easier.
Not as it currently stands because again, it will create huge imbalance, this is why a new card type should probably be created before we are even allowed to discuss about changing how attacking works.
One thing we need to remmeber though is that before planeswalker cards came into being, the only thing a creature could attack was player itself.
A summon in this context is the term we used to describe an object that is able to act as a creature except it's controller can choose what to attack in attacker's step, that changes nothing for defending player though as he is still able to block as normal.
Summons would most likely be able to attack other summons as well as players and/or planeswalkers and being able to be blocked by defending player's creatures and/or summons.
Edit: We decided to reuse the term exactly because it was rendered obsolete.