The rule of creatures can attack other creatures like they are all Planeswalkers would work and probably work fine in a casual format like Commander, so decks that are filled with creatures can more easily remove specific creatures.
Although as matters stand it will create a huge imbalance, this is why if such a rule were to be made it shouldn't affect already existing creature but a new card type such as "summons" or something else.
Since if it were to be applied right now, creatures with evasion will be used as one turn free removal.
Its especially bad simply because it gives the attacking player another option, which is the last we need or want, as magics biggest strength is the options the defending player gets compared to most other card games, in which the attacker has all the advantages.
Again as the current play stands with so many unblockables of course this wouldn't be wise.
But still we need to remember that in magic you can also block, since most people tend to compare that with yugioh, so I don't know if the attacking player would have all the advantages if the defending player has blockers to block with.
If you allow every creature itself to act like a planeswalker in terms of declaring to attack them, it also becomes quite a cluster fk when lots of attackers are declared and such ; it can be done in a convenient way, but thats much better for a casual format and you can even try it with some friends.
This already applies in blockers step already, this although has already been solved by setting aside the pieces to make the board make more sense.
Also this is a really bad idea if it were to be applied to existing creatures as it would create huge imbalance, this is why a new card type should probably be created for that before we even discussing attacking.
Again with provoke you are just forcing a creature to block, defending player has no way of protecting that creature with other blockers since it is considered a blocker itself.
What we are saying here is more in line with attacking planeswalkers thus giving defending player a chance to block in order to protect said planeswalker/summon than anything else.
People tend to compare this with yugioh or hearthstone mechanic or even provoke just like you mentioned, though all of these methods don't give your opponent a chance to protect the summon that is being attacked by any other means.
If people detached their mindset from this mentality they would realize that when a summon attacks another summon the controller of the summon which is being attacked will always have a chance of blocking with other creatures/summons in order to protect it.
Creatures able to attack other creatures directly, makes First Strike, Haste and Protection from even more powerful and allow these abilites to snowball wven more. In addition direct damage spells even become more powerful allowing you to interact with attackers and blockers while still having the versatility of being able to target players and planeswalkers.
Also desthtouch becomes completely overpowered on 1 mana creatures.
You are right, as things stand right now, if something like that were to suddenly come, it would make make the game
totally unbalanced.
I could also add that unblockable or summons with evasion in general would simply be one turn free removal, this is why if something like that were to even be suggested first evasion should be mitigated, personally I'd say that unblockable summons shouldn't even be a thing to begin with and many other summons should also have reach or other defend abilities to be able to protect from evasion in general, the player though should probably be able to block anything, in order to take the damage for himself to protect his/her summons.
The creatures are basically your summoned army that can defend you.
Your summons should also be able to defend you by attempting to kill other summons that may be a threat to you as well.
[quote from="HugSeal »" url="/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-general/811570-i-think-its-about-time-someone-says-it?comment=28"]I don't see how it would make sense to be able to attack certain creatures when you can see the atttackers coming and simply reposition them to avoid that.
What if the opponent's summon has a ability to spawn tokens every turn so the more you leave it the bigger the threat it becomes, this is why we also have removals, remember? So instead of always being forced to have removal in case the enemy has a utility summon that it will gradually becomes more and more of a threat (Either by getting +1/+1 every turn or by spawning tokens.)
So if you have a swarm at that time, why should they wait and watch it grow? Why wouldn't it make sense to attempt to take care of that now (Assuming the opponent doesn't have good blockers to protect the creature.)
You don't fill decks with random removal and there are tonnes of ways to protect things from removal.
I wouldn't say tons but yes indeed there are a few like counters, buffing before damage, hexproof ect, still that's not an excuse for not not being able to attack as well.
And as much as I want to agree with you, the fact is that you need the random removals in your deck if you want it to be viable in a matchup, since you can't do anything if the opponent has a utility creature unless he himself decides to either attack with it (thus exposing it.) or block a bigger creature, which would probably never happen unless either by mistake or the opponent uses it as a shield in desperation since he would lose otherwise.
Shouldn't you be able to attack their other things too then? Send some troops to burn the plains, some oters to crush some weird hatHelm of the host and yet another one should be able to jump in the way of a Lightning Bolt aimed at someone else.
That would be good, except there aren't any measurable ways to do it, for example how much damage should a land take before it gets destroyed?
In summons this should be measurable by their toughness,
Now I'd agree too for instance that artifacts should also break if they get enough damage but the problem is that there is no measurable way to be able to calculate the damage needed for an artifact to break/destroyed as well.
Anyway I digress, as long as non-creature artifacts or lands don't have toughness it's pointless to discuss about it for now, I really hope this would happen as well at some later point.
Although to be honest I wouldn't like mana sources to be able to get destroyed that easily. (If it was up to me they would simply called 'mana sources' and not 'lands' to begin with since as you suggested a 'land' should be something that could get ravaged.)
My point is that this suggestion is basically revamping the entire game to correct one thing that you think seems odd (I disagree).
I wouldn't say "revamping" as even before planeswalker cards came out creatures couldn't attack anything but the players, did magic became something completely different from what it used to be, or it got even more deep since the planeswalker card type was introduced?
This is why I refrain from using the term "creature" and instead I use "summon".
I want to thank you for spending your time conversing, let me know if there is any misunderstandings, I'm always happy to reply to messages.
even more so than it already is in formats filled with removal spells ; if a creature can just kill other creatures, you need less removal and simply bigger and better creatures (especially first strike and deathtouch become really brutal).
Or if you could actually attack other creatures with your creatures then you could just put cards that have something to do with the theme of your deck instead of filling it with random removals just because it's the only way to actually get rid of annoyances, which by the way, cannot be protected from removals.
Imagine trying to represent a complex board state visually. Which creatures are attacking which.
It's really not that bad, especially if you take aside the attackers with the attacked creature, then the controller of the attacked creature can just put the blocking creatures in the middle, just like in a regular game.
You attack my creature, I choose my self to block. I still get the same choice, just in a different way.
Currently, you attack me, I choose to block or not. The end result doesn’t vary.
Except that just like a creature the player could only (normally) block one creature, which means that if your opponent attacks with a swarm your creature, he could actually do damage to it.
They did directly attacking creatures with the provoke mechanic.
Provoke doesn't allow you to attack creatures, it simply forces them to block with said creature, which means that you can't use other creatures to block thus protecting the creature with provoke.
That is why I limited this comment to if you couldn't defend your creatures.
My apologies then about that, still you wouldn't be able to defend your creatures from a lot of things, right? I mean if you 1 dropped something and got shocked, I understand that the creature thing could bring imbalance but that doesn't change the fact that early drop creatures are also vulnerable to early game removal as well.
I'm sure there are even more questions/problems that would arise from such a change. Its interesting to think about at least.
I'm glad I could give some food for thought, still I need to pin down that doing this to current card type would bring disaster balance wise.
Can they block the creature that is attacking them to get a block trigger?
An interesting question, one which could also bring disadvantages besides advantages, for example let's say you have a triggered ability which triggers when a creature you control becomes blocking, then if your opponent happens to have a Gideon's Reproach at that time, it would also be vulnerable to that, if that were the case.
In the early turns you can't count of having other creatures to defend your utility creatures
But you could use yourself to protect your early game utility creatures by blocking, if that were the case.
Say for example you drop a Llanowar Elves first turn, then your opponent throws something with haste, you block it and take the damage for youtself, second turn you have Druid of the Cowl and yourself to either use for mana or protect your Llanowar Elves, for instance.
This is all ignoring the mountain of details that would need to be hammered out regarding evasion abilities.
Agreed I just thrown an example, still in my opinion this should a probably a new card type, not creatures, something that won't affect older cards so they could continue to play as they used to, let's call the "Summon" for example since it's a term that has previously been used by MTG to describe creatures, this "Summon" thingy could simply act as a "Creature" with the additional ruling that it could attack other "Summons".
If a "Summon" for example has flying then it would read as "This summon can only be attacked or blocked by summons with either flying or reach".
That's the only way I could practically see it working so it won't ruin the balance of older formats.
I would like to ask for clarification on how you would like this 'attacking creatures' to work. Your earlier response seems to indicate that as a player I could choose to block an attack on my creature. If this is the case I want to ask, other than adding more visible decision points would this actually change anything? In a game where you desperately want to attack a creature, the player would just defend in the same way that they simply wouldn't block.
If it's only one creature that it's attacking it wouldn't make much difference since the player could block and take the damage himself, but if there are more (Say you have for example four 1/1 tokens and the opponent has a 3/3.) then say you could declare attackers attacking that 3/3 creature, the opponent could block one of those four and the other three would deal their damage to the 3/3 which would pretty much clean the board by the time the combat is over.
But if your opponent has a 2/2 along with that 3/3 and you had your three 1/1 then one of those creatures could be blocked by the player and the other by the 2/2 and only the two 1/1 would result dealing their damage to the 3/3 which would result it surviving.
If that isn't how you wanted it then its a fairly detrimental change that essentially kills utility creatures which are a significant part of the game.
Planeswalker are also utility permanent essentially but still they can be attacked as normally.
The problem is not that, the problem is the balancing issues that would arise from the colors since some may get more benefits than others (Token decks for example would thrive, assuming the other player doesn't play with evasion.)
For example, I don't think it makes sense to have multiple copies of the same card in your deck, since the cards are like pages in a book that tells you how to cast spells. So why multiple pages of the same spell in your library? But there is a format for that: Singleton
Well, cards in your hand represent your knowledge at that time, if you know something well, then you could be casting in multiple times so it makes sense it that regard.
Planeswalker cards also doens't make a lot of sense, because again: it is like you're gathering mana to cast... another mage almost as powerful as you???
Well, when you are able to summon one kind of entity, why should you be able to summon another? (Provided you have the knowledge to cast it.)
Maybe someday it becomes popular, who knows. But a major change would be rough and affect too many cards and change a lot of the way you play Magic.
Well, to be honest I don't think this would ever happen since MTG has had this rule since ever, so up until Planeswalker cards came into being, the only thing creatures could attack were the players only.
I play my Ezuri to stabilize the board and then suddently you kill it with your 1/1s abd I can't do a thing about it.
Well, if one player has a big creature it would make sense to be possible for it to get taken down by a swarm of smaller ones, just like blockers.
A change like this would recreate Magic entirely.
And this is exactly why I think this would never happen, if it were to happen to would make a lot of balancing issues and would totally mess up the structure.
So... as an alternative, like a new format where you can attack creatures, that seems totally fine and yes, it makes much more sense lorewise. But a major change... Hmmmm. It would be like allowing to play with hands in football suddently. It changes the game so much that it would become another game.
True, I don't see it happening anytime soon as well, unless they come up with a new card type just like they did with the planeswalker so they won't mess tge balance of older formats.
I have thought of that too a long time ago, but still it doesn't work the same way because you force a creature to block so defending player can't protect it and choose other blockers to protect it.
Should you be able to attack an unblockable creature?
Probably not, same with flying unless you choose to attack said flying with either another flying or reach creature, generally if it can't block it, it can't attack it as well probably.)
Would an attacked creature count as a blocking creature
Would an attaced planeswalked count as a blocking planeswalker?
Could I attack your Doomgape with five 1/1 devil tokens to have them all die and each deal 5 damage to your Doomgape, thus dealing ten damage and saving myself from trample damage that would occur if you attacked me?
If Doomgape attacked and you blocked with said devils you would be able to do that right?
Same situation here (provided the other player doesn't protect it by blocking with other creatures.)
From an initial look, red and green would prosper from this greatly while the other colors (white and blue especially) would suffer considerably. Interestingly enough, red and green are home to both the provoke and fight mechanic.
I'm not sure, cause blue has bouncers and white has bounds with blockers as well, it shouldn't be that easy.
If you want a flavor reason, think of yourself as being able to see via movie-spy satellites onto the opponent’s battlefield, but your creatures/troops can only see in general areas.
So if that was the case, if two 2/2 creatures happened to stumble upon another 4/4 creature while they were in that general area they should be able to try and kill it right? Still this can't happen because even though they are in that area they are so obsessed on finding the defending player or planeswalker that when one of them gets blocked by the 4/4 the other other one doesn't even have the choice to help it so they can kill the 4/4 together and leaves the other 2/2 to fend for itself while it keeps searching for the player, that's actual MTG, so unless the player uses a Band Together the other creature will leave the one to fend for itself against the bigger one.
Sure no problem, misunderstanding happen always, it's part of discussion.
I would really like your feedback on this, unfortunatelly in my area mtg isn't that popular so I could test it out and need to rely on virtual media (such as MTGO/MTGA) which pretty much enforce rules so It's kind of impossible to test it out.
One thing I could suggest though if you are going to try it out is also make the player being able to block as well (Just like a creature does.).
One thing I expect from this is that if only one creature is attacking, it wouldn't make much difference with the current ruleset (Since the player can block to take the damage as normal.) but if more than one attack attack then it can make situations where even though removals will still be useful, the game won't be halted until one eventually draws one.
I know it might sound crazy but I think giving players more freedom of choice makes a much more interesting gameplay.
SavannahLion is right; the combat system isn't a flaw of Magic
This is a subjective opinion, not everyone shares it, I expect most of MTG Salvation members to be on your side on this since because we have familiarized with the system over so many years, but let's be real, the fact that you can command your creatures to attack one type of entity but not another just doesn't make sense, again this is my personal opinion.
But don't expect a lot of people to want to play that way.
Well, this thing was being said about Hearthstone as well, and now MTG can't even compare with it in terms of popularity.
Ninja edit: It's not like Hearthstone has better combat system (Especially when you can't protect your creatures.)
Let's try not to be so negative on personal opinions ok? I never said how others should be playing it, I only expressed my own opinion, again, it's not likely it will change anyway.
Once again thank you for spending your time reading this, I just kind of finding it sad when there is this level of negativity even of subjective opinions.
Although as matters stand it will create a huge imbalance, this is why if such a rule were to be made it shouldn't affect already existing creature but a new card type such as "summons" or something else.
Since if it were to be applied right now, creatures with evasion will be used as one turn free removal.
Not at the current state of game alright, the game would need to revamp evasion first secondly it shouldn't affect already existing cards.
Again as the current play stands with so many unblockables of course this wouldn't be wise.
But still we need to remember that in magic you can also block, since most people tend to compare that with yugioh, so I don't know if the attacking player would have all the advantages if the defending player has blockers to block with.
This already applies in blockers step already, this although has already been solved by setting aside the pieces to make the board make more sense.
Also this is a really bad idea if it were to be applied to existing creatures as it would create huge imbalance, this is why a new card type should probably be created for that before we even discussing attacking.
So you are saying that when planeswalkers were introduced the game stopped being Magic the Gathering and became something else entirely?
What we are saying here is more in line with attacking planeswalkers thus giving defending player a chance to block in order to protect said planeswalker/summon than anything else.
People tend to compare this with yugioh or hearthstone mechanic or even provoke just like you mentioned, though all of these methods don't give your opponent a chance to protect the summon that is being attacked by any other means.
If people detached their mindset from this mentality they would realize that when a summon attacks another summon the controller of the summon which is being attacked will always have a chance of blocking with other creatures/summons in order to protect it.
You are right, as things stand right now, if something like that were to suddenly come, it would make make the game
totally unbalanced.
I could also add that unblockable or summons with evasion in general would simply be one turn free removal, this is why if something like that were to even be suggested first evasion should be mitigated, personally I'd say that unblockable summons shouldn't even be a thing to begin with and many other summons should also have reach or other defend abilities to be able to protect from evasion in general, the player though should probably be able to block anything, in order to take the damage for himself to protect his/her summons.
What if the opponent's summon has a ability to spawn tokens every turn so the more you leave it the bigger the threat it becomes, this is why we also have removals, remember? So instead of always being forced to have removal in case the enemy has a utility summon that it will gradually becomes more and more of a threat (Either by getting +1/+1 every turn or by spawning tokens.)
So if you have a swarm at that time, why should they wait and watch it grow? Why wouldn't it make sense to attempt to take care of that now (Assuming the opponent doesn't have good blockers to protect the creature.)
Because instead of wasting deck slots to put removals, you could be playing cards that are in line with the rest of the deck.
This is a completely separate subject, if you would like to discuss it, you can pm me and I can tell you my personal opinion about it.
I wouldn't say tons but yes indeed there are a few like counters, buffing before damage, hexproof ect, still that's not an excuse for not not being able to attack as well.
And as much as I want to agree with you, the fact is that you need the random removals in your deck if you want it to be viable in a matchup, since you can't do anything if the opponent has a utility creature unless he himself decides to either attack with it (thus exposing it.) or block a bigger creature, which would probably never happen unless either by mistake or the opponent uses it as a shield in desperation since he would lose otherwise.
That would be good, except there aren't any measurable ways to do it, for example how much damage should a land take before it gets destroyed?
In summons this should be measurable by their toughness,
Now I'd agree too for instance that artifacts should also break if they get enough damage but the problem is that there is no measurable way to be able to calculate the damage needed for an artifact to break/destroyed as well.
Anyway I digress, as long as non-creature artifacts or lands don't have toughness it's pointless to discuss about it for now, I really hope this would happen as well at some later point.
Although to be honest I wouldn't like mana sources to be able to get destroyed that easily. (If it was up to me they would simply called 'mana sources' and not 'lands' to begin with since as you suggested a 'land' should be something that could get ravaged.)
I wouldn't say "revamping" as even before planeswalker cards came out creatures couldn't attack anything but the players, did magic became something completely different from what it used to be, or it got even more deep since the planeswalker card type was introduced?
This is why I refrain from using the term "creature" and instead I use "summon".
I want to thank you for spending your time conversing, let me know if there is any misunderstandings, I'm always happy to reply to messages.
Or if you could actually attack other creatures with your creatures then you could just put cards that have something to do with the theme of your deck instead of filling it with random removals just because it's the only way to actually get rid of annoyances, which by the way, cannot be protected from removals.
It's really not that bad, especially if you take aside the attackers with the attacked creature, then the controller of the attacked creature can just put the blocking creatures in the middle, just like in a regular game.
Except that just like a creature the player could only (normally) block one creature, which means that if your opponent attacks with a swarm your creature, he could actually do damage to it.
I haven't really played that much Yugioh, but from what I've recall you can't block in Yugioh, so your creatures are pretty much defenseless.
Provoke doesn't allow you to attack creatures, it simply forces them to block with said creature, which means that you can't use other creatures to block thus protecting the creature with provoke.
My apologies then about that, still you wouldn't be able to defend your creatures from a lot of things, right? I mean if you 1 dropped something and got shocked, I understand that the creature thing could bring imbalance but that doesn't change the fact that early drop creatures are also vulnerable to early game removal as well.
I'm glad I could give some food for thought, still I need to pin down that doing this to current card type would bring disaster balance wise.
An interesting question, one which could also bring disadvantages besides advantages, for example let's say you have a triggered ability which triggers when a creature you control becomes blocking, then if your opponent happens to have a Gideon's Reproach at that time, it would also be vulnerable to that, if that were the case.
But you could use yourself to protect your early game utility creatures by blocking, if that were the case.
Say for example you drop a Llanowar Elves first turn, then your opponent throws something with haste, you block it and take the damage for youtself, second turn you have Druid of the Cowl and yourself to either use for mana or protect your Llanowar Elves, for instance.
Agreed I just thrown an example, still in my opinion this should a probably a new card type, not creatures, something that won't affect older cards so they could continue to play as they used to, let's call the "Summon" for example since it's a term that has previously been used by MTG to describe creatures, this "Summon" thingy could simply act as a "Creature" with the additional ruling that it could attack other "Summons".
If a "Summon" for example has flying then it would read as "This summon can only be attacked or blocked by summons with either flying or reach".
That's the only way I could practically see it working so it won't ruin the balance of older formats.
If it's only one creature that it's attacking it wouldn't make much difference since the player could block and take the damage himself, but if there are more (Say you have for example four 1/1 tokens and the opponent has a 3/3.) then say you could declare attackers attacking that 3/3 creature, the opponent could block one of those four and the other three would deal their damage to the 3/3 which would pretty much clean the board by the time the combat is over.
But if your opponent has a 2/2 along with that 3/3 and you had your three 1/1 then one of those creatures could be blocked by the player and the other by the 2/2 and only the two 1/1 would result dealing their damage to the 3/3 which would result it surviving.
Planeswalker are also utility permanent essentially but still they can be attacked as normally.
The problem is not that, the problem is the balancing issues that would arise from the colors since some may get more benefits than others (Token decks for example would thrive, assuming the other player doesn't play with evasion.)
Well, cards in your hand represent your knowledge at that time, if you know something well, then you could be casting in multiple times so it makes sense it that regard.
Well, when you are able to summon one kind of entity, why should you be able to summon another? (Provided you have the knowledge to cast it.)
Well, to be honest I don't think this would ever happen since MTG has had this rule since ever, so up until Planeswalker cards came into being, the only thing creatures could attack were the players only.
Well, if one player has a big creature it would make sense to be possible for it to get taken down by a swarm of smaller ones, just like blockers.
And this is exactly why I think this would never happen, if it were to happen to would make a lot of balancing issues and would totally mess up the structure.
True, I don't see it happening anytime soon as well, unless they come up with a new card type just like they did with the planeswalker so they won't mess tge balance of older formats.
I have thought of that too a long time ago, but still it doesn't work the same way because you force a creature to block so defending player can't protect it and choose other blockers to protect it.
Probably not, same with flying unless you choose to attack said flying with either another flying or reach creature, generally if it can't block it, it can't attack it as well probably.)
Would an attaced planeswalked count as a blocking planeswalker?
If Doomgape attacked and you blocked with said devils you would be able to do that right?
Same situation here (provided the other player doesn't protect it by blocking with other creatures.)
I'm not sure, cause blue has bouncers and white has bounds with blockers as well, it shouldn't be that easy.
So if that was the case, if two 2/2 creatures happened to stumble upon another 4/4 creature while they were in that general area they should be able to try and kill it right? Still this can't happen because even though they are in that area they are so obsessed on finding the defending player or planeswalker that when one of them gets blocked by the 4/4 the other other one doesn't even have the choice to help it so they can kill the 4/4 together and leaves the other 2/2 to fend for itself while it keeps searching for the player, that's actual MTG, so unless the player uses a Band Together the other creature will leave the one to fend for itself against the bigger one.
I would really like your feedback on this, unfortunatelly in my area mtg isn't that popular so I could test it out and need to rely on virtual media (such as MTGO/MTGA) which pretty much enforce rules so It's kind of impossible to test it out.
One thing I could suggest though if you are going to try it out is also make the player being able to block as well (Just like a creature does.).
One thing I expect from this is that if only one creature is attacking, it wouldn't make much difference with the current ruleset (Since the player can block to take the damage as normal.) but if more than one attack attack then it can make situations where even though removals will still be useful, the game won't be halted until one eventually draws one.
I know it might sound crazy but I think giving players more freedom of choice makes a much more interesting gameplay.
This is a subjective opinion, not everyone shares it, I expect most of MTG Salvation members to be on your side on this since because we have familiarized with the system over so many years, but let's be real, the fact that you can command your creatures to attack one type of entity but not another just doesn't make sense, again this is my personal opinion.
Well, this thing was being said about Hearthstone as well, and now MTG can't even compare with it in terms of popularity.
Ninja edit: It's not like Hearthstone has better combat system (Especially when you can't protect your creatures.)
Let's try not to be so negative on personal opinions ok? I never said how others should be playing it, I only expressed my own opinion, again, it's not likely it will change anyway.
Once again thank you for spending your time reading this, I just kind of finding it sad when there is this level of negativity even of subjective opinions.