Slightly incorrect; Cranial was quite good in Kamigawa standard but only because it was repeatable and recursive with the gifts engine. Cranial your cranial was often the big decider of a match early on.
However, for this Standard, yes extraction effects are quite weak, even being one step ahead on curve is not enough.
I do like that the best Bring to Light brings is summoning rhinos. Nice work BFZ. I didn't expect a completely new archetype with brand new stuff right away at the first tourney but it's clear that you have to have a very strong argument to not play rhino.
Is there a reason the first two have you choose it then it has the separate line of text for what to do? Is there a templating or rules reason it could not be "The owner of target artifact or enchantment shuffles it into his or her library." ? I initially thought it was an issue of making sure you didn't shuffle someone else's library but the Chaos Warp wording gets around that.
Ok, I really don't see how in the world you can force someone to put an Underground Sea that is in their deck onto the battlefield; this is a diversion from my previous question but fail to find is specifically in the rules to prevent a player from having to do that because you can never verify since it's a hidden zone.
Now, in the interest of full disclosure, WotC has moved away from these wordings because of cards like [cards]Gifts Ungiven[/card] when someone has say only 4 cards remaining in their library (which may or may not be unique; this is why they changed the wording on Gifts). That aside, the rule exists because you can't force a player to do something with a hidden zone.
Based on the rest of your explanation, if I didn't have an Underground Sea as stated, it seems like the game would rewind and a player would be able to get something else like a Swamp or Island, correct? GRV and stuff aside, my concern is that again, shortcuts were defined in the rules to prevent 'gotcha!' moments and if you announce and don't have it and get screwed, that could definitely feel like a gotcha moment. However, you explanation seems to indicate that would not occur.
P.S. Ack, didn't mean to have it separate in 2 posts like that, whoops.
The rule commonly referred to as "fail to find" is the following:
701.15b If a player is searching a hidden zone for cards with a stated quality, such as a card with a certain card type or color, that player isn’t required to find some or all of those cards even if they’re present in that zone.
When a player says "Crack a fetch for Underground Sea", that needs to be translated to the terms used by the game rules. By the game rules, the fetchland has only one activated ability - to search for an Island or Swamp and put it onto the battlefield. "Search for a card named Underground Sea" is not an option. Therefore, no matter what the player said, the actual ability they must be activating is the "search for an Island or Swamp" one. When the player says "...for Underground Sea", they are making an assertion about the outcome of the ability. 701.15b is not relevant - all that rule does is to give the player the option to say "I find nothing". The player did not to take that option. They attempted to put an Underground Sea (which doesn't exist) from their library onto the battlefield.
When a player announces a play, they attempt to lock themselves (and the rest of the game state) into that play. If the play is legal, they are locked in. If the play is not legal, and it is immediately caught, they are forced to rewind. If the play is not legal, and is not caught until later, a judge needs to decide how to handle the situation with minimum damage to the game state.
In the specific case - if you announced "crack for Underground Sea" and there is one in your deck, you must put that one onto the battlefield. If you announced "crack for Underground Sea" and there isn't one in the deck, it would be rewound to the illegal action and you would be forced to do something else - and depending on REL and other factors, there might be further consequences. Announcing "crack for Underground Sea" when you know you have none in your deck, with the intent of seeing an opponent's reaction, would be Cheating, just like any other intentional illegal action.
The issue is that the player failed to find though, both in the literal sense and in the hidden zone you can always fail to find sense.
By saying the player is performing an illegal play, you are saying the player is locked into a choice. Then you say the rules are setup to not lock you into an illegal choice. I'm not understanding what you mean, please clarify. Or maybe I need to be clearer:
If I 'announce' the type of land I am getting with a fetchland, am I locked into that choice when the opponent passes priority (per the above announcement shortcut rule) OR can I simply find any card that fits the criteria of the action?
After reading CI this week, buddy of mine came up with an interesting question I couldn't find a rules cite to answer.
"If a player casts a spell or activates an ability and announces choices for it that are not normally made until resolution, the player must adhere to those choices unless an opponent responds to that spell or ability. If an opponent inquires about choices made during resolution, that player is assumed to be passing priority and allowing that spell or ability to resolve. "
I totally understand the Persecute 'green' trick not being valid and also the converse where someone can't 'gotcha!' by asking what you are choosing/naming.
How about you drop a Polluted Delta and announce 'crack, go get Underground Sea then I'll say end my turn' and your opponent starts to take their turn and as you go through your deck you realize you miscounted and have no remaining Underground Seas left in the deck. I know you can fail to find the Underground Sea but can you grab anything else that meets the criteria of the ability, like say Swamp or Island and put that into play instead? Does this shortcut really apply (it seems so, although you are not naming a card you are announcing a decision normally made on resolution of an ability, hence being 'bound' to it)? Can you change your mind because what you get can 100% affect your opponent's play at EoT. Any type of Rules cite or tourney guidelines cite would be very helpful here, I've honestly never thought of this situation before at all.
Is the templating difference solely because of the niche case of cards like Soulflayer? I just can't figure out why cards are now worded likes this. Dragonlord Kolaghan is the same, just wanted to know if there was a functional difference or just the flayer-type interactions.
Affinity gets a bad rap as a mechanic. I played competitive at that time and it wasn't affinity that was the problem, even with the artifact lands, it was Ravager/Skullclamp/Disciple/Plating. Those essentially acted like powerful combo pieces, converting your artifacts (i.e. most of your deck) to cards/damage at very efficient rates. That meant your so-so artifact aggro deck now had explosive combo finishes. Take those 4 out and affinity would have been fine, especially given how easy it is to hate.
KCI much? While the 4 aforementioned cards were definitely very bad, the lands enabled multiple broken things and is why they didn't ban just Ravager/DotV/Clamp.
Plating only worked with every creature in your deck whereas Ravager/DotV/KCI worked with almost every card in your deck.
It would force a bit of "functional errata" onto Elspeth, Knight Errant, whose original wording just says "until the end of the game" for her ultimate. Merely rewording the ultimate to create an emblem (which they did for her Duel Deck and subsequent printings) doesn't change the function of the card, so long as emblems can't be interacted with. But once they can, it would change the meaning of the ultimate, and players with the original printing might get confused. I'm not saying that's enough to stop them from printing cards that affect emblems, but it could be a potential roadblock, since MaRo has repeatedly stated how adamant R&D is against changing the functionality of cards in that way.
That's already the case now; Elspeth has been errat'd and WotC had no problem changing it, non-functional change then that could become a real change later was understood.
dont know if it was already discussed on this thread yet but i am amazed to say the least.
now you might ask what it is that i'm amazed at.
well I'll tell you.
i learned something new today about Magic: the Gathering Trading Card Game.
now for some back story. im on MTGO playing Stompy as most of you may relate. and to my surprise i came across my very firs mirror match! that's right, mono G stompy vs. mono G stompy the battle was real.
shoutout my opponent Dr4kouille in case you read this
well the thing that this amazing man/woman did that sparked the learning flame in my head was this...
I was on the play, turn 1 experiment one, pass. he then played dryad militant and passed.
now for the fun part
on my turn 2 i attacked with my experiment one and he declined to block, with that damage in the hole i used the opportunity to play a skarrgan pit-skulk which triggered bloodthirst so it came down as a 2/2 which in turn triggered my experiment one and made that a 2/2. (which by the way will be AMAZING when Avatar of the Resolute comes out with all these counters)
ANYWAY getting back on track, i attempted to cast a rancor on my skarrgan pit-skulk which he then responded by casting vines of vastwood targeting MY CREATURE. successfully making him unable to be targeted by spells or abilities i control and essentially countering my rancor. i am impress and elated to have learned something new. and im happy to be passing on this new-found knowledge to any stompy players who didn't realize that could use vines as a counterspell in essence.
thank you for your time.
*drops mic*
Um.....that's exactly why most lists run it MD, it's mainboard Twin hate. This has been known pretty much since....forever?
I'll echo the sentiments that Megamorph just doesn't care at all about the counter so it's very superfluous. Any of the cards that semi care about +1/+1 in this block also don't tend to interact well with Megamorph due to the prohibitive mana cost. We didn't need to have Zombie Cutthroat or Gathan Raiders type costs where ANY deck could use them but certainly more non mana costs would have helped.
And that was the problem with Morph also, no tension between morph/non-morph. A simple savings of one mana on Abzan Guide and the like is not exciting. Where are cards like Headhunter? Grinning Demon? Charging Slateback? Ebonblade Reaper? Crude Rampart? You know, all the cards where there is stack interaction and decisions like trading a point of damage for making my opponent discard or blocking/attacking tricks. Basically, if you read the old Kibler article:
You'll realize how watered down it all became and the recent WotC articles show that was very intentional. A significant amount of bluffing was removed form Morph which is ironic given that that was one of the original main selling points. I'll all for bringing things back and spicing it up but removing the core tenet of a mechanic is not really the best way to go about that I'd say.
I know WotC is all against the cheap removal but this is all over the place. And I know that it's about the draft experience but damn, kick Block to the curb? And also your dragon killer card costs one less and your dragons are 6 drops? Seems nonsensical to me honestly.
Actually, needed more, realized there was a reason I brought all this up that I forgot.
"If either target is an illegal target as Grim Contest tries to resolve, neither creature will deal or be dealt damage"
This is not an actual rule; this is essentially reminder text that exists on Gatherer and the Release notes (similar to Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord or Pit Fight having notes.) Now these notes/reminders on cards are there because of specific rules. Like Pit Fight, the second note is:
"1/24/2013 If either target of Pit Fight is an illegal target when the ability tries to resolve, neither creature will deal or be dealt damage."
That note exists because of the above mentioned rule 701.10b.
Now, why does Grim Contest have it's note? What rule is it referencing that would make that note true? The only reference I have found is the rules under Fight and that is uniquely specific to Fight so that does not apply to Grim Contest. What I need to know is what rule states that an illegal target won't use LKI to deal damage? Because I found this under resolving 608 Resolving Spells and Abilities :
608.2g If an effect requires information from the game (such as the number of creatures on the
battlefield), the answer is determined only
once, when the effect is applied. If the effect requires
information from a specific object, including the source of the ability itself or a target that’s
become illegal, the effect uses the current information of that object if it’s in the public zone it
was expected to be in; if it’s no longer in that zone, or if the effect has moved it from a public
zone to a hidden zone, the effect uses the object’s last known information.
Emphasis mine of course. To be clear, I am not in any way disputing that bouncing or destroying or moving one to any other zone one of the targets of Grim Contest makes it illegal. I want to know the rule that says an illegal target no longer deals damage and I cannot find it (I am also at work so I don't have time to do a lot of thorough digging, just quick searches here and there).
However, for this Standard, yes extraction effects are quite weak, even being one step ahead on curve is not enough.
I do like that the best Bring to Light brings is summoning rhinos. Nice work BFZ. I didn't expect a completely new archetype with brand new stuff right away at the first tourney but it's clear that you have to have a very strong argument to not play rhino.
Unravel the Aether
Chaos Warp
Is there a reason the first two have you choose it then it has the separate line of text for what to do? Is there a templating or rules reason it could not be "The owner of target artifact or enchantment shuffles it into his or her library." ? I initially thought it was an issue of making sure you didn't shuffle someone else's library but the Chaos Warp wording gets around that.
Now, in the interest of full disclosure, WotC has moved away from these wordings because of cards like [cards]Gifts Ungiven[/card] when someone has say only 4 cards remaining in their library (which may or may not be unique; this is why they changed the wording on Gifts). That aside, the rule exists because you can't force a player to do something with a hidden zone.
Based on the rest of your explanation, if I didn't have an Underground Sea as stated, it seems like the game would rewind and a player would be able to get something else like a Swamp or Island, correct? GRV and stuff aside, my concern is that again, shortcuts were defined in the rules to prevent 'gotcha!' moments and if you announce and don't have it and get screwed, that could definitely feel like a gotcha moment. However, you explanation seems to indicate that would not occur.
P.S. Ack, didn't mean to have it separate in 2 posts like that, whoops.
By saying the player is performing an illegal play, you are saying the player is locked into a choice. Then you say the rules are setup to not lock you into an illegal choice. I'm not understanding what you mean, please clarify. Or maybe I need to be clearer:
If I 'announce' the type of land I am getting with a fetchland, am I locked into that choice when the opponent passes priority (per the above announcement shortcut rule) OR can I simply find any card that fits the criteria of the action?
"If a player casts a spell or activates an ability and announces choices for it that are not normally made until resolution, the player must adhere to those choices unless an opponent responds to that spell or ability. If an opponent inquires about choices made during resolution, that player is assumed to be passing priority and allowing that spell or ability to resolve. "
I totally understand the Persecute 'green' trick not being valid and also the converse where someone can't 'gotcha!' by asking what you are choosing/naming.
How about you drop a Polluted Delta and announce 'crack, go get Underground Sea then I'll say end my turn' and your opponent starts to take their turn and as you go through your deck you realize you miscounted and have no remaining Underground Seas left in the deck. I know you can fail to find the Underground Sea but can you grab anything else that meets the criteria of the ability, like say Swamp or Island and put that into play instead? Does this shortcut really apply (it seems so, although you are not naming a card you are announcing a decision normally made on resolution of an ability, hence being 'bound' to it)? Can you change your mind because what you get can 100% affect your opponent's play at EoT. Any type of Rules cite or tourney guidelines cite would be very helpful here, I've honestly never thought of this situation before at all.
Is the templating difference solely because of the niche case of cards like Soulflayer? I just can't figure out why cards are now worded likes this. Dragonlord Kolaghan is the same, just wanted to know if there was a functional difference or just the flayer-type interactions.
KCI much? While the 4 aforementioned cards were definitely very bad, the lands enabled multiple broken things and is why they didn't ban just Ravager/DotV/Clamp.
Plating only worked with every creature in your deck whereas Ravager/DotV/KCI worked with almost every card in your deck.
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/eight-plus-one-2005-03-04
That's already the case now; Elspeth has been errat'd and WotC had no problem changing it, non-functional change then that could become a real change later was understood.
Um.....that's exactly why most lists run it MD, it's mainboard Twin hate. This has been known pretty much since....forever?
And that was the problem with Morph also, no tension between morph/non-morph. A simple savings of one mana on Abzan Guide and the like is not exciting. Where are cards like Headhunter? Grinning Demon? Charging Slateback? Ebonblade Reaper? Crude Rampart? You know, all the cards where there is stack interaction and decisions like trading a point of damage for making my opponent discard or blocking/attacking tricks. Basically, if you read the old Kibler article:
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/29461_Know-Your-Morphs-Or-Be-Destroyed-By-Them.html
You'll realize how watered down it all became and the recent WotC articles show that was very intentional. A significant amount of bluffing was removed form Morph which is ironic given that that was one of the original main selling points. I'll all for bringing things back and spicing it up but removing the core tenet of a mechanic is not really the best way to go about that I'd say.
Even though it's an older card, Death Pulse makes sense in comparison.
But then we have Dismember. Ok, seems a bit off.... Grasp of Darkness....ok, a bit weird, (just remembered Sudden Death) how about more recent?
Fatal Fumes.....um, oooook.
Anything else?
Lash of the Whip ok wow that is pretty recent.
Throttle SAME BLOCK.
I know WotC is all against the cheap removal but this is all over the place. And I know that it's about the draft experience but damn, kick Block to the curb? And also your dragon killer card costs one less and your dragons are 6 drops? Seems nonsensical to me honestly.
"If either target is an illegal target as Grim Contest tries to resolve, neither creature will deal or be dealt damage"
This is not an actual rule; this is essentially reminder text that exists on Gatherer and the Release notes (similar to Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord or Pit Fight having notes.) Now these notes/reminders on cards are there because of specific rules. Like Pit Fight, the second note is:
"1/24/2013 If either target of Pit Fight is an illegal target when the ability tries to resolve, neither creature will deal or be dealt damage."
That note exists because of the above mentioned rule 701.10b.
Now, why does Grim Contest have it's note? What rule is it referencing that would make that note true? The only reference I have found is the rules under Fight and that is uniquely specific to Fight so that does not apply to Grim Contest. What I need to know is what rule states that an illegal target won't use LKI to deal damage? Because I found this under resolving 608 Resolving Spells and Abilities :
608.2g If an effect requires information from the game (such as the number of creatures on the
battlefield), the answer is determined only
once, when the effect is applied. If the effect requires
information from a specific object, including the source of the ability itself or a target that’s
become illegal, the effect uses the current information of that object if it’s in the public zone it
was expected to be in; if it’s no longer in that zone, or if the effect has moved it from a public
zone to a hidden zone, the effect uses the object’s last known information.
Emphasis mine of course. To be clear, I am not in any way disputing that bouncing or destroying or moving one to any other zone one of the targets of Grim Contest makes it illegal. I want to know the rule that says an illegal target no longer deals damage and I cannot find it (I am also at work so I don't have time to do a lot of thorough digging, just quick searches here and there).
Thanks in advance again for the rules cite.