To correct a few misconceptions / misinformation in this thread:
- 99.9% of judging takes place at events that aren't Grand Prix. This doesn't discourage most judges from doing most judging
- The PTOs (that run GPs) were told about this in advance and know they will need to consider their compensation packages from 2015 to offset the loss of GP foils
- There will be processes in place to catch system abuse - we're not naive. The reasons people give for their recogs will be public, for starters
- International judges will be able to recognise in their own language
- I'm not sure whether or not the total amount of foils will actually change. Presently we have ~40 GPs giving foils to staffs in the ~50 range per event; we will replace with ~600 L2+ judges able to recognise on an interval basis. How many foils are in each recog packet is not yet known; how long that interval is not known (but likely to be ~3 months); how many will exercise this right is not yet known. But even low values will leave us outputting similar numbers of foils.
That's not to say that this change is all positive or without challenges, but we do actually think about these things before we decide them
I.e. not rulings or errata.
If they worked as printed, then lotus vale = a black lotus just by itself AT WORST, scorched ruins = a bigger colorless black lotus by itself, and both of them work as drawback-free lotus FACTORIES with any of a huge variety of cards that cancel triggered abilities, like stifletrickbind or sundial of the infinite, because you don't even have to lets them sacrifice anymore after using their initial mana. Then play another one turn 2... (in addition to your hordes of artifact monstrosities, etc.)
The cards do currently work as close to the printed functionality as modern rules allow. Under pre-6th rules, you couldn't activate the mana abilities of these cards until their comes-into-play abilities were dealt with. There has never been a time when Lotus Vale could be used as a land-drop Black Lotus. You can't read pre-6th cards as if they were templated for post-6th, because they're essentially in a different language and need to be translated to make sense.
Now, other cards of course did change functionality to match printed wording when 6th rules came in, so there is a precedent, but these two cards are so egregiously overpowered if played as written that I don't think it's unreasonable for Oracle text to do its best to emulate the original design intent. It's the same way that we don't treat Meditate as having some kind of weird activated ability.
seems a tricky thing to word clean & clear, you have pretty fresh approach.
i'm thinking the static ability could be stuck on the end of the activated ability, like, "~ damages target X. this target selection can't be prevented by abilities?"
dunno, maybe the extra rulesy sounding "selection" ain't great. and "prevented" could be some other generic synonym (maybe one that doesn't already have another meaning in a different context). maybe this specific counter to a certain threat is kinda niche too
Actually, the card doesn't work at all under either the original wording or your proposed wording.
The original wording works on the assumption that the creature does the targeting, which is untrue. Yours doesn't use valid rules terms.
This kind of ability is hard to phrase correctly but something like "Creatures and players with hexproof, shroud and protection can be the target of abilities of ~ as though they didn't have those abilities" should work. You can't make it work without explicitly naming which abilities you want to circumvent, I don't think.
EDIT: It's possible that "You may choose targets for abilities of CARD as though those targets had no abilities" may work, but it's a strange fruit.
To attempt to put some perspective on this as a senior judge:
Hand flicking is not an issue for the rules of the game. If a person is taking any kind of behaviour - such as hand flicking, swearing, or any of the other distractions etc. mentioned in this thread - to an extreme and are doing so intentionally to intimidate an opponent, then a judge might reasonably get involved. We aren't here to be the behaviour police, or to be censors. But excessive and intentional action is not appropriate.
For the original case in this thread, a player was admitting to flicking cards expressly to create a distraction. I would adjust to the setting of the event: if it's a Regular REL event, I'd remind the player that we're here for fun, and that this kind of tactic isn't really appropriate. If it's Competitive, I'm probably just going to ask the player directly to stop.
And as a footnore to Caiaphas' post: I am presuming that this is intended as satire / sarcasm, but tone is hard to read in text posts. But just to be clear: making your opponent physically uncomfortable by invading their personal space is not only not appropriate for a tournament setting, but may be against laws in your local area also. I encourage you to concentrate on winning by playing the game, not the player.
It's a clear something alright .... I think clear farce fits better than clear victory though.
Seriously either they assume the public are so stupid they don't know how to click buttons or they don't have any faith in their technology.
After all this is not like paper voting where you do get miscounts.
Yes before anyone pipes in ,I am very aware of statistical ties having studied further Maths, however this is not a case where it should be used and wouldn't have been if enchantment had won first time.
The poll was open for a week and had a gap of 0.03%. That's about ~3 minutes worth of voters difference in 10,080 minutes. Closing the polls 5 minutes earlier or later could easily have swung the vote the other way.
There's no agenda here, the options were just too close to call. A real election this close is usually either headed to a run-off or a lengthy recount - and not just because of miscast / miscounted ballots, either. Accusations of stupidity and/or conspiracy are unfounded, unreasonable, and unnecessary.
I voted for creature in the initial poll because I liked the openness of the type and what we could do with it. I voted enchantment this time around because I felt we had more satisfying options available than we would for land.
I'm up in the air on which colour would be best here. I am tempted by the suggestions for black or red, though, as they haven't had a YMTC representative yet.
I would prefer a much higher ratio of reprints. I don't like the idea that we see cards once, for one season, and then they are gone forever. Revisiting old cards for me is fun, and it also means that old cards in my library from those old sets can come back to play in standard. Or it means that cards from sets I wasn't around for the first time are suddenly available in boosters again. I love good cards reprinted.
I also believe very strongly that over-saturation is a danger to the long-term viability and playability of the game. In other words, they are printing too many new cards. They can slow this by increasing the number of reprints.
But my original question was: Is 15 reprints normal for a set this size? It seems unusually small. I thought sets usually had way more reprints than this on average. I mean, 15 reprints? It's almost 100% new cards.
Well, for starters, 17 reprints:
Act of Treason
Assault Griffin
Beckon Apparition
Breeding Pool
Cinder Elemental
Contaminated Ground
Ember Beast
Frenzied Tilling
Godless Shrine
Naturalize
Prophetic Prism
Righteous Charge
Sacred Foundry
Skyknight Legionnaire
Smite
Stomping Ground
Watery Grave
Compare to, say, Return to Ravnica (19 reprints + the basic lands), Avacyn Restored (13 plus the basics), or Innistrad (12 plus basics).
So RTR block is above Innistrad block on average.
More generally, there are 12,912 unique Magic cards and 2,190 appear in two or more expansion sets, whilst 10,722 have appeared only once.
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As the project leader for this one, I'll be hanging around the Magic internet today to answer questions
3
- 99.9% of judging takes place at events that aren't Grand Prix. This doesn't discourage most judges from doing most judging
- The PTOs (that run GPs) were told about this in advance and know they will need to consider their compensation packages from 2015 to offset the loss of GP foils
- There will be processes in place to catch system abuse - we're not naive. The reasons people give for their recogs will be public, for starters
- International judges will be able to recognise in their own language
- I'm not sure whether or not the total amount of foils will actually change. Presently we have ~40 GPs giving foils to staffs in the ~50 range per event; we will replace with ~600 L2+ judges able to recognise on an interval basis. How many foils are in each recog packet is not yet known; how long that interval is not known (but likely to be ~3 months); how many will exercise this right is not yet known. But even low values will leave us outputting similar numbers of foils.
That's not to say that this change is all positive or without challenges, but we do actually think about these things before we decide them
1
The cards do currently work as close to the printed functionality as modern rules allow. Under pre-6th rules, you couldn't activate the mana abilities of these cards until their comes-into-play abilities were dealt with. There has never been a time when Lotus Vale could be used as a land-drop Black Lotus. You can't read pre-6th cards as if they were templated for post-6th, because they're essentially in a different language and need to be translated to make sense.
Now, other cards of course did change functionality to match printed wording when 6th rules came in, so there is a precedent, but these two cards are so egregiously overpowered if played as written that I don't think it's unreasonable for Oracle text to do its best to emulate the original design intent. It's the same way that we don't treat Meditate as having some kind of weird activated ability.
1
Actually, the card doesn't work at all under either the original wording or your proposed wording.
The original wording works on the assumption that the creature does the targeting, which is untrue. Yours doesn't use valid rules terms.
This kind of ability is hard to phrase correctly but something like "Creatures and players with hexproof, shroud and protection can be the target of abilities of ~ as though they didn't have those abilities" should work. You can't make it work without explicitly naming which abilities you want to circumvent, I don't think.
EDIT: It's possible that "You may choose targets for abilities of CARD as though those targets had no abilities" may work, but it's a strange fruit.
1
Hand flicking is not an issue for the rules of the game. If a person is taking any kind of behaviour - such as hand flicking, swearing, or any of the other distractions etc. mentioned in this thread - to an extreme and are doing so intentionally to intimidate an opponent, then a judge might reasonably get involved. We aren't here to be the behaviour police, or to be censors. But excessive and intentional action is not appropriate.
For the original case in this thread, a player was admitting to flicking cards expressly to create a distraction. I would adjust to the setting of the event: if it's a Regular REL event, I'd remind the player that we're here for fun, and that this kind of tactic isn't really appropriate. If it's Competitive, I'm probably just going to ask the player directly to stop.
And as a footnore to Caiaphas' post: I am presuming that this is intended as satire / sarcasm, but tone is hard to read in text posts. But just to be clear: making your opponent physically uncomfortable by invading their personal space is not only not appropriate for a tournament setting, but may be against laws in your local area also. I encourage you to concentrate on winning by playing the game, not the player.
2
Common up to Uncommon:
- Death Rattle
" target="blank">Death RattleUncommon down to Common:
- Arcbound Wanderer
" target="blank">Arcbound WandererUncommon up to Rare:
Rare down to Uncommon:
- Auntie's Snitch
" target="blank">Auntie's SnitchRare up to Mythic rare:
Dark Confidant" target="blank">Dark Confidant
1
The poll was open for a week and had a gap of 0.03%. That's about ~3 minutes worth of voters difference in 10,080 minutes. Closing the polls 5 minutes earlier or later could easily have swung the vote the other way.
There's no agenda here, the options were just too close to call. A real election this close is usually either headed to a run-off or a lengthy recount - and not just because of miscast / miscounted ballots, either. Accusations of stupidity and/or conspiracy are unfounded, unreasonable, and unnecessary.
I voted for creature in the initial poll because I liked the openness of the type and what we could do with it. I voted enchantment this time around because I felt we had more satisfying options available than we would for land.
I'm up in the air on which colour would be best here. I am tempted by the suggestions for black or red, though, as they haven't had a YMTC representative yet.
1
Well, for starters, 17 reprints:
- Act of Treason
Assault GriffinSo RTR block is above Innistrad block on average.
More generally, there are 12,912 unique Magic cards and 2,190 appear in two or more expansion sets, whilst 10,722 have appeared only once.
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