Old Tapping-During-Combat Rules

[Illissius]

Can someone explain to me how exactly it was that the rule about tapping creatures during combat used to work back before whenever it was that they changed it? I know it was something to do with tapped creatures not dealing damage, as evidenced by the errata to Master of Arms. But creatures need to tap to attack in the first place and, as far as I know, always have, so naturally I am confused by this. Is it only for blockers? Or is tapping-because-I'm-attacking treated separately from got-tapped-by-some-other-thing?

Specifically, I'm wondering whether Ice Floe used to prevent damage from the creature it tapped. I was just about to suggest it in the Lands.dec thread as a potential Maze of Ith 5+ before I realized that it doesn't even prevent the damage the first go-round. If it did used to, then it should be suggested to Wizards for errata. If not, then the card is just weird.

[Otter]

It was only for blocking creatures -- if they tapped, they didn't deal damage. This is why Deadly Insect + Icy Manipulator was an awesome combo, the insect could kill their blockers without dying since you just tapped them.

[Atwa]

Ice Floe never prevented any damage.

It was just a way to tap a creature for a turn. If you combine it with Maze of Ith, you will prevent the damage and keep the creature tapped, but that is pretty useless, since you don't really care that a creature is tapped for a turn when you play Maze.

You could use this trick to make way for your own attacking manlands, but it's not worth the spot in a deck in my opinion.

Ice Floe is actually very weak.

[Illissius]

Nah, the weird thing is why they went out of their way to explicitly tap the creature which is already tapped because it's attacking you. I guess they were worried about vigilance, but then they arbitrarily exclude flying. Oh well.

[grahf]

It was just a way to tap a creature for a turn.

The card reads: "You may choose not to untap Ice Floe during your untap step."

But even so, holding a creature down indefinitely is not that good if they still get a swing in.

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

Nah, the weird thing is why they went out of their way to explicitly tap the creature which is already tapped because it's attacking you. I guess they were worried about vigilance, but then they arbitrarily exclude flying. Oh well.

They exclude flying because a flying creature can't get trapped on an Ice Floe. It would just fly off and go back to attacking you. Duh. This is back in '95 when flavor was probably the number-one concern for card designs. (Although they still managed to have just about every other creature that didn't have flying have wings in their artwork, just for kicks.)

I suppose that even from this flavor-driven perspective though, creatures with Islandwalk should be immune from Ice Floe. Because, you know, they can just swim off it, the same as the flying creature could fly off of it.

[freakish777]

They exclude flying because a flying creature can't get trapped on an Ice Floe.

But it would totally get gobbled up when the earth decides to Fissure right under it's feet.