Golden Rule cards

[Illissius]

This is a kind of thought experiment / research expedition. Most cards draw support for their abilities from various parts of the CompRules: activated abilities, triggered abilities, replacement effects, combat, steps and phases, copy effects, color and text changing effects, flip cards, split cards, mana and costs, etc. etc. are all explicitly described and regulated. The vast majority of cards are built from this toolbox. But there are a minority which aren't, cards which rely only on the Golden Rule that any time a card contradicts the CompRules, the card wins. Cards which, basically, make up their own rules on the spot, or change and bend the existing ones in novel and fundamental ways. I'd like to gather as many examples of these cards as possible.

Here are some that spring to mind:

Upwelling
Omnath, Locus of Mana
Mirror Gallery
Skullbriar, the Walking Grave
Sigarda, Host of Herons
Celestial Dawn
Masako the Humorless

I only read the CompRules about halfway through so I might be wrong about some of them. What others can you think of?

[nedleeds]

Trinisphere. I wasted 45 minutes explaining how Trinisphere worked to players at the SCG this weekend over the course of the tourney.

[Esper3k]

Trinisphere. I wasted 45 minutes explaining how Trinisphere worked to players at the SCG this weekend over the course of the tourney.

Trinisphere + Lodestone Golem = 4 mana cost, right? :laugh:

[sdematt]

What's there to explain? Your stuff costs three if under 3, and if over 3, other tax effects take place. Trinisphere applies last always, after tax effects. Boom. Done. Your opponents must have been real mouth-breathers.

-Matt

[Octopusman]

Trinisphere + Lodestone Golem = 4 mana cost, right? :laugh:

I know the smiley gives it away but in case anyone is legitimately confused by your post. If the CC is < 3 then it's 3 with trini and lodestone.


Thank you SO much for making this thread. I absolutely love these cards as well.
Some of this stuff is hard to define, though. What exactly is breaking the rules?


Blood Moon
Magus of the Moon
Eon Hub
Possessed Portal
Fatespinner


Edit:

Pale Moon
An-Zerrin Ruins
Halls of Mist
Meekstone
Marble Titan
Time Stop
Meddling Mage
Nevermore
Silence
Orim's Chant
Abeyance
Festival
Word of Command
Cornered Market
Embargo
Winter Orb
Rising Waters
Anvil of Bogardan
Havoc Festival
Sulfuric Vortex
Stigma Lasher
False Cure
Tajuru Preserver
Spellbook
Library of Leng
Gnat Miser
Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
Locust Miser
Thought Devourer
Thought Eater
Thought Nibbler


omg

Peacekeeper
Blazing Archon
Moat
Arboria
Duh...

Went back through and deleted stuff that was triggered or activated in compliance with OP.


I'm sure I'll come up with some more.

[Illissius]

Thanks for the replies! I'm not entirely sure about Trinisphere -- cost increases and decreases are covered by the Rules -- but that's definitely a solid candidate, and a unique and strange card at least.

I don't think most of the others from the long list qualify. That's not intended as discouragement, because I'm having a hard time defining even for myself what my criteria are, not to mention communicating it to other people. But I'll add a brief note for each card explaining why I think that is or isn't the kind of thing I'm looking for, in case that helps give a better idea.

Blood Moon
Magus of the Moon
This is not all that different from "all Elves are blue" or "all creatures are Slivers" or Mirrorweave or whatever. There's a big section of the rules regarding how ability granting and removing effects, characteristic defining abilities, copy effects, and so on and so forth apply in different layers, so you can figure out what happens if you have more than one of them in play. And yes, even Humility is covered by that. Whether something is hard for humans to think about and whether the CompRules addresses that thing are independent questions.

Here's an article explaining the layer system (http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=judge/article/20091105a). Anything covered by that is not Golden Rule.

Eon Hub
Fatespinner
I think there's enough cards which add and remove phases (though usually they're combat and main phases) that this can't really be considered uniquely rule-bending. But Paradox Haze as well, in that case.

Possessed Portal
Replacement effect + triggered ability

Pale Moon
There's also quite a few cards that change what type and amount of mana various lands produce, so this is not exceedingly unique. (FWIW, "white mana can be spent as mana of any color" was the part of Celestial Dawn that I found interesting.)

An-Zerrin Ruins
Meekstone
Marble Titan
Cornered Market
Embargo
Winter Orb
Rising Waters
"Doesn't untap" effects are dime a dozen, but the no-more-than-one cards are at least an interesting twist.

Time Stop
A solid entry, albeit the CompRules did grow a section to define what it means to end a turn.

Meddling Mage
Nevermore
Silence
Orim's Chant
Abeyance
Cards defining when players can and (usually) can't do various things are also so common that I don't think they're exceptional. Although there might be instances I'm not thinking of right now where the thing they're regulating is strange and noteworthy.

Word of Command
Definitely a winner!

Havoc Festival
Stigma Lasher
"Can't gain life" is borderline. Obviously contradicts the rules, but that in itself is not so remarkable, and there's a few cards which do this kind of thing. But "until the end of the game" probably qualifies.

Sulfuric Vortex
False Cure
These are just replacement and triggered abilities.

Tajuru Preserver
Ah, a simplified version of Sigarda. I'm not sure why I regard some instances of "can't do X" as more noteworthy than others. "Can't sacrifice permanents" seems more novel than "can't gain life" or "can't block", but I can't articulate why -- maybe it's just that fewer cards do it.

Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
Anvil of Bogardan
Spellbook
Library of Leng
Gnat Miser
Locust Miser
Thought Devourer
Thought Eater
Thought Nibbler
For the most part, if you can find 5-10 examples of cards with the same kind of effect, it's probably not what I'm looking for.

Halls of Mist
Festival
Peacekeeper
Blazing Archon
Moat
Arboria
Ditto. There's a big section in the CompRules on combat and I think this kind of thing is covered there, but even if it's not, "can't attack" and "can't block" effects are pervasive.



Let me mention a little bit about what my motivation is, in case that helps shed some light on what cards I'm looking for. I was doing a thought experiment to figure out what it would take to implement the Magic rules in software, basically what MTGO does. And the conclusion I arrived at is that it would be a big, laborious, and in parts tricky project, but that there wouldn't be any real, fundamental obstacles to doing it... except for the Golden Rule. You would have to come up with some immensely advanced magic to be able to implement the Golden Rule itself as a piece of code. The only way I can see of supporting the cards which rely on it would be to explicitly extend the core engine with the kind of effects the cards have, even if it's just for one card.

And that's basically the "precise" definition of what I'm looking for. Cards which, if you were trying to implement Magic in software, you would have to implement new capabilities for in the engine just to be able to support that card. Which doesn't help very much for people who don't know about software, but as a rule of thumb, if a card does something that very few other cards do (and it's not something covered by the layering or targetting or etc. rules), it's probably a strong candidate.

And yes, asking for cards which only draw support for their abilities from the Golden Rule, and not from other sections of the CompRules, and asking for cards with effects that are novel and unique, is asking two different questions, and I didn't make that very clear. I think I want cards which qualify for both. Added, I'm also not enough of a rules guru to be able to reliably decide the first question for every card. :)

Here's another card I thought of in the mean time:
Platinum Emperion

[John Cox]

Platinum angel
laboratory maniac
phage the untouchable
glacial chasm?

[Julian23]

Exploration, loving it.

[Octopusman]

Shahrazad

^_^

[Octopusman]

Thanks for the replies! I'm not entirely sure about Trinisphere -- cost increases and decreases are covered by the Rules -- but that's definitely a solid candidate, and a unique and strange card at least.

I don't think most of the others from the long list qualify. That's not intended as discouragement, because I'm having a hard time defining even for myself what my criteria are, not to mention communicating it to other people. But I'll add a brief note for each card explaining why I think that is or isn't the kind of thing I'm looking for, in case that helps give a better idea.

Blood Moon
Magus of the Moon
This is not all that different from "all Elves are blue" or "all creatures are Slivers" or Mirrorweave or whatever. There's a big section of the rules regarding how ability granting and removing effects, characteristic defining abilities, copy effects, and so on and so forth apply in different layers, so you can figure out what happens if you have more than one of them in play. And yes, even Humility is covered by that. Whether something is hard for humans to think about and whether the CompRules addresses that thing are independent questions.

Here's an article explaining the layer system (http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=judge/article/20091105a). Anything covered by that is not Golden Rule.

Eon Hub
Fatespinner
I think there's enough cards which add and remove phases (though usually they're combat and main phases) that this can't really be considered uniquely rule-bending. But Paradox Haze as well, in that case.

Possessed Portal
Replacement effect + triggered ability

Pale Moon
There's also quite a few cards that change what type and amount of mana various lands produce, so this is not exceedingly unique. (FWIW, "white mana can be spent as mana of any color" was the part of Celestial Dawn that I found interesting.)

An-Zerrin Ruins
Meekstone
Marble Titan
Cornered Market
Embargo
Winter Orb
Rising Waters
"Doesn't untap" effects are dime a dozen, but the no-more-than-one cards are at least an interesting twist.

Time Stop
A solid entry, albeit the CompRules did grow a section to define what it means to end a turn.

Meddling Mage
Nevermore
Silence
Orim's Chant
Abeyance
Cards defining when players can and (usually) can't do various things are also so common that I don't think they're exceptional. Although there might be instances I'm not thinking of right now where the thing they're regulating is strange and noteworthy.

Word of Command
Definitely a winner!

Havoc Festival
Stigma Lasher
"Can't gain life" is borderline. Obviously contradicts the rules, but that in itself is not so remarkable, and there's a few cards which do this kind of thing. But "until the end of the game" probably qualifies.

Sulfuric Vortex
False Cure
These are just replacement and triggered abilities.

Tajuru Preserver
Ah, a simplified version of Sigarda. I'm not sure why I regard some instances of "can't do X" as more noteworthy than others. "Can't sacrifice permanents" seems more novel than "can't gain life" or "can't block", but I can't articulate why -- maybe it's just that fewer cards do it.

Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
Anvil of Bogardan
Spellbook
Library of Leng
Gnat Miser
Locust Miser
Thought Devourer
Thought Eater
Thought Nibbler
For the most part, if you can find 5-10 examples of cards with the same kind of effect, it's probably not what I'm looking for.

Halls of Mist
Festival
Peacekeeper
Blazing Archon
Moat
Arboria
Ditto. There's a big section in the CompRules on combat and I think this kind of thing is covered there, but even if it's not, "can't attack" and "can't block" effects are pervasive.



Let me mention a little bit about what my motivation is, in case that helps shed some light on what cards I'm looking for. I was doing a thought experiment to figure out what it would take to implement the Magic rules in software, basically what MTGO does. And the conclusion I arrived at is that it would be a big, laborious, and in parts tricky project, but that there wouldn't be any real, fundamental obstacles to doing it... except for the Golden Rule. You would have to come up with some immensely advanced magic to be able to implement the Golden Rule itself as a piece of code. The only way I can see of supporting the cards which rely on it would be to explicitly extend the core engine with the kind of effects the cards have, even if it's just for one card.

And that's basically the "precise" definition of what I'm looking for. Cards which, if you were trying to implement Magic in software, you would have to implement new capabilities for in the engine just to be able to support that card. Which doesn't help very much for people who don't know about software, but as a rule of thumb, if a card does something that very few other cards do (and it's not something covered by the layering or targetting or etc. rules), it's probably a strong candidate.

And yes, asking for cards which only draw support for their abilities from the Golden Rule, and not from other sections of the CompRules, and asking for cards with effects that are novel and unique, is asking two different questions, and I didn't make that very clear. I think I want cards which qualify for both. Added, I'm also not enough of a rules guru to be able to reliably decide the first question for every card. :)

Here's another card I thought of in the mean time:
Platinum Emperion


No offense! Love this thread anyway.

[Hanni]

I know the smiley gives it away but in case anyone is legitimately confused by your post. If the CC is < 3 then it's 3 with trini and lodestone.

Minor nitpick, but you put the 'less than' sign backwards. < 3 would mean that spells that cost more than 3 cost three under a Trinisphere, which is obviously not what you meant. Just thought that I would point that out.

[HammerAndSickled]

Minor nitpick, but you put the 'less than' sign backwards. < 3 would mean that spells that cost more than 3 cost three under a Trinisphere, which is obviously not what you meant. Just thought that I would point that out.

No, pretty sure that's correct. The "mouth" of the symbol opens towards whatever is the larger side of the inequality. He's trying to say that if three is larger than the CMC of a spell, it costs 3 under Sphere.

[Julian23]

While we're already at nitpicking: Trinisphere doesn't give a shit about cc. All it looks at is "how much mana was actually spent while casting?" which is total cost.

[Kich867]

Minor nitpick, but you put the 'less than' sign backwards. < 3 would mean that spells that cost more than 3 cost three under a Trinisphere, which is obviously not what you meant. Just thought that I would point that out.

Actually he's correct in that writing. CC > 3 == "Casting Cost Greater Than 3".

He correctly wrote "CC < 3" == Casting Cost Less Than 3.

If a spell costs less than 3, it costs 3 under trinisphere.

[Snap_Keep]

Mindslaver?

[John Cox]

Do cards from unglued and unhinged count?

[Fry]

Do cards from unglued and unhinged count?

This is exactly what I was just thinking... I particulary enjoy Super Secret Tech, but then I collect foils... Also Cheatyface is just awesome

[Illissius]

Mindslaver?

Unique for sure (there's also Sorin Markov now, and anything else?), but, like Time Stop, this is a case where they came up with a new effect and then expanded the Rules to define what it means.


Exploration, loving it.

Playing lands is well regulated. It says you have to mention which effect allows you to play the land you're playing whenever you play a land and all that.


Shahrazad

^_^

I think there's rules about subgames and restarting games and all that too. :) But definitely unique! And that reminds me of:

Karn Liberated

which is in the same category.


Platinum angel
laboratory maniac
phage the untouchable
glacial chasm?
- Can't remember if there was a rule about this, good idea in either case.
- Replacement ability
- Triggered abilities
- Combat, damage prevention


Do cards from unglued and unhinged count?
The Rules don't apply to those at all, so no.



...it seems this is harder than I thought. To be honest I was expecting people to pick my own choices apart as not qualifying, but apparently there aren't many Level 3 Judges around. I suppose the silver lining is people learning a few useless factoids about the CompRules.

[Koby]

Every card uses the Golden Rule, more or less. Otherwise the game would be a bunch of vanilla creatures.

Example: "one land per turn"
Exploration
Explore
Fastbond

Example: "sorceries during main phase"
Teferi
Vedalken Orrery
Hypersonic Dragon

Example: "you lose at 0 life"
Platinum Angel
Phyrexian Unlife
Angel's Grace

[n00bas4urus_r3x]

What about the Epic cycle?


Enduring Ideal
Endless Swarm
Eternal Dominion
Neverending Torment
Undying Flames

Also Solitary Confinement?

[Tammit67]

Freaking Time Vault.

How many of you know when the decision to skip a turn with Time Vault? Or what happens when a player with time vault gets mindslaver'd?

Golden Rule applies to a ton of cards, really

[jamis]

I think there's rules about subgames and restarting games and all that too. :) But definitely unique! And that reminds me of:

Karn Liberated

which is in the same category.

Karn Liberated actually has its own section in the Comp. Rules, so it does play by the rules.

Also surprised no one's mentioned Stasis.

[Koby]

Freaking Time Vault.

How many of you know when the decision to skip a turn with Time Vault? Or what happens when a player with time vault gets mindslaver'd?

Golden Rule applies to a ton of cards, really

The player can select to untap Time Vault and skip his turn. The Slavering player still takes that player's NEXT turn.

[Illissius]

Freaking Time Vault.

Good catch.


Karn Liberated actually has its own section in the Comp. Rules, so it does play by the rules.

That's what I said. :)


Also surprised no one's mentioned Stasis.

I'm not sure if "Players skip their untap steps." invokes the golden rule. I think "Permanents don't untap during their controllers' untap steps." would have better odds, but that's not how it's worded. But while I'm unsure about the technical classification, neither step/phase skipping nor things not untapping are very unique effects.

[Illissius]

Example: "one land per turn"
Exploration
Explore
Fastbond



305. Lands

305.1. A player who has priority may play a land card from his or her hand during a main phase of his or her turn when the stack is empty. Playing a land is a special action; it doesn't use the stack (see rule 115). Rather, the player simply puts the land onto the battlefield. Since the land doesn't go on the stack, it is never a spell, and players can't respond to it with instants or activated abilities.

305.2. A player may normally play only one land during his or her turn; however, continuous effects may increase this number. If any such effects exist, the player announces which effect, or this rule, applies to each land play as it happens.

-


Example: "sorceries during main phase"
Teferi
Vedalken Orrery
Hypersonic Dragon

304.5. If text states that a player may do something "any time he or she could cast an instant," it means only that the player must have priority. The player doesn't need to have an instant he or she could actually cast. Effects that would prevent that player from casting a spell or casting an instant don't affect the player's capability to perform that action (unless the action is actually casting a spell or casting an instant).

-


Example: "you lose at 0 life"
Platinum Angel
Phyrexian Unlife
Angel's Grace
Winner. As far as I can find, there's no mention of these possibilities in the Rules.

To be fair, the other two examples might also be Golden Rule with the rest of the Rules just explaining the interaction rather than explicitly "allowing" it, but I'm really looking for instances where the Rules make no reference whatsoever to the possibility, and where there also aren't a zillion cards that do it. (Obviously I don't expect people to know the whole Comprehensive Rules inside and out, which is why I'm encouraging people to just post anything they can think of that has a particularly unique effect and isn't obviously covered by the rules mentioned previously, and then there's fairly good odds that many of those will also be Golden Rule.)


Every card uses the Golden Rule, more or less. Otherwise the game would be a bunch of vanilla creatures.

I don't think that's true. Spells that say, "Do X." ("Destroy target creature", "Draw a card", etc. etc.) don't break the rules. Activated abilities don't break the rules. Triggered abilities don't break the rules. Replacement effects don't break the rules. Damage and damage prevention don't break the rules. Anything that mucks with targetting or copying spells doesn't break the rules. Anything covered by the layer system (http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=judge/article/20091105a) (basically, anything that says "X is Y", "all X are Y", "X gains Y", "X has Y", "X gets Y" etc.) doesn't break the rules (http://www.wizards.com/magic/comprules/MagicCompRules_20120701.txt). Most things to do with combat don't break the rules. That wasn't an exhaustive list. You can build a lot of cards out of these. I should read the second half of the Rules some time to see what else is covered.

(Interestingly though, for an example of a very banal ability that isn't covered: vigilance. I read through the section on combat and it just says that creatures tap when they attack, full stop, with no allusion to the possibility that maybe sometimes they don't. But vigilance is a keyword ability and, like all keyword abilities, is defined in the section about keyword abilities, so it's covered by the Rules in that sense.)

[Koby]

Shared Fate
Shadow of Doubt (and its cousins)
Blood Moon and other type changing effects (layers)
Zeniths (first time a spell didnt go to g/y or exile upon resolution)

[nedleeds]

What's there to explain? Your stuff costs three if under 3, and if over 3, other tax effects take place. Trinisphere applies last always, after tax effects. Boom. Done. Your opponents must have been real mouth-breathers.

-Matt

This is every SCG sunday .... 50% standard players stumbling to victory in legacy. No clue about the eternal card pool. Its hard not to draw when your opponent has to call a judge 8-10 times for oracle text ... and still not know what the card does.

See: get text for cursed totem .... promptly use kotr.

[Sloshthedark]

Riftsweeper


This is every SCG sunday .... 50% standard players stumbling to victory in legacy. No clue about the eternal card pool. Its hard not to draw when your opponent has to call a judge 8-10 times for oracle text ... and still not know what the card does.

See: get text for cursed totem .... promptly use kotr.

too much pimpness ;)

[nedleeds]

Riftsweeper



too much pimpness ;)

At one point I was 4-0-2 (?) at the Atlanta SCG Legacy last week. My draws were goblins and delver burn. I'm starting to think my pimp is costing me wins. I didn't get extensions either match, maybe I should have begged harder.

Oh well ... ride or die as they say.

I'd say Word of Command was the original golden rule card ............ followed by Ring o f Ma'Ruf

[Humphrey]

Rulemonster:
https://static.starcitygames.com/sales/cardscans/MAGTEM/humility.jpghttp://static.starcitygames.com/sales/cardscans/MAGLEG/chains_of_mephistopheles.jpg
http://static.starcitygames.com/sales/cardscans/MAGALP/illusionary_mask.jpg

Uniquestuff:
http://static.starcitygames.com/sales/cardscans/MAGARN/ring_of_maruf.jpghttp://static.starcitygames.com/sales/cardscans/MAGALP/chaos_orb.jpg

[John Cox]

This is every SCG sunday .... 50% standard players stumbling to victory in legacy. No clue about the eternal card pool. Its hard not to draw when your opponent has to call a judge 8-10 times for oracle text ... and still not know what the card does.

See: get text for cursed totem .... promptly use kotr.

Back when SCG ran P9 the tournament series (vintage with proxies) it was insane.

[Technics]

No one has mentioned Relentless Rats

[Illissius]

Shared Fate
There's a few cards which let you cast your opponents' spells... but I don't know if they allow you to play lands, which Shared Fate apparently does.


Shadow of Doubt (and its cousins)
Good point.


Blood Moon and other type changing effects (layers)
...hence not golden rule.


Zeniths (first time a spell didnt go to g/y or exile upon resolution)
Buyback and Beacons beg to differ with you, but yeah, this might be golden rule. Though I wonder. Maybe it's just that the normal order of things is that when resolving an instant or sorcery, the first thing is to follow the instructions on the card, and after that to put it into its owner's graveyard; but here the last instruction is "shuffle Zenith into its owner's library", which you do, and maybe after that the rule that would put the card into the graveyard just can't find it? So instead of the rules getting overridden, it's almost like they got punked.


Rulemonster:
[Humility][Chains of Mephistopheles]
[Illusionary Mask]

Humility is covered by layers. I think Chains is a simple replacement effect, though admittedly not a simple one. I'm not sure whether Mask invokes the Golden Rule, but it's definitely weird, so good find.


Uniquestuff:
[Ring of Ma'Ruf][Chaos Orb]
Ring of Ma'Ruf *used* to be unique, until they printed a bunch of other cards with similar effects, starting with the Wishes. Chaos Orb: indeed.



No one has mentioned Relentless Rats

Winner.

[nedleeds]

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/cedi/45.jpg

So imagine tooling around winter of 1994 and opening this ... I used this thing to do all kinds of incorrect stuff.

[Darkenslight]

R&D's Secret Lair seems to spring to mind. But it's unhinged, so...

[John Cox]

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/cedi/45.jpg

So imagine tooling around winter of 1994 and opening this ... I used this thing to do all kinds of incorrect stuff.

If you play a peek, is word of command uncounterable? Golden rule rules scenario.

[ahg113]

Masako the Humorless

Survey says?

[door]

I'm not sure I understand the criteria correctly, but I hope I do :tongue:
So here are the cards that come to my mind:

Gemstone Caverns
Serum Powder
'leylines'
Animate dead

Also what about
cards that mess with non-existant cards? They don't brake the rules, but still there's something unnatural about them.
Command tower (it's legal in eternal formats and generals - not)
Steamflogger Boss

Also cards that mess with expansions
city in a bottle
Apocalypse Chime

cards that have weird erratas
Lion's eye diamond

Reserved list might have some more interesting examples.

[nedleeds]

Masako the Humorless

Survey says?

Survery says Masako was pissed when they printed Village Bell Ringer.

[ahg113]

Survery says Masako was pissed when they printed Village Bell Ringer.

She was pissed at something, beforehand, regardless of what it was. Her static ability is more impressive than Village Bell Ringer's one shot effect though. So much so, she prolly belongs in a certain Rhys token deck...

[Koby]

Survery says Masako was pissed when they printed Village Bell Ringer.

She didn't find that joke funny.

[Stoyrm]

She didn't find that joke funny.

Made. My. Day.

[nedleeds]

R&D question: What would Masako the Humorless' P/T need to be in order to see legacy play. I say the following

2/4

or

3/3 possibly

[Humphrey]

http://deckbox.org/system/images/mtg/cards/230788.jpghttp://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=276504&type=card

[Illissius]

I know it's been a long thread, but Word of Command, Masako, and Laboratory Maniac have all been mentioned. I suggest Ctrl-F or the 'Search Thread' thingie.

Misthollow Griffin: Definitely invokes the Golden Rule I think, though the Rules do make reference to the possibility that spells could be played from elsewhere than a player's hand. (And while there's nothing else that can be cast from exile, there's several cards that let you cast them from the graveyard, which breaks the rule in the same way... and Panglacial Wurm from the library, now that I think of it. And Miracle cards.)


I'm not sure I understand the criteria correctly, but I hope I do :tongue:
So here are the cards that come to my mind:

Gemstone Caverns
'leylines'

There is in fact a section explaining how to deal with cards that do things before (or when) the game begins, but nice thought.


Serum Powder
I can't remember if I read anything about this, but it definitely belongs on the list for the uniqueness factor alone.


Animate dead
I think this is just weird, but not rule-bending.


Command tower (it's legal in eternal formats and generals - not)
Steamflogger Boss
The rules do describe alternate formats (frequently enough that I started skipping over those parts because I didn't care) - and even Contraptions! Though only to mention that they "exist".


Also cards that mess with expansions
city in a bottle
Apocalypse Chime
These are within the Rules -- expansion symbol is a relevant property of the card -- but def unique, along with Golgothian Sylex. Albeit "Whenever a nontoken permanent from the Arabian Nights expansion other than City in a Bottle is on the battlefield, its controller sacrifices it.", while I think it's a triggered ability, is unique among all Magic cards, so plus points for that one.


cards that have weird erratas
Lion's eye diamond
Don't think there's anything special about this one.


Reserved list might have some more interesting examples.
Another thing is that rares are much more commonly "interesting" than less-rare cards, but that's still a lot of cards to look through manually.

[Illissius]

And in the Mirror Gallery vein:

Brothers Yamazaki

[Humphrey]

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=438&type=cardhttp://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=511&type=card
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=1957&type=cardhttp://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=202532&type=card
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=337&type=card

[Illissius]

I don't see what's special about Goblin War Drums, but the others are definitely interesting, thanks!

I wonder if there's an extended discussion of "as though" clauses anywhere in the rules. I should check that out some time...