Changes to the planeswalker uniqueness rule

[Undomian]

While the update to the legend rule has some implications for the format, the change to the planeswalker uniqueness rule is HUGE. Unless I'm misinterpreting this... No longer will my Jace be a 4 mana "kill Jace" spell. You can -2 your Liliana, then play a new one and +1 her to have a 4 loyalty Liliana! Discuss?

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/248e

Also note the changes to the sideboarding rules...

[.dk]

This seems really bizarre. At first glance, I don't think I like it, but I need to think about it more. Seems like Jace may have just gotten a lot better since there are fewer ways to kill him now. And not that it really matters that much, but Jace Beleren just got a lot worse...

[T-101]

Vendillion Clique approves of this rules update. Jace/Liliana grind wars somehow found a way to become grindier...

[twndomn]

Geist, Emrakrul, Karakas on each side of the table... let the chaos begin~!

If you think DnT mirror is bad right now, it'll get worse after this.

[Megadeus]

So awful... This is just terribad. Like why... This just breaks cards in half. Now you can play 4 Gaeas Cradles in Elves. Tap my Gaeas cradle for 4. Play my Land for turn which is a Gaeas Cradle. Tap for 4 more. Am I doing it right? Tap my Mox Opal for Black. Play Mox Opal, Tap my new Mox Opal for red. Hooray Magic is hard! Now whats the downside to playing a bunch of copies of legendary creatures again?

[Undomian]

So awful... This is just terribad. Like why... This just breaks cards in half. Now you can play 4 Gaeas Cradles in Elves. Tap my Gaeas cradle for 4. Play my Land for turn which is a Gaeas Cradle. Tap for 4 more. Am I doing it right? Tap my Mox Opal for Black. Play Mox Opal, Tap my new Mox Opal for red. Hooray Magic is hard! Now whats the downside to playing a bunch of copies of legendary creatures again?

Holy shit, Mox Opal got way better with this update. It literally has no downsides now.

[Darksteel]

You can still only have one of a legendary permanent on your side. Your Cradles will both die. At least that's what I'm assuming if it's still a state-based effect.

If you're playing the Elves mirror, however, your Gaea's Cradle won't kill your opponent's.

[Megadeus]

Your Mox Opals and Gaeas Cradles just become Pseudo rituals

[Megadeus]

You can still only have one of a legendary permanent on your side. Your Cradle's will both die. At least that's what I'm assuming if it's still a state-based effect.

If you're playing the Elves mirror, however, your Gaea's Cradle won't kill your opponent's.

No. You choose which cradle dies and you keep one

[Mewens]

Edit: MEGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADEUS

Edit edit: Phyrexian Tower + Bloodghast doesn't sound miserable, either, but it ain't no 99 mana Gaea's Cradle.

Gaea's Cradle just broke in half.

Elves: "Tap my Cradle, play 8 more elves, play Cradle No. 2, keep it, tap it."

Rest of the rules are whatevs – at least they're all better than the original Legend rule, so there's that – but I don't like the land rule. It looks like they were going for "intuitive" again, with intuitive meaning "easy for new players to understand." I feel like it's going to be another one of those rules where you explain it to some mid-level player, and he or she will be like, "But as far as the game cares, it's a new permanent, why doesn't it get to apply?" and you'll have to answer, "Because there's another rule in a totally different section of the comp rules that's meant to make this game more intuitive. FML, right?"

[Darksteel]

No. You choose which cradle dies and you keep one

Oh, so you can tap one for mana, play another, sac the tapped one and tap the new one? Wow. That's pretty damn good.

[Megadeus]

Oh, so you can tap one for mana, play another, sac the tapped one and tap the new one? Wow. That's pretty damn good.

Its stupid is what it is. Jace Races sound awful.

Me Fate seal you my jace is at 5
You Fate seal You my jace is at 5

Whoever topdecks a bolt first wins!

[apple713]

These rules are terrible. It completely nullifies the entire purpose of having something be legendary. 2 legendary permanents should never be in play at the same time regardless of who's side of the table they are on. I feel like it would have almost been better to just not allow the second legendary / planes walker card to enter play or be cast. 2 jaces should never be in play at the same time and you should never be able to cast another jace while you have one in play...clearly he is already fighting for you in one form...

This rule definitely favors the original caster. where as the old rule kept things balanced.

[ivanpei]

Cradle & Opal just got ridiculous. Elves and storm improved? Can an artifact heavy storm combo deck work now? Petals, LEDs, Chrome Moxes, Opals + Top enough?

Also it's funny if the Show And Tell Player puts down an Emrakul and the other guy has a clone for it. But the opponent gets to bash first. LOL!

[Megadeus]

These rules are terrible. It completely nullifies the entire purpose of having something be legendary. 2 legendary permanents should never be in play at the same time regardless of who's side of the table they are on. I feel like it would have almost been better to just not allow the second legendary / planes walker card to enter play or be cast. 2 jaces should never be in play at the same time and you should never be able to cast another jace while you have one in play...clearly he is already fighting for you in one form...

This rule definitely favors the original caster. where as the old rule kept things balanced.

No stopping new ones from being cast was the old rule and whoever gets theirs first really wins. Play my jace? Good luck killing it.

[Megadeus]

Cradle & Opal just got ridiculous. Elves and storm improved? Can an artifact heavy storm combo deck work now? Petals, LEDs, Chrome Moxes, Opals + Top enough?

Also it's funny if the Show And Tell Player puts down an Emrakul and the other guy has a clone for it. But the opponent gets to bash first. LOL!

I dont think clone works like that if I remember correctly... But hell you can just plop in your own griselbrand / emrakul and smash them into each other

[dschalter]

I think the new rules are "better," but they certainly don't work well with a lot of existing cards. I wouldn't be too surprised if Gaea's Cradle got banned as a result of this.

[Megadeus]

They are horrid. Now you dont have to care what your opponent is doing and you dont get punished for making a play mistake of casting the same legend twice.. How is this a good rule again?

[Barook]

Speculation says that the next block "Theros" is going to be legend-heavy, hence the change.

Both sides can now use JMS at the same time? Oh boy, those control mirrors are going to be fun! :rolleyes:

Show & Tell mirrors getting a strange dynamic now as well. If both players drop an Emrakul, they get to swing with their copy first due to the lack of haste.

The Cradle thing is interesting. Should also be relevant for Enchantress with Explorations in play and Serra's Sanctum.

Not mentioned so far, but also highly relevant: Jitte wars

Are there any Legacy-playable legends with good CIT abilities?

[twndomn]

Non-artifact, Non-land, Legendary permanent doesn't have haste => price goes down
Legendary permanent has haste or Legendary artifact or Legendary land => price goes up

[Megadeus]

Yeah Jitte just became reall really good

[Tao]

No reason to be dramatic. The rules change is fine. I think it is an improvement.

[Megadeus]

Dark Depths. Play another dark depths. Get a 20/20. Profit? Fuck this rule change. So Awful

Edit: Sorry this doesnt work. NVM

Thespian Stage copies Dark depths. Then because it has no ice counters you get a 20/20

[Tao]

Dark Depths. Play another dark depths. Get a 20/20. Profit? Fuck this rule change. So Awful

Why would playing another one remove the counters?

[Barook]

Dark Depths. Play another dark depths. Get a 20/20. Profit? Fuck this rule change. So Awful
How exactly does this remove the required 10 ice counters? This doesn't work.

[Megadeus]

Amended I misread the cards for some reason. Still works with Thespians stage though

[.dk]

Non-artifact, Non-land, Legendary permanent doesn't have haste => price goes down
Legendary permanent has haste or Legendary artifact or Legendary land => price goes up

Pretty sure the price of Geist is going to go up...

[dschalter]

They are horrid. Now you dont have to care what your opponent is doing and you dont get punished for making a play mistake of casting the same legend twice.. How is this a good rule again?

This is a terrible post. First of all, you get punished by having own of your legends killed. Second, the overall point doesn't even make sense. Changing the rules on damage stacking meant that you didn't get punished for not doing something counter intuitive, but the actual result was significant improvement in terms of ease of understanding and there was almost no change in the overall complexity level of combat at high levels of play. This kind of post comes up incredibly often after every rules change because people are upset they will no longer get as many free win against new players from something that isn't immediately obvious, even if the actual effect on serious gameplay is unclear.

[KobeBryan]

looks like jace, jittes, vendillion cliques are in for a price spike

[ivanpei]

Does Dark depths+ Thespian stage thing really work now? That would be ridiculous! You can run Dark Depths, Hexmage and Thespian's stage! You can also run land search things like expedition map to find both Dark Depths and Thespians Stage. It's a totally colourless combo + tutor.

[Megadeus]

This is a terrible post. First of all, you get punished by having own of your legends killed. Second, the overall point doesn't even make sense. Changing the rules on damage stacking meant that you didn't get punished for not doing something counter intuitive, but the actual result was significant improvement in terms of ease of understanding and there was almost no change in the overall complexity level of combat at high levels of play. This kind of post comes up incredibly often after every rules change because people are upset they will no longer get as many free win against new players from something that isn't immediately obvious, even if the actual effect on serious gameplay is unclear.

The fact that now I can play a jace, then my opponent plays a jace and we can have a Jace race and smash our vendillion cliques together is awful. Not only is it awful from the gameplay perspective, from a storywise perspective (which I dont give 2 shits about but they still push it) it also makes no sense. How is jace in two places at once?!

[Megadeus]

Does Dark depths+ Thespian stage thing really work now? That would be ridiculous! You can run Dark Depths, Hexmage and Thespian's stage!

And Crop Rotation finds all of your combo pieces ;)

[Barook]

Thespian Stage copies Dark depths. Then because it has no ice counters you get a 20/20
This sounds actually pretty sexy. Maybe one should grab some copies while they're still cheap.

Did 4X lands just get a new wincon?

Edit: Living Wish can grab it as well, without the double black requirement of Hexmage. Now you can play the combo with blue instead of black for better protection.

[Tao]

The fact that now I can play a jace, then my opponent plays a jace and we can have a Jace race and smash our vendillion cliques together is awful. Not only is it awful from the gameplay perspective, from a storywise perspective (which I dont give 2 shits about but they still push it) it also makes no sense. How is jace in two places at once?!

How are there 2 Jaces and then both die when they see each other? Arguing with story never gets very far.

From a gameplay perspective I think it is an improvement. More choices, more interaction are good in general. And in the Jace war specifically it gives you a better chance to catch up.

The Thespian thing is an issue, though.

[Megadeus]

At least a way to win before Turn 8000927398 I guess.

T1 Mana bond, dump darkdepths, Thespians stage, 2 lands. Eot make a 20/20 T2 Kill you? LULZ

[Plague Sliver]

This is...an interesting change.

Not saying it's good or bad, I just didn't expect this. Maybe it makes more sense on some level to newer players?

[Megadeus]

How are there 2 Jaces and then both die when they see each other? Arguing with story never gets very far.

From a gameplay perspective I think it is an improvement. More choices, more interaction are good in general. And in the Jace war specifically it gives you a better chance to catch up.

The Thespian thing is an issue, though.

Im just saying. Having a jave/ Liliana on board of both sides seems... Fun... Not. I just hate that this was a rule that was probably made in response to newer players probably compaining about how their legends get killed off so easily... Also Sigarda just became super impossibly difficult to deal with FWIW.

[feline]

Maybe it's not fair to say since I somehow don't typically play stuff with Legendary/Planeswalkers, but I like the new changes overall.

When I first started playing magic, I know I at one point probably asked myself "Why is the Legendary rule based on the battlefield, howcome it's not just based on my side of the board?"

[phazonmutant]

This is really interesting. Cradle and Mox Opal definitely get better as people have mentioned. The only decks I can think of that want to play multiple Cradles are Elves and Cheerios, both of which also just got a new toy in Beck. I would imagine there's some renewed interest there.
Mox Opal is generally only played in Cheerios and tall-men based SI lists (which aren't the default build at the moment), as well as Affinity of course. It obviously gets better, but I don't really see it affecting any deck significantly other than Cheerios.

Other situations where the legend rule is applicable are the Show and Tell mirror - it used to be that you never wanted to be the one to play Show and Tell because they either legend rule your monster or they got to swing first. Now it's not quite as bad...but you probably still don't want to be the one casting Show and Tell.
Another relevant interaction is Karakas. Reanimator has played a couple in the board as a 0-mana Vindicate for Karakas, but that doesn't work anymore. That actually hurts their boards pretty significantly. Miracles helped by this though because Karakas + Mom + Teeg is no longer a hard lock.

The other major change is the PW Uniqueness rule. This one seems a lot more subtle. So control decks typically come down to Jace battles, and right now, the first person that can stick a Jace and not have it dead on board is in a really good spot. They've already gotten an use out of it and even if the opponent can immediately fire back and play their own Jace, being down a Jace and a turn puts them on the defensive potentially for the rest of the game. This change really helps nullify that tempo advantage so sticking a Jace should be a lot less of a GG in the control mirror (although untapping twice with Jace is still pretty hard to come back from).
On the other hand though, that makes Jace much harder to kill. It's now so much more important to run creatures in your control deck in order to kill Jace. Clique's stock has gone up (and it was underplayed to begin with).
I imagine we'll see even more of Liliana played as a 4-of since now you can cash a second one in for an immediate edict.

[Megadeus]

This not only dumbs it down so the downside to being legendary is even less, but now the interaction with your opponent is lessened as well. Who cares if they have a walker? I can still play mine! They have a geist of saint traft?! LETS RACE!

[Barook]

World Enchantments sit in the corner and cry because nobody gives a fuck about them.

[Tao]

Im just saying. Having a jave/ Liliana on board of both sides seems... Fun... Not. I just hate that this was a rule that was probably made in response to newer players probably compaining about how their legends get killed off so easily... Also Sigarda just became super impossibly difficult to deal with FWIW.

It is far more fun to have a Jace on both sides of the board than to have one on only one side.

The problem was that playing Jace to kill a Jace was a play that almost always lost the game because the other guy was just a Brainstorm ahead and untapped with it. It is of course still better to be the first who gets to stick a Jace but the damage gets mitigated.

[(nameless one)]

Didn't read the whole thing. But I think I got what the changes were from this thread.

I guess Dark Depths + Thespian's Stage works now?

[Darksteel]

Didn't read the whole thing. But I think I got what the changes were from this thread.

I guess Dark Depths + Vesuva works now?

Vesuva would still have Ice counters on it. Use Thespian's Stage instead.

[Megadeus]

Didn't read the whole thing. But I think I got what the changes were from this thread.

I guess Dark Depths + Thespian Stage works now?

Vesuva (as people have said to me) does not work. Thespians Stage however...

[(nameless one)]

Vesuva would still have Ice counters on it. Use Thespian's Stage instead.

Edited!

[Megadeus]

What I'm getting from this post is that you didn't actually read the linked article.

I read the article. I know what it said and I stand by what I have said here. It is a terrible rule change imo.

[Einherjer]

looks like jace, jittes, vendillion cliques are in for a price spike


And SCG knew all about it! Ban Brainstorm! Oh, wrong thread.

I think I like these changes, especially the legendary rule. Yeah, we are all used to the old one but this one just sounds better. It is also making the Controlmirrors more challenging, even though Jace + Balance vs Jace + Balance sounds even more stupid, lol :D
Sideboarding...hmm no idea when I would ever decide to board in a 60+ card-deck in fair decks I can see it having potention in unfair ones.

Greetings

[jamis]

So yeah, I'm not happy about the planeswalker/legend changes, I actually approve of the sideboard changes, but what's really upsetting me is the changes to "indestructible". It should either be "~ is indestructible until end of turn" or "~gains indestructibility until end of turn." "gains indestructible" sounds god awful.

[ivanpei]

You can skip playing black & Hexmage now which is a major plus. Crop rotation, Dark Depths & Thespian Stage is extremely easy to splash for. You can run 3-4 Stages because it makes mana, just 1 Dark Depths, and use Crop rotation as a tutor for the combo finish. This reminds me natural order style decks but you just need 1 Green and easily splashable. Crop rotation is also instant speed and it can happen EOT if you have a Stage on the table.

Or you can just runt a Bant/Maverick shell with a bunch of Thespian stages and a single Dark Depths. KOTR can just instantly EOT find the Dark Depths & Win. It sounds ridiculous. You just need the 1 depths and play it like an Aggro/Combo deck ALA natural order. Stage isn't a dead card because it's just a colourless land. Especially in Maverick, you have Mother of Runes Etc to protect your 20/20 and GSZ to search out KOTR. Sounds good to me!

I just ordered a set of Dark Depths. This is ridiculously strong.

[Lord Seth]

This not only dumbs it down so the downside to being legendary is even less, but now the interaction with your opponent is lessened as well. Who cares if they have a walker? I can still play mine! They have a geist of saint traft?! LETS RACE!I'm not exactly clear on how neither player having a planeswalker is somehow more interactive than both players having one.

[Megadeus]

I may brew something up for the Hoogland Loam deck... With the stage and depths.

[Barook]

Flagstones of Trokair is a thing now, I guess.

Tap your old Flagstone, play your new one, sac old one, grab a tapped Plains.

Zero tempo loss. Might be cool with CoW.

[Koby]

Turns out Karakas still beats Dark Depths, and your own Karakas cannot nuke theirs; so even less mileage.

[ivanpei]

In mono white decks, the flagstones thing sounds really powerful.

Also I think the ideal spot for Stage-Depths is GBW Junk. It has KOTR which naturally assembles the combo, discard to protect the combo and an Aggro back up plan. Just run the 1 Depths and 3-4 Stages. The deck has only 1 dead card while everything else just runs as normal. Same for GW Mav & Bant.

[feline]

Ok so far this:

~1: Player 1 plays Show and Tell, and then both players put in Emrakul, so the opponent actually wins because of next turn "sac 6 permanents take 15 damage."

~2: Cradle, tap for 7 mana, play another Cradle, tap for another 7 mana.

~3: Mox Opal, tap for mana, play another Mox Opal, sac old tap new, generate another mana.

~4: Liliana of the Veil, sac a creature, then play another Liliana of the veil, sac another creature.

~5: My Karakas/Umezawa's Jitte no longer invalidates your Karakas/Umezawa's Jitte, etc.

~6: 2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor in play: "I Fateseal" ..then.. "No I Fateseal" (potential for "next level" play here as you can do the same "guessing game" that so many do with Brainstorm)

~7: Both sides have a Sliver Overlord in play, but one side also has a Vedalken Shackles so they steal it, what happens? EDITED: thank you Lord Seth (One of them would die, but only 1 *wink wink*)

~8: and right as I post this: there's talk about, Flagstones of Trokair tricks

[Megadeus]

In mono white decks, the flagstones thing sounds really powerful.

Also I think the ideal spot for Stage-Depths is GBW Junk. It has KOTR which naturally assembles the combo, discard to protect the combo and an Aggro back up plan. Just run the 1 Depths and 3-4 Stages.

Thats fair. Honestly I dont know if you even need the black really though... You can just play loam and get back the stage and do it again. Its slow, but you win the grindy MUs. How many times can they deal with your 20/20? Talk about a must deal with threat every turn.

[Lord Seth]

~7: Both sides have a Sliver Overlord in play, but one side also has a Vedalken Shackles so they steal it, what happens? (They would both die as one side controls 2 of the same at that point)Nope, only one dies, and the player who controls them both gets to choose which one. Presumably they'd choose the one the opponent owns.

[dontbiteitholmes]

This change makes me want to vomit.

Lilliana just got 2x as good and about 10x easier to play.

If I had a dollar for all the times I probably won a game because I kept knocking my opponent's stupid PW to 1 loyalty and letting it live so he couldn't play the other one in his hand and blow me out with it's second ability or put it out of range of attack...

MTG is getting more and more easy mode every day.

[Lemnear]

When does the sacrifice happen? As a state base effect or instant? Can I now tap a Mox Opal or mana with a a Lotus Petal in play while a new Mox Opal enters the battlefield?

[Barook]

When does the sacrifice happen? As a state base effect or instant? Can I now tap a Mox Opal or mana with a a Lotus Petal in play while a new Mox Opal enters the battlefield?
It should still be state-based, so no, this probably isn't going to work.

[Megadeus]

When does the sacrifice happen? As a state base effect or instant? Can I now tap a Mox Opal or mana with a a Lotus Petal in play while a new Mox Opal enters the battlefield?

Probably statebased I would assume like the old legend rule. I dont see why they would want people to be able to abuse the stack to where new players dont understand...

[feline]

When does the sacrifice happen? As a state base effect or instant? Can I now tap a Mox Opal or mana with a a Lotus Petal in play while a new Mox Opal enters the battlefield?

Basically, play a Mox Opal, tap for mana, then play another one, sac the 1st one already tapped, then after that's over, you have a fresh untapped one in play.

[Barook]

I wonder how good Armageddon/Cataclysm is going to be now with the new Flagstone. Throw in some Vials and call it a day.

[apple713]

I wonder how good Armageddon/Cataclysm is going to be now with the new Flagstone. Throw in some Vials and call it a day.

this didnt change...no deck ever used geddon / flagstones cept stax. White weenie might be slightly better now but i would hardly call it tournament worthy.

[ivanpei]

GW Maverick may be greatly improved now. By running 3 Thespian Stages in its manabase with 1 Dark Depths + 2 Crop Rotations, the deck is built to abuse this combo. KOTR is naturally there to assemble the combo and so is Mother of Runes to protect it.

It's a small change to the deck, cut some cute lands like extra canopies and Karakas #2 or Cradle for 3 Thespian Stages and cut some Silver Bullet creatures for 2 Crop Rotations and a Dark Depths. That's all it takes. The rest of the deck still runs as normal.

The benefits are enormous. Against Miracles which is the deck's nightmare matchup, you suddenly have a Combo finish which you can pull EOT at instant speed with Crop rotation. Against combo decks such as SNT, Crop rotations are also great for finding Karakas for the bounce. Crop rotation also has added utility as a tutor for Maze of Ith, Bojuka Bog (in the board) and for Wasteland to mana screw someone. Crop rotation strengten's the Combo matchup somewhat. Against grindy mid range decks, a combo finish out of nowhere also sounds pretty good. They've also most likely already used up all their point removal early to remove Mother, Thalia, Ooze etc, allowing the 20/20 to slap them up.

[workingdude]

Can't see a downside to -X plains, +X flagstones of trokair in monowhite and twocolor decks (UW, BW, GW,)

[Koby]

Basically, play a Mox Opal, tap for mana, then play another one, sac the 1st one already tapped, then after that's over, you have a fresh untapped one in play.

Mox Opal is now even better than Lotus Petal once you have Metalcraft.

[Megadeus]

Mox Opal is now even better than Lotus Petal once you have Metalcraft.

Lotus Petal on crack ftw

[Lemnear]

Lotus Petal on crack ftw

4 Petal
4 LED
4 Mox Opal
2 Chrome Mox
3 Ad Nauseam

... just saying

Edit: Sorry, I'm kinda freaking out about this change and it's effect for the game, especially for Mox Opal and Cradle. Tbh, I sat in my bureau while reading about the change and yelled "you can't beat The Rock and his MILLALALALAIONS of Mana!" (Thx to Cradle)

[phazonmutant]

4 Petal
4 LED
4 Mox Opal
2 Chrome Mox
3 Ad Nauseam

... just saying

Damn gurl. This is making me want to brew. And here I thought I was going to sleep tonight...

[nudon]

How often does one fizzle after ad nauseam currently? If this % is already low, I don't think mox opal helps since you would win anyways. However, without AN, it becomes a liability because metalcraft is fairly hard to turn on with so few artifacts. I know this by testing it in rogue hermit builds.

[ivanpei]

How often does one fizzle after ad nauseam currently? If this % is already low, I don't think mox opal helps since you would win anyways. However, without AN, it becomes a liability because metalcraft is fairly hard to turn on with so few artifacts. I know this by testing it in rogue hermit builds.

Yes it's pretty hard to turn on. Tops and Artifact lands may help out. Tops are great in storm but Artifact ands arent because they can get wasted. It's also better to run the opal build in a non-red build as Past in Flames is weakened with fewer instant/sorcery based rituals.

[Megadeus]

Opal just is another form of fast mana for a deck. It helps you go off sooner and allows you to get better color fixing. The fact that now you get to run 4 is just insane as there isn't much of a drawback to having multiples

[nudon]

Against Miracles which is the deck's nightmare matchup, you suddenly have a Combo finish which you can pull EOT at instant speed with Crop rotation.
Counterbalance still counters the rotation.

[Lemnear]

How often does one fizzle after ad nauseam currently? If this % is already low, I don't think mox opal helps since you would win anyways. However, without AN, it becomes a liability because metalcraft is fairly hard to turn on with so few artifacts. I know this by testing it in rogue hermit builds.

Rouge Hermit has nothing in common with todays storm decks. I'm sure there are possibilities to turn on metalcraft in Storm; at least I will check.

The major impact is in Vintage. 5 Beta Moxen, black Lotus, Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, (Mana Vault,) and 3-4 Mox Opal is the New to-go mana-base for Vintage(-combo)

[Lemnear]

Opal just is another form of fast mana for a deck. It helps you go off sooner and allows you to get better color fixing. The fact that now you get to run 4 is just insane as there isn't much of a drawback to having multiples

Except you don't have a way to turn them on aka 2 more non-Opal-artifacts.

It's a major difference to run now 4 of that Mox over the previous 2 in decks that may want it. Now you can build around that card

Edit: wow 50 users browsing this thread.
Edit2: Replacing Preordain in ANT with Tops and stuff-in 4 Opal Moxen is mean
Edit3: maybe Glimmervoid is now a thing again for TES

[nudon]

Rouge Hermit has nothing in common with todays storm decks. I'm sure there are possibilities to turn on metalcraft in Storm; at least I will check.

The major impact is in Vintage. 5 Beta Moxen, black Lotus, Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, (Mana Vault,) and 3-4 Mox Opal is the New to-go mana-base for Vintage(-combo)

I was just saying I tested the heavy artifact setup in rogue hermit, not that they have anything in common. This even included 4 living wishes to find artifact lands (possible impact on vintage rogue hermit?). I totally agree with what you said about vintage combo.

[Lemnear]

I should have kept my mouth about the applications of Opal now ... Prices are already jumping (+20€ for foils in 2 hours)

[Jamaican Zombie Legend]

Lilliana just got 2x as good and about 10x easier to play.

Hey, it's not like she's a format staple in Modern and Legacy that can provide absurd amounts of value played properly and whose only drawbacks are being drawn in multiples, having your opponent sandbag against a low loyalty one to lock down play options, or being destroyed by opponents playing another copy of her.

Oh wait...

Lili and Geist are gonna run train on Standard and Modern once this rules change goes into effect. Sigarda is going to do the same in EDH, and tier one generals are now going to be able to be played simultaneously in games; FUCK YEAH TWO AZAMIS AT ONCE BROS! I can't even think of how dumb things like Cradle and Opal will be.

This might be the stupidest decision Wizards has ever made...and that's saying something.

[ankharlyn]

I have to say I hate the legend changes. Just as I'm almost done with my Legacy deck so I can start playing a format that's not just "turn guys sideways lolz", they spring this crap on us. It seems like they are slowly sucking all interactivity and actual strategy out of this game in the name of making it so you can just auto-pilot through by chucking down cards without even looking at the opponent's board. Just throw stuff down and turn dudes sideways! Yeah! That's what Magic should be all about.

[JanoschEausH]

I like the SB-Rule! It occured to me sometimes that i didn't really want to board stuff out but wanted to add 1-2 cards from the SB. Thats possible now.

[Smmenen]

Holy shit, Mox Opal got way better with this update. It literally has no downsides now.

Yes it does: Metalcraft. Having multiple Mox Opal doesn't feed itself in terms of metalcraft. You can still only have 1 in play at a time. Having a multi-Mox Opal hand means you are even less likely to get Metalcraft any time soon.

I LOVE all of these changes. I think they give players more opportunity to compete.

The problem with the uniqueness rule is that it overly rewarded the first person to have a legend/planeswalker. Now, the second player can attempt to compete. I love it.

[Gheizen64]

This isn't a bad rule imho, even if it make some cards stronger. Also, could this change pave the way for Legendary Duals? Without the auto-waste effect i think they could really be a viable, printable alternative right now.

EDIT:
Yes guys, Opal are getting better, but opening with 2 opals, 1 land in hand still sucks because they still don't do anything if you're light on permanent. You need 2xLED/Petals. I guess it isn't unlikely, but Opal was already super good in those situations. But having 2 Opals in hand still sucks because you'd rather have another artifact so i think players will still play 2 or 3 and not 4.
Flagstones on the other hand are now super plains that double as painless fetches for plain duals. All Wx decks got a bit better from this, you have the best shuffle effects.

[Barook]

Flagstones on the other hand are now super plains that double as painless fetches for plain duals. All Wx decks got a bit better from this, you have the best shuffle effects.
Flagstones also feed Dust Bowl which could turn out to be relevant as well when you're already running 4 Flagstones.

[DLifshitz]

Flagstones also feed Dust Bowl which could turn out to be relevant as well when you're already running 4 Flagstones.

And 2 x Cataclysm in the sideboard.

I don't really like the rules change much, mainly because I don't like "untouchable" creatures like Geist or Emrakul that can be difficult to kill otherwise (in other formats, anyway). As people have been quick to point out, many cards will now work quite differently, so it's a pretty drastic change.

[Adryan]

And 2 x Cataclysm in the sideboard.

I don't really like the rules change much, mainly because I don't like "untouchable" creatures like Geist or Emrakul that can be difficult to kill otherwise (in other formats, anyway). As people have been quick to point out, many cards will now work quite differently, so it's a pretty drastic change.

I love the change. The part i love the most in legacy, the control mirror became more complex and more skill intensive.
Awesome.

[Zand]

I like the rule changes in general. No longer will the first Jace landed win you the game etc etc. However, I am somewhat concerned by the power of Liliana, chaining edicts is now a big bummer... Jitte somehow got more obnoxious in creature matchups, which is somewhat annoying.

[evanmartyr]

Sideboarding change is good, although it is a bit weird that they didn't explicitly state whether you had to begin game 1 with 60 cards (assuming a 60 card deck). So theoretically, if you'd scouted your opponent beforehand, you may be able to start game 1 with a 64/11 setup. Unless they're intending for your game 1 to always use your registered maindeck list, but they didn't explicitly say that.

Legend and Planeswalker rule is fucking dumb. Unless Theros is going to be like p3k, where every third creature is a legend and the format would grind to a halt with the previous legend rule incarnation...but christ. Legends are legends. I get that changing it so you can play legendary permanents that kill your own old ones makes some sort of sense (instead of both just going poof), but letting multiple copies of a "unique" thing exist is silly.

And way to neuter mono green storm with the land drop thing, WotC. Thanks for that o.0

[Hof]

Sideboarding change is good, although it is a bit weird that they didn't explicitly state whether you had to begin game 1 with 60 cards (assuming a 60 card deck). So theoretically, if you'd scouted your opponent beforehand, you may be able to start game 1 with a 64/11 setup. Unless they're intending for your game 1 to always use your registered maindeck list, but they didn't explicitly say that.
Yes, they did.

I like these changes for the most part. I think they make a lot of sense.

[Malchar]

I support the change to the extent that blue no longer has the monopoly on killing legends with clone effects.

[Gheizen64]

I support the change to the extent that blue no longer has the monopoly on killing legends with clone effects.

Well, against SnT this is probably better (except for Griselbrand).

[Higgs]

It seems like they are slowly sucking all interactivity and actual strategy out of this game in the name of making it so you can just auto-pilot through by chucking down cards without even looking at the opponent's board. Just throw stuff down and turn dudes sideways! Yeah! That's what Magic should be all about.

Pretty much this. And nothing else.

[Tao]

I have to say I hate the legend changes. Just as I'm almost done with my Legacy deck so I can start playing a format that's not just "turn guys sideways lolz", they spring this crap on us. It seems like they are slowly sucking all interactivity and actual strategy out of this game in the name of making it so you can just auto-pilot through by chucking down cards without even looking at the opponent's board. Just throw stuff down and turn dudes sideways! Yeah! That's what Magic should be all about.

If anything the game gets more interactive with this. And how in the world would this rules change promote "turn guys sideways lolz"? Or playing on Auto-Pilot? And why wouldn't you have to look on your opponent's board anymore?

[bruizar]

Pretty much this. And nothing else.

So funny how hardcore players are so often resistant to change. It doesn't really matter what they change, some people will always favor the status quo.

[Nonex]

I support the change to the extent that blue no longer has the monopoly on killing legends with clone effects.

Phyrexian Metamorph. Problem solved.

Frankly, as much as I loathe blue being as overpowered as it is, I hate how untouchable monsters like Progenitus and Emrakul are now even harder to kill. Clones were one of the few safe assets out there against the current power creep. I'd rather have them print clones on other colors than this.

[Darkenslight]

Sideboarding change is good, although it is a bit weird that they didn't explicitly state whether you had to begin game 1 with 60 cards (assuming a 60 card deck). So theoretically, if you'd scouted your opponent beforehand, you may be able to start game 1 with a 64/11 setup. Unless they're intending for your game 1 to always use your registered maindeck list, but they didn't explicitly say that.

Legend and Planeswalker rule is fucking dumb. Unless Theros is going to be like p3k, where every third creature is a legend and the format would grind to a halt with the previous legend rule incarnation...but christ. Legends are legends. I get that changing it so you can play legendary permanents that kill your own old ones makes some sort of sense (instead of both just going poof), but letting multiple copies of a "unique" thing exist is silly.

And way to neuter mono green storm with the land drop thing, WotC. Thanks for that o.0

They did: in the article by Sam Stoddard, it explicitly mentions Legendary Lands in Theros as one of the major reasons that the rule was changed. I sort of like these changes, for the most part, though I can easily see how they could rub people the wrong way.

[Gheizen64]

They did: in the article by Sam Stoddard, it explicitly mentions Legendary Lands in Theros as one of the major reasons that the rule was changed. I sort of like these changes, for the most part, though I can easily see how they could rub people the wrong way.

PLZ BE LEGENDARY DUALS PLZ PLZ.

No but seriously with the new rule Legendary duals would just be perfect with Fetches. Run 2 of them, loads of fetches and maybe 1 or 2 normal duals et voilà, Legacy is largely affordable once again, attendance growth, world hunger ends, war ends, we discover the Alcubierre drive and get to explore the galaxy.

[Barook]

They did: in the article by Sam Stoddard, it explicitly mentions Legendary Lands in Theros as one of the major reasons that the rule was changed. I sort of like these changes, for the most part, though I can easily see how they could rub people the wrong way.
So, in the end, it all comes down to cheap land destruction again?

Maro's "Fun" Policy™ - ruining Magic bit for bit since 2004

[(nameless one)]

I just realized something:

If you're Merfolk and your opponent Show and Tells an Emrakul, you can Vial in Phantasmal Image at the end of his turn copying your opponent's Emrakul.

Then you can swing with that Emrakul for the win!

[AEnesidem]

I'm not reluctant to change but for once i find it extremely hard to be happy about it. This is changing a lot of fundamental plays in legacy. With jace, jitte, geist, liliana etc. being extremely strong cards that are somewhat hard to remove these powerful cards became even better and harder to remove.

[bruizar]

Dreadbore and Vindicate are going to become more important. Dreadbore can take out creatures, lili and jace (abrupt decay cant take out jace). Vindicate can help dominate the planeswalker battles in esper / deathblade mirrors.

[joven]

The new legendary and planeswalker uniqueness rules are awful!
That clones/copies can't kill opponents stuff anymore could be ok in my opinion, but the actual legendary cards still should or it is weird. Even worse for planeswalkers.
I don't like that you can now exploit having several copies of certain legendary permanents or just by copying them (Planeswalker activations, Gaea's Cradle, Dark Depth+Thespian Stage, ...).


Its stupid is what it is. Jace Races sound awful.

Me Fate seal you my jace is at 5
You Fate seal You my jace is at 5

Whoever topdecks a bolt first wins!

Sounds nearly as awful as the Mental Misstep wars while it was legal.


Does Dark depths+ Thespian stage thing really work now? That would be ridiculous! You can run Dark Depths, Hexmage and Thespian's stage! You can also run land search things like expedition map to find both Dark Depths and Thespians Stage. It's a totally colourless combo + tutor.

Smells like Dark Depths won't be around for long, if it works good enough.


I just realized something:

If you're Merfolk and your opponent Show and Tells an Emrakul, you can Vial in Phantasmal Image at the end of his turn copying your opponent's Emrakul.

Then you can swing with that Emrakul for the win!

I think that this is not so bad. Everything that makes Show and Tell and giant untouchable monsters worse is good. :)


PLZ BE LEGENDARY DUALS PLZ PLZ.

No but seriously with the new rule Legendary duals would just be perfect with Fetches. Run 2 of them, loads of fetches and maybe 1 or 2 normal duals et voilà, Legacy is largely affordable once again, attendance growth, world hunger ends, war ends, we discover the Alcubierre drive and get to explore the galaxy.

Oh no, they wouldn't! :O It really smells like the Revised Dual Lands could come back as Legendaries now!
That could give Legacy a chance to survive a little bit longer but I find it awful for flavor. (I like the flavor of the Revised Dual Lands so much!)

[(nameless one)]

I want to see something with two Griselbrands on both side of the field now.

[SaberTooth]

PLZ BE LEGENDARY DUALS PLZ PLZ.

No but seriously with the new rule Legendary duals would just be perfect with Fetches. Run 2 of them, loads of fetches and maybe 1 or 2 normal duals et voilà, Legacy is largely affordable once again, attendance growth, world hunger ends, war ends, we discover the Alcubierre drive and get to explore the galaxy.

can you imagine this? this could theorically help legacy A LOT, please legendary duals!!

[Koby]

I want to see something with two Griselbrands on both side of the field now.

Me too, brother.

[(nameless one)]

Wouldn't the Dark Stage combo fit in Lands.dec?

Maybe a faster win?

[DrJones]

Hey, they implemented all the changes I suggested to the legendary rule, great!

The only change I didn't suggest was the one that stops opposite legends from destroying each other, it looks like they got tired of blue clones being used as pseudo-removal. Well, I thought that one was stupid, though it means that now Umezawa's Jitte will be even harder to stop now.

By the way, in the message I sent to wizards I specifically mentioned how Mox Opal and Gaea's Cradle would get "extra" activations, so they are aware of that. It also means that effects like Living Death no longer suck with two or more copies of a legend in your graveyard. They even used my example of pacifism on teysa on the article explaining the changes! :tongue:

[(nameless one)]

Hey, they implemented all the changes I suggested to the legendary rule, great!

The only change I didn't suggest was the one that stops opposite legends from destroying each other, it looks like they got tired of blue clones being used as pseudo-removal. Well, I thought that one was stupid, though it means that now Umezawa's Jitte will be even harder to stop now.

By the way, in the message I sent to wizards I specifically mentioned how Mox Opal and Gaea's Cradle would get "extra" activations, so they are aware of that. It also means that effects like Living Death no longer suck with two or more copies of a legend in your graveyard. They even used my example of pacifism on teysa on the article explaining the changes! :tongue:


So you're the jackass that caused all this ruckus! LOL j/k

[yankeedave]

Yep, now all they need to do is listen to your cries for Force of Will to be banned and we can close the B&R Thread!

[Gheizen64]

Hey, they implemented all the changes I suggested to the legendary rule, great!

The only change I didn't suggest was the one that stops opposite legends from destroying each other, it looks like they got tired of blue clones being used as pseudo-removal. Well, I thought that one was stupid, though it means that now Umezawa's Jitte will be even harder to stop now.

By the way, in the message I sent to wizards I specifically mentioned how Mox Opal and Gaea's Cradle would get "extra" activations, so they are aware of that. It also means that effects like Living Death no longer suck with two or more copies of a legend in your graveyard. They even used my example of pacifism on teysa on the article explaining the changes! :tongue:

...

Top tier trolling as always i see.

[theBloody]

Guys, stop freaking out about chain activations. In the first 10 cards of 60 card deck the probability is about 12% to have two or more copies in hand (assuming it is 4-off card). So every eight game you will have opportunity to do this. Gamebreaking http://www.chatslang.com/images/shortcuts/justintv/admins/kappa.png

[Julian23]

Ok people, here's the thing: Even before the rules change, putting Emrakul into play via Show and Tell was probably the worst thing you could do with all variants of Show and Tell. I think everyone that has played this deck will agree here.

[Esper3k]

Ok people, here's the thing: Even before the rules change, putting Emrakul into play via Show and Tell was probably the worst thing you could do with all variants of Show and Tell. I think everyone that has played this deck will agree here.

Yeah, it's not like there was a shortage of ways to deal with Emrakul or anything. Plus it's harder to stop their Karakas now...

[ivanpei]

Chaining Cradles and Opals arent that gamebreaking. It's just a minor improvement. If an Elf deck is tapping a cradle for a ton of mana and chaining into another cradle with Glimpse, you've already lost. It just makes Elves easier to kill on the turn they go off, so they don't lose to a sudden sweeper the next turn. Chaining cradles doesn't make Elves suddenly unbeatable since most of the fight goes into preventing Glimpse from resolving.

As for opals, a storm deck has to go to alot of effort to turn on Opals, and may not even be worth it. So I don't see the big problem here.

The main thing is Dark Depths-Stage. It's ridiculously strong, but can be hated out by things common things like Wasteland and Swords. It's great that the combo gives half-dead decks like Mav a new breath of life, but it's far from bannable.

[Arianrhod]

My thoughts (gonna copy/paste here, since I don't think my privacy settings will allow me to link to FB:

As with most major, sudden changes, I awoke to the revised legendary/planeswalker uniqueness rules (henceforth simply legendary) with a large amount of trepidation and angst. However, upon thinking the changes through, I have come to the conclusion that it is not the rules change itself that represents the problem. Rather, it is the powerful cards to which we are accustomed, which have not historically been a problem because of the old, flawed, legend rule.

Consider Jace the Mind Sculptor, Greater than All.

This change affects Jace in two primary ways. The first is that playing a Jace to vindicate your opponent's Jace is not going to work anymore. This seems obvious, but it means profound things for the blue mirror -- deck construction in particular. No longer can you lean on "more Jace" to get the job done. Rather, now you have to actually consider ways to destroy planeswalkers in your lists. I saw Brian Braun-Druin comment this morning on Twitter that Vindicate has become even better in legacy as of this change, and I concur.

The second change for Jace is that blue players are going to have to learn a new game. They're going to have to learn how to interact with the Jace mirror -- and I mean the literal Jace mirror. It's easy to imagine a scenario where, on turn 4, Player 1 taps out for Jace. Let's say neither player has a counter open, to make things simple. Player 1 Jacestorms and pass back. Player 2 casually plays a land, and taps out for his own Jace. Now, should Player 2 Jacestorm? Or should he start Fatesealing? Whoever starts Fatesealing first will resolve ultimate first (assuming an open field and no modifying factors). However, if Player 1 then begins Fatesealing as well, Player 1 should usually have more cards in their hand, which means that when the ultimates fire off, Player 2 would actually lose the war. Again, this is a somewhat nonrealistic example because there will of course be counters, attacking creatures, Bolts, and other such intervening features involved -- however, I believe the point stands. Knowing what abilities to use when on Jace is actually going to add a new dimension to the game.

Other cards that are notable:

Liliana of the Veil -- Already great as a 4-of, now even better. -2 with your Lily in play, then play another one and +1 her. You end with a Liliana with 4 loyalty (since the new Liliana replaces the old one in this scenario).

Jitte mirror -- When do you use what ability?

Gaea's Cradle and Serra's Sanctum -- I would not be surprised to see these end up banned within 6 months. On the other hand, the format may adjust. The large upwelling of Esperblade that is coming will make Elves less attractive of an option, but may improve Enchantress even further.

Mox Opal -- Affinity in modern (and legacy, I suppose) gets a bit of a boost from this, since "extra" Opals are now Lotus Petals at worst. It's also worth considering the vintage applications here.

Legendary utility lands -- I'm thinking of Karakas and Academy Ruins here specifically. There is now less of a drawback to running these in your Ux / Wx control decks.

Dark Depths -- This is a less obvious one. There is now a powerful interaction with Thespian's Stage here, whereby you can -- preferably at EoT -- use Thespian's Stage to become a Dark Depths. The Thespian Depths will replace the Dark Depths, but it will not have any Ice Counters on it, and is free to become a Merit Lage immediately, with no Hexmage necessary. As a completely colorless combo, this could appear in any of a large number of places. Look for Dark Depths to spike in price.

Vendilion Clique -- I've heard a lot of people say that this gets a bump, but I disagree. If each side is allowed a Clique, Clique actually -decreases- in power level, because the players are then able to choose which of them feels they are the beatdown. Additionally, any bump that Clique would receive is mitigated by Karakas being better, which means that you still only want around 2 Cliques per deck. Unlike Jace, Clique isn't an overnight 4-of.

Geist of St. Traft, Thun, and Sigarda -- These creatures all get incredible power boosts, because they are now virtually impossible to kill (Thrun in particular). The Hexproof legends now are no longer susceptible to being Cloned out, nor can you answer their legend with your own copy. Of these, Geist is far and away the scariest option for legacy play, as Thrun is too small of a body to be meaningful in a Tarmogoyf world and Sigarda is too expensive outside of Nic Fit and Cradle-powered Maverick decks.

Phantasmal Image -- This little guy is now unplayable outside of Pod and Merfolk. Its use as an offensive weapon is gone.

And so on. This change has many deep ramifications, not all of which are immediately apparent. Some of them are just going to need to come out naturally, with time and development. What is quickly apparent, however, is that one deck in particular experiences great gains from this change: Esperblade.

Esperbalde is uniquely situated within the meta as a Jace deck which is capable of playing a legitimate creature game. The other two Jace decks, BUGStill and Miracles, are neither one truly capable of applying pressure to opposing Jaces. BUGStill has a few manlands and Snapcasters -- Miracles doesn't even have that. Shardless BUG is also capable of pressuring opposing Jaces, but I would hesitate to call Shardless a "Jace deck," so much as it is a deck that happens to play Jace.

Another thing that is worth keeping in mind about Esperblade is that it is capable of playing a large number of the cards that I'm talking about here. Jitte, Jace, Geist of St. Traft, Karakas and Ruins, and Clique are all powerful legends that are capable of taking over the game, and to some extent I feel that Esperblade has actually been held back by the fact that it's trying to play all of them in a world where mirror matches frequently mean that at least some of these options are not going to be able to live up to their full potential in every match-up.

Other movers in the legacy metagame will likely include Elves and Enchantress, both of which have been increasing in power and popularity for a while now thanks to Hoof and RIP/Helm respectively. Look for Sneak & Show to fall in popularity, as Karakas's stock goes up. Beck-powered Cheerios could potentially be a thing now, with the powered-up Mox Opal. Likewise, Storm could get a shot in the arm via Mox Opal, but the question there would be what the lists would actually look like.

----------

A closing thought: a large number of the cards that improve from this change are cards that are depressing to play against. I believe that this is where much of the ire towards this rules change comes from -- indeed, it is the primary reason I had the knee-jerk reaction of "oh god, no." Sitting across from an active Ruins that you can't shut down, or a Liliana who is destroying your hand, or a Geist of St. Traft that you can't remove, or a Vendilion Clique that's taken your best card and then proceeding to bolt you every turn, or sitting across from Elves as they proceed to masturbate upon the field, or playing as Sneak/Show and staring at your opponent's Karakas, or so on -- these are all things that most of us would categorize as unfun. When our copies of these cards were capable of shutting down our opponents' copies, it was okay. But now, in this new world, we're all going to have to get used to the idea that what we're doing to our opponent can and likely will be returned to us. Amusingly, Jace actually gains a lot from this rules change, as much of the sadness surrounding Jace stemmed from the fact that once your opponent's Jace landed, you couldn't really get out from under it unless you had it dead-on-board. Jace is actually substantially more okay under these new rules.

Of everything that this changes that I am aware of at present, I believe the Hexproof Legends and the remaining broken Urza's lands (Cradle and Sanctum) are likely to be the most dangerous to legacy's health overall. Geist of St. Traft in particular should have never been printed if WotC was considering this change, and Geist's stock will likely shoot up quite a bit. Incidentally, Geist is a good way of pressuring opposing Jaces. Cradle and Sanctum are both relics of an older era, with Academy having already been excised from the format. Sanctum is actually probably more dangerous than Cradle is under the new rules, as the Cradle change only really makes Elves into a 100% guaranteed turn 3 deck. The legend change all but ensures that once Enchantress starts going off, it is going to win. Between Enchantress and Dark Stage, Exploration probably gets a bit of a bump as well.

In the end, I believe this change will actively improve the game....after a time. I do believe that at least one and possibly two cards are going to get banned in the fall-out from this change. However, I don't foresee any bannings occurring until Theros is released. Either way, these next few months will be interesting times.

[dontbiteitholmes]

hey, they implemented all the changes i suggested to the legendary rule, great!

The only change i didn't suggest was the one that stops opposite legends from destroying each other, it looks like they got tired of blue clones being used as pseudo-removal. Well, i thought that one was stupid, though it means that now umezawa's jitte will be even harder to stop now.

By the way, in the message i sent to wizards i specifically mentioned how mox opal and gaea's cradle would get "extra" activations, so they are aware of that. It also means that effects like living death no longer suck with two or more copies of a legend in your graveyard. They even used my example of pacifism on teysa on the article explaining the changes! :tongue:

omg i can"t believe wizards keeps using your idaez you are liek the most important wizards designer and totalyz not deluzional!!1!!1

[Sigar]

Did Stage + Depths work before these changes as well?

[DrJones]

omg i can"t believe wizards keeps using your idaez you are liek the most important wizards designer and totalyz not deluzional!!1!!1
You can't believe it, even when I told you about it a year ago? Such a low faith is depressing. :frown:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23588-RANT-WTF-Legacy-players!-!-!-!&p=636465&viewfull=1#post636465

[jamis]

Did Stage + Depths work before these changes as well?
No, it got legend ruled

[Rizso]

They probly wanted to print more legendary lands in the future without them stripmining each other. Land destruction is boring afterall XD

Probly gonna be some more legendary lands that will start to see play like volrath stronghold, kor haven, ruins just a few of them.

[catmint]

Esperbalde is uniquely situated within the meta as a Jace deck which is capable of playing a legitimate creature game. The other two Jace decks, BUGStill and Miracles, are neither one truly capable of applying pressure to opposing Jaces. BUGStill has a few manlands and Snapcasters -- Miracles doesn't even have that. Shardless BUG is also capable of pressuring opposing Jaces, but I would hesitate to call Shardless a "Jace deck," so much as it is a deck that happens to play Jace.

Another thing that is worth keeping in mind about Esperblade is that it is capable of playing a large number of the cards that I'm talking about here. Jitte, Jace, Geist of St. Traft, Karakas and Ruins, and Clique are all powerful legends that are capable of taking over the game, and to some extent I feel that Esperblade has actually been held back by the fact that it's trying to play all of them in a world where mirror matches frequently mean that at least some of these options are not going to be able to live up to their full potential in every match-up.


I don't agree with this conclusion.

Shardless does play a legitimate creature game and is also a Jace deck. Is is more proactive, but no idea what you consider a "jace deck". :smile: It is also an ancestral visions deck which makes it pretty tough for Esperblade. Esper has a really good anti Planeswalker card with lingering souls, but cascade and punishing fire are tough for them to beat. Especially the jund matchup does not really get better. Considering that there is no improvement on the esper side versus jund, while junds liliana's get better the matchup might even get worse.

On the other side Dark Depths is a combo that can be handled by Esper rather easily - jumping, swording, bouncing so the lack of wasteland does not hurt. However a good Maverick player does have an edge over esper imo and a possible uprise of knight of the reliquary variants would also challenge esper to focus on beating that making them automatically more vulnerable to combo. In my opinion Esper is the best deck if you can tune it against an expected meta. With less diversity Esper tunes better and finishes better. Trying to beat all kinds of combo, punishing fire, knight of the reliquary, delver, shardless agent,... is not easy.

Esper will stay top tier deck, but I see no reason why they would be a big winner of the new ruling.

The Jace issue favours the Jace deck which can handle opposing Jaces more effectively and each color combination has their own tools (red the best ones). Tough to make a call.

The jitte issue favours the faster player and the player with more jitte removal. Deahtrite and Abrupt Decay come to mind.

The liliana issue helps every deck running her. Jund beeing the best obviously.

Vendilion clique is not an issue.

Karaks is a minor issue for everyone weak to Karakas since it is more playable and cannot be removed by my own Karakas.

The Sneak Attack mirror issue is not really relevant. Playing show in the mirror was always a bad idea.

The cradle issue makes elves stronger. Instead of a dead card you get more mana. The deck has still the same problems.

Mox Opal gives all artifact based decks a small boost and they frankly need it.

Dark Depths brings new life to lands, loam & knight decks and has potential to create new archetypes. More diversity - love it.

Overall I am not sure if this ruling is good for the game or not. What I love is that things will completely change and there will very likely be significant shifts in the meta. Times to brew and uncertainty are the most exciting ones.

[Final Fortune]

How are there 2 Jaces and then both die when they see each other? Arguing with story never gets very far.

From a gameplay perspective I think it is an improvement. More choices, more interaction are good in general. And in the Jace war specifically it gives you a better chance to catch up.

The Thespian thing is an issue, though.

Clearly you didn't watch Back to the Future as a child.

[Lord Seth]

Geist of St. Traft, Thun, and Sigarda -- These creatures all get incredible power boosts, because they are now virtually impossible to kill (Thrun in particular). The Hexproof legends now are no longer susceptible to being Cloned out, nor can you answer their legend with your own copy. Of these, Geist is far and away the scariest option for legacy play, as Thrun is too small of a body to be meaningful in a Tarmogoyf world and Sigarda is too expensive outside of Nic Fit and Cradle-powered Maverick decks.The problem is, you kind of can. If you have a Sigarda and your opponent has a Sigarda, you can block their Sigarda with your own. Ditto with Thrun. Heck, even if the Geist can't block the angel, it can still block the other Geist, and your opponent will have a tricky time getting rid of it (can't burn it!) to stop you from doing that.


Phantasmal Image -- This little guy is now unplayable outside of Pod and Merfolk. Its use as an offensive weapon is gone.I've barely seen it played outside of Pod and Merfolk anyway. Being able to kill Legends via a Clone always felt to me more like an occasional bonus to the clone card, not a reason you'd actually play it.

[TsumiBand]

Clearly you didn't watch Back to the Future as a child.

Bahahaha amazing imagery of Old Jace and Young Jace bumping into each other and shouting "....IM BROKEN" and passing out.

This is a weird weird weird change. All this to prevent Clone from killing Legendary creatures? Why not just make some rule about how card's original card name matters, or some junk. It IS stupid to kill Legendary creatures with a Phantasmal Image, it's a big flavor fail and it operates strictly on knowing the rules of the game instead of RTFC. That's generally not very good, or at least it's a layer of abstraction that doesn't help anybody.

But yeah this multiple Jace/multiple Cradle/Opal/etc thing just makes it seem really not very well thought out. Ironically this makes Notion Thief a much better answer to Jace The Mind Sculptor than it was a couple of days ago; can't Legend Rule JTMS anymore, guess I better just play a 3/1 for 4 that punches it in the breakfast.

[Final Fortune]

Chaining Cradles and Opals arent that gamebreaking. It's just a minor improvement. If an Elf deck is tapping a cradle for a ton of mana and chaining into another cradle with Glimpse, you've already lost. It just makes Elves easier to kill on the turn they go off, so they don't lose to a sudden sweeper the next turn. Chaining cradles doesn't make Elves suddenly unbeatable since most of the fight goes into preventing Glimpse from resolving.

As for opals, a storm deck has to go to alot of effort to turn on Opals, and may not even be worth it. So I don't see the big problem here.

The main thing is Dark Depths-Stage. It's ridiculously strong, but can be hated out by things common things like Wasteland and Swords. It's great that the combo gives half-dead decks like Mav a new breath of life, but it's far from bannable.

Chaining Mox Opal isn't game breaking but it is deck defining, the original Spanish Inquisition list with Shield Sphere, Phyrexian Walker and now Vault of Whispers and Mox Opal gets an extremely consistent source of on color mana acceleration as it casts Draw 4s or Draw 7s etc.

[dontbiteitholmes]

You can't believe it, even when I told you about it a year ago? Such a low faith is depressing. :frown:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23588-RANT-WTF-Legacy-players!-!-!-!&p=636465&viewfull=1#post636465

Yeah thanks for linking to that thread, they pretty much still sums up my feelings on your claims.

[Goaswerfraiejen]

I'm not at all happy with the update to the Legend rule, for many reasons already mentioned:

*What's still legendary about these permanents? Are there really two identical Progenituses in the MTG world? Two Teferis? Identity of indiscernibles, damn it!

*Getting twice the mileage out of my own legends strikes me as potentially quite powerful and generally unfun (e.g. two Jace activations, two Cradle activations (Cradle is actually much better now, since you actually want to run multiples), etc.).

*I'm not particularly thrilled at the prospect of Progenitus vs. Progenitus races (or Emrakul vs. Emrakul, or whatever). Previously, the legend rule helped to equalize things. Now, for similar/mirror matches, it's even more of a race than before.


I also don't like the SB changes. I'm ok with the "up to 15" change, which doesn't seem problematic (although I don't see why you'd ever start with fewer than 15 cards in the SB), but I'm really unhappy about the fact that SBing is no longer done on a one-to-one basis. That's a pretty fundamental change, and I just don't see any reason for it.

As for indestructible/unblockable... they should just demote most of the keywords they introduced a couple years ago. They're unnecessary, and having cards with keywords that aren't keywords is just confusing.

[Adryan]

I would say the big winner is BUGstill because we are the best Jace deck.(4 Jace&Standstill & Life from the Loam &manlands) Once the engine is active, even Swords to Plowshares can't stop Manlands.
Sadly i can't test this change on Mtgo.

[Gheizen64]

Yeah thanks for linking to that thread, they pretty much still sums up my feelings on your claims.

Holy shit i've missed this, this is awesome ahahah

[Richard Cheese]

I want to see something with two Griselbrands on both side of the field now.

Yeah I mean who wouldn't want to see that guy making out with himself right?

Right?

[Higgs]

You can't believe it, even when I told you about it a year ago? Such a low faith is depressing. :frown:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23588-RANT-WTF-Legacy-players!-!-!-!&p=636465&viewfull=1#post636465

DrJones, you are officially like The Man From Earth :)

[ankharlyn]

I like the SB-Rule! It occured to me sometimes that i didn't really want to board stuff out but wanted to add 1-2 cards from the SB. Thats possible now.

I like the SB change as well. Pretty much the only good thing about this.

[ivanpei]

Chaining Mox Opal isn't game breaking but it is deck defining, the original Spanish Inquisition list with Shield Sphere, Phyrexian Walker and now Vault of Whispers and Mox Opal gets an extremely consistent source of on color mana acceleration as it casts Draw 4s or Draw 7s etc.

I was referring to the usual Ad Nauseum/TES decks with a lower artifact count. In the case of SI, yes the rules change definitely gave that deck a power bump. SI is a glass cannon with a reasonably high % of fizzling, so any help for that deck is great.

[ankharlyn]

If anything the game gets more interactive with this. And how in the world would this rules change promote "turn guys sideways lolz"? Or playing on Auto-Pilot? And why wouldn't you have to look on your opponent's board anymore?

It's not hard to understand why this promotes less interaction. Before, you needed to pay attention to whether or not your opp had any legends down. Now you don't. Now you care about one less thing about the opponent's board state. Who cares if he has legends down? Just toss yours down without even looking because due to the new legend rule, it *doesn't matter at all what legends your opponent has played*. That's what I'm saying.


PLZ BE LEGENDARY DUALS PLZ PLZ.

No but seriously with the new rule Legendary duals would just be perfect with Fetches. Run 2 of them, loads of fetches and maybe 1 or 2 normal duals et voilà, Legacy is largely affordable once again, attendance growth, world hunger ends, war ends, we discover the Alcubierre drive and get to explore the galaxy.

I have the duals I need, but that would probably be the only redemption for this otherwise terrible rules change. That said, I don't see them doing it because I imagine they'd consider Legendary duals to be "functional reprints" and thus against the RL.

[swoop]

Holy shit now i can play more than one imperial recruiter in my aluren

[Barook]

You can't believe it, even when I told you about it a year ago? Such a low faith is depressing. :frown:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23588-RANT-WTF-Legacy-players!-!-!-!&p=636465&viewfull=1#post636465
Any other changes you have "in store" for us?

[ankharlyn]

The problem is, you kind of can. If you have a Sigarda and your opponent has a Sigarda, you can block their Sigarda with your own. Ditto with Thrun. Heck, even if the Geist can't block the angel, it can still block the other Geist, and your opponent will have a tricky time getting rid of it (can't burn it!) to stop you from doing that.

I've barely seen it played outside of Pod and Merfolk anyway. Being able to kill Legends via a Clone always felt to me more like an occasional bonus to the clone card, not a reason you'd actually play it.

Blocking is a pretty meh way to kill creatures. Also, I imagine the first thing the Sigarda player will do is put Darksteel Plate on so that won't work anymore, and you're left with mass sweepers or exile effects. Yay, so fun having 100% non interactive cards because WotC doesn't want new players to have to pay attention to their opponent's board state, and instead just blindly auto-pilot through the game slapping down whatever without any thought.

DrJones: I hope you get crabs for suggesting this garbage to WotC. I mean, not seriously (that's mean), but it's a terribly stupid and crap change, so if your suggestion actually influenced it, I blame you in part. This change is bad and you should feel bad.

[Julian23]

Any other changes you have "in store" for us?

Not since R&D decided to print Misthollow Griffin at a different mana costs than DrJones suggested.

[Arsenal]

the first thing the Sigarda player will do is put Darksteel Plate on

lolwut? That card doesn't see play in Legacy.

[ankharlyn]

lolwut? That card doesn't see play in Legacy.

I know, I was assuming we were talking about EDH in relation to Sigarda. Meh.

[bruizar]

The problem is, you kind of can. If you have a Sigarda and your opponent has a Sigarda, you can block their Sigarda with your own. Ditto with Thrun. Heck, even if the Geist can't block the angel, it can still block the other Geist, and your opponent will have a tricky time getting rid of it (can't burn it!) to stop you from doing that.



Geist of Saint Traft Shizo, Death's Storehouse

[DrJones]

Any other changes you have "in store" for us?

Just so you know, anybody can send suggestions to WotC. :laugh:

The last suggestions I made to WotC were to stop giving blue token generators, and that one article I wrote about giving red the "lose all abilities" effect (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?25852-Article-Give-Red-quot-loses-all-abilities-quot-effects). I don't know if they will print one, as "lose all abilities" becomes a bit complex when auras get into the mix, as some auras add abilities while others don't. The cleanest implementation would be to make "flicker" the creature and make it enter the battlefield without abilities.

[ankharlyn]

Just so you know, anybody can send suggestions to WotC. :laugh:

The last suggestions I made to WotC were to stop giving blue token generators, and that one article I wrote about giving red the "lose all abilities" effect (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?25852-Article-Give-Red-quot-loses-all-abilities-quot-effects). I don't know if they will print one, as "lose all abilities" becomes a bit complex when auras get into the mix, as some auras add abilities while others don't. The cleanest implementation would be to make "flicker" the creature and make it enter the battlefield without abilities.

Please don't ever send them any more suggestions. This legends rule is terrible and you should feel bad for suggesting it.

[marumari]

I also don't like the SB changes. I'm ok with the "up to 15" change, which doesn't seem problematic (although I don't see why you'd ever start with fewer than 15 cards in the SB), but I'm really unhappy about the fact that SBing is no longer done on a one-to-one basis. That's a pretty fundamental change, and I just don't see any reason for it.

As an L2 judge, I really like the new sideboarding rules. It really sucks to give out feel bad game losses because a player accidentally ended up with 14 cards remaining in their sideboard, instead of 15.

This does definitely make Vindicate a lot better and Maelstrom Pulse a bit worse. Playing Shardless BUG, it is a bit of a bummer that I won't be able to use Pulse as an out if I get into a Jace war with another player. Will have to rely on swarming with creatures.

[Damoxx]

Will have to rely on swarming with creatures.


Isn't that WotC's ultimate goal anyway?

[ankharlyn]

Isn't that WotC's ultimate goal anyway?

Pretty much. Make spells suck, make rules changes so parts of the game require no interaction between players so you can just toss down creatures without even looking at the board. Seems to be on track for them.

[jamis]

As an L2 judge, I really like the new sideboarding rules. It really sucks to give out feel bad game losses because a player accidentally ended up with 14 cards remaining in their sideboard, instead of 15.

My thoughts exactly. I don't think anyone's going to purposefully stray from the standard 60/15, but accidents do happen, and I see no reason 61/14 should result in a gameloss.

[bruizar]

It can be a nice way to prevent the 'play until I deck you'-troll-strategy.

[Aggro_zombies]

As far as I'm concerned, these changes represent another in a long line of dropped balls from WotC since, oh, Avacyn Restored. I can only assume they were enacted to support Theros, but still...unnecessary, unflavorful, just all-around bad.

Well, actually, the sideboard change is cute. And the land change closes some headache-inducing rules issues. But the legendary and planeswalker changes are terrible.

[Slag]

Isn't that WotC's ultimate goal anyway?

It seems to me that Wizard's ultimate goal is to inflate the secondary market so much that buying packs for chase cards is actually more cost efficient.

[twndomn]

Dreadbore and Vindicate are going to become more important. Dreadbore can take out creatures, lili and jace (abrupt decay cant take out jace). Vindicate can help dominate the planeswalker battles in esper / deathblade mirrors.

cough Karakas cough. Not every deck packs 4 Wastelands (think Miracle).

[evanmartyr]

Yes, they did.

I like these changes for the most part. I think they make a lot of sense.

Ok, so they heavily implied it.

Either way, it'll be amusing to watch Vintage tournaments now. Heavy dredge field? Guess my maindeck is 64 cards with 4 leylines that I side out down to 60 for every non-dredge game 2 or 3.

EDIT: I'm gonna disagree with people who are glossing over the land change. Before, if you played an effect that gave you an extra land drop, all it did was "key" that extra land drop to that version of the effect. So this line of play:

t1: Forest.
t2: Forest, Gaea's Touch, Forest.
t3: Forest, Forest, Sacrifice Gaea's Touch, Rofellos Gift, Gaea's Touch, Forest.

made sense, because each new version of Gaea's Touch gave you an extra land drop. That land drop lasted for as long as that version was relevant. Now, that third turn misses out on a Forest drop, and you have to remember how many land drops you used and had overall, instead of just adding one each time you played a Gaea's Touch. It just makes weird decks bad and everything else not much simpler.

[Jamaican Zombie Legend]

If anything the game gets more interactive with this. Or playing on Auto-Pilot? And why wouldn't you have to look on your opponent's board anymore?

Planeswalker mirror matches had a lot more mindgames going on, as there were choices you had to make without access to perfect information. Do I keep my opponent's Lili at 1 loyalty and make it harder to get value out of her? Do I kill my opponents walker with a spell and hope to drop my own now/later? Much more interesting interactions, as now the best play is to always slam down the walker and ride the value train as best you can, while your opponent does the same.

EDH becomes really stupid as well, as now everyone can play their Karn, Lili 1.0, or Jacey Boy and clog up the game/board with tons of activations and looming threats. Not to mention LOLSigarda.


Serra's Sanctum -- I would not be surprised to see these end up banned within 6 months. On the other hand, the format may adjust. The large upwelling of Esperblade that is coming will make Elves less attractive of an option, but may improve Enchantress even further.

[...]

The legend change all but ensures that once Enchantress starts going off, it is going to win.

Serra's Sanctum gets a big boost from this change, but two things make it nowhere near the power level of Cradle.

-Enchantress may be moving away from the Words of War kill towards a RiP/Helm combo kill, which is a lot less mana-hungry. Cradle decks always need mana.

-Even if you stick with the Words of War kill, many of the spells you want to cast need green mana, and Sanctum provides you with white mana. It'll help pay for the Words activations, but production of green mana is usually the rate-determining step if Enchantress is "going off". Plus, Enchantress doesn't need to go off like Elves because it can sit behind Confinement. Cradle gives Elves exactly the color of mana they need.

[TsumiBand]

On the plus side, Legendary Duel Lands don't end up being fetchable Wastelands, if they ever decide to go that route.

Granted you can only have the one in play at once on your side, but it beats Bolting yourself I guess. Seeing as how my wallet is an emblem that says "You can't control or own any dual lands in any game of MAGIC. Bad Motherfucker" I will gladly take whatever trickles down the pipe.

[Barook]

Full damage control on Maro's blog (http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/)

Looks like people are pissed.

[LennonMarx]

Full damage control on Maro's blog (http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/)

Looks like people are pissed.

It's really frustrating reading that blog, when every time someone points out something negative, his response is always "Actually, it's the exact opposite of that. kthxbai." The dude is the face of magic design, he could at least answer complaints and criticisms more honestly.

[force_of_phil]

My initial reaction was to hate this change. After mulling it over, I still dislike the flavor implications. I think flavor is more important to the health of the game than most give it credit for. Legendary is one of the mechanics that is flavorful enough to make what is a drawback almost seem like a good thing. I've always loved throwing 1-of legendary cards in a deck just because they get to do stuff that non-legendary cards don't and it's fun to draw your 1 legend. While doing so won't be any worse now, the mental justification is much weaker. I'm going to have to pick up second and third copies of a lot of cards :P

As far as game play, I initially freaked out thinking Emrakul and Griselbrand got much harder to answer. Then I realized that cloning one of these guys and getting to swing first can be a good thing. I also love what this does to Flagstones, a card I play way more than I should. If it makes Mox Opal see some play, that's cool too. So overall, I'm ok with it. It also might get them to change the "no more legendary lands" policy, which made KotR sad.

[Barook]

his response is always "Actually, it's the exact opposite of that. kthxbai."
That's probably also the way he rules the R&D team, hence most of them being a bunch of Yes-sayers.

[lordofthepit]

Flavor seems really bad and I was opposed to the rule change out of principle (I hate change). However, after thinking about it, from a gameplay perspective, I think the new legendary and planeswalker uniqueness rules are better than the old one (and definitely better than the pre-Lin Sivvi legendary rule).

[zulander]

That said, I don't see them doing it because I imagine they'd consider Legendary duals to be "functional reprints" and thus against the RL.

Doesn't seem that much more different than the shocklands.

[Ayotte]

It seems to me that Wizard's ultimate goal is to inflate the secondary market so much that buying packs for chase cards is actually more cost efficient.

Umm...

As soon as that becomes advantageous, the market price for the "chase cards" would lower to match.

[Slag]

Umm...

As soon as that becomes advantageous, the market price for the "chase cards" would lower to match.

If wizards printed a set with Jace, the Mind Sculptor (or perhaps tarmogoyf?), it would be way cheaper to pay for a box and gamble for it than for a Jace at SCG. If it was a limited print run, there wouldn't be a particularly large drop in the price of the single on the secondary market.

[Sansian]

The odds of a particular mythic are 1:80-1:120... You're not looking at statistically breaking even on that venture unless jace/goyf hit 200+ at best.

[Slag]

The odds of a particular mythic are 1:80-1:120... You're not looking at statistically breaking even on that venture unless jace/goyf hit 200+ at best.

Well, when it came out, a box of future sight was, what, $80? Nowadays, a single goyf goes for in excess of $100. In retrospect, it seems like it would have been better to just buy the box. Also, you would have gotten cards other than the one you were trying to open.

[PirateKing]

Well, when it came out, a box of future sight was, what, $80? Nowadays, a single goyf goes for in excess of $100. In retrospect, it seems like it would have been better to just buy the box.

Goyf was Rare then, it'd be Mythic now, because reasons.

[Slag]

Goyf was Rare then, it'd be Mythic now, because reasons.

I like the cut of your jib, boyo.

[ankharlyn]

Wish I owned some Jaces :( Sadly my entire Magic budget is stretched to the limit building my first Legacy deck (I've been playing since '94-95 but never had money then, so no grandfathered ABUs for me).

I wouldn't be surprised to see SCG put it at like $300 or more each after this change. I agree with Slag, it seems like Wizards is purposely trying to make eternal formats even more ridiculously expensive.

[Higgs]

Full damage control on Maro's blog (http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/)

Looks like people are pissed.

I thought people were genuinely pissed. Reading the responses it seems like unless most of them are professional social media management accounts run by their PR company (which I'm 95% sure of) people are taking it rather well.

I was pissed until I read that blog, after reading it I got kinda furious. Take this for example:


Why is the uniqueness rule “dumbing down the game”? Let’s take an example:

Before

Jace in play on opponent’s side. You have a Jace in your hand. What do you do? Cast Jace destroying the other Jace.

After

Jace in play on opponent’s side. You have a Jace in your hand. What do you do? Play Jace. Now what do you do? It’s a more complex set of decisions not less.

What a moron. If opp. has Jace on board and I have a Lingering souls in gy, a Lingering Souls in hand and a Jace I'm not going to slam dunk my Jace into the gy to kill his. I will try to kill his first using my other cards, THEN play my Jace to take the upper hand. Now I won't bother, I'll just slam my $50+ powerhouse on the board like a dumbo and tick it like a clock until it wins the game for me. Some complex decisions..

The problem is they are taking ever single decision and interaction which takes part outside the board out of the game. The way they are taking MtG everything is happening on the board. That's why they are neutering the spells as well. The hand, the stack, the spells, blufs, holding on to cards, mind reading... They are going away. You have a card, you slam it down and bash with it. The opp has the same card, he slams it down and he bashes it as well. You hit me, I hit you. You hit me, I hit you. Whoever gets there first. Bring back Buyback for god's sake I want to play the game from my hand not the board.

Now, the M14 Phyrexian misprints with a Sliver creature type attached to them are really bad, but at least they get played in standard and don't bother me that much unless I see them. These rules however, they are messing with my eternal formats as well.

Also, think about the space-time continuum. Go watch some Back to the Future.

[MGB]

Wow. This is like a stick of dynamite exploding in the game.

They are taking the some of the best cards in the game (planeswalkers and legends) and making them actually BETTER.

[ankharlyn]

The problem is they are taking ever single decision and interaction which takes part outside the board out of the game. The way they are taking MtG everything is happening on the board. That's why they are neutering the spells as well. The hand, the stack, the spells, blufs, holding on to cards, mind reading... They are going away. You have a card, you slam it down and bash with it. The opp has the same card, he slams it down and he bashes it as well. You hit me, I hit you. You hit me, I hit you. Whoever gets there first. Bring back Buyback for god's sake I want to play the game from my hand not the board.

My feelings exactly. They're trying to make the game so you can literally just auto-pilot without ever having to think about your lines of play. Just throw shit on the board and turn it sideways to victory. It's the equivalent of the first person shooter saying, "W+Mouse 1 to victory!" which means that you don't even have to think, you just hold the W (move forward) key, and keep the mouse button pressed the whole time (to shoot), without ever having to use cover, conserve ammo, etc. Stuff that requires strategic thought.

They're sucking the fun out of the game with these sorts of changes. The new legend rule enables people to play essentially "blind folded" because it literally doesn't even matter what your opponent is doing. Gah.

[conboy31]

The legendary change opens the door wide open for mythic dual lands and then snow dual lands a year (and block) later.

[ankharlyn]

The legendary change opens the door wide open for mythic dual lands and then snow dual lands a year (and block) later.

I somehow doubt that will happen, they're against "functional" reprints, after all. I'm guessing the legal department would shut that down in order to screw players and protect speculators pretty fast.

[catmint]

My feelings exactly. They're trying to make the game so you can literally just auto-pilot without ever having to think about your lines of play. Just throw shit on the board and turn it sideways to victory. It's the equivalent of the first person shooter saying, "W+Mouse 1 to victory!" which means that you don't even have to think, you just hold the W (move forward) key, and keep the mouse button pressed the whole time (to shoot), without ever having to use cover, conserve ammo, etc. Stuff that requires strategic thought.

They're sucking the fun out of the game with these sorts of changes. The new legend rule enables people to play essentially "blind folded" because it literally doesn't even matter what your opponent is doing. Gah.

Probably the worst exaggeration of people complaining that the game gets dumb. Please quit this non-sense of the game gets less strategic/interactive/auto-pilot. Some strategic aspects are removed - others are added.

[MGB]

This does seem like the perfect staging ground for a Legendary Dual Land.

[nudon]

I think it's pretty amusing people create new accounts (to stay anonymous) just for the sake of advancing their views/agendas.

[ankharlyn]

Doesn't seem that much more different than the shocklands.

I disagree, shocklands are significantly different. They EtB tapped if you don't pay 2 life, which is a lot more difference in terms of mechanics than just having "legendary" sub type or whatever. Sure, legendary duals wouldn't work *quite* the same since you'd have to sac one if you put a second down, but I don't think legal would consider that enough of a difference to get around the functional reprint rules.


I think it's pretty amusing people create new accounts (to stay anonymous) just for the sake of advancing their views/agendas.

I don't know if you're referring to me, but I've been lurking these forums for more than a year and decided to register and post because of the changes. I don't have any other accts (mods could probably tell easily by the fact that my IP doesn't appear on any other accounts). I'm a new user to the forum. Again, don't know if you meant me, but I really am just a new user that is pissed about these changes and came to vent a bit (not to mention I've been meaning to register for a while anyway).


Probably the worst exaggeration of people complaining that the game gets dumb. Please quit this non-sense of the game gets less strategic/interactive/auto-pilot. Some strategic aspects are removed - others are added.

Except this rule only removes interaction, and doesn't replace it with anything except brainless auto-pilot. You used to have to pay attention to what legendary permanents your opponent was playing. Now you don't, and can just slap shit down without any thought at all. That's less interaction, not more.

Not to mention, it's not as if these types of changes are new. Ever since the focus on dumbing down and making spells suck in favor of creatures, we've seen the same sorts of changes that make it so you don't have to think about anything and can just mindlessly throw cards down. So this is just a continuation of the trend of making the game less interactive in favor of turning creatures sideways to the detriment of everything else in the game.

[clavio]

These changes probably won't matter much. I'll miss cloning legendary creatures for the kill, but really I don't see these changes making the game better or worse. Keep in mind everybody freaked out when they got rid of mana burn.


narfnin asked: Personally I love the legendary rules change. Being punished because someone drew a card faster than you or you drew multiple copies of one card is not fun.


Exactly. The entire point behind this change is we want you to have as much as fun as possible with your legendary permanents. We want them to enhance gameplay not detract from it. The best way to make flavor shine is to get more people to play with the flavorful cards.


^From Maro's blog. Clear idiocy. Sometimes your opponent topdecks what he needs to win and you don't, that's part of the fucking game. And drawing multiples still sucks in a lot of cases. Fuck you narfnin.

[ankharlyn]

These changes probably won't matter much. I'll miss cloning legendary creatures for the kill, but really I don't see these changes making the game better or worse. Keep in mind everybody freaked out when they got rid of mana burn.

I don't think it's fair to compare this to removing mana burn. Mana burn was almost entirely irrelevant in most cases. It's not really the same IMO. Not to mention, the sheer amount of cards that this impacts vs. removing mana burn is HUGE!

[clavio]

I don't think it's fair to compare this to removing mana burn. Mana burn was almost entirely irrelevant in most cases. It's not really the same IMO. Not to mention, the sheer amount of cards that this impacts vs. removing mana burn is HUGE!

What about removing "damage on the stack"? Turns out the game was fine after that despite the shitstorm.

[catmint]

Except this rule only removes interaction, and doesn't replace it with anything except brainless auto-pilot. You used to have to pay attention to what legendary permanents your opponent was playing. Now you don't, and can just slap shit down without any thought at all. That's less interaction, not more.

*Sigh*
Yes, but now you cannot just easily handle your opponents legendary bombs like jace and jitte by playing them yourself. Some might consider that "dumb" and lazy. Now building and playing your deck you have to carefully consider how to handle those permanents or gain a tempo advantage and be first.

In the Jace war: Jace+Force was at will be good game a vast majority of the time. But now instead of removing the jace you get to brainstorm yourself. The opponent is 1 jace activition ahead but there is a significant chance that you can handle his "tries to handle yours" or that he simply does not find something to handle your jace while you do. I think you can easier come back this.

With jitte you cannot just let them gain counters which only mess with your/their life total until you find your own jitte. You'll have to focus more on handling your opponents board or find some artifact removal. Playing your own jitte will often result in the creature you are trying to equip beeing killed by the opponents jitte.

[ankharlyn]

What about removing "damage on the stack"? Turns out the game was fine after that despite the shitstorm.

I agree it's more similar in terms of impact, but I think that's also a bit different because damage on the stack was largely confusing in the ways you could use it to do wacky things. The legend rule was as crystal clear as you could possibly make it, and the new rules are way more confusing (not in understanding them as such, but in terms of the weird states that it can cause and the corner cases therein).

I'm not even saying the game will "die" or anything because of this, either. I don't think that. I do think it will make the game less interactive and require vastly less strategic thought. Before, you had to think about legendaries. Now? Nope, just slap shit down blindly, doesn't matter.

W+Mouse1 to victory! Or in Magic terms, slap shit down blindly, turn guys sideways to victory.

[rufus]

What the new set and lands are concerned, I don't get why they didn't just suck it up and make some other supertype like 'unique'. That seems more in line with what they would have done in the past. ... I wonder if they playtested this rules change with eternal.

[Ayotte]

My biggest complaint is that it removes one way to destroy an opponents' planeswalkers. On some margin, that adds incentive to play more dudes in legacy. So far, I've been enjoying the fact that legacy mostly dodges Wizard's design philosophies about how everyone loves creatures so why wouldn't we want to play more!

[TsumiBand]

I agree it's more similar in terms of impact, but I think that's also a bit different because damage on the stack was largely confusing in the ways you could use it to do wacky things. The legend rule was as crystal clear as you could possibly make it, and the new rules are way more confusing (not in understanding them as such, but in terms of the weird states that it can cause and the corner cases therein).

I'm not even saying the game will "die" or anything because of this, either. I don't think that. I do think it will make the game less interactive and require vastly less strategic thought. Before, you had to think about legendaries. Now? Nope, just slap shit down blindly, doesn't matter.

W+Mouse1 to victory! Or in Magic terms, slap shit down blindly, turn guys sideways to victory.

I find the overgeneralization a little disingenuous. Simply checking for Legendary status or same-name Planeswalkers doesn't make a turn four auto-drop Jace. WHAT ABOUT NOTION THIEF, MAN.

Actually, after the initial 'wtf' has worn off, I think the change is remarkably similar to removing "damage on the stack". For example, the line of play with Mogg Fanatic was entirely clear, nearly to the point of choicelessness - sac it if it's going to die to combat damage, ping something. Maybe it takes out a 2/2 that way, or maybe it just hits a 1/1, or maybe it goes to the face. You had options, sure, but not a ton of actual thought or choice about it. Same with stuff like Jitte; Jitte was a mini-Jace in its omnipresence in several formats and it was its best answer. Now drawing a Jitte and playing it doesn't just invalidate the opponent's Jitte. You have to draw an actual answer. This means Mono-Black beats featuring Jitte can't just auto-destroy an opposing Jitte, and so the Black deck actually has as much of a weakness to artifacts as it did before. This is a corner case here, but I do sort of see what they did there in saying "it is stupid to answer a card by virtue of playing the same card". Not as uniquitous as, say, Mental Misstep, but quite similar in that it answers itself better than the actual answers. That's a little contrived.

[Megadeus]

People citing mana burn and such as obvious times that the game did not fall apart... Those things were way less relevant. Especially in these times with many very powerful legendary permanents and Planeswalkers. People saying this doesnt affect too much are very wrong.

[Parcher]

What I think will be awsome with these new rules changes; Two Miracles players. Both having expended their resources countering each other's Counterbalances and Jaces, each having both Clique/Venser AND Karakas in play. Sounds like prime time feature match to me.

[ankharlyn]

My biggest complaint is that it removes one way to destroy an opponents' planeswalkers. On some margin, that adds incentive to play more dudes in legacy. So far, I've been enjoying the fact that legacy mostly dodges Wizard's design philosophies about how everyone loves creatures so why wouldn't we want to play more!
Yep, dodging the incredibly poor direction of Standard is exactly why I got interested in Legacy. I like spells. I like interactive games, instead of "just slap dudes down, turn sideways".


I wonder if they playtested this rules change with eternal.

Doesn't seem like it at all, given how much it shakes things up. I think they are just designing for Standard and maybe Modern alone, and the consequences for Legacy be damned.


People citing mana burn and such as obvious times that the game did not fall apart... Those things were way less relevant. Especially in these times with many very powerful legendary permanents and Planeswalkers. People saying this doesnt affect too much are very wrong.

Agreed, it's definitely not the same at all. I don't think the game will die, but it's still a piss poor change.

[Zinch]

I disagree, shocklands are significantly different. They EtB tapped if you don't pay 2 life, which is a lot more difference in terms of mechanics than just having "legendary" sub type or whatever. Sure, legendary duals wouldn't work *quite* the same since you'd have to sac one if you put a second down, but I don't think legal would consider that enough of a difference to get around the functional reprint rules.


Plague Sliver and Juzam Djinn would have a word with you...

I'd love to se Legendary Dual Lands and they wouldn't be a functional reprint of dual lands (duals would be strictly better ALWAYS)

[zulander]

I think this opens the door for Jace to get banned.

[Megadeus]

Do people want Jace Banned though? Sure I hate playing against the card but I mean it is a fun card to play with and I dont think it is overly broken. Maybe a tad more expensive than I would like but whatever.

[Barook]

Do people want Jace Banned though? Sure I hate playing against the card but I mean it is a fun card to play with and I dont think it is overly broken. Maybe a tad more expensive than I would like but whatever.

People will probably just run more Vindicates/Revokers/Needles/REBs.

[Tao]

I do not understand why Jace would be getting noticeably better in Legacy than before from this rules change. Somebody enlighten me?

[ankharlyn]

Plague Sliver and Juzam Djinn would have a word with you...

I'd love to se Legendary Dual Lands and they wouldn't be a functional reprint of dual lands (duals would be strictly better ALWAYS)

If Plague Sliver was BB and not 2BB and actually had the same ability, instead of giving that ability to all slivers (which is a bigger drawback than Juzam by a long shot), I would agree.

Also, I'm not saying I wouldn't love to have legendary duals. I would. I hate the reserved list with a passion. I just think WotC would rather screw people that like to actually, y'know, play the game in favor of protecting speculators and garbage like that than print legendary duals.


Do people want Jace Banned though? Sure I hate playing against the card but I mean it is a fun card to play with and I dont think it is overly broken. Maybe a tad more expensive than I would like but whatever.

Before I would have said no. After this change my vote is for banning it.


I do not understand why Jace would be getting noticeably better in Legacy than before from this rules change. Somebody enlighten me?

Because before you couldn't play Jace, -1 him, then play another Jace, have the first go to the yard, and -1 the second one (and third and so on). That's a significant boost in power. Not to mention he's *way* harder to kill now.

[TsumiBand]

I do not understand why Jace would be getting noticeably better in Legacy than before from this rules change. Somebody enlighten me?

Because now Blue players have one less answer to an opposing JTMS, whereas before they could just blow it up with their own Jace.

The more I think about it, the less reasonable it sounds, actually. People bitch about cards being their own best answer all the time. Force that FOW? Block your Goyf with my Goyf of equal mass? Misstep the Misstep, SFM -> Jitte for the Jiite you just played, and so on. From the strict flavor standpoint of "a Legendary object can only exist in one place at a time", sure it makes sense, and I always way more appreciated the Kamigawa legend rule change for it because prior to, an opponent throwing down a Legend you have in your deck meant you flat-out could not play that Legend (or it would be destroyed on entry, so it was generally utterly pointless to play it). Anyone have those fond memories of Mono-White Control in Onslaught Type 2, racing to grab Akroma before the opponent could? That's terrible.

I don't think this makes Jace stronger, just because other Blue decks can't blow him up with their own Jace. I do think that the necessity to have dedicated answers exists, but it's a planeswalker for crying out loud, it can be attacked and burned. Lots of decks can just answer them. I don't feel too bad for Blue players if they lost a recursive answer to Jace, or for that matter, anyone who was willing to answer Legendary creatures with Phantasmal Image; so Blue has to counter more things. Aw, shucks. Feels bad man.

I don't want to drop a Jones on the thread but I've been trying to call it for a long time now; that terrible rule about redirecting damage via Bolts and Shocks and shit to planeswalkers is going to change, sooner rather than later, and this rule is predicting that change or at least catalyzing it. There will be a raised expectation for "real answers" to exist, and cards like Dreadbore - which by the way, we were never supposed to see "target planeswalker" on a card, if you use the Wayback Machine to read up on old statements regarding what the net effect of 'walkers was supposed to have on the game - anyway, cards like Dreadbore or like Sorin Lord of Innistrad that explicitly target planeswalkers will want to be seen at a more regular printing. The more cards that say "target planeswalker" and the more new people come into the game wondering why Incinerate targets a player but gets its damage redirected to Liliana, will prompt another rules shift and require explicit targeting. Gather ye Rift Bolts while ye may, I guess.

EDIT - to be clear, I think having to answer planeswalkers with a method outside of "play a walker with the same name" is a Good Thing, even though seeing two Thalias on opposing sides of the battlefield will be hard to swallow for a while. I think it forces decks to diversify their ability to address varied threats. Mono-black Jitting a Jitte is stupid; mono-Blue Jacing a Jace is equally dumb. If you want to kill artifacts, play green/red. If you want to kill planeswalkers, attack them. Word.

[Mewens]

Take a second look at the Djinn -- it's 4 mana. (The colorless mana symbol was washed out in several printings of Arabian Nights; it's a common mistake.) If no one has other slivers, the cards are basically identical.

That doesn't really matter, though, since it was printed before the doubling-down on the Reserved List. While the last explanation I read from Wizards was fairly clear that Snow duals wouldn't be kosher, I think Legendary's up for debate.

[ankharlyn]

Take a second look at the Djinn -- it's 4 mana. (The colorless mana symbol was washed out in several printings of Arabian Nights; it's a common mistake.) If no one has other slivers, the cards are basically identical.

That doesn't really matter, though, since it was printed before the doubling-down on the Reserved List. While the last explanation I read from Wizards was fairly clear that Snow duals wouldn't be kosher, I think Legendary's up for debate.

Oh derp. My bad. I completely missed that. Anyway, I guess I can agree now, though you do raise a good point with the dumbing down of the RL. I just think that WotC doesn't care about players as much as they do about not giving speculators anything to whine and cry about. Or at least, WotC/Hasbro legal doesn't.

I can agree that Legendary is perhaps less of a gray area than Snow duals under the new RL. I guess time will tell.

Sadly, even if they do print Legendary duals, I could see them coming in some crappy specialty limited run product, so that LGS and SCG and the like can jack up the price to insane levels.

Limited Run: Legendary Dual Lands, MSRP $39.99.

Lowest price from LGS: $400.

SCG Price: $600.

[Julian23]

Because before you couldn't play Jace, -1 him, then play another Jace, have the first go to the yard, and -1 the second one (and third and so on).

I have a feeling you are being serious about what your said there. Is this a noticeable improvement of application? No it isn't. Come one, that's eight fucking mana and a card.

[Gheizen64]

I disagree, shocklands are significantly different. They EtB tapped if you don't pay 2 life, which is a lot more difference in terms of mechanics than just having "legendary" sub type or whatever. Sure, legendary duals wouldn't work *quite* the same since you'd have to sac one if you put a second down, but I don't think legal would consider that enough of a difference to get around the functional reprint rules.



WotC has already showed that they don't fucking care at long as the card isn't exactly the same. I agree that the snow subtype could be debatable, but being legendary is a huge difference that is only made slightly less important because of the fetches.

[Gheizen64]

Also yeah. So now blue has harder time answering the best planeswalker of the game? Good riddance. We may see some more Bolts, BBEs and shit i guess.

[danyul]

I feel like the people crying the loudest in this thread can often be found in the 0-2 bracket crying about their losses instead of trying to find a way to win.

The boardstate just changed. Are you going to pout and allow me to kill you? And then go tell your friends your badbeat story?

Or are you going to adapt and try to find a way to win?

A good player before these changes will still be a good player.

A stinkyface noobydoobydoo will always be a stinkyface noobydoobydoo.

[zulander]

I have a feeling you are being serious about what your said there. Is this a noticeable improvement of application? No it isn't. Come one, that's eight fucking mana and a card.

Actually it's just 4. No one is suggesting playing 2 on the same turn. That is just stupid.

I really hope they don't change the fact that damage redirection can kill walkers. If they do then holy hell I'm just gonna play PW.dec and own everyone because now the only way to kill them is through the combat phase or some crappy conditional sorcery spell.

[zulander]

A stinkyface noobydoobydoo will always be a stinkyface noobydoobydoo.

Your face is a stinkyface noobydoobydoo :mad:

lol.

Change is always bad, and it seems the latest rule change is always the "straw" that made people quit magic.

Anyone who quits M:tG over this is a goober.

[Rizso]

Might even make Dreadbore a card for legacy. When it an hit powerhouse walkers like liliana and jace as well any annoying creature for only 2 mana. Guess only weakness is the red mana in the mana cost lol.

[Tao]

About Jace being better now:

- Jace being better because "it can't be answered by Jace anymore". That conclusion is just flat out wrong. Jace does not get any better or worse through this. He loses the weakness to get destroyed by himself, but he also gains the weakness of not being able to destroy himself anymore - these two things even out mathematically. If you didn't play Jace before, then you don't have any reason to play him now.

- Jace being better because you can use it multiple times now by destroying it with a second copy. Fair point and certainly an improvement. It will come up from time to time and be good but I do not think this is as significant as people make it. It is for fringe uses when you are desperate for an answer or when the game goes really long and you have a ton of resources. In the vast majority of cases though you still have not enough Jaces for that and better uses for your Mana (especially considering that Jace gives you fresh cards) to make use of it.

[Final Fortune]

Please don't ever send them any more suggestions. This legends rule is terrible and you should feel bad for suggesting it.

Get over it, WOTC created a metagame where the best answers to the most powerful cards in that metagame can't be answered by themselves, if anything it'll diversify the format's removal spells beyond "I'll play Umezawa's Jitte, destroy your Umezawa's Jitte" and emphasize the combat phase vs Planeswalkers.

Despite the minor increase in the power curve for some cards, deck building should be significantly more interesting.

[lordofthepit]

WotC is correct that from a flavor perspective, a Clone effect should not nuke a legend, but create a duplicate instead. However, you shouldn't be able to drop two cards with the same name onto the same battlefield either. From a flavor perspective, I like having the original legendary rules (you couldn't play a second one with the same name), while still allowing for an exception for Clone effects. The old legendary rules cause real problems in competitive play though, since "I slammed Jitte first therefore I win" is not a feature of a good game.

[Finn]

This may be unnecessarily gruff. But I don't own a Jace, I won't be paying $120 for one in this life time, and nobody facing me with Jace will ever have access to 8 mana in a turn. This does not make Jace any better against me at all.

[ankharlyn]

This may be unnecessarily gruff. But I don't own a Jace, I won't be paying $120 for one in this life time, and nobody facing me with Jace will ever have access to 8 mana in a turn. This does not make Jace any better against me at all.

Good luck finding one for $120 anyway, most places are listing them at $150 now.

[Mewens]

Don't tempt Finn to find one for $120 and not buy it. He'll do it, he's crazy.

[Zand]

Because before you couldn't play Jace, -1 him, then play another Jace, have the first go to the yard, and -1 the second one (and third and so on). That's a significant boost in power. Not to mention he's *way* harder to kill now.

If my opponent wants to spend multiple turns playing 4 cost unsummons, that's okay with me! Chaining Lilianas seems more problematic just because dealing with her on early turns is so hard already... I don't know why people are arguing that the old rules were more interactive though? Playing x costed vindicates for Legendary permanents doesn't seem like much interaction to me compared to having to manage multiple Planeswalker activations in a mirror, making combat decisions with creatures etc. I.e. Interaction which can potentially occur over multiple turns, rather than "BOOM VINDICATE".

This just seems like deck building in Legacy has to change a bit. Jace is no longer an answer for Jace. Cards like Lingering Souls, Vindicate, Maelstrom Pulse etc should all see more play, which is interesting!

EDIT: Seriously guys, I don't get the arguments here. You may not like the rules now, you may think that xyz cards may be too powerful now, you may not like it from a flavour standpoint but to argue that there will be less interaction is crazy talk! Imagine having 2 Jaces in play... What do you do with your Jace? What do you do if you have a creature in play? What do you do if you both have creatures? The variables go on and on.

This opens up the potential for far more complex board states and decision trees. Call me crazy but having to make more complex decisions seems like an opportunity for better players to win, not just the first to land a Jace.

[Ayotte]

Good luck finding one for $120 anyway, most places are listing them at $150 now.

I just bought my 4th Jace for $110 on ebay, LP quality, which is fine with me.

Also, if my opponent has a jace in play and I play my own jace, now, rather than no one having a jace, we both have one. Both situations end in parity. The only difference is we're both brainstorming every turn. I can't see how this is that big of a deal.

[Lemnear]

I just bought my 4th Jace for $110 on ebay, LP quality, which is fine with me.

Also, if my opponent has a jace in play and I play my own jace, now, rather than no one having a jace, we both have one. Both situations end in parity. The only difference is we're both brainstorming every turn. I can't see how this is that big of a deal.

Lol you know that the first player starting to fateseal will win here?

[Megadeus]

Lol you know that the first player starting to fateseal will win here?

Truth. Though it depends on how much awesome removal for other PWs you run. Maybe red splash will become popular again for Red Blasts?

[TraxDaMax]

So you're the jackass that caused all this ruckus! LOL j/k
OMG MAILBOMB his ***.

Just kidding obviously.

So,

Gaea's Cradle has gone up 13 euro in a day on MKM.

[Megadeus]

OMG MAILBOMB his ***.

Just kidding obviously.

So,

Gaea's Cradle has gone up 13 euro in a day on MKM.

Its up to 150 SCG! $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

[bruizar]

I have done my christmas shopping. Nonfoil dark depths at $30. Foil should follow suit soon.

[catmint]

Lol you know that the first player starting to fateseal will win here?

This post is a good explanation of why people might thing that the game gets less complex (which is non-sense as pointed out a couple of times). People just don't have a clue. :laugh:

Sorry for beeing offensive Lemnear, but if you really believe that a 6 turn clock where you do nothing with your jace (fateseal while the other brainstorms is doing nothing) will win over all the business like hmmm ... for example... creatures that the other Jace will draw you deserve it. :tongue:

[danyul]

The Blind-fuck-it-Jace-Fateseal is not a super common play anyways. I mean unless the board is empty and you are feeling really saucy, I think most people start with a Jacestorm or bounce or something that advances the boardstate. Unless you know for a fact that your opponent is holding a Jace and just happens to also have no ways to poke your own Jace. I don't know how common the JaceRace scenario will be.

[Lemnear]

This post is a good explanation of why people might thing that the game gets less complex (which is non-sense as pointed out a couple of times). People just don't have a clue. :laugh:

Sorry for beeing offensive Lemnear, but if you really believe that a 6 turn clock where you do nothing with your jace (fateseal while the other brainstorms is doing nothing) will win over all the business like hmmm ... for example... creatures that the other Jace will draw you deserve it. :tongue:

You stretch the frame here too much to prove me wrong. I'm not discussing other factors like if the brainstorming Jace-deck runs creatures, Lingering Souls, SFM or Miracles. In a pure Jace-staredown, immediately fatesealing (yourself obviously; don't act like I'm stupid) puts you ahead in case you have to Race the counters, especially if your opponent first dropped a Jace and brainstormed.

[catmint]

True - in case there is the Jace mirror where both players do not have access to any other wincon nor have a good chance to find a removal for the opponents Jace within 6 turns of brainstorming your statement is valid. :really:

[kiblast]

Honestly I'm more worried about other things in the control matchup like for example resolving Jtms, understand the timing of playing jtms and preventing opp. from resolving his jtms. His Jtms it's not a super Vindicate for mine anymore? Fine. I still get one more activation- this change will only help bad players as they won't be settled back in tempo after playing a cc4 Vindicate. People here seem to think that legacy is going to be turn 4 jtms vs turn 4 jtms battles, whereas attempting jtms in your 4th turn means you didn't understand anything of the control matchup. Really, this changes next to nothing for the experienced control player.
I mean, it's no doomsday at all. Just adapt and play a couple of extra solutions to planeswalkers md, or play Spanish Inquisition.

[zulander]

I have done my christmas shopping. Nonfoil dark depths at $30. Foil should follow suit soon.

There are plenty still at $15 on TCG..

[bruizar]

There are plenty still at $15 on TCG..

Yep, Now the wait is on whether or not that supply will dry up or not.

[kusumoto]

I don't see what's so great about this whole Thespian's Stage thing. It essentially costs four mana (2 colorless plus needing the two combo lands) and makes a Dark Depths deck run even more bad lands.

It seems like people are exaggerating about everything in this thread.

[Fatal]

There is also big disadvantage -4 lands required, 2 land drops(goes down) for 20/20 flying indisty Demon - quite risky plan.

[bruizar]

I don't see what's so great about this whole Thespian's Stage thing. It essentially costs four mana (2 colorless plus needing the two combo lands) and makes a Dark Depths deck run even more bad lands.

It seems like people are exaggerating about everything in this thread.

I understand what you're saying but you need to view the combination in context:

->MUD
->Turbo Emrakul
->43 Lands
->Intuition package with life from the loam

Maybe some, as of yet nonexistent, specialized hexmage build, which I doubt. Perhaps also other decks.

[TheArchitect]

Yep, Now the wait is on whether or not that supply will dry up or not.

You can stop trying to create the perception of increased in demand for the dark depths you just bought out of speculation.



I think what might be more common to see in the jace situation, is using unsummon for a a turn. Untapping, brainstorming hoping for a permanent answer the creature you are bouncing, finding a jace and playing him just to unsummon again while you search for answers.

I don't like it, but tbh this legend change isn't that huge a deal.

[bruizar]

You can stop trying to create the perception of increased in demand for the dark depths you just bought out of speculation.

I'm not trying to increase demand for the card. Did I buy a couple? Yes, but not non-foils since I don't buy non-foils. I stated the prize of a non-foil dark depths which I have no position in. Did I buy other staples too? Yes, but that's besides the point.

My point is that the final price is dependent on whether or not the current cheap supply will dry up or not. Don't forget that Dark Depths was ones a bulk rare before Vampire Hexmage was printed, and it shot up big time.

An increase in prize happens when:
A) players are buying up the cards at the lowest value, leaving only the more expensive sellers. This is actual supply/demand at work.
B) sellers are adjusting their sales prices. This is artificial/speculative prize increase.

B is not happening right now, because there are still enough cheap copies available. This means that the price increase depends on A, which is anyone's guess since we can't look into the future.

[kusumoto]

I understand what you're saying but you need to view the combination in context:

->MUD
->Turbo Emrakul
->43 Lands
->Intuition package with life from the loam

Maybe some, as of yet nonexistent, specialized hexmage build, which I doubt. Perhaps also other decks.

I don't see how it helps MUD or Turbo Eldrazi. It just makes the inconsistent one have even worse lands and is worse than the Eldrazi guys in the other.

Lands with Intuition and the combo seems decent though.

[SpikeyMikey]

This change makes me want to vomit.

Lilliana just got 2x as good and about 10x easier to play.

If I had a dollar for all the times I probably won a game because I kept knocking my opponent's stupid PW to 1 loyalty and letting it live so he couldn't play the other one in his hand and blow me out with it's second ability or put it out of range of attack...

MTG is getting more and more easy mode every day.

This.

Before anyone jumps into bitch about how this is just whining from a long-time player who wants free wins vs. nubs because of rules complexity, let me point out that rules complexity is the only reason any of us are still playing this game.

The simpler a game is, the lower the intellectual barrier to entry. Checkers is easier than chess. Most of you have probably played both, but I'm willing to bet you picked up checkers long before you picked up chess. It's easier to understand, the strategy is less complex and it's more newbie friendly. I'm also willing to bet that while most of you either still play chess or would play chess if asked, whereas very few people here would really be interested in an intense game of checkers. Even less so with a killer match of tic-tac-toe. Tic-tac-toe is also a simple game, easy to get into, easy to solve. At which point, it loses all challenge and therefore all fun.

People bitch about complexity but that's the main thing that gives games longevity. I hate the changes they make to easymode the rules.

That having been said, the sideboard rule seems fine. Well, it seems silly, but I know that you do end up with people getting GLed for presenting an illegal deck after making a mistake while sideboarding. So this will cut about half of those out. Not necessary, but not harmful.

The land rule is counterintuitive for anyone who's played the game for a while, but I don't see it actually coming up very often. People don't play a ton of "play extra land" permanents anyway.

The legend/uniqueness change sucks. Besides the obvious powering up of Cradle and Opal and the fact that it makes Show and Tell even worse in the mirror than it already was, it makes legendary permanents and planeswalkers that much more difficult to deal with. The game is already too tilted towards proactive strategies. That imbalance is why Standard and Modern are so difficult to balance and why Legacy is becoming that way. They need to stop poisoning the well and start shifting things back towards reactive strategies being viable.

The idea that they'll be more likely to make future legendary lands seems fine. I like legendary lands and honestly, most of the specialty lands they make these days ought to be legendary (*cough* Valakut *cough*). But you didn't need to screw with the legendary rule to to do that, just stop being pussies and do it.

[Arsenal]

Generally, legendary permanents and planeswalkers have very powerful effects. Not always, but more often than not. As such, this feels like Magic is becoming more "battlecruiser Magic" to me; very powerful cards with (now) litte-no drawback other than some prohibitive manacost.

[marax]

This.

Before anyone jumps into bitch about how this is just whining from a long-time player who wants free wins vs. nubs because of rules complexity, let me point out that rules complexity is the only reason any of us are still playing this game.

The simpler a game is, the lower the intellectual barrier to entry. ... .It's easier to understand, the strategy is less complex and it's more newbie friendly...

People bitch about complexity but that's the main thing that gives games longevity.

I do not agree with this part of your post SpikeyMikey. Easy rules does not mean easy to solve game (eventhough your examples are ok of course). The game of Go for example has simpler rules than chess and is extremely popular in the Asian World yet it is not easy and solving it is far harder then chess. The best chess computers are used by the best professionals as training "partners" and are a worthy opponent while the same can not be said about Go computers (and it not for a lack of trying). The best games have very easy rules but are complex to solve anyway. While Magic started out with Instant and Interrupt spells the less complex Instant only system we have now has led to a loss of almost nothing while killing a lot of unecassary complexity. In this regard I really like the change of Indestructible. I also like the Sideboard rules change. The old rule only caused grieve because of people forgetting to put back wish cards etc.. There is little point in boarding more cards than taking out so this will mostly eliminate a bunch of game losses which leads to more Magic being played which is good thing.

The legend rule change however will have a huge impact on game play so I am really unsure wether I will come to like it. I guess this will be like the combat dmg on stack thing. it will take away options and offer new ones in return and will leave an impact on game play and card strength evaluation. If this will amount a net positive I do not know. I really dislike being able to choose which one of the legend stays and I belive the newer one should be defaulted to sacrifice to avoid the power gain of Cradle and planeswalker chaining.

[Tao]

So much bullshit about the game gets "easier and less skill intensive" and so much arrogance.

@dontbiteitholmes/SpikeyMikey: You cherrypick ONE example where the new rules make the game less skill intensive and based on that you claim that the entire game will get less skill intensive. Like one example would mean shit in a game with a trillion³ different scenarios.

@kiblast: LOL. You, the super skiller, always gets one more activation out of Jace than your opponents and then your idiot opponents use their Jace as a Vindicate after you skillfully brainstormed with it. Hahaha these noobs. That was the trick all along, oh my. How come nobody else got that right???? Just resolve your Jace FIRST and then your opponent will have to use his as a Vindicate. Thanks for enlightening me.
In reality though, if your opponent had his out first, then it was you who used Jace as a Vindicate and then most likely went on to lose the game because you were behind.

[TsumiBand]

This.

Before anyone jumps into bitch about how this is just whining from a long-time player who wants free wins vs. nubs because of rules complexity, let me point out that rules complexity is the only reason any of us are still playing this game.

The simpler a game is, the lower the intellectual barrier to entry. Checkers is easier than chess. Most of you have probably played both, but I'm willing to bet you picked up checkers long before you picked up chess. It's easier to understand, the strategy is less complex and it's more newbie friendly. I'm also willing to bet that while most of you either still play chess or would play chess if asked, whereas very few people here would really be interested in an intense game of checkers. Even less so with a killer match of tic-tac-toe. Tic-tac-toe is also a simple game, easy to get into, easy to solve. At which point, it loses all challenge and therefore all fun.

People bitch about complexity but that's the main thing that gives games longevity. I hate the changes they make to easymode the rules.

That having been said, the sideboard rule seems fine. Well, it seems silly, but I know that you do end up with people getting GLed for presenting an illegal deck after making a mistake while sideboarding. So this will cut about half of those out. Not necessary, but not harmful.

The land rule is counterintuitive for anyone who's played the game for a while, but I don't see it actually coming up very often. People don't play a ton of "play extra land" permanents anyway.

The legend/uniqueness change sucks. Besides the obvious powering up of Cradle and Opal and the fact that it makes Show and Tell even worse in the mirror than it already was, it makes legendary permanents and planeswalkers that much more difficult to deal with. The game is already too tilted towards proactive strategies. That imbalance is why Standard and Modern are so difficult to balance and why Legacy is becoming that way. They need to stop poisoning the well and start shifting things back towards reactive strategies being viable.

The idea that they'll be more likely to make future legendary lands seems fine. I like legendary lands and honestly, most of the specialty lands they make these days ought to be legendary (*cough* Valakut *cough*). But you didn't need to screw with the legendary rule to to do that, just stop being pussies and do it.

I agree with Marax - a vast majority of the rules simplifications in Magic have ultimately, IMHO, been for the better. In fact whenever they introduce more unintuitive junk like blocking order or spell damage redirection to planeswalkers (I target YOU but burn Garruk, wtf), it feels like a kludge. Rules kludges are ugly and discouraging, no matter what level of gameplay you consider yourself capable of.

There's a little bit of a flavor fail here because honestly, if there is but one Balthor then having him go into battle vs. himself is a little nonsensical, no matter how "timey-wimey" you want to try and make it. But really we've already being doing this for years with legendaries that get refactored in later sets/blocks - Red vs. Green Kamahl, one Niv-Mizzet vs. another, etc. I really liked the Kamigawa change, but it lead to some stupid shit when it came to dropping Clones or same-name legends as an answer to the other Legend. Letting unique permanents answer themselves is not necessarily better than letting each player control their own unique permanent; Magic players deal in functional analogs all the time, in particular in the face of metagaming('card X in my sideboard is a Time Walk against card Y'), so when JTMS is everywhere, it's fair to say that letting Blue pay 2UU for what's going to be a Dreadbore in certain matchups is both accurate and not cool. Siding in Jitte or using SFM to tutor for your 1x copy to 'legend rule' other Jittes is arguably really stupid. Vesuva as Wasteland. Phantasmal Image as Diabolic Edict (only you know, 'kind of targeted'). And so on.

I mean, in situations like this the best thing to do is to actually get to playtesting, right? I'm addressing the general populous, not anyone in particular here. Has anyone stopping fussing about the changes long enough to play some games of Magic where the new uniqueness rules actually matter a damn? Or are we all sitting around pissing on the same bush because some other dog peed on it for a second, so we gotta get down on that shit.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

\
People bitch about complexity but that's the main thing that gives games longevity. I hate the changes they make to easymode the rules.

I can teach go to an eight year old and we still cant make computers that beat master go players.

Your point was?

[nedleeds]

The difference with Stage Depths is you never have to cast a fucking spell. Cast all the spheres you want, or play standstills .... or play more Urborgs since those suck less now.

[bruizar]

The pw/legend changes make the game a lot more interesting than it was before. Legends and Planeswalkers were played as pseudo-vindicates. That was just stupid.

[Megadeus]

The difference with Stage Depths is you never have to cast a fucking spell. Cast all the spheres you want, or play standstills .... or play more Urborgs since those suck less now.

Great point. Seems like a lulzy deck to me.

[lyracian]

The legend rule change however will have a huge impact on game play so I am really unsure wether I will come to like it. I guess this will be like the combat dmg on stack thing. it will take away options and offer new ones in return and will leave an impact on game play and card strength evaluation. If this will amount a net positive I do not know. I really dislike being able to choose which one of the legend stays and I belive the newer one should be defaulted to sacrifice to avoid the power gain of Cradle and planeswalker chaining.For me it is going back closer to how the original 1994 Legend rule was. I still have the rules insert from my Legends booster. The first copy of Legend X in play won and all other copies that came into play just died. Sure the modern day Legends are a bit more powerful but there is no reason for them to die to a Clone!

[Higgs]

I can teach go to an eight year old and we still cant make computers that beat master go players.

Your point was?

Recognizing an umbrella is dumb as shit. With the current technology unless you give a computer an image of an umbrella under every condition, shape, color, type, position and lighting it can't recognize an umbrella most of the time. Your point is?

What the current rules does is, they take the playing and not playing of your Legend/Planeswalker out of the equation. As I said in my previous post, with the previous rules if my opponent has the mirror legend/planeswalker I'll probably try to take it down with my other resources to play my own and get the upper hand. Sacrificing my own copy to get rid of his is an important decision and lots happen before you take it. If that's 30% of the decisions with the Planeswalker you just drew, under the current rules you have 30% less decisions to make. You play it as soon as you draw it because it's pure value anyways and you don't have a reason to fight off the opposing Planeswalker first. Have to play your own and start gaining value asap.

I think it's very simple really. If you like the new rules it's fine, but can't really argue that it doesn't dumb down the game.

Having said that I was fine with the removal of damage on stack. I always thought it was stupid and unintuitive. You attack with Fanatic and sac it, it deals 1 damage for the sac ability and deals 1 damage from beyond the grave because it was assigned as an attacker before it died? Stupid. Also the 'can't play duplicate legends' was weak and I was glad that they changed it to binning both legends. This new rule however tells you to just play your cards. Put them on the board and start using them.

That's fine but can I still have decisions outside the board in this game please? (yes I know we still do but you get my meaning)

[Mewens]

To be fair Higgs, you're assuming that deck construction wasn't impacted by the old rule. It's possible that this change will force more Lightning Bolts and hard-to-block creatures into Legacy; forcing more changes at the deck construction level would introduce new play decisions (or at least make certain decisions more common). I don't think it's fair to assume that the only ripple effects will be reductionist ones.

[dontbiteitholmes]

So much bullshit about the game gets "easier and less skill intensive" and so much arrogance.

@dontbiteitholmes/SpikeyMikey: You cherrypick ONE example where the new rules make the game less skill intensive and based on that you claim that the entire game will get less skill intensive. Like one example would mean shit in a game with a trillion³ different scenarios.

@kiblast: LOL. You, the super skiller, always gets one more activation out of Jace than your opponents and then your idiot opponents use their Jace as a Vindicate after you skillfully brainstormed with it. Hahaha these noobs. That was the trick all along, oh my. How come nobody else got that right???? Just resolve your Jace FIRST and then your opponent will have to use his as a Vindicate. Thanks for enlightening me.
In reality though, if your opponent had his out first, then it was you who used Jace as a Vindicate and then most likely went on to lose the game because you were behind.

For the record the only part of the new rules I'm complaining about are being able to replace your existing Legend/PW with a new copy with no consequences.

Like PW aren't already hard enough to deal with. Now there are less ways to answer them AND if you can manage to keep them down to 1 loyalty the opponent can just windmill slam another one and start over.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

I think it's very simple really. If you like the new rules it's fine, but can't really argue that it doesn't dumb down the game.

I have no fucking clue what the hell your umbrella diatribe was about, simplifying rules doesn't equate to dumbing the game down, go is beyond impossible to master and it's core tenant is placing stones for value, does this remove a decision, yes, but how relevant of a decison was this, we can no longer legend rule jittes, but most creature decks (besides merfolk) use artifact destruction/needle for jitte anyways, outiside of control mirrors, you almost never see jace getting planeswalker-ruled out(what implications that has, I frankly have no idea, other than making them even grindier).

I have no idea how this whole thing will shake out, I'm inclined to say I don't care for it, but the assertion that this somehow dumbs down the game is baffling, that would require changing major tenants of the game, or how the turn order works (such as removing the second mainphase..IE Kaijudo/Duel Masters), this rules changes does neither, only taking away certain interactions and introducing new ones.

[Tao]

For the record the only part of the new rules I'm complaining about are being able to replace your existing Legend/PW with a new copy with no consequences.

Like PW aren't already hard enough to deal with. Now there are less ways to answer them AND if you can manage to keep them down to 1 loyalty the opponent can just windmill slam another one and start over.

You said that PWs got easier to play with and that is just not true. Losing the one trick to keep Lili on 1 Loyalty is just a fringe example of the myriads of different scenarios in a game like mtg. In general you get more options which means that there are more decisions to be made which means the game gets more skill intensive. Even in the one example that you chose yourself it is not true that the game gets dumbed down. Look at it from the opponent's point of view.

- Before the rules change he had only one realistic option (and the fringe option to not use it all):
a) +1 Lili so he can edict the next turn. There is really no option b.

- Now he has 3 very realistic options and a couple of fringe options:
a) +1 the old Liliana and play the new Liliana and -2 it
b) +1 the old Liliana and not play the other Liliana
c) not use the old Liliana at all and play the new Liliana and Edict because he values his own hand cards more than his opponents

[TsumiBand]

I just realized that if you just think of it as "Magic the Gathering: Champion Edition" that everything suddenly becomes clear and simple and fun again.

Not kidding! I mean it isn't like it's an implicit rule of Street Fighter that you must be a set of identical twins before entering the tournament, right? Did anyone here ragequit Street Fighter the first time they saw Dhalsim v. Dhalsim?

No. Of course you didn't. You did what everyone else did, and you spent $5.00 in quarters playing through a gamut of mirror matches that very same day, and you realized how badass it was.

That's all this is, friends. It's MtG: Champion Edition. Think of it that way, and I think you'll see that it is, in fact, the same thing only much much better.

Now the next steps are clear - time for WotC to release a massive series of alternative costume art for Jace, Elspeth, and everyone else.

[bruizar]

That's entirely correct. In fact, locking out a champion in a beat-em-up would be considered lame. "You always pick E.Honda, I want to play with E.Honda now :cry:"

[Solar Ice]

I think this is an absolutely horrific rule change. Jace races? Cradles? My god..:cry:

[Benie Bederios]

Bwah I didn't care for the rule change, but just lost to Turbo Eldrazi when my opponent could just emrakul every turn. Thought I had it covered with a Humility in play.

It is in a way a funny way to loose, being beaten to death by a 1/1 Emrakul but still.

Honestly though I still don't care much. I have to see how it works out though. It's a strange move and the format might adopt to it, but I don't know if it's bad for the format. I just wait and see.

BB

[TsumiBand]

I think this is an absolutely horrific rule change. Jace races? Cradles? My god..:cry:

How is the Jace race worse now? Given that before it was genuinely a race to see who was Brainstorming and who was Vindicating, the race would easily have gone towards the person who drew it first. Now there is no reason for the second player to be behind on cards or unable to activate their walker's abilities. The only thing that might have been lost is that Jace isn't a Dreadbore for himself now. I'm not sure how that is worse, except now it is implicit that you have to actually have a specific answer to a kind of permanent, which is a limitation Blue should actually have as far as I can tell. That goes for destroying things using the rules of the game as well; Cloning things to destroy them was never all that common, but it didn't even make sense when the old Legend rule was supposed to prevent two instances of the same Legend - it isn't the same guy, it just *looks* like him, but oop - guess the game says I gotta throw it in the bin. That's poopy.

If you're talking about being able to chain same-name walker effects during your turn, well that's 4 mana for a lot of Brainstorms, but that's terrible too. There are other walkers which see play though so maybe there are other more degenerate effects than that. Maybe chaining, like, Sorin emblems or something is going to break WB token decks. Proooobably not?

As for Gaea's Cradle, I don't understand this land to be a threat outside of Elves decks that are already setup to generate obscene amount of :g: without lands, or like Kobold-storm combo, which who cares.