[M10] General Discussion on Rules Changes

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Originally Posted by sdematt

I can think of one way to solve this:

Do NOT buy packs anymore. The new set is ass anyway, just don't buy packs.

Also, Sourcers, show up to major events, and use the combat stack. If the opponent have something to say, tell them you play real Magic. If everyone showed up to the next Legacy GP, and everyone decided to play with the good rules, could they tell everyone they were wrong? If they did, well, if everyone leaves, they're out how many thousands of dollars?

Come on, if GM can go tits up, I'm sure Wizards of the Coast can. There is nothing worse than scorning the Magic community. I know some may say "This is like 6th edition," which is kind of is. But, how many more cards were printed after 6th that are worth money that are going to devalue the market?

Wizards doesn't care about the secondary market, fine. They should, because if we stop buying, they stop getting paid. Yeah this seems a little rantish, but seriously, I'm losing a ton of money on cards that are now useless (ex. Morphling, Mishra's factory, etc.). Thanks Wizards, you made my effing day.

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You are clearly over-reacting, hence the bold part. If I remember correctly, damage was not on the stack Pre-6th Edition, so if anything WotC went BACK to magic's roots. Even if this isn't the case, damage on the stack was a stupid rule. How could a mogg exchange damage yet still be alive to blow up something else?

You can still do combat tricks, but now they actually make more sense.

The blocking order also makes more sense. Creatures can't attack other creatures (ignoring some Onslaught abilities) so why are we allowing them to assign damage? Shouldn't I, the defender, decide which creatures I want to throw under the bus? The current (soon to be old) rules screwed over the defender ala Pyroclasm bull. With the new rules, blocking with multiple creatures isn't so suicidally one-sided anymore.

Combat is still interesting, but now it's for blocking and not attacking.

So if we're talking figuratively, can't a "warrior" wound 2 or 3 enemies during a battle, but don't necessarily kill any of them?
It seems perfectly possible.

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Originally Posted by DragoFireheart

You are clearly over-reacting, hence the bold part. If I remember correctly, damage was not on the stack Pre-6th Edition, so if anything WotC went BACK to magic's roots. Even if this isn't the case, damage on the stack was a stupid rule. How could a mogg exchange damage yet still be alive to blow up something else?

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How many cards were printed before 6th Edition? Now how many cards were printed after 6th Edition? I think the numbers say way more cards are getting screwed over. Sure Mogg Fanatic and Rainbow Efreet and Morphling are going back to the original (arguably not playable) functionality. But what about Sakura, Tribe Elder or Qasali Pridemage or Ravenous Baloth? Also, these new combat rules will possibly eliminate two entire decks in Legacy from even being played - Death and Taxes and Mono-Blue Control. Death and Taxes loses a lot of its card advantage because it cannot take advantage of bounce in combat. Mono-Blue Control has lost a lot of power in its bombs (as in they are no longer bombs but now just overcosted and underwhelming creatures that can't hold their own). (Also, as an aside... the change with mana burn makes Zoo and Burn nearly impossible to take down a deck running Pulse of the Fields.) We are now running into a situation in Legacy where there is no reason to not play Tarmogoyf EVER. The argument for it being "just a vanilla" (albeit fat) creature doesn't apply anymore. All creatures are just vanilla so we may as well play the fattest one. Either that or combo and just read TES and Solidarity threads to see that some players are already annoyed with the Exile zone. Hurray for going back to pre-6th Edition! Ah yes, a time when Serra Angel and Craw Wurm were amazing because they were fat. Good times..good times.

I hate the argument "How could a mogg exchange damage yet still be alive to blow up something else?". I believe the grenade argument was made elsewhere on this thread. I assume many people have played Call of Duty as well. Martyrdom and Last Stand - hello? If I have a grenade. You shoot me. I drop grenade. The grenade still blows up! Your arguments for "flavor" don't make any sense at all. Why is that so hard to understand?

Wtf are you people talking about? Creatures still have their abilities. Morphling can still fly over shrouded for 5, Mogg can still ping, and Qasali can still hit artifacts and enchantments. They still function the same way except they are a little weaker when it comes to blocking and doing their tricks. They aren't useless. The truth is that this change does end up making it easier.

However, the worst part about this is the fact that I can't choose who I damage. It isn't horrible, but it just makes those rare instances of Pyroclasm after combat useless and does simplify the game, which is not good.

The really annoying things are the token ownership, and the hyper-selective distribution of damage where deathtouch creatures work the old way and nothing else. These changes serve no useful purpose at all and just, combined with the tone of the article, send the message that they don't give a shit about the existing playerbase, they just wanted to fuck around with things.

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I'd claim the opposite: I often block one creature with two. Two-for-one situations do happen, but they're fairly rare (depending on your deck, of course). It's a question of balancing costs, really. It's also worth noting that the new system doesn't seem to necessary stop two-for-one situations, since blockers still get locked in. The strange part has to do with determining the blocking order (which gives the attacker a certain advantage), and the requirement that lethal damage be dealt (which gives an advantage to the defending player... sort of). That all looks very artificial and counter-intuitive to me, although it certainly requires a measure of strategy.

Having re-read the article, things now make more sense (though they remain counter-intuitive).

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i think the blocking order makes combat tricks much for powerful for the defender.

eg.

i attack with a hill giant.
you block with a grizzly and a raging goblin (first 1/1 that came to my mind after fanatic)

lets say you have a giant growth in hand.

according to the old system, your giant growth will only save 1 creature.
but with this new blocking order, your giant growth can save both your creatures.

(i choose grizzly, goblin; you pump the grizzly, 3 damage not enough for lethal.)

i understand this is a very simplified example, but i think this actually makes combat more beneficial for the defenders.

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Originally Posted by ScatmanX

So if we're talking figuratively, can't a "warrior" wound 2 or 3 enemies during a battle, but don't necessarily kill any of them?
It seems perfectly possible.

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Not if I choose to send in one guy first, and then another.

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Originally Posted by Jak.

Wtf are you people talking about? Creatures still have their abilities. Morphling can still fly over shrouded for 5, Mogg can still ping, and Qasali can still hit artifacts and enchantments. They still function the same way except they are a little weaker when it comes to blocking and doing their tricks. They aren't useless. The truth is that this change does end up making it easier.

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The reason Morphling was good is not because it could fly over for 5. Yes that was and still is cool, but Superman also had the magnificent ability to stop Nimble Mongoose and live through it. Mono-blue (the only deck that runs Morphling) can't counter EVERY creature that hits play. It only runs a couple bomb creatures in the deck that shuts down anything that does slip play and then wins with those bombs. Now the bombs aren't bombs at all. Morphling and Rainbow Efreet die to Nimble Mongoose; Superman can't eat dragons; Morphling IS useless. Rainbow Efreet maybe not but probably. Mogg Fanatic isn't useless, as it is a 1-drop and can destroy Bridge from Below, but is that worth playing the card now? Part of Qasali Pridemage's excitingness was the ability to win Tarmogoyf wars AND to be able to do the fancy combat tricks. Now, it can be looked at as a disenchant creature that gets outclassed by bigger creatures. Will Pridemage be played? Probably. Will Morphling ever see play again? Or Rainbow Efreet? Probably not. Mogg Fanatic? Maybe in sideboards. Who knows...

I'll live with eliminating damage-on-the stack (I think it's stupid as all hell but whatever); I'm saying it's terrible reasoning to say it's ok because that's how it worked pre-6th Edition or it doesn't make any sense in the flavor of the game. THOSE SHOULD NOT BE REASONS TO CHANGE SOMETHING THAT WAS NOT BROKEN!

The main thing that annoys me in combat is how they had to come up with the dumbass blocking order just to allow protection spells to not be worthless in double-blocking scenarios. Then, because of the new combat style, deathtouch made no sense. So they had to come up with a new rule to make that work correctly. Am I the only one who sees this style of problem solving is illogical? If by "fixing" a problem, you've made more problems that need to be fixed, then maybe your solution sucks ass. Just sayin'

Wait, let me get this straight, the player blocking chooses which creatures take damage? I didn't read it that way. If that's true, this new combat system is even worse than I thought, and I was just coming around to it.

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Originally Posted by rleader

Seriously, there was a general gaming thread called "when knowing the rules is like cheating" and Magic was listed as a prime offender.

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You run with some grade-A retards, yo.

I've loving everything I'm reading so far.

Yes, I was overreacting a little, I will admit, but I am infuriated.

But, I have a question: Could you block with a Qasali Pridemage, and after blockers, before death, still kill an artifact? Even if the damage doesn't get dealt to the creature, can you just chump it to save yourself and blow stuff up? I'm thinking no, but I just want to make sure before I go insane.

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Originally Posted by sdematt

Yes, I was overreacting a little, I will admit, but I am infuriated.

But, I have a question: Could you block with a Qasali Pridemage, and after blockers, before death, still kill an artifact? Even if the damage doesn't get dealt to the creature, can you just chump it to save yourself and blow stuff up? I'm thinking no, but I just want to make sure before I go insane.

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How hard is this? The only change is damage doesn't use the stack. Everything else is the same. You can do anything up until the point damage is assigned. Seriously, this is the sort of lack of comprehension that led to this dumbing down.

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Originally Posted by sdematt

Yes, I was overreacting a little, I will admit, but I am infuriated.

But, I have a question: Could you block with a Qasali Pridemage, and after blockers, before death, still kill an artifact? Even if the damage doesn't get dealt to the creature, can you just chump it to save yourself and blow stuff up? I'm thinking no, but I just want to make sure before I go insane.

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Yes, you can respond and play abilities after declaring blockers, before damage is dealt.

Ouch, that cuts deep. I was just asking, doesn't mean the game needs to be changed for me having a question:mad:

The combat damage shift is total fail.

I came up playing during Unlimited/Revised. Took a couple years break for college. Started playing again post Sixth. Got completely thrown by stacking combat damage. Didn't understand how someone could sacrifice a Ravenous Baloth when it had lethal damage on it and was "on its way to the graveyard". (I'm pre-sixth rules guru - ask me about mana sources and interrupts and FILO)

But you know what? After about a week, I had the basics of the new system down, and it worked a lot, lot, lot better. Stacking combat damage is a very, very good thing. It's also simpler than the pre-sixth system. And the new system at first glance appears to be more complex than the pre-sixth version ever was.

If lifelink was the only issue, they could have just made it static instead of triggered. Easy fix. But deathtouch is easily a massive nightmare now, and combat tricks in general just got completely screwed up.

I'm all in favor of making the game more intuitive, which most of these changes seem to have done. But the combat damage issues are definitely a change for the worse - I say this as someone who's still slightly more familiar with the old system than the new one. Bad, bad, bad idea wizards.

If nothing else, the sheer amount of space you had to devote in the article to explanations, examples, and corner cases of this change should have tipped you off that it's not actually a simplification.

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Originally Posted by sdematt

Ouch, that cuts deep. I was just asking, doesn't mean the game needs to be changed for me having a question:mad:

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Let's go through this. Wizards sees people who can't/won't figure out the basic rules due to not being able to read/laziness. Now you can't figure out how combat works even though it has been covered repeatedly in this very thread and in the article. (heck, there is even an example of him casting terror after blockers are declared). So, it is shown that this sort of behavior is seen as a call to a change. And, so, to clear things up, were you too lazy to read through everything on this thread, or was the guy reading this to you going too fast?

None of us are part of the target market for Magic any longer. That's what all these changes are really about anyway. They think they can leverage the target market by making the game more intuitive and flavorful.

How many people complaining about the changes, no matter how lacking the reasoning behind them, actually buy Wizard's product on a regular basis? I'm going to wager not very many. WotC has made a decision to target a new demographic and they think this is how to do it. They are adding extra card support for vampires for fuck's sake. You think that's a coincidence or based on market research and the success of tweenager bullshit like Twilight?

So, for those of you who weren't here already, I'd like to welcome you to the alienated market segment. We never get what we want, but we can drive and buy beer.

As someone that dislikes the removal of combat damage from the stack, I would like to say that Sdematt is representative of a big minority...I hope...

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Originally Posted by sdematt

I can think of one way to solve this:

Do NOT buy packs anymore. The new set is ass anyway, just don't buy packs.

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While I don't personally buy packs because I don't need any of the cards, this attitude is pointless. They aren't going to change it because the Legacy community, or part of it, doesn't buy any packs. All you're doing is contributing to the downfall of a game that most of us love.

Everyone needs to just settle down about something that's really not all that big of a deal.