I'm cross-posting the last Adept Question here since the Q&A forum is a wasteland that has outlived its purpose.
Ground rules:
1) This thread is for discussion about ACTUAL M10 GAME EXPERIENCE. There are other threads to discuss the nature of "intuition" and M10 rules abstractly.
2) Pretend this is the Adept Q&A thread (on a good day). No one-liners, no hi-jacks, no gobble-gook/incoherent bullshit. Be intelligent, add value and preview your post. Junk will get deleted.
3) See #1 above. This thread is solely to talk about actual experiences and/or impressions about Legacy games using M10 rules.
[M10] Game Experience with Rules
Last week, Aaron Forsythe and Mark Gottlieb announced the most sweeping changes to MtG rules in a decade. You’ve probably read the article, but here it is for reference:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazin...ly/feature/42a
With a few exceptions, community response has been quiet and restrained with only a few people expressing an opinion on what these changes mean for you and me.
Nah, I’m kidding. People have gone fucking nuts.
All of the non-official MtG sites have been a mill for speculation and unfounded analysis. Wizards’ boards are a mess. Articles from the MtG punditry have been pretty fair-minded, taking an “I’m a little nervous, just like you, but let’s wait and see what it works out" position. The tone and caterwauling in discussion forums is another beast altogether. Some people don’t like change and feel the game is getting Yu-Gi-Oh’d into oblivion (dumbed way down).
I haven’t read all of the articles that have come out on the M10 rules changes, but found value in these:
The PChapin: http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/s...s_Changes.html
The Zvi: http://www.top8magic.com/2009/06/rui...vi-mowshowitz/
The Ferret:
(Part 1) http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/m...rmed_Rant.html
(Part 2) http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/m...pressions.html
Others can talk about how all of the changes affect other formats. As this is a Legacy forum, the topic is Legacy + M10.
I’ve had a good amount of time to percolate what these changes mean for Legacy, have played some games under the new rules and thought I’d get the conversation rolling.
Let’s take it from the top:
1) Simultaneous Mulligans – This is a positive change I think we can all get behind. I can’t even think of a downside, honestly.
2) Terminology Changes.
2a) The “In Play” zone becomes the “Battlefield.” Whatever. The names of zones are needed for rulebooks and come up in writing, but don’t seem to be used much in conversation outside of “Can I see what’s in your graveyard?” or “How many cards are left in your library?” Typical spell announcement for me:
Me (Playing against a red deck, announce): “Tarmogoyf.” (Silently pass priority)
Opponent: “Okay.” (Tarmogoyf silently enters the BATTLEFIELD.)
Me (Playing against a blue deck): “Tarmogoyf?” (Silently pass priority.)
Opponent: <Pauses> “Spell Snare.” (Silently pass priority.)
Me: <Pauses> “Daze.” (Pass priority)
Opponent: <Pauses> “It’s in.” (Tarmogoyf enters the BATTLEFIELD.)
I just don’t see the terminology changes making a difference. We usually imply reference to zones and don’t call them out by name In Real Life. This is going to vary from player to player. But if the term Battlefield doesn’t appeal to you, don’t use it. You don’t need to.
2b) Cast, Play, Activate. See above. We shouldn’t see any noticeable difference. Previously, we understood that these terms were a little weird, but it rarely (never?) mattered.
2c) RFG becomes the Exile zone. Functionally, the Judgment wishes may have been nerfed.
[/I]
About the name, as above, people understand that Dark Confidant is “exiled” when hit with Swords to Plowshares. Sure, you can say “I exile Dark Confidant with Swords to Plowshares,” though that’s going to sound pretty forced and deliberate for the next year. More likely: “Send the Dark Confidant farming.”
As above you don’t need to call out the RFG/exile zone, unless your opponent is sloppy and dumps Bob in the bin instead. There you might have need to refer to the exile zone by name (“That exiled.”) Alternately, you can be old school and say “No, it’s RFG’d” or “It’s removed from game” instead. Not a big deal. Most games, it won’t even come up and when the exile zone is referenced, it’s most likely because of StP.
2d) Beginning of the End Step. Sure. This is going to be invisible to most in most games. We’ll still going to say, “End of turn, activate Top.”
3. Mana Pools and Mana Burn.
3a) Mana Pools Empty between steps and phases. No doubt, there are corner cases, probably involving Enchantress, where these changes may be significant. More likely scenarios:
* You tap an Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors to pay for Trinisphere (or another 3) and you don’t have to take a point of manaburn.
* You don’t take a point (or two) of damage if you float some mana (for whatever reason) and forget about it. This is more of a functional change in Vintage with Mana Drain.
* Can’t burn yourself to get additional uses out of the Pulse of the Field/Forge. Honestly though, who plays Pulse of the Forge in Legacy? Also any deck playing Pulse of the Fields (mostly U/W/x control) is unlikely to suffer intentional damage against any deck where you’d want the Pulse, post-board.
I can’t even think of the last time I took a point of manaburn and I bet it’s been a while for you too. It’s a rule that’s always been there, but really more of a corner case in the scheme of things.
Ultimately, Zvi says it best: “The bottom line is that we’d never consider introducing mana burn if it wasn’t already there, as it is rules complexity ... with only rare strategic benefit.”
4. Controllers of Token Own the Tokens. - "Dude, your Brand deck was always shit. It was cute when it worked out, but you were never going to ride that puppy to the Top 8 of a Grand Prix, were you?"
5. Combat Damage No Longer Uses the Stack.
A.k.a. the Big One.
A.k.a. the “Nice Mogg Fanatic” Rule.
The “stack,” as we know it, did not exist in Richard Garfield’s original rules, they were added in the sweeping 6th Edition rules changes in 1999 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Sixth_Edition).
Under 6th Edition rules, combat damage was placed on the stack and resolved like every other object on a stack (last in, first out). Under the 6th Edition rules, you could declare your 3/3 Morphling as a blocker to your opponent’s Argothian Swine (a 3/3 trampler for 3G), stack the damage and then respond to damage on the stack by making Morphing a 2/4. End result: the swine dies and Morphling lives to tell a tale about some random fight in Urza Block Limited where you knew how the stack worked.
Under M10 rules, to allow combat damage to occur as a singular event, there is no longer a window to respond to combat damage on the stack (since it doesn’t stack). After you’ve assigned blockers, you have one last chance to play any trick you might have. If an assigned attacker/blocker is not in play (erm, on the battlefield) when combat damage "happens," no damage is dealt to the creature or the creature it was going to brawl with.
In practical terms, you can’t assign Mogg Fanatic as a blocker to an attacking 2/2 Mishra’s Factory, stack combat damage and sac the Fanatic in response to damage on the stack to get that last point of damage in.
Here, I don’t want to speak about theory, so I dusted off some cards and double-fisted 8-9 games this morning.
First up: Ravager Affinity vs. Goyf Sligh
(Or Arcbound Ravager vs. Mogg Fanatic)
I considered mulling to find the cards I was looking for but then settled on trying to create as natural environment I could. There were no Fanatics in my opener, but that didn’t stop Sligh from spitting up three of the things in the first game.
A few things I observed:
1. Mogg Fanatic vs. a cranially-plated 14/4 Myr Enforcer is not much of a fight.
2. Mogg Fanatic vs. a cranially-plated 13/3 Frogmite (buffed by an Arcbound Worker modular token) is not much of a fight.
3. Mogg Fanatic can’t kill an unbuffed Frogmite on his own now.
4. Mogg Fanatic can no longer block an attacking Arcbound Worker and fling an extra point of damage where it’s needed.
5. Arcbound Ravager is less tricky than he used to be (assorted forms of “damage on the stack, respond with <x>”), but he’s still awesome.
After that, I played a few games between my U/w/g CounterTop and Goyf Sligh. Goddamn is Counterbalance a beating.
“Treva” by Bardo
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Sensei’s Divining Top
2 Ponder
4 Force of Will
4 Counterbalance
3 Spell Snare
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Engineered Explosives
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Vedalken Shackles
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Mishra’s Factory
2 Nantuko Monastery
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
3 Island
Sideboard. Assorted blue blasts, grips, relics, wraths.
After a solid hour of testing, I don’t think Mogg Fanatic is playable any longer. He seems painfully nerfed (even if works the way he was designed to work in Tempest), and doesn’t do enough for the power level of this format.
Using an analogy: M10 Mogg Fanatic is to 6th Ed. Mogg Fanatic what 6th Ed. Frostling is to 6th Ed. Mogg Fanatic. If that makes sense.
One other glaring thing I noticed (similarly noted in Part 2 of TF’s article): under M10 rules, you need to make tactical decisions. Decisions seem deeper in combat (what little there is in Legacy), rather than being on autopilot (“stack damage, do <x>”).
On a broader scale, I don’t think people will loathe the new combat interactions as they think they will. They seem more interesting to me, even though some cards we know have gotten some tweaking.
Also there are some new rules about gang-blocking.
Let us not forget, this is Legacy. Blocking is fairly rare and gang-blocking is all but a myth.
6) Deathtouch is now a static ability. What the fuck is “deathtouch?” Sounds cool, whatever it is.
7) Lifelink is now a static ability. Hey Don (AngryTroll), remember that GPT (Philly) at the Batcave four years ago, when you were playing U/W control and I was playing U/W Angel-Fish (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=1816). In game 2, I attacked with all my dudes, and you held an Exalted Angel back on defense not realizing that you’d be dead before you got life from the Angel? If that game happened next month, instead of 2005, you’d have lived and I would have had to find another way to win that game. ;)
Also, lifelink doesn’t stack any longer. So you can’t dump a pile of mana into your, um, Genju of the Fields, and get 6-8 life, instead of 2. Seriously though, there are corner cases, sure, but one instance of lifelink in a game is pretty damn rare in Legacy, and stacking lifelink is all but unheard of. Well, it’s about as common as having your Kederekt Creeper gang-blocked at your last Legacy tournament.
This is one of those things we’re going to see how it plays out.
Summing up:
1. Simultaneous mulligans. A Good Thing.
2. Terminology changes. It may come up, it may not. Doesn’t really matter either way.
3. Mana pools empty and mana burn gone. May come up, but it’s pretty fringe.
4. Token ownership. Irrelevant.
5. Combat damage no longer uses the stack. Still needs exploration; Mogg Fanatic sucks; other than that, you’ll need to think a little harder in those rare cases when there is creature combat. In most games (outside of aggro vs. aggro) we may not notice there’s been any change at all. Most affected format is Limited where creature combat and combat tricks are common.
6. Deathtouch is a static ability. *Stares at the monitor*
7. Lifelink is a static ability. Irrelevant.
Alternate Question:
Have you played with M10 rules yet? How’d it go?
Unless I misread the article, I believe the wishes are undergoing functional changes, and can't retrieve extirpated loams and the like.
The new rules haven't even come up at all in something like 9/10 of my games and in the few that they do, they haven't ever altered the outcome of the game.
A couple of days ago GreenOne and I played a few games of Zoo vs. Goblins before either of us realised that we were assuming different rule sets. Just saying.
YOU'RE GIVING ME A TIME MACHINE IN ORDER TO TREAT MY SLEEP DISORDER.
Genju of the Fields will still stack under M10 rules.
Are you sure? Genju of the Fields was errata'd to have lifelink.Originally Posted by DrJones
Oracle text: Enchant Plains
2: Enchanted Plains becomes a 2/5 white Spirit creature with lifelink until end of turn. It's still a land. (Whenever it deals damage, its controller gains that much life.)
When enchanted Plains is put into a graveyard, you may return Genju of the Fields from your graveyard to your hand.
If lifelink no longer stacks, then how would you get more than 2 life out of an attack?
Check your M10 Article. Cards originally printed without Lifelink are losing Lifelink and keeping the "When ... gain ..." trigger.
Good point. Thanks. - Bardo
No, seriously.
...a longer M10 opinion will follow. Basically it boils down to, "It'll be better for Standard, which is all they care about."
I've been playing on MWS a lot since the new rules have been introduced, using various decks. The only time the rules changes really mattered was when I was using Affinity (man, that deck loses A LOT of its tricks).
The Source: Your Source for "The Source: Your Source for..." cliche.
Double lifelink doesn't gain me double life?
Please explain.
The E.P.I.C. Syndicate: I mean, if they play a lullaby for babies they should at least play the Monster Mash when somebody dies.
Double lifelink now works in the same way double first strike or double trample works.
EDIT: Wizards had better make some serious adjustments to the number of targeted, instant-speed removal spells they print for Limited - i.e., print almost none. Zvi's analysis about the impact on pump and mana-requiring abilities in combat was spot-on, at least from what I can tell using Sha-Con-Arb draft.
The new rules make combat less interesting. There are now less tricks you can do, less uncertainty, and less interactions. It's now just a matter of attacking and blocking.
It's a system that rewards vanilla creatures. :|
Well, the mana emptying thing is a big one for Ad Nauseam players, and will basically take out one of the more useful trick for that deck. Since you can't crack LED in response to Mystical Tutor in your upkeep, tutor for Ad Nauseam, and cast it with the floated LED mana anymore. That's actually kind of a big deal for combo players.
The wishes rule doesn't REALLY impact any deck, other than the Cunning Wish -> Flash of Insight thing in tide decks.
I played some games on mws too with my friends, we were playing standard, but the combat rules hardly ever came up even in standard (there's pretty much no double blocking outside of limited, and even in limited, it's rare), so like Bardo said, there's pretty much no way that's going to affect legacy. You won't be hearing anyone saying:"Blocking order?" anytime soon.
As far as wishes go I've used burning wish to get back a loam in aggro loam a couple times after extirpate. I've also used burning wish in TES to get something removed with diminishing returns. I've also used cunning wish occasionly in wish-still to get back something I pitched to FoW. These may be "corner cases" yet I enjoyed them immensely.
Well, Team Ninja got together and played for an entire night this week, both Legacy and EDH. Honestly, the new blocking rules never arose in an entire evening of playing. We thought we were going to get some M10 action when a Quasali Pridemage showed up, but even then, the Pridemage was more useful on the board than crashing into big dudes for no reason. Go figure.
There have been close calls with Pridemage and Etched Oracle, but really, except for Mogg Fanatic and Hibernation Sliver, the damage on the stack thing rarely seems to matter. Throwing Etched Oracle in front of all but a tiny fraction of creatures ends up with one creature dead, not both; same for Pridemage and most of the other dudes. Goblins, Ravager, and Slivers seem to take the brunt of this.
As far as the names changes go, I found myself saying "Cast" half of the time anyways, out of habit from way back in the day anyways. Not a big deal; I actually prefer Cast from a flavor point of view. Of course, I still "Summon" Goyfs on occasion.
I actually brought up that Exalted Angel example this week. So, yeah, I wouldn't have lost that game (well, for at least another turn or so)! That game was the first thing I thought of when I read about Lifelink. But on the other hand, I've thrown Armadillo Cloaks on Exalted Angels a time or two, and that won't be as awesome anymore.
InfoNinjas
I played a copule of matches with a mate, both casual and Legacy. Results:
1) Simultaneous Mulligans
Very natural.
2) Terminology Changes.
Rather irrelevant, because we're speakers of German anyway, and the magic slang has always been a mixture of both. Instead of "play" or "cast", we have always been saying
A: "I'd like to have a Tarmogoyf"
B: "Response: Brainstorm ... Force!"
3) Mana Pools and Mana Burn.
These were relevant in two situations (both in the same match when I was playing casual Faeries):
- In my Upkeep I played (sorry: cast(ed ???) ) Faerie Harbinger tutoring a Peppersmoke. However, I had to use a Dimir Aqueduct as my only source for B, and I couldn't float the black Mana into my draw step, thus having to wait a turn to play Peppersmoke. This cost me 1 life in the next attack.
- The next turn I played Peppersmoke without getting rid of the extra Mana (Dimir Aqueduct). According to the new rules, no mana burn occured.
So basically: -1 life, +1 life. Sounds pretty balanced to me.
4) Controllers of Token Own the Tokens.
Totally irrelevant.
5) Combat Damage No Longer Uses the Stack.
Never made a difference. I was still able to do combat tricks with all those Flash-Faeries pre-blocking, and Mogg still couldn't take down a Tarmogoyf singlehandedly.
6) Deathtouch is now a static ability.
Totally irrelevant.
7) Lifelink is now a static ability.
Totally irrelevant.
"My sky is darker than thine!"
SENTENCED - 1993
It really rewards creatures with Shroud, because they can't be removed at instant speed unless they're the sole blocker/attacker and something like Diabolic Edict is played. Having Nimble Mongoose and StP/PtE is now really strong tactically in combat. Gigapede might start to see more play again also.
Example: I'm attacking with a Nimble Mongoose with StP in hand. The defender double-blocks with 2 Mishra's Factories. Under the old rules he could wait until the damage step to tap his Mishra's to pump in response to how I assigned damage. If I removed one of his Factories before that he could activate it to give the other one +1/+1. This allowed him to pump one of his Mishra's (the one with damage on it) to force me to trade off with the StP/PtE on a 2 for 1 basis - Nimble Mongoose AND StP/PtE for a single Mishra's Factory with the other one surviving.
Now the 2 Factories can at best trade off on an even basis by pumping both during the declare blockers phase and having one of them die to the Mongoose and the other get StP/PtE'd. I can always respond to his pump of a Mishra's with my StP/PtE and he never gets to stack damage before that point. He can't wait until the point that he can stack damage to make the decision of how to pump his creatures, he has to pump both of them to 3/3 to get his tradeoff. Trying to get tricky by pumping the first engaged blocker to 4/4, on the assumption that I do not have a StP/PtE runs the risk that he loses both Mishra's in a 2 for 1 with the Mongoose surviving. Shroud puts the attacker in the driver's seat here.
What I really mean by that is, creatures that have activated abilities are significantly worse. First time using them under the new rules, I felt as though I was being punished for using creatures with abilities, because, in combat, they may have been better off as a slightly bigger or cheaper vanilla creature rather than a smaller creature with abilities.
I agree with this, however I highly doubt Qasali Pridemage is going to get removed from any decks that currently use him based on this change. He was ridiculously good under the stacking combat damage rules and is now only excellent. Just an opinion.
I think what this change does is to make creatures with activated abilities that potentially effect combat damage much worse to play. That's a small handful of creatures in the meta game. Static damage abilities like Exalted are promoted and activated damage abilities like the Mogg Fanatic sacrifice are demoted.
Wrong again. Seriously, this "old cards with lifelink stack but the new ones we print don't" is totally confusing. We need to contact judges and ask them to write to Mark Gottlieb asking for either adding the clause "gain that much life ...for each instance of Lifelink on this creature" on lifelink, or make old lifelink work as the current one and ruin our Essence Slivers.
It's pretty simple really. You just do what is on the card: if it has the old wording, it'll be triggered. If it has lifelink, ignore any and all reminder text and it has static lifelink.
One exception: Loxodon Warhammer. I think it has "new" lifelink, so everyone with Mirrodin editions have the wrong wording.
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