By that time, we’re all used – agreed or not – to the terminology changes attached to the Magic 2010 rules changes. In which concerns to me, that was always an enthusiastic of the fantasy flavor of the game, I’m not only glad with the changes, but also feel that even more could be done. I consider the name changes of the “in play” and “removed from the game” zones to “battlefield” and “exile”, as well as the dissection of the term “play” in “cast”, “play” and “activate”, things extremely pertinent and profitable to the game, as long as people get used to them. But I also see this change as an started and unfinished job.

We all were also beginners one day, and the majority of us must remember the time we were put in contact with the game for the first time. Furthermore, as someone that has presenting – and teaching – the basis of the game to many laic people over fourteen years, I consider myself a person with at least a reasonable perception of how a beginner sees – and understands – the game. Based on it, I think that many changes could be implemented, changes that have the exact same pertinence degree than the executed ones, and wasn’t. I think Wizards is throwing away a very nice opportunity to end some ambiguities and unnecessary confusions, as well as condense and clarify some important game terms. Old and flavorful terms, like “summon” (cast a creature spell) or “bury” (destroy a creature without the possibility of regeneration) are – or have been – considered by Wizards’ R&D “obsolete”, although they fall into the exact same category of terms like the new “exile” or the new-old “cast”: they’re all keyword actions (a verb that implies an action inherent to the game). I think this terms have an incredible potential in which concerns to functionality, in the presentation of the game to new players, as well as a design tool. These keyword actions are flavorful and intuitive (Alpha-level flavorful and intuitive!) and save a lot of text space on cards. For example, until the 5th Edition, the text on Wrath of God ( may God keep’it – pardon the pun!) was only three words short (Bury all creatures), and was perfectly and instantly understandable. Under a didactic and empyrean perspective, it’s much, much easier for a beginner to understand the meaning of “bury” a creature than “destroy it without it can regenerate” (furthermore, a long, wide phrase, with even an unnecessary keyword action attached).

All without even speak about the confusion created by the two meanings of the word “counter” in English-written Magic (other languages do not suffer from it), the verb and the substantive. An ambiguity easily addressable with the substitution of one of the terms: possibly cancel for the verb, or marquee for the substantive (I vote for the later).

And the change I would really love to see happening, that would be a lot useful and functional, although cataclysmal, would be the extinction of the instant kind, which would become a sorcery subtype (as auras are an enchantment subtype now). The exact same kind of change that was done before with interrupts becoming instants, and the enchant <type> becoming auras. Changes that made a lot of noise in their time but nowadays are totally integrated to the game. One of the major problems I find when teaching new players the game is the difference between sorceries and instants. The “sorcery” concept is very simple to understand, something inherent to the fantasy genre. Sorceries are quite the opposite of the permanents. But instants ends more often as just “sorceries you may cast anytime”. This compressing would cut off this problem, with no losses to the game beyond the necessity of another massive actualization on Oracle database (and in our synapses). Plus, it would have a HUGE impact on Legacy, as long as fetchland>cantrip and the like would be very less effective ways to feed Tarmogoyfs.

We all know this unexecuted changes were exhaustively debated by Wizards during M10 rules elaboration (as MaRo and Tom LaPille said more than one time), but I would like a lot to hear (or read) from them the motivations that let these changes out. What do you think about it?