Gonna have to disagree with you guys that are upset about the removal of "damage on the stack".
It never made sense. How does a Mogg Fanatic hit your creature and deal damage and then sacrifice itself when it should already be dead when it exchanged with my Tarmogoyf? It wouldn't deal damage at all if it DID sac itself to ping another creature, but the current rules say that mogg can do stupid, nonsensical things.
I also like the new blocking mechanics as it DOES add a strategic element. If someone commit s many creatures in hopes of killing your attacker, but you kill one before the damage step, they could all die. Blocking with our current rules favors the attacker and it was pointless to block with multiple creatures, less you loss 2 or more to kill one. Now, it evens the playing field and is sort of a compromise between banding and our current blocking rules.
I'm curious as to how First Strike, Double Strike and Banding will be handled.
Good question on how they will word First Strike and Double Strike. First Strike worked just fine in the pre-6th edition rules so there's no problem there, just a question of how to make the wording clear such that the opposing creature does not get to assign damage back if it take lethal damage from the First Striker.Originally Posted by DragoFireheart
Banding I think will work the same way it always worked. Poorly.
Well...looks like I will be keeping an eye on MtG in case they adjust the rules again so that being a cagey motherfuker is rewarded again, but not playing it. Time to pay more attention to my other game...WarCrack. Maybe I'll have time for an alt now on top of my main.
I'm sure that Blizzard is thankful for the many D&D and MtG players that WotC is scaring right into their electronic embrace.
-It could be about four of anything and I would agree.
What if your creature is armed with some sort of ranged weapon? Does killing that creature magically stop the arrow/spear/grenade in mid-air? Why can't my two-power creature hit two blockers for one damage (e.g. lashing out, slashing two enemies ineffectually)? Flavour-reasons aren't generally very good, since they tend to generate equal and opposite reasons.
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.I also like the new blocking mechanics as it DOES add a strategic element. If someone commit s many creatures in hopes of killing your attacker, but you kill one before the damage step, they could all die. Blocking with our current rules favors the attacker and it was pointless to block with multiple creatures, less you loss 2 or more to kill one. Now, it evens the playing field and is sort of a compromise between banding and our current blocking rules.
Having re-read the article, things now make more sense (though they remain counter-intuitive).
Good questions. Dunno the answer. First Strike, no doubt, will simply mean that you have a chance to destroy one or more blockers before they can destroy your attacker (maybe it will entail a mini-damage assignment sub-step thing). Double Strike would then function similarly, I'd imagine. Banding? Shrugs.I'm curious as to how First Strike, Double Strike and Banding will be handled.
This. I also notice how, in the example he provided, he only needed to assign 2 damage to the Suntail Hawk in order to get through to the next guy, even though the Hawk had 1 damage prevented and also +1/+1. So you've assigned "lethal" damage, even though the Hawk will live through this?
I get how this works from a rules perspective (lethal damage is defined as damage equal to a creature's toughness, not the amount of damage it would take to actually kill it), but how the fuck is that intuitive?
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I find myself wondering how damage assignment rules work out in many-on-many combat situations without banding or the new deathtouch. It's unlikely to occur in competitive play, but what happens if two two-headed giants both block a Force of Nature and a Skyshroud behemoth?
Honestly, the only unintuitive part is that he's writing "lethal damage" when he means "damage equal to the creature's toughness".
Ugly babies with extra limbs, I think...
Old Fogey
You're not just wrong, rules say you're a dick!
My favorite deck, Death and Taxes, loses several cool interactions. I think Mark Gootlieb has done some seriously toolish things in the recent past. And I still am in complete agreement with every last one of the changes WoTC is making here.
Stacked damage has never made sense. It works differently from other parts of the game. Lifelink not saving you with an Exalted Angel is gay and makes no sense. Exile has excellent flavor, and suits the game rules well. Token ownership is a rules loophole that has simply been closed. Beginning of end step is so obvious it gets a "duh" (I actually use this Exact Same Phrase when explaining it to people). I have said "cast" and "activate" for years.
@Pinder: Deathtouch is very intuitive and simple this way. The rules work one way all the time unless an ability breaks them. Just like Trample
and Flying
and Flash
and Wither
and everything else
@IBA, you are being a reactionary...again.
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He doesn't mean "damage equal to the creature's toughness". He means "damage equal to the creature's toughness minus damage already dealt to it"
Is Zombies good now?
When I first read this thread (without reading the article), I was taken aback, angry, confused, disappointed, what-have-you. However, after reading the thoughts and comments of many here, plus reading the article, plus giving it about 5 hours to digest and reconfiguring my brain to think in terms of non-stacked combat damage, I think this won't be a very big deal at all. You can still do combat tricks involving pumping and things like that (e.g. Mishra's Factory), those just occur prior to damage now. You just can't assign damage and then have your man go do something else. I really don't think this is that big of a deal, it's just a change that we'll all get used to. I'm willing to bet that those who have put their collections up for sale will regret it some time within the next year or so.
I'll concede that the reasons for the change aren't completely sound. "Scrubby Bob plays MtG with his own variation of the rules. One day, he decides he wants to enter a tournament and gets his world turned upside down!! He then hates Magic forever and we've lost a customer." Yeah, I'm not buying that. When I started playing just casually in jr. high, if you forgot to untap your lands before drawing a card, those lands weren't untapping until next turn, sucker. Then I discovered the secret tech that is the rules, and I've never looked back. I'd like to think most rational people would understand that the written rules may in fact differ from whatever version they play on the kitchen table, and that to play in a tournament you need to play by the written rules, regardless of how strange they may seem to you.
But yeah, I'm not too concerned. The worst part will be retraining yourself to think about combat differently.
Fundamental changes? What's so fundamental. I think the printing of Goyf and Counter/Top was much more fundamental than these changes (regarding Legacy).
I haven't seen many critical thinkers here. What makes you believe that I haven't thought about the changes for a while?
When it comes to running with the herd: Dude, I'm the one who says the changes seem Ok in a thread like this one and you are on the group of people who flame me.
TS Crew
1) Mana Burn It's a personal preference, but I like the elimination of Mana Burn. I care about the simplicity of the game for its future, and I think of this as a positive.
2) The New Mulligan Rule: AWESOME
Eternal matches are already pressed for time. The loss of strategic advantage due to going second and having less information is offset by the tremendous amount of time that this will save. Great work wizards!
3) The new combat rule.
People are confusing 'intuitive' with 'less complex.' The new combat rules may be more intuitive, but I do not agree that they are less complex. If anything, i'm afraid that Wizards is making combat more complex.
Two examples bear this out. First of all, the declare blockers step is now the most important step in the combat phase. This misnomer will lead to numerous errors, where uninformed players are too late to make critical plays that will affect the resolution of combat damage. Secondly, the new 'ordering' rule is something that will produce all kinds of confusion. It is, by definition, an increase in the complexity of the rules system. For example, explain banding now. I have a feeling that changing lifelink and deathtouch are just the beginning of the changes necessitated by this overall change.
As a change, I'm somewhat indifferent to this new rule. But as for the claim that it makes things less complicated, I say that's just untrue.
I agree they are much more complex. The main problem I have with them is that you are no longer free to choose how to assign your damage, instead you must follow a new complicated set of rules that force you into assigning your damage.
For instance say you got a 4/4, your opponent has 2 2/4s out and you got a pyroclasm in hand. You can no longet swing in and if they double block assign 2 to each one. Then pyroclasm in your second main phase. Instead you are forced to assign all 4 damage to one of them, and making your pyroclasm useless. I will bet this is not how they wanted these new rules to work.
They wanted to change it so you couldn't stack combat damage and get double use out of a creature. They did accomplish this, but with new and complicated rules that have numerous side effects.
All they had to do was say that combat damage of a creature didn't resolve unless that creature was still attacking when combat damage went to resolve. It's intiutive, simple, and requires very little change. But sigh, they needed to come up with this craptacular system isntead.
What's so fundamentally different about combat damage using the stack versus combat damage not using the stack? What so fundamentally different about the aggressor dealing "lethal" damage to blocking creatures in a queue? Really?
Dude, you're the one who basically is saying, "Don't even complain or question. Don't argue with "the man", just take whatever they give you."
The system would also need to handle things like Triskelion which change their power/toughness rather than being sacked.
I think it would have been easier (and more intuitive) to have the attacker and blocker designate damage, then react to the assignment, and then resolve damage (all at once), with the caveat that any changes to creatures power/toughness lead to a reassignment of combat damage.
Well Magic, we had a fun 15+ years. Maybe if WotC comes to its senses, we'll see each other again, but until then, adieu.
You have a point there, but why tack that extra baggage onto deathtouch when you don't have to? My argument is that it's unnecessary. Combat damage not using the stack is something I'm not happy about because I feel it makes a lot of interesting strategic interactions completely disappear, but I can see the rationale behind it. What I can't understand is why they have this new blocking system with "trample damage" for blockers. Is there any good reason, at all, to set it up this way rather than just having each player assign damage to creatures however they wish, then having all of that damage happen outside the stack? I see no reason that you should have to kill all of the blockers in order like that. It just limits options that players have, for no good reason.
Again, I'd like to reiterate that damage leaving the stack is not what I'm arguing against. What I don't like is the fact that damage can't be assigned however you want anymore.
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I said don't whine. I have no problem with complaining with solid arguments but many people just read the WotC Article, opened a forum of their choice and wrote: f**k u Wizards!
I don't pretend to have solid arguments to defend the changes. I just think the changes are Ok and that most people get mad at WotC just because they changed something. As I said before this is a common Legacyplayers attitude. Open any thread in the DtB Forum and look at the way new ideas are torn to pieces just because they are new and hard to digest at first. It's similar here.
TS Crew
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