Daily ruling for August 18, 2021 - A timeline of Magic's most historic rules changes: Damage on the Stack, the Stack, the various legend and mulligan rules, and much more. Support Judging FtW on Patreon at / judgingftw
Errata: Paris Mulligan was first used at Pro Tour Los Angeles; it was tested for standard play later at Pro Tour Paris, which is the name that stuck. Legends actually did contain Legendary non-Creatures, e.g., The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale and Karakas.
My favorite small rules change: cumulative upkeep was changed to use counters to keep track of how many turns the permanent has been in play, which means that it now interacts with cards like Solemnity, Vampire Hexmage and Doubling Season
Damage also used to work differently, when you had spell batches. all the spells would resolve in the bath, but any damage was resolved last. When damage was resolving you were allowed to cast any damage prevention spells and interupts only. Then they changed it to where damage prevention created a bubble effect that stuck with the target until the end of the turn and continued to prevent damage. Not sure how it works now.
No mention of the rule change of minimum deck size from 40 to 60 cards? That's the biggest rule change that came to mind for me except maybe introduction of the stack.
Yeah, that happened around the same time as the "4 copies" limit though (from what I can tell), right when tournaments started happening, but nobody updated the Rules until 6th Edition. (4th edition rules mention "card lords, with 5 of each card" which is weird, and strikes me as there didn't used to be a limit, or the limit used to be 5 outside of tournaments until 6th edition.) 6th Edition honestly seems like the first time they actually made a comprehensive rulebook. Before that, the rules read like "here's a big old example game. house rules are king" outside of tournament play.
Wow, a fourty-minute video! And, 14 boxes!! This was extremely fascinating - I never knew about batches! I remember I started magic somewhere just before the Return to Ravnica block and didn't really get very into it for a while. I remember the first big rules change that I can recall was the legend rule turning into what it is now* (before the planeswalker change that is). Considering how much I love copying and cloning things that shouldn't be copied (legendaries), I can only imagine how much more annoying it would have been.
Amy plays Mystical Tutor (the mirage version) and searches for a tolarian academy and reveals it. Nick says that's not an instant or sorcery. Amy points out that the mystical tutor says she may search for a mana source. Nick explains the card has an errata. Amy says this is the only version she has ever seen. What is the appropriate infraction, penalty, and fix?
What year is this? Because if current, it's banned unless this is commander you're playing. In any case, even going by the old ruling, 'mana source' is a card type. A very SPECIFIC card type. Which is NOT a land. There are only 2 cards that were labled Mana Source, both of which are black. SO... assuming you're playing by 'old school' rules, as a judge, I'd actually give the player one of the following choices. a) she can search out a mana source card in her deck, if she has one, or b) she can retract the action, search out instant or sorcery, c) retract the whole action altogether. Deck gets shuffled, no harm, no foul. Depending upon the setting, if you're playing by current rules, not tourny, just FNM, if the game is not too far in, I'd say gameplay stop, she goes through her deck, remove all tutors, shuffle, and go from there. Of course something on that level, asking a head judge or other judges on rulings, if this is FNM or any situation where wins/losses count for something would need to be brought in. Personally I'd be willing to give someone a bye if they only know one kind of version of a card, but not for not checking on banned cards.
@@SpitefulAZ well in vintage, so long as there's just one copy, she's good on that respect. But I'd still stand by the ruling of, [if she wants to get a mana source, then it HAS to say 'mana source', which is only TWO cards. Otherwise, does she want to get any other cards that fit the criteria? If not, I can either be nice, and say she can backtrack the spell, shuffle deck, start that part of the turn over with a little bit new knowledge, or be hardass, and say the mana has been tapped, spell is cast, use it or loose it]. Personally, if someone is just getting back into magic, being nice goes a LONG way to keeping people back in the game. Just so long as they don't abuse it.
@@SpitefulAZ are you coming from the SCG tour (?) Video where this actually happened in vintage? That Situation and the ruling that followed are still stuck in my mind even now, years after I watched the video
@@Mentir42 lol this really happened? I made up the story. Someone really asked this a commander game though when they saw the original print of mystical tutor for the first time, since they had never heard of a mana source card type.
In my head canon, Planeswalker cards don't represent the character themselves, but rather a magically binding contract with them. They'll perform specific services for you at a given rate, and if it gets too dicey (ie, they run out of loyalty) they'll just peace out. In this model, having multiple different Planeswalkers of the same type is easy to justify, as it just means you've negotiated for more different services to be offered. Admittedly, this does make Planeswalker removal spells a little wonky, but nobody actually thinks Jace is going to canonically die because someone cast Vraska's Contempt on him in a game, so whatever.
I thought that was canon. That’s why I got annoyed when Cruel Celebrant referenced planeswalkers “dying”. They’re not supposed to die, they’re supposed to leave you.
Thanks for thus great history lesson! I essentially stoped playing (except for a couple of tournaments) when they changed the damage on the stack rule. Felt that a big part of what was ability during combat was lost.
ive been around mtg on and off for a long time maybe since the early 2000s, but besides some covid months of mtg arena, i dont even play it. yet, im so glad i found this channel, i love it and find it oddly satisfying... and you do an excellent job at it, especially the daily situation series
There was also the Play or Draw rule, I think that was 4th edition. Used to be whoever went first also drew a card on their first turn, then it was changed to they chose to either play first and not draw a card, or play second and get the card draw.
Maybe in tournaments? The "base" rules in 4th edition don't seem to have an opinion on this (they call for determining who goes first, and the first player still draws on the first turn, but there's a whole section on house rules, and they still don't mention how many of each card can be in a deck and still say 40 is the minimum, even though tournaments haven't worked that way for years, so who knows). 6th Edition is the first time the rulebook was anything resembling the modern Comprehensive Rules.
Such a helpful video, I wish I could give it ten thumbs up. I started playing in Revised and left sometime after Ice Age, returned in 2019 and haven't played a game yet. Everything you say about the old rules and interpretations are true and having the rule changes explained as they occurred chronologically, with context, is the best way for me to absorb them. Now I just need to become familiar with about 50 mechanics that are also new to me :P
I think there was one other early iteration of the mulligan rule that you missed - which is that there was no limit to how many you could do, provided you keep getting no/all land hands. This was an issue because people quickly realized they could just use all moxes instead of lands so they could continually mulligan until they got what they needed.
I remember that Phantasmal Image was huge in Innistrad standard due to Delver decks which played Geist of Saint Traft, especially since it was the only way to cleanly deal with the card in the mirror.
No one at my LGS when I started playing would even venture to explain interrupts to me. They always told me they are just instants now and left it at that even when I asked them how they used to work. Thank you for answering a question I honestly forgot I wanted an answer to from more than 20 years ago.
I am. For most videos, I have a carefully worded explanation that I thought up ahead of time trying to strike a good balance between being technically correct and easy to understand. For this topic, it's not as important to use such precisely measured wording, making it a lot easier.
The damage spells against planeswalkers rule change, only changed the ones that targeted. Volcanic fallout used to be able to damage planeswalkers, something you can't do anymore. Same goes for slagstorm, the 3 damage ro each player mode was much more relevant because it killed JTMS that got +0, baby Jace etc...
It’d be cool if there was a legendary creature that brought back the tapped artifact having no abilities rule for commander, thatd be pretty cool I think
an issue I have with the legendary rule though, is if someone puts out a legendary creature, and already has the same thing out, then chooses to sac the new one, it's treated as though it existed, so any triggers that say 'when this creature/thing \when A creature/thing dies...effect" happens. They also get to treat it as if a whole new creature thing just hit the board.
@@ich3730 well that's the thing. It's supposedly the SAME creature/being. It(2nd copy) should have never been there to BEGIN with! me: "I summon you!" Legendary critter:"Boo YA! Lets kick some stuff!" *proceeds to kick stuff* me: "I summon you again!" Legendary: "wait...I'm already here...WHOOP!" "BooYA! Lets kick some stuff!" *proceeds to kick stuff* ...*again*
It's the same concept as creatures that you sacrifice or bounce back to your hand unless certain conditions are met (e.g. Acererak the Archlich, Fallow Wurm) or creatures that immediately die upon entry due to active effects (e.g. opponent controls Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, and you create a 2/2 black zombie creature token). There are plenty of ways in which something can not stay on the battlefield as soon as it enters, but is still allowed to enter, besides the current Legendary rule.
Making a card not castable is a huge limitation, and would prevent me from playing Zombie decks in general, which are good at ETB and dying tribal effects.
The friend who taught me magic told me that when you mulligan X times, you get to scry X (because you have X less cards in hand) when you keep. I find it funny that it's a middle ground between the Paris and London mulligan rule (it was before the London mulligan existed)
I would argue from a flawor stand point that if I had two Jace's they would be two different Jace's from two different times of their own timelines. Like how in Doctor Who special (2014) where two "different" doctors were working together. I would see them as three two Jaces working together. If that makes sense. But instead of Jaces, imagine how Garruk Wildspeaker and Garruk, Apex Predator would work together if gave them a call.
I guess it didn't have a huge impact on the game by the time it went away, but mana burn used to be relevant in early games played especially when paying for odd upkeep costs. That was is unlimited , legends days though, the olden times.
This is a really cool video. I knew batches existed, but I didn't really know anything about them. There's a manga about MTG set around the 6th Edition era that mentions batches. Looking back at Mirrodin, it's kind of weird seeing modern border cards with the creature type "Legend". Makes sense, but it feels anachronistic. I'm surprised you didn't mention 'The Great Creature Type Update', or whatever it was called, during Lorwyn where they went back and errata'd a ton of old creatures in order to standardize creature types and have a finite list of them. No more "Creature - Uncle Istvan".
About the flavor of the planeswalkers being made legendary- I think that totally makes sense flavor-wise: It’s basically like one of those doctor who specials where the doctor teams up with another incarnation of the doctor. Like you summon “Jace, the mind sculptor” from his adventures in zendikar, but you need a little extra Jace action- so you summon “Jace Beleren” from his adventures in lorwyn to back you up. I always thought of planes walking as being kind of timey-wimey, so this makes perfect sense to me.
I think part of the issue was that it only affected planewalkers, and not all alternate versions of the same character. Like, you can have both Thalias out, but two Jaces is impossible? We were already breaking continuity with creatures, so why not planeswalkers?
Hi there. Can you do a video on Teferi's Protection? I understand it's a great card but wondering how it works. I know your life total can't change but do you still take damage?? How would that world with a card like Vraska the unseen that doesn't target you ? Does that get around the protection part? There must be a way to get around an opponent playing this card right? Thank you !
I thought the Paris Mulligan came about for it being in the floor rules packet in Pro Tour Paris, even though it was supposed to be in Pro Tour Los Angeles that year?
Used to be at the end of a phase if there was any mana in your mana pool you lost one life for each point of mana. This made cards like mana flare and power surge different, I believe they updated the wording on power surge wihen they changed that rule. It was 4th or maybe 5th edition when that changed.
"If you've never heard of a batch before, you might want to skip ahead [40, 140, or 180] seconds if you want to keep it that way." Wow. That's how you know it's traumatic. 13:00 is when he's wrapping up about The Batch System, if you don't want that trauma.
Probably not as many as you are hoping for. Neither veyran nor thousand year storm will cause grapeshot to storm more. Number of grapeshot depending on when cast: 1st spell=1 grapeshot. 2nd spell=4 grapeshot. 3rd spell=7 grapeshot... etc. Add 3 copies for each spell cast before. Assuming all spells cast before were instant/sorcery
Damn, batches and interrupt, sometimes I wondered how a particular other game inspired by MtG that was supposed to be simplified had these kinds of overcomplications....
The one rule change discussed here that I really don't like is ordering blockers. It makes much less intuitive sense that you choose the most important parts of dividing damage when blockers are declared rather than when the damage is dealt considering that every other situation where you divide damage lets you divide it when it happens. Gameplay wise, I don't see splitting the damage to make full use of a pyroclasm to be nearly as confusing as giant growth saving both the creatures I'm double blocking with even though the other one is just a 1/1. I would be interested to see a player survey to see how many people don't know how that officially works. I also have a minor nit pick about the damage redirection rule being changed, but only because "any target" makes it sound like you should be able to bolt a lumbering falls in response to it's activation.
Someone else summoning a legend destroying yours makes perfect sense: they got reverse summoned back to their home plane. Like, i didn't even need to think about it, my fingers just typed the answer.
They haven't... They might've said as such, but the Companions change was a power level errata. Before that was Hostage Taker and then Marath, Will of the Wild. Though those other two could be seen as design errors rather than power level, the Companion change was 100% a power level errata.
TIL MTG had a system called the batch where you can't add spells after it starts resolving I know that colloquially in some other CCGs this system is called the stack
Whn talking about the 4 of rule you forgot another important aspect : original rules had 40 card decks, not 60, and those 2 things changed at the same time. Also I am very sure you are wrong about there only being 1 mulligan in the time where you you could only mulligan a no lander or only lander. There was a pretty infamous incident at a tournament that abused that rule by playing no lands at all, only moxen etc as mana sources, so he could mulligan till he had the start hand he wanted. Not this only makes sense if you could mulligna more then once if you had no lands.
And the greatest part? Richard Garfield had almost nothing to do with all the games best improvements. Dude has been chasing a lightning bolt in a bottle like mtg with every project he's ever made since.
After playing several games in a row where one player got 1 land in his starting hand, my friends and I agreed to a rule called "The three land rule". It worked like this. Search your library for 3 basic lands. Put them in your hand. Shuffle. Draw 4 cards. This is your starting hand. Not only did this make every game exciting, it also meant we only needed ~30% mana in a deck instead of ~40%, so there was more "good draws" in games that lasted +10 turns or so. Any takers?
Aggro cards are balanced around the idea that a full-aggro deck will eventually run out of cards and topdeck a land. An optimal aggro deck that can be guaranteed to always draw exactly 3 lands every game is probably too strong.
AFAICT, yeah. Except that Yugioh has its convoluted factor be in quick play spells that can only be chained by other quick play spells, so you can literally protect your own effects by chaining a quick-play spell on it...
Question for you Dave: If you sacrifice a treasure token in order to activate Glimmer Barin's activated ability, do both the action of sacrificing a treasure token AND the action of sacrificing the treasure token for Glimmer Barin trigger simultaneously?
If a thing has a : it's an activated ability and the thing before the : is the cost of activation. You're paying for the ability effect by sacrificing the token. So you sac it, the token goes to GY and vanishes, then the activated ability is put on the stack where it can be interrupted.
When I learned to play magic(right before 10th edition) I hated finding out damage goes on the stack, because cards like Sakura-tribe elder being able to "double dip" were so unintuitive and made zero flavor sense to me. That's my favorite rule change. Close runner up is Planeswalker redirect rule, because I felt it was confusing and unintuitive, and they waited so long to change it that it has made some confusing wording and templates.
2 года назад
Replacing max-4 by max-3 would probably improve most formats like Modern. It would also let them unban a lot of cards - there's a reason max-1 formats get away with so much stupidly powerful stuff. Of course WotC is not going to do this to any existing format, telling everybody that their every deck is now banned and need changing is the kind of risk they'd never make. (same story with Modern would be better without fetches, and new formats are usually intentionally fetchless, but there's zero chance of them banning them now)
