Why Doesn’t WOTC Fix the Rules For Magic: The Gathering? 

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I appreciate this video. Most complaints about the rules are borne out of ignorance on the rules. I don't believe mtg is the best game ever made, but their rules system is the most robust and well made of any game I've played.

When you read the entire rules index it makes you instantly understand how Arena got made so quickly. Its all elements of software and tasks and layers and selected zones, reading and targeting. Its easy to understand but hard to track.

I'm a Yugioh player, I really like how Magic actually has general rules that cover everything, as opposed to Yugioh where tcg rules are basically just consensus based on ocg rulings and precedent, with no documentation, and ocg rules only describe 1 card vs 1 other card, leaving us to piece together some sort of consistent logic to apply to other cards. Did you take control of a monster with an effect when its summoned but before its effect triggered, such as by using the meta staple "triple tactics talent"? Unfortunately, there is 0 precedent or rulings about what happens during this somewhat frequent occurrence, so ask your head judge to choose how it works, preferably before you start playing.

Hey, look on the bright side - we could instead have the yugioh system where any situation that isn’t clear is decided via some judge somewhere, and we get a giant list of specific interactions for every complex card with an enormous pile of other complex cards

As someone designing a new game and is trying to think long term about the rules structure of it all, I really do appreciate these. (A lot of magic's convoluted forms come from having to fix things "ad-hoc" since they didn't think it would be this big originally.) Let me know if you ever do consulting work.

Try to play a planechase commander game with any alternative to the current rule, and you will quickly want to go back to the current rule. A lot of planes have replacement effects, and whoever is the turn player controls the current plane. Add 4 players to the equation and it can become really stupid without that rule.

Make one about how auras can attach to hexproof objects if theyre put onto the battlefield without being cast

As a programmer I like to imagine the CR as a 30 year old program that’s had a few significant rewrites and many major additions over that entire time. Wait, no, I hate imagining it like that because of my job. It’s probably got a better test suite relative to its size than anything I’ve worked on though.

The level of robustness the rules have when you consider the insane level of complexity of the game is quite impressive. People feeling so strongly about the unintuitive results also speaks volumes for how smoothly the game operates otherwise. As a side note, WotC definitely does go back and alter things to be more intuitive. One of the bigger and relatively more recent change is the interaction of Blood Moon and similar effects with tap/conditional taplands (and enters with counter(s)) lands. Also, 614.12 is one hell of a rule.

About the "rule 0" thing: Did you know, back before we got comprehensive rules in 6th edition, the official rules had a whole section on House Rules, with examples ranging from mulligans being allowed, deck construction limits (like a 40 card minimum, or a 5 copy maximum), to the winner being forced to contribute cash to a pizza fund. That's right, mulligans & deck size & card limits were all explicitly called out as optional rules, like cash on free parking in monopoly. We're incredibly spoiled by the current comprehensive rules, honestly.

I've seen a bunch of your shorts, but this is the first longer video of yours I've seen. Really well done, and I look forward to seeing more!!

"There's no wrong way to play Magic" Me, combining R&D's Secret Lair with Floral Spuzzem: Challenge accepted!

"Player being affected chooses the order" makes perfect sense when considering playability.

Really enjoyed this medium length format that keeps to the heart of your shorts. I'd be down for more.

the people that say "oh just change the rules it can't be that hard" probably don't realize that the MTG Comprehensive Rules is a *287* page document. It's called the /comprehensive/ rules for a reason.

The rules team is actually really good at their jobs. For example, Henzie "Toolbox" Torre. The card makes sense as it reads, but it broke a few existing magic rules, so they made his own rule that took a few drafts to get right. This is something that not many people think about when playing the card I had a friend who played Yu-Gi-Oh, and he talked about how the rules really didn't make sense, and the committee pretty much didn't make a ruling until some interaction happened in a tournament

The main issue with this example is that every single object involved is owned by the Shock player so if this is someone's first time seeing multiple replacement effects it's obviously going to seem like a weird rule. It's easier to see the problem with letting the Shock player decide just because they are casting Shock if you give opponent a Gisela. What now? If the Shock player gets to decide then the Gisela should not be allowed to half the damage just because the player casting Shock has something else that increases the damage of Shock. So in this case the Shock player gets to bypass a defensive replacement effect just because they have the same replacement effect. So in this case you could argue for either player being able to choose. So who should be able to choose? Well, allowing the affected player or controller of the affected object to choose just creates better games. In the example above Shock goes from doing 6 damage if the Shock player can choose to doing 1 damage if the Gisela player can choose. The game where the opponent can just do 6 damage without consequence is going to be a much less interesting game than one where the Shock player needs to interact with the board. You could try and rewrite the rules to check if all replacement effects are owned by the Shock player and if they are let the Shock player choose, and if the affected player owns a replacement effect they can choose that, but that's way more confusing and ripe for edge cases than just flat out saying "the affected player chooses" because it always works in all situations and creates more interactive games.

When people argue about this kind of stuff, I would always bring up Yu-Gi-Oh as a counter argument. Imagine if the core comprehensive rule was never invented, and every time wotc printed new stuff they need to bandaid every new mechanics with errata rules (and even so, sometimes card would stop working with old cards because there's no common functions such as layers) The MTG rule may be weird, but atleast its very consistent

My biggest takeaway is that the way the rules work accounts for replacement effects being controlled by different players the best. Sure if you control all of the replacement effects affecting damage from sources you control, it feels bad your opponent gets to stack them to benefit them. But if you start throwing in replacement effects controlled by different players, then figuring out how to apply them becomes ambiguous and all hell breaks loose. The affected object or player is always consistent no matter who controls the replacement effects

I was already subscribed before this video and I mostly watch your shorts. I'm just commenting to say I appreciate your positive attitude and subtle humor. Thank you for never having your rules disputes get super salty or contentious. Negativity and positivity are both contagious, thank you for doing what you do the way you do it!

Thank you for having subtitles baked into the video!

The most important MTG video on RU-vid today.

Great video! love the editing! can't wait to see more :D

I really appreciate this video. I've always hated this ruling, but your laying out exactly the difference between objects and events and what affects and is affected by what finally made it click for me. Good job!

I am new to your videos and I was about to pop off with "what if don't control all the sources of replacement effects?!". Glad I made it to the end of the video since you covered everything really well. Made me smash the subscribe and thumbs up instead.

So does this apply for +1/+1 counters? Say I have a hardened scales and master chef on the field and my opponent has Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger. Would it work the same way where I as the controller of the affected creature entering battlefield get the choose the way the effects work and therefore still get one +1/+1 counter? Or would it be 0?

This is why we have to be eternally grateful for judges - I am just _not_ capable of shoving all the nuances and rules in my brain the way they do

So to be clear, if I have two different damage doublers, eg. Two furnace of Rath. Normally it doesn't matter but technically the player receiving damage chooses the order to apply? And I have Purphoros, God of the forge Deck, so if I have a situation like this each individual opponent would get to decide how the effect applies to them?

Oh hey I was in those comments! And yeah, the rule feels dumb but it does seem the most "fair" and doesn't come up nearly as much as it may seem. Glad to see a full video discussing it!

Being someone who love weird rule interactions I love this channel as it shows me how it works

The last 30 sec really hit different! Much Love

I like you more with each exposure to your thinking. That's worth a sub.

Although you kind of lost me in the first bit, I followed along pretty well in the middle, but sir, your closing statements were absolutely on point. I've had the conversation multiple times about what the point of this, or any, game is. Is the point of any game to win? Is the point to have fun? Find what works for you and the people in your playgroup and run with it. Rule Zero is there to bend certain rules for the sake of fun. If winning is what's important to you, you better play with likeminded players. There is a HUGE gulf between competitive and casual players, and if you are treading in the wrong swimming pool, someone is bound to get upset. I've been loving this game ever since Britney took the stage with Aerosmith and N'SYNC at the Super Bowl, (yes, that is the exact timestamp of my very first game) and though the rules have been a struggle on an on and off basis, I've always given the developers the benefit of the doubt. I know that even if a rule doesn't make sense in a certain situation, it DOES make sense in the majority of applications. All that to say... MTG, maaan.

What would happen if my opponent has a Vorinclex Monstrous Raider, and I have a counter doubler on the battlefield? Could I order the effects to apply VMR first then double?

love the style and editing

I had a similar issue when I use my solphim deck with furnace of rath and city on fire out. My opponents thought they could apply it in a way where they took the least amount of damage.

Anything other than affected player chooses would allow damage to be dealt to something that says "prevent all damage that would be dealt to ~"

Well said. Game design is hard and I think players forget just the pure depth of the game and the fact that everything just works.

Good final sentiments. I tried reading front to back the comprehensive rules not too long ago. The jargon-y wording is too much lol. Rather just go off case-by-case learning new rules when they come up

Keep these videos coming man. Please

i dislike the bit of Rule zero away the rulebook of magic. Like i get that's what we are doing when someone plays their Nephilim deck and we all allow it, but when we start applying damage on the stack, or ignoring sections of the comprehensive rules we don't like it get's a nutter butters fast.

So what's the correct ruling for the Dauthi Voidwalker vs Rest in Peace situation?

QUESTION: Are you saying that if I have “Dictate of the Twin Gods” and “Furnace of Rath” on the battlefield and I cast “Shock”, instead of doing 8 damage, the receiving player will chose which of the effects will take effect? Making it only do 4 damage?

Can you cover multiple oppo agents or multiple notion thiefs in a multiplayer game?

When considering all other ways that this could be, the player being effected being able to choose order of replacement effects just makes the most sense for game flow, i personally have never liked timestamping, its hard to keep track of, especially over a long game and creates weird scenarios like possibly flickering an permanent just to get a better timestamp and people forgetting can completely halt and ruin a game, active player does kinda work but having to constantly change damage or whatever the replacement effect is every turn as the active player changes so the order of operation changes is kinda annoying, this just makes the most logical sense from a ease of use and gameflow sense, especially when considering magic being a game that can be played with more then 2 people

To raise the counter-point: Wizards is fine with completely rewriting the rules for these kinds of exceptions, they did it with the Planeswalker redirection rule. But that rule was also complete garbage from top to bottom, and required directly contradicting other, more fundamental rules for how the game worked, for reasons that were impossible for me to guess at then, and haven't gotten more sensible since (even after the rule was rightfully repealed).

So my conclusion in the case of Ojer vs Gisela is that the Gisela player will take either 1 or 4 damage, Gisela player's choice. Is this correct?

this video deserves subscribes for ed purposes alone! 👍

As for the last scenario I always thought that the last effect was at the top of the stack in terms of priority

boils down to ignorance and a lack of gratitude on the playerbase end

The assumption that people make is that whoever made the rules was lazy or didn't think about it. But in reality, the people working on the rules at that level are taking so many things into play. And not just for table top players, but the actual logic of online play also. Rules like this one are tested and retested and tried and retried and brainstormed and rebrainstormed. It's an incredibly complex and well thought out set of rules for the most complex game humanity has every had. Instead of assuming the rules makers, who are doing it 40 hours a week in groups with specific skillsets are making mistakes. Assume the casual player who plays 3 hours a week with their friends, is just not seeing the big picture. If you spend any amount of real time studying the rules, the elegance of the rules shines. And its obviously optimized. Not lazy. When I see someone complaining, it's far more telling of their ignorant personality, than anything WoTC has done. Outrage without education is just angst.

I think this could be improved by letting the effected objects controller choose the order of whose replacement effects are applied first but each player controlling multiple replacement effects get to choose the order of those replacement effects. This way would add a little complexity in multiplayer, but in 1v1 it would be more dynamic and for example the very regularly occurring leyline of the void and dauthi voidwalker negative synergy wouldnt be an issue for players doubling down on that effect. I dont think I have ever seen more than 2 replacement effects trying to modify the same event so the added complexity would be minimal.

I don't even understand the complaint.

Yup I’ve built an Ojer Axonil deck too and there are a lot of cards you can’t use because they don’t actually help your commander

I learned this ruling when Torbran came out in OG Eldraine still feels bad

Great video! Just like in dark souls, it's OK to die in magic...

Ahahaha people complaining about rules should go play yugioh and suffer the absolute pain of not having any rules until the judge makes the call

Great response!

your king, great video ty!

Replacement effects for Red ping decks is annoying ill admit i fall in that group. I had a zurzoth deck once and i then learned how it works and i felt like i bought a Solphim for nothing. But it makes sens like you said for the most amount of scenarios. Sucks but it makes sens.

I think the last point made is the most important one. If you aren't a competitive player, most of these finely detailed rules don't even apply to you.

Is that really how to the Ojer/Gisela interaction would play out? I would think it'd be 4 damage either way; just the amount of damage that's prevented would be different. This matters because some prevention effects refer to the amount of damage that was prevented. PS- I think no matter what the rule is, simultaneous damage to multiple objects controlled by different players with multiple replacement effects is guaranteed to be confusing.

I think a good change would be a new rule involving source damage where first the damaging player decides the order of amplification modifiers, and then the damaged player decides the order of prevention.

The SAME people who would be complaining about this rule would be the same ones abusing it when their OWN [Ghyrson Starn, Ketermoph] shoots them, the controller of Ghyrson. Ghyrson states that ANY Source the player Owns that deals exactly 1 damage to player, this card (Ghyrson) will deal 2 damage to that player also, and if you "happened to hit yourself for 1 exact damage" Ghyrson will shoot you for 2. So I BET people would apply all sorts of replacement effects to prevent taking 3 damage just because you managed to ping yourself for 1 to then be shot by Ghyrson for 2. Not saying people are crybabies, but when the Replacement rules that saved their opponent could also save themselves. They obviously would also keep their mouths shut then, but not before still complaining how they didnt get to "do the really cool thing they wanted to do."

dude im so late to this but this video is SO GOOD

The thing about this rule that infuriates me the most is how inconsistent Multiplication and modification is. Like this only applies to damage, yet having a Parallel lives and a doubling season apparently compounds into 8x token production but if I have Fiery emancipation and City on Fire the opponent only takes 7x instances of Damage as opposed to 9x

I also think it's worth noting that the rules have changed a bunch over the years, to mixed feelings. The most drastic change was the infamous 6th Edition update, which came during (arguably) magic's most broken standard ever (Urza's Block). I don't know how the change was recieved (as I wasn't born yet), but I do know that it changed how magic played drastically

How would the thing “affected” by damage ever NOT be the player being damaged?

If you have the time, would you care to look over a specific scenario that happened in my playgroup last night? I have Torbran, Thane of Red Fell out with a Fiery Emancipation also on the battlefield. I cast Acidic Soil and we each have 5 lands out (similar to the shock in your scenario). I always thought I stacked the damage triggers in this situation? So 5 from the Acidic soil +2 from Torbran=7...then x3 from Fiery E.= 21 damage to my opponents and 15 damage to myself? If that's not the case, what's the minimum amount of damage each player should have taken? My friend even stated: "Dude, I think we pick how we take that damage" I then stated, "well it's not like we're assigning combat damage here...it's just damage dealt by resolving triggers on the stack, I don't believe you do..." Turns out he may be correct here? I'm by no means a judge, but I always felt like I had a pretty good grasp on game mechanics and rulings. Like some of the comments above...it sort of defeats the purpose of nearly my entire list if this is the case lol Appreciate your videos, content, and time! I'm definitely open for discussion, I don't want to feel like I cheated them all extra damage when that shouldn't have been the case.

The way is simple: Don't fucking mix multiplicative increases with additive increases, saves you the trouble and it's almost never worth to keep both types on the deck anyways.

As a judge and someone who has worked in an LGS for a long time I think that the frustration with this particular rules interaction comes mostly from two places: its counter to how the game operates in other areas, and it takes a player's perception of their deck, strategy, and deck building, and completely destroys it when learned. The rules here feel like they run counter to how the game works in other areas because whenever you place triggers on the stack, you choose the order your triggers apply in, and when your creatures deal damage to other creatures in combat, you choose the order that the damage applies in because you choose how damage is assigned. In both of these cases, which are far more common in casual games, you get to decide how your stuff behaves, and that makes intuitive sense, its your stuff, you're the proactive person here, so you should have the say. In the case of replacement effects, you also choose the order they apply in in most cases, and only when interacting with an opponent or their stuff directly does this change. This means that in nearly every situation a player will have as much control of their things as is reasonably possible, except for here. Its unintuitive, and while the game needs to be robust, there are likely robust ways to handle this that get the intuitive result, I've made a suggestion at the bottom of this post for how this could be handled, but much as the video says, there are likely areas where this creates a less intuitive outcome than exists there now, I just suspect they're less common than the damage issue presented. Even as a judge its very difficult to have an actually complete understanding of the rules, as well as knowledge of every card ever. The second issue is more about how the subversion of a player's expectations. It can be heart breaking to have such a rule revealed to you, especially after getting excited about something, and likely spending both time to build the deck, as well as decent money in many cases. Commander exacerbates the problem because the high life totals have made burn harder to build, and revealing that you're actually at more of a handicap than you thought is unlikely to come at a time other than when you're in game and think you've set up for this crazy damage number, only to have things completely fall apart. After the game is over and you've lost, the effects of that game will persist though because your entire deck just became a lot weaker than you thought it was. WotC likely doesn't fix the issue here not because they cant, but because so many people already play the game wrong in more significant ways, that any rules update made would only affect a very small percentage of people. The people most affected are likely to be those engaging in high-level tournament play, who are already familiar with the way the rules currently work, meaning that there is little benefit to making such a rules update, and the possibility of a downside that would be frustrating to those players, and possibly create an opportunity for an embarrassing moment for the person responsible for the rules change. Despite this, I've put one potential solution below: Potential Solution: If two or more replacement and/or prevention effects are attempting to modify an event, then the affected object’s controller (or its owner if it has no controller) or the affected player chooses one to apply, following the steps listed below, unless all replacement effects attempting to modify the event are controlled by a single player, in which case that player chooses which one to apply instead. If two or more players have to make these choices at the same time, choices are made in APNAP order (see rule 101.4). The exact execution/wording might be slightly cludgey, but the gist is that as long as you control all of the replacement effects (or sources of them), then you get to apply the replacement effects in whatever order you'd like. Otherwise it works just as it does now. In theory this should mean that unless your opponent has something to contribute to the "conversation", your cards do what you'd expect and want them to do intuitively.

My one gripe with the rules is on linked abilities, I think the rules around them are unintuitive. If you can read an interaction on a card and it makes sense with other compatible game actions, those should apply.

So the short of it is that the comprehensive rules is basically the equivalent of The Password Game.

Imagine you're studying Physics and say "well just change the voltage of the electron, what could happen?" That's what it's like to change a rule in such a complex game.

Having made my own custom cards, you start to learn that WotC does things the way they do for a reason, and that in order to make interesting cards, edge cases are almost inevitable. For example, the line of text "CARDNAME has all keyword abilities of all cards exiled by it." seems rather intuitive and saves a lot of text space compared to writing it out, but then you start having to figure out how giving a creature enchant creature works. Maybe you limit it to creature cards only, but you go down the list, and it becomes apparent that some keywords just break things when granted to other cards.

one thing that needs to be redone is layers... take Ashaya, soul of the wild having a +1/+1 and blood moon. because layers all of your creatures would be mountains even tho ashaya no longer has the ability to make your creatures forests because the ability it no longer has is applied in a previous layer. So now you are stuck with all of your creatures being mountains even tho there are no abilities on the battlefield to make them lands to be affected by blood moon....

So we gonna explain what happens with that blightsteel ?

Yeah not every card is for every deck... just dont play city on fire in ojer. Ojers effect is the best with things like electrostatic field or gutter snipe, and it comes with a built in way to multiply, add to its power. Here have a bonesplitter axe and/or a firebrand archer. Now your shock hits for a buttload and you didnt need to spend 8 mana

I wasn’t questioning why Affected Player/Object controller decides, I am questioning why Damage wouldn’t be considered an object.

Well, I had thought ojer anoxil would have been a fun commander to have but after that explanation, I wouldn't touch that shit with a 30 foot pole. Oh well, dodged a bullet there I suppose. Shame it can't be straight forward.

This is great :D

I wonder what complications would arise if damage was an object

WOTC doesn't need to change the rules, even if some are problematic - because - *as players, we already have the ability to modify, or invent, rules as we please.* Consider how many possible ways there are to play REGULAR playing cards, from Poker to Texas Hold 'Em to Solitaire.

I wonder how many people that left a comment like that are "new". People forget that magic is an old game. Back on the day there were question if the 4x limit was ok. Changing the core of the game is never good. And let me add that rules changed a lot.

I think of APNAP in this scenario as Affected Player Non Affected Player in these scenarios

They should give Ojer burn-banding :)

So wait quick. Someone explain the Gisela and Ojer interaction

The rule works really well when there are antagonist effect but they are pretty bad at dealing with congruing effect. It is a choice made by the designer, but by no mean the only one, or even a good one to begin with. It s not dumb or great, it's just the state of the game. They chose that solution in particular between all the possible solutions. It is a simple one, but a bit inelegant in my mind. I'd say that a clause saying that this rule apply only if there are multiple effect controller, and if there is one controller, the controller get to choose would make a lot of sense, but it would ad a layer of complexity, albeit arelaly tiny layer though ... My two cent as a ojanil pplayer who removed all damage multipliyer from her deck

I understand the rule, I think my issue is specific to the noncombatant damage with only your cards triggering…it is absurd that the opponent gets to decide how it plays out when they had 0 interaction previous to the decision. I agree it isn’t game breaking but it certainly takes away fun…that rule made me not even want to try a burn deck in commander…not worth it

It's funny, this rule isn't allowed or isn't observed in Arena. I use these combos on Arena and when I add it up, it adds the way I count it.

Rule 0 is King 👌🏼

Id rather replacement effects work like layers, essentially being layers for the affected thing be that a permanent or damage. A robust system that's counterintuitive is still a bad system, being stubborn in how wrong you are doesn't make you less wrong.

ive run across this before and it is weird that opponents decide. should be the caster but i mean wotc does wotc things

We don’t just need to look at rules from an intuitiveness level. The added dynamic is that we need judges to be able to make rulings as consistently as possible. If a rule change makes things less consistent, that makes the game worse because suddenly a consistent event becomes an arbitrary event. The one thing I disagree with is “there’s no wrong way to play the game”. There are two wrong ways to play the game - taking things personally and playing in a non-tournament setting with the sole goal of winning. It’s one thing to play a wacky mini-game at a kitchen table for fun, another thing to start to take things personally if you’re clearly ahead and have to deal with interaction or end up losing.

While I understand the rules for that interaction of damage, I just don't agree with how it plays out. The cards I play for the effects I want should never be resolved by an opponent. I'm the controller of the effect so I should get to choose how I want my effects to work with one another, not the opponent. That is the unintuitive part that which is bothersome for so many people.

Honestly the rules and possible interactions are too complex and convoluted by this point to properly balance.

How cold is your house

Yeah no that's one rule that I will never follow. And i'm willing to lose tournaments and money to stand on this principle. Fact of the matter is that for all intents and purposes the "Object" being affected is the "Spell" thats being cast or the "Permanent" that is dealing the damage. And I'm adamant about this whether I lose the game or not. If someone stacks their effects that belong to them, I should have no say in how they affect me. The ONLY time I have a say is when I have my own effect that modifies how their effect affect me.

Expecting people to read their cards and comprehend the words printed on the cards? That's asking/expecting a lot from strangers.