Gifts Ungiven

Forsythe and Gottlieb have announced a palette of new rules changes coming in with M2010. Here they are as one-liners, followed by my quick review.

Simultaneous Mulligans

Instead of player A mulliganing repeatedly, and then player B doing so, player A says, "Oh, going to 6" and then play B says, "Yeah, me, too" and then player A can say, "...and down to five" and so on.

This is a good change. It'll speed up tournaments.

Terminology Changes

"In play" is now "The Battlefield," spells are "Cast" instead of "Played," activated abilities are "Activated" instead of "Played," "RFGed" becomes "Exile," and the beginning of the end of the turn is now explicitly labeled.

These are all good changes that will make the game easier to comprehend for new players. Witness the amount of confusion "playing" versus "putting into play" causes.

Mana Pools and Mana Burn

Mana Pools now empty at each phase (no floating mana from upkeep to draw) and there's no mana burn anymore.

Also a good change. Mana burn is usually inconsequential in gameplay terms, and it's yet another weird part of the game that ambushes new players. Clearing pools more often seems fine, too.

Token Ownership

If an effect puts tokens into play under your control, you now own them. Warp World decks now suck a lot more than they used to, for example.

This seems okay. Again, it'll help new players with the game. I'm a little sad to watch some Johnny opportunities go away with this change, but that's okay.

Combat Damage Doesn't Use the Stack

Oooh, this is a big one. Combat damage is now dealt as it's assigned. The upshot here is that you can no longer wait for damage to be assigned and then use some prevention effect. To deal with that, you now assign a priority among multiple blockers. Consider:

Progenitus attacks. I block (Edit: Yes, this doesn't work at all. Please pretend it's a random 10/10 instead. :) ) with a Cloudthresher, Kitchen Finks, and Wild Nacatl. Under current rules, I would say something like this:

"Assign 7 damage to Cloudthresher, and 3 damage to Kitchen Finks."

Under the new rules, I would say something like this:

"Order blockers as Cloudthresher, then Kitchen Finks, then Wild Nacatl."

This initially feels less elegant to me than damage using the stack. I'm not so fond of it. I mean, it's also an okay way for the game to work, so I'm cool with it, but I'm not excited about it.

That said, it does gain in elegance because it means you can literally line up the blocking cards in your priority order, which is easier to deal with than remembering where damage was assigned.

Edit: For a clear explanation of what I think is good and elegant about this change, and a combat example that works (no Progenitus!), click here.

Deathtouch Breaks the New Rule!

Of course, if you can't assign damage points, Death Touch doesn't work right. So, it lets you assign damage anyway. Woot.

Well, it had to be done to make it work.

Lifelink is Static

Likelink becomes a static ability, so the life gain happens immediately.

This is more intuitive for new players as well. I'm cool with it, and I've definitely seen Lifelink as a triggered ability screw up more than one new player.

Overall, I like the rules changes. They will help keep the rules from ambushing new players with nonintuitive features, and they don't screw up the game play. Good stuff.

Also, Aaron preview the new duals. More on that in the next post.

There you go.

In his first column discussing M2010, Aaron Forsythe said this about the new duals coming in M2010:

We wanted to make a cycle of powerful dual lands that risk-averse newer players would like, which meant coming up with something that didn't involve losing life.

This is sort of like a variation on Nimbus Maze, in that it keys off of land types. This is probably better overall than Nimbus Maze, as it's minimally a CIPT land even if you can't pull off the appropriate interaction.

However, my post title comes from the fact that these duals seem pretty exciting for the new fetch-free Extended that's coming up once Onslaught rotates out. Glacial Fortress, for example, can come into play untapped if you control a Hallowed Fountain, Godless Shrine, Temple Garden, Sacred Foundry, Breeding Pool, Steam Vents, or Watery Grave. Now, that is solidly nifty.

This also makes it look like I'm going to get a chance to design decks with my multi-color aesthetic, searching up Basic Lands and activating my M2010 duals, which is nice.

How much should these cost? Hard to say. I think they're okay, but they're not really shocks...

(Also, we don't yet know if we'll have five or ten of these.)

Since the announcement of the coming rules changes in M2010, there has been the most wigging out about the changes to combat. A lot of the complaints come from the idea that putting damage on the stack is an integral concept, that removing it makes for dumber game play, and that players will need to learn what the stack is eventually anyway.

Well, yes they will, but from my own perspective of having taken a ten-year hiatus from the game (1996-2006, give or take), "damage on" is hardly integral to what makes Magic Magic. More to the point, I think the big gain here vis-a-vis new players has nothing to do with the stack or no, but in making invisible information visible.

More on that (with pictures!) in the extended entry. Go take a look!

Reposting with permission from his Facebook page, here's Zac Hill's nice take on why the current combat rules are counter-intuitive:

Basically: That the existing combat damage rules, although we've gotten used to them, are counter-intuitive beyond belief. So my guy and this other guy stab each other in the heart with some spears, but before either one of us dies, we're like "WHOA WHOA WHOA WAIT A SEC CHILL GUYS CHILL" while our homeboy-wizard-dude sets about casting some shit at his convenience? It just makes no sense. Plus, trying to explain deathtouch interactions to new players, or killing 2/2s with Blinking Spirit or whatever, always elicits these huge I-don't-understand groans. Because how can two guys deal damage simultaneously, yet one gets hit and the other doesn't?

Remember, Mogg Fanatic won a Pro Tour in pre-6th edition rules. Some cards get better, some get worse, but it's not like there's going to be all these huge huge huge power-level shakeups.

And you can read more about why I like this change in my previous post.

Three interesting recent articles:

Gary Wise discusses how many poker pros started in Magic

Josh Silvestri talks about Jund Aggro in Standard, with a solid meditation on the mana base

The Ferrett talks about how damage on the stack, really, honestly is a problem for recruiting new players

Amidst all the discussion about the combat changes in M2010, one of the big complaints has been that removing "damage on" devalues cards like Siege-Gang Commander and Sakura-Tribe Elder. The counter-argument, of course, is that many of these cards were good before damage ever found the stack (cf Mogg Fanatic), and that you actually pick up some interesting cost-benefit decisions now instead of the brain-dead "put damage on, sacrifice" before.

Patrick Chapin spoke about this in his most recent SCG article:

Under the old system, when a Savannah Lion attacks and I have a Sakura-Tribe Elder, there is only really one play. Block, damage on stack, sac. This is the same play that every “trick” revolves around. The correct play is 99.9% damage on the stack, do the trick. That is not strategic depth! You are not a good player because you know that you should always put damage on the stack then do the trick. You could teach a four-year old that!

Now there will be some tension. Do you kill the Lion or get the extra land? It may be an easy decision most of the time, but before the change it was never really a decision at all. If you are imaging all of the times you won’t be able to damage on the stack and sac anymore, just remember, your opponents will be in the same boat. The ADDED strategic depth will probably favor you because, if you are the type of player that reads StarCityGames.com, you are probably going to be favored in games that require real decision making. If you are imagining being the guy with the Sakura in this example, imagine it from the perspective of the guy with the Lion. Before, you could not attack. Now, you actually have a realistic option.

Humorously, one of the immediate replies in the forums was that Sakura-Tribe Elder will no longer see play.

I played four Elders in my deck in every single PTQ I played in during the most recent Extended season (the qualifiers for Honolulu). They blocked a lot. I don't think they ever killed anything, even once. They are, as someone ably put it in the forums, "a Rampant Growth that chump blocks." My crew of Elders stood valiantly and temporarily in the path of Nacatls, Figures, Tarmogoyfs, and many other creatures they couldn't kill, all while saving me 3-5 life and ramping me up to mass removal and Gifts mana.

I suppose I could have been lucky and killed a Confidant with an Elder, but no one ever offers that trade.

Some cards are "worse" now, and in ways that make me happy. Having Siege-Gang be an autopilot card isn't very interesting, and interesting decision points make for more entertaining game play.

Regardless, my Elders, in particular, are still going to keep doing the exact thing they've always been doing - chump blocking Rampant Growth FTW.

The Magic 2010 visual spoiler is up.

Lightning Bolt is confirmed. I am duly ambivalent. It's very pretty art.

I like the new black-blue dual (these new duals do a much better job of doing what I want a color-fixing land to do):

Wizards has a buy a box promo offer for Magic 2010:

The first 20 people to purchase a Magic 2010 Core Set booster box at certain locations will get a foil alternate art Honor of the Pure promo card!

Click here to learn more and find a participating store near you.

The July update bulletin is up here. Unsurprisingly, there are a lot of card changes (changing zone names will do that), and the usual Mark Gottlieb funnies:

How do you play Coal Stoker as a land? Simple: Have a Coal Stoker already on the battlefield, equip it with Runed Stalactite so it's a Saproling, control Life and Limb so it's also a land, and play Vesuva copying it. Sadly, you'll no longer get any mana in this situation. Just thought you should know.

As it happens, the comprehensive changes to the comprehensive rules (as outlined in the July 2009 update bulletin) contain some gems. Thanks to SSO for pointing this one out (I admit I kind of glanced for a couple seconds at the page describing comprehensive rules updates):

702.11
This is intimidate, an evergreen keyword that doesn't quite exist yet. A creature with intimidate can't be blocked except by artifact creatures and/or creatures that share a color with it. It's coming soon, so rather than renumber everything in a few months, it was added in early. (It essentially takes the place of fear, which will remain in place but won't appear on new cards.)

Mark Rosewater has talked previously about how he didn't like that the Fear keyword was linked to black, but that it would be too problematic a change to try and modify how Fear works. Generating a new keyword seems like a good plan, and Intimidate is a very appropriate name now that it's generic across the colors.

I notice that they haven't yet modified the Oracle text of Skirk Shaman to reflect that it does, indeed, have Intimidate.

I attended the Sunday prerelease flight today at Superstars in San Jose. There was a good turnout today, and more yesterday.

Thanks go out to Eric Levine for his affable head judging of the event.

My understanding of Sealed, which I play very, very rarely (basically, at PTQs and the occasional prerelease) is "build to your bombs." Today, my six packs included the following clear bombs:

Planar Cleansing
Ajani Goldmane
Overrun
Overrun

That, along with a generally poor quality of anything outside of green and white, led to a very brief and focused deck construction experience for me. I ended up with a green-white build with various two, three, and four drops, as well as some big-mana spells. I had almost no removal, and very little to do against yo random permanents (consider the beating I took from a Whispersilk Cloaked creature in game one, round one).

I went 3-1, picking up an extra six packs, and subsequently arbitraging some of my winnings into another (my fourth) Elspeth.

My favorite play series on the day:

Planar Cleansing to clear the board.
Howl of the Night Pack for four 2/2 Wolves.
Overrun for 20.

The round I lost came down to Master of the Wild Hunt in both games. In game two, I hit Planar Cleansing to eight-for-one my opponent, and then he drew the Master off the top. Ouch. He had two in his deck, notably.

Overall, it was a good time, and I enjoyed going with some friends. I also enjoyed doing a bit of trading (which I rarely do) and taking the time out to help a newer player revise his deck to make it more effective, as he had good cards but was having trouble winning. It was a fun chance to meet players I never see at our PTQs. There are simply a lot of people who play only the occasional draft, or only kitchen table Magic, who nonetheless come out for prereleases. I did my bit of proselytizing for PTQs as a fun experience, since I genuinely think PTQs are.

Also, although I don't know if it's a commentary on M10 sealed or not, with my deck I decided to choose "play" all day when I had a chance, and that worked out well for me.

Over on Twitter, Aaron Forsythe asked this question:

"Functional reprints: Is the problem that you have to buy new verions of random commons again, or that we said 50% new when it was 40%?"

Evan Erwin's answer neatly summarizes most of the complaints I've seen about this:

"Mainly that some of them seemed silly/unnecessary. I agree with most, but, was Grizzly Bears really worth changing?"

Trust me, it is. More in the extended entry.