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