TTC - 2013 Rules Changes

[Lurkon]

Shit.
Part of my blue black white edh strategy was clones for removal.
Shit shit shit damn damn.

This is a huge upset to the power of Blue in the entire format. I mean, cloning spells were essentially auto-includes, before...

Out of curiosity, what did the rest of your strategy look like in that deck? Is it salvageable, or are you going to have to rethink a lot of things?

[erjhunter]

I get what they are trying to do but I just dont like it on legendary creatures. I like the old rule of "only one on the battlefield" so if you had one in play and your opponent drew one they didnt get to play it.

While this makes much more flavorful sense, it makes for an absolutely miserable game play experience. Ever been beaten down by an Akroma while holding one of your own, with enough mana to cast it, and just not being able to? I understand you seem to have a more flavor-centric view of what the game is, but this is a game that is played by lots and lots of people, many of whom don't care about flavor at all. The goal of the designers of this game is not to make as many things make flavorful sense as possible, it is to make the game as fun and interesting to play as possible.

This is a huge upset to the power of Blue in the entire format. I mean, cloning spells were essentially auto-includes, before...

Which is exactly why a change like this needed to happen. Clone spells were not and are not designed to be removal spells. Does it make them less versatile and automatically good in the format? Sure, but they can still be very powerful. I mean, what is a better answer to your opponent's commander than a copy of it for yourself?

I pretty much implicitly trust whatever WoTC does with the game. First, because they have made lots of massive changes and overhauls over the years and none of them have killed the game or made it a much worse experience to play (in fact, most of them have ended up making it better). Secondly, as much as we have invested in the game, they have much, much more invested in keeping the game alive and healthy and I just can't believe that they would make a large change like this without seriously considering all of the outcomes and problems that could come out of it.

On a more speculative note, the last time WoTC made big changes to the way the legend rule works was right before Kamigawa block, which as we all know had quite a few legends in it. Now, I doubt that they will ever make another block with as dense a concentration of legends as Kamigawa (because that was a little bit of overkill), but I would not at all be surprised to see a greater than average number of legends in Theros.

[Lord Hosk]

Roughly 20% of the currently spoiled MM is Legendary now sure its reprints and Modern is just a "support the LGS" format but its not something to be discounted.

Also I feel that all these "same decks" make the game less fun to play. There are currently over 1500 cards in standard, roughly 100-200 get played at Friday Night Magic every friday night. I mean at every FNM there are maybe 20 decks playing the same cards with little to no variation because "this is what (player X) won the pro tour in (recent city) with." I hate playing against the Supreme Verdict Thragtusk deck even though I probably beat it 40-50% of the time. It just shows me that my opponent doesnt care about the game that all they want to do is play what someone else built and "win because im awesome" well no, you won because someone else is awesome and your opponent didnt draw in the right order to beat you.

This change in Legendary creatures just feels like it will narrow the field even more. Because Ledgendarys and planeswalkers will be all that get play. I expect that M14 will have another cycle of 5 planeswalkers, and 5-10 legendary creatures, next block each set will have 2 planeswalkers and 10+ legendarys.

Again what is at the table is only part of the game, I know most players dont think like that but the strategy of the deck is just as important as the plays each turn, people who play net decks forget that and just let someone else play their game for them. (shrugs)


I agree with what you are saying that wizards puts a lot of money into the game and expects as much money back. That is exactly what this rule change seems like to me. Its not about making the game more fun its about making the people who spend the most be more happy.

[Dubious_wolf]

Shit.
Part of my blue black white edh strategy was clones for removal.
Shit shit shit damn damn.

This is a huge upset to the power of Blue in the entire format. I mean, cloning spells were essentially auto-includes, before...

Out of curiosity, what did the rest of your strategy look like in that deck? Is it salvageable, or are you going to have to rethink a lot of things?

No it's only 4 cards.
I play a zur the enchanter deck. With hardcore control so, the removal is used to get all the other commanders up in casting cost, especially those decks that depend on the commander.
So no I just need to sub it out for "normal" removal.

[korvys]

It just shows me that my opponent doesnt care about the game that all they want to do is play what someone else built and "win because im awesome" well no, you won because someone else is awesome and your opponent didnt draw in the right order to beat you.

...snip...

Again what is at the table is only part of the game, I know most players dont think like that but the strategy of the deck is just as important as the plays each turn, people who play net decks forget that and just let someone else play their game for them. (shrugs)

I think you're completely undervaluing the playing aspect of the game. It may only be part of the game, but I think it's a pretty big part. What and how you play, whether you are over extending, if you're applying enough pressure, understanding who's the beatdown, just picking up a deck isn't enough to win with it. The idea that playing a deck that someone else built is "someone else play[ing] their game for them" I just completely disagree with.

Even if you start with a net deck, as you say, if you don't understand how it works, you are going to do terribly. Understanding the strategy of the deck is important, but you don't have to have built it.

I don't tend to play net decks, because I enjoy the building, and testing, and tweaking, and trying new things (currently working on a Breaking//Entering deck), but I'm not going to take anything away from people who don't enjoy that part of the game.

This change in Legendary creatures just feels like it will narrow the field even more. Because Ledgendarys and planeswalkers will be all that get play. I expect that M14 will have another cycle of 5 planeswalkers, and 5-10 legendary creatures, next block each set will have 2 planeswalkers and 10+ legendarys.

I don't understand how the rules will cause a smaller field of decks. While it's not like pre-kamigawa where if you get a mirror match it becomes a game of who can play the legend first (Lin Sivvi, I'm looking at you), I can't see how both players keeping their legend is worse than both players loosing their legend.

We already saw people recently choosing to play the 4 mana Jace just to pre-emptively kill the 5 mana one. If that's not an example of the current legend rule constraining the deck choices, I don't know what is.


I'm fully with anyone who says this is a lose of flavour (except for clone killing, which makes no sense), but that's just not as important to me. I'm more Melvin than Vorthos.

[Lurkon]

I pretty much implicitly trust whatever WoTC does with the game.

I think I agree with you. I really don't see this change as being a bad thing, but I'm sure it will have consequences I haven't figured out yet. Just trying to Survey the Wreckage, you know?

No it's only 4 cards.
I play a zur the enchanter deck. With hardcore control so, the removal is used to get all the other commanders up in casting cost, especially those decks that depend on the commander.
So no I just need to sub it out for "normal" removal.

Good to hear. I feel like almost any Commander deck that is currently running any cloning technology is now facing that sort of dilemma. The Voltron decks just lost one of their biggest problems. A Whispersilk Cloak on nearly any commander, bonus points if you darksteel plated the guy first, is a commander that most decks will have to kill you to get rid of, whereas before it didn't matter if the thing was indestructible (HAD indestructable, now!) or shroud, or hexproof, Clone could kill it.

But yeah, I trust Wizards here, but I am watching this closely.

[Dubious_wolf]

To be sure I trust it. It's just annoying.