Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the apocalypse.
Or, at least, that’s what I’ve been led to believe. I read a lot on the Internetz, you know, and if it’s on the Internetz, it has to be true, or … some sort of computer virus would eat it. Right?
As far as I can tell, these new rule changes that Wizards are putting out for Magic 2010 are going to spell the end of the world. “Cats and dogs, living together, mass hysteria” kind of end of the world. I expect heavy looting in California and tire fires around Paris. Keep you kids indoors. Pets, too. Heck, keep your SELF indoors.
(I mean, seriously, make it easier for those of us who can adapt to change to win PTQs.)
I want to go over the rules changes, but not horribly in-depth. What I want to do is look at this from the viewpoint that Wizards (allegedly) made these changes: to make it easier to teach new players how to play the game.
Simultaneous Mulligans
I can remember trying to teach the Sixth Editions rules to players who had been playing on the tabletop for years. The Swiss mulligan system was one of the harder things to comprehend, believe it or not. I guess when you’ve come from “no-land-all-land” mulligans, it’s hard to parse the two together. If my six-card hand is all land, do I get six cards the next time? And I can see that carrying over to tournaments, especially in Pre-Releases or something like States, where you see a large number of ostensibly “casual” players come out of the woodworks. While I think this one is more about time consumption at the PTQ+ level, it’s easier to teach this way: “We each look at our hand. If either of us don’t like our hand, we can shuffle it away and get a new hand with one less card. We keep doing this until we’re both happy.” It’s three sentences that give you the fundamental information you need.
Tell Me What’s Ya Flava
Magic has been such a flavorful game from the very beginning that I’m surprised Richard Garfield didn’t have a name for the “in-play zone” from the get-go. When you take the time to call a deck a “library” and a discard pile a “graveyard,” you’d think that would have carried over to every aspect of the game.
The choices they made, however, I have mixed emotions about. I like the differentiation on the action verbs: I definitely cast spells, I definitely play lands, and I like activating abilities. The “beginning of the end step” is more clarification than anything, and I’ll feel a lot better about taking advantage of it now that it’s spelled out more clearly. But the other two …
“Battlefield” is clunky. I want to say that it’s too many syllables, but according to Microsoft Word, I write at the reading level of a sixth-grader, so it’s probably just me. (Especially since “li-bra-ry” is three syllables too.) I think “field” could have been all right, but I think they could have picked something to really give the impression that we are two wizards duking it out with henchlings and powerful spells. Something like “arena” or “coliseum” — something with panache. I mean, I don’t always assume that we’re two wizards fighting outdoors. Although, I guess it would be easier to summon giant Treefolks and Wurms that way.
I like “Exile” as a zone name, but not so much as an action verb. The truth is, we’re always going to use whatever card we’re using as an action verb that it’s unlikely that we’ll ever say “exile your guy” — “Plow your guy,” however, I say all the time. (Even when I’m playing Path to Exile, but you get what you get.)
… hey, I just realized, Path to Exile is actually appropriately named now.
In the long run, I think these cosmetic changes will be just that, cosmetic. For teaching new players, being able to differentiate between “casting” something (by paying mana) and “putting (something) onto the battlefield” is a lot clearer than the multiple uses of “play” that we had before. “Cast” lines up clearly with “casting cost” and that re-use of the word will help tie the whole action together for new players.
I’m personally shocked, however, that we can still call our hand our “hand.”
Mana Mana
I’ve never died to mana burn. Not even while playing TEPS in last year’s Extended PTQ season. I’ve certainly come close, and I ended many games with 30+ mana in my pool, but no deaths so far. Looks like I’ll avoid that stigma. Now if only I hadn’t died to a forgotten Pact payment.
No, I think the more important thing is the way mana empties out of the mana pool. Floating mana through your upkeep to your draw step was fairly common, as was floating mana at some point during combat.
For new players, all this will mean is that something will be left out of the instruction course. You can teach them the steps of the turn, in order, and tell them that the mana pool empties between steps. You can link the word “step” to emptying the mana pool, and since it doesn’t cause mana burn any more, really it becomes more of an economy thing — but weren’t we supposed to be announcing a spell and THEN tapping mana for it (paying all costs) anyways?
Token Ownership
My friend Yoshi will be very disappointed that his Brand deck no longer works. And even though Mark Gottlieb felt he had to specifically call out Warp World players in the feature column, I don’t think I ever realized that Warp World said “you own” — I guess I never resolved one when someone had stolen a creature with a Sower of Temptation, for instance.
For new players, this just makes sense. If I tap my Forbidden Orchard for mana and you get a Saproling token, that’s YOUR TOKEN. Maybe they should develop an action verb for “put an X into play under your opponent’s control.” Gift, maybe?
Combat Damage
For people who have decried that the loss of the phrase “damage on the stack?” signals the coming of the Four Horsemen, obviously you’ve never had to teach a new player how to play the game. Sure, it’s logical now, but think about this:
I play Incinerate. It’s logical that it goes on the stack, since (flavorwise) you can see me casting it and may want to do something about it — protect your guy, weave some sort of countermagic, whatever. When it resolves, your creature takes three damage and dies.
One of my guys fights one of your guys in combat. I send in my attacker; you command your guy to stand in his way. We augment them or damage them however we can, but ultimately the battle is still theirs. They deal deadly death-dealing damage to each other … and THEN we can intervene again? I mean, my Grizzly Bears clearly dealt enough damage to kill your Man-O-War — if you Unsummon it AFTER damage, shouldn’t you be getting a dead Man-O-War back?
I understand that it’s a new thing to learn. It will be hard to remember to put regeneration shields on Troll Ascetic (assuming he survives the rotation) before combat damage. You’ll lose a guy because you forget to give him protection from a color or use some other damage-prevention on him, before combat. But eventually you’ll learn.
The “ordering of blockers” is a good tool for new players as well. It’s less “these three guys gang up on you” and more “if you want to get to me, you’ll have to fight through these three guys, one at a time.” Kinda like a Bruce Lee movie. “You might take out the first two henchmen, but the third one will be the death of you!”
And Wizards will help you with the whole “I want to use the guy in his death throes” attitude of pulling everything out of your resources. Take Alara Reborn, for example. You don’t see guys that sacrifice to do something like Mogg Fanatic or Ravenous Baloth; instead you see guys that trigger their abilities when they go to the graveyard, like Naya Sojourners and Mycoid Shepherd.
Deathtouch and Lifelink
I hated that whole “Lifelink on the stack” thing. I have died, numerous times, with lifelink on the stack. Making these static abilities make SO much more sense that I’m sorry they had to wait to do it until now. My deathtouch guy deals damage to you, you die. You don’t get a moment’s “death throe” reprieve — you just die. My lifelink guy deals damage, I gain the life. There’s no telecommute for the lifegain.
Now, The New Cards
So obviously the first thing I’m going to suggest is to find / trade / buy Ball Lightnings. This guy is poised to be a power player in Standard for the next year, seeing as how nicely he works with Bloodbraid Elf and the already-strong Red-based Beatdown decks. His price took a nice solid jump with the news of his resurrection, and I’m thinking $10 is not the most expensive we’ll see him. Hopefully you’ve got some still lying around in casual decks from six years ago. I’m pretty sure that I’ll be packing something with ol’ Balls when our August PTQ rolls around.
The dual lands are… well, hrm. Here’s the problem with the dual lands. I’ve seen that they’re pre-listing on eBay for about $10 a pop, which is high when you consider the price level of “average” two-color lands: Ravnica tribal duals are about $5, Shadowmoor hybrid duals average around $10, the 10E painlands about $5 as well.
Are the M2010 dual lands as good as hybrid duals? Maybe so. Neither produce colored mana turn one, but the hybrids will always produce SOMETHING the turn you play it, even if your mana base is all non-basics. In many cases, the M2010 duals will be Invasion taplands — good, but not rare-quality. And certainly not $10.
But then I hear people who say they expect them to drop in price as the set is released, and I can’t see THAT happening either. Not because they’re fabulous and will be in high demand, but because (1) no one has any and (B) they’ll be all we gots once Lorwyn and Shadowmoor rotate out in the fall.
I like that they’re doing something with the themes of the set. Common vampires and uncommon Creeping Molds that are actually creatures are pretty cool. It’s an interesting concept, building a set that’s half old cards and half new cards, trying to tie it together with some sort of flavor beyond “well this time portal opened up.” It looks like they really worked at it.
Magic 2010: The End?
So, I’m actually jazzed about the new stuff. The rules? One of humanity’s greatest attributes is the ability to adapt to change. Magic players complained and huffed when the Sixth Edition rules change happened, but eventually adapted, and we’re looking at record levels of participation. Do you think Wizards imagine attendance at tournaments in the THOUSANDS when they made those rules changes? And the same will happen here. People will huff and complain, but eventually we will all adapt to the rules and figure out where the new interactions are, what the new “right play” is. I actually think it could be GOOD for players who have been playing on autopilot for years. It may shake them enough to become even better.
(I hope I’m one of those players.)
Well, I wrote a lot more on this topic than I thought I would, so I’ll leave it at that. Previews start next week, and with new cards in this set, it actually COULD be a card we’ve never seen. Weird to say that about a base set. See you next week with more M2010 goodness.
Until next week…
Dave
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