Subject: Response to Peter Adkison's post about why 6E will not kill MTG Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 17:18:44 -0500 (EST) From: Russell P Linnemann II To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com >Folks, there really isn't any secret here. We've been saying for a long >time that our goal is to make Magic: the Gathering a classic game like >Chess or Go. What makes Chess and Go classic is that they have very deep >strategy while having relatively easy rules. I'm sure that many of you >would agree that Magic has very deep strategy, while many of you would >also agree that the rules are not easy. Trying to make MTG like chess and go is ludicrous. MTG, like every card game I've seen, is a game of luck. There is strategy involved, obviously, but when two players play perfectly, the outcome is decided solely by luck. You can't get mana screwed in chess, you can't topdeck a queen to save yourself, and both players start off with equal material regardless of how much time or money they have spent. >With this goal in mind, our staff set out to do some minor house cleaning >of the Magic rules. The intent was not to reduce the amount of strategy >in Magic, but to make it more intuitive and easy to learn for people who >had never played the game and make it easier for expert players to >resolve rules disputes. Most of the rules "changes" that we are planning >will not even affect the way Magic is being currently played, but rather >will simply make the rules easier to understand. None the less, we wanted to clear up some rumors about possible rules changes that have been discussed here. >1. No more interrupts. This is true. But this doesn't mean that >counterspells will go away. Counterspell and all other old interrupts >will be played as instants. This has very little effect on game play. Oh, interrupts were SO complicated to begin with. I have NEVER heard a new player complain that interrupts were in any way difficult to understand or play correctly. The only interrupt that gets questions is Fork, and it is going to get questions no matter what its card type is. Saying this change has very little effect on game play is misleading at best. It probably doesn't affect the average MTG game because most social players don't play interrupts (counterspells), and if they do, they probably aren't playing against a tuned deck with a lot of built-in combos. These combos, like Balance-Zuran Orb, Living Death-Altar of Dementia, etc. form the backbone of tournament decks. The original Kastle deck combo (Living Death-Fallen Angel) would have been significantly weaker if Living Death could have been countered in response to the creatures being sacrificed. Interrupts can be explained, for all intents and purposes, like this: After a spell is played, both players have a chance to interrupt the spell. The spell's caster has priority. Multiple batches of interrupts may target a single spell, and interrupts can only target the spell that they are interrupting. Once both players have yielded priority, the spell is considered successfully cast. At this time, both players, starting with the active player, may respond with instant-speed effects. Or, the even shorter version: When a spell is played, there is a chance for multiple batches of interrupts to be played. All interrupts must be played at this time, and no instant-speed effects are allowed until the interrupt window is closed. >2. No more Damage Prevention Phase. This is true, but it doesn't mean >no more damage prevention. You'll still be able to play Healing Salve in >response to my Lightning Bolt and prevent the damage. The damage prevention phase does get some questions, but it's not very complicated. All that is needed is a clear explanation of when the damage prevention phase is being entered. >4. Tapped artifacts will function normally. (A tapped Winter Orb will >still be turned on and have its normal effect.) This is true. We've >decided to remove the rule from the rulebook and instead add it to the >cards. Expect to see artifacts like "As long as this card is untapped, >creatures can't attack." Why? Are the old cards going to get errata? This isn't hard to explain to a new player. Untapped On, Tapped Off, the clapper. I have two problems with these new rules. First, they gratuitously kill cards and deck concepts. Power Sink becomes crap, Interdict becomes horrible, Kor Chant and Temper lose their punch, and all the combos mentioned elsewhere become a lot more dangerous to play. Icy Prison doesn't work, Icy-Howling Mine doesn't work, tapping an Ensaring Bridge doesn't let you attack. Nothing new is being added by the new rules, but a lot of old ideas are going out the window. Can this be good for the game? Second, these changes aren't going to do much of anything except annoy experienced players and confuse people who are in the middle of learning the game. If you want to see what rules are misunderstood, read the questions in Scrye and InQuest every issue. If you're lucky, 1 out of 20 questions a month will be "answered" by your new rules. What makes MTG complicated is the interaction between cards, not the basic rules. I don't see your new rules explaining how Humility and spike counters interact. If you want to make MTG a simpler game to learn, then here are some suggestions that are a whole lot better than gratuitously fiddling with rules that weren't a problem to begin with. 1) Print a good rulebook. Let Dave DeLaney write it. Make sure it has a glossary with every relevant term included. 2) Check the cards before they are released. Lots of mistakes are caught "in translation". This is inexcusable. New players are always confused when I tell them that a card works differently than the way it is written. Nothing can be done about the old cards, but errata on new cards should be virtually nonexistent. 3) Template cards so that they can be written in plain english and understood intuitively. Raze from US is a step in the right direction. People are always writing to Scrye/Inquest asking if they can do X six times to create the effect 6 times. The new wording (At the time you play Raze, sacrifice a land) makes this clear. >We are not trying to alter the game for the sake of fiddling or to cater >to beginner players at the expense of our valued and loyal long time >players and fans. I hope that players can understand and respect why we >wouldn't want to introduce or discuss the rules changes at this time >since it would cause confusion in the play environment. If you think that the MTG community (especially those who follow the dojo and similar sites) would have been confused by discussion of proposed rules changes, then you think we're a bunch of idiots, and I don't appreciate that. There is no good reason why these changes could not have been proposed and commented on publicly. You would have gotten feedback from 10,000 people about what they wanted. You would have gotten ideas about how to make things work. You would have had every rules guru in the world examing your new scheme to see if there were any rules problems. But this would have given us some expectation that our ideas would have been acted upon. I understand what happened perfectly well. It Was Written what the 6E rules would be, for better or for worse. Now that it's too late for the MTG community to do anything about the 6E changes, it's ok to inform us. -Russell