It's been 4 years since the initial reason for this post over on the new defunct WotC forums, so I thought I'd post it again here to encourage discussion and to ensure it doesn't vanish into the æther. And for what it's worth, I disagree with Matt Tabak's view of "who cares" and "I make the rules so there" attitude.
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Magic is a game with over 9,000 different cards and a whole bunch of Early Instalment Weirdness and as such necessitates that older cards receive errata in order to comply with the modern day terminology and template. However, there are several cards that seem to have been missed when issuing this errata. For this exercise I shall mainly be using Lotus Vale and Phyrexian Dreadnought as the main examples, but this is for convenience sake.

My first point of interest is the "May 2011 Update Bulletin" (Archive) by Matt Tabak, in which several old cards were reverted to their "printed functionality", having previously received errata that restored their "original functionality" which was lost when the core rules of the game changed. Winter Orb originally stopped working when tapped (as did all artifacts way back in the day) but now works when tapped as its printed text does not say otherwise. Likewise, Master of Arms originally prevented tapped creatures blocking it from dealing damage (as tapped blockers did not deal combat damage in an older version of the rules) but now simply works like any other card that can tap creatures that happen to be blocking it.
This is all well and good, after all, "If you pick up this card somewhere and you understand modern Magic rules, you'd never guess it would have to be untapped to function, and the once-common "tap my own Winter Orb at the end of my turn so I get to untap my lands" play would be utterly baffling. Well, we can't have that." However, why have these particular cards been reverted to their printed text and others have not? If the aim of the game is to allow new players who pick up old cards to grok them as easily as possible, why do some old cards have baffling errata?

Lotus Vale, as printed, has a very simple come into play clause that we see on countless other cards. Translating the obsolete terms "comes into play" and "bury" into "enters the battlefield" and "sacrifice" respectively, it is clear that Lotus Vale should read "When Lotus Vale enters the battlefield, sacrifice two untapped lands or sacrifice Lotus Vale." However, this is not the case, it instead has some clunky replacement effect that prevents it from ever hitting the battlefield if you don't make the sacrifices.

Now, this wording does indeed emulate the original functionality of the Lotus Vale within the core rules of the game at the time it was printed and that would be the end of it were it not for a card called Phyrexian Dreadnought. Phyrexian Dreadnought has the exact same printed clause that Lotus Vale has, "When X comes into play, bury some amount of Y or bury X." Since these cards are both from the same era and from the same block, one would imagine that they have the same replacement clause in their Oracle text, right? Wrong. Phyrexian Dreadnought has it's printed text, which was indeed changed from the replacement effect that Lotus Vale has, way back in the "Tenth Edition Update Bulletin" (Archive) by the then Rules Manager Mark Gottlieb.

What is most interesting about this errata is that it was explicitly considered "power level errata". For those who don't know, back in the Dark Ages of Magic there was a policy where cards considered too "powerful" would receive errata that would affect their functionality in order to lower their power level. One of the more famous examples of this is the card Palinchron, which for a long time had an additional "If you played this from your hand" clause to it's triggered ability. Another is Time Vault. For those who don't know Time Vault's history, just be thankful you don't. If you want to learn about it or revisit horrible repressed memories, here you go.

Power level errata has also explicitly been stated to be forbidden as a rule nowadays, so now comes the crux of the issue. Why, knowing that the change from a triggered ability to a replacement effect was explicitly considered a power level errata in the case of Phyrexian Dreadnought, is the change from a triggered ability to a replacement effect was not considered a power level errata in the case Lotus Vale? They have the exact same triggered ability and are from the same expansion block, so there is not even the "Magic wording changes over time" justification for one to have functionally changing errata and the other to not.

Imagine if you will, the card Transguild Promenade receiving errata to change it's effect so that it never hits the battlefield unless paid 1 mana, while Faerie Impostor a card from the same block printed under the same core rules with the same "When X enters the battlefield, sacrifice it unless you do Y" clause did not. I believe the vast majority of people would consider it unacceptable at worst and baffling at best.

Or another example. Flagstones of Trokair or Mox Opal. Changes to the core rules (specifically the M14 update to the Legendary rule) have made these cards significantly more powerful than when they were first printed. Why haven’t they gotten errata to reflect this change of power the same way Lotus Vale does? Because it's printed wording is fine? So is Lotus Vale's. Is it because it's not powerful enough? Errata for the purposes of power level was rightly done away with ages ago. Perhaps it's because having old cards actually do what they actually say on them is a good thing when it can be preserved. That's why Master of Arms and Winter Orb and Phyrexian Dreadnought all were changed back to their printed wording.

Or even more examples! Several cards such as Mogg Fanatic, Aerie Ouphes, Sakura Tribe Elder, Bile Urchin and dozens (if not hundreds) more were designed and printed in a world where Combat Damage Used The Stack. They were printed in the full knowledge of the kind of combat tricks they could pull off by blocking, dealing one damage then sacrificing themselves for an effect. If Lotus Vale were to set the benchmark, these cards should all have their original functionality replicated via errata as well.

That's all there is to it really. Simply put, I feel that it is not unreasonable two cards with the same text should not have differing Oracle text and that power level errata is bad.

And now, for the FAQ!
"Why are you so adamant about this? Do you have a stack of Lotus Vales somewhere and want to cash in?"
No, I do not. I barely have a paper Magic collection any more and I think my most valuable paper card might be a pre-release Lotus Bloom from Time Spiral (maybe, if I haven't lost it.)

"If you errata Lotus Vale to it's printed text it just becomes Black Lotus! It'll let you stifle the ability!"
Firstly, it's nowhere close to Black Lotus territory for several reasons (the main one being it eats a land drop) but the real answer is, so what? Phyrexian Dreadnought can be stifled just fine. Just because Lotus Vale is more powerful does not warrant functional errata. If it would be a problem in the formats it is legal, ban or restrict it. It would be like changing Jace, the Mind Sculptor's brainstorm ability to -2 instead of banning it from everything ever.


"Different cards need different approaches! By your logic all pre-Champions walls would be able to attack! Walking Atlas isn't an artifact! Oboro Envoy would be able to permanently neuter creatures! Wiitigo would die instantly! Lion's Eye Diamond is a Black Lotus!"
I agree, different situations do need different approaches. Pre-Champions walls should definitely be unable to attack, and errata to that effect is perfectly fine. It's also fine errata misprinted cards to say what they are meant to say. It's also OK to errata oddball one-offs like Wiitigo so that they function at all within the core rules of the game. What would not be ok is to errata Wall of Light (and all other Walls) to have Defender but decide to not do so for Wall of Earth, presumably because Wall of Earth is "less powerful" than other walls.

Other cards that have the issues mentioned in this post
These cards all have the same triggered ability as Lotus Vale and Phyrexian Dreadnought but have been given errata to change it to a replacement effect similar to Lotus Vale:

• Balduvian Trading Post
• Heart of Yavimaya
• Kjeldoran Outpost
• Lake of the Dead
• Scorched Ruins
• Sheltered Valley
• Soldevi Excavations

These cards have an inconsistent translation of the old term "as a mana source". I understand that Lion's Eye Diamond has the errata it has now to prevent you from using the mana it makes to cast a card in your hand, but either the other cards should have the same errata (as they are from the same block) or Lion's Eye Diamond should simply work in the current framework of the rules as it does with it's unintended power level increase:

• Cadaverous Bloom
• Jungle Patrol
• Sea Scryer
• Lion's Eye Diamond

The following two cards have a functionality changing timing restrictions on when they can be cast. Both cards have errata requiring them to be cast "before the combat damage step" as they don't generally do much if cast after it. This prevents them being used in a second combat phase or simply as a dump spell to trigger something else and there is zero indication that this is the case:

• Blind Fury [Used to have the same issue, now has been fixed]
• Blood Frenzy

These cards have a functional change that causes the mana replacing effect to only occur if the land is "tapped" for mana, despite there being no mention of this on the cards and the existence of several lands that do not need to tap to produce mana (such as the Fungal Reaches cycle from Time Spiral:

• Deep Water
• Hall of Gemstone
• Reality Twist
• Quarum Trench Gnomes

The following cards are all from the Portal starter-level set and have not been reprinted. These have the Sorcery type line on their printed cards but have been errata'd to be instants as they are played outside of the normal Sorcery timing restrictions. With the introduction of flash as a keyword (and arguably could have been done beforehand) and due to the fact that they are technically legal for use in Legacy and Vintage, these cards should revert to their printed type (as the errata turning them to instants has functional changes with cards like Anarchist) with a "You may cast ~ as though it had flash and only during [whenever it says you can cast it]." rider:

• Assassin's Blade
• Champion's Victory
• Command of Unsummoning
• Deep Wood
• Defiant Stand
• Eightfold Maze
• False Summoning
• Harsh Justice
• Heavy Fog
• Just Fate
• Mystic Denial
• Preemptive Strike
• Rally the Troops
• Remove
• Scorching Winds
• Treetop Defense
• Warrior's Stand

Drat; I was kind of hoping you wouldn't find your way here, BaconCat. Well, since you saw fit to copy/paste your thread, it's only fair that I copy/paste my reply from the last time you brought this up:

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You've received your answer time and time and time again, over and over, almost every time you post about it, and it's only "almost" because sometimes people are too sick of humoring your relentless obsession to bring themselves to rehash it again. Like now.

Eighteen months isn't enough. Eighteen years wouldn't be enough. You have poisoned your own cause far too effectively for anyone to bother giving you the time of day on this topic, regardless of the length of time since you last posted about it.

Your argument that R&D's treatment of Lotus Vale is inconsistent with their treatment of other cards is irrelevant, because R&D's primary goal is to make Magic better, not to be consistent. There are many different factors that go into deciding a card's Oracle text and many of them contradict each other. Each card is evaluated on a case-by-case basis, and those factors will affect each card's text differently. This sometimes leads to inconsistent results. Your argument that inconsistency is unacceptable in this case is irrelevant, because R&D doesn't care what you believe is unacceptable. R&D does not answer to you. And no matter how much you whine and rant and complain that "That's not good enough!", you're not going to change that. Because they don't answer to you. They have never, do not now, and will never care what you find acceptable.

The answer to your complaint is and has always been thus: R&D believes that changing the current text of Lotus Vale (and company) as you desire would be bad for the game. So they aren't going to do it. If you don't think that's an acceptable answer, too bad, because they are the judge of what is and is not acceptable, not you.

If you really want R&D to change Lotus Vale and company, you have one and only one viable option available to you: convince R&D that changing those cards would make the game better. Not "more consistent", mind you, because that's not the same thing. Better. That's the only way to change their minds on the subject.

If you'd rather not try to do that and instead want to sit and whine incessantly for another half-decade, that's perfectly understandable, but maybe go somewhere where you're not bothering anybody else while you do it.

I don't know, maybe it's because I didn't hang around RTT enough for BaconCat to annoy me, but I pretty much agree. it's not an issue I could imagine being anywhere near this riled up about, but it's a change I could absolutely get behind. cards should do what they say, there's a lot of inherent value in that.

I'm not sure how it'd be bad for the game. Lotus Vale as is does nothing particularly relevant, well, anywhere. it's too old for Modern and Standard, and to my knowledge it's entirely absent from Vintage and Legacy play. the only place it might be relevant is casual play, and there is nowhere where cards doing what they say matters more than kitchen tables.

consistency is better. they're not synonymous, but R&D has stated many times through many different mouthpieces that they think the game is better when players don't need to consult a website to find out what their cards actually do. and they're right. that's why they didn't go back and make Tarmogoyf cost 3, it's why they printed concentrate instead of just reprinting Ancestral Recall with new stats, and it's why mox sapphire and sky diamond both exist. power level errata is a bad thing, it is bad for the game, and that is a stance they have taken repeatedly, so I don't really see how "convincing" them in necessary. the argument hinges on their own logic and goals.

You argue that you want consistency, and then insist that there be counterspells that are sorceries...You get an A+ for hypocrisy. Or maybe it's irony...I'm not sure. Someone with a doctorate in English correct me.

Wizards seems to be pretty consistent by errataing all the lands though, and it would be dumb if Lotus Vale worked as a Black Lotus.

The Dreadnought is still basically the same card with or without the revised rules, the Vale is not. Sure, you can Stifle the Dreadnought Trigger, but Wizards don't really care if old cards can be leveraged in that way. Wizards does care when old cards don't function as intended without leverage. If Lotus Vale and friends only went weird if they were Stifled or because of some other card interaction, they might have kept their wording, but Vale would always be a Lotus no matter what, and so it wouldn't even be close to the same card, without any help.

it's neither? the cards were printed with that type line.

I don't actually agree with that point, I think that making them sorceries with flash is silly when we have a card type already that is sorceries with flash, but it's not hypocritical to ask that things work the way they say they do and then pointing out things that don't work the way they say they do.

Portal 1, 2, and 3 were all minimalist sets. They had only three card types printed in them: lands, creatures, sorceries. Some of those sorceries were given text allowing them to be cast in response to certain events that don't happen during your main phase. So they were instants disguised as sorceries. To prevent confusion for new players, no doubt. The only card that they truly messed up by giving them all the instant card type is Mystic Denial, which within the Portal sets could counter the other instants-disguised-as-sorceries. Anarchist was never in the Portal sets, and should by no means be allowed to interact with what were clearly instants. If Anarchist had been in the Portal sets, then the argument for keeping their typelines the same would carry weight. Or else he would need errata allowing him to dig up instants as well. But that's not the case, so no action need be taken (aside from the fixing of Mystic Denial to include instant spells as a legal target).

"hypocritical" isn't a synonym for wrong though. the idea that cards should do what they say they do is consistent with the idea that Mystic Denial should be a sorcery with some non-type ability allowing it to be cast in response to spells. I agree with you that the change isn't worth it, but it's an internally consistent stance.

Copy/pasted again: Consistency is vastly overrated. It's not valuable in and of itself--it's only valuable if it brings some other benefit along for the ride. And in this case, the benefits consistency brings with it are pretty darn small.

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If the only effect of changing Lotus Vale's text was to make players less likely to misunderstand their Lotus Vales, then yes, it would improve the game by some infinitesimal amount. But that's not certain, because there's a good to fair chance that many people already intuit how the Vale's supposed to work as-is and would instead believe the Black Lotus imitation act to be weird and crazy rules lawyering, so that benefit's questionable. And even if it was certain, that isn't the only effect that would result from that change, and those other effects contain some significant potential negatives that far, far outweigh that one incredibly minor benefit.

Consider our starting point: Lotus Vale is currently a card that exists in Legacy and Vintage but doesn't appear in any serious decks, and which shows up in casual every now and again. All right, now change Lotus Vale's text. What happens?

• Its price instantly hits the stratosphere. Good for those who have them or can grab onto them quick enough, but thousands of less-informed casual players will gain feel-bad stories of being conned out of the old Lotus Vales that had been rotting in their binders for fifteen years.
  
• It will be instantly banned in Legacy--it goes from being available but unplayable to banned. Arguably that's a neutral change, but it's definitely not positive.
  
• It will be instantly restricted in Vintage. Decks can now effectively play a second copy of Black Lotus that isn't vulnerable to countermagic or any of the usual Mox/Lotus hate cards. That's a potentially massive shakeup to the format, and probably a significant negative overall--the very last thing Vintage needs is more ridiculously broken cards to add to its existing critical mass of restricted cards.
  
• Casual play sees an influx of thousands upon thousands of almost-Black-Lotuses that will potentially cause rules arguments whenever they get used against someone new. Sounds like a downside to me.

R&D needs to consider all of those factors and more. They have, and they've come down on the side of not changing Lotus Vale. If they're going to be convinced otherwise, they're going to need to hear a much better argument than "But consistency!"

Unfortunately for BaconCat, "But consistency!" is the only argument he seems to be able to make.

Oh, I see your argument here...No, I meant he was being hypocritical about consistency because he wants counterspells that are sorceries, when counterspells outside of the Portal sets are all instants. If he truly supported consistency, then he would want the counterspells to all be instants, as opposed to a large percentage of them being instants and a very small percentage being sorceries.

I'm in the "cards should do what they say" camp. Wizards has set a standard that forbids power-level errata and hews as closely to the last printed wording as possible. It doesn't matter what the creators intended - once the card is printed, the cat is out of the bag, and errata will do far more damage to unaware players who play the card as printed. (With the exception of things like Walking Atlas and Elixir of Immortality, which were caught right away and issued with public errata.) I think zammm is overstating the consequences of reverting the Lotus Vale errata, and I believe there's little argument against updating the Portal sorceries and Lotus Vale to more accurately reflect their printed wording.


Don't strawman. This isn't about consistency, it's about Wizards following a standard they themselves set. Nothing in BaconCatBug's post indicated he was against sorcery counterspells.

a) that's a completely different type of consistency, and b) no they aren't

there's lots of crazy rules lawyering you can do with actual cards that do what they say, but at least once you learn those interactions you can apply that knowledge to the broader scope of Magic interactions, whereas forcing you to memorize isolated corner cases means. should they fix Oblivion Ring to work the way people assume it does with auratog? no, of course not. and will that confuse a lot of people? sure. but once you know it, you know how fiend hunter works with necratog too. you now know a thing about triggered abilities and you better understand the game. forcing people who assume that Vale works the way every other triggered ability they've ever seen works to learn that it doesn't means doing the exact opposite, teaching them that the rules are an opaque fog of corner cases, unwritten exceptions, and generic tomfoolery.

sounds a lot like what they did with Flash, and what happens any time new interactions make an old card relevant.

sure, but, again, Flash. they even let that exist for a tournament, as I recall. but anyway, this is a blatant power-level errata argument, and the existence of concentrate says they're not in love with power level errata. they've removed it on almost everything, so defending it here is hypocritical unless you're against all the other reversions as well.

it also costs you a land drop which means it potentially makes one less mana overall. like a one-card dark ritual. but really, vintage is way too expensive already, adding one more card won't drastically increase the price barrier, and most of the appeal of vintage is getting to play with ridiculously broken cards anyway.

the cards are rare enough that I doubt they affect many games, and if people are proxying then they could've just proxied lotus anyway. I also contend that the rules issue is most likely lateral. you hurt people who don't know the rules very well, but you help the ones who have a decent understanding. not a great one, mind you, but one that says "hey that trigger wording looks almost exactly like transguild promenade, and I know I can play that to trigger landfall even if I don't want to pay to save it. this probably works like that."

well, yeah, you can reduce it to that, but I can reduce yours to "R&D says so" and "power level", which are not only similarly weak but also contradictory arguments given R&D's repeated stance on power level errata as a Bad Thing™.

necratog doesn't do what I thought it did, replace it with bloodthrone vampire.

I honestly have no idea how Concentrate relates to power level errata.

Also, Razor line-by-lines Zammm's posts but ignores mine .

Because it's an example of moving on and not changing older cards with power level errata. By Zammm's logic they should just errata the mana cost of ancestoral recall rather than print new cards
I'm not as cool or good looking but I can do that for you His line by line was far more eloquent than I could have done

the effect doesn't look at all familiar?

I like Zammm better.

or I didn't notice yours.

tell that to kill-suit cultist.

also, no, they aren't.

Exactly. If Lotus Vale has "intended" functionality, then the cultist, Mogg Fanatic, Flagstones of Trokair and goodness knows how many other cards should too.

Catacombs and Promenade were made post-6th edition, and thus never had their functionality change. Karoo enters the battlefield tapped, which goes back to my point that under normal circumstances, it functions exactly the same, Stifle be damned.

Also, Kill-Suit Cultists is still a 1/1 that turns Shock into Murder. Yeah, it loses some power because it no longer has effective deathtouch, but it is still fundamentally a crappy 1/1, as it was designed to be. Same with any other creature with a sac ability, sac abilities still operate as normal. Not only would it be incredibly difficult to errata every creature with a sacrifice ability to operate in a similar way to before, but it would also invalidate the rule change in the first place. If you can't see the fundamental difference between Sakura-Tribe Elder and Lotus Vale, then you are being willfully ignorant.