that's my point. if a thing from before a rules shift looks exactly like a thing from after it, it should behave the same. Catacombs is literally the exact same basic deal as Vale, there is no reason whatsoever that, presented with the two cards in isolation, I should guess that I can tap one for mana without meeting its conditions but not the other. sure, Vale has slightly older wording, but no part of that wording gives any indication that its conditions need to be met prior to activating its abilities.

this is why I didn't list every creature with a sac ability. that was BCB, don't put that on me. I listed Kill-Suit Cultist explicitly, because the card was designed not just on the assumption that it could stack damage, but with that functionality as its defining purpose. you YMtC far too frequently to accept "crappy 1/1" as a design vision, especially on such a unique ability. the pseudo-deathtouch was the design, and you know that, and that internal functionality is gone because of a rules change.

if you won't accept Cultist, then how about Master of Arms? it literally had function-preserving errata for a while, then they decided that it was better for it to do what it said than for it to do what it was meant to do.

And thus you summed up my argument. If you are going to do it for some cards that got power level changes, then you should have to do it to all. Otherwise, by definition, it is power level errata and NOBODY wants a return to that.

Or Winter Orb

Or Time Vault *Runs away screaming in abject terror*

See, that is the thing, creatures still do creature-y things regardless of whether they are errata'd or not. It isn't like taking away combat damage stacking turned Kill-Suit Cultist into Flame Javalin. In general taking away functionality just isn't a problem because Wizards can always make a new card if they really, really wanted that effect (Goblin Arsonist). Adding functionality is the exact opposite, you don't want to do it, because if it is desirable, you can just make an updated card (Like, I dunno, Lairs).

As for your problem of two cards having the same words on them and doing two different things, Look at Goblin King. Goblin King's 5th edition rules text would be perfectly valid now (and exists on Goblin Chieftain as part of a larger ability), but it still makes sense for it to be errata's. Rules text then and rules text now had different meanings, you shouldn't just not use rules text because it meant something different in the past.

You are missing the point. Firstly, Goblin King has been reprinted with newer printed text, so it's not an issue. Secondly, you claim "Rules text then and rules text now had different meanings" but then say it doesn't matter how it gets translated. Those are two mutually exclusive statements.

Simply, answer yes or no: If you were shown Phyrexian Dreadnought and Lotus Vale side by side, knowing how the rules work and not knowing the Oracle text, would a reasonable player think they work the same?

Dr_Demento, you're nitpicking. You haven't addressed the core issue of Wizards' card-by-card rulings being inconsistent and hence unfriendly to people trying to learn the rules. I say that cards should do what they say. If this makes Mox Diamond and Lotus Vale shoot up in value because of their playability in a fringe format for the super-invested, more power to them.

ok, I'll accept that adding functionality is different from removing it. in that case, how about Chain of Acid? this was made as an answer to artifacts, enchantments, and lands, the three types that green got to destroy. at the time they were the only types that existed. but then boom, planeswalkers. Chain of Acid was never meant to destroy planeswalkers. Chain of Acid predates planeswalkers by 5 years. sure, later variants like rootgrapple were, but doesn't that fall under your "make an updated card" argument? shouldn't Chain target non-creature, non-planeswalker permanents because when it was made that was what it could target? it certainly wasn't supposed to be an answer to a card type that wouldn't exist for half a decade, was it?

that's a product of King being reprinted with newer text. same reason Loxodon Warhammer still has lifelink. in that situation there is no right answer: one version or the other will have inaccurate text, so you go with the version people are most likely to see. it's not relevant and I think you know that.

I agree with Zammm and Dr_D.

i agree that the lotus vale change was power level errata

i have mixed feelings on what power level errata means to me.

The actual rule is that the most recent printing takes precedence. This is why Mox Diamond (and the Warhammer as you said) will forever have functionality changing oracle text because they "locked it in" with the From the Vault prints.

The ideal:
You can automatically tell how a card works and what formats it's legal in by looking at the card and knowing the current rules of the game.

Oh wait, some cards are banned or restricted in some formats, so you have to look them up.

Oh wait, you have to remember some of the rules from past versions of the game because the card type Wall used to mean "can't attack" and those cards have been errataed to preserve that functionality.

Oh wait, some specific cards have been printed with text that under the current rules would have different meanings (like Loxodon Warhammer) so you have to look them up to know which is the right wording.

Oh wait, some of the game words have changed (in play -> battlefield) so you have to remember the translations.

Oh wait, some of the old cards are worded in casual ways so you have to look them up to know the formal wording.

Oh wait there are misprints and creature type changes...


At this point, we're so far away from the original ideal that I posted at the top that anyone with an old looking card who wants to play it in a tournament automatically has to go on the internet and double check how it works and its format legality; changing lotus vale to work the way it seems like it's written wouldn't do any good at all. In fact, the people who have one in their EDH decks or whatever have already memorised its current oracle rules so changing it again would result in a net increase in confusion.

We can't be in favour for consistency for consistency's sake. We can only favour consistency for the good of the game. GrifterMage is right.

So by that logic Power Level errata is acceptable, so why bother changing Winter Orb or Master at Arms? Why not keep the "from your hand" errata for all the Urza era cards? Why not just change Jace the Wallet Skulptor to cost and -20 on his brainstorm?Nice strawman. I already addressed this. Errata like this is fine, as long as it applies to ALL walls. If you errata'd only SOME walls, then it wouldn't be ok.

Because letting master of arms and winter orb work as printed doesn't force you to ban them and because they did and it's done now and people are used to it.

As for Jace, you'd be changing him to a way he never has worked, as opposed to changing him to a way he once worked but no longer does. And he's a much more recent card that a lot more people own and use so it would cause too much confusion.

It's not a straw man. You addressed it but it doesn't change the fact that it doesn't live up to the ideal. It still forces people to have to learn something that's not part of the current rules. The only benefit is that the one thing you learn applies to all instances.

R&D is a dictatorship not a democracy. Policy and precedence mean nothing (unless you actually sue them like the reserved list people did).

you could probably use a review of the Nirvana fallacy.

So what you are saying is that the power of the card matters when deciding if you should change it's functionality?

If only there was a term for that and it was explicitly stated to not be done anymore...

Except policy and precedence mean everything. It's the reason why we no longer have the nonsense with Time Vault.

I think it's fairly self-evident that WotC is going to do what they want. no one is arguing that, and no one is under any illusions that yelling loud enough will change the rules without Matt Tabak's consent. arguing that things are the way they are because WotC has decided to make them that, therefore, is a meaningless contribution. the point is to discuss whether they made the right decision, not whether or not they get to make the decision.

My two cents (since I was a participant in the other threads on this topic):

I don't particularly see the value in a "consistent" errata policy, given that different cards have different needs, different histories, and different roles. I do not believe there are players whose understanding of Magic is impeded by Lotus Vale & friends. I would also like this topic to go die in a fire, and I am endlessly disappointed that it will not expire along with the forum that birthed it.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm not arguing for consistency in policy, I'm arguing for consistency in wording. if two things look like they do the same thing, they should do the same thing. beyond a couple cosmetic differences and some old-wording artifacts, lotus vale and crosis's catacombs have pretty much identical-looking conditions, so how am I supposed to know that one can be tapped for mana before being sacrificed and the other can't?

I must say that I share astarael7's feeling regarding this topic. On the official forums, BaconCatBug had the habit of continually reposting this idea, posting comments about it in unrelated threads, and generally just repeating the same points without taking in what other people were saying. This was the second-most annoying behavior on those forums, and I was hoping not to see it here.

I'm probably going to regret posting in this thread, but there are people here who I'm going to assume are arguing in good faith, so I'll just address some points.

The problem is that Magic is messy. There have been several major rules overhauls, and a whole lot of minor ones. Cards have been printed and reprinted at different times, under different errata policies. There have been misprints. There have been cards that were printed that were only later discovered to not actually work. And there have been cards that are just templated very poorly.

I'm a big fan of consistency. And I do find inconsistency jarring. However, because of the inconsistency in printed texts, this is really inevitable. If you try to find a single consistent algorithm for determining the Oracle text, you'll still get inconsistent end results, oftentimes undesirable ones.

As such, the policy they use allows for human judgment calls. There are a variety of factors that go into determining the Oracle text, but no one factor will always win, and the people determining the Oracle text can make the call for which ones should be prioritized in which cases. It's certainly desirable for cards with the same printed text to work the same way. It's also desirable for a card to just work as printed, independently of other cards. It's also desirable for them to have the possibility of fixing typos, misprints, or accidentally non-working cards. It's also desirable for cards to keep working past rules changes. It's also desirable for cards to just not be really weird. It's also desirable for Oracle texts to stay constant over time. And these goals often pull cards in very different directions. So if you find a case where your favorite of these goals isn't met, that doesn't mean they're hypocritical or violating their policy. It just means a different one won out in that particular case.

Also, not all "power-level errata" is against their policy. Strictly speaking, all functional errata changes the power level to some degree, so forbidding that would be silly. Instead, they have a policy against "post-printing development". Neither just leaving the card as is nor issuing errata to restore how it was previously developed to work is a violation of their policy. In one case, they're not doing anything to the card, and in the other case, they're just reapplying a power level and functionality that was already decided for it. This is something very different from taking an existing card and intentionally making it into something new via errata.

If you want to know why Lotus Vale and Crosis's Catacombs work differently despite being worded the same, that's because the Vale is really old and was printed under different rules. That's also why Waylay won't let you keep the creature past the current turn (even if you cast it in your end step), why Carnivorous Plant can't attack, why Chaos Orb's activation cost includes a , and why Wiitigo doesn't immediately go to the graveyard for having 0 toughness. In each of those cases, just reading the printed text and interpreting it as though it were a modern card will give the wrong result. In order to get the right result, you either need to know the old rule that caused it to work the way it does, or you need to recognize that it's an old card and check the Oracle text.

If you want to know why Lotus Vale and Phyrexian Dreadnought work differently despite being worded the same and both being old, it's because the Dreadnought didn't need the errata. That replacement effect thing is really weird, so they'll avoid it when possible. In the Dreadnought's case, the card itself works the same with or without the errata. It would take an interaction with additional cards for it to work differently. In the case of the Vale, however, no other cards are necessary; the card itself would be fundamentally different from what it was designed and printed as if it it didn't have that errata. Gaining the additional functionality of being a Black Lotus is kind of a big deal. It's okay for them to fix what needs fixing, without the obligation to then also fix what doesn't need fixing. That would just be consistency for consistency's sake.

If you still think that Lotus Vale should be changed, that's fine. There are certainly cards whose Oracle texts I dislike (e.g. I'd prefer if Burning of Xinye, Imperial Edict and Wei Assassins had kept their "sacrifice" wording, rather than reading Portalified rules text as though it were normal Magicese, and I literally have a list of little templating inconsistencies I'd want to have standardized away). However, if you think it's objectively wrong for the Vale to have its current text, that it's a violation of their policies, or that they're obligated to change it, I think you're mistaken.

For Lotus Vale and its friends, a huge hint to check for that very thing is that anachronistic "bury" hanging out in its ability's effect. (One totally absent from Crosis's Catacombs.) And I'm now in the habit of checking Oracle text on many hing older than two years. Gatherer is very, very accessible and getting more so all the time. Would it be easier if we could all memorize hard-and-fast rules for translating every card into modern templating? Absolutely. But having to check a website for a card's correct wording isn't much of a barrier nowadays.