http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/16 ... ule-change

They are getting rid of the damage redirection rule, which in abstract is something I like -- it was a clunky rule that was not immediately obvious. That would really impact the balancing of planeswalkers, however, since being able to just Bolt Jace is something that often keeps them in check, so apparently they are also issuing a bunch of functional errata. Bolt saying "deal 3 damage to target creature, player or planeswalker" is going to be so ugly, and this is going to lead to a lot of dispute in the future. My first reaction is to think that just making a Lightning Strike variant that hits creatures, players or planeswalkers is better than this, and might even diversify decks in older formats.

That was discussed in this thread.

It is newsworthy that Maro is now saying it is actually going to happen, compared to a month ago Forsythe mentioning it’s in consideration.

The PW redirection rule was always odd. But having three major rounds of errata in a few month span (legendary pws, formerly- nondinosaurs-to-dinosaurs, and now this) is equally awful. It’s getting harder and harder to assemble decks for teaching/introducing new players because there’s a laundry list of having to explain why this or that card doesn’t work like it says it does.

The planeswalkers and dinosaurs happened in the same round, and neither was that disruptive. This new errata will be a much bigger deal.

Where do we hear how disruptive things are where most magic is played (casual kitchen table)? Sure they’re not very disruptive to tournament play - that was never the issue.

Obviously the redirection rule was terrible, but why bother with the insane errata? Who cares if Lightning Bolt gets a little worse?

I see four ways they could have handled it.

1. Just don't let planeswalkers be hit by burn spells. This would have the effect of making planeswalkers significantly harder to deal with. They're already powerful now, and removing that vulnerability would make them even more powerful.

2. The redirection rule. This is what we have now, but the problem is that it's a kludge and interacts strangely with prevention/replacement effects as well as things that care what's being targeted.

3. Errata. What they're going to do. It might be best in the long run, when new cards outnumber old and they've reprinted enough relevant old cards with updated texts, but for now, it's going to be a pain to deal with the old cards.

4. No errata, but start letting burn spells hit planeswalkers going forward. This would mean that planeswalkers lose that vulnerability until they've printed enough replacement cards. It would also mean that those hundreds of cards would no longer be eligible for reprinting, and any replacements would need to find new names.

They all have their drawbacks.

From the way it is worded, sounds like there will be errata for older cards. And considering where they are going with MTG's standard with more focus on permanents this seems like a way to make this happen.

I will have to say though if this new rule hit every card in modern it would send shock waves through it. Maybe ugly, but relevant errata seems the best way...

It's one less rule to remember (the redirection one), which is probably the reason they decided to go ahead. Kind of like what they did with planeswalker uniqueness, where now a single rule (legendary permanents) covers what was previously handled by two rules.

@thatmarkguy: at the kitchen table, you will already have the chore of explaining the fact that planeswalkers are now legendary, this will be just another part of that explanation. Incidentally, do many beginners use planeswalkers around kitchen tables?

I don't know how many do, but I can remember being a newer player myself trying out the game with Duals of the Planeswalkers 2013 and wanting to try the planeswalker cards. It's something that will come up.

Ah yes, the duel decks (or whatever that thing with two preconstructed decks is called now) have planeswalkers in them. Well, at least those cards will be printed with the new wording/rules.

This was a change that needed to happen for a while now, but WotC just didn't want to for whatever reason.

A little under half of the Duel Deck series are based around a pair of planeswalkers (most recent PW-based duel deck was Nissa vs Ob Nixilis). But every expansion now sells two Planeswalker Decks (separately) that now replace the former "Intro Deck" product line. They are very much designed for casual players (because those versions of the PWs are deliberately designed not to be constructed competitive). It is a lot to explain when there is likely to be a multiple-hundred-card-long list of cards that can target planeswalkers now, and an equally long list that can't... meaning that for each old card people bring to the table you might have to look up the current oracle wording "Can this target planeswalkers now? Yeah, it can. Can this? Nope, this one can't."

Well any old card that could target players would get errata to target planeswalkers. People just need to learn which sets are before 2018.

It's not that simple. For cards like Lightning Bolt, just adding "or planeswalker" would be enough, but there are a lot of edge cases to consider. Some cards have additional effects, like Blightning, so they could either make that part do nothing if it's targeting a planeswalker or make it affect the planesawlker's controller. We don't know which, yet. Then there are things that require information about the targeted player, like Runeflare Trap. Maybe these won't be able to target planeswalkers at all, or maybe they'll use information about the planeswalker's controller. (And, of course, anything that doesn't involve damage at all still wouldn't be able to target planeswalkers.)

Then there are the various non-targeted source of damage. Spells and abilities could deal damage to each player/opponent, or to the defending player, or to the controller of something, or to the player that caused an ability to trigger. Right now, any of those can be redirected to a planeswalker. My guess is that they'll just lose that functionality, but they could surprise me and issue some sort of errata to some of those.

On the other hand, I don't think players will need to know when a card was printed. If they do make a sweeping change like "all burn that could target players can also target planeswalkers", then they'll also apply that moving forward. In other words, in that situation, if it says it can target planeswalkers, it can, and if it doesn't say it can target planeswalkers (but can target players), it still can, no matter when the card was printed.

Yeah, it's not as simple as "Everything that can target players...". Lifted from my post in MTGS:

Planeswalkers don’t have hands or libraries or graveyards or life total, don’t have a next turn, can’t control permanents... all these things have been safe to assume in design for all cards that could target players to date. It’s why I asked the question above about Blightning. Same for Anathemancer, Flames of the Blood Hand, Hit // Run, Friendly Fire...


There are so many ways that this answer raises more questions that it would result in just as much errata to clarify these things.

More fun:
Quenchable Fire (a planeswalker can't pay mana!)
Skullscorch

Would you intend life loss to translate to loyalty loss, or just have life loss be something a planeswalker-target could not do/pay? Remorseless Punishment?

There's no reason to think life loss cards have any relevancy here. Any errata will certainly be limited to damage-dealing cards.

I'm also confident they won't word cards in such a way that they try to make a planeswalker do the impossible. They'll either use "that player or that planeswalker's controller" wording (like Chain of Plasma) or just leave that card unable to target planeswalkers. Or, I suppose, they could just use "that player" wording, with the implication that you ignore that if there is no targeted player (like Carbonize), though I deem that solution least likely.

I'm not so sure. The damage redirection rule was a kludge that, at the time, they couldn't make work on lifeloss. But now that the kludge is going away, they have to ask whether there's a thematic reason why Lava Spike is something a planeswalker should be afraid of but Bump in the Night isn't (when to you, also a planeswalker, they wind up being very-close-to-equivalent). Without the damage redirection rule, they're more and more establishing "These are distinct planeswalkers, just like you, the player!" - and with that distinction, there's no real thematic reason to make targetable lifeloss any different than targetable damage as things that can affect a planeswalker's loyalty.

Maybe they won't, but it wouldn't surprise me at all. There's a lot of questions here about whether they plan to do the bare-minimum to make the rules work, or actually plan to make changes that make thematic sense now that they're no longer shackled to the redirection rule.

The damage to planeswalkers is handled entirely by this rule (which is duplicated as 306.7):


In order for burn spells to work with them, there's also this kludgy one:


So with the upcoming errata, the only rules change they'll need to make is to get rid of that 306.7. The result is then entirely kludge-free. They're permanents, they can be dealt damage, and that damage has consequences.

What you're proposing, however, is a very much a kludge: they don't have life total, but you can still make them life, but this doesn't actually cause them to lose life (they don't have any) and instead removes loyalty counters. There's no way that's happening.

So answer the thematic question, then.


If you, as a planeswalker, are usually equally affected by Lava Spike and by Bump in the Night ...

Why wouldn't the planeswalker you have working with you not be usually equally affected by Lava Spike and Bump in the Night?


The answer before was "Because the stupid rule we added to make old cards work with the new card type didn't support it". But they're abolishing that rule now.