Rules-Suggestion

Hi,

For a while I've been pondering some possible changes to the
MTG rule system. When Mark Gottliebs article on the time spiral
rules changes appeared on www.wizards.com I composed a mail
to him but got no answer. As there was also a possible outage of our
providers mail server around that time I don't know whether he
got it. So I'm posting it here to maybe get some feedback on it :

1. Make Arcane and Artifact into supertypes. Arcane because that allows
it to be shared among types, which being a subtype normally wouldn't
allow. Artifact because that removes the only double type on cards as
printed (which theoretically allows odd things like Artifact Creature -
Equipment Human) and because it too is shared by different types
(creature and non-creature Artifacts). The new type name "Object" is
only provisional

2. Make all Instants into Sorceries with flash. Mostly eliminates the
need to refer to "instants or sorceries", which happens a lot. Also
allows point 3. With Vedalken Orrery (as mentioned in the article) I
think a "as if they had flash" instead of "have flash" might solve
unwanted interaction problems like the "as if it had flying" does for
the spiders. And frankly "Instant" was always an odd term for a spell
type compared to sorcery (what sorcerers do) and enchantment (what
enchanters do) as it is referring to timing instead.

3. Move the speed rules (instants/sorceries) under the flash/nonflash
rules and make instants and instant speed abilities refer to them
instead of the other way round. Wordings like "play anytime you could
play an instant/sorcery" are vulnerable to the various cards that
change when those can be played (orrery,dosan,orim's chant, etc.). By
turning this around I think those confusions would no longer arise.
Nothing would ever change the definition of flash itself.

4. Optionally make (Kamigawa) Spirits into Arcane Creatures. This would
allow to replace all the "Spirit or Arcane spell" references with just
"Arcane spell". It would also allow to have nonarcane Spirits, as well
as non-Spirit Arcane creatures. The Kamigawa designers were probably
not happy to have to create an entire world (Reikai) with just one
tribe. One can also think of making some noncreature arcane permanents.
For example "That which was taken" should be arcane.

5. I'm uncertain whether the supertype Artifact might be renamed to
"artificial" (or something in that vein) to go along with "legendary",
which is an adjective. So are "arcane" and "basic". World is rare, but
maybe a solution could be found here too. Biggest problem I see is with
snow, which isn't an adjective. The phrase "If it is <supertype>"
doesn't work with world or artifact, and not really with snow. Also
Artifact as supertype allows "Object - Equipment", i.e. a nonartifact
equipment, because supertypes are optional. This might be a good or a
bad thing.

6. Replace all references to Snow-Covered <Land> with Basic Snow
<Land>. Eliminates the exceptional case of referring to and changing
part of a permanents name as if it was a type. Of course this creates
(a few?) new effects with the coldsnap cards that can give any
permanent the supertype Snow as they would almost duplicate Arcums
Weathervane. But given the changes the +1/-1 counter rule change
brought to say Giant Oyster that might be acceptable.

Supertypes
----------------
Basic
Snow
Arcane
Artifact (artificial)
Legendary
World

Types + Subtypes
----------------
Land
Forest, Island, Mountain, Plains, Swamp, Desert, Lair, Locus, Urza's,
Mine, Power-Plant, Tower Enchantment
Aura, Shrine
Creature
Human, Wizard, Construct, ...
Object
Equipment
Sorcery
none

Abilities
----------------
flash

Speed rules
----------------
flash
Anytime the player has priority.
nonflash
During one of the players (turns) main phases, when that player has
priority and the stack is empty.
Abilities
Can be played as if they had flash. (or) Have flash. (or) Can be
played at flash speed.
Mana Abilities
Flash plus anytime a player is asked to pay mana.
Lands
Nonflash, but doesn't use the stack.
Morph
Flash, but doesn't use the the stack.
----------------------------------------------

* Instants/Sorceries *
Old : Instant/s or Sorcery/ies
New : Sorcery/ies

Old : Instants
New : Sorceries with flash

Old : Sorceries
New : Sorceries without flash

Old : ... any time you could play an instant.
New : ... as if they had flash.

Old : ... only any time you could play a sorcery.
New : Can be played only at nonflash speed.
(or) ... as if they did not have flash.
(or) ... does not have flash.

* Abeyance *
Old : ... can't play instants, sorceries, or activated abilities that
aren't mana abilities ...
New : ... can't play sorceries or non-mana abilities ...
(assumption : non-activated abilities cannot be played anyway)

* Arcane *
Old : Spirit or Arcane spell
New : Arcane spell

Old : Splice onto Arcane X
New : Splice onto Arcane Sorcery X

Old : Creature - Spirit
New : Arcane Creature - any type(s)

* Baku Altar *
Old : ... 1/1 colorless Spirit creature token ...
New : ... arcane 1/1 colorless Spirit creature token ...

* That Which Was Taken *
Old : Legendary Artifact
New : [Arcane] Legendary Artifact/Artificial Object

* Vedalken Orrery/Quicken *
Old : You may play nonland cards any time you could play an instant.
New : You may play nonland cards as if they had flash.

* Isochron Scepter *
Old : ... instant card with converted mana cost 2 or less in your hand
....
New : ... sorcery card with flash and converted mana cost 2 or less in
your hand ...

* Artifact *
Old : noncreature artifact
New : artifact/artificial Object

Old : ... target artifact or enchantment ...
New : ... target artifact/artificial permanent or enchantment ...

* Mycosynth Lattice *
Old : All permanents are artifacts in addition to their other types.
New : All permanents are Artifacts/artificial.

regards,

Racer

frieder.schenke RemoveThis @debitel.net sent:
> Hi,

> For a while I've been pondering some possible changes to the
> MTG rule system. When Mark Gottliebs article on the time spiral
> rules changes appeared on www.wizards.com I composed a mail
> to him but got no answer. As there was also a possible outage of our
> providers mail server around that time I don't know whether he
> got it. So I'm posting it here to maybe get some feedback on it :

He probably got it, likely read it, almost definitely won't have time
to reply individually. That's why there are NetReps I'll start by
saying that I like what you've done here. You've identified some
issues that seem not to mesh well together, you've come up with some
suggestions, and you've made some appraisal of how they work together.
I'll add some appraisal to each entry:

> 1. Make Arcane and Artifact into supertypes. Arcane because that allows
> it to be shared among types, which being a subtype normally wouldn't
> allow. Artifact because that removes the only double type on cards as
> printed (which theoretically allows odd things like Artifact Creature -
> Equipment Human) and because it too is shared by different types
> (creature and non-creature Artifacts). The new type name "Object" is
> only provisional

Arcane: possibly, and it would eliminate the poorly-named class called
"spell types" (as though instants and sorceries are the only cards that
are played as spells.)

Artifact: interesting idea, but I suspect it's too much of a change
to allow. Note that currently, an equipment that's also a creature
can't equip anything, so allowing that combination on the card itself
isn't any real incentive. The name 'Object' would have to change, as
it's a term used in the rules. Plus, they've already extended the
range of double types with Artifact Land, who's to say that there
won't be a need for Creature Land soon?

> 2. Make all Instants into Sorceries with flash. Mostly eliminates the
> need to refer to "instants or sorceries", which happens a lot. Also
> allows point 3. With Vedalken Orrery (as mentioned in the article) I
> think a "as if they had flash" instead of "have flash" might solve
> unwanted interaction problems like the "as if it had flying" does for
> the spiders. And frankly "Instant" was always an odd term for a spell
> type compared to sorcery (what sorcerers do) and enchantment (what
> enchanters do) as it is referring to timing instead.

This type of change is dangerous. You're moving something from the
type line into the card's abilities. This changes the way the card
interacts with things that modify how that ability works, or that
grant or remove abilities. The rules governing exactly how abilities
are granted and removed are already complex, and the subject of most
of the philosophical debates that go on behind the scenes. I don't
see that changing things in this way will make these rules any easier
to get right, at least not at the moment.

> 3. Move the speed rules (instants/sorceries) under the flash/nonflash
> rules and make instants and instant speed abilities refer to them
> instead of the other way round. Wordings like "play anytime you could
> play an instant/sorcery" are vulnerable to the various cards that
> change when those can be played (orrery,dosan,orim's chant, etc.). By
> turning this around I think those confusions would no longer arise.
> Nothing would ever change the definition of flash itself.

Quite aside from the issue to do with abilities and adding/removing
them, the issue of the mass errata this would need is probably the main
objection. It goes as far as most of the discard abilities, the ones
that use "Play this ability only any time you could play a sorcery". I
admit that this wording isn't the best it could be, and if there's a
slightly better way of referring to the way the timing works I'd be
happy to see that, but I doubt that a wholesale removal of relationship
between card type and play constraint will go down well.

> 4. Optionally make (Kamigawa) Spirits into Arcane Creatures. This would
> allow to replace all the "Spirit or Arcane spell" references with just
> "Arcane spell". It would also allow to have nonarcane Spirits, as well
> as non-Spirit Arcane creatures. The Kamigawa designers were probably
> not happy to have to create an entire world (Reikai) with just one
> tribe. One can also think of making some noncreature arcane permanents.
> For example "That which was taken" should be arcane.

This is a neat idea in isolation. However, one stated goal from Mark
Rosewater is this concept of inter-block design. While each block
should have its own identity and keywords and mechanics, there need to
be enough ways for the adjacent blocks to work together. This was
accomplished in part by including Spirit creatures in Ravnica block to
tie in with the Kamigawa Spiritcraft concept, though I'm led to believe
this hasn't surfaced in decks as much as was hoped. I don't see that
they would want to undo even this tenuous link by excluding the
non-arcane Spirits from the Ravnica block from arcane interactions.

> 5. I'm uncertain whether the supertype Artifact might be renamed to
> "artificial" (or something in that vein) to go along with "legendary",
> which is an adjective. So are "arcane" and "basic". World is rare, but
> maybe a solution could be found here too. Biggest problem I see is with
> snow, which isn't an adjective. The phrase "If it is <supertype>"
> doesn't work with world or artifact, and not really with snow. Also
> Artifact as supertype allows "Object - Equipment", i.e. a nonartifact
> equipment, because supertypes are optional. This might be a good or a
> bad thing.

Supertypes do want to be adjectives, yes - I actually think of 'snow'
as an adjectival noun when it's used as a supertype. Nonartifact
equipment doesn't seem to make sense, from a flavour standpoint.

> 6. Replace all references to Snow-Covered <Land> with Basic Snow
> <Land>. Eliminates the exceptional case of referring to and changing
> part of a permanents name as if it was a type. Of course this creates
> (a few?) new effects with the coldsnap cards that can give any
> permanent the supertype Snow as they would almost duplicate Arcums
> Weathervane. But given the changes the +1/-1 counter rule change
> brought to say Giant Oyster that might be acceptable.

Not sure what you're getting at here. All of the cards that referred
to Snow-Covered now refer to Snow instead in their Oracle text. The
only card that didn't get changed was Old Fogey, but that's off in
silver-border land and those cards tend not to be messed with. If
you still think there's something to be done here, could you give a
specific example of the change you'd make?

Overall, I agree with a lot of the underlying issues that you've
raised, that they could have been handled better. Maybe in each
case the design team would have done it differently, in hindsight.
In general, though, the pain of mass errata prevents this type of
thing from being corrected. All we can really do is learn from
the issues that are raised.

--
-- Zoe Stephenson, NetRep rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules
Group FAQ: http://www.boondock.org.uk/~zoe/mtgrules/ --
--