All your stuff just looks like you're repeating yourself. >_>
We're errataing Time Vault We're errataing Time Vault We're errataing Time Vault We're errataing Time Vault We're errataing Time Vault We're errataing Time Vault We're errataing Time Vault We're errataing Time Vault We're errataing Time Vault We're errataing Time Vault
Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision.
We're errataing Time Vault We're errataing Time Vault We're errataing Time Vault We're errataing Time Vault We're errataing Time Vault We're errataing Time Vault We're errataing Time Vault We're errataing Time Vault We're errataing Time Vault We're errataing Time Vault
Hm, looks like we're stuck in a causality loop. That kind of thing happens when you mess with temporal technology. It'll take some work to get this untangled. Time to call in an expert.
Time Vault The big one. Although its wording is superficially similar to Mana Vault, it's intended to work quite differently. If you decide to untap Time Vault during your untap step, you're supposed to skip that turn. The one you already started. Well, that doesn't work so well. There's sort of a rule that says you can't skip a turn you've already started. Not to mention all the other permanents that you didn't untap during the untap step in which you untapped Time Vault. But we know what it's supposed to do. It's supposed to let you funnel a turn into the Vault, which untaps it and saves that turn for later. How can we pull this off?
New Oracle text: Time Vault comes into play tapped. Time Vault doesn't untap during your untap step. If you would begin your turn while Time Vault is tapped, you may skip that turn instead. If you do, untap Time Vault. {oT}: Take an extra turn after this one.
This is... weird. Unprecedented. Scary. If I were the Rules Manager, I wouldn't let this go out the door. Hold on, I'm being informed that I am the Rules Manager. What I meant to say was that if I were sane, I wouldn't let this go out the door. Lucky for all of us, sanity is not an ailment that I suffer from. So we're going to give this a shot. This ability is getting a rule written specifically to support it: the untap is considered to be the first thing that happens during the next step that actually takes place (in case any triggered abilities or state-based effects care).
Fasting Let's look back to the printed wording. Here it is: "You may choose to skip your draw phase; if you do so, you gain 2 life. If you draw a card for any reason, Fasting is destroyed. During your upkeep, put a hunger counter on Fasting. When Fasting has five hunger counters on it, it is destroyed."
The printed wording said "destroy." The Oracle wording says "sacrifice." We can change it back. Also, the new Time Vault technology can get us closer to the original timing intent.
New Oracle text: At the beginning of your upkeep, put a hunger counter on Fasting. Then destroy Fasting if it has five or more hunger counters on it. If you would begin your draw step, you may skip that step instead. If you do, you gain 2 life. When you draw a card, destroy Fasting.
Serra Avatar This card was printed with a triggered ability: "When Serra Avatar is put into a graveyard, shuffle Serra Avatar into owner's library." It currently has a replacement ability in Oracle: "If Serra Avatar would be put into a graveyard from anywhere, reveal Serra Avatar, then shuffle it into its owner's library instead." Why the switch? Because the replacement comes closest to matching the original functionality of the card. Under the rules system in place at the time Serra Avatar was printed, you couldn't respond to the triggered ability by playing another spell or ability that would remove Serra Avatar from the game or return it to play before it got shuffled in.
This is yet another case where original functionality faces off against printed wording. What's more important: preserving the way the card originally worked, or allowing the card to work as you'd expect if you simply picked it up and read it? It's a judgment call. In some cases (such as Lake of the Dead, Master of Arms, and Armor of Thorns), we place a premium on the original functionality because they'd be too overpowered, too underpowered, or too confusing if they worked as printed. In other cases, the printed wording works fine under the modern system and we're OK with letting the current rules gently sway how the cards work. We've decided that Serra Avatar falls into the latter category.
New Oracle text: Serra Avatar's power and toughness are each equal to your life total. When Serra Avatar is put into a graveyard from anywhere, shuffle it into its owner's library.
Goblin Welder Its current Oracle wording erroneously uses "the other artifact" to refer to an artifact card in a graveyard. Also, this card is trying to mimic an exchange, since its printed wording said to exchange a permanent with a card in a graveyard. This card won't be reverting to its printed wording, since an exchange shouldn't cause a permanent to go to the graveyard—it's not a sacrifice, it's not a destroy effect, and it's not a state-based effect. However, it may be able to get closer. Exchanges are simultaneous... so let's try that.
New Oracle text: {oT}: Choose target artifact a player controls and target artifact card in that player's graveyard. If both targets are still legal as this ability resolves, that player simultaneously sacrifices the artifact and returns the artifact card to play.
Cauldron Dance I believe this is the only card that tells you to "put" a permanent into a graveyard. As discussed above, this is highly unorthodox. It's being changed to a sacrifice instead.
New Oracle text: Play Cauldron Dance only during combat. Return target creature card from your graveyard to play. That creature gains haste. Return it to your hand at end of turn. You may put a creature card from your hand into play. That creature gains haste. Its controller sacrifices it at end of turn.
Disharmony This card's printed wording says "This creature is no longer considered to have attacked." That strongly implies that the creature should be removed from combat as part of the effect. If you target another player's creature, it's naturally removed from combat as part of the control-change effect. But if you target your own creature, Disharmony merely untaps it—it's still attacking! That needs to be fixed.
New Oracle text: Play Disharmony only during combat before blockers are declared. Untap target attacking creature and remove it from combat. Gain control of that creature until end of turn.
Aurification As printed, this card turned creatures into Walls, which rendered them unable to attack. Currently, it grants creatures defender, which renders them unable to attack. But there's no reason it can't also turn them into Walls, since that's what the card says it does.
New Oracle text: Whenever a creature deals damage to you, put a gold counter on it. Each creature with a gold counter on it is a Wall in addition to its other creature types and has defender. (Those creatures can't attack.) When Aurification leaves play, remove all gold counters from all creatures.
Freyalise's Winds The printed wording of this card is "Whenever a permanent becomes tapped, put a wind counter on it. Permanents with any wind counters on them do not untap during their controller's untap phase; instead, remove all wind counters from those permanents." There are no line breaks... but Ice Age cards were real fuzzy with the line breaks. Because the second sentence references "permanents with any wind counters on them" (rather than referencing "that permanent" or the like), I think it's clear that the second sentence is a separate ability from the first sentence. Therefore, I don't think this card is supposed to grant abilities to permanents (as its current Oracle wording does); rather, I think this card is supposed to have the exact same wording as Temporal Distortion! (See the Nonfunctional Errata section for a minor update to Temporal Distortion's wording.)
New Oracle text: Whenever a permanent becomes tapped, put a wind counter on it. Permanents with wind counters on them don't untap during their controllers' untap steps. At the beginning of each player's upkeep, remove all wind counters from permanents that player controls.
Knowledge Vault This card picked up an inexplicable "at end of turn" on its leaves-play ability that I tried to remove in the last Oracle update. It turns out that the addition was quite explicable: Without that addition, the card didn't work! Removing that text meant that sacrificing Knowledge Vault would cause the leaves-play trigger to put all the removed cards into the graveyard before the activated ability could put them into your hand.
I still don't like that "at end of turn," though, so I'm trying a different approach. Now, the sacrifice ability costs 0 Mana, and you don't sacrifice Knowledge Vault until it resolves. However, that ability gives you the cards only if you actually sacrifice Knowledge Vault this way. You can't activate the ability, somehow return it to your hand (or otherwise make it leave play), and expect to get the cards. Also, if you activate the ability and someone tries to destroy Knowledge Vault in response (thus preventing you from being able to sacrifice it when the ability resolves), you can just activate the ability again in response. It costs 0 Mana! It's not exactly the same as intended, but it's really close—and, I believe, is closer than adding a delayed trigger to the other ability.
New Oracle text: {o2}, {oT}: Remove the top card of your library from the game face down. {o0}: Sacrifice Knowledge Vault. If you do, discard your hand, then put all cards removed from the game with Knowledge Vault into their owner's hand. When Knowledge Vault leaves play, put all cards removed from the game with Knowledge Vault into their owner's graveyard.
Triassic Egg As originally printed in the Legends set, Triassic Egg didn't name what kind of counters to put on it. This was corrected when it was reprinted in Chronicles set; the card now instructed you to put hatchling counters on it. Somewhere along the way, this was changed in Oracle. The Oracle wording tells you to use incubation counters. These are pretty arbitrary names—no other card uses either hatchling counters or incubation counters—so I see no reason for the card not to match its printed functionality.
New Oracle text: {o3}, {oT}: Put a hatchling counter on Triassic Egg. Remove two hatchling counters from Triassic Egg, Sacrifice Triassic Egg: You may put a creature card from your hand or graveyard into play.
Hunting Pack In the creature type update, we changed this card so it produces Cat Beast tokens, because the art shows a Cat Beast and there are other Cat Beasts in Onslaught block (Krosan Vorine, Chartooth Cougar). But that was an unnecessary change. Hunting Pack itself doesn't stay in play, so its art doesn't need to be rigidly followed with regard to the creature type. This'll go back to producing Beast tokens, which is what the printed card says.
New Oracle text: Put a 4/4 green Beast creature token into play. Storm (When you play this spell, copy it for each spell played before it this turn.)
Remove Enchantments The printed card is bizarre, complex, and printed in tiny type. The Oracle wording is reasonably short, and quite simple. What's the secret? The Oracle wording ignores or changes half of what the card is supposed to do!
This is the result of the printed wording:
* Enchantments you both own and control are put into your hand. * Auras that you own but don't control, and that are attached to permanents you control, are put into your hand. * Auras that you own but don't control, and that are attached to attacking creatures your opponents control, are put into your hand. * Auras that you don't own, but that are attached to permanents you control, are destroyed. * Auras that you don't own, but that are attached to attacking creatures your opponents control, are destroyed. * Enchantments you don't own but do control, and that haven't been covered by the last two bullet points, are destroyed.
This is the result of the Oracle wording:
* Enchantments you both own and control are put into your hand. (Check!) * Auras that you own but don't control, and that are attached to permanents you control, are destroyed. (Wait, what? They're supposed to be returned to your hand!) * Auras that you own but don't control, and that are attached to attacking creatures you don't control, are destroyed. (Again, this should return them to your hand, and it shouldn't affect Auras attached to your teammate's attacking creatures.) * Auras that you don't own, but that are attached to permanents you control, are destroyed. (Check!) * Auras that you don't own, and that are attached to attacking creatures you don't control, are destroyed. (Not quite—this shouldn't affect Auras attached to your teammate's attacking creatures.) * Enchantments you don't own but do control, and that haven't been covered by the last two bullet points, are not affected. (And these are supposed to be destroyed.)
New Oracle text: Return to your hand all enchantments you both own and control, all Auras you own attached to permanents you control, and all Auras you own attached to attacking creatures your opponents control. Then destroy all other enchantments you control, all other Auras attached to permanents you control, and all other Auras attached to attacking creatures your opponents control.
Cyclopean Tomb In the last update, Cyclopean Tomb got a new wording that allowed it to obey the rule that states that counters of the same name are indistinguishable. But it still had a problem. Once it leaves play, the upkeep triggers stick around forever. Say I play Cyclopean Tomb, put a mire counter on a land, then that Tomb is destroyed. During my next upkeep, I remove a mire counter from that land, so it's no longer a Swamp. Later, I play a different Cyclopean Tomb and put a mire counter on the same land (since it's hard to keep track of which land is which). During my next upkeep, the first Tomb's eternal triggered ability removes a mire counter from that land! Bad times. So this card is getting a tweak to its new wording. It's pretty brutal to read, but the upshot is that the card basically does what it says it does.
New Oracle text: {o2}, {oT}: Put a mire counter on target non-Swamp land. That land is a Swamp as long as it has a mire counter on it. Play this ability only during your upkeep. When Cyclopean Tomb is put into a graveyard from play, at the beginning of each of your upkeeps for the rest of the game, remove all mire counters from a land that a mire counter was put onto with Cyclopean Tomb but that a mire counter has not been removed from with Cyclopean Tomb.
Apocalypse Chime, City in a Bottle, Golgothian Sylex There are two issues with this trio.
1. If a card's printed wording uses "cards" as a way to refer to permanents, we interpret that today as "nontoken permanents." (Tokens aren't cards.)
2. City in a Bottle interprets the printed wording "discarded from play" as "sacrificed by its controller." Golgothian Sylex interprets the same printed wording as "destroy." The Sylex is being changed to match City in a Bottle's interpretation.
Apocalypse Chime's new Oracle text: {o2}, {oT}: Sacrifice Apocalypse Chime: Destroy all nontoken permanents from the Homelands expansion. They can't be regenerated.
City in a Bottle's new Oracle text: Whenever a nontoken permanent from the Arabian Nights expansion other than City in a Bottle is in play, its controller sacrifices it. Players can't play cards from the Arabian Nights expansion.
Golgothian Sylex's new Oracle text: {o1}, {oT}: Each nontoken permanent from the Antiquities expansion is sacrificed by its controller.
Just a random question for anyone familiar with the 1993-1995 era Magic rulings: How did Time Vault interact with Stasis back then? Would it only have been allowed to untap by eating a turn that was actually supposed to start off with an untap phase?
Also: Now if you can somehow stick your opponent with a Knowledge Vault against Mindslaver and Burning-Tree Shaman, you get unlimited damage to the dome. Pretty sure you couldn't do that back in 1994, mostly because those other two cards didn't even exist then, but I'm sure Mindslaver's not complaining that it can do even more fun things from the confines of its jar. Really, who's going to argue against Mindslaver?
Fasting Let's look back to the printed wording. Here it is: "You may choose to skip your draw phase; if you do so, you gain 2 life. If you draw a card for any reason, Fasting is destroyed. During your upkeep, put a hunger counter on Fasting. When Fasting has five hunger counters on it, it is destroyed."
The printed wording said "destroy." The Oracle wording says "sacrifice." We can change it back. Also, the new Time Vault technology can get us closer to the original timing intent.
New Oracle text: At the beginning of your upkeep, put a hunger counter on Fasting. Then destroy Fasting if it has five or more hunger counters on it. If you would begin your draw step, you may skip that step instead. If you do, you gain 2 life. When you draw a card, destroy Fasting.
Wait a minute! What "intent"? I'm gonna be persnickity, because this has come up before: Old printed text referring to "destroy" has been changed to "sacrifice" when it comes to dropping something you own for reasons of not meeting costs, timing, etc. You sac it, as a representation of its dying (or something). "Destroy" effects are directly related to damage/destruction and are usually printed with "target" or "all" right next to them, to reference a directed removal condition. Herein, there is a little quirk:
Fasting + Opalescence + Lifelace targetting Fasting + Shield of the Oversoul attached to Fasting. "When" in this case happens, the Shield stops it, and Fasting sticks around. Meanwhile, you get a little 2/2 indestructible chump blocker that gains you 2 every turn. And you don't have to skip your draws anymore! Let's not forget regenerating permanents with Reknit or something. Is this intended? Because if it is, we can change all the other "sacrifice this" back to "destroy this" since that was the intent there, too.
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While we're at this: if Apocalypse Chime and Golgothian Sylex seem variously interpreted as "sacrifices all [blank]" and "destroy all [blank]" you're splitting hairs to make two different cards more identical to one another than to interpret them differently, as printed. Yes, the technology back then may have been to use that terminology to refer to a particular sequence of events or a particular action, but "sacrifice this" and "destroy that" are pretty explicit NOW, but clearly not then. Sure, it would make then functionally unique now, but having cards that destroy themselves (thus opening the door for regeneration and indestructible shenannigans, like Darksteel Forge + Mycosynth Lattice rather than the combo above) is just different. If we allow Fasting to "destroy" itself, then we can do this for other objects as well.
For some reason, one of my browsers shows the "Functional Oracle Changes" page (and only that page) (...)
I was able to reach the "Functional" page, too, about two hours ago. At the moment, all four links lead to the "Intro" page again. Weird.
On-topic:
September 2008 Update Bulletin]Freyalise's Winds The printed wording of this card is "Whenever a permanent becomes tapped, put a wind counter on it. Permanents with any wind counters on them do not untap during their controller's untap phase wrote:
Freyalise's Winds The printed wording of this card is "Whenever a permanent becomes tapped, put a wind counter on it. Permanents with any wind counters on them do not untap during their controller's untap phase; instead, remove all wind counters from those permanents." There are no line breaks... but Ice Age cards were real fuzzy with the line breaks. Because the second sentence references "permanents with any wind counters on them" (rather than referencing "that permanent" or the like), I think it's clear that the second sentence is a separate ability from the first sentence. Therefore, I don't think this card is supposed to grant abilities to permanents (as its current Oracle wording does); rather, I think this card is supposed to have the exact same wording as Temporal Distortion! (See the Nonfunctional Errata section for a minor update to Temporal Distortion's wording.)
New Oracle text: Whenever a permanent becomes tapped, put a wind counter on it. Permanents with wind counters on them don't untap during their controllers' untap steps. At the beginning of each player's upkeep, remove all wind counters from permanents that player controls.
I think the new wording is correct in that it doesn't grant abilities. But there is another problem: neither the actual Oracle wording nor the new wording are matching the card's intended functionality that I interpret from the printed wording. It says "Permanents ... don't untap during their controller's untap step; instead, remove all wind counters ...". Sounds like a replacement effect for me. With an upkeep trigger, it could be abused with Eon Hub, for example. So a better approach for the third ability could be:
If a permanent with a wind counter on it would untap during its controller's untap step, instead remove all wind counters from it.
Same goes for the third ability on Temporal Distortion, whatever the "minor update" on it is (the "Nonfunctional" page is still not showing up).
One after one, by the star-dogged Moon, Too quick for groan or sigh, Each turned his face with a ghastly pang, And cursed me with his eye.
-- Samuel T. Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
