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WalkingIsStillHonest wrote:

What's sad is that even if they decided it was a bad idea there's no going back now that the rules books are printed already (more than likely).

That'd be great if it weren't for the fact that Wizards hasn't printed a rulebook in years. The Tenth Edition "book" was a sheet that was impossible to comprehend, but looked really neat. The only way to get a basic rulebook is to navigate through an impossible to comprehend but really neat-looking website and download it.

Incidentally, that rulebook says that damage goes on the stack right on it. The Tenth Edition rules sheet doesn't even MENTION the stack. Anywhere.

Other fun tidbits about the Tenth Edition starters:

1. It comes with two boosters. That's it. You and your friend open those two boosters and pick all of the cards of whatever two colors you think look cool. Then you build two tiny decks and slam them into each other using incomplete basic rules, while Wizards hopes that this is so unimaginably cool to you that you rush out and buy enough packs to build A LEGAL DECK.

2. There is no discussion whatsoever about proper steps or phases. Remember the old Fives rule? Five colors, five phases, combat has five steps? Nope. The steps in Tenth Edition are Untap, Draw, Main, Combat, Main, End. Looks like six to me.

3. Says of instants: You can play these at "almost any time", but doesn't say when you CAN'T play them.

...you know what? Looking at this rules sheet is giving me a headache, and I know how to play the game already. From a graphic design perspective, it's messy and has no coherence or flow. From a rules perspective, it's incredibly vague and not even teaching the game correctly. From an efficiency perspective, they wasted half a 22"x34" poster side with a giant friggin' color wheel. It explains what, in a rulebook, takes a couple of paragraphs.

Honestly, WotC shot themselves in the foot on Tenth Edition, and rather than addressing what is actually wrong with their rules exposure, they're just changing the rules.

Hire competent writers and layout artists. If you teach people the rules to begin with, you don't have to change them later because people didn't learn the right way.

I can't say I love the revised combat damage system. Is it too late to go back?

The stack based damage system was elegant and easy to understand 99% of the time.

The blocking system now seems overly complex for no gain and is not intuitive.

So what's actually changed? With no damage on the stack, you have to use damage replacement/prevention effects in the declare blockers phase?

And you can't bounce creatures if you still want their damage to be assigned?

So not only are the rules less intuitive, because everything used the stack before, but combat tricks have been weakened?

I for one, for the first time in ten years of playing Magic, will kindly ask during casual play to use the old combat damage and blocking rules because I find the new rules confusing and annoying.

silasw wrote:

Think of the old rules as a stick-shift, and the new rules as an automatic transmission. You could probably figure out how to drive an automatic just by watching somebody, but you won't be able to drive a stick-shift unless it's explained to you.

Likewise, the "rules of a test" should be intuitive. If there are answers labeled a, b, c, and d, for example, you would expect to have to choose one. An unintuitive test would mean for you to choose two of them. Of course, if you get it all wrong because of that, it's your fault for not asking the teacher what to do, right?


I'm not a fan of the new double-blocking rules, but luckily they work as people expect most of the time. Deathtouch is explained in reminder text now, so it's not too bad. What's the problem with first strike and double strike?

By your statement, most of my state-based exams would somehow now be 'unintuitive.' The stick-shift/automatic analogy isn't bad; I see where you're coming from, but I do disagree that the new rules are automatic. It feels like the reverse in my opinion simply because of the exceptions (not to mention the conga line block and damage-assignment system, which people will be confused about now; 'Wait, it has protection, I still have to deal it full damage?!')

My gripe with FS/DS is that both allow for a second 'chance to respond (priority pass) after their damage dealing round. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me since this is, in a way, 'stacking combat damage' without putting it on the stack. Instead of using the stack as a unified way of combat damage, spells, and abilities (I personally would argue that stuff like burn is really 'damage' in a spell form and therefore, not different from combat damage), FS/DS and normal double-block'd combat damage 'stacks' in a somewhat unnatural way; by phases (or, in the latter case, by order of blockers).

Removing combat damage from the stack also brings up the analogous example new kids are going to ask a lot. You ping with my Prodigal Sorcerer; in response, I burn it down. 'But why do I still take the 1? It's out of play now! Just like combat damage!'

I fear that for a new player, the distinction between combat damage, spells that cause damage, and abilities that deal damage is going to get warped due to combat damage being, admittedly, a major part of the game. It would be more confusing to learn combat damage doesn't use the stack and THEN realize that other forms do (again, we're going with 'ability/spell is analogous and equivalent to the damage it would deal' sort of understanding, which makes sense) instead of first learning the stack and then seeing combat damage on the stack as an example.

Scaffolding, if you will. If WotC wants to make the game 'easier' to teach, then I'd expect one of them to have an education major in their R&D. Scaffolding combat damage on stack into an understanding of the stack is a better teaching method than scaffolding the stack onto combat damage that doesn't use the stack. For a good portion of kids (and teachers who will teach the rules), these new rule changes are unintuitive and make it harder to teach.

And of course, scaffolding combat damage that doesn't use the stack from the stack brings up 'why is combat damage an exception?'

MichaelJHuman wrote:

So not only are the rules less intuitive, because everything used the stack before, but combat tricks have been weakened?

I've heard good and bad things about what will happen to combat tricks. I personally think that the new system where you don't have perfect information about your opponent's intentions at the time you must make your decision has a certain appeal.

You can no longer wait to see whether or not your opponent is going to deal exactly 4 damage to your 4/4 creature when you decide whether or not to give him +1/+1 for instance. One camp of players has decided that this makes pump effects useless, because they can't be played after the commitment has been made. This is one of the few points where I'm getting increasingly skeptical (Zvi Mo...whatsisname had some convincing arguments), because I haven't yet figured out where Giant Growth will fit in the new system. But I think that the possibilities are still open, and in a few months the pro players will shed some new "conventional wisdom" on the game.