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This is a thread about the functional rules changes; simple terminology changes won't be found here.

To find all the changes in more detail, including the terminology changes, go here and here.

This is for the people who keep having questions about the new rules. It started as a desire to summarize the combat rules, but after talking with a couple of people, a thread summarizing all the rules changes was decided to be the better idea. So, here they are:

Mulligans are simultaneous.

[indent]Although it's been done this way for a while, at least at lower-level events such as FNM, 'simultaneous mulligans' were actually not the way it was supposed to be done. First one player would take all his mulligans, then another would, so on and so forth. Now, the 'simultaneous mulligan' will be the official way to do it. Starting with the player who was chosen to go first, each player declares if he or she is going to mulligan. Then all players who chose to do so, do so. Any player who chooses not to do so cannot later choose to do so; any of the players who mulligan follow the same process, until no one mulligans. The game then begins.[/indent]

Mana Burn is gone.

[indent]Simple enough. Mana burn is no longer an issue. If you don't know what it is, don't worry; if you do, it doesn't apply any more as of July 11.[/indent]

Mana Pools empty at new times.

[indent]Now, instead of mana pools emptying at just the end of phases, they also empty at the end of each step. This won't have much impact on the game, but Mistblind Clique players and their opponents will be affected to a degree.[/indent]

Mana Floating requires telling the other players what you're floating.

[indent]Though a lot of people do it already out of courtesy, it's becoming the official policy: When you float mana, you must declare what's left when you pass priority or make a mana payment. That way your opponent can keep track of what you're doing more easily without getting lost if you move through the motions quickly.[/indent]

Lifelink changes in functionality.

[INDENT]Lifelink will no longer be cumulative, but it will now gain life automatically instead of as a triggered ability sometime after the damage is dealt. This means that being attacked by two 4/4s while at 4 life and you control a Brion Stoutarm with a Behemoth Sledge on it will result in you surviving the attack, unlike before, but only gaining 6 life, unlike before.

Older cards that were errata'd to have Lifelink will be reverting to their original wording; this means that they will continue to work as Lifelink works now: Multiples will result in more life being gained, but they won't save you from death if lethal damage gets through to you.

Lifelink still requires damage be dealt to result in any gain of life.[/INDENT]

Deathtouch changes in functionality.

[INDENT]Deathtouch stops being a triggered ability and becomes a static ability that results in death via a new statebased effect. To keep its functionality, creatures with deathtouch are exempt from the 'assign damage in order' rule mentioned later in this post. Deathtouch damage is not 'lethal damage' as far as the game is concerned, so it does not combo with trample to make a 3/3 Deathtoucher able to trample over a 5/5 blocker and assign 2 damage to the defending player. All 3 damage will still be assigned to the 5/5, barring other damage being on the 5/5 creature.

Older cards (what few there were) that were errata'd to have Deathtouch will revert to their original wording. This means that they won't have the special ability to assign damage as they see fit, but if a creature with the old trigger lethally damages a creature, that creature will have to regenerate twice, once for SBE destruction and once for the trigger.

Deathtouch still requires damage be dealt to kill the creature.[/INDENT]

Token ownership is changing.

[indent]Now, instead of being owned by the controller of the effect that put them onto the battlefield, the owner of a token is the player under whose control the token entered the battlefield.[/indent]

Functionality of the Wishes changes.

[indent]This is one change that goes hand-in-hand with a terminology change. The 'removed from the game' zone is becoming the 'Exiled' zone, and is no longer considered 'outside the game.' As such, the Wishes ( Burning Wish and its kind) can no longer retrieve a card from the newly-named 'Exiled' zone.[/indent]

The Layers are changing.

[indent]The old layer 5 is being broken into two layers: Layer 5 now catches color-changing effects, and the new Layer 6 catches ability-granting/removing effects. This changes the interaction of cards like Painter's Servant and cards that remove abilities. Also, previously, a non-green creature with Favor of the Overbeing would gain Vigilance after being hit by Snakeform because of dependency; with the new rules, that won't be the case.

The old Layer 6 is becoming Layer 7, and is also changing. Now, any effect which modified P/T without setting it applies in 6c; this is a change, as effects such as Giant Growth used to be applied in 6b. This changes the interaction between cards that set p/t to a specific value and cards that give temporary pumps: Under the old system, a creature who had been Giant Growth'd and then hit by Sorceress Queen would have been an 0/2; in the new system, they will be a 3/5 regardless of the order in which the effects resolved.[/indent]

Banding gets some changes.

[indent]If a creature with a certain quality has "bands with other [quality]," that creature may now form a band with any number of attacking creatures that have that quality, whether or not they have the "bands with other [quality]" ability or not. This is a change from the previous rules.

With Banding, lining up creatures is irrelevant; the attacking player can assign the damage of the creature(s) blocking the band in any way that player wishes to do so. Like Deathtouch, this is an exception to the rule. The same is true in reverse; if an attacking creature (or creatures) is being blocked by a creature with banding, or by a creature with "bands with [quality]" and another creature of that quality, the defending player assigns the damage of the attacking creature(s), again ignoring the line in which the blocking creatures were placed.[/indent]

Phasing gets some changes.

[indent]Phasing no longer causes a change of zones. Instead, "phased in/phased out" joins the category of "status of the card," along with "flipped/unflipped, tapped/untapped, face-up/face-down." This does away with the now-unnecessary rule of "phasing in or out doesn't trigger leaves-play/enters-play abilities," but adds the rule that nothing in the game--not even the rules--can affect a permanent with the status "phased out" unless the rule or effect being used specifically mentions "phased out permanent" in describing its effect.

If a token attains the status "phased out," it will cease to exist as a state-based action. This was added as a necessity since attaining the status no longer actually removed it from the battlefield.[/indent]

Fear is being "replaced."

[indent]Though it's not actually being removed in favor of the new keyword, Fear is becoming a thing of the past. A new keyword has been introduced: Intimidate. It does the same thing as Fear, for the most part; the key difference is that instead of listing a specific color that can block the creature, it simply says "creatures that share a color or artifact creatures." Old cards with Fear will retain their Fear keyword (partly due to the fact that on some cards, changing the word would be a functional change).[/indent]

Combat Changes

[INDENT]Declaring Blockers now includes lining creatures up.

[INDENT]Another simple one, and it's exactly how it sounds. Once the defending player has declared blockers, the attacking player will take any creatures that are grouping up to block a single attacking creature and line them up in an order to receive damage. Before the second creature can be damaged at all, the first must be assigned lethal damage. This works like trample in that it takes into consideration other damage being assigned and other damage already on the creature.

This is also true if one creature can block multiple creatures, such as Thoughtweft Trio . When one creature blocks multiples, the defending player will line up the attacking creatures in order, in the same way described above for the attacker lining up blockers. The damage works the same way.[/INDENT]

Combat Damage doesn't use the stack.

[INDENT]The first combat change is a result of this change. Instead of combat damage being assigned and then waiting around a while as an object on the stack before it's dealt, damage will be assigned and then immediately dealt with the players receiving no chance to do anything between the two actions. After damage is dealt, players will still receive priority in the 'combat damage' step.

Note: Creatures in combat having first strike or double strike will still result in an extra combat damage step being inserted before the regular one.[/INDENT][/INDENT]

If anyone can think of any changes I missed, just put up a post about them and I'll add them to this post (that way it's easy to find them all at once instead of scouring the thread).

EDIT 1: Forgot simultaneous mulligans. Added.

EDIT 2: Fixed a small error in the mulligans change; added the change to token ownership. Once details are given on phasing and banding, I will add those changes.

EDIT 3: Fixed dumb errors in the Mana Pools section.

EDIT 4: Added link to the rules changes article; added a bit to the 'declare blockers' change about one creature blocking multiple.

EDIT 5: Fixed some typos.

EDIT 6: Added a note in Lifelink and Deathtouch about the older cards that had received errata.

EDIT 7: Added entry for changing layers.

EDIT 8: Added entries for Banding and Phasing! :D

EDIT 9: Added entry for Intimidate.

jeff-heikkinen wrote:

Isn't it still the player who is actually playing first, not (necessarily) the one who chose? Contrary to some people's perception, not everyone chooses to play first. (Nor should they, in fact, according to WotC, the player who draws first wins more often, by about a 53-47 ratio.) I choose to draw first rather than play first in Sealed all the time.


Well, there is some new terminology (Battlefield, Exile), some returning bits of old terminology (Cast, Activate), a rather minor and technical change concerning token ownership, and changes to Banding and Phasing that (to the best of my knowledge) have yet to be specified; probably the usual series of minor clarifications as well.

Like I said at the top of my post, term. changes are being omitted because those can be explained in about half a second. thanks for the catch on mulligans; you're right, it's the one chosen to go first, not the one who chose. Bit of miswording. Will fix.

rudolf wrote:

Why not just point to the article that describes the changes?

Because I'm working under the assumption that the article is the reason for the confusion in the first place. As I said, this started just as a post for the combat rules changes, but after talking with a couple of other people, I decided summarizing them all would make it more convenient.

Just trying to be helpful. *shrug*

2goth4U wrote:

Zamm: Can we get this stickyed?

Not sure who "Zamm" is, but Zammm might well be able to get that done. :D And a bit more seriously, I do agree that it would be a good idea, at least temporarily.

Crandor wrote:

I think a link to the article might still be useful. At the very least, it will give easy access to the terminology changes.

Yecch, thanks for those catches. Wrote that up last night, wasn't feeling too hot. Will fix.

Also, while I'm fixing, can someone give me the link to put in the first post?