But layers also kind of magically apply in the right way intuitively most of the time. People not understanding them impacts relatively few games. People not understanding the stack impacts…very many games. I was watching a judge play a standard showdown, and he missed that Disturbing Mirth’s ETB is an intervening if clause, not a recursive trigger, and went to resolve the sacrificed enchantment’s death trigger (scry 2) before finishing Mirth’s draw.
@@Flamewolf14 Layers describe what order that continuous effects get applied in. They more or less have to be there, and usually it works out like you would expect without knowing how layers work, but occasionally you end up with a card with no abilities that still essentially have an ability because that ability applies before the one that removed it. It's usually only a problem for Commander players, but Commander is a problem for Magic players, so
@@DnallohesYugioh makes things much simpler than MTG. If there are 2 conflicting effects on the field at a time, the oldest timestamp takes priority. I understand that there are different types of cards in MTG that require different types of rulings than Yugioh, but the layering system is still an imperfect solution to problems.
Correction: Yugioh does have a stack (called the Chain). It plays off a bit differently but it's a very integral part of modern YGO, especially hand traps and negations.
At some point you're no longer able to react and you have to lock in your answers. All this change does is switch which player has to lock in what. Previously, damage has to be locked in before spells so you couldn't respond and adjust your damage accordingly. Now spells have to be locked in and the attacker gets the agency to respond with their damage distribution. I'm mixed on it. I think it's reasonable to reel back the defender advantage because when it gets out of hand the stalemate boards where both players wait until they get removal because attacking is suicide in limited, should happen less often. And since combat tricks are used a lot in limited, it makes sense to give the attacked the advantage with combat tricks to give them a little more room to be aggressive.
Old Fogey rules change sigh: Power Sink was my favorite counter spell, until they removed the interrupt card type. And I always found Power Surge to be interesting brew around prospect - and was saddened to discover that the card had suddenly become devoid of meaningful text with the removal of mana burn.
Right! As someone who plays mostly in paper, I think I’ve been doing it this way the whole time. I also don’t remember opponents doing it correctly either.
Under the old rules, why would a person with a 3/3, a 2/2, and wild growth (that they're not trying to save) double block in the first place? Why not just block with the one creature and wild growth and keep the other, rather than let your opponent influence which creature you keep by assigning damage?
Menace, or if the attacking creature has toughness high enough that those extra points of power matter and you really need to get rid of it for one reason or another (having no other options available at the time). Or you don't have enough mana up for wild growth for whatever reason. There are plenty of situations where you would do it. Not many where you'd Want to, but plenty where you'd do it anyway.
One of the reasons I do it is to check my opponent. Attacking player has priority after blockers are declared. If they pass priority, they risk losing the opportunity to play a combat trick, so if they have one, they kind of have to commit to playing it first. So… it’s kind of a bluff. Pretending to offer a trade to see if they have something that’s going to mess up my trick.
Yeah, I see examples like this one a lot, where it seems like it doesn't actually matter. It could be explained better, like if the attacking creature had menace, or if the combat trick gave +0/+3 instead of +3/+3, making the 2/2 creature needed for lethal damage. It will still have an effect, but the easiest examples to explain it with have a few holes in their logic
Defensive advantage is one of the things that make magic unique as a game. In the world of TCGs offensive advantage is by far the norm, whereas magic really let's you get more out of exploring noncombat interaction than most games, as well as a number of strategies possible because outside of removal the opponent generally isn't able to just off your important pieces that easily. Other than my general distrust of current WOTC and the fact that I don't want it touching fundamental game rules, I can accept damage being distributed more flexibly between variosu creatures without needing to deal lethal damage or select a particular order. But the lack of a response is the real big deal here. Cards are more valuable than damage. The fact you can waste cards just by the default rules now doesn't just make the cards considerably worse it makes the decision on whether to use them a considerably worse one. Plus it feels terrible.
The old rules can be pesky. I recently had an issue where a 2/X with Valley Flamecaller in play cannot kill both X/2s double blocking it. The damage amp replacement effect isn't considered during damage assignment (unlike deathtouch), so it assigns 2,0 which is then amped to 3,0, overkilling the first creature. 1,1->2,2 feels more natural to me. That could probably be fixed without this change, though. I'd question the design of creature removal in general. The system lets me play that enchanment-like creature that I never plan to block with, but if my opponents load up on 1~2 mana spells that can kill it, I don't feel my decision in the same way.
As someone who was playing FNM during at least some of that time (I never remember the date, I missed the first set of the Zendikar block, but was around for the second, and have only played kitchen table magic for the last few years)... I'm pretty sure I never saw anyone actually respond to damage being asigned.
@@laurencefraser Strange, because it is very efficient. Say you attack with a 7/7. I declare 3 blockers, a 5/5 and two 1/1s. Naturally you decide to put the 5/5 at the front of the conga line. In response, I cast Giant Growth on the 5/5, making it a 8/8, and now none of my creatures die. With the new system, I do not know how you'll order the damage, so if I still do Giant Growth on my 5/5, you'll just start by doing damage on my 1/1s first. Sure, I still end up winning the combat, but not as strongly as before. Alternatively, if you had in hand a Blazing Volley (deals 1 damage to each creature your opponents control), you can decide to still send your 7/7 into my 5/5 (which is now a 8/8 due to Giant Growth), leaving it at 1 toughness with my two 1/1s, and then in your second main phase, simply cast Blazing Volley to clear my board. With my example, this works both before and after Foundations, but with Foundations you could decide to assign non-lethal damage to multiple creatures in order to leave them weak for a cleave spell in MP2 and clear my board. I know I'm going to have a lot of fun with decks centered around -1/-1 effects like Massacre Girl.
Right now spells and abilities work as mana sources,instants and soccories. You cannot cast a spell or activate in response to a faster action. In really old magic you also had interrupts. In simple terms interrupts are to instants as to instants ate to soccories. So a stack of instants could build up and then interrupts could be layered into them.The interrupts being resolved making batches that are "faster" than instant speed. Just nip it in the bud, unlike split second interrupts can respond to interrupts.
you can see this "make attacking stronger" with first strike as well. Now a lot of creatures only have first strike on attacking, since stacking First Strike blockers was so advantageous before. It also is because of....you know it...COMMANDER. You need to make combat more relevant there. Best example in that case is the card "Communal Brewing"
Yes, that is the elephant in the command zone, isn’t it? If defense was already favored over offense generally as a consequence of the combat rules, (usually) 2+ opponents means on any given combat you’re probably looking at 2 or more people who, if you attack them, will have that advantage over you at the same time, rather than one.
@ exactly. So you need to print creatures that are just so big and/or aggressive that holding them back is less attractive than swinging. Star Athlete and Polygoyf are good examples of this recently.
Yugioh actually does use a stack though. Chaining cards works almost exactly like Magic’s stack system and yes players get a chance to respond to declared attacks. Cards with Quick Effects and certain hand traps can be used at “instant speed”. The biggest thing is that yugioh has counter traps which can only be responded to with other counter traps, so the moment a counter trap is chained and you don’t have a counter trap of your own the chain effectively ends there
Close but not quite! Split Second in magic is very similar except for the fact that even other Split Second cards can't respond to Split Second cards, whereas other counter traps can respond to each other. The big difference lies in the rules themselves, not a particular type. When a chain starts resolving the whole chain must resolve. You chain any new activations once it's started resolving. In magic, you can additional chance to add to the stack every single time a card on it resolves. There are even infinite combos that take advantage of it, one of my favorite ones copies the bottom card of the stack infinitely without ever letting it resolve and burns all other players to death. Neither of these choices is necessarily better, but both do allow for interesting and unique lines in a game.
@fastpuppy2000 you're correct, batches operated more closely to yugioh. In the original version of the game we had interrupts AND instants and speed basically went: Sorcery -> Instant -> Interrupt. Interrupts worked almost identical to counter traps where, once played, it was no longer possible to add any spells to the batch that aren't interrupts or abilities that say "can be played as an interrupt". Additionally, to my knowledge, once a batch starts resolving the whole thing has to resolve but it might have been possible to let an interrupt resolve and add another interrupt or add more instant when all the interrupts resolved. I'm not too sure on that part.
It does hinder the defenders a bit if they planned to pump whatever creature was first in the conga line of death, but overall the system itself feels more logical now. Overall we're losing this gap where we could cast spells between Damage Attribution and Damage Calculation, but we're gaining more logical Damage Attribution where there's a bit more options for MP2. If I want to attack and I have a cleave spell that does 1 damage to everything, pre-foundations I would've had to cast the spell before Battle Phase, or after I already selected the conga line, in both cases the defenders could prepare for in response. Now I could leave all the creatures at 1 life (if I'm lacking power to kill everything with my attack) and finish everything with my spell in MP2. If the defender has a single target pump spell like Giant Growth they can still save whatever they want to save, but it doesn't ruin my whole battle phase.
Just a reminder banding pretty much lets you ignore these changes. So if you really like having complete control over blocking damage implementing banding in your decks will help.
@@MultiKbarry how so? It lets the player with the banding creature divide their opponent's damage during the combat damage step while ignoring ordering blockers. 702.22j: During the combat damage step, if an attacking creature is being blocked by a creature with banding, or by both a [quality] creature with "bands with other [quality]" and another [quality] creature, the defending player (rather than the active player) chooses how the attacking creature's damage is assigned. That player can divide that creature's combat damage as they choose among any creatures blocking it. This is an exception to the procedure described in rule 510.1c.
@@MultiKbarry right. I meant you can now divide your own damage in the same ways Banding let you divide your opponent's damage, but I guess who divides it is a notable difference.
I think the blocking part is more an issue and less intuitive for example : Opponent attacks me with a 3/3, I block with Armored Scrapgorger, in response they use Cut Down to destroy Scrapgorger... In response I can tap Scrapgorger to get 1 mana and exile a card from their graveyard, then the cut down resolves and now the opponent is left with an attacking creature just sitting there, although my creature is gone the blocked was declared even though it was destroyed so I receive no damage
Your opponent played poorly. If they didn't want Scrapgorger to block they could have removed it with their Cut Down during their Upkeep, Draw Step, Main Phase, Beginning of Combat, or Declare Attackers.
@pauldaulby260 The creature was used as a distraction. That's all that's necessary for "intuitiveness." The fact is a game will always have a certain level of abstraction. Removing damage from the stack was an intuitive change I agree with but when you use an example of poor play to attempt to illustrate a point you undermine your own argument.
Great content as always! I'd love to hear your thoughts about how the power level of card types has shifted over the years. Creatures now are definately more powerful than before and Instant and Sorceries have been stuck in time. (That's my feeling at least)
As a longtime player, I have to admit my immediate reaction has been to dislike this, but I’m trying to keep in mind that that’s very possibly just because I’m accustomed to the previous rules. I don’t like the strategic weakening of combat tricks, but I can acknowledge that the defense has generally had an advantage, so I’m going to try to wait and see how this plays out in terms of balancing attack and defense more equitably overall before coming to a conclusion.
Admittedly, I never played in anything higher level than friday night magic drafts, and I started just in time for the prerelease of the set before rise of the eldrazi and haven't played more than kitchen table magic for a few years now, but I don't recall ever seeing anyone respond to damage being asigned anyway, so I'm not sure this will really make much of a difference to most players, unless it's become a big deal in the last few years. edit: for responding to damage asignment rather than blockers being declared to matter, you have to be blocking with more than one creature, you combat trick has to make no difference to your ability to do enough damage to remove the attacking creature, your opponent has to be doing enough damage to kill either of, but not both of, your creatures, your combat trick needs to prevent that damage from killing whichever one is being targeted first regardless of which one that is... All that just for it to not do exactly the same thing in response to 'declare blockers' as it would in response to 'asign damage'. And at that point you really have to ask yourself "why did I keep mana up to play this trick instead of using it on something that would prevent this situation coming about to start with' and 'why is this card even in my deck?'. For the attacker, the vast majority of effects that give you the Option to sacrifice a creature (rather than forcing you to) are on that creature and require it to tap, which an attacking creature naturally can't (unless it has vigilance), though admittedly the few that don't are pretty significant. And doing that in response to damage being asigned would actually be pretty powerful sometimes... And yet I never saw anyone do it? I'm not sure most people even realised they Could, to be honest.
There’s no reason why a game can’t be complex. I’ll never understand or agree that dumbing down your game for new players makes it better. They need to just play the game and get better over time. That’s how anyone who ever got good at anything ever got good at what they’re good at in the first place.
I think this was a dangerous topic to discuss so casually. People barely understand the basics of Magic and the change involves the removal of a rule that rarely came up anyway. At the very least you should have highlighted the fact that ZERO priority windows have changed. None. The defending player gets slightly less information, the attacking player gets slightly more options. That's honestly it. Both offensive and defensive tricks have also gotten a lot better over time so doomsayers around the defensive options should relax imo. And as you said, defending was already favored so attacking getting a little bit better is a good thing.
Huge fan of the change, it is significantly more intuitive. Almost every new player I play with tries to assign damage like how it works with the new rules and are always upset that it didn't work that way before. I just wish they would have added a little step between blockers and damage to give people a window to respond with a defensive trick. Which , to me, would have been the best of both sets of rules.
You touched on this but it seems like the MTG designers are starting to feel insecure about the outsiders who consider slower games or benefits for defenders a "design flaw." This ties into Gavin Verhey saying that first strike should be for attackers only and he literally doesn't comprehend the flavor behind a defensive creature having it.
I agree with this a lot, but have gone full doomer on it ever correcting. It also ties into the IP soup thing. Magic never properly advertised its IP like D&D did with the Dragonlance and Drizzt novels and the cartoon and movies (and satanic panic... though Magic hitched on to that one admittedly), so I guess we just start giving up on anyone giving a shit about it. Long live the shareholder and hand of the market.
Gavin Verhey said that first strike is too powerful to be printed on as many commons and uncommons as it used to be because it creates a bad limited experience
I personally like this change. Especially since commander has been on the rise. Games go on for too long now because everyone “turtles” and is just focusing on building their board state. Incentivizing attacking to push the game forward is a solid change in my opinion. Especially when it ends up being a “control” vs “control” matchups. Giving the players a chance to switch to a more aggressive attacking strategy will, in my opinion, prevent those matches from being just an untap, draw pass fest.
One of the classic feel bads of magic has been the damage doubler attacking into a multiblock. This change is meant to fix that problem because of how unintuitive it is right now. This change lets you account for the double while the previous only truly let david beat goliath. Once.
This combat change is good, I think. But will if affect balance negatively? Is it better if the attacker gain the advantage like this? It's an interesting question and I would love to hear insight on it. My first thought is that it is positive. Because one issue in magic is turtling. Being able to attack and feel safer add more speed and impactful games. But that is just my first instinct
Honestly, I don't think it's a bad change. Mostly because it's not going to be *that* impactful, but it is going to be more simple. I do think they probably should have had assignment not resolve immediately as it's assigned, but I do prefer that it isn't ordered now. I'm curious to see how much of an impact this has on limited especially.
I don't think the combat should always be a blow out because its a bad trade and people are just stalling until they can swing for lethal, i think that is just another symptom of how shallow magics combat really is and this can be avoided with a more robust system of combat being the focus if you want that in a game
Players complaining about the combat rules change: ~cries as noose gets put around neck~ Boomers who survived the loss of combat damage on the stack: "First time?"
The situations in which this change will make a difference are extremely rare and minimal. This does not tip the scales so far in the attackers' favor that suddenly games get snowbally. This in essence is just a quality of life improvement. I've been playing for 11 years and the new rules are instantly way more intuitive to me
I'm in favor of this change. The number of scenarios where it will even come up is tiny. It's not zero, but I feel like in this case the benefit of removing an esoteric rule outweighs the drawback of slightly lowering the skill ceiling of the game. It kind of feels like when they removed mana burn. Having it in the rules was just more trouble than it was worth.
This is so unintuitive now. Almost everything else uses the stack and priority, except combat now. More complicated and giving advantage to attackers is lame. Defending players should always have an advantage.
It's not the first time this has changed. I think it's extremely stupid. It's a huge nerf to combat tricks on the defense, which means it will be a shift from combat tricks being +X/+X to removal. It's a buff for attackers, which means it's a buff for the player who goes first. I would bet that a breakdown of statistics will show that players going first will have a higher chance to win going forward.
What's funny is that that was a return to how Mogg Fanatic was meant to be played. Mogg Fanatic was printed before damage on the stack, not that it wasn't kinda cool how it played after 6ed
Link to Gavin’s Kickstarter: www.kickstarter.com/projects/lastditchgames/bullets-and-teeth-and-aliens?ref=him1bs
Thanks for backing everyone!
Layers in Magic are waaaaaay more complicated than the stack :)
True
But layers also kind of magically apply in the right way intuitively most of the time. People not understanding them impacts relatively few games. People not understanding the stack impacts…very many games.
I was watching a judge play a standard showdown, and he missed that Disturbing Mirth’s ETB is an intervening if clause, not a recursive trigger, and went to resolve the sacrificed enchantment’s death trigger (scry 2) before finishing Mirth’s draw.
I have played an okay amount of magic and don't even know what that is. (Mtg arena and I'll draft)
@@Flamewolf14 Layers describe what order that continuous effects get applied in. They more or less have to be there, and usually it works out like you would expect without knowing how layers work, but occasionally you end up with a card with no abilities that still essentially have an ability because that ability applies before the one that removed it. It's usually only a problem for Commander players, but Commander is a problem for Magic players, so
@@DnallohesYugioh makes things much simpler than MTG. If there are 2 conflicting effects on the field at a time, the oldest timestamp takes priority.
I understand that there are different types of cards in MTG that require different types of rulings than Yugioh, but the layering system is still an imperfect solution to problems.
Correction: Yugioh does have a stack (called the Chain). It plays off a bit differently but it's a very integral part of modern YGO, especially hand traps and negations.
At some point you're no longer able to react and you have to lock in your answers. All this change does is switch which player has to lock in what. Previously, damage has to be locked in before spells so you couldn't respond and adjust your damage accordingly. Now spells have to be locked in and the attacker gets the agency to respond with their damage distribution.
I'm mixed on it. I think it's reasonable to reel back the defender advantage because when it gets out of hand the stalemate boards where both players wait until they get removal because attacking is suicide in limited, should happen less often. And since combat tricks are used a lot in limited, it makes sense to give the attacked the advantage with combat tricks to give them a little more room to be aggressive.
Old Fogey rules change sigh: Power Sink was my favorite counter spell, until they removed the interrupt card type. And I always found Power Surge to be interesting brew around prospect - and was saddened to discover that the card had suddenly become devoid of meaningful text with the removal of mana burn.
Altrady feeling the change in Pauper. Now you can attack in a more braindead way
My favourite part of this rule change is that it taught me I've been playing it wrong the whole time, and now I'll be playing it right!
Right! As someone who plays mostly in paper, I think I’ve been doing it this way the whole time. I also don’t remember opponents doing it correctly either.
Under the old rules, why would a person with a 3/3, a 2/2, and wild growth (that they're not trying to save) double block in the first place? Why not just block with the one creature and wild growth and keep the other, rather than let your opponent influence which creature you keep by assigning damage?
Menace perhaps
I'll take Banding for $1000, Jim
Menace, or if the attacking creature has toughness high enough that those extra points of power matter and you really need to get rid of it for one reason or another (having no other options available at the time). Or you don't have enough mana up for wild growth for whatever reason.
There are plenty of situations where you would do it. Not many where you'd Want to, but plenty where you'd do it anyway.
One of the reasons I do it is to check my opponent.
Attacking player has priority after blockers are declared. If they pass priority, they risk losing the opportunity to play a combat trick, so if they have one, they kind of have to commit to playing it first.
So… it’s kind of a bluff. Pretending to offer a trade to see if they have something that’s going to mess up my trick.
Yeah, I see examples like this one a lot, where it seems like it doesn't actually matter. It could be explained better, like if the attacking creature had menace, or if the combat trick gave +0/+3 instead of +3/+3, making the 2/2 creature needed for lethal damage. It will still have an effect, but the easiest examples to explain it with have a few holes in their logic
Defensive advantage is one of the things that make magic unique as a game. In the world of TCGs offensive advantage is by far the norm, whereas magic really let's you get more out of exploring noncombat interaction than most games, as well as a number of strategies possible because outside of removal the opponent generally isn't able to just off your important pieces that easily. Other than my general distrust of current WOTC and the fact that I don't want it touching fundamental game rules, I can accept damage being distributed more flexibly between variosu creatures without needing to deal lethal damage or select a particular order. But the lack of a response is the real big deal here. Cards are more valuable than damage. The fact you can waste cards just by the default rules now doesn't just make the cards considerably worse it makes the decision on whether to use them a considerably worse one. Plus it feels terrible.
Yeah, this is way more for limited. Even without the new rules, the best combat trick in constructed is just removal
Combat tricks as defensive removal are now much worse off.
Most people have never ordered blockers. I have played for years and a situation where this change mattered came up maybe three times max.
I’m mainly just glad I won’t have to order two identical 1/1 tokens on Arena anymore
Haha for sure
The old rules can be pesky. I recently had an issue where a 2/X with Valley Flamecaller in play cannot kill both X/2s double blocking it. The damage amp replacement effect isn't considered during damage assignment (unlike deathtouch), so it assigns 2,0 which is then amped to 3,0, overkilling the first creature. 1,1->2,2 feels more natural to me. That could probably be fixed without this change, though.
I'd question the design of creature removal in general. The system lets me play that enchanment-like creature that I never plan to block with, but if my opponents load up on 1~2 mana spells that can kill it, I don't feel my decision in the same way.
As someone who quit in 2007, came back in 2023, and only just now learned about the 2010 change, I'm happy it's going back.
So, who's gonna tell him?
I'm in the same boat. I'm just now learning that lure/deathtouch hasn't worked for 14 years.
@@zbaschtian ?
As someone who was playing FNM during at least some of that time (I never remember the date, I missed the first set of the Zendikar block, but was around for the second, and have only played kitchen table magic for the last few years)...
I'm pretty sure I never saw anyone actually respond to damage being asigned.
@@laurencefraser Strange, because it is very efficient.
Say you attack with a 7/7. I declare 3 blockers, a 5/5 and two 1/1s. Naturally you decide to put the 5/5 at the front of the conga line. In response, I cast Giant Growth on the 5/5, making it a 8/8, and now none of my creatures die.
With the new system, I do not know how you'll order the damage, so if I still do Giant Growth on my 5/5, you'll just start by doing damage on my 1/1s first. Sure, I still end up winning the combat, but not as strongly as before.
Alternatively, if you had in hand a Blazing Volley (deals 1 damage to each creature your opponents control), you can decide to still send your 7/7 into my 5/5 (which is now a 8/8 due to Giant Growth), leaving it at 1 toughness with my two 1/1s, and then in your second main phase, simply cast Blazing Volley to clear my board. With my example, this works both before and after Foundations, but with Foundations you could decide to assign non-lethal damage to multiple creatures in order to leave them weak for a cleave spell in MP2 and clear my board.
I know I'm going to have a lot of fun with decks centered around -1/-1 effects like Massacre Girl.
Right now spells and abilities work as mana sources,instants and soccories. You cannot cast a spell or activate in response to a faster action. In really old magic you also had interrupts. In simple terms interrupts are to instants as to instants ate to soccories. So a stack of instants could build up and then interrupts could be layered into them.The interrupts being resolved making batches that are "faster" than instant speed. Just nip it in the bud, unlike split second interrupts can respond to interrupts.
you can see this "make attacking stronger" with first strike as well. Now a lot of creatures only have first strike on attacking, since stacking First Strike blockers was so advantageous before. It also is because of....you know it...COMMANDER. You need to make combat more relevant there. Best example in that case is the card "Communal Brewing"
Yes, that is the elephant in the command zone, isn’t it? If defense was already favored over offense generally as a consequence of the combat rules, (usually) 2+ opponents means on any given combat you’re probably looking at 2 or more people who, if you attack them, will have that advantage over you at the same time, rather than one.
@ exactly. So you need to print creatures that are just so big and/or aggressive that holding them back is less attractive than swinging. Star Athlete and Polygoyf are good examples of this recently.
I played magic wrong for years. The way I played was how they are changing the rules. For me, there’s no change.
Yugioh actually does use a stack though. Chaining cards works almost exactly like Magic’s stack system and yes players get a chance to respond to declared attacks. Cards with Quick Effects and certain hand traps can be used at “instant speed”. The biggest thing is that yugioh has counter traps which can only be responded to with other counter traps, so the moment a counter trap is chained and you don’t have a counter trap of your own the chain effectively ends there
I was looking for this post yep yep you covered it!
Yeah, I had to pause to post this too lol
Yugioh is significantly closer to old school Magic's batches, is my understanding
Close but not quite! Split Second in magic is very similar except for the fact that even other Split Second cards can't respond to Split Second cards, whereas other counter traps can respond to each other.
The big difference lies in the rules themselves, not a particular type. When a chain starts resolving the whole chain must resolve. You chain any new activations once it's started resolving. In magic, you can additional chance to add to the stack every single time a card on it resolves. There are even infinite combos that take advantage of it, one of my favorite ones copies the bottom card of the stack infinitely without ever letting it resolve and burns all other players to death.
Neither of these choices is necessarily better, but both do allow for interesting and unique lines in a game.
@fastpuppy2000 you're correct, batches operated more closely to yugioh. In the original version of the game we had interrupts AND instants and speed basically went: Sorcery -> Instant -> Interrupt. Interrupts worked almost identical to counter traps where, once played, it was no longer possible to add any spells to the batch that aren't interrupts or abilities that say "can be played as an interrupt". Additionally, to my knowledge, once a batch starts resolving the whole thing has to resolve but it might have been possible to let an interrupt resolve and add another interrupt or add more instant when all the interrupts resolved. I'm not too sure on that part.
What other rules would you change?
It does hinder the defenders a bit if they planned to pump whatever creature was first in the conga line of death, but overall the system itself feels more logical now.
Overall we're losing this gap where we could cast spells between Damage Attribution and Damage Calculation, but we're gaining more logical Damage Attribution where there's a bit more options for MP2. If I want to attack and I have a cleave spell that does 1 damage to everything, pre-foundations I would've had to cast the spell before Battle Phase, or after I already selected the conga line, in both cases the defenders could prepare for in response. Now I could leave all the creatures at 1 life (if I'm lacking power to kill everything with my attack) and finish everything with my spell in MP2. If the defender has a single target pump spell like Giant Growth they can still save whatever they want to save, but it doesn't ruin my whole battle phase.
Great points.
Just backed Bullets and Teeth and Aliens! congrats on the funding!
Thank you!
Just a reminder banding pretty much lets you ignore these changes. So if you really like having complete control over blocking damage implementing banding in your decks will help.
Banding already used these damage division rules.
@ Banding is different. Very slightly in what it affects and how it effects it.
@@MultiKbarry how so? It lets the player with the banding creature divide their opponent's damage during the combat damage step while ignoring ordering blockers.
702.22j: During the combat damage step, if an attacking creature is being blocked by a creature with banding, or by both a [quality] creature with "bands with other [quality]" and another [quality] creature, the defending player (rather than the active player) chooses how the attacking creature's damage is assigned. That player can divide that creature's combat damage as they choose among any creatures blocking it. This is an exception to the procedure described in rule 510.1c.
@@seandun7083 With the combat changes the attacker decides bow damage is divided. Banding lets the defender decide the damage no matter what.
@@MultiKbarry right. I meant you can now divide your own damage in the same ways Banding let you divide your opponent's damage, but I guess who divides it is a notable difference.
I think the blocking part is more an issue and less intuitive for example : Opponent attacks me with a 3/3, I block with Armored Scrapgorger, in response they use Cut Down to destroy Scrapgorger... In response I can tap Scrapgorger to get 1 mana and exile a card from their graveyard, then the cut down resolves and now the opponent is left with an attacking creature just sitting there, although my creature is gone the blocked was declared even though it was destroyed so I receive no damage
Yeah, that is probably the most unintuitive interaction in mtg.
Your opponent played poorly. If they didn't want Scrapgorger to block they could have removed it with their Cut Down during their Upkeep, Draw Step, Main Phase, Beginning of Combat, or Declare Attackers.
@raedien the comment is about Intuitiveness of mechanics not optimal play around those mechanics
Is it intuitive? Probably not, most people feel it’s not intuitive
@pauldaulby260
The creature was used as a distraction. That's all that's necessary for "intuitiveness."
The fact is a game will always have a certain level of abstraction. Removing damage from the stack was an intuitive change I agree with but when you use an example of poor play to attempt to illustrate a point you undermine your own argument.
Great content as always!
I'd love to hear your thoughts about how the power level of card types has shifted over the years. Creatures now are definately more powerful than before and Instant and Sorceries have been stuck in time. (That's my feeling at least)
Sounds like a great video topic. I’ll add it to the list. Generally, I agree.
As a longtime player, I have to admit my immediate reaction has been to dislike this, but I’m trying to keep in mind that that’s very possibly just because I’m accustomed to the previous rules. I don’t like the strategic weakening of combat tricks, but I can acknowledge that the defense has generally had an advantage, so I’m going to try to wait and see how this plays out in terms of balancing attack and defense more equitably overall before coming to a conclusion.
I really appreciate the explanation of the stack I have played mtg before but I think it's great to always define so everyone can better understand
Admittedly, I never played in anything higher level than friday night magic drafts, and I started just in time for the prerelease of the set before rise of the eldrazi and haven't played more than kitchen table magic for a few years now, but I don't recall ever seeing anyone respond to damage being asigned anyway, so I'm not sure this will really make much of a difference to most players, unless it's become a big deal in the last few years.
edit: for responding to damage asignment rather than blockers being declared to matter, you have to be blocking with more than one creature, you combat trick has to make no difference to your ability to do enough damage to remove the attacking creature, your opponent has to be doing enough damage to kill either of, but not both of, your creatures, your combat trick needs to prevent that damage from killing whichever one is being targeted first regardless of which one that is... All that just for it to not do exactly the same thing in response to 'declare blockers' as it would in response to 'asign damage'.
And at that point you really have to ask yourself "why did I keep mana up to play this trick instead of using it on something that would prevent this situation coming about to start with' and 'why is this card even in my deck?'.
For the attacker, the vast majority of effects that give you the Option to sacrifice a creature (rather than forcing you to) are on that creature and require it to tap, which an attacking creature naturally can't (unless it has vigilance), though admittedly the few that don't are pretty significant. And doing that in response to damage being asigned would actually be pretty powerful sometimes...
And yet I never saw anyone do it? I'm not sure most people even realised they Could, to be honest.
Thank god I play combo...
There’s no reason why a game can’t be complex. I’ll never understand or agree that dumbing down your game for new players makes it better. They need to just play the game and get better over time. That’s how anyone who ever got good at anything ever got good at what they’re good at in the first place.
I think this was a dangerous topic to discuss so casually. People barely understand the basics of Magic and the change involves the removal of a rule that rarely came up anyway.
At the very least you should have highlighted the fact that ZERO priority windows have changed. None.
The defending player gets slightly less information, the attacking player gets slightly more options. That's honestly it.
Both offensive and defensive tricks have also gotten a lot better over time so doomsayers around the defensive options should relax imo.
And as you said, defending was already favored so attacking getting a little bit better is a good thing.
My first instinct is to block with only the 3/3 and use the buff 😂 I get it if the attacking creature has menace, but that feels like an edge case
Huge fan of the change, it is significantly more intuitive. Almost every new player I play with tries to assign damage like how it works with the new rules and are always upset that it didn't work that way before. I just wish they would have added a little step between blockers and damage to give people a window to respond with a defensive trick. Which , to me, would have been the best of both sets of rules.
thanks for the video
Lorcana fixes this by not offering blockers at all. You just swing into exerted characters, and mark damage
Boring
Mogg Fanatic is the best 2/1 ever printed.
was*
Sooooo what's the change?
You touched on this but it seems like the MTG designers are starting to feel insecure about the outsiders who consider slower games or benefits for defenders a "design flaw." This ties into Gavin Verhey saying that first strike should be for attackers only and he literally doesn't comprehend the flavor behind a defensive creature having it.
The man should look at a picture of a phalanx, it's not that hard to understand.
I agree with this a lot, but have gone full doomer on it ever correcting. It also ties into the IP soup thing. Magic never properly advertised its IP like D&D did with the Dragonlance and Drizzt novels and the cartoon and movies (and satanic panic... though Magic hitched on to that one admittedly), so I guess we just start giving up on anyone giving a shit about it. Long live the shareholder and hand of the market.
Gavin Verhey said that first strike is too powerful to be printed on as many commons and uncommons as it used to be because it creates a bad limited experience
@@uphillwalrus5164 That's crazy, first strike barely matters ever.
@@blacklot97 you must play commander or something
Beans
Combat is already heavily biased towards blockers, this change just makes it less heavily biased towards blockers.
Can't say I remember that in '89😅
Said 99, but it did sound like 89 haha
I personally like this change. Especially since commander has been on the rise. Games go on for too long now because everyone “turtles” and is just focusing on building their board state. Incentivizing attacking to push the game forward is a solid change in my opinion. Especially when it ends up being a “control” vs “control” matchups. Giving the players a chance to switch to a more aggressive attacking strategy will, in my opinion, prevent those matches from being just an untap, draw pass fest.
That's a problem with commander, not the core game
@@TheMinskyTerrorist Preach. Don't change the game for people who changed the ruleset and killed aggro.
One of the classic feel bads of magic has been the damage doubler attacking into a multiblock. This change is meant to fix that problem because of how unintuitive it is right now. This change lets you account for the double while the previous only truly let david beat goliath. Once.
Zangief commander certainly appreciates the change.
Defensive combat tricks are a bit worse
Oh No! Anyway
ikr? In my days you couldn't attack into a Sakura Tribe Elder with an x/1 without losing the x/1 and them ramping, and we (non-ironically) liked it!
This combat change is good, I think. But will if affect balance negatively? Is it better if the attacker gain the advantage like this?
It's an interesting question and I would love to hear insight on it.
My first thought is that it is positive. Because one issue in magic is turtling. Being able to attack and feel safer add more speed and impactful games. But that is just my first instinct
I guess I'm first?
Combat math seems more intuitive now.
Honestly, I don't think it's a bad change. Mostly because it's not going to be *that* impactful, but it is going to be more simple.
I do think they probably should have had assignment not resolve immediately as it's assigned, but I do prefer that it isn't ordered now. I'm curious to see how much of an impact this has on limited especially.
Having shade between assignment and damage is basically just what damage on the stack was.
I don't think the combat should always be a blow out because its a bad trade and people are just stalling until they can swing for lethal, i think that is just another symptom of how shallow magics combat really is and this can be avoided with a more robust system of combat being the focus if you want that in a game
Players complaining about the combat rules change: ~cries as noose gets put around neck~
Boomers who survived the loss of combat damage on the stack: "First time?"
I typed this joke before reading the comments knowing there'd be drama. Was not disappointed.
Great movie
The situations in which this change will make a difference are extremely rare and minimal. This does not tip the scales so far in the attackers' favor that suddenly games get snowbally. This in essence is just a quality of life improvement. I've been playing for 11 years and the new rules are instantly way more intuitive to me
I'm in favor of this change. The number of scenarios where it will even come up is tiny. It's not zero, but I feel like in this case the benefit of removing an esoteric rule outweighs the drawback of slightly lowering the skill ceiling of the game. It kind of feels like when they removed mana burn. Having it in the rules was just more trouble than it was worth.
This is so unintuitive now. Almost everything else uses the stack and priority, except combat now. More complicated and giving advantage to attackers is lame. Defending players should always have an advantage.
Turn based actions never used the stack or priority anywhere else though.
It's not the first time this has changed. I think it's extremely stupid. It's a huge nerf to combat tricks on the defense, which means it will be a shift from combat tricks being +X/+X to removal.
It's a buff for attackers, which means it's a buff for the player who goes first. I would bet that a breakdown of statistics will show that players going first will have a higher chance to win going forward.
Don't mind me in the corner, playing the world's tiniest Limited violin.
Especially favoring aggro decks, too, I'm curious how it will play out
I still feel the pain of what I call "The Great Mogg Fanatic Nerf."
Poor little guy
What's funny is that that was a return to how Mogg Fanatic was meant to be played. Mogg Fanatic was printed before damage on the stack, not that it wasn't kinda cool how it played after 6ed
I am in mourning for former Rakdos menace Kill-Suit Cultist to this day.