I had an old legacy troll deck with 4 raging rivers in it. God I miss troll decks. Miserable to play with an against but it was a novelty you don't see really anyone do much anymore
Why does it infect the player who cast the card, and not the opponent who originally it was feeding off of? The wording makes it sound like an upside, not a downside.
So it's not necessarily going to hit the original caster. What happens when no more creatures can be chosen (either none on the battlefield, or they all have protection) is whoever controlled that last creature is now "that player". Honestly, even though it's a minor functional change, the end state should be "Takklemaggot loses 'enchant creature' and gains 'enchant player', then return it to the battlefield attached to that player.", and then with an additional line earlier ("At the beginning of enchanted player's upkeep, Takklemaggot deals 1 damage to that player.") (I'm a little surprised we haven't seen a DFC implementation of it, though, as that's even easier to follow. Maybe when we go back to Lorwyn?)
Personal favorite still has to go to Chaos Lord’s unerrata’d text. “This card can attack the first turn it comes to play on a side, except the first turn it comes into play.” Season of the Witch is mainly confusing due to how the rulings work. Chaos Lord though is just instant psychic damage upon the first sentence and I love it.
That's one of the dumbest, most niche abilities ever... Almost as irrelevant as cards that do things like "tap: remove plainswalk/horsemanship from a creature." 😂
@@TheThiccestChungusnot just haste, bad haste. You can’t tap it for abilities since the effect specifies only attacks. So it’s even more niche since you can’t temporarily steal it and use it as a mana dork with Paradise Mantle since it can’t tap for abilities.
I guess in modern MTG Takklemaggot would be a double faced card that transforms when it comes back and has no legal target, where the back side is an aura curse that enchants you as player.
...enchants the last creature's controller, actually. Part of the problem is that while the original wording swapped who controls it, the current wording does *not* and has a "that player" reference to the player who couldn't pick a new creature to attach it to.
i was gonna say this XD yu-gi-oh is so leaps and bounds more confusing, wordy, & ridiculous to anything magic has ever put out. To this day, yu-gi-oh is still the most confusing & hard to understand game I've ever played.
Most Yu-gi-oh cards are pretty easy to parse once you get the hang of card grammar. It's just that every card has ten different effects, rather than one convoluted one.
@@murlocaggrob2192 Yeah it’s true. What also makes it confusing though is how many similar but slightly different effects exist in most archetypes. Like one will be “When this card is sent from the field or hand to the GY, you can send one monster card from you deck to the graveyard.” And another one will be “When this card is sent from the field to the GY, you can search you deck for a spell card and add it to your hand or send it to the GY.” That makes it so much more confusing remembering all the differences in every Archetype
They probably imagined for Raging River that you would put it in the middle of the battlefield and then put everything on the left or right of it. Which doesn't really make it less confusing to explain but it does make more intuitive sense when physically shown to someone.
its an example of mtg's great design. That card doesnt even need text, put the picture of a river in the middle of the table and everyone will instantly know whats up.
Your explanation of Dead Ringers is slightly incorrect. You are not even allowed to cast the spell if at least one of the two targets are black. So if there are fewer than two nonblack creatures on the battlefield, you can't cast the spell at all. Once you've cast it though, if you decide to target two creatures with different color combinations, the spell won't do anything.
Ice Cauldron actually doesn't remember "snow" mana used for it's ability since it's not a type of mana. The six types of mana in eternal Magic are White, Blue, Black, Red, Green, and Colorless mana. None of the mana generated by Ice Cauldron will be able to pay for snow costs unless you turn Ice Cauldron into a Snow permanent, in which case all the mana generated could pay for snow costs.
@@algotkristoffersson15 I'm not sure I understand the question. Unless I am missing something, there is no such thing as a "non-snow" cost. Are you suggesting they should design cards like that?
I don't know what you mean about the older version of Animate Dead being less clear. I think it's perfectly described and understandable in the older text.
its really not :D For example, how is it not falling off instantly? It says "enchant dead creature" but once your creature is on the battlefield, its not dead anymore. Thats kind of the point why they had to make it so wordy.
@@ich3730 ok, but take off your "established magic player" glasses, and equip your "I'm a new player" glasses. If you're a new player, it makes perfect sense that you enchant a dead creature, and the enchantment doesn't just fall off afterwards. From a casual player's perspective, the original card is super easy to understand.
@@DrMonty-ng5fo Even then, the game text cards have to say the correct rules of the game. New players will, eventually, have to learn the rule by themselves. You can't write down wrong rules for the sake of new players.
Yeah, the original version, while technically not compatible with the rules, communicates the intent much more clearly. I get why they had to change it, but I don't understand the comment he made in the video.
I love the funky ruling texts on some cards Force of Savagery a 8/0 for 2G With the following ruling Yes, Force of Savagery has 0 toughness. It will be put into its owner’s graveyard as a state-based action immediately upon entering the battlefield unless an effect puts it onto the battlefield with a counter on it (such as Chorus of the Conclave would) or a static ability boosts its toughness (such as Glorious Anthem would). A triggered or activated ability that boosts toughness won’t have its effect fast enough to save it.(2007-05-01)
My favourite version of something like this was described as "silly counters". Basically just playing as many cards like Takklemaggot and Frankenstein's Monster with weird and niche counter types and moving them about all over the place to give everyone a headache. "Your 2/3 has 2 +1/+1 counters, 1 +2/+0 counter, 1 +0/+2 counter and 2 -2/-1 counters, have fun!" EDIT: Should mention the main point of that deck, not being asked to play commander any more :P
Equinox is also a interesting card that doesn't really expain what it ca counter. For example it can't counter a spell that would deal lethal damage to the land if it's turned into a creature.
That one is easy because the effect dealing damage is not the one responsible for destruction. The biggest problem are things like Lava Blister: "Destroy target nonbasic land unless its controller has Lava Blister deal 6 damage to them." How are you supposed to know if the spell will destroy the land?
@@fernandobanda5734 IIRC in the controlling players rulings, or something like that, in a tax effect it's considered that the first outcome is the one that "would" happen, but I would need to hit scryfall or the comprehensive rules to check it out.
I think Ice cauldron is actually pretty simple compared to the rest of the list I’d put wheel of misfortune on this list cause it takes me at rest 5 read throughs every time to figure out what it does
I guess for those of us that played early on, things like Season of the Witch weren't too difficult, as we already had this entire effect in a very common card very early on. Nettling imp has this same effect for a single target, and has been around from the start. When I saw what card you were putting at #1, I was just confused as heck.
Yugioh!'s infamous wall-of-text cards are generally because they have half a dozen effects. Magic's infamous wall-of-text cards are just convoluted bullshit :) Even Relinquished (the OG novella card) is 4 different effects (target a monster to equip, it gains ATK/DEF equal to the equipped monster, destroy the equipped monster instead of Relinquished if Relinquished would be destroyed by battle, and any battle damage inflicted to Relinquished while it has a monster equipped is also inflicted to your opponent). Even Endymion, the Mighty Master Of Magic is easier to explain than Takklemaggot.
Always thought Blood Moon in printings after its first in The Dark was confusing. In The Dark it reads "nonbasic lands are now basic mountains" whereas other printings say "nonbasic lands are mountains" implying that they gain the ability to tap for red rather than lose all other abilities.
Compare Blood Moon to a card like Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. The former just says what they are, while the latter says that they are Swamps in addition to their other card types. If the last bit of text isn't there, it overrides the abilities of the card.
@@jameshonaker585 This is correct, but I kind of hate it. Imo, they should get rid of that rule and issue errata to retain the functionality of the impacted cards.
@@naomicoffman1315 There are a lot of cards that this would impact besides Blood Moon, and I've never had an issue with the rule being that it's an override unless it says "in addition to".
@@jameshonaker585 To be clear, I don't mind effects that set (sub)types removing other (sub)types. My issue is with Blood Moon/Spreading Seas/what have you removing abilities when nothing on the card even mentions abilities in any way.
Honorable mention in my opinion is wheel of misfortune... I've seen so many tables playing commander trying to explain this card to a new player, its crazy
I feel like Illusory Mask would have been a much better option than Pyramids, both because it is more iconic and because the rules text is more convoluted.
Mephistopheles has 3 different horns like how he has 3 different outcomes. Also, what if he said, "If you'd draw either another card during the draw step or the first card this turn outside the draw step, either discard a card or send your library's top card to the gy."?
Haunt is just a means for anything to enchant anythimg else when it departs, without being an Aura. Its not _that_ weird. Not as weird as hiring armed thugs to attack minor UA-camrs, certainly.
This news story has been blown so far out of proportion from what really happened. WotC was trying to contact the guy via email and phone originally as soon as he revealed he had the cards by leaking the entire set early (which is kind of a d**k move and the only reason this whole thing happened.If he just kept the cards to himself none of this would have gone down) It was only after the guy never picked up any of their calls that they resorted to sending people to his house directly to try and get him to turn over the cards and contact WotC.Also it wasn't WotC's fault for the mishap either because he was purchasing from an "independent retailer" who was almost certainly the one who made the mistake.But he also then went on to keep purchasing more boxes after he knew they were selling the set early which is how he was able to leak the entire set. Finally,the Pinkertons were a scary organization,but saying the Pinkertons are armed thugs solely used for intimidation is like saying that Coca Cola sells drinks with actual cocaine in them.They were bought by a Swedish Security firm decades ago and mostly do normal security jobs now,such as the detective work that WotC needed in this situation after the didn't return their calls for a Cease and Desist.
@@maswansolleh6040 You are genuinely pathetic for defending wizards sending fucking PINKERTONS to someone's house over early release. You're wrong in this situation. Accept it and move on.
Have you ever thought of doing a deck breakdown series? I think it'd be interesting to see you go over the gameplan, history, etc. of major decks in modern or vintage(Crashing Footfalls, Mono-White Initiative, Izzet Delver...)
For me the season of the witch with just the Silent Arbiter is fairly straightforward, because season of the witch triggers at your end step if you attacked with one creature then the rest of your creatures were fine, because at your end step they couldnt be declared as an attacker because silent arbiter said only one. But this means if you dont attack with ant creatures you would destroy all of them (nix, summoning sickness and other circumstances of course)
I went to Season of the Witch's gatherer page to see if there were any other rulings on the card and it actually contains a good piece of information. "A creature won't be destroyed if it was unable to attack that turn, even if you had a way to enable it to attack. For example, a creature that had summoning sickness wouldn't be destroyed even if you had a way to give it haste." This actually fixes Silent Arbiter and Ghostly Prison's interaction with Season. Ghostly Prison (and other attack taxes) turns Season off for a player if everyone else has some variant of it, regardless of if taxes were payable. Silent Arbiter is much simpler, just make sure you attack with SOMETHING or else everything that could've been declared as the lone attacker dies.
I still read the opposite interaction with Silent Arbiter because of the first ruling. You don't have to take an action that would enable it to attack. With Silent Arbiter, each creature could have been declared as an attacker, but only one in total. Alternatively, Ghostly prison says that creatures cannot attack (unless you pay 2) The default state there is that they cannot attack, and you are not required to pay to enable them to. The other ruling: "At the beginning of every end step, regardless of whose turn it is, the second ability triggers. When it resolves every creature that could have been declared as an attacker during that turn's Declare Attackers Step but wasn't will be destroyed." Example 1: You have goblin motivator and cast grizzly bears while season of the witch is in play. You are not required to tap the goblin motivator to give the bears haste in order to prevent their destruction, as the game only sees that the bears have summoning sickness, and thus cannot attack. Example 2: You have 3 grizzly bears, and your opponent has Season of the Witch and Silent Arbiter. You attack with one bear. All three bears could individually have been declared as an attacker. The Season of the Witch sees that, and destroys the other two bears. They could have been declared as attackers, but only one was. Example 3: You have 3 grizzly bears, and your opponent has Ghostly Prison and Season of the Witch. You choose not to pay to enable them to be able to attack. None are destroyed. Example 4: You have 3 grizzly bears, and your opponent has Ghostly Prison and Season of the Witch. You are playing in three player game, and choose not to attack the third player either, as he has 3 It That Betrays. All three bears are destroyed, because they still could have attacked player 3. (you then lose to the player with 3 big eldrazi.) But that is just my understanding, and I am not a judge. (EDIT: Added "not" to example one, as I forgot it, and it drastically changes the meaning.)
@@JDP5127 I can explain all 4 examples here. I'll use the rule mentioned in the video as Rule A and the one I quoted from Gatherer as Rule B. For reference incase any of the examples require it, the exact Oracle Text for the effect is: "At the beginning of the end step, destroy all untapped creatures that didn't attack this turn, except for creatures that couldn't attack." Example 1: Rule B actually uses this exact case as an example for creatures that WOULDN'T be destroyed. Yes, you could have done something to enable the bears to attack, but if you didn't, they wouldn't be able to attack. The important part is Rule A looking at whether a creature can attack during the Declare Attackers Step, not whether or not it was possible for them to if different things happened. Example 2: Silent Arbiter's attacker limit makes it so any declared attacker past the first is illegal. This means that as long as you attack with one creature, all other creatures aren't able to attack, which gives them protection from Season. This does mean that choosing to attack with nothing means everything that could've been the one attacker dies, however. Example 3: This is correct, due to Rule B seeing that while it was possible to them to attack, you didn't pay the tax and therefore """"couldn't"""" (massive air quotes required). This is good enough for Season to not blow up your creatures. Example 4: This is also correct, though I personally would throw the bears at It That Betrays as it can only block one creature. Hopefully this clears things up, but I know I'm not the best at explaining things.
@@D0omsday779 I still disagree on Silent Aribiter, but I can see the logic, and would need a third party to weigh in. I now see I left a typo behind that drastically changed the first example. I meant "you are NOT required to tap the motivator". That is my bad. I will jokingly point out that in example 4 attacking would do little good, as the third player has 3 It That Betrays, each eating one of your grizzly bears, and shortly the rest of your board.
I finally decided to actually look it up, as everything before this was just my thought process. I found a couple of places where someone claiming to be a level 3 judge (and probably reliably so) stated that D0omsday was correct. Silent arbiter makes it so all creatures except the one one who did attack could not attack, and would not die. My bad.
If we're looking at 'common language' interpretations of "couldn't attack", I think the most straightforward way to determine if a creature "Couldn't have attacked" is to answer the question "At the time of combat, when attackers were declared, was there a legal attack you could have declared that contained this creature?" If the answer is no, it couldn't have attacked. This nicely handles all the corner cases If you're facing into a Ghostly Prison, then none of your creatures are legal to attack with unless you choose to make them legal. If you choose to make them legal, then Season will be able to affect them. If you put a creature with Haste in play any time after attackers are declared, it won't matter. That creature didn't exist, so no legal attack could have been declared that included it. Silent Arbiter in play and you have two creatures? Each of them is part of some possible legal attack declaration, so whichever doesn't attack will be Season'd. Etc, etc. Note that legal attack possibilities have to take into account all existing requirements and restrictions, and the only legal attacks are those which maximize the number of requirements met while obeying all restrictions. If you have three creatures that "Must attack if able", but one of them also has "This can only attack alone", then the only legal attack is with the two that do not have that second line, as attacking with the 'must attack alone' creature would only satisfy one requirement, while attacking with the other two satisfies two requirements. In this case, Season would not kill the 'can only attack alone' creature, because there is no legal attack it could have made when it came time to declare attackers.
Layman's terms for season of the witch. If goading a creature would have caused it to enter combat this turn but it didn't enter combat, destroy that creature at end of turn.
Fun fact about Dead Ringers: The Spanish version actually clarifies in reminder text what it's trying to say. Something like: "Destroy two target nonblack creatures unless one is of a color the other one isn't. (This means it destroys them if they're both exactly the same colors or if both are colorless.)
@@Prince_Eva_Huepow Unfortunately, that would be ambiguous. Many people would interpret that to mean that sharing a single color is sufficient to prevent targeting. You would have to say something like "This means it destroys them both unless they do not share all their colors in common", which is too close to the actual text to serve as clarification. The Spanish reminder text is actually very clear
The Season of the Witch / Silent Arbiter situation isn't ambiguous at all and doesn't need any more rulings - because of the ruling from Gatherer that you showed on screen. Silent Arbiter doesn't make any individual creature unable to be "declared as an attacker during that turn's Declare Attackers Step" - not until one creature has been actually declared as an attacker. Before that point, any other creature could've been declared as an attacker if it was otherwise able to attack, so they meet the conditions for Season of the Witch.
So, if I attack with one creature, none get destroyed? And if I don't attack with any creature, all of them get destroyed? Is my understanding correct?
The only problem with SotW is that the rules never clarified what "could have attacked but didn't" means in the game, though they have changed the rules for so many other cards printed before and after it. I wish they had reprinted it for one of the Innistrad blocks.
Haunt would've been better as an ability word like Landfall instead of a keyword. Keywords are at their best when they're shorthand for a singular effect that does the same thing every time, i.e. Trample always applies excess damage to players, Lifelink always gains life for damage dealt. This is also why Banding is so confusing to so many people.
There are very few cards that have changed functionality. The one I can think of used to boost Falcons, which aren't a supported type anymore, so now it affects all Birds.
shout out to necromancy whose card text is animate dead but worse. it's oracle text has got much worse as mtg rulings have changed and especially as bury stopped being a keyword it's probably so long at this point it actually couldn't be printed on a mtg card
I find Season of The Witch easy. Arbiter and Ghostly Prison don't modify the creature's ability to attack. They modify the player's ability to declare attackers. Arbiter for example only lets you declare the one attacking creature. Every creature could attack into that. So Season would kill them. Conversely, Ensnaring Bridge says certain creatures can't attack. Those creatures are thus shielded from the Season, as being unable to attack at all.
Dishonorable mention for "Book Burning", as emblematic of the 'punisher' cards. While the oracle text makes perfect sense now, the original templating caused many arguments, and Book Burning in particular was made more confusing by its *formatting on the card* in addition to the wording. The oracle text says: "Any player may have Book Burning deal 6 damage to them. If no one does, target player mills six cards." The text on the card says: "Unless a player has Book Burning deal 6 damage to him or her, put the top six cards of target player's library into his or her graveyard" The *formatting* looks like this: Unless a player has Book Burning deal 6 damage to him or her, put the top six cards of target player's library into his or her graveyard. Now, be a player seeing this card and reading it for the first time. "Unless a player has Book Burning (pause) deal 6 damage... wait, so it deals 6 damage to me unless I have Book Burning? How does that even make sense?" and the confusion and arguments begin.
I'm really enjoying this channel and watching many of your videos, but the lack of proofreading is appalling (I mean, it's a video about card text, c'mon)
Dead ringers and Chains are pretty simple to understand. I feel like anyone confused by these are not very experienced with MTG...it also works nothing like Narset bro
Just reword the last card; Any untapped creature at the end of the turn blows up. It reminds me of a lot of Red Demon Dragon cards from Yugioh; if you aren't attacking you're blowing up.
Breaking Point successfully confused a lot of people into thinking that it dealt the damage THEN destroyed every creature if they didn't have Breaking Point in their hand.
my vote for a fairly recently printed, horribly worded card is Lagrella the Magpie. Every player I know has misunderstood it the first time they played with it, including me.
How is season of the witch not understood? It's pretty obvious in that example of Arbiter it would not destroy the other cards as they couldn't attack.They couldn't attack if something else was therefore witch won't destroy them it's only cards that could have attacked but you chose not to make them do so yet they could've of. I don't see why anyone would be confused by that. Same if you had a creature that said can't attack that wouldn't be destroyed either because simply it couldn't attacked anyway.
Shoutout to camoflauge! While its rules text is only slightly confusing, its oricle text is the most convoluted wtf thing ever. Just thinking about it feels like having a stroke
Personal worst I encountered was the German version of the Dominaria Remaster version of lightning reflexes, as it was worded in a way that made it sound like they card it is attached to would have to be sacrificed.
Seeing as this is about how cards work, it's funny that you got the effect of takklemaggot wrong. It doesn't just go on you as a negative. It goes on the last player that owned the last creature it killed if there are no new legal targets.
Animate Dead is interesting because even a beginner can easily understand what it does, but to make it jive with the rules they have to add tons of confusing text.
with your wording of dead ringers, I don't think it could kill 2 colorless creatures they don't share a color but aren't any color at all. real dead ringer does allow two color creatures to die while your's wouldn't
Yeah, that would be the Mystery Booster Playtest Card, Problematic Volcano, and being a World Enchantment prevents there from being more than one on the battlefield at a time.
You got Takklemagot wrong (surprising, I know). When it stops being an aura, it deals that damage to the player who failed to choose a creature. So basically it hot-potatoes around until there are no creatures left and then whoever controlled the last creature gets the damage on upkeep. You still control the enchantment, though.
why couldn’t animate dead have been an enchantment without the aura subtype and said “when animate dead enters the battlefield, return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield, then animate dead becomes an aura and attaches to that creature”
You would still have to add text saying the creature dies when Animate Dead is destroyed. And your version raises some tricky questions too. For example: Can I cast Tranquil Domain (which destroys all non-aura enchantments) in response to Animate Dead changing to an Aura to destroy the creature? What about if I just destroy Animate Dead in response to its first ability reanimating the creature? The effect would still happen in your wording.
Illusory Mask is a pretty miserable predecessor to morph, the erratas change pretty drastically, including one old online only version which even includes useless Mask Counters for some reason
@@fernandobanda5734 don’t really know; for magic the cards have been very easy to grasp mostly because they always make sense in relation to the rules. For me what has been a pain in the ass to understand has been yugioh because the card texts and the rules have never really worked well together; it took me a few tries to learn the difference between if and when effects and how they relate to the timing but that’s just me I guess Edit: sry if the last part came out as rude. I genuinely don’t think I’ve ran into a card In mtg that I thought was too hard to understand
For those wondering... yes you can have multiple Raging Rivers and it is a big mess
Dear god it’s Shahrazad all over again
I had an old legacy troll deck with 4 raging rivers in it. God I miss troll decks. Miserable to play with an against but it was a novelty you don't see really anyone do much anymore
So is it like exponential or linear?
@@Animaster89 Yes
That sounds horrible. Like copying Warp World a bunch of times.
takklemaggot is pretty wordy but flavorwise it's pretty cool, it literally infects creatures until it runs out of creatures, and then it infects you.
Cool in commander
Why does it infect the player who cast the card, and not the opponent who originally it was feeding off of? The wording makes it sound like an upside, not a downside.
So it's not necessarily going to hit the original caster.
What happens when no more creatures can be chosen (either none on the battlefield, or they all have protection) is whoever controlled that last creature is now "that player".
Honestly, even though it's a minor functional change, the end state should be "Takklemaggot loses 'enchant creature' and gains 'enchant player', then return it to the battlefield attached to that player.", and then with an additional line earlier ("At the beginning of enchanted player's upkeep, Takklemaggot deals 1 damage to that player.")
(I'm a little surprised we haven't seen a DFC implementation of it, though, as that's even easier to follow. Maybe when we go back to Lorwyn?)
Personal favorite still has to go to Chaos Lord’s unerrata’d text.
“This card can attack the first turn it comes to play on a side, except the first turn it comes into play.”
Season of the Witch is mainly confusing due to how the rulings work. Chaos Lord though is just instant psychic damage upon the first sentence and I love it.
So it gives every "gain control" effect also give haste? I love it.
That's one of the dumbest, most niche abilities ever... Almost as irrelevant as cards that do things like "tap: remove plainswalk/horsemanship from a creature." 😂
A roundabout way to say, this creature is unaffected by Summoning Sickness when it switches control between players
They couldn't just give it haste. That would make it too good, I guess. Except it was never in danger of being good, even at the time.
@@TheThiccestChungusnot just haste, bad haste. You can’t tap it for abilities since the effect specifies only attacks.
So it’s even more niche since you can’t temporarily steal it and use it as a mana dork with Paradise Mantle since it can’t tap for abilities.
I guess in modern MTG Takklemaggot would be a double faced card that transforms when it comes back and has no legal target, where the back side is an aura curse that enchants you as player.
...enchants the last creature's controller, actually.
Part of the problem is that while the original wording swapped who controls it, the current wording does *not* and has a "that player" reference to the player who couldn't pick a new creature to attach it to.
That could be a pretty cool design for Innistrad or something. it helps Toxrill players make their opponents lives miserable.
Double sided cards would also fix a lot of issues with Licids
Illusionary Mask definitely deserves at least an honorable mention, if not being on the list itself
And Camouflage.
Love how all of these are basically regular yu-gi-oh cards
i was gonna say this XD yu-gi-oh is so leaps and bounds more confusing, wordy, & ridiculous to anything magic has ever put out. To this day, yu-gi-oh is still the most confusing & hard to understand game I've ever played.
Most Yu-gi-oh cards are pretty easy to parse once you get the hang of card grammar. It's just that every card has ten different effects, rather than one convoluted one.
And that includes text size.
@@Varooooooom God how I wish yugioh cards were the same size as Magic cards.
@@murlocaggrob2192 Yeah it’s true. What also makes it confusing though is how many similar but slightly different effects exist in most archetypes. Like one will be “When this card is sent from the field or hand to the GY, you can send one monster card from you deck to the graveyard.” And another one will be “When this card is sent from the field to the GY, you can search you deck for a spell card and add it to your hand or send it to the GY.” That makes it so much more confusing remembering all the differences in every Archetype
They probably imagined for Raging River that you would put it in the middle of the battlefield and then put everything on the left or right of it. Which doesn't really make it less confusing to explain but it does make more intuitive sense when physically shown to someone.
its an example of mtg's great design. That card doesnt even need text, put the picture of a river in the middle of the table and everyone will instantly know whats up.
Your explanation of Dead Ringers is slightly incorrect. You are not even allowed to cast the spell if at least one of the two targets are black. So if there are fewer than two nonblack creatures on the battlefield, you can't cast the spell at all. Once you've cast it though, if you decide to target two creatures with different color combinations, the spell won't do anything.
Ice Cauldron actually doesn't remember "snow" mana used for it's ability since it's not a type of mana. The six types of mana in eternal Magic are White, Blue, Black, Red, Green, and Colorless mana.
None of the mana generated by Ice Cauldron will be able to pay for snow costs unless you turn Ice Cauldron into a Snow permanent, in which case all the mana generated could pay for snow costs.
What about “non snow” costs, that can only be paid with mana NOT generated by a snow source
@@algotkristoffersson15 I'm not sure I understand the question. Unless I am missing something, there is no such thing as a "non-snow" cost.
Are you suggesting they should design cards like that?
@@connorhamilton5707 yeah why not? Snow covered lands should not be a direct upgrade.
Season Of The Witch reminds me of Red Dragon Archfiend (or as I like to call it: Red Demon Dragon Archfiend).
I don't know what you mean about the older version of Animate Dead being less clear. I think it's perfectly described and understandable in the older text.
Right!
its really not :D For example, how is it not falling off instantly? It says "enchant dead creature" but once your creature is on the battlefield, its not dead anymore. Thats kind of the point why they had to make it so wordy.
@@ich3730 ok, but take off your "established magic player" glasses, and equip your "I'm a new player" glasses. If you're a new player, it makes perfect sense that you enchant a dead creature, and the enchantment doesn't just fall off afterwards. From a casual player's perspective, the original card is super easy to understand.
@@DrMonty-ng5fo Even then, the game text cards have to say the correct rules of the game. New players will, eventually, have to learn the rule by themselves. You can't write down wrong rules for the sake of new players.
Yeah, the original version, while technically not compatible with the rules, communicates the intent much more clearly. I get why they had to change it, but I don't understand the comment he made in the video.
I love the funky ruling texts on some cards
Force of Savagery a 8/0 for 2G
With the following ruling
Yes, Force of Savagery has 0 toughness. It will be put into its owner’s graveyard as a state-based action immediately upon entering the battlefield unless an effect puts it onto the battlefield with a counter on it (such as Chorus of the Conclave would) or a static ability boosts its toughness (such as Glorious Anthem would). A triggered or activated ability that boosts toughness won’t have its effect fast enough to save it.(2007-05-01)
Which if it was reprinted into Standard would have made it quite good with Wedding Announcement or some other nice, janky kinds of deck
Now I want to build an Orzov confusing card deck for commander
My favourite version of something like this was described as "silly counters". Basically just playing as many cards like Takklemaggot and Frankenstein's Monster with weird and niche counter types and moving them about all over the place to give everyone a headache. "Your 2/3 has 2 +1/+1 counters, 1 +2/+0 counter, 1 +0/+2 counter and 2 -2/-1 counters, have fun!"
EDIT: Should mention the main point of that deck, not being asked to play commander any more :P
You’re that guy huh
@@2LettersSho so Sultai proliferate to ensure that maximum salt is had by everyone.
Equinox is also a interesting card that doesn't really expain what it ca counter. For example it can't counter a spell that would deal lethal damage to the land if it's turned into a creature.
That one is easy because the effect dealing damage is not the one responsible for destruction. The biggest problem are things like Lava Blister: "Destroy target nonbasic land unless its controller has Lava Blister deal 6 damage to them." How are you supposed to know if the spell will destroy the land?
@@fernandobanda5734 IIRC in the controlling players rulings, or something like that, in a tax effect it's considered that the first outcome is the one that "would" happen, but I would need to hit scryfall or the comprehensive rules to check it out.
At least none of these are as confusing as Pot of Greed. I'm still not sure what it does.
it lets u draw two cards
I think Ice cauldron is actually pretty simple compared to the rest of the list
I’d put wheel of misfortune on this list cause it takes me at rest 5 read throughs every time to figure out what it does
I love the artwork for Season of the Witch though. It fits the old border so much. Very flavorful.
"My creature could've attacked but it had to leave for an appointment today"
I guess for those of us that played early on, things like Season of the Witch weren't too difficult, as we already had this entire effect in a very common card very early on. Nettling imp has this same effect for a single target, and has been around from the start. When I saw what card you were putting at #1, I was just confused as heck.
Yugioh!'s infamous wall-of-text cards are generally because they have half a dozen effects. Magic's infamous wall-of-text cards are just convoluted bullshit :) Even Relinquished (the OG novella card) is 4 different effects (target a monster to equip, it gains ATK/DEF equal to the equipped monster, destroy the equipped monster instead of Relinquished if Relinquished would be destroyed by battle, and any battle damage inflicted to Relinquished while it has a monster equipped is also inflicted to your opponent). Even Endymion, the Mighty Master Of Magic is easier to explain than Takklemaggot.
Always thought Blood Moon in printings after its first in The Dark was confusing. In The Dark it reads "nonbasic lands are now basic mountains" whereas other printings say "nonbasic lands are mountains" implying that they gain the ability to tap for red rather than lose all other abilities.
Compare Blood Moon to a card like Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. The former just says what they are, while the latter says that they are Swamps in addition to their other card types. If the last bit of text isn't there, it overrides the abilities of the card.
@@jameshonaker585 This is correct, but I kind of hate it. Imo, they should get rid of that rule and issue errata to retain the functionality of the impacted cards.
@@naomicoffman1315 There are a lot of cards that this would impact besides Blood Moon, and I've never had an issue with the rule being that it's an override unless it says "in addition to".
@@jameshonaker585 To be clear, I don't mind effects that set (sub)types removing other (sub)types. My issue is with Blood Moon/Spreading Seas/what have you removing abilities when nothing on the card even mentions abilities in any way.
Yeah, it's kind of understandable that it would remove/replacing land types when worded that way, but it removing abilities is just wack.
Honorable mention in my opinion is wheel of misfortune... I've seen so many tables playing commander trying to explain this card to a new player, its crazy
I feel like Illusory Mask would have been a much better option than Pyramids, both because it is more iconic and because the rules text is more convoluted.
Feel the same. And also Camouflge.
Mephistopheles has 3 different horns like how he has 3 different outcomes.
Also, what if he said, "If you'd draw either another card during the draw step or the first card this turn outside the draw step, either discard a card or send your library's top card to the gy."?
Well, that just changes the effect of the card. That's offering a choice
Haunt is just a means for anything to enchant anythimg else when it departs, without being an Aura. Its not _that_ weird. Not as weird as hiring armed thugs to attack minor UA-camrs, certainly.
This news story has been blown so far out of proportion from what really happened. WotC was trying to contact the guy via email and phone originally as soon as he revealed he had the cards by leaking the entire set early (which is kind of a d**k move and the only reason this whole thing happened.If he just kept the cards to himself none of this would have gone down) It was only after the guy never picked up any of their calls that they resorted to sending people to his house directly to try and get him to turn over the cards and contact WotC.Also it wasn't WotC's fault for the mishap either because he was purchasing from an "independent retailer" who was almost certainly the one who made the mistake.But he also then went on to keep purchasing more boxes after he knew they were selling the set early which is how he was able to leak the entire set. Finally,the Pinkertons were a scary organization,but saying the Pinkertons are armed thugs solely used for intimidation is like saying that Coca Cola sells drinks with actual cocaine in them.They were bought by a Swedish Security firm decades ago and mostly do normal security jobs now,such as the detective work that WotC needed in this situation after the didn't return their calls for a Cease and Desist.
@@maswansolleh6040 Wizards sure paid you well to speak on behalf of them
@@maswansolleh6040 hope the boot tastes good!
@@maswansolleh6040 You are genuinely pathetic for defending wizards sending fucking PINKERTONS to someone's house over early release.
You're wrong in this situation. Accept it and move on.
Have you ever thought of doing a deck breakdown series? I think it'd be interesting to see you go over the gameplan, history, etc. of major decks in modern or vintage(Crashing Footfalls, Mono-White Initiative, Izzet Delver...)
For me the season of the witch with just the Silent Arbiter is fairly straightforward, because season of the witch triggers at your end step if you attacked with one creature then the rest of your creatures were fine, because at your end step they couldnt be declared as an attacker because silent arbiter said only one. But this means if you dont attack with ant creatures you would destroy all of them (nix, summoning sickness and other circumstances of course)
I am super surprised that Illusionary Mask isn't here. 😏
If I were the head judge having to rule on Season of the Witch and Silent Arbiter, I'd just DQ both players. Simple.
I went to Season of the Witch's gatherer page to see if there were any other rulings on the card and it actually contains a good piece of information.
"A creature won't be destroyed if it was unable to attack that turn, even if you had a way to enable it to attack. For example, a creature that had summoning sickness wouldn't be destroyed even if you had a way to give it haste."
This actually fixes Silent Arbiter and Ghostly Prison's interaction with Season. Ghostly Prison (and other attack taxes) turns Season off for a player if everyone else has some variant of it, regardless of if taxes were payable. Silent Arbiter is much simpler, just make sure you attack with SOMETHING or else everything that could've been declared as the lone attacker dies.
I still read the opposite interaction with Silent Arbiter because of the first ruling. You don't have to take an action that would enable it to attack. With Silent Arbiter, each creature could have been declared as an attacker, but only one in total. Alternatively, Ghostly prison says that creatures cannot attack (unless you pay 2) The default state there is that they cannot attack, and you are not required to pay to enable them to.
The other ruling:
"At the beginning of every end step, regardless of whose turn it is, the second ability triggers. When it resolves every creature that could have been declared as an attacker during that turn's Declare Attackers Step but wasn't will be destroyed."
Example 1: You have goblin motivator and cast grizzly bears while season of the witch is in play. You are not required to tap the goblin motivator to give the bears haste in order to prevent their destruction, as the game only sees that the bears have summoning sickness, and thus cannot attack.
Example 2: You have 3 grizzly bears, and your opponent has Season of the Witch and Silent Arbiter. You attack with one bear. All three bears could individually have been declared as an attacker. The Season of the Witch sees that, and destroys the other two bears. They could have been declared as attackers, but only one was.
Example 3: You have 3 grizzly bears, and your opponent has Ghostly Prison and Season of the Witch. You choose not to pay to enable them to be able to attack. None are destroyed.
Example 4: You have 3 grizzly bears, and your opponent has Ghostly Prison and Season of the Witch. You are playing in three player game, and choose not to attack the third player either, as he has 3 It That Betrays. All three bears are destroyed, because they still could have attacked player 3. (you then lose to the player with 3 big eldrazi.)
But that is just my understanding, and I am not a judge.
(EDIT: Added "not" to example one, as I forgot it, and it drastically changes the meaning.)
@@JDP5127 I can explain all 4 examples here. I'll use the rule mentioned in the video as Rule A and the one I quoted from Gatherer as Rule B.
For reference incase any of the examples require it, the exact Oracle Text for the effect is:
"At the beginning of the end step, destroy all untapped creatures that didn't attack this turn, except for creatures that couldn't attack."
Example 1: Rule B actually uses this exact case as an example for creatures that WOULDN'T be destroyed. Yes, you could have done something to enable the bears to attack, but if you didn't, they wouldn't be able to attack. The important part is Rule A looking at whether a creature can attack during the Declare Attackers Step, not whether or not it was possible for them to if different things happened.
Example 2: Silent Arbiter's attacker limit makes it so any declared attacker past the first is illegal. This means that as long as you attack with one creature, all other creatures aren't able to attack, which gives them protection from Season. This does mean that choosing to attack with nothing means everything that could've been the one attacker dies, however.
Example 3: This is correct, due to Rule B seeing that while it was possible to them to attack, you didn't pay the tax and therefore """"couldn't"""" (massive air quotes required). This is good enough for Season to not blow up your creatures.
Example 4: This is also correct, though I personally would throw the bears at It That Betrays as it can only block one creature.
Hopefully this clears things up, but I know I'm not the best at explaining things.
@@D0omsday779 I still disagree on Silent Aribiter, but I can see the logic, and would need a third party to weigh in.
I now see I left a typo behind that drastically changed the first example. I meant "you are NOT required to tap the motivator". That is my bad. I will jokingly point out that in example 4 attacking would do little good, as the third player has 3 It That Betrays, each eating one of your grizzly bears, and shortly the rest of your board.
I finally decided to actually look it up, as everything before this was just my thought process. I found a couple of places where someone claiming to be a level 3 judge (and probably reliably so) stated that D0omsday was correct. Silent arbiter makes it so all creatures except the one one who did attack could not attack, and would not die. My bad.
If we're looking at 'common language' interpretations of "couldn't attack", I think the most straightforward way to determine if a creature "Couldn't have attacked" is to answer the question "At the time of combat, when attackers were declared, was there a legal attack you could have declared that contained this creature?" If the answer is no, it couldn't have attacked. This nicely handles all the corner cases
If you're facing into a Ghostly Prison, then none of your creatures are legal to attack with unless you choose to make them legal. If you choose to make them legal, then Season will be able to affect them.
If you put a creature with Haste in play any time after attackers are declared, it won't matter. That creature didn't exist, so no legal attack could have been declared that included it.
Silent Arbiter in play and you have two creatures? Each of them is part of some possible legal attack declaration, so whichever doesn't attack will be Season'd.
Etc, etc.
Note that legal attack possibilities have to take into account all existing requirements and restrictions, and the only legal attacks are those which maximize the number of requirements met while obeying all restrictions. If you have three creatures that "Must attack if able", but one of them also has "This can only attack alone", then the only legal attack is with the two that do not have that second line, as attacking with the 'must attack alone' creature would only satisfy one requirement, while attacking with the other two satisfies two requirements. In this case, Season would not kill the 'can only attack alone' creature, because there is no legal attack it could have made when it came time to declare attackers.
Layman's terms for season of the witch. If goading a creature would have caused it to enter combat this turn but it didn't enter combat, destroy that creature at end of turn.
Takklemaggot should be reprinted as a flip card with its first effect on the front and the second effect on the other.
As a Yugioh player, I could understand all of these.
Fun fact about Dead Ringers: The Spanish version actually clarifies in reminder text what it's trying to say. Something like:
"Destroy two target nonblack creatures unless one is of a color the other one isn't. (This means it destroys them if they're both exactly the same colors or if both are colorless.)
They could also instead say "unless they are different colors."
@@Prince_Eva_Huepow Unfortunately, that would be ambiguous. Many people would interpret that to mean that sharing a single color is sufficient to prevent targeting. You would have to say something like "This means it destroys them both unless they do not share all their colors in common", which is too close to the actual text to serve as clarification. The Spanish reminder text is actually very clear
i almost like what ice cauldron wants to do. but the rules text is just an absolute mess.
I’m surprised Word of Command wasn’t on this list
When I saw "chains" at number 5 i felt an incredible dread in my heart xd I was *sure* it will be no. 1
The chains of mephistopheles text gave me anxiety
For me Dead Ringers is very easy to understand.
Surprised there was no mention of Illusionary Mask.
The actual number 1. Never even read what morphed creatures it produced. It used to be 0/1s and now is 2/2s. It mentions neither of that
The Season of the Witch / Silent Arbiter situation isn't ambiguous at all and doesn't need any more rulings - because of the ruling from Gatherer that you showed on screen. Silent Arbiter doesn't make any individual creature unable to be "declared as an attacker during that turn's Declare Attackers Step" - not until one creature has been actually declared as an attacker. Before that point, any other creature could've been declared as an attacker if it was otherwise able to attack, so they meet the conditions for Season of the Witch.
that's.. not correct
@@masterowl123 thanks for your detailed explanation
@@masterowl123 its literally correct...
Yeah, this seems like a non issue and I have no clue how it holds the number one spot on the list.
So, if I attack with one creature, none get destroyed? And if I don't attack with any creature, all of them get destroyed? Is my understanding correct?
I love using Takklemaggot in creatureless decks XD
takklemaggot actually enchants the controller of the last creature takklemaggot enchanted when it "flips" to the upkeep burn
The only problem with SotW is that the rules never clarified what "could have attacked but didn't" means in the game, though they have changed the rules for so many other cards printed before and after it. I wish they had reprinted it for one of the Innistrad blocks.
I'm surprised that Equinox isn't on the list 😂
Lagrella, the Magpie
man, I just love lists, I don't matter if its art or a ban list or weird cards, just lists
Haunt would've been better as an ability word like Landfall instead of a keyword. Keywords are at their best when they're shorthand for a singular effect that does the same thing every time, i.e. Trample always applies excess damage to players, Lifelink always gains life for damage dealt. This is also why Banding is so confusing to so many people.
Not sure if there is enough cards for this. Are there cards who after getting updated oracle text, became better cards than they were?
There are very few cards that have changed functionality. The one I can think of used to boost Falcons, which aren't a supported type anymore, so now it affects all Birds.
There are cards that have become better or worse because of changes to the Comp. Rules.
shout out to necromancy whose card text is animate dead but worse. it's oracle text has got much worse as mtg rulings have changed and especially as bury stopped being a keyword it's probably so long at this point it actually couldn't be printed on a mtg card
I find Season of The Witch easy.
Arbiter and Ghostly Prison don't modify the creature's ability to attack. They modify the player's ability to declare attackers. Arbiter for example only lets you declare the one attacking creature. Every creature could attack into that. So Season would kill them.
Conversely, Ensnaring Bridge says certain creatures can't attack. Those creatures are thus shielded from the Season, as being unable to attack at all.
Dishonorable mention for "Book Burning", as emblematic of the 'punisher' cards. While the oracle text makes perfect sense now, the original templating caused many arguments, and Book Burning in particular was made more confusing by its *formatting on the card* in addition to the wording.
The oracle text says: "Any player may have Book Burning deal 6 damage to them. If no one does, target player mills six cards."
The text on the card says: "Unless a player has Book Burning deal 6 damage to him or her, put the top six cards of target player's library into his or her graveyard"
The *formatting* looks like this:
Unless a player has Book Burning
deal 6 damage to him or her, put
the top six cards of target player's
library into his or her graveyard.
Now, be a player seeing this card and reading it for the first time. "Unless a player has Book Burning (pause) deal 6 damage... wait, so it deals 6 damage to me unless I have Book Burning? How does that even make sense?" and the confusion and arguments begin.
I'm really enjoying this channel and watching many of your videos, but the lack of proofreading is appalling (I mean, it's a video about card text, c'mon)
Dead ringers and Chains are pretty simple to understand. I feel like anyone confused by these are not very experienced with MTG...it also works nothing like Narset bro
Just reword the last card; Any untapped creature at the end of the turn blows up. It reminds me of a lot of Red Demon Dragon cards from Yugioh; if you aren't attacking you're blowing up.
Breaking Point successfully confused a lot of people into thinking that it dealt the damage THEN destroyed every creature if they didn't have Breaking Point in their hand.
my vote for a fairly recently printed, horribly worded card is Lagrella the Magpie. Every player I know has misunderstood it the first time they played with it, including me.
You very rarely see cards that scale based on players in the game? Not anymore lol. If anything that's becoming more common. Hail Commander format.
Several people in the comments mentioning illusionary mask, but no one's brought up Wheel of Misfortune yet smh.
How is season of the witch not understood? It's pretty obvious in that example of Arbiter it would not destroy the other cards as they couldn't attack.They couldn't attack if something else was therefore witch won't destroy them it's only cards that could have attacked but you chose not to make them do so yet they could've of.
I don't see why anyone would be confused by that. Same if you had a creature that said can't attack that wouldn't be destroyed either because simply it couldn't attacked anyway.
Season of the witch is common sense...if silent arbiter stops them from attacking, then they couldn't attack. So simple bro
Shoutout to camoflauge! While its rules text is only slightly confusing, its oricle text is the most convoluted wtf thing ever. Just thinking about it feels like having a stroke
Personal worst I encountered was the German version of the Dominaria Remaster version of lightning reflexes, as it was worded in a way that made it sound like they card it is attached to would have to be sacrificed.
I get what you’re saying with Benediction of Moons but 8 life for 1 mana isn’t bad in Commander or 2 headed giant.
Being tired as hell I was fully expecting Number 1 to be Pot of Greed (but then I realized, wrong game XD).
Seeing as this is about how cards work, it's funny that you got the effect of takklemaggot wrong. It doesn't just go on you as a negative. It goes on the last player that owned the last creature it killed if there are no new legal targets.
Animate Dead is interesting because even a beginner can easily understand what it does, but to make it jive with the rules they have to add tons of confusing text.
with your wording of dead ringers, I don't think it could kill 2 colorless creatures they don't share a color but aren't any color at all. real dead ringer does allow two color creatures to die while your's wouldn't
I play season of the witch rest of table alright guys were forming nato to take him out he played confusion
dead ringers can destroy colorless creatures thats why its more complicated than just "same colors"
You should take a look at some of the garbage that's exclusive to Alchemy!
yo what about Camouflage and Illusionary Mask?
Going to be playing all 10 of these in a judges tower deck
no word of command?
Lol I instantly thought of chain of Mephistopheles
Wasn't on the list but Tombstone Stairwell took me a while to get it
Space Beleren should have made the list
I swear to god if this video ends with Pot of Greed
I think they did a retread of Raging River. Something about a volcano? Thankfully there can only be one such card in play.
Space Beleren I think
Yeah, that would be the Mystery Booster Playtest Card, Problematic Volcano, and being a World Enchantment prevents there from being more than one on the battlefield at a time.
The Invasion set card Stand or Fall is superior to Raging River, as it also affects flying creatures, and is simple to understand.
How is Pyramids hard to read?
You got Takklemagot wrong (surprising, I know). When it stops being an aura, it deals that damage to the player who failed to choose a creature. So basically it hot-potatoes around until there are no creatures left and then whoever controlled the last creature gets the damage on upkeep. You still control the enchantment, though.
Two words: Illusionary Mask.
1:48 eh, the older card is more clear, actually.
I hate cards with white titles. Is so hard to read.
Amazing!!!!! Old magic is just the best 😂
Does Pyramids only prevent the damage? Not destroy effects like Doom Blade?
It does prevent destruction. "Instead" means that the first part (a land being destroyed) doesn't happen.
why couldn’t animate dead have been an enchantment without the aura subtype and said “when animate dead enters the battlefield, return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield, then animate dead becomes an aura and attaches to that creature”
You would still have to add text saying the creature dies when Animate Dead is destroyed. And your version raises some tricky questions too. For example: Can I cast Tranquil Domain (which destroys all non-aura enchantments) in response to Animate Dead changing to an Aura to destroy the creature? What about if I just destroy Animate Dead in response to its first ability reanimating the creature? The effect would still happen in your wording.
Okay, but do pod'da greed do?
ice cauldron not #1? idk bro
No Illusionary Mask?
What about goblin game?
Equinox not on list?
Top 10 Elves
Inspector Boarder
Oh wait, wrong game 😂
Illusory Mask is a pretty miserable predecessor to morph, the erratas change pretty drastically, including one old online only version which even includes useless Mask Counters for some reason
Where's Balduvian Shaman?
Hiding in a snowbank, sleeping off a thirty-year bender.
Dead ringers uses a double negative so you can target artifact creatures
I like how many times the word "parse" was used in the video 😊
Still less confusing than Pot of Greed
I honestly don’t think these are confusing or hard to read….
What would you say is more confusing or hard to read than these?
@@fernandobanda5734 don’t really know; for magic the cards have been very easy to grasp mostly because they always make sense in relation to the rules. For me what has been a pain in the ass to understand has been yugioh because the card texts and the rules have never really worked well together; it took me a few tries to learn the difference between if and when effects and how they relate to the timing but that’s just me I guess
Edit: sry if the last part came out as rude. I genuinely don’t think I’ve ran into a card In mtg that I thought was too hard to understand