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There’s a whole lot of text changing the IPG and MTR this time, but there’s only one significant functional update. A lot of the change is removing the gendered pronouns. Yay! Thanks, Chicago Manual of Style!
What We Talk About When We Talk About Magic
In keeping with the theme of Dominaria, let’s talk about some history!
The communication rules have been a section that we’ve historically avoided messing with. It took a lot of work between 2007 and 2009 (or so) to get them just right, and after that flurry of updates, we’ve mostly left them alone.
The reason we’ve left them alone is that they’ve been remarkably good at providing a structure in which it’s easy to drop in new pieces of information, even to things that would never have been anticipated when they were written. For example, making the City’s Blessing free information was a simple matter of adjusting the definition slightly. Futureproofing is something we strive for, and the communication rules are one of the best examples.
But providing an answer isn’t the same as providing the best answer. While the rules we had for City’s Blessing were unambiguous, it wasn’t optimal that the event could happen, not need announcing, then persist even as the conditions changed. You could not look at the board and derive the status of a permanent with Ascend. Ideally, there’d be a way to know this, but the Communication rules didn’t provide that.
What if we added a fourth type of information? Something that wasn’t just free when asked, but that you had to volunteer and represent. We haven’t had anything like this in the past… wait, didn’t we just do some work on the section about life totals? That describes them!
So we’re tearing out the whole Tracked Totals section and introducing a new type of communication information to go with free, derived and private: status! Status information is metadata about a player, including their life total, all the counters that are attached to them, and any continuous effects that apply to them. Those must all be physically represented, and when a change is made to any of them, it must be announced.
Once we had all the potential communication problems grouped together, it makes sense to handle them all in a similar fashion. Before, 4.1 was the only section covered by CPV, but there’s other pieces where it makes sense to issue infractions due to communications failures. CPV now covers the entire section. It might actually be CPV!
But that would have problems as-is (you could get a warning for laying out your board incorrectly), so we’ve also revamped CPV. The solution was already present in the remedy, which only applied when the judge believed that the violation of section 4 directly led to a play decision that wouldn’t have been otherwise made. We made that the definition instead, which really focuses on what’s important here. If everything is clear and both players are acting on mutually-understood information (both active and passive), then we’re not going to worry if there’s technically a violation. You should feel free to step in and encourage people to make things clearer, though!
Problems With Emcee
Not the card. Un-season is behind us.
We had most of the communications changes ready to go a couple months ago and were ready to roll out a midseason update so that we could have it apply to Rivals of Ixalan draft. But we couldn’t!
A while back, banlist announcements were decoupled from the quarterly document updates and didn’t have specific dates associated with them. That’s good! However, that meant that an announcement could come without any warning. That’s bad! So a section got added to the MTR that said any updates would have a four week announcement before the update. This was a good idea in theory, but that placed the same requirements on any MTR update. A pre-announcement would make things worse (“In four weeks, we’ll be doing an MTR update to the communication policy”) and not make a whole lot of sense. We debated just ignoring the rule, but that would set a bad precedent. So we lived with it and fixed the MTR. Now, only banlist announcements need a four-week lead announcement, and other parts of the MTR can be updated as needed.
Foiled Again
Kess, Dissident Mage is seeing some Legacy play. Unfortunately, some of the foil printings are warped too much to be used in a tournament. This happens with foils sometimes. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, as you’d just use a non-foil version. But Kess doesn’t have one.
As the number of foil-only cards increases, the odds of similar situations arising also increases (and this update also features the rules needed to make the buy-a-box promo legal). As a result we’re extending the proxy policy to also apply to situations where the card is only available in foil. This is the only extension. Cards that have a non-foil printing cannot be proxied.
Quick Hits
- There’s a couple of tiny tweaks to deck and decklist infractions. Judge’s discovering an error only applies during a deckcheck. The intent was never that a judge or opponent finding a card on the floor would get a penalty upgraded, so that part has been adjusted to reflect discovery of cards in the deck. The language around “about to be revealed” also got a little more explicit to explain it better.
- With the hybrid Saturdays for limited GPs, the question came up on when penalties reset – each day, or after the cut? The decision was made to reset after a cut in a multi-day tournament.
- Spectators aren’t allowed to pause a match at Professional REL. Coverage team members are technically spectators, but it’s a bit silly that people whose job it is to watch the game can’t ask them to pause. We’ve carved out a special exception to allow this.
- Now that you can Bolt Jace, we don’t need a planeswalker damage redirection shortcut.
- Block Constructed is no longer an officially supported format. If you miss Masques Block Constructed, it’s still available as a casual format.
The End of the Saga
That’s it for this update. As always, thanks to all the people who contributed suggestions, including Toby Hazes, David Larrea, Florian Horn and the GPHJs. I’m looking forward to what people find in the new approach to communication, but as always, we’re happy to hear suggestions on any section.
Was there a change to the 2HG shortcut in the communication section, now that the Dominaria rules change has altered how team combat works?
We’ll see if we need to make a change once it all shakes out. The current shortcut is probably sufficient for now.
With the change to CR 810.7 (In 2HG, players are individually attacked, not teams), will there be an update to MTR 4.2 that assumes that the primary head is the player attacked or will the attacked player be something that has to be announced? To explain what I mean, if AT attacks NAT without declaring which player NAT is attacking, will NAT have to clarify which player is being attacked with each creature or will it be assumed that NAT is attacking the primary head?
The current shortcut talks about dealing damage to the primary head. That may be sufficient. If it’s not clear enough, we’ll revisit some time in the future.
The changes seem pretty great overall, but continuous effects that are affecting a player being status information seems weird to me. If I have to physically represent and announce changes to all status information about me, wouldn’t I have to e.g. announce when my opponent plays a Meddling Mage? Wouldn’t I need a physical token to represent the effect? What if I play Quicken. Do I need to announce when the effect starts and ends? What someone controls a Defense Grid. Does every player need to announce the effect at the start of every turn and at the end of every turn? Do I need tokens to give to all the non-active players?
And what seems to be the biggest problem: When does a trigger like Hardened Berserker (trigger that creates an effect that would be status information) become “missed”? So far it would be when I cast the next spell, now it seems like I have to at least announce the trigger as soon as I attack? What if it’s a delayed trigger that creates an effect like that?
Wait for the specific rules to come out 🙂
It’s already live
“Continuous effects with no defined expiration within the game that apply to that player, such as Monarch or City’s Blessing.”
In Appendix E of the MTR, the Premier tournaments which are required to use the recommended number of Swiss rounds are listed. This list currently includes Pro Tour Qualifiers, which are now only run at Grand Prix events and do not use the recommended number of Swiss rounds. Would it be possible to have PTQs pulled out of that list of events (or have some other exception so that the current PTQs aren’t violating the MTR)?
I’ll look into it. Thanks!
Block format events have been dead for years.
Why did this change to non-supported/casual come so late?
Because there’s no more blocks. Up to this point they were still being sanctioned occasionally.
I love the change to the definition of CPV. The criteria that used to be in the remedy section was already used by many judges at large events as a way of filtering actual infractions from common communication errors. This should now be much more clear. Thanks.
I’m glad to see the Kess change, a step in the right direction. But saying you can “just” use non-foils is a bit awkward. I only own foils of some cards because GP promos, such as stone forge, suggesting players should just have a spare $100 lying around because of poor print quality is a bit rude, especially when the art is foil-exclusive and the foil is cheaper.
The foils are probably cheaper for that very reason — it takes some effort to unbend them (I recommend silica gel)
That is a slippery slope to follow. Asking players to buy Jaces is rude. Asking players to play legally printed cards is rude.
If something is theoretically possible, why make an exemption? Magic is an expensive hobby, and many decisions made by players are influenced by their budget. Not so much with Kess, as there is no way to deal with the problem by buying another copy – they all are foil.
I completely agree…if the only reason your genuine magic cards are making your deck marked is sloppiness in Wizards production process, seems very wrong that significant financial burden should be put on you to correct the problem. Saw it all before with a farcical Nationals event when Figure of Destiny was a big (and expensive, ofc) thing but there were a good number of release event promos in circulation. All as flat as a taco.
Now that block constructed is no longer official, does that mean Spike can no longer find Lin Sivvi?
I believe Spike can find any card that has ever been banned, so yes.
Spike can find any card that has been banned before. It doesn’t require that the card is currently banned, or that the format it had been banned in is still official. You can also think of it as every card on the list in Maro’s Unstable FAQ… article plus every card banned since that article was published.
I guess I’ll ask the obvious question here.
Player A: Is playing with their lands in front of their spells.
Player B: “I do not like that, move your lands to the official place right now”
Player A: “I don’t want to do that. I have played like this since I learned to play and its much more natural to me.”
Player B: “JUDGE!”
My reading of the rules is that player A would not be forced to move their lands to the back, because it seems like a huge stretch to call this board state “confusing” or “unclear,” and wouldn’t cause anyone to act on anything incorrectly any more than lands in the other place.
Am I required to tell player A to move their lands to the back?
I ask this mainly because while I think this rules update is mainly designed to give us a policy response to players who want to do things like, say, play their dryad arbors underneath their lands, which is a very good change, I also know that in practice the most common time players are going to try to use this rule is to force other players to stop playing things in places they personally don’t like, lands in front being the most obvious example, but also things like dredge players playing their graveyards spread out across the table.
What’s the brightline here? My interpretation of the policy as written here is that I would not be required to step in and indeed it would be overreach to do so, given that nothing about the board is causing a confusing game state or causing either player to understand information incorrectly, but I could be wrong here.
Some specific guidance would be appreciated.
You will be required to move them if your opponent asks. You will not be penalized for having them there in the first place. Judges don’t need to step in unless they think it could be confusing.
There is a specific carveout for unconventional decks like Dredge.
Is there any warning or way to track it at all? I do like that it’s generally not a punishable offense, but if they’re at a tournament and doing that every turn they eventually need to learn to actually follow the rules, correct?
I’m glad this has changed, I’ve never wanted to ask people to change their style up, but it bothers me as the cards I need to reference the most are so far away and sometimes behind people’s hands. When they’re just your lands that’s less of an issue, but when a creature is hiding under someone’s elbow (almost certainly unintentionally) that I forgot about it creates a feels bad that could have been avoided. So kudos on the change.
If it caused confusion, they get a Warning. If it hasn’t yet done so, they just get asked to fix it.
I play with my lands up top, I’ve always played like this, and I’ve always had pride in how clear and functional my board is. Playing mostly spell-based decks I did it to avoid other people to needlessly grasp my cards from across the table to check on how many lands and in what colour-combinations I had, but it became a solid habit.
This hurts me badly. Mtg has some serious muscle memory dynamics going on, much like driving a car. To you, it may seem that I’m driving on the wrong side of the road, to me, it’s the natural way of doing it, cemented by years of practice.
There’s always been somewhat of a stigma towards people who position the board like this, and the satisfacted laughs that are coming from the community right now are the quintessential demonstration of this.
People will call the judge just to tilt me, even though my board will be perfectly clear. People already do call the judge for this stuff, I’ve had people calling the judge on me for playing the lands up top, this will only worsen with time.
I do believe we need better rules on the layout of the board and that we should (I am a judge myself) resolve the unclear stuff, like putting nonland permanents that generate mana between the lands, but it’s not the same thing.
I accepted the fact that I wasn’t going to play in a feature match to “protect” my way of playing, and I have thus refused to go a couple times. I do not agree with that ratio, but I understand it. I don’t understand this. This is basically bullying legalized.
I seriously hope you will reconsider this.
Michael, there’s a stigma in playing non-land cards behind lands because it makes it difficult to see and read what cards are in play which is exactly what this rule fixes. It creates an unfair advantage that wasn’t intended in the design of the game. It’s easier for a few people to adjust how they play, put their lands in the back, and conform to a single style of play rather than force the majority to learn two ways of playing.
@Michael
While you may find it comforting, i find it disturbing. And while you say this is legalized bullying, ask you self what would you do if you went to the UK where ppl drive on the other side of the road? Would you drive as you are used to, just cause you’ve been doing it for so many years? it’s not only about your freedom, it’s about theirs as well. If you freedom is disturbing for the other ppl, who takes precedence? One or ten? I’m used to dance my self to sleep each night? Should I max out my HD 7.1 system and dance to Prodigy cause I’m used to doing it? Or should I respect my neighbors? You’re not alone in the game, and you should remember that one man’s spinach is another man’s poison ivy.
“While you may find it comforting, i find it disturbing.”
So who wins out? What I find lands in the back disturbing? I’ve played this way forever and it throws me off? Is that
“It creates an unfair advantage that wasn’t intended in the design of the game.”
This claim seems a real stretch to me. Lands in the back was intended in game design? If this is the case it needs to be codified in law.
I hate it when people play creatures/rules text facing me. It messes with me, but, if that is how they are use to and prefer should I be able to make them change it? Doesn’t that put the same disadvantage back on them?
As a legacy lands player, i would not appreciate that this can become a legit judge call reason. I have my lands all around the table (not in a chaotic way – like utility only lands in front of fuals and basics etc) and I usually have my graveyard up front in a neatly stacked row so that me and my opponent can see every card in my graveyard easily.
If this is a legit judge call now you can bet that some salty players will try to use this to their advantage somehow.
Note that while they can call a judge, there are only penalties issued if the judge believes the other player has acted on confusing or incorrect information. I think graveyard in front might be mildly problematic, but there are exceptions to be made for unusual decks (such as lands) so check with the HJ about how they want to handle it.
Are there any plans to address the way current missed triggers policies line up with Saga cards? Specifically I’m referring to the policy of not being required to remind your opponents of their triggers, and adding counters to your sagas not being triggers. So you are required to remind them to put a counter on, but in practice this is identical to reminding them of their trigger.
If it’s not a trigger, it’s not a trigger. That’s a nice line to have. There’s lots of things in the game that “feel” like triggers (lifelink comes to mind immediately) that you’re required to remind them of.
I’m certainly not going to redefine the CR unless we have clear evidence of a significant problem. We’ll see how it plays.
There are old cards that create a lifelink trigger, ie armadillo cloak. Regular LifeLink is not a triggered event though, and you’re right they must be reminded.
In regards to the changes in game layout, what would be the result now if player A makes an attack, and player B pulls out a partially obscured Dryad Arbor from amongst his lands to block? Would player A get to rethink his decision to attack given that the existence of the Dryad Arbor was not being clearly communicated (as creatures must be in front of lands)?
If the judge believes that a player acted based on a poorly-communicated board situation, they issue a CPV and can back up to the point where the action caused by the confusion was taken.
Why have you nerfed Chandra, Torch Of Defiance and Fiery Confluence to not allow them to deal damage to planeswalkers. The rules clearly stated beforehand that these were options for the cards; it sounded through the press releases nothing like this would be altered, and yet here we are with a half-baked Oracle changes that neglect a bevy of cards that are similar.
Since the invention of planeswalkers these spells and abilities have been able to target planeswalkers. You changed this rule specifically for two cards: Leyline Of sanctity and Witchbane orb; neither of which ever applied to spells like fiery confluence and Chandra torch.
This is an awful interpretation and hurts the game tremendously by weaking decks that were on the fringe of playablilty in Vintage, Legacy and Modern to the benefit of the more popular decks in the format.
You need to change all of these cards back to their original function, as was promised in earlier press releases. You have no precedent for massive rules changes like this demoting collectible cards from the past.
You cannot literally make a ton of cards worse overnight because of laziness. It damages players collection values and hurts deck diversity in formats.
I think you are asking in the wrong place, as I have nothing to do with R&D, but I’ll note that rules changes have historically made cards better or worse, so this is nothing new.
Awful.
I play lands on the side because you know, ACCESSIBILITY REASONS (DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION, WINK, WINK, NUDGE, NUDGE, NUDGE, THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR MAKING ME POINT OUT MY DISABILITY) as they are the things I tap most during a game.
Awful, and you should feel awful.
I’m sure exceptions can be made for people that have disabilities. It shouldn’t be the standard though.
Now that I have to play lands behind at Competitive tournaments, can I call a judge on all the people who insist on covering half their board-state with their arms?
Sure. There’s unlikely to be a penalty or anything, but you’re welcome to call a judge if you think there’s a problem.
Does this new “Status Information” apply to PT of creatures, and Prowess triggers, etc?
No. Those don’t fall into any of the described categories. Status information is information about players, not their permanents.
Rule 3.2 still lists Block Constructed as a sanctioned format. Am I correct in guessing this is a mistake?
Yeah, probably. I’ll make a note.
As someone that has been playing with lands closer to my opponent for more than 20 years, I find the enforcment of a specific layout very bad.
Could I ask what the reason behind explicitly not allowing adding Wastes to be added is? (and why it doesn’t apply to snow-covereds?)
Adding unlimited Wastes to your limited deck is not desired. It should probably apply to SC lands, too
IPG 3.8 was changed to specify that players cannot add Wastes when replacing cards in a deck that are marked. Can players add snow-covered lands, or were these also meant to be excluded, the way they were when similar changes were made to MTR 7.2 and IPG 3.4?
They should be excluded too. I’ll get that fixed.
Hi Toby,
regarding the reset of penalties during multi-day event cut, I have a small observation: the way how it is written now, it might imply to someone that GPEs and TEs are reset also after cut to TOP 8 even if the TOP 8 is run the same day as the swiss (GP Day 2 case). Is this intended or should the wording be tweaked a bit?
It’s intended.
If I use Thespian’s Stage to make a copy of a card I control, does the layout rules mean I can no longer flip it over and set it on top of the card it has copied as a shorthand because now it’s violation of “All untapped cards in play must face the controller of that card.”?
I doubt anyone is going to come down on you heavily for it, but upside down cards is pretty confusing.
The other day at a PPTQ I saw a match where a player missed their saga trigger and it wasn’t noticed until after combat. The judge ruled that the saga just wouldn’t do anything that turn (no lore counter and no effect). I feel like this shouldn’t be how it works because someone could intentionally miss a saga trigger to get a larger benefit from the chapter the turn after.