I'm at a loss for words. I was so excited - giddy, even - with the approach of Kamigawa. Gorgeous art! Ninja-themed! Legends all over the place!
...Then Aaron Forsythe had to go and wreck it for me.
Here's a link to his article (and the new preview card):
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/af31
First, let's examine our new toy - Ismaru, Hound of Konda.
W
Legendary Creature - Hound
2/2
That's
it? A vanilla 2/2 for W with an anagram of 'Samurai' as a name that I can't have multiple copies of on the board?
Give me a freakin' break!
Part of the idea behind Legends in the first place was that they weren't just vanilla. They have a whole ton of yummy mechanical
flavor!. They were tangy, fruity... they were like that new rat guy, Shortfang the Odious.
THAT'S a Legend!
This, of course, is hardly even a glancing blow when coming against my anticipation of the new set. There's got to be at least a few duds in the previews - and stuff like Hold the Line and Ismaru can easily be overshadowed by the other goodies we've been shown.
The rest of the article, however, has largely blown my eagerness to get my hands on it right out of the water. Foremostly, we come across this little
gem of inspiration:
'...
but flavor no longer drivers the bus as far as rules go...'
The
HELL is THAT supposed to mean?
As a statement that more or less set the trend for the rest of the article, it's single-handedly soured the deal for me as far as CoK's coming release is concerned (...and really made me wish I could take back all of the defending I did for it on Starcitygames.com, against everyone who saw it coming). How does a statement like this
ever slip by WotC's website editor(s) for an article promoting a set who's very appeal is supposed to
be flavour!?
Before I get started, I'd like to just state two very important opinions of mine:
1): I like that the Legend rule was changed. The old rule, IMHO, was unhealthy for an environment that supported even a limited number of Legends. I DO NOT like the WAY it was changed (there are so many other options - and this one doesn't push the envelope).
2): I think that flavour is the heart and soul of Magic: the Gathering. I think it's the reason the game thrives and survives, and why all of the clones to have followed were failures. I
know that it's the reason
I play MtG. If I wanted to play something with a lot of depth, complexity and intellectual challenge, I'd play chess or poker.
The idea that flavour is 'no longer driving the bus' is both scary and dangerous. If the game loses the only thing it has going for it, it'll evaporate. Fast.
Later that day, after the event had ended, Magic designer and Pro Tour front man Mark Rosewater was hanging out with some players discussing the "legend rule" and the problems it caused, especially in tournaments. Justin Gary and Zvi Mowshowitz were tossing out ideas for potential fixes, and Rosewater was shooting them all down. But then Zvi struck gold.
You know what I'd like to know? How many ideas were 'shot down' before the existing one was suggested. If a competitive player like Zvi is making suggestions to improve the game, and you
know he's both a good customer and devoted player, you don't just shoot down everything he says until you hear what you want to hear.
And you especially don't then use him for your reason as to why you arrived at a final decision.
Flash back even further, to the development of Onslaught. Many cards in that set, such as Imagecrafter, can change other creatures' types. But because some types—namely Legend and Wall—have rules attached to them, we had to put riders on the cards to prevent players from choosing those types. So instead of Imagecrafter saying "T: Choose a creature type. Target creature's type becomes that type until end of turn," it says "T: Choose a creature type other than Legend or Wall. Target creature's type becomes that type until end of turn." It was annoying to have to print that limitation multiple times, and that line of text started the debate of whether we should have creature types with "rules baggage" at all.
I can think of two cards off-hand that had to include these riders (the two that are also displayed in the article) - Imagecrafter and Artificial Evolution.
My question: What's more annoying - to add a small rider to two cards every now and then, or to errata a new keyword onto
every card that been printed as a Wall, then re-evaluate and errata
every card that interacts with that particular creature type?
Additionally, "Legend" was a creature type, but "Legendary"—as in Legendary Land and Legendary Artifact—was a supertype. This weirdness was grandfathered from the Legends set, and doesn't make a lot of sense when compared to how we handle subtypes and supertypes under our current system.
Yeah, actually, it
did make sense. That way you could have a creature with no other type than 'Legend', you could get creative with the host of cards that changed creature types and you could use them in conjunction with all the tribal cards introduced in
Onsalught.
It's the change, actually, that doesn't make any sense. Changing the Legend rule, that makes sense. Leaving Legend as a creature type was
not confusing, nor awkward, and it made more sense in terms of flavor (The characters are the Legends - their tools, lands and deeds are Legendary).
In one fell swoop, we could fix the subtype/supertype problem, fix the "creature types with hidden rules" problem
What 'problem'? Did it create loopholes int he mechanics? Did it somehow break the game? Were players crying-out for a change from sub-type to supertype?
In order to remove hidden rules baggage from all creature types, we had to alter the rules for something other than Legends. The creature type "Wall" now no longer implies anything, and instead all existing Walls are being errataed to have a keyword:
The rules for the creature type "Wall" have been changed. Although the creature type Wall still exists, it no longer has any rules meaning. Instead, all creatures that had the creature type Wall now also have the defender ability.
Steel Wall (_Mirrodin_(R) card with its new Oracle wording)
{1}
Artifact Creature -- Wall
0/4
Defender (This creature can't attack.)
Note that no creatures in the Champions of Kamigawa set have the defender ability. This rules change is being made at this time in order to eliminate all rules inherent to specific creature types.
Bet you didn't expect that!
Yeah. I'll bet that
nobody expected that, seeing as there wasn't a press release about it, any form of advance warning, no poll, no official announcement...
nothing. It's like they just tried to slip one by, IMHO, by throwing it in at the bottom of a preview article.
For such a major change, I'd think they could be a little more vocal and forthcoming about it.
'In order to remove hidden rules baggage from all creature types, we had to alter the rules for something other than Legends'. I'd like to examine this statement in particular, because of what it implies. Because they got rid of the Legends creature type, they 'had' to unload the Wall creature type? What's the justification for this?
Same thing wi(th) Walls… many players attacked with Carnivorous Plant back in the Fourth Edition days because it was not intuitive that this huge creature shouldn't be able to attack.
We fixed the Wall problem (sort of) with reminder text, but the issue of types with their own rules still loomed, especially with Legends.
How was it an 'issue'? The mechanic, if anything, made Walls unique. They were a creature type that actually
meant something, and had an impact on the game. Reminder text
DID solve the problem - not just 'sort of'. What instances since way back in 4th Edition have there been of competent players not realizing that Walls cannot attack (there are instances I can recall of players attacking with Sunwebs not
realizing it was a wall - but that's a different problem entirely, largely fixed by the new card faces and fonts)?
This new mechanic ruins certain ideas entirely, confines creativity rather than expanding it, and - IMHO - is very, very ugly to read. 'Defender'? That's the best R&D can come up with? That's not just taking flavor away from the wheel - that's kicking it to the curb.
'On-Guard', 'Fortified', 'Immobile', 'Sentry', 'Sentinel', 'Forbidding', 'Impeding'... These are all words that would largely encompass the same meaning, but don't sound like they were developed for players ages 7-10. I'm sure many of you can think of some even better keywords, if the whole change were really necessary.
Further, in what way is the Wall rule at all similar to the Legend rule? With this instance in mind, how far-fetched is it to guess that Wizards might continue the trend of, 'Well, while we're changing mechinc X, may as well change mechanic Y, since it shares an inconsequential trait with mechanic Y'? This kind of deconstruction is, IMHO, very unhealthy for the game - especially if flavor is just thrown to the backseat in the R&D room.
Finally,
where were the friggin' polls?
With all of Wizards new hype about 'giving' the game to the players', and in light of promotions like 'Selecting 9th Edition', couldn't they even ask players what they thought about changing the wall and Legend types? That way R&D could focus on some more pressing health issues - like making sure they don't pull another Skullclamp boner.
At present, it's almost a guarantee that my playing group is going to completely veto the rules introduced by CoK. And that's a shame.