waylay

[chris92]

Casual players really, really hate errata. (In fact, the Casual Players Alliance was formed because of the errata issued to Waylay in August of 1999. True story.)

got this from an aaron forsythe article.
how'd it happen?

 

[Spiderman]

Um, I would say some or certain casual players hate errata, As you can see from the activity (or lack thereof) on this site, not a lot of players come here, casual or not.

And of course it took a tourney player to discover the changes to Waylay right after the 6th ed. rules and its implications, not a casual player. I would say casual players merely jumped on the bandwagon.

But since I can't dig up a link although I think this has been asked before, basically most of the Founders like the way Waylay worked after 6th ed - casting it after At End Of Turn triggers had been placed on the stack and thus keeping the tokens all the way through next turn. When WOTC errata'd Waylay to being used just during the combat phase (which I personally disagreed with although I thought Waylay should have been errata'd - I figured it either should have been errata'd to until EOT or something), the Founders decided that WOTC was not listening to their needs and formed the group and this site to further their aims.

As the Founders either became disinterested in Magic and the scene changed to support casual players (like the reappearance of gold cards in Invasion), the need for such activism decreased until you get what you see here today.

 

[Rooser]

The thing with the Waylay errata was, should white really have had a Ball Lightning?

 

[Spiderman]

I guess you can look at it that way... although 3 tokens not with trample compared to 1 guy with isn't a "real" comparison. But the errata, while fixing that problem, cut off any real interactions with sorcery sac effects (maybe not a problem, but the potential was there) and other stuff you might have wanted to do outside of the combat phase with tokens.

 

[Oversoul]

I think that the errata was too harsh though. Waylay may have been too good before it, but the errata completely killed the cards potential...

 

[Spiderman]

Right, I think that's what I was trying to say

 

[Rooser]

It was a Star Wars-style Errata, to be sure.

Decipher's old Star Wars game made it a point to never ban or restrict cards. Of course, this was silly because many cards slipped through playtesting and became uber-degenerate. What they did instead was just errata them so that they worked very differently than printed, and this led to many a n00b, (like me), to show up with decks that didn't work half as well as we thought they did.

So that's why the errata on Waylay bothers me so much. They should have either just lived with it, or banned it.

 

[Spiderman]

Or made the errata so that the card worked like it did pre-6th

 

[Oversoul]

Or thought about such things before they were done drafting 6th edition rules. I don't think all change is bad by any stretch of the imagination. Some changes in 6th edition were very good. But some testing and analysis could easily have smoothed out the ones that were not...

 

[Spiderman]

I think they did think about it as much as they could, but Waylay was hardly used before then so it wasn't a "big" card on the radar to begin with, and when you look at it overall, only a handful (I'd say 10-15) cards out of the couple of thousand that existed back then actually had problems.

 

[orgg]

Casual Players don't actually 'Hate' erratta-- they lothe erratta that changes how a card or cards are played. For another example, take AEther Storm before 6th edition. It read 'Summoning Spells may not be played.' This allowed Artifact Creatures to be used with it... a very fun deck.

The sloppy erratta made the card much less useful, and killed many a player's decks.

Fear is another 'bad change' that affected decks, as the creature is no longer hackable to another color if you're against a black playing opponent.

The latest cockup is the 'Defender' ability; it removes the ability to even let the walls attack when their type is changed... something a LOT of casual decks depended upon. Not the article on the front page I wrote about this very issue.

 

[Oversoul]

My personal favorite (meaning least favorite) errata is the one to Iridescent Drake. Wouldn't want a combo with False Demise!

 

[Ferret]

It was amazing how a bunch of us arguing on The Dojo's old Forums got into it. There were a few tourney players out there that were mad about the Waylay ruling - but, they were just annoyed at the ruling in general - Most of the Founders were just annoyed that WotC just changed the way the card was instead of fixing the whole end of turn step in general. We thought they were just putting a bandaid on a compound fracture, because other cards could still abuse the end of turn step. We felt that they did this move so that they wouldn't alienate all of the Pro Tour players...

...however, this wasn't the only factor that went into the formation of the CPA. We also noticed from some of WotC's articles that they were actually creating sets of cards to cater to the Tourney scene while not even considering how it might affect everyone else (which, as I've said many times, represents the vast majority of Magic players worldwide). So, instead of just posting our opinions on the pro-oriented websites (The Dojo, Brainburst (before it was bought out), and a third site that I can't remember offhand) we decided to create our own. It started out w/ just the forums that you see today, but after we fought to get corporate support (A thousand curses upon New Wave!) we trudged on, purchased the url, and wrote some articles to be posted when the site went up officially.

Thanks to the efforts of the Founders, and many many great administrators, the site is what you see today: A Casual Magic Haven. Despite a few attempts to get Affiliate status w/ WotC, they still know about us. To be honest, I think we were the ones that coined the phrase "Casual" that they use so often now.

-Ferret

"History lesson over. Now, for the quiz..."

 

[Oversoul]

Originally posted by Ferret
Most of the Founders were just annoyed that WotC just changed the way the card was instead of fixing the whole end of turn step in general. We thought they were just putting a bandaid on a compound fracture, because other cards could still abuse the end of turn step.

My thoughts exactly.

 

[Chaos Turtle]

I didn't have a problem with the end of turn step or the cards that supposedly "abused" it. I even understood the need for Waylay to be errataed to preserve its functionality (though I loved playing pre-errata; white weenie freaking ruled!). My problem was that the errata did not truly preserve functionality, merely "intent." By restricting the card's play to combat only, it eliminated other uses for the card that had existed prior to the 6th edition rules change.

Really, though, I was just pissed because until the errata, white weenie freaking ruled! I long for such a time again (as long as it's not pushed as hard as the g**d*mn goblins were).

 

[Oversoul]

*shudders*

Mother of Runes...

 

[Spiderman]

Originally posted by Ferret
Most of the Founders were just annoyed that WotC just changed the way the card was instead of fixing the whole end of turn step in general.

That's not quite the way I remember it... most of you were annoyed that it had to be errata'd at all - you wanted to play with the card "as was", without the errata, since you reasoned that if the 6th ed. rules were so great, Waylay should be allowed to stand as it was with the changes because otherwise, it WAS a mediocre card

Thanks to the efforts of the Founders, and many many great administrators...

Actually, now that you brought it up, I believe you were the one who actually forked over the money for the domain? Site registration? Whatever it was so YOU deserve some hearty thanks...

 

[Oversoul]

Originally posted by Spiderman
That's not quite the way I remember it...

"History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon." --Some dead dude like maybe Napoleon or somebody

 

[Ferret]

Originally posted by Spiderman

Actually, now that you brought it up, I believe you were the one who actually forked over the money for the domain? Site registration? Whatever it was so YOU deserve some hearty thanks...

Bah. It was just pocket change at the time. Since then, Ed has shelled out a lot more than me. I was just happy to prime the pump.

-Ferret

"Originally, we didn't even need the domain when Magic Singles was sponsoring us"

 

[Spiderman]

Originally posted by Oversoul
"History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon." --Some dead dude like maybe Napoleon or somebody

Heh, some dead dude? There's lots of those...

Ferret: Yeah, but it's the priming that counts...