Todays Update Bulletin has some more rules changes than previewed: I don't think we have to implement them before the next beta though.
A. Convoke and Delve are no longer additional costs (which is ok, because we haven't really implemented them correctly yet).
- Convoke | Open
- Convoke
I don't remember exactly how the conversation started, but one day a few months ago R&D ended up talking about how weird it was that you could "overtap" when casting a spell using convoke. That was weird, past-me thought, so I started thinking about ways to change that. As a cost-reduction ability, it couldn't really be contained. You can make a spell cost a billion mana less if you want to. I sought the advice of Rules Manager Emeritus Mark Gottlieb. Together, we came up with a new paradigm for convoke: what if instead of reducing the cost, tapping creatures was just another way of paying mana?
So now it is! You don't declare which creatures you're tapping ahead of time, just like you don't declare what lands you'll be tapping ahead of time. When it comes time to pay the spell's costs (rule 601.2g), you can tap creatures rather than pay mana. Note that this is after you have a chance to activate mana abilities (rule 601.2f). This means that if you intend to sacrifice a creature to activate a mana ability, you can't also tap that creature for convoke.
B.
- Expansion symbols | Open
- 109.3
Expansion symbols are no longer a characteristic. Magic cards are recognized as individual game pieces by their English card names. One of the central tenets of that system is that all cards with the same name are considered the same for deck building and play purposes. This system lets us reprint cards, print promo cards, and have cards appear in many languages. But three older cards referred to cards from a specific expansion, and that runs contrary to the system. The Arabian Nights Bird Maiden and the Fourth Edition version should be the same, but City in a Bottle says they're not. In fact, it makes the original version worse!
So, cards will no longer refer to expansion symbol as a characteristic. The three cards that used to do this (City in a Bottle, Golgothian Sylex, and Apocalypse Chime) will receive errata in a future update to refer to cards "originally printed" in the Arabian Nights, Antiquities, and Homelands sets, respectively). This means that City in a Bottle no longer affects any cards named Mountain. It also means that those three cards can affect cards that were in the appropriate set and then reprinted. City in a Bottle will affect the aforementioned Fourth Edition Bird Maiden.
References to expansion symbol being a characteristic were removed in several other rules as well.
C. Gaea's Touch works differently than implemented (damn!).
Posted: 12 Jul 2013, 12:55