M10 Rules changes

=M10 rules changes
=Thursday, June 11th, 2009

Yesterday an article was published on Wizards web site concerning the rules changes that will take place with the release of Magic 2010. I read this article for the first time this morning. I must admit that the changes are ... interesting. In general I agree that the changes make the game and game play clearer and more intuitive.

See the article here before commenting.

1. Simultaneous Mulligan: To me this is good. We should see less penalties handed out. I thought the old way was kinda esoteric anyway.

2. Terminology: I personally don't have a problem with the terminology changes, and am thankful that they are clearing up the difference between 'play' and 'put into play'. Of course some players are already complaining about the ‘battlefield’, I can only imagine what the Yu-Gi-Oh players are thinking. But honestly that needed to be cleared up somehow.

3. Mana pools and Burn: This had been a rumor until now, and players were already griping about loosing mana burn. Even the casual players I know are disappointed to see it leave. I could go either way.

4. Token ownership: Yeah, this is going to make everyone who ever played a Warp World deck feel like the rules were changed just to deny them their favorite jank combo deck. So yes, this rule change will alienate a few players. On the other hand the new rules are intuitive, and don’t leave one scratching one’s head.

5. Combat damage no longer uses the stack: This is by far the largest change announced. Like I wrote before it’s .. interesting. Loosing the ability to perform tricks with ‘damage on’ is definitely a drawback for me personally. Also I’m not sure about adding ‘lethal damage’ rules when a single attacker is gang-blocked. Trample (contrary to popular opinion) is a tough cookie rules-wise, and this may make normal combat more complex.

6. Deathtouch: Had to be changed due to the new damage and gang-block rules in the former item. I see the changes largely as maintaining the functionality of the ability.

7. Lifelink: OK this is odd because I recently had to call a situation where someone lost the game from combat damage before lifelink could trigger. This new rule, will, of-course reverse the outcome of that situation. Also the inability to stack lifelink REALLY hurts one of my type 2 decks that plays with exalted. I can’t say I’m happy about this, but I think I can cope.