Article 66731 of rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules: From: aahz@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules Subject: Rules Changes from 4th Edition to 5th Edition Date: 4 Sep 1996 01:17:14 GMT Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz NNTP-Posting-Host: am.ucsc.edu /* ** I am posting these because these rules actually become effective with the ** release of Mirage. While these rules don't generally become official until ** 30 days after the release of Mirage, they will be used for the Atlanta ** pro tour, for the Mirage prerelease tournaments, and for the Dallas ** qualifiers (as the new rules will be standard in November). */ With every new edition of Magic's basic set, the rules to the game are updated and refined. Continuing that tradition, Magic: The Gathering-Fifth Edition will be released next year with a leaner, meaner set of rules. Ever since Magic's initial release, we've added and removed cards from the basic set to create new editions. When we started to develop next year's rotation, the Fifth Edition card set, one of the first subjects we discussed was the rules. Anyone who plays much Magic knows that the rules are quite extensive. What's often less clear is that parts of the rules are far more complex than they need to be. In fact, several of the rules seem to serve more as grist for the rules-lawyering mill than as actual aids to game play. To alleviate this problem, we went through the rules and removed several elements that were either confusing, counterintuitive, or a waste of time. The rule set was not strictly reduced, though. We added a couple of rules to eliminate some loopholes that only rules lawyers understood (and thus abused) and that were disliked and counter-intuitive. We also introduced and expanded a few game terms. This article lists all of the rules changes between Fourth Edition and Fifth Edition. One caveat: this article bases the differences on the final version of Fourth Edition. For example, the fact that activated abilities can no longer be "pumped" by paying their entire costs more than once in an activation is a change to Fourth Edition, so it's not listed here. NEW TERMINOLOGY Combat Damage: This is the term now used to refer to damage dealt during damage dealing. All cards that referred to "damage in combat," such as Fog and Gaseous Form, now refer to "combat damage." Generic Mana: This term refers to colorless mana required for casting costs, activation costs, etc. For example, Disenchant is now said to cost one white and one generic mana. Landhome: "Landhome" describes those creatures that depend on having a certain type of land in play to survive and attack. For example, Sea Serpent has "islandhome." Legendary: Artifacts and enchantments can now be "legendary." Creatures are still referred to as "legends." Protection: A creature can now have protection from anything, not just from colors. Global and Local Enchantments: Enchantments that are played on other permanents are referred to as "local" enchantments; those that are simply put into play are called "global" enchantments. PLAY OR DRAW For several months now, an optional rule has been in effect for DCI sanctioned tournaments stating that whichever player takes the first turn of the game skips his or her draw phase for that turn. This rule is now part of the standard rules for Magic. The old rules for determining who plays first now determine which player decides who will play first (and skip his or her draw phase). THE TURN STRUCTURE End of Turn: One of the counterintuitive elements of the Fourth Edition rules was that effects that happened "at end of turn" occurred before effects that lasted "until end of turn" wore off. In Fifth Edition, this procedure is corrected by moving "at end of turn" effects to the very end of the turn. Moving the resolution of such effects out of the End phase removed any need for that phase, so we collapsed that phase and Heal Creatures into a single phase called "Cleanup." Note that fast effects are illegal during Cleanup just as they were during Heal Creatures, so the last chance to play fast effects is now Discard (and before you discard down to seven). Beginning/End of Phase: Effects that occur at the beginning or end of a phase, including "at end of turn" effects, now follow the same rules as specialized effects. That is, the active player's effects must resolve before the opponent's effects, rather than the active player's deciding the order in which effects resolve. MANA AND THE MANA POOL Mana Sources: "Mana sources" are a new category of abilities. They include the ability of lands to be tapped for mana and all abilities that provide mana as interrupts. For example, Llanowar Elves's ability is now considered a mana source, but the ability of Ice Cauldron is not. Mana sources may be used whenever desired and may not be interrupted; there is no gap between playing the ability and resolving it. For example, you can't Rust a Mox; only continuous effects can stop a mana source from producing mana. Mana Burn: Mana burn has been reverted to loss of life, so it may not be prevented or redirected. SPECIAL COSTS The list of costs that can appear on the left side of the colon in "cost: effect" has been greatly expanded. For example, in older editions, only mana symbols and tap symbols could appear to the left side of the colon. Now anything can appear there, including paying life, sacrifices, tapping other permanents, and so on. For example, the text for Greed would now be "oB, Pay 2 life: Draw a card." ABILITIES Doubling Up: Under Fourth Edition rules, if a permanent was given an ability it already had, the repetition of the ability would be ignored. Under Fifth Edition rules, if a permanent is given an ability more than once, it gets that ability again, though this may prove to be redundant. For example, giving a creature flying again is possible but not very interesting. But if a creature is enchanted with two Farrel's Mantles, it may use each Mantle's ability if unblocked. INTERRUPT TIMING Interrupts that Target Castings: Interrupts that are played during the casting of a spell or effect are now played in batches, just as instants are, with the caster of the spell or effect having priority in beginning or adding to a batch of interrupts. Such interrupts can only target the casting they interrupt and cannot target "down the chain." Other Interrupts: Interrupts that target nothing or that target something other than a casting are now played as mana sources if they only provide mana, or as instants. Interrupts that can target a casting or target something else (e.g., Hydroblast) are played as instants if they're not targeting a casting. DAMAGE PREVENTION Causes: Only damage leads to damage prevention. A creature that is destroyed, buried, or killed due to toughness reduction is put into its owner's graveyard immediately, during the resolution of the effect that kills it. Regeneration effects can be used at that time as a specialized effect played during resolution. No Delays: Damage-prevention steps are no longer pushed off until the end of a batch. Whenever an effect deals damage, there is a damage-prevention step just following that effect. For example, Lightning Bolt used in response to Red Ward will kill the creature to be Warded, while it wouldn't have before. And, yes, this means that Tim will finally be able to finish off the Benalish Hero before she can get her Holy Armor on. Legal Effects: The effects that are specifically legal for use during damage prevention are effects that prevent damage, effects that redirect damage, and effects that are only usable when something is damaged (e.g., Eye for an Eye). Mana sources and interrupts have blanket permission to be used as needed, so may also be used. Packets of Damage: Damage is now organized into "packets," with each packet representing a source doing a certain amount of damage to a target. Damage- prevention and redirection effects target these packets, and redirecting part of a packet will cause it to split into two. If a single effect assigns damage to a target more than once, such as with Mana Clash, then all of the damage is combined into a single packet. GRAVEYARD AND LIBRARY Separate Graveyards: The notion of "the graveyard" no longer exists. Each player has his or her own graveyard, just as each player has his or her own library and hand. Older cards that refer to "the graveyard" should be read as referring to "any graveyard" or "all graveyards," as appropriate to the context. The function of these cards is unchanged. Regeneration: As noted above, regeneration effects are now specialized effects used as soon as a creature would be put into a graveyard; regeneration is not part of damage prevention. Regenerating a creature erases all damage that has been dealt to it over the course of the turn and will remove a combatant from the combat. Burial: Bury effects are now completely unpreventable; they do not just prohibit regeneration. Death Effects: Whenever a permanent is put into the graveyard, all appropriate effects are triggered, even if the source of the effect has left play. For example, if an animated Soul Net dies, you can now gain 1 life from its effect. On Its Way to the Graveyard: This Fourth Edition rule has been removed. Any creature can be sacrificed during damage prevention, even creatures that have received lethal damage. Counting the Library: Players may now count anyone's library at any time. CLEARER? As you can see from this list of changes, we have eliminated several of the corner cases of the rules and streamlined several others. Hopefully this will make it easier for players to pick up the rules and keep track of them all once they've learned. Tom Wylie suspects he will be bored out of his mind when judging tournaments using Fifth Edition rules, but secretly hopes he's wrong. Tom Wylie rec.games.trading-cards.* Network Representative for aahz@cats.ucsc.edu Wizards of the Coast, Inc.