Power Level Errata

[sampling_percus]

Ok, so should all power level errata be removed, what would change, how would it affect the metagame and what would happen to the restricted list.

I cansee combo loving an extra lotus petal(mox diamond) and an uncounterable black lotus (Lotus Vale). It would certainley be exciting, I'm of the opinion that its better to have something played and restricted than not played at all, but what impact would it really have.

[Matt]

Basically all the Saga block untapping-lands cards; Priest of Gix; Academy Researchers; Iridescent Drake; Karmic Guide.

Lake of the Dead & Co., which includes Lotus Vale and Scorched Ruins.

Phyrexian Dreadnought.

[sean1i0]

Oh, wow, the thought of Lotus Vale having its errata removed just makes me happy.  It would definitely be restricted (duh), but even the one copy would be nice to have around in decks.  I think that overall the other Lotus Vale-ish lands would probably need to be restricted, too.  And then there's Lion's Eye Diamond.

Overall though, I think that Vintage could definitely handle it.  In fact, I think it would be quite fun, since it would definitely shake things up a bit.

[PipOC]

Basically all the Saga block untapping-lands cards; Priest of Gix; Academy Researchers; Iridescent Drake; Karmic Guide.

Lake of the Dead & Co., which includes Lotus Vale and Scorched Ruins.

Phyrexian Dreadnought.

Academy Researchers doesn't have any errata.

Printed:

When Academy Researchers comes into play, you may choose an enchant creature card in your hand and put that enchantment into play attached to Academy Researchers

Oracle:
When Academy Researchers comes into play, you may put an Aura card from your hand into play attached to Academy Researchers.

Functionally identical, so if it ever had "into play from your hand" it's been removed.

[Matt]

D'oh. It turned up on a Gatherer search for "from your hand" in Saga Block and I just assumed.

[Godder]

One of the things about a lot of these errata is that problems usually arose either from poor templating/wording (in which case errata was issued to template the cards correctly), RnD misunderstanding the rules at the time and not quite getting the wording right (errata issued in this case would be to realign the cards with RnD's intent) or a change in rules (e.g. from 5E to 6E rules) requiring a new template for the cards to do what they were originally intended to do (e.g. Substance) or to avoid misunderstandings in tournaments (e.g. Cumulative Upkeep and Age Counters). Occasionally, there is also a change in philosophy which leads to sizeable amounts of errata (e.g. Auras, charge counters).

While some of those cards could be templated with more modern wording (Dreadnought), most of them are in a form that is more in line with the modern approach to those types of cards, so I doubt we will see any changes any time soon.

[The Atog Lord]

One of the things about a lot of these errata is that problems usually arose either from poor templating/wording (in which case errata was issued to template the cards correctly), RnD misunderstanding the rules at the time and not quite getting the wording right (errata issued in this case would be to realign the cards with RnD's intent) or a change in rules (e.g. from 5E to 6E rules) requiring a new template for the cards to do what they were originally intended to do (e.g. Substance) or to avoid misunderstandings in tournaments (e.g. Cumulative Upkeep and Age Counters). Occasionally, there is also a change in philosophy which leads to sizeable amounts of errata (e.g. Auras, charge counters).

While some of those cards could be templated with more modern wording (Dreadnought), most of them are in a form that is more in line with the modern approach to those types of cards, so I doubt we will see any changes any time soon.

Do you think that anything other than power considerations prevent Time Vault from using Charge counters instead of Time counters? Charge counters are used on all similar such cards.

[Matt]

Well, it was using Time Counters at least as far back as 1997. So there's also the weight of history behind them. Not that that's much.

[The Atog Lord]

I think they gave up the "weight of history" thing when they decided to re-do how the card works entirely.

[Godder]

They could have changed it to use charge counters. They also could have stopped using counters altogether (unlike Illusionary Mask or Cumulative Upkeep, there are no memory issues with Time Vault).

However, for all the complaints, I don't think this erratum was about power level issues (although all that sanctioned Vintage 2 and 3HG and other multiplayer formats being looked at for sanctioning could have had something to do with it...). I'm not entirely sure that Time Vault's untap ability was actually meant to be like that of Brass Man, but the erratum as issued is certainly consistent with the other errata issued to other cards, such as the aforementioned Brass Man.

[Necrologia]

Lotus Vale and Scorched Ruins would most definately need to be restricted without their errata. That said I'd still love to see it happen. I'm all about having more options for Crop Rotation.

So assuming Lotus vale was unerrata'd and restricted who would run it other than combo? Control wouldn't, it loves to use Lotus for turn 1 Drain which Vale can't do. Would Stax? What else?

[Katzby]

Keep in mind that Lotus Vale, Scorched Ruins, and Mox Diamond didn't originally allow you to play their ability before dealing with the comes into play ability.  While it was possible for a brief period to use the mana abilities of Lake of the Dead and Balduvian Trading Post before dealing with the CIP abilities (due to different rules in place regarding the damage prevention/redirection subphase), it has never been that any of Vale, Ruins or Diamond could be similarly abused.  If we are talking about removing power level erratta in order to return cards to "their original intent," then clearly simply removing the errata on these three cards would not accomplish this end.

When talking about the original intent of a card, it seems logical that we should also consider how the rules worked at the time of the printing of said card.  Simply looking at a card and wondering how it would work as printed under today's rules isn't quite the same thing as "restoring to original intent."

It is true that the function of particular cards can change dramatically as the rules change (consider how much better Multani's Presence became when 6th edition rules went into effect).  However, erratta that is given to cards to restore them to how they were obviously intended to work within the version of rules in use at the time of their printing (as was done in the case of Lotus Vale and Scorched Ruins), in my opinion, shouldn't really be considered "power level" erratta.

The only reason that the erratta on these cards might be mistaken for "power level erratta" at all is that, as printed, the cards would have a much different effect than originally intended under today's rules.  This is, however, merely by chance.  There are plenty of older cards whose functionality would be completely undefined (Illusionary Mask, for example) when applying their printed text to today's rules.  It just so happens that Vale, Ruins, and Diamond do have text that does something meaningful (and more powerful), so it is easy to see where this confusion comes from.

Contrast the erratta on these cards to, for example, that on Priest of Gix and on Great Whale.  In these cases it is clear that the erratta that was added was intended to curb their power level and had no regard for updating their usage to coincide with recent rules updates.


Katzby

[Machinus]

In my opinion, in 2006, Priest of Gix being errata'd is about as silly as Voltaic Key being restricted.

While it might be nice for us to hope that WotC and the DCI actually care about the same stuff that we do (making our cards more fun and letting us play with more of them), there is no way to tell if any more changes are going to happen or not. It's obvious that we can't really believe all of the "official" explanations for things, whether or not they make sense to you personally. Maybe WotC cares about Vintage, maybe it doesn't. And their ideas can change at any time and they don't have to tell anybody. Time Vault getting killed is bad news for a lot of Vintage players, both players and collectors, and it might seem totally irrational, but it doesn't have any direct implications for any other specific cards, or policies, or anything WotC or the DCI has said in the past. We just don't know how the company functions when it comes to these isolated issues, and there is no way to predict how they will act on other issues that, while they may seem related to us because they are relevant to Vintage, are really unconnected and don't matter very much to WotC.

[Harlequin]

There are also plenty of "Comes into play with ..." that were originally printed with triggered ability wording.  Like Triskellion.

[Matt]

What Katzby said

Excellent point. I remember someone - I think Wakefield - complaining about how Nekrataal used to be automatic, and they had to counter it or lose a guy, whereas "now" (6th ed.) they can just bounce the target in response.

There's several cards which cannot reasonably be updated to post-6th rules. Cards like Power Sink and [card]Master of Arms[/card] just aren't going to work anymore. Master of Arms is an especially funny case: its printed wording is both grammatically correct under the new linguistics of Magic, and it's not too powerful, yet it doesn't do what the original intent was (which played off the fact that tapped creatures didn't deal damage). Adding "That creature deals no damage this turn" can't help, since then the Oracle wording doesn't match the wording on the card!

[dicemanx]

Adding "That creature deals no damage this turn" can't help, since then the Oracle wording doesn't match the wording on the card!

But apparently this isn't a problem, because cards like Howling Mine Winter Orb already have such additional text?

[Roxas]

Adding "That creature deals no damage this turn" can't help, since then the Oracle wording doesn't match the wording on the card!

But apparently this isn't a problem, because cards like Howling Mine Winter Orb already have such additional text?

The difference is that these cards were reprinted with that text.  This fixes the "doesn't match the wording on the card" problem because, well, it does. 

[Matt]

Adding "That creature deals no damage this turn" can't help, since then the Oracle wording doesn't match the wording on the card!

But apparently this isn't a problem, because cards like Howling Mine Winter Orb already have such additional text?

The difference is that these cards were reprinted with that text.  This fixes the "doesn't match the wording on the card" problem because, well, it does. 

Well, not all such cards were reprinted. They added that text because everyone was so used to those particular artifacts being turned off when tapped that it was apparant they would be played as such anyway (they didn't want a rehash of the Clockwork Beast phenomenon).

The rules about what got "turned off" and what didn't when artifacts because tapped were constantly in flux. For awhile Mana Crypt was unrestricted in type one, and it was abused like this: if I tapped the Crypt for mana in my upkeep, it lost the coinflip text and did no damage. This was used to power Mana Vaults' untap ability and also instants with colorless mana requirements, and it was obviously stupid. There was some waffling about whether this sort of thing worked or not.

Another example: if I tap Revised Flying Carpet to give one of my guys flying, and that creature is destroyed, do I have to lose the Carpet? It says I do, but Carpet is an artifact and is "turned off" when it's tapped, so depending on your interpretation of "turn off" I may or may not lose the Carpet. This was an unholy mess until they just did away with the "turn off" clause entirely.

[jpmeyer]

Another sticky point: Parallax Wave and Parallax Tide.  Power level errata or templating errata?

[Godder]

Wave was power-level erratum, but I think that the "if this is in play" clause was to realign the cards with the actual intent of RnD, which wasn't to make it possible to remove stuff permanently by stacking abilities with a Seal of Cleansing, say. Presumably, RnD still didn't quite understand The Stack, since 6E (and 6E rules) was still relatively new.

[Matt]

It was pretty obvious those cards were meant to only temporarily keep things RFG.

[Godder]

Definitely, but with Opalescence and Replenish running around at the time, it was a little scary. Note that of the Parallax Enchantments with errata, Wave is the only one that, if it removes itself, doesn't come back into play (Tide can also be made to remove itself). I remember that erratum being issued before Nemesis was legal to stop infinite comboes with Opalescence.