[Free Article] On Power-Level Errata

[Jacob Orlove]

The point is not to play cards "as written" but to have an oracle wording that matches the functionality of the text. The cards should work the way a reasonable reading of the printed wording indicates, but that's doesn't mean Grip of Chaos is functionally a Divine Intervention.

[AngryPheldagrif]

The point is not to play cards "as written" but to have an oracle wording that matches the functionality of the text. The cards should work the way a reasonable reading of the printed wording indicates, but that's doesn't mean Grip of Chaos is functionally a Divine Intervention.

But Evenpence specifically said it would be without Oracle wording. Also, what does Illusionary Mask do?

[edit]: Nevermind, we'll let him settle this in the other thread.

[edit2]: For not reporting a post? I didn't realize he broke a rule. Calling me an obstinate reactionary is at best a debatable observation and at worst an amusing fact.

[edit3]: This is me preemptively negating this entire post which probably somehow violates some sort of rule or should be a PM or something, I have no idea.

[edit4]: Oh yeah, that probably explains why his post disappeared.

[edit5]: Site quality as a whole may be debatable, but you can't really believe that TMD derailments are higher quality than theirs.

[edit6]: Here's the quote:

The point of the tournament is to see what the Vintage Metagame is like without Oracle wordings.

Actually, I was talking about the article, not Evenpence's tournament.
-Jacob

[jro]

I dont understand why this is so hard for people to grasp.

The Time Vault COUNTER is UNAMBIGUOUSLY a power errata.

Cards are not UNITARY things.  They have many parts.  Some parts of Time Vault were ambiguity errata.  Some parts were functionality errata.  The TIME COUNTER was CLEARLY power errata.

My point was just that Time Vault has issues beyond whether or not it gets counters, and so maybe it isn't the best example of the effect removing power-level errata would have.  I absolutely agree that the time counter is present solely for the purproses of affecting the power of the card.

But allow me to redirect your attention to my question.  Which cards, besides Time Vault (which also requires errata simply to make it work under current rules), do you see this affecting?  You wrote an article advocating that "power-level errata should be removed from all cards in Oracle", but you haven't really specified which cards you think this should apply to.  Since the article says that there are other type of errata that might look like power-level errata but are acceptable (Lion's Eye Diamond is the example, although see below), I'd like to know what is and isn't included in your suggestion.  I don't see why anyone should be willing to support your proposition when you haven't made it clear exactly what that proposition would entail.   The article mentions Basalt Monolith, Great Whale, and Time Vault, and you've also mentioned Zodiac Dragon and Oboro Envoy in the forums.  What about Lake of the Dead (which, as Katzby says, could at one point be used without paying its "comes into play" cost)?  Lotus Vale (which is worded the same but never could)?

About Lion's Eye Diamond: While the functionality of LED changed with 6E spell announcing rules to make it very much more powerful, this same functionality change (the idea that mana sources can be paid after a spell is announced, rather than before) is left intact on lots of other cards, and results in functional changes that do make those cards slightly more powerful.  For instance, under 6E rules, you can announce Natural Order, tap 3 forests and put a fifth -0/-1 counter on Wall of Roots to pay its mana cost, and then sac Wall of Roots for the additional cost of Natural Order.  This was not possible under 5E rules.  I don't think it serves the interests of the game to try and force Wall of Roots and Natural Order to behave the way they used to, even though they are (however slightly) more powerful now.    The errata on Lion's Eye Diamond, if it is necessary, is necessary not because of a rules change, but because a rules change made the card too powerful.  If you support leaving the errata intact on Lion's Eye Diamond, you are supporting errata that is present so that the power-level of LED matches its original, intended use.

While I'd like to see most power-level errata removed, I doubt that Wizards would ever be convinced of that.  What Wizards could, and should, do is to have a clearly stated errata policy, and to make all present errata consistent with that policy.  They seem to be doing this to a certain extent already (we know how they feel about creature types, we know at least Aaron Forsythe's opinion on power errata, we can see that they are updating errata as sets are released on Magic Online), but it would be nice if players had some foreknowledge of these changes.  This would hopefully prevent any future situations like Time Vault, and also be a small gesture to both Vintage and Casual players, who either want "new" high-powered cards, or just want to know what their cards do without having to constantly worry about checking for Oracle updates.

Edit: Okay, I found out about Grip of Chaos.

[Mr. Fantazy]

I'm not sure WotC is going to be very receptive of this idea, even if a majority of Eternal players are.
By lifting power level errata this almost insures that none of these cards can be reprinted in a new set. Just take the "free" creatures for example, while Whale and Palincron are on the reserved list, others are not. If the "played from hand" errata is removed, those cards that are not on the Reserved List have basically just been added to it, as they are not going to release cards that they know have problems onto the Standard format a second time. I also doubt that they would want to go through the time and money to unerrata these cards just to go back and re-errata them again if they want to reprint those cards. By leaving the cards as they are WotC leaves the most options open for the future while expending the least amount of time and money.

If the Time Counter is lifted from Time Vault doesn't this pretty much relegate cards like Voltaic Key to the Restricted List? At the current time WotC seems to be more inclined to remove cards from the Restricted List rather than add more cards.

Envoy is clearly errata to fix a printing/wording error, not power level errata. WotC has for many years been moving away from cards that create "memory" issues. I can't think of one example of an effect that retains a x/x modification to a card that doesn,t go away at end of turn, unless the card generating the effect is an Aura. I guess I could be forgetting one, but I'd be  :shock: if one has been printed since 6th edition.

Having said that, I'm really interested how evenpence's tournament works out, it sounds like a blast, and who knows, maybe WotC will make some adjustments.

-Shawn

[Yare]

The point is not to play cards "as written" but to have an oracle wording that matches the functionality of the text. The cards should work the way a reasonable reading of the printed wording indicates, but that's doesn't mean Grip of Chaos is functionally a Divine Intervention.

I don't agree with the statement as you wrote it, but I do agree with the concept.  I guess I take issue with the idea that you can't play the card "as written" but can play it as it is "functionally described in the text."  The two should be synonymous (with the exception noted below).  How about this instead:

Cards with misprint-type errors will be played with their appropriate errata. Things like Rancor are excluded; we're talking Grip of Chaos and such.  These should (emphasis on should) be obvious.  Cards errata'd otherwise stand as their text states, within reason. (Interrupts are Instants, etc.).

The line needs to be drawn between power errata and misprint errata.  If you can determine that, I think you can go a long way.  I guess you guys can just fight over Impulse, which to me is the card that is really dead-center as far as this is concerned.

[o]

I think you start off with a false assumption in this article, namely:

Since WOTC can ban and restrict cards to regulate power-levels, power level errata should be done away with.

You act like this is just blatantly obvious, but I don't see why.  Power-level errata has a pretty long history, but beyond that, why don't you want Wizards to have more options to keep the game fun and healthy?  To me, your statement is analagous to:

Since WOTC can ban cards to regulate power-levels, restrictions should be done away with.

Obviously this is totally nonsensical.  Giving the governing body broader power to regulate so that it regulate with exacting precision is a GOOD thing.

Let me put it this way:

If every card with power errata was banned, would you be any more happy than you are now?

If you wanted to argue the merits of Time Vault's errata, you should have done that.

[The Atog Lord]

Since WOTC can ban and restrict cards to regulate power-levels, power level errata should be done away with. You act like this is just blatantly obvious, but I don't see why.

We actually just use Wizards' own statements to show this. They indicate that they no longer use power level errata to fix power levels on cards and instead just use the B+R list. We just ask why that same logic isn't applied to cards already given power-level errata.

To me, your statement is analagous to: Since WOTC can ban cards to regulate power-levels, restrictions should be done away with.

This statement is in no way related to anything in our article.

If you wanted to argue the merits of Time Vault's errata, you should have done that.

Yes. You are totally, 100% correct. And if we wanted to argue the merits of why Tarpan should be banned, we should have done that. However, this article was about neither Time Vault itself nor about Tarpan. Try your very very very best to understand that this article is about what it is about, and not about something that it is not about.

[andrewpate]

@Mr. Fantazy
It doesn't really cost any money to errata and unerrata cards.  All of the employees responsible for that sort of thing are on salary, and it's not like they're going to take on extra staff for the purpose of backspacing through a half-dozen iterations of the phrase "if you played it from your hand."  That said, I don't really think that the rest of your argument holds up either.  Cloud of Faeries is not coming back to Standard, even with the errata, because Cloud of Faeries is, even when you don't do anything abusive with it, just plain powerful.  And if they did want to print it, they'd simply have to make sure that they weren't dropping it into an environment with any abusive tricks to do with it such as AEther Vial.

@o
Those two things aren't related at all.  And as for it being blatantly obvious that power-level errata should be done away with since banning and restricting exists, yes, it is blatantly obvious.  The reason for this is that such is the stated policy of Wizards.  And the merits of Time Vault's errata have been argued, in the appropriate thread (i.e., not here).  You might want to actually read up on issues before you start posting about them.

[o]

Since WOTC can ban and restrict cards to regulate power-levels, power level errata should be done away with. You act like this is just blatantly obvious, but I don't see why.

We actually just use Wizards' own statements to show this. They indicate that they no longer use power level errata to fix power levels on cards and instead just use the B+R list. We just ask why that same logic isn't applied to cards already given power-level errata.

This is such inanity.

You're accepting one policy of WOTX: "no longer use power level errata to fix power levels on cards."

But not another: "cards already given power-level errata shouldn't be changed."

Why is this?  Obviously it's not because you're huge fans of wizards and accept everything they do.  It's cause it benefits your position to make it seem like you're using logic when really you aren't at all.

Ultimately there has to be an ultimate arbiter on all things related to magic, or the game just falls appart.  Who do you want this to be?  A council of vintage elders who know what's best for the game?  If you can't accept the actions of Wizards, and play by their rules, then you maintain no order in your format.  Every decision is going to cause some uproar, but you can't respond to every howl.

[dicemanx]

Since WOTC can ban and restrict cards to regulate power-levels, power level errata should be done away with. You act like this is just blatantly obvious, but I don't see why.

We actually just use Wizards' own statements to show this. They indicate that they no longer use power level errata to fix power levels on cards and instead just use the B+R list. We just ask why that same logic isn't applied to cards already given power-level errata.

This is such inanity.

You're accepting one policy of WOTX: "no longer use power level errata to fix power levels on cards."

But not another: "cards already given power-level errata shouldn't be changed."

Why is this?  Obviously it's not because you're huge fans of wizards and accept everything they do.  It's cause it benefits your position to make it seem like you're using logic when really you aren't at all.

Ultimately there has to be an ultimate arbiter on all things related to magic, or the game just falls appart.  Who do you want this to be?  A council of vintage elders who know what's best for the game?  If you can't accept the actions of Wizards, and play by their rules, then you maintain no order in your format.  Every decision is going to cause some uproar, but you can't respond to every howl.

You are being overly dramatic. WotC has indicated to us that they no longer use power-level errata. Some power-level errata was used in the past, for good reason, but has either long since become unnecessary, or could be handled by the B/R list. The proposal is to get WotC to remove errata to add more options to competitive T1/Legacy, and anything too distortive/dominating could be subject to regulation by the B/R list. Since the errata'd cards do not currently register on the competitive T1/Legacy radar, they are already equivalent to being "banned". Removing power level errata is meant to be a good thing for the fomats by increasing diversity, even if by the end some fall victim to the B/R list.

Now, does that not make for a reasonable proposal?


Edit: On a separate note, I must say that the only card I'm really fearful of, even if restricted, is Zodiac Dragon. I'd actually not want this card to work as printed. It's in a way much worse than Time vault and Voltaic Key, for example, because the latter combo uses two cards that are practically useless on their own, which will impose limits on the chances of the combo coming up (I doubt, for example, that people will play 4 Keys just to make their lone Time Vault useful). The Zodiac Dragon combos however, are a little more powerful because they involve unrestricted cards that are actually very useful on their own - Wild Mongrel and Psychatog. To have such easy random kills without having to sacrifice very much in terms of deck design and with having the combo be uncounterable once the relevant creature hits the table is a little too much in my opinion. Furthermore, artifacts are a LOT easier to stop than a creature in Vintage. Vault-Key is already pushing the limits (I'd much rather have Vault return to its previous iteration than have it lose its time counter if there was a choice here), but ZD vaults past that acceptable threshhold in my opinion.

[mgouthro]

Since WOTC can ban and restrict cards to regulate power-levels, power level errata should be done away with. You act like this is just blatantly obvious, but I don't see why.

We actually just use Wizards' own statements to show this. They indicate that they no longer use power level errata to fix power levels on cards and instead just use the B+R list. We just ask why that same logic isn't applied to cards already given power-level errata.

On the same note, Wizard's indicated that they no longer use power level errata which might indicate that they have improved their design process and now they can just use the B+R list. It just might be possible that several cards designed in the past didn't go through as rigorous a process as they do today given the amount of cards currently printed. Maybe the power level errata policy that they used in times past was necessary to moderate problems in the design process, but today it's no longer necessary to apply to the current crop of cards being created. This "improved" design process doesn't mitigate the problems in the design of the older cards that required power level errata.

See, I don't agree that using Wizard's own statements prove or show any facts at all. It's just a question of "why?". Given that there's no proof of what I stated in my previous paragraph either, it can be just as good an argument as what you are presenting. Meaning, until WotC specifically addresses this issue in a statement somewhere, selecting quotes from other articles/releases does not constitute a reason to change decisions made years ago under a different policy. It's speculative, but interesting.

[jro]

On the same note, Wizard's indicated that they no longer use power level errata which might indicate that they have improved their design process and now they can just use the B+R list. It just might be possible that several cards designed in the past didn't go through as rigorous a process as they do today given the amount of cards currently printed.

I think WotC's use of power-level errata in the past (particularly during Urza block and in the Parallax cards from Nemesis) was necessitated by the fact that so many cards were broken that they were trying to keep as many cards playable as possible in the then current Standard.  Cards like Tolarian Academy had no hope of being fixed through errata, so they had to be banned.  Rather than banning a substantially larger number of cards, they decided to just errata what could be errata'd.  This may have been a reasonable enough approach at the time, but it is one that WotC has since refuted both in a statement about WotC policy (by Aaron Forsythe) and in their action (leaving Worldgorger Dragon alone, banning rather than nerfing Skullclamp*).  The question for WotC is this: why hasn't past errata been brought into line with current policy?  WotC has never stated that their policy is to leave old errata alone, and we see that they are making changes to old errata: Time Vault is the most discussed example, and they have also been updating wordings for older sets as they are released on Magic Online.  And that probably represents the real reason that cards won't be changed: Great Whale may not show up in Legacy or Vintage even if it was "fixed", but it would almost certainly show up in Magic Online Classic.  Since that's the only format amongst the three that can generate future revenue for WotC, I don't see why they would want to screw that up for the benefit of formats which they hardly support.

* They could have errata'd Skullclamp to say "When equipped creature is destroyed, ...", which would have taken away its broken uses.

[Mr. Fantazy]

It doesn't really cost any money to errata and unerrata cards.  All of the employees responsible for that sort of thing are on salary, and it's not like they're going to take on extra staff for the purpose of backspacing through a half-dozen iterations of the phrase "if you played it from your hand."

Anytime something gets done in a business it takes up man-hours which equals money. If an employee is doing project X he is usually not doing project Y, which means someone has to or it has to be pushed back. Now I doubt that WotC would bring in outside staff and it's actually not relevant if the employees that would handle the task are on salary or not, working on a task prevents other tasks from being done during that time, thats all I was saying. Also, the number of cards that would be changed is unclear since no one has defined what cards would be changed, I only used the Free Creatures as an example to make a point,
I'm guessing that there are other cards as well, not to mention that there is no clear definition or list of cards that are Power Level Errata, which basically means going through every card that has errata to check if it fits the requirements to be removed.

That said, I don't really think that the rest of your argument holds up either.  Cloud of Faeries is not coming back to Standard, even with the errata, because Cloud of Faeries is, even when you don't do anything abusive with it, just plain powerful.  And if they did want to print it, they'd simply have to make sure that they weren't dropping it into an environment with any abusive tricks to do with it such as AEther Vial.

Well I really didn't make an argument, I just stated my opinion on how I see the situation.
Neither you nor I have any idea as to what will be reprinted and what won't be reprinted short of what's on the Reprint List, and a case could be made that some of those cards could be printed again. CoF is a powerful card, no doubt, but that hardly precludes it from being reprinted.

Your point, about WotC just needing to make sure that if they did want to reprint CoF they could just make sure there were no Vial type cards in the envenvironment only serves to strengthen what I said,
"By leaving the cards as they are WotC leaves the most options open for the future while expending the least amount of time and money.".

With the errata in place, Vial type cards would not present a problem and keep design room/options open.

While I'm interested to see what lifting the errata would do, I think WotC would consider what problems/constraints such a lifting would cause.

-Shawn

[dandan]

I understand the point of the article but I think you cannot blindly say that power-level errata should be removed without considering which cards would be affected. The simple reason for this is that Wizards cannot just say 'Dear people, from today, all power-level errata is removed'.
Life isn't that simple. They would have to look at each card on a case by case basis and decide on a new Oracle wording.

Seeing as they would have to look at each card on a case by case basis, it is pointless to try to argue for an across the board withdrawal of power-level errata. Wizards have already said they won't do it again, which IMHO implies they tend to agree with the idea on not using power-level errata in principle on older cards. BUT they would still need to agree on which cards would be affected and come up with viable wordings. 

Recent articles on Time Vault have clearly shown there is ambiguity in the original wording of older cards. Should Interdict have the "Abilities of that permanent cannot be played again this turn.' line? Isn't Zodiac Dragon blinding obvious?  Those are the questions that need answering