[Free Article] On Power-Level Errata

[policehq]

I personally don't see Time Vault + Voltaic Key being the optimal Gifts pile, even if Time Vault's upcoming (let us hope) errata will stay true to the original text. Flame Fusillade and Time Vault killed the opponent; this combo gives you infinite turns, and you still need something else for a win condition.

-hq

[Katzby]

I'm sorry if I didn't make it entirely clear as to what I was talking about in my previous post. 

What I meant is that it seems to me that the article to which this thread corresponds is saying two things:

1. There's a difference between power-level errata and errata issued for other reasons.
2. Power-level errata should be done away with completely.

The article doesn't really address what should be done with the "other errata."  We can make whatever case we like for the errata on, say, Mystic Denial or on Debt of Loyalty, etc. remaining unchanged.  However, the article doesn't really discuss what should happen with it.  So, we should leave the discussion of the errata on these cards out of this.

The idea that all cards should be played "as written" (which has been raised on this thread), while also having its merits, isn't exactly what we're talking about here, either.  Again, we're talking only about doing away with that errata that was issued in order to curb the power level of specific cards (power level errata).

Therefore, the task becomes to figure out which cards have been erratad for power level concerns and which cards have been erratad "for other reasons."

The point of my previous post was to explain that the current errata on Abeyance and Zodiac Dragon is not power level errata, so we shouldn't really consider them for this thread.  Again, we are concerned only with what we have determined to be power level errata.

On a side note, despite what Dicemanx said (I would quote, but I'm at work right and can't access the internet 100% freely), I'm positive that something official came out of DCI regarding how Zodiac Dragon should be played well before the Oracle update of the Portal cards some months before becomming legal.  As I recall, there was a specific card ruling for this card listed somewhere that explained "when playing under normal rules, this card only returns if it went to the graveyard from play," from at least four of five years ago.  (I would dig up an exact source, but again, I'm at work).

Update:

Here's the source.  http://www.crystalkeep.com/magic/rules/changes/rule-cards-chg-0600.txt

Zodiac Dragon:
+ When played under non-Portal rules, the text should be read as "When ~this~
    goes to a graveyard from play, you may return ~this~ to its owner's
    hand." [D'Angelo 00/06/05]

Note that despite the non-American date notation, this is referring to the year 2000 (well before the oracle update).

Katzby

[Katzby]

One final question: Should a player shuffle his library after playing Impulse?

On another side note, the answer to this question is definately a no.  And the reason for this is because there exists a more recent version of Impulse than what was printed in Visions (I believe as a FNM prize), and it definately does not say to shuffle your library. 

This is obviously very compelling reasoning, otherwise we would have to ask ourselves if AQ versions of Tawnos' Wand would grant unblockability by artifact creatures, or if Alpha versions of Gloom should prevent the activation of white enchantments (Holy Armor, Blessing, etc) other than Circles of Protection.  And since we clearly aren't going to do this, then Impulse shouldn't be treated any differently.

This also raises an interesting point.  If something like Great Whale showed up in, say, 10th edition, complete with the "if you played it from your hand" clause, I think that we'd have nothing left to argue about regarding the card.  It seems that once errata gets put into actual card text on a reprint, people accept it without much fuss.  I'm starting to think that it might have been a better idea for WOTC to have just somehow released Time Vault as a judge promo or FNM prize with the updated wording.  Doing this would probably have caused a lot less controversy.


Katzby

[andrewpate]

I don't think that anyone is really arguing that Debt of Loyalty should be turned into a Govern the Guildless/Ritual of the Machine/Mouth to Mouth kind of effect attached to a Death Ward.  I think that some argument might exist about some specific cards like Zodiac Dragon (I, too, have a strong recollection of pre-Oracle "errata" of that particular card).

Of course, it isn't as though "paradox" cards can't work.  It has often been pointed out that pre-errata Champion's Victory and Command of Unsummoning worked just fine, since play restrictions in the textbox supercede normal rules (Mystic Denial is a bit of an exception).  I don't see this as really much of a problem.  The same can be said of creature type--the errata of basically the whole Oracle to follow modern typing standards was carefully planned, very conscious, and very anamolous.  It doesn't really interfere with any other reasoning, even if making Goblin King a Goblin did beef up the card.

In fact, I don't see much of a problem with many of the points raised.  Yes, there are ambiguous cases.  Isn't that true of the entire B&R list?  I'm fine with letting Wizards decide which errata are about power-level and which are about rules and intent clarifications.  Clearly Great Whale was a power-level decision (Wizards had said as much).  Clearly Waylay was an intent decision (Wizards has also said this).  For cases like Zodiac Dragon, Interdict, etc., I'm all for leaving it up to them.  The call to action is about removing old power-level errata because of a clearly-stated stance that new power-level errata is bad.

[Yare]

One final question: Should a player shuffle his library after playing Impulse?

On another side note, the answer to this question is definately a no. And the reason for this is because there exists a more recent version of Impulse than what was printed in Visions (I believe as a FNM prize), and it definately does not say to shuffle your library.

This is obviously very compelling reasoning, otherwise we would have to ask ourselves if AQ versions of Tawnos' Wand would grant unblockability by artifact creatures, or if Alpha versions of Gloom should prevent the activation of white enchantments (Holy Armor, Blessing, etc) other than Circles of Protection. And since we clearly aren't going to do this, then Impulse shouldn't be treated any differently.

So, the fact of errata in card form makes it acceptable, regardless of what the errata is?  Gloom was definitely a functional errata change.  What if Gloom had never been reprinted and they just errata'd it to say "white enchantments" instead?  Would the errata be acceptable then?  Why or why not?

This is just not compelling to me.  The fact of putting it on a new card with the same name does not change how the actual original piece of cardboard reads.

[Smmenen]

I think that one must keep in mind that the recent errata to vault was not a power leval errata, it was a "clean up" errata on a power level errata, which was still coincidentally broken.

Regardless, I believe that power level erratas are a necessary evil, especially on cards like Time Vault.  Time Vault, with no errata, would be INSAINLY broken, even if restricted.  However, there are definitly cards that require erratas.  One must deside, would you rather play in a magic where cards like Time Vault could have infinite comboes with voltaic key?  Would you really find it fun to have someone could tutor out a Zodiac Dragon with a mongrel in play?  There would be worse consequenses, I'm sure.  In fact, why stop at doing away with power level restrictions just on text?  It doesn't say anywhere on ante cards that they can't be played?  Perhaps we should litterally interpret them and create a deck with all of them, and remove them for a 10 card combo deck.  But I digress.  It should be evident that power level restrictions are unwanted, and should be regarded as a last resort, but they are a necessity.  And I also believe that no one here is angry about Time Vault's power level restriction, honestly, but rather its "clean up" restriction.  You say that you want cards to be played as they are written, and yet you had no quams with the card when you comboed out with Flame Fussilade.  And if that combo didn't exist, would any of you even care about the recent development?

Regardless, are any of you flawless?  Wizards has, and my yet again, made mistakes.  This meathod of repairing them seems best to me.  Its not a matter of intent, from my view, but of necessity.  If you cut your arm, would you let it be or bandage it?  Would you let it bleed because you didn't want to interfere?  No, you would fix it with artificial means.  That is what is being done, at least in my opinion.

I think you are missing the point.

The point is that Wizards has a mechanism for correcting power issues: banning and restricting.  Errata is not to be used for that purpose as the article and the quotes taken from it make clear (see the Forsythe quote). 

As an aside, I actually DO want to play Zodiac Dragon with Wild Mongrel.  I think that would be fun.  Same with Voltaic Key and Time Vault. 

@ KATZBY ET AL
On a side note, this would have cleared up some things if I had just put this in the article, but the categories we discussed in the article Are NOT Mutually exclusive.  There are overlap.

Where a card is unclear, say, you can errata it by choosing one particular interpretation over another.  The interpretation you choose could have the effect of decreasing the objective power of the card.  Thus, an ambiguity errata could be a power errata.  There are many more examples of this.

What we are talking about is where the card or the section of the card at issue is SPECIFICALLY Power errata.

[The Atog Lord]

Two points.

First, as ELD pointed out to me, the Basalt Combo doesn't actually work. Relic Bind was reprinted in 4th edition with the new wording, and cards reprinted with a new wording are well outside the scope of this article.

Second, this article is calling for the removal of power level errata, not for the removal of all errata. The article explicitly says so. Portal Cards are given errata which brings their wording in line with the rules of actual Magic -- much as Power Sink became an instant instead of an interrupt. That's not power level errata, and therefore not the focus of the article either.

[Jacob Orlove]

So, the fact of errata in card form makes it acceptable, regardless of what the errata is?  Gloom was definitely a functional errata change.  What if Gloom had never been reprinted and they just errata'd it to say "white enchantments" instead?  Would the errata be acceptable then?  Why or why not?

This is just not compelling to me.  The fact of putting it on a new card with the same name does not change how the actual original piece of cardboard reads.

The whole point is to align the oracle wording with the text of the card. In cases where a card has been printed in multiple versions, only the newest text applies. Anything else would be nonsensical. Let's look at the alternatives:
1) Multiple versions of the same card. I hope we can all agree that having functionally different versions of the same card is absurd. That's the reason why they don't make "destroy all cards with expansion symbol X" anymore--does anyone remember when revised Serendibs were tech because they didn't die to City in a Bottle?
2) Newest version takes precedence. This just makes sense. If it's in the base set, that's the version most people are going to see.
3) Oldest version takes precedence. This effectively says "cards cannot have their wording fixed" (because the new version has to match the old version or else be wrong), which is extremely counterproductive.

#2 is the only real option, so we just don't look at older printings of cards when considering whether the oracle text matches the printed wording (which is the real goal here).

[Vegeta2711]

It saddens me that the flame war on the SCG thread couldn't of been on here so you all could've been throughly repremanded. Good job on making Vintage players look like douchebags though.

Personally I liked the article and wouldn't have any problems with some of the cards that were clearly errated for power reasons be changed back. I doubt it'll happen, but it's worth a passing thought by the people in charge.

[Mr. Type 4]

Evenpence had a cool idea:

Actually, this intriques me.  I'm going to think about putting on a tournament around here for a mox or something where power-level errata doesn't exist to see what would happen.

This would have to be handled specifically.  You could make up a list of a few cards you'd like to see de-errated, make it clear exactly how these cards work(i.e. post the exact game text you want to use, and this text supercedes Oracle for the scope of the tournament), and probably restrict a few things.  So, lets say you just went with:
Time Vault - Restricted
Zodiac Dragon - Restricted
Great Whale, Cloud of Faeries, Priest of Gix, Plainchron (I think there's a few more) - Unrestricted
Basalt Monolith - Unrestricted

That ought to be enough to test the waters.  Yare, Glix and a few others seem aprehensive about doing this, and I think that's fair, but if Evenpence is motivated to throw a tournament that will find out if making a few changes will make the game fresh and more interesting, then I think that's a great idea.  We may find that the whole thing is completely degenerate, but I'm pretty sure that we will find the opposite is true.  However, I'm a firm believer that theories are only worth so much, and by having a tournament for a serious prize we will be able to derive some really solid information. 

At this point I think I'm pretty far beyond trying to figure out the reason Zodiac Dragon was errataed.  Wheather it's power-level errata or mistake-errata, I still think it would be a lot of fun.  it makes a lot of deck types potentially good.  There are also a plethora of ways to beat it, like Leyline of the Void.  I want more deck building options.  I don't want Type 1 to stagnate into obscurity.  This format hasn't really been shaken up since Mirrodin Block, and that is getting to be a long time ago. 

[Harlequin]

You should still probably make some sort of errata for those cards.  This way everyone has an agreed upon interpretation of the card.  This is very straight forward for cards like Great Whale and Karmic Guide, but for Time vault the card printed text still leaves room for interpreation.  Clearly It would not include the time counter ... but would it still combo with FF?

Zodiac Dragon could have two interpretations as well:
Triggered - "When ~ is put into your GY, you may return it to you hand."
or
Replacement - "If ~ would be put into your graveyard, you may put him into your hand instead."

Also what about cards like:
Mox Diamond, Phyrexian Dreadnaught, etc... All those "When ~ comes into play" cards that were mutated into "AS" abilities.  I think It would be interesting, get some Stifle-Naught decks going on.
Then ofcourse you have the reprinted cards like Triskellion, who was a "when" in 4th ed, and an "As" in Mirroden.

[mogote]

One final question: Should a player shuffle his library after playing Impulse?

On another side note, the answer to this question is definately a no.  And the reason for this is because there exists a more recent version of Impulse than what was printed in Visions (I believe as a FNM prize), and it definately does not say to shuffle your library.

Impulse already got rid of the "shuffle your library afterwards"-clause with the release of foreign Visions releases (e.g. German Visions). The same goes for the beatdown-box version and as mentioned the foil promo. So it seems to be clearly a printing mistake.

[Katzby]

Mox Diamond, Phyrexian Dreadnaught, etc... All those "When ~ comes into play" cards that were mutated into "AS" abilities.  I think It would be interesting, get some Stifle-Naught decks going on.

Neither Mox Diamond nor Phyrexian Dreadnought have power level errata.  It's been pretty much agreed upon that these two cards instead have "rules consistency errata."  This thread is constantly getting off topic with the discussion of cards that have non power-level errata.

I also still don't believe that Zodiac Dragon has power level errata, either.  It's also clearly "fix a printing error" errata just like that on Impulse, as this errata has been around since pretty much the printing of the set.  I haven't yet heard a decent counter argument to this yet.


Katzby

[Smmenen]

Mox Diamond, Phyrexian Dreadnaught, etc... All those "When ~ comes into play" cards that were mutated into "AS" abilities.  I think It would be interesting, get some Stifle-Naught decks going on.

Neither Mox Diamond nor Phyrexian Dreadnought have power level errata.  It's been pretty much agreed upon that these two cards instead have "rules consistency errata."  This thread is constantly getting off topic with the discussion of cards that have non power-level errata.

I also still don't believe that Zodiac Dragon has power level errata, either.  It's also clearly "fix a printing error" errata just like that on Impulse, as this errata has been around since pretty much the printing of the set.  I haven't yet heard a decent counter argument to this yet.


Katzby

The "fix printing error" errata is NOT valid errata.

Buehler has said that R&D intent is NOT relevant.  He quotes the example of Rancor.  R&D intended that it cost 2G.  It was accidentally printed at G and they have not errateted it.

IMO, Oboro Envoy should work as written (according to Gottlieb's own logic - take his Ask Wizards column, take out the word "time vault" and add the words "Oboro Envory" and he can't say otherwise.

Impulse is excepted because it was reprinted later on with the errata.

[jpmeyer]

Mox Diamond, Phyrexian Dreadnaught, etc... All those "When ~ comes into play" cards that were mutated into "AS" abilities.  I think It would be interesting, get some Stifle-Naught decks going on.

Neither Mox Diamond nor Phyrexian Dreadnought have power level errata.  It's been pretty much agreed upon that these two cards instead have "rules consistency errata."  This thread is constantly getting off topic with the discussion of cards that have non power-level errata.

I also still don't believe that Zodiac Dragon has power level errata, either.  It's also clearly "fix a printing error" errata just like that on Impulse, as this errata has been around since pretty much the printing of the set.  I haven't yet heard a decent counter argument to this yet.


Katzby

The "fix printing error" errata is NOT valid errata.

Buehler has said that R&D intent is NOT relevant.  He quotes the example of Rancor.  R&D intended that it cost 2G.  It was accidentally printed at G and they have not errateted it.

IMO, Oboro Envoy should work as written (according to Gottlieb's own logic - take his Ask Wizards column, take out the word "time vault" and add the words "Oboro Envory" and he can't say otherwise.

Impulse is excepted because it was reprinted later on with the errata.

Except that Magic doesn't handle effects like that without using counters.  There's a difference between typos and this nebulous "R&D intent" that you keep bringing up.  The "intent" of Grip of Chaos is to make spells target randomly.  The actual wording creates an infinite loop that causes the game to never end.

[Carthain]

I thought our goal is to maximize the number of viable cards in the format. However, WotC apparently won't budge on certain issues - they feel compelled to have all printed texts and oracle texts match-up as closely as possible for example. Fine. Let's do that then (dump the power level errata), and in the process make about 5-6 cards possibly useful again. With the exception of Time Vault (which will likely need restriction) its a pretty safe bet that removal of power errata from many of the cards won't lead to anything dominant or distortive. Unless you think otherwise? Are we missing something?

How do you determine what is "power level errata" and what is not? Is Lotus Vale errata power level or not? If not, why isn't it? Is Phrx. Dreadnaught power level errata? Or is it rules conversion errata (these updates were for the change from 5th to 6th edition rules, so I'm assuming they are not power level errata, and simply functionality errata, and thus you don't want to change their current erratas).

What if some of the "power level errata" was done to simplify and/or clarify the game, and interactions between the cards? For example, do you want to go back to being able to weld one Phrx.Dreadnaught into another, and sacrifice the one leaving play to the one coming into play? It's much simpler on the rules, and thus on the players who don't delve into the rules, to have the artifact leave play first, and then the new artifact come into play.  But, that would also depend if you feel the goblin welder's errata was due to the power level of that interaction or not.  I don't think it was for the power level, but more for the simplicity of being able to play these cards together.  Thus, it doesn't really fit into any of the categories listed in the article.

But, if you're looking for random problems with removing all power level errata -- be sure to take a look at Parallax Wave. If I animate it with Opalessence (both can be replenished into play without too much difficulty), I can then remove all creatures I want from the game, with no further investment.  Remove a fade counter from the Wave to remove your creature form the game, but in response, remove the wave from the game (with it's own ability).  Then, the stack will resolve to remove the wave, and return all creatures removed from the game back to play -- which will just be the wave so far, and then the next item on the stack will resolve to remove your creature from the game, with no way of getting it back, short of wishing/researching for it.  At which point I can do it again if you do get it back.  Add Parallax Tide to the playing field, and I'll remove all your lands from the game too.

[Moxlotus]

It's pretty easy to tell which cards are power level errata and which ones were the victim of rules changes.  I don't know why everybody is trying to get all slippery slope with this argument.

@Opalescence stuff.  Type 1 couldn't care less about that--its more broken anyways.  Replenish is banned in Legacy and its not legal in any other format.  Who cares--that would be completely unplayable in competitive Vintage, but it would still be an option.

[jro]

@ KATZBY ET AL
On a side note, this would have cleared up some things if I had just put this in the article, but the categories we discussed in the article Are NOT Mutually exclusive.  There are overlap.

Where a card is unclear, say, you can errata it by choosing one particular interpretation over another.  The interpretation you choose could have the effect of decreasing the objective power of the card.  Thus, an ambiguity errata could be a power errata.  There are many more examples of this.

What we are talking about is where the card or the section of the card at issue is SPECIFICALLY Power errata.

Can you give some examples of cards that you would see are unambiguously errata'd for power reasons?  The clearest examples I can think of are the "free spells" from Urza block and the Parallax cards from Nemesis.  Both Time Vault and Basalt Monolith are at least partly "clarification / disambiguation" errata.  Lotus Vale  and Phyrexian Dreadnought are at least partly "rules change" errata.  And cards like Oboro Envoy (and Impulse, ignoring for the moment the fact that it was reprinted) are partly "printing error errata".

[The Atog Lord]

Can you give some examples of cards that you would see are unambiguously errata'd for power reasons? 

Honestly, exactly which cards are power errata'd is neither here nor there. There are border cases where it may be difficult to discern exactly what sort of errata it was, but Wizards has the judgement to sort that out.

The important point isn't which cards are which, but rather what should be done about those cards which do have power level errata. I think that Wizards should put some thought into those cards -- and the policy of retaining power errata in general. The matter of which cards are impacted can be examined after the high level policy is again examined.

[Moxlotus]

Step 1: get an idea for this issue (TV errata gave people this)
Step 2: decide what should happen to power level errata (current step and point of the article)
Step 3: decide which cards are power level errata and should change if that option is chosen

This article is getting wizards to address step 2.  You're getting ahead of yourself talking about exactly which cards will be and which won't be for border cases.

This is how I interpret things anyways.

[nataz]

I think this article was a hairs breath away from being excellent, but then fell off the cliff of terrible-ness with response quotes like this;

The important point isn't which cards are which, but rather what should be done about those cards which do have power level errata. I think that Wizards should put some thought into those cards -- and the policy of retaining power errata in general. The matter of which cards are impacted can be examined after the high level policy is again examined

to simple questions like this;

Can you give some examples of cards that you would see are unambiguously errata'd for power reasons?

If you can't define what it is you want to change (i.e., power level errata), why should we care what you have to say about power level errata in the first place? How can you argue against power level errata if you don't even know what it is. It's like the 5 year old kid refusing to eat "yucky" broccoli, even though he has never tasted it in his life.

I get the point that in an ideal world wizards would look at ever errata'd card, and rules/printing issues aside, would put them back closest to their original state as possible, regardless of power level. Then if something was truly degenerate, they would rest./ban the card in its respective format, thereby separating the issues of textual intent and health of the format (or price, or whatever).

The question is "can this even be done?" You start with the basic assumption that all power level errata can be identified/classified. Sure, I'll buy that, even though you don't say exactly how this can be done, I'll go ahead and assume you have some kind of criteria; after all you did manage to find examples for your article.
 
Then when someone mentions a card that isn't so obvious, instead of replying with this is/is not a power errata because ___, you simply answer with a "it doesn't matter". This tells me that you don't have a way in which power level errata could be identified, which gives two options. Either there is a way it can be done (and you are too lazy/want to hide it/just haven't found it yet), or there isn't a way it can be cleanly done. Since you have not proposed a system, and I can't seem to find a system that would work on a number of specific examples that were brought up both here and at SCG, I'm inclined to believe that they may be no possible system at all that RnD or whomever could use.

No immediate system = No way to change it in a uniform way = your article was pretty much pointless to me (although it did force me into a mental exercise)

[Smmenen]

@ KATZBY ET AL
On a side note, this would have cleared up some things if I had just put this in the article, but the categories we discussed in the article Are NOT Mutually exclusive.  There are overlap.

Where a card is unclear, say, you can errata it by choosing one particular interpretation over another.  The interpretation you choose could have the effect of decreasing the objective power of the card.  Thus, an ambiguity errata could be a power errata.  There are many more examples of this.

What we are talking about is where the card or the section of the card at issue is SPECIFICALLY Power errata.

Can you give some examples of cards that you would see are unambiguously errata'd for power reasons?  The clearest examples I can think of are the "free spells" from Urza block and the Parallax cards from Nemesis.  Both Time Vault and Basalt Monolith are at least partly "clarification / disambiguation" errata.  Lotus Vale  and Phyrexian Dreadnought are at least partly "rules change" errata.  And cards like Oboro Envoy (and Impulse, ignoring for the moment the fact that it was reprinted) are partly "printing error errata".

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 faith in the intelligence of humanity is truly worn thin after this debacle.

It absolutely BAFFLES the mind how someone could say: "Time Vault is not a power errata" 

Is the sky pink?  Is dirt blue? 

Time Vault IS a power errata and it is other things.  But the Time Counter is unambiguously power errata.

Now, there are cases in which it is not so clear cut.  But Time Vault clearly is, in 1996, the subject of power errata. 

Lee Sharpe, a level 3 judge, said in the SCG forums that Time Vault was not a power errata.

What an utter moron.  CLEARLY the most recent errata to time vault was NOT power errata.  But NO ONE is claiming that! 

Time Vault was BANNED until 1996 where it was given a time counter. 

Why is this SO HARD for people to grasp? 

[scutakicker]

is getting wizards to address step 2.  You're getting ahead of yourself talking about exactly which cards will be and which won't be for border cases.

To a certain extent I agree, but there's also a sizeable part of the TMD community (myself included) that already seems to agree with the argument. For those who do, or even those who would just enjoy a change of competitive pace, I think the next step is to arrange a tournament. That does require moving to step 3.

Why not have a tuornament at GenCon? There'll be enough people, WoTC might actually notice, and there's enough time to put a un-errata list together as well as do some deck design. Mr. Type 4 already started created a short list of of cards to be de-nerfed--let's build on that.

[The Atog Lord]

As I said on the SCG forum:

It was not until we reflected on the Time Vault errata that Steve and I realized that Wizards' continuing to retain power-level errata was not only bad for the game but also inconsistent with its own stated policy. So, yes, the Time Vault errata was a catalyst for the discussion which led to this article; but sometimes a single instance can make one cognizant of a wider pattern.

[Mr. Type 4]

For real.  This idea popped into Steve's head during the discussion of his contriversial Time Vault article, and he found that Rich Shay had some similar opinions.  So what?  All we want is for some opportunities to make some new competitive decks here, and to do that we need more cards.  Seriously. The power-level of cards in Vintage is sooooo high, that 99% of decks anyone can make up, that aren't minor variations on the established set, will just not even crack the third tier.  Wizards isn't going to print things that are good enough for type 1 very often, because those cards would have to be INSANE, or extremely clever, and if they were insane they would just dominate Type 2 and such, which is more important to Wizards than Vintage will ever be.  So, we have to look elsewhere for some cards that can be brought in that won't mess up Type 2, and will be good enough to spawn new archtypes in Vintage.  Power-errata cards could be this ticket.  

We need to get beyond the "why" and move on to the "why not?"

"Why not?" is so much more important here.  The reasons to do this are clear: They help the game to be more accessable to newer players by reducing the reliance on Oracle.  AND to allow more playable cards into the large, but actually small, Vintage card pool.  

So far the list of "why not's" seems to be limited to the following things:

1. Steve Menendian thinks it's a good idea.
2. Because Wizards errated Time Vault last month.

These, of course, are ridiculous

3. Concerns that undoing errata will just lead to the cards being straight banned from Vintage.

This is the most realistic concern.  I doubt any of these will need banned.  I do encourage a tournament to be done to test some of that out.  As of now, Wizards is making no moves to ban Yawg Will, which is way more broken than any of these, so I'm thinking the chances of them getting banned is pretty slim.  I think the opposers to this should at least give it a chance in their mind for a little bit, and they will quickly see how much fun it can be.  

4. Concerns that Wizards doesn't care about Vintage and no matter what won't do anything about this.  

Well, sure, they might not do anything, but then, they might actually do it.  They did Portal for us, and they are actively trying to fix old errata, as seen with Time Vault.  

5. Concerns over what a power-level errata is, as well as concerns that we won't be able to find everything that needs fixed.

Certainly some cards are errataed for a multitude of reasons.  The goal here is to just get a few noteworthy cards that if their game text were changed to look more like the actual text on the card, would maybe be playable in Type 1.  Let's just focus on that.  I've already thrown out a few potential candidates, let's build upon that.  Let's try to figure out what the game would be like if we could play these cards with restored wording, and let's discuss that here.  


Let's have a productive discussion.  Arguing that Steve Menedian is behind this because of Time Vault is stupid, and it isn't getting us anywhere.  

[Jacob Orlove]

I removed a bunch of unproductive posts from this thread. Anyone who still wants to dissect Steve's motivations in joining with Rich to write this piece should PM Steve. Everyone else should stay on topic.

[nataz]

Alright, I have a fairly simple question.

What cards are considered by wizards to be power level errata? I know that I've seen different wizard employies talk about specific examples (i.e., man of war), so I know it exists, but does anyone have a complete list? I never played durring Urza, let alone alpha/beta, so the history of power errata in general is fuzzy to me.

I'm not asking what anyone thinks is power errata (seemingly obvious or not), unless you can give me a set definition that you can apply across the board, I don't really care for your examples.  

The reason why I ask is that I agree that simple power level errata should revert back to its original wording (as much as possible w/in the limits of the rules of the game). I think this would be in line with the current policy of returning cards to their textual intent/simplifying card text and the oracle.

However, I do not agree that "rules" errata that happen to make something less/more powerful should be changed.

Lotus Vale for me seems like a reasonable test case. Was it a rules errata, or was it a power errata? More important to me is the intent of the decision, as opposed to the effect of the decision. If it was a combonation of rules errata and power level errata, do you change it back, or leave it alone?

 
 

[AngryPheldagrif]

Content deleted because I killed Steve's post too. Verbal warning to him for not just sending me a PM.

Bonus observation: you call this a derailment? Phaw, Misetings says this is a pretty pathetic derailment. Now women, sports, and alcohol, there's a quality derailing. Anyone else think Detroit's going to come back and take it?
Analogy time! TMD is to Misetings as Black Lotus is to:
A) Lotus Petal
B) City of Brass
C) Lotus Vale
D) Sorrow's Path
E) A poorly made fake Sorrow's Path that someone is trying to sell on ebay

Verbal warning. Next time, just report the post.
-Jacob

[Mr. Type 4]

I'm pretty sure that Illusionary Mask's errta has to stay as-is because of all the interactions with Morph cards and such.  Also, it's kind of important to prevent cheating.  Errata that prevents cheating is probably the good kind of errata.

BTW: I'm from Pittsburgh, PA, so if the tournament is in Pennsylvania, I will try to negotiate with my girlfriend so I can come.

[AngryPheldagrif]

I'm pretty sure that Illusionary Mask's errta has to stay as-is because of all the interactions with Morph cards and such.  Also, it's kind of important to prevent cheating.  Errata that prevents cheating is probably the good kind of errata.

BTW: I'm from Pittsburgh, PA, so if the tournament is in Pennsylvania, I will try to negotiate with my girlfriend so I can come.

Then what's the point of having a tournament to play cards as written if we can't?