As soon as you think you’ve established some sort of foothold, life has this knack for pulling the rug right out from under you. Now I’ve seen drastic overhauls before, but today the foundation of truth wobbles, the monolith of certainty crumbles…

They’re revamping the rules for Magic again.

The last time this happened was in 1999 with Sixth Edition. The introduction of the stack was simply necessary for cleaning up the timing rules for instants and “interrupts”, and the changes to combat (tapped creatures deal damage, and locked-in damage via the stack) played out really well once you got used to them. Now, I know that nobody cares anymore about this except for Max, who still keeps talking incessantly to me about Magic. I keep trying to hint that nobody here plays anymore, but he still won’t stop jabbering. Anyway, for Max’s benefit, and his only, here are the big rules changes:

1) Combat damage no longer uses the stack.

If the creature’s not there, it doesn’t deal damage, which really makes a lot of sense. But we have now lost that beautiful phrase: “Damage on the stack?” Just saying it made you feel like a pro — as long as you were the one saying it. Because when that same question came from the guy across the table, you knew that you were about to get wrecked. But as much as I loved abusing the timing shenanigans, the whole block-sac-two-for-one thing really did feel like cheating to me, even if it was “just” Sakura-Tribe Elder. And it was hell trying to explain it to Lee.

2) You don’t take mana burn.

Mana just disappears at the end of each step without hurting you. (Yes, each step: this used to be each phase, so now you can no longer float mana from your upkeep to your draw step, or between combat steps.) This seems like a pretty innocuous change at first. I mean, it usually only mattered for mana flare or ritual effects. But I think I’m going to miss this one the most. After all, the whole point of mana burn was to let you go down in a blaze of glory before you were about to get trounced. This tactic would deny your opponent the satisfaction of killing you, and was especially effective in Shandalar.

3) New game terminology, such as “exile” instead of “remove from the game”, and “enter the battlefield” instead of “put into play.”

Well, you’ve got to appeal to that Yu-Gi-Oh crowd somehow.

Anyway, here’s the full article.