Making the Nephilim Legendary?! Let's Talk About Errata! | Good Morning Magic

[@Registeel1234]

I'll be honest, I feel that an errata to add "legendary" to a creature is much like an errata to add "Ranger" to a creature. Promoting the Nephilim, in my opinion, would fall under "make the card work as players expect", since all of the Nephilim are named creatures. I don't think the comparison to giving planeswalkers or sorceries "can be your commander" is a fair one, especially removing legendary status like in your chulane exemple. There's an expectation that commanders are almost always creatures, and planeswalkers are just an exception done because of the commander precons. That being said, I'll be happy if we get a new cycle of 4-colour Nephilims with weird abilities like they currently have!

[@loganmunoz5373]

Yeah those “arguments” were totally weak if felt like he used extreme examples just to make it seem worse than it actually is. The best argument to make them legendary would be they literally created a new creature type and added it to cards from the last decade

[@mancermancermancer]

I agree, I didn't realize the Nephilim *weren't* legendary until it was pointed out to me, because it seems they so clearly should be. It's frustrating to hear hyperbole and slippery slope arguments. Especially because the Nephilim are drastically more requested to be legendary than anything else. I'd never heard of tamanoa, the closest thing to a valid example he gave, until this video.

[@Tuss36]

The situation with "Ranger" is that you go over all the creatures with it in their name and append it. There's no question of "Why isn't City Ranger a ranger?" because it is. Errattaing the nephilim would lead to the expectation that any title-sounding name should be legendary. Most all of the Kami would be a good example (not that there weren't legends aplenty in that set but I digress). Abomination of Llanowar is legendary, why not Abomination of Gudul? There's nothing about the nephilim that makes them feel particularly named, especially since each one is ____ Nephilim. The only thing making them feel legendary is their four colours, which is exceptional.

[@caseyclyde3006]

I also don't think his argument is very compelling. It's a "slippery slope" argument. But the problem with that is... they are in absolute control of the game and the errata. Lightning Bolt would only be a commander if *they* made it possible, it's not like some other joker is going to come along and make that possible. It's like saying, well if we start adding ranger creature type to things because they have ranger in the title, where does it stop? Why isn't Wall of Junk have a junk creature type? It says junk right in the name!

[@spliffi869]

Good points, I totally agree. I think adding legendary for named creatures is a legit flavour & rules errata and personally rather dislike it, if additional subtypes are added to old cards just so they trigger tribal effects of modern cards. If you apply the "subclass" logic, you would have to change all old elves, goblins, human(oid)s, which feels like necromancy and comes with an unnecessary, incoherent complexity creep for older cards of certain tribes. Edit: Wait what, they *don't* have unique names but rather generic ones that refer to their origin/abilities. Nvm then, I get that it doesn't makes sense to change them.

[@TheThirdGenQ]

Gavin talking about making some planeswalker and going through old cards to make legendary, Is just convincing me that the nephilim should still lbe legendary.

[@NihlusKryik]

Having lightning bolt as your commander would really be breaking an oath

[@ProUzer]

I see what you did there ;) my playgroup agreed to make oathbreaker decks... Only I made one in the end :/

[@TheNotoriousJTS]

Since you mentioned that some cards were changed in order to align with player expectations, I think you made a pretty strong case for legendary Nephilim.

[@whowantstobrawl7061]

I’ve never been a fan of “slippery slope” arguments like this. I don’t want to discredit the work that’s been done by the rules team, but I do think errata can be done without changing anything. You can announce that it will only be done for the nephlim and I don’t think there will be too much asking for something else.

[@justicewilliams8095]

I was coming to make this comment about the slippery slope logical fallacy. All respect to the rules team, I just don't agree with the logic.

[@orsettomorbido]

You don't think, but people are not you. There would be TONS of people asking "why not this, why not that" as there are already. It would worsen the situation. Also, yeah, why only the Nephilim and not cards like Tamanoa who are literally similar to the Nephilims? See, there are a LOT of problems.

[@cheer90099]

​@@orsettomorbido How is Tamanoa similar beyond a vague "seems maybe legendary in a flavor sense" way? Is she a unique four-mana combination that is in lore explicitly legendary, while also being a part of the same cycle of cards that these five cards are in?

[@lorpuz4664]

you are right they are keeping their word with te reserve list they can do a promise like that for the nephelim :B

[@tgialyxander]

It's also possible to make small changes to the rules themselves without messing with card text. For example: Cascade is a plague on Modern due to it's ability to cheat out 0-cost cards with Suspend costs on them, but given that the cards don't *explicitly* say (0) up in the corner, there can be a tweak to the rules saying something like "If a spell without any cost printed has an alternative cost in the text, that is treated as the spell's cost for the sake of card effects." 30% of this game is looking up rules because somebody is usually trying to exploit something anyway, it's not like it would add any new problems. Or errata-ing a card to say something it functionally already says anyway, like with Daybound/Nightbound. Older werewolves functionally have the card text for Daybound/Nightbound written on them, they just don't have the keyword itself. The only thing not errata-ing them does is cause synergy issues with the game's first proper werewolf tribal Commander, because now only a small portion of your werewolves transform as a result of the Day>Night shift Tovolar causes, and the older werewolves don't suffer the penalties of a Night>Day shift caused by card effect, making actually trying to play a werewolf tribal Commander deck feel heavily disjointed and unnecessarily difficult to keep track of.

[@psy_p]

The Nehilim are definitely in the 'work as expected' directory. They ARE unique characters in the lore and Maro stated (maybe more than once) that not making them legendary was a mistake. The rest is just slippery slope. No one wants dark confidant or tamawhat to become legendary, most people don't even know tamawhat exists and those are not unique characters in the lore.

[@Tagurich]

Just make a new Nephilim cycle.

[@GoodMorningMagic]

Now HERE'S an idea. Hmm... :)

[@danielfrazier5586]

100% support this idea - Nephilim block :)

[@Ethaknyl]

Just print the same card with a legendary tag and another name, like you did for Restless Dead. Like "Elder [...] Nephilim"

[@Circular_Square]

That was gonna be my suggestion. I'm glad someone else thought of it too.

[@wadprime]

If this requires yet ANOTHER trip to Ravnica, I'm out. lol

[@PaulGaither]

Your arguments are full of holes and logical fallacies such as the "slippery slope" fallacy. This has NOTHING to do with power level changes or demoting legendary status of powerful cards. It is about doing the right thing and updating creatures which you agree should be Legendary - which is no different than the regular changes WotC makes to creature types that you showed in this video. The real problem which you should have mentioned - and you said in another video - is what this means for lands. A lot of lands which should be Legendary are not for game play purposes, such as Vhitu-Ghazi The City Tree.

[@Infiniteimpossibilty]

This just reinforces why its a good reason to make a new cycle of Nephilim. They are such an interesting part of Ravnica's lore and history, and imo it would be SUPER interesting having them factor into a future ravnica set

[@chevin0]

'Should Tamanoa be legendary?' Yes, yes it should. There are (counting all 5 Nephilim) like maybe a dozen cards in the whole game, all from before Commander got so much attention that if printed now would never not be legendary. None of them would be nearly as big a deal as the 'reading the card does NOT explain the card' on companions or Corpse Knight. Questing Pheldagriff Chromanticore Maelstrom Archangel Godsire Tamanoa All would 100% be legendary if printed today. it's not some pick and choose thing, it's just making them work like every player thinks they should, and only impacting Commander. We know you avoid functional errata whenever you can, but like you pointed out, just over a year ago you changed how an entire mechanic worked and made a whole class of tournament staples almost as unplayable as if you had just banned them. You killed a lot of decks in every competitive constructed format. And most people think it was the right call. It needed to be done, even though it was mostly a bad thing for the people actually using the cards. The legendary thing would hit fewer cards and just make them better in the only format they gt played in.

[@megabubfish]

Agreed.

[@Gobbledi_Gook]

At one point in the video he says that "if you give a nephilim a cookie [meaning, give them the functional errata text to say legendary], suddenly the entire fabric of the magic universe comes into question". Seems like poor logic. Giving one-of-a-kind creatures in the magic lore the legendary tag can jeopardize the fabric of the magic universe but a Lord of the Rings set doesn't?

[@atmaximum]

I don't about the argument itself, but as a pratical example, I disagree with your choices.

[@balrogdahomie]

@@Gobbledi_Gook this is a very good point. Flavor and function have always had a push and pull throughout Magic design, but pretending like this one minuscule capitulation in favor of flavor would be apocalyptic, when they’ve bent over backwards to make flavor fit whatever they want in order to make money, is silly. I know Mark Rosewater says “flavor is more malleable than function, so function always takes precedent”. But I just fundamentally disagree with that on nearly every level

[@KingBobXVI]

@@Gobbledi_Gook - yeah, while I ultimately disagree with Gavin here I see where he's coming from and agree that it should be done carefully, but the last portion of the video was a pure slippery-slope fallacy. No one is asking for cards like Dark Confidant or Lightning Bolt to be legendary, that's just nonsense.

[@AJSXenigma]

Hearing how making the Nephilim legendary isn't worth it just makes me wonder why the Walking Dead drop *was* worth breaking at least two major rules (no outside IP in black border and no new mechanically unique cards in Lairs). Assuming you can even talk about it, can you talk about why WotC opted to break those rules with that particular release? Was it just unusual timing given Adventures in the Forgotten Realms was in production? Was a different IP supposed to come first? Maybe a COVID complication? Putting aside my own feelings towards the cards (which are admittedly negative), I'm just curious how that drop came to be.

[@sithalchemist]

Money, FOMO, and testing to see how well it would sell for future partnerships and proof of concept.

[@gabzsy4924]

Of course he didn't answer you 😂 what a clown.

[@Meldon44]

You said that one way errata is used these days is to correct mistakes. The Nephilim not being legendary was a mistake (stated as thus by Maro). Therefore, errata is permissible and in fact dictated in this instance, per Wizard's own policies.

[@tmbocheeko]

Another recent sort of power level errata was the cascade mechanic, erratad almost only so you can't hit cast Tibalt, Cosmic Impersonator by hitting Valki, God of Lies which has a significantly lower mana value. This seems like it fits somewhere between the "change to make it work as players expect" section and "power level errata" section, but it definitely requires about the same amount of explanation as companions to understand why the change had to happen. Great video Gavin! Hope to see proper legendary nephilim one day, even though errata to the existing ones wouldn't be how it happens.

[@beecherry3943]

Less of an eratta and more of a clarification, no rules text (on cards) had to be changed just how cascade fucnctions with MDFCs specifically so I think it’s more appropriate

[@KingBobXVI]

"erratad almost only so you can't hit cast Tibalt, Cosmic Impersonator" There's more to it than that - the way the rules _actually_ worked was far less intuitive and more confusing than the way they now work. The errata was done to hit that specific combo, yes, but also to make the rules more comprehensible. It was a problem in the existing rules that only applied to a mechanic that didn't exist yet until Kaldheim's dual-castable spells. Well, sort of - the issue had existed before with cascade and split cards - split cards used to have independent CMC's, so if you had a 2 cmc instant on one side and a 6cmc instant on the other, you could imprint that on an Isochron Scepter and copy the 6cmc side. Or cascade into the 2cmc spell and choose to cast the 6cmc one. This was also confusing and unintuitive, so they errata'd how split card CMC works to just combine the two and break those interactions.

[@MrPringleson]

The slippery slope argument is a bad one. If people overwhelmingly want something that isn't that big then give it to them.

[@phillipfry1651]

was about to make that same argument. Its not like its gonna break the whole format. They are not OP

[@Bluejayount1]

Or, yknow, nephilim are literally legendary creatures, with only one of each in existence. And dark confidant is definitely not legendary.

[@balrogdahomie]

I do like the slightly meta idea of the nephilim not being legendary because, like an Eldritch horror or the demon Legion from Christian mythos, they are simultaneously both many creatures and also one entity/primal force. That is admittedly one of my weird headcanons that I basically invent to make things more fun for me, though. Like my headcanon that walls are creatures because even the “inanimate” walls are secretly alive as some form of Genius Locii thanks to some crazy multiverse ripple effect involving Tolvada and Pramikon

[@daniilmironov6683]

OK, but how about Shivan Dragon? It's cult classic for a lot of players. Everybody draw the line somewhere and it seems that for magic designers it's Nephilims.

[@balrogdahomie]

@@daniilmironov6683 Shiv is a place on Dominaria. There are multiple dragons on Shiv. It’s not unique, ergo not legendary. a card can be iconic without being legendary, and I’ve yet to see anyone argue for shivan dragon to be made legendary outside of hypotheticals

[@KingBobXVI]

@@daniilmironov6683 - "Shivan" is not a name, it's a descriptor - "This is a dragon that comes from Shiv". I feel like the examples like this one and the ones given in the video aren't really all that honest - they're an obviously ridiculous slippery slope fallacy. I'm sure there are some other non-legendary creatures that could be legendary, like specifically named characters you would only expect one of, but "Shivan Dragon", "Dark Confidant", and freakin' _lightning bolt_ are not even close to a genuine counterpoint.

[@robbiescargill3116]

@@daniilmironov6683 If you want to use a Shivan Dragon as your commander, use one of the Bladewings.

[@1993JoshG]

I always read "legendary" to mean "unique in the lore". i.e. there is only 1 Vorinclex in the lore, there is only 1 Ur dragon, only 1 Jace Beleren etc. So they way I see it all you have to answer is "is there only 1 of each kind of Nephilim?" if yes it makes sense for them to be legendary. if no then they're just creatures. I just don't think the slippery slope argument works here.

[@psy_p]

There is actually 0 nephilim in the lore because the only 5 that existed were killed. Mark Rosewater wnet as far as saying that NOT making them legendary was a mistake.

[@MakeVarahHappen]

It's not a slippery slope though because there's tons of creatures that are unique and not legendary. More importantly legendary is as much a game mechanic as it is a lore marker so why in the world wouldn't you review cards that should be legendary power-wise but aren't?

[@psy_p]

@@MakeVarahHappen the legendary supeetype has nothing to do with power.

[@MakeVarahHappen]

@@psy_p That just isn't true. Legendary is literally a drawback.

[@psy_p]

@@MakeVarahHappen a very poor one at that. There is hundreds of non legendary creatures that are way more powerful than most legendary creatures. Legendary is actually becoming less and less meaningful as a game mechanic due to the huge amount of cards that circumvent it we've been getting since 2018.

[@Scheuersicle]

"Should Tamanoa be Legendary?" Yes. Yes it should.

[@daredewley9231]

I love the insight and should probably respect your educated stance here, also dont really have strong opinions either way - im just feeling the slippery slope argument a little hard to swallow here. Either way thanks for the quality content

[@runeserpent1449]

def agree, though if i just cut before that part would still have agreed with him, mabye just talk about rule 0 for commander or something else rather then the ss.but was laughing at the theoretical coiling oricle, jayce balaren and fucking Lightning bolt being a commander xD

[@MakeVarahHappen]

I feel like a slippery slope argument only fell apart towards the end when we're talking about other mechanics. Otherwise it isn't a slippery slope because there's precedent for all of this. Every time magic makes a card with a new creature type or edits the creature type of an old card with a new one in a reprint they review every single card and change the ones that make sense. The simple fact is there would never be a 'nephilim errata' even if this policy was changed, because the actual errata would be anywhere from 6 to 100 creatures that need the same treatment for the reverse treatment. The same as the Phyrexian update or anything else.

[@rayzoid]

Adding the phyrexian creature type wasn't power level errata, and neither would be making the Nephilim legendary.

[@wonders7580]

How do you feel that to this day in 99.9% of players with your own color pools are not even recognized in 4 colors still all take name after the Nephilim....? player -"okay i have witchmaw now" table - "okay" me - "where?" player - "and i'll use it to summon my commander aatraxa" me - "oh....its that bad"

[@ashburn6139]

I think the sooner 4 colour archetype gets official support nod from WoTC, the longing for Nephilim errata will drop off. At this point, Nephilims probably are the poster child of EDH players wanting more 4 colour decks

[@atmaximum]

But there are, there's an entire 4c commander set

[@ms.sysbit5511]

@@atmaximum it’s almost like if you give folks a taste, they always ask for more. Kinda like Gavin expressed in the video as a concern and as can be seen with ease from the comment section here.

[@sky_0f_blue979]

No, ink-treader is to much fun and I will always fight for it being legendary

[@MrDvd05]

Gavin, you keep bringing up Goblin Snowman..... I would love that battlebond 2 "winter games" set if it ever happened! That comment sticks in my head!

[@GoodMorningMagic]

I want to build a snowman!

[@bodaciouschad]

Then go outside and play!

[@Welverin]

@@GoodMorningMagic You know, the ideal place for a Goblin Snowman is in the middle of a Snow-Covered Wastes...

[@dawizardfargalor]

@@GoodMorningMagic ORGRE SNOW MAN. BIGER AND BETTER

[@emilypearl3510]

I don't know that the slippery slope argument works for Nephlim. I don't know there is a demand for more than a dozen or so cards to be legendary. And beyond the Nephilm outweigh them by far. Also you can't do Nephilm on mtgo. Rule 0 doesn't work when you play online.

[@psy_p]

The slipery slope doesn't work because you just need to look at the lore to be the final determining factor of a legendary supertype errata. "The lore say it is? Then it will be."

[@peadrianlastname]

Just reprint the nephalim as legendary creatures, put elder in front of the names, give em protection from the color they arent, raise theyr power and toughness a little and increase their mana costs by a colorless or 2.

[@idanbhk3875]

Legendary = Have a place and function in the story. If you read about the Nephilim you know that they are super irrelevant to the story nowadays.

[@Son_of_Pandora]

That thing with companion truly was a nightmare...

[@ildlyn8966]

Thank rosewater and his team of spineless yesmen

[@andrewsparkes8829]

@@ildlyn8966 You realise it's Maro's whole job to come up with exciting, splashy mechanics, right? It's on the Set Design to temper them into playability, and on Play Design team to cost them correctly. It's them not doing their job right; Maro did just fine coming up with the initial idea. And actually - if you read his design hand-off doc article - he even explicitly warned the two other design teams to keep watch on Companions not getting too powerful, since they may be troublesome if too pushed, cost-wise or effect-wise. He knew the potential problems and did all he could to stop it being a problem. Don't lump this issue on him.

[@ToxicAtom]

this comment made by companions

[@GoodMorningMagic]

Oh, this video definitely gets there. :)

[@EvanMMoon]

@@GoodMorningMagic yet, doesn't respond

[@vollied4865]

Companions did nothing wrong, free my otter

[@melonyfbb]

Functional legendary reprint

[@melonyfbb]

For nephilim

[@RedBossTV]

I'd be more ok with a "we retconned the Nephilim existence from the lore, please forget they ever existed" answer

[@BalldoTM]

As a fairly newer player, who started playing around the latest Ravnica sets, and ADORES the lore/settings of the plane... what role do these guys play again? I remember looking through some things and hearing about Boros detectives, secret plans and simic shinanigans???

[@psy_p]

@@BalldoTM they were primal forces of the plane that were sealed by guildpact that was signed by the 10 paruns and created the 10 guilds. A cult that worshiped these horrors remained, in hidding. In the first Ravnica block the decamillenial was about to happen, which is when the guildpact would kind of expire. In that ocassion the cultists awakened the nephilim to wreak havoc in the streets of Ravnica. There they were all killed, two by Niv-mizzet, one by Rakdos and the remaining two were exploded.

[@nine1690]

Ah yes, remove the only interesting things from Ravnica, good call.

[@ToxicAtom]

@@nine1690 You are quite literally the first person I have ever seen think that the Nephilim are "the only interesting thing on Ravnica," the most beloved plane in the game, surpassing even Dominaria, _the_ plane Magic took place on for almost the entire first decade of its existence.

[@rolfholmstedt6856]

Ad "X can be your commander" in the Oracle text. Yes, it's a functional errata but it will only effect the commander format.

[@scott898586]

This only works if they make the creature type a legendary type like planeswalkers.

[@rolfholmstedt6856]

@@scott898586 If WotC makes a rule that says non legendary creatures with that ability may be the commander AKA they are considered legendary but not printed that way. Then WotC could make a revision of the card database (possibly in cooperation with the rules committee) and add that ability to the selected cards. It would even be giving them more design space since they could print new cards so they are not limited to be legendary for gameplay outside of commander. But i agree that it would not work with out a rules change. If they were legendary in the first place, they don't need that ability. That ability was created for legendary non creatures being able to be commanders. Like the mentioned planeswalkers, but could be applied on artifacts or even lands.

[@pastelcia42]

Just print a new set of nephilim that are legendary when you go back to ravnica yet again! Or as commanders in precons. Would be nice to have a couple more 4 color commander options that aren't partners

[@sailorforce]

It may be a new era in Magic, but a slippery slope is still a logical fallacy, no matter how you dress it up. I’m disappointed. Both WotC and the RC lean far too heavily on rule 0, in my opinion. Most of the players I’ve met over the years are overtly hostile to anything other than “the rules as written.”

[@Vulcea]

I don't think errata's are a good way to go about solving issues in the game, but I agree and was also going to comment about the slippery slope fallacy being a bad argument.

[@joec6321]

Just because there is an informal fallacy called "slippery slope" doesn't mean that all slippery slope arguments are fallacious. It's an inherently subjective judgment, but I don't think this one is; Gavin didn't go deeply into it, but he gave several concrete examples of what expectations players may have next if this change were to be made and how that would be detrimental.

[@Vulcea]

@@joec6321 but your "concrete" examples are things that MIGHT happen, and making an argument with things that aren't guaranteed makes it a bad argument. I still don't want erratas though.

[@KingBobXVI]

@@joec6321 - "doesn't mean that all slippery slope arguments are fallacious" This is true, but doesn't apply in this case. The examples Gavin gave are 100% slippery slope fallacy. "Well if we do this, people will ask for more - if we make these legendary, what about changing power and toughness? What if we just change costs? what about Dark Confidant!? Or Lightning Bolt as your commander? Where WiLL iT eNd!?" That is a quintessential slippery slope fallacy. His points leading up to it were fine, though I disagree in this case, but his examples were entirely disingenuous, not _real_ "expectations players may have next".

[@ms.sysbit5511]

@@KingBobXVI I have legit seen his examples in practice. Look at this video’s comments and you’ll see requests from Tamanoa and Chromanticore to adding partner to Brisela’s halves. Lightning Bolt might be extreme, yes, but the door is open. Think of it this way: legendary generally powers a card down in mtg. Legendary status has long been used to balance cards in 4-of formats meaning they get more text for their CMC. Look at the Arena event Mirror Mirror about editing banned cards for Historic. The edit to Field of the Dead was to make it legendary ie only one can be under your control at a time. Now EDH players won’t ask for Dark Confidant (Bob) to be legendary but what about 4-of players? If X card starts crushing tournaments rather than ban it, why not make it legendary? They did it to the Nephilim so what stops it? It’s actually an incredibly easy line to draw imo. MTG isn’t only EDH. Now all Slippery Slopes are fallacious by rules of logic; there is no way to assure what future events happen. That said unlike say a contradiction or strawman fallacy, in real world situations, Slippery Slopes are given quite a bit of credence. This is the real world not an intellectual argument. With all this in mind not changing five crappy cards most players have never heard about to legendary because a vocal minority of players harp about it seems like a bad idea. It’s a slippery slope but any action WOTC takes is viewed as a precedent and will be used against them when convenient to the one complaining. Danged if ya do, danged if ya don’t. Might as well not do imo.

[@HontoBakabaka]

In this video, your speaking speed and pitch are a notch slower and an octave lower than usual. I absolutely LOVE that. As a non-native, this makes you so much easier to understand without cc, and also makes the video a way more relaxed view than the higher-energy, higher-pitch ones you usually do. I understand the need for higher energy when you're hyping / previewing something, but this video is a very welcome change in that pace. You're not at Sam Rhystic Studies levels, but I wasn't expecting that, either ;)

[@dyne313]

OMG, THEY ERRATA'S THE NEPHILIM TO BE LEGENDARY, THE COHESION OF THE ENTIRE GAME HAS BROKEN DOWN, CATS AND DOGS LIVING TOGETHER, IT'S THE END OF CIVILIZATION!!!!

[@JuniperHatesTwitterlikeHandles]

IF I COULD ERRATA THE NEPHILIM TO BE LEGENDARY WHAT WOULD STOP ME FROM KILLING MY OWN MOTHER? TOPPLING GOVERNMENTS? STEALING YOUR SHOES? I WOULD BE UNSTOPPABLE!!!

[@caterinagerbasi1594]

Do people forget that slippery slope is a fallacy?

[@psy_p]

Yes, they do. They also forget to mention the lore, which would instantly solve the "problems" the slipery slope would bring.

[@JuniperHatesTwitterlikeHandles]

P sure there's some people being paid to give short positive comments here. They have that respectful, businesslike tone that a lot of those services use.

[@AndrewWoodford]

This episode was fantastic. I enjoyed your bits of history along with a personal story. Super good storytelling, editing, and audio/visual elements. This video is the perfect culmination of your channel over this past year. (Please don’t change Parallax Wave again)

[@GoodMorningMagic]

Thank you!! Extra polish went into this and I'm glad it came through. And you noticed ❤ Thanks for the comment!

[@AndrewWoodford]

@@GoodMorningMagic You’re welcome Gavin. :)

[@Horrorcubus]

As a long time kitchentable player I never read about bans or errata until recently. Whats on the card is on the card if you have it you can play it. If I play with my casual friends and start telling them their card is banned I´m the one everyone would hate. But at our low level it´s not a competition so it does not matter. We used to ban Planeswalkers because not everyone understood them for years. Now that we watched youtube guides and thanks to showing them on MTGArena we learned about them and they are fun now. PS.: MEMNARCH 4 PLANESWALKER! I´m sure he had a hidden Welding Jar in some underground facility...

[@Kydrou]

12:06 Says the man from the Company that made Secret Lair: The Walking Dead

[@autoenthused]

100000%

[@ivomuniz]

I don't care abut the Nephilims, the reeeeal problem here is why isn't Uncle Istvan legendary?

[@iswainbank]

I totally understand why WOTC doesn’t power lvl errata. However, when it comes to the Nephilim a super type errata doesn’t seem that different from a creature type one. If you look at a list of creatures that maybe should’ve been legendary the nephillum have by far the best argument in their favor. If we are discussing what players would expect from a card, I would think a player would expect the old gods of ravnica to be legendary.

[@HiroZeroVirus]

dude... you all are DEFINITELY throwing the baby out with the bathwater on that call. how many Nephilim are there? i dont mean cards, but in the story? if your answer is less than six, then guess what, they qualify for legendary status. by NOT making them legendary, you are breaking trust with the players, because if one of the "old gods" isnt freakin legendary, why should Admiral Beckett Brass be? they are just a pirate captain, not a freakin ancient being of unknown origin! there is a VERY CLEAR line drawn as to what should and should not be legendary in many cases, and that line is the LEGENDARY RULE. it exists as a Ludonarrative framework, keeping too many powerful things off the battlefield at the same time, by expressing that they are significant enough personalities, that they stand out independently. that is why most of them have given names right? that is where it would end. hey guess what, more than one lightning bolt can exist in nature at one time? not legendary. coiling oracle expresses in its flavor text that there are multiple oracles? NOT LEGENDARY. and how dare you throw this back in our faces, citing that we would demand more if you budged on this one issue. those of us asking for them to be erratad are doing so largely because the story cooperates with the mechanic in a way that makes sense for it, and if we ask for another card in a similar fashion, it is because that one does too. If we step toe out of line and ask for an elvish archer to be made legendary, simply point to how there can be a legion of them, that argument is over. TL:DR- you are not going to make the change because you dont want to keep having this conversation. it is easier to hide behind a ruling that makes no sense, then actually look critically at your own product.

[@christianshumway7416]

It's already massively beneficial if not necessary to educate yourself through gatherer's errata and rulings. This is about Wizard's inability to truly seperate itself from the secondary market and provide replacement cards to people with text changes. This is a fundamental aspect of stewardship that really shouldn't only be offered through slow drip reprints.

[@autoenthused]

Well said.

[@jttownsend3576]

Very cool insight. Thanks for sharing this with us!

[@GoodMorningMagic]

Glad you enjoyed! :)

[@lucasbuchanan5244]

Oof, that slippery slope was difficult to watch. I myself don't care one way or the other about the nephilim; I'm not up on magic lore, don't see anything particularly legend-worthy about the cards themselves, so whatever as far as I'm concerned. But your two slippery-slope examples totally undermine the argument you're making. Planeswalkers are unique individual beings, of course they should all be commander-able. While lightning bolt is merely a thing -- honestly this one reminded me of all the 'If we allow same-sex marriage, what next, are we gonna let people marry their dogs!?!?!?' hysteria that was all the rage until Obergefell v Hodges.

[@SpireTheSlay]

Please errata my baby Anti-Magic Aura to work as worded. Being unable to be targeted by enchantments is not the same as being unable to be enchanted by auras. It makes no sense that for example Angelic Shield can return it to my hand despite clearly stating on the card it cannot be targeted by enchantments. The current rules text while it might be within the intended way the card would function is significantly different from what it's wording would suggest.

[@olah420]

I think the simpler solution is to errata them to have " can be your commander." Everybody wins.

[@elonex777]

Just reprint nephilims with the legendary supertype and it should be ok. We don't have enough 4 colours commander to choose from, we need more of them.

[@kevinbeireis8739]

I miss the days when cards were made for Standard (and Limited). Other formats like Modern and Commander had to pick up cards that went through Standard. If you're going to make cards, and entire sets, for Modern and Commander, then you need to be willing to errata cards to make them more functional in the Not-Standard formats.

[@lilacpilot3437]

I feel like this is the slippery slope argument.

[@fawntox8899]

11:20 Have you heard of the slippery slope fallacy?

[@illakunsaa]

Anything doesn't actually go in commander. For a lot of people their only way to play mtg is to go an lgs and these days all commander events are official wotc events even if you just play casually with no prices. In official wotc events you must use official rules. So no rule 0 (which is kind of ironic considering its a rule) commanders.

[@yoav.kats6328]

I've always found it weird that from the 4 of Liliana's demons only Belzenlok is elder.

[@danielclein5698]

This feels a lot like a Rhystic Studies video, I really liked it!

[@GoodMorningMagic]

The highest compliment any video can get. Thank you!

[@girugamesh9001]

The slippery slope argument used at the end to say why the Nephilim can't become legendary is a logical fallacy, of course you can stop at just 5 cards in the same way that you stopped at however many cards were turned into PHyrexians or Dinosaurs. That said, I do not like power level errata for paper magic, if cards are too strong I prefer them to be banned from the appropriate formats so their intended original designs can live on in their native draft formats, cube, and for casual kitchen table play. Modern would probably be better off if Lurrus was banned instead of nerfed anyway.

[@ms.sysbit5511]

Those aren’t the same. Dinosaurs were scrubbed from the game very early on and Phyrexians had never existed as a creature type. Those were not in the game but added where they fit. Legendary on the other hand predates the Nephilim by many years yet the designers chose not to make nor design them as legendary creatures. Those aren’t the same situation.

[@psy_p]

There is another factor here, the lore of the game. Lore is tied to the legendary supertype and they just need to look at the lore to see where the line is drawn. The nephilim are legendary in the lore.

[@psy_p]

@@ms.sysbit5511 Mark Rosewater himself said that not making the nephilim legendary was a mistake.

[@ms.sysbit5511]

@@psy_p He can feel that all he wants. Last I checked he had nothing to do with OG Ravnica so his opinion on the matter is rather moot. Back then they wanted to limit legends as opposed to now they overdo them. Sure, if Nephilim were designed from 2015 onwards, they would have been legendary. But couldn't the same thing be said about Ancestral Recall costing 4 mana and a sorcery or 5 mana as an instant? The standards for card design have shifted numerous times and as they learned more they can do a bit better if they so choose. But MaRo is not some end-all, be-all voice of MTG design despite his Tumblr suggesting he is. Lore? Are you joking? We just got 4 precon commanders in AFR that they made up with barely a scrap of lore. Where was Kuonoros in the story? Oh, yeah Theros Beyond Death got a paragraph of "lore" yet had more legends in it than all of OG Theros block. Lore is a terrible determination of legendary status these days.

[@psy_p]

@@ms.sysbit5511 Mark Rosewater was literaly the LEAD designer for Ravnica: City of guilds and worked in Dissention dude. Great checking you did lol.When you didi that? In 2004? Lore is the perfect determination. Having one set that had it's lore sudo canceled makes no difference, that set was and exception. Size of the lore is also not important, only if it existis or not and the lore of the nephilims is not small.

[@Feyamius]

All I can hear is "we did way worse, so making Nephilim legendary shouldn't be a problem at all in comparison".

[@glennvr_4982]

Wait, I have the ideal solution and it's a win-win situation: let the RC declare the Nephilim oficially legal as commander. Result: commander players are happy and Wizards does not have to reprint them or change their errata policy!

[@GoodMorningMagic]

If the RC say that, I'll support it. Totally up to them. :)

[@entishmusic]

It's silly to not make the Nephilim legendary at this point. Their flavor text references them as unique. They *are* unique. Literally no one will complain - it was a mistake to make them nonlegendary to begin with.

[@buddywahlquist2467]

It's almost like you didn't listen to this whole video...

[@maximumkillmtg]

lol did you watch the video or did you only come here to vent?

[@TrixyTrixter]

@@buddywahlquist2467 Its almost like the video makes an incredibly weak argument for them not being made legendary and uses only a slipery slope fallacy to try and make it seem a good idea not to do it.

[@Suspinded]

An entire 15 minute video on functional eratta, and no mention of Time Vault? Some of us lived through time counters, and Flame Fusillade combos due to functional errata. That should be the poster of why functional errata fails.

[@ChetSkolos]

There are few 4 color commanders and it is a space we are told is hard to design for. Adding "this card can be your commander" to the Nephilim would allow them to be used in a way many play groups allow without other formats suffering. I suggest making this change when reprinting them in a commander focused product. A better option is to come up with more exciting 4 color commanders but if that is too hard to do there is the Nephilim idea.

[@megabubfish]

This would be great errata that prevents it from getting in the way of other formats and mechanics. This should be considered.

[@megabubfish]

I really feel that the slippery slope argument is a straw-man argument here. The other cards you mentioned are seldom, if ever, called upon to be changed. The Nephilim are a unique case, where a consistent lack of intriguing four-color legends has prompted one format, Commander, to call for this minor errata of five cards that are played almost nowhere else. Equating this to giving planeswalkers commander status is not comparable, and at the end of the day, WotC decides how far down that rabbit hole to go. If wild readjusting of random old cards becomes the norm, that's on WotC. Perhaps the best way around this would be for the Commander rules committee to "errata" the cards on their own for Commander purposes only.

[@ms.sysbit5511]

Not quite. Legendary status reduces quality generally but also interacts with a growing number of cards. Look at how the Arena event added Legendary to Field of the Dead to power it down. It’s not really a strawman but slippery slope arguments are fallacious as is due to no one knowing the future. That said they often hold merit to people when discussing real world issues unlike say a contradiction.

[@DeepCDiva]

Now I can't wait for people to bug you to create a "Partners with Nephilim" Commander to get around the Legendary Clause. I'm glad erratas are kept to a minimum now, i play a lot of Yu Gi Oh as well and the amount of power level erratas do get confusing, so it's funny to see some people use it as an example. Great video as always!

[@arijitmazumdar5740]

I feel like they should have just banned companion outright, it would give the cards a special story and we would have looked back on then the same way we look at affinity or storm

[@LukeLavablade]

This was a good video that explains a lot of magic design history, despite the terrible slippery slope argument applied to Nephilim specifically. I think you should have started with "Because people are only asking this for the purpose of Commander - just ask your playgroup if they'd be okay with you using a Nephilim as a commander even though it technically isn't legendary. I know I wouldn't have a problem with it." That gets the crux of the issue - if the errata is only required for this one particularly card because of this one particular format, you can get around the problem a different way.

[@Dj87887]

All you have to do to make them happy is make a functionally similar card for each Nephilim with the only difference being that they are legendary. Problem solved for Nephilim Commander players.

[@michaelbloom8270]

The commander rules committee could just change the rule for what's allowed to be your commander to include the nephilim. No card errata necessary, and no change to functionality in any other format.

[@OrangeBananaMonster]

Hi Gavin, It seems like your reasoning for not making the Nephalim legendary boils down to a slippery slope argument. Now, slippery slope arguments do not have to do with argument validity, but argument soundness. On your view, the only two options are to either give no legendary errata text, or scan all existing magic cards for potential eratta-ability. Your reason for this dichotomy is "being consistent." The issue with this reasoning (and therefore the falsity of this premise) is that there's a third option- to address the way most people are *using the cards already*, i.e. as commanders, by eratta-ing obvious should-be-legendary creatures to legendary, but not making this judgment call for *every* creature. People *already* treat the nephalim as commanders, so burying your head in the sand and taking no responsibility for having to make judgment calls about what creatures should really be legendary is truly abandoning your own responsibility. Consider the middle ground. Consider that y'all are the only ones with the authority to make this change, so making judgment calls is literally *your responsibility.* You MUST make these calls, and you already have. It's not difficult to check out Commander's Quarters or another youtube channel to gain insight into what people consider to be creatures that should be legendary. It's not an impossible judgment call. And "reading the card explains the card" is *already* not true. That "can of worms" is already open. And hey, Gavin- if a legendary creature is too strong (Chulane), instead of inserting it into your argument as a candidate for reverse-legendary eratta, you could just ban the card. Just take over the format from the do-nothing rules committee.

[@d.b.scoville]

Gavin I love ya but you do realize the slippery Slope fallacy is a fallacy for a reason?

[@okanut]

If you gave a Nephilim a Cookie sounds like an awesome card for an un-set! Very cool to hear this history!

[@GladiusM]

I doubt what I'm gonna say here is gonna be seen by anyone important enough to make any sort of change in Magic development, and that's okay. However, while I can only truly speak for myself, I do believe a lot of Magic players are going to agree with what I'm gonna say. Let me make something clear off the bat: I am NOT a game designer in any way. I've never been part of a project this big before; trying to please tens millions of people while keeping a balanced game design can only be seen as a nightmare from where I'm standing. What I am about to say is NOT hate, nor anger towards anyone in Magic R&D or anything of the sort. If anything, it's for the love I have for this game. I would also like to restate that I ONLY SPEAK FOR MYSELF; make your own opinion based on what you think should be done. With that out of the way, the nitty-gritty begins. When it comes to errata, I fully agree with what Gavin said: errata should only be used in desperate situations where bannings seem unnecessary, but a certain card or mechanic is breaking format interactions and warping metagames around it, just like Companion. However, I think this kind of scenario could be easily reduced in quantity with a really simple solution: quality over quantity. I don't know how long you may have been playing Magic, but I've only been playing for about three years (since the new Guilds of Ravnica), and just in that span of time, I have been COMPLETELY overwhelmed with products to consider purchasing. In 2018 we probably got more sets than we did in, say, 2010 (please fact check me on that I actually have no clue, just speculation), but it feels like the number of products has doubled since then, especially with 2020's "Year of Commander." The numerous Commander decks, what felt like a new set every month, a brand new way to draft, and revival of characters from Magic's past is fantastic! I absolutely loved it even though I don't play Commander myself often. However, it really felt like everything was rushed towards the fanbase. So many products in one single year, not counting other supplemental products such as Secret Lairs and such. It almost felt... unfinished. On top of this, I've also been realizing cards from sets are either flat out busted in a format, or unplayable, and there's not quite an in between. Back in the day, you could make a really simple Prowess-esque deck with a couple burn spells and a playset of Kiln Fiends. Sure, you weren't gonna win any Top 8's, but it would be a little more fun. Now, if you aren't ramping out or slowing down your opponent's boardstate, it's not enough. What I'm getting at is, I think R&D should take other formats into consideration. I'm afraid I can't name the article off of the top of my head, so I can't cite this, but I'm almost positive R&D took out all other formats for consideration when making a new standard set a few years back. I'm not sure if that's still in practice or not, but either way, it's a little frightening to think about what kind of cards can seem fun for a draft or standard environment, but absolutely warp formats like Oko, Uro, Teferi and the likes. Now, the common argument against this is, "R&D wouldn't have enough time to implement this kind of regulation into playtesting and design." And that's a fair counterargument - Modern is getting larger and larger with more decks being viable seemingly by the hour, not to mention Legacy or Vintage. But, if it's getting to a point where your common customers are having to DECIDE what product to buy because the company keeps churning out more and more, maybe THAT's the real problem (ex: I personally haven't even looked at anything Forgotten Realms related, just because I think there are better ways to spend my money. Another set is right around the corner and I'm much more interested in what Innistrad can bring to the table, but I digress). Cut SOME of the supplemental stuff. I don't care what it is, I love all of it, but whenever things like Ragavan slip through the cracks of just about every set, it gets to a point where you question if it was even worth to print the card in the first place when it wasn't abundantly clear to R&D how truly powerful that card, and ones like it, are. Keeping with the Ragavan example, that card has been out for, what, 4-5 weeks? And it's been breaking Modern AND Legacy in half well before now. Format warping cards and a banlist thats three pages long is not worth all of this supplemental product we're getting. Plus, R&D (or at least SOMEONE at Wizards) is keeping an eye on formats and what strategies are in the metagame - they literally have to be aware of this for banning and restricting problematic cards. Granted, they pay more attention to some formats more than others, but surely it wouldn't be hard to compare a yet to be released card with a couple of the top decks in a format, especially if that was their goal rather than shoving new content in our faces every two weeks. I absolutely adore this game, and I want to see it thrive. However, with the state that it's in right now, I think it's suffering more than it has in the past. Sure, sales say otherwise, but formats are losing traction (ever heard of Pioneer in the past four months?) and warping them around a certain few cards out of all of these rapid-fire sets are NOT helping that. Focusing on a healthy playing experience in AT LEAST popular formats like Standard, Modern, Historic and Commander should, in my own humble opinion, be the goal of Magic development teams. **I really can't express this enough - PLEASE DO NOT MISINTERPRET ME! I absolutely adore this game and everything about it - the good, the bad, and the ugly. I just really think it could be in a better state it's currently in by focusing on quality over quantity. I also have EXTREME amounts of respect for everyone working at Wizards of the Coast and I don't want people claiming I hate them or any of the sort. Thank you if you made it this far. Please respond with your thoughts on this, I really wanna hear from other people on this subject :)

[@alexvalentim1418]

You are 100% right, but this is not cost effective to Wizards. They can get more money by doing what they are currently doing and then sending one or two banhammers after they have sold out the edition. Currently Hasbro and WotC are much more focused in the game selling numbers and profits than the health of the game, and that is sad.

[@GladiusM]

@@alexvalentim1418 I completely agree with you. And I think that’s actually the reason a lot of people who at the very least used to play magic are getting sick of it and going to other games such as Flesh and Blood. Cost effectiveness and profits apparently don’t correlate with customer satisfaction anymore and that’s quite upsetting. I really do appreciate your comment, however, and it’s truly nice to be heard. Thanks so much :)

[@foffingCh.]

I think your slippery slope example is pretty fallacious, the Nephlim could easily be understood to be legendary in all conventions of story, naming, and card design, (when I see a WUBRG creature I’m always surprised if it ISN’T a legendary, and that goes even more so for the far rarer 4c creature) and yes, maybe there are a few other instances of creatures that should be considered for legendary, but errating 5 creatures to make sense (something done pretty frequently since ixalan with dinosaurs, pirates, dogs, phyrexians, D&D classes, etc.) does not instantly open the floodgates to all sorts of unreasonable requests (all of which Wizards can say no to just as easily as they’ve done to the Nephilim). Adding Legendary to creatures that by all rights would be expected to be legendary is not at all the same argument as taking Legendary away from a creature for power level reasons or letting a planeswalker be your commander, they are not reasonable demands to expect as a result, as you even classified them separately in the history section. The fact that there are significantly more current and playable cards like Hostage Taker, Corpse Knight, the Companions, and the greatest offender Ordinary Pony out there with have incorrect information printed on them already creates the problem that you say Wizards is trying to avoid, I don’t imagine that five very niche, generally unplayable except in commander cards getting a legendary errata really adds much more cognitive load to the game than there already is in trying to choose a creature type with Plague Engineer given how many cards are printed inaccurately nowadays

[@andyspendlove1019]

Bruh that final argument of “if we make Nephilim legendary, soon you’ll see Lightning Bolt as a commander too!” Is the biggest slippery slope fallacy I’ve seen used in a long time 😂

[@werbearjack]

Lightning Bolt would be the best commander, you can't change my mind. I agree with your stance. Functional erata can even be annoying in completely digital card games and it's pure horror in physical card games. "No functional erate, period." is a good rule to hold on to. And as far as Commander is concerned you can always invoke rule 0 and ask your playgroup if running a Nephilim as your commander and treating them as legendary is ok.

[@jallen3775]

From experience, rule zero works 1/5 of the time when I am, most people who don't care are part of my long time group from college or are the kindof players who enjoy playing Un-set commanders.

[@RatedRKO269]

I absolutely adore this videos that give insight into the behind-the-scenes of MTG. Really interesting stuff!

[@conorkerr1673]

Gonna be honest, I would be perfectly happy for someone to play lightning bolt as their commander

[@TheChrisl214]

Encyclopedia Britannica: Slippery slope argument, in logic, the fallacy of arguing that a certain course of action is undesirable or that a certain proposition is implausible because it leads to an undesirable or implausible conclusion via a series of tenuously connected premises, each of which is understood to lead, causally or logically, to the premise (or conclusion) that follows it.

[@AcePlaysTCGs]

Wait. You mean to tell me arbitrarily retconning Nephilim to being Legendary WON'T automatically behoove people to want the original Jace as their commander?

[@Tomonster14]

Love the video. I think the requests for the nephilim to become legendary partly stems from the fact that people want to see more 4 colour commanders.

[@GrandpasMagic]

Changing the Nephilim will produce 0 problems. the "can of worms" you're afraid of opening doesn't actually exist. Please for the sake of everything that is holy, just Errata them as Legendary like everyone says they should be.

[@cooliocoolio-g7v]

yeah love approach you guys have on functional erratas but it would still be cool to see new commander versions of them as new cards in a core set or something :) keep it up gavin!!

[@TobiasLeonHaecker]

JUST DO IT! as you you said, you already did it. This is the biggest flavour demand in this area. You already opened this can of worms. This time, player would love it.

[@counsellour]

This mission of putting things back the way they were is, perhaps, the most noble and true thing to come out of Magic R&D in the past decade. Indeed, it covers a multitude of sins.

[@gabzsy4924]

You went on a 14 minutes TED talk about the history and philosophy of MTG and past erratas but then your conclusion is that since some things in the past have been dealt very poorly and resulted in big impacts to the meta, now you can't change something that makes perfect sense and wouldn't create any major problem? It's not all or nothing man...some things are reasonable and have low impact and others are just gross oversights and design mistakes, like the companion mechanic. Also, the only reason why it would matter to make them Legendary is to have them as commanders and EDH is already a very casual format and most people coudn't care less about the "impact in the greater world of MTG"...heck, most people I know have so many house rules, personal ban lists, they proxy half their decks and while they're at it, they could even proxy these cards with the word Legendary....what yall need to undertsand is that if you guys won't do your job properly, the community will. Being over pedantic over such minor things like these while on the other hand releasing broken cards like Dockside Extortionist is just a disservice to the community and then guess what? The community will refute your claim of authority...of course they will, why wouldn't they? Incompetence and negligence.

[@mark1A100]

Hey Gavin now that wotc has justified power level erratas to get me and others to use more wild cards and forced them into historic do you have any additional thoughts on this?

[@strikerdude0327]

I think that the creature type errata is very similar to the proposed legendary nephilim errata. We “feel” they should be legendary based on how they’re framed in lore. Just like it “feels” like phyrexian should be a creature type. The same logic applies in both scenarios. Is it a slippery slope? Yes. However we’ve had a ton of community discussion about this topic for years. I don’t see why this can’t be an exception to a reasonable rule. After all, there are caveats to everything in magic (…most of the time). Heck, you could even drop a “Nephilim Rising” secret lair to mark the occasion with some new foils. Stay awesome Gavin and thank you for your insights!

[@danacoleman4007]

a VERY good video, sir!! I agree with all of your points. while I've been playing and mostly loving this game since 94, some times it can be a real pain in the neck.

[@thefrozengoat]

I am a huge Nephilim fan. My favorite commander deck is a Dune-Brood Nephilim token deck and I don't think I could bear to take it apart. But I'm totally ok with it never being legendary because I just ask my play group if they're cool with it. Side note - we have nights where we each build a deck using a non-legendary commander and it's really fun!

[@HollowScreamV]

Gavin! Just reprint them as a legendary ones. Change names, print a lot of those. And players will be grateful.

[@TheRealMurKziLLa]

they should just reprint them as commander precons with the legendary text. Boom two birds, one stone. Fix the cards, Wizards and Hasbro make money! It's win win!

[@beeftank_jr8314]

"We don't power level errata cards anymore." *sweat in Ikoria*

[@McSchmalz]

Super informative. Loved it!

[@Valinith]

I thought this was going to be an introduction to the new secret lair drop: nephilem. Now with the new errata Legendary creature.

[@TrixyTrixter]

To be honest id buy that

[@vorthosnick]

This is my first time seeing the Tamanoa and I love her, and yes, she should be Legendary. 😍

[@nickroberts9603]

I'm just basing this off of the flavor text, but Tamanoa probably shouldn't be legendary. "When Freyalise spoke the World Spell, the tamanoa rose to bring a new morning to Terisiare." I don't know the lore of that set and if there was a leader of the tamanoa named tamanoa, but it seems that the text is referencing a race of spirits and not a specific one. That being said, it would be a sweet commander "Tamanoa of the Tamanoa".

[@vorthosnick]

@@nickroberts9603 Even if it's referring to a race, there's still precedent for a Legendary group. Look at Obzedat, Ghost Council or Vendillion Clique; however, to be clear, my feelings of this being Legendary were based 100% on my wants with no regard for continuity or verisimilitude.

[@DefenestrateWindows]

Hmmmm. Making Nephilim legendary is too much because it would break down things for the greater multiverse. Magic player: I will have my 4th The World Tree come into play tapped..... No this card is not legendary..... no not for story reason, for gameplay reasons. Seems like you guys make decisions not just based on one thing, but can be done for game play purposes too. Weird how that works out.

[@FGCmtg]

Hi Gavin - thanks for another great video. The most recent discussions I've had with players about errata is with mechanics that are designed for non 1v1 play; 'commander mechanics'. Specifically, this has been a problem with the Initiative creatures. Was there any discussion of adding a 'if you have more than one opponent' as a prefix to taking the initiative? I feel like this clause would go a long way towards avoiding the sorts of experience White Plume Adventurer creates/ed in Legacy and Vintage, and if it won't be applied as errata, perhaps it could be used going forward?

[@alphonse2234]

If you functionally errata a card it should be reprinted to update the card text. But this may require reserved list cards to be reprinted with updated text. Well that’s not going to happen.

[@Pachumain]

I like how you talking about tournament and having card don't work the way they are worded with the many misstranslation of the last set. Tomb of annhilation is misstranslated in 2 langages and we have a few example per set.

[@Gizmonster94]

To be fair, companion is not the only recent power-level errata in the past year. Cascade got updated too because of MDFCs like Valki. Also I'd argue that we already are in a world where nothing is safe if you don't check Oracle text, mainly because of the success of Commander which is an Eternal format.

[@CSDragon]

I think the best thing to do would be to print nearly identical cards in a supplemental product. "Greg, Nephilim of Glint-Eyes", legendary creature nephilim, with the exact same CMC, power, toughness and abilities. Just it's a different card now.

[@bastienclarke1810]

Good video, I enjoy these history lessons.

[@kenizl86]

Playing other games has made me seriously appreciate all the work that goes into making the rules of MTG consistent across the whole game and how cohesive all the errata is as well. I just wish other games would be as consistent as MTG :)

[@jwaffles9269]

I’m actually pretty glad that the nephilim aren’t legendary, not just because of the whole Pandora’s box thing; but because ink treader is insane in the command zone.

[@jordanjensen9739]

As someone with a Nephilim EDH deck it makes me sad to hear this, but I can respect and understand this decision as it was done so with a lot of thought and experience in mind. If the Nephilim can't be errata then I would love to see them reborn in a new cycle much like the elder dragons being redone in m19.

[@CommandoANG3L0]

I’m sorry, comparing the Nephilim, of which there are only 5 in all of Magic, and of which they are legendary inside the lore, does NOT mean we will eventually expect Dark Confidant - which could be any Joe Shmo - to be legendary. That’s a false equivalency and very poor reasoning on your part. That’s the kind of shit that would get a college essay brought down severs letter grades, that’s how bad the logic is.

[@CommandoANG3L0]

Oh god, I had to pause to write my comment because the “Dark Confidant” logic was such a bad argument (as explained above) but the way you continued with the slippery slop eargument is just such BS. Just because you fix one group of cards does not mean the other litany of things no one was asking for, some of which don’t even sound that BAD. This is just poor argument after poor argument and has done the opposite of what this video wants to do.