MTG Top 10: The BIGGEST Rule Changes in Magic History | Magic: the Gathering | Episode 538

[@NizzahonMagic]

I have the uniqu ability to overlook typos.

[@RiptornRory]

Much Uniqunes! *insert Doge meme*

[@cax1175]

That's a feature, not a flaw

[@latinojackson9694]

"These kids today with their collector numbers and their newfangled tap symbol. Twenty Black Lotuses and twenty Plague Rats. Now that's real Magic."

[@jesuschrist9677]

No, 20 mountains and 40 lightning bolts. Now that's a magic.

[@tonythepokemonguy751]

Me as a kid: yeah you got all the big creatures and spells, but do you have a deck full of plague rats?

[@shadowfate05]

@@jesuschrist9677 It's the flavor text of the Unhinged card, Old Fogey

[@jesuschrist9677]

@@shadowfate05 god damn it, I knew I was too young.

[@jamesgasik3424]

@@jesuschrist9677 How about a deck consisting of Contract from Below, Swamps, Dark Ritual, and Drain Life?

[@astuteanansi4935]

I remember back when the "Seal of Jace" was a thing. People would unironically run the original Jace Beleren simply because it could hit the board one turn earlier than Jace the Mind Sculptor (better than all) and stop it at the price of its own life.

[@randaldull]

Crop rotation to get a turn one Tolarian Academy.

[@rowerewolf]

One rule change I think belongs in the list is creating the exile zone, separate from removed from the game. In Onslaught standard, you could build storm count by casting Cunning Wish to get Cunning Wish from your sideboard. The copy you cast would then be removed from the game, and could be fetched with the Cunning Wish now in your hand. With infinite mana, this created an infinite storm count. Another rules change that wasn't significant was changing the owner of tokens from the owner of the effect that created the tokens to the player who put the tokens on the battlefield. It only affected Warp World and Hunted creatures.

[@dyne313]

I think the Exile rule could deserve an honerable mention.

[@dorsalfin22]

@@NathanielKrefman ever since the companion and lesson/learn fiascos, I agree with you for sure. No sideboard in commander yet companion works because they want it to work, but lessons and learn don't other than the loot aspect? Inconsistency grates me more than whatever decision they ultimately made

[@gyrasolune5436]

@@NathanielKrefman Yeah the fact that several different effects induce 'exile' in different ways kinda feels weird - in particular the now very common 'imprisonment' exile which essentially has to be represented completely differently than the 'super-graveyard' type of exiling, along with how stuff like Foretell and Saga DFCs 'exile' cards but still have them as a resource. But then - I'm someone who's also bothered by how the term 'counter' refers to two completely different mechanics, and I definitely think the term that refers to 'making it so that a spell or effect is nullified' should be re-titled like, 'cancel' or so.

[@cax1175]

I think specifying that colorless and generic mana are different is a small but notable thing.

[@robmitchell3039]

I've recently gotten some friends who used to play back into Magic. That one was a tough one to explain, for some reason.

[@cax1175]

@@DerekScottBland How is it annoying? Few cards have colorless specific costs. Generic mana costs can still be paid for with colorless or any color. The only "annoying" thing I see is nostalgia for "add 1" to your mana pool vs the colorless symbol. Colorless specific costs is essentially a sixth color without actually making a new one.

[@cax1175]

@@DerekScottBland You don't have to have wastes, any card that can create colorless mana works for cards with colorless costs. Any colorless utility land works just as well as a wastes in that respect. Wastes are good in the sense that colorless edh decks have access to a basic land for things like solemn simulacrum. I also personally don't mind having some cards that require colorless mana to be cast. That is what Eldrazi are all about.

[@THEDARKHORSES2001]

Yeah recently had to really learn the rules about that after buying the ulalek precon. Honestly more depth to the game makes it fun in my opinion

[@herbbranan78]

Besides affecting.creatures with a sac ability, removing damage from the stack affected creatures that had the ability to change their power and toughness. A poster child of that is Morphling. Players today often don't understand why this card was so powerful back then. That's because you used to be able to pump it up to 5/1, have it block / get blocked, put damage on the stack, then apply -1/+1 to give it enough thoughness to survive whatever damage it was taking. Morphling was basically a 5/X flying, vigilante, untargetable creature... with enough mana available. Truly a powerhouse for 3UU in the day. But removing the "damage from the stack" rule hamstrung the Morphling considerably.

[@mikotagayuna8494]

I understand the rationale behind removing mana burn from the rules but as a flavor pedant I feel that it's a huge loss in terms of immersion. Magic should feel dangerous to use and those who would wield it should feel the consequences of consorting with powers beyond this world.

[@hermodnitter3902]

Agreed. I still feel bad when I tap a Sol Ring and only uses one of the mana, but doesn’t get burned... Just feels wrong even 25 years later!

[@BCWasbrough]

I agree that it's a flavor fail, but I do NOT miss the "feel bad" moments mana burn created when teaching new players the game.

[@Y2KNW]

Me and one other person left in a big multiplayer game and I was facing down an all-out attack for lethal, so I spent about 8 minutes tapping and untapping artifacts to generate a giant pile of mana, only to pass priority back so they could move into their attack step, only to watch me lose like 200+ life from mana burn and deny them the pleasure of roflstomping me.

[@zachariahpoltergeist4516]

It was an integral part of red decks with Mana Flares. Sometimes there would be three or four out at once and you seriously needed to figure out of your 2 drop was worth 4 damage!

[@aytakk]

As an old player getting back into Magic after not playing for 15 years, this video has been an extremely helpful shortcut to learning the rule changes while I was away. Cheers!

[@andrewtaylor3167]

A subtle, but surprisingly notable one: A spell only fizzles if all its targets are invalidated instead of if any of its targets is invalidated.

[@georgeerniej]

To add to the original mulligan rule, if an opponent mulliganed then you would also get the option to mulligan afterwards regardless of your hand

[@inkyno1]

Dark Duel looks like Duelist of the Roses but actually fleshed out. A sponsor I may actually look into for one

[@machineheadslump]

There are a lot of current decks across multiple formats where the implementation of mana burn could rewrite formats for better

[@sephyrias883]

If there is one thing I took away from this video, it is that Magic started out really small and extraordinarily flawed, to the extend that if it were made today, the internet would solve it in less than a month (like this 20:30) and the company that made it would drop it like a hot potato and possibly go bankrupt.

[@NizzahonMagic]

Yep, being the first ccg/tcg had some serious growing pains.

[@sephyrias883]

@@NizzahonMagic Yeah, but kudos to WotC for sticking with it. Definitely turned out to be worth it too.

[@deeterful]

One subtle nuance of the first mulligan rule you missed was that a an opponent could “ride” your mulligan. If one player mulliganed the other could get a free mulligan off of that. It really didn’t show up much in competitive Magic, but in casual multiplayer games it was used quite extensively. IMHO, the Sixth Edition rules was the best thing to happen to the game.

[@jimmysmith2249]

I vaguely remember that riding mulligan.

[@briankuczynski6884]

You can make mog fanatic a real card again by giving it first strike.

[@herbbranan78]

In some ways, Featering Goblin felt like the spiritual successor to Mog Fanatic. It was able to block an X/2, deal combat damage, and either kill what blocked it or kill a different X/1 when it died. Obviously it's not as flexible as the fanatic's sac ability or damage, but it was close.

[@jst56strong]

The transition to 6th must have been WILD. Judges must have had one hell of a headache

[@BCWasbrough]

Yeah, it was a mess. Worked out well though!

[@paolonicolacerea]

As a very very old player and collector I can say that yes, it was a headache. And I still love the older rules (pre-6th)!

[@IzzysIssues]

I didn't realize I knew as many of these as I did?! In my time playing I've seen the mulligan, legendary, Planeswalker, mana burn, and stack damage rules change!

[@joshuapolacheck8879]

I guess this kinda fits into #1 but the elimination of ante was essential to MtG growth and long term viability.

[@BaconJake14]

This was my first thought too. Imagine being new to the game and constantly losing cards before you really understood how to get better. Or being really excited about that one new card you got and it being your ante and losing it. I imagine the game wouldn't be what it is today if ante was still enforced in competitive play

[@COBsomeone22697]

Trinisphere is another artifact that kept the "Only works while untapped" rule, and new printings have it built in to the rules text

[@texier13]

Trinisphere never was a "Continous artifact", it's a nod to the original ones.

[@stepniak18]

I think that vanilla Shandalar is using OG deck building rule, so if you want to try Channel Fireball deck and you know how to run vanilla Shandalar on your Windows 10, you can try it out :D

[@OrbGoblin]

If you build a deck w/at least 60 cards, it waives the 4 card requirement. But if you build 40, it won't let you go over.

[@rajamicitrenti1374]

@@OrbGoblin The Shandalar game mode has wierd rules, where you can only have 3 copies of a card if you deck is under 60, unless you have a particular magical item, which raises it to 4; if at 60 ot more, it's 4 copies unless you have that same magical item, which then lets you go unlimited. In the normal MTG game mode, it uses those same rules for if you have the magical item. It also still uses the Ante system, so you get to play with the most broken card ever printed: Contract from Below!

[@BCWasbrough]

After much trail and error, my friends and I found the "perfect" deck for that game was 20 Lotus, 20 Timetwister, and 20 Ball Lightning. All you needed was one Lotus and one Twister in your opening hand to go off.

[@rajamicitrenti1374]

@@BCWasbrough My best was 25 Black Lotus, 25 Contract From Below, and 10 Drain Life. Basically just need 1 Drain Life anywhere in the bottom half of your deck.

[@rareroe305]

While Strixhaven was in Standard, I had a match where my opponent had more creatures to block with, but only blocked with a few Pests and went to 0. And of course died before the 'Gain 1 life' triggers. I really hope they were going out on their own terms, and not looking at their screen afterwards going 'WHAT!?'

[@thekwjiboo]

They probably thought that that death trigger worked the same as lifelink where he could gain enough back to survive...oops.

[@collinbeal]

I've definitwly manipulated my opponents' swing with blockers before to go to exactly 0. It's kind of like a concede with extra style points.

[@Morathor]

I wholeheartedly disagree that taking combat damage off the stack makes things simpler. If you're going to have a system like the stack, it's simpler if everything uses it, instead of introducing twenty million subsystems to handle the occasions where it's a little counterintuitive. And apparently without the stack you couldn't assign damage among multiple blockers, for reasons I did not and do not understand, so they had to add their weird pseudotrample that I did not and do not understand, especially since they rushed to errata it multiple times in the first year because it immediately broke one of their shiny new keywords. And like, to me, learning weird card interactions like damage on the stack+sack effect was a fun and exciting part of being a new player. But if they really can't abide that, adding basically a fizzle to combat damage if the creature dealing it is no longer in play when the damage resolves, would seem like an easier solution. Adding new systems that don't interact with the old systems and slapping on a bunch of new rules to stitch them together is not the simple or intuitive solution to me.

[@Sauvenil]

When the Legendary rule made the last change, the Flagstones of Trokair became a little less awesome since they didn't both autodestruct if you played a second one.

[@rashakor]

Ante and Banned and Restricted should have probably been mentioned in point #1. While I agree with the significance of some of those rule changes, many were implemented to feature the new card type or new mechanic and increase card sales, they didn’t simplify squat! Changes #10, 8, 6 and 4 are particularly good examples.

[@Melissanoma]

Ante is actually still in the rules today. It's listed under 407.1-4 and 800.4n. It's considered an optional way to play just like any other, with the stipulation that you aren't allowed to play it in official tournaments or where prohibited by local law. The ante zone is one of the seven zones in every game: Library, Hand, Battlefield, Graveyard, Stack, Exile, Ante, Command.

[@MrTrellheim]

I don't think ante was widespread enough so it's elimination can be considered a big upheaval in the game. I might be wrong, but I think not many people used the ante rule.

[@haslittle8078]

I would also argue for the creation of the Ban/Restricted list and the creation of formats (Type 1/Type 2) as some of the most significant rules changes. There will also eventually be a rules change for cost payments governing how they interact with the stack and casting spells in general, because the way it works now isn't intuitive at all. High level players look like they're cheating, and even when a level three judge explains everything, your average player will still not understand. See Krark Clan Ironworks combo decks and Selvala, Explorer Returned for examples of how weird the rules currently are.

[@pauljones7892]

Love your videos but I must correct one thing. The first mulligan rule was not in the original Alpha rulebook, but in the DC tournament rules announced on June 13 1994. One rule change that wasn't mentioned was the draw on first turn. Starting with the Fifth Edition rules in November 1996 the starting player has to skip their draw phase. It was an optional tournament rule starting in February of the same year.

[@D3ck3rCain]

I miss combat on the stack.

[@emperornapoleon6204]

What an awesome video! This felt a lot like a deck history or history of the B&R list video, both series that I really enjoy watching, but it was also a top 10. Terrific!

[@NizzahonMagic]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@TheGloriousLobsterEmperor]

I can't believe you glossed over the *most important* rule, which changed the way "bands with others" worked to make actual sense! That is way more important than anything else on the list, it should have been #1! Maybe it will, for some reason, get a mention in "Top 10 Vintage Cards (Minus Power 9)"!

[@c.jhamblin5759]

I think nizz just likes to see you suffer

[@Seydaschu]

Watching other Magic videos, I believe mana burn also enables some other shenanigans when used to intentionally lower your life total. It's as if every player innately had the ablity; 1: You lose 1 life at the end of this phase. For example, you could burn yourself to pump Death's Shadow, or activate cards that are stronger if you have less life than your opponent (or stop them from doing the same). (of course nowadays there's usually better outlets to PAY life instead so you get both an upside and an intentionally lower life total)

[@Igor369]

10: Poly, Mono and continous supertypes should come back, they clear the text box off 2 lines making artifacts faster and easier to read. 6: Not a fan of this change, it also made cards like Icy Manipulator worse because opponent can just tap targetted land in response to IM floating mana and not losing life if they do not spend it the same phase. This change also allows ridiculous out of control mana ramp decks to be even more ridiculous because they no longer have a risk of killing themselves further incentiving mega hyper snowball solitaire style decks. 5: LITERALLY WORST CHANGE EVER. It dumbed down game SO MUCH the game can be almost be considered completely different. Combat tricks were already bad before this change. After this awful change playing today's garbage like giant growth, post damage unsummon or healing salve effects is purely memeing at this point. WotC tried to make combat tricks viable again with cards like Feather or that 1G enchantment that draws when you target your creatures resulting in some of the MOST SNOWBALLY and frustrating to play against decks I have ever seen on MTGA. This change nerfed creatures so hard wotc needed to compensate HEAVILY to make creatures viable again, so nowadays we have 2 and 3 drops that snowball the game out of control by themselves which made playing on the draw even worse than it already was. 4: I like the pre 2013 rules the most but current legend rule is fine.

[@aldotrioksidi]

The damage redirection rules changed quite a lot for commander purposes, since you could redirect the damage from Pyrohemia, Earthquake and similar cards to opponent's walkers.

[@thomasbunn00]

I used to play casual group games, not commander, before mana burn was removed, and built a deck around Mana Flare and Overabundance. So much fun watching my friends struggle.

[@Kasamori]

Now we have a commander that brings back manaburn

[@rajamicitrenti1374]

I had always wondered why the old Microprose MTG game had the deck limits it did. Still strange that it had the original deck building limit in a PC game that was released in 1997 and I think included every card through 4th Edition.

[@Valerie-nm1gr]

No, Shandalar didn't go that late, it only has Alpha and then select cards (not full sets) of Arabian Nights, Antiquities, and Legends. It makes sense that it's based on VERY early Magic. Also, the deck limits in it make a lot more sense for a single-player experience where you have to gradually amass cards by playing--it's a lot closer to the "Magic as Garfield intended" scenario Nizza was talking about, where you can't just buy any old card you want and you have to slowly grind out the deck you want to play by winning cards from other people's ante(!)

[@AidanWR]

You know, I just realized that I started playing magic while mana burn was still a thing, but I was never taught about it Edit: there are quite a few that I was never taught, but I now know most of the rules. Not all of the comprehensive rules, obviously

[@lightbearer313]

The various changes to the trample rules were pretty major. For instance, originally a 1/2 protection from red creature could block a 6/1 Lightning Ball, and prevent any damage passing on to the defender. Also, when Deathtouch was created the way that they had it interact with trample made trample ridiculously overpowered.

[@NizzahonMagic]

The trample/protection rule is pretty niche compared to the things on this list, especially in a world where protection almost never shows up anymore. Also, Deathtouch stills interacts with trample in an impressive way -- you only have to do 1 damage to each blocker and the rest tramples over, since 1 damage is lethal when you use a deathtouch creature, so there isn't a change there.

[@MrReaperHand]

When started playing the deck size (this was in the little booklets we got with the pre-made decks you could buy ranging from beginner to expert) said the deck size was 40 - 60. When 8th edition came out it made it clear the minimum deck size was 60. I played one deck that was 40 cards all the time with my play group until 8th was announced and released. So this whole thing of 40 cards ending in in the '90s. It most likely that the booklets I had were still from old enough sets saying Houserules or whatever. But I have ALWAYS played with the no more than 4 of any card not a basic land. Thus there is difference there. We also ignored many other rules that were tournament as we were not in a tournament. Man, interrupts back in the day. There was some other differences. I was out of magic completely after 8th edition came out and only 4 years back did I start again. When I learnt of all the changes to the rules since (like mana burn gone) i was like WOAH. That and planeswalker cards.

[@dylanmiller9162]

People who like to look at new cards and quip ‘magic as Richard Garfield intended’ really ought to consider that #1 rule change and what things were truly like at first lmao

[@Valerie-nm1gr]

"Magic as Garfield intended" is the "what would the Founding Fathers/Constitution say about this?" of MTG. You have to design for the best experiences in the world you actually live in, not make sacrifices to appease the vision people might have had in the past. Also, in both cases, we all know they would probably be too amazed by, like, smartphones to talk to us about abortion or mana burn.

[@daniduc]

Excellent video, I loved it. I think the introduction of the draw/play choice deserves an honourable mention.

[@assault410]

I miss mana burn, needed it to get to odd life for heartless

[@personalthesus]

I feel like a key reason for the end of mana burn was that your life total was the only resource you could change without using cards - you could lower it to arbitrary but important numbers (like 5 or 13) without having to spend non-renewable resources

[@autobotjazz1972]

i like this sort of top ten as i enjoy learning about the history of MTG.

[@cerietke]

Note that Black Lotus, Channel & Fireball doesn't get you there: you need another source of green or red. Still pretty powerful, but when they did a "going off turn 1 as consistently as possible" tournament the winner focused on Ancestral Recall / Timetwister as the engine.

[@jamesgasik3424]

A video about cards that had their functionality completely altered by rules changes would be pretty neat. For example, deckbuilding rules made Plague Rats pretty terrible. Removing the interrupt type made Avoid Fate much stronger, and changing artifact functionality when tapped made Hyperion Blacksmith much worse. Removing mana burn, however, destroyed Power Surge.

[@alsenddrake7764]

Well the Mana Burn thing makes sense. When younger had a group who played. One person INSISTED about this thing called "Mana Burn" existed, but none of the rest of us had heard of it Seems it may have been just removed not all that long ago back then.

[@KarasuGamma]

What would it look like if you extended this list? I'd have #11 be regeneration, #12 be the way exile/removed from game/sideboards interact, and #13 be the Companion errata. I'm not sure what else could fit beyond that. Maybe the acorn stamp?

[@gaebril131]

Every so often I forget about how defender damage order works. But I don't miss damage prevention at all, I guess it was never important to the game

[@tonythepokemonguy751]

*clenches heart* When my mogg fanatic would kill 2 toughness creatures, they will never know the joy

[@BCWasbrough]

Ah, Mogg Fantastic!

[@RiptornRory]

I truly miss the days when I could kill myself with mana burn instead of conceding or letting the opponent kill me. I took a good chunk of time off of the game, and when I came back it was after that change and changed how I built decks when I no longer needed mana sinks to avoid the burn. Combat damage no longer using the stack was another change I had to get used to when I was so used to the saying "damage on the stack" but then had to learn from the friends I was playing with that the concept no longer existed. Which I didn't believe at first, but did my research and that also changed how I built some decks.

[@riccardocalosso5688]

I agree. Mana burn was a fine mechanic. We should reintroduce it in commander. I'm gonna try to see what my mates think after a couple of games.

[@RiptornRory]

@@riccardocalosso5688 Technically play groups can adopt their own rules that everyone agrees upon. While it is fun, don't expect the same response from others. Like the London Mulligan (or the current mulligan rule) was something I tried to teach to my friends and they weren't fans of it, despite me explaining how it helps smooth card draws. Play group rules are there to make it the most fun, and in my opinion mana burning yourself to death is tenfold better than just simply scooping.

[@MrTrellheim]

Ah... yes... the "Better kill myself than be killed" rule. I used it quite some times playinf with my friends.

[@jpaden8515]

@@riccardocalosso5688 actually some cards like Yurloch of scorch thrash kinda do bring back mana burn. And it's gonna be so fun!

[@ArcanaMaxima]

I'm surprised that no mention was made of the removal of ante. Even beyond the obvious problems (it sucks losing cards, you don't have access to that card for that game, and the potential for hilariously unequal stakes was un-fun), it was dropped because there was a concern that it could be classified as 'gambling' and regulated as such. The entire M:TG tournament scene could have never come about without getting rid of ante.

[@MrChiddler]

Which is why losing it was a tragedy. Also, poker tournaments still exist.

[@mistervader]

I really think that the Play or Draw rule is a super-important rule change that mitigated the objective advantage of whoever went first. Was this considered in your creation of the list? Excellent list, either way.

[@ColorwaveCraftsCo]

The 90s and early 2000s were a crazy time. Lol

[@darkmatter32x]

Thats when I first started playing magic. Good times.

[@mjjjuly]

how bout a top 10 changes you want to implement (regardless of it's impact)? 1 thing i can think is to make instant a supertype or just eliminate instants and change them to sorceries with flash, this would streamline the "instants and/or sorceries" rules text

[@jettblade]

Man so many different things have changed since I started its kind of crazy. I started back in 06-07 and I remember when some of these changes when they happened. I kind of miss the Planeswalker uniqueness rule because the sub-types kind of doesn't matter now except in niche cases like Chandra's Regulator. I hope to see more things that use the Planewalker sub-type a little more often.

[@thesuntitan]

I loved the Legendary Planeswalkers rule flavor-wise, but I get why they got rid of it.

[@SpitefulAZ]

I played when mana burn was removed, and remember WOTC saying they didn't like that it allowed players to manipulate their life total too easily; They noted that it made cards like Hidetsugu's Second Rite almost useless.

[@personalthesus]

10:05 life was also, at that point, the only resource you could “choose” to lower yourself You can’t discard, mill, or sac with out something letting you, but you could arbitrarily lower your life total to specific numbers 🤔❤️

[@moldyorangepeel]

When I first started we had the ante rule. I got so many good cards that way.

[@BadDrummerCarl]

Imagine having competitive deck in 1993 with 20 black lotus's for channel/fireball then throwing the deck away when the rule was changed.

[@BCWasbrough]

Or worse, watching your parents throw away a deck like that because they disliked your hobbies. It happened to a good friend of mine. His Dad got mad, and threw out a lot of his magic cards. His collection was worth a few thousand dollars back in 1995, and I have no idea how much it'd be worth now. :(

[@christopherprementine5287]

Phantasmal image used to be the best doom blade in standard. RIP old legendary rule

[@Sauvenil]

Getting rid of mana burn means Eladamri's Vineyard is a lot less useful.

[@jaxsonbateman]

Mmmm, Mana Burn being removed only slightly affected Lotus Cobra - because it was first printed in the second set (Zendikar) after the rule change. So while it was being designed at a time where Mana Burn was actually a rule, I'm also confident they would've known it was being removed while designing it.

[@irou95]

White leyline used to protect planeswalkers from spell damage. It was a huge change for superfriends decks. Also it made chandra torch of defiance worse as it's old +1 could do 2 dmg to walkers with the "each opponent" clause

[@marciodemeo4731]

Playing before 6th edition rules change was very challenging: All that different speeds of effects: mana source> interrupts> activated abilities > sorcery. Damage prevention and regeneration steps. A player did not loose by getting zero life or below before end of the phase. 😱😱😱

[@Y2KNW]

Back when Type 1 & 2 were still a thing, single elimination was the norm and the mulligan rule was merciless, we drove 3 hours to a tournament where I played a Sleigh deck that ran a single copy of Mishra's Factory just so I'd have the potential of a 2/2 if I ran out of steam. Drew it as my only land in game one, drew no other lands and lost. Repeat for game 2. All 3 of my friends made it to top 8 of a 32 player event, one of whom got 2nd when he lost the last match, which meant I spent the entire day watching other people play cards. :( I think that was my last constructed event, period.

[@corrosivecabal]

I like how the original wording on Lightning Bolt is now the current wording.

[@JD-gk7eh]

With the Channel Fireball combo, as pointed out earlier in the video 1993, the mulligan rule was "all land or no land." So you could ALWAYS have this combo in hand because you got infinite free mulligans if you just didn't play any lands.

[@NizzahonMagic]

You only got one free mulligan, but yeah, that was plenty

[@JD-gk7eh]

@@NizzahonMagic I remember a friend of mine made a deck with no lands and only ESG as the mana sources. He convinced us all he got infinite free mulligans. I WAS LIED TO OVER 25 YEARS AGO!

[@keenansutherland2776]

great video! very detailed history about a game we all love

[@NizzahonMagic]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@SolousOrneas]

I never new about your #1 pick. I simply can't imagine the game without it.

[@stefanoderosa9506]

Most people know it as part of the meme: "Magic as Richard Garfield intended"

[@Melissanoma]

@@stefanoderosa9506 From the flavor text of Old Fogey: “These kids today with their collector numbers and their newfangled tap symbol. Twenty Black Lotuses and twenty Plague Rats. Now that’s real Magic.”

[@monomanamaniac]

Actually, tenth edition (not m10) is the last set to include mana burn and it was the Alara block where the rule was officially changed. The card upwelling was the last card to refer to mana burn and it was in the tenth edition.

[@UNCSspartan84]

In my group we play with mana burn, with yurlok it basically becomes double mana burn, better spend all that juice! We play with damage on the stack too, we just like it more that way

[@flpn2275]

Mogg fanatic ,and the like, made sense with the old rules. The creature wasn’t dealing damage from the graveyard, think of it more of him dropping the grenade and it blows up after its death. It was flavorful. Then wotc started dumbing / powering the game down .

[@captainanopheles4307]

Surprised the Ante thing didn't come up.

[@stefanoriva1738]

This is one of your most informative video as far. Good job!

[@NizzahonMagic]

Glad you think so!

[@CanadianBaconPwnage]

Chandra, Torch of Defiance and Earthquake were both victims of the Planeswalker redirection rule. Chandra being able to ping other Planeswalkers was very relevant with her first +1 ability, so she received a functional nerf as a result of the rule change.

[@TheLuckySpades]

Earthquake is now pretty good in my Chandra tribal deck though

[@NovaraLilDizz]

Well I guess the shops I went to we all played MTG wrong, before those rule changes, you could target a planes walker if it said any target, and I under to see people playing decks with multiple versions of a planeswalker they have 3 jaces out, I used to run a deck where I played a lot of chandras I played commander, but I started back in either 2014 or 2015, and that when I seen all that

[@MasterHigure]

I can't believe you talked about the legend rule changes and failed to mention that it used to be a subtype, at least on creatures. Loads of old legendary creatures originally had "Legend" as their only subtype, which needed to be retconned when they made the Legendary supertype. (I don't remember whether these errataed-in extra creature types happened at the same time as the introduction of the Legendary supertype, though, but it feels like it happened a little earlier, like Mirrodin or something.) Along with Wall, it was a creature type that carried specific rules with it. Walls used to have defender implied. These changes were also made with the Kamigawa block.

[@Illsteward]

I'll admit, this is probably the first time I've heard the words "stack" and "simplified" together. Mostly, people talk about how complicated certain stack interactions are. It's interesting to learn that stack is still SIMPLIFIED version of something. Or maybe horryfying. Yeah, probably the second one...

[@jonothanthrace1530]

I played Magic originally from around 1994 to 1999, and I honestly don't remember ever encountering "tapped blockers don't deal damage", even in the Microprose computer game. Granted, I only played with friends from high school and nobody was remotely high level, so I don't think any of us thought that deeply about the game.

[@hermodnitter3902]

I played the same time, and tapping down blockers with an Icy was a real thing. But we probably played with other rules wrong, not so easy at that time to get everything correct...

[@doomexe]

I'm still upset about the unjustified Mogg Fanatic/Sakura Tribe Elder nerf. I always knew things like interrupt, mana ability and mono artifact were old but I never really looked into them and having started the game with 6th edition it makes sense why I never knew much about them

[@jacobs483]

Lands being part of a the magic deck is probably the most problematic of Magic’s core design mechanics. Lands primarily sets the pace of the game and the power curve of available cards that a player can play, but is sharing the limited resource with those cards with which mana is spent to play. Most games that were newer and benefitted from seeing this drawback just went some version of “turn count” limit more directly, which can still really leave in tact all the things lands do: cards can still be made that boost the turn limit resource, or can double as a turn-booster and a creature, or a turn booster and some other affect. Unfortunately magic doubled down on lands and will forever have to deal with the tyranny of lands integrated at cards in the deck.

[@TransformersBoss]

They did away with the Planeswalker Uniqueness Rule right around the time Gideon of the Trials came out, and it was a huge boost for him, since now you could have several different Gideons out with your Emblem protecting you

[@Sauvenil]

Arena for a short time had an "Unlimited" format that only had the 40-card limit - for one event one time. Unfortunately you can't play the format casually even anymore.

[@MrChiddler]

You can anything you want casually.

[@Kiarean]

I still lament the damage on the stack change. I freaking loved that, it made me feel smart and clever.

[@Youniquedesign1892]

The mtg top tens are both, the way i found this page 2018 and the only videos you make that i watch. With that being said i hope 3 a week doesn't get you burned out.

[@tomfisher6422]

I can just imagine a game of commander where two or more players had the same commander but both went to the graveyard when a second one hit the board...

[@icarus-wings]

Two rule changes I **hate**: allowing multiple Planeswalkers of the same identity, and eliminating the constructed block format. The first just doesn’t make any sense, and the second completely removes any sense of immersion in Standard (take the current rotation, for example, where we have goth horror, the Wild West, neo-Japan, and soon furries all in the same format). If I wanted a grab bag of bullshit I’d be playing legacy or modern.

[@rodrigod.p.serrano6046]

Have to say that cards like volcaninc fallout and slagstorm became much worse because you used to be able to redirect this damage to your opponent's planeswalkers

[@mikenahmias7102]

This was a good history video of Magic. I don't know if this falls under rules changes, but how about how prereleases work now? They used to be very restrictive and monitored. During deck construction you were not allowed to have anything on the table except your prerelease kit and a form to list what you got and your deck. They also did random deck checks throughout the night to stop people trading amongst themselves or playing with cards from a previous event. Now, you can buy everything at a prerelease and no one is stopping you from building a deck out of multiple boxes and trades. Not that I do that, I play fair.

[@BCWasbrough]

Oh, and one Prerelease event per town? Several hundred players competing in seven rounds of Swiss limited over a box or two of the newest set? Those events would eat entire weekends!

[@mikenahmias7102]

@@BCWasbrough Yeah, I remember those, in the early 2000s. Back then, we had a game store in the mall, so for a Saturday prerelease they'd have rows of tables down the main corridor in front of it, seating over 200 people. Between rounds we could leave and hang around the mall, get food, etc. It was nice.

[@adamwarehime6444]

Wish we could still tap defending creatures so they couldn't do damage. I miss that part of combat made the game more fun.

[@hermodnitter3902]

Interestingly, when I played back in the 90's, everyone I knew played like we could respond to a Giant Growth with a Lightning Bolt (and yes, we didn't use Shock) and still kill the creature, so we resolved the damage once it hit. Perhaps we played the wrong way according to the rules, but this was how we did it and it felt the most correct. Anyone else doing it this way? Or is the info in this video wrong? Because we were quite up to date with the rules and played rather competitevly.

[@NizzahonMagic]

The info in the video isn't wroog.

[@tritra63]

@@NizzahonMagic Sorry, but Hermod is right about it. The change how damage is applied was already in Fifth Edition, while the stack was invented in Sixth Edition.

[@robertneal4244]

Maybe I missed it, but did you mention ante or banding?

[@SR-di7ox]

I remember most of these rules changes. Correct me if I'm wrong, but at one point in time:. If there were 3+ Legendary permanents in play then all were buried/sacrificed.

[@NizzahonMagic]

That was never a thing.

[@SR-di7ox]

I spent hours reading the old books as a teen. Very little of it made sense. The new rules make much more sense.

[@UwURainUwU]

That ad kinda sounded like a modern version of the PS2 game "Yu-Gi-Oh: War of the Rose's"

[@christopheryoung2874]

Great video, dude!!

[@NizzahonMagic]

Glad you liked it!

[@michaelboyer7253]

Great video. super Educational. 😊

[@NizzahonMagic]

Glad you think so!

[@Grimlock1979]

In early days of Magic, you didn't even need any cards to play. Flip a coin to determine the start player and that player was the winner.

[@mikeoleary5444]

Let's pour one out for Power Surge and Citadel of Pain, which became useless after they got rid of mana burn.

[@jacobmartens4080]

Shoutout to Dark Duels! Such a great game

[@penguinlust6749]

There are times when I think that Magic needs a rules binder system like that of Advanced Squad Leader.

[@crisgroom3857]

Mana Burn WAS intuitive. If you are a Mage and overpower a spell by drawing too much Mana it has to go somewhere, it doesn't just dissipate, it burns you. Taking that away dumbed down Magic. Yeah, easier but definitely not intuitive to what would actually happen in a duel. Lazy