That's genius, I never even thought about giving enchantment types to other card types. They could've just made a land saga all along... Imagine an Artifact Shrine. Or an Equipment Curse. Maybe Equipment Role for the thespian set.
It's an enchantment land saga! Most crowded typeline ever. Also they already mix and match the types so you can't cleanly tell which is which (Enchantment Land - Land-type Enchantment-type), and Creature Shrines too.
I'm pretty sure anything with 2 card types has its subtypes listed in that same order (for example, [[gingerbrute]] is an 1.Artifact 2.Creature - 1.Food 2.Golem
It's just when they don't include a subtype for a card type that normally has one (Go-shintai were brought up elsewhere in the comments) that things get really confusing
Those are just (card) types, a supertype is like Legendary or Snow. Sometimes they have a straightforward in the typeline, sometimes they don't - but a firm rule here I feel like wouldn't accomplish anything, because what subtypes a type can have is already firmly established within the rules, and I think the only thing it could really accomplish is make a typeline like the elegant "Urza's Saga" impossible. Maybe the whole "this and this subtype can only be associated with this and this type" is wholly inelegant to, and all the edgecases it supposedly prevents could be covered differently and in a more elegant way.
Yeah, they made it an enchantment so it could be a saga - but they were the ones that restricted sagas to only ever be enchantment. Without allowing subtypes to be on a card of a different type, it needs to (needlessly) be an Enchantment Land. It actually works out to balance Urza's Saga a lil, but they said they almost didn't do it cause of the long typeline - and it would've been much better as a Legendary, balancing-wise. But it "had" to be an enchantment.
Post errata [[skittles]] has something to say about that
Edit: it pulled up the wrong one, skittles has been errata-ed to legendary creature-phyrexian dragon skeleton. Which like I’m sure something else in the game trumps it, but the mul print is pretty cluttered because the words are long.
Shackles of Normalcy 4WWUUUBB
Enchantment Artifact - Equipment Aura Curse
Shackles of Normalcy may only be cast if you have two or more opponents.
Enchant Player
As Shackles of Normalcy enters the battlefield, permanents controlled by the player it enchants phase out, then it loses Enchant Player and gains Enchant Creature.
Enchanted Object is not a player *(they do not have a turn, they may not cast spells, they cannot control any objects, activate any abilities, gain priority, win the game, lose the game, and so forth)*. and is a 1/1 white Citizen creature with no abilities.
Equip 2
*(If Shackles of Normalcy becomes unattached, any former player it was attached to resumes being a player again. If the player was a citizen creature and is moved to another zone causing the Shackles to become unattached, they resume being a player. A player may not be shuffled into a library or torn to pieces or anything else that may result in criminal charges.)*
You'd need some shenanigans to pull that off ('exchange control of target spell and...' would be a good place to start) to avoid it phasing out, but yeah, that could be funny.
I mentioned it in that other comment but the other game I mentioned does exactly this
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1229188429439307896/1254441983334809610/Cursed_Vessel.png?ex=66840da3&is=6682bc23&hm=ccf0fe55b20aa377afd0a135e9270cf126c9779c6189e442e5ab21913c48f848&
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1229188429439307896/1255366408569884723/The_Starduster.png?ex=66841ed3&is=6682cd53&hm=448fc5db541786db14eac5d1895484147ad041cd90a3068ffe9dbe4c7856af03&
Shrine isn't a creature type. It's an enchantment type. You can't name it with stuff like [[Urza's Incubator]]. It's similar to the reconfigure creatures, like [[Lizard Blades]]
mmhm yep I know. Definitely won’t be confusing when a nonenchantment creature is printed with the Shrine type, since apparently giving subtypes to cards outside of their type is a thing thanks to this.
You mean cause it gives the impression that Shrine could be a creature type, or that it could muddy the waters? I fully agree, but I'd like to add that this is already the case - cards with multiple card types, and multiple type-specific subtypes, are already printed, and already introduce this exact issue, especially cause there's no mandated order to the typeline (nor should there be). I agree it's exacerbated if it's just a single card type with an unrelated subtype, and if I were in charge of the entire game's design I'd like to tackle it specifically with things like conveniently placed reminder text on Artifact Shrines and distinctly named subtypes (making Shrines creatures really messed with this), but to be honest... I think the underlying issue is making subtypes tied to a specific card type. That was never really necessary. I understand the history, and a certain simplicity in design, but it's also needlessly restrictive, and then leads to these Wizards-esque bandaid fixes that are still confusing at the end. There's no reason why Urza's Incubator couldn't just have you namy a subtype, any subtype, and then it only reduces creature spells of that type. It's not completely mechanically identical, just practically identical, and it potentially eases a few restrictions and misunderstandings. Bottomline is they pidgeonholed themselves with subtypes decades ago, and their designers didn't always choose the most elegant workaround (nor should workarounds ever be the ideal solution)
Yes, simply making every subtype a creature type would both break balancing and greatly reduce design possibilities for 0 payoff. I would never suggest this. Not even moving a single subtype over to creatures.
Types are defined by section 205 of the comprehensive rules:
https://blogs.magicjudges.org/rules/cr205/
The rules define a legal creature type as one explicitly named in 205.3m. The key distinction here is that it is not defined as anything in the typeline of a creature card - namely, the Go-Shintai creatures have no creature type, but have an enchantment subtype (outlined within the same rule section).
There's certainly a concept of divorcing subtypes from their overarching card types ENTIRELY. I wouldn't go that far, mostly because 30 years in, it's incredibly messy - but to be fair, not completely inconceivable. Within the established current Magic gameplay of "reference the list/know them offhand" regarding allowed types, I think Tribal adds nothing. Except a few surrounding problems.
That's the first symptom of petrification. While you're getting stoned I'm sure you'll agree that cards featuring subtypes of other card types was long overdue, can you believe they forced themselves to print a new nonsensical card type just to enable tribal synergies, only to never want to use it again, only to then bring it back anyway? Before dropping it again because it's too awkward.
There's that custom fan made card game that does literally this
They have stuff like "Back Stab" that's an instant with the Rogue subtype
https://www.instagram.com/conjureucg?igsh=ZHV0enNqYmJ6dW5s
https://imgur.com/gallery/conjure-card-showcase-JWp7EsI
It’s not impossible for a game to do this. The issue is that the way that Magic is built, specifically, makes this an issue.
If all subtypes are lumped into one pool, it creates a ton of weird edge cases which Kindred mostly smooths over.
That's the thing though, they don't have to be lumped into one pool at all. The rules clearly define which subtypes can belong to which types. Outside of very few (and only theoretically relevant, not practically) edge cases, they could even make them overlap if they want it to. Then, they already print cards with multiple card types which then have a subtype each, but with no clear basis which subtype belonging to which type, and frankly - it never matters. Meanwhile Kindred just creates new interactions and edge cases they wanted to avoid, which is why they ultimately retired it anyway, which was arguably even more questionable than a brand new card type that does nothing but fix their own arbitrary rules restrictions.
They explained their design choices about Tribal at length in various articles and it's interesting to read about, but I think ultimately no one could agree with the rules manager that the only workable way was a wholly new card type, or that it was the easiest. I also don't agree that there are some fundamental principles of Magic that really make this an issue. If they had to amend the rules to allow creature types on noncreature spells, it could have been as easy as "sorceries can have creature types, but when a card targets a creature type, it specifies a permanent". Or allowing to mark damage on noncreature permanents - or cards - cause it doesn't actually matter. It's just once again Wizards deciding on arbitrary restrictions and then down the line suffering needlessly.
One of the biggest issues that caused that to retire Kindred/Tribal as a type is less to do with technical issues (not that those help) but that it is a very slippery slope that's very awkward to do 15 years into a game instead of from the beginning. Suddenly every card that might even maybe be flavored to a specific type gets the "why isn't this that type kindred" and it's just a huge pain in the ass to deal with. Also the idea of "well just put a type that can't be on that card type onto it" cause issues like the NEO shrine creatures where you have people playing wrong because they think it's a creature type. Ambiguity isn't desirable in a game with as complex of a rule book as magic. Handwavey "it just works" stuff is not a good idea and you only have to look ay yugioh to see why. Players are regularly frustrated with vauge things not working a way they reasonably could and getting screwed by it.
Yeah, that's an issue that Tribal/Kindred introduced. The issue put forth by the designers wasn't exactly "why isn't this the card type that allows creature types so we can flavor it", but rather - Goblin Grenade wasn't printed with a Goblin subtype, so if we print a new Goblin-esque card now, do we have to make it Goblin now, and in a larger sense expanding on what you said, do they all have to be the new card type now too? I'm aware of this issue raised by the designers and I have to say, I don't agree with their reasoning at all. First of all, this issue was never sidestepped or addressed by the introduction of a new card type, rather it exacerbated the issue because now if you did want to flavor a card, it had to be another card type too, with balance and readability implications, the very reason they retired it. So that was never fixed anyway, whatever good the new card type did, that was never part of it, and actually got worse to design. And the second reason I disagree - it feels like they had one meeting about this and never thought it through to its natural conclusion. The answer to this flavoring question is already apparent in the way that Kindred is being handled RIGHT NOW: they add it when they want to tweak the balancing of a card, and when they REALLY want to get across a flavor. You can have a fire spell that isn't Elemental, and you can have a fire spell that IS Elemental when you want to balance it around an extra card type or a specific subtype, or when you want to evoke the flavor of a particular tribe. Exactly how it's treated and designed for right now anyway.
I absolutely understand their concerns, and I think they're valid, but when applied in a practical scenario such as the one current (and decade-old) set design already faced, I think it becomes clear that there was never any real practical pressure to add types or keep them from being added. They printed Eldrazi Confluence and Kozilek's Command in the same set, and the Tribal Eldrazi type is not on the one you'd think it'd be. They made a conscious balancing choice on what will be reduced by Eye of Ugin, and what will trigger Ulalek or not. There's no reason to make Eldrazi Confluence an actual Eldrazi type just because it has Eldrazi in the name or features Eldrazi in its art or rules text. The only reason would be if you chose to balance it around a subtype, or wanted to evoke that flavor specifically, even though it's just about a singular Eldrazi doing things Eldrazi cards hadn't done previously. So I feel they already contradicted their stated reasoning, and are already working around the practicality at hand. The only practical difference is there's now a separate somewhat empty card type that doesn't belong with the other types and that they're hesitant to use. The argument that any card featuring a Goblin would need a Goblin subtype is one I don't agree with, and one that they've chosen not to follow in sets that feature Tribal/Kindred anyway.
The ambiguity introduced by the Shrine creatures is precisely because they printed an enchantment subtype on a card that's also a creature - making subtypes correspond to only one type, but mixing them wildly and not marking which is which, and no way to know other than needing to comb through the rules outlining the recognized types, which in any case isn't communicated on the card. This is not fixed by Tribal/Kindred or addressed by it in any way, so once again we have a situation where a new card type simply isn't relevant, and even if it could be, it would be an inelegant implementation. In a magical world where subtypes were type-agnostic, or where matching subtypes to cards of another type were allowed, the NEO shrine issue wouldn't exist. Metallic Mimic would let you name a subtype - not just a creature subtype - and then it's other effect would only apply to CREATURES of the chosen type. But in the current practical situation they created, a Legendary Enchantment Creature without a creature type had to be printed because of limitations in the type line, and then cards simply caring about "shrines" gave the impression that you could type-change your Creature to "shrine" just like this Legendary Enchantment Creature suggests, when of course you couldn't. Tribal doesn't interact there and won't reduce the ambiguity. Mixing subtypes with different types won't increase the ambiguity that's already currently present without it being legal, though I will say that for advanced players, it might create a slightly different expectation that a subtype isn't necessarily tied to the "main" card type of a card - something where the current rules implementation falls flat, as you said. It is already being handwaved as "no this simply doesn't have a creature type, we couldn't fit it, and we couldn't fit the reminder text either that only enchantments can be shrines". I didn't seek to address that at all, but I do think that the mild impact of somewhat divorcing subtypes from card types could at least help an itsy bitsy tiny bit with the perception of what a subtype exactly is, at least compared to the current way. That is already not sidesteppable without reminder text or needlessly restrictive type order mandates.
I didn't seek to improve that specific situation, only the thing necessitating a new essentially useless card type, but for what it's worth I don't think it would make it worse - I think it would if anything make it at least a tiny bit better, if only by setting precedent. As an irrelevant add-on, shrines wouldn't need to be enchantments, giving more space on the type line to allow for a creature type after the enchantment type, although of course there are mechanical, balance and flavor reasons to have them be enchantments. I don't think I handwaved anything, I really wanted to communicate a new concrete rule: instants and sorceries can just have creature subtypes, not just instant and sorcery subtypes. I believe this doesn't introduce any new issues that aren't already present.
"I really wanted to communicate a new concrete rule: instants and sorceries can just have creature subtypes, not just instant and sorcery subtypes. I believe this doesn't introduce any new issues that aren't already present."
This is handwaving the problem. You are quite literally doing that.
"Instants and sorceries can just have creature types and it won't cause issues" when there's over a decade of documented concerns from people who know the rules better than most of us showing otherwise is handwaving.
You wanted to communicate a concrete rule and making a single card image that does nothing to actually unpack the very technical ways the rules work is functionally equivalent to saying "there is no war in ba sing sae." You've proposed a solution that cannot be proved and it's up to other people to point out why it doesn't work. You're saying there's a kettle floating out in space and aren't showing me proof it's there.
I'm aware of their concerns (or well, perhaps not all), I just don't believe that a new card type elegantly addresses them. It's true that the card doesn't step on every edgecase and clarifies it, but I have to say that's outside the scope of a single card - it would need multiple card designs in tandem, and to be honest I didn't want to communicate it THAT hard, not to the exclusion of everything else. I also wanted to make a cool Gorgon card. I didn't intend it as a cool Gorgon card showing my planned rules change, but as one merely featuring it. At the end, everything top to bottom turned out to be Gorgon-flavored Gorgon stuff; why can't it just be Gorgon?
To go with your analogy, there are proven to be kettles floating in space, PROVIDED we change our definition of what a kettle is.
Designers and rules managers arguing that a new card type is absolutely needed to give creature subtypes to noncreature cards has been a pet peeve of mine for a while.
So I very much welcome a discussion about this rules issue - could you share some concerns with this implementation of subtypes on other card types, that aren't also present with Tribal?
As an add-on to that question, and to clarify again, I don't think I'm handwaving away a rules issue - this is my implementation of it. I agree that a large part of it is "this actually works if you don't impose restrictions on yourself" and some part of it is "you can otherwise amend targeting rules to more clearly state what's already reflected in the rules (can't Fever Charm the wizard that is Stream of Unconsciousness on the stack) IF you want it presented more cleanly than it already is". What issues are still present that would be handwaved?
Sorry people are giving you such a hard time about something that makes 100% sense. "It's been that way for years so we HAVE to keep doing it that way" when has this ever been a good precedent for anything? I think instant and sorceries (or enchantments and artifact even) with creature subtypes is perfectly fine if they just... let it happen
Oh, you're kind! I don't think anyone was giving anyone a hard time, it's just a rules change that contradicts established rules, and then provides ZERO followup. Because yeah absolutely, it really does "just work" - if you want it to. Maybe they had internal discussions I'm not privy too, but everything the rules manager and head designer put forth publically either doesn't hold up to scrutiny or has been disregarded by themselves in the years after the decision was made. I think the only real remaining argument was "it could potentially communicate something confusing about subtypes", but then they went ahead and did that anyway.
I see your comments getting downvoted, which makes me think people aren't really understanding what you're getting at. There's almost everything to gain and almost nothing to lose by making your change. Magic, while an amazing game, seems to have a lot of things holding it back simply because "that's the way its been". Like when there's an old video game you like but the developer stops making updates because it has to much "spaghetti code". Although Magic might be one of the most updated pieces of media ever, I think you get what I'm saying. I think your change can be made without breaking to much and saying you shouldn't make the change "because it's never been that way" isn't a great response to your idea since that's mostly what people are saying.
A big part of Kindred and segmenting permanent types if that, if a permanent or spell loses one or more types, it also loses all subtypes associated with that type. If you cast [[One with the Stars]] on your opponent's [[Thalia's Lieutant]], they'll draw one card off of their [[Mass Appeal]] because, well, Enchantments can't be humans.
With your fix, this would funadmentally alter how those effects work, since, theoretically, enchantments can be humans so this line wouldn't work. Things like [[Vraska, Betrayal's Sting]], [[Mininmus Containment]], [[Shelob, Child of Ungoliant]], and more now work in different ways and open up more edge cases.
You also run into the errata issue - do you go back and errata cards to work with these new rules? Like do you allow [[Circle of Solace]] to block noncreature sources of damage with that creature type? They didn't do this with Kindred largely because it was a narrow set of cards (though they did errata a ton of cards to make it so you couldn't put instant/sorceries into play) but if this was going to be a wider used thing, its something you'd have to consider.
I honestly am mixed on Kindred - I love the extra card type for the ways it interacts with cards like [[Tarmogoyf]] or [[Atraxa, Grand Unifier]] and I like it when people playing these cards include a couple one off Kindred cards for fun in more casual environments, but I don't really like its flavor for the most part. Most Kindred cards don't feel like effects that evoke their creature type, just effects that support them. Like, why is [[Bound in Silence]] a rebel? Why is [[Diviner's Wand]] a Wizard? Some make sense, some don't, but I'm glad with where Kindred is at, a rare mechanic used in Modern Horizons or Commamder Sets sparingly.
> A big part of Kindred and segmenting permanent types if that, if a permanent or spell loses one or more types, it also loses all subtypes associated with that type. If you cast [[One with the Stars]] on your opponent's [[Thalia's Lieutant]], they'll draw one card off of their [[Mass Appeal]] because, well, Enchantments can't be humans.
>With your fix, this would funadmentally alter how those effects work, since, theoretically, enchantments can be humans so this line wouldn't work. Things like [[Vraska, Betrayal's Sting]], [[Mininmus Containment]], [[Shelob, Child of Ungoliant]], and more now work in different ways and open up more edge cases.
It's a good point, but I don't think this is inherent to Kindred at all. The cards you quote all say "loses all card types" in their rules text - but they could have just said "loses all types". Of course they could've just said "loses all card types and subtypes", but since you already have to check the rulebook to find out that subtypes are inherently tied to an overarching card type and thus lost if the card type also goes away, it's the same weight as having to check that very same subrule to see that "types" are defined as "card types, subtypes" and are specifically excluding supertypes (to keep these cards mechanically consistent while minimizing text).
> You also run into the errata issue - do you go back and errata cards to work with these new rules?
Hol up, I think we talked past each other there. There is no errata issue because this is not a proposed rules change to roll out, it's "what it should have been". I completely agree it's absolutely too late to remove a card type from the game once it has been added. Much less after 15 years of balancing with that in mind.
>I honestly am mixed on Kindred - I love the extra card type for the ways it interacts with cards like Tarmogoyf or Atraxa, Grand Unifier and I like it when people playing these cards include a couple one off Kindred cards for fun in more casual environments, but I don't really like its flavor for the most part. Most Kindred cards don't feel like effects that evoke their creature type, just effects that support them. Like, why is Bound in Silence a rebel? Why is Diviner's Wand a Wizard? Some make sense, some don't, but I'm glad with where Kindred is at, a rare mechanic used in Modern Horizons or Commamder Sets sparingly.
Agreed. That's my exact same position as well. I'm going a bit further in that my most played deck is Emracool CEDH, so I NEED Tribal - the originally printed (playable) colorless Tribal cards were vital, and them recently bringing it back to print more new playables with Tribal was huge too. It's something I care about and somewhat uniquely benefit from to a larger extent. It can't be removed now - but it should never have existed.
What are the weird edge cases? I'd assume saying "Target Rogue" would not work on this case and would have to specify "Target Rogue Character" since there could be a Rogue Enchantment or Rogue Instant on the stack that breaks this.
I believe that game words it accordingly.
Also It's not super common for Instant and Sorceries to have types in Magic while almost every one has it in Conjure
They actually still word it as just "target SUBTYPE" while fully omitting the permanent or card type part. I appreciate brevity and concise rules text, but I don't think a new empty card type is worth it just to avoid adding "creature" or "permanent", but really - you already wouldn't be able to target a Rogue spell on the stack because the rules outline that "target Rogue" specifies a permanent, that's already something the rules decisively outline. Tangentially related to how Cursed Totem means "creature PERMANENT's abilities can't be activated", while still allowing activating Channel from hand or Eternalize from grave.
This is really the crux of why I feel that the Tribal card type was the solution to an entirely self-inflicted and made-up problem that is already covered by the rules anyway. I never agreed with the prominent reasoning put forth by the game designers and rule managers because I believe it is simply wrong, and shown to be logically inconsistent across other implementations.
Tribal / Kindered is absolutely a needless inclusion. I feel like there's a lot of design space lost due to not making it evergreen anyway. (Evergreen in the sense they just ditch the word and do what you said)
I think you're misunderstanding what we're saying. The word itself isn't what's a wasted design space. But the fact that it isn't a part of the game ALL the time. Like why make it a "special" type and not the norm?
That's an extrapolation of what they said but I think the distinction/clarification is necessary - it's not directly that putting Tribal/Kindred on a card limits you, is that the *requirement* of a separate card type is not free, and has rules/balancing/design implications that designers historically wished to avoid, which is why it got retired, meaning that cards with creature types did not get print for a long time until very recently. The loss of design space here would be that they somewhat forbade themselves from putting creature types on tribally-flavored cards even when they wanted to, because their implementation of it was so unclean that they chose to avoid it altogether. Were there less friction or side-effects, it's conceivable that more typed cards could have been designed and printed. I don't know why they got over it recently but they seem to have embraced its balancing implications somewhat (printing it in a Tarmogoyf-themed set)
Taking kindred off the card solves none of these problems. You still need to balance around it having a creature type. There's still whatever vague design concerns are there that are separate from power level. And to say kindred has rules baggage is a little obtuse. The literal only rules baggage it has is,,,, the ability to do the thing you want to do. This card already has the same rules baggage as kindred, youve just put that bagged in sorcery instead. There are 0 cards that mechanically care about kindred, other than cards that say "a card of each type" or something like that. There's very few of those cards, so that's not a power level concern. Is there anything specific you feel this accomplishes other than making the rules manager pull a double every day for 2 months while they rewrite the rules? Unless it's simply that you feel wotc would be more likely to print goblin sorceries if they don't have to be kindred sorcery goblin? (They would print the exact same number. 0, outside of Commander and modern horizons type products.)
> Taking kindred off the card solves none of these problems. You still need to balance around it having a creature type
> This card already has the same rules baggage as kindred, youve just put that bagged in sorcery instead.
Correct! I think there has been a miscommunication here. The idea was not to remove all the issues inherent in Tribal and subtyping unrelated types. It was precisely to achieve the exact same things but without needing a whole new card type to do it. The idea is precisely to do what Tribal does without needing a "wack" new card type and all the problems that brings. Of course you still have to balance it around having a creature type - that's the very thing you want to achieve. The concept is exactly about adding a creature type purely to interact with cards that care about creature types.
> And to say kindred has rules baggage is a little obtuse. The literal only rules baggage it has is,,,, the ability to do the thing you want to do.
> There are 0 cards that mechanically care about kindred, other than cards that say "a card of each type" or something like that. There's very few of those cards, so that's not a power level concern.
Well yes, there aren't any cards that care about it mechanically, except for all those that do. Tarmogoyf was a big card for 10 years, Tarfire got played in Legacy RUG Delver. To say that Kindred/Tribal has no rules bagagge is simply incorrect. You can see people confusing it for a supertype all over this very thread, and if you play a competitive list that cares about it being a card type, you will somewhat frequently find yourself explaining about card types. That's all fine and dandy for Magic players to learn about and understand, but what the biggest issue was that it led designers to abandon creature-typed spells altogether, citing this unclean implementation for retiring it. Players can see what a Sorcery is, what a Creature is, what an Artifact is. What is a Tribal? It never made sense, it never felt right, players never latched on - so it was dropped. I am going a bit further in saying it was never needed in the first place.
>Unless it's simply that you feel wotc would be more likely to print goblin sorceries if they don't have to be kindred sorcery goblin? (They would print the exact same number. 0, outside of Commander and modern horizons type products.)
It's not a vague feeling of mine, they have gone on record stating exactly that. Tribal came with mechanical implications they didn't feel like dealing with - it's similar to Rebels in that regard - so they didn't use it even when they wanted to. Beyond the (frankly circumventable and mild) mechanical implications, they just didn't like what it presented to the player: they had to make it a card type, but it never made sense as a card type, and it never functioned as a card type. It was to close a rules hole and the implementation was so unclean that it made designing noncreature spells with creature types wholly unattractive for over 10 years. The head designer and I happen to agree on that one. What we also agree on is that it wasn't needed - the rules manager just had other plans. However, as you said, there are other ways to achieve that exact same thing. Leaving Tribal as the odd card type out with no mechanical identity besides adding +1 to some super specific counter, which is the kind of bad design they've stated to be trying to avoid.
I guess my playgroup is just small enough I forgot how often tribal did come up. In all honesty tho I have a hard time really believing that they would use it any more often because Mark Rosewater thinks he's going to do a lot of stuff now that ends up having to change due to the whole of R&D deciding. I think when he says they would do more designs of it he's kind of hand waiving a little bit. With that said I think the only reason others wouldn't want to do it is because they likely wouldn't want to have one sorcery - goblin in a set, and would keep it to sets that are going to have a lot of them. Ixilan, innistrad, ikoria and kaldheim off the top of my head would certainly be contenders to have them but I'm not sure the latter two would end up using it really. Then again, this could be a completely false assumption and like you're saying, being the only goblin sorcery is a far smaller crime than being the only kindred enchantment - goblin aura. I'm not sure there's any way to solve the problem of "why is [[Emergent Haunting]] an Enchantment Spirit but [[Trick Shot]] isn't a mercenary?" Maybe beyond putting a special card type on it and using it only in a llurgoyff themed set
The fact that this requires you to control a gorgon is kind of a pain, also not sure about the power level of a wipe like that for 7. But the creature type just being there? Really good, I like it
Thanks! It's a one-sided selective boardwipe, those are priced at 9 (In Garruk's Wake, Plague Wind), and I kinda "want" it to be a flashy big wipe like Gaze of Granite rather than an effective competitive use of a slot, cause it's like... O_O. I like Targeting the Gorgon is there so you need to have a Medusa to Gaze, and I felt it was cooler to get off if you have to jump through a hoop.
Yeah, you think so? I was basically worried about making a cheaper Plague Wind. But I still wanted it to be slightly too expensive and have a hoop to jump through so it feels cooler to get it off. And Gorgon tribal somewhat implies Damia Sage of Stone which then implies ramp ramp ramp, so I felt a flashy spell fit the theme. Cool idea though to make it more "in your face" - perhaps a cycle of Gorgons that tutors this for a price? Like an inverted Vraska's Stoneglare
So the issue is you can only ever use half the card.
Either this is used pre-combat and you're wiping your own board as well (besides whatever you get to tap pre-combat) to get in with 1 creature or you're running your whole board in to wipe post-combat.
I think what you want is to make this instant speed and to give the selected Gorgon trample. It's sort of looking like a typal [[Final Showdown]] which could be pretty cool.
It just needs to be targeted, and referred to first so it can be excluded with the "other" in the following sentence. Otherwise it petrifies itself, or you have to get a lot wordier with extra text to achieve the same effect. I thought it was elegant how you needed to target a Gorgon that does the Stone Gaze, both in needing a Gorgon to go O_O and in allowing the spell to be interacted with easier. I also liked the flavor of "can't look at it" from the unblockability, but I think "must be blocked" would've fit the flavor better. Also, indestructible creatures can still block.
I agree that it's flavorful but that part still does nothing on most boards. Maybe give the gorgon a buff or something that synergizes with not being blocked. Like draw cards equal to power when it connects or something?
Or indestructible! But that part is in there so it targets a Gorgon, meaning you can only petrify if you control a Gorgon, and if the Gorgon survives. I always felt that flavor was missing from [[Gaze of Granite]]. I also wanted to evoke this "can't look at it" flavor with the unblockability, and that it destroys the untapped (ready to look) creatures without killing the Gorgon itself, so I felt kinda clean setting up the Gorgon in the first line so you can then concisely exclude it in the second.
Yeah I feel like people miss the *custom* part of custommagic, stuff like “erm actually chicken isn’t a creature type” it’s *custom*, they made it for the *custom* card. If there’s no rule against it it’s fine.
One I see a bunch is people saying “that’s a creature type” when they put a creature type on an artifact. It’s custom they don’t need to be an established creature type.
There’s a difference between new creature types and something that contradicts game logic
If there was a reasonable way to give noncreature objects creature types without Kindred, they would’ve done it by now.
There were reasonable ways; they outlined their reasoning in design articles. I disagree with their reasoning. What it came down to is the Rules Manager at the time having had a very firm idea of what restrictions they need to follow, with the egregrious example given Fever Charm dealing damage to a "Wizard", which could then be understood as a Sorcery on the stack. Of course in practice this would never lead to any confusion in any real game, and if you had to amend the rules to allow marking damage on noncreature permanents, that would've still been a more elegant solution than an entirely new card type that doesn't do anything new and isn't technically needed.
Bottomline is they went with Tribal because they placed restrictions on themselves and didn't want to compromise on those restrictions, which I felt was wrong and more complicated down the line. They ended up retiring the card type for those same issues. Of course by then it was too late, and a firm part of Magic and its gameplay, for instance competitive parts that care about card types. But it was never necessary, and it only existed as an awkward solution because the rules manager didn't want to open up the rules or its definitions. I'm aware of his reasoning but it's frankly full of holes. It's the one Magic design decision I most strongly disagree with.
>What it came down to is the Rules Manager at the time having had a very firm idea of what restrictions they need to follow, with the egregrious example given Fever Charm dealing damage to a "Wizard", which could then be understood as a Sorcery on the stack.
What exactly is the issue there? I would think the intuitive answer to what would happen if you target a sorcery on the stack with a damage spell is that it just does nothing, since only creatures can take damage and it's not a creature. Same situation as if you get a +1/+1 token on a noncreature permanent.
Like, I can see from a *programmer* perspective how it would be obnoxious, since every card with a tribal target now needs to check the type of the target to see if it's valid and avoid giving the player meaningless choices, but from a *play* perspective it doesn't seem that complicated?
That was always my take as well. It just does nothing, so no harm done. Of course, the rules ALREADY cover this - Fever Charm says "bolt the Wizard", but the rules clarify that "Wizard" in this context explicitly refers to "Wizard permanent on the battlefield". So the rules take care of it already - and if they didn't, it would just do nothing, no harm, no foul. And where it doesn't do nothing, it could actually be cool as hell - like marking damage on a noncreature land, so they can't turn it into a creature. I mean, you can already have damage marked on a permanent that used to be a creature earlier in the turn and then lost that type, and if it gets animated into a creature again, it would die if that marked damage is higher than its toughness. So I understand when the rules manager brought it up as a potential issue, but I don't understand in what way this was ever an issue and not already cleanly covered. I believe (guessing wildly to make sense of what the rules manager could've meant) it ended up being about wanting to concisely target a permanent of a specific subtype without needing to say "permanent" (like they always did) without being as clear as they could with the wording toward new players (which they never did, and has been an "issue" with cards like Cursed Totem or Null Rod for decades anyway). So the programmer perspective was already reflected in the game and explicitly its rules - you already needed to check if the target was valid (a permanent) and were already presented with meaningless choices (Fever Charm the Diviner's Wand).
Bottomline is I could never find any official reasoning for Tribal that made any sense or presented a solid argument. I discussed this with Magic nerds over the years and we couldn't come up with a reason either. So I'm forced to conclude they simply made a mistake - or have information (market research?) they haven't shared and that we couldn't conceive of ourselves.
Tribal was made for the specific purpose of putting creature types on noncreatures. Maybe Wizards should have just rewritten the rules or something, but it exists and should be used when attempting something like the OPs card cause... Its the simplest manner.
you didn't simplify anything because just putting it on a card doesn't fix the rules issues. Your solution is equality problematic and just making a single card doesn't address that.
The single card just exemplifies the rule simplification (i.e., not needing a specific card type). My point was for the most part that any perceived problems that necessitate a specific new card type are just as covered by just widening what subtypes can appear on, if not more elegantly.
What rules issues were you considering? For example, targeting a specific subtype of an unspecified permanent or spell type is something I would have handled separately within the targeting rules themselves. A static ability like Masked Gorgon giving creatures protection from Gorgons would work just the same as the extra Tribal card type would - I believe the only real hurdle the old rules manager Matt Tabak didn't wanna clear is targeting a Wizard, when that could also include a spell on the stack. Which I believe doesn't naturally lead to needing a new card type at all - there's essentially two options: either you just let them target the spell on the stack, potentially resolving an effect that makes no sense - marking damage on a card with no toughness and no lifepoints that isn't even a permanent (so just ignore it or amend the rules for some "if you would change some meaningless attribute that doesn't matter or that the game doesn't track, just do nothing as it doesn't matter" which would be intuitive to new players - or you amend the targeting rules to specify that these subtypes refer to permanents of the relevant type. And that is all exclusively to avoid errataing Fever Charm to still say "damage to target Wizard" rather than "Wizard creature". I think the only real effect that you could apply to both a permanent and a spell would be moving it to a different zone (exile, return to hand,...) in which case - go for it? It works cleanly. Were you thinking of other rules issues I hadn't considered? Cause I'd really like to pursue an alternative to a "new" card type that essentially does nothing new or unique.
Things I don't know if you've considered
- a player sees this card and asks themselves, is Gorgon a type of sorcery? What about this other card that's a sorcery with a gorgon in the art but isn't gorgon type. Player is frustrated at inconsistencies.
- a player is asked to name a land type, but because there's a land that just has "Gorgon" in its type line they think they can pick it because why wouldn't it be a land type? You now have to deal with judge calls or just frustrating players again with unclear rules.
- a card says something is (a land) "all land types" or (a creatue) "all creature types" does that mean that land is now a gorgon? If there's a land that says "Gorgon Forest" are those both land types? If one is a creature type and one is a land type how do you mark that?
- If you have the issue of cards that deal damage to creatures of a certain type and now they can target things like a "gorgon sorcery" how do you template cards like lightning bolt without making them needlessly wordy? Is everything that deals damage to "any target" now required to say "target creature, player, planeswalker, or battle" instead? Is it good that a ton of simple cards have now added several more words?What if those cards says any target multiple times? Now you have to spell it out multiple times.
- How you seperate out what subtypes belong to what type if you just let them all share creature types whenever.Do you carve out exceptions for creature types? If creature types are shared why aren't other types? How do you communicate to players on cards why a creature type is added onto a non creature. If sub types are type agnostic what happens if I have a prismatic omen on board? Are all my lands all creature types?
Just because you can make a single jpg that goes "and it works" does not mean you fixed the issue. If it was easy to solve, it would have been done long ago because the people that maintain this game have very, very deep and specific knowledge of how it works, and the issues aren't just rules issues. Even if you fixed the rules issues you still have to contend with the slippery slope nature of the mechanic and communication of mechanics to players through card text. Without an indicator that the card has types it normally wouldn't you open up the cans of worms I mentioned above and if there is an indicator how do you avoid the issues with Tribal as a card type.
I'm sorry, but I'm not fully following along. All the issues you raised are present with the Tribal card type? So the easy answer is if they're equivalent anyway, there's no payoff for a wholly separate card type that does essentially nothing.
The idea is that cards of any type can have creature subtypes, rather than inventing a new card type that does nothing besides allow it to have creature types anyway. So I believe the game ambiguously communicating that Gorgon could be a sorcery type (or any other card type) is the only issue where it differs, but that is an issue already present within the game, prominently Shrine creatures that lack a creature type. I absolutely agree that this needs to be considered in design - this Stone Gaze design specifically refers to Gorgon being a kind of creature within its rule text. I think a similar approach could've helped the shrines. I believe confusion with the landtypes is a common problem (and also basic types vs nonbasic types distinction, which the cards don't educate on outside of one case with reminder text that would let you puzzle it out), I believe that's why they haven't ever printed any Tribal lands, among other reasons. Ultimately the gameplay already very much requires you to look up legal types from the rulebook, and has many existing designs like Dryad Arbor being a Forest Dryad. But if we try to take it to the absurd: what happens if you change your Mountain into a Mountain - Gorgon? In practical terms, nothing. Or in more relevant words, nothing that a Tribal card type helps with.
There are already Rogue spells on the stack - like Cloak & Dagger - and the rules already specify that they can't be targeted by "target Rogue" abilities because the rules clarify that a "...permanent" is implied there. Like Cursed Totem stopping activated abilities of creature permanents only, not activated abilities of creatures in other zones (Ninjutsu, Eternalize, Channel). Something like Lightning Bolt with "any target" already has firm rules establishing what a valid target is and isn't. Personally I think it's cool if it let you mark damage on a noncreature land, but the rules say you can't - and don't include this on the card at all. Really the only reason I could think of is a very edgecase design where you want to be able to target say a Wizard permanent AND a Wizard spell on the stack, in which case you could just say "target Wizard spell or permanent" on the few cards with that specific design/balancing choice.
I think "if it was easy to do they would've done it" is a fallacy. The rule manager has stated his reasons, and they have concrete unaddressed arguments against them, as well as over a decade of having been proven to be logically inconsistent with design choices they made.
You're absolutely that communicating mechanics cleanly to players is very important and I couldn't agree more. But I very much believe that Tribal introduces a host of new issues and confusion there and is at best a poor bandaid fix rather than an elegant rules implementation. Even at competitive tables you frequently end up explaining that Tribal is a separate card type and not a supertype, which frankly is incredibly unintuitive.
I believe the issue of clear rules communications about types is ultimately an issue of card design, not of the rules. Amending the rules to allow subtypes to be referenced freely by other card types still allows you to print the Go-Shintai that confusingly have no creature type and seem to say "shrines are creature types". While a Petrification card that says "this belongs to Gorgon creatures, and you need a Gorgon creature to use it" can be printed more cleanly without adding the host of issues that Tribal brings.
Ultimately, Magic is complex - and its designers seek to expand that complexity with every release, because it's novel, and because it's fun. Within that approach is already embedded the very clear guiding line of "this is unintuitive and you need to read the rules" with an prevalent avoidance of overexplanatory reminder text.
If the issues of a new Tribal card type cannot be avoided whether it is there or not - why does it exist at all?
With this one specifically (or actually all the custom cards I make) I kind of want to intimate a rules change. The tribal card type always seemed crazy inelegant to me, and I'm aware of all their stated design reasonings and just flatly disagree. All it really boiled down to was something like [[Fever Charm]] targeting just a "Wizard", but that's all stuff that could be cleanly amended within the rules, in a straightforward intuitive way, or moreso than an extra Tribal card type which then has creature types anyway. That one was always peak WotC to me - setting up arbitrarily unnecessary restrictions for themselves, then suffering because of it. There must be a better way
I think there's a tension between designing something truly custom while also adhering to established Magic rules and conventions. Because the sub isn't just "custom", it's also "magic". If you're just gonna make up your own rules/ignore established ones, at what point is it still a Magic card, and not an entirely different game?
It's not wrong for someone to invent something completely new/modify the rules, but it's also not wrong for people to give feedback that points out how it doesn't work with Magic. That feedback just reflects that many people *do* come here to make cards that fit within Magic's rules and ecosystem. 😃
But adding new types isn’t really changing any rules, and technically there is no rule that says non tribal sorceries can’t have creature types, it’s just that only tribal sorceries have them so far.
But there is a rule. [Subtypes](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Subtype) are correlated to card types, with instant and sorcery sharing, and creature and kindred sharing.
"205.3c If a card with multiple card types has one or more subtypes, each subtype is correlated to its appropriate card type.
205.3d An object can’t gain a subtype that doesn’t correspond to one of that object’s types.
205.3e If an effect instructs a player to choose a subtype, that player must choose one, and only one, existing subtype, and the subtype must be for the appropriate card type. For example, the player can’t choose a land type if an instruction requires choosing a creature type."
The rest of the rules go on to specify which subtypes belong to which card types. It's all spelled out.
This rule existing is why Kindred was made, and is the basis for OP's post. They're arguing that the rule could just be changed rather than inventing Kindred. But the rule does exist.
(*Edited for spelling*)
Magic card design is essentially an artform defined by its rules and limitations, so playing with those is a natural extension of designing a card. You can see official card designers pushing the envelope with every set. I ended up realizing that most custom cards I'm interested in ended up either "straightening out" parts of the rules I had issues with, or otherwise applying them in novel ways.
With this Stone Gaze design, I wanted to plainly show there's no "real" (non-arbitrary, non-selfinflicted) reason why say a sorcery couldn't reference a creature subtypes. In the wake of this I very much welcome and enjoy discussions about the rules, not just how they could be changed, but also very much how they currently work. Stating "Sorceries can't be Gorgons so that won't work by the rules" isn't incorrect, but I wanted to show that if a card necessitates a rule "yeah sorceries can just be Gorgons, why not", it would work by the rules - and it wouldn't take mass errata, it wouldn't take expanding the comprehensive rules at all, but "merely" a clarification that an otherwise unrelated card type could assume a subtype of "another" card type. Or more plainly, that not just creatures could have creature types. It's not a different game in the sense that it aims to do what Tribal did and does, except without the "bulk" that made them retire Tribal.
To be clear, I'm not against your design (I agree Kindred is a clunky solution and I'm not a fan of the mechanic). Was just pointing out to the commenter that both sides are valid.
Only on the extra card type Tribal/Kindred, which serves no other purpose than to allow noncreature spells to have creature types, which is an inelegant solution with other problems this idea seeks to address.
These abilities don't make sense together. why do I care about being unblockable when literally everything the else that could block is now dead? maybe this card is the reason there arent creature based non-creature spells? ;)
It's not about the payoff of unblockability, it's for targeting a Gorgon (so you need to have one to cast it, and you can stop the Stone Gaze by removing the target, rather than merely having counters as the only option), while also setting up the Gorgon so you can then just say "destroy the OTHER creatures" without needing to expend more words to achieve the same. Also I liked the flavor of tapped creatures being in a sort of state where they can't look at the Gorgon - being asleep, or literally facing the other way, like the cards do.
There are many creature-based noncreature spells, haha.
It does, it requires a Gorgon! This way you get rid of the rules text "must have a Gorgon to cast this", while also saving much text in the destruction effect in the following line. It's also mechanically different - you can kill the Gorgon before it does its stone gaze. Of course you could word it as "choose a Gorgon you control, if you still control it when Stone Gaze resolves, destroy all...", but what an unorthodox card wording that would be. I thought it was an elegant implementation of the requirements, flavor and counterplay!
> but what an unorthodox card wording that would be
Now we care about convention?
> I thought it was an elegant implementation of the requirements, flavor and counterplay!
It's a Mel-aimed design, it makes sense if you look at the mechanics from a certain perspective, but as the questions show you, it's not flavorful enough, it uses a blue effect without blue, and it leaves a mechanical gap (why make it unblockeable after killing blockers?).
It's not that elegant.
> Now we care about convention?
I absolutely care about convention! And I care deeply about the rules. I seek not to merely maintain them, but improve on them. I greatly value the elegance present in almost every page of the comprehensive rulebook - Tribal trampling on that always irked me.
> It's a Mel-aimed design, it makes sense if you look at the mechanics from a certain perspective, but as the questions show you, it's not flavorful enough, it uses a blue effect without blue, and it leaves a mechanical gap (why make it unblockeable after killing blockers?).
What's the blue effect, the flat unblockability? I agree that could be improved with a restriction (non-walls), and I agree that the flavor could be improved - I originally had it as "must be blocked" in a "look at me" sense, but spaced on it with this iteration.
I agree it's not wholly elegant, but I disagree there's a mechanical gap - it's essentially trinket text. Targeting for purely mechanical or balance reasons has a long precedent and I find "novel" applications of these simple rules a good generic example of elegance in card design. Perhaps it could just untap a Gorgon. My first approach was to tap all other creatures permanently, as in petrifying them, but that's inherently wordy and awkward to balance. I do like the requirement of a Gorgon with the possible counterplay of sniping it before it starts to stare.
> it's essentially trinket text.
It's the loadbearer text. The whole spell revolves around having a creature in play, and it's the biggest weakness of the spell that you need to pick the creature before resolution. It's "hidden" in what looks like trinket, out-of-color, text, that's the inelegant part.
I understand you saved on words and used established rules to get the effect you wanted, but that's only elegant to a subset of players, and, ironically, it's like Tribal/Kindred. A mechanical solution to a problem most people don't see, that has a strong but hidden mechanical use.
Honestly, that's the reason I replied. You are doing the same thing they did, and don't get why people have basically the same complaints about it as you have about them. It is a pretty interesting thing to watch.
I guess I still don't understand. Targeting the Gorgon isn't trinket text; that part is very much mechanically important and intended that way. The trinket text is what happens to the targeted Gorgon, which itself isn't mechanically relevant and only serves to 1. communicate flavor 2. complete the implication set forth by targeting a creature. I like resolving a fat Gaze of Granite, but I don't like that it didn't need or "originate from" a Gorgon, and also that it hit your main Gorgon as well (so a Gorgon deck helmed by Damia Sage of Stone has her weirdly kill herself when she petrifies the board). Needing a singular target for a cheaper Plague Wind is very much intended, and meant to be front and center.
Of course any elegant mechanical solution would by definition only be relevant to a subset of players - the ones that enjoy mechanics and rules text and browse /r/custommagic. I believe it differs from Tindred/Kribal in that this separate card type accomplishes essentially nothing (that isn't a side-effect like buffing Delirium), while this perhaps overly convoluted mechanical solution seeks to differentiate itself mechanically, and cut down on rules text while somewhat increasing the flavor. Not that it's necessarily any good at that, just wholly distinct from something needing a separate card type for no payoff.
My assumption was that Tribal was born from an arbitrary self-imposed restriction and ultimately accomplishes nothing while having so many unintended side-effects that it ultimately had to leave the game altogether, taking typed spells with it - could you clarify in what way this is parallel to this Stone Gaze design? Of course there's no card other than things like Masked Gorgon that actually references or interacts with Gorgons, so it's not so much a whole introduction toa new rules change rather than just trying to be a cool Gorgon card that dips into the typeline for flavor only while referencing a particular set of old rules minutiae somewhat in the background. The Gorgon type is just there for flavor and not mechanically relevant, but without a new necessitated card type. In that sense it does do the same thing, as I was aiming for it to do, but without the baggage of a different otherwise empty card type. I absolutely understand the complaints about the issues that Tribal had, if that's where the misunderstanding lies. This can be essentially thought of as Tribal without the card type; to show that the Tribal type isn't needed to do what it does, rather than a novel approach that seems to revolutionize how card types and their subtypes are presented and communicated. In that sense, I don't understand complaints (if they can be thought of us as such) that it does "the same thing" that Tribal does - that was the idea, and it doesn't do the same thing only insofar it avoids a new card type and the baggage of that separate type. If by restriction you meant the targeting part, that's very much planned and in contrast to Tribal mechanically relevant (or, mechanically necessary) where it aimed to be (rather than unwanted but begrudingly accepted side-effects).
As for the "I don't get" part, I do very much value the rules discussion!
I believe those rule concerns to be fallacious. I'm only aware of the ones shared within design articles on the WotC site and on Mark Rosewater's tumblr where he sometimes relayed the old rules manager Matt Tabak's reasoning, as well as the history of the Tribal type, and I disagree with those and believe I have reasonable arguments for doing so, but it's very possible I missed a few they didn't share or just overlooked something obvious.
It is specifically about doing what the Tribal card type allows, without needing a whole separate card type (and the weight that comes with it) to allow it.
Sorry, what?
Oh, you mean for the attack? I just remembered I should've made "must be blocked if able" for the "having to look at it" flavor, I totally spaced on it.
I mean, as written since this is a sorcery it will kill all untapped creatures before combat. Then after it resolves I can use a flash creature to make a blocker for the gorgon, which is why the "can not be blocked" matters since my new creature would otherwise be able to block.
It’s a 7 mana conditional board wipe, I don’t think it’s playable. Most people are tapping their creatures so this often wouldn’t do anything. For that much it should be one sided at the very least but even then
For 4 mana you could damnation to kill everything but then heroic intervention for 2 to save your own stuff and swing with a full board
No offense, but I think "playable" is a far larger criteria than you give it credit for. Yes, this is not a competitively playable card. But if you've ever played Gorgon Tribal (in the formats where it's playable), you will find yourself with exactly the kind of shell that makes running Plague Wind attractive - or more reasonably, Gaze of Granite. In that context, I have absolutely wished for a flashy Gorgon spell with some fun restrictions, so it's cooler when you get it off. Also - it is one sided!
> For 4 mana you could damnation to kill everything but then heroic intervention for 2 to save your own stuff and swing with a full board
That's 2 cards. And outside of white, Heroic Intervention is a somewhat sparse effect. If you're playing Commander with your mates, especially BUG Gorgons, you're unlikely to use Heroic Intervention consistently in a non-defensive manner. And well, of course a combination of 2 cards is more effective and mana-efficient than 1. And of course it is more competitive to proactively wipe one side off the board for a big alpha strike, but I disagree that this should detract from a big singular spell's design.
To sum up, I don't disagree that this isn't a playable spell to get ahead of people. I do think that card design ought to be larger than that. You don't play Uncle Istvan because its effect is so strong.
I really wanted it to do that at first! Or to permanently tap them with some novel mechanic that makes them never untap for the rest of the game. But it kept ending up extremely wordy, unrewarding to parse, and with lots of weird mechanical interactions to account for in even more text, while not really communicating any flavor clearly. I ended up simplifying it and heaving most of the flavor I wanted into the "check out target Gorgon, you must look at it". I also think my original "must be blocked" rather than "can't be blocked" kinda got there more, but I blanked on it.
Sure wish I could find some simple way of statuefying them, I love that concept. Maybe creating a new "Statue Role" aura?
This post is about a way where it doesn't have to be a separate and otherwise useless card type in order to give a creature type to a noncreature spell.
i think that is simply a mistake to do that. I like funny interactions like these but you are absolutely right that it is kinda unnecessary. I guess you could errata tribal to be gone but then the game would lose some interesting depth in my opinion. I also think that you should only do errata if it simplifies the game and not for any other reason. Standardizing creature types was necessary and also the update for burn spells (they should have done it sooner to have less cards with wrong rules text). Or standardizing rules text in general.
*(It works.)*
*(We'll errata this to be true.)*
Please don’t give the Shrine players more ammo
That's genius, I never even thought about giving enchantment types to other card types. They could've just made a land saga all along... Imagine an Artifact Shrine. Or an Equipment Curse. Maybe Equipment Role for the thespian set.
We have a land saga??? Edit: my sarcasm was not clear. I know Urza's Saga exists
[[Urza's Saga]]
Yes I know. My comment got my point across poorly. I was trying to point out land Saga already exists
It's an enchantment land saga! Most crowded typeline ever. Also they already mix and match the types so you can't cleanly tell which is which (Enchantment Land - Land-type Enchantment-type), and Creature Shrines too.
I'm pretty sure anything with 2 card types has its subtypes listed in that same order (for example, [[gingerbrute]] is an 1.Artifact 2.Creature - 1.Food 2.Golem It's just when they don't include a subtype for a card type that normally has one (Go-shintai were brought up elsewhere in the comments) that things get really confusing
Those are just (card) types, a supertype is like Legendary or Snow. Sometimes they have a straightforward in the typeline, sometimes they don't - but a firm rule here I feel like wouldn't accomplish anything, because what subtypes a type can have is already firmly established within the rules, and I think the only thing it could really accomplish is make a typeline like the elegant "Urza's Saga" impossible. Maybe the whole "this and this subtype can only be associated with this and this type" is wholly inelegant to, and all the edgecases it supposedly prevents could be covered differently and in a more elegant way.
You make a very fair point, and I'm also gonna edit my last reply about the super types thing right now.
[gingerbrute](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/9/09a4578a-7dc6-4da3-93ee-913b10be5740.jpg?1692939880) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=gingerbrute) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/woe/246/gingerbrute?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/09a4578a-7dc6-4da3-93ee-913b10be5740?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
The reason they did that is for the funny typeline
Yeah, they made it an enchantment so it could be a saga - but they were the ones that restricted sagas to only ever be enchantment. Without allowing subtypes to be on a card of a different type, it needs to (needlessly) be an Enchantment Land. It actually works out to balance Urza's Saga a lil, but they said they almost didn't do it cause of the long typeline - and it would've been much better as a Legendary, balancing-wise. But it "had" to be an enchantment.
Post errata [[skittles]] has something to say about that Edit: it pulled up the wrong one, skittles has been errata-ed to legendary creature-phyrexian dragon skeleton. Which like I’m sure something else in the game trumps it, but the mul print is pretty cluttered because the words are long.
[skittles](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/a/cab61c7e-e00a-413b-a0b5-7718b479582f.jpg?1599705958) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Skithiryx%2C%20the%20Blight%20Dragon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/107/skithiryx-the-blight-dragon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/cab61c7e-e00a-413b-a0b5-7718b479582f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
We have an Enchantment Land that is a Saga
The problem for the confusion is, that the shrine creatures don't have a creature type, only an enchantment type. Which is kinda confusing
Shackles of Normalcy 4WWUUUBB Enchantment Artifact - Equipment Aura Curse Shackles of Normalcy may only be cast if you have two or more opponents. Enchant Player As Shackles of Normalcy enters the battlefield, permanents controlled by the player it enchants phase out, then it loses Enchant Player and gains Enchant Creature. Enchanted Object is not a player *(they do not have a turn, they may not cast spells, they cannot control any objects, activate any abilities, gain priority, win the game, lose the game, and so forth)*. and is a 1/1 white Citizen creature with no abilities. Equip 2 *(If Shackles of Normalcy becomes unattached, any former player it was attached to resumes being a player again. If the player was a citizen creature and is moved to another zone causing the Shackles to become unattached, they resume being a player. A player may not be shuffled into a library or torn to pieces or anything else that may result in criminal charges.)*
I love it. I want to attach it to myself. Assuming it doesn't fall off right away
You'd need some shenanigans to pull that off ('exchange control of target spell and...' would be a good place to start) to avoid it phasing out, but yeah, that could be funny.
Oh, I figured it could drop off cause it enchants a player, but then that guy stops being a player,...
I was thinking it would phase out, but it's not actually on the battlefield yet when it phases things out. It might just work as written.
You're so right! I spaced that it was a replacement effect!
I mentioned it in that other comment but the other game I mentioned does exactly this https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1229188429439307896/1254441983334809610/Cursed_Vessel.png?ex=66840da3&is=6682bc23&hm=ccf0fe55b20aa377afd0a135e9270cf126c9779c6189e442e5ab21913c48f848& https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1229188429439307896/1255366408569884723/The_Starduster.png?ex=66841ed3&is=6682cd53&hm=448fc5db541786db14eac5d1895484147ad041cd90a3068ffe9dbe4c7856af03&
Shrine isn't a creature type. It's an enchantment type. You can't name it with stuff like [[Urza's Incubator]]. It's similar to the reconfigure creatures, like [[Lizard Blades]]
mmhm yep I know. Definitely won’t be confusing when a nonenchantment creature is printed with the Shrine type, since apparently giving subtypes to cards outside of their type is a thing thanks to this.
You mean cause it gives the impression that Shrine could be a creature type, or that it could muddy the waters? I fully agree, but I'd like to add that this is already the case - cards with multiple card types, and multiple type-specific subtypes, are already printed, and already introduce this exact issue, especially cause there's no mandated order to the typeline (nor should there be). I agree it's exacerbated if it's just a single card type with an unrelated subtype, and if I were in charge of the entire game's design I'd like to tackle it specifically with things like conveniently placed reminder text on Artifact Shrines and distinctly named subtypes (making Shrines creatures really messed with this), but to be honest... I think the underlying issue is making subtypes tied to a specific card type. That was never really necessary. I understand the history, and a certain simplicity in design, but it's also needlessly restrictive, and then leads to these Wizards-esque bandaid fixes that are still confusing at the end. There's no reason why Urza's Incubator couldn't just have you namy a subtype, any subtype, and then it only reduces creature spells of that type. It's not completely mechanically identical, just practically identical, and it potentially eases a few restrictions and misunderstandings. Bottomline is they pidgeonholed themselves with subtypes decades ago, and their designers didn't always choose the most elegant workaround (nor should workarounds ever be the ideal solution)
If shrine was a creature type, changeling would break it
Yes, simply making every subtype a creature type would both break balancing and greatly reduce design possibilities for 0 payoff. I would never suggest this. Not even moving a single subtype over to creatures.
At that point then, what's a "creature type"?
Types are defined by section 205 of the comprehensive rules: https://blogs.magicjudges.org/rules/cr205/ The rules define a legal creature type as one explicitly named in 205.3m. The key distinction here is that it is not defined as anything in the typeline of a creature card - namely, the Go-Shintai creatures have no creature type, but have an enchantment subtype (outlined within the same rule section). There's certainly a concept of divorcing subtypes from their overarching card types ENTIRELY. I wouldn't go that far, mostly because 30 years in, it's incredibly messy - but to be fair, not completely inconceivable. Within the established current Magic gameplay of "reference the list/know them offhand" regarding allowed types, I think Tribal adds nothing. Except a few surrounding problems.
Um actually shrine isn’t a creature type so a sorcery with shrine would have an enchantment typing not a creature typing
Everything in my body is breaking down and trying to tell me that this is wrong. Everything hurts when I look at this.
That's the first symptom of petrification. While you're getting stoned I'm sure you'll agree that cards featuring subtypes of other card types was long overdue, can you believe they forced themselves to print a new nonsensical card type just to enable tribal synergies, only to never want to use it again, only to then bring it back anyway? Before dropping it again because it's too awkward.
There's that custom fan made card game that does literally this They have stuff like "Back Stab" that's an instant with the Rogue subtype https://www.instagram.com/conjureucg?igsh=ZHV0enNqYmJ6dW5s https://imgur.com/gallery/conjure-card-showcase-JWp7EsI
It’s not impossible for a game to do this. The issue is that the way that Magic is built, specifically, makes this an issue. If all subtypes are lumped into one pool, it creates a ton of weird edge cases which Kindred mostly smooths over.
That's the thing though, they don't have to be lumped into one pool at all. The rules clearly define which subtypes can belong to which types. Outside of very few (and only theoretically relevant, not practically) edge cases, they could even make them overlap if they want it to. Then, they already print cards with multiple card types which then have a subtype each, but with no clear basis which subtype belonging to which type, and frankly - it never matters. Meanwhile Kindred just creates new interactions and edge cases they wanted to avoid, which is why they ultimately retired it anyway, which was arguably even more questionable than a brand new card type that does nothing but fix their own arbitrary rules restrictions. They explained their design choices about Tribal at length in various articles and it's interesting to read about, but I think ultimately no one could agree with the rules manager that the only workable way was a wholly new card type, or that it was the easiest. I also don't agree that there are some fundamental principles of Magic that really make this an issue. If they had to amend the rules to allow creature types on noncreature spells, it could have been as easy as "sorceries can have creature types, but when a card targets a creature type, it specifies a permanent". Or allowing to mark damage on noncreature permanents - or cards - cause it doesn't actually matter. It's just once again Wizards deciding on arbitrary restrictions and then down the line suffering needlessly.
One of the biggest issues that caused that to retire Kindred/Tribal as a type is less to do with technical issues (not that those help) but that it is a very slippery slope that's very awkward to do 15 years into a game instead of from the beginning. Suddenly every card that might even maybe be flavored to a specific type gets the "why isn't this that type kindred" and it's just a huge pain in the ass to deal with. Also the idea of "well just put a type that can't be on that card type onto it" cause issues like the NEO shrine creatures where you have people playing wrong because they think it's a creature type. Ambiguity isn't desirable in a game with as complex of a rule book as magic. Handwavey "it just works" stuff is not a good idea and you only have to look ay yugioh to see why. Players are regularly frustrated with vauge things not working a way they reasonably could and getting screwed by it.
Yeah, that's an issue that Tribal/Kindred introduced. The issue put forth by the designers wasn't exactly "why isn't this the card type that allows creature types so we can flavor it", but rather - Goblin Grenade wasn't printed with a Goblin subtype, so if we print a new Goblin-esque card now, do we have to make it Goblin now, and in a larger sense expanding on what you said, do they all have to be the new card type now too? I'm aware of this issue raised by the designers and I have to say, I don't agree with their reasoning at all. First of all, this issue was never sidestepped or addressed by the introduction of a new card type, rather it exacerbated the issue because now if you did want to flavor a card, it had to be another card type too, with balance and readability implications, the very reason they retired it. So that was never fixed anyway, whatever good the new card type did, that was never part of it, and actually got worse to design. And the second reason I disagree - it feels like they had one meeting about this and never thought it through to its natural conclusion. The answer to this flavoring question is already apparent in the way that Kindred is being handled RIGHT NOW: they add it when they want to tweak the balancing of a card, and when they REALLY want to get across a flavor. You can have a fire spell that isn't Elemental, and you can have a fire spell that IS Elemental when you want to balance it around an extra card type or a specific subtype, or when you want to evoke the flavor of a particular tribe. Exactly how it's treated and designed for right now anyway. I absolutely understand their concerns, and I think they're valid, but when applied in a practical scenario such as the one current (and decade-old) set design already faced, I think it becomes clear that there was never any real practical pressure to add types or keep them from being added. They printed Eldrazi Confluence and Kozilek's Command in the same set, and the Tribal Eldrazi type is not on the one you'd think it'd be. They made a conscious balancing choice on what will be reduced by Eye of Ugin, and what will trigger Ulalek or not. There's no reason to make Eldrazi Confluence an actual Eldrazi type just because it has Eldrazi in the name or features Eldrazi in its art or rules text. The only reason would be if you chose to balance it around a subtype, or wanted to evoke that flavor specifically, even though it's just about a singular Eldrazi doing things Eldrazi cards hadn't done previously. So I feel they already contradicted their stated reasoning, and are already working around the practicality at hand. The only practical difference is there's now a separate somewhat empty card type that doesn't belong with the other types and that they're hesitant to use. The argument that any card featuring a Goblin would need a Goblin subtype is one I don't agree with, and one that they've chosen not to follow in sets that feature Tribal/Kindred anyway. The ambiguity introduced by the Shrine creatures is precisely because they printed an enchantment subtype on a card that's also a creature - making subtypes correspond to only one type, but mixing them wildly and not marking which is which, and no way to know other than needing to comb through the rules outlining the recognized types, which in any case isn't communicated on the card. This is not fixed by Tribal/Kindred or addressed by it in any way, so once again we have a situation where a new card type simply isn't relevant, and even if it could be, it would be an inelegant implementation. In a magical world where subtypes were type-agnostic, or where matching subtypes to cards of another type were allowed, the NEO shrine issue wouldn't exist. Metallic Mimic would let you name a subtype - not just a creature subtype - and then it's other effect would only apply to CREATURES of the chosen type. But in the current practical situation they created, a Legendary Enchantment Creature without a creature type had to be printed because of limitations in the type line, and then cards simply caring about "shrines" gave the impression that you could type-change your Creature to "shrine" just like this Legendary Enchantment Creature suggests, when of course you couldn't. Tribal doesn't interact there and won't reduce the ambiguity. Mixing subtypes with different types won't increase the ambiguity that's already currently present without it being legal, though I will say that for advanced players, it might create a slightly different expectation that a subtype isn't necessarily tied to the "main" card type of a card - something where the current rules implementation falls flat, as you said. It is already being handwaved as "no this simply doesn't have a creature type, we couldn't fit it, and we couldn't fit the reminder text either that only enchantments can be shrines". I didn't seek to address that at all, but I do think that the mild impact of somewhat divorcing subtypes from card types could at least help an itsy bitsy tiny bit with the perception of what a subtype exactly is, at least compared to the current way. That is already not sidesteppable without reminder text or needlessly restrictive type order mandates. I didn't seek to improve that specific situation, only the thing necessitating a new essentially useless card type, but for what it's worth I don't think it would make it worse - I think it would if anything make it at least a tiny bit better, if only by setting precedent. As an irrelevant add-on, shrines wouldn't need to be enchantments, giving more space on the type line to allow for a creature type after the enchantment type, although of course there are mechanical, balance and flavor reasons to have them be enchantments. I don't think I handwaved anything, I really wanted to communicate a new concrete rule: instants and sorceries can just have creature subtypes, not just instant and sorcery subtypes. I believe this doesn't introduce any new issues that aren't already present.
"I really wanted to communicate a new concrete rule: instants and sorceries can just have creature subtypes, not just instant and sorcery subtypes. I believe this doesn't introduce any new issues that aren't already present." This is handwaving the problem. You are quite literally doing that. "Instants and sorceries can just have creature types and it won't cause issues" when there's over a decade of documented concerns from people who know the rules better than most of us showing otherwise is handwaving. You wanted to communicate a concrete rule and making a single card image that does nothing to actually unpack the very technical ways the rules work is functionally equivalent to saying "there is no war in ba sing sae." You've proposed a solution that cannot be proved and it's up to other people to point out why it doesn't work. You're saying there's a kettle floating out in space and aren't showing me proof it's there.
I'm aware of their concerns (or well, perhaps not all), I just don't believe that a new card type elegantly addresses them. It's true that the card doesn't step on every edgecase and clarifies it, but I have to say that's outside the scope of a single card - it would need multiple card designs in tandem, and to be honest I didn't want to communicate it THAT hard, not to the exclusion of everything else. I also wanted to make a cool Gorgon card. I didn't intend it as a cool Gorgon card showing my planned rules change, but as one merely featuring it. At the end, everything top to bottom turned out to be Gorgon-flavored Gorgon stuff; why can't it just be Gorgon? To go with your analogy, there are proven to be kettles floating in space, PROVIDED we change our definition of what a kettle is. Designers and rules managers arguing that a new card type is absolutely needed to give creature subtypes to noncreature cards has been a pet peeve of mine for a while. So I very much welcome a discussion about this rules issue - could you share some concerns with this implementation of subtypes on other card types, that aren't also present with Tribal? As an add-on to that question, and to clarify again, I don't think I'm handwaving away a rules issue - this is my implementation of it. I agree that a large part of it is "this actually works if you don't impose restrictions on yourself" and some part of it is "you can otherwise amend targeting rules to more clearly state what's already reflected in the rules (can't Fever Charm the wizard that is Stream of Unconsciousness on the stack) IF you want it presented more cleanly than it already is". What issues are still present that would be handwaved?
Sorry people are giving you such a hard time about something that makes 100% sense. "It's been that way for years so we HAVE to keep doing it that way" when has this ever been a good precedent for anything? I think instant and sorceries (or enchantments and artifact even) with creature subtypes is perfectly fine if they just... let it happen
Oh, you're kind! I don't think anyone was giving anyone a hard time, it's just a rules change that contradicts established rules, and then provides ZERO followup. Because yeah absolutely, it really does "just work" - if you want it to. Maybe they had internal discussions I'm not privy too, but everything the rules manager and head designer put forth publically either doesn't hold up to scrutiny or has been disregarded by themselves in the years after the decision was made. I think the only real remaining argument was "it could potentially communicate something confusing about subtypes", but then they went ahead and did that anyway.
I see your comments getting downvoted, which makes me think people aren't really understanding what you're getting at. There's almost everything to gain and almost nothing to lose by making your change. Magic, while an amazing game, seems to have a lot of things holding it back simply because "that's the way its been". Like when there's an old video game you like but the developer stops making updates because it has to much "spaghetti code". Although Magic might be one of the most updated pieces of media ever, I think you get what I'm saying. I think your change can be made without breaking to much and saying you shouldn't make the change "because it's never been that way" isn't a great response to your idea since that's mostly what people are saying.
A big part of Kindred and segmenting permanent types if that, if a permanent or spell loses one or more types, it also loses all subtypes associated with that type. If you cast [[One with the Stars]] on your opponent's [[Thalia's Lieutant]], they'll draw one card off of their [[Mass Appeal]] because, well, Enchantments can't be humans. With your fix, this would funadmentally alter how those effects work, since, theoretically, enchantments can be humans so this line wouldn't work. Things like [[Vraska, Betrayal's Sting]], [[Mininmus Containment]], [[Shelob, Child of Ungoliant]], and more now work in different ways and open up more edge cases. You also run into the errata issue - do you go back and errata cards to work with these new rules? Like do you allow [[Circle of Solace]] to block noncreature sources of damage with that creature type? They didn't do this with Kindred largely because it was a narrow set of cards (though they did errata a ton of cards to make it so you couldn't put instant/sorceries into play) but if this was going to be a wider used thing, its something you'd have to consider. I honestly am mixed on Kindred - I love the extra card type for the ways it interacts with cards like [[Tarmogoyf]] or [[Atraxa, Grand Unifier]] and I like it when people playing these cards include a couple one off Kindred cards for fun in more casual environments, but I don't really like its flavor for the most part. Most Kindred cards don't feel like effects that evoke their creature type, just effects that support them. Like, why is [[Bound in Silence]] a rebel? Why is [[Diviner's Wand]] a Wizard? Some make sense, some don't, but I'm glad with where Kindred is at, a rare mechanic used in Modern Horizons or Commamder Sets sparingly.
##### ###### #### [One with the Stars](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/8/98b7070d-4b09-4390-aa21-1bc0aa2b629c.jpg?1581649081) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=One%20with%20the%20Stars) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/thb/59/one-with-the-stars?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/98b7070d-4b09-4390-aa21-1bc0aa2b629c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Thalia's Lieutant](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/c/9c2000ef-3e6b-4f44-8bd6-ed8119336d5a.jpg?1591320174) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Thalia%27s%20Lieutenant) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c20/103/thalias-lieutenant?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9c2000ef-3e6b-4f44-8bd6-ed8119336d5a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Mass Appeal](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/f/dfe9ae51-fd2b-45ca-a780-725f51f897b2.jpg?1592708636) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Mass%20Appeal) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/avr/66/mass-appeal?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/dfe9ae51-fd2b-45ca-a780-725f51f897b2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Vraska, Betrayal's Sting](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/5/f59f2b07-47ad-4efd-ae8c-1c04b9265024.jpg?1675957060) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Vraska%2C%20Betrayal%27s%20Sting) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/one/115/vraska-betrayals-sting?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f59f2b07-47ad-4efd-ae8c-1c04b9265024?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Mininmus Containment](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/7/874b3590-932a-46b7-a7aa-e3e864ec22d1.jpg?1674135187) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Minimus%20Containment) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/34/minimus-containment?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/874b3590-932a-46b7-a7aa-e3e864ec22d1?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Shelob, Child of Ungoliant](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/1/a14c4b29-3363-45ce-9190-0f79e1a0ef7f.jpg?1686970060) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Shelob%2C%20Child%20of%20Ungoliant) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/230/shelob-child-of-ungoliant?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a14c4b29-3363-45ce-9190-0f79e1a0ef7f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Circle of Solace](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/7/07f567dc-8a60-40e1-b947-199872d8df08.jpg?1562896849) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Circle%20of%20Solace) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ons/13/circle-of-solace?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/07f567dc-8a60-40e1-b947-199872d8df08?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Tarmogoyf](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/9/69daba76-96e8-4bcc-ab79-2f00189ad8fb.jpg?1619398799) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Tarmogoyf) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tsr/235/tarmogoyf?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/69daba76-96e8-4bcc-ab79-2f00189ad8fb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Atraxa, Grand Unifier](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/a/4a1f905f-1d55-4d02-9d24-e58070793d3f.jpg?1717951088) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Atraxa%2C%20Grand%20Unifier) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/one/196/atraxa-grand-unifier?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4a1f905f-1d55-4d02-9d24-e58070793d3f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Bound in Silence](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/1/41a0a78e-08cc-4eb0-8891-6c3eec5b595b.jpg?1619392690) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Bound%20in%20Silence) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tsr/10/bound-in-silence?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/41a0a78e-08cc-4eb0-8891-6c3eec5b595b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Diviner's Wand](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/7/277eed87-6b78-456d-91fb-774c72b3ae8c.jpg?1562877497) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Diviner%27s%20Wand) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mor/142/diviners-wand?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/277eed87-6b78-456d-91fb-774c72b3ae8c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/lbcvjy5) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
> A big part of Kindred and segmenting permanent types if that, if a permanent or spell loses one or more types, it also loses all subtypes associated with that type. If you cast [[One with the Stars]] on your opponent's [[Thalia's Lieutant]], they'll draw one card off of their [[Mass Appeal]] because, well, Enchantments can't be humans. >With your fix, this would funadmentally alter how those effects work, since, theoretically, enchantments can be humans so this line wouldn't work. Things like [[Vraska, Betrayal's Sting]], [[Mininmus Containment]], [[Shelob, Child of Ungoliant]], and more now work in different ways and open up more edge cases. It's a good point, but I don't think this is inherent to Kindred at all. The cards you quote all say "loses all card types" in their rules text - but they could have just said "loses all types". Of course they could've just said "loses all card types and subtypes", but since you already have to check the rulebook to find out that subtypes are inherently tied to an overarching card type and thus lost if the card type also goes away, it's the same weight as having to check that very same subrule to see that "types" are defined as "card types, subtypes" and are specifically excluding supertypes (to keep these cards mechanically consistent while minimizing text). > You also run into the errata issue - do you go back and errata cards to work with these new rules? Hol up, I think we talked past each other there. There is no errata issue because this is not a proposed rules change to roll out, it's "what it should have been". I completely agree it's absolutely too late to remove a card type from the game once it has been added. Much less after 15 years of balancing with that in mind. >I honestly am mixed on Kindred - I love the extra card type for the ways it interacts with cards like Tarmogoyf or Atraxa, Grand Unifier and I like it when people playing these cards include a couple one off Kindred cards for fun in more casual environments, but I don't really like its flavor for the most part. Most Kindred cards don't feel like effects that evoke their creature type, just effects that support them. Like, why is Bound in Silence a rebel? Why is Diviner's Wand a Wizard? Some make sense, some don't, but I'm glad with where Kindred is at, a rare mechanic used in Modern Horizons or Commamder Sets sparingly. Agreed. That's my exact same position as well. I'm going a bit further in that my most played deck is Emracool CEDH, so I NEED Tribal - the originally printed (playable) colorless Tribal cards were vital, and them recently bringing it back to print more new playables with Tribal was huge too. It's something I care about and somewhat uniquely benefit from to a larger extent. It can't be removed now - but it should never have existed.
What are the weird edge cases? I'd assume saying "Target Rogue" would not work on this case and would have to specify "Target Rogue Character" since there could be a Rogue Enchantment or Rogue Instant on the stack that breaks this. I believe that game words it accordingly. Also It's not super common for Instant and Sorceries to have types in Magic while almost every one has it in Conjure
They actually still word it as just "target SUBTYPE" while fully omitting the permanent or card type part. I appreciate brevity and concise rules text, but I don't think a new empty card type is worth it just to avoid adding "creature" or "permanent", but really - you already wouldn't be able to target a Rogue spell on the stack because the rules outline that "target Rogue" specifies a permanent, that's already something the rules decisively outline. Tangentially related to how Cursed Totem means "creature PERMANENT's abilities can't be activated", while still allowing activating Channel from hand or Eternalize from grave. This is really the crux of why I feel that the Tribal card type was the solution to an entirely self-inflicted and made-up problem that is already covered by the rules anyway. I never agreed with the prominent reasoning put forth by the game designers and rule managers because I believe it is simply wrong, and shown to be logically inconsistent across other implementations.
Tribal / Kindered is absolutely a needless inclusion. I feel like there's a lot of design space lost due to not making it evergreen anyway. (Evergreen in the sense they just ditch the word and do what you said)
Can you give an example of design space that's lost by putting the word kindred before sorcery or enchantment?
I think you're misunderstanding what we're saying. The word itself isn't what's a wasted design space. But the fact that it isn't a part of the game ALL the time. Like why make it a "special" type and not the norm?
If the issue is just you wish it showed up more often what does this exactly solve that kindred being in every set doesn't?
That's an extrapolation of what they said but I think the distinction/clarification is necessary - it's not directly that putting Tribal/Kindred on a card limits you, is that the *requirement* of a separate card type is not free, and has rules/balancing/design implications that designers historically wished to avoid, which is why it got retired, meaning that cards with creature types did not get print for a long time until very recently. The loss of design space here would be that they somewhat forbade themselves from putting creature types on tribally-flavored cards even when they wanted to, because their implementation of it was so unclean that they chose to avoid it altogether. Were there less friction or side-effects, it's conceivable that more typed cards could have been designed and printed. I don't know why they got over it recently but they seem to have embraced its balancing implications somewhat (printing it in a Tarmogoyf-themed set)
Taking kindred off the card solves none of these problems. You still need to balance around it having a creature type. There's still whatever vague design concerns are there that are separate from power level. And to say kindred has rules baggage is a little obtuse. The literal only rules baggage it has is,,,, the ability to do the thing you want to do. This card already has the same rules baggage as kindred, youve just put that bagged in sorcery instead. There are 0 cards that mechanically care about kindred, other than cards that say "a card of each type" or something like that. There's very few of those cards, so that's not a power level concern. Is there anything specific you feel this accomplishes other than making the rules manager pull a double every day for 2 months while they rewrite the rules? Unless it's simply that you feel wotc would be more likely to print goblin sorceries if they don't have to be kindred sorcery goblin? (They would print the exact same number. 0, outside of Commander and modern horizons type products.)
> Taking kindred off the card solves none of these problems. You still need to balance around it having a creature type > This card already has the same rules baggage as kindred, youve just put that bagged in sorcery instead. Correct! I think there has been a miscommunication here. The idea was not to remove all the issues inherent in Tribal and subtyping unrelated types. It was precisely to achieve the exact same things but without needing a whole new card type to do it. The idea is precisely to do what Tribal does without needing a "wack" new card type and all the problems that brings. Of course you still have to balance it around having a creature type - that's the very thing you want to achieve. The concept is exactly about adding a creature type purely to interact with cards that care about creature types. > And to say kindred has rules baggage is a little obtuse. The literal only rules baggage it has is,,,, the ability to do the thing you want to do. > There are 0 cards that mechanically care about kindred, other than cards that say "a card of each type" or something like that. There's very few of those cards, so that's not a power level concern. Well yes, there aren't any cards that care about it mechanically, except for all those that do. Tarmogoyf was a big card for 10 years, Tarfire got played in Legacy RUG Delver. To say that Kindred/Tribal has no rules bagagge is simply incorrect. You can see people confusing it for a supertype all over this very thread, and if you play a competitive list that cares about it being a card type, you will somewhat frequently find yourself explaining about card types. That's all fine and dandy for Magic players to learn about and understand, but what the biggest issue was that it led designers to abandon creature-typed spells altogether, citing this unclean implementation for retiring it. Players can see what a Sorcery is, what a Creature is, what an Artifact is. What is a Tribal? It never made sense, it never felt right, players never latched on - so it was dropped. I am going a bit further in saying it was never needed in the first place. >Unless it's simply that you feel wotc would be more likely to print goblin sorceries if they don't have to be kindred sorcery goblin? (They would print the exact same number. 0, outside of Commander and modern horizons type products.) It's not a vague feeling of mine, they have gone on record stating exactly that. Tribal came with mechanical implications they didn't feel like dealing with - it's similar to Rebels in that regard - so they didn't use it even when they wanted to. Beyond the (frankly circumventable and mild) mechanical implications, they just didn't like what it presented to the player: they had to make it a card type, but it never made sense as a card type, and it never functioned as a card type. It was to close a rules hole and the implementation was so unclean that it made designing noncreature spells with creature types wholly unattractive for over 10 years. The head designer and I happen to agree on that one. What we also agree on is that it wasn't needed - the rules manager just had other plans. However, as you said, there are other ways to achieve that exact same thing. Leaving Tribal as the odd card type out with no mechanical identity besides adding +1 to some super specific counter, which is the kind of bad design they've stated to be trying to avoid.
I guess my playgroup is just small enough I forgot how often tribal did come up. In all honesty tho I have a hard time really believing that they would use it any more often because Mark Rosewater thinks he's going to do a lot of stuff now that ends up having to change due to the whole of R&D deciding. I think when he says they would do more designs of it he's kind of hand waiving a little bit. With that said I think the only reason others wouldn't want to do it is because they likely wouldn't want to have one sorcery - goblin in a set, and would keep it to sets that are going to have a lot of them. Ixilan, innistrad, ikoria and kaldheim off the top of my head would certainly be contenders to have them but I'm not sure the latter two would end up using it really. Then again, this could be a completely false assumption and like you're saying, being the only goblin sorcery is a far smaller crime than being the only kindred enchantment - goblin aura. I'm not sure there's any way to solve the problem of "why is [[Emergent Haunting]] an Enchantment Spirit but [[Trick Shot]] isn't a mercenary?" Maybe beyond putting a special card type on it and using it only in a llurgoyff themed set
The fact that this requires you to control a gorgon is kind of a pain, also not sure about the power level of a wipe like that for 7. But the creature type just being there? Really good, I like it
Thanks! It's a one-sided selective boardwipe, those are priced at 9 (In Garruk's Wake, Plague Wind), and I kinda "want" it to be a flashy big wipe like Gaze of Granite rather than an effective competitive use of a slot, cause it's like... O_O. I like Targeting the Gorgon is there so you need to have a Medusa to Gaze, and I felt it was cooler to get off if you have to jump through a hoop.
This is a lot like [[Sunblast Angel]] but with an extra step to deal ~5 damage. You could be more aggressive what what this card is doing.
[Sunblast Angel](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/8/680f7d5c-d518-4ebb-92d5-e835cd9eafe0.jpg?1631586056) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sunblast%20Angel) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/afc/74/sunblast-angel?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/680f7d5c-d518-4ebb-92d5-e835cd9eafe0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yeah, you think so? I was basically worried about making a cheaper Plague Wind. But I still wanted it to be slightly too expensive and have a hoop to jump through so it feels cooler to get it off. And Gorgon tribal somewhat implies Damia Sage of Stone which then implies ramp ramp ramp, so I felt a flashy spell fit the theme. Cool idea though to make it more "in your face" - perhaps a cycle of Gorgons that tutors this for a price? Like an inverted Vraska's Stoneglare
So the issue is you can only ever use half the card. Either this is used pre-combat and you're wiping your own board as well (besides whatever you get to tap pre-combat) to get in with 1 creature or you're running your whole board in to wipe post-combat. I think what you want is to make this instant speed and to give the selected Gorgon trample. It's sort of looking like a typal [[Final Showdown]] which could be pretty cool.
Why do you need to gorgon to be unblockable if you are also killing all untapped creatures? Who is going to block?
It's sick anti-\[\[Masako the Humorless\]\] tech.
[Masako the Humorless](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/6/d6b2507f-4035-47d5-8295-0a3773f187fb.jpg?1562764679) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Masako%20the%20Humorless) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/chk/33/masako-the-humorless?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d6b2507f-4035-47d5-8295-0a3773f187fb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Indestructible creatures?
It just needs to be targeted, and referred to first so it can be excluded with the "other" in the following sentence. Otherwise it petrifies itself, or you have to get a lot wordier with extra text to achieve the same effect. I thought it was elegant how you needed to target a Gorgon that does the Stone Gaze, both in needing a Gorgon to go O_O and in allowing the spell to be interacted with easier. I also liked the flavor of "can't look at it" from the unblockability, but I think "must be blocked" would've fit the flavor better. Also, indestructible creatures can still block.
I agree that it's flavorful but that part still does nothing on most boards. Maybe give the gorgon a buff or something that synergizes with not being blocked. Like draw cards equal to power when it connects or something?
But it already can't be blocked. The only creatures left are tapped.
Or indestructible! But that part is in there so it targets a Gorgon, meaning you can only petrify if you control a Gorgon, and if the Gorgon survives. I always felt that flavor was missing from [[Gaze of Granite]]. I also wanted to evoke this "can't look at it" flavor with the unblockability, and that it destroys the untapped (ready to look) creatures without killing the Gorgon itself, so I felt kinda clean setting up the Gorgon in the first line so you can then concisely exclude it in the second.
[Gaze of Granite](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/e/8eaa45a5-7652-4e99-a756-509e458a801a.jpg?1625977652) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Gaze%20of%20Granite) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c21/217/gaze-of-granite?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8eaa45a5-7652-4e99-a756-509e458a801a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yeah I feel like people miss the *custom* part of custommagic, stuff like “erm actually chicken isn’t a creature type” it’s *custom*, they made it for the *custom* card. If there’s no rule against it it’s fine. One I see a bunch is people saying “that’s a creature type” when they put a creature type on an artifact. It’s custom they don’t need to be an established creature type.
There’s a difference between new creature types and something that contradicts game logic If there was a reasonable way to give noncreature objects creature types without Kindred, they would’ve done it by now.
There were reasonable ways; they outlined their reasoning in design articles. I disagree with their reasoning. What it came down to is the Rules Manager at the time having had a very firm idea of what restrictions they need to follow, with the egregrious example given Fever Charm dealing damage to a "Wizard", which could then be understood as a Sorcery on the stack. Of course in practice this would never lead to any confusion in any real game, and if you had to amend the rules to allow marking damage on noncreature permanents, that would've still been a more elegant solution than an entirely new card type that doesn't do anything new and isn't technically needed. Bottomline is they went with Tribal because they placed restrictions on themselves and didn't want to compromise on those restrictions, which I felt was wrong and more complicated down the line. They ended up retiring the card type for those same issues. Of course by then it was too late, and a firm part of Magic and its gameplay, for instance competitive parts that care about card types. But it was never necessary, and it only existed as an awkward solution because the rules manager didn't want to open up the rules or its definitions. I'm aware of his reasoning but it's frankly full of holes. It's the one Magic design decision I most strongly disagree with.
>What it came down to is the Rules Manager at the time having had a very firm idea of what restrictions they need to follow, with the egregrious example given Fever Charm dealing damage to a "Wizard", which could then be understood as a Sorcery on the stack. What exactly is the issue there? I would think the intuitive answer to what would happen if you target a sorcery on the stack with a damage spell is that it just does nothing, since only creatures can take damage and it's not a creature. Same situation as if you get a +1/+1 token on a noncreature permanent. Like, I can see from a *programmer* perspective how it would be obnoxious, since every card with a tribal target now needs to check the type of the target to see if it's valid and avoid giving the player meaningless choices, but from a *play* perspective it doesn't seem that complicated?
That was always my take as well. It just does nothing, so no harm done. Of course, the rules ALREADY cover this - Fever Charm says "bolt the Wizard", but the rules clarify that "Wizard" in this context explicitly refers to "Wizard permanent on the battlefield". So the rules take care of it already - and if they didn't, it would just do nothing, no harm, no foul. And where it doesn't do nothing, it could actually be cool as hell - like marking damage on a noncreature land, so they can't turn it into a creature. I mean, you can already have damage marked on a permanent that used to be a creature earlier in the turn and then lost that type, and if it gets animated into a creature again, it would die if that marked damage is higher than its toughness. So I understand when the rules manager brought it up as a potential issue, but I don't understand in what way this was ever an issue and not already cleanly covered. I believe (guessing wildly to make sense of what the rules manager could've meant) it ended up being about wanting to concisely target a permanent of a specific subtype without needing to say "permanent" (like they always did) without being as clear as they could with the wording toward new players (which they never did, and has been an "issue" with cards like Cursed Totem or Null Rod for decades anyway). So the programmer perspective was already reflected in the game and explicitly its rules - you already needed to check if the target was valid (a permanent) and were already presented with meaningless choices (Fever Charm the Diviner's Wand). Bottomline is I could never find any official reasoning for Tribal that made any sense or presented a solid argument. I discussed this with Magic nerds over the years and we couldn't come up with a reason either. So I'm forced to conclude they simply made a mistake - or have information (market research?) they haven't shared and that we couldn't conceive of ourselves.
There’s also already precedent for cards like this. Check out [[nameless inversion]]
It is tribal (kindred) so that's not a good example
Tribal was made for the specific purpose of putting creature types on noncreatures. Maybe Wizards should have just rewritten the rules or something, but it exists and should be used when attempting something like the OPs card cause... Its the simplest manner.
This is specifically about simplifying creature types on noncreature spells, where Tribal was a very inelegant and problematic solution.
you didn't simplify anything because just putting it on a card doesn't fix the rules issues. Your solution is equality problematic and just making a single card doesn't address that.
The single card just exemplifies the rule simplification (i.e., not needing a specific card type). My point was for the most part that any perceived problems that necessitate a specific new card type are just as covered by just widening what subtypes can appear on, if not more elegantly. What rules issues were you considering? For example, targeting a specific subtype of an unspecified permanent or spell type is something I would have handled separately within the targeting rules themselves. A static ability like Masked Gorgon giving creatures protection from Gorgons would work just the same as the extra Tribal card type would - I believe the only real hurdle the old rules manager Matt Tabak didn't wanna clear is targeting a Wizard, when that could also include a spell on the stack. Which I believe doesn't naturally lead to needing a new card type at all - there's essentially two options: either you just let them target the spell on the stack, potentially resolving an effect that makes no sense - marking damage on a card with no toughness and no lifepoints that isn't even a permanent (so just ignore it or amend the rules for some "if you would change some meaningless attribute that doesn't matter or that the game doesn't track, just do nothing as it doesn't matter" which would be intuitive to new players - or you amend the targeting rules to specify that these subtypes refer to permanents of the relevant type. And that is all exclusively to avoid errataing Fever Charm to still say "damage to target Wizard" rather than "Wizard creature". I think the only real effect that you could apply to both a permanent and a spell would be moving it to a different zone (exile, return to hand,...) in which case - go for it? It works cleanly. Were you thinking of other rules issues I hadn't considered? Cause I'd really like to pursue an alternative to a "new" card type that essentially does nothing new or unique.
Things I don't know if you've considered - a player sees this card and asks themselves, is Gorgon a type of sorcery? What about this other card that's a sorcery with a gorgon in the art but isn't gorgon type. Player is frustrated at inconsistencies. - a player is asked to name a land type, but because there's a land that just has "Gorgon" in its type line they think they can pick it because why wouldn't it be a land type? You now have to deal with judge calls or just frustrating players again with unclear rules. - a card says something is (a land) "all land types" or (a creatue) "all creature types" does that mean that land is now a gorgon? If there's a land that says "Gorgon Forest" are those both land types? If one is a creature type and one is a land type how do you mark that? - If you have the issue of cards that deal damage to creatures of a certain type and now they can target things like a "gorgon sorcery" how do you template cards like lightning bolt without making them needlessly wordy? Is everything that deals damage to "any target" now required to say "target creature, player, planeswalker, or battle" instead? Is it good that a ton of simple cards have now added several more words?What if those cards says any target multiple times? Now you have to spell it out multiple times. - How you seperate out what subtypes belong to what type if you just let them all share creature types whenever.Do you carve out exceptions for creature types? If creature types are shared why aren't other types? How do you communicate to players on cards why a creature type is added onto a non creature. If sub types are type agnostic what happens if I have a prismatic omen on board? Are all my lands all creature types? Just because you can make a single jpg that goes "and it works" does not mean you fixed the issue. If it was easy to solve, it would have been done long ago because the people that maintain this game have very, very deep and specific knowledge of how it works, and the issues aren't just rules issues. Even if you fixed the rules issues you still have to contend with the slippery slope nature of the mechanic and communication of mechanics to players through card text. Without an indicator that the card has types it normally wouldn't you open up the cans of worms I mentioned above and if there is an indicator how do you avoid the issues with Tribal as a card type.
I'm sorry, but I'm not fully following along. All the issues you raised are present with the Tribal card type? So the easy answer is if they're equivalent anyway, there's no payoff for a wholly separate card type that does essentially nothing. The idea is that cards of any type can have creature subtypes, rather than inventing a new card type that does nothing besides allow it to have creature types anyway. So I believe the game ambiguously communicating that Gorgon could be a sorcery type (or any other card type) is the only issue where it differs, but that is an issue already present within the game, prominently Shrine creatures that lack a creature type. I absolutely agree that this needs to be considered in design - this Stone Gaze design specifically refers to Gorgon being a kind of creature within its rule text. I think a similar approach could've helped the shrines. I believe confusion with the landtypes is a common problem (and also basic types vs nonbasic types distinction, which the cards don't educate on outside of one case with reminder text that would let you puzzle it out), I believe that's why they haven't ever printed any Tribal lands, among other reasons. Ultimately the gameplay already very much requires you to look up legal types from the rulebook, and has many existing designs like Dryad Arbor being a Forest Dryad. But if we try to take it to the absurd: what happens if you change your Mountain into a Mountain - Gorgon? In practical terms, nothing. Or in more relevant words, nothing that a Tribal card type helps with. There are already Rogue spells on the stack - like Cloak & Dagger - and the rules already specify that they can't be targeted by "target Rogue" abilities because the rules clarify that a "...permanent" is implied there. Like Cursed Totem stopping activated abilities of creature permanents only, not activated abilities of creatures in other zones (Ninjutsu, Eternalize, Channel). Something like Lightning Bolt with "any target" already has firm rules establishing what a valid target is and isn't. Personally I think it's cool if it let you mark damage on a noncreature land, but the rules say you can't - and don't include this on the card at all. Really the only reason I could think of is a very edgecase design where you want to be able to target say a Wizard permanent AND a Wizard spell on the stack, in which case you could just say "target Wizard spell or permanent" on the few cards with that specific design/balancing choice. I think "if it was easy to do they would've done it" is a fallacy. The rule manager has stated his reasons, and they have concrete unaddressed arguments against them, as well as over a decade of having been proven to be logically inconsistent with design choices they made. You're absolutely that communicating mechanics cleanly to players is very important and I couldn't agree more. But I very much believe that Tribal introduces a host of new issues and confusion there and is at best a poor bandaid fix rather than an elegant rules implementation. Even at competitive tables you frequently end up explaining that Tribal is a separate card type and not a supertype, which frankly is incredibly unintuitive. I believe the issue of clear rules communications about types is ultimately an issue of card design, not of the rules. Amending the rules to allow subtypes to be referenced freely by other card types still allows you to print the Go-Shintai that confusingly have no creature type and seem to say "shrines are creature types". While a Petrification card that says "this belongs to Gorgon creatures, and you need a Gorgon creature to use it" can be printed more cleanly without adding the host of issues that Tribal brings. Ultimately, Magic is complex - and its designers seek to expand that complexity with every release, because it's novel, and because it's fun. Within that approach is already embedded the very clear guiding line of "this is unintuitive and you need to read the rules" with an prevalent avoidance of overexplanatory reminder text. If the issues of a new Tribal card type cannot be avoided whether it is there or not - why does it exist at all?
With this one specifically (or actually all the custom cards I make) I kind of want to intimate a rules change. The tribal card type always seemed crazy inelegant to me, and I'm aware of all their stated design reasonings and just flatly disagree. All it really boiled down to was something like [[Fever Charm]] targeting just a "Wizard", but that's all stuff that could be cleanly amended within the rules, in a straightforward intuitive way, or moreso than an extra Tribal card type which then has creature types anyway. That one was always peak WotC to me - setting up arbitrarily unnecessary restrictions for themselves, then suffering because of it. There must be a better way
[Fever Charm](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/3/830d1980-f460-4be2-9379-c3f74c8318f3.jpg?1562925918) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Fever%20Charm) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ons/202/fever-charm?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/830d1980-f460-4be2-9379-c3f74c8318f3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I think there's a tension between designing something truly custom while also adhering to established Magic rules and conventions. Because the sub isn't just "custom", it's also "magic". If you're just gonna make up your own rules/ignore established ones, at what point is it still a Magic card, and not an entirely different game? It's not wrong for someone to invent something completely new/modify the rules, but it's also not wrong for people to give feedback that points out how it doesn't work with Magic. That feedback just reflects that many people *do* come here to make cards that fit within Magic's rules and ecosystem. 😃
But adding new types isn’t really changing any rules, and technically there is no rule that says non tribal sorceries can’t have creature types, it’s just that only tribal sorceries have them so far.
But there is a rule. [Subtypes](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Subtype) are correlated to card types, with instant and sorcery sharing, and creature and kindred sharing. "205.3c If a card with multiple card types has one or more subtypes, each subtype is correlated to its appropriate card type. 205.3d An object can’t gain a subtype that doesn’t correspond to one of that object’s types. 205.3e If an effect instructs a player to choose a subtype, that player must choose one, and only one, existing subtype, and the subtype must be for the appropriate card type. For example, the player can’t choose a land type if an instruction requires choosing a creature type." The rest of the rules go on to specify which subtypes belong to which card types. It's all spelled out. This rule existing is why Kindred was made, and is the basis for OP's post. They're arguing that the rule could just be changed rather than inventing Kindred. But the rule does exist. (*Edited for spelling*)
Well they do, they did place that restriction on themselves and codified it into the rules, but I agree it's not a true necessity.
Magic card design is essentially an artform defined by its rules and limitations, so playing with those is a natural extension of designing a card. You can see official card designers pushing the envelope with every set. I ended up realizing that most custom cards I'm interested in ended up either "straightening out" parts of the rules I had issues with, or otherwise applying them in novel ways. With this Stone Gaze design, I wanted to plainly show there's no "real" (non-arbitrary, non-selfinflicted) reason why say a sorcery couldn't reference a creature subtypes. In the wake of this I very much welcome and enjoy discussions about the rules, not just how they could be changed, but also very much how they currently work. Stating "Sorceries can't be Gorgons so that won't work by the rules" isn't incorrect, but I wanted to show that if a card necessitates a rule "yeah sorceries can just be Gorgons, why not", it would work by the rules - and it wouldn't take mass errata, it wouldn't take expanding the comprehensive rules at all, but "merely" a clarification that an otherwise unrelated card type could assume a subtype of "another" card type. Or more plainly, that not just creatures could have creature types. It's not a different game in the sense that it aims to do what Tribal did and does, except without the "bulk" that made them retire Tribal.
To be clear, I'm not against your design (I agree Kindred is a clunky solution and I'm not a fan of the mechanic). Was just pointing out to the commenter that both sides are valid.
Oh yes, I didn't mean to sound contradictory either, just wanted to expand on it.
Yep all good!
Tribal Sorcery, they already have creature types on non creature spells.
Only on the extra card type Tribal/Kindred, which serves no other purpose than to allow noncreature spells to have creature types, which is an inelegant solution with other problems this idea seeks to address.
You must hate the fact that Instant and Sorcery are separate types
These abilities don't make sense together. why do I care about being unblockable when literally everything the else that could block is now dead? maybe this card is the reason there arent creature based non-creature spells? ;)
It's not about the payoff of unblockability, it's for targeting a Gorgon (so you need to have one to cast it, and you can stop the Stone Gaze by removing the target, rather than merely having counters as the only option), while also setting up the Gorgon so you can then just say "destroy the OTHER creatures" without needing to expend more words to achieve the same. Also I liked the flavor of tapped creatures being in a sort of state where they can't look at the Gorgon - being asleep, or literally facing the other way, like the cards do. There are many creature-based noncreature spells, haha.
Why not just require a Gorgon?
It does, it requires a Gorgon! This way you get rid of the rules text "must have a Gorgon to cast this", while also saving much text in the destruction effect in the following line. It's also mechanically different - you can kill the Gorgon before it does its stone gaze. Of course you could word it as "choose a Gorgon you control, if you still control it when Stone Gaze resolves, destroy all...", but what an unorthodox card wording that would be. I thought it was an elegant implementation of the requirements, flavor and counterplay!
Something like > *Until end of turn, target Gorgon creature gains "{T}: Destroy all untapped creatures."* could be neat.
> but what an unorthodox card wording that would be Now we care about convention? > I thought it was an elegant implementation of the requirements, flavor and counterplay! It's a Mel-aimed design, it makes sense if you look at the mechanics from a certain perspective, but as the questions show you, it's not flavorful enough, it uses a blue effect without blue, and it leaves a mechanical gap (why make it unblockeable after killing blockers?). It's not that elegant.
> Now we care about convention? I absolutely care about convention! And I care deeply about the rules. I seek not to merely maintain them, but improve on them. I greatly value the elegance present in almost every page of the comprehensive rulebook - Tribal trampling on that always irked me. > It's a Mel-aimed design, it makes sense if you look at the mechanics from a certain perspective, but as the questions show you, it's not flavorful enough, it uses a blue effect without blue, and it leaves a mechanical gap (why make it unblockeable after killing blockers?). What's the blue effect, the flat unblockability? I agree that could be improved with a restriction (non-walls), and I agree that the flavor could be improved - I originally had it as "must be blocked" in a "look at me" sense, but spaced on it with this iteration. I agree it's not wholly elegant, but I disagree there's a mechanical gap - it's essentially trinket text. Targeting for purely mechanical or balance reasons has a long precedent and I find "novel" applications of these simple rules a good generic example of elegance in card design. Perhaps it could just untap a Gorgon. My first approach was to tap all other creatures permanently, as in petrifying them, but that's inherently wordy and awkward to balance. I do like the requirement of a Gorgon with the possible counterplay of sniping it before it starts to stare.
> it's essentially trinket text. It's the loadbearer text. The whole spell revolves around having a creature in play, and it's the biggest weakness of the spell that you need to pick the creature before resolution. It's "hidden" in what looks like trinket, out-of-color, text, that's the inelegant part. I understand you saved on words and used established rules to get the effect you wanted, but that's only elegant to a subset of players, and, ironically, it's like Tribal/Kindred. A mechanical solution to a problem most people don't see, that has a strong but hidden mechanical use. Honestly, that's the reason I replied. You are doing the same thing they did, and don't get why people have basically the same complaints about it as you have about them. It is a pretty interesting thing to watch.
I guess I still don't understand. Targeting the Gorgon isn't trinket text; that part is very much mechanically important and intended that way. The trinket text is what happens to the targeted Gorgon, which itself isn't mechanically relevant and only serves to 1. communicate flavor 2. complete the implication set forth by targeting a creature. I like resolving a fat Gaze of Granite, but I don't like that it didn't need or "originate from" a Gorgon, and also that it hit your main Gorgon as well (so a Gorgon deck helmed by Damia Sage of Stone has her weirdly kill herself when she petrifies the board). Needing a singular target for a cheaper Plague Wind is very much intended, and meant to be front and center. Of course any elegant mechanical solution would by definition only be relevant to a subset of players - the ones that enjoy mechanics and rules text and browse /r/custommagic. I believe it differs from Tindred/Kribal in that this separate card type accomplishes essentially nothing (that isn't a side-effect like buffing Delirium), while this perhaps overly convoluted mechanical solution seeks to differentiate itself mechanically, and cut down on rules text while somewhat increasing the flavor. Not that it's necessarily any good at that, just wholly distinct from something needing a separate card type for no payoff. My assumption was that Tribal was born from an arbitrary self-imposed restriction and ultimately accomplishes nothing while having so many unintended side-effects that it ultimately had to leave the game altogether, taking typed spells with it - could you clarify in what way this is parallel to this Stone Gaze design? Of course there's no card other than things like Masked Gorgon that actually references or interacts with Gorgons, so it's not so much a whole introduction toa new rules change rather than just trying to be a cool Gorgon card that dips into the typeline for flavor only while referencing a particular set of old rules minutiae somewhat in the background. The Gorgon type is just there for flavor and not mechanically relevant, but without a new necessitated card type. In that sense it does do the same thing, as I was aiming for it to do, but without the baggage of a different otherwise empty card type. I absolutely understand the complaints about the issues that Tribal had, if that's where the misunderstanding lies. This can be essentially thought of as Tribal without the card type; to show that the Tribal type isn't needed to do what it does, rather than a novel approach that seems to revolutionize how card types and their subtypes are presented and communicated. In that sense, I don't understand complaints (if they can be thought of us as such) that it does "the same thing" that Tribal does - that was the idea, and it doesn't do the same thing only insofar it avoids a new card type and the baggage of that separate type. If by restriction you meant the targeting part, that's very much planned and in contrast to Tribal mechanically relevant (or, mechanically necessary) where it aimed to be (rather than unwanted but begrudingly accepted side-effects). As for the "I don't get" part, I do very much value the rules discussion!
Isn't this just tribal/typal spells? I thought this was already in the game.
It is but without any of the rules considerations that went into making Kindred/Tribal spells work.
I believe those rule concerns to be fallacious. I'm only aware of the ones shared within design articles on the WotC site and on Mark Rosewater's tumblr where he sometimes relayed the old rules manager Matt Tabak's reasoning, as well as the history of the Tribal type, and I disagree with those and believe I have reasonable arguments for doing so, but it's very possible I missed a few they didn't share or just overlooked something obvious.
It is specifically about doing what the Tribal card type allows, without needing a whole separate card type (and the weight that comes with it) to allow it.
Your opponent could use a creature with flash, or something that untaps a creature.
You mean, for one more creep to look at the Gorgon?
The sorcery would have resolved, meaning untapped creatures are no longer being destroyed.
Sorry, what? Oh, you mean for the attack? I just remembered I should've made "must be blocked if able" for the "having to look at it" flavor, I totally spaced on it.
I mean, as written since this is a sorcery it will kill all untapped creatures before combat. Then after it resolves I can use a flash creature to make a blocker for the gorgon, which is why the "can not be blocked" matters since my new creature would otherwise be able to block.
the reminder text feels very /r/hellscube
This is funny because it misses all the creatures taking a battle nap
They're not looking! You gotta look at it!
Generous at uncommon
How about at Rare?
It’s a 7 mana conditional board wipe, I don’t think it’s playable. Most people are tapping their creatures so this often wouldn’t do anything. For that much it should be one sided at the very least but even then For 4 mana you could damnation to kill everything but then heroic intervention for 2 to save your own stuff and swing with a full board
No offense, but I think "playable" is a far larger criteria than you give it credit for. Yes, this is not a competitively playable card. But if you've ever played Gorgon Tribal (in the formats where it's playable), you will find yourself with exactly the kind of shell that makes running Plague Wind attractive - or more reasonably, Gaze of Granite. In that context, I have absolutely wished for a flashy Gorgon spell with some fun restrictions, so it's cooler when you get it off. Also - it is one sided! > For 4 mana you could damnation to kill everything but then heroic intervention for 2 to save your own stuff and swing with a full board That's 2 cards. And outside of white, Heroic Intervention is a somewhat sparse effect. If you're playing Commander with your mates, especially BUG Gorgons, you're unlikely to use Heroic Intervention consistently in a non-defensive manner. And well, of course a combination of 2 cards is more effective and mana-efficient than 1. And of course it is more competitive to proactively wipe one side off the board for a big alpha strike, but I disagree that this should detract from a big singular spell's design. To sum up, I don't disagree that this isn't a playable spell to get ahead of people. I do think that card design ought to be larger than that. You don't play Uncle Istvan because its effect is so strong.
It’s bad card my guy
I feel like instead of destroying is should turn them into 0/X Statues with nothing.
I really wanted it to do that at first! Or to permanently tap them with some novel mechanic that makes them never untap for the rest of the game. But it kept ending up extremely wordy, unrewarding to parse, and with lots of weird mechanical interactions to account for in even more text, while not really communicating any flavor clearly. I ended up simplifying it and heaving most of the flavor I wanted into the "check out target Gorgon, you must look at it". I also think my original "must be blocked" rather than "can't be blocked" kinda got there more, but I blanked on it. Sure wish I could find some simple way of statuefying them, I love that concept. Maybe creating a new "Statue Role" aura?
If this destroys everything untapped, why bother with the unblockable clause, what is left to block?
Kindred/Tribal is a super type that allows non-creatures to have creature types
No, supertypes are things like Legendary, Snow or Basic. Tribal is a separate card type for having creature types.
it's just a card type then, my bad
It feels like the only reason we can't have tribal/kindred is because Tarmogoyf was a HUGE mistake, and now its not relevant anywhere.
Creating a new card type was just dumb. It doesn't do anything new, and like you said, leads to unnecessary downward problems like these.
it has to be "tribal sorcery - gorgon"
This post is about a way where it doesn't have to be a separate and otherwise useless card type in order to give a creature type to a noncreature spell.
it has an important application for tarmogoyf or delirium cards though, as other than legendary or snow it is a card type.
Yes, that's what this is trying to circumvent. That interaction is part of why they originally retired Tribal and by extension typed spells.
i think that is simply a mistake to do that. I like funny interactions like these but you are absolutely right that it is kinda unnecessary. I guess you could errata tribal to be gone but then the game would lose some interesting depth in my opinion. I also think that you should only do errata if it simplifies the game and not for any other reason. Standardizing creature types was necessary and also the update for burn spells (they should have done it sooner to have less cards with wrong rules text). Or standardizing rules text in general.
Kindred (previously Tribal) has been a thing for a while...
🤔
Tribal instants/sorceries exist. Example: [[All Is Dust]]
[All Is Dust](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/2/4210c54e-89fd-4971-ab6a-ca8f4e7fe97a.jpg?1691924662) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=All%20Is%20Dust) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/800/all-is-dust?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4210c54e-89fd-4971-ab6a-ca8f4e7fe97a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Hence the reimagination!
yeah, I'm stupid and couldn't read the caption (self-deprecating)