Kaladesh Update Bulletin
Welcome aboard on our trip to a world full of enthusiastic inventors and their fanciful creations! We've got rows upon rows of exciting new cards to dazzle your senses and ignite your imagination. Of course, if we're going to start playing with brand new technology, we need to lay out some rules. I've even tinkered with existing rules to make them 2.3% more efficient.
I'd sum up the changes that will rock the foundations of your world and change the way you play, but there really isn't anything that earth-shaking. The new "create" template for the Oracle update is the largest change by a wide margin, and it doesn't actually change anything other than the words you see. It took amazingly little work to update the rules—I had to change more examples than rules to support "create."
The Comprehensive Rules update has some fairly extensive cleanup on the rules about triggered abilities and especially "at the beginning" triggers, but these changes won't affect ordinary play. They bring some edge cases in line with the rest of the game and spell out some interactions that could be derived from other rules.
So, with that higher-level overview out of the way, let's dive into the details!
Comprehensive Rules Changes
107.14
This is the rule for the energy symbol. Shocking, I know.
119.7 and 609.7a
These rules discuss what a "source of damage" is. That's more or less "anything you can see." We had included plane cards and scheme cards from the Planechase and Archenemy variants, but never actually included emblems. This has been corrected so Chandra's emblem can be chosen like anything else.
205.3g
Vehicles join the short list of artifact subtypes.
205.3j
Dovin and Saheeli join the not-so-short list of Planeswalker subtypes.
205.3m
Aetherborn, Monkey, Pilot, and Servo all join the short-on-an-astronomical-scale list of creature types.
208.3a
Some effects modify an object's power and toughness. But what if that object isn't a creature? That's okay, this rule reminds you that the effect can still be created and will then wait patiently to do its thing.
208.5
Also on the subject of power and toughness, we have a new rule that if a creature has no power or toughness, that value is 0. This can happen if you manage to get a crew ability to animate a non-Vehicle artifact.
301.7
These are the rules for Vehicles. No driver's license, turn signals, or seatbelts required. You're welcome.
400.6
This rule talks about how to move an object from one zone to another. Among the things that happen in this process is to determine whether or not it has any replacement effects, such as "enters the battlefield tapped," that affect that move. However, it was written a little too broadly and could be interpreted to mean that you could look at face-down spells your opponent cast and cards exiled face down with
500.6
This is the start of the big, triggered ability update throughout section 5. A number of the rules stated that "at the beginning" triggered abilities are simply put onto the stack right away, rather than waiting for a player to receive priority like most triggered abilities. There was no reason for them to behave differently, so now they don't. Other rules have been updated around them, to more accurately illustrate the flow of the turn structure while providing this information. In a few places, it was possible for multiple triggers to be put on the stack in an order other than the order in which they triggered, and these have a rule reminding you that this is possible, instead of making you cross-reference rules to figure that out.
This looks like a lot of change, but it's not a functional shift, so don't worry.
601.2b
A small number of cards (
603.1
Continuing some triggered ability cleanup, we've deleted and removed the unnecessary redundant phrases from this rule.
607.2c
This is the only existing rule that changed for the new "create" template. It referred to objects "put onto the battlefield with" another object, and now also allows a reference to an object "created with" another object.
610.3c
If multiple
700.6c
The list of cards originally printed in Homelands has been updated to replace
701.6
Here, I fabricated the rules for "create." As an evergreen keyword action, it gets inserted alphabetically, and everything else gets booted down a bit.
701.14c
What happens if you're looking at a card in a library and the library's shuffled? How can you possibly randomize the card's position in the library while still looking at it? Now we know. You can't look at it anymore. Oh, wait, this rule only applies to "revealing" cards. Let's fix that.
701.14d
This rule defines "look" as a one-player-sees variation of "reveal" so that all of the various rules for revealing cards apply to looking at cards without having to repeat every one of those rules.
701.16
Since I was upsetting the entire 701 section by adding "create," I also moved "scry" to its proper place in the world of evergreen keyword actions.
702.1a
702.36d
This rule said that you could only cast a spell face-down if it had a morph ability. This made
702.61c
When the process of casting a spell was updated to only check "can't cast" prohibitions late in casting, suspend didn't tag along. The prohibition still applied. Now suspend has a rule to state this so that there's no confusion.
702.121
I added some very refined rules about how Vehicles are crewed.
702.122
Here, I created a new rule for "fabricate."
708.2b
Fused split spells want to compare the names for legality before you put them on the stack fused, but they did so a little too broadly. The rule's been tightened up to say exactly what it wants to.
712.4e
716.4
If the monarch loses the game, the active player becomes the monarch. If the active player was the monarch, the next player becomes the monarch. But what if there is no active player and the monarch loses the game? Rather than spark a succession crisis, I've reworded this rule to be clear that the next player in turn order becomes the monarch.
800.4b
This rule prevents objects from being put onto the battlefield or stack under a player's control if that player has already left the game. It's been made broader to refer to more than just tokens.
Glossary
New entries for: create, crew, energy symbol, fabricate, and Vehicles.
Oracle Changes
Create (Non-Functional)
In Magic's long history, we've printed a few cards that put tokens onto the battlefield. Quite a few. Nine hundred thirty-two, to be precise. Did you know that Limited Edition (Alpha) has only one card that creates a token? Yes,
As you probably know by this point, Kaladesh returns to using "create" to describe the process of putting a token onto the battlefield. All nine hundred thirty-two of those cards, from
The Æ Ligature (Non-Functional)
Æ, pronounced "ash," is the loneliest ligature. How many of you even knew what it was called? With the introduction of Aetherborn and no desire whatsoever to ask people to type Ætherborn, that letter also has no place in Oracle anymore, and forty-four cards got an exceptionally rare name change in the Oracle card reference.
Sarpadian Empires, Vol. VII (Non-Functional)
Speaking of cards that got a super rare name change,
Copy Comma Except (Non-Functional)
Some cards become a copy of, or create, a token that is a copy of another object. Except not quite. There's something...different about them. And when we express this difference, we've sometimes used a comma before the word "except" and sometimes we haven't. From now on, we're always using a comma, and the ten older cards that don't are gaining one.
Monkey Monkey Monkey (Functional)
The taxonomical innovations in Kaladesh allow three cards that have "Monkey" in their name to use that creature type.
Casting spells as though they have flash (Functional)
We fixed most of these with the Eldritch Moon update, but held off on three cards for being weird. They say that you may "play," rather than "cast," spells of a certain quality as though they had flash. They were printed with "play" and never got the "cast" update because they could be used to let you play
Will other cards change from "play" to use "cast" instead? Probably not. Cards that were printed with "play" are still allowed to use that word as long as it's not conflicting with a more relevant template.
This functional change affects three cards:
Old rules text for Aluren :
Any player may play creature cards with converted mana cost 3 or less without paying their mana cost and as though they had flash.
New rules text for Aluren :
Any player may cast creature spells with converted mana cost 3 or less without paying their mana cost and as though they had flash.
Old rules text for Quick Sliver :
Flash
You may play Sliver cards as though they had flash.
New rules text for Quick Sliver :
Flash
You may cast Sliver spells as though they had flash.
Old rules text for Winding Canyons :
{oT}: Add {oC} to your mana pool.
{o2}, {oT}: Until end of turn, you may play creature cards as though they had flash.
New rules text for Winding Canyons :
{oT}: Add {oC} to your mana pool.
{o2}, {oT}: Until end of turn, you may cast creature spells as though they had flash.
Energy Vortex (Non-Functional...ish)
Energy counters are great. You collect a few and do cool things with your Kaladesh cards. Wait, what's this Mirage card doing with energy counters? And it gives the counters to itself, not to you? Well, we'll just have to fix that.
Note that we're not using charge counters here. By changing from one unique kind of counter to another, there's no functional difference from how
Old rules text:
As
At the beginning of your upkeep, remove all energy counters from
At the beginning of the chosen player's upkeep,
{oX}: Put X energy counters on
New rules text:
As
At the beginning of your upkeep, remove all vortex counters from
At the beginning of the chosen player's upkeep,
{oX}: Put X vortex counters on
Lion's Eye Diamond (Non-Functional)
We liked the order of the costs on
Old Rules text:
Sacrifice
New rules text:
Discard your hand, Sacrifice
Fluctuator (Non-Functional)
This card had a vestigial "you" hanging out in its text. We performed a very careful youectomy to remove it.
Old rules text:
Cycling abilities you activate cost you up to {o2} less to activate.
New rules text:
Cycling abilities you activate cost up to {o2} less to activate.
Avarice Amulet (Non-Functional)
Triggered abilities that can trigger multiple times during an object's lifetime usually get "whenever" rather than "when."
Old rules text:
Equipped creature gets +2/+0 and has vigilance and "At the beginning of your upkeep, draw a card."
When equipped creature dies, target opponent gains control of
Equip {o2} ({o2}: Attach to target creature you control. Equip only as a sorcery.)
New rules text:
Equipped creature gets +2/+0 and has vigilance and "At the beginning of your upkeep, draw a card."
Whenever equipped creature dies, target opponent gains control of
Equip {o2} ({o2}: Attach to target creature you control. Equip only as a sorcery.)