Comprehensive Rules Changes
107.3d
This rule referred to making choices for how to pay costs during resolution by saying to choose while paying. To better reflect reality (and to work with our best buddy, K'rrik), it's been updated slightly to clarify that you choose how to pay the cost immediately before doing so.
107.3i
When this rule refers to "gaining" an ability, it uses "gain" in the English language sense of "it didn't have an ability and now it does somehow, what has science done?" and not "literally uses the word 'gain.'" I've changed the rule to explicitly say that.
107.3k
110.2b and 800.4c
If I steal your creature then lose the game, you get it back since you're its default controller. If I steal your spell then lose the game before it resolves, you get it back since you're its default controller. But if I steal your spell, and it becomes a permanent, then I lose the game, you didn't used to get it back. That's changed to line up with other effects that change an object's controller, though, if I take something from you that you never controlled (with
113.7a
A kind reader pointed out that this rule was not only incomplete and slightly confusing, its example had the wrong Oracle text for
118.13
All of the rules for paying multiple-choice costs are consolidated here, including beefing up the rules for hybrid to make it clearer how
122.7
I was tempted to jump numbering and make this 122.12 because it's the
201.3f
You can't necessarily choose your own Adventure, but you can choose the alternative name of an Adventure if you're asked to choose a card name.
205.1b
If an object is said to become a certain list of types, these overwrite any other types it has. Except "artifact creature." This exception's been floating around for all of the game's history, and we're not quite ready to remove it yet, but we're making one little modification to it: if it sets the object's creature types in the process, the object keeps all of its card types but loses its other creature types.
205.3g, j, k, and m
The subtypes! So many new subtypes! We've got Oko, Serra, and Wrenn joining the list of planeswalkers. We've got Mouse, Noble, Peasant, Warlock, and Sculpture joining the list of creature types. Even the artifact and spell types get in on the fun with Food and Adventure. Lands and enchantments don't get to join the festivities, much to New Mexico's chagrin.
For details on what changed, see "Noblesse Oblige" in the Oracle changes section.
207.2c
Here's where we list ability words. An ability word appears in italics and has no rules meaning, but we list them anyway. Welcome to the club, adamant.
212.1a
Throne of Eldraine features a change to the information below the text box. Shocking, I know. No longer do we have card 1408/249—for anything over the collector number max (which means it's an alternate version or from an ancillary product), we just omit the total.
301.5, 704.5n
The rules for Equipment always referred to Equipment attached to objects. After all, how would you attach an Equipment to a player?
303.4k
Speaking of Auras doing weird things, here are the rules for turning Auras face up. Aura, singular, really. It only applies to
400.7a
If you do something to specifically modify a permanent spell on the stack, that modification applies to the permanent the spell becomes. But this rule didn't need to include changing its controller, since previously the spell's controller would just become the permanent's default controller. Now it does count control-changing effects.
400.7c
I added a clause here to make something clearer: if you cast a permanent spell with an adamant ability, and I use
508.4
601.3e
We had some contradictory rulings going on about split cards versus morph and when you look at what sets of characteristics. Adventures gave us the reason to shore up these rules. This isn't a change for morph, but it does change some answers for split cards: if you're allowed to cast a spell with a certain mana cost or color, look only at the half you're casting.
But stop right there before you get too excited—you can't cascade into
601.4
The old 601.3 rule started off by talking about whether it was legal to begin casting, and then all of its subrules went into details. But then the main rule continued on talking about what if it became illegal! I broke that out into its own rule and added clarity that becoming illegal after the proposal is done doesn't matter.
603.12
Thanks to the Kenrith, reflexive triggers have an update to account for a first in Magic: triggering off of multiple events that occurred. This works for reflexive triggers pretty cleanly since they have a very narrow window to look at, but don't expect it to spread to normal triggers.
609.4b
With adamant coming out, we decided that it was well worth adding a reminder rule to point at that clearly states how mana washing ("You may spend mana as though it were mana of any color/type") works. You don't choose a color to spend mana as; you're simply allowed to spend it to pay for a cost.
701.37
The rules for goad gain two new subrules! One for a static "is goaded" effect, and one to establish that being goaded multiple times by one player isn't extra goady.
702.1c
There's a new rule here to codify something that we've ruled for nearly two decades: if something runs through a laundry list of abilities to grant and hits one with parameters (like protection, landwalk, or hexproof), it grants that keyword each time for each appropriate parameter. It's not a change to anything you've seen, just putting it in the rules for support.
702.1d
Similarly, this rule establishes for a fact that looking for a card "with cycling" can find something with cycling 1, cycling 2, etc. After all, nothing has "cycling," so this should be obvious! It's less obvious when we need to say "with hexproof."
702.16i
We have a rule for gaining protection from "all" of something, but "each" is similar yet slightly different. It's functionally the same, just linguistically separate. Yay for language!
706.9f
This rule spells out that
706.10
Here's another big fun question for adamant: copying spells! Rather than write a new rule, I just added this as an example here. None of the new cards with adamant were as clean and simple as
715
And here's where adventurer cards go! They're not technically called Adventure cards, but I won't yell at you if you leave off that r on the end.
717
This whole section on ending the turn is rewritten to handle ending phases, too. I wonder what else we can end?
800.4h
Magic's second Sponge,
800.5
Here's where we define how seating order works—basically, any way you like. It's reinforcing that if someone's showing
Introduction
Comprehensive Rules Changes
Oracle Changes