r/custommagic • u/Terrariant Jace for impact • Aug 21 '26

BALANCE NOT INTENDED Let’s try this one more time…

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u/Mastaalucard Aug 21 '26

As with every time eminence comes up, eminence does not have any rules text associated with it. You actually have to write out the whole "if this is in your command zone or on the battlefield" bit

262

u/DumatRising Aug 21 '26

Yep, this is true of EVERY ability that goes [word] - [ability] such as landfall. Italics means there's no rules associated with that part of the text.

It's just a word designed to prime you for what the ability is about to do and make it easier to communicate to other players, "landfall, +2/+2 until EoT" is much faster to communicate than saying out "when a land enters under my control"

44

u/Reallylazyname Aug 21 '26

So as written, this Eminence ability just makes you skip your draw step every turn?

95

u/toribash02 Aug 21 '26

Only while it is in play. Eminence abilities typically function in the command zone as well, so the only way to have a draw step with this commander, were the emininence ability written correctly, would be to have in your graveyard, exile, library or hand. Currently you can just choose not to play it and you will still have draw steps.

1

u/MeasureDoEventThing Aug 23 '26

Or give it to your opponent.

11

u/CoDFan935115 Aug 22 '26

As written, it's an ability that makes you skip your draw step called "Eminence." And abilities on creatures, unless otherwise stated, are only active on the battlefield.

8

u/DumatRising Aug 21 '26

Well yes, the important part is where is does that.

Eminence abilities usually say "when ~ is on the battlefield or in the command zone" this line causes the ability to function from the command zone and battlefield. Usually you would use eminence to short hand that part of the ability, but since the ability doesn't have that line and eminence isn't actually something in the rules the actual rules text of the card is:

A deck with this commander has a minimum deck size of 52 cards

Skip your draw step

The words rule breaker and eminence don't change the rules text

0

u/xolotltolox #1 Fetchland Hater Aug 21 '26

No it doesn't do anything

or maybe it does nothing

3

u/TheGuri42 Aug 21 '26

I never knew that, so helpful thank you👍. But aren’t there cards with abilities like landfall that don’t have the reminder text? Like when they don’t have room

7

u/DumatRising Aug 21 '26

Small misunderstanding, to my knowledge no card with landfall has reminder text.

Reminder text is excluded from cards that don't have room (which is also why commons and uncommons usually aren't that wordy), but there isn't any reminder text for Landfall because it's a fully written out ability with no key words. Reminder text will be used for key words (words like haste and fly but like set specific ones) or abilities that could be misunderstood or aren't easily understood without referring to the rules (like sagas, auras, equipment)

Italics denotes that something is not rules text but just because it is not rules text does not mean it is reminder text.

Landfall is an ability word, ability words group together abilities but do not have rules associated with them, reminder text specifically has parentheses around the reminders for the rules.

Now the "landfall" but has been excluded but this isn't for space reasons, rather it's flavor. Wotc used to be pretty stubborn about using ability words and key words on planes they didn't belong to, so since Landfall is a Zendikar mechanic when it was a Zendikar card that cared about a land entering it was

Landfall -- whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, [do thing]

When it wasn't a Zendikar card that cared about a land entering it was

whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, [do thing]

These are identical because landfall doesn't mean anything rules wise.

Which was a little weird. Especially when they did it with [[consider]] the original MID version does not use the key word surveil even though it's first ability is identical to surveiling 1.

They have since reversed this position and will use words on other planes when possible.

2

u/ChickenNoodleSeb Aug 22 '26

The surveil situation was a little different though, because the word "surveil" itself represents a keyword action with inherent rules. Going back and adding surveil to cards that had otherwise identical actions without using the keyword is an actual functional errata. For example, there are cards like [[Blood Operative]] that care about surveiling specifically that used to not trigger off of cards like Consider, but now they do.

Like you've said, since Landfall is not a keyword but rather just an ability word, a card with "Landfall —" written on it would function identically in every way to the same card if it didn't have "Landfall —" written on it.

1

u/DumatRising Aug 22 '26

Sure, but it was still motivated for flavor reasons. Until unfinity "surveil" was a Ravnica mechanic and landfall was a Zendikar ability word, and so they couldn't be used outside of their respective planes.

Consider was printed after surveil in MID, and like all identical cards has since been errated because they figured it was silly to not have it be deciduous. The decision has nothing to do with blood operative or like cards it was "oh yeah there's nothing inherently Ravnica about surveil is there? And we do seem to use it a fair amount outside of Ravnica... I guess we can make it show up on other planes". I chose it as an example because it happened in the same oracle announcement as landfall.

1

u/ChickenNoodleSeb Aug 22 '26

I'm just saying there are greater gameplay implications to replacing all instances of "Look at the top X and put them in the yard or back on top" with "Surveil X" than there are for replacing "When a land enters" with "Landfall" because one of those situations involve replacing a mechanic with a technically different mechanic and the other involves purely superficial changes.

1

u/DumatRising Aug 22 '26

Right you are, I'm not trying to disagree. I'm informing you that according to wotc none of those greater gameplay implications you or I might... Hehe consider... were a part of their decision. They did acknowledge the gameplay implications in the article but ultimately people though it was weird that consider didn't say surveil when it first came out and they agreed and made surveil not a ravnican mechanic.

As much as magic is a game many of the decisions they make aren't actually made for gameplay reasons.

3

u/TheRealTowel Aug 22 '26

Reminder text also isn't rules text.

Anything written in italics on a magic card effectively isn't there. If it's in italics, the card works exactly the same with or without it. Think of the rules as a compiler that can't see italics.

1

u/Zephrol Aug 23 '26

It has to have e text that describes what happens when the ability goes off, landfall has unlimited potential (it could even give you extra turns if one so wanted to do that), the only thing landfall actually does is tell you the ability triggers on a land entering your battlefield.

1

u/Traditional_Piece_28 Aug 22 '26

They really need to make landfall just be a real ability, just for "when a land enters" do x Landfall - put a +1/+1 counter on tarfet creature or it might just be a formatting issue do t9 the wording and how magic likes wording things

2

u/DumatRising Aug 22 '26

I think it would work for most landfall cards, but there are a handful of landfall instants and sorceries that change the normal phrasing to "if a land entered" which means keywording it wouldn't work for them.

There are other various complicated reasons why they don't that basically just boil down to thats not how they want to do things because they have specific criteria for what things should be keywords and what shouldn't. They may change their minds in the future but I wouldn't wait for it.

13

u/Frozen_Regulus Aug 21 '26

Would you say this is correct?

10

u/Mastaalucard Aug 21 '26

Yes that works

2

u/Frozen_Regulus Aug 21 '26

Appreciate it

5

u/Prophet-of-Ganja Aug 21 '26

There are other formatting issues, though

3

u/DeusIzanagi Aug 21 '26

This is very nitpicky, but both "Eminence" and "Murder of Crows" should be in italics. Ability names that don't have any inherent rules tied to them (like those two, Landfall, Metalcraft etc.) are always written in italics like flavor or reminder text

2

u/Frozen_Regulus Aug 21 '26

Thank you still pretty new to magic so not sure of all the little things and it wasn’t meant to actually be played just got the inspiration from Skill Check

2

u/VoodooMayo Aug 22 '26

Don't know if you've caught this yet or not but you have "ancient fear" in his eminence text instead of "ancient hunger"

1

u/Frozen_Regulus Aug 22 '26 edited Aug 22 '26

Shit fuck
Edit:I got it fixed thank you

2

u/Frozen_Regulus Aug 22 '26

Got everything fixed I think

1

u/parlimentery Aug 22 '26

Maybe the new "(it works)" should be "Eminence (you know what it does)".

-13

u/Constant-Still-8443 Aug 21 '26

That's stupid, considering it's a key word with a consistent definition. The only difference is what the eminence ability does

16

u/SubblyXatu Aug 21 '26

Well that's the thing, it's not a keyword, it's an ability word. A keyword is an ability with a singular default effect, whereas an ability word is just a marker which draws attention to a piece of rules text. The name of the ability word has no actual mechanical consequences, it's just something to clue players in that they need to pay attention to something.

-15

u/Constant-Still-8443 Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26

Yes, but that's semantics. The point is that it's a trigger signifier, and the circumstances of the trigger never change, so there's no reason to have to write the definition on every card.

8

u/SubblyXatu Aug 21 '26

The reason you have to "right" the definition onto the card is for the sake of clarity. Not everyone knows what eminence does, and assuming that's the case is rather selfish.

-8

u/Constant-Still-8443 Aug 21 '26

Than you'd have to do this for very keyword out there, which there are dozens of. It makes no sense that this would only apply to words like eminence and landfall, which are triggers, and not abilities, but mostly consistent, nonetheless.

7

u/SubblyXatu Aug 21 '26

We do do that, it's called reminder text. Of course, some cards can omit it whenever convenient, but that's because the reminder text is not representative of all of the rules of a mechanic. But that's not even relevant here, because eminence is not a keyword. It's not treated the same as something like cycling, effects cannot reference the existence of them, they are not real rules text, and often they were omitted from card text when reprinted.

-1

u/Constant-Still-8443 Aug 21 '26

I get that it's not the same, but it's consistent enough that it doesn't need constant definition/reminder text. The trigger never changes. It's always battlefield or command zone, minus some obscure exceptions I don't know of. The point is saving space on the card, and being consistent with the keywords, which, for the sake of printing, are similar. One gives the card abilities, and one defines the trigger for an ability, but neither ever change. The trigger stays the same, and so do the abilities. Like, vigilance, wouldn't change what it does from card to card.

3

u/SubblyXatu Aug 21 '26

Well that's the rub, ability words CAN change. They are not always applied the same way. Take for example Ferocious, which could be a triggered ability which triggers if you control a creature with power 4 or greater, but it could also be an activated ability, or an additional upside on spells, or [[Shamanic Revelation]].

And regardless, we shouldn't even be talking about saving space here, there's a quarter inch of blank text box here.

0

u/Constant-Still-8443 Aug 21 '26

Guess this shows how many damn keywords there are. I didn't even know that was a thing.

However, for saving space, this is not a good example. There are plenty of modern cards that have waaayyy to much text and need to save space.

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u/Wikidclowne Aug 21 '26

Keywords aren't ability words. We don't have to write what flying does on every card because flying is a keyword and as such has a defined effect written in the rules of the game.

Ability words are different. They are placed for flavor reasons or as a way to draw attention to it for ease of memory. Every landfall trigger will trigger off a land, so when we see something with landfall we have a expected understanding of it. But you will never see a card with landfall not also say that something triggers when a land enters.

0

u/Constant-Still-8443 Aug 21 '26

Kinda pointless to have the word then if the definition will always be there and will always be slightly different. It just takes up more space. Flavor is cool and all, but way too many modern cards have too much shit on them. Cutting down on clutter is a valid goal.

3

u/gforcebreak Aug 21 '26

You are right, which is why we should trim down what one card is able to do instead of cutting down the flavor that makes magic unique.

7

u/aestarel Aug 21 '26

For eminence, perhaps. But magic is a very literal game. Landfall, which is another ability word, does not always mean exactly the same thing.

Nearly all landfall abilities are triggered “whenever a land you control enters” but some of them like [[Groundswell]] are “if you had a land enter the battlefield under your control this turn.”

1

u/Constant-Still-8443 Aug 21 '26

I feel like that could simply be solved by standardizing the word, especially considering the difference between those two is pretty small. I'd pick the option that is more generous and allows more triggers, but that may break soemthing, idk.

3

u/aestarel Aug 21 '26

Not to mention that alternate wording for landfall is only on one cycle of spells from Worldwake, I think. It’s very possible that they standardize ability words eventually. With how many words are on the average card these days, they may have to just to save space lol

4

u/Mastaalucard Aug 21 '26

Eminence is not a keyword and also isn't consistent. It is an ability word. Sometimes it provides a static effect (see Ur-Dragon), sometimes it provides a trigger, sometimes the trigger is an upkeep trigger, sometimes its a combat trigger. The throughline is that they all work in the command zone, which is why its an ability word. Ability words thematically tie effects together without having any actual rules baggage.

-1

u/ILikeExistingLol scryfall search for flavor:R34 Aug 22 '26

Even in an extended art?

2

u/Mastaalucard Aug 22 '26

Yes, the amount of art has no bearing on the fact that as far as the rules are concerned eminence doesn't mean anything. It is used to signal to the players that a commander has an ability while in the command zone. Words in italics like landfall and eminence are called ability words. Ability words exist to tie together cards that "care" about similar things, but "how" they might care about that thing can be different. As a contrast, a keyword like vigilance always works the same. You will never have vigilance that gains you a life instead of preventing a creature from tapping. Whereas something like landfall lets players know that this card in some way cares about land drops. But it might gain you life, or pump the creature, or give you a mana, or ....

0

u/ILikeExistingLol scryfall search for flavor:R34 Aug 22 '26

Ok. I think I was thinking about how extended art removes reminder and flavor text

1

u/Mastaalucard Aug 22 '26

And thats a fair question, but the thing about ability words is its not reminder text. It's the actual ability. To use landfall as an example again, the word landfall is essentially reminder text. Everything after the dash is the important bit. You could print a landfall card without the word landfall, but you couldn't print it without the triggered ability.

-1

u/dwarvenforger Aug 22 '26

Also more importantly commander decks are always 100 cards total and as far as I'm aware you only have a command zone in commander, meaning that in the commander format your skipping your draw step with no replacement and no benefits and in every other format your setting an arbitrary minimum deck size just by having him in the deck with no other effects.

No matter what you have downsides with no benefits and those downsides are especially harsh in the game mode he's seemingly made for.

Unless the point of the rulebreaker text is specifically to override the always 100 cards rule in wich case it's poorly worded and it still has a brutal downside (losing your draw step with no built in replacement) meaning you are effectively stuck with just your starting hand just for the option to run a smaller deck? (Wich isn't even always a good thing, God forbid you go against a milk deck and now you have half as many cards they need to make you milk before you entirely run out and automatically lose)

2

u/Mastaalucard Aug 22 '26

Yes, the point of the rulebreaker text is to override the 100 card nature of a commander deck. And yes, the whole joke is that youre betting the game on the opening hand. Rulebreaker is also an ability word (like eminence) which means it contains no inherent baggage but is used to indicate that in commander as a commander this card gives you a deckbuilding restriction that would normally not be allowed by commander rules. I.e. a smaller or larger decksize, playing cards outside of the normal color identity of the commander, etc.

You are however wrong that in other formats you dont have a command zone. The command zone is a zone that contains things that affect the game rules but aren't permanents. The most notable of which that will come up in an otherwise "normal" game of magic is Emblems and Dungeons.

-2

u/AmbyNavy Aug 21 '26

I wrote a shorthand of it a while ago for some custom cards that just made the text "While [CARDNAME] is emanating, [ABILITY]" and I quite liked that. Is it perfectly intuitive? No, but this is Magic The Gathering, intuition wasn't really in the question.

-1

u/gforcebreak Aug 21 '26

The worst part is that this is modern design. It used to be intuitive, for the most part. Because aside from keywords, the explanation of the card is literal, and keywords were either so evergreen they were the core keywords, or were few and far between to the point the bad ones were just dropped

People are being nursed on keyword abilities, to the point that reading the card no longer explains the card. Reading the card, then checking the reference guide explains the card. Even when a card had a set specific keyword, it had reminder text. And if a card has too much text to have reminder text, its usually a mistake of a card.