Magic 2010 rules changes

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Full article here: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/a ... eature/42a

Summary: When the new Core Set, Magic 2010, is released next month, there will be some changes to the rules. Not quite as grand as the Sixth Edition rules update, but definitely significant. The most notable are the changes to some terminology, mana burn going the way of the dodo and interrupt windows, a change in the way deathtouch and lifelink work and most significant, the way combat works is to be changed somewhat. Details in the article.

I mentioned this in another topic but I don't want these changes to hijack that thread so I've made a new one. I will post my opinions in another post so that this post doesn't look like an intimidating wall of text.

I'm ok with the new rules except for one minor part. Why does deathtouch get to be special & deal combat damage the old way??? If the goal was to simplify combat, they clearly failed with this part. And what about all the other reasons you may want to hit a creature for non-lethal damage? (wither, furnace of rath, charisma, matsu tribe "tap-touch") Guess they all get screwed. Either screw them all or make them all better.

I can't believe wizards would allow such inconsistancies. It screams sloppy design; especially since they haven't figured out banding yet either.

Deathtouch is a little weird now in the whole distributing damage the old way thing but maybe when they print more cards like the Kamigawa snakes they too will get the work-around. With new rules comes new ways to design cards.

Yeah Pyroclasm and co have been screwed over somewhat. We'll get over it.

Re banding:
"The changes listed in this article aren't the only rules changes that are taking place, but they're the most relevant ones to modern Magic play. The rest include things like an update to banding to bring it into compliance with the new combat damage rules, a radical streamlining of the phasing rules that I've been working on, and various maintenance fixes deep behind the scenes. More information will be made available about all these changes as we near the rulebook's release date."

What they really ought to do is figure out a way to take the whole "damage prevention window" nonsense, which was part of the game until 1999, and make it fit in the modern rules framework. If they're looking for the most intuitive way to do combat, that was one thing the really old rules managed to get right.