I've made additional research on both slimytrout's and haywire's cases, and here are the conclusions I've come to.
As for slimytrout, he's 100% correct. Somehow, I didn't manage to find in my original research those examples he mentions. He's also right about the last new card to have that reminder text being
Spectral Shift from Fifth Dawn. If we just count any printing of any cards in premier sets, there is one from Tenth Edition (
Mind Bend), but that's a reprint and was
originally printed in Mirage, but interestingly without that reminder text. It looks like actually the "lasts indefinitely" reminder text is only found on the current Oracle text of old cards that have been printed with the "doesn't end at end of turn" one. I was convinced that reminder text had been used on more recent cards, even in recent sets, but I was wrong. He's just right and I apologize. I'm giving him that half point back as soon as I'm finished writing this.
As for haywire, it's more complex. There are no real valid precedents that I've been able to find in more than a full hour of research. I do understand the points he raises and I do understand the logic behind them. It turns out I was speaking to a person that fully knows about programming languages professionally without even knowing it. He could probably teach me about that.
My experience with Javascript comes from running a few websites several years ago. I don't do that anymore, but from time to time I do still use Javascript if I need to write a quick local script to have the computer perform some long and tedious tasks in my place. I know absolutely zero about C++ other than it exists. I've also heard about the "Turing complete" thing back when it came out, but I haven't read the actual paper and I have no actual competence to talk about that anyway. What I do remember though, if it matters, is that in Javascript the generic declaration for a variable is "var".
Now I'm going to present first my own opinion and then the (not that many actually) results of my research.
First, let me point out that when I was talking about "numbers" being compared in my previous post, he's right, what I actually meant was "integers", speaking from the point of view of a programming language. Variable type "integer", not "number". You can just mentally substitute the word "integer" in place of the word "number" in my previous post.
I agree that Magic rules have a lot in common with both formal grammar and programming languages. I like to call them a "rigorous logical system" to use everyday speech. Honestly, that's a huge part of why they fascinate me and why I love to study them. It's also the problem I had with
Steamflogger Boss when it was printed in Future Sight: it was a card with a line of rules text that made no sense in that logical system. Such a system has to be coherent to make sense. Every piece of it has to make sense for it to work, and I read that card essentially as "undefined", which has no place in a logical system. Same thing with "The land continues to burn" on
Obsidian Fireheart, but at least that is reminder text with no rules meaning. That's exactly the reason why I instantly gave away for free to a friend of mine at the time all the copies of that card that I opened while playing Zendikar limited. I hated that card just because of that, and honestly I still do.
There are a LOT of existing cards where it looks like the game has to perform a variable type conversion on the value of X in the background. There are way too many examples to be listed here, so I'll just mention the first recent one that I found:
Animus of Night's Reach. It says "Whenever Animus of Night's Reach attacks, it gets +X/+0 until end of turn, where X is the number of creature cards in defending player's graveyard." The number of creature cards in a graveyard is written as a string. From my point of view, the game turns it into an integer with the text "where X is the number of..." and then applies that integer as a modification to a value that's appropriately an integer, the Animus's power. That card makes no sense if that X in +X/+0 is a string.
Yet, I haven't been able indeed to find any examples of cards where the value of X is compared to something that is usually expressed with a string. Not just turning a string into an integer to use, but making a comparison with it. I was hoping to find such an example but I had no luck.
So I went back to the CR themselves. I reread all section 107 ("Numbers and symbols"). The very first rule is:
CR (BRO) wrote:107.1. The only numbers the Magic game uses are integers.
Then it goes on to explain that it actually means you can't use fractions (107.1a) and that under ordinary circumstances you can only use "positive numbers and zero" (107.1b and 107.1c). That doesn't actually help as it doesn't talk about strings or anything like that.
I noticed a thing that looks very interesting to me though. Throughout the whole rule 107.3, the one about X, when the rules mention "the value of X" being zero it's always written as a numeral. It's not a definitive rule but it's the closest thing I've been able to find.
CR (BRO) wrote:
107.3b If a player is casting a spell that has an {X} in its mana cost, the value of X isn't defined by the text of that spell, and an effect lets that player cast that spell while paying neither its mana cost nor an alternative cost that includes X, then the only legal choice for X is 0. (...)
107.3g If a card in any zone other than the stack has an {X} in its mana cost, the value of {X} is treated as 0, even if the value of X is defined somewhere within its text.
107.3h If an effect instructs a player to pay an object's mana cost that includes {X}, the value of X is treated as 0 unless the object is a spell on the stack. In that case, the value of X is the value chosen or determined for it as the spell was cast.
107.3j If an object gains an ability, the value of X within that ability is the value defined by that ability, or 0 if that ability doesn't define a value of X. (...)
107.3m If an object's enters-the-battlefield triggered ability or replacement effect refers to X, and the spell that became that object as it resolved had a value of X chosen for any of its costs, the value of X for that ability is the same as the value of X for that spell, although the value of X for
that permanent is 0. (...)
As I haven't reached a definitive conclusion, for now my judgment stands. Sorry for posting one more technical deep dive, but I think that this is the sort of problems that real Magic designers, and mostly editors probably, have to deal with whenever they print some new effect that has never been done before, which is, like, every set... It must not be an easy job. Each time I think about it and how they manage (or at least try) to keep the logical system of Magic working, my admiration for their work keeps on growing. Should I find any more evidence or change my mind about haywire's case, I will post it here.
Author of the MCC Guidelines and FAQ. |
Thanks to all that have provided feedback about the March MCC. You can find the results in this post.
For my projects (Jeff Lionheart, "One pierced heart, two mindful horns", republished articles from my series "The Lion's Lair", and custom sets), see
Leo's content index (Last updated on April 9th 2024 - Added TLL #8).
After I'm done republishing my articles I want to reprise the series focusing it more on editing, wording, and templating.
Suggest potential future article topics here.
Blue = MTGSalvation Green = MTGNexus
MCC - Winner (9): Oct 2014, Apr Nov 2017, Jan 2018, Apr Jun 2019, Jan Mar 2022, Apr 2023 || Host (30): Dec 2014, Apr Jul Aug Dec 2015, Mar Jul Aug Oct 2016, Feb Jul 2017, Jun Nov 2018, Feb Jul 2019 (last on MTGS), Aug 2019 (first on MTGN) Oct 2019, Jan Jun 2020 Apr Oct 2021, Feb May Sep Dec 2022, Mar Jun Sep Dec 2023, Mar 2024 || Judge (58): every month from Nov 2014 to Nov 2016 except Oct 2015, every month from Feb to Jul 2017 except Apr 2017, then Oct 2017, May Jun Nov 2018, Feb Jul 2019 (last on MTGS), every month from Aug 2019 (first on MTGN) to Feb 2020, May Jun 2020, Mar Apr Sep Oct 2021, Feb May Sep Dec 2022, Mar May Jun Sep Dec 2023, Jan Mar 2024
CCL - Winner (4): Jul 2016 (tied with Flatline), May 2017, Jul 2019 (last on MTGS), Jun 2021 (tied with slimytrout) || Host (5): Feb 2015, Mar Apr May Jun 2016
DCC - Winner (3): Mar 2015 (tied with Piar), Feb Apr 2022 || Host (12): May Oct 2015, Jan 2016, Jun Sep Dec 2021, Mar Jun Sep Dec 2022, Mar Jun 2023