kisui is ranting about MTG - Saga Creature
As I note in my profile. I played Magic The Gathering. If you don't know what it is, it's a Trading Card Game by Wizards of The Coast that has existed for more than 30 years. It is not just a game, it is storybooks in form of cards. It has great gameplay, cool lores and awesome worldbuilding. It is really fun, I totally recommend it!
Now, MTG released a new set of cards regularly. Often with new mechanic, beautiful art and new story to tell. Recently, They do a lot of crossovers with other Intellectual Properties and called them Universe Beyond. They did one with Lord of the Rings, one with Fallout and one with Doctor Who. Personally I loved Original MTG worlds, but occasional crossover is nice too.
The next set to come is Crossover with Final Fantasy (coded as FIN). I could go on and on about how good and shitty (mainly because of the drama surrounding it) it is at the same time but I'll save that for another time.
Now my main rant is about not so new mechanic of the set is Saga Creature. Saga, itself is not new, it has existed for years. It is a card that basically says, "This card has several effects over several turns." Now if you are blind going to MTG, I recommend learning it first, try MTG Arena or visit your Local Game Store (you can try for free and get welcome deck for free too!) I am going really technical next.
Getting into technical side, Saga is enchantment type that has innate rules. For example. When Saga enters, it enters with a lore counter. Normally, MTG Cards has effect like this on its text, but for Saga, this is not mandatory written as this is part of the rule (it might have reminder text which is not card effect). Then Saga has chapters which, when a lore counter is put on it, the chapter which equal to the number of counters is triggered. 1 lore counter triggers chapter 1. 2 lore counters trigger chapter 2. Most Sagas have 3 chapters while others have less or more. Saga automatically gain counter at the beginning of your precombat main phase. Then finally it has a rule, when the final chapter ability (third one in case of 3 chapter saga) has leave the stack (because of resolving, countered, or exiled), you sacrifice the Saga. Simple right?
Not so much, MTG is very loyal to its design structure and user experience. They made it to be intuitive, to reduce memorization issue and also make it easier to play. With how the stack works, permanent cards that has sacrifice self effect usually has "sacrifice first then the effect is put on stack." This made a lot of things easier, since the permanent cards will leave the battlefield, no matter what you do, triggered or not (Sacrifice ~: deal 1 damage to any target). You or opponent can't do anything to the permanent, only to the effect that is triggered. Less pieces to think about but still intuitive.
Now due to Saga Ruling, it is sacrificed after its last chapter ability leave the stack. While in most case, it works like other permanent, but there are some edge cases like "return target permanent from the field to its owner hand" which means saga won't be sacrificed yet the final chapter effect still run (which also open to double dipping potential and MTG has somewhat strict rules about double dipping). If this is just it, it is simple. But Saga also has a ruling, "If a Saga loses its chapter abilities, without losing the Saga type, it is immediately sacrificed to the graveyard." Which is also okay, but a little bit counter intuitive with the previous case where you need to resolve first.
Then in FIN, comes a new Saga Creature, which by itself not a problem. In MTG, enchantment creature is normal since Theros. In Final Fantasy games, we can summon creature that temporarily aid us. Since Saga is temporary (as it last for only 3 turns most of the time), making Summons become Saga creature is very flavorful which I really like. Now connected to the previous ruling, if a Saga Creature loses its chapter abilities, it becomes sacrificed to the graveyard. Make sense, right? Absolutely.
Unfortunately WotC decided that they want to SELL Final Fantasy Set, and don't like people hosing saga (currently in the metagame there are several cards that removes abilities, like the CMC 2 Azure Beastbinder). Which brings into a problem. A CMC 5 Saga creature that last only 3 turns, gets removed easily by CMC 2 creature. Which metagame wise very favorable for the Azure Beastbinder owner. And this is not the only card in the metagame. Which translates to; Saga Creature is under-powered (in a lot of format) which also means people won't buy it other than for flavor.
Because of this, WotC decided to make an exception. When a SAGA (all kinds) loses its chapter abilities, it is not sacrificed. If it is a SAGA creature, it just becomes a vanilla creature. Not only this is problematic because of adding new exceptions to already rigid rules, this is also enhanced with a lot of edge cases arising.
What happens with the lore counter, do we still get lore counters at precombat main phase?
What happens if it regains it chapters abilities?
What happens if it loses its abilities after the last chapter abilities is put on the stack?
Exception, exception, exception! Which not only complicates thing for old players but especially confusing for new players. Mind you, one of the reason of these Universe Beyond Crossover sets is to attract new players that are fans of the Crossover-ed franchise. This would creates tons of conflict and confusions especially for people who are not aware of the exceptions.
What worse is there used to be judge program, people can become judges of MTG and players could ask the judges for official ruling and clarification. Now the program is gone into Limbo, if rulings issue arise, who would resolve them?
With so many exceptions, would old players remember it? Would new players understand it intuitively? I'll let you decide.
That's it for now. Over and out!
P.S:
What happens with the lore counter, do we still get lore counters at precombat main phase? NO, Explicitly written on FIN release note.
What happens if it regains it chapters abilities? It will not trigger chapter abilities immediately (will work normally at its controller next precombat main phase) and will be sacrificed if it has lore counter more than or equal its chapter abilities. (rule 714.4)
What happens if it loses its abilities after the last chapter abilities is put on the stack? The saga is still sacrificed due to explicit ruling of final chapter leaving the stack. (FIN release note)
Unfortunately, since it is note explicitly written, it might causes conflict and there are no judges who can clarify anymore.