Accademia di Tolaria

Primo appuntamento del 2008 con l’aggiornamento della Banned & Restricted List, ovvero quella lista che ci dice quali carte e quali espansioni è possibile giocare nei vari formati del gioco Magic The Gathering. Nel 2007 avevamo avuto diversi cambiamenti, anche importanti come lo Sban e il successivo immediato Ban di Flash dal T1,5 Legacy o la limitazione a 1 copia di Gifts Ungiven in T1 Vintage.
Il primo appuntamento di questo 2008 invece non porta nessuna novità per quanto riguarda le singole carte, infatti non c’è nessuna carta che è stata tolta o reinserita in qualche formato, ma porta invece una grossa novità per quanto riguardo l’intero formato EXT Esteso. Infatti nella nuova Banned & Restricted List viene annunciata una variazione nella rotazione delle edizioni legali nel formato, rispetto a quella prevista per ottobre 2008. Rispetto a quanto previsto in precedenza la grossa novità è rappresentata dal fatto che il blocco Assalto, con le espansioni Assalto, Legioni e Flagello, non uscirà dall’EXT Esteso a ottobre, ma rimarrà legale fino al 2009. A ottobre quindi la rotazione riguarderà solo le espansioni Invasione, Congiunzione, Apocalisse, Odissea, Tormento, Sentenza e Settima Edizione che non saranno più legali in EXT Esteso.
D’ora in poi inoltre la rotazione dell’EXT Esteso avrà un ciclicità identica a quella del T2 Standard, ogni volta che verrà stampato e prodotto un nuovo Blocco di espansioni, infatti uscirà dall’Esteso il blocco legale da più tempo, così da avere praticamente una rotazione annua. Probabilmente questo nuovo sistema di entrata ed uscita delle espansioni contribuirà sempre più ad avere una netta differenziazione tra quelli che sono i formati Wizards, Blocco EXT Esteso e T2 Standard e quelli che invece sono i formati che meno interessano alla Wizards, T1 Vintage e T1,5 Legacy.

Comunicato ufficiale Banned & Restricted List Marzo 2008 [via DCI]

March 1 2008 DCI Banned and Restricted List Announcement — Magic: The Gathering

Announcement Date: March 1, 2008
Magic Online Effective Date: Wednesday, March 26, 2008
(after the regularly scheduled Wednesday downtime)

DCI Floor Rule Change Announcement: Extended Rotation

The scheduled October 2008 rotation of the Extended format, as listed in the Magic Floor Rules, has changed. Following the release of the set codenamed “Rock”, the following sets will be leaving the Extended format: Invasion, Planeshift, Apocalypse, Odyssey, Torment, Judgment, and Seventh Edition. The rotation previously listed in the floor rules also included Onslaught, Legions™, and Scourge. These three sets are now scheduled to leave Extended in 2009. One years’ worth of blocks will leave Extended with every fall Magic release, syncing up Extended rotation with Standard rotation.

For more information about this change and the reasoning behind it, see Devin Low’s Latest Developments article for Friday, March 7 on magicthegathering.com.

Standard, Vintage, Legacy, Lorwyn Block Constructed, Two-Headed Giant Constructed
No changes

Online Formats:

Rule Set: Commander FFA Rules
Commander FFA is a rule set for Magic Online players, much like Two-Headed Giant or Emperor. It is based on the offline Elder Dragon Highlander rule set, which you can read more about here. Commander FFA is a variant of multiplayer free-for-all and can only be played with the 100 Card Singleton format described below.

In Commander rules, each player has a starting life total of 40 rather than the usual 20. A player chooses a legendary creature, called a commander, and builds a deck including his or her commander. Only colorless cards and cards of the commander’s color(s) may be included in the deck. Note that split cards and hybrid cards count as all of their colors. Aside from these deck building restrictions, your commander works differently from other cards in-game as identified below.

Before the game begins, each player removes his or her commander from the game. If a player’s commander would go to the graveyard from anywhere, he or she may choose to remove it from the game instead. A player may play his or her commander from the removed from the game zone for its normal costs plus an additional 2 for each previous time it has been played this way. If a player would add mana to his or her mana pool that’s a color his or her commander is not, colorless mana is added instead. In addition to the normal Magic loss conditions, if a player is dealt 21 points of combat damage from a single commander over the course of the game, that player loses the game.

Commanders are immune from the “legend rule,” so don’t worry if your commander is the same as someone else’s.

Format: 100 Card Singleton
100 Card Singleton is a Magic Online format in which each player’s deck must contain exactly 100 cards—no more, and no less—and no two cards in a deck can share a name unless they’re basic lands. 100 Card Singleton doesn’t require you to use Commander rules to play it, but it’s designed to work with Commander rules and the banned list is created with commander rules is mind.

The current banned list for 100 Card Singleton is as follows:

Biorhythm is banned.
Coalition Victory is banned.
Crucible of Worlds is banned.
Gleemox is banned.
Panoptic Mirror is banned.
Riftsweeper is banned.
Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant is banned.
Sway of the Stars is banned.
Test of Endurance is banned.
Upheaval is banned.
Worldgorger Dragon is banned.

Effective Wednesday, March 26, 2008, Kokusho, the Evening Star is banned.

Vanguard Avatar Changes

Seven Vanguard avatars will receive adjustments to their starting hand and/or life total modifiers in order to promote the continued health of the Vanguard format. The following avatars will be changed, effective Wednesday, March 26, 2008:

Mirri the Cursed
Heartwood Storyteller
Dakkon Blackblade
Jhoira of the Ghitu
Ashling the Pilgrim
Maro
Royal Assassin

For the specific avatar changes and reasoning behind them, see Ken Nagle’s article on the Magic Online page. For a complete list of Vanguard avatars and their abilities, click here.

Tribal Wars, Freeform, Classic, Singleton, Prismatic
No changes

For the complete list of all banned and restricted cards by format, click h