Post by blanky on Aug 11, 2023 7:09:02 GMT
Hello all. To be honest I'm not sure I'll be on the forums all that much, but I was studying the rules syntax of modern Magic cards and it occurred to me that I've never actually seen a solid breakdown of how the syntax works. So I was writing a guide for myself, but it felt rude not to offer it to anyone who might be interested. I don't see any section where posting a document resource would feel natural, though, so I'm just putting it in this intro post unless someone directs me to where such a thing should be (if it's useful to anyone).
Long-time players probably have a good natural feel for how an effect would be worded, but this mini-guide I've been writing for myself might be potentially useful for some designers. Before I wrote this, I often found myself comparing cards to figure out simple answers like "would this creature gain these properties, get these properties, or have these properties?"
Note that Wizards seems to be a little less entrenched in legalese card text than something like Yugioh, so they do sometimes allow their conventions to be broken if they feel it would make the rules text clearer to a new player.
If you find any mistakes, feel free to point them out. It's only a few pages long right now and is still a bit disorganized, so do forgive the formatting.
rules syntax.pdf (116.86 KB)
Note on methodology: I used comparisons of oracle text on Gatherer and completely ignored the text actually printed on the original cards, so it should be fairly accurate to how Wizards would optimally want to write out their cards.
Long-time players probably have a good natural feel for how an effect would be worded, but this mini-guide I've been writing for myself might be potentially useful for some designers. Before I wrote this, I often found myself comparing cards to figure out simple answers like "would this creature gain these properties, get these properties, or have these properties?"
Note that Wizards seems to be a little less entrenched in legalese card text than something like Yugioh, so they do sometimes allow their conventions to be broken if they feel it would make the rules text clearer to a new player.
If you find any mistakes, feel free to point them out. It's only a few pages long right now and is still a bit disorganized, so do forgive the formatting.
rules syntax.pdf (116.86 KB)
Note on methodology: I used comparisons of oracle text on Gatherer and completely ignored the text actually printed on the original cards, so it should be fairly accurate to how Wizards would optimally want to write out their cards.