5 ms·

Clearly this is just the particular phrasing in this edition for "whenever this becomes blocked," which has been phrased many different ways across editions.

YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
I don't think so. First of all ability text has never been worded in a way that is ungrammatical and doesn't make sense in natural English. That's a hallmark of ability text, that it's correct English, rather than gibberish, as this bit of text. Then, this "ability" references some kind of activation. In M:tG, things that can be "activated" are activated abilities. Blocking is not an activated ability, so it doesn't make sense to say "whenever you activate one or more creatures block" you are blocking with the creatures. But then- why is it using the word "block", that is only used to denote, well, blocking? This creates a lot of ambiguity and another hallmark of M:tG ability text is that it's very carefully engineered to remove ambiguity. So this is just gibberish that doesn't make sense, not a new, fancy wording of an old ability. Which makes sense because like the author of the article says, there are very few examples of M:tG cards' ability text to train a neural net to generate good quality new ability text.
- IggleSniggle 6y ago
  I do actually agree that you are semantically correct here within the rules of M:tG. In the world of a set of cards that do not actually exist, however, it is easy for me to imagine some older edition of M:tG that used this language to update "Block" from being a creature "capability" into a fully fledged "Ability." If that were the case, it would be an Activated Ability with zero mana cost (except for those creatures that, say, required some cost in order to block something). I do recognize that if such a thing were introduced today however, it would be as a Keyword Ability like Shadow (maybe "Ethereal"?), perhaps with text like: - Ethereal (This creature is unable to block) - {Cost}: This creature loses Ethereal
  - YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
    If I understand correctly you're saying this could well be an older version of ability text? The problem with this is - well, there are two. The first problem is that there never was any time in the history of the game when this kind of wording would make sense, mechanically or in any other way. There has never been any ability text string that included the phrase "whenever you activate one or more creatures block" in any past version of the M:tG game. You could imagine an alternative reality where M:tG cards were printed with that phrase- but in our timeline, they never were. Even more so because, like I say above, that phrase is ungrammatical. There was never any time in M:tG history when Wizards of the Coast would have printed ungrammatical gibberish on a card and called it "ability text" - except perhaps for Un-set cards (which were likely excluded from the training of the Description Generator anyway). Further more, there was never any time in the history of the game when that kind of wording would make sense- not with the original rules, not with Sixth Edition rules, not with any ruleset before or after. [source: The Gatherer: https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Default.aspx https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Default.aspx] The second problem is that the "Description generator" (the neural net that generates ability text) was trained on modern versions of cards' Oracle text (taken from MTGJson which has up-to-date card text even for older cards, taken from The Gatherer and other sources; for example, if you look at Alpha cards on MTGJson, you'll see they've got the up-to-date wording). The phrase "whenever you activate one or more creatures block" cannot be found on the modern version of any M:tG card, so its generation by the Description generator is a failure of the system to represent its training data accurately and not a brilliant invention of an ancestral version of ability text that was or might have been; if nothing else because that's not what the training of the Description Generator was trying to do, it was just trying to generate correct ability text according to what is on cards today.
    - IggleSniggle 6y ago
      Yes, indeed, you are correct on all counts. I think I am more generously interpreting "whenever you activate one or more creatures block" as "whenever you activate one or more creature's block" as "whenever you block with a creature." In this sense, it is very close to grammatical even if it is not close to the ruleset, and imho it is close enough that it could be playable in a casual game, which is really the litmus I am using. Instead of, "is this convincing as a magic card," I am considering "is there a way that this card could be made to work in a casual game, and still be both balanced and understandable"

YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago

I don't think so. First of all ability text has never been worded in a way that is ungrammatical and doesn't make sense in natural English. That's a hallmark of ability text, that it's correct English, rather than gibberish, as this bit of text. Then, this "ability" references some kind of activation. In M:tG, things that can be "activated" are activated abilities. Blocking is not an activated ability, so it doesn't make sense to say "whenever you activate one or more creatures block" you are blocking with the creatures. But then- why is it using the word "block", that is only used to denote, well, blocking? This creates a lot of ambiguity and another hallmark of M:tG ability text is that it's very carefully engineered to remove ambiguity. So this is just gibberish that doesn't make sense, not a new, fancy wording of an old ability. Which makes sense because like the author of the article says, there are very few examples of M:tG cards' ability text to train a neural net to generate good quality new ability text.

IggleSniggle 6y ago
I do actually agree that you are semantically correct here within the rules of M:tG. In the world of a set of cards that do not actually exist, however, it is easy for me to imagine some older edition of M:tG that used this language to update "Block" from being a creature "capability" into a fully fledged "Ability." If that were the case, it would be an Activated Ability with zero mana cost (except for those creatures that, say, required some cost in order to block something). I do recognize that if such a thing were introduced today however, it would be as a Keyword Ability like Shadow (maybe "Ethereal"?), perhaps with text like: - Ethereal (This creature is unable to block) - {Cost}: This creature loses Ethereal
- YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
  If I understand correctly you're saying this could well be an older version of ability text? The problem with this is - well, there are two. The first problem is that there never was any time in the history of the game when this kind of wording would make sense, mechanically or in any other way. There has never been any ability text string that included the phrase "whenever you activate one or more creatures block" in any past version of the M:tG game. You could imagine an alternative reality where M:tG cards were printed with that phrase- but in our timeline, they never were. Even more so because, like I say above, that phrase is ungrammatical. There was never any time in M:tG history when Wizards of the Coast would have printed ungrammatical gibberish on a card and called it "ability text" - except perhaps for Un-set cards (which were likely excluded from the training of the Description Generator anyway). Further more, there was never any time in the history of the game when that kind of wording would make sense- not with the original rules, not with Sixth Edition rules, not with any ruleset before or after. [source: The Gatherer: https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Default.aspx https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Default.aspx] The second problem is that the "Description generator" (the neural net that generates ability text) was trained on modern versions of cards' Oracle text (taken from MTGJson which has up-to-date card text even for older cards, taken from The Gatherer and other sources; for example, if you look at Alpha cards on MTGJson, you'll see they've got the up-to-date wording). The phrase "whenever you activate one or more creatures block" cannot be found on the modern version of any M:tG card, so its generation by the Description generator is a failure of the system to represent its training data accurately and not a brilliant invention of an ancestral version of ability text that was or might have been; if nothing else because that's not what the training of the Description Generator was trying to do, it was just trying to generate correct ability text according to what is on cards today.
  - IggleSniggle 6y ago
    Yes, indeed, you are correct on all counts. I think I am more generously interpreting "whenever you activate one or more creatures block" as "whenever you activate one or more creature's block" as "whenever you block with a creature." In this sense, it is very close to grammatical even if it is not close to the ruleset, and imho it is close enough that it could be playable in a casual game, which is really the litmus I am using. Instead of, "is this convincing as a magic card," I am considering "is there a way that this card could be made to work in a casual game, and still be both balanced and understandable"