Summary
Wizards of the Coast has saved one ofMagic: The Gathering’smost popular commanders, after an upcoming rules change initially broke one of its most popular combos.
Red players can rest easy, as Neheb the Eternal will now work as intended, allowing you to still head off into a loop of infinite combats with Aggravated Assault.
Earlier this week, it was announced that, starting with Bloomburrow’s launch early next month, all instances of “postcombat main phase” on cards will be erratad to simply say “second main phase”. This was for better accessibility for new players, but it came with the downside of mechanically changing how some older cards play.
One of these cards wasNeheb the Eternal, one of the go-to commanders in the popular Commander format. By using using the mana Neheb generates in your postcombat main phase, you may pay into Aggravated Assault to gain potentially infinite combat steps, winning the game. However, with the change, Neheb only generated that mana once per turn, turning off the combo.
Neheb Is So Back
Principal Magic editor Matt Tabak has since issued an update on Twitter to confirm that 11 older cards will keep their older wording of “postcombat main phase” to maintain their functionality. As well as Neheb, cards like Brazen Cannonade, Megatron, and the recently released Kirri, Talented Sprout and Sorin of House Markov will all keep the phrasing.
Any new cards released after Bloomburrow will likely use the new “second main phase” wording.
Every card in Magic: The Gathering is tracked on an official online database called Oracle. As far as the rules are concerned, it’s the text in Oracle that is the official version of the card and what it does, rather than what is printed on it. With this update, Neheb will mostly revert back from the current “second main” working to work as intended, Aggravated Assault combo and all, though Tabak does note that it will include a “small wording tweak” that is yet to be revealed to better explain how it works.
The sole card with “postcombat main phase” that will still be errata’d to say “second main phase” is World at War, a sorcery from Rise of the Eldrazi that gives you an additional combat and main phase, and rebounds to happen again next turn. It already only worked on your first postcombat main phase, and so the move to “second main phase” won’t materially change the card, while also better explaining when it will work and when it doesn’t.
With everything back to normal and Neheb back as one of the mono-red top dogs in Commander, red players can stop trying to understand the rules and do what they do best: turning cardboard sideways and letting the blocker work out the complicated maths.
Magic: The Gathering
Created by Richard Garfield in 1993, Magic: The Gathering (MTG) has become one of the biggest tabletop collectible card games in the world. Taking on the role of a Planeswalker, players build decks of cards and do battle with other players. In excess of 100 additional sets have added new cards to the library, while the brand has expanded into video games, comics, and more.
