Wizards of the Coast have made a couple of important rules changes to Magic: the Gathering that will have an effect on games played in our Grand Melee League. The changes in question apply from July 13, so our July round of the league will be played with these rules.

The main changes affect legendary permanents and planeswalkers. You can read the full article at the Wizards of the Coast website, but the changes are summarised here.

Legends
Having two or more copies of a legendary permanent in play no longer causes all of them to go to their owners’ graveyards. It now doesn’t matter if you control the same legend as an opponent – nothing happens. If you control two or more copies of the same legendary permanent, you choose all but one of them to go to your graveyard.

Legend Example 1
Old
You have a copy of Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius in play. An opponent in range also has a copy. Both copies go to their owners’ graveyards.
New
You have a copy of Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius in play. An opponent in range also has a copy. Nothing happens.

Legend Example 2
Old
You have a copy of Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius in play. You cast a second copy. Both copies go to your graveyard.
New
You have a copy of Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius in play. You cast a second copy. You choose one copy to go to your graveyard, and keep the other.

This means a few things. Legendary permanents can no longer by automatically destroyed by playing a second copy, or by casting a spell that creates a copy. Also if you have one legendary permanent you can replace it with another to gain an advantage, for example getting rid of a creature with Pacifism on it.

Planeswalkers
The planeswalker uniqueness rule has also been changed, in a similar fashion to the Legend Rule. Again, the game only cares about the planeswalkers you control, what your opponents have out is not relevant. If you control two plansewalkers with the same planeswalker type, you choose one to be put into your graveyard.

This gives planeswalkers some extra flexibility they previously lacked. You can now use a deck with different copies of the same planeswalker, and know that you can never be stuck with one version in your hand and on in play, and be unable to cast the second without losing both. Now if you need to place your Garruk Wildspeaker with Garruk Relentless, it’s a simple as casting the second version and choosing the first to you to your graveyard. You can even use on of his abilities first!

There are other rules changes too but the legend and planeswalkers are the main changes.