Format-Wide Card Changes Can Create Balance Problems

Mark Rosewater said he personally dislikes formats changing card functionality in a November 4, 2026, Blogatog answer. A fan asked whether changes to what a card type can do should appear on the relevant cards or in a new format’s rules. Their example contrasted a blanket rule preventing creature tokens from being sacrificed with printing that restriction on each individual card made for the format.

“Having cards do things they weren’t designed to do tends to lead to play balance issues,” Rosewater wrote. His objection concerned the format-wide change; he did not recommend the card-by-card alternative. Under the fan’s proposed blanket rule, a sacrifice deck would lose creature tokens as fodder even when those tokens carried no such restriction themselves.