My Favorite Magic Combo = T.T

So out of curiousity I picked up a tournament pack of Kamigawa. In perspective of well over 10 years of existance, now I can say I'm old school even though I didn't know the game prior to Revised.

Oh, if you don't already know (you should), I'm referring to Magic: the Gathering. The grandaddy of all collectable card games, developed by mathematician Richard Garfield. He is my hero, don'ch'aknow. M:tG represents the most multi-faceted of the bunch, with good reason.

Represent.

Over the years rules have been phased out and revised to streamline it. Of course, if you want to be a rules jockey like me you've got to be familiar with everything. Some rule changes make a lot of sense, like unifying Mono Artifact and Poly Artifact to just plain Artifact and letting the rules text on the card determine how it works. Some rule changes remove layers of complexity, like removing Interrupts and merging Spells, Instants, Fast Effects, and Interrupts on a unified stack (GUTS: Grand Unifying Timing System). Counterspells were interrupts, and you nobody could cast an instant until the interrupt stack resolved. This had a complexity bonus in which you could have a very clear distinction between an Instant that, say, returns a target permanent to your hand and an Activated Event that could do the same.

A rule has been changed to break my favorite combo.

There are two cards which make me feel funny on the inside. First is Unnatural Selection, an enchantment that can make any creature any type. No big deal, right? Well, there's another card called Empress Galina that lets one take control of a legend or legenday permanent. The combo is simple. Since Legend is a creature type, just turn any creature into a legend and gain control over it forever (well, for as long as it remains in play).

Not to mention the inherant powers of being able to make creatures Legends. Two Legends of the same name cannot coexist. It used to be that the one that's been in play the longest gets to stay while others go to the graveyard. They updated the rule that all copies now go to the graveyards. Which makes this trick a little more powerful, yes? I should be happy, no?

Nope. The rule now states that Legend is no longer a creature type and instead describes an attribute of a creature. I can't use Unnatural Selection to make normal, ordinary creatures into Legends. Which kills this combo.

While this isn't the only trick my favorite deck has, it is an important one. I use Pure Reflection combined with Unnatural Selection to flood my play area with a bunch of Reflection tokens that are conveniently changed to something-not-Reflection whenever a creature spell is cast, and my opponent's creatures are wiped out as they all of a sudden discover themselves to be Reflections complements of my trickery.

But I'm still sad at it. T.T