Postcombat Main Phase Rules Change Coming with Bloomburrow
This article was updated on July 23rd, 2024 at 14:15, again on July 24th at 21:30, and for the final time on July 25th at 13:45 US Eastern to reflect new information that was provided by Matt Tabak from Wizards of the Coast.
If you’ve been following Bloomburrow spoilers, you might have noticed a strange bit of rules text on Muerra, Trash Tactician that indicates that it triggers on your first main phase. Under the current rules, this would indicate that it will trigger only on your first main phase of the game. We’ve seen a similar trigger condition on Chancellor of the Tangle. A key difference is that the latter card allows you to reveal it from your opening hand in order to receive this triggered ability. Muerra would need to be on the battlefield already during your first main phase in order to trigger.
Of course, this is only true if the current rules remain as they are. We now know that there is a rules update planned to address this that will go live on July 26th with Bloomburrow’s prerelease.
I’d like to thank Matt Tabak from Wizards of the Coast for providing clear information on the coming rules change in a series of posts on Twitter.
This change—along with the necessary errata to Chancellor of the Tangled—will change your precombat main phase to your first main phase. This also means that your postcombat main phase will now be your second main phase and any additional main phases will be referred to sequentially as your third main phase and so forth.
Why does this matter? It doesn’t change much about the game, but it will change every card that refers to your postcombat main phase to only function during your second main phase each turn. This can be significant when you’re taking additional combat phases that also grant you what used to be another postcombat main phase.
It seems likely that Neheb, the Eternal is the card that is impacted most significantly by this rules change due to the popular combo involving him and Aggravated Assault. He will no longer trigger during each of your main phases after your additional combat phases, which means that decks built around Neheb in the command zone will lose access to this combo.
There are still plenty of other ways to combo with Aggravated Assault in Commander, but this is the only one that effectively removes the functionality of a commander as a combo piece.
While it seems apparently that the Rules Managers at Wizards of the Coast are making this change in order to streamline the rules of the game, it remains to be seen whether we will be seeing more cards that care specifically about the first main phase—or maybe even the second, third, or fourth one—down the line.
July 23rd 14:15 Update: Matt Tabak has provided additional context as to the reason behind this decision. It seems more likely that this rules update comes down to making the game easier to understand and that it shouldn’t be taken as a sign that we’re going to see cards that care about you having extra main phases.
July 24th 21:30 Update: Matt Tabak has stated that they’re trying to take feedback into account for these changes and that the goal is to make as many people happy as possible while still accomplishing their goals. We’ll have to wait and see how the changes are implemented. We will know very soon.
July 25th 13:45 Final Update: The concerns of players have been heard. They’re going to rework all of these cards to still function the way they did previously even after the rules update. This is a huge victory for Neheb, the Eternal players and anyone else who plays the cards that care about postcombat main phases in decks that take extra combats.
Neheb, the Eternal happens to be my favorite mono-red commander, I’m very excited that Wizards of the Coast took player feedback into account and rectified the situation in a way that doesn’t take anything away from the way these cards will work. This wouldn’t be the first rules update that changed the functionality of existing cards and it won’t be the last. Let’s hope that Wizards continues to listen to player feedback.
Articles like these are made possible and kept ad-free due to the support of all of our Patreon, Twitch, and Discord subscribers. Come check us out on Discord to chat about all things Commander and play curated games with people from all over the world! We’d also love to hear from you on Twitter where you can find all of our latest news!
“This article is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards.
Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC.”
