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A sample of the mtg rules in 1994

In the early days of Magic, the rules weren't clear even to Wizards and changed constantly. Here is an example, from Duelist #3, of how things worked:

"A player summoned a Benalish Hero. [1/1 creature]. The player then immedialte casts an enchantment, Holy Armor [gives +1/+2], on the Hero. At the same time, the player's opponent uses his Prodigal Sorcerer's special ability to inflict a point of damage on the Hero. Does the Hero survive the Sorcerer's poke?

According to the rules as they're intended, the Hero lives. Following the "last in, first out" rule for resolving chains of spells, Tim's poke actually occurs before the Holy Armor is successfully cast. Fortunately for you and your Hero, though, damage is assigned after all the spells in the chain have been dealt with. By the time the chain is resolved, the Hero gains 2 toughness from the Armor even as she takes 1 damage from the Prodigal Sorcerer, so the poke wouldn't be enough to killer her."

The magazine however goes on to acknowledge that even their own pocket players guide says "once the summon is cast, your opponent can use a fast effect to kill the creature before you can enchant it." They go on to ask players how they think it should work and provide a US postal mailing address for feedback.

  • bdrago
    Posted 13 years, 2 months ago (Source)

    Protection was pretty clear by Unlimited.

    • Can't be blocked by (color) if blocker is (color)

    • Damage from (color) is reduced to 0

    • Cannot be enchanted by (color) enchantments

    • Cannot be targeted by (color) spells.

    Everything else was fair game. Since balance didn't single out a creature and it was more of a blanket (as was Wrath of God) it was taught to me in A/B/U that it was not immune.

    Useless trivia:

    The original rulebook (Alpha/Beta/Unlimited) had this section on Protection:

    Protection: A creature with protection from one or more colors of magic cannot be affected by any magic of those colors. For example, a creature with protection from blue cannot be blocked by blue creatures, dealt damage by blue creatures, or enchanted, damaged, or otherwise affected by blue cards. Damage done by such a creature cannot be prevented using blue cards. Note that the creature does not have this ability until it is successfully summoned. If, for example, you are summoning a creature with protection from blue magic, your rival can still cast a blue interrupt that affects the summoning spell.

    The clarification above was put out via rulings, which were not distributed efficiently. Luckily a fellow by the name of Stephen D'Angelo would try and put them all together into text files to try and maintain some kind of order.

    To be fair, there wasn't any serious tournaments back then so these were for kitchen table players.

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