Obvious Rule Patch / Card Games

• Magic: The Gathering
• Yu-Gi-Oh! Card Game

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  • If, for whatever reason, there aren’t enough cards in the deck to give all players a complete hand (either a lot of players, or landing a high card with the appropriate house rule), the dealer stops when cards cannot be dealt evenly, leaving the remainder as a trading pool.
  • While not all groups allow for straights, among those that do, it’s common to require three or more cards so players can’t simply offload two adjacent cards.
• Bridge has one from the days of its foundation - eight-level contract bids. A contract obligates the declaring team to take six tricks (the "book tricks") on top of the number (the "bid tricks") of the contract. As there are only 13 tricks to play, the highest contract that can be made is a seven-level contract. However, depending on distribution, it's quite possible that the penalty for making a sacrifice bid at the eight-level would be lower than the reward for making the grand slam at the seven-level, making it more profitable to make the sacrifice, even with the guaranteed penalty double. This was seen as unsporting (and a bit dull on many occasions), so the rules were amended to make it impossible to promise to take more tricks than a hand can hold.
• The rules for Perfect Guard units in Cardfight!! Vanguard have undergone a few pre-emptive changes:
  • First, the wording for Perfect Guards was changed so that they could only protect one Unit at a time. One set later, Draconic Kaiser Vermillion was introduced, the first Unit with the ability to target three Units with one attack.
  • Second, the "Sentinel" subtype was added to Perfect Guards, along with the condition that a deck could only have a maximum of four "Sentinel" cards. One set later, the first cards with two Clan types (Blaster Blade Spirit and Blaster Dark Spirit) were introduced^*This was significant because a Perfect Guard Unit can only protect a Unit from a matching Clan. Without this patch, the two Blaster Spirit cards could have had eight Perfect Guards to defend themselves with, something that could have been a Game-Breaker.
• Chaotic: Najarin, Fluidmorphers' Foe◊ has an ability that gives him a Mugic counter whenever an opposing Creature gets one. They had to roll out a very quick errata to make it no longer trigger off Creatures named "Najarin" to prevent two copies of Fluidmorphers' Foe from causing infinite loops.
• In the trick-taking game Chronicle, wild cards have no suit and no value. There are six wild cards in the deck. Three of them are auto-win cards (the Demon beats everything but the King, the King beats everything, and the Dragon destroys the trick entirely) and three of them have effects unrelated to the trick (the Angel, Sage and Fool). So in theory, in a three-player game the players could play these three cards, resulting in the trick having no winner. The rules specify that the first player wins should this ever actually occur.
• The Dragon Ball Z CCG used the show's Power Levels as a gameplay element, with two characters' current power levels compared on a chart during attacks, and damage dealt accordingly. However, because the numbers for the power levels stayed relatively accurate to the show (wherein, by the end of the series, characters had to go out of their way to not blow up the Earth during their battles), the chart used had to be updated constantly. Still, eventually it became obvious that some characters (especially from early sets) were flat-out useless in physical combat even against common cards in later sets, so the chart was eventually abandoned and replaced with a calculation system that didn't particularly make much more sense, but at least kept the game more interesting.
  • Notably, when Retro redid the game some time later, they started with the highest possible power level at the time (Super Saiyan God Goku) which means they knew the ceiling from the jump and didn't have to redo the table over time.
• The Final Fantasy Trading Card Game had a rule patch in response to the evolution of the game. Lani was introduced in the Opus XII expansion. When she enters the field, the opposing player removes the top card of their deck from the game, and the player who played Lani can then cast the card as if it was in their hand and at a reduced cost. This caused confusion, as "cast" was at the time defined as "playing a Summon", which are one-time effects. Forwards, Backups, and Monsters until then were never "cast", but "played". Square Enix quickly clarified that the word "cast" was being redefined to "paying a cost in Crystal Points to play a card from your hand" and that all cards paid for and played that way were "cast", regardless of their card type. "Play" in turn was redefined as "putting a card onto the field, whether it had a cost paid for or not". The distinction is important, as several cards have special effects depending on how many cards you "cast" as opposed to "played".
• Illuminati: New World Order:
  • The Limited Edition had a series of loopholes that would allow the Gnomes of Zurich to win on the first turn. The Unlimited Edition had a number of rule changes obviously designed to stop this exact scenario. Chiefly, the rule "Nobody may win on the first turn."
  • The tournament rules allow organizers to invalidate trades in multiplayer tournaments that are solely designed to throw the game to one player and advance them to a higher table (or victory in the tournament). They admit that such a tactic is highly Illuminated, but it really isn't fair to the outsider who gets screwed over by team-players.
• The FAQ on the Munchkin website is full of stuff like "No, thieves can not steal during combat or backstab themselves". This may be viewed as Hypocritical Humor since the term "Munchkin" refers to someone eking out every possible advantage they can from any game mechanic.
  • They're willing to go along with a sufficiently devious rules abuse, though. One famous example is playing "Go Up A Level" cards on other players. Since some monsters will allow players to run away for free if they're below a certain base level, this could be used to force a player to fight that (often quite powerful) monster. The company's response:
  This is not the original intent of "Go Up a Level" cards, but it is such a munchkinly and vile idea that we like it too much to say no.
  • One card allowed you to change one die roll to be any number that you wanted it to be. However, they didn't specify that it had to be an integer between 1 and 6. This led to people declaring that the die roll was one million or negative twelve or whatever, with bizarre results. They later changed the card so that you physically turned the die to display the number you wanted.
  • Originally, the Wizard class could "charm" a monster by discarding their whole hand. Munchkin players being what they are, they immediately began "discarding their whole hands" when they had nothing in them. Later editions specify a minimum of three cards.
• In the My Little Pony Collectible Card Game, there are three cards named "Applebloom, Showstopper", "Scootaloo, Showstopper", and "Sweetie Belle, Showstopper", that have effects that make the player either tell a joke, sing, or dance, respectively. These were later made to be optional, as they were written "in the spirit of fun".
• Pokémon Trading Card Game:
  • In the early days, there was a loophole where a deck that contains no Basic Pokémon would prevent the game from ever starting. This is because each player must play down a Basic Pokémon in order to start the game. Thus, when Nintendo bought the card game back from Wizards of the Coast (who wasn't taking it seriously to begin with), Nintendo created a rule for all competitions, regardless of purpose: All decks must contain at least 1 Basic Pokémon.
  • Previously, Fossil Cards (which are a different class of cards that can be played on the field like Basic Pokémon) were simply discarded when their Hit Points are depleted with no other penalty. Now, they count as a Knocked Out Pokémon, allowing the attacker to take a prize card (out of the 6 needed to win the game). This was because Fossil cards were rarely used for their intended purpose (to be evolved into usable Pokémons), but rather they were used to tank the opponent's damage while the users prepared up their Pokémon from the (usually) unattackable Bench.
    • Note that each of these new rules only indirectly block these loopholes. It seems Nintendo tries its very hardest not to ban anything or to directly address exploits.
  • One from the game's early days was the "Mewtwo Mulligan Deck" - a deck that simply had one copy of the original Mewtwo card and Psychic energy filling out the other 59 cards. Starting a hand without a Basic Pokemon (with only 1 Basic Pokemon in 60 cards, the probability of this is 53/60 = 88.3%^note The reason it isn't 59/60 is because 6 cards are set aside as prize cards; 6 prize cards + 1 Mewtwo is 7 cards) allowed the user to declare a mulligan, allowing them to draw another seven cards, and forced the other player to draw another card. This would keep going until the MMD user could either force a loss by running the other player out of draws before the game even began, or got their Mewtwo out and could use its power (to become immune to all damage) to stall the opponent out. A patch was put in to make the extra draw for the opposing player optional.
  • In the very early days, a player was allowed to retreat as many times per turn as they wanted to. The result? If you have two Pokémon with a retreat cost of 0, you can just keep retreating them back and forth for each other infinitely, and stall out the game by never moving on to your opponent's turn. Nintendo very quickly issued a new rule limiting retreats to once per turn.
  • Up until one point, if a Stadium card was in play, you could play another copy of the same one and discard the one already in play (which normally happens when another Stadium card is played). Later on, a new rule was added that prevents a player from playing a Stadium card that's the same as one already in play (such as your opponent's card), and said rule was added to all future Stadium cards.
  • Some players used to believe that Poké-Powers that took effect when the Pokémon was put into play (such as being played from your hand) were immune to effects that shut off Poké-Powers due to how they worked. Eventually, it was addressed that the rules were changed to that if an effect of some kind prevents Poké-Powers from being used, it also applies to "coming into play" ones as well.
  • In the Black & White sets, there was "Professor Juniper" a Supporter card that allows you to discard your hand and draw 7 cards, which was reprinted towards the end of that generation. The first XY set gave us "Professor Sycamore", a Supporter card with the exact same effect, which meant you could have 8 copies of basically the same card in your deck. Being aware of this, Nintendo issued a rule stating you aren't allowed to run Professor Juniper and Professor Sycamore at the same time (this ruling would later include the "Professor's Research" card mentioned below).
    • Starting in the first Sword & Shield set, such Supporter cards of that effect are now called "Professor's Research" (which can feature a different Pokémon Professor depending on the set). Likewise, Lysandre of the second XY expansion was succeeded by "Boss's Orders" (which can feature a different villain boss) in future expansions.
  • Due to certain game-breaking combos that allowed a player to win on the second turn or even the first turn (before their opponent can do anything), rules have been added over time for whichever player goes first, such as not being allowed to attack on the first turn or more recently, not being allowed to play a Supporter card on the first turn.
  • Initially, there was confusion over Pokémon with moves that copy the opposing Pokémon's moves, particularly moves with negative effects on its user. For instance, Zapdos (Base Set) has an attack, Thunder, which does 60 damage and reads, "Flip a coin; if tails, Zapdos does 30 damage to itself." Literal-Minded players, as well as those looking to exploit a loophole, interpreted other Pokémon using Thunder as dealing 60 damage, with Zapdos taking an additional 30 damage if the coin flip lands tails due to the card's text mandating that the 30 damage goes specifically to Zapdos. From Pokémon X and Y onwards, instead of naming the move's user directly, it now always reads "this Pokémon" so the correct Pokémon suffers the negative effects. In earlier eras, errata had to specify that whenever a Pokémon referred to itself, you had to read it as "this Pokémon" if the attack was used by another Pokémon, which led to...
  • The Magikarp card from the Team Rocket expansion needing a few obvious patches, as the wording of its Rapid Evolution attack was very prone to Loophole Abuse. It reads: "Search your deck for an Evolution card named Gyarados or Dark Gyarados and put it on Magikarp. (This counts as evolving Magikarp.) Shuffle your deck afterward." Following the "this Pokémon" ruling, it was technically possible to stack multiple copies of Gyarados on the same card (via Recall allowing evolved Pokémon to use their pre-evolution's moves) or use Power Copying to evolve a Togetic into Gyarados. (Since the rule specifies Gyarados, not "a card that evolves from this Pokémon") The "Neo Genesis" rulebook introduced the "Illegal Evolution" rule, which specified that Pokémon can only evolve into cards that state "evolves from [the Pokémon's name]".
  • The Item card Pokémon Catcher has the notoriety of being one of the only cards in the game to get nerfed. It allows you to switch your opponents active Pokémon with one of their benched Pokémon allowing the player to score easy kills on weak support Pokémon, on top of being able to be recycled by the trainer card Junk Arm. In the transition to the XY sets, Pokémon Catcher was errataed to require a coin flip to work. Several cards that do that without the coin flip come with a caveat e.g., the Boss's Orders is a Supporter card, which can only be played once per turn (unlike Item cards), and the Counter Catcher requires having more prize cards than the opponent.
  • Many Items in modern sets often had powerful effects that were meant to be restricted to Pokemon that aren't the generation's Super Mode cards (EX, GX, V Break, Etc.). While this was obviously meant to be an option for the slower Basic/Evolution cards to keep them competitive with the instant power that these Pokemon provide, some of them, due to not specifying a type of card from an older set, worked for the Super Modes of older sets, allowing for power combinations in the Expanded format that are not supposed to be possible. After Shaymin-EX^note A card that when played to bench, let you draw until you had 6 cards in hand, which was not limited to once per turn. was banned for being used in combination with the Item Card Scoop Up Net^note Returns any card not a GX or V to your hand, which since it's an EX, it avoids this stipulation, letting it draw through a large portion of a deck in a single turn, future sets have changed these stipulations to include any Pokemon with a unique Rule Box, which is a catch all for any cards with this kind of unique mechanic.
• There are several rules in Poker which are intended to promote speedy play and/or ban unethical maneuvers:
  • Forced bets, including blinds, antes, and bring-ins, are designed to ensure that some or all players have a stake in the pot, preventing everyone from folding until they get a really good hand. In Tournament Play, they are raised continually to prevent overly cautious play (this often leads to people winning World Championships with cards they wouldn't play in a low-limit cash game).
  • The "small blind", "big blind", and "dealer button", used in cardrooms, particularly in Texas Hold'em, ensure that the action moves in an orderly manner, as opposed to previous opening rules like "forced bring-in" (the lowest (or sometimes highest) showing card has to open, common in stud games) or "jackpots" (common in draw games, requiring a hand of certain strength, often a pair of jacks, to begin the betting).
  • "Cards Speak": A hand does not have to be declared at the showdown to be played (e.g., your flush still beats their three of a kind even if you don't know it's a flush when you show it down). This prevents ugly arguments about whether or not a player announced his best hand or should get credit for it.
  • "Table Stakes": A player cannot be forced out of a pot due to lack of money (extra bets go into a side pot), and a player can't reach into their pocket and offer up their Aston Martin keys/the deed to the ranch/etc. to call a hand (the short player can only win the pots that their chips-in-play can "cover"). This prevents the richest person at the table from winning every hand by forced forfeit. Players are, however, allowed to add money to their reserve between hands.
  • Anti-collusion rules such as: banning cellphones tableside, requiring cards shown to another player to be shown to the rest of the table, and banning languages other than English at the table. The last one often exempts ASL from the ban, in order to avoid violating ADA requirements.
• Sentinels of the Multiverse tends to have these in the second editions of cards and errata.
  • The "Raging T. Rex" in Insular Primalis originally damaged the target with the second-highest HP, before a reprint amended it to the target besides itself with the second-highest HP.
  • Visionary's "Wrest the Mind" card lets her redirect a target's damage however she chooses, at the cost of some HP. The first print had no restrictions, and took 2 HP from her and the target, while the reprint nerfed it to exclude character cards and raise the cost to 3 HP. This eliminated the ability to affect character cards like other heroes or villains, and shortened how long it could be used on minion cards before it burned out their HP or Visionary's.
  • Ra's "Flesh of the Sun God" card makes him immune to fire damage, and "Imbued Fire" makes all hero damage fire damage. This combination meant that "Solar Flare" — a powerful buff with a steep upkeep cost of psychic damage — could be kept out indefinitely with its original wording. Later editions of the game specify that "Solar Flare" is destroyed if it does no damage.
  • When the game was given a digital release, the desgners had to make a final call on things they'd previously left to player interpretation. This eventually led to a rather lengthy forum post detailing a number of interactions and explaining how they aren't bugs, just the result of their decided rules interacting weirdly.
• At least by the Special Edition expansion pack, the Star Wars Customizable Card Game came with a separate glossary three times the size of the (already dense) basic rulebook, which was about 50% "errata" fixing Game Breakers. The other half...well, let's just say this was a very involved game.
• One of the most blatant in cards rather than errata is "Writ of Accountability" from the Star Trek Customizable Card Game (First Edition), which essentially prohibits the opponent from using specific Game Breakers lest they lose. See for yourself◊. In tournament play, such a game (regardless of the situation prior to the Writ coming into play) grants 100 points to the winner, while the person who fell afoul of Writ scores 0. (Decipher generally tried to avoid outright banning cards. The only card on the STCCG ban list—"Raise the Stakes"—was on there because it violated gambling laws in the United States, not to mention that it would have wrought havoc with tournament play.)
  • There exist a number of cards with that striped icon (called the "referee" icon) that exist almost exclusively to limit broken strategies (though some, like Defend Homeworld, have actual use beyond this). Writ is only the most punishing of these cards. Other cards result in lesser penalties. Some invoke a loss of points—going negative if they have to—or needing more points to win than usual. Others kill/destroy certain cards in play, or remove them from the game entirely (as in, they don't even go to the regular discard pile, they're simply placed out of play). Still others don't impose an actual penalty, but do impose limits on the use of certain cards.
  • One nasty combination from the first set caused an actual rule change. The card "Telepathic Alien Kidnappers" allowed one player, once per turn, to name a card type (personnel, ship, interrupt, event, etc.), then pick a card from the opponent's hand. If it matched, the card was discarded. The card "Alien Probe" forced both players to play with their hands exposed, face-up on the table. The effect of the two cards together was that a player who had T.A.K. and Alien Probe could basically tell an opponent once per turn, "you lose that card". A later rules patch said that a player had to be allowed to conceal his hand before the opponent could try to pick a card with T.A.K., making the combo less deadly. In addition, other cards were introduced to counter both cards in the combo.
• In French Tarot, a chelem is a bonus for winning every trick. The deck also contains a special card called excuse, which can never win a trick. Thus if a player has the excuse in his hand, he would normally not be able to complete a chelem. To patch this, if a player has already won all but the last trick and is left with only the excuse, it will win the trick regardless, completing the chelem. However, this is not enough: there is another bonus for taking the last trick with the smallest trump (number 1), so the player with both the excuse and the trump 1 would be unable to get that bonus while making a chelem. So in this case, winning the second to last trick with the trump 1 also awards the bonus.

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