Magic: The Gathering Rules Update Gives Lots More Cards Surveil And Landfall

thegamer.com:

Fans of Magic: The Gathering’s surveil and landfall can rejoice, as Wizards of the Coast has released a surprise update to its official card database to formally add the mechanics to lots of older cards.

Widespread errata to existing cards like this is incredibly rare, with the last one on this scale being the great Phyrexian update of early 2021’s Kaldheim. That being said, it’s difficult to see the impact this will have on the game in the long term.

RELATED: Magic: The Gathering – What Are Scry And Surveil?

As tweeted by card search site Scryfall, a number of cards have suddenly been given the surveil keyword. Surveil is a mechanic very similar to the already-evergreen scry in that it lets you look at the top cards of your deck, but surveil lets you dump them straight into your graveyard instead of on the bottom of the library. Despite its popularity, it’s mostly been found on cards tied to the setting of Ravnica’s Dimir guild, which meant it being rolled out in other sets was often a point of contention between Wizards and players.

Noteworth examples of this change are last year’s Consider and Otherworldly Gaze. Both cards used to surveil in all but name, and Wizards even argued against giving them the keyword as a way to keep knowledge of a long list of mechanics at a minimum. However, both cards have now had their official text changed to simply be “Surveil 1, draw a card” for Consider, and “Surveil 3, Flashback: one generic, one blue” for Otherworldly Gaze. Other cards that have been given surveil include Contingency Plan, Curate, Grim Flayer, Larder Zombie, Naga Oracle, Search For Azcanta, Sultai Ascendancy, and the recently released Dominaria United’s Uurg, Spawn of Turg.

While these cards always basically did