Just adding my voice to the din, I hate the new template change from post combat main to second main on every card, which is very functional errata on cards like Neheb the Eternal. It nerfs a lot of things in extra combat decks. Entirely too many things are once per turn these days, there's no need to change to older cards to that too.

There are a lot of things to juggle when changing terminology. The impact on a single card often isn’t as important as other gains made.

Could cards that have outdated counters or mechanics (ie cards that give -0/-1 counters, Contagion's weird -2/-1 counters) either get erattas for more appropriate counters or functional reprints with regular -1/-1 counters?

That’s the type of functional errata we don’t tend to do.

Is changing an Ability Word to a Keyword considered functional errata? Like if you changed "Landfall - Whenever a land enters the battlefield..." to "Whenever you landfall...."

It is functional errata.

Hi Mark! Idle curiosity about batching, such as Outlaws. Would adding a new create type to an existing batch be considered functional errata (avoided at all cost), or is it more similar to creature type errata (acceptable if there's a good justification for it)?

Adding a new creature type would be functional errata.

regarding your statement on snow covered: "It's a step in the right direction. I think they need to be nonbasic."why hasn't snow covered been errated to lose basic then? is there some large contingent of snow fans that would outcry? as a fan of snow myself, I'd love to see more support for snow, and if making that change would increase that chance, then please do it.

It’s not how we treat functional errata.

Why wasn’t Aladdin (or any named important creature from Arabian nights) changed to a legendary creature?

It’s functional errata.

With keywords being remade, old cards that care about them could become obsolete. Why can't those old cards be erratad to batch the new and old parts? It's barely even a functional errata since they'd work identically as before, but with the new keywords included. Four cards from the Onslaught block cared about creatures with morph. They were changed to batch morph and megamorph as "morph abilities" when Tarkir came out. With disguise as remade morph and the implication that it's replacing morph entirely, why not add it to the batch and have cards care about the batch instead the single keyword? Same with discover and cascade, or how you've said a remade modular is more likely than modular returning. If fan favorite keywords are going to be remade and replaced, could they least be done in a way that's backwards compatible with the old support cards?

It’s a slippery slope. When is a mechanic a redone version and when is it just a tweak? What if we try something and then go back? The errata now possibly prevents us from reprinting the card. Functional errata can cause as many problems as it solves, so we have to be very careful with it.In the case of morph, the vast majority of the cards that interact with it say “face down” or “colorless” and don’t need any errata.This isn’t so say we can’t consider it, but it comes with baggage.

Just want to say that, as a fan of exert and Amonkhet block limited, I'm very glad you aren't considering changing it to use stun counters. The block had lots of built in ways to untap creatures or give them vigilance to get around exert, which would interact completely differently with stun counters. Significant functional errata is something to avoid regardless, but I think it's a particularly bad idea to make such errata in a way that would completely change the mechanic's own limited format.

It changes things more than I think most people think it would.

I know you guys said you wouldn't do functional erratas on things like the nephilim, ankle shanker, soulfire grandmaster, ECT but what about functional reprints?That way it'll keep the old cards intact

Functional reprints do happen from time to time. Dream Spoilers in Wilds of Eldraine is an example.

Hey Mark, I noticed your FAQ mentions that there would never be mechanically functional errata to cards; what's the explanation for Training Grounds then? The original rules text, as well as the ruling info, both state that you can choose to discount a creature's activated ability by just 1 or even 0 if you so choose, but with the Aftermath reprint, you no longer have a choice and you're forced to take the full discount of 2. Sounds like a mechanically functional change to me.

We do occasionally make small functional errata changes on cards, but it isn’t something we do a lot.