Jiang Yanggu, AloneJiang Yanggu, Alone | Art by Dmitry Burmak

On Monday, September 21st, Wizards of the Coast released a new update to the Comprehensive Rules of Magic: The Gathering. Typically, Wizards updates the CR of the game every set, since new cards generally lead to new rules. Today, the biggest rule change had mostly to do with the structure of combat, namely what it means to "attack a player alone".

Comprehensive Rules 506.6

According to the newly updated Magic CR:

506.6. A creature attacks a player alone if it’s declared as an attacker attacking a player during the declare attackers step and no other creature is declared as an attacker attacking that player. A creature is attacking a player alone if it’s attacking a player and no other creatures are attacking that player.

The intuitive meaning of CR 506.6 is that it defines what it means to "attack a player alone," as per Jiang Yanggu, AloneJiang Yanggu, Alone, a new card from Reality Fracture. However, it seems to be the cause of a little bit of contextual confusion.

For example, there has been some discussion on how this mechanical definition interacts with the Exalted mechanic. This even confused me a bit, specifically as to whether creatures entering the battlefield attacking make a difference here. The long and short of it is that CR 506.6 doesn't interact with Exalted, because CR 506.5 covers Exalted:

506.5. A creature attacks alone if it’s the only creature declared as an attacker during the declare attackers step. A creature is attacking alone if it’s attacking but no other creatures are. A creature blocks alone if it’s the only creature declared as a blocker during the declare blockers step. A creature is blocking alone if it’s blocking but no other creatures are.

Exalted triggers when a creature attacks alone, period. So, only one creature ever gets buffed by a given Exalted trigger(s), provided it's the only creature declared as an attacker in that combat step.

As for the creation of a token(s) that enter attacking, those tokens won't affect whether the trigger of a creature attacking a player alone triggers or resolves. So, your Hanweir GarrisonHanweir Garrison can still be buffed by Jiang Yanggu, while he'll completely disregard the Human tokens that enter attacking. This is true even if the tokens enter attacking other players.

Conclusion

Admittedly, this Comprehensive Rules update isn't the most riveting piece of news. However, it's an important one for those who care about the rules of the game. And with that, I'd like to call upon you to liven the comments up, dear readers! Are you excited for Reality Fracture? Will you be making any Commander decks that make use of the new legendary creatures in the set? Sound off in the comments below!