Mark Gottlieb has finally been able to post the rules updates that come with the release of Zendikar, and it's got some sizable changes. To save you all the trouble of reading the long and multi-page updates, let me give you the highlights in the form of the all-powerful bullet point list.

These changes will go into effect on October 2nd, 2009

From the Introduction

• Vanguard and Planechase are being added to the comprehensive rules. It also struck me while reading this that they use the 'Command zone' just like EDH.
• Vanguard cards are being added to Gatherer, both the original printed forms, and the online Vanguard cards.
• Elder Dragon Highlander is being added to the comprehensive rules but Wizards is NOT taking the format over, instead it will remain in the hands of the group who have been overseeing it and Gottlieb will keep the comprehensive rules up to date with their changes. This poses a very interesting possibility for other casual formats to earn recognition and acceptance.
• Exodus got a lot of attention as it is the next Vintage set to go live on Magic Online, so the cards from that set got a lot of tender loving care in preparation for it.
• Next Update will come in January of 2010.

Vanguard Specific Notes

• Vanguard cards will be getting template updates
• They are renaming the opening modifiers from 'Starting Life' to 'Life Modifier' and 'Starting & Max Hand Size' to 'Hand Modifier' as these better reflect the modifying numbers present on the cards.
• They are renaming all of the Online Vanguard cards, instead of 'Avatar - Akroma, Angle of Wrath' it will be 'Akroma, Angel of Wrath Avatar' - no real functional change here, just cleaning up.
• There are a couple of Vanguard cards which are getting their text cleaned up but won't affect their functionality in any way.

Functional Oracle Changes

This is a list of changes to card wordings which have an actual effect on how they behave and what they do. Usually these are older cards being massaged to work with rules changes, sometimes these are house cleaning changes for old cards which have been overlooked.

• Parallax Cards - They are reverting some previous changes that were made which limited some crazy functionality on the three Parallax cards, Parallax Tide, Parallax Wave and Parallax Nexus are all affected by this.
• Flagbearers - These are three cards which forced your opponent to target them (or a specific creature of yours) rather than other creatures you might control. They were modified to be more powerful and also force abilities and copies of spells to target them, these changes are being undone. Affected Cards: Coalition Honor Guard, Coalition Flag and Standard Bearer
• Exodus Keeper Cycle - These are Exodus cards that are all getting errata (re-wordings) but the errata is not uniform among them. The errata fixes a paradox in the rules about targeting of players. Affected Cards: Keeper of the Light, Keeper of the Mind, Keeper of the Dead, Keeper of the Flame, and Keeper of the Beasts
• Exodus Oath Cycle - These are also getting errata for a paradox created by their rules text interacting with the modern Magic rules. They are being given errata to allow them to function properly, but again the errata is not uniform. Affected Cards: Oath of Mages, Oath of Lieges, Oath of Scholars, Oath of Ghouls, Oath of Druids.
• Mirage's Insta-chantments - These were a set of enchantments which could be cast as though they were enchantments, and they did different things depending on how they were cast. These are all getting reworded. Gottlieb's article makes it clear that these are quite a headache for the rules manager. He clarifies that these spells do not have flash, but they are cast as though they did.
• Barreling Attack - It is being modified to allow you to cast it before blockers are declared where the previous Oracle wording made it a post-blocker combat trick.
• Bounty of the Hunt - Errata on this card is tied to the way it functions and the way damage comes off of creatures. It was cleaned up and made to be fairly easy to interpret.
• Cunning - Again the way Cunning is printed could possibly still cause a creature to die from combat damage only later in the turn, it is being fixed to prevent this.
• Dralnu, Lich Lord - Changing the creature type to "Zombie Wizard"
• Equipoise - This got some massaging but no real functional change, more clarification and streamlining for Magic Online.
• Errant Minion & Power Leak - As these cards are fairly similar, they are being synced up in wording and it is being modified for the player to pay more than just 2 mana.
• Fluctuator - It is being reworded that is based on other similar cards, and being opened up slightly to not just target cycling costs.
• Illusionary Mask - This is fixing the behavior of the Mask since the previous Oracle update, not too big of a change. It has no effect on Masters Edition 3 as the card was programmed to work properly.
• Invoke Prejudice - It is being reworded, removing the nonartifact limitation. This change could possibly lead to shenanigans...
• Master of the Hunt - Rewording to allow the created 'Wolves of the Hunt' tokens to band only with each other, not other wolves.
• Mogg Assassin - A cleaning up of the wording. It now targets the opponent and the opponent targets your creature.
• Penance - Fixing Oracle wording to better match the spells intended effect.
• Soldevi Sentry - Fixing the card's behavior to work as intended.
• The Maelstrom - This is a fix for one of the Planeswalk planes. It is clarifying the cause of the 'otherwise' clause to make clear that if it is not a permanent then you put it on the bottom of your library.
• Wall of Nets - Fixed wording, no major change.
• Ydwen Efreet - Clarifying the behavior on the coin flip to get slightly closer to the original intended behavior.

Nonfunctional Oracle Changes

These are changes which have absolutely zero effect on the spell's behavior. These fixes include fixing punctuation, adding clauses for clarification etc. Since there is no effect to discuss I will just list off the cards being affected.

• Invasion Dragons
• Avenging Druid
• Ayeasha Tanaka
• Reroute
• Rust
• Charisma
• Debt of Loyalty
• Fade Away
• Flash of Defiance
• Floodgate
• Prince of Progress
• Flowstone Flood
• Limited Resources
• Memory Crystal
• Necologia
• Obisidian Fireheart
• Paroxysm
• Reconnaissance
• Song of Serenity

Comprehensive Rulebook Changes

This is where the underlying rules of Magic get changed. It may be changed for new mechanics introduced in the new set, or adding new eventualities for possibilities. For this section I will be taking Gottlieb's notes and reprinting them here, adding notes where needed.

103.3b & 103.3c

The "starting the game" procedures got these new subrules regarding the special procedures taken in Vanguard and EDH, respectively.

103.4b

This mulligan rule stated that a player draws a new hand of seven cards the first time he or she takes a mulligan in a multiplayer game. But that may not be true in a Vanguard game, since his or her starting hand size may not be seven, so the rule has been adjusted accordingly.

103.4d

This new rule covers the alternate mulligan rules used in EDH.

112.5

This new rule describes loyalty abilities. All subsequent rules in this section (starting with the old 112.5) have been renumbered. (See the note on section 606 below.)

112.6k (formerly 112.5k)

This rule now states that abilities of vanguard cards (in addition to plane cards) function in the command zone.

115.1, 115.2, 115.2e

These rules are in the section on priority. The first two were changed, and the third was added, to define the system more accurately. The rules had said that players can't take actions unless they have priority—but that's not true; player can also take actions if a spell or ability instructs them to (and no one has priority at that time).

117.1

This rule covers starting life totals. It was broken into a rule (to cover the starting life total of 20) and a subrule (to cover Two-Headed Giant), then two more subrules were added to cover Vanguard and EDH, respectively.

200.1

The parts of a card now include hand modifier and life modifier [from Vanguard - Trick].

204.2a, 300.1

The card types now include vanguard.

204.3j

Trap was added to the list of spell types.

204.3k

Ally and Surrakar were added to the list of creature types.

204.3n

This new rule was added to cover vanguard subtypes (there are none).

206.2c

Landfall was added to the list of ability words.

208.2

This rule about loyalty abilities was added to the loyalty section. (See the note on section 606 below.)

209

This is a new section covering hand modifier. The old 209 was renumbered to 211.

210

This is a new section covering life modifier.

303.4c

This rule now specifies that if an Aura is also a creature, it first becomes unattached from whatever it was attached to, then is put into the graveyard, each as a state-based action.

306.5d

This new rule covers loyalty abilities. (See the note on section 606 below.)

306.7

This rule, which used to cover activated abilities of planeswalkers, has been deleted. The subsequent rules in this section have been renumbered. (See the note on section 606 below.)

310

This is the new section for the vanguard card type.

401.6

This rule had to be modified a bit to cover Sphinx of Jwar Isle. Now it covers cards on top of a library that are revealed or can be looked at.

510.1f

This rule was added to state that once a player has made all of his or her combat damage assignments, those assignments as a whole are checked to see if they're legal. If not, they're redone.

601.2c

This rule got a line added to it to cover the new Flagbearer ability. Similar to the rule regarding restrictions and requirements when declaring attackers or blockers, it basically states that a player chooses targets so the maximum number of "must target" effects are followed without violating any "can't target" effects.

606

This ability was added to cover "loyalty abilities," which are activated abilities with loyalty symbols in their costs. Previous rules about planeswalkers stated that a player could activate only one of their abilities per planeswalker per turn, and could do so only at a time he or she could cast a sorcery. Now these restrictions are intrinsic to the abilities, not intrinsic to the planeswalker card type.

This was done for two reasons. 1) This makes a lot more sense if a planeswalker is granted an activated ability, as with Flame Fusillade. Activating that other ability shouldn't preclude activating a loyalty ability, and shouldn't have to be done only at a time the player could cast a sorcery. 2) This closes a loophole regarding a non-planeswalker (such as Quicksilver Elemental) that somehow picks up some loyalty abilities and goes bonkers.

The rest of the 600 section (from the old section 606 through the old section 615) have all been renumbered.

607.2 (formerly 606.2), 706.2

These sections were updated with the new kicker terminology.

608.2b (formerly 607.2b), 608.2g (formerly 607.2g)

These rules got wording tweaks regarding objects that aren't in the zone they're expected to be in.

613.6f

This rule was added to cover timestamps of vanguard cards.

702.11d

This rule, in the intimidate section, has been deleted. (Intimidate was added to the rulebook before there were any cards with that ability; this rule explained that that there were no cards with intimidate yet. But now there are, so the rule is no longer needed.)

710.1

This section now references Sorin Markov as the other card that can allow a player's turn to be controlled by another player.

902

This section was added to cover the Vanguard casual variant.

903

This section was added to cover the Elder Dragon Highlander casual variant.

Glossary

New entries were added for:

Elder Dragon Highlander

Hand Modifier

Life Modifier

Loyalty Ability

Vanguard

A new definition was added for:

General

This concludes our overview of the Magic rules changes for September 2009. The next update will come in January of 2010.