Devs - "Cast" vs "Play" vs "Create"

Plastic
Plastic Posts: 762 Critical Contributor
edited October 2016 in MtGPQ General Discussion
Can we get some clarification on the intent of these? When cards like:

Sage of Ancient Lore doesn't transform because an opponent that uses loyalty creates multiple tokens in a turn (without playing cards from hand), or...

Herald of the Pantheon doesn't trigger healing when clues are created....

It starts to irk me when there are inconsistencies.
These two examples are off the top of my head, but I'm sure there are more.

Tangent on inconsistencies: Roil Sprout vs Gone Missing. One targets tokens and the other cannot.

Edit: As pointed out by Magnus 73, Arlinn will be affected the most by opponents creating/playing/summoning/casting token creatures.

Comments

  • Corn_Noodles
    Corn_Noodles Posts: 477 Mover and Shaker
    edited October 2016
    It's not really inconsistent but it certainly helps if you have a paper magic background. In these instances, "cast" means the card is played from the hand after mana cost has been paid. In neither the Sage or Herald scenarios did something "cast". Roil Spout and Gone Missing, however, should behave the same and needs to be fixed.
  • Foznertep
    Foznertep Posts: 121 Tile Toppler
    The meaning of "cast" became clear to me when to my dismay I had to realise that Thing in the Ice does not work with Clues. icon_e_sad.gif
  • Plastic
    Plastic Posts: 762 Critical Contributor
    Corn Noodles wrote:
    It's not really inconsistent but it certainly helps if you have a paper magic background. In these instances, "cast" means the card is played from the hand after mana cost has been paid. In neither the Sage or Herald scenario did something "cast". Roil Spout and Gone Missing, however, should behave the same and need to be fixed.

    Right, I understand these terms from paper.

    When a Garruk uses loyalty to create 4 tokens without casting cards from his hand but my Sage still reverts from werewolf to human again, I'd say that's inconsistent vs the Herald not triggering healing from clues created.
    Foznertep wrote:
    The meaning of "cast" became clear to me when to my dismay I had to realise that Thing in the Ice does not work with Clues. icon_e_sad.gif

    Yeah this would be similar to the Herald issue.
  • Corn_Noodles
    Corn_Noodles Posts: 477 Mover and Shaker
    Plastic wrote:
    When a Garruk uses loyalty to create 4 tokens without casting cards from his hand but my Sage still reverts from werewolf to human again, I'd say that's inconsistent vs the Herald not triggering healing from clues created.
    That shouldn't happen based on the way "cast" should be working so you're right to question it in this instance.
  • Mangus 73
    Mangus 73 Posts: 109 Tile Toppler
    I got the new walker and the way my wolfs transform or don't because of enemy tokens is so annoying. That's not what it says on the cards. So is it cast? Or token creatures? Or both? Seems a bit not thought out by the devs.
  • Plastic
    Plastic Posts: 762 Critical Contributor
    Mangus 73 wrote:
    I got the new walker and the way my wolfs transform or don't because of enemy tokens is so annoying. That's not what it says on the cards. So is it cast? Or token creatures? Or both? Seems a bit not thought out by the devs.

    Excellent point. I'll update the original post.
  • Rootbreaker
    Rootbreaker Posts: 396
    Whether this is intended behavior or not, creating a creature token is the same as casting or playing a creature for werewolves, and mission objectives. Saheeli's 3rd ability (and I assume tezzeret's 2nd) count as playing/casting a support, but investigating (making a clue) doesn't. There are way too many inconsistencies between MTGPQ and MTG to base your assumptions on what should happen in MTGPQ on paper magic rules .
  • Plastic
    Plastic Posts: 762 Critical Contributor
    Rootbreaker wrote:
    Whether this is intended behavior or not, creating a creature token is the same as casting or playing a creature for werewolves, and mission objectives. Saheeli's 3rd ability (and I assume tezzeret's 2nd) count as playing/casting a support, but investigating (making a clue) doesn't. There are way too many inconsistencies between MTGPQ and MTG to base your assumptions on what should happen in MTGPQ on paper magic rules .

    By the same logic...
    From the Comprehensive Rules (Kaladesh (September 30, 2016))
    701.34. Investigate

    701.34a “Investigate” means “Create a colorless Clue artifact token with ‘{2}, Sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card.’”

    And yes I realize this is comparing paper to PQ. My point originally wasn't regarding paper and PQ, it was PQ inconsistencies on their own. Unless they aren't inconsistent but rather misworded text.
  • Foznertep
    Foznertep Posts: 121 Tile Toppler
    The inconsistency then would be in the description of the additional objectives. There it says "cast X or more/less (sic!) supports" but for example Ob Nixilis' third ability says "create a support..." but it still counts. I am not sure about Clues, never tested that.
  • Corn_Noodles
    Corn_Noodles Posts: 477 Mover and Shaker
    I've always assumed "create" and "summon" mean essentially the same thing while "cast" was different.

    [EDIT] To elaborate, I see "summon" as creating token creatures while "create" seems to be used to create token supports.
  • Morphis
    Morphis Posts: 975 Critical Contributor
    There is more than one inconsistency in cast meaning.
    If we assume cast as being generated from directly from hand then we have some problems:

    - oath of Chandra and oath of Jace work on clues.
    - blightcaster works on clues.

    These work on clues generated by any means.
    To be noted that, beside season past returning clues, clues cannot be cast from hand but are always a secondary effect of cards. So no clue can actually be cast from hand directly.

    Another example is effect that happen "when you cast a creature" working on tokens(if not specified working for non-tokens only).

    Tokens like clues are never casted directly from hand. They are generated through spells or by other creature or by planeswalker skills or by supports.

    So technically you never "cast" tokens.

    P.s. You can Refer to my guide in signiture for better details on this an other things.
  • Buret0
    Buret0 Posts: 1,591
    Clues from Tamiyo's Journal cause -2/-2 with the Blightcaster support in play, but those supports aren't cast.

    On the other hand, Blessed Spirits don't get +2/+2 when clues are created by the same card.
  • Plastic
    Plastic Posts: 762 Critical Contributor
    These inconsistencies have the potential to change the power level of several cards, one way or the other. I wonder if they are inconsistent on purpose for some arbitrary balancing or just a handful of oversights.
  • Corn_Noodles
    Corn_Noodles Posts: 477 Mover and Shaker
    Plastic wrote:
    I wonder if they are inconsistent on purpose for some arbitrary balancing or just a handful of oversights.
    It would certainly be nice to know that.
  • mouser
    mouser Posts: 529 Critical Contributor
    It does make one wonder whether the inconsistencies lie in the core game rule coding or just in the card descriptions.
  • Morphis
    Morphis Posts: 975 Critical Contributor
    mouser wrote:
    It does make one wonder whether the inconsistencies lie in the core game rule coding or just in the card descriptions.
    To me it's obvious it lie in the game coding, but if the issue is too hard to fix they'll claim the description was wrong :Kappa:

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