Tokens are they creatures? or are they not?... Are they only creatures when they are destroyed?

tiaxotrax

I've noticed some cards and rules have changed lately.  and I'm wondering why it changed one way but not another.

metallurgic summonings   (cast a spell summon 2 1/1 thopter tokens)  makes sense it's a token not a creature so it doesn't count against summon X creatues or less objectives.  Yet those very same tokens when hit by imprisoned on the moon or reclaim or turn to frog still count as lost creatures  against the lose X creatures objectives. 

Same thing with Graf Harvest, Oath of Lilliana, Lilliana 2's third ability, Sahelli's 1st ability. Kiora's 3rd ability.  


If they weren't creatures when they were summoned why are they creatures when they are lost?

tiaxotrax

Can't seem to figure out how to edit my previous post so I'll attach to this one.  Another rule I don't understand.

Sarkhan the Mad.  ability number 2 destory a creature and summon a red dragon with flying.  and Dragon master outcast if there are 8 red gems on the board summon a dragon with flying.  neither the ability or the card call the dragon a token.  nor do the dragons themselves when they are on the board.

Yet Sarkhan's third ability Fiery Breath (when your dragons attack this turn they deal damage equal to their power times 4 (at max level)   doesn't trigger for either dragon.   so again are these dragons tokens or they not?  and why have a PW with conflicting abilities ?

shteev

So what happened was, token creatures USED to count as creatures for objectives.

Then along came the new, incredibly narrow objectives, and there were complaints that people were being forced to lose objectives by griefer decks running cards like Dubious Challenge, Turn to Frog, and Imprisoned in the Moon.

In a blur of activity completely uncharacteristic for the dev team, they leapt into action, changing token creatures so that they didn't count as creatures for objectives. It didn't really make any sense, and it messed up as many objectives as it fixed, but when it comes to a certain point with D3, you just have to learn to pick your battles and let some things go.

Whammaster

I guess a way to look at it is because a card that is not a creature is putting creatures on the board you are not casting it from your hand. However they are still creatures for board state so if they die or become a target of a card that could only target a creature then the effects occur and any result from said cards will impact goals.

Again it's d3, they just need to optimize the coding and statements for coding.

losdamianos

shteev said:

So what happened was, token creatures USED to count as creatures for objectives.

Then along came the new, incredibly narrow objectives, and there were complaints that people were being forced to lose objectives by griefer decks running cards like Dubious Challenge, Turn to Frog, and Imprisoned in the Moon.

In a blur of activity completely uncharacteristic for the dev team, they leapt into action, changing token creatures so that they didn't count as creatures for objectives. It didn't really make any sense, and it messed up as many objectives as it fixed, but when it comes to a certain point with D3, you just have to learn to pick your battles and let some things go.

All they had to do was to count ONLY if player was summoning creatures not AI, it would fix all issues with frog, moon or dubious challenge 

wereotter

They just need to update the verbiage. The objectives need to say cast instead of summon. Problem solved.

tiaxotrax

shteev said:

So what happened was, token creatures USED to count as creatures for objectives.

Then along came the new, incredibly narrow objectives, and there were complaints that people were being forced to lose objectives by griefer decks running cards like Dubious Challenge, Turn to Frog, and Imprisoned in the Moon.

In a blur of activity completely uncharacteristic for the dev team, they leapt into action, changing token creatures so that they didn't count as creatures for objectives. It didn't really make any sense, and it messed up as many objectives as it fixed, but when it comes to a certain point with D3, you just have to learn to pick your battles and let some things go.

That makes much more sense.  So I understand that the Development team changes code as they see fit based on the complaints and praise they receive in the form of bug reports and what not.   does D3 have a usability department that actually goes through and tests the outcomes of the changes separate from the engineers that make the changes?  IE someone or better yet a group of people that think like players rather than code jockies?  

example my wife writes code all day (and a lot of the nights)  she runs it by me when she needs to dumb it down enough for other people to understand.  and when it gets to the point where it moves from code to an actual interface they send it to a group of people who's sole purpose is try to break it.  either by clicking the box 1000 times or by typing gibberish in the search field or using dashes and underscores instead of forward slashes or whatever the case may be.  It seems there should be a group of people that ask "If we do this what is the ramifications?"

I have no problem with tokens not being creatures.  but if they aren't creatures in 1 respect they shouldn't be creatures in the other.  I shouldn't be able to achieve summon 3 or less creatures and lose 10 creatures in the same battle.

wereotter

tiaxotrax said:

I have no problem with tokens not being creatures.  but if they aren't creatures in 1 respect they shouldn't be creatures in the other.  I shouldn't be able to achieve summon 3 or less creatures and lose 10 creatures in the same battle.

That's the thing, they ARE creatures, they just don't have the terminology right. There are two ways to fix this: correct the verbiage on all the spells and planeswalker abilities to be correct so that Not Forgotten would say "Put two 1/1 white spirit tokens with flying onto the battlefield" this would be the better way as it's more consistent with how paper magic is worded, and would make an easier transition for those who play paper magic into this game.

The other verbiage that could be updated is, as stated above, to change the verbiage on the objectives to read "Cast x or less/more creatures" which will then still correctly not count creature tokens as tokens are not cast but rather placed onto the field.

span_argoman

tiaxotrax said:

Can't seem to figure out how to edit my previous post so I'll attach to this one.  Another rule I don't understand.

Sarkhan the Mad.  ability number 2 destory a creature and summon a red dragon with flying.  and Dragon master outcast if there are 8 red gems on the board summon a dragon with flying.  neither the ability or the card call the dragon a token.  nor do the dragons themselves when they are on the board.

Yet Sarkhan's third ability Fiery Breath (when your dragons attack this turn they deal damage equal to their power times 4 (at max level)   doesn't trigger for either dragon.   so again are these dragons tokens or they not?  and why have a PW with conflicting abilities ?

I just tested this in Story mode and Sarkhan's third ability works with both the Dragon token from Dragonmaster Outcast and the Dragon token from Sarkhan's second ability. If it didn't work before, maybe your creatures were disabled for some reason without you noticing?

If it is still not working for you, maybe you should submit a bug report.

Azerack

I can understand spells and supports being token for objectives, but Sarkhan's dragon summoning (as well as Saheeli Rai's thopters) are closer to casting I would think. Especially when it came to the ridiculous objective in the Planeswalker challenge to summon 5 dragons in a single combat.

If you are showcasing a particular PW at least have objectives that make sense for them. People already complained that the current dragon CARDS were too costly to manage to get more than 3 out before the AI was beaten. The obvious solution would have been to count Sarkhan's second ability. Alas, this was not to be.

At least make rules logical, please, when it comes to what counts in what objective?