Nettle Drone not triggering

wereotter

Nettle Drone is not triggering when a colorless creature enters the battlefield.

I cast Foundry of the Counsuls and Sram's Expertise while this was in play and no damage was dealt when the thopters entered play, no damage was dealt to my opponent, however I did deal damage upon casting foundry.

Tombstone

It appears that what you've described is normal gameplay functionality. To clarify, Nettle Drone's ability will only trigger whenever you cast a colorless Spell, Creature, or Support card. Because Token cards are not cast, but instead placed onto the battlefield, they will not trigger Nettle Drone's ability. Additionally, Sram's Expertise is a White Card, and does not trigger the Colorless requirement for Nettle Drone's ability.

Hopefully this helps to settle any confusion you might have regarding this card's ability.

wereotter

@Tombstone

The text on Nettle Drone is:

"When you cast a colorless spell or support or a colorless creature enters the battlefield, deal 1 damage to your opponent"

Since the thopters are colorless creatures, every time one enters the battlefield, it should do one damage to my opponent. Additionally, it should trigger every time my opponent plays a colorless creature as well but does not.

Edit: I'll add that this is nearly identical to the text on Molten Nursery with the only changes being dealing 2 damage and the requirement that the colorless creature has to enter play under my control, and that support does trigger when the thopters enter play in addition to triggering for the cast of Thopter Foundry.

Tombstone

My apologies if my last explanation hadn't properly explained or clarified the functionality of these cards. Please keep in mind that Token Creatures are not cast when they are placed onto the battlefield, they simply enter the battlefield due to the ability of another card.

Here are a few cases that will help better clarify what is occurring:
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Nettle Drone: "Activate 1: Deal 1 damage to your opponent. When you cast a colorless Spell, Creature or Support, deal 1 damage to your opponent."

When you cast the Foundry of the Consuls Spell Card, you will summon 4 1/1 Thopter tokens onto the field. Nettle Drone will only trigger once, because you had only cast one colorless card. Summoning a creature through card effect does not count as that creature having been cast, only entering the battlefield.
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Molten Nursery: "When you cast a colorless Spell or Support or a colorless creature you control enters the battlefield, deal 2 damage to your opponent."

When you cast the Foundry of the Consuls Spell Card, you will summon 4 1/1 Thopter tokens onto the field. Molten Nursery will then trigger once for casting the spell card, and should trigger another time for each Thopter token that entered the battlefield. This is because the Molten Nursery will only check to see if creatures had entered the battlefield, rather than having been cast.
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I know that this must be confusing to understand, but you just have to remember that Nettle Drone only activates when you cast a colorless card, and not summoning creatures through card effects.

wereotter

Either way, there's a problem, then. If this is intended behavior of the card, the card text needs to be updated since the text on the card in the game itself reads:

"Activate 1: Deal 1 damage to your opponent.

When you cast a colorless Spell or Support or a colorless creature enters the battlefield, deal 1 damage to your opponent."

So by the card's in-game description is it not functioning properly. This is a screenshot from my device in game:



If the card is correct, then every thopter entering play should trigger 1 damage form this creature. If the thopters are not supposed to trigger the ability, then the text on this card is incorrect and needs updating.

HypnoticSpecter

Colorless creatures do not need to be cast to trigger Nettle Sentinel. The text clearly says that it triggers when a colorless creature "enters the battlefield," not when it is cast. @Tombstone quotes the text incorrectly in the italicized text in his second post.

Tombstone

Hm... It seems that the text has changed from the information on our database. I'll talk with the test team about it to see what they're seeing. My apologies for the misunderstanding.