Tokens now count as summons?!? [By Design]

Tilwin90

I am totally against the Summon terminology. Please consider adhering to paper magic wording standards such as "enters the battlefield" vs "cast".

I also don't recommend limiting the number of creatures that can enter the battlefield under your control. The cast puts a clear limitation on the number of creature cards you can play int he deck, but ETB leads to a lot of complications:
1) What if the tokens are generated by Dowsing Dagger? You might go ahead and make a special rule to bypass opposing effects from counting. Then it only gets that more complicated and confusing.
2) It completely cripples walkers that had a fringe use via tokens up until now (such as Garruk, Gideon2 and even Gideon3)
3) Beginners and even intermediate players will have a serious problem winning only with spells and supports. I am speaking primarily for these players now, as elites will always find a way to do it (and even so, it's going to be a super risky business). The only spells and supports that deal damage right now in standard are:
   White: Intervention (3 damage), 
   Blue: Beacon Bolt (scalable), Explosion (limited to walkers with red gains), Firemind's Research (mythic, 5 damage), Ionize (2 damage), Psychic Rebuttal (1 damage)
   Black: Creeping Chill (3 damage), Demonic Pact (mythic, 1 damage), Shadows of the Past (4 damage, repeatable), Vicious Rumours (1 damage), Raider's Wake (repeatable 3 damage)
   Red: Plenty, but the noticeable ones are Banefire (mythic, up to 10 damage), Beacon Bolt (Scalable), Explosion (better than in blue), Exquisite Firecraft (6 damage), Firemind's Research (mythic, 5 damage), Inescapable Blaze (6 damage),  Jaya's Immolating Inferno (situational, up to 10 damage), Molten Vortex (mythic, repeatable 4 damage), The First Eruption (suicidal, deals damage to you too), 
   Green: NONE
   Colorless: Conflux (MASTERPIECE, red bonus only), Throwing Knife (2 damage), Sorcerer's Wand (2 damage), Hierophant's Chalice (2 damage)

So right now the most significant solutions are:
- Walkers that act as win conditions (Angrath, Ob, Bolas2, Chandra1... rrrright)
- Beacon Bolt decks (restricted to Red/blue)
- Red burn (relying on mythic and rares)
- Black Shadows of the Past and/or Raider's Wake

Notice how this is not doable in green or white alone, which could previously prevail thorough these objectives with tokens. This means Bolas and the upcoming Sarkhan are the big winners in this situation, as long as they are playable in the node to begin with (looking forward to see how people solve the "cast no tokens" problem with a budget deck in white RTO node).

So please reconsider this. Restrict casting creature cards, or restrict creating tokens, but not both on the same node.

EvilDead

Oktagon_Daiane said:

Hi Everyone,
Thank you all for the ongoing discussion. I have talked to the team and basically the rules for Summon and Cast are:

Summon: A card is summoned if it is placed on the battlefield from anywhere, including the cards that return from the library or cemetery.
Cast:  A card is cast if it's played from your hand.

For new players having to come up with viable creatureless decks is a tall ask.

Magic is all about the words on the cards and those words mean something, you are really bastardizing the spirit of words matter context of the game. Placing a creature on the battelfield without filling the card with mana is not a summon. Bringing creatures from the graveyard in any way has never been a summon. This is kind of silly to be having this conversation at this juncture.  

Can you simply remove all the summoning objectives and replace them with something else? Then the problem goes away........

[Deleted User]

Tilwin90 said:

I am totally against the Summon terminology. Please consider adhering to paper magic wording standards such as "enters the battlefield" vs "cast".

I also don't recommend limiting the number of creatures that can enter the battlefield under your control. The cast puts a clear limitation on the number of creature cards you can play int he deck, but ETB leads to a lot of complications:
1) What if the tokens are generated by Dowsing Dagger? You might go ahead and make a special rule to bypass opposing effects from counting. Then it only gets that more complicated and confusing.
2) It completely cripples walkers that had a fringe use via tokens up until now (such as Garruk, Gideon2 and even Gideon3)
3) Beginners and even intermediate players will have a serious problem winning only with spells and supports. I am speaking primarily for these players now, as elites will always find a way to do it (and even so, it's going to be a super risky business). The only spells and supports that deal damage right now in standard are:
   White: Intervention (3 damage), 
   Blue: Beacon Bolt (scalable), Explosion (limited to walkers with red gains), Firemind's Research (mythic, 5 damage), Ionize (2 damage), Psychic Rebuttal (1 damage)
   Black: Creeping Chill (3 damage), Demonic Pact (mythic, 1 damage), Shadows of the Past (4 damage, repeatable), Vicious Rumours (1 damage), Raider's Wake (repeatable 3 damage)
   Red: Plenty, but the noticeable ones are Banefire (mythic, up to 10 damage), Beacon Bolt (Scalable), Explosion (better than in blue), Exquisite Firecraft (6 damage), Firemind's Research (mythic, 5 damage), Inescapable Blaze (6 damage),  Jaya's Immolating Inferno (situational, up to 10 damage), Molten Vortex (mythic, repeatable 4 damage), The First Eruption (suicidal, deals damage to you too), 
   Green: NONE
   Colorless: Conflux (MASTERPIECE, red bonus only), Throwing Knife (2 damage), Sorcerer's Wand (2 damage), Hierophant's Chalice (2 damage)

So right now the most significant solutions are:
- Walkers that act as win conditions (Angrath, Ob, Bolas2, Chandra1... rrrright)
- Beacon Bolt decks (restricted to Red/blue)
- Red burn (relying on mythic and rares)
- Black Shadows of the Past and/or Raider's Wake

Notice how this is not doable in green or white alone, which could previously prevail thorough these objectives with tokens. This means Bolas and the upcoming Sarkhan are the big winners in this situation, as long as they are playable in the node to begin with (looking forward to see how people solve the "cast no tokens" problem with a budget deck in white RTO node).

So please reconsider this. Restrict casting creature cards, or restrict creating tokens, but not both on the same node.

This