The problem with "Summon" - PLEASE FIX THIS

OmegaLolrus

Brigby said:

OmegaLolrus said:

Brigby said:

Hi Everyone. Just wanted to pop in to clear the air on a couple of things:

1. Here are the intended behaviors of Summon vs Cast

• Summon counts for creatures that enter the battlefield from anywhere. This also counts tokens too.
• Cast counts only creatures that enter the battlefield from your hand.

The team is aware of certain event objectives behaving incorrectly when considering the above rules. These are all objectives the team have to individually adjust, so this will be a gradual correction over time.

Thank you all for your patience and understanding!

In the correcting portion, does that include the issue with things like Dowsing Dagger? It's a really negative game experience when I'm two rounds in, haven't cast a single creature, and I've already failed the "cast 2 or less creatures" objective.

Since Cast should only count creatures that enter the battlefield from your hand, and Dowsing Daggers summons tokens instead as part of its ability, it makes sense that the objective being adjusted should also solve that issue. 

Cool. That's what I thought, but I wanted to be sure. Thank you!

Mburn7

Brigby said:

Hi Everyone. Just wanted to pop in to clear the air on a couple of things:

1. Here are the intended behaviors of Summon vs Cast

• Summon counts for creatures that enter the battlefield from anywhere. This also counts tokens too.
• Cast counts only creatures that enter the battlefield from your hand.

The team is aware of certain event objectives behaving incorrectly when considering the above rules. These are all objectives the team have to individually adjust, so this will be a gradual correction over time.

Thank you all for your patience and understanding!

First of all, that is very bad coding if each objective in each event needs to be individually programmed.  I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure there is a better way of doing things.

That being said I think there should be a simple standard going forward to make everyone's life easier.

Objectives should always be:

"Summon X or more creatures"
"Cast X or less creatures"

Anything with "Summon X or less" is basically impossible (unless the number is super high, in which case there is no point anyway), and "Cast X or more" is super grindy and annoying (unless the number is super low, in which case there isn't much point anyway except in tribal situations).

And maybe the team could be a little proactive and double check the events before we play them instead of waiting for us to report the objectives not working properly?  Just a thought.

ManiiNames

tryptic said:

@Brigby For the event this weekend, will we get Cast X or Less instead of Summon X or less, so that the problem with the opponent carrying Downsing Dagger is not an issue?

See previous statement about requires development work, new release (backend at least) etc.

Brigby

Avahad said:

So what’s basically being said is that summon less than x objectives should NEVER be a thing as that can leave the objective luck based?
so we should see the remaining ones of those changed to cast less than x objectives in the very near future?

While certainly a challenging objective, my perspective is that it would come down to building a deck that focuses more on Spells / Supports / Planeswalker abilities to deal damage, as opposed to Creatures. Having said that though, it's certainly a valid concern, and one I will pass along to the team for consideration.

Machine said:

Brigby: what about stealing creatures (either temporarily with Act of Treason, or permanently with In Bolas's Clutches)? Since these are already on the battlefield, these creatures shouldn't count towards both Cast and Summon. I've seen reports by players that stealing creatures also count as summoning.

I know players have reported some bugs about those cards, but your inquiry sounds more like a design question, so I don't think I'm quite adept at answering that. I'd have to ping the team on that one.

Update: I just spoke with the team, and here is what they said: Stealing creatures "will only count if the gain control effect is permanent. For cases like Willbreaker (the card [goes] back to the owner at the end of the turn) the 'summoning' doesn't count"

Update 2: It would appear that this question jumped the gun a bit, as this was recently changed to no longer be the case. Opponent's creatures that the player gains permanent control over will no longer count as summoned by the player starting in the upcoming 3.3 update.

tryptic said:

Brigby For the event this weekend, will we get Cast X or Less instead of Summon X or less, so that the problem with the opponent carrying Downsing Dagger is not an issue?

My guess is that since it's so close to the start date already, they're likely not able to change any objectives in time.

tryptic

@Brigby This flaw had a major impact on my event this past weekend, and I know I am not alone.  What update can you provide about correcting objectives to 'Cast' over 'Summon'?

Unknown

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Machine

starfall said:

Brigby said:

Update: I just spoke with the team, and here is what they said: Stealing creatures "will only count if the gain control effect is permanent. For cases like Willbreaker (the card [goes] back to the owner at the end of the turn) the 'summoning' doesn't count"

The fact that stealing creatures counts as them 'entering the battlefield' in any circumstances is counter-intuitive, especially to players who have a background in paper MTG. I'd suggest that this is changed.

It's weird that stealing creatures counts as 'entering the battlefield' and it's even weirder that the ETB effect(s) of stolen creatures don't trigger IF it actually counted them as 'entering the battlefield'. Summon, cast, stealing, etc. has to be defined in a non ambiguous way very soon!

Brigby

tryptic said:

Brigby This flaw had a major impact on my event this past weekend, and I know I am not alone.  What update can you provide about correcting objectives to 'Cast' over 'Summon'?

I'm terribly sorry to hear that this impacted your event last weekend. If you've submitted a ticket, then our Customer Support team should be able to assist you with assuaging that impact.

As for event objectives, I'm unaware as to whether or not Summon will be replaced with Cast moving forward, however I do know that the team has been working hard to standardize all applicable Cast / Summon objectives so that they maintain consistent behavior across the board.

I believe at this point the adjustments have already been made, and the last piece of the puzzle is for the QA team to test them all and ensure the adjustments were successful before it's ready for implementation.

EvilDead

Brigby said:

I'm terribly sorry to hear that this impacted your event last weekend. If you've submitted a ticket, then our Customer Support team should be able to assist you with assuaging that impact.

Since when? All the tickets I've submitted in the past losing out on progression and/or rewards tiers has ignored making me whole. 

I always get the obligatory response of sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused, we'll pass along the information to the developers so they can investigate, if you require assistance on another issue please open a new ticket, blah, blah, blah.

Not once, not one time have they ever made me whole. 

OmegaLolrus

Brigby said:

I believe at this point the adjustments have already been made, and the last piece of the puzzle is for the QA team to test them all and ensure the adjustments were successful before it's ready for implementation.

Is that something we should expect before 3.3? With 3.3? After 3.3?

Brigby

OmegaLolrus said:

Brigby said:

I believe at this point the adjustments have already been made, and the last piece of the puzzle is for the QA team to test them all and ensure the adjustments were successful before it's ready for implementation.

Is that something we should expect before 3.3? With 3.3? After 3.3?

It's really dependent on whether or not QA finds any issues with the adjustments. Theoretically it could be in 3.3, but it could also be in a following update. That's why I haven't mentioned any definitive arrival time yet.

Brigby

Update: It would appear that the Summon by stealing question jumped the gun a bit, as this was recently changed to no longer be the case.

Opponent's creatures that the player gains permanent control over will no longer count as summoned by the player starting in the upcoming 3.3 update.

OmegaLolrus

Brigby said:

Update: It would appear that the Summon by stealing question jumped the gun a bit, as this was recently changed to no longer be the case.

Opponent's creatures that the player gains permanent control over will no longer count as summoned by the player starting in the upcoming 3.3 update.

Ooooo, excitement. Should make those games a lot more interesting... and complicated.

What about a situation like The Eldest's Rebirth, where you're putting a copy of a card in your opponent's graveyard into play? It's part three of the Saga.

Or is that a bit too granular?

Mburn7

OmegaLolrus said:

Brigby said:

Update: It would appear that the Summon by stealing question jumped the gun a bit, as this was recently changed to no longer be the case.

Opponent's creatures that the player gains permanent control over will no longer count as summoned by the player starting in the upcoming 3.3 update.

Ooooo, excitement. Should make those games a lot more interesting... and complicated.

What about a situation like The Eldest's Rebirth, where you're putting a copy of a card in your opponent's graveyard into play? It's part three of the Saga.

Or is that a bit too granular?

That's making it too complicated.  Returning a creature from the graveyard to the battlefield is a Summon, but not a Cast.  It really shouldn't matter which graveyard it comes from.

And it appears they've already fixed the thing where stealing creatures causes their ETB effects to trigger, so hopefully that's the groundwork for this fix where they won't count either.

OmegaLolrus

Mburn7 said:

OmegaLolrus said:

Brigby said:

Update: It would appear that the Summon by stealing question jumped the gun a bit, as this was recently changed to no longer be the case.

Opponent's creatures that the player gains permanent control over will no longer count as summoned by the player starting in the upcoming 3.3 update.

Ooooo, excitement. Should make those games a lot more interesting... and complicated.

What about a situation like The Eldest's Rebirth, where you're putting a copy of a card in your opponent's graveyard into play? It's part three of the Saga.

Or is that a bit too granular?

That's making it too complicated.  Returning a creature from the graveyard to the battlefield is a Summon, but not a Cast.  It really shouldn't matter which graveyard it comes from.

And it appears they've already fixed the thing where stealing creatures causes their ETB effects to trigger, so hopefully that's the groundwork for this fix where they won't count either.

Cool, good to know. Thank you so much for keeping us updated!