Is a Vanguard a card? [Investigating]

Jagman

Not according to Cemetery Protector. Casting a VG doesn't trigger his create X Human tokens ability. I know the ability doesn't specify VG's, but a VG is still a card, right?

Magic:PQ Support Team

Hello @Jagman ,

Thank you for all the information provided, this issue will be investigated!
If you have any additional information that you consider relevant, please don't hesitate to send me 😊

Rebeca.

Janosik

Spell Queller and the Teferi, Hero of Dominaria vanguard also state they affect 'cards' but do not affect vanguards.

If they are not intended to affect vanguards, perhaps it would be better to word them like Hullbreaker Horror, which reads "When you cast a spell card: Return a random opposing creature or support to their owner's hand"

BongoTheGrey

Spell Queller and Teferi, Hero of Dominaria are probably intended worded that way because they shouldn't affect vanguards and that's ok since vanguards should only be affected if the card specifically say that it can target vanguards.



However, vanguards should be able to affect other cards since the vanguard rule doesn't work the other way around. A card like Whirlwind of Thought that draws a card and gives you loyalty whenever you cast a non creature card and doesn't specifies that vanguards can also trigger this effect, works perfectly fine with vanguards.

So this proves that something can affect vanguards only if it specifically says so, but vanguards can affect other things without specifically saying so. And that's why this is a bug. Cemetery Protector should be activated and create tokens when you cast a vanguard as well.

Jagman

Well said @BongoTheGrey .  I've also noticed that when I have TSN out and a Vanguard as my only other support, TSN doesn't trigger.
In A world Reborn, node 2.3 casting a Vanguard counts against the 4 you can cast.

The behavior from these examples are in contradiction.

jtwood

@Oktagon_Support Can we get an official ruling here? And if Bongo is right, can we get an update to the rules or keyword doc?

sarimace

I think this is wider issue with vanguards; They don't trigger any second card in a turn effects either (grandmaster of flowers monk tokens, monk class etc.). And if you cast a third card, it doesn't trigger, so it is not just that it doesn't see the vanguard beeing cast, it sees it, but somehow doesn't consider it a card, or something like that.

Tremayne

Another example Jodah doesn’t trigger on vanguards, so no card is moved to the battlefield.
Same with Rocco, the cabaretti caterer.

Janosik

I notice that Spell Queller now affects Vanguards

Janosik

@Janosik said:
I notice that Spell Queller now affects Vanguards

However: I notice that the Vanguard card Tammy, Field Researcher's bottom ability does not affect Vanguards. There is an inconsistency here.