It’s not really inconsistent but it certainly helps if you have a paper magic background. In these instances, “cast” means the card is played from the hand after mana cost has been paid. In neither the Sage or Herald scenarios did something “cast”. Roil Spout and Gone Missing, however, should behave the same and needs to be fixed.
When a Garruk uses loyalty to create 4 tokens without casting cards from his hand but my Sage still reverts from werewolf to human again, I’d say that’s inconsistent vs the Herald not triggering healing from clues created.
I got the new walker and the way my wolfs transform or don’t because of enemy tokens is so annoying. That’s not what it says on the cards. So is it cast? Or token creatures? Or both? Seems a bit not thought out by the devs.
Whether this is intended behavior or not, creating a creature token is the same as casting or playing a creature for werewolves, and mission objectives. Saheeli’s 3rd ability (and I assume tezzeret’s 2nd) count as playing/casting a support, but investigating (making a clue) doesn’t. There are way too many inconsistencies between MTGPQ and MTG to base your assumptions on what should happen in MTGPQ on paper magic rules .
From the Comprehensive Rules (Kaladesh (September 30, 2016))
701.34. Investigate
701.34a “Investigate” means “Create a colorless Clue artifact token with ‘{2}, Sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card.’”
And yes I realize this is comparing paper to PQ. My point originally wasn’t regarding paper and PQ, it was PQ inconsistencies on their own. Unless they aren’t inconsistent but rather misworded text.
The inconsistency then would be in the description of the additional objectives. There it says “cast X or more/less (sic!) supports” but for example Ob Nixilis’ third ability says “create a support…” but it still counts. I am not sure about Clues, never tested that.
There is more than one inconsistency in cast meaning.
If we assume cast as being generated from directly from hand then we have some problems:
oath of Chandra and oath of Jace work on clues.
blightcaster works on clues.
These work on clues generated by any means.
To be noted that, beside season past returning clues, clues cannot be cast from hand but are always a secondary effect of cards. So no clue can actually be cast from hand directly.
Another example is effect that happen “when you cast a creature” working on tokens(if not specified working for non-tokens only).
Tokens like clues are never casted directly from hand. They are generated through spells or by other creature or by planeswalker skills or by supports.
So technically you never “cast” tokens.
P.s. You can Refer to my guide in signiture for better details on this an other things.
These inconsistencies have the potential to change the power level of several cards, one way or the other. I wonder if they are inconsistent on purpose for some arbitrary balancing or just a handful of oversights.
