AI just cast Lay Claim on me with 3 creatures in play and it destroyed my creature. (Screenshot)
Yes, it always has worked like that.
@bken1234 Quirks and Inconsistencies
Yeah it’s been like that for a long time. It works the same for the player too. I had it pointed out to me that the wording on the card is different so that may be an intended effect.
Yeah, when you cast it yourself you get the option to replace one of your creatures or to just discard the creature you stole (just like if you were playing a 4th creature from your hand). The AI still never replaces creatures though, so it just automatically gets rid of the one it stole.
This is unique to Lay Claim, because temporary creature-steal spells ignore the 3-creature limit and all the other permanent ones require you to have 2 or fewer creatures in play, but it doesn’t seem like a bug, it’s the behavior you’d expect with how the card is worded.
A fact to be wary of, this counts as a creature under the control of the caster of Lay Claim dying for the purpose of objectives. Stealing a creature and choosing to let it die, getting rid of one of your creatures to make room doesn’t count as anything for objectives that I know of. If a PvP event has kill x or less enemy creatures, this and Skywhaler’s Shot could mess things up. Riddleform too most likely.