Can a Creature with Summoning Sickness Block? A Comprehensive Guide
Yes, absolutely! A creature with summoning sickness CAN block. This is one of the most fundamental, yet sometimes confusing, aspects of Magic: The Gathering gameplay. Summoning sickness restricts a creature’s ability to attack or activate abilities that require tapping as a cost during the turn it enters the battlefield under your control. However, blocking is an exception to this restriction. Let’s dive deeper into the nuances of summoning sickness and blocking, ensuring you have a solid grasp of this rule.
Understanding Summoning Sickness
Summoning sickness is a term used to describe the state of a creature that has just entered the battlefield under a player’s control. It’s a mechanic that prevents newly summoned creatures from immediately attacking or using activated abilities that require tapping. This rule is in place to provide a strategic balance, preventing players from deploying a creature and immediately leveraging it offensively.
What Summoning Sickness Prevents
A creature with summoning sickness cannot attack during the turn it enters the battlefield. It also cannot use activated abilities that require tapping as a cost. This means abilities that have the tap symbol (T) in their activation cost are off-limits to creatures with summoning sickness.
What Summoning Sickness Doesn’t Affect
The critical point to remember is that summoning sickness doesn’t prevent a creature from blocking. It also doesn’t prevent a creature from using activated abilities that don’t require tapping. This allows for defensive plays and other strategic maneuvers, even with creatures that have just entered the battlefield. Furthermore, summoning sickness only lasts until the beginning of your next turn.
The Nuances of Blocking
Blocking is a fundamental defensive action in Magic: The Gathering. It allows you to protect yourself and your planeswalkers from incoming attacks. Understanding the blocking rules is crucial for effective gameplay.
Blocking and Summoning Sickness
As stated, a creature with summoning sickness can block. This means that even if a creature just entered the battlefield, it can be declared as a blocker to defend against an attacking creature during the declare blockers step.
How Blocking Works
When an opponent attacks, you have the opportunity to declare which of your creatures will block which attacking creatures. Each creature can only block one attacker, but multiple creatures can block the same attacker. The attacking player then determines the damage assignment order for the blocking creatures. Creatures that are blocking do not need to tap in order to block.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Here are some common questions regarding summoning sickness and blocking, along with detailed answers to clarify any remaining uncertainties:
1. Can a creature with summoning sickness crew a vehicle?
Yes, a creature with summoning sickness can crew a vehicle. The crew ability requires you to tap untapped creatures you control, but this tapping is part of the ability’s effect, not a restriction imposed by summoning sickness. Remember, summoning sickness only prevents attacking and activating abilities that require tapping as a cost.
2. Does blinking a creature cause summoning sickness?
Yes, blinking a creature (exiling it and then returning it to the battlefield) causes it to be treated as a new creature, and therefore it will be affected by summoning sickness if it returns to the battlefield under your control during your turn. The creature will regain its ability to attack and use tap abilities at the beginning of your next turn.
3. Can I tap a creature with summoning sickness for convoke?
Yes, you can use a creature with summoning sickness to convoke. Convoke allows you to tap untapped creatures you control to help pay the costs of a spell. Since the tapping is part of the convoke effect and not a cost the creature is paying on its own, summoning sickness does not prevent it.
4. What is not affected by summoning sickness?
Summoning sickness only affects the ability to attack and use activated abilities with a tap symbol in the activation cost. It does not prevent blocking, the use of triggered abilities, or the use of activated abilities that don’t require tapping.
5. Can you block and then tap to crew with the same creature?
While a creature is untapped when declared as a blocker, you cannot block and then tap the same creature to crew a vehicle. The opportunity to declare blockers has already passed by the time you would activate the crew ability. You must crew before blockers are declared or the creature will already be blocking.
6. Can you crew a vehicle to block?
Yes, you can crew a vehicle and use it to block, even if the vehicle just entered the battlefield this turn. However, the vehicle itself will still be affected by summoning sickness, meaning it cannot attack during the turn it was crewed, unless it has haste.
7. Do Incubate tokens have summoning sickness after transforming?
If you transform an Incubator token into a Phyrexian creature on the same turn the Incubator token entered the battlefield, the transformed Phyrexian creature will have summoning sickness and cannot attack that turn.
8. Do creatures have summoning sickness if they are exiled and come back?
Yes, if a creature is exiled and then returns to the battlefield, it is treated as a new creature. Therefore, it will have summoning sickness if it enters the battlefield under your control during your turn.
9. Does mutate ignore summoning sickness?
The mutate ability can influence whether a resulting creature has summoning sickness. According to the official rules, if you mutate a creature onto a base creature and the base creature entered the battlefield under your control this turn, the resulting mutated creature will have summoning sickness. However, if the base creature did not have summoning sickness, the mutated creature also avoids summoning sickness.
10. Can one creature block multiple attackers?
By default, each blocking creature can only block one attacking creature, but multiple defending creatures can block the same attacker. There are exceptions, of course, and some creatures have abilities that allow them to block multiple attackers.
11. Can colorless creatures block fear or intimidate?
Colorless creatures that are not artifacts cannot block a creature with fear or intimidate. However, an artifact creature that has a color can still block a creature with intimidate, even if it’s a different color.
12. Can tapped cards block in magic?
No, tapped creatures cannot block. A creature must be untapped during the declare blockers step to be declared as a blocker. Blocking itself does not tap the creature.
13. Can you reconfigure with summoning sickness?
Yes, a creature with Reconfigure has summoning sickness just like any other creature. Reconfigure is a special ability that turns an equipment into a creature (and vice versa), but does not grant immunity from summoning sickness.
14. Can Cowards block in Magic The Gathering?
Normally, yes, Cowards can block in Magic The Gathering. However, certain card effects can prevent Cowards from blocking, like those created by Boldwyr Intimidator, Kargan Intimidator, or Pyrophobia.
15. Can you use a creature with summoning sickness to pay costs other than tap abilities?
Yes, generally speaking, you can. The limitation of summoning sickness is specifically on attacking or using tap abilities. Creatures with summoning sickness can pay other costs, such as sacrificing a creature to activate an ability or paying mana costs.
Understanding summoning sickness and its interaction with blocking is key to mastering Magic: The Gathering. By knowing the limitations and exceptions, you can make more informed decisions and develop more effective strategies. For further exploration of the strategic elements of card games and their educational applications, consider visiting the Games Learning Society at https://www.gameslearningsociety.org/. Knowledge is power – use it to dominate the battlefield!