Can You Cast Abilities With Summoning Sickness?
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The short answer is: it depends on the ability. Summoning sickness is a fundamental concept in Magic: The Gathering that affects creatures recently entering the battlefield. However, it doesn’t impact all abilities equally. While it might seem like a blanket restriction, the nuances lie in the type of ability you’re trying to use. Understanding these distinctions is crucial for optimal gameplay.
Generally, summoning sickness prevents a creature from attacking and using activated abilities that include the tap symbol ( ⟳) or untap symbol (⎾) in their cost. However, it does not restrict the use of other types of activated abilities. This means you can still activate abilities with other costs, such as mana, discarding cards, sacrificing creatures, etc., regardless of summoning sickness.
To delve deeper, we need to understand the different categories of abilities:
Understanding Ability Types
- Activated Abilities: These are abilities that require a player to pay a cost to activate them, and they are written in the form of “[Cost] : [Effect].” They are identifiable by the colon symbol “:”.
- Triggered Abilities: These abilities automatically trigger when a specific event occurs. These are often signified by words like “when”, “whenever”, or “at”.
- Static Abilities: These abilities have continuous effects that are always in play while the card is on the battlefield. They usually lack a colon symbol “:”.
- Mana Abilities: A type of activated or triggered ability that can only produce mana.
Summoning sickness specifically limits activated abilities that require tapping or untapping the creature as part of their cost. So if an activated ability does not include a tap or untap symbol, it is not affected by summoning sickness and can be activated.
Summoning Sickness and Activated Abilities
The crux of the issue lies in the cost of activation. If the ability states something like “⟳: Draw a card,” that tap symbol (⟳) means a summoning sick creature cannot activate it. However, if the ability reads “Pay 1 mana: Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature,” the creature can activate it the turn it enters the battlefield, even with summoning sickness.
This distinction is vital. A newly summoned creature can’t suddenly exhaust itself by tapping, but it’s perfectly capable of doing other things, like offering itself as a sacrifice or paying mana for an effect.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Summoning Sickness and Abilities
To further clarify the intricacies of summoning sickness and abilities, here are 15 commonly asked questions and their answers:
1. Can creatures with summoning sickness use tap abilities?
No. Summoning sickness explicitly prevents creatures from using activated abilities that include a tap symbol (⟳) in their cost. They simply cannot tap themselves to activate an ability on the turn they came into play.
2. Does summoning sickness affect sacrifice abilities?
No. Summoning sickness does not prevent a creature from being sacrificed or used as a sacrifice cost for another ability or spell. This is because sacrificing is not a tap or untap ability.
3. Can you activate abilities of tapped creatures?
Yes. As long as you can pay the activation cost, you can activate a creature’s abilities even if it’s already tapped. Being tapped does not preclude you from activating abilities unless that ability specifically requires the creature to be untapped or that it includes a tap symbol as a cost.
4. Can you tap a creature with summoning sickness for convoke?
Yes. You can tap creatures with summoning sickness for convoke because convoke taps creatures as an effect of the spell or ability rather than as a cost to cast the spell. The creature is still considered summoning sick, but that doesn’t prevent convoking a spell.
5. Does summoning sickness affect non-tap activated abilities?
No. Summoning sickness only impacts attack declarations and activated abilities that include tap or untap symbols. Non-tap activated abilities, such as those requiring mana or other sacrifices, can still be activated even when the creature is summoning sick.
6. Can you reconfigure with summoning sickness?
Yes. When a reconfigure card enters the battlefield it has summoning sickness just like any other creature. This means you cannot use the reconfigure ability, which requires a tap (⟳), until it no longer has summoning sickness.
7. Does haste negate summoning sickness?
Yes. A creature with haste ignores summoning sickness and can attack and use tap or untap activated abilities the turn it enters the battlefield.
8. Can you activate abilities that require untapping if you have summoning sickness?
No. Summoning sickness prevents using any ability that includes an untap symbol (⎾) in its cost, just like with tap symbols.
9. Can a summoning sick creature block?
Yes. Summoning sickness does not prevent a creature from blocking. It can defend just fine and use abilities other than tap or untap abilities.
10. Does blinking a creature cause summoning sickness?
Yes. If a creature is returned to the battlefield after being blinked (exiled and then returned), it will have summoning sickness, just as if it had entered the battlefield for the first time, because it is treated as a new entity.
11. Do Living Weapons have summoning sickness?
Yes. The Germ token created by a Living Weapon has summoning sickness, even though the Living Weapon equipment itself does not.
12. Can you untap a creature with summoning sickness?
Yes. Untapping a summoning sick creature is possible, but it doesn’t remove summoning sickness. The creature will still be unable to attack or use tap or untap abilities until summoning sickness wears off at the start of your next turn.
13. Can I use activated abilities with a cost of tapping another permanent while I have summoning sickness?
Yes. Summoning sickness only restricts the use of tap abilities on the creature that has summoning sickness. It does not affect the use of tap abilities of other creatures, so long as the other creature does not have summoning sickness.
14. Can I activate my creature’s ability at any time?
Not always. While you can generally activate creature abilities anytime you could cast an instant, some abilities may have timing restrictions (e.g., “Activate only as a sorcery”). Always check the text of the ability.
15. Does activating a creature’s ability count as casting a spell?
No. Activating an ability is not the same as casting a spell. They are different game actions. Spells are cards on the stack that you are casting, whereas abilities are effects that you are activating.
Conclusion
Navigating the rules of summoning sickness and its interaction with creature abilities requires a clear understanding of how these rules work together. While summoning sickness places limitations on attacking and tap/untap abilities, it doesn’t restrict all creature actions. By knowing the limitations of summoning sickness and the different kinds of abilities, you can use your creatures more effectively and make better tactical decisions. Always read cards carefully and pay close attention to the costs and effects of each ability. This knowledge will certainly give you an edge in your next match.