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Yea, more card wording!
The text of Mageseeker Investigator is ambiguous. "Cast" is intended as past tense here, which is fine, but it could be taken to mean "if you cast a spell later."
Obviously, if you give it some thought, it would be very strange if it worked that way, but new players aren't known for giving anything any thought.
This can all be cleared up if they just change it to: "If you have cast a spell ..."
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Yea, more card wording!
The text of Mageseeker Investigator is ambiguous. "Cast" is intended as past tense here, which is fine, but it could be taken to mean "if you cast a spell later."
Obviously, if you give it some thought, it would be very strange if it worked that way, but new players aren't known for giving anything any thought.
This can all be cleared up if they just change it to: "If you have cast a spell ..."
To be fair, it's a Play effect, which triggers when and only when card is played. So, by its very nature, it looks at a snapshot when played and any subsequent effect does nothing. I presume adding the word would cause overlap issues with the card frame, though, because I agree it'd be both clearer and more legible with 'have' in there.
I agree that including the word "have" would make the interaction more obvious, but I think the use of the "play" keyword is what ultimately makes this wording clear/deterministic.
The effect occurs when you play Mageseeker Investigator from your hand, and unlike some games (e.g. MTG), playing a unit doesn't interact with the stack, so the only way to trigger this is by playing a spell prior to playing this unit.
Yeah except it's an "on play" ability, so, there's that going against this point, also, it glows yellow if active in hand :/ Though yeah it probably wouldn't hurt to add one more 4-letter word
You can't exactly word everything perfectly for new players to be able to understand everything the first time. I understand a lot of these posts have fair points, but in this case, it's such a weird way to think about it that, at some point in time, you gotta let them learn by not playing correctly. I've had more than my fair share of "For Science!" moments :)
Also seeing a player play this inactive doesn't necessarily mean they don't understand it. I've had to tempo play it with a bad hand at times :T
EDIT:
I will admit...
I didn't refresh the page at all to check if anyone else had said the same thing as me before I posted, I thought I'd be the first, sorry
I must admit, it took me a few minutes when i first saw this card until i realized how it works (without playing it). The past tense of cast being the same word does make it a bit confusing at first. Yes, it is one of those cards that once played, you will know how it works forever and i guess it is ok, but i can understand the sentiment where FortyDust is coming from.
Quote From sinti I must admit, it took me a few minutes when i first saw this card until i realized how it works (without playing it). The past tense of cast being the same word does make it a bit confusing at first.
I'm in the same boat - this was actually the very first card whose text got me confused during the first days of the beta. But I can agree that the "Play" keyword makes the card's functionality decently clear on its own.
However, flexing my linguistic prowess, I would like to state that not only would adding in a "have" make the card effect more explicitly clear, but it'd also be the better choice from a grammatical perspective to use the present perfect here as opposed to the simple past tense.
Haha, I don't think we meant to gang up like that, I think we just all tried to be the first response.
You're 100% right that this wording can be improved, and there's already at least one example (Unstable Voltician) where we see Riot using the wording you're suggesting (i.e. "you've cast"), but it very amusingly works in an untintuitive way whereby it triggers regardless of whether the spell is past or future.
I think this is a great example of where Riot can tighten up its templating and make both cards (and any more like it) better, but I think the "play" keyword removes ambiguity because it takes precedent over any ambiguous timing details in the effect text.
Agreed, the text could use clarification, I never played the card but I realized how it must work.. but at the same time it could be more clear.
Would post it at reddit, I dobt there are any Rioters that look for feedback here.. now they are closing the boards, Reddit is their main platform.
Quote From DoubleSummon Would post it at reddit, I dobt there are any Rioters that look for feedback here.. now they are closing the boards, Reddit is their main platform.
I won't be mad if someone else wants to do that. I don't remember my reddit username and am very lazy.
I'mma just bask in the glow of the infamous Internet 'First' :P
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