Summoning Sickness is a mechanic in MTG that prevents creatures from attacking the first turn they enter the battlefield.
Summoning Sickness ends in MTG after one turn
It ends at the beginning of your turn after the turn you played the creature. Specifically, a creature is no longer affected by summoning sickness as soon as you start a turn and it has been under your control since the beginning of your last turn. This means if you play a creature on your turn, it will be free from summoning sickness and able to attack or use abilities that require tapping on your next turn.
The concept behind summoning sickness is to balance gameplay, ensuring that players can’t immediately use new creatures to overwhelm opponents. It applies only to creatures and only affects their ability to attack or use abilities that have the tap symbol in their cost.
When does Summoning Sickness start?
Summoning sickness begins the moment a creature card enters the battlefield under your control. This applies regardless of whether the creature was cast from your hand, brought back from the graveyard, or put onto the battlefield through any other means. The key point is that the creature must not have been under your control since the beginning of your most recent turn for it to be considered having summoning sickness.
This rule is in place to prevent immediate exploitation of powerful creature abilities and attacks, encouraging strategic planning and pacing in gameplay. It’s important to note that summoning sickness doesn’t apply to creatures you already controlled as your turn began, even if they were not on the battlefield at that time.
Can you end Summoning Sickness early?
Summoning sickness cannot be ended early by normal means within the rules of Magic: The Gathering. The condition naturally expires at the beginning of your next turn after the creature has been under your control continuously since your last turn began. There are no spells, abilities, or game actions that can remove summoning sickness from a creature ahead of this schedule.
However, certain abilities of creatures can bypass the limitations imposed by summoning sickness. For example, creatures with haste are not affected by summoning sickness. They can attack and use tap abilities immediately after they come under your control. Haste represents the creature’s ability to act quickly upon entering the battlefield, effectively ignoring the usual restrictions of summoning sickness.
Summoning Sickness is one of the many similarities between MTG and Pokémon TCG, which you might also consider reading about.