Echoing Decay-ing a Token

[Guido Roest]

I play a Echoing Decay, with a token (or face-down creature) as a target.
If there are other tokens (or face-down creature, or other creatures without
a name) in play, are they affected too?
In other words, do all nameless creatures have the same name, or not?

Thnx in advance,

Duif

[Lee Sharpe]

Post by Guido Roest
I play a Echoing Decay, with a token (or face-down creature) as a target.
If there are other tokens (or face-down creature, or other creatures without
a name) in play, are they affected too?
In other words, do all nameless creatures have the same name, or not?

Creatures with no name cannot have the same name as anything else, even other
creatures with no name. Face-down creatures do not have names, and therefore
Echoing Decay will only affect the targeted creature.

Tokens, however, have names by default, normally the same as their creture
type. For example, Beast Attack reads "Put a green 4/4 Beast token creature
into play." This means the creature is both named Beast and has the creature
subtype Beast. Therefore, in general, tokens that have the same creature
types will all be affected by Echoing Decay.

[Zoe Stephenson]

Post by Guido Roest
I play a Echoing Decay, with a token (or face-down creature) as a target.
If there are other tokens (or face-down creature, or other creatures without
a name) in play, are they affected too?

Echoing Decay {1}{B} Instant
Target creature and all other creatures with the same name as that
creature get -2/-2 until end of turn.

A token creature put into play will get its creature type and its name
from the spell or ability that made it. From Rule 216.1:

A "Goblin creature token," for example, is named "Goblin" and has
the creature subtype Goblin.

Token creatures that have the same name will be affected by Echoing
Decay just as easily as nontoken creatures with the same name.
However, face-down creatures have no name. Echoing Decay will not
be able to find any other creatures with the same name as that of a
face-down creature.

Post by Guido Roest
In other words, do all nameless creatures have the same name, or not?

A nameless creature doesn't have a name. If something doesn't have a
name, it can't have the same name as something else.

[Jeff Heikkinen]

Guido Roest, worshipped by llamas the world over, wrote...

Post by Guido Roest
I play a Echoing Decay, with a token (or face-down creature) as a target.
If there are other tokens (or face-down creature, or other creatures without
a name) in play, are they affected too?
In other words, do all nameless creatures have the same name, or not?

Tokens have names, which are generally given by the effect that created
them. For example, a Wasp token from The Hive has the name "wasp".
Tokens that are copies of other objects instead have the name of
whatever they're copying.

If a creature really, truly has no name (and face-downs are the only
examples I can think of off the top of my head, though I'm sure there
are others) then it can't very well have the *same* name as anything
else, so Echoing Decay resolving on a face-down creature will only
destroy that one creature, never anything else.

[David DeLaney]

Post by Guido Roest
I play a Echoing Decay, with a token (or face-down creature) as a target.
If there are other tokens (or face-down creature, or other creatures without
a name) in play, are they affected too?
In other words, do all nameless creatures have the same name, or not?

No tokens, in general are nameless. Tokens are given a name on creation that's
the same as their creature type. (Tokens with multiple creature types get
a name that's all of them together; for example, a Goblin Scout token is
named "Goblin Scout". Tokens that are a _copy_ of something else get the name
of the something else copied along with everything else.) A token targetted
by Echoing Decay will get -2/-2, as will all other tokens with the same
name - Pest tokens, Myr tokens, whatever its name is.

Face-down creatures are nameless, so an Echoing <foo> on them doesn't
affect anything other than the creature itself. Nothing can have "the same
name as" something that has no name, just like nothing can "share a color
with" something that's colorless. The lack of a name is not itself a name.

Dave

[Daniel W. Johnson]

Post by David DeLaney
No tokens, in general are nameless.

Probably the only way to get a nameless creature token is to use
something like Dance of Many on a face-down creature.

[David DeLaney]

Post by Daniel W. Johnson

Post by David DeLaney
No tokens, in general are nameless.

Probably the only way to get a nameless creature token is to use
something like Dance of Many on a face-down creature.

Right, I believe; I know that token copies of something face-down give you
nameless tokens, and I don't see any other way offhand to do it.

Dave