Do Artifacts Have Summoning Sickness? A Comprehensive Rules and Strategy Guide

The short answer is no, artifacts do not have summoning sickness except for artifact creatures and vehicles. Plain artifacts can tap abilities the turn they enter the battlefield without any restrictions. This gives artifacts powerful flexibility to enable combos or trigger effects compared to creatures.

But as we‘ll explore, there are some intricacies around tapping artifacts depending on card types and board states. Whether leveraging artifacts in your deck or playing against them, understanding these rules is essential.

In this beginner‘s guide, we‘ll cover:

• How summoning sickness applies to artifacts
• Exceptions for artifact creatures and vehicles
• Equipment artifact interactions
• Specific rules around tapping artifacts
• Contrast with other card types like lands and enchantments
• The gameplay impact of artifacts tapping freely
• Common questions around artifacts and summoning sickness

So if you‘ve ever wondered whether your Guardian Idol can block the turn it enters the battlefield, or why your opponent‘s Skysovereign, Consul Flagship attacked you right away, this article is for you!

Artifact Creatures and Vehicles Have Summoning Sickness

While plain artifacts can tap abilities immediately, there is one exception – artifact creatures. These follow similar rules as regular creatures:

• Artifact creatures cannot attack or tap the turn they enter the battlefield
• Vehicles like Skysovereign become artifact creatures when crewed and have summoning sickness
• Attacking/blocking/tapping restrictions last only for that turn

So what classes as an artifact creature?

• Any card with the artifact creature card type like Porcelain Legionnaire
• Regular artifacts that explicitly become creatures like vehicles or Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge
• Artifacts turned creature through other effects like March of the Machines

Note that the artifact portion remains unaffected – you can still tap March of the Machines for mana right away. It‘s just the creature portion that gives summoning sickness.

Equipment Artifacts Follow Equipped Creature Rules

Equipment artifacts like Trusty Machete attach to a creature and function independently:

• Tapping the creature does not tap the equipment
• Tapping the equipment does not tap the creature
• However, if the creature has summoning sickness, restrictions apply to the equipment‘s tap abilities referring to that creature
• The equipment can still tap for other costs like improvise

So while Trusty Machete itself doesn‘t have sickness, it follows the rules of the equipped creature. This prevents tapping a creature indirectly via the equipment. Clever workarounds could allow untapping the equipment repeatedly to infinitely tap the creature otherwise!

Specific Rules Around Tapping Artifacts

While most plain artifacts can tap freely, there are some key rules:

• You can only tap artifacts when you have priority – no instant taps!
• Entering the battlefield tapped does not count as “becoming tapped”
• Artifacts untap normally during untap steps unless stated otherwise

Here are some examples of how these rules play out:

• Isochron Scepter can tap the turn it enters, but you cannot tap in response to a removal spell – only with priority
• Guardian Idol enters tapped but can still tap land abilities immediately
• Tocatli Honor Guard stops creatures entering tapped but artifacts still untap as normal

Summoning Sickness By Card Type

Except for artifact creatures
Unless they have haste
Unless they have abilities like creatures lands from Worldwake

As shown in this table, creatures uniquely have restrictions on tapping and attacking the turn they enter the battlefield. This is an important balancing factor – artifact creatures follow accordingly.

The Gameplay Impact of Free Artifact Tapping

So why this discrepancy between artifacts and creatures? It comes down to gameplay consequences:

• Creatures attacking immediately would overwhelm limited board states
• Artifacts tapping immediately enables more artifact synergy and combos
• There are fewer artifacts than creatures in most sets

Let‘s look at some data on recent artifact usage rates:

As these limited formats show, artifacts appear in fewer than half of decks on average. And even those decks won‘t always draw/cast their artifacts.

Given lower artifact saturation, allowing them to tap immediately creates fun "go nuts" moments comboing off artifacts rather than overpowering board states like unlimited creature attacks would.

There are certainly individual artifacts that dominate gameplay anyway through raw power or synergies. But free tapping helps enable their purpose within the right contexts.

Common Questions Around Artifacts and Summoning Sickness

Let‘s round out this guide by answering some other frequent questions about artifacts and summoning sickness:

Can I tap a Clue artifact from Investigate the turn it enters the battlefield?

Yes! Plain non-creature artifacts have no tap restrictions.

If I Manifest an artifact creature like Porcelain Legionnaire, does it have summoning sickness?

No! Since Manifests are 2/2 creatures with no card type, the Legionnaire loses its artifact creature card types and can attack and tap abilities right away.

Can equipment like Blackblade Reforged tap the turn it enters even if the equipped Legendary creature cannot?

Yes! Equipment functions independently and the tapping restrictions only apply to Blackblade‘s own equip ability, not other costs like improvise.

When rebuilding artifact creature Enforcer Griffin with modular counters from Arcbound Ravager, does it have summoning sickness?

Yes, unfortunately! The Griffin is treated as an entirely new creature entering the battlefield, so cannot attack or tap that turn. A tricky modular rules nuance!

Conclusion

With over 75,000 unique artifacts in Magic‘s history, mastering their gameplay and rules is no easy feat. Hopefully this guide has helped cut through that complexity to conclusively answer:

Do artifacts have summoning sickness?

Outside of artifact creatures and vehicles, no they do not! Non-creature artifacts can tap and trigger abilities right away.

So don‘t hesitate to slam down that Guardian Idol on turn 2 and start accelerating your mana! Just watch out for your opponent‘s pesky Skysovereign still able to attack the turn it enters!

Let me know in the comments if you have any other artifact questions. And stay tuned for my next strategy guide covering the Top 10 Artifacts in Standard!