Heat Shimmer

Color Pie and Tokens

Hi, Mark!Where is making copies of tokens on the color pie?

Blue can copy anything, so it can copy any token. White and green specifically can copy creature tokens, although I believe just your own. Red gets “Heat Shimmer” effects where it makes a temporary copy and that can be represented with a token. Red can copy anyone’s tokens when doing that. Black, in theory, could do it with a high enough extra payment beyond the mana, but it’s not something I expect it to do often.

Black Blue Color Pie Creatures Green Heat Shimmer Mana Red Shimmer Tokens White

Copying in Color Pie

Green clones things by either getting you more copies of creatures you control or creating creature tokens identical to ones you control, right? It doesn't copy opponents' creatures, make token copies of nontoken things, or have creatures enter as a copy of something else? I would have thought red was secondary in cloning, given things like Heat Shimmer and Flameshadow Conjuring.

Red gets copy effects. They’re just temporary.

Creatures Flameshadow Conjuring Green Heat Shimmer Red Secondary Tokens

Token Choice Rationale

This article (ask-wizards-may-2007-2007-05-01) mentions that instants and sorceries only make creature tokens when there's some reason it couldn't be a creature card. For example it has some ability like flashback, it makes more than one creature, or it makes a type that isn't put on cards for flavor reasons. This logic doesn't seem to cover a lot of cards though, like Call of the Conclave or Heat Shimmer. Why were those cards tokens instead of cards?

Call of the Conclave was in a guild where the guild mechanic was Proliferate (a mechanic that copied creature tokens). My best guess on Heat Shimmer was the token allowed for a cleaner template. It also avoided the problem of figuring out what creature type a Red Clone is.

Call of the Conclave Creatures Flashback Flavor Heat Shimmer Instants Mechanics Proliferate Red Sorceries Templating Tokens Two Color

Red's Temporary Clones

Can red get more temporary clones like Heat Shimmer and Kiki-Jiki?

I believe it can. Red getting temporary effects from other colors is something we’re playing around with more these days.

Colors Heat Shimmer Red

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