Except that would be misleading too, as not all abilities that produce mana are mana abilities. For example targeted abilities cannot be mana abilities (Deathrite Shaman), and neither can loyalty abilities (Xenagos, the Reveler).

True, but I'd argue that it'd at least be less misleading than the status quo. You'd go from having people screwing up all activated abilities that cost mana to having people screwing up all abilities that produce mana without being mana abilities, and that's a far more exclusive club.

I'm not sure it's quite that simple. while "mana abilities" leads to a lot of potentially misplayable abilities, it's a fairly simple error to correct. once someone points out that 'mana abilities' means abilities that make mana, you can compare it to something like 'damage abilities' and it'll make sense. and at that point, someone can helpfully come along, while you're in the process of learning something, and point out that a few exceptions exist. also, 'mana abilities' sounds a little less like what it does, which I'd argue is a good thing because it makes it sound more like a keyword and thus the fact that it's an artificially constructed subset of abilities that make mana feels more reasonable. whereas if you call it 'mana-producing abilities', I think you're much more likely to play for much longer without learning that it's not all mana-producing abilities, and that lesson is going to come much harder.

When someone's learning, it's better to start them off with only what they absolutely need to know, and then present them with new information only once it becomes relevant. Teaching players about all the nitpicky exceptions to "mana abilities are abilities that produce mana" as soon as we clear up their initial confusion violates this principle--such cards are rarely encountered, and the differences matter even more rarely. But if we don't do that (or if we forget, which also happens), then we have a player who's been given instruction that they aren't aware is incomplete, so later attempts to educate them are going to run into the instinctive response of "But that's not what I was told!". They may accept the correction, but they also might not.

With a more precise name, the player is ahead of the game--they can proceed without any instruction at all, so when they eventually do encounter a situation where the difference matters, they don't have that incomplete instruction barrier, and can be taught "fresh".


Maybe, but I think the benefits of an intuitive name outweigh the drawbacks. Making the fact that it's an artificially constructed subset feel reasonable is irrelevant if you never need let them know that that's what it is.

On the contrary, I think that a player who's been playing Magic on a serious enough level to encounter a situation where the messy behind-the-curtain rules regarding mana abilities become relevant is more likely to accept such a lesson than one who hasn't. Experienced and/or serious players are much more aware that they don't know all the nitty-gritty details, and are used to accepting the word of authority figures on how the rules work.

It's the inexperienced and casual players who are more likely to resist instruction. Happily, they're also the ones least likely to encounter situations where it matters.

I'm not convinced that a "that's not what I was told!" reaction is worse than a "that's not what it says!" reaction. you may be right that you don't want to dive into all the details, but by the time you come to mana abilities in the first place, you're already looking at some non-simple cards. there are only 44 cards with either "mana ability" or "mana abilities" on them, mostly in the reminder text of split second and cards that target activated abilities. either way, it's not something you'll encounter until you've played for a bit. and you don't have to explain everything, just toss in a "with a few exceptions" so that, when they encounter one, they'll go "oh hey this is one of those exceptions" not "NO WAY DUDE"

but you will. at some point, you're going to try to activate deathrite shaman for mana in response to a sudden shock, and boom, everything falls to pieces and you get into an argument that escalates into a fist fight, get permanently injured, get fired from your job because you can no longer do it, and wind up in a gutter somewhere, begging for change, all because Zammm wanted to add an extra word to some magic cards. do you see what you've done? how could you?

more relevantly, while it doesn't come up often, it does come up, and making it more intuitive when it does is a good thing. also, a much more likely example would've been tormod's crypt in response to shaman, but that also requires you to know that mana abilities don't use the stack, and doesn't actually use the term "mana ability" anywhere.

you can't really juxtapose "experienced" with "casual" like that.

lemme anecdote ya. so I switched high schools in tenth grade. one of the first ways that I connect with people is through magic. (I had a truly awful deck that tried to be five-color with only forests and ran all the invasion Apprentices and Masters because I had no clue what I was doing, but that's neither here nor there.) there was a kid who had a mono-colored deck of each color, and a lot of people just borrowed his decks to play quick matches. the red deck contained onslaught. now, these are people who'd been playing for possibly close to a decade in some cases, and people who'd been to tournaments, and literally none of them believed me when I explained that and why onslaught's trigger could target an already tapped creature, so that you didn't have to tap your own creatures to play ball lightning if you'd already tapped down their creatures. not one person listened. in the end, I had to print out I believe the gatherer rulings but it may have been the relevant comp rule sections before anyone would believe me. why? because the authority figure they had was wrong. I was a new guy, no one knew that I knew what I was talking about, so why should they listen to me? that's gonna be a lot of players' expositions to misinterpreted rules. and as you say, it's not a common thing to come up, so even if players had been to tournaments they might not have experienced the scenario. of course, this is going to happen either way, (there's really nothing they could've done to prevent the onslaught issue, for instance.) but I believe people will be less hardline about it if the terminology is a little more vague, so that one can prevail with reasoned arguments without running so much into the brick wall of "the card literally says 'mana producing', this ability produces mana, what the heck are you talking about."

We'll have to disagree on that, then.

Yes, yes...all according to plan.

I'm not really concerned about people refusing to believe that cards like Deathrite Shaman or Tangleroot don't use mana abilities. There just isn't a lot of harm that can come from it. Most of the errors that them being wrong will lead to will be people thinking they can't respond when actually they can, and I don't have a problem with that happening, because not responding is still legal.

I'm fine with people performing one legal play because they don't know there are other possible legal plays. I'm much more concerned about people performing illegal plays they don't know are impossible, and the status quo leads to much more of the latter. Yes, even with the change there will still be cases where illegal things will happen, but there's far less of them to go around.

There are always going to be obstinate people or incorrect authority figures. Given that, I'd much rather there be less for them to be wrong about.

right, if I don't know I can respond to Deathrite then I won't. but if I don't know that you can, and then you do, that's fight city right there, especially if I already "know" that you can't.

Thankfully, that won't happen often, and when it does, it's most likely to be in a tournament setting where there's a judge to call and get a ruling.

Theoretical question/confirmation of guess for you!

Lately the wording of Hull Breach (Choose one: A; B; or [A and B])seems to have been phased out in favor of, e.g., Rain of Thorns (Choose one or more: A; B; and/or C). Would rewriting Hull Breach in that way be a functional change?

I think the answer is yes but I'm not sure.

With Hull Breach as-is, the third mode is a single action, and will destroy the artifact and the enchantment simultaneously.
If it instead read "Choose one or more: destroy target artifact; and/or destroy target enchantment", choosing both creates two actions, which will be followed in order, so the artifact will get destroyed first.

This would make a difference if, for some reason, you Hull Breach to blow up your opponent's Rakalite and your own Viridian Revel.

Is this correct? Am I misunderstanding choices or actions or something?

Thanks!
- a humble rules advisor

You're not the first person to have thought about this! They actually changed Hull Breach's wording briefly to match Branching Bolt. Here's where they changed it back, and the reason is exactly what you expected.

I came across this while trying to find proper templates for custom cards.

What happens when you put a Mogis's Marauder into play and his ability triggers, but in response your opponent kills one of your black permanents, reducing your devotion to black? Say my devotion is five, and I target five of my creatures. But then you destroy my Phyrexian Arena and then I've got five targets and only three devotion. Are all five targets still legal, or do some of them now fizzle?

I've seen older cards with effects like this, like Jaws of Stone specify that the division of targets or damage depends on the value "as you cast this spell" so it doesn't matter if it changes later. But there's no such clause for this case, so I'm not sure.

It depends on when your opponent wrecked your devotion. If it happened "in response to the ability going on the stack" then your devotion is less when X is set.

Mogis's Marauder's ability only needs to count the devotion when it triggers in order to determine how many creatures it will target, not when it resolves. When it resolves, the creatures targeted get intimidate and haste. It does matter for something like Gray Merchant of Asphodel, though, because the value of X being dealt on resolution can change.

So in your case, all five targets will still gain intimidate and haste, even if the devotion is reduced when the ability resolves.

Usually, when a spell or ability needs some information from the game to determine how big an effect it has, it only looks up that information once, when it's resolving. Reducing devotion in response to such a spell or ability will reduce the effect accordingly, since the spell/ability hasn't counted devotion yet.

But Mogis's Marauder uses devotion to determine the number of targets for the ability, and targets for a spell or ability need to be chosen at the time that spell/ability is put onto the stack. For that to happen, the Marauder has to check devotion when the ability's put onto the stack, so that's what it does. Reducing devotion in response to the ability won't accomplish anything, because the number of targets has already been set. All five targets will get the bonus.

However, you can generally accomplish what you want by responding to the Marauder itself, before it enters the battlefield and its ability triggers. That way when the time comes to determine the number of targets, devotion has already been reduced.

Sorry, AzureShade, but you definitely don't want to act "in response to the ability going on the stack"--there's no way to respond to an ability in between it triggering and going onto the stack, so that statement essentially means "the first chance I get after the ability goes on the stack", which is too late. You need to respond before it triggers in the first place.

complex, probably-never-important rules question:

I control Erebos, God of the Dead. I don't have any other black permanents, so it's not a creature. that means it doesn't have any associated creature types either, so it's not a God. now I play Opalescence. Erebos's ability is applied first, making it a non-creature enchantment, then Opalescence's is applied, making it a 4/4. a) is that sequence correct? and b) is it now a God?

my instinct on b is that it is not. the "stop being a creature" effect of Erebos's ability removed the creature type, then Opalescence was applied, but that shouldn't bring it back. but I don't know for sure.

It is a god! It has God in it's type line, and that type will apply so long as Erebos is a creature. The "not being a creature" ability on Erebos never says that it removes the card type, but as only Tribal cards and Creature cards can have creature types, it wouldn't be a God while not a creature. Since Opalescence brings back the creature quality, the God creature type will be in effect.

As long as Erebos is a creature, and it's creature type isn't changed, it's a God.

What happens if I drafted a ton of advantageous proclamations and get a deck size as low as 5, would I lose when I attempted to draw my opening hand or the first time I failed to draw once the game has started? Do I have enough time to mulligan down to 3 first? (Gotta have time to set up my Reito Lantern combo).

There's your answer! The game sees you attempted to draw a card when you had no cards left in your library. Now, you can still take mulligans after that, but that doesn't change what has already happened, and as such you will lose almost immediately.

Darn, I guess I need that useless 7th card now.

Time for another incredibly random question!

I just noticed that Artisan of Forms says "target creature" instead of "another target creature." So, say I have an Artisan of Forms in play not copying anything, and target it with Mizzium Skin. Its Heroic ability triggers, and I choose to target... itself.

The ability says that Artisan "becomes a copy of target creature and gains this ability". Since the creature it's copying already had an instance of that ability, would this give the Artisan two instances of the Heroic ability?

(And yes, this can be relevant to gameplay -- off the top of my head, if Artisan has two copies of the ability, it can kill two Phantasmal Bears when you target it.)