For all those "I liked mana burn for all the decks I made based around it/it added a wrinkle to gameplay" people, they should print a card that puts mana burn into the game. Then they can play all their niche decks and still have all the fun of playing with manaburn, without having it be all up in everyone elses business. It sounds like a solid idea to me, since primarily all the pro-manaburn guys are whining about their niche cards being ruined, they can add the card in and build their deck around the combo and all the anti-manaburn guys are whining about how it was annoying when they forgot it, there's a nice little card on the board to remind you. To all the wrinkle guys, if you cant spare the slots to add it in, you dont care enough about it in the first place.
*hunkers in the anti flame bunker*
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For all those "I liked mana burn for all the decks I made based around it/it added a wrinkle to gameplay" people, they should print a card that puts mana burn into the game. Then they can play all their niche decks and still have all the fun of playing with manaburn, without having it be all up in everyone elses business. It sounds like a solid idea to me, since primarily all the pro-manaburn guys are whining about their niche cards being ruined, they can add the card in and build their deck around the combo and all the anti-manaburn guys are whining about how it was annoying when they forgot it, there's a nice little card on the board to remind you. To all the wrinkle guys, if you cant spare the slots to add it in, you dont care enough about it in the first place.
*hunkers in the anti flame bunker*
Few weeks ago my friend and I were playing some sealed with some older boosters, don't remember what set it was. Few turns in, he drops a critter (Red IIRC) that adds mana to your pool when he's cast.
At that point, we realized. That critter was nigh unplayable a year ago, because there was no guarantee you could use his mana. Now, suddenly he's a filler critter with no drawback and potentially a positive.
My friend couldn't use the mana. So now, he doesn't manaburn.
So a rule that "Never comes up" and is "Niche" actually made a pretty huge difference in the playability of a card and completely eliminated the drawback it was costed for.
It's not a "Niche" subject, to be very blunt on the matter, WOTC's pushed Mtg so far that now they have to change the rules just to be able to come up with new stuff. Which IMO is a really big red flag.
It's less that they're freeing up design space, more that they feel the game as it was from 6th to M10 was too complex for the wider audience so they're intentionally simplifying it to broaden their market appeal. While I agree in principle with the idea of pruning rules that are too complex, serve no purpose, or are otherwise not useful to the game, mana burn is as I said earlier in this thread a very simple, flavourful concept and is not a rule that needed to be pruned.
Yeah it still works. I may have been wrong with my speculation as to why they printed this card, but the card still works the way they wanted it to: At the beginning of your upkeep, the card damages you for each untapped land you controlled at the beginning of your turn. Just because that's now an affect that's much easier to get around does not mean that the card no longer functions. It simply means it's less powerful.
No, see, this is what you're not getting. Power Surge and Citadel weren't created with the mentality of making people tap out at the end of a turn, but to punish players for having nothing to sink mana into. This is how it was printed, this was how it was designed, and this was how it worked.
That's why I called it "Speculation". Because I couldn't prove it.
You never called it speculation. But since you agree that you were speculating, fine.
No, removing mana burn makes a lot of the cards in that set less powerful, but it does not make the theme of the block disappear suddenly. Citadel of Pain might have been a lot better back in the days of mana burn, but that doesn't mean its function has suddenly changed. No, its powerlevel has changed. Same with Power Surge. They don't need functional errata, because they still carry out their function (they damage players who have untapped lands). Just because they're now a lot easier to avoid doesn't mean they've suddenly changed how they work.
You are, again, basing this entire reasoning on the speculation that its function was nothing more than to punish untapped lands. You just admitted you were speculating. Drawing conclusions based on speculation is bad. I think there is more reason to believe that the mechanic was to punish the inability to use lands. Why else would the print sinks like Chimeric Idol in the same set? They were meant to work together and have synergy, and punish others who couldn't do the same.
For all those "I liked mana burn for all the decks I made based around it/it added a wrinkle to gameplay" people, they should print a card that puts mana burn into the game. Then they can play all their niche decks and still have all the fun of playing with manaburn, without having it be all up in everyone elses business. It sounds like a solid idea to me, since primarily all the pro-manaburn guys are whining about their niche cards being ruined, they can add the card in and build their deck around the combo and all the anti-manaburn guys are whining about how it was annoying when they forgot it, there's a nice little card on the board to remind you. To all the wrinkle guys, if you cant spare the slots to add it in, you dont care enough about it in the first place.
*hunkers in the anti flame bunker*
You know, if you don't want people flaming you, you shouldn't flame others yourself with your incredibly condescending tone and namecalling.
Your so-called "solid idea" would require an extra card for it to function, which makes it just downright bad. And they haven't actually printed a card that does that, so your suggestion doesn't even work.
They haven't printed a card that immulates mana burn, but they could.
It'd be a really pointless card unless it also had the ability to force mana abilities out of your opponent's lands (having that on supporting cards would just be jankier than hell and not worth printing ever). Could be a nifty rare thrown into a set, like some sorcery that says, "Target opponent activates a mana ability of each untapped land he or she controls. At the end of the step, that player loses 1 life for each mana in his or her mana pool." They could even call it Mana Burn if they wanted to.
....what a surprise. Nobody comments on the actual flavor issue of it, just reiterating the same tired comments about removing it mechanically. Sigh.
Mechanically, yeah I miss it. That's all I'm going to say on the point.
Flavorfully...it was abrupt and nonsensical. Seriously, in-world, where did this come from? For millennia in-universe, mana had functioned such that if it lingered in your mind unspent, it damaged your mind and body as it naturally diluted back into the world, and there was some measure of inertia holding it back (the steps change). As of M10 though, it's just suddenly changed and there's no reason for it. Had this occurred at 10th, I would've been bummed, but I could've bought it, given the Mending had transpired and likely was still underway - it is a big multiverse, after all. With M10...Alara had reformed and the Worldwake was about to occur...and? Is Alara a nexus plane or offer leylines? Not to my knowledge. Is Zendikar? Er...
You see my point. I get that they removed mana burn for the health of the game, but there was no logical reason for it to happen at M10, given as how mana had always functioned a particular way and nothing occurred in Dominia itself to warrant the change. Hopefully they'll address this at some point, like with a revelation that Alara is more significant in a cosmic sense then our current knowledge indicates, but for the time being, I remain ticked off that they didn't consider the obvious discrepancy between gameplay and flavor here.
About any "subpar" mechanics or cards: Context is king.
If I make a templating or grammar error, let me know.
The franchise MtG most resembles is Battlestar Galactica. Why? Its players exist in, at most, a dozen different models at any given point in time, with perhaps up to 3% variation, 5% if you're lucky.
....what a surprise. Nobody comments on the actual flavor issue of it, just reiterating the same tired comments about removing it mechanically. Sigh.
Mechanically, yeah I miss it. That's all I'm going to say on the point.
Flavorfully...it was abrupt and nonsensical. Seriously, in-world, where did this come from? For millennia in-universe, mana had functioned such that if it lingered in your mind unspent, it damaged your mind and body as it naturally diluted back into the world, and there was some measure of inertia holding it back (the steps change). As of M10 though, it's just suddenly changed and there's no reason for it.
Or, the simpler explanation: mana burn never existed in-universe. Plenty of things in the Rules don't have a flavor counterpart. There was no grand reorganization of the way magic works in-universe when the Stack was introduced, for example, and that was a far bigger rules change than mana burn.
For all those "I liked mana burn for all the decks I made based around it/it added a wrinkle to gameplay" people, they should print a card that puts mana burn into the game. Then they can play all their niche decks and still have all the fun of playing with manaburn, without having it be all up in everyone elses business. It sounds like a solid idea to me, since primarily all the pro-manaburn guys are whining about their niche cards being ruined, they can add the card in and build their deck around the combo and all the anti-manaburn guys are whining about how it was annoying when they forgot it, there's a nice little card on the board to remind you. To all the wrinkle guys, if you cant spare the slots to add it in, you dont care enough about it in the first place.
*hunkers in the anti flame bunker*
I could see this. Some cheapo, cantrip enchantment, Wizards could even name the card Mana Burn.
Or just some uncommon land that taps for colorless and has a mana burn ability. That way those decks wouldn't have to make room for some enchantment.
Anyway, I don't miss mana burn at all. It was dumb from the start and those few bad cards that are affected by its removal aren't a good reason to keep it. There's no room for pointless rules, the CR keep growing anyway so if you can throw some trash out I'm all for it
Or, the simpler explanation: mana burn never existed in-universe. Plenty of things in the Rules don't have a flavor counterpart. There was no grand reorganization of the way magic works in-universe when the Stack was introduced, for example, and that was a far bigger rules change than mana burn.
except it did exist in-universe...
its not like it was something that was mentioned in the rules and then never brought up in any of the stories. its existed, sometimes just hinted at, in just about every story up until the mending.
except it did exist in-universe...
its not like it was something that was mentioned in the rules and then never brought up in any of the stories. its existed, sometimes just hinted at, in just about every story up until the mending.
Could you provide me with specific examples? I'm not personally aware of any such references, but then I haven't read all the novels.
Regardless, even assuming you're correct and such references do exist, that doesn't change my answer. It would simply be a retcon. And, if you're really unhappy with that but you're ok with it happening at the Mending, just imagine it retconned to happening when the Mending happened, and the rules only now "caught up".
Actually, I'm basing it on the wording of the cards.
Yeah, that's what I meant. You're not actually looking at intent, you're reading the card and saying that's what it's used for.
Geez talk about "giving and inch, taking a mile". I used the word "speculate" once.
Okay, so? The point is that it's entirely speculation and you can't prove any of your arguments. In fact, there's quite a lot of arguments that don't support your claim.
That's application. Sure, the application of the card has changed, but it still carries out its function (damage players when they have untapped lands). That is its function. Its application may have been different before, but it retains its function.
No, you have to look beyond just function. You have to look at intent. By your argument, Lotus Vale functions as it's supposed to - it's a land that produces three mana but costs two lands to play. But see, that's not the original intent of the card, which was that the lands needed to be sacced before Lotus Vale can be used. I'm not just making this up either.
This is the reason Time Vault was finally errataed. Read this article about Time Vault.
Here's the relevant quote: When I asked Aaron Forsythe about it at the Magic Invitational, he said that they weren’t sure how Time Vault was intended to work. He said he asked Richard Garfield, but that Richard Garfield no longer remembered.
Why is this important? Because if it were just based on printed functionality, then Time Vault would have been errataed a long time ago, because it's quite easy to errata it based on that. Instead, they had to wait, and they had to figure out what the intent of the card was first.
Moving on...
They probably printed cards like Chimeric Idol as psuedo-answers to cards like Citadel of Pain. Anyway, it's a strawman argument of sorts. Other cards in the set have no baring on the function of Citadel of Pain or Power Surge. They still function the way they did all those years ago.
Uh, what? It's not a strawman at all, because tapping lands was a block mechanic. Just because they don't go outright and say it with keywords doesn't make it not. Back then they really didn't come up with keywords for every block.
So going back to the Time Vault argument, you need to look at intent as well as functionality for Citadel of Pain. Considering tapping lands as part of a block mechanic, it seems quite intuitive that Citadel of Pain wasn't just meant to punish untapped lands, but to punish the inability to use those lands.
Anyway, I'm probably done here. I don't like wasting time talking in circles.
I miss mana burn because it was a teacher. It taught the players through pain that you should only pay with the exact amount you needed. Now that mana burn is gone, people could spam five trillion mana, spend a trillion on some spell and not take the remaining four trillion as damage just because they can.
The reason and beauty behind Citadel of Pain and Power Surge was it was a pure and simple decisions of "Damned if you do, damned if you don't.".
Yet now that mana burn is out the picture, they are significantly worse off than they were before. As all you would have to do in response was tap your land and you wouldn't take damage from the enchantment.
it was flavorful as well and made sense. The very mana ripping out of the mage's body and damaging that same body as well. The mana returns to the source it came from but not before harming that mage.
The reason why mana burn came up so little is because you learned to utilize your mana to the best way it could be used and not waste your mana. Think of mana as food, if you waste it goes bad. Now that mana burn is out of the picture that is no longer the case.
I miss mana burn because it was a teacher. It taught the players through pain that you should only pay with the exact amount you needed. Now that mana burn is gone, people could spam five trillion mana, spend a trillion on some spell and not take the remaining four trillion as damage just because they can.
How often does someone spam mana that much? If you're creating that much mana, you obviously have something you can do with it.
Mana burn was removed because it added very little to the game. How many cards were printed that mana burn was relevant? Without looking at Gatherer, I bet most people can't name 10. How many cards have been printed in the time since we lost mana burn that wouldn't have been printed before? Plenty more, and the design space for things has been opened a lot because of it. How much would Omnath be played if mana burn still existed? He definitely would not be a popular EDH general, which is where I see him the most.
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Back in my day, Wrath of God didn't kill Black Knight and that's the way we liked it. We also had to pay mana for our 1/1s. Kids and your Memnites. Get off my lawn!
I miss mana burn because it was a teacher. It taught the players through pain that you should only pay with the exact amount you needed. Now that mana burn is gone, people could spam five trillion mana, spend a trillion on some spell and not take the remaining four trillion as damage just because they can.
And this is different from before... how? Really, how often did that situation come up? How often did people say "I Stream of Life for a trillion. Oops, I had four trillion mana. Guess I die!"
Mana burn came up in pretty much three cases - when someone was trying to build around Citadel of Pain, when someone took a few extra damage from using things like Ur-Golem's Eye, or when someone wanted to fiddle with their life total for thins like Pulse of the Fields or Hidetsugu's Second Rite. The latter is, to me, a negative (tweaking your life total by tapping lands...?); the second is a minor nuisance with significant design overhead; and the first is just not important enough, in my opinion - making two-three cards (more) useless is not a particularly big cost.
it was flavorful as well and made sense. The very mana ripping out of the mage's body and damaging that same body as well. The mana returns to the source it came from but not before harming that mage.
Why do you think that makes sense - other than the fact that you're used to it? In the vast majority of games and stories that use something called mana, there is no such thing as mana burn.
It's easy to spin flavor explanations like the one you made. Here, I can give one: The mage tries to hold on to too many spells in his mind at once, fails to do so, and suffers painful mental trauma as the spells drain away from his memory. I've just given a reason for "card burn" - take 1 damage for each card you have to discard for being over your hand size. The fact that I can make up a story for that and justify a rule with "flavor" doesn't mean that we should use that.
Think of mana as food, if you waste it goes bad. Now that mana burn is out of the picture that is no longer the case.
Sure it is. If you waste it (wait too long), it goes bad (empties from your pool and is unusable).
Née de la lave
it was flavorful as well and made sense. The very mana ripping out of the mage's body and damaging that same body as well. The mana returns to the source it came from but not before harming that mage.
If manas so terrible to hold how come it dosent hurt you going in?Seriously the only color that makes sense in is red,black a little bit.White,blue & green on the other hand make no sense at all why they would do this.When 3 1/2 out of 5 colors dosen't work flavorwise,don't keep it.
The reason and beauty behind Citadel of Pain and Power Surge was it was a pure and simple decisions of "Damned if you do, damned if you don't.".
Yet now that mana burn is out the picture, they are significantly worse off than they were before. As all you would have to do in response was tap your land and you wouldn't take damage from the enchantment.
Neither one of those cards was a superpower house to begin with haveing played CoPain and against both.They are only slightly weaker than before.
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WOut of the ground,I rise to grace...W BAfter the lights go out on you, after your worthless life is through. I will remember how you scream...B
I miss mana burn because it was a teacher. It taught the players through pain that you should only pay with the exact amount you needed. Now that mana burn is gone, people could spam five trillion mana, spend a trillion on some spell and not take the remaining four trillion as damage just because they can.
Translation:
Without restraint from mana burn, people will be careless on how much mana they will produce. You only know how to pay the "exact change" because mana burn was the teacher.
Without mana burn, managing how much mana you are floating correctly will only be seen as obsessed unless proven otherwise by a strategy.
My turn...
People always gripe about mana burn because they always miscounted how many mana-sources they tapped when they were getting a bit sloppy with their plays.
It didn't come up much because any player that learned to pay for "exact change" learned how to avoid getting burned by their own mana.
Mana burn also taught players not to be too greedy with their mana unless they could spend it all before it emptied. Land Disruption/Destruction also punished players for being too greedy with their lands.
Yet I wonder why land destruction and mana burn were taken almost completely out of the picture? Oh right Pokemon's Evasion Clause rule of no Double Team or Minimize get's people upset by it because it ruins their "Perfect" strategy. It's the same dang thing in MTG.
You always get whiners who complain about such things. What was one of the most top hated things that the casual player base wished wizards would never print again? Land Disruption. What was something the fan base always complained about since it apparently rarely came up? Mana burn. Take those nearly out the picture and people are happy. Well not everybody.
See this why I hate whiners. All they do is complain and moan about every little aspect of the game. They always find something to complain about. If wizards were to give each player a solid bar of 24 karat gold that was wrapped in hundred dollar bills... the player base would just complain how heavy the gold is and how the bills are not crisp and have bent corners.
Real nitpickers and buzz killers if you ask me.
I'm probably going to get flamed for this. I don't care though.
How often does someone spam mana that much? If you're creating that much mana, you obviously have something you can do with it.
Mana burn was removed because it added very little to the game. How many cards were printed that mana burn was relevant? Without looking at Gatherer, I bet most people can't name 10. How many cards have been printed in the time since we lost mana burn that wouldn't have been printed before? Plenty more, and the design space for things has been opened a lot because of it. How much would Omnath be played if mana burn still existed? He definitely would not be a popular EDH general, which is where I see him the most.
Or, the simpler explanation: mana burn never existed in-universe. Plenty of things in the Rules don't have a flavor counterpart. There was no grand reorganization of the way magic works in-universe when the Stack was introduced, for example, and that was a far bigger rules change than mana burn.
You have not read a single story, clearly. Much like the game, it didn't come up...much, but it did. The Ice Age Cycle in particular, which established many of the rules and consistencies regarding the workings of mana in Dominia, mentioned mana burn BY NAME, and of course The Fallen, which still need explanation in this day and age.
The overall point is, I can understand the logic in removing it from the game. What I cannot understand in the slightest is the lack of consistency with not coming up with a story reason for why it no longer applies, or for why they can't find a way to make cards that did matter with it before function more like before. Admittedly, most, even Citadel of Pain, do still have some function, but others like Power Surge are rendered powerless. WotC still has a ways to go before the cards are still consistent.
About any "subpar" mechanics or cards: Context is king.
If I make a templating or grammar error, let me know.
The franchise MtG most resembles is Battlestar Galactica. Why? Its players exist in, at most, a dozen different models at any given point in time, with perhaps up to 3% variation, 5% if you're lucky.
My opponent has a Citadel of Pain on the table. It's the end of my turn, and I control 4 untapped lands. Citadel of Pain deals 4 damage to me. Am I playing before or after the M10 rules change?
With no enchantment removal?
Before = In response to the activation of the citadel at the end of your turn you can either:
A) Cast Some Flashers
B) Cast some instant-speed spells.
C) Take the damage like a man.
After = In response to the activation of the citadel at the end of your turn you can either:
A) Tap all four lands and not take damage
B) Cast some flashers.
C) Cast some instant-speed spells.
D) Take the damage like a man.
Citadel of Pain beauty was "damned if you do, damned if you don't.".
Now your only "Damned if you don't". From the Post-M10 rules change.
The main thing eliminating mana burn did was make it so "sour grape" players who were losing couldn't tap all their mana and kill themselves if the game wasn't going their way in multiplayer (and yes, I saw a LOT of that at my kitchen table).
I've got a guy in my playgroup who built one deck specifically around cards like power surge , mana barbs and mana flare in a strange "lock." the idea was that you had to be very careful in how you used your mana or you'd get a ton of negative feedback. getting rid of mana burn made that deck a LOT less effective, and he was not happy about that (the rest of us were quite glad to see that deck retired,though.)
The main thing eliminating mana burn did was make it so "sour grape" players who were losing couldn't tap all their mana and kill themselves if the game wasn't going their way in multiplayer (and yes, I saw a LOT of that at my kitchen table).
Couldn't they just concede?
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It's more satisfying to kill yourself rather than simply concede. Concession is surrender. Killing yourself means taking their victory from them by delivering the finishing blow yourself.
Although your opponent still wins anyway. So you going into concession or you going in a blaze with mana burn or some other self harming effect is still a loss.
Mana burning yourself to death is kind if a pitiful way to go in battle. This coming from a person who is heavily dedicated to the color red and it's mountains as opposed to most other colors.
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*hunkers in the anti flame bunker*
BPauper Glissa EDHG
WMaw of the Obzedat PDHB
Few weeks ago my friend and I were playing some sealed with some older boosters, don't remember what set it was. Few turns in, he drops a critter (Red IIRC) that adds mana to your pool when he's cast.
At that point, we realized. That critter was nigh unplayable a year ago, because there was no guarantee you could use his mana. Now, suddenly he's a filler critter with no drawback and potentially a positive.
My friend couldn't use the mana. So now, he doesn't manaburn.
So a rule that "Never comes up" and is "Niche" actually made a pretty huge difference in the playability of a card and completely eliminated the drawback it was costed for.
It's not a "Niche" subject, to be very blunt on the matter, WOTC's pushed Mtg so far that now they have to change the rules just to be able to come up with new stuff. Which IMO is a really big red flag.
You never called it speculation. But since you agree that you were speculating, fine.
You are, again, basing this entire reasoning on the speculation that its function was nothing more than to punish untapped lands. You just admitted you were speculating. Drawing conclusions based on speculation is bad. I think there is more reason to believe that the mechanic was to punish the inability to use lands. Why else would the print sinks like Chimeric Idol in the same set? They were meant to work together and have synergy, and punish others who couldn't do the same.
You know, if you don't want people flaming you, you shouldn't flame others yourself with your incredibly condescending tone and namecalling.
Your so-called "solid idea" would require an extra card for it to function, which makes it just downright bad. And they haven't actually printed a card that does that, so your suggestion doesn't even work.
Commander/EDH:
WU Hanna, Ship's Navigator WU
GW Saffi Eriksdotter GW
BW Selenia, Dark Angel BW
W Heliod, God of Sun W
Retired:
Jenara, Asura of War Thada Adel, Acquisitor Jaya Ballard, Task Mage Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero Lyzolda, the Blood Witch Akroma, Angel of Wrath Nath of the Gilt-Leaf Tajic, Blade of the Legion Selvala, Explorer Returned Maga, Traitor to Mortals
Tiny Leaders:
W Mangara of Corondor W
It'd be a really pointless card unless it also had the ability to force mana abilities out of your opponent's lands (having that on supporting cards would just be jankier than hell and not worth printing ever). Could be a nifty rare thrown into a set, like some sorcery that says, "Target opponent activates a mana ability of each untapped land he or she controls. At the end of the step, that player loses 1 life for each mana in his or her mana pool." They could even call it Mana Burn if they wanted to.
Mechanically, yeah I miss it. That's all I'm going to say on the point.
Flavorfully...it was abrupt and nonsensical. Seriously, in-world, where did this come from? For millennia in-universe, mana had functioned such that if it lingered in your mind unspent, it damaged your mind and body as it naturally diluted back into the world, and there was some measure of inertia holding it back (the steps change). As of M10 though, it's just suddenly changed and there's no reason for it. Had this occurred at 10th, I would've been bummed, but I could've bought it, given the Mending had transpired and likely was still underway - it is a big multiverse, after all. With M10...Alara had reformed and the Worldwake was about to occur...and? Is Alara a nexus plane or offer leylines? Not to my knowledge. Is Zendikar? Er...
You see my point. I get that they removed mana burn for the health of the game, but there was no logical reason for it to happen at M10, given as how mana had always functioned a particular way and nothing occurred in Dominia itself to warrant the change. Hopefully they'll address this at some point, like with a revelation that Alara is more significant in a cosmic sense then our current knowledge indicates, but for the time being, I remain ticked off that they didn't consider the obvious discrepancy between gameplay and flavor here.
About any "subpar" mechanics or cards: Context is king.
If I make a templating or grammar error, let me know.
The franchise MtG most resembles is Battlestar Galactica. Why? Its players exist in, at most, a dozen different models at any given point in time, with perhaps up to 3% variation, 5% if you're lucky.
I could see this. Some cheapo, cantrip enchantment, Wizards could even name the card Mana Burn.
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Anyway, I don't miss mana burn at all. It was dumb from the start and those few bad cards that are affected by its removal aren't a good reason to keep it. There's no room for pointless rules, the CR keep growing anyway so if you can throw some trash out I'm all for it
except it did exist in-universe...
its not like it was something that was mentioned in the rules and then never brought up in any of the stories. its existed, sometimes just hinted at, in just about every story up until the mending.
Could you provide me with specific examples? I'm not personally aware of any such references, but then I haven't read all the novels.
Regardless, even assuming you're correct and such references do exist, that doesn't change my answer. It would simply be a retcon. And, if you're really unhappy with that but you're ok with it happening at the Mending, just imagine it retconned to happening when the Mending happened, and the rules only now "caught up".
Okay, so? The point is that it's entirely speculation and you can't prove any of your arguments. In fact, there's quite a lot of arguments that don't support your claim.
No, you have to look beyond just function. You have to look at intent. By your argument, Lotus Vale functions as it's supposed to - it's a land that produces three mana but costs two lands to play. But see, that's not the original intent of the card, which was that the lands needed to be sacced before Lotus Vale can be used. I'm not just making this up either.
This is the reason Time Vault was finally errataed. Read this article about Time Vault.
Here's the relevant quote:
When I asked Aaron Forsythe about it at the Magic Invitational, he said that they weren’t sure how Time Vault was intended to work. He said he asked Richard Garfield, but that Richard Garfield no longer remembered.
Why is this important? Because if it were just based on printed functionality, then Time Vault would have been errataed a long time ago, because it's quite easy to errata it based on that. Instead, they had to wait, and they had to figure out what the intent of the card was first.
Moving on...
Uh, what? It's not a strawman at all, because tapping lands was a block mechanic. Just because they don't go outright and say it with keywords doesn't make it not. Back then they really didn't come up with keywords for every block.
So going back to the Time Vault argument, you need to look at intent as well as functionality for Citadel of Pain. Considering tapping lands as part of a block mechanic, it seems quite intuitive that Citadel of Pain wasn't just meant to punish untapped lands, but to punish the inability to use those lands.
Anyway, I'm probably done here. I don't like wasting time talking in circles.
Commander/EDH:
WU Hanna, Ship's Navigator WU
GW Saffi Eriksdotter GW
BW Selenia, Dark Angel BW
W Heliod, God of Sun W
Retired:
Jenara, Asura of War Thada Adel, Acquisitor Jaya Ballard, Task Mage Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero Lyzolda, the Blood Witch Akroma, Angel of Wrath Nath of the Gilt-Leaf Tajic, Blade of the Legion Selvala, Explorer Returned Maga, Traitor to Mortals
Tiny Leaders:
W Mangara of Corondor W
The reason and beauty behind Citadel of Pain and Power Surge was it was a pure and simple decisions of "Damned if you do, damned if you don't.".
Yet now that mana burn is out the picture, they are significantly worse off than they were before. As all you would have to do in response was tap your land and you wouldn't take damage from the enchantment.
it was flavorful as well and made sense. The very mana ripping out of the mage's body and damaging that same body as well. The mana returns to the source it came from but not before harming that mage.
The reason why mana burn came up so little is because you learned to utilize your mana to the best way it could be used and not waste your mana. Think of mana as food, if you waste it goes bad. Now that mana burn is out of the picture that is no longer the case.
How often does someone spam mana that much? If you're creating that much mana, you obviously have something you can do with it.
Mana burn was removed because it added very little to the game. How many cards were printed that mana burn was relevant? Without looking at Gatherer, I bet most people can't name 10. How many cards have been printed in the time since we lost mana burn that wouldn't have been printed before? Plenty more, and the design space for things has been opened a lot because of it. How much would Omnath be played if mana burn still existed? He definitely would not be a popular EDH general, which is where I see him the most.
Mana burn came up in pretty much three cases - when someone was trying to build around Citadel of Pain, when someone took a few extra damage from using things like Ur-Golem's Eye, or when someone wanted to fiddle with their life total for thins like Pulse of the Fields or Hidetsugu's Second Rite. The latter is, to me, a negative (tweaking your life total by tapping lands...?); the second is a minor nuisance with significant design overhead; and the first is just not important enough, in my opinion - making two-three cards (more) useless is not a particularly big cost.
Why do you think that makes sense - other than the fact that you're used to it? In the vast majority of games and stories that use something called mana, there is no such thing as mana burn.
It's easy to spin flavor explanations like the one you made. Here, I can give one: The mage tries to hold on to too many spells in his mind at once, fails to do so, and suffers painful mental trauma as the spells drain away from his memory. I've just given a reason for "card burn" - take 1 damage for each card you have to discard for being over your hand size. The fact that I can make up a story for that and justify a rule with "flavor" doesn't mean that we should use that. Sure it is. If you waste it (wait too long), it goes bad (empties from your pool and is unusable).
If manas so terrible to hold how come it dosent hurt you going in?Seriously the only color that makes sense in is red,black a little bit.White,blue & green on the other hand make no sense at all why they would do this.When 3 1/2 out of 5 colors dosen't work flavorwise,don't keep it.
Neither one of those cards was a superpower house to begin with haveing played CoPain and against both.They are only slightly weaker than before.
BAfter the lights go out on you, after your worthless life is through. I will remember how you scream...B
Translation:
Without restraint from mana burn, people will be careless on how much mana they will produce. You only know how to pay the "exact change" because mana burn was the teacher.
Without mana burn, managing how much mana you are floating correctly will only be seen as obsessed unless proven otherwise by a strategy.
My turn...
People always gripe about mana burn because they always miscounted how many mana-sources they tapped when they were getting a bit sloppy with their plays.
It didn't come up much because any player that learned to pay for "exact change" learned how to avoid getting burned by their own mana.
Mana burn also taught players not to be too greedy with their mana unless they could spend it all before it emptied. Land Disruption/Destruction also punished players for being too greedy with their lands.
Yet I wonder why land destruction and mana burn were taken almost completely out of the picture? Oh right Pokemon's Evasion Clause rule of no Double Team or Minimize get's people upset by it because it ruins their "Perfect" strategy. It's the same dang thing in MTG.
You always get whiners who complain about such things. What was one of the most top hated things that the casual player base wished wizards would never print again? Land Disruption. What was something the fan base always complained about since it apparently rarely came up? Mana burn. Take those nearly out the picture and people are happy. Well not everybody.
See this why I hate whiners. All they do is complain and moan about every little aspect of the game. They always find something to complain about. If wizards were to give each player a solid bar of 24 karat gold that was wrapped in hundred dollar bills... the player base would just complain how heavy the gold is and how the bills are not crisp and have bent corners.
Real nitpickers and buzz killers if you ask me.
I'm probably going to get flamed for this. I don't care though.
-Life Weaver
Sure. And recent ones, too, I might add.
You have not read a single story, clearly. Much like the game, it didn't come up...much, but it did. The Ice Age Cycle in particular, which established many of the rules and consistencies regarding the workings of mana in Dominia, mentioned mana burn BY NAME, and of course The Fallen, which still need explanation in this day and age.
The overall point is, I can understand the logic in removing it from the game. What I cannot understand in the slightest is the lack of consistency with not coming up with a story reason for why it no longer applies, or for why they can't find a way to make cards that did matter with it before function more like before. Admittedly, most, even Citadel of Pain, do still have some function, but others like Power Surge are rendered powerless. WotC still has a ways to go before the cards are still consistent.
About any "subpar" mechanics or cards: Context is king.
If I make a templating or grammar error, let me know.
The franchise MtG most resembles is Battlestar Galactica. Why? Its players exist in, at most, a dozen different models at any given point in time, with perhaps up to 3% variation, 5% if you're lucky.
With no enchantment removal?
Before = In response to the activation of the citadel at the end of your turn you can either:
A) Cast Some Flashers
B) Cast some instant-speed spells.
C) Take the damage like a man.
After = In response to the activation of the citadel at the end of your turn you can either:
A) Tap all four lands and not take damage
B) Cast some flashers.
C) Cast some instant-speed spells.
D) Take the damage like a man.
Citadel of Pain beauty was "damned if you do, damned if you don't.".
Now your only "Damned if you don't". From the Post-M10 rules change.
I've got a guy in my playgroup who built one deck specifically around cards like power surge , mana barbs and mana flare in a strange "lock." the idea was that you had to be very careful in how you used your mana or you'd get a ton of negative feedback. getting rid of mana burn made that deck a LOT less effective, and he was not happy about that (the rest of us were quite glad to see that deck retired,though.)
Click the pic for more info.
Couldn't they just concede?
Blog (Paper Magic and MTGO thoughts and experiences): KeysMyaths.com
This was one of the best changes I've seen in a long time
Nope. That's too much like admitting defeat. better to go out in a blaze of glory than to just say "I give up" and scoop.
And yes, "hurricane" gets played a lot at my kitchen table for this exact reason.
"With my dying breath, I stab at thee..."
Click the pic for more info.
Not a direct example of mana burn, but pay attention to the orc: http://www.goblinscomic.com/08222005/
Mana burning yourself to death is kind if a pitiful way to go in battle. This coming from a person who is heavily dedicated to the color red and it's mountains as opposed to most other colors.