I expect they specified non-mana ability because many players would just assume that she would trigger when sacrificing to Ashnod’s Altar even though mana abilities (without a target) don’t use the stack. So they specified non-mana abilities to spearhead the misunderstanding that would be caused in the rules from this, especially since their Commander products are probably the products that are most bought by casual “kitchen table” magic players.
I know I’ve tried to explain the stack and how it works to several friends I play commander with and they still have difficulty grasping it’s finer points, like why their spells and abilities on their turn are the ones that resolve last even though they are cast/triggered first.
I expect they specified non-mana ability because many players would just assume that she would trigger when sacrificing to Ashnod’s Altar even though mana abilities (without a target) don’t use the stack. So they specified non-mana abilities to spearhead the misunderstanding that would be caused in the rules from this, especially since their Commander products are probably the products that are most bought by casual “kitchen table” magic players.
I know I’ve tried to explain the stack and how it works to several friends I play commander with and they still have difficulty grasping it’s finer points, like why their spells and abilities on their turn are the ones that resolve last even though they are cast/triggered first.
Hypothetically, assuming my understanding is correct, mana abilities could be copied with some rules tweaks (the issues being that copies of abilities are put on the stack and that mana abilities are not objects that can be copied). It's just probably not worth it since it's still weird and it opens a very narrow little design space between some ridiculously broken things and some utterly useless things. Ashnod would probably lean into the ridiculously broken space.
It makes no sense to me that Ashnod would need synergy with Ashnod's Altar anyway. Ashnod should be flavorful as Ashnod. Ashnod's Altar should be flavorful as a device created by her. Maybe the altar does most of the work extracting the mana, regardless of the user, maybe it's assumed that Ashnod's working on the altar even when she's not around. It's not like this stops you from using Ashnod's Altar, it just doesn't buff it. It's a cool design, it's very flavorful as Ashnod, and if you have any imagination, it's not hard to justify the in-game behavior flavorfully.
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I know I’ve tried to explain the stack and how it works to several friends I play commander with and they still have difficulty grasping it’s finer points, like why their spells and abilities on their turn are the ones that resolve last even though they are cast/triggered first.
Hypothetically, assuming my understanding is correct, mana abilities could be copied with some rules tweaks (the issues being that copies of abilities are put on the stack and that mana abilities are not objects that can be copied). It's just probably not worth it since it's still weird and it opens a very narrow little design space between some ridiculously broken things and some utterly useless things. Ashnod would probably lean into the ridiculously broken space.
It makes no sense to me that Ashnod would need synergy with Ashnod's Altar anyway. Ashnod should be flavorful as Ashnod. Ashnod's Altar should be flavorful as a device created by her. Maybe the altar does most of the work extracting the mana, regardless of the user, maybe it's assumed that Ashnod's working on the altar even when she's not around. It's not like this stops you from using Ashnod's Altar, it just doesn't buff it. It's a cool design, it's very flavorful as Ashnod, and if you have any imagination, it's not hard to justify the in-game behavior flavorfully.