So basically, I'm wondering if Wizards could print lands with a mana cost. They would play extremely well with devotion and also create a new way to cost land abilities. For example, we could have something like
Sacred meadow WW
Land
Sacred meadow ETB tapped
when Sacred meadow enters the battlefield, you may exile target creature untill Sacred meadow leaves the battlefield.
tap : add W to your mana pool
or something like
Sacred River U
Land
Sacred river ETB tapped
When Sacred river enters the battlefield, Scry 1 then draw a card.
tap : add U to your mana pool
I can't find anything in the rules to say that this can't happen. What do you all think? Is this a possibility for Born of the Gods or Journey into Nix.
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Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
Well, considering rule 601 specifically delineates 'casting' as nonland and 'playing' as lands, there's that.
Also, why wouldn't these just be colored artifacts instead of jumping through hoops?
Edit: This, incidentally, is why you can't cast an Arbor Dryad revealed with Possibility Storm or via Omniscience- it's a land, and lands aren't cast.
Does a mana cost mean that the card must be "cast". When I read that rule, I read it as lands are played while other cards are cast. For example, Dryad arbor would be played because it's a land. Similarly, these hypothetical lands would also be "played" and the mana cost just needs to be payed in order to play the card.
Playing lands doesn't use the stack. You can only pay mana costs via the stack. I mean, they could tweak the rules, but it's not viable now.
Personally I'd rather them find a way to get rid of lands, because they're the source of mana screw.
What does "mana costs can only be payed via the stack" mean exactly?
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Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
Does a mana cost mean that the card must be "cast". When I read that rule, I read it as lands are played while other cards are cast. For example, Dryad arbor would be played because it's a land. Similarly, these hypothetical lands would also be "played" and the mana cost just needs to be payed in order to play the card.
What does "mana costs can only be payed via the stack" mean exactly?
The answers here are related. One of the key things is mana abilities and playing lands cannot be responded to. These lands add a cost that would have to allow a response, which is the rules confusion others are referring to.
nevermind. I found a rule which makes these lands impossible under mana cost and color
202.1a The mana cost of an object represents what a player must spend from his or her mana pool to cast that card. Unless an object's mana cost includes Phyrexian mana symbols (see rule 107.4f), paying that mana cost requires matching the color of any colored mana symbols as well as paying the generic mana indicated in the cost. #
The lands wouldn't work.
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Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
Why not just have it as an artifact instead of a land? When building a deck, it wouldn't really take a land slot anyways since there is a casting cost. 3 of these "lands" in an opening hand is still basically as hand w/o any land.
Mods, can we please move this to Baseless Speculation - thanks!
Sacred Meadow
Land
: Add W to your mana pool.
Whenever Sacred Meadow is tapped it adds one to your devotion to white.
I would just think this approach might be akin to artifact lands and affinity, only for devotion heavy deck types... though it would be a nice way to push monocolor for modern... I know I would run them in the appropriate decks.
Could see them making Enchantment Lands kinda like the Artifact Lands in Mirrodin.
Like that:
Plain Sanctum
Enchantment Land T: Add 1 or W to your manapool. Colored mana produced this way can only be used to cast enchantments. W: If your devotion to white is three or higher, ~ becomes a white 1/5 soldier creature with vigilance until end of turn.
Adding a manacost to a land is quite problematic within the rules, but they did quite a lot of wacky stuff in the last time (double sided cards for example) that required serious reworks.
Everyone knows that good luck and good game are such insincere terms that any man who does not connect his right hook with the offender's jaw on the very utterance of such a phrase is no man I would consider as such.
The only way this could possibly work any way like the OP wants is to give them the Lotus Vale treatment, and even then they'd add nothing to devotion. In any event, this is baseless speculation.
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Sacred Meadow
Land
Sacred Meadow enters the battlefield tapped.
Tap: Add W to your manapool.
When Sacred Meadow enters the battlefield pay WW or sacrifice it. If the cost is paid you may exile target creature opponent controls until Sacred Meadow leaves the battlefield.
While on the battlefield Sacred Meadow increases your devotion to white by two.
Then if you really want to push it in formats with fetches make it say "Land - Plains"
This sort of thing has already been discussed ( see http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=533851
)
And the chief reasons they are unlikely to happen are
a) Rules
b) The artifact lands, the famous 'affinity enablers' were a huge mistake that Wizards doesn't want to make again
c) there are better ways to make devotion enablers - creatures and enchantments.
The enchantment theme could be fleshed out to create devotion enablers by making global enchantments that have an ETB effect, but otherwise do nothing. They'll play like a sorcery that also ups your devotion count.
There not going to have cards that say "increase your devotion to {color} by [#]" its counter intuitive to how the mechanic is written. People will look to at nonland stuff to see what their devotion is and not bother looking at their lands because that not how it was given to us.
The only thing it adds to is confusion. Why does this land add to my devotion but the others don't? Shouldn't it have a mana cost to add to devotion? Wait so do I cast this land or just play it?
The whole point of devotion using the mana costs of permanents is because its an easy visual reminder.
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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
1) It can't be done within the rules, since you pay mana while the spell's on the stack.
2) Functionally speaking, it's been done.
3) Oh yeah, lands that boost devotion. Does anyone else see another affinity on the horizon if they did this?
4) It would confuse new players, especially since lands right now don't have a mana cost, but spells that don't have a mana cost can't be cast through conventional means.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
Another way it could be done is through an activated ability on the land. This wouldn't add any devotion, or have the card castable though.
For example:
Ramp Land
Ramp Land enters the battle field tapped.
Prospect 1G (Put this land onto the battlefield. This land does not count toward your one land per turn limit. Use this ability only as a sorcery)
T: Add G to your mana pool.
Holy Land
Holy Land enters the battlefield tapped.
Prospect 2W (Put this land onto the battlefield. This land does not count toward your one land per turn limit. Use this ability only as a sorcery)
If Holy Land enters is prospected, target creature gets +1/1 until end of turn. T: Add W to your mana pool.
The only way I can think of them doing "Lands that promote Devotion" would be Enchant-Artifacts that are ramp tools. I would say they could just be Enchantments but Enchantments don't tap.
Thassa's Throne (1UU)
Enchantment Artifact
> Something clearly very blue here. Like card drawing or cheap mill.
T: Add U to your Mana Pool
If they made them Legendary then they could drop to UU.
If all you are looking for is to increase devotion via lands then this is easy to do without mangling the rules:
Fields of Zealotry
Land - Plains
T: Add W
(card) is white
When (card) comes into play, you may pay W to put a Devotion counter on it. (permanents with devotion counters on them increase your devotion to a color by one for each color of that permanent)
T: Add W
(card) is white
When (card) comes into play, you may pay W to put a Devotion counter on it. (permanents with devotion counters on them increase your devotion to a color by one for each color of that permanent)
This card would be broken. It counts as a plains, etb UNTAPPED, AND has an upside. It has to enter the battlefield tapped, not be a plains, or cost more to get a devotion counter.
I'd also think that wording of "devotion counter" would be a lot more simplistic if it specifically stated the color. I think this would be a lot better:
Field of Zealotry
Land - Plains
(T: Add W to your mana pool)
You may pay W when ~ etb, if you do, it comes into play with a white devotion counter on it, otherwise tap it. (Each permanent with a white devotion counter on it adds 1 to your devotion to white).
Still good, but not strictly better than a plains.
Playing lands doesn't use the stack. You can only pay mana costs via the stack. I mean, they could tweak the rules, but it's not viable now.
Personally I'd rather them find a way to get rid of lands, because they're the source of mana screw.
I wish people weren't so stuck in their ways and afraid of change (plus it'd instantly make some of the game's most valuable cards worthless, which they'll never do) so that this could happen. That Hearthstone game, although I haven't played it yet, seems to be the obvious improvement on MTG's mana system. It effectively autodraws/plays one land for you each turn and gives you access to spells that can accelerate your mana temporarily or permanently. Mana screws and mana floods don't need to be a part of the game.
Anyway there are effectively lands with mana costs already. There are lands that force you to bounce, tap or sacrifice other lands.
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Sacred meadow WW
Land
Sacred meadow ETB tapped
when Sacred meadow enters the battlefield, you may exile target creature untill Sacred meadow leaves the battlefield.
tap : add W to your mana pool
or something like
Sacred River U
Land
Sacred river ETB tapped
When Sacred river enters the battlefield, Scry 1 then draw a card.
tap : add U to your mana pool
I can't find anything in the rules to say that this can't happen. What do you all think? Is this a possibility for Born of the Gods or Journey into Nix.
- Manite
Personally I'd rather them find a way to get rid of lands, because they're the source of mana screw.
4th place at CCC&G Pro Tour
Chances of bad hands (<2 or >4 land):
21: 28.9%
22: 27.5%
23: 26.3%
24: 25.5%
25: 25.1%
26: 25.3%
Does a mana cost mean that the card must be "cast". When I read that rule, I read it as lands are played while other cards are cast. For example, Dryad arbor would be played because it's a land. Similarly, these hypothetical lands would also be "played" and the mana cost just needs to be payed in order to play the card.
What does "mana costs can only be payed via the stack" mean exactly?
- Manite
The answers here are related. One of the key things is mana abilities and playing lands cannot be responded to. These lands add a cost that would have to allow a response, which is the rules confusion others are referring to.
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202.1a The mana cost of an object represents what a player must spend from his or her mana pool to cast that card. Unless an object's mana cost includes Phyrexian mana symbols (see rule 107.4f), paying that mana cost requires matching the color of any colored mana symbols as well as paying the generic mana indicated in the cost. #
The lands wouldn't work.
- Manite
Mods, can we please move this to Baseless Speculation - thanks!
Sacred Meadow
Land
: Add W to your mana pool.
Whenever Sacred Meadow is tapped it adds one to your devotion to white.
I would just think this approach might be akin to artifact lands and affinity, only for devotion heavy deck types... though it would be a nice way to push monocolor for modern... I know I would run them in the appropriate decks.
Like that:
Plain Sanctum
Enchantment Land
T: Add 1 or W to your manapool. Colored mana produced this way can only be used to cast enchantments.
W: If your devotion to white is three or higher, ~ becomes a white 1/5 soldier creature with vigilance until end of turn.
Adding a manacost to a land is quite problematic within the rules, but they did quite a lot of wacky stuff in the last time (double sided cards for example) that required serious reworks.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
- To my youngest sister when she was 6.
EDIT: That's pretty much the closest you're going to get to something like this unfortunately.
Could make the cost a color and then add some color specific ability.
Sacred Meadow
Land
Sacred Meadow enters the battlefield tapped.
Tap: Add W to your manapool.
When Sacred Meadow enters the battlefield pay WW or sacrifice it. If the cost is paid you may exile target creature opponent controls until Sacred Meadow leaves the battlefield.
While on the battlefield Sacred Meadow increases your devotion to white by two.
Then if you really want to push it in formats with fetches make it say "Land - Plains"
)
And the chief reasons they are unlikely to happen are
a) Rules
b) The artifact lands, the famous 'affinity enablers' were a huge mistake that Wizards doesn't want to make again
c) there are better ways to make devotion enablers - creatures and enchantments.
The enchantment theme could be fleshed out to create devotion enablers by making global enchantments that have an ETB effect, but otherwise do nothing. They'll play like a sorcery that also ups your devotion count.
The only thing it adds to is confusion. Why does this land add to my devotion but the others don't? Shouldn't it have a mana cost to add to devotion? Wait so do I cast this land or just play it?
The whole point of devotion using the mana costs of permanents is because its an easy visual reminder.
BAfter the lights go out on you, after your worthless life is through. I will remember how you scream...B
1) It can't be done within the rules, since you pay mana while the spell's on the stack.
2) Functionally speaking, it's been done.
3) Oh yeah, lands that boost devotion. Does anyone else see another affinity on the horizon if they did this?
4) It would confuse new players, especially since lands right now don't have a mana cost, but spells that don't have a mana cost can't be cast through conventional means.
On phasing:
For example:
Ramp Land
Ramp Land enters the battle field tapped.
Prospect 1G (Put this land onto the battlefield. This land does not count toward your one land per turn limit. Use this ability only as a sorcery)
T: Add G to your mana pool.
Holy Land
Holy Land enters the battlefield tapped.
Prospect 2W (Put this land onto the battlefield. This land does not count toward your one land per turn limit. Use this ability only as a sorcery)
If Holy Land enters is prospected, target creature gets +1/1 until end of turn.
T: Add W to your mana pool.
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Thassa's Throne (1UU)
Enchantment Artifact
> Something clearly very blue here. Like card drawing or cheap mill.
T: Add U to your Mana Pool
If they made them Legendary then they could drop to UU.
Fields of Zealotry
Land - Plains
T: Add W
(card) is white
When (card) comes into play, you may pay W to put a Devotion counter on it. (permanents with devotion counters on them increase your devotion to a color by one for each color of that permanent)
This card would be broken. It counts as a plains, etb UNTAPPED, AND has an upside. It has to enter the battlefield tapped, not be a plains, or cost more to get a devotion counter.
I'd also think that wording of "devotion counter" would be a lot more simplistic if it specifically stated the color. I think this would be a lot better:
Field of Zealotry
Land - Plains
(T: Add W to your mana pool)
You may pay W when ~ etb, if you do, it comes into play with a white devotion counter on it, otherwise tap it. (Each permanent with a white devotion counter on it adds 1 to your devotion to white).
Still good, but not strictly better than a plains.
I wish people weren't so stuck in their ways and afraid of change (plus it'd instantly make some of the game's most valuable cards worthless, which they'll never do) so that this could happen. That Hearthstone game, although I haven't played it yet, seems to be the obvious improvement on MTG's mana system. It effectively autodraws/plays one land for you each turn and gives you access to spells that can accelerate your mana temporarily or permanently. Mana screws and mana floods don't need to be a part of the game.
Anyway there are effectively lands with mana costs already. There are lands that force you to bounce, tap or sacrifice other lands.