The colorless mana symbol is GOOD for Legacy

[Finn]

I am as surprised as anyone at the high power level of the spells that require colorless mana. (I also think it needs a better name, such as "unaffiliated" or "transparent", or even just "uncolor" for short.) Anyway, my faith in this product has taken a turn upwards from this innovation - and it is absolutely an innovation. There are some interesting side effects that I think are good for Legacy specifically because they decided to go very strong on no color. I have listed them in order of increasing scope.

1. Karplusan Forest has a real actual advantage over Taiga. Gheizen64 has Scrublands and Marsh Flats in his versions for the BW Eldrazi deck. I think that these cards are not as good as simply Caves of Koilos.
2. Ancient Tomb, Wasteland, Blighted Fen, Cavern of Souls, etc are all exceptionally powerful as long as the colorless "color" continues to get support.
3. This entire enterprise has potentially huge consequences. All of the uncolor lands were created with the understanding that producing generic mana was a lesser thing than mana of a specific color. Compare Blasted Landscape and Drifting Meadow for a stark example. I actually can not find anything beyond the stuff you guys are already into with Cloudposts and City of Traitors and whatever. And I suppose they will not be printing powerful colorless lands in the future because of this. But there is the danger of printing powerful uncolor spells in the higher mana zones just with the lands we already have.
4. What does this mean for Legacy? I feel that the more uncolor spells they print, the better it is for us. It forces hard design decisions (Brainstorm decks basically can not use this stuff at all). It reduces the strain placed upon limited traditional land supplies on the Reserved List (duals suck). And it opens up entirely new spheres of decks (I haven't the vaguest guess what the strengths are of decks that have never existed before).

What do you think?

[Cire]

I agree with all of the above, but the problem is that they stated that colorless mana will not be evergreen and will not get support in a long time if ever.

(source: http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post...on-why-exactly).

I don't think anyone was ever upset at the mana symbol. . . people were upset at:

1) Changing the production of colorless mana to the mana symbol.
2) Changing the mana symbol in the second set of a block where you now have to errata cards within that block to the new symbol.
3) Not using the mana symbol as an evergreen mechanic.

I think everyone got over the first two, but the third is annoying. As you said this change is actually GOOD, and its a shame that they won't explore it more.

[Teluin]

I already wrote to Mark Rosewater saying something similar. Despite hating the vast majority of what they've been doing for the past several years, I do think this was a neat innovation that opens more avenues without drastically changing what has been done in a negligible way. The symbol itself is ugly as shit though, and does not at all fit with the other symbols.

[Ace/Homebrew]

I agree with all of the above, but the problem is that they stated that colorless mana will not be evergreen and will not get support in a long time if ever.

The permanent change is how we represent colorless mana. The “diamond” symbol is now part of Magic. The “colored mana matters” part was a good way to justify the change and have it do something with all the focus, but it’s not something that has the design legs for evergreen status.

Where does it say it won't get support in a long time if ever? It just says "not enough support for evergreen status".
If you are referencing other information, provide the source and I'll shut up.

Morph, Kicker, Protection, Cycling, Convoke, and Buyback have all been printed in multiple sets despite not being evergreen.
I believe the colorless requirement as a cost (it does need a name, but I don't think Uncolor is it...) will be printed very soon in a supplemental (RE: not-standard) product and will appear again in the next Artifacts Matter block.

How about calling it Ghost Mana (homage to Ghostfire)?
Or Waste Mana... I'm gonna guess that's what Wizards will want us to call it.

[iamajellydonut]

It just says "not enough support for evergreen status".

This is technically what they say, but I don't think that's necessarily a good thing either because I can't see them getting creative with the D. More likely than not, if and when they do return to the D, it'll be because "THE ELDRAZI ARE BACK (again)!"

[Cire]

I would be very surprised and happy if they include Colorless mana in non-edlrazi blocks, I just felt them saying non-evergreen status seemed to belay their intention of saving it only for eldrazi sets (and only for Koz's brood right?). That said, I hope that they will print some in any core sets (do they still make core sets?), or any commander products, or generally anywhere.

[Ace/Homebrew]

This is technically what they say, but I don't think that's necessarily a good thing either because I can't see them getting creative with the D.

I'm putting my money on seeing it again and frequently (but sporadically).
Requiring colorless mana to cast or activate allows them to push power levels. I don't see WotC getting creative with this, just that it will allow them to make strong cards cost less mana.

[Raystar]

Totally agree Finn. This expansion has brought some needed fresh air with it.

[iatee]

I agree with all of the above, but the problem is that they stated that colorless mana will not be evergreen and will not get support in a long time if ever.

(source: http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post...on-why-exactly).

I don't think anyone was ever upset at the mana symbol. . . people were upset at:

1) Changing the production of colorless mana to the mana symbol.
2) Changing the mana symbol in the second set of a block where you now have to errata cards within that block to the new symbol.
3) Not using the mana symbol as an evergreen mechanic.

I think everyone got over the first two, but the third is annoying. As you said this change is actually GOOD, and its a shame that they won't explore it more.

It's very hard to get this to work in Standard/Limited without constructing the set around it and ensuring that people can actually find C mana. If you toss in a 20/20 for C into a normal set's cardpool, it's an unplayable or almost unplayable card for limited. If you just toss Wastes into every set, then this is just 'another color' and it's not that interesting in the long term.

These cards are so interesting for Legacy and to a certain extent Modern because there are so many interactions built in with older cards - there are tons of ways to produce C, and making that an upside rather than a downside makes a lot of older cards potentially more playable. But if it becomes a regular feature, it's just another color, one that in Legacy doesn't have dual lands but does have sol lands.

[PirateKing]

It's very hard to get this to work in Standard/Limited without constructing the set around it and ensuring that people can actually find C mana. If you toss in a 20/20 for C into a normal set's cardpool, it's an unplayable or almost unplayable card for limited. If you just toss Wastes into every set, then this is just 'another color' and it's not that interesting in the long term.

I logged in to type this, so I'll just quote it instead. Beyond the rules nature of the new Basic land, I don't actually know the pool availability of it. Are they unlimited access in Draft like the other 5 basic lands? Are they going to be perpetually legal in Standard once BFZ rotates? Because unless the answer is yes to both, maintaining D as a cost becomes unsustainable without keeping Pain Lands and the like reprinted.

I agree that for the next batch of supplemental sets that have produced fun Legacy cards, D mana costs and activation costs could really be explored, I'm more excited for that over whatever these "in flavor" cards are. Thinking about it, I feel like Shardless Agent is the most interesting Cascade card; Flusterstorm is the most interesting Storm card. I wouldn't be supprosed if D got its best example out of a future summer set.

[Gheizen64]

Just a correction, i shyed away from duals in my lists, i just play all colorless. If i were to play more colored cards again, i'd definitely use painlands thoughts.

Also i agree, colorless mana is a great concept, too bad wotc seems fixated on it being linked to eldrazi only which is pretty MEH if you ask me. Lots of artifact could use some D tbh.

[Barook]

While I agree that C is a great addition to Legacy, I wouldn't get my hopes up for various reason:

- They want to use it only rarely, iirc from Maro's blog, even less often than hybrid mana.
- The initial cards were pushed as hell - I wouldn't expect that much the next time around "when they have learned from their mistakes" aka making everything suck again. It reminds me of the equipment situation of Mirrodin where most of the powerful equipments were the first ones (and Jitte a block later). Sword of Feast and Famine/Sword of War and Peace are so-so and Batterskull is only playable due to SFM. The rest we got since then is jank. I fear we might go into the same direction here.

Lots of artifact could use some D tbh.

Equipment - Fleshlight?

[Echelon]

I'm excited. People are starting to develop a BGC Nic Fit list already. Veteran Explorer has already conquered the Wastes!

Silliness aside it opens up new design space, which is never a bad thing. I'm curious to see where WotC is going with this, but even if they abandon it after 2 sets we still don't lose the design space we gained with this set. We just wouldn't get any extra, that's all.

[Megadeus]

Where does it say it won't get support in a long time if ever? It just says "not enough support for evergreen status".
If you are referencing other information, provide the source and I'll shut up.

Morph, Kicker, Protection, Cycling, Convoke, and Buyback have all been printed in multiple sets despite not being evergreen.
I believe the colorless requirement as a cost (it does need a name, but I don't think Uncolor is it...) will be printed very soon in a supplemental (RE: not-standard) product and will appear again in the next Artifacts Matter block.

How about calling it Ghost Mana (homage to Ghostfire)?
Or Waste Mana... I'm gonna guess that's what Wizards will want us to call it.

Pretty sure it's just called colorless mana. What we used to call colorless to cast spells is technically generic mana.

[Tylert]

True-Colorless mana?

[TsumiBand]

If you just toss Wastes into every set, then this is just 'another color' and it's not that interesting in the long term.

These cards are so interesting for Legacy and to a certain extent Modern because there are so many interactions built in with older cards - there are tons of ways to produce C, and making that an upside rather than a downside makes a lot of older cards potentially more playable. But if it becomes a regular feature, it's just another color, one that in Legacy doesn't have dual lands but does have sol lands.

By codifying C as a specific cost requirement, it's essentially already "just another color". Strictly comparing spells to spells - what at this point actually makes C distinctly different from other colors? Not talking onboard interactions with like protection from XYZ or Fear/Intimidate junk like that - just talking about actually casting things.

Now they just have to decide how often they will print cards that are C. If they do not revisit it often, it'll be like a forgotten creature type, like if they up and quit printing Goblins or something.

Really the smart thing to do here is make sure that separation is maintained at the mana base level. If they ever print a CX dual land, like say Ravnica gets randomly invaded by Eldrazi or some junk and we get Eldrazi Stomping Grounds that taps for RC and has land types so it works with The Good Fetchlands, then C is a little too easily splashed and it really becomes that much less special.

Really if they can keep it so thay colorless is really self-involved regarding its mana production and doesn't end up as just another Blue dual*, that's going to be its most defining and useful factor.

* really any color pairing would be bad, but specifically mentioning Blue since time has consistently shown in multiple Eternal formats that Blue decks adopt new technology incredibly easily

[H]

While I agree, for the most part Tsumi, I feel like Wastes-duals are a natural progression and would add a certain tension to mana-bases that is necessarily a bad thing.

I do feel that they should hammer out more of a real identity for C though, rather than just have it be a mish-mosh of seemingly random effects.

[Cire]

I do feel that they should hammer out more of a real identity for C though, rather than just have it be a mish-mosh of seemingly random effects.

From this latest set, colorless mana gives you:

Kozilek, the Great Distortion - Countering (U)
Spatial Contortion - Flowstone Kill (+/-) (B/R)
Warping Wail - Removal for weenies, Countering, Tokens (B/W, U, G)
Matter Reshaper - Random Permanents (G/R)
Reality Smasher - Haste Beats with Psuedo-hexproof (R/U/G)
Thought-Knot Seer - Discard (B/U)
Deceiver of Form - Copying (U)
Walker of Wastes - Pump (G)
Endbringer - Psuedo-Vigilance, Ping, Draw, Cease-fire (W/U/R)

There are other colorless cards, but they have a dominating color and only use colorless as a balancing cost instead of an identity.

From the above it seems that finding an identity is impossible as colorless is just like generic - it can do anything if the cost is right.

Edit - If anything C is not Black . . . most of the black effects share a color identity with U or R. It is also probably not Green, as the green effects are mostly tokens or pump which most colors get. Which makes C a weird combination of WUR. It would be interesting if C is the domain of all exile effects and if takes away countering from Blue - making it THE control "color" with exile and countering. This would almost force legacy decks to account for new cards (i.e. requiring miracles to splash a third "color").

[GundamGuy]

We didn't get any cards with mixed colorless mana costs did we? Stuff like {R}{C} etc. is what I'd like to see them push in future set... I'm afraid that we are only going to get {C} = Eldrazi though...

[Barook]

We didn't get any cards with mixed colorless mana costs did we? Stuff like {R}{C} etc. is what I'd like to see them push in future set... I'm afraid that we are only going to get {C} = Eldrazi though...

http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post...sts-with#notes