Mana Abilities, Take Two

As we recently covered, the strictness of mana abilities can lead to some pretty bizarre consequences in very specific circumstances. A few more examples are gathered here, largely due to Chromatic Sphere featuring a mana ability that also causes you to draw a card.

Korlash, Heir to Blackblade and his fellow cards with Grandeur have an ability that involves discarding a copy of a card with the same name. What you might not have known is that it's actually possible to discard Korlash to himself. With a Suppression Field in play, his ability requires both mana and a discard to activate. Activate the ability of Words of Wind, then announce Korlash's ability. The quirkiness happens when you try to use a Chromatic Sphere's mana ability to pay for Korlash's ability - because remember, players can't respond to mana abilities, and they can be activated while paying for costs. So while paying for Korlash's ability (which costs "2, discard a card named Korlash, Heir to Blackblade",) activate Chromatic Sphere, replace the resulting card draw by returning Korlash to your hand, and then discard the card you just returned to your hand to finish paying the cost. Whoa! What happened there?

If you want to kick it old school rules-wise, it's possible to temporarily dip to 0 life or less while using mana abilities to pay for something. For example, with Words of Worship active, you can activate Tarnished Citadel and Chromatic Sphere to pay for a spell (might I suggest Repay in Kind?) and temporarily drop below 0 life until the Words replaces the card draw and brings you back to the realm of the living. After all, a player doesn't lose if they're only dead in between the checks on state-based effects. It almost feels like the old Mirror Universe ploy!

Because of the unique nature of mana abilities, Chromatic Sphere leads to many odd situations. If you control one plus a way to feed it mana, a Thought Lash and a Laboratory Maniac, you can win the game without ever giving your opponent a chance to respond - no Stifle, no Angel's Grace, nothing! Unlike the other combos listed, this one is good enough to actually win games at a tournament level... though be advised that it will result in no end of entertaining judge calls.

Dies to Removal

She would forever be safe from stray lightning bolts, from the gouts of flame, from the death-magic that had stolen the lives of so many of her people. Her dreams were still haunted with visions of those molten bolts of death; that crackling, violet lance of energy that suddenly siezed her best friend and scout-mate, Lydia. Their eyes met for an instant, they wordlessly shared a goodbye that lasted an eternity, and then Lydia was gone. The elves were forever fighting against all odds, and she was trapped in the center of it all - as if in sanctuary, forced to watch helplessly as her people continually were killed all around her.

...but her bloodline kept her safe. Like her mother and her grandmother before her, some ancient, esoteric arcane ward protected her from magic. Her remaining friends claimed she was lucky. Her ambush commander once told her she was blessed... but she knew better. For she knew the truth; what she had was not a blessing, but a curse. She was safe from the death-spells, yes, but with this came a heavy price. A price that she had to pay every day - some sort of indecipherable magic forbiddance. It could not be overcome; she could only try to live with it. For as a result of her magical nature...

...she could not wear pants.

Mana Abilities

In order to play spells in Magic, you usually have to pay for them with mana, usually generated by using some kind of "mana ability." Island has a mana ability, Black Lotus has a mana ability, Skirge Familiar has a mana ability. In 1997, tourney hopeful David Mills was disqualified from the finals of Pro Tour: Los Angeles for announcing spells and then using the mana abilities to pay for them after, which isn't an uncommon practice. This led to history's only Magic riot, as a group of furious neckbeards stormed the stage during the awards ceremony and demanded justice for Mills. The judges relented and awarded Mills a second-place prize, and proceeded to change the rules so that it became legal to activate a mana ability while paying costs. Now the rules state that a player can't do anything in response to a mana ability, so nothing can disrupt said mana ability once it's started.

This brings us to Caged Sun, a card that doesn't really work. As hinted at with the prior examples, all mana abilities are activated (i.e. pay cost: do effect) with the sole exception of Caged Sun, which is triggered (i.e. when trigger, then effect.) The rulings on Caged Sun state that it does have a mana ability nonetheless, as otherwise this would create some awkwardness when playing spells with the Sun in play. In summary, Caged Sun has a mana ability that adds mana to your mana pool whenever a land adds mana to your mana pool. Okay, not too complex. The rules start to break down when Caged Sun itself becomes a land, however. This can be accomplished by combining a few cards...

March of the Machines makes all artifacts into creatures, so Caged Sun is now an artifact creature. (You starting to notice how often this card comes up in these articles?)
Artificial Evolution or Xenograft make your creatures into a chosen creature type, so Caged Sun can become an "Artifact Creature - Saproling."
Life and Limb makes all saprolings into lands, so Caged Sun is at last an "Artifact Creature Land - Saproling Forest."

So at this point, Caged Sun has a mana ability that effectively reads "Whenever Caged Sun adds mana to your mana pool, add one mana of that colour to your mana pool." Neither player is allowed to do anything until this loop completes, so the players sit there helplessly as the game repeats itself ad nauseum. At this point, the game is nothing less than a draw.

Caged Sun is a fun example of the problems potentially caused by type-changing effects, and also the looming threat of infinite loops. An infamous type-change conflict exists by combining Humility and Opalescence, which causes Humility to lose the ability that causes it to lose all abilities. But wait... then that would mean... yeah, things get kind of confused.

Dollar Menu Dynamite, Part 2

For as long as there have been Magic cards worth more than a buck each, people have had to pick and choose what they spend their hard-earned dosh on. Seeing as it is a collectible card game, however, some cards are more desirable than others, and as a result, those cards are generally going to be worth more than others. As the old adage goes, "you get what you pay for." Now, normally that's true when you're picking between the $25 pair of shoes and the $300 pair of shoes. The game of Magic has so many pieces, however, and all of them inevitably subject to format rotation, that it can be harder for this to remain entirely true. Often powerful cards from the past that have been forgotten writ large can end up being quite cheap, giving you a card that punches above its pay grade!

A couple weeks ago I started a new series called "Dollar Menu Dynamite," introducing you to these kinds of cards that you and your play group might be unfamiliar with, but come with tons of play potential. Powerful though they may be, however, any cards suggested in the article can be purchased for one dollar or less (at the time of writing.) Today I have another ten cards nominated - many of them not even Modern-legal, but all of them sure to make a splash in the casual playgroup.

Layers & Licids

Dominating Licid doesn't work. 

No big surprise, you may say - this kind of esoteric behaviour is basically par for the course for such an obtuse creature type. But really, think about that: you may read the card's oracle text and think you know what it does, but it doesn't actually work.

The reason why is sort of weird, but it boils down to this: the "you control enchanted creature" effect tries to take place before the "this is an enchantment" effect, and the rules say that "enchanted creature" on a card isn't an enchantment doesn't refer to anything. So it winds up being a creature enchantment that does... nothing. All the other licids work, since they provide abilities that are added after the type-changing effect of a licid. That said, everybody is going to play Dominating Licid with the intended effect anyway, whether they know this piece of minutiae or not, and let's be real - the rules manager doesn't feel like figuring out how to reword it since it would be clunky as hell.

Dollar Menu Dynamite

It can be easy to convince yourself nowadays that Magic has become a pay-to-win game. If two players sit down for the average game, victory will inevitably go towards whomever's deck is crammed with the most (purposefully) overpowered mythic rares, right? Well, if the dreaded sligh can upset the tournament scene with its bargain-bin bad boys, there's no reason you can't do the same in your playgroup. While everyone's knocking themselves out trying to get their hands on Hero of Bladehold and Karn Liberated, cards that have long since rotated out of Standard of course drop in price since their demand has plummeted. They may not have any place in organized events, but you can save your hard-earned pennies if you show up to your casual games with some of these underrated gems.

In keeping with a catchy name, all of the cards suggested here can be had for $1 or less (at the time of writing! Maybe my wisdom will pass down and some of these will become hot commodities, who knows.) They may not be the flashiest cards around, but it's hard to get more bang for your buck at a kitchen table game of Magic. I'd buy that for a dollar!

Monogreen Megapermission

You sit behind an unbreakable wall of countermagic. Your opponent eyes his handful of spells, knowing none of them will make it out of the stack. Finally he draws a Combust: well, fat lot of good that will do... all of your cards are green.

Wait, what?

Sound ridiculous? You might think only blue can do megapermission, but thanks to an obscure old sideboard piece and a more recent combo piece, you can counter every single spell your opponent ever plays with nothing but forests.

The trick is comboing the long-forgotten Lifeforce with Painter's Servant. So long as the Servant is out, all spells are black, and Lifeforce lets you counter any black spell for a paltry two mana, even multiple times in one turn. Assemble these two and your opponent will likely never resolve another card for the rest of the (soon-to-be-over) game. I guarantee nobody expects a megapermission lock once they see you play a Forest!


Creatures
4 Arbor Elf
4 Chameleon Colossus
4 Overgrown Battlement
4 Painter's Servant
4 Vine Trellis

Spells
4 Avoid Fate
3 Compost
4 Creeping Mold
2 Desert Twister
4 Lifeforce
1 Vernal Bloom
2 Worldly Tutor

Lands
22 Forest


Vine Trellis and Overgrown Battlement help hold the fort until your combo is assembled, then help feed mana into Lifeforce once you do. Creeping Mold and Desert Twister let you wipe out anything troublesome that was played before you got your lock down, and Chameleon Colossus makes for an easy win once it has Protection from everything.

Avoid Fate is another surprise against decks that seek to blow up one of your combo pieces (it admittedly got much more useful when it was errata'd to counter instants) and Compost can earn you card advantage that will make any blue mage green with envy - note that it counts any card put into a graveyard, even ones not from play, so that includes anything you counter. Worldly Tutor fetches your Servant if you need to set up, or a Colossus if you're primed for the kill.