Welcome to Oath of the Gatewatch Prerelease Week! In preparation for the Oath prereleases this weekend, we’re going to be going over some information you might find useful! Today, we’re starting with probably the biggest ‘new’ mechanic of the set: Colorless mana. Colorless mana has been a thing since day one of Magic, but it’s getting a bit of a facelift with Oath. Prior to this set, we’ve used numbers in grey circles to denote two things: generic components of a cost, and colorless mana. For example, Kozilek’s Channeler costs 5 GENERIC mana- meaning that it can be paid for with any color of mana, or colorless mana. Channeler can make COLORLESS mana, which (until now) could only be used towards the generic component of costs. But with Oath, Colorless mana is no longer denoted by numbers in grey circles- it has a fancy new diamond-shaped symbol, just like the colored mana symbols! So now, Kozilek’s Channeler doesn’t tap for {2}, it taps for , or C C (much like Llanowar Elves taps for G). The only ‘new’ thing about this diamond-symbol is what it looks like; colorless mana still functions mostly the same.

The big change? There’s now colorless mana symbols in costs! Some spells specifically REQUIRE colorless mana now, rather than just generic. A spell that costs 1C require one mana of any kind, and one SPECIFICALLY colorless mana, just like a spell that costs 1R needs one red mana and one of any kind. The new symbol isn’t a sixth color, because colorless still isn’t a color. Things prior to Oath will all still only cost GENERIC mana, not colorless; the only Oracle updates are to things which generate mana, like Sol Ring now tapping for CC instead of for 2. In addition, we’re getting a new kind of Basic Land to go along with it: Wastes. Just like Mountains and Forests and Plains and Islands and Swamps, they’re BASIC lands. You can run as many of them in a deck as you like, and anything that cares about Basic lands cares about these (for example, you can find them off of a Terramorphic Expanse, and they aren’t legal targets for Crumble to Dust. They do NOT have a subtype like “Forest” or “Swamp” though, so they won’t make Domain spells any bigger. Finally, Wastes are a little different for Sealed events like prereleases: they won’t be put out like the other 5 basic lands for you to gather as many as your deck needs. They’re Common rarity cards within Oath of the Gatewatch itself (though there’s 2 different ones, so they’re twice as common as normal commons), and you can only play the ones you open! Keep that in mind if you have a lot of colorless mana symbols in the deck you plan to play.

Today’s Rules Tip was written by Trevor Nunez