An explanation of how Burning Earth works (or really doesn't) when a nonbasic land is tapped for a non-mana ability.
Category: Mana Abilities
Abilities, Activated Abilities, Continuous Effects, Effects, Mana Abilities, Type & Subtypes, Type Changing
Stony Silence and Artifact Lands
To finish out this week’s Modern flair, let’s talk about a deck called Robots (or back in my crotchety days, “Affinity”). It uses lots of artifacts to make your opponent and his life total very sad. The Legacy version (and the original Standard version) made delightful use of the artifact lands like and pulling double […]
Wall of Roots and +1/+1 Counters
There was a time when counters didn’t cancel each other out on the same permanent; you could have a bunch of +1/+1 counters and a few -1/-1 counters on a creature and they’d just co-exist happily on that creature, in case anything cared. With the Lorwyn block, that got changed up because it was a […]
You can’t tap a Cluestone for mana to activate its own “draw a card” ability.
There’s a small caveat in Magic: you can only pay any given cost for one ability or spell; you can’t use the same cost to pay for two separate abilities. That’s just not how life (or Magic) works. Very simple here with the Cluestones. Since the Cluestone’s abilities require it to tap for both the […]
“Eggs” vs. Rest in Peace – Know when NOT to draw.
These two artifacts look very similar, and both see play in the popular and successful “Eggs” deck in Modern. But since is also a very popular sideboard card, you should be careful to note the difference! is rather unique. It includes “Draw a card.” in the same ability as “Add one mana of any color […]
Spreading Seas vs. the Urza’s lands.
So by now, most people are familiar with the “Urzatron” decks that are popular in Modern. They revolve around getting the three different Urza’s lands (Power Plant, Mine, and Tower) to cast large spells rather quickly, getting 7 colorless mana from just 3 lands. In an attempt to combat the deck, one trick people have […]
Abilities, Activated Abilities, Continuous Effects, Effects, Keywords, Mana Abilities, Triggered Abilities
Elvish Archdruid Won’t Trigger Gyre Sage
If there’s one thing Elves love [beyond having Hobbits do their dirty work, but that’s another plane entirely], it’s mana. Lots and lots of mana. Enormous, obscene piles of green mana, ready to be converted into an astoundingly large spell, or into many little elves, who will make even more mana. Continuing the trend of […]
Pithing Needle stops all of Deathrite Shaman’s abilities.
Before we go any further, we must ask ourselves… what is a mana ability? Well, that was semi-rhetorical, for those who didn’t snap answer the previous question. A Mana ability can exist as either an activated or triggered ability. For the activated ability form: 1) Does not have a target 2) It could put mana […]
Tournament Tuesday: Announcing Floating Mana
Your mana pool is arguably the most important concept in all of Magic — but most of the time, it’s completely invisible. If I tap four and three s for an , it’s pretty obvious what color of mana each of my Gardens is making, and whether the Vents are making red or blue usually […]