<\/p>Welcome, one and all! I hope you\u2019re having a wonderful day, because we\u2019ve got a fun lesson lined up for you today about mana abilities! Let\u2019s get into it.<\/p>\n
Ravnica Allegiance has brought us plenty of new cards that make mana for you; Nikya of the Old Ways<\/a>, Priest of the Forgotten Gods<\/a>, Domri<\/a>, and Incubation Druid<\/a>, to name a few. It has also brought us Repudiate<\/a>, a Simic hybrid spell that counters activated or triggered abilities. If you\u2019re anything like me (that is to say, a monster) you probably want to find a way to prevent your opponent having mana ever, and Repudiate looks handy for that- but it\u2019s got some odd reminder text. \u201cMana abilities can\u2019t be targeted\u201d- well, why not? First, let’s discuss what makes something a ‘mana ability’. <\/p>\n There are three conditions that an ability needs to fulfill in order to be a mana ability. First, it could add mana to a mana pool as it resolves; it doesn’t have to be capable of generating mana right now, it just needs to reasonably be able to. An example of that is Gaea’s Cradle<\/a>– that’s a mana ability whether you have 0 creatures or 30. Second, it can’t target anything. That means Deathrite Shaman<\/a> is out, as well as Priest of the Forgotten Gods<\/a>– even though you could choose no targets, the fact you choose them at all<\/em> means it can\u2019t be a mana ability. The third requirement depends on if the ability is Activated or Triggered. An Activated mana ability must meet the previous two criteria AND cannot be a Loyalty ability, which means that Domri is right out. A triggered mana ability must meet the first two criteria, and also be triggered by activating an activated mana ability, or from mana being added. That means Nikya is in- she triggers from tapping a land for mana.<\/p>\n So what does this mean for Nikya and Incubation Druid<\/a>? Well, they have mana abilities, so those abilities can\u2019t be responded to. When they\u2019re triggered or activated, they don’t even go onto the stack; they immediately resolve with nobody being able to respond in any way. It also means that you can use them during the actual process of casting a spell, unlike the not-quite-mana-abilities up above- for those, you’d need to float the mana before you start casting. Unfortunately Priest of the Forgotten Gods<\/a> and Domri don\u2019t have this luxury. They aren\u2019t mana abilities, and so they can be responded to with Repudiate<\/a> and the like- and if they get countered, the cost you already paid has still been spent. You don\u2019t get it refunded. That means Domri still gets a loyalty counter (yay!), and Priest still eats two of your creatures for no value (boo!)<\/p>\n So that\u2019s all for today. Hope release week has treated you well, and see you back here on Monday for more tips!<\/p>\n Today’s Rules Tip was written by Alistair Crook<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Learn what is and is not a Mana Ability, and what that means!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[148,108,29,70,37,15,8],"tags":[1430],"language":[1196],"class_list":["post-6689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abilities","category-activatedabilities","category-casting-playing-a-spell-ability","category-mana-abilities","category-priority","category-resolving-spells-and-abilities","category-triggeredabilities","tag-domri-chaos-bringer","language-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6689"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6691,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6689\/revisions\/6691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6689"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rulestips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=6689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n