No mana burn? Wat!? Kids these days...

April 19, 2012 12:08 PM

Magic the Gathering filter: so, I no longer play, but I just learned that mana burn was eliminated in 2010 and my curiosity was piqued: specifically with regard to vintage format, what (if anything) has gotten better/is actually getting played because of this change that was not getting played much before ?
posted by juv3nal to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (16 answers total)

In my (limited) experience, mana burn was a rule that basically no one ever followed, so I imagine the "rules lawyer screwing up how we've always done things" element has been eliminated from casual play.

I have no idea how things changed for people who actually followed the mana burn rule, weirdos, the lot of you.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 12:16 PM on April 19, 2012

When was the last time you played? There's been quite a number of rule changes.

It wasn't just mana burn. There was a lot changed in/for 2010. One of the main changes is that damage is no longer on the stack, so all damage is dealt the moment it's assigned. Any countering or what have you has to be done while you're declaring blockers.

Another minor but significant change is that removing a card from playing is now called Exiling and (this might be confirmation bias) a lot more cards are having Exile-related effects.

I'm not sure if this is new, but you can also summon creatures during the second main phase. I have a feeling you didn't used to be able to do that, but everything I can find disagrees.
posted by griphus at 12:18 PM on April 19, 2012

I've played against decks that weren't completely broken only because the person playing the deck could inadvertently kill themselves with mana burn if they didn't get the timing right. I'm pretty sure these decks were way the hell out of spec, though.
posted by griphus at 12:19 PM on April 19, 2012

This article is a pretty good summary of the 2010 changes; the section on mana burn lists some of the cards that'll be affected (for better or worse).
posted by inkyz at 12:29 PM on April 19, 2012

griphus: You've always been able to cast in either part of the main phase - before or after combat.
posted by absalom at 12:29 PM on April 19, 2012 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: In my (limited) experience, mana burn was a rule that basically no one ever followed, so I imagine the "rules lawyer screwing up how we've always done things" element has been eliminated from casual play.

Turn 1 land->sol ring->black vise and nothing else castable. Or mana drain a morphling with nothing to use the mana on. Anyone I've ever played against is going to make damn sure you eat your mana burn damage. And yes this was in casual.

I've played against decks that weren't completely broken only because the person playing the deck could inadvertently kill themselves with mana burn if they didn't get the timing right.

Yes this is what I'm talking about. Show me the broken-ness. Decklists plz.
posted by juv3nal at 12:39 PM on April 19, 2012

Well, there was the whole Skullclamp affair (although that's a Standard, not Vintage thing) wherein for a short period of time -- about a year between release and subsequent banning -- tournament play was completely dominated by that card. This is second-hand info from someone who was on the circuit, but nearly every deck revolved around either using Skullclamp or defending against someone using Skullclamp.
posted by griphus at 12:47 PM on April 19, 2012

Prominent vintage player/writer wrote a couple articles, before the change was made, discussing what the effects would be...

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/print.php?Article=15109
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/17584_So_Many_Insane_Plays_Magical_Mixed_Bag.html

This guy disagreed:

http://dr.jeebus.sydlexia.com/manaburn.htm
posted by Perplexity at 12:53 PM on April 19, 2012 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Right but skullclamp was not contingent in any way on mana burn/no mana burn. Intuitively I feel like there ought to have been something made broken by a change as seemingly significant as that, but perhaps there wasn't.
posted by juv3nal at 12:54 PM on April 19, 2012

Oh, wait, I've completely misunderstood your question. Sorry.
posted by griphus at 12:56 PM on April 19, 2012

I don't think mana burn has ever been important or interesting. Most (all?) mana generation plays instantaneously ("Play this ability as a mana source" was at one time standard language meaning, this plays instantaneously), so there should not be any questions of timing. Apart from pure mistakes, the only times you would take mana burn were 1) lumpiness in your mana sources that prevent you from using the exact amount you generate, and 2) when you wanted to trigger damage to yourself.

I think 1) is just not interesting and also unlikely to be important. I'm not sure if mana burn damage could be redirected or otherwise manipulated. If so, I suspect 2) would be viewed as too-easy a way to trigger damage to yourself.

I'm sorta speculating though and I haven't been into the game for a while.
posted by grobstein at 2:43 PM on April 19, 2012

Best answer: Couple things I can think of.

Best example would be Braid of Fire. This is now an infinite mana generator?? Previously it would be quite dangerous.

In the opposite direction, it removes some alternate uses from cards like Spectral Searchlight (you could give your opponent mana in a phase they had no way to spend it and cause damage.

It makes tapping your land to power something like Scoria Cat less painful if you have nothing to dump mana into, or using Piracy to tap your opponent out (although it's a Sorcery, but maybe to prevent / draw out a Counterspell).

You could also use it for all sorts of things where you wanted your life total a little lower. Like "if your opponent has more life" (say, Pulse of Forge) or as a defense against something like Hidetsugu's Second Rite

None of these are power cards or amazing combos though. But certainly it will affect some of them.

Mana burn was a huge part of games I played, especially older/legacy sets which had lots of lumpy mana sources (Turn 1 Dark Ritual for a 2 point spell can easily be worth it, but that point may come back to haunt you).

Another thought -- say you have an inifinite mana generator, and then use a Wish (Burning Wish, for example) to grab a Fireball. But your Wish is countered. Now you won't die from mana burn like you would have (assuming you had to trigger the mana generation to power the Wish itself).

But I think it would take a lot more thought to figure out a truly broken use, if there is one. Not that Wizards care much about Type I.
posted by wildcrdj at 3:11 PM on April 19, 2012 [1 favorite]

The thing about Spectral Searchlight and whatever is, especially in sealed environs, it gets around damage reduction which, in cases, might be a real existential threat. Mana burn wasn't damage, it was loss of life - unpreventable.
posted by absalom at 3:32 PM on April 19, 2012

Response by poster: Best example would be Braid of Fire. This is now an infinite mana generator?? Previously it would be quite dangerous.

Yeah my own googling also turned up Braid of Fire which, while it may be workable in Legacy (possibly?), I don't think is going to cut it in Vintage.

It seems if anything was discovered to be broken y'all would have heard/read about it by now, so what I'm seeing for vintage seems to be just a slight shift with mana drain and multi mana sources being improved and mana source destruction/tapping being worse (since it now always makes sense to float the mana "just in case").

The biggest impact, I guess is for those cards where it says something like "if your life total is less than/equal to foo" where you used to be able to mana burn to try to get your life total to the right level if that was an effect that was favourable, but I guess those were pretty marginal and never really saw vintage use anyways.
posted by juv3nal at 6:07 PM on April 19, 2012

I haven't played in years but when I did mana burn was a rule we carefully followed and mana burn was a factor in many games.. it was another way to attack the other player. Typically by using mana flare..
posted by jockc at 8:41 PM on April 19, 2012

My brother's friend had a particularly annoying artifact deck that would use blinkmoth urn and some card that--I'm fuzzy on the details here--gave you a bunch of artifacts to manaburn his opponents to death (turned land into artifacts maybe?). It probably wasn't that effective in the Mirrodin block, but I was a cheap and lazy player who hadn't bought cards for years, and my best deck was an Enduring Renewal combo deck.

I'm glad to see mana burn go, but I guess it does mean you can no longer "suicide" to deny your opponent some kind of dramatic victory.
posted by pwnguin at 12:07 AM on April 20, 2012