Re: Magic: The Gathering
"Mana burn". You keep using that term, but I don't think it means what you think it means.
"Mana burn" was a rule that existed before the Magic 2010 Core Set (and thus a rule I never played with) that stated that if you had unspent mana as your mana pool emptied out between phases, you would take damage equal to the total (colorless) value of the unspent mana. Turns out that keeping mana burn around was too problematic a design choice to bother with, so they decided to ditch it (conveniently enough, in the set before the set that introduced the likes of Lotus Cobra and Sorin Markov).
What I believe you are thinking about is more commonly referred to as "land destruction," which is, in fact, quite a brutal and unfun tactic to be on the receiving end of, if the tactic is allowed to run rampant. Thusly, it is frowned upon in excess, and especially early-game. Nicol Bolas (Planeswalker) is indeed a ridiculously powerful force to go up against, but that's why he costs a whopping 8 mana to cost, four of them in a somewhat awkward tri-color arrangement, and none of them being Green. By the time an opponent is able to even cast Bolas, you either have too many lands for nuking one of them to make a worthwhile difference (as opposed to, say, diffusing/STEALING your 6/7-mana bomb), or you've already lost to mana screw a long time ago, anyway.
Originally posted by Melody
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"Mana burn" was a rule that existed before the Magic 2010 Core Set (and thus a rule I never played with) that stated that if you had unspent mana as your mana pool emptied out between phases, you would take damage equal to the total (colorless) value of the unspent mana. Turns out that keeping mana burn around was too problematic a design choice to bother with, so they decided to ditch it (conveniently enough, in the set before the set that introduced the likes of Lotus Cobra and Sorin Markov).
What I believe you are thinking about is more commonly referred to as "land destruction," which is, in fact, quite a brutal and unfun tactic to be on the receiving end of, if the tactic is allowed to run rampant. Thusly, it is frowned upon in excess, and especially early-game. Nicol Bolas (Planeswalker) is indeed a ridiculously powerful force to go up against, but that's why he costs a whopping 8 mana to cost, four of them in a somewhat awkward tri-color arrangement, and none of them being Green. By the time an opponent is able to even cast Bolas, you either have too many lands for nuking one of them to make a worthwhile difference (as opposed to, say, diffusing/STEALING your 6/7-mana bomb), or you've already lost to mana screw a long time ago, anyway.
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