Urza's Lands Mana Production
Asked by magicsheep 6 years ago
So, I was looking at the Tron lands Urza's Mine, Urza's Power Plant, and Urza's Tower, and I was wondering: If I had all three Urza's Tron lands on the battlefield, could I cast a Reality Smasher or Thought-Knot Seer? My opponent says that because the Tron lands have "add " instead of , the Tron lands cannot pay for colorless mana costs. But I thought that the rules were changed so that colorless mana produced is automatically colorless...can someone please explain this to me? Thanks!
Rhadamanthus says... #2
A little more clarification: Before the release of Oath of the Gatewatch, the game used the same symbols for generic mana and colorless mana because there weren't yet any cards where it was necessary to make a distinction between the two. However, it became important to separate them with the release of Oath because of cards like Thought-Knot Seer, etc. that have specific colorless requirements in the cost. Every older card that produced colorless mana was updated to use symbols in its rules text to make this more clear, including the Urza lands.
FancyTuesday says... Accepted answer #1
Your opponent is confusing production and payment.
When you produce it is identical to , and all rules text has been errataed to reflect this. Indeed, the Gatherer text of Urza's Mine says "...add instead." In terms of in a cost means "colorless mana", and if you've produced as distinct from , , , , or you have made colorless mana.
When you try to pay , that isn't the same as paying because is colorless mana and is mana of any color or colorless mana. I'm sure both of you understand that distinction already, but the confusion likely stems from trying to apply this principle in the other direction.
July 2, 2018 10:50 p.m. Edited.