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Mana is Magic: The Gathering's principal resource.

Mana[]

Mana is used to cast spells and activate abilities. Each spell or ability will specify the amount and color of mana required to cast or activate it.

The most common way to obtain mana is by tapping lands, each land type produces 1 mana of a specific color when it is tapped unless the card text specifies otherwise. There are also spells which can generate mana through activated or triggered abilities.

See Colors for more information on the colors of mana.

Mana colors are often abbreviated to a single letter, for example U is the abbreviation for blue mana.

Symbol Abbreviation Mana Color Basic Land
White W White Plains
Blue U Blue Island
Black B Black Swamp
Red R Red Mountain
Green G Green Forest
Color C C Colorless Wastes

Tapping lands or activating a mana ability does not use the stack, and so cannot be countered or responded to by either player. Other spells such as instants or sorceries that add mana to a player's mana pool, use the stack and can be countered.

Note that colorless mana is specific to the Oath of the Gatewatch set, which is not in the MTG Arena game, however there are some cards in the game that have abilities that generate colorless mana.

Comprehensive Rules[]

Comprehensive Rules Glossary (August 7, 2020)

Mana
The primary resource in the game. It is spent to pay costs, usually when casting spells and activating abilities. See rule 106, “Mana,” rule 107.4, and rule 202, “Mana Cost and Color.”

Comprehensive Rules (August 7, 2020)

  • 106. Mana
    • 106.1. Mana is the primary resource in the game. Players spend mana to pay costs, usually when casting spells and activating abilities.
      • 106.1a There are five colors of mana: white, blue, black, red, and green.
      • 106.1b There are six types of mana: white, blue, black, red, green, and colorless.
    • 106.2. Mana is represented by mana symbols (see rule 107.4). Mana symbols also represent mana costs (see rule 202).
    • 106.3. Mana is produced by the effects of mana abilities (see rule 605). It may also be produced by the effects of spells, as well as by the effects of abilities that aren’t mana abilities. A spell or ability that produces mana instructs a player to add that mana.
    • 106.4. When an effect instructs a player to add mana, that mana goes into a player’s mana pool. From there, it can be used to pay costs immediately, or it can stay in the player’s mana pool as unspent mana. Each player’s mana pool empties at the end of each step and phase, and the player is said to lose this mana. Cards with abilities that produce mana or refer to unspent mana have received errata in the Oracle™ card reference to no longer explicitly refer to the mana pool.
      • 106.4a If any mana remains in a player’s mana pool after mana is spent to pay a cost, that player announces what mana is still there.
      • 106.4b If a player passes priority (see rule 117) while there is mana in their mana pool, that player announces what mana is there.
    • 106.5. If an ability would produce one or more mana of an undefined type, it produces no mana instead.

      Example: Meteor Crater has the ability “Tap: Choose a color of a permanent you control. Add one mana of that color.” If you control no colored permanents, activating Meteor Crater’s mana ability produces no mana.

    • 106.6. Some spells or abilities that produce mana restrict how that mana can be spent, have an additional effect that affects the spell or ability that mana is spent on, or create a delayed triggered ability (see rule 603.7a) that triggers when that mana is spent. This doesn’t affect the mana’s type.

      Example: A player’s mana pool contains RedGreen which can be spent only to cast creature spells. That player activates Doubling Cube’s ability, which reads “C3, Tap: Double the amount of each type of unspent mana you have.” The player’s mana pool now has RedRedGreenGreen in it, RedGreen of which can be spent on anything.

      • 106.6a Some replacement effects increase the amount of mana produced by a spell or ability. In these cases, any restrictions or additional effects created by the spell or ability will apply to all mana produced. If the spell or ability creates a delayed triggered ability that triggers when the mana is spent, a separate delayed triggered ability is created for each mana produced. If the spell or ability creates a continuous effect or replacement effect if the mana is spent, a separate effect is created once for each mana produced.
    • 106.7. Some abilities produce mana based on the type of mana another permanent or permanents “could produce.” The type of mana a permanent could produce at any time includes any type of mana that an ability of that permanent would produce if the ability were to resolve at that time, taking into account any applicable replacement effects in any possible order. Ignore whether any costs of the ability could or could not be paid. If that permanent wouldn’t produce any mana under these conditions, or no type of mana can be defined this way, there’s no type of mana it could produce.

      Example: Exotic Orchard has the ability “Tap: Add one mana of any color that a land an opponent controls could produce.” If your opponent controls no lands, activating Exotic Orchard’s mana ability will produce no mana. The same is true if you and your opponent each control no lands other than Exotic Orchards. However, if you control a Forest and an Exotic Orchard, and your opponent controls an Exotic Orchard, then each Exotic Orchard could produce Green.

    • 106.8. If an effect would add mana represented by a hybrid mana symbol to a player’s mana pool, that player chooses one half of that symbol. If a colored half is chosen, one mana of that color is added to that player’s mana pool. If a generic half is chosen, an amount of colorless mana represented by that half’s number is added to that player’s mana pool.
    • 106.9. If an effect would add mana represented by a Phyrexian mana symbol to a player’s mana pool, one mana of the color of that symbol is added to that player’s mana pool.
    • 106.10. If an effect would add mana represented by a generic mana symbol to a player’s mana pool, that much colorless mana is added to that player’s mana pool.
    • 106.11. If an effect would add mana represented by one or more snow mana symbols to a player’s mana pool, that much colorless mana is added to that player’s mana pool.
    • 106.12. To “tap [a permanent] for mana” is to activate a mana ability of that permanent that includes the Tap symbol in its activation cost. See rule 605, “Mana Abilities.”
      • 106.12a An ability that triggers whenever a permanent “is tapped for mana” or is tapped for mana of a specified type triggers whenever such a mana ability resolves and produces mana or the specified type of mana.
      • 106.12b A replacement effect that applies if a permanent “is tapped for mana” or tapped for mana of a specific type and/or amount modifies the mana production event while such an ability is resolving and producing mana or the specified type and/or amount of mana.
    • 106.13. One card (Drain Power) causes one player to lose unspent mana and another to add “the mana lost this way.” (Note that these may be the same player.) This empties the former player’s mana pool and causes the mana emptied this way to be put into the latter player’s mana pool. Which permanents, spells, and/or abilities produced that mana are unchanged, as are any restrictions or additional effects associated with any of that mana.

Converted Mana Cost[]

Many rules and abilities refer to the Converted Mana Cost (abbreviated CMC) of a card. The CMC of a card is calculated by converting each colored mana symbol in the spell's cost to 1, then adding the results to the generic mana cost of the spell. The card pages for each card have an entry specifying the CMC of that card.

For spells with CX in the mana cost, when it is on the stack, CX equals whatever value was chosen for it when it was put on the stack. In any other location, CX equals 0.

The CMC of land cards is always 0.

For split cards such as Commit to Memory the CMC is the total of the CMC of both halves of the card.

Comprehensive Rules[]

Comprehensive Rules Glossary (August 7, 2020)

Mana Cost
A characteristic, and part of a card. A card’s mana cost is indicated by the mana symbols printed in its upper right corner. See rule 107.4 and rule 202, “Mana Cost and Color.”

Comprehensive Rules (August 7, 2020)

  • 202. Mana Cost and Color
    • 202.1. A card’s mana cost is indicated by mana symbols near the top of the card. (See rule 107.4.) On most cards, these symbols are printed in the upper right corner. Some cards from the Future Sight set have alternate frames in which the mana symbols appear to the left of the illustration.
      • 202.1a The mana cost of an object represents what a player must spend from their mana pool to cast that card. Unless an object’s mana cost includes Phyrexian mana symbols (see rule 107.4f), paying that mana cost requires matching the type of any colored or colorless mana symbols as well as paying the generic mana indicated in the cost.
      • 202.1b Some objects have no mana cost. This normally includes all land cards, any other cards that have no mana symbols where their mana cost would appear, tokens (unless the effect that creates them specifies otherwise), and nontraditional Magic cards. Having no mana cost represents an unpayable cost (see rule 118.6). Note that lands are played without paying any costs (see rule 305, “Lands”).
    • 202.2. An object is the color or colors of the mana symbols in its mana cost, regardless of the color of its frame.
      • 202.2a The five colors are white, blue, black, red, and green. The white mana symbol is represented by White, blue by Blue, black by Black, red by Red, and green by Green.

        Example: An object with a mana cost of C2White is white, an object with a mana cost of C2 is colorless, and one with a mana cost of C2WhiteBlack is both white and black.

      • 202.2b Objects with no colored mana symbols in their mana costs are colorless.
      • 202.2c An object with two or more different colored mana symbols in its mana cost is each of the colors of those mana symbols. Most multicolored cards are printed with a gold frame, but this is not a requirement for a card to be multicolored.
      • 202.2d An object with one or more hybrid mana symbols and/or Phyrexian mana symbols in its mana cost is all of the colors of those mana symbols, in addition to any other colors the object might be. (Most cards with hybrid mana symbols in their mana costs are printed in a two-tone frame. See rule 107.4e.)
      • 202.2e An object may have a color indicator printed to the left of the type line. That object is each color denoted by that color indicator. (See rule 204.)
      • 202.2f Effects may change an object’s color, give a color to a colorless object, or make a colored object become colorless; see rule 105.3.
    • 202.3. The converted mana cost of an object is a number equal to the total amount of mana in its mana cost, regardless of color.

      Example: A mana cost of C3BlueBlue translates to a converted mana cost of 5.

      • 202.3a The converted mana cost of an object with no mana cost is 0, unless that object is the back face of a double-faced permanent or is a melded permanent.
      • 202.3b The converted mana cost of a double-faced permanent’s back face is calculated as though it had the mana cost of its front face. If a permanent is a copy of the back face of a double-faced card (even if the card representing that copy is itself a double-faced card), the converted mana cost of that permanent is 0.

        Example: Huntmaster of the Fells is a double-faced card with mana cost C2RedGreen. Its converted mana cost is 4. After it transforms to its other face (Ravager of the Fells), its converted mana cost remains 4.

        Example: A Clone enters the battlefield as a copy of Ravager of the Fells. Its converted mana cost is 0.

        Example: Insectile Aberration is the back face of a double-faced card whose front face has mana cost Blue. It becomes a copy of Ravager of the Fells. Its converted mana cost becomes 0.

      • 202.3c The converted mana cost of a melded permanent is calculated as though it had the combined mana cost of the front faces of each card that represents it. If a permanent is a copy of a melded permanent (even if that copy is represented by two other meld cards), the converted mana cost of the copy is 0.
      • 202.3d The converted mana cost of a split card not on the stack or of a fused split spell on the stack is determined from the combined mana costs of its halves. Otherwise, while a split card is on the stack, the converted mana cost of the spell is determined by the mana cost of the half that was chosen to be cast. See rule 708, “Split Cards.”
      • 202.3e When calculating the converted mana cost of an object with an CX in its mana cost, X is treated as 0 while the object is not on the stack, and X is treated as the number chosen for it while the object is on the stack.
      • 202.3f When calculating the converted mana cost of an object with a hybrid mana symbol in its mana cost, use the largest component of each hybrid symbol.

        Example: The converted mana cost of a card with mana cost C1WUWU is 3.

        Example: The converted mana cost of a card with mana cost 2B2B2B is 6.

      • 202.3g Each Phyrexian mana symbol in a card’s mana cost contributes 1 to its converted mana cost.

        Example: The converted mana cost of a card with mana cost C1WPWP is 3.

    • 202.4. Any additional cost listed in an object’s rules text or imposed by an effect isn’t part of the mana cost. (See rule 601, “Casting Spells.”) Such costs are paid at the same time as the spell’s other costs.

Hybrid Mana[]

Hybrid mana was introduced to Magic: The Gathering Arena with the Guilds of Ravnica set.[1]

A spell with hybrid mana in its casting cost can be payed with either one color or the other displayed in the mana symbol. Spells that have hybrid mana in their casting cost are called Hybrid Cards.

Example: the casting cost of Assure is GWGW. The caster of this spell can spend either GreenGreen, GreenWhite or WhiteWhite to pay for it.

The same is true for card abilities which require hybrid mana.

Example: Dimir Locket's second abiliy says "UBUBUBUB, Tap, Sacrifice Dimir Locket: Draw two cards."
The controller of Dimir Locket can spend any combination of Blue and Black to pay for its cost.

Regardless of what colored mana a player spends when casting a Hybrid Card, the card always has all colors which appear in the casting costs. This can often be indicated in the colors of the card frame.

Example: Vernadi Shieldmate can be cast for either C1White or C1Green. Even if it was cast for C1White it remains a green (and white) creature.

Comprehensive Rules[]

Comprehensive Rules Glossary (August 7, 2020)

Hybrid Mana Symbols
A mana symbol that represents a cost that can be paid in one of two ways. See rule 107.4.

Comprehensive Rules (August 7, 2020)

  • 107.4e Hybrid mana symbols are also colored mana symbols. Each one represents a cost that can be paid in one of two ways, as represented by the two halves of the symbol. A hybrid symbol such as WU can be paid with either white or blue mana, and a monocolored hybrid symbol such as 2B can be paid with either one black mana or two mana of any type. A hybrid mana symbol is all of its component colors.

    Example: GWGW can be paid by spending GreenGreen, GreenWhite, or WhiteWhite.

References[]


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