Magic: The Gathering

3) Mana Pools and Mana Burn

3A) Mana Pools Emptying

The Reality: Many players can't clearly distinguish between phases and steps. The fact that mana remains in pools from step to step but not phase to phase is arbitrary. The concept of floating mana from step to step is hard to understand. Mana pools, in general, should be empty most of the time that players pass priority for ease of keeping track of the game state.

The Fix: Mana pools now empty at the end of each step and phase, which means mana can no longer be floated from the upkeep to the draw step, nor from the declare attackers step to the declare blockers step of combat.

The Details: This is mostly a change on the rules side. Currently, rule 300.3 of the Comprehensive Rules says "When a phase ends (but not a step), any unused mana left in a player's mana pool is lost." That'll change to "When a step or phase ends, any unused mana left in a player's mana pool is lost." A few cards, such as Upwelling and Sakura-Tribe Springcaller, will get minor errata to their "mana doesn't empty from mana pools" abilities just to specify that the mana doesn't empty when steps end either. Other cards affected by this change, such as Radha, Heir to Keld and Braid of Fire, will not receive errata.

3B) Mana Burn Eliminated

The Reality: Many players aren't aware of the existence of mana burn as a game concept. Discovering it exists, especially via an opponent manipulating his own life total for gain, can be jarring. Its existence impacts game play in a negligible way, whereas its existence impacts card design space somewhat significantly.

The Fix: Mana burn is eliminated as a game concept. Mana left unspent at the end of steps or phases will simply vanish, with no accompanying loss of life.

The Details: It turns out that eliminating mana burn from the game is surprisingly easy. I delete three sentences from rule 300.3, strike the glossary entry, and modify a few other rules that mention mana burn, and it's gone. Six cards will get errata to delete their references to mana burn, since "This mana doesn't cause mana burn" text will be pretty redundant all of a sudden.

What happens during a game? Let's say Heartbeat of Spring is in play, and you add four mana to your mana pool, but you spend only three of it. At the end of the current step or phase, the extra mana vanishes. That's it. No penalty; it's just gone.

By my reckoning, the elimination of mana burn will functionally impact about 40 cards, some for the better and some for the worse, some directly and some indirectly, because no cards are getting errata as a result of this rules change. That's right: We're not maintaining current functionality for these cards; the whole point of getting rid of the mana burn rule is to get rid of the mana burn rule.

Some examples of cards that will work differently:

Cathodion, Tolarian Academy, and Mana Drain are better, since there's now no drawback to adding unspendable mana to your mana pool.
Spectral Searchlight and Valleymaker are worse, since you can't use them to cause your opponent to mana burn.
Spur Grappler and Well of Discovery are better, since you can basically tap all of your lands for free now.
Citadel of Pain is worse, since your opponent can basically tap all of his or her lands for free now.
Hidetsugu's Second Rite is better, since your opponent can't dodge a life total of 10 by mana burning down to 9.
Magus of the Mirror, Convalescent Care, and Pulse of the Forge are worse, since you can't intentionally (and easily) mana burn yourself down to a low life total.

In 99.9% of Magic games, of course, you'll never even notice mana burn is gone.