Obviously crazy - but I think it's only expectedly abusable, because you only get one mana per spell/ability from it; and that's the ONLY mana you get (until it untaps or otherwise leaves, at least)

Lots of good stuff you can do; but you have to get it tapped. And donating it is pretty funny; but then your opponent can just attack with it.

And you can do that too; let the opponent think you've got a trick, and get a cheap unblockable :)

Saying all that - IS there a simple "One other card, I win" combo? I hope not, but am not certain.

Ooh, that's really interesting. You're right that it's very useful, while difficult to abuse.

There are some exceptions, the best I could think of Helix Pinnacle. But I don't know, there might be some way of working round that problem.

Two on the table with a Rocket Launcher is automatic victory. I know you were looking only for one card combos, but I can't help but think "If you just add Initiates of the Ebon Hand, or any card that takes up similar design space, you have infinite mana."

But I'm having a hard time coming up with an automatic win with another card besides Helix Pinnacle. There's plenty of creatures that pump using ... but they still have to connect, in theory.

Mmm.. probably a bit too good then; that's a shame. Though you do have to get it tapped; which limits you to instant speed stuff (or finding a way other than attacking) Still... three card combo's that make infinite mana aren't truly unreasonable nowadays. Maybe just up-cost this a bit?

Side note: In my minds eye, I imagine the art as being not an elf construct tending a garden; but the back half of a train, shovelling flowers into a furnace.

Actually, thinking about it... no; I don't think it does. Two won't stack for the rocket launcher trick. Each one sets your mana to 1. Consume the mana? It's still one. And mana washing? As long as this is in play, it'll wash it right back. "Pay , Add one to my mana pool" "Sure, the tender says that you've got in pool." "Cool, activate it again." "Sure, no problem your mana pool is " "And what happened to the ?" "It's a mystery; but it's the tender's fault."

I think a pump creature counts as a combo even if it's not an auto-win. But the only ones I could find that didn't need coloured mana were fairly old. Is there anything other than Demonspine Whip in Modern?

I don't think having two helps you play rocket launcher. If you have two cards saying "you have 1 in your mana pool" then you have 1 in your mana pool, but no more so than when you only had one of it?

Hmm... I don't know Vitenka. The card says I have in my pool. It doesn't say I can't have ... just that I must have . If I add to my mana pool, it's there, as well as ... they aren't mutually exclusive. I can parse the 'two of this card doesn't suddenly mean I make ' bit, but it still looks infinite to me.

Well, my intention was "You have and precisely ". It'd be a shame if I have to word it that way; but I can see the point. "Do I have ? Yes" "Do I have ? No comment, go check as normal"

That would make the card very very much better than I intended though. (Where I intended the answer to be "No. You have .")

Possibly wording is needed to make it so.

I guess you can think of your mana pool different ways. If you think of it as one (multidimensional) number, "your mana pool has 1" means "your mana pool has precisely 1". If you think of it as one number per mana type, "your mana pool has 1" means you can't have any more colourless mana, but may have more coloured mana. If you think of each mana differently, so means "two items of colourless mana", then the logical conclusion of jmg's argument would be that it could contain more colourless mana in addition to , but always contains at least .

So we should separate "what should the card do" from "how should the card be phrased".

In terms of phrasing, I see jmg's point, but my instinctive understanding was the same as vitenka's. I don't think the rules exactly specify, although I think vitenka's original interpretation is consistent with how they work elsewhere.

In terms of functionality, I like the quirkiness of setting the total mana in the pool, and that it's much less likely to be broken when you can only spend it one at a time. On the other hand, it might turn out that "0: add 1 to your mana pool but only if its empty" would have the same effect, even though it would be less cool.

I would think that "...you have in your mana pool (and no more than )." with or without the parenthesis should solve the problem. It's true... the problem is really about approach. There are multiple lines of logic that can be applied here.

That said, T1 Helix Pinnacle, T2 this, T3 swing and power up Pinnacle, T4 upkeep: win is probably a bit good.

It is supposed to be more goofy than relevant anyway. By the way, now that that card is 4 cost, how about it becomes a 3/4?

A bigger body makes sense. In some ways it's better like that.

It doesn't really solve the helix pinnacle problem though, I think a two-card combo is probably still too good even if one of them costs 4 (or probably even if one of them costs 6, even though that's probably not that good anymore). The design is sufficiently elegant I'm not sure there's any simple fix which would unbreak it without making it less interesting, so I might just let it stand as-is, and accept that it can't coexist with helix pinnacle.

Another possibility would be making it a pseudo-channel, adding some small cost like "pay one life" or "exile a card from your library" which isn't enough to break most combos, but is enough to stop this accumulating 100 counters on helix pinnacle.

A very interesting card, anyway, very clearly.

I feel there ought to be a good way around the Helix Pinnacle problem, but I can't think of it. "You can't spend this mana on costs containing " is a bit too broad really.

Erm, I would interpret this to function much like Platinum Emperion. So it would/could have reminder text like

> "Mana can't be added or emptied from your mana pool. You can't spend any amount of mana except ."

This probably isn't the intention but that's what I'm getting.

Also, "Artihact"?

Not the intention no - the intention is you have that one mana; no matter what you do. But you can spend that mana - it's in your mana pool. Just every time you check, there's mana in your mana pool.

This is a set somewhat intended to be about seeing what happens when you do odd stuff to the rules.