See Challenge # 122 and Leaf Gilder

This doesn't actually fulfil the challenge, I just really liked it.

Eerily similar to Son of Anarchy :) (also see Conduit of Storms)

Hmmm, my new mana producing wording makes it sound like the creature should survive combat for you to get that mana. I might have to look into that.

Oops, right, this was supposed to do normal mana generation, not just combat-only (or it would have been a bit more aggressive). Although maybe "at the beginning of the next main phase" would be better.

Good point with Sons of Anarchy. I think it's clear by comparison to Conduit, but I'm not sure.

The "next main phase" is definitely better IMO since that "doesn't empty" effect uses a lot of text on its own: pretty much doubles the amount of text on the card.

Yeah, now that I think about it, Anarchy and Conduit abilities do differ in that in the other it's the creature that produces the mana while in Conduit it's the effect itself.

This is going to go rather off-topic, but whatever.

So... As by Zendikar Resurgent's definition, when a land's mana ability is activated and it becomes tapped, the effect produces the mana - but it's also counted as being produced by the land itself since it's the activated ability's source. This is somewhat ambiguous IMO since the card says "that land produced" instead of "that effect produced" while I think the latter is more correct.

I think these are the relevant rulings:

> 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.

> 106.11. To “tap a permanent for mana” is to activate a mana ability of that permanent that includes the symbol in its activation cost. See rule 605, “Mana Abilities.”

> 106.11a 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.

To me, it seems like if I were to go with this "new" wording, Elvish Mystic should say ": Produce " (not produces) so that it remains that it's the effect not the permanent itself which produces the mana.

EDIT:

Coming back to the OP card, the two abilities should be on separate lines since when they take effect and/or are in effect are different instances.

So with this alternative mana wording, which no longer references mana pool by name, I would word it as:

> ~ attacks each turn if able.
> Whenever ~ attacks, produce . Until end of turn, this mana isn't lost if unused.

Wait, now I'm confused. I thought "produce" was just a description of "an ability with that source adds mana to your mana pool" or similar, and was used in Uprise reminder text, I didn't think it was valid rules text. I thought both abilities created a delayed triggered ability to add mana to your mana pool (with the creature as the source of the ability). What have I missed, where does the "produce " language come from?

As per 106.3. & 106.4. & 106.11a (as far as I understand them) "produce (mana)" doesn't mean "an ability with that source adds mana to your mana pool".

It's a custom wording "update" I've been trying out - though it does somewhat stem from the various card that refer to producing mana. In the comprehensive rules "produce (mana)" is a much more used phrase instead of the "add (mana)" for example.

The idea began by trying to make the whole "add some mana to your mana pool" phrase shorter. Also, IMO the whole concept of "mana pool" is rather useless per se in that it causes confusion without any real benefit. Where the mana goes or leaves from isn't crucial.
Along with that idea, came the concepts of "Unused mana is lost" reminder text and phrases like "unused mana", "losing mana", and "mana you have". To me, all of this falls under "streamlining".

There's a long-winded thread I started about this in MTG Salvation in which I originally considered the idea of "You get/lose mana" - like with energy.

http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/community-forums/creativity/custom-card-creation/774959-wording-update-add-mana-to-your-mana-pool-cardname

EDIT:

For example, the second ability of your card would shorten from 145 characters (including spaces) to 84 characters, so by around 42% (or by 61 characters). It's also arguably much more grokkable.

For comparison:

> Whenever ~ attacks, add to your mana pool. Until end of turn, this mana doesn't empty from your mana pool as steps and phases end.
> Whenever ~ attacks, produce . Until end of turn, this mana isn't lost if unused.

Ah, right. I think I was confused over what you were suggesting should be different, versus what you were saying the rules already said.

I think using energy language for mana makes a lot of sense. In fact, I can't see any downside, although there's presumably some. Maybe new players would be confused between mana they have and permanents on the battlefield? But it seems most things would just work if you "get" mana and "have" mana and have no mention of where you have it.

I'm not sure if I like ": produce " or not. I agree it's a lot shorter, and fairly clear. But ": Gain " is closer to the current language for energy, poison, xp, etc and even shorter.

It looks to me like the rules never actually say "produce mana" can refer to an ability or a permanent. But they do use it for both, so I think that's got to be the standard even if it isn't spelled out. I don't think there's a rules distinction, I think mana production is always via an ability, which has a source which is a permanent (or occasionally another object).

Is that right? I'm not confident my rules interpetation is correct.

I'm not 100% on this either, but I do sense there might be some double meanings behind the term "produce" which does bother me.

There were a lot of points about what the precise verb for receiving mana should be, but that was rather long ago so it has already began fading away from my memory. "Gain" I think was mentioned already being tied to gaining life and it's generally considered best that these actions don't share a name since they affect different resources. In the same vein I guess, "get" was considered being problematic because of energy since mana isn't done in counters and is also lost at the end of each step and phase unlike energy. Also, "get" was said to be a loaded word since things already "get" counters, emblems, and abilities. Some noted it wasn't flavorful enough and whatever.

Couple of other suggestions I'm not a fan of were "gather" and "pool".

"Produce" was stated being the "least offensive" since it's already the term much more consistently used by the existing rules text when the event of creating mana is described. It also helps that now the new cards would be more consistent with the cards that refer producing mana.

I think I'm also personally starting to side with "produce" since it makes more sense that mana is "produced" and not "given" or "gained". This would also apply to energy, but since they are handled out in counters, "get" is the precedent set before - poison being one example.

In any case, IMO the "solution" is somewhere there even if the specifics are still being outlined/tested out.

That makes sense. I'm not sure I'm convinced, but I see the reasons for "produce" over any of the other options.