Premise

Convert mana to any color. Neutral in total mana amount unless it's a ritual card.

Flavor

From flavor stand point, this would be one of the few effects to describe 's artistic side that's often left in the "Hulk smash!"'s flavor's shadow.

Color Shifts

• Viridian Acolyte
• Nomadic Elf

Notes

This does not indicate that mana dorks could/would be .

Precedent

• Manamorphose
• Curse of Opulence, Captain Lannery Storm, Wily Goblin, Trove of Temptation (cards that produce gold/treasure tokens)
• Morselhoarder
• Wild Cantor

Examples

• Secret Fire
• "Mana Painter"
• Spark of Inspiration

I'm fine with this, but it seems unnecessary given that it's the domain of lands and artifacts, which are already accessible by any color.

I can see it.

But I think we'd want to see a bit more evidence than manamorphose. But I could certainly see this being a red bleed. Both from its rituals (perhaps "Gain some red mana, or some less in any colour" or "Gain some red and some wild") and also why not take land-destruction this route?

Land destruction is getting kinda removed from everything; and in its place we get land replacement. Of which Blood Moon is the prototypical example. Could Illusuory Terrain colour shift to red, perhaps?

@Link:

Yes, that can be attributed in some part to the fact that I find the whole concept of "you can do anything if you cost enough mana and don't have a color" very, very disturbing. Like, the whole idea of color pie is founded on the idea of having a color. Colorless cards doing stuff like Scour from Existence / Universal Solvent undermines statements like "Color pie is also about balance meaning that a Naturalize would break this balance". Those kind of statements have become more and more scarce since colorless cards doing whatever have become quite common place now. This suggest that in the future color pie is relegated to flavor alone.

So, I would rather expand colors in ways that they have their own niche ways with effects like color fixing and land searching - and reduce those kind of things (among other effects) from colorless stuff. This gives colors more novelty and makes them play differently. Colorless stuff doing that does the opposite: it makes the colors less relevant and makes them play similarly.

@Vitenka:

I wouldn't call the precedent cards as "evidence": It's more like "Oh, and there already hints about this already", but IMO that isn't crucial to justify color shifts. These wouldn't be very "shifty" if they already existed in the current color pie.

WotC is currently testing "freezing lands" mechanic as a soft replacement for LD in : Stensia Innkeeper and Chandra's Revolution.

Actually, I've been thinking about having Spreading Seas color shifted to . So it's land disruption would be characterized that way while could "freeze" lands. Personally, I'm quite fine with nonbasic removal, but I think we could pretty much "do without" basic land destruction.

Also, it's worth of note that this shift would increase the flavor diversity of so that the themes of creativity and such could become more common place in it. Usually those themes remain purely hypothetical while cards flavored as "I'm so very angry" run rampant in .

Yeah; I'd just like to see a few more such hints. It's not very close to existing mechanical.

Flavour-wise; yes, very much it would be nice to see other emotions than red currently mainly uses. The problem being that, well, it's a combat game. So fighty emotions tend to come up more than fluffy ones.

I guess colour fixing would become "Every colour can wash to its own colour; red can wash to any colour; green can flat out produce any colour as a permanent thing; red can do it as a one-off ritual" ? That seems fine, to me.

It's like you took my statement in a completely different direction from what I said or intended. Lands and artifacts fixing mana is a big leap from Scour from Existence. I get that you have an agenda that you want to push here, but it's not the proper response to my statement. If you want to talk about reducing the options available to cards with purely genetic mana costs, make a separate discussion place for that.

Red could recolor mana. I have no issue with that. I just think it's unnecessary. Lands already do it plenty, and it belongs with lands and artifacts. It's a part of their identity.

Now, red getting more effects like Manamorphose is a bit different. I'm down with that.

@Vitenka:

Intellectual aspirations aren't combat oriented yet we see plenty of them . IMO one reason for this lack of diversity comes down to 's color pie - dealing damage is perhaps too prevalent and so on.

As for precedent, I did a quick gatherer search.
It happens to be that the new set just dropped a bunch of cards that produce Treasure tokens. Though to be fair, it seems many of the colors get those in that set. (I haven't really gone through that set.)
There were also couple of hybrids that weren't freshly in my memory.

Okay, so how I see color fixing ("washing") being distributed in colors:

• : Turning other colors into your color: xenophobia, oppression, etc: Celestial Dawn, black cards with super color intensive costs.
• : Turning any color into any other color. NOTE: Only has mana dorks, but both colors could have Viridian Acolyte.
• : Vedalken Engineer?

Btw, producing colorless mana isn't currently really in any color at the moment. I don't really know where to put that though. I guess colorless (artifacts) is fine for that.

I also think you should distinguish between colorless cards that cost generic mana and colorless cards with in their cost. I seem to remember MaRo answering a question about by saying they hadn't really given it a color pie mechanical identity. This is a mistake, to me.

Both green and blue can produce colorless mana. Blue only does it with restrictions for how to spend it, like on artifacts.

That's because introducing it at all was a mistake.

@Link:

Wait, so... isn't Manamorphose just a recoloring effect? You would like to see more of that, yet you say that it's unnecessary. I'm confused. What's the difference here that I'm missing?

I think that the colorless discussion is heavily related if say that giving more colors access to color fixing is unnecessary because it's something that colorless already does. IMO in some manner or another all those colorless vindicates had their precedent in artifacts that fetch for and fix mana. Just because there's a longer tradition for mana manipulation in colorless doesn't mean that it isn't heavily related to the discussion about what effects colorless should be doing and how that affects those effects distribution into other colors.

Ie.

• Colorless does something -> unnecessary for the actual colors to do it
• Reduce what colorless does -> now it's sensible to spread this effect into another color

I haven't made any references at all to mana. If I had, I would have called it "true/pure colorless" or something like that. Also, I think that idea is pretty much a garbage fire as far as color pie is concerned. They pretty much recycled their abandoned idea of purple they had in Time Spiral for that (a color that does little bit of everything all the other colors do).

Yes, I think that producing colorless mana with restrictions could be a "thing" in . In that's whatever since it can produce color in any amounts and colors already.

I'm sorry for my lack of clarity. I'm talking about color fixing on permanents versus non-permanents.

I'm also not trying to argue that there are effects that should be moved from generic cards into actual colors. I just think that color fixing is the wrong mechanic to argue over. It would seem odd to me to move an ability focused on mana out of the purview of lands.

I didn't realize there was so much hate. I think it was a great idea that stumbled just slightly in execution.

Blue already produces mana with restrictions. Are you saying you want it to do more of that?

I too don't mind Unknown Shores / Shimmering Grotto that much as a card. It's pretty much just an extension and/or variation of dual lands and any color lands (City of Brass). Lands producing and handling mana is reasonable: that's why they exist after all.

It's the artifacts specifically that bug me. IMO artifacts having color fixing undermines 's identity of being the best color at it.

Ie.

• Abundant Growth vs Prophetic Prism
• Lay of the Land vs Traveler's Amulet
• Civic Wayfinder vs Pilgrim's Eye
• Wild Wanderer vs Solemn Simulacrum
• Font of Fertility vs Wayfarer's Bauble

There's tangible tension there and not in a good way.

­ could be a nice idea with right implementation, sure. It's just that I find it questionable what kind of effects would make playing stuff like pain lands (Sulfurous Springs) interesting without undermining color pie itself. Are there any? I don't know.

As for mana producing, I'm open to the idea, but like I indicated in the (((Green Cloning))) perhaps it's for the best if for every effect there is at least one color that can't do it. On the other hand, mana is a crucial element in the game...

I can see your issue with Solemn Simulacrum and Wayfarer's Bauble, especially since they are both land ramp and color fixing. The others don't bother me as much, especially Prophetic Prism and friends.

You must really dislike Sword of the Animist.

In what ways to you think cards undermine the color pie?

Blue already has limited mana production as part of its mechanical color pie. I'm not saying it needs more, just stating that it already has it: Curious Homunculus, Grand Architect, Qarsi Deceiver, etc.

Solemn and Bauble are much worse than the rest, but I would argue that their precedent lied in the other cards listed. Burnished Hart is also a thing :(

­Sword of the Animist requires you to have a creature and be able to attack with that creature which sounds quite when you think about... but yeah, idk, that card came at a time where it has pretty much reached a point where one has become numb to this bleeding. So the other cards are harder etched on my memory. It's messed up tbh.

­: They feed from the same collective pool of abilities as the other colors, but they just do whatever they want with no rime or reason. That's pretty much the definition of undermining the color pie. How could they do it worse?

­: Hmmh, that's a fairly recent development, but yes, you're right: it seems to be a tred. For whatever reason my mind keeps going back to Energy Tap, however old it is. Also, I remember Deranged Assistant quite well.

­: Ah, I see what you're saying. Given that there are few novel, unexplored design spaces that could appear in large amounts, it's no surprise that has to draw from areas already "owned" by other colors. My only issue is that I wish it had been treated more like its own cookie and given a defining set of abilities from which it could draw.

I've been working on a sixth color project for a while (though it's been on a hold for a long time as well) so I actually think there are effects that are underutilized if used at all by colors currently. In that project I also didn't just grab everything available but attempted to form coherent archetypes, so there's probably even more effects available that didn't fit into purple's themes.

The Sixth Color (I didn't bother "upload" all the cards made into this)

Imgur gallery with most up-to-date MSE renders:

https://imgur.com/a/5of3Z

Personally, I would stay away from exile manipulation as , but for a new color IMO it could be one of the themes.

For even more details see this random post I threw out in NGA (about themes and such)

http://forum.nogoblinsallowed.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=19700#p582783

is red getting color fixing really useful or important? there's already green, land, and artifact that do them pretty well. do we need more?

colorless is the glue between colors. especially for multicolor decks. thus it gets access to game fundamentals that smooths out the game play , like land, mana, life gain, damage, removal, creatures, card draw.

> "colorless is the glue between colors. especially for multicolor decks. thus it gets access to game fundamentals that smooths out the game play , like land, mana, life gain, damage, removal, creatures, card draw."

Wait - so what doesn't it get access to?

Colourless does have access to almost everything (even forced discard - from Disrupting Scepter to Fell Flagship). But usually it should be at a higher price than coloured cards within the colours that have access to those effects. You wouldn't get a blue-red deck playing Staff of Nin, but white decks like it for the card draw and green decks like it for the burn. You wouldn't get a white-blue deck playing Neurok Hoversail, but I could see an occasional red-green deck playing it. And so on. Artifacts (and colourless) are there to partially and inefficiently shore up the colours' weaknesses.

And back on topic, I do like the proposal to have more colour-wash in red as an expression of artistry. I loved Smokebraider back in the day, and I'm sure I've made use of similar concepts in some of my custom sets.

I still think that colorless discussion is relevant here if we think of this as not being "necessary" if artifacts already do it. On the other hand, why does even do it if artifacts do it quite well, maybe even better, than does?

IMO there's serious dichotomy within the color pie "doctrine" in that you can't use (high) mana costs to justify bleeds in colors, yet you can use it in when colorless is concerned. Either color pie is not affected by power levels or it is (ie. the distinctions between design & development): MaRo (and others at WotC) should really pick their minds about this one. As I have stated before, color pie is fundamentally about colors and how they play distinctly - IMO the use of colorless has gone way beyond of its original purpose and is now hindering the validity of whole concept of colors - with circumnavigating the weaknesses of the colors and in many cases doing what the colors do but better.

PS: Staff of Nin is disgusting. I basically slap it into all of my EDH decks regardless of color and never end up regretting it.

What does colorless do that the colors don't do better?

Actually, we should make a separate place to discuss the role of artifacts in the color pie. It's really become an issue that deserves its own discussion.

Color fixing is something that I've brought up multiple times. Prophetic Prism is wayyy better than anything can get, especially since were aren't going to see Birds of Paradise reprint in standard any time soon. This is also pronounced by the fact that when you want color fixing, you aren't sure what colors you have available, so a colorless fixing source is just better than one that requires a specific color to use.

What I meant though was that I don't like that colorless can do better a thing than a color weak that's weak in that thing. So I just didn't mean that better than "any" color - specifically better than "a" color.

I think you're right about new topic. I'll think I change the set name as well.

EDIT: Added "Colorless Spells: Their role" (details to come later).

I find it interesting that you think that Prophetic Prism is better than any green options. I think you might be overestimating the power level of the prism; or maybe I'm underestimating it. I see it as weaker than (and not very comparable to) Birds of Paradise and Sylvan Caryatid. After all, it's not growth, it's fixing.

1-drop mana dorks aren't gonna be (re)printed in standard anymore. Caryatid requires : if I have a multicolored deck I might not have available (even if one of the deck's colors is ). I'm likely to have though. Also, prophetic is pretty hard to remove.

I like red generating mana more than just fixing it, i. e. I don't want tred to have permanent ramp, but cheating the curve with a Wild Cantor seems like the way to go.

Pure fixing seems not to represent red's MO.

EDIT: Of your precedent almost everything with the exception of the hybrid Manamorphose falls into the category of mana storage and explosive ramp, where the deal actually can enable you to cheat the curve.

Though I probably like Burning-Tree Emissary more I think partial/complete payback is fine as a mechanic in red.

I actually prefer "convert other colors to " in more than "convert other colors to ", especially because that Red gets firebreathing and a couple other -intensive abilities and spells. Soulbright Flamekin is probably one of my favorite designs just because he generates and "fixes" mana in a very red way. I'm also okay with partial/complete payback like on Coal Stoker or Akki Rockspeaker.

@SecretInfiltrator

> Pure fixing seems not to represent red's MO.

Could you expand on that? These kind of comments are pretty hard to comment on. From flavor standpoint, this would allow more creative elements (ie. artists, poets, personal love, freedom, passion, expressing emotions, richness of passion vs censorship, etc) to be conveyed mechanically in . Currently flavor has a tendency be very one-noted.

• Yes, like I've stated many times this would not mean that (permanent) ramp is now .
• Those hybrids all fix mana as well.
• I like partial payback in as well.

@Mal

> I actually prefer "convert other colors to " in more than "convert other colors to "

You stated the same thing twice. I assume you meant preferring turning other colors to rather than turning to other colors. Eh, turning other colors to your color feels overly conservative (with hints of xenophobic and ethnic purge) to me, and I would allocate that to .

I don't see how giving red access to what it already has access to is expanding its pie.

To delineate it: What card would red not get? Exuberant Firestoker?

This effect in isn't that common in the current color pie. If anything, this topic exists as a testament as to how controversial it still is. Though maybe you misunderstood those precedent cards as examples: this would give Helionauts.

I can't even found any official word on having a greater access at mana filtering. Best I can find is this 2009 article "Mana with All the Fixin's" stating that

> Red's trick in multicolor blocks is to allow its rituals to add colors other than red.

which is a bit weird considering that Mardu Warshrieker is the only example I can think of and it was printed much later on.

­Manamorphose is an example (as hybrid means it must match red's mechanical color pie) and probably was on the author's mind as something they have just done in the past year and liked enough to think about using more. In reality they might not have followed up on their plan, but that's always possible.

To re-formulate my position: I don't think red needs to be especially good at color fixing but generally all colors should have access to a flavor of this e. g. blue plays around with transforming land types for this, red gets it as part of their one-time mana creation etc.

I didn't mention Manamorphose since rituals are pretty much defined by them being accel. I would call morphose just "filtering" spell.

> generally all colors should have access to a flavor of this

I'm not sure what you mean. What would and flavor for this be? Also, I've been thinking that transforming land types should be instead of - used as an alternative to LD for example. The rare occasions when has used that ability, it hasn't yielded great results...

One-off mana fixing feels super-red, if anything I thought it was already red. Extending that to repeated washing also seems plausible, it gives red an extra form of mana fixing without taking away from green (which can usually produce extra mana).