Might have some new player issues when they attempt to cast a sorcery without floating mana beforehand. Maybe if it was just limited to only during your turn? Would still be pretty powerful in creature-based decks, but we have Ancient Ziggurat, so I guess it's okay.

Ugh. the intent is very clear here; and I do like it. But the rules do indeed go wonky. Or at least back to "You're supposed to tap your mana first. Oh come on, that's stupid."

Could be "Activate this ability only during your main phase"?

Strong. Lots of decks won't care about mana on opponents turn; those that do, though, there's a nice reversal that usually you want to leave your most flexible mana up; but now you want to use it first. Unclear if that reversal is actually interesting enough to build a theme around though.

> Might have some new player issues when they attempt to cast a sorcery without floating mana beforehand.

If I understand correctly what you mean - as in you can't start casting a spell and then tap this but that you need to tap this and then use the floating mana from the pool when you cast the spell - how is that ever an issue in irl magic? On mtg online that might be different though...

I do like the "activate only during your turn" though so...

People used to get warnings in tournaments for forgetting to float mana before casting. There was a famous reversal due to it. They changed the rules to the current-way-around because it was the way everyone kept playing even though the rules said not to - it's just so obviously natural "Choose thing, then pay for thing" instead of "Choose thing, but don't do it yet, then pay for thing, then show thing".

This land (when it was 'only as a sorcery' (and why isn't there some kind of anti-flash sword for that?) put you back in the second camp - but worse, because it's only when using this mana.

This is now incredibly strong. Combat tricks, activated abilities, all sorts of things can be powered by it. It's almost as good as the proper original dual lands.

Yeah, okay, I could see that.
I think "during your turn" would be much more grokkable though :(
It seems that "during your main phase" only appears in the uncommon cycle of Might of Old Krosa and friends from Time Spiral... that's not assuring.

... Actually, I now remember that I refer to a "main phase" in the uprise mechanic of this set so this will have to do.

Yeah, it's pretty clunky wording. I just can't see a better way to avoid it. Other than to lump it any say "Y'know what? Ancient Tolkien history gets the GOOD dual lands."

Heh, I recall that the original idea was to make cards from the 'Silmarillion' era crazy powerful in comparison to the later ages (Lightning Bolt reprint and such) since gods were hanging around and everything was bigger and more 'grand'. It was the idea of the dude who originally contacted me about starting a Tolkien custom set. I never quite agreed with that premise, but he dropped out from the project quite quickly (lost interest, I guess), so whatever. ¯_(ツ)_/¯