Mana

Mana is a renewable resource in Magic: The Gathering. Mana is generated by some cards, most notably land, and then used to play most of the game's cards and abilities.

Description
Designed by Magic creator Richard Garfield, mana is closely related to the game's color system, and alongside it is one of the cornerstones of the game.

Mana is one of the main limiting factors on what actions players can take at any given time. It is sometimes derided for the variance it introduces to the game, particularly in the form of mana screw. However, the mana system also provides numerous benefits to the game such as pacing and variety, and is one of the key innovations credited with the Magic's overall success.

Gameplay fundamentals
Mana is a form of magic used to pay the mana cost required to cast most of the cards in the game. It is also used to cover other costs, such as those to activate certain abilities. The most basic mana source is land, though certain spells and abilities can also produce mana. A player taps land to add mana to their mana pool; one's mana supply regenerates naturally when lands untap during the beginning phase of their turn. A player that exhausts their supply of mana is considered "tapped out."

The mana system allows the design of cards that differ greatly in power level. Stronger cards with higher mana cost have the inherent drawback of being unusable early, and risk leaving the user tapped out when played. Also, by requiring specific types of mana, R&D can associate mechanics with specific colors. Mana cost is one of the chief tools R&D uses to balance the game.

As players play their lands, they gain access to more mana over the course of the game, allowing the use of cards in greater power and numbers. This gives each Magic duel a natural sense of pacing and drama, by ensuring games start slow but eventually build up to an epic conclusion.

Colors of mana
There are six types of mana: the five colors (one for each of Magic's colors), as well as colorless mana. Mana is represented by mana symbols, or letters that represent those mana symbols. There are six basic lands, which can each tap to generate one mana of the corresponding mana type, but only five basic land types. Wastes, introduced in Oath of the Gatewatch, is a basic land with no basic land subtype, and generates colorless mana.

Although most colorless cards have purely generic mana costs, certain spells specifically require colorless mana to cast. In contrast, generic costs can be paid with any type of mana, colored or colorless.

Mana abilities
A mana ability is either:
 * 1) an activated ability, with no target, and excluding planeswalkers' loyalty abilities, that could put mana into a player's mana pool when it resolves.
 * 2) a triggered ability, with no target, that triggers from a mana ability and could produce additional mana.

A mana ability does not use the stack, and thus cannot be countered or responded to by either player. In contrast, non-permanent spells (instants, sorceries, etc.) that add mana to a player's mana pool, such as Dark Ritual or Seething Song, are not mana abilities, and use the stack like all other spells.

Mana costs
Mana added to one's mana pool can be specifically required to pay the mana cost of a spell or ability. However, apart from that, there is a wide variety of mana costs used in the game.

Mana value
The mana value of an object is an integer greater than or equal to zero. It is determined by converting each colored mana symbol in the spell's cost to 1 (unless it is one of the two-brid mana symbols, each of which converts to 2), then adding the results to the generic mana cost of the spell.

For example, spells with mana costs of and  both have a mana value of 3.

Before Strixhaven: School of Mages, mana value was known as converted mana cost and commonly abbreviated to CMC.

Storyline
Mana is the magical energy that fuels the spells of spellcasters and flows along the leylines of any given plane. Mana can exist at specific positions in physical space, and flow through specific routes. Some points in space can have more mana than others, and mages can draw on specific such "wells" of mana. Many builders are unknowingly drawn to erect monuments at the sites of such convergences of mana. Some animals, knowingly or not, are able to follow the flow of mana through space, and some trees choose to grow where mana spikes.

Mana can take a variety of forms. In one form it is it not perceptible to the typical senses, even though spellcasters can still sense it. It can also take more perceptible forms, including ones where it can be shaped into glowing sculptures and liquid-like states. It can condense into creatures, such as angels or Omnath, or exist inside of some material objects such as plants. Mana can also be shaped in unnatural, largely imperceptible "braids" that flow through space, such as the Implicit Maze. Mana in some forms, such as the The Prismatic Piper, may be able to transcend planes.

It is deeply interconnected with the lifeforce on every plane in the Multiverse, and it can take that role by itself as well. When there is little or no mana in an area, things die or become emaciated and weak.

Colors of Mana
Mana exists in five main varieties, known as colors. Each of these is tied to different traits; red mana, for example, leads to individualism, passion, and freedom.

Conceptual Origin
The term "mana" in association with magic is used by many different cultures, though its more recent usage in fiction and games is generally credited to science fiction author Larry Niven in his The Magic Goes Away series ; his conception, in turn, is based on the concept of mana from Polynesian cultures. The designers of Magic paid homage to Niven with the lich character of Nevinyrral and his Nevinyrral's Disk.

Purple mana
During design for Planar Chaos, the developers considered using a new sixth mana color to give the feeling of an alternate reality. They decided on purple as the color, and gave it a place in the color wheel in between blue and black. A new ally and enemy system was invented, in which each color would be enemies with the color directly across from it, allied with the two colors right next to it, and neutral towards the remaining two colors. Purple's basic land would most likely be "City," though both "Cave" and "Portal" were also very likely.

The team eventually decided to give purple enchantment removal worse than white's, direct damage worse than red's, and take away blue's countermagic and black's force-sacrifice effects to give to purple. However, when they realized that players might be disappointed with a new color that didn't really "do anything new", the team started losing interest in the idea. The concept was eventually replaced with a new class of timeshifted card, and the idea of a "color" that required a new type of mana and land, with abilities from every other color, was later refitted in colorless costs during Oath of the Gatewatch.

Mana symbols
Mana is represented by the various amount of symbols. undefined

Mana pool
undefined When an effect produces mana, that mana goes into a player's mana pool. From there, it can be used to pay costs immediately, or it can stay in the player's mana pool. Each player's mana pool empties at the end of each step and phase.

The phrase "mana pool" has been removed from card text, starting with Dominaria. The concept continues to exist in the game rules. If a player is instructed to add any amount of mana, that player adds that mana to their mana pool.

Mana burn (Obsolete)
When a phase ends, any unused mana left in a player's mana pool is lost. Up until Magic 2010, a player would also lose 1 life for each unspent mana lost this way. This was called mana burn, and because it was the loss of life instead of damage, it could not be prevented or altered by effects that affect damage. Mana burn was eliminated from the game with the rules overhaul that took place during the release of Magic 2010.