Petition to Change Mana Confluence Into a Good and Interesting Card

JopeX37

So in playing DDZE with Nissa in the initial phase, we get to sample Mana Confluence and to be quite honest it is severely lacking.  If this new Duel format is going to be a staple going forward, it seems unfitting that one of the first exclusive mythics be so underwhelming.  And why is it underwhelming?  Because there is so much work to put in for so little gain.  If you're lucky you can maybe activate the card twice in one turn, and even if you do that, you still only get 40% of the benefit of just playing Gilded Lotus.  And even then, it only lasts for one turn.  It's just a lame card.

So what's the solution?  I think each activation should permanently boost that color's mana gain.  However, that could become abusive in some contexts, especially with the recent printing of mass gem destroyers like Fall of the Thran, Shapeshift, and Rupture Spire.  So I propose two further modifications. First, each activation should remove a shield.  This should obviously keep the card in check a little.  Second, in paper, when you use Mana Confluence, it pings you for one damage.  In keeping with that flavor, each activation should do some amount of damage to you, I think I would settle on either 2 or 3.  This would create interesting situations, especially in enraged events(this is a legacy card, after all).  So the final card would read:

Mana Conflunce
7 Mana
5 Shields
Activate one of each color: Permanently increase you mana bonus for that color by one.  This support loses one shield.  This support deals 2/3 damage to you.

What do you think?

Mburn7

3 damage and drop the shields to 4 (so stacking them doesn't go nuts) and that is a solid card.  Not totally busted, but would definitely see some use, especially with all the new cards that care about mana bonuses.

Or, drop the shield loss but cap it at +3 to every color (like how Karn works)

wereotter

The problem I'm seeing with your suggestion is how god awful a permanent boost would be in Koth decks, especially since this is a legacy card where Koth can now cascade with massive mana bonuses fueled by him hitting all those activated gems into Olivias to regain the life lost.

I think the card is interesting as-is and have been able to do some fun things with it (like activating the green gem two turns in a row and using that bonus to get extra forest elementals when casting Avenger of Zendikar) but it is admittedly more of a niche card to use.

If you wanted it to act more like its paper counterpart, however, I might suggest activated gems of every color that simply give you more mana when they're hit with a match only (see the problems with Koth again for having it happen whenever the gem is destroyed) and then hit you for a little damage.

Furks

The paper magic version does 1 damage, that's 1/20th of your life. That's more akin to doing 5-6 damage in Mtgpq. Granted they are separate games and don't necessarily have to mirror one another. 

Mburn7

wereotter said:

The problem I'm seeing with your suggestion is how god awful a permanent boost would be in Koth decks, especially since this is a legacy card where Koth can now cascade with massive mana bonuses fueled by him hitting all those activated gems into Olivias to regain the life lost.

I think the card is interesting as-is and have been able to do some fun things with it (like activating the green gem two turns in a row and using that bonus to get extra forest elementals when casting Avenger of Zendikar) but it is admittedly more of a niche card to use.

If you wanted it to act more like its paper counterpart, however, I might suggest activated gems of every color that simply give you more mana when they're hit with a match only (see the problems with Koth again for having it happen whenever the gem is destroyed) and then hit you for a little damage.

Isn't the card Green?  If so, Koth can't use it, so there's no issue there. 

If it is colorless you are absolutely correct that it would be bonkers with the new mono-colors, since they have really high starting bonuses

wereotter

Mburn7 said:

wereotter said:

The problem I'm seeing with your suggestion is how god awful a permanent boost would be in Koth decks, especially since this is a legacy card where Koth can now cascade with massive mana bonuses fueled by him hitting all those activated gems into Olivias to regain the life lost.

I think the card is interesting as-is and have been able to do some fun things with it (like activating the green gem two turns in a row and using that bonus to get extra forest elementals when casting Avenger of Zendikar) but it is admittedly more of a niche card to use.

If you wanted it to act more like its paper counterpart, however, I might suggest activated gems of every color that simply give you more mana when they're hit with a match only (see the problems with Koth again for having it happen whenever the gem is destroyed) and then hit you for a little damage.

Isn't the card Green?  If so, Koth can't use it, so there's no issue there. 

If it is colorless you are absolutely correct that it would be bonkers with the new mono-colors, since they have really high starting bonuses

The card is definitely colorless, I already use it in my Koth deck specifically because of how it interacts with his first ability.

Gun Bunny

Just bump the temp bonus to +2 or +3 for the single turn, and it merits its mythic classification, otherwise it is a rarer, strictly worse, gilded lotus.

Adding shield degradation doesn't exactly fit with it being a land, though the damage might be an acceptable trade-off, though if that becomes the case, I'd lean more towards +3 for the bonuses.

tfg76

How about this: Increase your mana bonus in that color by 1, then deal damage to you equal to your mana bonus in that color. 

wereotter

Gun Bunny said:

Just bump the temp bonus to +2 or +3 for the single turn, and it merits its mythic classification, otherwise it is a rarer, strictly worse, gilded lotus.

It's entirely possible to get better gains on your color with Mana Confluence than with Gilded Lotus. Let me explain how.

Let's say I'm playing Kiora with all her blue and green gem conversion options. Last turn my Vault of Calcatan cascaded me into matching two blue activated gems, and another gem conversion tool got me 1 green activated gem. Before I even make a match for my turn, that means I have my mana gains as +5 on blue and +4 on green.

Next turn, let's be generous and say again that my Vault of Calcatan hits another two blue activated gems. Since Mana Confluence keeps your mana bonus increased until the end of your next turn, my gains are now +7 on blue and +4 on green meaning for that turn any blue matches I make are worth 10 mana with Confluence rather than 7 mana with Gilded Lotus.

Obviously that's an example of overkill since Vault tends to run away with games on its own merits, but this also holds true for my earlier example of Koth. If you activate his first loyalty ability and hit a couple of the non-red gems, now you've gotten his gains for two turns increased on those colors in addition to likely cascades on red gems, further increasing his already large gains on red. And since this lasts until the next turn, when you go to use his first ability again, not only are your off color cascades now matching for more, but your red matches are also likely hitting harder.

Ultimately for on-color matches, its entirely possible to keep a +4 bonus going with Mana Confluence over the +1 Gilded Lotus offers as a static effect, and it comes down to which is the right tool for which deck and planeswalker. One is more high risk, high reward, the other is low risk, lower reward.

Gun Bunny

It only activates one gem of each color. There are times where you may see two of one color at the same time, but that's only when the color it's supposed to activate on can't be done because they're all energized/activated already/supports. This behavior can also be observed with Djinn of Wishes ETB trigger when all the existing blue gems are unavailable for creating its three wish support tokens.

The situation you describe gets you a rolling +2 under optimal conditions, with other cards interacting with it. Lotus gets you +1 all day, every day. By itself.

wereotter

Ah. Yes. It’s still, however, as I said. More reward at more risk rather than just being a safe card.

Also as a relevant difference, the game is starting to care about what type of card it is. As such, being a land, it can’t be returned by River’s Rebuke, it will get pulled up with full mana from Path to Exile, and it can’t be destroyed by any of the current trend of green support destruction. Gilded Lotus being an artifact has a different set of strengths and weaknesses, but my opinion is being a land makes Mana Confluence a stronger support. 

khurram

wereotter said:

Ah. Yes. It’s still, however, as I said. More reward at more risk rather than just being a safe card.

Also as a relevant difference, the game is starting to care about what type of card it is. As such, being a land, it can’t be returned by River’s Rebuke, it will get pulled up with full mana from Path to Exile, and it can’t be destroyed by any of the current trend of green support destruction. Gilded Lotus being an artifact has a different set of strengths and weaknesses, but my opinion is being a land makes Mana Confluence a stronger support. 

Current "trend of green support destruction" doesn't matter because this great land support is going straight to legacy where the current trend doesn't mean ****. 

Greg just cast rebuke to wipe my board and supports, wasting all of my mana invested in those? No problem, I've still got Mana confluence on board; joke is on Greg. Ha!

What's that? Greg used path to exile to get rid of my pig? Too bad you gave me a FREE Mana confluence in the bargain, Greg. Checkmate, matey!

Mburn7

khurram said:

wereotter said:

Ah. Yes. It’s still, however, as I said. More reward at more risk rather than just being a safe card.

Also as a relevant difference, the game is starting to care about what type of card it is. As such, being a land, it can’t be returned by River’s Rebuke, it will get pulled up with full mana from Path to Exile, and it can’t be destroyed by any of the current trend of green support destruction. Gilded Lotus being an artifact has a different set of strengths and weaknesses, but my opinion is being a land makes Mana Confluence a stronger support. 

Current "trend of green support destruction" doesn't matter because this great land support is going straight to legacy where the current trend doesn't mean tinykitty. 

Greg just cast rebuke to wipe my board and supports, wasting all of my mana invested in those? No problem, I've still got Mana confluence on board; joke is on Greg. Ha!

What's that? Greg used path to exile to get rid of my pig? Too bad you gave me a FREE Mana confluence in the bargain, Greg. Checkmate, matey!

I don't think he means the land subtype makes it a good card, just a better card.

I mean, in both of those scenarios you would have nothing on the board if you were running Lotus instead of Confluence.  So you are objectively better off because of the land subytpe.  

wereotter

Mburn7 said:

khurram said:

wereotter said:

Ah. Yes. It’s still, however, as I said. More reward at more risk rather than just being a safe card.

Also as a relevant difference, the game is starting to care about what type of card it is. As such, being a land, it can’t be returned by River’s Rebuke, it will get pulled up with full mana from Path to Exile, and it can’t be destroyed by any of the current trend of green support destruction. Gilded Lotus being an artifact has a different set of strengths and weaknesses, but my opinion is being a land makes Mana Confluence a stronger support. 

Current "trend of green support destruction" doesn't matter because this great land support is going straight to legacy where the current trend doesn't mean tinykitty. 

Greg just cast rebuke to wipe my board and supports, wasting all of my mana invested in those? No problem, I've still got Mana confluence on board; joke is on Greg. Ha!

What's that? Greg used path to exile to get rid of my pig? Too bad you gave me a FREE Mana confluence in the bargain, Greg. Checkmate, matey!

I don't think he means the land subtype makes it a good card, just a better card.

I mean, in both of those scenarios you would have nothing on the board if you were running Lotus instead of Confluence.  So you are objectively better off because of the land subytpe.  

Exactly. If you've been rebuked with Lotus, you've lost your mana gains for the next turn and either have to recast Lotus to get them back, or it was destroyed. With Confluence, you keep whatever mana gains you triggered even if the support is destroyed, and it's not swept back to your hand, meaning, not only do you still have the mana bonus, but you haven't taken up a spot in your hand with a support (since they get returned first, I believe) and possibly have saved a creature allowing you to recast it.

My point is entirely there are different benefits and strengths to this card that do not make it a simple strictly-worse Gilded Lotus. If it were buffed, I wouldn't mind, but I also can see the strengths in the card as-is.