Understanding The New Kozilek and Wastes: How To Cast It and What Is Colorless Mana Now

Friday, December 11th, 2015

In case you missed it, today, during the World Magic Cup, the previously spoiled Kozilek and Wastes were confirmed. Going into today’s announcement the big question was what that strange mana symbol on Kozilek and Wastes. As it turns out, that symbol is the new symbol for “colorless” mana. Now, you’re probably saying to yourself, “But I thought colorless mana was already a thing.” It is, but now we’ll be dealing with colorless mana and generic mana. I know it sounds a little confusing, so let me try to break it down for you. First take a look at this tweet from Wizards.

See Kozilek's casting cost? That's the colorless mana symbol. You pay 8 mana of any color and 2 more colorless mana pic.twitter.com/397ZlehW91

— Magic: The Gathering (@wizards_magic) December 11, 2015

Everything you need to know in contained in that one tweet. Kozilek’s casting cost is a total of 10 mana. Now, 8 of that mana can come from any land – Forests, Plains, Swamps, Islands, Mountains, and even the new Wastes. Two of the ten mana, however, has to specifically come from the sources that specifically make colorless mana. That means lands like Llanowar Wastes and Shivan Reef can be used to make colorless mana because they give you the option to tap them for either their respective colors or (specifically) colorless mana. However, and this is important, lands like Hinterland Harbor or Stomping Ground cannot because they only make colored mana.

Let’s take a look at an artifact like Sol Ring. Sol Ring will still cost you (1) to cast. That means you can use any type of mana to cast it. However, the mana it produces is now considered (c)(c). That’s two colorless mana. This type of mana will fulfill the colorless requirement needed by the new Kozilek.

Are you still with me?

Now let’s talk about Wastes. According to the announcement, Wastes is a basic land. But the special thing about Wastes is that it does not have a subtype. So it’s not a Forest or a Swamp. Still, effects that retrieve basic lands will allow you to get the land Wastes. And by effects, I mean cards like Evolving Wilds.

Another important thing to know about is how Wastes will affect your drafting game, especially if you play online. Wastes will not be a land you can add at the end of the draft. In fact, in order to have it in your deck, you need to actually draft the land. Now, R&D understood what kind of issues that this may cause. So, in order to address that issue what they’ve done is made the card twice as common as other commons. So, there should be plenty to go around. In addition, there will be other ways to make colorless mana whether it be by other non-common lands, artifacts, or even creatures.

Basically, the TL:DR version of the story is colorless mana is now specifically categorized.

One last thing. Due to the fact that Wastes is a basic land, you can also have as many copies of this land in your constructed deck. Keep that in mind if you plan on building something in Standard. Also, they haven’t said if these lands will be printed outside of this set or in the future (mainly because it’s too early), but those of you who play Commander may want to get your hands on a stack of these as they may become a limited commodity.

I know that I’m repeating a lot of what had been said in the announcement video, but sometimes you just have to see it to believe it and understand it. I hope this helped you understand things a little bit more. If you have any comments or questions, make sure do leave something in the box below. See you all next time!

Tags: kozilek the great distortion, oath of the gatewatch, wastes
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