Mana management and paying costs

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This is an enhancement/usability issue.

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
0.8.1 on 5.00 M33-6

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. Add mana to your mana pool to pay for a spell/ability
2. Move to the next phase... oops

or

1. Select an ability that requires a mana cost

or

1. Prepare to play Counterspell, but tap 3 blue mana... oops

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?

PART 1 - Misclicking "next phase" (R) instead of opening your hand to play
a spell (L). -__-
This happens to me a lot. Just a simple "If there's mana in your mana pool
and you try to move onto the the next phase, confirm with the player."

There's mana in your mana pool! Would you like to move to the next phase?
[y/n]

PART 2 - Overtapping mana

In Magic, you usually give yourself or your opponent at least a few seconds
to try and think out his mana, tapping it accordingly, arranging it, etc.
In Magic online you can alt+U to untap the last tapped land so long as no
nonmana abilities have been played yet since you tapped it. In other
virtual card tables like Magic Workstation, this is obviously a nonissue,
since you can communicate with your opponent.

Enhancement: It should be possible to untap the last series of times a land
or mana source was used, so long as the player hasn't taken any game
actions (played a spell, ability).
Just push the mana's source and what mana it produced onto a stack, and
then have a button undo the last ability (pop the top source, untap that
source, remove the mana from your pool). Obviously triggered mana abilities
can't be undone like this (fertile ground), but for 99% of situations this
is incredibly useful.

The warning adressed in PART 1 would also give you an opportunity to maybe
use unintentionally overtapped mana.

PART 3 - Paying mana costs

Here's the biggie...

When I select an ability with [cost] (let's say the cost is 'sacrifice a
creature'), it waits for a target to be selected, then it waits for me to
pay [cost] (I select the creature to sac, card to discard, etc.).

This is in line with the main method of how spells are played under Magic
the Gathering's rules:

I. Declare the spell, put it onto the stack
II. Choose modes
III. Choose targets
IV. Choose how the spell/ability affects the target
V. Determine costs (mana, other actions)
VI. If you must pay mana, you may activate mana abilities.
VII. Pay all the costs.
VIII. The spell is "played." (Now, "casted"/"activated")

When I decide to interrupt my opponent's Craw Wurm, I must first tap 1 U,
then check my hand and select Remove Soul to counter it.
Abilities like, say, Nantuko Husk, ask for payment (in the form of game
actions) after the ability is declared. I also have to option of cancelling.
An ability that requires mana does not.

*I select a spell to be played*
[figures out mana cost, if mana is not in pool]
"Play mana abilities." *let's player play an ability*
*I tap a land for mana*
[If correct mana is not in pool, do nothing, else play the spell/ability]

The current system *seems like it's already like this:

*I play mana abilities*
*I select a spell to be played*
[If correct mana is not in pool, do nothing, else play the spell/ability]
*I close my hand and tap more land for mana, reselect spell/ability*
etc.

Obviously implementing the former would not restrict the ability to do the
latter (you have the option, as you do in paper magic, to pay costs before
you declare a spell, as well as after you declare a spell while it's on the
stack waiting to be played).

I would go a step farther and suggest PART 2 (untapping sources) could also
still apply during the playing of a spell, since the "stack of mana
abilities" would not be cleared until a game action is taken, which could
be when a spell/ability is "successfully played" (put onto the
stack/chain/or however Wagic does it).

SUMMARY/CONCLUSION:

For usability enhancement, a warning when going to the next step if there's
mana in your pool.
For usability enhancement, the ability to quick-undo tapping mana sources
For Magic rules satisfaction, play familiarity, usability, etc. 
enhancement, the ability to pay for mana costs at the same time as all
other costs, after the spell has been declared.

:D

Original issue reported on code.google.com by jvdth...@gmail.com on 13 Oct 2009 at 5:43

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Original comment by wagic.the.homebrew@gmail.com on 14 Oct 2009 at 11:19

• Added labels: Priority-Low, Type-Enhancement
• Removed labels: Priority-Medium, Type-Defect

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I just see an issue here... some cards would have a text line like "each time 
you 
tap a land" or "for each tapped land"... in this case you could trick the 
engine to 
get more bonus than you should be able to.

it's currently the case if you have attacker ...you can indefinitely tap and 
untap 
(was not the case in prior version of WTH)... if the said cards has e.g. "draw 
a 
card each time this cards get tapped" (is actually the case for fallowsage from 
LRW) 
then you can draw as many cards as you want.

The same kind of issue would occur if you can tap/untap a land indefinitely.

Original comment by wagic.la...@gmail.com on 14 Oct 2009 at 12:27

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Obviously if any game event occurs (like a triggered ability) then you wouldn't 
be
able to undo tapping of lands (for instance, it's simply impossible to undo 
tapping a
city of brass for mana in Magic Online).

Original comment by jvdth...@gmail.com on 14 Oct 2009 at 4:15

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Moved to wiki, rather than issue tracker. The new policy is to keep all 
discussion of
ideas, etc, on the wiki. The issue tracker should only be used to track 
legitimate
bugs. Please use the "enhancement" label only to denote an issue where current
performance is acceptable, but may be enhanced. See issue 12 or issue 87 as an
example of proper use.

All game design discussion should take place on the wiki or over email. Thanks 
:)
(I'm actually one of the most guilty of abusing the issue, so please don't take
offense. We've just changed policy now.)

See http://wololo.net/miki/index.php/Wagic/Dev/ManaGUI for latest discussion on 
the
"mana gui" topic.

Original comment by wagic.jeck@gmail.com on 25 Oct 2009 at 7:14

• Changed state: Invalid