Let's Ruin Some Peoples' Days

Hi there! I hope you're in the mood to make a bunch of people either really annoyed or really interested, depending on the way your friends react to stuff like this.

Avatar: the Last Airbender has been around a long time; I remember friends of mine recommending it to me over 20 years ago. Now I have a younger kid, people are recommending it again as something she and I could watch together. It never caught me, though - to this day I've never seen an episode.

A lot of people are awfully excited about the release, though, and it certainly looks as though there will be some really fun ways to interact with the game. My fellow writer on this very site even wrote a great article on existing cards which support Earthbend, one of the new mechanics from Avatar.

And in my playgroup's chat, a bunch of ideas have been flying around about this card.

Very cool, we all agree. But then... then my friend Stuart sent a picture of Toph, along with two other cards. (Stuart is a great player, a great friend, and the guy who did these awesome graphics for my article on who could play Chandra Nalaar in the Magic movie.)

He added the following two images:

At first, we kind of thought this interaction made infinite mana of the chosen color. But something didn't sit right. So, I asked my fellow CSI writers and ultimately checked with a judge. Let me explain this interaction if you haven't seen it yet - all credit to Stuart, by the way!

With Toph, Caged Sun (on Red, though it doesn't actually matter), and a Mountain (or a Land which creates the chosen color), Caged Sun is now a Land. It does not have the ability to tap for mana, but it is a Land.

Caged Sun makes it so "whenever a land's ability causes you to add one or more mana of the chosen color, add one additional mana of that color."

Now tap the Mountain for Red. Caged Sun triggers, adding another Red (because a Land added a mana of the chosen color). Now Caged Sun - itself a Land, thanks to Toph - has added a mana of the chosen color... and so it must do it again.

But wait! Now Caged Sun has added a mana of the chosen color. So, it does it again. And again. And again... infinitely.

This combination does make infinite mana. The problem is, you can't stop it. Caged Sun's triggered ability is not a "may" ability - it happens every. Single. Time. You make a mana from a Land of the chosen color.

And the game comes to a draw, because there is no way to interrupt the combo.

"But wait!" you cry. "What if I cast an Instant to use all that mana? Say, Comet Storm to kill all my opponents?

Good thinking, but no. Mana abilities don't use the stack and cannot be responded to - so once the chain begins, there is no stopping it. Basically, it does this, except instead of being with multiple Oblivion Rings, it does it with Toph and Caged Sun.

My editor at CoolStuffInc pointed out there is little reason to run Caged Sun in a three-color deck, and he's not wrong... unless you actually want to make this happen. To talk about why you might want that, I'll refer you to this gem by an old colleague of mine, Jason Alt, back in his 75% Commander days. Drawing the game is an actual choice you're allowed to make, and while it flies in the face of the generally accepted goal - to beat the rest of the table - there is nothing that says we're not allowed to tie things up if we want.

Maybe you want to run Caged Sun in your Toph build. Maybe not. If you do, though, understand you cannot avoid this effect if you choose a color you are capable of creating. Once it goes off, you will, as my fellow writer Levi Perry said, "you hold the table hostage to a draw."

Thanks for reading.