Talk:Spend mana

Taxonomy and nomenclature

Naming this page/ability/behaviour has been a bit tricky. Obviously for now all such cards are termed "Forbidden", but it seems to me there are likely to be more such cards in the future, and I doubt they will always be called "Forbidden X". As soon as a card which isn't called "Forbidden X" appears, the label "Forbidden" will become ill-fitting.

The behaviour itself comprises two components: All available mana is consumed (this is a card effect); then the card's main effect is increased proportionate to the amount of mana spent. Arguably the effect isn't increased so much as it equals the amount of mana spent.

In terms of abilities, the ability should be "Consume all mana". But that only covers the first part. Then we either have an "Increase effect by amount equal to mana consumed" ability, or a "Proportional effect" tag. The latter seemed a catchier term. Once we have the tag, the ability becomes a little redundant, in that all cards with the former currently also have the latter, and there doesn't seem much point in having two identical ability/tag card list pages, with the exact same cards on them. Certainly in the future if we get some cards which consume all mana but don't increase their effect, we could split the pages - although I can't see what benefit such a card would provide. In the meantime the "Proportional effect" tag seems to better cover the general behaviour, without referring to specifics, than "Consume all mana", which is more specific and yet tells only half of the tale. We could also have a "Variable cost" tag, but that would be a bit of misnomer for this specific behaviour, since it also fits a ton of cards listed on in-hand effect, eg Sea Giant.

So, for now I've plonked for "Proportional effect". I'm open to feedback, and general lamenting of the woes of data organisation on a card game wiki. -- Taohinton (talk) 00:01, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Cho'gall

There should be a section about interaction with Cho'Gall. It's quite obvious that nothing changes, but it might be mentioned. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2016‎ 5.79.177.83 (talk • contribs) 10:45, 15 April

I've added a note to Cho'gall about this. It's a good point, but better mentioned there, since Cho'gall is one card, and the future might see several more proportional effects added. -- Taohinton (talk) 21:37, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Name and scope

This comment was written by Jerodast (talk) for their recent edit:

"This is either a poorly named page or a poorly chosen destination for these notes, all of which assume that every proportional effect spends mana. We should probably just rename it Forbidden or "Spend mana" and un-tag Living Mana."

I think this observation is relevant enough to be promoted to the Talk page. -- BigHugger (talk) 21:34, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

I also agree with both elements in Jerodast's statement. First, the name. I understand where "proportional" is coming from, but I think it's much simpler and easier to understand to just stick to the terms used in the game. Not "Forbidden" though, as there can be other cards with the same effect and without forbidden in the name. Also not just "spend mana", as that's something we do for every card played. I'd go for either "Spend all mana" or "Spend remaining mana". (And perhaps add effect, so "Spend all mana effect" - but that's probably too clunky)

I also agree with untagging Living Mana, as this card differs completely from the "forbidden" cards. The forbidden cards work on mana crystals not used in the turn, use them, but don't destroy them. Living Mana, on the other hand, does not look at how much mana is left to spend, it simply destroys mana crystals (starting, I believe, with the empty ones). I think that relevant notes for Living Mana should be on that cards page, unless people expect (I don't!) that Blizzard will print more cards with the same effect. -- BigHugger (talk) 21:34, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

If we want this page to care about effects that increase their magnitude proportionally with mana (either available mana or maximum mana), we should keep the tag to Living Mana (as the number of Mana Treants depends on the number of maximum mana, like damage dealt by Forbidden Flame depends on the number of available mana). In this case, probably we should still change the name of the tag to reflect these effects are proportional to mana (as opposed, for example, to Frostwolf Warlord'effect, which scales with the number of minion on the battlefield), and maybe within the page we should differentiate effects that are proportional to available mana (the Forbidden cards) and those that are proportional to maximum mana (currently, only Living Mana).

On the other hand, if we want this page to talk about cards that consume mana as part of their effect, we should un-tag Living Mana (and still rename the page, maybe to "Cosume mana effects"?).

Of course, we can have both pages too. However, I prefer to leave cards whose effects scale with the number of "something" (available mana for Forbidden Flame, cards played for Edwin VanCleef, minions in play for Frostwolf Warlord, uses of Hero Powers for Frost Giant, ...) to the "Related cards" section of the relevant page. We can still think on creating a page with all "scaling effects" whose magnitude is proportional to the number of "something" (thus including Forbidden spells, Living Mana, Frostwolf Warlord, Edwin VanCleef, Solemn Vigil,...), although I'm not sure it is worth the work...

Regarding this page, I express a light preference on keeping this page only for cards which consume mana as part of their effect (renaming it accordingly and un-tagging Living Mana), consistently with the Refresh Mana page for effects that refill mana. Elekim (talk) 09:55, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Sounds like we 3 agree the page should only be for Forbidden-type ability. "Proportional to mana" is an arbitrary distinction - "Available mana" and "mana crystals" are already different things, so why draw the line there and not include all scaling effects? Also, the mechanics have totally different details. I tried phrasing the notes on the page to apply to both until I realized pretty much every note there could ONLY apply to the Forbidden style of effect, not Living Mana's.

Living Mana destroys crystals and summons minions for every one, just like DOOM! destroys minions and draws cards for every one. It doesn't need to be lumped together with the Forbiddens just because they both use the word "mana".

Before we do much we should settle on a name. Supporting my proposals:

• "Forbidden" - Informally naming unnamed mechanics after cards they first appear on is reasonable. No name will be "correct" for new cards with the same mechanic, since the mechanic is, after all, unnamed. Calling it Forbidden is evocative of the original cards, like how Mind control effect is evocative of Mind Control and Mind Control Tech, despite the actual card text saying "Take control" or "Gain control". This is not inherently wrong as long as it's recognizable. This is more of a flavorful rather than a literal option, like when we call ogres Clumsy or Forgetful, not "Attacks randomly". But since the flavor comes from the cards and not the mechanic in this case, I agree we can go with a more literal option.
• "Spend mana" as an ability is not present on all cards; it is an ability of only these cards. Yes, the player spends mana on nearly any card, but the card itself does not have that as an ability. This is the same as the Cast spell ability of Yogg-Saron and others: any spell can be cast by the player, but only a few cards have the "Cast spell" ability. Similarly, all minions with an Attack value can Deal damage, but only some cards have the Deal damage ability. It's a distinction between "general game rules" and explicit card abilities.

My objections to the others so far:

• "Spend all mana" seems unnecessarily narrow and could force us into another name change down the road. BigHugger suggested new non-Forbidden cards that also spend mana. What if one of them has a limit of how much mana can be spent? Even though the current examples all spend all mana, it seems likely that the designers will continue exploring the general idea of spending extra mana. We can't predict exactly what they'll do, but we can be open to it. Besides, Deathwing "spends all mana" too :P
• "Consume mana" sounds cool, but it's not the phrasing used on cards. There's no particular reason to use this synonym instead of the exact word.

Also, I think it should be considered an ability, like "Freeze" or "Cast spell", not an effect like "triggered effect" or "in-hand effect". Spending mana is a thing these cards DO, not a modifier for some other effect.

- jerodast (talk) 20:13, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

My favourite is "Spend mana" (we should use the same capitalization for this and Refresh Mana, so change this to "Spend Mana" or change that to "Refresh mana"), to be tagged as an ability. I agree that "Consume mana" sounds cool, and also that there is no particular reason to use a synonym of the actual cards' text. The "Forbidden" option is related to the name of the first (and only, for now) cards with this effect but, differently from "Mind control effects", it is unrelated both to their flavour and to their actual text: I think "Spend mana" is equally recongnizable, but in addition it is related to what these cards actually do and say, and leaves the category open for future cards with similar effects but different names. Elekim (talk) 06:03, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

I, too, am in favor of "Spend Mana".

To be completely honest, I would have preferred to call the effect "Spend Remaining Mana", but that's because I think that the word "Remaining" should have been printed on the card text of all forbidden cards. Since Blizzard decided against this, and because Jerodast has a good point that the future might see a "spend mana but not more than X" card, I support "Spend Mana".

I checked the text of the article and there's nothing there that is specific to Living Mana. The only thing that needs changing are the wording of the opening paragraph and the first line of the Notes section. (And, of course, the tags of Living Mana itself need to be updated).

If we are all on the same page now, I will happily volunteer to make the changes. (There are also a few other changes I'll make, to stress the "remaining" part of the effect a bit more). -- BigHugger (talk) 18:16, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

I changed most things on other pages including card tags and links to this page. I changed some of this page to get the basics working but the Notes and Strategy still needs rephrasing, maybe some others. - jerodast (talk) 20:17, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Moving page soon

I'm moving this page to Spend mana in about 10 minutes. Just want to make sure nobody gets their edits interrupted. After the move I will take care of updating incoming links to the old page. - jerodast (talk) 19:13, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Move complete. By the way, I used lowercase m because the card text does. Yes, this is inconsistent with Refresh Mana, because the Refresh Mana card text actually says "Refresh your Mana Crystals", because "Mana Crystal" is always capitalized and plain "mana" is not. Hearthstone is dumb :P - jerodast (talk) 19:28, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

After further investigation, I have discovered I am completely full of crap. The card text does capitalize Mana. I could swear in the past most "mana" was lowercase, but either I'm wrong (likely) or they've improved consistency (never!). I only see a few exceptions now: Gazlowe, Forbidden Ancient (though not in the phrase "Spend all your Mana"), Fate: Bananas, and Living Mana.

Personally I always hated capitalizing everything anyway, and trying to lead a crusade against all the lowercase occurrences of "mana" in articles would be a nightmare. I say we either drop the attempt to follow card text capitalization, or let it be a guideline for new content without being a "rule". - jerodast (talk) 17:47, 2 May 2017 (UTC)