Can Izzet Guildgate be tapped for colorless mana? For example, could I tap 7 Guildgates to cast Karn Liberated?
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3Welcome to Board & Card Games! If you're asking this question, you've probably missed learning some fundamentals about the game. I suggest you read the Basic Rulebook (first link on the page) - it's a basic coverage of all the rules, in more depth than the booklet which comes with starter decks.– doppelgreenerNov 17, 2014 at 0:29
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This site welcomes basic rules questions. Can whomever voted to close please explain why?– RainboltNov 17, 2014 at 14:38
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1 Answer
You can use a guildgate to help pay for Karn, but it doesn't involve colorless mana.
When you see a grey circle with a number mana symbol in a cost, like the {7} in Karn's casting cost, that's actually called a generic mana cost. You can spend any color of mana to pay for that cost. So you can, say, tap an Izzet Guildgate for red (or blue) mana and use that to pay for one of that seven mana.
Colorless mana, on the other hand, is what's produced when you see something like "add {1} to your mana pool", again with the grey circle with a number, for example on Tomb of the Spirit Dragon. You can use that to pay for generic mana costs too - so you could use colorless mana to cast Karn, but you don't have to. Any color will do.
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1Yes, it's a bit unfortunate that the same symbol has different meanings based on context. Maybe in some alternate universe, generic costs are designated with * or something.– Hao YeNov 17, 2014 at 0:06
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4One way to think about it is that mana sources that produce colorless mana doesn't provide any color of mana, and generic mana costs don't require any color of mana.– murgatroid99 ♦Nov 17, 2014 at 0:15
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@murgatroid99 Thanks. That helps a lot with rule problems I've had in the past. Nov 17, 2014 at 0:54