LogFAQs > #978983201

There was another game by Wizards of the Coast called Duel Masters that had a really cool mana system where there was no land and every card in the game was overloaded to be able to be played as mana if you chose to play them upside down as your one mana play a turn. For instance you could instead of playing Lightning Bolt that does 3 damage to anything as an instant you could play it upside down and have it function as a mountain.

It was really neat. Game never really took off though.

Was also a fan of the Star Wars CCG that let each player start with mana in play and holding control of locations was used to do damage to your opponent and most locations had mana symbols for both sides of the board. And then Legend of the Five Rings was kinda cool because you'd get 4 cards revealed a turn so it was unlikely you'd ever get clogged with mana.

There are actually a lot of games with better mana systems than mtg but mtg is the bare minimum of passable. I'd probably rate it like a 20-30 as one of the weaker elements of the core game to be honest. Getting mana screwed either way (too much or too little) feels real bad and there's no real out for it.

End rambling tirade.