Thanks as always, Dave! Could you or someone here explain to me the deeper reasoning behind why part of the criteria for an ABILITY being specifically a Mana ABILITY is that it does not target? Is it because it does not use the stack and anything that targets has to use the stack?
I think this is generally the reason. To put it a bit more technically, the issue is that ordinarily, when a target is no longer legal at the time the ability is trying to resolve, the ability gets countered. On the other hand, making it so mana abilities could possibly get countered could lead to some awkward situations where a person doesn't have enough mana to cast something even though they started out looking like they would. Some mana abilities involve, for example, sacrificing permanents or removing cards from graveyards. And some targeted abilities that can produce mana target permanents or cards in graveyards. So it's not clear how those would interact. Could you exile a card with Deathrite Shaman and respond by exiling it with Titan's Nest and get 2 mana out of that? Making it so mana abilities can't have targets solves this problem.
Thanks for the video. Thought of an interesting question: If you have Kaheera as your companion in a different color sleeve and then place it on top of your deck with Jace, the Mind Sculptor, are you required to change the color of the sleeve, since the position of the card in the deck is known? Presumably, it would not be known to your opponent, but this would be given away because one changes the sleeve beforehand, etc
