Magic: The Gathering Designer Explains the Change to Converted Mana Cost

One of the changes coming when Magic: The Gathering's Strixhaven: School of Mages set releases on April 23rd in addition to new mechanics is an update to a longstanding phrase in the popular card game from Wizards of the Coast: converted mana cost. As of Strixhaven, "converted mana cost" will now simply be "mana value." Converted mana cost, and now mana value, is simply the total cost of a spell converted to all colorless mana. For example, Prismari Apprentice, which you can check out below, has a mana value of 2. We've known that the change was coming, and thanks to a recent press event, we better understand why the designers made the change at all.

"One of the things I love about working on Magic is we're always looking to improve and iterate," said Mike Turian, principal product designer on Magic: The Gathering, said during the event, "and with mana value, we just saw this opportunity, right? There's always been nomenclature confusion about converted mana cost and what it means. It's also a lot to be writing out, right? That's a pretty hefty phrase to be putting on cards, where space is very valuable. So through testing and in discussion, we found that mana value really would capture a lot of that same information that converted mana cost does better to newer players and more concisely for everyone."

As noted above, Magic: The Gathering's latest and greatest expansion, Strixhaven: School of Mages, is set to release on April 23rd. You can check out all of our previous coverage of the popular card game from Wizards of the Coast right here.

What do you think about what we have seen of the Strixhaven set for Magic: The Gathering so far? Are you excited to see more? Let us know in the comments, or feel free to reach out and hit me up directly over on Twitter at @rollinbishop to talk about all things gaming!