Teaching a Goldfish to Count Mana

Goldfishing is supposed to be the easy part. There’s no opponent, no combat, no stack. You draw seven, play a land, cast some ramp and see what turn your commander comes down. A goldfish could do it. That’s the joke in the name.

It turns out the goldfish needs a law degree.

Commander mana is mostly basics, and the long tail is where it gets interesting: a bounce land with nothing to bounce, an aura sitting on the land you’re about to pick up, a mana rock that cares what your opponents control. We built boards by hand for the strangest cases we could find, ran the goldfish against every one, and taught it to read the fine print.

Lands with opinions

Every land, rock and creature is now its own card with its own tapped state, and the battlefield shows it: whatever paid for something turns sideways, the way it would at a real table. Checklands, fastlands and slowlands are judged against your actual board and hand, and fetches crack when they should.

Our favorite cases came from this round. A Boros Garrison with no other land to return has to bounce itself, so the goldfish plays the Plains in your hand first. A Simic Growth Chamber could pick up the Forest wearing your Utopia Sprawl, so it picks the land without one, and tells you when an aura does go to the graveyard.

And Cabal Coffers now works when you play the Minas Morgul printing. Same card, different name on the frame, so the goldfish reads the card, not the name.

Every card is its own rules question

Each card makes what its text says. Thran Dynamo makes three. Signets pay their own {1} first. Elvish Archdruid counts your Elves, Sanctum Weaver counts your enchantments, and Kami of Whispered Hopes makes as much as it hits for. Fellwar Stone makes any color, because a Commander table always has opponents with lands, and Exotic Orchard already agreed.

Some cards fought back. Harabaz Druid counts your Allies, and for one afternoon the goldfish was very sure the singular of “Allies” was “Allie.” Read closely, Academy Manufactor makes no extra Treasure from a Treasure. Xorn does, and with Smothering Tithe out that’s six Treasures a round instead of three. We checked.

The commander comes first

Each turn is planned. After the land drop, the goldfish tries the orders of the ramp in your hand and asks one question first: is there any way to cast the commander this turn? If there is, it does, plus whatever ramp still fits, so a Mind Stone never eats the mana your commander needed. If there isn’t, it casts the ramp that leaves the most mana for next turn, Cultivate and Rampant Growth included, and Dark Ritual only on the turn it gets your commander out early.

A cast commander counts on the battlefield too. Mox Amber taps for it, Gaea’s Cradle counts it, and an Elf commander that taps for mana makes mana from the next turn on. Partners each get their own turn.

Numbers you can trust

A session is a record of what happened, so a reload shows exactly what the turn showed, tapped cards and all. Cards a ramp spell drew count toward your draw stats, and “Mana from rocks” and “Mana from dorks” mean your best turn, the same for a game you play and an automated run.

Run it again

If you’ve goldfished a deck before, run it again. Open your deck, choose Goldfish, and tap Run 10 automated from History for a fresh read on your commander turn. Your old sessions are still there to compare. Your Cultivate deck may come out a turn faster than you thought, or your tapland-heavy mana base a turn slower.

The goldfish still doesn’t play against anyone. No removal, no counterspells, no combat. It does count your mana like it read every card, which took more law school than we’d like to admit.

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