To help clarify, the judge meant to say you can "activate mana abilities at times you wouldn't be able to cast an instant." Instead of cast a mana ability, as abilities aren't cast, but instead activated.
the line about only activating LED didn't do as much as i thought it did, and means that I've misplayed against it a couple times. I'd thought that LED was basically a special mana ability that used the stack , and thus could be Stifled. Turns out i've been wrong on that!
Got a question: Since LED has the text "Activate this ability only any time you could cast an instant" would that mean you could counter it using a card like "Disallow"? Thanks for the great content
No. That "activate only as an instant" is to prevent you from doing the following: "I wish to cast CARDNAME from my hand. Now I will activate mana abilities to pay its cost. I activate LED, discarding the rest of my hand. Now my spell is cast."
To help clarify, the judge meant to say you can "activate mana abilities at times you wouldn't be able to cast an instant." Instead of cast a mana ability, as abilities aren't cast, but instead activated.
That was a tricky one. At first I thought, yes it works, then second guessed because of the timing restriction on LED. Glad to know it works.
the line about only activating LED didn't do as much as i thought it did, and means that I've misplayed against it a couple times. I'd thought that LED was basically a special mana ability that used the stack , and thus could be Stifled. Turns out i've been wrong on that!
Neat
Got a question: Since LED has the text "Activate this ability only any time you could cast an instant" would that mean you could counter it using a card like "Disallow"? Thanks for the great content
Why? Mana abilities doesn't go to the stack and because of it they can't be target/countered
No. That "activate only as an instant" is to prevent you from doing the following:
"I wish to cast CARDNAME from my hand. Now I will activate mana abilities to pay its cost. I activate LED, discarding the rest of my hand. Now my spell is cast."
Forgot, that mana abilitys dont wait on the stack. Won't happen again ;-)
So 12.5 out of 16
Wait, so that means if my opponent resolves a Mana Leak, I can't* use LED to pay for it?
You can, but you need to activate it before Mana Leak starts to resolve so the mana will be in your mana pool already.