[2019] PSA: With ELD releasing soon, be extra careful with auto tapper when dealing with spells that have adamant.

Mana payment conditions like Adamant certainly were a new challenge for Autotap. I think we did a pretty good job with our solution to the interface though.

If the mana you have available makes it possible for you to choose between paying the adamant cost and not doing so, you will be offered that choice at payment time. There will be two buttons, one which pays the adamant mana, and one which avoids paying it. You can also at that time manually produce the mana you want. #wotc_staff

There's a lot of differences (timing, UI, rules interactions), but I suppose there are similarities too. They both happen between you dragging the card out from your hand and your opponent seeing the action you've performed. #wotc_staff

I'd argue our solutions are pretty different. They have you make a choice at priority-time, which constrains which mana is qualified to pay for the cost. We have an autotap-only choice at payment time, which determines which of two autotap solutions to execute.

We have meetings with MtGO and paper R&D about upcoming sets to communicate which cards or mechanics that have digital playability or implementation problems. But in terms of "fingers to keyboard" solutions, our code bases are divergent enough that we don't have too much to discuss about EXACTLY how we're going to solve the problems a new set presents us. #wotc_staff

I hesitate to be pedantic (even though it sort of is my job), but it's not exactly like Spectacle. Spectacle is a choice about which alternative cost to pay for an action, which takes place in the step of performing an action outlined by my "favorite" rule, 601.2b. The choice you make for Adamant in Arena takes place later, when determining the total cost, activating mana abilities, and applying your payment (601.2f through 2h, which is sort of one blob in the GRE).

So, there is a rules difference, yes. But there's also a UI difference - when you drag out a spectacle card, the screen dims and what we call a browser opens up of all the alternative costs you could pay (or the normal one). Whereas with Adamant, you'll see the normal battlefield and two buttons in the bottom right of the two autotap strategies. #wotc_staff

Yup. #wotc_staff

I believe you have to turn autotap off in your options to enable manual mana spending. We've changed it a lot in the past though, so I don't remember if you also need to be in full control... #wotc_staff