A Layperson's History of Getting {U} from a Stone, Part 4, Part I of II

For the past few weeks, I've been idly speaking about artifacts (and lands) in Magic's history that give mana of any color. Some give a few mana up and then sacrifice themselves, some convert generic mana or life into the color of mana you need, and others can produce mana of any color, but usually don't, or restrict how you can spend it.

Because generating mana of any color is so powerful and because lands are so cheap, the drawbacks and conditions for those types of lands are widely varied and quite unpredictable. Almost wild, really. 

In each Magic game, you have a total amount of mana you generate between each of your untap steps. If there's a land that isn't tapped when you start your turn, it's wasted potential (mostly). The goal is to have a progression of mana that you've used every turn until you've won. If you stall at four lands, that total for the first five turns looks like 1+2+3+4+4. By that fifth turn, your first land has given you five mana.

If you have Undiscovered Paradise in your hand, you're going to have to decide at some point whether to play a land that's going to churn out mana every turn or play UP again to cast a spell now and face the same dilemma next turn. Undiscovered Paradise doesn't cost you one land drop or one mana, but one mana every turn you have to replay it. If you tap it for a color of mana you can already produce, it's even more futile.