On today's article you said that the first card without a Mana cost was Evermind, but that's wrong. The first cards without a Mana cost were lands.

Sorry, nonland was implied. It’s been fixed.

Isn't Augment parasitic design, like Evermind and splice onto arcane?

It’s parasitic. So is slivers (or was initially). There’s cool parasitic design space.

You said "No, you cannot. A zero mana cost and no mana cost are not the same thing.", but according to the rules I don't think that's accurate. When looking at the gatherer for Tolaria West, it says "Cards with mana cost 0 (like Pact of Negation) and cards with no mana cost (like Living End and every land) have converted mana cost 0.". I think using Richard Garfield allows you to use a land as a vision then.

Having a converted mana cost of 0 is not the same as having a mana cost of 0. Richard Garfield PhD requires cards to have a cost on both ends (what it is and what you turn it into). Lands, and Evermind, do not have a cost and thus cannot interact with Richard Garfield PhD.

You've said in the past that you don't do functional oracling of cards. Yet, when you first introduced the Color Indicator, you functionally oracled Evermind from Saviors of Kamigawa into not having the text "~ is blue." This is a functional Oracle change because it has Splice onto Arcane, and before this change it would cause any spell it was spliced onto to become a mono-Blue spell instead of its prior colors, and it no longer does that with the removal of the color text. Thoughts?

Trying to limit functional changes doesn’t mean they never happen.

Every Splice onto Arcane card is Arcane itself. Two copies of Desperate Ritual in a deck means you can use Splice. Without any energy outlets, you can't use everything on the card even when every card in the deck produces energy. I just can't see Splice onto Arcane as any different (parasitic-wise) than energy except you handled it better this time (Evermind would be equivalent to a card that uses energy but doesn't produce it).

The difference is subtle but important. The power of a Splice card is in the ability for it to be spliced, so a significant portion of the cost is allocated to the ability. An Energy card has its power resting on the value of Energy but because there’s an economy built in (all energy has the same basic value - see the chart from the mechanics panel at PAX), the output of the cost matches most of the power of the card. (It’s not 100% because of the optimization of synergy.) What this means is if you only buy a few packs of each set, Splice onto Arcane is much harder to use effectively in your pre-existing deck than Energy and thus is considered more parasitic.Note when talking about Energy I mean the cards that both grant and use Energy. The cards that only grant Energy are more parasitic than Splice onto Arcane.

I think arcane and energy are very similar in a functionally parasitic sense. Stuff like Glacial Ray and Kodama's Might are optimizing-parasitic. I think this is VERY similar to the energy cards, like Harnessed Lightning and the Thrivers. And cards that just produce energy seem just as parasitic as all splice cards (besides Evermind). I think the way you've defined functional parasiticism, it applies to almost no cards, which is why we assume you mean optimization parasitism without context.

Here’s a different deferent way to think of functional parasitism. When you look at the card, ask “did I get to do everything this card says it can do?”. For Splice onto Arcane, that’s using the ability splicing it onto another card. That requires at least one other card, one that is arcane (specifically from that block which is what makes it parasitic). An energy card (that produces and uses energy) doesn’t require another card to function. That is the difference.

Energy spell having a use outside of energy either because they still have another effect, or because they give you energy so you can spend it for the spell's effect, doesn't make this non-Parasitic. With the exception of Evermind, you can still play Splice onto Arcane spells in decks with no other Arcane spells, and it's often done with Through the Breach and with Desperate Ritual, in different Modern decks.

I never said Energy wasn’t parasitic. I said it was significantly less than parasitic than Splice onto Arcane. Splice onto Arcane is an additive (and powerful) ability. Spells with it have to pay extra for the ability so you have very little incentive to play a Splice spell you never plan to splice.Energy, in contrast, gives you an ability with the proper amount of energy to use that ability. Because there’s an Energy economy (each energy expenditure values Energy at the same rate), there is less requirement to play other Energy cards. Yes, there is some Energy synergy in that you get more choices, but that synergy is worth far less than the ability to repeatedly get an effect without costing a card.

Do you consider Evermind (the splice onto arcane spell without a mana cost) a mistake, or does Splice come close enough to being able to cast it to count?

There is a way to cast it. Good enough.

"We tried but there is no way to have a symbol that shows color convey “no color”." You missed the point of the question. The asker was suggesting that you keep the reminder text, but use an indicator icon in place of the word "devoid." Like how the artifact lands, Dyrad Arbor, Evermind, and twobrid cards have reminder text explaining something that isn't itself rules text.

We’ve never before had reminder text for an icon not in the text box.

Unrules elaboration: Your reply about Richard makes me wonder. It's specifically because it need the exact same mana cost, correct? So could you play Evermind as a land, seeing as both Evermind and Lands have no cost? Conversely, Memnites can be played as Moxes, but not Lands. Do I have it right?

You can play cards with a converted mana cost of 0 as other cards with a converted mana cost of 0. Lands do not have a converted mana cost. They have an artificial one of 0 when the game needs for them to have one.