I think the problem is that the system is very undefined and almost guarantees that different people have different interpretations.
Maybe all we need is to reverse our approach. Instead of discussing "does X/Y cover A?" we should ask "what covers A"? With anything that doesn't require the "missing base" Magic itself being covered by something.
Someone feel like being Admin of a kind of Intent/Base FAQ on the Wiki or something? It would rock not having to answer the same question many times.
