@ bad wording - Yeah, I sort of just spewed the card out without really considering the proper 'Magic: The English' algorithm.
@ delha - hadn't considered the artifact angle at all when I made the card.
It's true that there are a number of decks that don't get punished too severely over suddenly producing what may as well be 'colorless' mana in their deck - but I'm imagining a High Tide player staring at shitty Goyfs or KotRs and going "Well somehow I have to go off but I only really can make

... hmmm"
As to why it doesn't just axe mana-ramping, I guess for some reason I felt at the time it would be more of a dick move to just turn it all Green, in sort of in spirit of the "our way or the highway" mentality that White and Green tends to go by. Like, Green doesn't give a shit if all the mana it makes is Green, so why should anyone else mind? Plus I wanted to be able to 'undercost' the card by giving it just that slight effect on a player, instead of just telling them their Academy was only going to make one Blue mana. I guess I assumed such an effect would cost more than its actual effect on gameplay would be worth (like in Blood Moon range @ 2G/W)