Hey I'm a noob and yes this may seem like a stupid question to most that know the game well. Brain In a Jar catches my eye everytime I look at it but I keep wondering. If I have let's say 4 instants of the same cost of 2 mana and Brain In a Jar has the needed counters on it, can I cast them directly after one another at the same time?
No. As the Brain's ability resolves, you put a charge counter on it, then you may cast an instant or sorcery card from your hand with the appropriate converted mana cost. "An" = One.
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What happens to the counters and to Brain after the spell has resolved? In other words, how does charge counters work. Do they go away after I played the spell?
Counters of any kind stay on the object until something removes them: a cost, an effect, or a rule (the only relevant rule to do this is that +1/+1 counters and -1/-1 counters annihilate each other 1:1 as a state based action). BiaJ can remove charge counters from itself with its other ability. But the first ability just adds more.
The counters are just a marker on the card to show you the CMC of the spell that you can cast. If you activate the first ability on Brain in a jar you put the counters on the card and they will remain there until the game ends, that brain in a jar leaves the battlefield or some effect/ability tells you to remove them.
Specifically in the case of Brain in a jar as part of the cost of its second ability you can remove charge counters to increase the amount of cards that you can scry.
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Specifically in the case of Brain in a jar as part of the cost of its second ability you can remove charge counters to increase the amount of cards that you can scry.
- H.L Mencken
I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
- Edgar Allan Poe
The Crafters' Rules Guru