Does a card with 0 as its mana cost still get "cast"?
I do believe that this is correct, but there's been some arguing about this, and I would like to get a more official ruling rather than mindless speculation.
Does a card with 0 as its mana cost still get "cast"?
Sure.
I do believe that this is correct, but there's been some arguing about this, and I would like to get a more official ruling rather than mindless speculation.
117.5. Some costs are represented by {0}, or are reduced to {0}. The action necessary for a player to pay such a cost is the player's acknowledgment that he or she is paying it. Even though such a cost requires no resources, it's not automatically paid.
117.5a. A spell whose mana cost is {0} must still be cast the same way as one with a cost greater than zero; it won't cast itself automatically. The same is true for an activated ability whose cost is {0}.
The only cards that can't be cast at all are Lands (lands are played, not cast).
Nonland cards without a mana cost (like Lotus Bloom) cannot be cast normally (because you can't pay a cost that doesn't exist), but you may still cast them using an alternative cost (for example, Omniscience allows you to cast Bloom for 0)
Cards with 0 as their mana cost can be cast normally, you just have to pay their mana cost (a cost of 0 is paid automatically) plus any additional cost imposed by other effects.
The bolded part is not true, cost of 0 are not 'automatically' paid, you have to acknowledge that you payed them, though no resource was spent.
I stand by my statement:
[quote from=MTR]A player is assumed to have paid any cost of 0 unless he or she announces otherwise.
There is a fundamental difference between 0 costs being automatically paid and being assumed to have been paid. If they were automatically paid, I would have to cast a Memnite in my hand the moment it was legally castable, which is not what happens. You choose when you pay its mana cost, even though you have to spend no resources for it, so it isn't just automatically paid.
I stand by my statement:
[quote from=MTR]A player is assumed to have paid any cost of 0 unless he or she announces otherwise.
There is a fundamental difference between 0 costs being automatically paid and being assumed to have been paid. If they were automatically paid, I would have to cast a Memnite in my hand the moment it was legally castable, which is not what happens. You choose when you pay its mana cost, even though you have to spend no resources for it, so it isn't just automatically paid.
While I'll agree there's a difference between a cost being automatically paid and a cost being assumed paid (eg, being forced to pay a mandatory mana cost while you have floating mana), automatically paying a cost is not the same thing as automatically casting a spell. The mana payment (even if the mana is 0) comes long after the decision to cast the spell in the first place.
I do believe that this is correct, but there's been some arguing about this, and I would like to get a more official ruling rather than mindless speculation.
Cards do what they say they do. No more. No less.
Sure.
117.5. Some costs are represented by {0}, or are reduced to {0}. The action necessary for a player to pay such a cost is the player's acknowledgment that he or she is paying it. Even though such a cost requires no resources, it's not automatically paid.
117.5a. A spell whose mana cost is {0} must still be cast the same way as one with a cost greater than zero; it won't cast itself automatically. The same is true for an activated ability whose cost is {0}.
There is a fundamental difference between 0 costs being automatically paid and being assumed to have been paid. If they were automatically paid, I would have to cast a Memnite in my hand the moment it was legally castable, which is not what happens. You choose when you pay its mana cost, even though you have to spend no resources for it, so it isn't just automatically paid.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
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