Trinisphere and a card with X.

Asked by Pheardemons 7 years ago

Scenario - I have Trinisphere on the battlefield and my opponent has a Goblin Guide in play.

If I wanted to Repeal the Goblin Guide, would Repeal's casting cost be X? Where X would be in order to Repeal it?

acbooster says... #1

The casting cost would technically be , but yes. The way Trinisphere works is that it looks at what the casting cost of a spell would be, then increases the cost to be a CMC of 3 if it would be less. Before it can do this to an X spell, there has to be a declared value for X. So when you declare X to be 1, the sphere will see a spell with CMC of 2 and will increase the cost to instead.

September 3, 2016 9:37 p.m.

Pheardemons says... #2

So would I have to pay 4 mana total to repeal the Goblin Guide?

September 3, 2016 9:39 p.m.

acbooster says... Accepted answer #3

No you would pay 3 mana. Trinisphere will only increase a spell's cost to a total of 3, so unless there's something else increasing the cost like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben then it will cost 3 total.

What happens is you go to cast Repeal and declare X to be 1. So at the moment it will cost .

Then any cost increases or reductions take place, in this case none so the cost is still .

Then Trinisphere looks at the casting cost of the Repeal and sees that it costs which is a CMC of 2, and sets the cost to instead.

I also feel that this Gatherer ruling on Trinisphere's page is relevant:

12/1/2004 Trinispheres ability affects the total cost of the spell. It is applied after any other cost increasers or cost reducers are applied: First apply any cost increases. Next apply any cost reducers. Finally look at the amount of mana you have to pay. If its less than three mana, youll pay three mana.

September 3, 2016 9:44 p.m. Edited.

Pheardemons says... #4

Thank you acbooster. I was still a little confused after reading the Gatherer ruling, because of the cost of X. Thank you again for clearing that up.

September 3, 2016 9:53 p.m.