Commander Question
Asked by GLBoxingGlove 12 years ago
If my Commander is Patron of the Nezumi, can I use the Rat Offering ability from the Commander Zone, rather than paying the full mana cost?
Is the Commander Zone treated as though the card is still in your hand for any casting options?
You could use Rat Offering to cast it from the command zone, but you couldn't use Rat Offering to reduce any of the extra costs from recasting the commander from the command zone. So if you somehow managed to contrive to like....turn a Draco into a rat, and you'd already cast Patron of the Nezumi from the command zone twice, you'd still have to pay the BB as well as the 4 mana for your third cast from the command zone.
March 18, 2013 2:47 p.m.
GLBoxingGlove says... #3
His cost would keep going up, each time hes put back into the Commander Zone, but you can still use the Offering ability to reduce it? Correct?
March 18, 2013 2:50 p.m.
The extra cost for playing a commander from the command zone is added after the modifying/reducing abilities. You won't be able to reduce the casting cost of Patron of the Nezumi any more than 5BB whether through Rat Offering or otherwise.
March 18, 2013 2:53 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... Accepted answer #5
@Devonin: The "Commander Tax" is an additional cost, and it follows the normal rules for additional costs. Cost-reducing effects like Offering can reduce it. This is the relevant part of the full rules text for Offering:
702.46a Offering is a static ability of a card that functions in any zone from which the card can be cast. "[Subtype] offering" means "You may cast this card any time you could cast an instant by sacrificing a [subtype] permanent. If you do, the total cost to cast this card is reduced by the sacrificed permanent's mana cost."
March 18, 2013 4:48 p.m.
It's not an additional cost like other additional costs. I direct you to
202.4. Any additional cost listed in an object's rules text or imposed by an effect isn't part of the mana cost. (See rule 601, "Casting Spells.") Such costs are paid at the same time as the spell's other costs.
And the section of 601.2d which states "Once the total cost is determined, any effects that directly affect the total cost are applied." as well as
903.10. A player may cast a commander he or she owns from the command zone. Doing so costs that player an additional 2 for each previous time he or she cast that commander from the command zone that game.
So the cost of "Pay an additional (2)" is congruent to a cost of "sacrifice a creature" and isn't something that is actually effected by spells or effects which reduce the mana cost of a spell.
March 18, 2013 4:58 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #7
@Devonin: Your analysis is incorrect.
The mana cost of a card is always the combination of colors and amounts of mana denoted in that card's upper right corner. Mana cost is not the same as casting cost. The casting cost of a spell is:
[mana cost -or- alternate cost] + [additional costs] - [cost reductions]
The "commander tax" is an additional cost, and any cost reductions that can apply to it will apply to it. There isn't a differentiation between additional costs except perhaps between mandatory and optional costs.
March 18, 2013 5:07 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #8
"Mana cost" is specifically the symbols printed in the upper-right corner of a card (or down the left side of the frame on "future-shifted" cards). What 202.4 is saying is that additional costs don't count as part of the mana cost (and by extension still have to be paid if an effect is letting you cast the spell "without paying its mana cost").
I think you meant to say 601.2e. Right now, that section you quote is only used for the effect of Trinisphere. The part relevant to this discussion comes a little bit before that: "The total cost is the mana cost or alternative cost (as determined in rule 601.2b), plus all additional costs and cost increases, and minus all cost reductions."
Epochalyptik says... #1
"X offering" doesn't require the source card to be in your hand, so it works on a card in the command zone.
Cards in the command zone are not treated as though they were in your hand. Effects that require a card to be in a certain zone for something to happen will still require that card to be in that zone. Effects that only work on cards in your hand don't interact with cards in the command zone.
March 18, 2013 2:45 p.m.