Electrodominance and Restore Balance

Asked by Master_Tame 6 years ago

Can you cast Restore Balance from your hand after casting Electrodominance where “x” is equal to zero? I don’t think you can because Restore Balance does not have a mana cost. I played against someone in a tourney the other day who was doing it but now I think it was illegal. What are your thoughts?

metalmagic says... Accepted answer #1

Ok so here's a quick breakdown. Cards like Restore Balance , Ancestral Vision , and even Evermind cannot be cast normally. Electrodominance and other things like As Foretold circumvent this.

Reasons: these cards do not have a mana cost, meaning you cannot just straight up cast them from your hand because unless otherwise specified, paying a cost is part of casting a spell. However, these cards have a converted mana cost of 0, much like Ornithopter or Memnite . When a card looks for the CMC of a spell, it sees these as being 0 which allows this interaction to work since it lets you cast them without paying their mana cost.

Another thing to think about it the reminder text for Suspend, which is how these cards were originally meant to be cast: Rather than cast this card from your hand, pay White and exile it with six time counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a time counter. When the last is removed, cast it without paying its mana cost. It functions the same way in allowing you to circumvent the non-existent mana cost.

I hope this helped, and I can go into further detail if necessary.

April 24, 2019 3:44 p.m.