epic experiment and melek
Asked by juanmaa 10 years ago
Lets say I have melek on the field and i play epic experiment from the top of my deck (X=4, for example) I know I can copy it because of melek's ability (discarding 8 cards instead of 4) but now the first card I discard is the epic experiment, does it mean i can play it a third time without paying his mana cost? Does epic experiment activate itself again?
nobu_the_bard says... #2
When you cast a spell with X in the casting cost such as Epic Experiment, but somehow got away without paying its casting cost (such as casting it through the use of another Epic Experiment), the value of X in the "freely" cast spell is zero. The freely cast Epic Experiment will exile zero cards, and you will be able to cast instants and sorceries it exiles with a CMC of zero or less. This seems mostly useless but there are some reasons for wanting to do this, such as raising your storm count (Grapeshot); particularly since the cards end up in the same place whether or not you cast them.
Melek, Izzet Paragon won't copy any of the cards cast through the use of Epic Experiment, because they aren't cast from the top of the library - they're cast from exile. He'll copy the original casting (including its value of X) however. Copying a spell with X in the cost where X has been set to some value is among the few ways to get a "free" casting of such spells.
Please also regard what Rhadamanthus said. Many words such as discard have very specific meanings in MTG. Exiling from the top of your library doesn't have a shorthand term that I'm aware of.
March 27, 2015 4:11 p.m.
Thanks for the answers, I understand it now.I will be more careful with the words I use.
March 27, 2015 9:06 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #4
Please remember to select an answer to remove this question from the active queue.
Rhadamanthus says... Accepted answer #1
Use double square brackets to link cards. It will help your readers understand the question without having to go look up all the cards involved.
Part of casting a spell is moving it from whatever zone it's currently in to the stack. When you cast Epic Experiment from the top of your library by way of Melek, Izzet Paragon it's not on top of your library anymore. It won't be exiled by itself or the copy (point of detail: "discard" is only used to talk about cards going from a player's hand to the graveyard).
Note that when you copy Epic Experiment this way you don't exile 8 cards all at once. The copy of Epic Experiment and the original have to finish resolving separately from one another. You exile 4 cards, cast instants and sorceries from them, then exile another 4 cards and do the same. Because of the nature of Epic Experiment it's important to do things in the right order.
March 27, 2015 3:38 p.m.