Fires of Invention and Walking Balista
Asked by rileyos 4 years ago
Does the interaction between Fires of Invention and Walking Ballista mean that I can pay for Balista for the amount of lands that I have on the field?
dragonstryke58 says... #3
To further clarify TheRealSpecialK's answer, Fires of Invention does not let you choose the number of lands you control as the value of when using its second ability.
The second ability of Fires of Invention is a static ability that allows you to cast spells with an alternate casting cost in much the same way that Fist of Suns does. When casting a spell, you can choose to pay the normal cost or the alternate cost.
In this case, when casting Hangarback Walker, you could choose to either pay (the normal casting cost) or nothing (the alternate cost). If you choose to cast Hangarback Walker with the alternate cost of nothing, you won't be able to pay for X. This is reflected in the Gatherer Oracle ruling for Fires of Invention which states that "If a spell has in its mana cost, you must choose 0 as the value of X when casting it without paying its mana cost." If you wanted to pay for X, you would need to do so by casting Hangarback Walker for its normal casting cost.
Relevant Comprehensive Rules:
- 118.9. Some spells have alternative costs. An alternative cost is a cost listed in a spell’s text, or applied to it from another effect, that its controller may pay rather than paying the spell’s mana cost. Alternative costs are usually phrased, “You may [action] rather than pay [this object’s] mana cost,” or “You may cast [this object] without paying its mana cost.” Note that some alternative costs are listed in keywords; see rule 702.
- 118.9a Only one alternative cost can be applied to any one spell as it’s being cast. The controller of the spell announces their intentions to pay that cost as described in rule 601.2b.
Gatherer Oracle Ruling for Fires of Invention:
10/4/2019: If a spell has in its mana cost, you must choose 0 as the value of X when casting it without paying its mana cost.
December 16, 2020 9:24 p.m. Edited.
Rhadamanthus says... #4
rileyos: Answers to your question have been up for a while. Since there don't seem to be any follow-ups or corrections to be made, I marked one of them as the "Accepted answer" so this topic can move out of the list of unanswered questions. In the future, you can take care of this yourself using the green "Mark as Answer" button on the response that you feel best answers your question.
TheRealSpecialK says... Accepted answer #1
1.) For rules questions, it is probably better to post this on the Rules Q&A page as opposed to this forum. Maybe Caerwyn could move it?
2.) It does not. Per the card-specific ruling found on Gatherer for Fires of Invention, "If a spell has in its mana cost, you must choose 0 as the value of X when casting it without paying its mana cost." So Walking Ballista would enter as a 0/0, and then immediately die.
December 16, 2020 4:07 p.m. Edited.