doinitwrong says... #2
"The value of X cant exceed the number of cards in your hand or the number of available legal targets, whichever is smaller. X can be 0"
In your case, you would only be allowed to discard 5 or less cards.
May 15, 2012 10:04 a.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #3
In the steps of casting a spell, choosing targets is one of the first steps and calculating/paying costs is the last step. If there are only 5 legal targets for Firestorm, that's the most you can choose. This means the maximum value of X is 5, and you discard 5 cards when you pay the cost for the spell.
May 15, 2012 10:27 a.m.
Just a side note, if you are trying to one shot your opponent and you actually have the twenty cards in hand you could target your own creatures to increase the number of targets. You may have thought of this but I wasn't sure if by five targets you meant your opponent only had five or five including your side of the board.
Arachnarchist says... Accepted answer #1
You can't discard more cards than the number of available targets. If you have 5 targets you can discard only five cards and therefore deal only five damage.
From Gatherer:
For example, if you discard four cards, you must target four different creatures and/or players. Firestorm
will deal 4 damage to each of them.
The value of X cant exceed the number of cards in your hand or the number of available legal targets, whichever is smaller. X can be 0.
The same creature or player cant be targeted more than once.
May 15, 2012 10:03 a.m.