Quarantine Field and mana cost
Asked by justindulging 8 years ago
How much mana is tapped to exile a permanent for Quarantine Field ? Two white mana for sure. But since X is printed twice, does that mean the price for each exiled creature/isolation counter is another 2 mana of any kind?
Am I right in assuming that exiling 3 permanents would cost 8 mana all in all?
Raging_Squiggle says... Accepted answer #2
When casting this spell, you declare the value for 
, then pay it for each instance of in the mana cost.
If you want to exile 3 nonland permanents, you declare to be 
. Then you pay each instance of . Since there are 2 instances, you pay 2x the amount you declared. So in all, you will pay 
() to cast this spell exiling 3 things.
May 26, 2016 3:22 p.m.
justindulging says... #3
Follow up question though, what if the controller also has Pearl Medallion in play, does the cost of exiling 3 permanents become 
May 26, 2016 3:49 p.m.
justindulging says... #4
Sorry that math looks bad, does the Pearl Medallion make each cost 
less or the total mana cost cost 1 less?
So does exiling 3 creatures with Quarantine Field with Pearl Medallion costs 
?
May 26, 2016 3:54 p.m.
Cost reducers like Pearl Medallion and cost increasers like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben apply after the cost of a spell is calculated if there're X's in it. So a Pearl Medallion would reduce the cost from 6WW to just 5WW.
May 26, 2016 4:12 p.m.
Raging_Squiggle says... #6
The formula for casting any spell is:
Mana Cost + Additional Costs - Cost Reductions = What to pay to cast the spell.
Using this formula, we can deduce that, to exile 3 permanents:
+ 
- (From Pearl Medallion) = in order to cast this spell for 3 permanents.
May 26, 2016 4:15 p.m.
So say you declare x 4 and tap the 10 total. You have not declared is that set in stone for future notice lets say if it its exiled then returned to battlefield. Does it retain its original value of 4 or come back in at 0. And if you do in fact retain x value of 4 do the same 4 permanent return to exiled or choice of a new 4?
February 17, 2017 8:13 p.m.
For future reference, you should make a new question rather than comment on one that's 9 months old.
You declare X to be 4 and make the appropriate payment. Quarantine Field enters with 4 isolation counters on it and exiles 4 nonland permanents.
You exile it with, say, Leonin Relic-Warder and later on kill the Warder, bringing the Quarantine Field back. This time when it enters, there's nothing defining what X is so X defaults to 0, it'd enter with 0 isolation counters and exile 0 nonland permanents.
DJSeras says... #1
You are correct in your assumption that every additional target will cost 2 generic mana in addition to the 2 white mana.
May 26, 2016 3:20 p.m.