Delve through Thalia

[RemkoA]

Hi, It should be possible to use delve to reduce costs of your spells. Removing another card from your graveyard should pay the additional cost of thalia/lodestone/sphere effects etcetera. However, this is not the case on mage.

[LevelX2]

Seems to me like you mismatch some rules. If not, describe the problem more clearly and I will looking into it if there is a problem.

[emerald000]

I haven't tested, but costs increasers (like Thalia) should increase the cost before you delve. So if you cast a {9}{B} card, it gets increased to {10}{B} then you get to delve up to 10 cards. I guess currently you can only delve up to 9 cards and have to pay the extra mana.

[RemkoA]

@Emerald000: Exactly. @LevelX2: Pretty sure I am correct on these rulings. I hope emeralds comment clarifies my point.

2014-09-22 21:50 GMT+02:00 emerald000 notifications@github.com:

I haven't tested, but costs increasers (like Thalia) should increase the cost before you delve. So if you cast a {9}{B} card, it gets increased to {10}{B} then you get to delve up to 10 cards. I guess currently you can only delve up to 9 cards and have to pay the extra mana.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/magefree/mage/issues/571#issuecomment-56430227.

[fireshoes]

I believe Delve should be able pay for cost increases.

601.2e The player determines the total cost of the spell. Usually this is just the mana cost. Some spells have additional or alternative costs. Some effects may increase or reduce the cost to pay, or may provide other alternative costs. Costs may include paying mana, tapping permanents, sacrificing permanents, discarding cards, and so on. The total cost is the mana cost or alternative cost (as determined in rule 601.2b), plus all additional costs and cost increases, and minus all cost reductions. If the mana component of the total cost is reduced to nothing by cost reduction effects, it is considered to be {0}. It can’t be reduced to less than {0}. Once the total cost is determined, any effects that directly affect the total cost are applied. Then the resulting total cost becomes "locked in." If effects would change the total cost after this time, they have no effect.

FAQ: The rules for delve have changed slightly since it was last in an expansion. Previously, delve reduced the cost to cast a spell. Under the current rules, you exile cards from your graveyard at the same time you pay the spell’s cost. Exiling a card this way is simply another way to pay that cost.

So the increased cost is locked in first, then each card exiled from the graveyard pays for 1 colorless mana.

[LevelX2]

Delve is now implemented as a cost reducing effect.

It must be implemented as an alternate way to pay mana costs by exiling a card from your graveyard.

[emerald000]

There is still a problem in the current implementation as cost increases should be applied before cost decreases. So plus 1 for Thalia before minus whatever for Delve.

[LevelX2]

Other related reports: http://www.slightlymagic.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=70&t=15336&p=162982#p162982

[RemkoA]

Is this fixed for all Delve cards and all cost reducers? I encountered the problem again involving Dig Through Time and Thorn of Amethyst.

[fireshoes]

I notice that currently you can Delve more cards than can be used towards a card's mana cost. You should only be able to Delve a number of cards equal to the colorless mana required to cast a card.

From the Dead Drop FAQ: You can’t exile more cards than the generic mana requirement of a spell with delve. For example, you can’t exile more than nine cards from your graveyard to cast Dead Drop.

[LevelX2]

Fixed that with delve you could exile more cards than mana were to produce.