Nov 24, 2025
If you're at 10 life, have four untapped lands including two Swamps and an untapped Pristine Talisman, can you cast a Shadow of Mortality?
yes you can!
the way casting spells works is we determine the costs of the spell, and this cost becomes locked in. then we can activate mana abilities to pay these costs. (this locking in is cr 601.2f)
so we put shadow of mortality onto the stack, cost reduce it to 3bb, then pay this cost with our mana sources without our life gain changing the cost.
(this is the same logic that lets us cast a frogmite with only a black lotus in play, which is the more well known example of this)
