Evermind

The blank on the cost line is not a discount but a one-way door: a nonexistent mana cost can never be paid, so under normal rules the card cannot be hard-cast at all. It exists to be spliced. Splice is a static ability, not a trigger: as you cast any Arcane spell, you may reveal this from hand and pay to staple its draw onto that spell. Like every spliced card, it stays in hand after the splice resolves, so it is never consumed; what sets this one apart is that it has no other home to return to. A normal splice card is also a castable spell, a body or a removal effect that you sometimes choose to fold into something else instead. This one has surrendered that second life entirely. The blank cost strips away the option to cast it, leaving splice as the card's only function, which makes it the purest form the mechanic can take: a rider with no spell underneath, designed to ride and ride again across a whole sequence of Arcane casts, converting surplus mana into card flow for as long as you keep paying the . The blank cost is a restriction on intent rather than an absolute lock: effects that cast a spell without paying its mana cost route around the missing cost entirely, since there is nothing to pay.