does paying an activated ability to return a creature from the graveyard to the battlefield count as "casting" it?
Asked by Loyalty 10 months ago
If I pay to return Boneyard Scourge to the battlefield with Rivaz of the Claw out, will it become exiled the next time it dies?
I guess it's more a question about what counts as "casting".
Thanks.
"Casting a spell means moving it to the stack, paying the casting cost in the process."
so paying does not count as a "casting cost" and after I pay that it doesn't go onto the stack?
feels like the terminology is confusing haha
July 19, 2023 6:26 p.m.
wallisface says... #3
Both abilities and spells use the stack, so i’d suggest ignoring that as an indicator of anything.
A spell is “cast” only when you’re paying its casting cost, or if another effect/ability specifically states you may “cast” it for an alternate cost.
As an example, Gravecrawler explicitly lets you “cast” it from the graveyard - this will be a cast trigger. Conversely, Reassembling Skeleton has an ability that returns it to play, but nowhere does it state that this effect counts towards being cast, so its not - its just an activated ability.
In the case of your Boneyard Scourge, its just a triggered ability that has taken place. As the effect doesn’t mention anything about being “cast”, it isn’t.
You cannot use the mana ability of Rivaz of the Claw to activate the Boneyard Scourge ability, because its not being spent to “cast a dragon spell”.
July 19, 2023 7:17 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #4
Loyalty: Answers to your question have been up for a while. Since there don't seem to be any more follow-ups or corrections that need to be made, I marked one of them as the "Accepted answer" so this topic can move out of the list of unanswered questions. In the future you can take care of this yourself using the "Mark as Answer" button on the response that you feel best answers your question.
plakjekaas says... Accepted answer #1
Boneyard Scourge has a triggered ability that puts it on the battlefield, that's not casting a spell.
Casting a spell means moving it to the stack, paying the casting cost in the process. Casting spells typically happens from your hand, but there's cards that allow you to cast spells from elsewhere. Cards with Flashback like Angelfire Ignition allow you to cast the spell again from graveyard for an alternative cost. Rivaz of the Claw allows you to do that with any dragon spell, but only once per turn. Spells with Cascade (Bloodbraid Elf ) allow you to cast a spell from exile from the top of your library for free. What these cards all have in common, is their reminder text (italic, in brackets) literally mentions "You may cast". If it says "Return to battlefield" or "Put onto the battlefield" then it's an ability or an effect from another source, but you didn't cast the creature.
Casting Reanimate on a dragon in your graveyard is not casting the dragon. Ebondeath, Dracolich can be cast from your graveyard whenever any other creature died this turn. If you do that with Rivaz in play, thàt one will get exiled if it would die again.
Hope that helps '^^
July 19, 2023 3:57 a.m.