Cost — Riftbound Rules

131.1.

Main Deck cards have a Cost, listed in the upper left corner of the front face of the card. See rule 165. Rune Pools for more information.

131.2.

Energy Cost

131.2.a.

The numeral listed in the Cost element in the upper left corner of the card.

131.3.

Power cost

131.3.a.

The symbols, listed vertically, in the Cost element in the upper left corner of the card.

131.3.b.

This section may not be present on every card.

Related FAQ (8)

How much do I pay for an Accelerate cost?

Accelerate costs 1 energy and also 1 power of the unit's domain/color. Usually you'll do this by taking an additional ready rune of the appropriate domain/color, exhaust it, and then recycle that same rune. For example, if a fury/red unit normally costs (3) (or 3 energy) and you want to accelerate it, its total cost would be (4)(R) (or 4 energy and 1 power of the fury/red domain).

If I play Cruel Patron and kill one of my units for its additional cost, but one of these cards replaces that unit's death, does the cost still count as paid?

Yes. You made the decision to pay the cost and took the action to pay it. What happened after that doesn't matter.

Is the first friendly unit on Deathgrip a cost or a target? When do I kill it, and what happens if I don't?

Deathgrip uses nonstandard wording. The friendly unit is a target chosen with the other unit and killed as the spell resolves. If you don't kill it because it's no longer legal or its death was prevented, you do not give the second friendly unit any Might.

What parts of a spell does the Repeat ability cause to be repeated? Is it the entire effect? If I use Temporal Portal to give Find Your Center Repeat and pay the cost while its cost reduction applies, does the cost reduction happen once or twice, and does the final spell cost 2 or 4?

Repeat causes repetition of a spell's instructions. Find Your Center's cost reduction applies once, making the final cost 4 - its base cost of 3, plus its Repeat cost of 3, minus its cost reduction of 2.

What happens if I play Atakhan from my deck with Rek'Sai, Breacher on the board? Can I pay the Accelerate cost and kill Rek'Sai for the Atakhan additional cost? Will it enter ready?

Yes, Atakhan enters ready. Accelerate creates a delayed replacement effect that causes Atakhan to enter ready. Although he lacks the Accelerate keyword when he resolves, he still has the delayed replacement effect that Accelerate generates.

What happens when you play Abandon on a spell that was played for its Flow cost?

It will be banished when it attempts to leave the chain. Flow's "then banish it" means that if the spell would leave the chain after becoming a finalized chain item, and leaving wasn't instructed by its own execution, it is banished instead. Abandon returns the countered card toward hand, but that is still leaving the chain, so the Flow spell is banished. The same applies to effects like Kai'Sa, Evolutionary and Fizz, Trickster.

What new choices can I make when I play Rebuttal and pay the additional cost?

You can make new choices for any number of targets or modes; the rest remain the same. Any choices you don't remake must be legal — you can't leave some but not all choices illegal. You can also decline to make new choices entirely, in which case current choices stay as they are, legal or not. Rules or requirements about a spell's choices (such as face-down play targeting) apply regardless of who controls the spell.

Can I pay Dragon Roost's cost to play Perched Grimwyrm there if I haven't conquered it this turn?

No — "can't" beats "can." Perched Grimwyrm can't be played anywhere but a battlefield you've conquered this turn, and Dragon Roost's permission can't overcome that restriction; the play is undone in the legality check. Baron Nashor is different because his ability is a delayed replacement effect ("I enter there") that replaces the entry event itself, which gets around play-location restrictions; Dragon Roost only grants permission on play location.