Madness drives people crazy. And the madness ability drives Magic players crazy. Making a return in Shadows Over Innistrad, madness has brought back many questions about how it works. This article is going to go over some of the more common interactions you might run in to at a tournament.
Madness in General
You’re casting the card when the triggered ability resolves – this means that you get to ignore normal timing restrictions for the card. For instance, if it’s your opponent’s turn and you discard a creature or sorcery card, you’ll be able to cast it via madness when the trigger resolves, even though it’s your opponent’s turn.
Casting the card for its madness cost is an alternate cost of casting the card. Since you’re casting the card, the cost of the spell can be affected by cost increasers or decreasers. For example, if there’s a Vryn Wingmare on the battlefield and you’re trying to cast Biting Rain for its madness cost, it will cost 3B to cast instead of 2B. Likewise, if you controlled a Jace’s Sanctum, it would cost 1B to cast Biting Rain for its madness cost.
If you discard the madness card as part of a cost of casting a spell or activating an ability (for example, Tormenting Voice), the madness trigger will go on the stack once you’re done announcing the spell or ability. You’ll deal with the madness trigger before resolving the spell. But if you’re discarding the card because of a resolving spell or ability (for example, Catalog), you’ll fully resolve that spell or ability before we put the madness trigger on the stack.
Madness only works if you discard the card, and you can only discard a card from your hand. A card going from your library to the graveyard, for instance, is not being discarded, and you could not cast it for its madness cost. And you can’t just discard a card just because you want to – some spell or ability has to let you discard. You can’t just choose to discard a Fiery Temper because you want to cast it for its madness cost instead of its mana cost – something else has to let you discard it.
Madness and Converted Mana Cost
Madness and Processors
Madness and Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy
I hope this article didn’t drive you to madness. If you have any questions, feel free to email me.
Nathan Long
DCI Level 2 Judge
natedogg316@gmail.com