Spelltwine is a great card that gives a player the ability to cast two other instants or sorceries without having to pay for them. However, here’s the thing – in order to cast Spelltwine, you have to have an instant or sorcery in your graveyard to exile AND there has to be an instant or sorcery in your opponent’s graveyard to exile. In other words, you have to have two targets at the time you cast Spelltwine in order for it to work (otherwise, you simply can’t cast it at all). You are then allowed to put these spells on the stack in any order as it resolves.

Remember that the key here is that there is an instant or sorcery in both graveyards at the time Spelltwine is cast. If your opponent responds by exiling one of your targets before Spelltwine resolves, that’s ok. Spelltwine will then do as much as it can do – in this case, only exiling and copying the one target that is currently legal. A spell will only “fizzle” (or, be countered by the game rules at resolution) if ALL its targets are no longer legal.

Keep in mind two other points: 1) If the card being copied has mandatory additional costs, you have to pay those. You can’t pay alternative costs (like Overload), although you may pay optional additional costs such as a kicker if you wish. 2) If the card you choose has X as part of its mana cost, X must be 0.

And what if you flash in Spelltwine using Quicken on your opponent’s turn? Can you still cast a sorcery that you targeted? Why yes, you can! This is because Spelltwine instructs you to cast the spells while it’s still in process of resolving. This is not a time when you could normally cast any kind of spell (because you don’t have priority while a spell is resolving), so you have no choice but to ignore timing restrictions. Otherwise, that wouldn’t even work on your own turn!

Today’s Rules Tip written by Will Bumgardner, L1 from Carson City, NV