Did you know there’s a proper set of steps for casting a spell? Most people just tap mana, throw the spell on stack and ask for permission to resolve it (darn those blue mages!). Just a very simple breakdown, below are the steps to casting a spell in case you ever wanted to know:

Announce (and place on stack)
Choose (modes, alternate costs, additional costs)
Target
How (to divide)
Total (costs)
Mana (abilities… activate them)
Pay (costs, in any order)

A mnemonic championed by rules guru Eli Shiffrin may help you remember the order:
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(If you’re curious about the inner workings, Justin Turner’s article here provides a great framework)

The part we’re interested in today is Total (costs). Within this step, we figure out things such as paying additional costs, sacrificing creatures and whatnot, but when it comes to figuring out mana costs, there are 3 sub-steps after we determine the base cost or alternative cost (in this case, Cipher gives us a starting cost of 0).

1. Apply any cost additions (Thalia applies here)

2. Apply any cost reductions (such as Goblin Electromancer)

3. Apply any cost setting effects (Trinisphere)

As you can see, Cipher takes place before Thalia’s effect, so if you were to cast an Encoded spell, you would still have to pay the 1 in order to cast it. You don’t get to add Thalia’s effect first, then say “It says cast it without paying its mana cost, so it’s still free!” Doesn’t quite work that way, since the “mana cost” means what’s printed in the top right corner, and nothing else… that’s the only thing you don’t have to pay.

Today’s Rules Tip written by Eddie Cheung