In Magic, we often combine “You may cast this card” with the second sweetest phrase, “without paying its mana cost” (the first sweetest phrase being “Draw a card”, of course). Unfortunately, Melek doesn’t do that, so you’ll have to pay all the costs, including additional and alternate costs if you can.
“What does Melek do then?” Well, Melek gives you the ability cast cards that are revealed from the top of your deck. Since this is a static ability, if you cast that top card, the card underneath it becomes the top card of your deck, and will also fit the criteria set by Melek’s static ability.
If you cast ANY instant or sorcery card from your library, Melek’s ability will trigger and give you a copy of that spell the way it appears on the stack. That means if you cast the Toil half of Toil // Trouble, you copy Toil, and you don’t get a choice to try to copy Trouble (Note that you don’t even have the option to Fuse the spell, because you’re not casting the card from your hand). This also applies to spells with choices made during casting; if you copy a spell like that, you’ll copy the choices made when you cast the spell, except that you get to change targets if applicable.
Today’s Rules Tip written by Eddie Cheung