Buckle up everyone, because today’s mechanic is a little deeper than the others! We talked about some crazy stuff happening on Innistrad, and alongside Delirium, we’re also seeing some Madness. Madness is a returning mechanic, and it’s gotten a little face-lift. On the surface it’s really simple; when you discard a card with Madness, you can cast it for its Madness cost. Sometimes that cost is cheaper, sometimes more expensive, sometimes with fewer colored symbols. You can do this no matter WHY you discarded; if it was an opponent’s spell, your own spell, a cost to activate (or cast!) something of yours, or even just discarding to your maximum hand size at the end of the turn. It also still counts as you having discarded a card for things like Waste Not or Megrim.

Now, let’s get to the nitty-gritty. Madness is actually two abilities; there’s a replacement effect that shunts the card to exile if you would discard it (but still counts as a discard, remember!), and the second is a triggered ability that fires off when the card gets exiled that way. The card stays in exile until the trigger resolves, at which point you either cast the spell for that Madness cost, or it goes to your graveyard. This means your opponent can drag the card out of exile (like with Void Attendant or Oracle of Dust) to deny you your Madness opportunity! It also means that if you use Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy and discard a card for Madness, it won’t go to the graveyard during his ability’s resolution, so if it ‘should’ have been the 5th card in your graveyard, Jace won’t flip! If there’s already 5 or more cards, he flips fine, though. Madness is also an alternate cost; you can’t cast via Madness AND another alternate cost, but you can pay any additional costs if the spell has them. Finally, Madness tells you to cast a spell at a time you normally can’t: during the resolution of a triggered ability. Because of the permission granted to do that, you can use Madness to cast spells at odd times; you can use Madness to cast a Creature or a Sorcery (via Madness, of course!) in response to things, or even during another player’s turn! And, of course, the spell is still cast as a spell; it goes on the stack, and your opponent can respond to that, say by countering it.

Well, that’s all we’ll be covering for the Prerelease Week! To all of you making it out to an event this weekend, we at the Rules Blog wish you the best of luck, and the best of times! Have fun, make some friends, and go enjoy some Magic. We’ll see you again on Monday!

Today’s Prerelease Tip was written by Trevor Nunez