Search
Rod of Absorption
Artifact
rare
Whenever a player casts an instant or sorcery spell, exile it instead of putting it into a graveyard as it resolves. , , Sacrifice this artifact: You may cast any number of spells from among cards exiled with this artifact with total mana value X or less without paying their mana costs.
Card Kingdom
CardmarketSemantic Tags
Rewards controlling, casting, or sacrificing artifacts.
A keyword ability that lets you exile cards from your graveyard rather than pay generic mana to cast a spell. See rule 702.66, “Delve.”
A keyword ability that lets a player exile cards from their hand and cast them for an alternative cost on future turns. See rule 702.143, “Foretell.”
Exiles cards from graveyards or prevents graveyard interaction. Shuts down recursion, flashback, and graveyard-matters strategies.
Cares about cards in the graveyard, puts cards into the graveyard, or benefits from things dying.
Exile-based card advantage — exile cards from the top of your library and cast them temporarily. Red's primary draw mechanic.
A permanent with a repeatable activated ability that converts excess mana into value.
A card or token on the battlefield. See rule 110, “Permanents.”
Tax or prevent spellcasting — Rule of Law, Thalia, Sphere of Resistance.
A keyword ability that provides an alternative way to play a card. See rule 702.62, “Suspend.” A card is “suspended” if it’s in the exile zone, has suspend, and has a time counter on it.
Format Legality
Price history
Loading price history…
Printings (2)
| Set | Rarity | TCGplayer | Card Kingdom | Cardmarket |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Forgotten Realms Commander#19 | rare | · | · | · |
| Forgotten Realms Commander#288 | rare | · | · | · |
Related Rules
If an ability would produce one or more mana of an undefined type, it produces no mana instead.
Some abilities produce mana based on the type of mana another permanent or permanents “could produce.” The type of mana a permanent could produce at any time includes any type of mana that an ability of that permanent would produce if the ability were to resolve at that time, taking into account any applicable replacement effects in any possible order. Ignore whether any costs of the ability could or could not be paid. If that permanent wouldn’t produce any mana under these conditions, or no type of mana can be defined this way, there’s no type of mana it could produce.
To “tap [a permanent] for mana” is to activate a mana ability of that permanent that includes the {T} symbol in its activation cost. See rule 605, “Mana Abilities.”
An ability that triggers whenever a permanent “is tapped for mana” or is tapped for mana of a specified type triggers whenever such a mana ability resolves and produces mana or the specified type of mana.
A replacement effect that applies if a permanent “is tapped for mana” or tapped for mana of a specific type and/or amount modifies the mana production event while such an ability is resolving and producing mana or the specified type and/or amount of mana.
If a cost associated with a special action, such as a suspend cost or a morph cost, has an {X} or an X in it, the value of X is chosen by the player taking the special action immediately before they pay that cost.
If an object’s enters-the-battlefield triggered ability or replacement effect refers to X, and the spell that became that object as it resolved had a value of X chosen for any of its costs, the value of X for that ability is the same as the value of X for that spell, although the value of X for that permanent is 0. This is an exception to rule 107.3i.
The tap symbol is {T}. The tap symbol in an activation cost means “Tap this permanent.” A permanent that’s already tapped can’t be tapped again to pay the cost. A creature’s activated ability with the tap symbol in its activation cost can’t be activated unless the creature has been under its controller’s control continuously since their most recent turn began. See rule 302.6.
Rulings
When Rod of Absorption's last ability resolves, you cast as many spells with total mana value X or less from among the exiled cards as you would like in any order you choose. Cards not cast this way will remain in exile indefinitely.
If a spell is countered or it never resolves, Rod of Absorption will not exile it.
If the card has {X} in its mana cost, you must choose 0 as the value of X when casting it without paying its mana cost.
If multiple Rods of Absorption are on the battlefield at the same time, any player casting an instant or sorcery spell will cause all of them to trigger. As the spell resolves, its controller will choose which of the Rods gets to exile it.
Each Rod of Absorption tracks the cards it has exiled separately. If Rod of Absorption is destroyed and then later brought back to the battlefield, it will not be able to access any of the cards that it had exiled before.
If you cast a spell “without paying its mana cost,” you can't choose to cast it for any alternative costs. You can, however, pay additional costs. If the card has any mandatory additional costs, you must pay those to cast the spell.