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0033: Hybrid and Phyrexian mana ​

Status: Accepted. Amends decision 0031 (item 6).

Context ​

Decision 0031 wrote cost lines in cost notation, keeping hybrid and Phyrexian symbols such as {G/W} and {B/P}. But how those symbols will be paid is announced before the total cost is worked out, and it changes the result. Dismember ({1}{B/P}{B/P}) paid with 4 life has a mana cost of {1}: Thalia, Guardian of Thraben makes it {2} and Trinisphere makes it {3}. Paid with mana it is {1}{B}{B}: Thalia makes it {2}{B}{B}, and Trinisphere does nothing. Nothing in the file recorded the announcement, so a reader could not tell the two apart.

Decision ​

  1. The announcement is a choice line, one per symbol, in the order of the cost: choose symbol {B/P} life, choose symbol {G/W} {W}, choose symbol {2/B} {2}. The payment is a nonhybrid symbol, or life for a Phyrexian symbol paid with 2 life. Like other cost choices, these come after cast and before targets.
  2. cost values never contain hybrid or Phyrexian symbols. The first OLD uses the announced symbols, and Phyrexian symbols announced as life are left out.
  3. Life paid for Phyrexian symbols is a life line caused by cost:ID, with the rest of the payment.
  4. Stack snapshots repeat the choices, like any other: symbol {B/P} life.
  5. The choices are written even when no effect changes the cost. They are choices the player made (decision 0005), and one way is simpler than writing them only sometimes.

Rules basis ​

Checked against the Comprehensive Rules effective 2026-09-25.

  • 601.2b: "If a cost that will be paid as the spell is being cast includes hybrid mana symbols, the player announces the nonhybrid equivalent cost they intend to pay. If a cost that will be paid as the spell is being cast includes Phyrexian mana symbols, the player announces whether they intend to pay 2 life or a corresponding colored mana cost for each of those symbols."
  • 601.2f: the total cost is determined after 601.2b, so it starts from what was announced.
  • 107.4e: "A hybrid symbol such as {W/U} can be paid with either white or blue mana, and a monocolored hybrid symbol such as {2/B} can be paid with either one black mana or two mana of any type."
  • 107.4f: "A Phyrexian mana symbol represents a cost that can be paid either with one mana of its color or by paying 2 life. ... A hybrid Phyrexian mana symbol represents a cost that can be paid with one mana of either of its component colors or by paying 2 life."
  • 602.2b: activating an ability follows the same steps, so abilities use the same lines.

Alternatives rejected ​

  • Inferring the announcement from the pay and life lines. Rejected: the order of the steps means the answer is needed to check the cost lines, and the payment comes after them. Recording a choice is cheaper than making every reader reconstruct it.
  • Writing hybrid symbols in cost lines and the payment separately. Rejected: the rules never apply cost changes to an unannounced hybrid cost, so such a line would describe a cost that never existed.

Consequences ​

  • Spec section 7.2 adds choose symbol; section 7.6 and the grammar drop hybrid and Phyrexian symbols from cost values.
  • examples/more-situations.md shows Dismember paid with life under Thalia and Trinisphere.