0034: Delve, convoke, and improvise

Status: Accepted. Amends decision 0024 (links from paying a cost survive the spell becoming a permanent).

Context

Some abilities let a player pay part of a spell's cost with something other than mana: delve exiles cards from the graveyard, convoke taps creatures, improvise taps artifacts. The spec defined none of them, so the pay lines for Murktide Regent, a card in this repository's own match example, did not add up to its cost, and nothing said how the exiled cards were written.

Murktide Regent also "enters with a +1/+1 counter on it for each instant and sorcery card exiled with it". Decision 0024 ended every with link when either object changed zone, which would end the link as the spell becomes a permanent.

Decision

1. Delve, convoke, and improvise are not cost changes. They have no cost line.
2. Each card or permanent used is a line caused by cost:ID: move graveyard -> exile for delve, tap for convoke and improvise. These lines come after the mana abilities and before the pay line. With the mana paid, they account for the whole total cost.
3. Cards exiled with delve are with the spell. The link survives the spell resolving into a permanent, so keyframes list them with Murktide Regent on the battlefield. This is the only exception to the rule that a link ends when either object changes zone.
4. A permanent that enters with counters has a counters line straight after its move, and its entering pt already includes them. This states, for every permanent, what section 9.1 already said for opening hand actions.

Rules basis

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

• 702.66a: "'Delve' means 'For each generic mana in this spell's total cost, you may exile a card from your graveyard rather than pay that mana.'"
• 702.66b: "The delve ability isn't an additional or alternative cost and applies only after the total cost of the spell with delve is determined." 702.51b (convoke) and 702.126b (improvise) say the same, so none of them is a cost line.
• 702.51a: "For each colored mana in this spell's total cost, you may tap an untapped creature of that color you control rather than pay that mana. For each generic mana in this spell's total cost, you may tap an untapped creature you control rather than pay that mana."
• 702.126a: "For each generic mana in this spell's total cost, you may tap an untapped artifact you control rather than pay that mana."
• 607.2q: "If a permanent spell has an ability printed on it that allows one or more cards to be exiled while paying a cost to cast it and the permanent that spell becomes has an ability that refers to cards 'exiled with [this object],' those abilities are linked. The second ability refers only to cards exiled to pay the cost of the spell that became that permanent."
• 122.6: counters an object "is given ... as it enters the battlefield" count as being put on it.

Alternatives rejected

• A cost line for delve (cost {5}{U}{U} -> {3}{U}{U} by #6). Rejected: the rules say delve is not a cost reduction, and Trinisphere and similar effects apply before it.
• Exiling delved cards without with. Rejected: Murktide Regent's counters, and cards that care about cards "exiled with" them, would have nothing to count.
• Recording which mana symbol each tapped convoke creature paid for. Rejected for now: the creature's color and the remaining pay line are enough to check it, and no recorded game has needed more.

Consequences

• Spec sections 7.1 and 7.6 define the lines, the with exception, and counters on entering.
• examples/more-situations.md shows Murktide Regent; examples/match.mtgr links its delved cards to it in the game 1 keyframe.