Costs and Payments
Unofficial Riftbound rules answers about costs and payments, with examples and Core Rules citations.
How is a card's total cost determined?
A card's total cost is determined in five stages, in this order:
Start with the card's base costs, replacing them or setting them to zero as instructed.
Add all mandatory additional costs and any optional additional costs you chose to pay.
Add all applicable cost increases.
Reduce the card's cost by all applicable discounts.
Apply any effects that modify the resulting total cost.
Discounts that apply to one specific part of a cost are applied before discounts that apply to the total cost. If multiple discounts apply within either group, you may choose their order. Any minimum imposed by a discount applies only to that discount, so a later discount can reduce the cost further.
Are paid costs refunded if a card or ability is countered?
No. Countering does not refund any costs paid to play a card, activate an ability, or trigger an ability, including additional costs.
What are optional additional costs?
Optional additional costs are additional costs you may choose to pay. Their rules text uses both "may" and the exact phrase "as an additional cost." Accelerate and Repeat are keyworded optional additional costs.
You choose whether to pay an optional additional cost while making the relevant choices for the card or ability being played. If chosen, it is added while determining the total cost before applicable discounts are applied. The optional additional cost counts as paid even if discounts reduce it to zero.
What costs still apply when I play a card ignoring one or more of its costs?
The exact phrase determines which costs remain. Mandatory additional costs, any optional additional costs you choose, and cost increases are included while determining the total in every case.
- "Ignoring its energy cost" or "ignoring its power cost": Only the named base cost becomes zero; the other base cost still applies.
- "Ignoring its cost": Both the base energy cost and base power cost become zero.
- "Ignoring any and all costs": This phrase then sets the entire resulting total to zero. This includes non-standard costs paid through game actions such as killing a unit. A chosen optional additional cost counts as paid even though it adds nothing to the final total.
Example
Fizz, Trickster sets the chosen spell's base energy cost to 0.
If an opponent controls Helm of Suppression, Helm's cost increase is applied afterward, adding 1, or 1![[Power]](/images/rune_rainbow.svg)
if Helm is Empowered.
Can players react while costs are being paid?
No normal reaction window opens while a cost is being paid.
The limited exception is a resource payment: the player paying may activate an eligible Add ability with Reaction to provide those resources. That ability finalizes and resolves immediately without passing priority.
Ordinary reactions resume only when game procedure next allows a player to act; by then, the cost has already been paid.
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Written by Christian “Near” Ivicevic.
Last updated on .