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353. Determine Total Cost.

353.1. If an ability or instruction allows you to "ignore" one or more of a card's costs, set the appropriate Base Cost(s) of the card to zero.

353.1.a. If a card allows a player to play a card "ignoring its cost," its base Energy cost and base Power cost are set to zero.
353.1.b. If a card instructs a player to play a card "ignoring its Energy cost" or "ignoring its Power cost," only the appropriate cost is set to zero, and the remaining cost still applies.
353.1.c. Further additional costs and/or cost increases applied in subsequent steps may raise the card's Total Cost above zero. Example: Legion Rearguard is a Fury unit that costs 2 Energy and 0 Power and has Accelerate. A player plays Legion Rearguard and is instructed to ignore its costs, but chooses to pay the Accelerate cost. They ignore Legion Rearguard's Base Cost of 2 Energy, but the optional additional cost of 1 Energy and 1 Fury Power is added to its Total Cost and must be paid.

353.2. Apply additional costs in any order.

353.2.a. Mandatory Additional Costs
353.2.a.1. Some Additional Costs specified by Passive Abilities on the card being played or another card are Mandatory , and must be paid to complete playing the card. They use the phrase "as an additional cost" and don't include the word "may." Example: A unit has the passive ability "As an additional cost to play me, kill a friendly unit." To play that unit, a player must kill a friendly unit. See rule 360. Passive Abilities for more information.
353.2.a.2. The cost imposed by the Deflect keyword is a Mandatory Additional Cost. See rule 735. Deflect for more information.
353.2.b. Optional Additional Costs
353.2.b.1. Some Optional Costs specified by Passive Abilities on the card being played or another card are Non-Mandatory , and must be paid only if the player made the choice to pay them in rule

353.4. , and discards a card to pay that additional cost in rule

353.4.a. Discounts may be applied by the card being played or by any other card or effect.
353.4.b. Discounts may say that cards "cost [amount] less" or that one or more of their costs are "reduced by [amount]."
353.4.c. If a discount applies a minimum cost, that minimum applies only to that discount. Example: Eager Apprentice says "While I'm at a battlefield, the Energy costs for spells you play is reduced by [1], to a minimum of [1]." A player who controls Eager Apprentice and a unit with 7 Might plays Sky Splitter, a spell that costs 8 Energy and says "This spell's Energy cost is reduced by the highest Might among units you control." That player can choose to apply Eager Apprentice's discount first, reducing Sky Splitter's Energy cost to 7, then apply Sky Splitter's discount, reducing its Energy cost to 0. If they applied these discounts in the other order, Sky Splitter's Energy cost would be 1.
353.4.d. Discounts can reduce additional costs, including to 0.
353.4.d.1. An optional additional cost was "paid" if the player made the decision in rule 352 to pay it. It doesn't matter how much the player actually paid. Example: Clockwork Keeper is a unit that costs 2 Energy and 0 Power and says "As you play me, you may pay [C] as an additional cost. If you do, draw " A player controls a card that says "Units you play cost [A] less." That player plays Clockwork Keeper and chooses to pay the optional additional cost of [C]. They will draw a card, even though the optional additional cost was reduced to 0.

353.3. Apply cost increases.

353.5. Energy and Power costs can't be reduced below 0.

353.6. Costs may be Energy costs, Power costs, or non-standard costs. Example: A card reads "As an additional cost to play me, kill a friendly unit." Killing a friendly unit is an additional cost to play that card.

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