Chalice and Engineered Explosives

[arj]

My opponent has a chalice with 0 counters in play. Now I want to use my engineered explosives in my hand to blow it up. I'm guessing that the only way to play it without being countered is to play it with colorless mana. Then it would come into play with 0 counters and would be able to blow the chalice up. Is this correct?

[Komatteru]

Yes, that is the only way to get Explosives into play with no counters with Chalice 0 in play.

Also note the following interaction of Explosives with Sphere of Resistence: You can set X to 1, and then pay one more mana of a different color to satisfy the Sphere requirement, and Explosives will come into play with 2 counters on it (making Explosives with 2 counters cost 2 under Sphere), since two colors of mana were used to play the Explosives.  The number of counters that Explosives gets does not necessarily depend on X.

[Slay]

The only way to kill a Chalice with an Explosives is to set the Explosives to zero. To do this, you have to spend either zero mana on the explosives, or all colorless mana. If they have a Chalice out set to zero already, the only way to accomplish this is with something like Workshop, Ancient Tomb, or a Stifle.
-Slay

[Dante]

If they have a Chalice out set to zero already, the only way to accomplish this is with something like Workshop, Ancient Tomb, or a Stifle.
-Slay

...or sol ring, mana vault, wasteland/strip mine/any land that produces colorless mana - basically anything that produces colorless mana will do fine.