Cards with No Mana Cost
Before Time Spiral, there were three reasons a card might get printed without a mana cost:
1. It was a horrible mistake! (See the Alpha Cyclopean Tomb.)
2. It was a land, and they have their own rules about how to play them.
3. It was Evermind.
Evermind was never intended to be played—the only thing you can do with it is splice it onto another spell. To enable that, the card was printed without a mana cost and a rule backed that up by saying that a card with no mana cost can’t be played as a spell. Not only couldn’t you play Evermind as normal, but you also couldn’t play it via Fist of Suns or Spelljack or Isochron Scepter or whatever.
Time Spiral contains six new nonland cards with no mana cost. Like Evermind, none of them are intended to be played as normal. Instead, each one has suspend, and the only way to play one of them is to take the long way home and suspend it. You’ve seen two of these cards already: Wheel of Fate and Lotus Bloom. (Obviously you can’t just play a card like Lotus Bloom from your hand for free. That would be nuts!) Of course, after you’ve suspended the card and all the time counters have ticked away, you play the card . . . but the rules still say you can’t play it! That’s where I come in with my machete. See ya, you naysaying rules! Whack whack whack!
The new rule is actually similar to the old rule, but the subtle nuances make a world of difference. The new rule doesn’t say the card can’t be played—it says that a nonexistent mana cost can’t be paid. If you try to play Lotus Bloom from your hand, the rules will smack you down when you get to the cost payment. “How can you pay {}?” the rules gasp. “I don’t go in for your null set theory!” Increasing the cost doesn’t help; the rules don’t grasp the concept of {} + 1 Mana any better than they grasp {}. However, paying an alternate cost, or playing the spell without paying its cost, works because you sidestep the whole “paying {}” awkwardness. This lets a suspended Lotus Bloom work just fine: After the last time counter is removed, you play the spell without paying its mana cost. It also lets you play Evermind using Fist of Suns (since you pay White ManaBlue ManaBlack ManaRed ManaGreen Mana instead of the crazy {} noncost), or Spelljack, or Isochron Scepter. Have fun!
Note that the concept of {} is quite different than the concept of 0 Mana, which is a cost and can be paid. Also note that lands still don’t care about this rule because you don’t pay their costs.
This was from the most recent installment of a Gottlieb colemn, and is actually on the homepage of magicthegathering.com right now.
So, my question is pretty simple: Can we play Ancestral Vision with Mind's Desire now to get the immediate effect?
If so, might an insane combo deck revolving around Mind's Desire be good in Vintage?
