Abstract Performance
Exile the top four cards of your library in a face-down pile, then exile the top four cards of your library in a face-up pile. An opponent chooses one of those piles. Put that pile into your graveyard. Look at the cards in the other pile. You may cast a spell from among them without paying its mana cost. Put the rest into your hand.
Illustrated by Alessandra Pisano
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If the spell has
in its mana cost, you must choose 0 as the value of X when casting it without paying its mana cost.If you cast a spell "without paying its mana cost," you can't choose to cast it for any alternative costs. You can, however, pay additional costs. If the card has any mandatory additional costs, you must pay those to cast the spell.
You cast the spell while Abstract Performance is resolving and still on the stack. You can't wait to cast it later in the turn. Timing restrictions based on its types are ignored.
You can't look at the cards in the face-down pile until you're instructed to do so or until they're moved to the graveyard (at which point they'll be face up).
If you have fewer than eight cards in your library, the second pile will be smaller than the first. If you have fewer than five cards in your library, only the face-down pile will have cards in it at all, and the second pile will be empty. In that case, your opponent will probably choose to put the pile with cards in it into your graveyard.
You choose which opponent chooses the pile while resolving Abstract Performance.
