Magic: The Gathering: Rules: Madness Abilities & Spells

Video Transcript

"Madness is an interesting ability. Here we have a card called Gibbering Descent. Gibbering Descent is an enchantment that normally costs two black and four colorless but it has a madness cost of two black and two colorless so it costs four instead of six total. Madness represents two abilities which say if you would discard a card, if you would discard this card you can instead remove it from the game rather than putting it into your grave yard. The second part of the madness ability says that if the card is removed from the game when you would discard it using its madness ability you may instead play the card and if you don't you put it into your grave yard. Basically what it says is that when you would have to normally discard it instead you can choose to pay its madness cost and play the spell. This has a number of interesting effects. It reduces the cost from six to four. It also lets you play an enchantment when normally you wouldn't be able to because you might discard the card during your opponent's turn and normally you can only cast enchantments on your own turn."