Steel hellkite and training grounds?
Asked by Riverdare 8 years ago
Does Training Grounds affect Steel Hellkite's first ability? Does that mean free colorless fire-breathing for infinite power?
It does effect it, but Training Grounds specifically says it cannot "reduce the amount of mana an ability costs to activite to less than one mana." Therefore, it would just reduce it by 1, leaving it at one colorless for the ability.
January 27, 2016 1:03 a.m.
I'm not sure that there is any card that will lower a cost to 0. I believe the lowest you can make a cost is 1. I could be wrong as I don't know every card.
January 27, 2016 2:31 a.m.
Yeah I don't think there's anything that can reduce the cost of the Hellkite's activated ability to zero either.
Incidentally though, Fluctuator can reduce Cycling costs to 
. And for pure jankiness, some of the Trap cards can cast for zero, in combo. Like Archive Trap
+
Surgical Extraction
or Glimpse the Unthinkable
+
Ravenous Trap
. And of course Rakdos, Lord of Riots, works on the Hellkite :-).
January 27, 2016 7:21 a.m. Edited.
EddCrawley says... #6
Norrak72, Rooftop Storm only affects what you cast for Zombies, not the cards converted mana cost (CMC), this is always what is printed in the top right corner of the card. and what you must pay to destroy with Steel Hellkite
But training grounds still offsets the cost of the second ability by 1, so to destroy tokens and other 0 cost non-land permanents you would pay 0, to destroy 1 or 2 or 3 cost permanents you would pay 1, but you would need to specify which CMC you are destroying when activating the ability.
CuteSnail says... Accepted answer #1
If you reread Training Grounds it can't reduce the ability to below 1 mana. So it would lower the cost to 1, not free.
Also this should go in Q&A
January 27, 2016 1:01 a.m. Edited.