What are the official rulings for Wash Away?
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0. A cleave cost is an alternative cost that's paid instead of the spell's mana cost. Casting a spell for its cleave cost doesn't change the spell's mana value.
1. Copies of spells are never cast from a player's hand, so Wash Away can counter copies of spells even if its cleave cost wasn't paid, regardless of whether the original spell being copied was cast from a player's hand.
2. If an effect allows you to “cast a spell without paying its mana cost,” you can't cast that spell for its cleave cost.
3. If you cast a spell for its cleave cost, that spell doesn't have any of the text in square brackets while it's on the stack.
4. You can't cast a spell for both its cleave cost and another alternative cost. For example, if an effect gives an Alchemist's Retrieval in your graveyard a flashback cost of {U}, you can't cast it from your graveyard for its cleave cost.
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