Board & Card Games Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for people who like playing board games, designing board games or modifying the rules of existing board games. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
Spells cast with the keyword Epic, like Eternal Dominion prevent the player from casting other spells for the rest of the game. However, Golos, Tireless Pilgrim says:
Exile the top three cards of your library. You may play them this turn without paying their mana costs.
Would I be able to use Golos's activated ability and cast cards after using Eternal Dominion?
Epic prevents a player from casting spells through Golos or any other means.
Golos allows you to cast the spells it exiles from exile, but that doesn't matter for Epic. Epic prevents all spells from being cast. Casting a spell from anywhere else than the hand still counts as casting, even though it rarely happens and always requires a card specifically allowing you to do so.
112.1. A spell is a card on the stack. As the first step of being cast (see rule 601, “Casting Spells”), the card becomes a spell and is moved to the top of the stack from the zone it was in, which is usually its owner’s hand.
The keyword here is "usually", which means it doesn't have to be from a player's hand to count as casting. So you can activate Golos's ability, the cards get exiled, but you won't be able to cast the cards it exiles.
Also, in case your question was more about whether Golos' ability overrides Epic by explicitely allowing you to cast spells, then no, it doesn't do that either:
101.2. When a rule or effect allows or directs something to happen, and another effect states that it can’t happen, the “can’t” effect takes precedence.
Yes, you would be able to activate Golos's activated ability.
No, you couldn't cast cards exiled by Golos's activated ability (but you could play lands exiled by the ability).
Golos's ability instructs you to play a card. To play a card means to play that card as a land or to cast that card as a spell.[CR 701.13b]
Epic creates a continuous effect that says you can't cast spells for the remainder of the game.[CR 702.49a]
For non-lands, we have a conflict resolved by the second Golden Rule:
101.2. When a rule or effect allows or directs something to happen, and another effect states that it can’t happen, the “can’t” effect takes precedence.
This means the restriction from Epic's continuous effect trumps all instructions to cast spells, including the permission granted by Priority (the normal way of casting spells) and effects from abilities such as Golos's.
If Golos's ability exiles a land, you may play it as a land (subject to the usual timing restrictions and the limit on the number of lands per turn).
If Golos's ability exiles a non-land, you may not play it, as that would involve casting it.
101.2. When a rule or effect allows or directs something to happen, and another effect states that it can’t happen, the “can’t” effect takes precedence.
701.13b To play a card means to play that card as a land or to cast that card as a spell, whichever is appropriate.
702.49a Epic represents two spell abilities, one of which creates a delayed triggered ability. “Epic” means “For the rest of the game, you can’t cast spells,” and “At the beginning of each of your upkeeps for the rest of the game, copy this spell except for its epic ability. If the spell has any targets, you may choose new targets for the copy.” See rule 706.10.
The Epic ability prevents you from casting any more spells from the rest of the game, regardless of how this occurs. Golos's ability exiles the top three cards of your library and then allows you to cast spells without paying their mana costs for the rest of the turn; since abilities will try to do as much as they can, as a result, if it is activated after casting an Epic spell, you simply exile the top three cards of your library and nothing else happens.
