What it does
Collect evidence is a cost you pay by exiling cards from your graveyard whose total mana value equals or exceeds a specified number. For example, "collect evidence 6" means exiling any number of cards from your graveyard whose combined mana value is at least 6. It's an additional or alternative cost on certain spells and abilities, often unlocking a bonus effect when paid.
The biggest nuance: collecting evidence is optional unless an ability requires it, and you choose exactly which cards to exile. Crucially, the exiled cards leave your graveyard permanently—this matters if you rely on graveyard recursion, delirium, threshold, or escape costs elsewhere. Lands count too, since they have mana value 0... actually only nonland mana values add up, so factor that in.
In Commander, big graveyards make collect evidence trivially easy to pay, so it's mostly relevant as a tension with other graveyard synergies rather than a real cost.
Iconic cards with Collect evidence
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