How does Kentaro, the Smiling Cat ability work?

Question

"You may pay X rather than pay the mana cost for Samurai spells you play, where X is that spell's converted mana cost."

I don't understand how this ability works? I get that the converted mana cost is the total cost to play the card so how does playing a samurai card any cheaper?

Thanks for the help.

Answer 1

Kentaro makes it so that you can play samurai of ANY color without having to pay any colored mana.

Imagine that you have a Brothers Yamzaki in your hand (cost 1RR), and only one red mana available. You wouldn't be able to play it normally. But with Kentaro in play, you can just play it for 3.

Answer 2

Basically, it makes all Samurai cards colorless.  It doesn't lower the cost but makes it so that if you are color screwed, you can still play Samurai cards with the mana you have available.

Example:  You have an all white deck, but you really want to play Hand of Cruelty.  Now, instead of having to swamps into your deck, you can have Kentaro out and use 2 white mana to play him instead of having to have 2 black mana.