I recently was digging around on the wiki looking at gear and I came across the wands that may cast X rank spells. After some digging online I couldn't find anything about how this works, does it take all your pips and if not then what determines how strong the spell is?
Sorry for the late response, but may cast spells NEVER take pips. If it is x rank it will still do (x)(number of pips) just without actually taking your pips. Hope that cleared it up!