So, WotC are going to produce four colour commanders in November. A few months back I thought I'd take a stab at my myself. So here are some of the results:
Aroshi, Sky Commander4UB
Legendary Creature - Bird Soldier (M)
Flying
Creatures with flying your opponents control get -2/-2. RW: Target creature attacks or blocks this turn if able. You may have creature gain flying until the end of turn. Untap it.
2/2
The trouble with four colour commanders is right now there is not a lot of support. Unless we want a deck where every new card is four colours. My solution is to make each deck built around two ally colours with an enemy colour pair. Aroshi is perfectly reasonable without the ability. He's a lot better with it.
Obviously each deck gets a theme, the main one of this deck would be flying matters (as green is the weakest deck for flyers). There's four more as well.
Endo, Who Forgets None2UW
Legendary Creature - Spirit (M)
Flash
When you cast Endo, Who Forgets None, put the top three cards of your libary into your graveyard. Then return up to one noncreature, nonland card that was put into your graveyard this turn to your hand. 3GB: Return target creature card and target land card from your graveyard to your hand.
2/3
The GWUB deck is the graveyard deck as red is generally the weakest colour at utilising the graveuard in my opinion.
Malik Amalis1GW
Legendary Creature - Human Wizard (M)
Creature tokens you control get +1/+1 and hexproof. 2UR, T: Target opponent gains control of target nontoken, non legendary creature you control. You may put a token copy of target creature that player controls onto the battlefield.
2/4
Black is the most selfish colour so this commander is all about sharing. He both helps other creatures you control (as long as their tokens) and he gives creatures to your opponents. This deck will have a fair amount of both etb effects and a token theme.
Maak the Inevitable2RG
Legendary Creature - Elephant Shaman (M)
Maak the Inevitable can't be countered.
Noncreature spells you cast can't be countered. WB: Put a creature card from your graveyard onto the battlefield. Each opponent gains life equal to that creature's power and you lose life equal to that creatures toughness.
3/4
The theme here is uncounterability, as blue love countering things and these colours don't. I wasn't too keen but playing the second ability seemed quite fun.
Nazari, Pyretic Mentor4BR
Legendary Creature - Vampire Wizard (M)
Whenever a spell or ability causes you to draw 3 or more cards, add B or R to your mana pool for each card in your hand. Then each opponent discards a card unless he or she pays 1 life for each card in his or her hand. 2UG: Each player draws three cards.
4/6
White is the worst colour for drawing cards, so this colour combination will reward you for drawing cards.
They will be some more cards, coming so watch this space...
Nazari, Pyretic Mentor4BR
Legendary Creature - Vampire Wizard (M)
Whenever a spell or ability causes you to draw three or more cards, add R or B to your mana pool for each card in your hand and each opponent discards a card unless he or she pays 1 life for each card in his or her hand. 2UG: Each player draws three cards.
4/6
Maak the Inevitable2RG
Legendary Creature - Elephant Shaman (M)
Maak the Inevitable can't be countered.
Noncreature spells you cast can't be countered. WB: Return a creature card from your hand onto the battlefield. Each opponent gains life equal to that creature's power and you lose life equal to that creatures toughness.
3/4
So, I wanted to add some alternative commanders. These have the same problems as the first ones, I don't want to use straight four mana costs in order to minimise repetition the need to mana correct and save me from falling too close to five colour commanders. So I have tried habid costs. Also, unlike the lead commanders these will all be attached to plane (although not all have a planar identity yet). I'll post the full set later but for now a teaser:
Taigam, Conflicted Monk1(W/U)(B/G)
Legendary Creature - Human Monk (M)
Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, put a +1/+1 counter on Taigam, Conflicted Monk.
At the beginning of each end step, if one or more creature cards entered you graveyard this turn, put a 1/1 green and black snake creature token with deathtouch onto the battlefield.
1/1
The flavour here is that Taigam is on the Dragon side of Tarkir, but he is conflicted, perhaps haunted by memories of the world that wasn't, and that is leading him to experiment with more sultai abilities such as the second.
Hyvuka, pirit of Majesty5(R/G)(W/B)
Legendary Creature - Spirit(M)
Haste, Lifelink
When a creature with power five or greater enters the battlefield under your control, it gains haste and lifelink until the end of turn.
4/4
An post mending Alara inspired commander. His ability is designed to match up with Maak activated ability.
Mennik, Maro Insurgent6(B/R)(G/U)
Legendary Creature - Elemental (M)
Whenever an opponent casts a spell, Mennik, Maro Insurgent deals 1 damage to that player.
Mennik, Maro Insurgent power and toughness is equal to the total number of cards in all player’s hands.
*/*
Plays on the everyone draws theme of Nazari.
Shara and Nivo2(G/W)(U/R)
Legendary Creature - Human Wizard (M)
Shara and Nivo player and toughness is equal to the number of creatures you control.
Whenever a player casts an instant or sorcery, if that spell would put one or more tokens onto the battlefield, copy that spell. You may choose new targets for that copy.
*/*
A ravnica marriage made in heaven. The Selesnyan wizard wants the collective, the izzet wizard doubles spell that puts tokens into play. Joy.
Wydnelin, the Spiteful Storm3(U/B)(R/W)
Legendary Creature - Faerie(M)
Flying
Whenever a faerie you control is dealt damage, it deals that much damage to target creature or player.
Whenever a faerie you control deals noncombat damage to a player, that player draws a card.
1/4
Finally a shadowmoor inspired faerie lord. Every faerie becomes a spitemare. Such fun.
Aroshi, Sky Commander: I think the -2/-2 ability mostly works, but it's a bit strange to have a blue creature shrinking fliers, even if they are controlled by your opponents. The RW ability feels really off to me; although red can compel creatures to attack, there is not much precedent for red forcing creatures to block (only 2 cards exist that do this), and white never compels creatures to block. This would be my version:
Aroshi, Sky Commander3UB
Legendary Creature - Bird Soldier (M)
Flying
Creatures with flying your opponents control get -2/-2. RW: Target creature gains first strike until end of turn. Whenever it blocks or becomes blocked this turn, it deals 2 damage to target creature or player.
2/2
Endo, Who Forgets None: This is pretty cool as is.
Malik Amalis: Great design! Especially the UR ability.
Maak the Inevitable: I love that this is an Elephant, because what is more inevitable and hard to stop than an Elephant? The WB ability is a color-pie break I would say, as those colors almost never put creatures directly onto the battlefield from your hand. White has done it a couple times as long as the creature enters the battlefield attacking, and black has done it a couple times (usually paired with R), as long as the creature leaves the battlefield at end of turn. I thought of an alternate version below:
Maak the Inevitable2RG
Legendary Creature - Elephant Shaman (M)
Maak the Inevitable can't be countered.
Noncreature spells you cast can't be countered. WB, T: Put a creature card with power 3 or less from your graveyard onto the battlefield.
3/4
Nazari, Pyretic Mentor: Very creative design. For ease of reading, I would change the wording of the first ability to:
"Whenever a spell or ability causes you to draw 3 or more cards, add B or R to your mana pool for each card in your hand. Then each opponent discards a card unless he or she pays 1 life for each card in his or her hand."
Aroshi, Sky Commander: I think the -2/-2 ability mostly works, but it's a bit strange to have a blue creature shrinking fliers, even if they are controlled by your opponents. The RW ability feels really off to me; although red can compel creatures to attack, there is not much precedent for red forcing creatures to block (only 2 cards exist that do this), and white never compels creatures to block.
My goal with these sort of creatures is to find trully multicoloured cards. The -2/-2 feeling off with blue is valid, because it's the more black orientated ability. Similarly the RW abilty is designed to feel as though it wouldn't particularly fit either. Red is poor at flying granting, while white is somewhat weaker at making creatures attack or block (but it doesn't get some cards like OdRiC,MaStERTaCtiCan).
Maak the Inevitable: I love that this is an Elephant, because what is more inevitable and hard to stop than an Elephant? The WB ability is a color-pie break I would say, as those colors almost never put creatures directly onto the battlefield from your hand. White has done it a couple times as long as the creature enters the battlefield attacking, and black has done it a couple times (usually paired with R), as long as the creature leaves the battlefield at end of turn. I thought of an alternate version below:
Maak the Inevitable2RG
Legendary Creature - Elephant Shaman (M)
Maak the Inevitable can't be countered.
Noncreature spells you cast can't be countered. WB, T: Put a creature card with power 3 or less from your graveyard onto the battlefield.
3/4
Your right about the colour pie break. I might switch the ability to just return creatures from the graveyard, but I really liked the idea of whole life for creatures thing. It felt very Orzhov.
Nazari, Pyretic Mentor: Very creative design. For ease of reading, I would change the wording of the first ability to:
"Whenever a spell or ability causes you to draw 3 or more cards, add B or R to your mana pool for each card in your hand. Then each opponent discards a card unless he or she pays 1 life for each card in his or her hand."
My goal with these sort of creatures is to find trully multicoloured cards. The -2/-2 feeling off with blue is valid, because it's the more black orientated ability. Similarly the RW abilty is designed to feel as though it wouldn't particularly fit either.
My impression is that for the most part your mechanics do fit with their colors: the main abilities of the legends fit with their mana cost colors, and their activated abilities fit with the colored mana used to activate them. So my feeling is that Malik, for instance, does a great job of being a true multicolored card, because it helps tokens (white), grants hexproof (green), changes control of things (red), and creates copies (blue). Perfectly executed! That's why Aroshi felt off to me, because the others captured aspects of all four colors while Aroshi's ability didn't reflect the colors as well.
Taigam, Conflicted Monk: This one's pretty sweet. Will get huge!
Hyvuka, Spirit of Majesty: I love these hybrid mana costs. I think you can get away with making this 5/5, which would also provide a nice symmetry with the ability affecting 5-power creatures.
Mennik, Maro Insurgent: I like the synergy of this card encouraging players not to play spells, which keeps cards in their hands and thus keeps Mennik's power higher. You could probably get away with making it 2 damage per spell, which would reinforce that flavor even more. In a multiplayer game the card will become a huge target as soon as it is played, so it might as well get in a few more points of damage before one of those spells takes it down
Shara and Nivo: Pretty great.
Wydnelin, the Spiteful Storm: How does one build a deck around this? Aren't most Faeries too small to be effective at redirecting damage?
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Aroshi, Sky Commander4UB
Legendary Creature - Bird Soldier (M)
Flying
Creatures with flying your opponents control get -2/-2.
RW: Target creature attacks or blocks this turn if able. You may have creature gain flying until the end of turn. Untap it.
2/2
The trouble with four colour commanders is right now there is not a lot of support. Unless we want a deck where every new card is four colours. My solution is to make each deck built around two ally colours with an enemy colour pair. Aroshi is perfectly reasonable without the ability. He's a lot better with it.
Obviously each deck gets a theme, the main one of this deck would be flying matters (as green is the weakest deck for flyers). There's four more as well.
Endo, Who Forgets None2UW
Legendary Creature - Spirit (M)
Flash
When you cast Endo, Who Forgets None, put the top three cards of your libary into your graveyard. Then return up to one noncreature, nonland card that was put into your graveyard this turn to your hand.
3GB: Return target creature card and target land card from your graveyard to your hand.
2/3
The GWUB deck is the graveyard deck as red is generally the weakest colour at utilising the graveuard in my opinion.
Malik Amalis 1GW
Legendary Creature - Human Wizard (M)
Creature tokens you control get +1/+1 and hexproof.
2UR, T: Target opponent gains control of target nontoken, non legendary creature you control. You may put a token copy of target creature that player controls onto the battlefield.
2/4
Black is the most selfish colour so this commander is all about sharing. He both helps other creatures you control (as long as their tokens) and he gives creatures to your opponents. This deck will have a fair amount of both etb effects and a token theme.
Maak the Inevitable 2RG
Legendary Creature - Elephant Shaman (M)
Maak the Inevitable can't be countered.
Noncreature spells you cast can't be countered.
WB: Put a creature card from your graveyard onto the battlefield. Each opponent gains life equal to that creature's power and you lose life equal to that creatures toughness.
3/4
The theme here is uncounterability, as blue love countering things and these colours don't. I wasn't too keen but playing the second ability seemed quite fun.
Nazari, Pyretic Mentor4BR
Legendary Creature - Vampire Wizard (M)
Whenever a spell or ability causes you to draw 3 or more cards, add B or R to your mana pool for each card in your hand. Then each opponent discards a card unless he or she pays 1 life for each card in his or her hand.
2UG: Each player draws three cards.
4/6
White is the worst colour for drawing cards, so this colour combination will reward you for drawing cards.
They will be some more cards, coming so watch this space...
Nazari, Pyretic Mentor4BR
Legendary Creature - Vampire Wizard (M)
Whenever a spell or ability causes you to draw three or more cards, add R or B to your mana pool for each card in your hand and each opponent discards a card unless he or she pays 1 life for each card in his or her hand.
2UG: Each player draws three cards.
4/6
Legendary Creature - Elephant Shaman (M)
Maak the Inevitable can't be countered.
Noncreature spells you cast can't be countered.
WB: Return a creature card from your hand onto the battlefield. Each opponent gains life equal to that creature's power and you lose life equal to that creatures toughness.
3/4
Taigam, Conflicted Monk1(W/U)(B/G)
Legendary Creature - Human Monk (M)
Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, put a +1/+1 counter on Taigam, Conflicted Monk.
At the beginning of each end step, if one or more creature cards entered you graveyard this turn, put a 1/1 green and black snake creature token with deathtouch onto the battlefield.
1/1
The flavour here is that Taigam is on the Dragon side of Tarkir, but he is conflicted, perhaps haunted by memories of the world that wasn't, and that is leading him to experiment with more sultai abilities such as the second.
Hyvuka,
pirit of Majesty 5(R/G)(W/B)Legendary Creature - Spirit(M)
Haste, Lifelink
When a creature with power five or greater enters the battlefield under your control, it gains haste and lifelink until the end of turn.
4/4
An post mending Alara inspired commander. His ability is designed to match up with Maak activated ability.
Mennik, Maro Insurgent 6(B/R)(G/U)
Legendary Creature - Elemental (M)
Whenever an opponent casts a spell, Mennik, Maro Insurgent deals 1 damage to that player.
Mennik, Maro Insurgent power and toughness is equal to the total number of cards in all player’s hands.
*/*
Plays on the everyone draws theme of Nazari.
Shara and Nivo 2(G/W)(U/R)
Legendary Creature - Human Wizard (M)
Shara and Nivo player and toughness is equal to the number of creatures you control.
Whenever a player casts an instant or sorcery, if that spell would put one or more tokens onto the battlefield, copy that spell. You may choose new targets for that copy.
*/*
A ravnica marriage made in heaven. The Selesnyan wizard wants the collective, the izzet wizard doubles spell that puts tokens into play. Joy.
Wydnelin, the Spiteful Storm3(U/B)(R/W)
Legendary Creature - Faerie(M)
Flying
Whenever a faerie you control is dealt damage, it deals that much damage to target creature or player.
Whenever a faerie you control deals noncombat damage to a player, that player draws a card.
1/4
Finally a shadowmoor inspired faerie lord. Every faerie becomes a spitemare. Such fun.
Aroshi, Sky Commander: I think the -2/-2 ability mostly works, but it's a bit strange to have a blue creature shrinking fliers, even if they are controlled by your opponents. The RW ability feels really off to me; although red can compel creatures to attack, there is not much precedent for red forcing creatures to block (only 2 cards exist that do this), and white never compels creatures to block. This would be my version:
Legendary Creature - Bird Soldier (M)
Flying
Creatures with flying your opponents control get -2/-2.
RW: Target creature gains first strike until end of turn. Whenever it blocks or becomes blocked this turn, it deals 2 damage to target creature or player.
2/2
Endo, Who Forgets None: This is pretty cool as is.
Malik Amalis: Great design! Especially the UR ability.
Maak the Inevitable: I love that this is an Elephant, because what is more inevitable and hard to stop than an Elephant? The WB ability is a color-pie break I would say, as those colors almost never put creatures directly onto the battlefield from your hand. White has done it a couple times as long as the creature enters the battlefield attacking, and black has done it a couple times (usually paired with R), as long as the creature leaves the battlefield at end of turn. I thought of an alternate version below:
Legendary Creature - Elephant Shaman (M)
Maak the Inevitable can't be countered.
Noncreature spells you cast can't be countered.
WB, T: Put a creature card with power 3 or less from your graveyard onto the battlefield.
3/4
Nazari, Pyretic Mentor: Very creative design. For ease of reading, I would change the wording of the first ability to:
"Whenever a spell or ability causes you to draw 3 or more cards, add B or R to your mana pool for each card in your hand. Then each opponent discards a card unless he or she pays 1 life for each card in his or her hand."
My goal with these sort of creatures is to find trully multicoloured cards. The -2/-2 feeling off with blue is valid, because it's the more black orientated ability. Similarly the RW abilty is designed to feel as though it wouldn't particularly fit either. Red is poor at flying granting, while white is somewhat weaker at making creatures attack or block (but it doesn't get some cards like OdRiC,MaStERTaCtiCan).
Your right about the colour pie break. I might switch the ability to just return creatures from the graveyard, but I really liked the idea of whole life for creatures thing. It felt very Orzhov.
I like this templating. I'll change it now.
Taigam, Conflicted Monk: This one's pretty sweet. Will get huge!
Hyvuka, Spirit of Majesty: I love these hybrid mana costs. I think you can get away with making this 5/5, which would also provide a nice symmetry with the ability affecting 5-power creatures.
Mennik, Maro Insurgent: I like the synergy of this card encouraging players not to play spells, which keeps cards in their hands and thus keeps Mennik's power higher. You could probably get away with making it 2 damage per spell, which would reinforce that flavor even more. In a multiplayer game the card will become a huge target as soon as it is played, so it might as well get in a few more points of damage before one of those spells takes it down
Shara and Nivo: Pretty great.
Wydnelin, the Spiteful Storm: How does one build a deck around this? Aren't most Faeries too small to be effective at redirecting damage?