This is the important point. It doesn't matter what the intention might have been, it matters what is. If you can counter Beseech the Queen with Lifeforce, then it is is black, and you can't make it not-black just because you want to put it in your deck.
So, Alesha, Who Smiles at Death should also get countered by Lifeforce under this logic? Or how about we talk about devoid cards under this logic?
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I don't see how the guildmage cycle fails at being or cards, i think they work perfectly. If you play color A then you can use the A color ability and if you play color B then you can use the color B ability. Only if you have both can you use both.
Cards like Birds of Paradise and City of Brass exist that would (for example) allow cards like Selesnya Guildmage to use all of its abilities in mono colored deck. Not to mention that despite its hybrid (this or that) mana cost, it abilities clearly have two different normal (this and that) mana symbols. Even under a hybrid symbol rules change this card (and other like it) still couldn't go into a mono colored deck for the same reason as Granger Guildmage.
So, Alesha, Who Smiles at Death should also get countered by Lifeforce under this logic? Or how about we talk about devoid cards under this logic?
That's pretty disingenuous. Alesha is not a black card. The card has no black mana symbols in its mana cost. Strictly speaking, you could build an Alesha deck with mana sources that only produce R and still be able to play your commander. Beseech the Queen is, in all zones, a black card. Alesha is not, even though her ability adds black and white to her colour identity per 903.4: "The color identity of a card is the color or colors of any mana symbols in that card’s mana cost or rules text, plus any colors defined by its characteristic-defining abilities (see rule 604.3) or color indicator (see rule 204)." Just because you can pay 6 for Beseech doesn't mean it stops being black, any more than paying WUBRG through Fist of Suns makes any of your spells five colours.
Devoid, per 702.113a in the Comprehensive Rules, is "a characteristic-defining ability. “Devoid” means “This object is colorless.” This ability functions everywhere, even outside the game." The Devoid ability adds on the colourless characteristic. Nowhere does it contradict the colour identity rules in 903.4. Eldrazi Displacer still adds W to your devotion to white for Evangel of Heliod, and it still gets +1/+1 from Light from Within.
Last but not least, the current color identity rules already deviate from the game rules that define color, since Memnarch is considered blue and Bosh, Iron Golem is considered red while the rules of the game say they are colorless. So the fact that hybrid cards count as both colors ruleswise is not a valid argument to support the claim that they should therefore also be coloridentitywise, as the current rules already prove this is not a 1 on 1 relation.
That is correct. Color identity is not color.
So why is a color argument (and a gameplay one rather than a deckbuilding one) being used to try to justify a change?
It isn't. At least not by me. I'm talking about the intent of the design of the cards. Hybrid is simply something else then multicolor. Even before the removal of the rule that off color mana becomes colorless, I could still cast Mirrorweave using only islands in my monoblue deck. The same cannot be said for say, Sphinx's Revelation. It's the commander format's rules that deny monocolor decks access to hybrid cards in spite of the card's design to explicitly allow monocolor decks access to the card (it's the defining trait). Preventing hybrid from being used in mono color decks is the same as not allowing colorless cards for commanders without a C in their casting cost would be. Yet you/the RC don't do the latter but you/the RC do the former.
I get that it's a matter of preference and since Commander is simply your/the RC's homebrew format that the rest of the world simply latched on to so you guys have every right to rule it anyway you want. All i'm saying is that it's just a 100% arbritrary line that is being drawn here.
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I don't see how the guildmage cycle fails at being or cards, i think they work perfectly. If you play color A then you can use the A color ability and if you play color B then you can use the color B ability. Only if you have both can you use both.
Cards like Birds of Paradise and City of Brass exist that would (for example) allow cards like Selesnya Guildmage to use all of its abilities in mono colored deck. Not to mention that despite its hybrid (this or that) mana cost, it abilities clearly have two different normal (this and that) mana symbols. Even under a hybrid symbol rules change this card (and other like it) still couldn't go into a mono colored deck for the same reason as Granger Guildmage.
What you say is true but it is not a good argument in this case. All Magic cards can do things you normally can't if you pair it with certain other cards. There's no end to the discussion if we veer down that path.
As far as the example in question, that is only possible due to the quite recent change allowing adding off color mana to your mana pool (Which I support but did not see the need for). It has nothing to do with hybrid.
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It isn't. At least not by me. I'm talking about the intent of the design of the cards. Hybrid is simply something else then multicolor. Even before the removal of the rule that off color mana becomes colorless, I could still cast Mirrorweave using only islands in my monoblue deck. The same cannot be said for say, Sphinx's Revelation. It's the commander format's rules that deny monocolor decks access to hybrid cards in spite of the card's design to explicitly allow monocolor decks access to the card (it's the defining trait). Preventing hybrid from being used in mono color decks is the same as not allowing colorless cards for commanders without a C in their casting cost would be. Yet you/the RC don't do the latter but you/the RC do the former.
I get that it's a matter of preference and since Commander is simply your/the RC's homebrew format that the rest of the world simply latched on to so you guys have every right to rule it anyway you want. All i'm saying is that it's just a 100% arbritrary line that is being drawn here.
But if you approach this from the intent of the cards and not the color restrictions, then why is running Mirrorweave acceptable in my mono white deck but not Phyrexian mana cards like Dismember or trap cards like Summoning Trap?
Last but not least, the current color identity rules already deviate from the game rules that define color, since Memnarch is considered blue and Bosh, Iron Golem is considered red while the rules of the game say they are colorless. So the fact that hybrid cards count as both colors ruleswise is not a valid argument to support the claim that they should therefore also be coloridentitywise, as the current rules already prove this is not a 1 on 1 relation.
That is correct. Color identity is not color.
So why is a color argument (and a gameplay one rather than a deckbuilding one) being used to try to justify a change?
It isn't. At least not by me. I'm talking about the intent of the design of the cards. Hybrid is simply something else then multicolor. Even before the removal of the rule that off color mana becomes colorless, I could still cast Mirrorweave using only islands in my monoblue deck. The same cannot be said for say, Sphinx's Revelation. It's the commander format's rules that deny monocolor decks access to hybrid cards in spite of the card's design to explicitly allow monocolor decks access to the card (it's the defining trait). Preventing hybrid from being used in mono color decks is the same as not allowing colorless cards for commanders without a C in their casting cost would be. Yet you/the RC don't do the latter but you/the RC do the former.
I get that it's a matter of preference and since Commander is simply your/the RC's homebrew format that the rest of the world simply latched on to so you guys have every right to rule it anyway you want. All i'm saying is that it's just a 100% arbritrary line that is being drawn here.
You can cast Beseech the Queen using only colourless mana. That doesn't make it colourless.
It's the commander format's rules that deny monocolor decks access to hybrid cards in spite of the card's design to explicitly allow monocolor decks access to the card (it's the defining trait). Preventing hybrid from being used in mono color decks is the same as not allowing colorless cards for commanders without a C in their casting cost would be. Yet you/the RC don't do the latter but you/the RC do the former.
I get that it's a matter of preference and since Commander is simply your/the RC's homebrew format that the rest of the world simply latched on to so you guys have every right to rule it anyway you want. All i'm saying is that it's just a 100% arbritrary line that is being drawn here.
I don't get how this is anyway analogous. How does recognizing that Mirrorweave is a Blue/White card (which everything in the game agrees it is) and not letting it see play in a Mono Blue deck in any way compare to letting a colorless card be played in any deck. Yes, it requires a certain type of mana (colorless) but it is still colorless. And colorless mana is still legal to have in any deck. So, I still don't see any "arbitrary" line here.
But if you approach this from the intent of the cards and not the color restrictions, then why is running Mirrorweave acceptable in my mono white deck but not Phyrexian mana cards like Dismember or trap cards like Summoning Trap?
1) Phyrexian Mana was a mistake in the way in which it was implemented. From the standpoint of every format of magic Phyrexian Mana is a little bit unhealthy as they mostly did make all of those cards colorless for every other format. They later did more distorting when Kozilek 2.0 was printed but most of those cards were tame in comparison to what they were pushing from the standpoint of Phyrexian Mana.
2) A good while back before they took out the mana generation rule I was actually hoping they would axe Color Identity and keep the mana generation rule instead. Phyrexian Mana is kind of the exception problem for that though.
To be fair, all of commander's rules were generated at a time much later into the history of the game of magic so it makes all of them a little arbitrary as you are adding deckbuilding and play rules that do not exist for the rest of magic to this specific format. Commander's Rules may predate hybrid mana but realistically commander was not on wizard's radar for design until at least the 2007-2010 timeframe. Does anyone else find it ironic that for the most part wizards didn't have all these fidley rules about what mana and color things were until well after commander became a thing and then BAM suddenly there are tons of variations that toe with the line of color identity?
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1) Phyrexian Mana was a mistake in the way in which it was implemented. From the standpoint of every format of magic Phyrexian Mana is a little bit unhealthy as they mostly did make all of those cards colorless for every other format. They later did more distorting when Kozilek 2.0 was printed but most of those cards were tame in comparison to what they were pushing from the standpoint of Phyrexian Mana.
2) A good while back before they took out the mana generation rule I was actually hoping they would axe Color Identity and keep the mana generation rule instead. Phyrexian Mana is kind of the exception problem for that though.
To be fair, all of commander's rules were generated at a time much later into the history of the game of magic so it makes all of them a little arbitrary as you are adding deckbuilding and play rules that do not exist for the rest of magic to this specific format. Commander's Rules may predate hybrid mana but realistically commander was not on wizard's radar for design until at least the 2007-2010 timeframe. Does anyone else find it ironic that for the most part wizards didn't have all these fidley rules about what mana and color things were until well after commander became a thing and then BAM suddenly there are tons of variations that toe with the line of color identity?
We've already had this discussion in private, but for the sake of others I'll repeat myself. It doesn't matter if Wizards made a mistake or sacrificed what they wanted to do for better gameplay. All that matters is what they DID do. And as Wildfire and I said previously, Phyrexian mana wasn't a mistake. The mistake was individual cards were too strong or were gross color pie violations. And again, going back to Wizards design philosophy, they still don't take Commander into account she they design cards or mechanics unless it's specifically for the persons. So it's hardly fair to give them a free pass for hybrid when they to this day have the philosophy of "design cards and let the RC sort it out" (although they do appear to st least talk to the RC when a change would impact the format).
I don't see how the guildmage cycle fails at being or cards, i think they work perfectly. If you play color A then you can use the A color ability and if you play color B then you can use the color B ability. Only if you have both can you use both.
Cards like Birds of Paradise and City of Brass exist that would (for example) allow cards like Selesnya Guildmage to use all of its abilities in mono colored deck. Not to mention that despite its hybrid (this or that) mana cost, it abilities clearly have two different normal (this and that) mana symbols. Even under a hybrid symbol rules change this card (and other like it) still couldn't go into a mono colored deck for the same reason as Granger Guildmage.
What you say is true but it is not a good argument in this case. All Magic cards can do things you normally can't if you pair it with certain other cards. There's no end to the discussion if we veer down that path.
As far as the example in question, that is only possible due to the quite recent change allowing adding off color mana to your mana pool (Which I support but did not see the need for). It has nothing to do with hybrid.
Do you believe rules text should count toward color identity? If you think it should, the clear Monocolored Symbol 1 AND Monocolored Symbol 2 in the Ravnica Guildmage's rules text would make it require a two + color commander either way due the this and that nature of those symbols.
It isn't. At least not by me. I'm talking about the intent of the design of the cards. Hybrid is simply something else then multicolor. Even before the removal of the rule that off color mana becomes colorless, I could still cast Mirrorweave using only islands in my monoblue deck. The same cannot be said for say, Sphinx's Revelation. It's the commander format's rules that deny monocolor decks access to hybrid cards in spite of the card's design to explicitly allow monocolor decks access to the card (it's the defining trait). Preventing hybrid from being used in mono color decks is the same as not allowing colorless cards for commanders without a C in their casting cost would be. Yet you/the RC don't do the latter but you/the RC do the former.
I get that it's a matter of preference and since Commander is simply your/the RC's homebrew format that the rest of the world simply latched on to so you guys have every right to rule it anyway you want. All i'm saying is that it's just a 100% arbritrary line that is being drawn here.
But if you approach this from the intent of the cards and not the color restrictions, then why is running Mirrorweave acceptable in my mono white deck but not Phyrexian mana cards like Dismember or trap cards like Summoning Trap?
Simple. Because hybrid mana is OR, so it is either color A or color B. Phyrexian mana is simply colored mana that you can choose to pay 2 life for as an alternate cost, so is a black mana symbol. Summoning Trap costs GG so I don't get why that is mentioned.
For the sake of the discussion, yes I personally feel that should be able to count as a colorless card (and thus be playable in any deck) whereas if you can pay the B part you simply get a discount. Before people begin screaming color pie, artifacts (colorless) can do nearly everything that colors can do, just often at an increased mana cost, think Tower of Fortunes for mono red etc.
Last but not least, the current color identity rules already deviate from the game rules that define color, since Memnarch is considered blue and Bosh, Iron Golem is considered red while the rules of the game say they are colorless. So the fact that hybrid cards count as both colors ruleswise is not a valid argument to support the claim that they should therefore also be coloridentitywise, as the current rules already prove this is not a 1 on 1 relation.
That is correct. Color identity is not color.
So why is a color argument (and a gameplay one rather than a deckbuilding one) being used to try to justify a change?
It isn't. At least not by me. I'm talking about the intent of the design of the cards. Hybrid is simply something else then multicolor. Even before the removal of the rule that off color mana becomes colorless, I could still cast Mirrorweave using only islands in my monoblue deck. The same cannot be said for say, Sphinx's Revelation. It's the commander format's rules that deny monocolor decks access to hybrid cards in spite of the card's design to explicitly allow monocolor decks access to the card (it's the defining trait). Preventing hybrid from being used in mono color decks is the same as not allowing colorless cards for commanders without a C in their casting cost would be. Yet you/the RC don't do the latter but you/the RC do the former.
I get that it's a matter of preference and since Commander is simply your/the RC's homebrew format that the rest of the world simply latched on to so you guys have every right to rule it anyway you want. All i'm saying is that it's just a 100% arbritrary line that is being drawn here.
You can cast Beseech the Queen using only colourless mana. That doesn't make it colourless.
As I stated above, if hybrid was implemented as intended, Beseech the Queen would be in fact playable as a colourless card. That it is both colours within the game rules when played means nothing for color identity, we already determined that 1 page ago.
I don't see how the guildmage cycle fails at being or cards, i think they work perfectly. If you play color A then you can use the A color ability and if you play color B then you can use the color B ability. Only if you have both can you use both.
Cards like Birds of Paradise and City of Brass exist that would (for example) allow cards like Selesnya Guildmage to use all of its abilities in mono colored deck. Not to mention that despite its hybrid (this or that) mana cost, it abilities clearly have two different normal (this and that) mana symbols. Even under a hybrid symbol rules change this card (and other like it) still couldn't go into a mono colored deck for the same reason as Granger Guildmage.
What you say is true but it is not a good argument in this case. All Magic cards can do things you normally can't if you pair it with certain other cards. There's no end to the discussion if we veer down that path.
As far as the example in question, that is only possible due to the quite recent change allowing adding off color mana to your mana pool (Which I support but did not see the need for). It has nothing to do with hybrid.
Do you believe rules text should count toward color identity? If you think it should, the clear Monocolored Symbol 1 AND Monocolored Symbol 2 in the Ravnica Guildmage's rules text would make it require a two + color commander either way due the this and that nature of those symbols.
You are right, in that regard the Guidldmage's are perhaps a bad example, but it should be their two separate abilities that require mana of a certain color that gives them two colors as color identities. Divinity of Pride for example, should be playable in mono black or mono white decks imo.
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2) A good while back before they took out the mana generation rule I was actually hoping they would axe Color Identity and keep the mana generation rule instead. Phyrexian Mana is kind of the exception problem for that though.
Not just Phyrexian mana. It would also allow a mono black reanimator strategy to add Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur to their deck for example, since they never intend to pay it's mana cost anyway, not too mention off color flashback costs etc. I do feel need something like color identity restrictons for deckbuilding is neccesary.
To be fair, all of commander's rules were generated at a time much later into the history of the game of magic so it makes all of them a little arbitrary as you are adding deckbuilding and play rules that do not exist for the rest of magic to this specific format.
True, but it's worth to (and I personally believe we should) try to aim for as much consistency within the rules as possible for handling the same stuff in the same situations in the same way.
Simple. Because hybrid mana is OR, so it is either color A or color B. Phyrexian mana is simply colored mana that you can choose to pay 2 life for as an alternate cost, so is a black mana symbol. Summoning Trap costs GG so I don't get why that is mentioned.
For the sake of the discussion, yes I personally feel that should be able to count as a colorless card (and thus be playable in any deck) whereas if you can pay the B part you simply get a discount. Before people begin screaming color pie, artifacts (colorless) can do nearly everything that colors can do, just often at an increased mana cost, think Tower of Fortunes for mono red etc.
As I stated above, if hybrid was implemented as intended, Beseech the Queen would be in fact playable as a colourless card. That it is both colours within the game rules when played means nothing for color identity, we already determined that 1 page ago.
You are right, in that regard the Guidldmage's are perhaps a bad example, but it should be their two separate abilities that require mana of a certain color that gives them two colors as color identities. Divinity of Pride for example, should be playable in mono black or mono white decks imo.
I think we are either talking past each other, or I am simply unable to understand your argument. Beseech the Queen is a black card that you can cast using black mana OR colorless mana. Similarly, Dismember is a black card which can be cast using black mana OR colorless mana and a life payment, and Summoning Trap is a green card which can be cast for 0 when certain conditions are met.
I think my confusion and stubbornness of my position and desire for consistency among hybrid, phyrexian, and trap cards is because you (and you're not the only one so this isn't an attempt to single you out) keep referring to this OR thing as if it applies to the color of the card. It doesn't. Regardless of the intent of the design, we have to focus on the actual cards and rules of the game since the RC has expressed a desire not to alter the rules of the game beyond the initial changes they made during format creation.
If the intent was that hybrid cards are an "or", then why did Wizards rule from inception that they are both colors?
I'm not sure what you're trying to prove.
What's the alternative?
Do you expect players to track if Divinity of Pride was cast with WWWWW for when Doom Blade gets cast?
Players would generally have issues if just -1/-1 and +1/+1 counters were mixed in the same set. Amonkhet required punchout cards to handle the onboard complexity. How are you supposed to keep track of Divinity, or perhaps multiple Divinities, for corner case spell effects?
Hybrid cards are or, not and. Stated as such by Maro, there is no better and more viable source than that.
That may have been the intent behind hybrid cards, but it's not the result. There are many, many cards with hybrid costs that could not have been printed as either mono-color. As I mentioned above, even the Guildmage cycle in the original Ravnica block (where hybrid was introduced) fails at this.
They're hybrid cards that have two different activated abilities fitting their colors. These particular cards would mesh badly with Commander rules if hybrid was allowed, but as ordianry hybrid cards with hybrid functionality, they are actually completely fine.
There is a clear distinction between multicolor and hybrid and the current commander rules fail to recognize it. I'm not losing any sleep over it, but it's a shame you can't play Mirrorweave in a monoblue clone deck.
In what way could Mirrorweave be printed as a mono-white card? Hell, to be honest I find it difficult to justify as a WU card, it probably should have been mono-blue from the start, but that just helps to demonstrate the point that hybrids did not achieve the goal of "or".[/quote]
I'm so sick of this argument. The nature of hybrid is fine. The design vision for Shadowmoor miniblock isn't. They forcefully warped a format's design which pushed them to make fake gold cards. This is not hybrid's problem, it's a designation of why hybrid doesn't work as a set theme beyond a certain critical mass. I don't see you clamoring the removal of Acid Rain or Chaos Warp because they're such breaks. Clamoring that it's fine because they fit the format's deckbuilding rules' elegance should open your mind to how deckbuilding actually works as elegantly intended. Adding hybrid to commander as a rule is easy and clear. If the allowance of Chaos Warp is becasue the rules are easy and clear, and hybrid is intended and generally works as monocolor designs, the logical conclusion would be to allow it.
And even if you disagree, "But, but Augury Adept!" isn't an argument. They are still breaking the color pie today, but that doesn't stop Commander from adopting new cards from new sets.
Simple. Because hybrid mana is OR, so it is either color A or color B. Phyrexian mana is simply colored mana that you can choose to pay 2 life for as an alternate cost, so is a black mana symbol. Summoning Trap costs GG so I don't get why that is mentioned.
For the sake of the discussion, yes I personally feel that should be able to count as a colorless card (and thus be playable in any deck) whereas if you can pay the B part you simply get a discount. Before people begin screaming color pie, artifacts (colorless) can do nearly everything that colors can do, just often at an increased mana cost, think Tower of Fortunes for mono red etc.
As I stated above, if hybrid was implemented as intended, Beseech the Queen would be in fact playable as a colourless card. That it is both colours within the game rules when played means nothing for color identity, we already determined that 1 page ago.
You are right, in that regard the Guidldmage's are perhaps a bad example, but it should be their two separate abilities that require mana of a certain color that gives them two colors as color identities. Divinity of Pride for example, should be playable in mono black or mono white decks imo.
I think we are either talking past each other, or I am simply unable to understand your argument. Beseech the Queen is a black card that you can cast using black mana OR colorless mana. Similarly, Dismember is a black card which can be cast using black mana OR colorless mana and a life payment, and Summoning Trap is a green card which can be cast for 0 when certain conditions are met.
I think my confusion and stubbornness of my position and desire for consistency among hybrid, phyrexian, and trap cards is because you (and you're not the only one so this isn't an attempt to single you out) keep referring to this OR thing as if it applies to the color of the card. It doesn't. Regardless of the intent of the design, we have to focus on the actual cards and rules of the game since the RC has expressed a desire not to alter the rules of the game beyond the initial changes they made during format creation.
It seems as if you are talking game rules while I am talking color identity rules. Since this post on the previous page...
don't see how the guildmage cycle fails at being or cards, i think they work perfectly. If you play color A then you can use the A color ability and if you play color B then you can use the color B ability. Only if you have both can you use both. Rhe fact that they count as both colors for game rules has more to do with memory issues of having to remember which color mana was paid for playing them (and what if they were reanimated, what then?) thus reducing complexity. Maro has stated multiple times that good gameplay trumps good flavor when they conflict.
Last but not least, the current color identity rules already deviate from the game rules that define color, since Memnarch is considered blue and Bosh, Iron Golem is considered red while the rules of the game say they are colorless. So the fact that hybrid cards count as both colors ruleswise is not a valid argument to support the claim that they should therefore also be coloridentitywise, as the current rules already prove this is not a 1 on 1 relation.
...I am only talking about color identity rules. No one is arguing that hybrid cards, when played in a game of magic, count as both colors all the time.
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Adding hybrid to commander as a rule is easy and clear. If the allowance of Chaos Warp is becasue the rules are easy and clear, and hybrid is intended and generally works as monocolor designs, the logical conclusion would be to allow it.
Yes, they work well as monocolor designs, but they don't work well as monocolor gameplay, as you said yourself:
Do you expect players to track if Divinity of Pride was cast with WWWWW for when Doom Blade gets cast?
All this talk about design intent as a bedrock is unstable, it's like talking about using direct flavor as one - I should be allowed to play Wayward Servant in my Gisa and Geralf deck because the servant was designed to be played in Zombie Tribal, who cares if the rules stated that it's an off-color card, the design/flavor intent is all that matters.
In fact, the reason Chaos Warp is accepted is because while it breaks design intents, EDH has never cared about design intents, it was built base-up from the bedrock rules of the gameplay itself (fittingly considering it did originate from a table of judges). EDH doesn't care about what color pie philosophies cards break, EDH only cares about what the comprehensive rules define those cards as mechanically.
EDH only relies on what the comprehensive rules make easy and clear. Design intent and "generally works" is actually pretty much the opposite of that.
don't see how the guildmage cycle fails at being or cards, i think they work perfectly. If you play color A then you can use the A color ability and if you play color B then you can use the color B ability. Only if you have both can you use both. Rhe fact that they count as both colors for game rules has more to do with memory issues of having to remember which color mana was paid for playing them (and what if they were reanimated, what then?) thus reducing complexity. Maro has stated multiple times that good gameplay trumps good flavor when they conflict.
Last but not least, the current color identity rules already deviate from the game rules that define color, since Memnarch is considered blue and Bosh, Iron Golem is considered red while the rules of the game say they are colorless. So the fact that hybrid cards count as both colors ruleswise is not a valid argument to support the claim that they should therefore also be coloridentitywise, as the current rules already prove this is not a 1 on 1 relation.
Like I said, design intent and flavor have pretty much the same properties. So it stands that R&D already decided good gameplay trumped good design intent (which for hybrid was the same as flavor, the "either or color" concept) and said gameplay is now the in the bedrock of the game (the comprehensive rules), which EDH builds on.
Yes, color identity deviates from the color indicator of the comprehensive rules, but I said it was built onto it. There exists no card in EDH that has Color Identities less than its Color Indicator. Color Identity was always intended to be a restrictor, therefore when it was built onto Color Indicators, it could only add more "color(s)" to a card, not reduce them. Unlike the Hybrid mechanic which failed to translate through the comprehensive rules as it was trumped by gameplay, the intention of Color Identity was successfully retained with the "add only" formula.
One can call it inflexible, which I won't deny, but it's this inflexibility that permitted EDH to be the only format left that allowed flavor to trump gameplay when it came to deckbuilding. I know it sounds ironic coming from me considering I did cite the Zombie Tribal example above, but EDH pays respect to one particular flavor (color) rather than flavor generally and the reason it worked so well is because no other format does that, or to be more precise, no other format can do that because they opted to pay respect to flavor generally (and that requires no color restrictions to begin with).
Before somebody leaps onto me saying I just said flavor and intent are the same, let me loop the whole circle and say one thing - flavor is the most subjective aspect of the game and design intent holds that same properties. Flavor can also be derived from anything, in which EDH chose to derive theirs from after the comprehensive rules have translated everything over, rather than before, and that this particular area (before the comprehensive rules) is one that is mostly accessible only to internal staff like R&D/MaRo, not the Committee and the general gameplay public.
Sorry but I don't really get your point. Yes, flavor is ambiguous, but nobody is arguing that hybrid should be allowed to be played as intended because of flavor. The intent of hybrid is not ambiguous at all either, as it is clearly explained by Maro himself. Also, those who favor the current ruling claim the execution of the intent fails, but nobody is questioning the intent itself.
It's true that color identity up until now equalled at least the color indicators, but that's only because hybrid mana so far is the only mechanic where doing it differently makes sense.
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The current restrictions are fine because mechanically and functionally hybrid cards aren't mono colored. The only thing that's inconsistent is the "intent". Beseech the queen is quite clearly mono-black as it's 'hybrid' isn't even a color, lol. Point is intent doesn't matter, rules and mechanics do.
For me it comes down to a mix of issues. Some hybrid cards are clearly designed to work in either color, but others (say Debtors Knell or the Liege cycle) clearly have a greater bent in one or both colors. They are highly inconsistent in this regard, and therefore function better as "multicolor" cards to guarantee that they arn't completely breaking their color pie.
Additionally it does just come down to an aesthetic thin. Giving everyone a six mana tutor in Beseech the Queen is weird enough, but jamming a card with black mana borders into every deck that wants that tutor also just looks... wrong.
From a design standpoint hybrid colors are things that either color might be able to do alone (often as a tertiary ability in that color) but definitely does as a multicolor, making them ultimately better function as multicolor CI cards altogether.
The current restrictions are fine because mechanically and functionally hybrid cards aren't mono colored. The only thing that's inconsistent is the "intent". Beseech the queen is quite clearly mono-black as it's 'hybrid' isn't even a color, lol. Point is intent doesn't matter, rules and mechanics do.
I posted it before but it was on the previous page. If you were to make a rule to allow hybrid mana you could easily rule Beseech the Queen black still with the wording.
(Example of what wording could be used) 903.4d Hybrid mana is playable so long that either side of each hybrid mana fits the colors of your commander's color identity.
Because colorless is not a color it cannot fit a commander's color identity which would still rule Beseech as a black card. I honestly dont really care either way because 6 search for a card is not a good card for any deck but because people keep coming back to Beseech I figured I would show how it could be avoided.
(Example of what wording could be used) 903.4d Hybrid mana is playable so long that either side of each hybrid mana fits the colors of your commander's color identity.
Sure, you could do this. (Well, this text has all sorts of problems, but you could write a rule that worked.) But why? You've just added a rule - one that is clearly very arbitrary, as it tries to dodge all the other "intended to be flexible in casting" cards - for no reason other than you want to play with a couple extra cards above those eight thousand or so you can already throw in a deck.
People who want to play with some specific cards start from trying to define rules that get them what they want (but no more). That's bad design. Write good rules, then see where the chips fall on what cards are available. Only add exceptions when you must. Trying to argue "designer intent" is pointless - why is how easy the designer meant to cast it the relevant point? Color identity isn't defined, even philosophically, by how you're able to cast something.
This discussion isn't going to go anywhere until someone provides an explanation as to why it's important that hybrid be called out specially in the rules. "I want to play them off-color" is not important, especially in a format defined by restrictions.
Sure, you could do this. (Well, this text has all sorts of problems, but you could write a rule that worked.) But why? You've just added a rule - one that is clearly very arbitrary, as it tries to dodge all the other "intended to be flexible in casting" cards - for no reason other than you want to play with a couple extra cards above those eight thousand or so you can already throw in a deck.
People who want to play with some specific cards start from trying to define rules that get them what they want (but no more). That's bad design. Write good rules, then see where the chips fall on what cards are available. Only add exceptions when you must. Trying to argue "designer intent" is pointless - why is how easy the designer meant to cast it the relevant point? Color identity isn't defined, even philosophically, by how you're able to cast something.
This discussion isn't going to go anywhere until someone provides an explanation as to why it's important that hybrid be called out specially in the rules. "I want to play them off-color" is not important, especially in a format defined by restrictions.
The problem is that the discussion is arbitrary from both angles (for and against hybrid and other mana cards). You guys (the RC) have decided on a set of rules for the format. These rules were made arbitrarily as you saw fit. I have no issues with any of this I am just saying Magic as a game existed for a good portion of time and then later a format came along and made additional rules for an additional format.
I could just as easily ask you to give me a reason that its a bad idea as you could ask me for a reason that it is a good idea. For the sake of discussion I just wanted to give an example of how hybrid mana (exclusively) could become legal in the format. I did so because I see problems in the area of Phyrexian mana in such a way that I dont think that I could ever come up with a rule that would allow Phyrexian Mana to be legal and not be a problem so instead I came up with a rule to allow hybrid mana only.
I can craft a rule to allow hybrid and phexian mana if you would prefer but I suspect you would not. I know that I am fighting an uphill battle and I am aware of where the RC stands on hybrid mana. Yes, I am being selfish because in a handful of narrow situations I have found niche and cool cards I wish I could use as they were intended to be used.
All this being said, I totally respect the RC and while I will differ in opinion on this matter I still totally stand behind you guys. In a way that is my problem because its so hard to actually implement and maintain local banlist adjustments that in a lot of cases the easier solution is to try to convince you guys to change the rules lol.
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There is a clear distinction between multicolor and hybrid and the current commander rules fail to recognize it. I'm not losing any sleep over it, but it's a shame you can't play Mirrorweave in a monoblue clone deck.
In what way could Mirrorweave be printed as a mono-white card? Hell, to be honest I find it difficult to justify as a WU card, it probably should have been mono-blue from the start, but that just helps to demonstrate the point that hybrids did not achieve the goal of "or".
I'm so sick of this argument.
Blame MaRo. It's an argument that wouldn't exist without his assertion that hybrids are meant to be either/or. On the other hand, without that same assertion, I doubt this discussion would exist at all, since people would simply be considering hybrids to be gold cards that are slightly easier to cast.
I could just as easily ask you to give me a reason that its a bad idea as you could ask me for a reason that it is a good idea.
It adds an additional rule, and associated cognitive load. It requires another "except" to a rule that is otherwise easy to explain ("You can't have mana symbols on your cards that aren't on your commander").
That's a downside.
(Also, it's a change. That's not disqualifying, but it means you need to overcome an inherent barrier.)
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So, Alesha, Who Smiles at Death should also get countered by Lifeforce under this logic? Or how about we talk about devoid cards under this logic?
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Cards like Birds of Paradise and City of Brass exist that would (for example) allow cards like Selesnya Guildmage to use all of its abilities in mono colored deck. Not to mention that despite its hybrid (this or that) mana cost, it abilities clearly have two different normal (this and that) mana symbols. Even under a hybrid symbol rules change this card (and other like it) still couldn't go into a mono colored deck for the same reason as Granger Guildmage.
That's pretty disingenuous. Alesha is not a black card. The card has no black mana symbols in its mana cost. Strictly speaking, you could build an Alesha deck with mana sources that only produce R and still be able to play your commander. Beseech the Queen is, in all zones, a black card. Alesha is not, even though her ability adds black and white to her colour identity per 903.4: "The color identity of a card is the color or colors of any mana symbols in that card’s mana cost or rules text, plus any colors defined by its characteristic-defining abilities (see rule 604.3) or color indicator (see rule 204)." Just because you can pay 6 for Beseech doesn't mean it stops being black, any more than paying WUBRG through Fist of Suns makes any of your spells five colours.
Devoid, per 702.113a in the Comprehensive Rules, is "a characteristic-defining ability. “Devoid” means “This object is colorless.” This ability functions everywhere, even outside the game." The Devoid ability adds on the colourless characteristic. Nowhere does it contradict the colour identity rules in 903.4. Eldrazi Displacer still adds W to your devotion to white for Evangel of Heliod, and it still gets +1/+1 from Light from Within.
I get that it's a matter of preference and since Commander is simply your/the RC's homebrew format that the rest of the world simply latched on to so you guys have every right to rule it anyway you want. All i'm saying is that it's just a 100% arbritrary line that is being drawn here.
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As far as the example in question, that is only possible due to the quite recent change allowing adding off color mana to your mana pool (Which I support but did not see the need for). It has nothing to do with hybrid.
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But if you approach this from the intent of the cards and not the color restrictions, then why is running Mirrorweave acceptable in my mono white deck but not Phyrexian mana cards like Dismember or trap cards like Summoning Trap?
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You can cast Beseech the Queen using only colourless mana. That doesn't make it colourless.
1) Phyrexian Mana was a mistake in the way in which it was implemented. From the standpoint of every format of magic Phyrexian Mana is a little bit unhealthy as they mostly did make all of those cards colorless for every other format. They later did more distorting when Kozilek 2.0 was printed but most of those cards were tame in comparison to what they were pushing from the standpoint of Phyrexian Mana.
2) A good while back before they took out the mana generation rule I was actually hoping they would axe Color Identity and keep the mana generation rule instead. Phyrexian Mana is kind of the exception problem for that though.
To be fair, all of commander's rules were generated at a time much later into the history of the game of magic so it makes all of them a little arbitrary as you are adding deckbuilding and play rules that do not exist for the rest of magic to this specific format. Commander's Rules may predate hybrid mana but realistically commander was not on wizard's radar for design until at least the 2007-2010 timeframe. Does anyone else find it ironic that for the most part wizards didn't have all these fidley rules about what mana and color things were until well after commander became a thing and then BAM suddenly there are tons of variations that toe with the line of color identity?
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We've already had this discussion in private, but for the sake of others I'll repeat myself. It doesn't matter if Wizards made a mistake or sacrificed what they wanted to do for better gameplay. All that matters is what they DID do. And as Wildfire and I said previously, Phyrexian mana wasn't a mistake. The mistake was individual cards were too strong or were gross color pie violations. And again, going back to Wizards design philosophy, they still don't take Commander into account she they design cards or mechanics unless it's specifically for the persons. So it's hardly fair to give them a free pass for hybrid when they to this day have the philosophy of "design cards and let the RC sort it out" (although they do appear to st least talk to the RC when a change would impact the format).
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Do you believe rules text should count toward color identity? If you think it should, the clear Monocolored Symbol 1 AND Monocolored Symbol 2 in the Ravnica Guildmage's rules text would make it require a two + color commander either way due the this and that nature of those symbols.
For the sake of the discussion, yes I personally feel that should be able to count as a colorless card (and thus be playable in any deck) whereas if you can pay the B part you simply get a discount. Before people begin screaming color pie, artifacts (colorless) can do nearly everything that colors can do, just often at an increased mana cost, think Tower of Fortunes for mono red etc.
As I stated above, if hybrid was implemented as intended, Beseech the Queen would be in fact playable as a colourless card. That it is both colours within the game rules when played means nothing for color identity, we already determined that 1 page ago.
You are right, in that regard the Guidldmage's are perhaps a bad example, but it should be their two separate abilities that require mana of a certain color that gives them two colors as color identities. Divinity of Pride for example, should be playable in mono black or mono white decks imo.
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True, but it's worth to (and I personally believe we should) try to aim for as much consistency within the rules as possible for handling the same stuff in the same situations in the same way.
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I think we are either talking past each other, or I am simply unable to understand your argument. Beseech the Queen is a black card that you can cast using black mana OR colorless mana. Similarly, Dismember is a black card which can be cast using black mana OR colorless mana and a life payment, and Summoning Trap is a green card which can be cast for 0 when certain conditions are met.
I think my confusion and stubbornness of my position and desire for consistency among hybrid, phyrexian, and trap cards is because you (and you're not the only one so this isn't an attempt to single you out) keep referring to this OR thing as if it applies to the color of the card. It doesn't. Regardless of the intent of the design, we have to focus on the actual cards and rules of the game since the RC has expressed a desire not to alter the rules of the game beyond the initial changes they made during format creation.
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I'm not sure what you're trying to prove.
What's the alternative?
Do you expect players to track if Divinity of Pride was cast with WWWWW for when Doom Blade gets cast?
Players would generally have issues if just -1/-1 and +1/+1 counters were mixed in the same set. Amonkhet required punchout cards to handle the onboard complexity. How are you supposed to keep track of Divinity, or perhaps multiple Divinities, for corner case spell effects?
They're hybrid cards that have two different activated abilities fitting their colors. These particular cards would mesh badly with Commander rules if hybrid was allowed, but as ordianry hybrid cards with hybrid functionality, they are actually completely fine.
In what way could Mirrorweave be printed as a mono-white card? Hell, to be honest I find it difficult to justify as a WU card, it probably should have been mono-blue from the start, but that just helps to demonstrate the point that hybrids did not achieve the goal of "or".[/quote]
I'm so sick of this argument. The nature of hybrid is fine. The design vision for Shadowmoor miniblock isn't. They forcefully warped a format's design which pushed them to make fake gold cards. This is not hybrid's problem, it's a designation of why hybrid doesn't work as a set theme beyond a certain critical mass. I don't see you clamoring the removal of Acid Rain or Chaos Warp because they're such breaks. Clamoring that it's fine because they fit the format's deckbuilding rules' elegance should open your mind to how deckbuilding actually works as elegantly intended. Adding hybrid to commander as a rule is easy and clear. If the allowance of Chaos Warp is becasue the rules are easy and clear, and hybrid is intended and generally works as monocolor designs, the logical conclusion would be to allow it.
And even if you disagree, "But, but Augury Adept!" isn't an argument. They are still breaking the color pie today, but that doesn't stop Commander from adopting new cards from new sets.
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Hybrid is 'or'.
It seems as if you are talking game rules while I am talking color identity rules. Since this post on the previous page...
...I am only talking about color identity rules. No one is arguing that hybrid cards, when played in a game of magic, count as both colors all the time.
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Yes, they work well as monocolor designs, but they don't work well as monocolor gameplay, as you said yourself:
All this talk about design intent as a bedrock is unstable, it's like talking about using direct flavor as one - I should be allowed to play Wayward Servant in my Gisa and Geralf deck because the servant was designed to be played in Zombie Tribal, who cares if the rules stated that it's an off-color card, the design/flavor intent is all that matters.
In fact, the reason Chaos Warp is accepted is because while it breaks design intents, EDH has never cared about design intents, it was built base-up from the bedrock rules of the gameplay itself (fittingly considering it did originate from a table of judges). EDH doesn't care about what color pie philosophies cards break, EDH only cares about what the comprehensive rules define those cards as mechanically.
EDH only relies on what the comprehensive rules make easy and clear. Design intent and "generally works" is actually pretty much the opposite of that.
Like I said, design intent and flavor have pretty much the same properties. So it stands that R&D already decided good gameplay trumped good design intent (which for hybrid was the same as flavor, the "either or color" concept) and said gameplay is now the in the bedrock of the game (the comprehensive rules), which EDH builds on.
Yes, color identity deviates from the color indicator of the comprehensive rules, but I said it was built onto it. There exists no card in EDH that has Color Identities less than its Color Indicator. Color Identity was always intended to be a restrictor, therefore when it was built onto Color Indicators, it could only add more "color(s)" to a card, not reduce them. Unlike the Hybrid mechanic which failed to translate through the comprehensive rules as it was trumped by gameplay, the intention of Color Identity was successfully retained with the "add only" formula.
One can call it inflexible, which I won't deny, but it's this inflexibility that permitted EDH to be the only format left that allowed flavor to trump gameplay when it came to deckbuilding. I know it sounds ironic coming from me considering I did cite the Zombie Tribal example above, but EDH pays respect to one particular flavor (color) rather than flavor generally and the reason it worked so well is because no other format does that, or to be more precise, no other format can do that because they opted to pay respect to flavor generally (and that requires no color restrictions to begin with).
Before somebody leaps onto me saying I just said flavor and intent are the same, let me loop the whole circle and say one thing - flavor is the most subjective aspect of the game and design intent holds that same properties. Flavor can also be derived from anything, in which EDH chose to derive theirs from after the comprehensive rules have translated everything over, rather than before, and that this particular area (before the comprehensive rules) is one that is mostly accessible only to internal staff like R&D/MaRo, not the Committee and the general gameplay public.
EDIT: Fixed phrasing.
It's true that color identity up until now equalled at least the color indicators, but that's only because hybrid mana so far is the only mechanic where doing it differently makes sense.
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Additionally it does just come down to an aesthetic thin. Giving everyone a six mana tutor in Beseech the Queen is weird enough, but jamming a card with black mana borders into every deck that wants that tutor also just looks... wrong.
From a design standpoint hybrid colors are things that either color might be able to do alone (often as a tertiary ability in that color) but definitely does as a multicolor, making them ultimately better function as multicolor CI cards altogether.
I posted it before but it was on the previous page. If you were to make a rule to allow hybrid mana you could easily rule Beseech the Queen black still with the wording.
(Example of what wording could be used)
903.4d Hybrid mana is playable so long that either side of each hybrid mana fits the colors of your commander's color identity.
Because colorless is not a color it cannot fit a commander's color identity which would still rule Beseech as a black card. I honestly dont really care either way because 6 search for a card is not a good card for any deck but because people keep coming back to Beseech I figured I would show how it could be avoided.
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Sure, you could do this. (Well, this text has all sorts of problems, but you could write a rule that worked.) But why? You've just added a rule - one that is clearly very arbitrary, as it tries to dodge all the other "intended to be flexible in casting" cards - for no reason other than you want to play with a couple extra cards above those eight thousand or so you can already throw in a deck.
People who want to play with some specific cards start from trying to define rules that get them what they want (but no more). That's bad design. Write good rules, then see where the chips fall on what cards are available. Only add exceptions when you must. Trying to argue "designer intent" is pointless - why is how easy the designer meant to cast it the relevant point? Color identity isn't defined, even philosophically, by how you're able to cast something.
This discussion isn't going to go anywhere until someone provides an explanation as to why it's important that hybrid be called out specially in the rules. "I want to play them off-color" is not important, especially in a format defined by restrictions.
The problem is that the discussion is arbitrary from both angles (for and against hybrid and other mana cards). You guys (the RC) have decided on a set of rules for the format. These rules were made arbitrarily as you saw fit. I have no issues with any of this I am just saying Magic as a game existed for a good portion of time and then later a format came along and made additional rules for an additional format.
I could just as easily ask you to give me a reason that its a bad idea as you could ask me for a reason that it is a good idea. For the sake of discussion I just wanted to give an example of how hybrid mana (exclusively) could become legal in the format. I did so because I see problems in the area of Phyrexian mana in such a way that I dont think that I could ever come up with a rule that would allow Phyrexian Mana to be legal and not be a problem so instead I came up with a rule to allow hybrid mana only.
I can craft a rule to allow hybrid and phexian mana if you would prefer but I suspect you would not. I know that I am fighting an uphill battle and I am aware of where the RC stands on hybrid mana. Yes, I am being selfish because in a handful of narrow situations I have found niche and cool cards I wish I could use as they were intended to be used.
All this being said, I totally respect the RC and while I will differ in opinion on this matter I still totally stand behind you guys. In a way that is my problem because its so hard to actually implement and maintain local banlist adjustments that in a lot of cases the easier solution is to try to convince you guys to change the rules lol.
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It adds an additional rule, and associated cognitive load. It requires another "except" to a rule that is otherwise easy to explain ("You can't have mana symbols on your cards that aren't on your commander").
That's a downside.
(Also, it's a change. That's not disqualifying, but it means you need to overcome an inherent barrier.)