I'm pretty new to playing commander, and I understand the basic concepts of color identity and how it works (such as Ramos, Dragon Engine being counted as all 5 colors because of his ability). What I want to know is does he ALWAYS count as all 5? If he's for example just in my deck and not as my commander does he count as a colorless artifact and not as all 5?
Also, if he does count as colorless, when I remove the counters for his ability while my commander is say, Green/Blue, would he produce mana of all 5 colors or would he produce only 2 green, 2 blue, and then 6 colorless mana? One of the guys at my table seemed to think this is how it works, but honestly, that sounds iffy and I want to know if that's just a "his table" house rule or not.
Ramos's color identity is all five colors, even though it's normally colorless (C.R. 903.4; see also this thread). A card's color identity doesn't change, regardless of—
what colors or abilities that card has during the game,
whether that card is your commander, or
where that card is during the game.
This is because a card's color identity "is established before the [Commander] game begins" (C.R. 903.4a). Notably, because Ramos's color identity is all five colors, you can include Ramos in a Commander deck only if it's your commander or your commander's color identity is likewise all five colors (C.R. 903.5c).
It used to be the case that in a Commander game, a player that would add mana of colors outside their commander's color identity generally added that much colorless mana instead, but that rule was removed some time ago. Under current rules, when you activate Ramos's last ability, you add WWUUBBRRGG regardless of your commander's color identity.
Ah so it USED to be that way. That makes a bit more sense then, the one who explained it to me admitted to not really knowing about any rules updates to the format. Thank you for clearing this up.
when I remove the counters for his ability while my commander is say, Green/Blue, would he produce mana of all 5 colors or would he produce only 2 green, 2 blue, and then 6 colorless mana?
To be clear, if your commander is Blue/Green (meaning your Commander is not Ramos and you just put him in the deck) you can't include Ramos in the deck at all. You generally don't have to worry about the colors of mana he can produce since he can't be in your deck. You could obviously make a clone of a Ramos someone else controls and in that case, you get all 5 colors of mana.
Also, if he does count as colorless, when I remove the counters for his ability while my commander is say, Green/Blue, would he produce mana of all 5 colors or would he produce only 2 green, 2 blue, and then 6 colorless mana? One of the guys at my table seemed to think this is how it works, but honestly, that sounds iffy and I want to know if that's just a "his table" house rule or not.
This is because a card's color identity "is established before the [Commander] game begins" (C.R. 903.4a). Notably, because Ramos's color identity is all five colors, you can include Ramos in a Commander deck only if it's your commander or your commander's color identity is likewise all five colors (C.R. 903.5c).
It used to be the case that in a Commander game, a player that would add mana of colors outside their commander's color identity generally added that much colorless mana instead, but that rule was removed some time ago. Under current rules, when you activate Ramos's last ability, you add WWUUBBRRGG regardless of your commander's color identity.