Anvil of Bogardan has an updated rules text, making it clearer it's a triggered ability: "At the beginning of each player’s draw step, that player draws an additional card, then discards a card."

The opponent would only search once. Here's how I see it breaking down:

1. Opponent's draw step, Mornsong Aria and Anvil trigger. You choose the order they resolve in.

2 (a). If Aria resolves first, they search for a card, get hit by Ob Nixilis, Unshackled, and get their card. Aria prevents the draw from Anvil.

2 (b). If Anvil resolves first, the draw is prevented by Aria. Aria resolves, they search for a card, get hit by Ob Nixilis, Unshackled, and get their card.

Either way, Aria prevents the draw from Anvil from happening.

How about my personal favorite toy for the 'Hawk, Thornbite Staff? It got pretty pricy, and it's slightly less efficient with the Scavenger since that's a Rogue, but the synergy's great

Desperate Hunting

Enchantment

When this enchantment enters, create a 0/1 black Insect creature token with flying and a Food token.

Whenever you sacrifice a creature, you may pay . If you do, create a Food token.

Sacrifice an Insect: Create a 1/1 green Spider creature token.

Sacrifice a Spider: Create a 1/1 blue Bird token with flying.

Sacrifice a Bird: Create a 1/2 green Cat creature token.

Sacrifice a Cat: Create a 1/2 white Dog creature token with vigilance.

Sacrifice a Dog: Create a 2/2 red Goat creature token.

Sacrifice a Goat: Create a 2/3 green Ox creature token.

Sacrifice an Ox: Create a 3/3 white Horse creature token.

Whenever a Horse you control dies, sacrifice this enchantment, all creatures you control, and all Food you control.

Too wordy?

Same challenge.

wallisface I think the problem here is that people are using Commander to teach the game, which in my opinion is a really bad idea. Pretty much every point of confusion there is because people are using an advanced-level, very complicated and deep format to teach the basics and fundamentals--what colors mean, how cards interact, how damage works, strategy overviews, etc.

People should learn with a simple, casual 60 x 4 deck before trying Commander. Just because it's popular doesn't mean it's appropriate for new players. WotC has dropped most of the product lines designed for intro-level, but I would use Jumpstart over Commander as a teaching tool every time.

I'm going to defend commander damage, though. It's one of the main things keeping and viable in the format, especially together. Without it, Voltron would virtually disappear as a strategy, and aggro in general would be cut way down. If a group doesn't track it, I assume that's because they don't have any aggro decks in their group. And this is coming from a player who just ignores the combat step half the time.

Antsquisher Yeah, I was kind of conflating the two ideas. "Mana of a color outside of your commander's color identity can only be used to pay for generic mana costs" was pretty much exactly the same as "colored mana outside of your commander's color identity became colorless instead" before Oath of the Gatewatch in 2016. I could have been clearer. The distinction between colorless and generic happened ten years ago, after all.

Antsquisher I don't know if you were around at the time, but that used to be a rule. I think it changed when Ixalan introduced Treasure, actually. In fact, even earlier back in 2009 (I don't remember when this rule changed), you could only produce mana in your commander's mana cost, not color identity.

Once Treasures came on, it changed, but at the time, the main effect of these rules was to make cards like Memnarch, Bosh, Iron Golem, and Sen Triplets effectively, or actually, unusable as commanders. So blame it all on Treasures, I guess.

Dagobah Training

Enchantment

Whenever a creature you control is dealt damage, put a +1/+1 counter on it.

At the beginning of your end step, if no creatures you control were dealt damage, you may discard two cards. If you do, draw a card.

Create a lightsaber.

For Nath of the Gilt-Leaf, I'm going to plug my deck Arrogant. Ruthless. Oppressive. Victorious.. It's got a little Elf subtheme, but the focus is on discard and denial.

Jank idea: Praetor's Grasp, spammed with Eternal Witness, Regrowth, Treasured Find, etc. to take everyone else's win cons. Supplement with targeted land destruction: Sinkhole, Icequake, Mwonvuli Acid-Moss, etc. It'll probably be terrible and get you hated out, but it's a thought.

Squee_Spirit_Guide I haven't asked for a while, but I never did get a solid answer. I find this one fascinating.

TypicalTimmy Yup. I just lined it out that way because if the next card was a green Human card or whatever, there wouldn't be space for a white card in the cycle. Unless it goes into Angels. That would work.

Walk the Geistway

Legendary Sorcery

Until end of turn, non-Spirit creatures you control have ward and flying.

Until end of turn, Spirit creatures you control have hexproof and can't be blocked.

Next card in the cycle. Monocolored legendary sorcery that represents a major Innistrad creature type. To align it with mine, it would be Zombie, Vampire, Werewolf, and Human, but feel free to switch it up if you have a good idea.

Since this thread is wandering into hybrid bend-or-break territory again, Sugar Coat can be used as mono- life gain. Then, poking at twobrid (which I personally believe should not be used outside of its color identity), there's mono- life gain with Defibrillating Current, mono- exile removal with Kin-Tree Severance, and all of the twobrid Shadowmoor cards (Beseech the Queen, Flame Javelin, etc.)

My current thoughts on Commander hybrid: it's generally a casual format, so I'd allow a couple. If you really want Kulrath Knight in your deck, that's fine by me, but thanks for checking first. If the deck is specifically designed to abuse hybrid (e.g. loading all the available Shadowmoor Lieges into a deck to give a two-color commander +7/+7), I'd let it ride as a gimmick once, then ask that it be put away. Twobrid should stay in it's identity, and the more competitive it goes, the stricter the color identity rules.

Always Ready

Enchantment

At the beginning of your end step, for each creature you control that had both a triggered ability trigger and an activated ability activate this turn, put your choice of a lifelink counter, a vigilance counter, or a +1/+1 counter on that creature.

For Jareth, Leonine Titan. It probably breaks some other cards...

Create a mysterious but kindly stranger who seems to know more than they let on.

capwner Which hybrid-mana cards are "the most efficient tools to do everything" that can't be done in each of their individual colors? Which hybrid cards would you run in a deck that's partially outside of their color identity?

I'm trying to work on a deck that breaks hybrid now, and I'm honestly having a hard time doing it, so I'll take any ideas.

Just be careful with how you use the word "targeted". Protection means you can't be targeted, and it has to use the word "target" to be a targeted effect.

As long as you have protection from opponents, you can't be targeted by any spell or ability your opponents control. So for the planeswalker example, your opponent can't choose you as a target to begin with. For an outside case like Kaya, Spirits' Justice's -2, only your creature is being targeted, not you, so it would still be exiled.

Annihilator isn't a targeting ability (it doesn't use the word "target" in its rules text or reminder text), and neither is attacking. A creature with annihilator (e.g. Ulamog's Crusher) can attack you through Absolute Virtue, and you will still sacrifice your stuff. You just won't take any damage from that creature.

*Sugar Coat, not Sugar Rush for blue lifegain.

Can I offer something I'd like to see less of? There's been a huge surge of five-color legendary utility creatures. More than half of all legendary creatures with a WUBRG color identity have been printed since 2020, and it's starting to feel like there's a best option for everything. Why limit yourself to Sythis, Harvest's Hand or The Master of Keys when you could have Go-Shintai of Life's Origin and just include them anyway? Kenrith, Returned King and Sisay, Weatherlight Captain simply do things with pretty much no opportunity cost.

I'll grant that they're tending toward a tighter focus. But sometimes, I don't want or need access to other colors, but the five-color's simply the best available option. I chose Enchantress up there because I've been waiting for a Enchantments commander for several years now, and other color sets have a couple of options. But five-color enchantments has two more options than Naya enchantments, and that frustrates me.

Caerwyn I'm going to poke at the hybrid rule here, since I see it as "letter of the law" vs. "spirit of the law". Sheldon Menery clearly took the "letter of the law" approach, in that Mourning Thrull is both fully a black card and fully a white card, and can't be used in an deck alongside Minister of Impediments. Similarly, the Minister can't be used in a deck.

However, the "spirit of the law" says that Sungrace Pegasus, Hushbringer, and Sky Crier can all be used in a deck, and Ballynock Trapper and Zhalfirin Decoy can be used in a deck. So it's an arbitrary decision that makes mana function differently in Commander-based formats than in any other format in the game. Further, cards like red enchantment removal and green one-sided board wipes, both self-avowed mistakes, are reasonably common. Why should an arbitrary restriction from decades ago allow overt color pie breaks while prohibiting extremely neutral cards that simply use effects available to more than one color?

I'm sure you've seen these arguments a million times by now. So I'll ask a different question. Are there any hybrid-mana cards that you see as being color pie breaks, that do something that one of their colors is fundamentally not allowed to do? The most frequent examples I've seen are the counterspell Guttural Response, which is a total break on the scale of Pyroblast for both colors so neither color should get it, and Augury Adept granting life gain, which I believe is undercut by Sugar Rush. (There's a counterargument regarding repeatable life gain in there.)

A slight ulterior motive for that last paragraph: One of the things on my gimmick to-do list is to try to build a pseudo-Commander deck that actually uses hybrid mana to break the game and do bad things. My current starting angle is Leyline of the Guildpact + Bloom Tender in mono-green or green + one other color. So if you have any thoughts, please send them over!

Afterlife Arbiter

Creature - Avatar

Whenever a nontoken creature you control dies, you may exile it from its owner's graveyard. If you do, put a shield token on up to one target creature you control.

Whenever a nontoken creature you don't control dies, you may exile it from its owner's graveyard. If you do, put a stun counter on up to one target creature you don't control.

5/5

Create a sorcery that gives a creature flying.