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.

How much have you tested them against each other? This is an interesting idea.

Caerwyn This actually helps a lot. I wanted to check this out after hearing about it second hand, but as soon as I got below the surface level of the gaming articles, I hit a brick wall.

A couple of shareholders are suing several execs at Hasbro. The parts I understand are that the shareholders are claiming that Hasbro overprinted M:tG cards beyond consumer demand; that this is harmful to the long-term structure of the company because customers are potentially being driven off; that Hasbro is using M:tG profits to support other, unprofitable products; that Hasbro overpaid to buy back shares; and that Hasbro violated the Securities Exchange Act. What I don't understand is:

• What's illegal about this? Incompetence and bad management aren't crimes, so what's the basis of the lawsuit?

• What exactly is the Securities Exchange Act, and how would Hasbro have violated it?

• For corporate management, what's the point of holding onto product lines if they're losing so much money, instead of restructuring them or selling them off?

• Does this lawsuit have any merit?

I don't really know anything about financial law, so what exactly is going on here? Is anyone acting in good faith, or is it greedy shareholders shaking down a corrupt management team? Or is it somewhere in the middle?

So do you use each 20-card deck individually, since you're not combining them?

clayperce Be careful with that one. I see some Fs in the set codes. Bottom left corner of the M15 frame.

theNeroTurtle Yeah, I said green was linear in my evaluation. Red is super linear. If you're playing casual, you can add in Warp World-type chaos, but for it being the "strongest", red only really has big damage on offer. Attack, deal some noncombat damage, throw down damage multipliers, attack again.

Red's been cresting in Standard now for a good while, and it's a big chunk of the top tier of Modern. But EDH just isn't the most powerful place for it.

I should mention total board clearing and land denial for red. Obliterate, Jokulhaups, and Worldfire make sure everything's gone. Blood Moon, Ruination, and Impending Disaster make sure nobody can do anything about it.

Red's all about the big group slug damage. City on Fire, Impact Tremors, Blasphemous Act, Descent into Avernus, Repercussion, Manabarbs, that sort of thing.

It's also good with creature aggro, with Krenko, Mob Boss, Purphoros, God of the Forge, and Tannuk, Steadfast Second as popular options.

Red's best strength is hitting fast and hard for ridiculous amounts of damage.

I'd personally pick black. It's got the core of removal, draw, and (a little) ramp, it has efficient creatures at all sizes, and it can play combo and control equally well, and aggro when it needs to. It might not be the best at everything EDH wants, but it's good enough at everything, with no major soft spots.

Red and white have historically had problems with the pacing of EDH, and while they've made huge strides, the format still emphasizes their weaknesses and moderates their strengths.

Blue and green are a little too specialized, in my mind. Green's been getting more interaction and blue's been getting more win pressure, but I think they're still behind black in versatility and well-roundedness. Strong support colors, but green is too linear and blue struggles with closing out games.

So I would rank their ability to be monocolor EDH as 1. , 2. , 3., 4. , 5. . This is, of course, heavily subject to my preferences and biases.

Maybe cut a Blisterspit Gremlin or two for something like Blazing Salvo? I think a couple more instants and sorceries could give more support to Guttersnipe and Imodane, the Pyrohammer.

Now I'm waiting to see if TMNT sealed packs will have Lorwyn Eclipsed promos. That would answer a few questions.

I know this is the Toughness Matters miniseries, but new Doran's second ability specifically cares about the difference between power and toughness, not necessarily that toughness is higher. Daring Fiendbonder and Phytotitan are a couple of high-power low-toughness cards that don't mind dying.

I don't know if this is addressed in the YouTube link, but why were TMNT cards being printed/collated/whatever at the same time on the same equipment as the Lorwyn Eclipsed cards? Like, were the card files sent to the printers at the same time? Did the TMNT promo pack card file accidentally get sent with the Lorwyn set file?

How, specifically, do cards from one set end up in packs of another set? I seem to remember, in the long-ago year of 2012, a Rootborn Defenses somehow ended up in an M13 pack.