Production of any color in EDH
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on May 21, 2023, 5:48 p.m. by DonaldFuck
So, i wanna talk a little bit about that rule change a few years back about production of mana color. What i mean is that before 2016 (i think that was the year) when a land or mana rock/dork was tapped for mana of any color you could only produce color that was in your commander color identity. Let's say i use Prosper, Tome-Bound whose color identity is black and red. If he existed in 2016 (ignore, if date is wrong) my Treasure tokens would be able to produce only one these colors (black or red) but now they have the power to produce any color i wish. This can be useful to, for example, cast spells that i may have stolen from other players' decks or activate abilities of permanents i stole.
Isn't this a little silly? I don't really agree with this philosophy and rule change. I miss the old days when you could only produce the colors that you chose to play with. It somehow breaks the rules of commander. What comes next? Allow hybric color cards to be legal in decks that have at least one of the colors in check?
What are your thoughts on this matter?
Is this rule change a good or bad thing?
Gidgetimer says... #3
You are misquoting, or misremembering the old rule. It was that if you would produce mana outside your commander's color identity you produce colorless mana instead. So you could choose to make green with the treasure in your scenario, it would just make colorless instead. The rules change was in September of 2015, right before BFZ was released and specifically costs were introduced.
The rule may have already been on the chopping block. I think the final nail was the ease at which colorless could be produced. It isn't so much about making casting stolen cards easier. It is about people actually having to make deck building concessions for Eldrazi Displacer.
May 21, 2023 8:09 p.m.
DonaldFuck says... #4
Gidgetimer i am actually misquoting it, i remember if you would produce mana outside your commander's color identity you produce colorless mana instead but for some reason it didn't occur to me to mention it.
On the other hand i didn't know that the reason was Eldrazi Displacer. That is interesting. I just feel it misses the whole point of the flavor of commander..
May 22, 2023 1:41 a.m.
Gidgetimer says... #5
I mean there were 9 cards that require for casting and 20 cards with abilities that require released in BFZ block. It wasn't totally Eldrazi Displacer. However Displacer is the most prevalent one I see used and thought it would be a good example to use. It is already the second best repeatable blink source in the game behind Emiel the Blessed and is the best available for non-green decks. If producing colorless was trivial (which it was under the old rule) it would just be the absolute best blink source and would probably be good enough to run in decks that aren't dedicated blink decks.
SteelSentry says... #2
When I learned about EDH, and playing before the rule change, it was one of the most commonly unknown and forgotten rules, and had only edge case effects. It also had, with the inclusion of Eldrazi, another confusing interaction where you could create colorless mana from a colored source to pay for them. I support it, being in favor of removing instances of having to bring the entire game to a screeching halt to explain one niche interaction that's unique to a single format.
It's absolutely going to come up since it's been mentioned, but I don't think a hybrid mana change is necessary for the same reason, it will end up being another unintuitive rule of color identity, and with the push from magic design toward three-to-five-color piles of staples, it's frankly unnecessary.
May 21, 2023 6:48 p.m.