What do you want more of in Commander?
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on Jan. 26, 2026, 12:36 p.m. by theNeroTurtle
I think it would be cool to bring back older mechanics like horsemanship and shadow.
Why would I like to see that?
I think it would cause them to create new mechanics along side those that fight against them and other forms of existing attrition based play. Not only that, but it would bring those older cards back into the format. Obviously, you can already do that by simply being creative.
Yes, they have printed a few new cards like Vashta Nerada in the Doctor Who set. But, I am talking about going big or going home type releases like they did in Tempest.
It is not just a personal love for shadow and horsemanship. It is the thought of them developing new mechanics to respond to those releases.
What do you want to see more of in Commander?
They are currently floating a change to the hybrid mana rule - I am frankly a bit surprised they have not made an announcement surrounding Lorwyn’s release.
Personally, I think it is a terrible idea. Commander is a game built on limitations - color identity exists to limit what cards you have access to and force you to sometimes build without that perfect card. It is not just a core part of the game’s identity - it is the game’s identity. Changing how Hybrid mana works fundamentally erodes that core element of the game by expanding the number of cards you can play in an inherently limited deck.
There is no sensible reason to do so. The only justification I have seen are “but hybrid is supposed to represent what could be an either or” - which is a bad argument. Maybe it could have been printed as either color, but the fact remains the cards were printed as a two-color card. The other argument I have seen is “but it would be so cool for me to use this card” - which is just someone putting their own interests above the game. I have yet to see a worthwhile articulation of why it would be good for the game as a whole to further erode what makes Commander special.
——
As for what I would like to see? I want to see Wizards get back to printing cards that seek to exemplify color identity, rather than bend it. Wizards has tried for the past year to print cards that are effectively “this is X color’s way of doing something X is not capable of normally doing” (often for things like ramp and card draw), which I feel has fundamentally devalued the opportunity cost of choosing a color identity. If every color can do every thing, then you are not giving up very much for choosing.
We have reached a point where most colors have decent options to just maintain a basic level of parity - I think it is time to pivot away from “fixing” colors and back to celebrating what makes them unique.
January 26, 2026 1:43 p.m.
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!
January 26, 2026 3:34 p.m.
theNeroTurtle says... #7
what about enchantments that counteract other world enchantments. Like turns them off. Like a board state removal of other enchantments. Humility would be an example. Something that says other enchantments turn off during curtain phases or something.
January 26, 2026 10:20 p.m. Edited.
DragonMaster420 says... #8
hybrid mana is specifically meant to be flexible, and was arguably made "for" decks with limitations. mtg has roughly 31,000 cards, with about 500 of them being hybrid mana. that's about 1.6%, which i don't think is really game breaking. let the krenko player have his Boggart Ram-Gang. at the end of the day, mtg is a game, and giving the players more options makes the game more fun. a player can always choose to self impose old rules if they don't like changes. after all, commander did start as "EDH" with only the elder dragons being commanders. we also got planeswalkers that can be commanders, as well as the "partner" mechanic. so commander has already undergone several changes from what it originally was. worst case scenario, some hybrid card combos with a commander that wouldn't otherwise allow it, but i doubt that'll happen and if it does, the ban list will take care of it.
January 26, 2026 11:43 p.m.
"at the end of the day, mtg is a game, and giving the players more options makes the game more fun."
I'm of the exact opposite opinion, really. I want you to think about the color pie for a second and how it restricts the colors. As much as each has its strengths each color is also bad at doing certain things. Having to creatively compensate for these weaknesses while also playing to your colors' strengths is where the fun and challenge of deckbuilding resides. If you give every deck in every color access to the most efficient tools to do everything, well most decks will just run as many of those staples as they can fit and it will all look pretty homogenized and boring, I think. We have definitely trended that way if you look at the game now vs. 10 years ago. I am %100 of the opinion that more deckbuilding restrictions will result in more interesting and creative decks because players will need to seek out more obscure and techy cards to do the things they are trying to do. Just my 2 cents.
January 27, 2026 12:11 a.m.
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.
January 27, 2026 3:36 a.m.
legendofa now I think hybrids are a funny case because they are for the most part nerfed by design. I don't think this change will be very impactful compared with other cards/design trends introduced in the last 5 years. For example I agree with what you said on the 5c legend spamming, it was a more interesting dynamic when 5c players had to take the debuff of a limited legend pool so their commander might not be as useful to them, trading a good effect in the cmd zone for a more powerful 99. Now there are very few commanders that can compete with the 5c legends you mentioned or 4c partner strats, so that's basically all that gets played at the top level (snore). What bugs me even more is how they continually print enticing valuey but generic commanders in every shard and guild and these sorta just replace all the cool old Ravnica/Alara ones that had more fun and flavorful effects (not saying every new card is a design L and every old one a W mind you).
The hybrid thing I'm still against on flavor principles, I'm kind of in the Sheldon camp there. As far as particular cards though I think mono red and white see a comeup with Waves of Aggression, maybe Everlasting Torment in burn, maybe some random Orzhov deck wants Dovescape IDFK but yeah you're right most hybrid cards are jank and probably not many will see additional play which to me is another reason it isn't worth the flavor fail of seeing all these wacky off-colors in a format that is all about color identity and cohesion.
January 27, 2026 4:57 a.m.
FormOverFunction says... #13
I just wish there were more natural disasters and non-sentient ocean creatures ;p It’s tough having theme decks and rarely getting any updates, because more and more of the cards seem to be tied to the plot (which is understandable). Examples: Appeal to Eirdu and Sami's Curiosity. I’m fine even if it’s just a vanilla creature like Grizzled Outrider. Sort of surprised how few there have been, now that I went back to search… :(
January 27, 2026 10:37 a.m.
FormOverFunction says... #14
theNeroTurtle - great thread, by the way. This is what I come here for!
January 27, 2026 10:39 a.m.
I feel like two of my bugbears have been poked already, I want less 5c Legendary creatures (A LOT less), and I personally feel that changing the colour identity rule to allow Hybrid mana in more decks is an unnecessary and undesirable loosening of the very restrictions that help differentiate EDH from the other formats. Hybrid SHOULD work differently here because we use colour identity, a thing that doesn't exist in other formats because the only cards that care about it care about it in the context of Commander. I'd also argue it adds unnecessary complexity to an already streamlined system (if it has that pip it's not allowed), atm we only have a smattering of exceptions, mostly because they follow the letter of the rule and don't include coloured pips (City of Brass or anything with Extort come to mind). IMHO they could make it even more streamlined and restrict Extort to Orzhov decks and 5c mana production to 5c decks, but that's a deeply unpopular position I expect! I don't know how I feel about allowing stuff like Westvale Abbey Flip, caring about the back of a card is confusing when there are no pips, but these backsides have colours, hence their restriction.
I suppose the thing I'd like to see more of is memberberries that don't taste like Malabar Spinach berries (which eat like if a berry was secretly a bug that tasted like spinach), I feel like there is a lot of lore that was used early on and just abandoned, usually because the developers used a setting in a very low power set, like Homelands and Fallen Empires (and The Dark). I'd love to see them go back to Kamigawa and revisit the past, the high tech thing was less my jam, and IMHO it was a mistake, the OG setting had better flavor for a Magic set, it'd be nice if Magic would stop trying to reinvent the wheel and instead go back to resting on their laurels; for 25 years or so they made the best competitive card game, and they succeeded in large part because they didn't fall for the power creep obsession that other games did, and this allowed EDH to become viable. So yeah, more references to old sets, and less attempts to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
The other thing I miss is cards that are hard to play; I miss effects that you could play wrong, everything in design is too dumbed down and idiot-proofed, either to make sure it can't combo off (or that it can't even be Johnny'd) or that it can never be used wrong or be made to backfire. It's like WotC heard people like me complain about a lack of higher level complexity in card design and instead of giving us complex riddles like Sewer Rats they give us Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer... You can't 'get got' with Ragavan, the only time it's bad is when it's literally too small, and even then you can technically hold him in hand and give him Haste if the opponent is more likely to leave an opening if you don't look like you can crack back, on top of which Ragavan both ramps you AND fixes your mana, and can both mill an opponent for 1 and give you access to a relevant card now and then. That's not a complex card, it's an unwieldly one that masquerades as complex yet is in fact as dumb a beat stick as the Goblin Guide it obsoleted. Give me cards that involve risk management and reward good judgement, I want cards that reward player skill, not cards that reward fat wallets.
January 27, 2026 11 a.m.
DarkKiridon says... #16
Just more 4 color commander options. I don’t care for any of them, not even Atraxa, and none of the 4c partner options appeal to me either.
I’m neutral on hybrid. Don’t care either way.
January 27, 2026 12:09 p.m.
theNeroTurtle says... #17
FormOverFunction, mentioning the "plot", I think the monarch mechanic was a fantastic idea. I think adding more cards for that mechanic would be great so encourage more players to build around it.
January 27, 2026 12:17 p.m.
theNeroTurtle says... #18
I am huge on tribal building. I want so bad to build a skeleton deck. I can't though and keep up with even a casual game because there are so little options. I want more skeletons.
January 27, 2026 12:19 p.m.
theNeroTurtle says... #19
DarkKiridon more fours would be good. I am not too impressed yet either.
January 27, 2026 12:23 p.m.
Big ups to DreadKhan, you said it better than I could man
January 27, 2026 12:48 p.m.
hyalopterouslemur says... #21
More options isn't necessarily more fun. Restrictions breed creativity and all that.
January 27, 2026 4:28 p.m.
theNeroTurtle says... #22
hyalopterouslemur, creativity is what makes edh fun.
January 27, 2026 4:32 p.m.
DragonMaster420 says... #23
capwner i'm not saying let every color do everything. that's not what i meant by "options". i'm simply saying let a player have access to all the spells they could cast while being limited to the colors of their commander
January 28, 2026 1:25 a.m.
DragonMaster420 says... #24
hyalopterouslemur restriction breeds creativity when you're restricting a handful of format warping cards. smaller card pools are going to mean less viable options. compare regular pauper to standard pauper for example
January 28, 2026 1:32 a.m.
plakjekaas says... #25
Any restrictions breed creativity. If you can only use cards of mana value 3 for your entire deck, that will force you to make choices that will be suboptimal for the strategy, yet people might compliment you way more for the choices you end up with than if your only restriction is: use cards that are red and/or white.
Enabling the cheaty way out of can be mono now, will homogenize the format more than it will be an actual shake-up that allows more interesting decks. The opposite of creativity if you ask me.
Complaining about the size of the cardpool of commander is silly to say the least. Even every monocolored deck has >7000 possible cards to play. The fact you can't play Balefire Liege in your mono red deck does not mean you have no viable options in red. That's not something you need for a creative deck. Replacing a Sol Ring with a Mind Stone due to restricting the format-warping cards is not that much of a creative choice. Using Progenitor's Icon because your name starts with P so all your nonland cards should as well, is a creative choice because of a restriction. That will add play to cards nobody else considered, make the format more varied, with more fun and convesation to be had, and less "you shouldn't play that card, it's bad"-gatekeeping that makes the format a slop of hyperoptimized decks with no personal touch, that all win the same way on the same turn because it's the "best you can do."
If you now say: "but I play magic to be the best and make the most optimal choices, that's how I enjoy the game" that would be totally valid. But that's the mindset that works for every other format in magic, the competitive, the constructed formats. Try picking up a Standard or Modern deck, so you can play against people who feel the same. Or join a cEDH group, that exactly is the spirit of cEDH. But that's not how I want to play commander. All the janky 8-drops are gone. Out of 4500 standard cards, there's like not even 100 that see actual play. That's a format that would benefit from regulating the most overpowered cards. In the multiplayer singleton casual formats where practically every set is legal and most power issues are resolved by the multiplayer aspect more than bannings, it's restrictions like color identity and a commander that really make every deck play different every time, thàt is the spirit of commander, that is being hollowed out by allowing hybrid mana in the wrong color identities, by loosening the few rules that exist for a format that's been successful for half my life and doesn't need innovation to stay enjoyable.
January 28, 2026 7:39 a.m.
hyalopterouslemur says... #26
DragonMaster420 that is a good point, and I'm not going to be one of those people who strawmans "They're now going to make Birds of Paradise cost ." or something equally dumb.
Part of the problem is also what you're dealing with. A lot of cards from Shadowmoor block are blatant violations of the color pie from the perspective of hybrid mana, which is effectively the intersection of the two colors. (Which, granted, older cards had a rule that "Any color can do anything, as long as they suck at it." Except blue; blue just could do anything. This is why we have green Stax pieces like Hall of Gemstone and Ritual of Subdual.)
The other problem is the vivid problem. Mostly Bloom Tender, but any card that says "If you control a COLOR permanent" would suddenly get stronger, while at the same time making devotion stronger (since hybrid cards are often or more).
January 28, 2026 4:21 p.m.
DragonMaster420 says... #27
plakjekaas creativity comes from options. restrictions impede creativity. when the card pool gets too small, the options are "play these few things, or lose". that's not creative.
January 28, 2026 6:42 p.m.
DragonMaster420 says... #28
hyalopterouslemur which cards are color breaks? i think most hybrid mana cards have mechanics that are relatively within their colors.
January 28, 2026 6:44 p.m.
CrimsonWings3689 says... #29
I too would like to see less 5c commander options (outside of already supported 5c tribal/kindred like Slivers and the like), for all the reasons that have been mentioned by others.
I'm also against the changing of the hybrid mana changes. More often than not, hybrid cards fall into one of two categories:
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The hybrid card is either mediocre/not worth running over other better options, outside of "I just think it's neat". Ex. Mourning Thrull
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The card is a primary example of a card that's going to see an explosive increase in play, due to it allowing one (or more) of the colors present to do something it rarely/never gets to do. Ex. Waves of Aggression
Waves of Aggression is a great example of this. It is in no way worth $20+, but this teaser WotC put out suddenly has white and other white/non-red decks chomping at the bit to get an extra attack step spell.
Murkfiend Liege also has no parallel for blue decks looking for a creature focused strategy (ex. note requiring artifacts or additional hoops to jump through), so it's more of a pie break than it isn't.
Most hybrid cards aren't likely to make any waves or see any significant playrate increase, but the very select few that might see play, is already such a small percentage of the available card pool, that "the juice isn't worth the squeeze." Why further complicate the rules of commander, to make what is easily 100 (or less) of 536 more playable in more decks?
January 28, 2026 7:08 p.m.
DragonMaster420 says... #30
i really don't think hybrid mana is that complicated. lotta hate for no reason. if you're not worried about losing to it, then i don't see the problem. again, nobody is forcing you to use hybrid mana cards.
January 28, 2026 9:43 p.m.
theNeroTurtle says... #31
DragonMaster420, I feel the same way. I could be wrong, but don't you have to be playing that color wheel of both/all the colors of the card to start with before the card can "legally" be in the build anyway?
With Damn as an example... don't you have to be playing both colors to even legally have the card in the deck? Like you can't play it in a mono black deck...
January 28, 2026 9:46 p.m. Edited.
DragonMaster420 says... #32
theNeroTurtle: under current rules, yes. but i'm not talking about cards like Damn. those can stay under current rules. i'm talking about cards like Boggart Ram-Gang. the way i see it though, color restrictions in commander are meant to represent the colors of mana the commander would have access to for their own magic, since they're the leader of the deck (army). so anything they could cast (meaning fully utilize all parts of) should be fair game imo. so since Krenko, Mob Boss can use red mana, and Boggart Ram-Gang can be cast with purely red mana, krenko should have that in his arsenal. personally, i just don't think it's right to say "i have more fun by limiting what my opponent can use" in a casual format.
January 28, 2026 10:15 p.m.
"Restrictions breed creativity" is not just something some people say - it is a foundational component of Commander repeatedly stated by Sheldon and others to be the core design of the format. The essential idea is to ensure players have to make choices at every stage of the game, deciding what they are and are not willing to give up. The creativity is essentially "darn, this one card would be great for what I want to do. Do I redesign my entire deck by changing my commander just to use that card? Or do I find something else that can work."
Suggesting it is to "limit my opponents" is a disingenuous attempt to paint those who do not want the change as individuals who want their opponents to suffer. The reality is that people want to maintain the format as originally envisioned - Wizards has done a LOT to dilute color identity and remove some of the opportunity costs that made deckbuilding in the "preDH" era interesting; no reason to further dilute the primary purpose of EDH any further.
January 28, 2026 11:23 p.m.
DragonMaster420 says... #34
i don't consider it disingenuous. it's a casual format. just sling the cards you want, and let the opponent sling the cards they want. if you want the format to "stay original", then only use elder dragons as your commander. changing your commander doesn't have to mean redesigning the 99. the 99 should be able to function without the commander in play anyway. and i simply will never agree with "restriction breeds creativity". smaller card pools means less competitively viable options. restriction breeds homogeneity.
this is why i basically only play eternal formats and 5c commanders.
January 29, 2026 12:36 a.m. Edited.
hyalopterouslemur says... #35
DragonMaster420 I mean, for starters, there's Augury Adept. Fine in , even better in (since the lifegain favors high-MV spells), but not so great in : Curiosity is a bend in white these days, though it was a break back then. But lifegain in blue is a straight up break.
January 29, 2026 10:44 a.m.
DragonMaster420 says... #36
hyalopterouslemur: Augury Adept isn't a color break in the slightest. card advantage is blue, life gain is white. a color break would be a card where neither of its hybrid colors is supposed to be able to do any of the cards given mechanics.
January 29, 2026 11:25 a.m.
As has been repeatedly stated by the design team, Hybrid mana is supposed to represent a card that could be a mono-color card of either color, and because it is at the intersection, they made it both colors.
Were Augury Adept a card, it would not be a color pie break. As a card, however, it is - it could not be a mono- card and therefore breaks the design goal behind the hybrid portion of the color pie.
January 29, 2026 11:43 a.m. Edited.
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.
January 29, 2026 1:20 p.m.
plakjekaas says... #39
More options gives you more possible creativity, I can conceptually get behind that. But making beter options more available for more people will limit the choices you make. There's plenty people who joke that building a new commander deck starts with Sol Ring, Arcane Signet and then the actual commander. There's only 97 choices left then, instead of 99. Less options for creativity now. The fact that you can put 7409 different cards in those slots instead of 7423 is not the limiting factor of, or making a difference in your creativity.
Homogenizing the aspects of what makes the format unique makes for less interesting decks and shorter games with less different cards being used. You can disagree all you like, but Standard decks were a lot more fun and creative 10 years ago, when you had to find the synergy among 1500 different legal cards and different archetypes could be successfully fleshed out. In the Pro Tour that happens this weekend, 45% of the field is built around Badgermole Cub. You argue that today's Standard decks must be more creative because they can choose from 7500 cards instead of 1500, but I played the decks and I strongly think otherwise. With more cards available there's also a bigger difference in power/quality, which will eliminate a bigger part of the cardpool faster for playability. You don't need to make creative choices, you let the internet do it for you because someone else already figured out what's "optimal", leaving you to consider just a fraction of all possible cards for your deck. Which limits your options for creativity.
I'm not afraid of losing to the cards, I'm afraid when this rule would take effect, Wizards will start printing hybrid cards that are the best choice for either monocolor they have, meaning at least two other cards will be less likely to ever see play again. Concentrating the viable options in a smaller volume of cards, limiting the amount of creative choices a deckbuilder can make.
January 29, 2026 1:58 p.m.
DragonMaster420 says... #40
i think you're misinterpreting "mono color card of either color". i'm sure they meant casting the card, not mechanically. i would need to see sources that specifically state they meant mechanically, because the hybrid cards i'm aware of simply combine strengths of both colors, and certainly aren't limited to "every color on this card can do every mechanic on this card".
legendofa: good point that people can always "rule 0". on the "2brid" thing though, i'd be fine with that since those cards become quite expensive for what they do if you're only capable of using 1 of its colors. even with 2 of the colors available, those cards you mentioned are still do expensive (imo) for what they do.
plakjekaas if you think 1500 allows for more freedom than 7500, then i think you just have nostalgia glasses on because you liked the deck you were playing then.
January 29, 2026 2:05 p.m. Edited.
“Most of the designs were a traditional overlap design, meaning it was an ability that both colors had access to. A few of the designs at rare were things neither had done before, but the new ability was something that we felt either color could do. . . . The overlap designs were all things monocolor designs could capture”. Emphasis added.
January 29, 2026 2:23 p.m.
DragonMaster420 says... #42
to finish your quote: "but the Guildmages showed that hybrid mana could allow designers to make things they otherwise couldn't."
January 29, 2026 4:29 p.m.
CrimsonWings3689 says... #43
DragonMaster420 To not cherry pick the quote from MaRo:
"The most interesting design space was on the uncommon cards. The block had a ten-card cycle of creatures (the Guildmages) with a hybrid cost and two monocolor activations. You could access one of the activations in a monocolor deck, but access to both activations required a two-color deck. The overlap designs were all things monocolor designs could capture, but the Guildmages showed that hybrid mana could allow designers to make things they otherwise couldn't."
This was specifically in reference to putting different colored activation costs within the textbox of a given card. The guildmages also fall into the color identity of their respective guild, and could not be included in a mono color deck with the current rules of Commander, even if they changed hybrid mana to count as either-or.
Fast forward to today, and we have cards like Ethersworn Adjudicator that have adopted a more modern design philosophy where they can just do that, without having the casting cost reflect the abilities within the textbox.
The guildmages are actually a great example of why the hybrid mana change would ultimately still exclude some hybrid cards from use if the discussed change would take place. Even with it, some cards would still be out of reach for people that wanted to use them for their effects. Setting aside that most of them are terrible rates for what they do, and as I previously mentioned, the number of hybrid cards that would see play if the rules changed is a fraction of the hybrid cards that exist today. IMO, changing the rules to allow for them only serves to further complicate the hybrid/color identity rules (ex. no OG guildmages). All of this to see 100 or less cards see more play, in a format where ~30,000 cards are legal to use?
January 29, 2026 5:16 p.m. Edited.
To provide the full quote:
“The most interesting design space was on the uncommon cards. The block had a ten-card cycle of creatures (the Guildmages) with a hybrid cost and two monocolor activations. You could access one of the activations in a monocolor deck, but access to both activations required a two-color deck. The overlap designs were all things monocolor designs could capture, but the Guildmages showed that hybrid mana could allow designers to make things they otherwise couldn't.”
And here is an example Guildmage: Selesnya Guildmage.
As can be plainly seen, the cards are not capable of functioning in mono color. You might be able to cast them in Mono-white, but if you want the Green-only ability, you need to use Green. So, in a mono-colored deck, they are effectively only that color.
This is no different than any other mono colored card with an off-color ability - if a Black card has fire breathing, it is the red mana of the ability, not the black card color, which confers the fire breathing ability.
(Edit: Looks like someone else pointed this out at the same time as I did).
January 29, 2026 5:16 p.m. Edited.
DragonMaster420 says... #45
CrimsonWings3689 i wasn't cherry picking.
and nowhere in that article did it say that "every color on the card can do every mechanic on the card" was a core design philosophy or a requirement. it simply stated it just happened to turn out that way. so i'm still not convinced that any hybrid cards are a true color break.
January 29, 2026 5:51 p.m.
The reality is that thee are many, many, many times Wizards has explained that Hybrid is about what both colors can do - a “both” situation intersecting the mechanics. Here’s another quote from a different article saying the same thing:
“ A red-green card is both red and green. But the second category explored how the colors were the same. I realized that you didn't actually need both colors to do the thing being asked. Either color could do it. That got me to explore the idea of a new kind of multicolor card, one that explored not "and" but "or." What if there were cards that did something that two colors could do, and you could spend either color to cast the card? I was intrigued.”
You are simply wrong - and there is no shame in admitting that. However, there is shame in asking for evidence, then ignoring it when people went out of their way to do the research you could have done with a small spat of googling.
January 29, 2026 6:12 p.m. Edited.
CrimsonWings3689 says... #48
Posting this full well knowing it can get into soapbox territory, but there will be numbers to back it up.
If using Scryfall, using only the is:hybrid and f:commander syntax, we have 518 cards currently: https://scryfall.com/search?q=is%3Ahybrid+f%3Acommander
With that, if we exclude cards like the original 10 Guildmages from Ravnica and their like, that have mana symbols in their textbox/casting cost that would prohibit their use in a mono color deck, or one with fewer than the maximum color identity (ex. Selesnya Guildmage, Repudiate / Replicate, Deathrite Shaman, Seedcradle Witch, Spider Manifestation, Vibrance, Waterlogged Teachings Flip, Ajani, Sleeper Agent, Moonhold) there are 66 cards of that original 518 cards that the hybrid rules change wouldn't "help" see more play.
That is also assuming that there's an exception made for hybrid mana in the textbox for cards like Elite Headhunter & Fiend Artisan. Without that exception, that would add another 43 cards to the pile of "can't actually be used in a deck that's not the 2 or more colors the card represents."
The greater majority of the commons (178 cards total of the 518) are either trash/chaff or close enough, with only 8 of those breaking the $0.50 mark. https://scryfall.com/search?q=is%3Ahybrid+f%3Acommander+r%3Dcℴ=usd&as=grid&unique=cards
Quite a lot of hybrid cards aren't seeing play because they're not spectacular at what they do. There are corner cases like Waves of Aggression, sure. But that's not enough of a reason to rework the format to include them.
January 29, 2026 6:32 p.m.
hyalopterouslemur says... #49
DragonMaster420 You're still not getting it.
At , it's totally fine.
But, at , it has to do what can do, but also what can do. Since you can't gain life for , it's a break at . You see, means you can pay (fine), (bend, white now gets "once per turn, with a hoop" card draw, which Curiosity is, even if white doesn't get Curiosity itself), or (break: The last blue lifegain card was Delusions of Mediocrity, so, yeah).
There is a workaround. Every color gets "If you control a plains, do white thing." "If you control a white permanent, do white thing." "If you paid to cast this, do white thing." "If enchanted creature is white, it has white ability." Or, as has already been said, you could have a card with a activated or triggered ability costing white mama and a activated or triggered ability costing blue mana. That potential for workaround is also hybrid.
January 29, 2026 6:44 p.m.
Also more cards moved from ban list to game changer list
DragonMaster420 says... #2
i'd like to see hybrid mana cards be used in decks capable of using either color
January 26, 2026 12:47 p.m.