does gifting Celestial Dawn win the game? EDH
Asked by LordArazeal 10 years ago
In EDH, if you manage to give control of Celestial Dawn to a non-white deck (Zedruu the Greathearted ) are they unable to play any colored spells?
here is my thought process:
their spells are now white, but they still require other colors to cast, but its fine because white mana can be used for anything, but they cant get white mana because its not in their commander's identity, but their commander is also white now, even though in his casting cost there are no white symbols...
Gidgetimer says... #2
Color identity is set before the game begins and cannot be changed. So they would be unable to add white to their mana pool and would instead add colorless. All other colored mana that they created via things besides lands they would be only able to spend as colorless. This means that they could only cast colorless spells until the enchantment was removed.
I'm not sure I would say it wins the game but it is a pretty big thorn that they have to get rid of to play effectively.
Epochalyptik says... Accepted answer #1
Color identity is established before the game begins, and it does not change during the course of the game, even if your commander's colors change.
If you gift Celestial Dawn to a player whose commander does not have white in its color identity, that player will be unable to play spells with colored mana symbols in their mana costs. The only way that player could pay for a colored cost is by adding white mana to his or her mana pool and then spending that mana as though it were mana of any color. Because that player cannot add white mana to his or her mana pool, per Commander rules, and because mana of other colors may only be spent as though it were colorless mana, that player has no way of paying colored costs. He or she may still pay colorless costs using regular mana.
Note that this is not an automatic win. You still have to defeat your opponent if he or she does not concede.
August 21, 2014 5:08 p.m.