What is Drought's color identity?

Asked by xantm70 12 years ago

Drought has black mana symbols in its rules text, but not as part of an activation cost or casting cost. Instead, those symbols are used as shorthand to refer to the casting and activation costs of other cards that are then penalized by Drought . (Cf. the provided hyperlinks.) Does this make Drought's color identity for purposes of EDH/Commander black/white, or is it still a white-identity card? And either way, why?

Epochalyptik says... Accepted answer #1

Always check the Oracle text of a card. Drought 's Oracle Text is as follows:

At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice Drought unless you pay WW.Spells cost an additional "Sacrifice a Swamp" to cast for each black mana symbol in their mana costs.Activated abilities cost an additional "Sacrifice a Swamp" to activate for each black mana symbol in their activation costs.

Since the Oracle text says "black mana symbol" instead of B, black isn't part of the color identity of Drought . It's just a white card.

November 16, 2012 5:39 p.m.