Mono-Color in EDH

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Cyberium
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Post by Cyberium » 2 years ago

More colors means more options, so unless a mono-color legend is as abusable as Urza, Lord High Artificer, or has high synchronization with its own color mechanics such as Torbran, Thane of Red Fell/K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth/Tergrid, God of Fright, they'd have difficulty surpassing most multi-color legends in strengthen let alone popularity. I appreciate that WotC had made many mono-color friendly cards such as War Room, but perhaps more is needed.

If you work at WotC, how would you encourage more mono-color EDH decks to be made? I'd love to see more devotion and chroma cards, and cards that focus on a single land/mana type. I also don't mind seeing more cards like Hall of Gemstone or a reverse Global Ruin. I know color/land hosers aren't popular, but people are already playing Pyroblast and Carpet of Flowers against blue, perhaps some anti-gold/anti-nonbasic versions could be had.

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Post by Mookie » 2 years ago

Hmmmm.... I would certainly like more ways to hate on multicolor decks, but I'm not sure there is an elegant way to target them specifically. Something like 'exile all multicolored permanents' isn't guaranteed to hit that many cards from a multicolor deck because they're probably still playing a lot of monocolored spells. You can go after nonbasic lands, but if it's a base-green deck with Cultivate or other land-fetching effects, that won't actually do as much as you would like. There's also the issue where monocolor decks often play many utility lands (to take advantage of their lighter color requirements).

The way I would like for them to encourage monocolor decks is to add more incentives. I think War Room was a good start. I've specifically been hoping for more Phyrexian Obliterator-style cards, with color requirements that are too deep to splash for. We get new multicolor cards in every set, but the rate at which we see cards with deep mono-color requirements is significantly lower. The deepest we've seen even semi-recently have been CCC cards like Goblin Chainwhirler and HHHH cards like Arcanist's Owl, neither of which really solve the problem.

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Post by Ruiner » 2 years ago

I'd definitely like to see more color intensive cards that make splashing them more risky. If Hullbreacher or Rhystic Study were triple blue it'd be tougher to splash (as an example).

More non-basic hate cards could be useful but I think people need to be more accepting of that stuff (which is a separate discussion I suppose).

I'm personally rather fond of mono color decks. I know it isn't necessarily the most powerful option. When putting together multicolor decks after including the "staple" cards of your colors and various color fixing rocks, it leaves less rook for weird oddball stuff.

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Post by Treamayne » 2 years ago

I, too, enjoy many monocolor decks. Especially since it allows use of some great nostolgia cards like Gauntlet of Might, Gauntlet of Power, Caged Sun, etc.

In fact, the things I would like to see printed that could also encourage more mono-colored decks are cards like Ruby Medallion and Bontu's Monument; as well as things like mono-colored signets and borderposts (though I also have been waiting a long time for enemy color borderposts); and something like a mono-color version of Domain (similar to devotion/adamant) where Template clauses like "for each basic Plains you control" and/or "for each spent to cast this" could make a card scalable for mono, but still splashable/versitile. Finally, more Paradise Plume type enablers (not just life gain).
Ruiner wrote:
2 years ago
More non-basic hate cards could be useful but I think people need to be more accepting of that stuff (which is a separate discussion I suppose).
Without derailing the discussion, I would say I agree as long as it was more targeted nonbasic removal or Ghost Quarter style (not lands destroying lands, but the ability type that replaces the land with a basic). I think less people would hate things like Ruination if it replaced the non-basics with basics like Wave of Vitriol does instead of just being another form of MLD.
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Post by Ruiner » 2 years ago

Treamayne wrote:
2 years ago
Ruiner wrote:
2 years ago
More non-basic hate cards could be useful but I think people need to be more accepting of that stuff (which is a separate discussion I suppose).
Without derailing the discussion, I would say I agree as long as it was more targeted nonbasic removal or Ghost Quarter style (not lands destroying lands, but the ability type that replaces the land with a basic). I think less people would hate things like Ruination if it replaced the non-basics with basics like Wave of Vitriol does instead of just being another form of MLD.
More stuff like Price of Progress or Mercadia's Downfall is another angle I'd like to see also.

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Post by Serenade » 2 years ago

Is this phrasing/templating weird? Basically it would be punishing them for non-my-monocolor. (Hurts you for colorless spells, though.)

- Whenever a player casts a multicolor or nonred spell, this enchantment does 2 damage to them.

- Multicolor spells and nonwhite spells cost {1} more to cast.
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Post by Treamayne » 2 years ago

Ruiner wrote:
2 years ago
More stuff like Price of Progress or Mercadia's Downfall is another angle I'd like to see also.
I can get behind those, along with more Trailblazer's Boots effects/abilities.
Serenade wrote:
2 years ago
Is this phrasing/template weird? Basically it would be punishing them for non-my-monocolor. (Hurts you for colorless spells, though.)
- Whenever a player casts a multicolor or nonred spell, this enchantment does 2 damage to them.
- Multicolor spells and nonwhite spells cost {1} more to cast.
Probably better as something like:
~choose a color (when on artifacts, skip if already aligned to a given color)
Whenever a player/opponent spends mana that is not the chosen color <to cast a spell/activate an ability/trigger of choice>, <effect>.
V/R

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Post by onering » 2 years ago

Devotion and similar are good, you generally can run them in 2 color pretty well but 2 color needs help as well, and mono color benefits even more.

3+ pips of a single color on strong cards.

Basic land type matters effects.

More NBL hate that's not going to piss people off to run. Something like "2RR, sorcery, each player chooses 3 nonbasic lands they control and sacrifices the rest. Card name does X damage to each creature and player, where X is the number of lands sacrificed this way." Punishes people who are over reliant on nonbasics but leaves everyone else largely unscathed mana wise, and has some added utility as a sweeper. Single target NBL hate stapled onto already decent cards can also help a bit, like "1RR, instant: Destroy target nonbasic land, cardname does 3 damage to target creature or planeswalker controlled by its controller." or add it more often to modal spells like commands, or "3GG, Creature: When Cardname ETB's, destroy target nonbasic land, then search for a basic land and put it onto the battlefield tapped."

Cards that care about the number of colors in your commanders' color identities. Like "2UU, Enchantment: At the beginning of your upkeep, draw X, where X is 5 minus the number of colors in your commander's color identity." or "2R, Enchantment: At the beginning of each opponent's upkeep, cardname does X damage to them, where X is the number of colors in their commander's color identity."

A balance of some more multicolor hate, especially hate that scales with the number of colors or number of non basics, and boosting mono color with strong cards that work best in mono color or two color decks is what's needed.

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Post by Cyberium » 2 years ago

Mookie wrote:
2 years ago
Hmmmm.... I would certainly like more ways to hate on multicolor decks, but I'm not sure there is an elegant way to target them specifically. Something like 'exile all multicolored permanents' isn't guaranteed to hit that many cards from a multicolor deck because they're probably still playing a lot of monocolored spells. You can go after nonbasic lands, but if it's a base-green deck with Cultivate or other land-fetching effects, that won't actually do as much as you would like. There's also the issue where monocolor decks often play many utility lands (to take advantage of their lighter color requirements).
It can be worded like this:

---------

Harmonic Convergence
1WWW
Sorcery

Each opponent sacrifices a land that can produce more than one color of mana via mana abilities. You search your library for a basic plains for each card sacrificed this way, then put them onto the battlefield tapped.

---------

This wording would allow mono color decks to have nonbasic lands that makes C or of their own color. Hefty colored cost and searching for basic lands of a specific type can limit a card from being abused in multi-color decks, since they usually have way more nonbasic lands and would not reap the full benefit.
Ruiner wrote:
2 years ago
More stuff like Price of Progress or Mercadia's Downfall is another angle I'd like to see also.
Yes. Punishing and would attract less hate compare to MLD or Back to Basics. White can definitely get a catch up spell that let them search for lands base on how many nonbasic in play.

Simple Life
1WW
Sorcery

Search your library for X basic plains and put them onto the battlefield tapped, where X is the number of opponents who control two or more lands that could produce more than one type of mana via mana abilities.
onering wrote:
2 years ago
Cards that care about the number of colors in your commanders' color identities. Like "2UU, Enchantment: At the beginning of your upkeep, draw X, where X is 5 minus the number of colors in your commander's color identity." or "2R, Enchantment: At the beginning of each opponent's upkeep, cardname does X damage to them, where X is the number of colors in their commander's color identity."

A balance of some more multicolor hate, especially hate that scales with the number of colors or number of non basics, and boosting mono color with strong cards that work best in mono color or two color decks is what's needed.
That's a great thought, since white only has major trouble in EDH so cards that target commander identity would do well. Or, to go with the Court ideal:

Court of Sovereignty
3WW
Enchantment

As ~ enters the battlefield, you become the monarch.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if your commander has fewer colors in its identity than other players' commanders, you become the monarch.

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Post by Gashnaw » 2 years ago

I would probably design commander that work so long as the only colors in your deck are of a chosen color.

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Post by Dunadain » 2 years ago

But... Why?

There is way more variety in multicolored, of course people are going to want to play multicolored and why exactly is that a bad thing?

Maybe it's just I don't like you're angle? I think punishing people for wanting to have more colors is kinda of lame, but even if it's justified, people are going to complain. You can make the argument that blood moon is a fair card, I'd be inclined to agree, but people still hate it.

If rather give mono colors more options then just making multicolor hate cards.

Some people were suggesting more/better devotion effects and that seems way more fun than multi colored hate cards. Idk

Maybe more utility lands? Mono colors decks can play more utility lands than multi colored decks so that might help.
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Post by duducrash » 2 years ago

I'd love to see more incentives to play monocolor, I think there are two obvious way to go about it.

Thalia, Heretic Cathar and nonbasic hate is one example.

Sundering Stroke the other way, it gives you benefits for playing monocolor.

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Post by Mookie » 2 years ago

Dunadain wrote:
2 years ago
But... Why?

There is way more variety in multicolored, of course people are going to want to play multicolored and why exactly is that a bad thing?

<snip>
Some thoughts:

Firstly, looking at EDHREC's top commanders in the last two years, things skew heavily towards multicolored commanders. On that list, there are:
  • 1 colorless commander
  • 8 monocolored commanders
  • 26 two-color commanders
  • 47 three-color commanders
  • 7 four-color commanders (a 100% hit rate of those printed, plus Thrasios, Triton Hero & Tymna the Weaver)
  • 11 five-color commanders
  • ...which, in turn, means that decks are playing 2.84 colors on average (ignoring weighting for relative commander popularity).
I would be surprised if any other formats had a higher average number of colors (ignoring moxen in vintage, which really don't count).

Secondly, I would note that one of the core concepts in Magic is the mana system. In that system, the number of colors you play fundamentally connects to a tradeoff: you can play fewer colors and have a more consistent deck, or you can play more colors and have a more flexible deck. I would argue that compared to other formats, EDH skews very, very heavily towards playing more colors because there aren't enough incentives to promote consistency. The format is slow, so you're less likely to be punished for missing a color early. The fixing is strong, with access to fetches and duals. And, critically, there aren't any good ways to prey on decks running more colors - Blood Moon, Wasteland, and Back to Basics aren't relevant cards in this format.

Thirdly, I would argue that so many decks running so many colors results in less variety, not more. Every green deck runs Cultivate, every white deck runs Swords to Plowshares, every blue deck runs Cyclonic Rift, every black deck runs Demonic Tutor... at some point, decks become so full of staples that there is no space to run more niche options.

Fourthly, I'll note that a lot of commanders are printed that are effectively pushed out of the format due to being monocolor. Even if I consider a card like Alrund, God of the Cosmos // Hakka, Whispering Raven or Toralf, God of Fury // Toralf's Hammer to be sweet, it's still unlikely for me to actually make a deck for them because lacking access to more colors is so crippling. Simultaneously, there are cards like Najeela, the Blade-Blossom that effectively invalidate large swathes of other commanders because you can just run those commanders in the 99 of a five-color deck. Why would you ever run (insert niche commander for an archetype) when (insert commander with more colors) can do the same thing, while also granting access to (insert off-color archetype enabler)?

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Post by Dunadain » 2 years ago

Mookie wrote:
2 years ago
Dunadain wrote:
2 years ago
But... Why?

There is way more variety in multicolored, of course people are going to want to play multicolored and why exactly is that a bad thing?

<snip>
Some thoughts:

Firstly, looking at EDHREC's top commanders in the last two years, things skew heavily towards multicolored commanders. On that list, there are:
  • 1 colorless commander
  • 8 monocolored commanders
  • 26 two-color commanders
  • 47 three-color commanders
  • 7 four-color commanders (a 100% hit rate of those printed, plus Thrasios, Triton Hero & Tymna the Weaver)
  • 11 five-color commanders
  • ...which, in turn, means that decks are playing 2.84 colors on average (ignoring weighting for relative commander popularity).
I would be surprised if any other formats had a higher average number of colors (ignoring moxen in vintage, which really don't count).

Secondly, I would note that one of the core concepts in Magic is the mana system. In that system, the number of colors you play fundamentally connects to a tradeoff: you can play fewer colors and have a more consistent deck, or you can play more colors and have a more flexible deck. I would argue that compared to other formats, EDH skews very, very heavily towards playing more colors because there aren't enough incentives to promote consistency. The format is slow, so you're less likely to be punished for missing a color early. The fixing is strong, with access to fetches and duals. And, critically, there aren't any good ways to prey on decks running more colors - Blood Moon, Wasteland, and Back to Basics aren't relevant cards in this format.

Thirdly, I would argue that so many decks running so many colors results in less variety, not more. Every green deck runs Cultivate, every white deck runs Swords to Plowshares, every blue deck runs Cyclonic Rift, every black deck runs Demonic Tutor... at some point, decks become so full of staples that there is no space to run more niche options.

Fourthly, I'll note that a lot of commanders are printed that are effectively pushed out of the format due to being monocolor. Even if I consider a card like Alrund, God of the Cosmos // Hakka, Whispering Raven or Toralf, God of Fury // Toralf's Hammer to be sweet, it's still unlikely for me to actually make a deck for them because lacking access to more colors is so crippling. Simultaneously, there are cards like Najeela, the Blade-Blossom that effectively invalidate large swathes of other commanders because you can just run those commanders in the 99 of a five-color deck. Why would you ever run (insert niche commander for an archetype) when (insert commander with more colors) can do the same thing, while also granting access to (insert off-color archetype enabler)?
I do have issues with Golos and Najeela (doesn't everyone?) But I don't have any problem with WOTC printing more incentives to play mono colored. I run a number of mono color decks. I just think multi colored hate is a terrible idea, Casual playgroups are going to frown on it, meaning it's not going to be any use to many casual mono colored decks. Also, hate cards are dead cards when your not facing up against that kind of deck, so your blood moon and co. Are going to look pretty stupid when some of your opponents are also playing mono colored.

So I feel like cards that reward people for playing mono colored will just do more than cards that punish people for paying more than one color.

On a more pessimistic note. I'm pretty sure WOTC would rather multi colored decks stay more popular as mono colored decks can usually be made on a lower budget. I realize that's dumb, but whatcha gonna do?
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Post by PrimevalCommander » 2 years ago

Multicolor is popular because it opens up more options for any given archetype. I am having a lot of fun with mono green Titania, Protector of Argoth Lands deck. However I have seen Omnath, Locus of Rage lands and thought "If only I had red for insert favorite card here" or maybe Omnath, Locus of the Roil for Roil Elemental, or Omnath, Locus of Creation for Felidar Retreat , or, or...

Using Titania allows me to use some less common green cards and have a bit more of a challenge. Haste is an issue in mono green. Fortunately I have a Concordant Crossroads, but it does have a drawback, and if I didn't have it, I would be looking for another unique non-red option for a haste enabler. Crashing Drawbridge has my attention right now, but no experience yet.

Going mono color takes some amount of constraint, because as mentioned above, there are usually always a commander that will do whatever you want with access to more colors, leading to more powerful effects and interactions. I was a die hard 3-color player, having a deck for every 3 color combination. Now I am more split between 3-color and mono-color decks because the land base is so easy, and I need less copies of Tooth and Nail and Cyclonic Rift if I reduce the colors of each deck. I'm enjoying the simplicity of mono-color as a break from tapping the exact combination of lands to leave me with the right colors every turn. Or fetching for that 6th island in my Kalamax deck because it is so blue heavy but still needs to cast Dualcaster Mage or Counterspell on opponent's turns.

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Post by Treamayne » 2 years ago

Dunadain wrote:
2 years ago
So I feel like cards that reward people for playing mono colored will just do more than cards that punish people for paying more than one color.
I think that depends on the type of "hate" for multicolored. Of course things like Blood Moon will be unpopular at casual tables, but that is more because it is the type of card that stops players from playing at all. It's not hated because it is hard on multicolor, its hated because it is Staxish.

If you having something along the lines of a reverse domain (things that mean playing multicolored comes with risk, but not the "locked out of the game" risk of things like Hall of Gemstone and Blood Moon) then you could have viable tools for a mono-color deck if they are being piloted in a multicolor heavy meta. For example:
Domain - Deal X damage each to target player and X target creatures that player controls, where X is the number of basic land types that player controls
or
Target player sacrifices a nonland permanent for each color in their commander's color identity,
That said, I agree that "mono color" improvements are better than hate, but I do think we need both; as long as the "hate" cards are scalable, not blanket "shut downs."
V/R

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Post by Serenade » 2 years ago

It has been a dozen years since the original printing of Emeria or Valakut. Those feel like A+ examples of rewards for fewer colors.
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Post by Guardman » 2 years ago

Serenade wrote:
2 years ago
It has been a dozen years since the original printing of Emeria or Valakut. Those feel like A+ examples of rewards for fewer colors.
While I like those designs, I don't think they really work to support mono-color that well. Most mono-color decks play a decent number of non-basic land type cards, which makes it hard to use effectively. For example, Emeria, the Sky Ruin takes a lot of plains, and basically preludes you from playing cards like War Room or other utility lands.

Plus, in my experience, at least 75% of the decks I see them in are green based decks of some kind that use Prismatic Omen (and now Dryad of the Ilysian Grove as well) to abuse them.

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Post by Cyberium » 2 years ago

Dunadain wrote:
2 years ago
But... Why?

There is way more variety in multicolored, of course people are going to want to play multicolored and why exactly is that a bad thing?

Maybe it's just I don't like you're angle? I think punishing people for wanting to have more colors is kinda of lame, but even if it's justified, people are going to complain. You can make the argument that blood moon is a fair card, I'd be inclined to agree, but people still hate it.

If rather give mono colors more options then just making multicolor hate cards.

Some people were suggesting more/better devotion effects and that seems way more fun than multi colored hate cards. Idk

Maybe more utility lands? Mono colors decks can play more utility lands than multi colored decks so that might help.
I actually vouch for both: Cards that counteract against or benefit from opponents playing multicolor, and cards that boost mono-color decks. The reason I'm behind this direction is that multicolor decks have been too prominent in EDH that mono-color legends are, no matter how interesting, are frequently abandoned for ones that have more colors.

And why is that a bad thing? For one, I'm very concerned with the blurring of color pie, and I'm not talking about something like Ravenform (although it's also a problem). Color pie existed so each color has its strengths and weaknesses, and while players can combine colors into their deck to compensate each other, there's penalty of needing to have a mixed mana sources, therefore reducing your consistency. The game was designed that way so people would actually think about the pros and cons during deck construction, and to ensure players don't just mix all the powerful cards into their deck without any downside. @Mookie already explained a bit on that.

However, that ideal had become less and less prominent thanks to all the mana fixing cards we get since EDH became popular. A significant portion of those lands/artifacts emerged during this time, to the point that some decks can now run entirely with 90% of the lands producing 2+ colors. There's nothing wrong about playing multicolor decks, it's just that there's almost no weakness in playing multicolor decks now, which means the game (EDH + other format) is moving away from mono-color. For the sake of this game's creative spirit, every color combination including mono should be viable, even WR get extra options with the introduction of Lorehold.

And for the sake of whining, I must complain about WotC's strong hand in shaping EDH format into what it is today, not just with cards like Jeweled Lotus but also cards like Arcane Signet that weakens the line between each color, which is not commendable. For some reason, WotC give the symbolically the slowest color (U) an powerful ramp like Hullbreacher which double as a denial. It's as if WotC no longer cares about color identity unless it's blue, and instead of designing clever ways to integrate each color's strength (like Smothering Tithe) they just add another color into a card. If there's a chance to add a color to a legend instead of removing a color, WotC no doubt favors the former.

I suppose it's smart, since multi-color decks require more "staples" and can push secondary market better, I just hope WotC be careful not to destroy the integrity between colors with with their cash crab.

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Post by onering » 2 years ago

I think most of what's being proposed wouldn't just hurt multicolor and help mono color. That's a bit of an oversimplification of the current problem and what the proposed solutions would do. Its not only mono color that is being hurt by the current direction, but two color as well, while its mainly 4+ color decks that are benefiting. This format was originally a 3 color format that evolved into a primarily 2-3 color format with some nice mono color and 5 color decks, and it was good. It has since become a 4-5 color focused format, which is not good.

Most of the ways to help mono color will also help 2 color decks, though to a lesser extent, and the ways to hurt multi color will barely impact 2 color. A good example is War Room, which is a barely noticed life payment for mono color, a mild life payment for 2 color, a significant but doable payment for 3, and severe for 4 and 5. Heavy pip or basic land type matters is great for mono, but also doable by 2 color, while hard for the rest barring Chromatic Lantern type effects. I feel like most of the suggestions in this thread would help mono color and 2 color, while hurting 4-5 color, and only moderately impacting 3 color either way.

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Post by Sinis » 2 years ago

Cyberium wrote:
2 years ago
If you work at WotC, how would you encourage more mono-color EDH decks to be made?
More mechanics like Devotion. When original Theros was being spoiled and released, I was super excited for the devotion mechanic. Cards that had a heavy colour weight became more meaningful for things like Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. IMO, Devotion was the pinnacle of this kind of design; you couldn't cheat it because mana symbols are (typically) immutable, and it requires board investment. The Adamant mechanic in Eldraine could have been better if it was more prevalent and they weren't (usually) some trivial bonus. I mean, if we're going to pay , please give us more than a +1/+1 counter.

I think War Room is a less interesting design for low- or mono-colour (what's the difference between paying 3 life and 1 life for a draw? 2 life, it's not that much, you'd play this in something like Oloro, Ageless Ascetic even though there's a 3-life cost). It would have been better if the mana cost decreased by playing more colours, like if it were 1 or 2+ the number of colours you're playing; we all know life is at least somewhat negotiable in EDH, and there are already very similar cards like Bonders' Enclave. Commander's Plate is a much better and more interesting design IMO. The fewer colours you play, the better it is, but there's another angle to it: The more your colours diverge from your opponents, the more effective it is. So, if you're a monoblack deck at a table full of b/x decks, you're probably not dodging many removal spells, but if you're playing monored, it'll give your opponents fits.

Anyway, your real question: How would I encourage designs that make people want to play monocolour? I think there could be more cards that have very heavy costs (like Phyrexian Obliterator's ) that are powerful, or playable cards that depend on you having a quantity of cards of a particular kind, like the cycle Brine Seer is part of, or the Martyr of Ashes cycle from coldsnap. I also think that demanding but powerful pitch cards like Commandeer encourage playing fewer colours. Finally, things that see a kind of land; black has many cards like this, like Nightmare Incursion, Corrupt and Tendrils of Corruption, but other colours could have more of them as well (blue has a few, Flow of Ideas, Engulf the Shore, etc.). Similarly, I wish Sundering Stroke was better; it could have been at 5mv with the same stipulations (5 red mana instead of 7), and it'd have been very playable.

I do think it's a tall order to make it better because the dam is already broken in other places. Like, I can say "Phyrexian Obliterator is good design because of its extremely heavy cost" but we live in a universe that Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Chromatic Lantern, Cascading Cataracts and The World Tree exist in. Mana fixing in eternal formats is now so trivial (well, trivially in a mechanical sense, maybe not in a monetary sense) that it's hard to design things that promote single-colour action. So, stuff like costs, Adamant, etc. are hard to truly enforce. Even things like the Seer/Martyr cycle kind of fall flat when there are multicolour cards that count for their effects.

So, I think the real future will be cards that are worded like Niv-Mizzet Reborn, where it's very specific that the card needs to meet a very particular colour requirement. "If you spent mana only from Plains on this card" or "If that card is white and no other colours" kind of templating.

I will say that I don't think the answer is to make exceedingly powerful mono-colour legendaries like Urza, Lord High Artificer or Selvala, Heart of the Wilds. People end up playing the general, rather than 'monoblue' or 'monogreen', in some sense. They pick the general in spite of it being monocolour, not because they feel rewarded for playing a monocolour.

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pokken
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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

While I really dislike Jeweled Lotus in many respects, it's a pretty beautiful example of the way design can shift to enable things that are largely preferred and/or neglected --

The card supports 1 and 2c decks much better than 3, and also rewards playing higher CMC legends that otherwise languish against the likes of Tymna the Weaver.

I'd like to see a lot more of that type of design. It's really clever in a lot of ways. But maybe without the absurd front-loading :)



I don't know that it's necessarily obviously true that we want more monocolor decks, so much as that we really do not want as many 4 and 5 color decks as we have, and we'd love to see more 1 and 2 color decks. Three colors is pretty much the sweet spot for interesting gameplay without becoming a goodstuff pile automatically like 4+. And you can still take advantage of a lot of the 1/2c preferring cards by being careful in your manabase and curve and pip selection.



Finally, I have some kind of general thoughts on things we can do, in no particular order, to sort of discourage the color proliferation arms race that's going on. Lots of these have been said of course, but wanted to sum up.

1. Put More Pips on Things! This is the only ordered one of my thoughts. We need more multi-symbol cards like Knight of the White Orchid that is dang hard to play in a 3 color deck. Just put more mana symbols on things. If Hullbreacher had cost 1UU (Or better, 1WW:P) it would be a significantly different card in its applicability.

(as a side note, this also encourages devotion which is nice!)

White's bombs like Hour of Revelation are a great recent example of this

2. Encourage basic lands and basic land types. Cards like Emeria, the Sky Ruin and Archaeomancer's Map are great examples over the years.

3. Color encouraging effects like Devotion, and even cards like Brave the Elements and Ayara, First of Locthwain are a great way to encourage fewer colors to be played. These cards need to be powerful.

4. Stop printing Golos, Tireless Pilgrim. Just please stop it. Generals who create massive amounts of card advantage and/or massive amounts of ramp need a second glance and probably do not need to be more than 2 colors. It'd probably be better just to never put ramp+CA on the same legend again, or at least lay off it for a few years.

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Sinis
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Post by Sinis » 2 years ago

pokken wrote:
2 years ago
1. Put More Pips on Things! This is the only ordered one of my thoughts. We need more multi-symbol cards like Knight of the White Orchid that is dang hard to play in a 3 color deck. Just put more mana symbols on things. If Hullbreacher had cost 1UU (Or better, 1WW:P) it would be a significantly different card in its applicability.

...

4. Stop printing Golos, Tireless Pilgrim. Just please stop it. Generals who create massive amounts of card advantage and/or massive amounts of ramp need a second glance and probably do not need to be more than 2 colors. It'd probably be better just to never put ramp+CA on the same legend again, or at least lay off it for a few years.
I like all your points, but these ones the most. We didn't need The Prismatic Bridge to happen in the way that it did, nor Kenrith, the Returned King, nor...

Also, Hullbreacher should have been White and I'm willing to die on that hill.

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