Hybrid mana

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Post by Snes » 4 years ago

When determining color identity, players should be allowed to choose the color(s) of hybrid mana costs in their deck.

Examples:
  • Fracturing Gust has the identity of either green, white, or Selesnya and can be played in any deck that is green or white.
  • Yasova Dragonclaw has the identity of either Simic, Gruul, or Temur and can be played in any deck that is G/U or R/G.
Basically, players should be allowed to play with hybrid mana cards as long as their commander includes at least one of the colors of the cost. It's how the mechanic was intended to be played, it's how the mechanic works in every other Magic format, and, in my own personal experience, it's how newcomers to the format assume the rules work. Asserting that, because the rules of the game say that they're technically both colors, they should therefore have the same color identity as gold cards of those colors is the rule's committee holding to the letter of the law over the spirit.
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Post by KitsuLeif » 4 years ago

Basically, the Rules Committee has already stated that this rule is unlikely to change.


Imagine the confusion if I cast Azor's Elocutors in a mono-white deck and my opponent wants to counter it with a Red Elemental Blast. The rules say it works, but since I only spent white mana for the spell and decided that the color identity of the card is white... what now?
Or imagine playing Reaper King in a colorless deck, because you could pay 2 for each of his colors instead of the colors. Same for Beseech the Queen. Can you play it in any color, because you will always have generic mana available?

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Post by cryogen » 4 years ago

So how do you handle a situation where I want to run Azorius Guildmage in my mono white deck, but I have a Guilded Lotus for the second activated ability?

Additionally, color identity doesn't change any of the rules of Magic. It simply adds an additional rule to deck building, not that dissimilar from the rule Standard has which says "cards from these sets are legal during deck construction". New players make that mistake all the time as well, but the solution isn't to change the card pool, it is to educate the player.

Mark Rosewater is wrong. End of story, and intent does not supersede mechanical rules.
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Post by KitsuLeif » 4 years ago

cryogen wrote:
4 years ago
So how do you handle a situation where I want to run Azorius Guildmage in my mono white deck, but I have a Gilded Lotus for the second activated ability?
Same goes for Deathrite Shaman, as being mentioned in the video (probably a more prominent example).

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Post by folding_music » 4 years ago

When they had that poll a few weeks back, I did vote for relaxing the rules on hybrid mana but, since then, I've realised that a move like that would just cement a bunch of hybrid mana cards as staples in more decks and remove a little more diversity. I'm just a casual deckbuilder person anyway and my ability to play Burning-Tree Emissary in my Jori En commander deck really isn't as important as the increased repetitiveness optimizers would create in the competitive end of the format.

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

cryogen wrote:
4 years ago
So how do you handle a situation where I want to run Azorius Guildmage in my mono white deck, but I have a Guilded Lotus for the second activated ability?

Additionally, color identity doesn't change any of the rules of Magic. It simply adds an additional rule to deck building, not that dissimilar from the rule Standard has which says "cards from these sets are legal during deck construction". New players make that mistake all the time as well, but the solution isn't to change the card pool, it is to educate the player.

Mark Rosewater is wrong. End of story, and intent does not supersede mechanical rules.

This one is easy. Azorius Guildmage has activated abilities that're off color so it's not either blue or white anymore. The mana costs of activated abilities would supersede the hybrid rule (obviously).

Deathrite Shaman is exactly the same.

The color identity from mana cost is either. The color identity from activated abilities overrides that. Same way that Tasigur, the golden Fang works -- his color identity from mana cost is black, his identity from abilities would be G or U. So he's either UB or GB or BUG.

If activated ability costs didn't override mana costs there would be craptons of confusing cards already.

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Post by KitsuLeif » 4 years ago

So, your proposal is to make the rules even more confusing? It's weird enough that Tasigur is a black creature, but his Color Identity is BUG. Explaining that his identity, depending on the deck you play is UB, GB or BUG would go too far, don't you think? With the same logic you could argue to play him in a mono-black deck, because he is black and you don't have to use his abilities at all.

What's next?
Phyrexian Mana in every deck? Because you can always pay 2 life instead of the actual color?

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Post by cryogen » 4 years ago

pokken wrote:
4 years ago
cryogen wrote:
4 years ago
So how do you handle a situation where I want to run Azorius Guildmage in my mono white deck, but I have a Guilded Lotus for the second activated ability?

Additionally, color identity doesn't change any of the rules of Magic. It simply adds an additional rule to deck building, not that dissimilar from the rule Standard has which says "cards from these sets are legal during deck construction". New players make that mistake all the time as well, but the solution isn't to change the card pool, it is to educate the player.

Mark Rosewater is wrong. End of story, and intent does not supersede mechanical rules.

This one is easy. Azorius Guildmage has activated abilities that're off color so it's not either blue or white anymore. The mana costs of activated abilities would supersede the hybrid rule (obviously).

Deathrite Shaman is exactly the same.

The color identity from mana cost is either. The color identity from activated abilities overrides that. Same way that Tasigur, the golden Fang works -- his color identity from mana cost is black, his identity from abilities would be G or U. So he's either UB or GB or BUG.

If activated ability costs didn't override mana costs there would be craptons of confusing cards already.
So, if I have a motoblue deck I can run Azorius Guildmage but only use Guilded Lotus on the blue ability, BUT..... if I cast Bribery and get Deathrite Shaman i can use that same Guilded Lotus for its activated abilities? That's not counterintuitive at all.
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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

cryogen wrote:
4 years ago
pokken wrote:
4 years ago
cryogen wrote:
4 years ago
So how do you handle a situation where I want to run Azorius Guildmage in my mono white deck, but I have a Guilded Lotus for the second activated ability?

Additionally, color identity doesn't change any of the rules of Magic. It simply adds an additional rule to deck building, not that dissimilar from the rule Standard has which says "cards from these sets are legal during deck construction". New players make that mistake all the time as well, but the solution isn't to change the card pool, it is to educate the player.

Mark Rosewater is wrong. End of story, and intent does not supersede mechanical rules.

This one is easy. Azorius Guildmage has activated abilities that're off color so it's not either blue or white anymore. The mana costs of activated abilities would supersede the hybrid rule (obviously).

Deathrite Shaman is exactly the same.

The color identity from mana cost is either. The color identity from activated abilities overrides that. Same way that Tasigur, the golden Fang works -- his color identity from mana cost is black, his identity from abilities would be G or U. So he's either UB or GB or BUG.

If activated ability costs didn't override mana costs there would be craptons of confusing cards already.
So, if I have a motoblue deck I can run Azorius Guildmage but only use Guilded Lotus on the blue ability, BUT..... if I cast Bribery and get Deathrite Shaman i can use that same Guilded Lotus for its activated abilities? That's not counterintuitive at all.
You cannot play azorius guildmage in a mono blue deck because it has an ability that requires white mana to activate. The ability color identity trumps the mana cost color identity.

I'll reiterate this is how it's always been (see Silver Myr has a blue color identity). The change is to whether hybrid mana symbols count as one color or another. That has nothing to do with other mana symbols on the card.

The change would be that if I had a
Hypothetical Myr - 2
(T): Add (U/W)

It would be either blue or white.

But if it had an additional ability that read:

(U:) Draw a card then discard a card

It would now be Blue.

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Post by KitsuLeif » 4 years ago

pokken wrote:
4 years ago
You cannot play azorius guildmage in a mono blue deck because it has an ability that requires white mana to activate. The ability color identity trumps the mana cost color identity.
Like I said, way too complicated. cryogen didn't understand what you wanted to bring across, how should a new player understand this rule? It would lead to way more questions than answers.

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

KitsuLeif wrote:
4 years ago
pokken wrote:
4 years ago
You cannot play azorius guildmage in a mono blue deck because it has an ability that requires white mana to activate. The ability color identity trumps the mana cost color identity.
Like I said, way too complicated. cryogen didn't understand what you wanted to bring across, how should a new player understand this rule? It would lead to way more questions than answers.

How do they manage to understand that Silver Myr is blue and not colorless?

It's easy.

All I'm saying is you guys are adding a pointless wrench into something that is already clearly spelled out in the rules -- color identity from abilities trumps that from mana cost and it has been that way for a long time.

Arguing that it's too complicated when it is no different from what people already have to do is not fair in my opinion.

edit:
Godhead of Awe is White or Blue from mana costs and has no other abilities. Therefore it is White or Blue.
Deathrite Shaman is Black or Green from mana costs, and has a Black ability and Green ability. Therefore it is Black and Green.
Golos, Tireless Pilgrim is Colorless from mana cost and has UBRGW from abilities, therefore it is all colors.

All the rule adds from a complexity perspective is that Hybrids are now either or. It says nothing at all about what other mana symbols on the card mean.

edit2:

I will note that I think the Two-brid issue is what throws a real wrench in this. Hybrid mana is all lumped into one section in the official rules, and the 2-brid costs really screw with the ruling.

So that issue I will grant is a pretty major one.

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Post by KitsuLeif » 4 years ago

It doesn't "trump" the color identity, it's just added to it. That's the problem with your proposal here. Tasigur isn't BG or UG, it's BUG all the time.
Trying to get rid of this rule would lead to more confusion, as cryogen and I tried to point out.
The RC has a clear stand on that topic and I'm totally with them. You can't play Glowspore Shaman in a BU deck, why should you be able to play a Slitherhead. It uses the same two colors in it's symbols, but one card has two symbols for it and the other a split one. That's the only difference.
You would get access to abilities that your color combination doesn't have naturally. It's a slippery slope that would lead to more auto-includes in every deck, so you can cover weaknesses that your colors have by just playing cards that have hybrid mana. Decks would feel sameish more and more.

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

KitsuLeif wrote:
4 years ago
It doesn't "trump" the color identity, it's just added to it. That's the problem with your proposal here. Tasigur isn't BG or UG, it's BUG all the time.
Trying to get rid of this rule would lead to more confusion, as cryogen and I tried to point out.
The RC has a clear stand on that topic and I'm totally with them. You can't play Glowspore Shaman in a BU deck, why should you be able to play a Slitherhead. It uses the same two colors in it's symbols, but one card has two symbols for it and the other a split one. That's the only difference.
I just don't think what you guys are saying has anything to do with the rule as proposed because no one would ever have thought "choosing the color of hybrid costs in their deck" would makeAzorius Guildmage legal because it has non-hybrid costs that would trump those.

Even if you get to choose the (U/W) symbols to be U or W, it doesn't change the color of the other symbols.

It's fine if you want to stand with the RC. I think that disliking OP's proposed rule is perfectly reasonable and has lots of support for that position. But your and Cryo's counter argument specifically about Azorius Guildmage et al is a red herring.

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Post by Mookie » 4 years ago

Personally, I'm in favor of the hybrid rules as they currently are. Color identity is ultimately a completely arbitrary additional deckbuilding restriction unique to Commander. The current ruling goes with the simplest implementation - every card has exactly one color identity. Going with the proposed implementation - hybrid cards can have multiple color identities - is an equally valid ruling. Neither is inherently superior to the other, so the main question is which leads to better gameplay.

If we were to change the hybrid ruling....
-decks with fewer colors would have more options available. I do believe that helping out monocolor decks is a valid goal.
-there would be less incentive to run specific color pairings. To some extent, I consider cards like Privileged Position and Creakwood Liege to be a payoff or reward for running their color combination.
-some of the more powerful hybrid cards become staples. Maybe every white aggro deck starts running Dovescape as wrath protection.
-the flavor of color identity is weakened. I believe that this is a bad thing.
-there is more confusion about color identity, making it more likely that people will include invalid cards. I'll point to this very thread as an example of people getting confused.
-the door is opened to similar rulings for twobrid and Phyrexian mana. This is arguably a slippery slope argument... but I see no reason to make a new arbitrary distinction between traditional hybrid mana and other forms of hybrid mana.
-going further down the slipperly slope, this also opens up discussions for cards with alternate casting costs like Bringer of the Blue Dawn and Rix Maadi Reveler.

Overall, I believe that the upside of helping out monocolor decks isn't worth the downside of all the additional rules baggage and weakening of color identity.

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Post by cryogen » 4 years ago

pokken wrote:
4 years ago
KitsuLeif wrote:
4 years ago
pokken wrote:
4 years ago
You cannot play azorius guildmage in a mono blue deck because it has an ability that requires white mana to activate. The ability color identity trumps the mana cost color identity.
Like I said, way too complicated. cryogen didn't understand what you wanted to bring across, how should a new player understand this rule? It would lead to way more questions than answers.

How do they manage to understand that Silver Myr is blue and not colorless?

It's easy.

All I'm saying is you guys are adding a pointless wrench into something that is already clearly spelled out in the rules -- color identity from abilities trumps that from mana cost and it has been that way for a long time.

Arguing that it's too complicated when it is no different from what people already have to do is not fair in my opinion.

edit:
Godhead of Awe is White or Blue from mana costs and has no other abilities. Therefore it is White or Blue.
Deathrite Shaman is Black or Green from mana costs, and has a Black ability and Green ability. Therefore it is Black and Green.
Golos, Tireless Pilgrim is Colorless from mana cost and has UBRGW from abilities, therefore it is all colors.

All the rule adds from a complexity perspective is that Hybrids are now either or. It says nothing at all about what other mana symbols on the card mean.

edit2:

I will note that I think the Two-brid issue is what throws a real wrench in this. Hybrid mana is all lumped into one section in the official rules, and the 2-brid costs really screw with the ruling.

So that issue I will grant is a pretty major one.
So what happens when you play Godhead of Awe in a mono white deck and I want to cast Red Elemental Blast?
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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

cryogen wrote:
4 years ago
So what happens when you play Godhead of Awe in a mono white deck and I want to cast Red Elemental Blast?
You counter it. Corner case that I don't find to be a particularly big deal.

Or they change the Hybrid mana rules to add memory, which seems really annoying and clunky. I'd rather deal with a few corner case quirks. It's not like there aren't tons of quirks in the system already. Extort, for example.

I just wanna play thopter foundry in my azorius decks please.

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Post by FunkyDragon » 4 years ago

Ugh... I was hoping that the new site would give us a world free of this debate.
pokken wrote:
4 years ago
Corner case that I don't find to be a particularly big deal.
"Corner case"?! How many corner cases do you need before they aren't corner cases? How many before it becomes a convoluted mess and you decide that the rules are right and hybrid is always both colors - it's AND, not OR?

You play Divinity of Pride in a mono-white deck and determine that it's a mono-white creature.
- Can I Doom Blade it?
- Can I Shriekmaw it?
- Can it block a creature equipped with Sword of Sinew and Steel?
- Does it get pumped by your Angel of Jubilation?
- Can you enchant it with Call to Serve?
- Can it attack a player who controls Elephant Grass?
- Can an opponent's Midnight Banshee put -1/-1 counters on it?

If, in any of these cases, you treat it as a mono-white, nonblack creature because you determined it should be mono-white to fit in a mono-white deck, you have changed the rules of the game - not simply violated the color identity rule of the format. Divinity of Pride is always both white AND black, because that what the rules say. Hybrid is nothing more than a flexible way to pay for a multi-colored card.

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

FunkyDragon wrote:
4 years ago
Ugh... I was hoping that the new site would give us a world free of this debate.
pokken wrote:
4 years ago
Corner case that I don't find to be a particularly big deal.
"Corner case"?! How many corner cases do you need before they aren't corner cases? How many before it becomes a convoluted mess and you decide that the rules are right and hybrid is always both colors - it's AND, not OR?

You play Divinity of Pride in a mono-white deck and determine that it's a mono-white creature.
- Can I Doom Blade it?
- Can I Shriekmaw it?
- Can it block a creature equipped with Sword of Sinew and Steel?
- Does it get pumped by your Angel of Jubilation?
- Can you enchant it with Call to Serve?
- Can it attack a player who controls Elephant Grass?
- Can an opponent's Midnight Banshee put -1/-1 counters on it?

If, in any of these cases, you treat it as a mono-white, nonblack creature because you determined it should be mono-white to fit in a mono-white deck, you have changed the rules of the game - not simply violated the color identity rule of the format. Divinity of Pride is always both white AND black, because that what the rules say. Hybrid is nothing more than a flexible way to pay for a multi-colored card.
Just follow the rules. It's both black and white when it hits the board or the stack.

If the new rule says its *color identity* is either black or white, it can be played in a mono white deck but it's also black. But it follows the rest of the game rules.

Trying to remake the rules of the game to be super confusing is not something anyone is advocating for. Just let them play things with hybrid mana symbols in off color decks.

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Post by cryogen » 4 years ago

Ok, but Pokken, you're trying to convolute a simplified rule. We had a rule before that said the mana symbols in the casting cost determined the colors of the deck. That created a couple of "corner case" scenarios like Memnarch and Rhys that were actually illegal as generals. So the rule got simplified to look at all mana symbols (and later color identifiers when that became a thing) on the card.

Hybrid cards have always had a consistent rule: they ARE all colors of the casting cost. There is precisely zero confusion because it is clearly spelled out in the CR. These two rules interact neatly. CI says what cards I can add during the deck building phase, and whatever rule covers hybrid tells me what colors the cards are.

Literally every single complaint stems from some variant of "I don't care the way the rules work, i want to do this". And this has only been compounded by MaRo's stubbornness to listen to multiple attempts by the RC to explain why their rule is the way it is. And my examples and whataboutisms aren't an attempt to be stubborn or out of confusion, it is because as soon as you take a neat rule and change it to add exceptions, you open yourself up for addition questions and corner cases that must now be defined. So instead of "CI is this, decks can include this", you have "CI is this except in these situations it's this, and your deck can include this except when it includes this then this happens".
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Post by FunkyDragon » 4 years ago

pokken wrote:
4 years ago
SPOILER
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FunkyDragon wrote:
4 years ago
Ugh... I was hoping that the new site would give us a world free of this debate.
pokken wrote:
4 years ago
Corner case that I don't find to be a particularly big deal.
"Corner case"?! How many corner cases do you need before they aren't corner cases? How many before it becomes a convoluted mess and you decide that the rules are right and hybrid is always both colors - it's AND, not OR?

You play Divinity of Pride in a mono-white deck and determine that it's a mono-white creature.
- Can I Doom Blade it?
- Can I Shriekmaw it?
- Can it block a creature equipped with Sword of Sinew and Steel?
- Does it get pumped by your Angel of Jubilation?
- Can you enchant it with Call to Serve?
- Can it attack a player who controls Elephant Grass?
- Can an opponent's Midnight Banshee put -1/-1 counters on it?

If, in any of these cases, you treat it as a mono-white, nonblack creature because you determined it should be mono-white to fit in a mono-white deck, you have changed the rules of the game - not simply violated the color identity rule of the format. Divinity of Pride is always both white AND black, because that what the rules say. Hybrid is nothing more than a flexible way to pay for a multi-colored card.
Just follow the rules. It's both black and white when it hits the board or the stack.

If the new rule says its *color identity* is either black or white, it can be played in a mono white deck but it's also black. But it follows the rest of the game rules.

Trying to remake the rules of the game to be super confusing is not something anyone is advocating for. Just let them play things with hybrid mana symbols in off color decks.
So, you admit the new rule is just to run multi-colored cards that do not match the deck they are in? And you want to complicate the color identity rules to justify that? It's nice and simple now. It aint broke, so don't try fixing it.

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

I can't disagree overall, my only real desire for hybrid mana symbols to count as either is because I have a few pet cards that are hybrid that I'd like to play in my 2 color decks. I prefer 2 color decks by and large, and there're a few hybrid cards I really like. So it's preference from my perspective.



After reading the rules closely it seems like the color of a card does connect closely with the color of the mana symbols. I think you *could* change 107.4f to make hybrid rules legal under color identity, but to fix it from the commander side would require a really ugly and inelegant rules change.

And fixing it from the MTR side is achievable but very confusing (I *do* think that 202.2d would work with a careful wording of 107.4e to make it 'either or both' but maaan it would start a lot of fights and be more confusing).

So yeah, I don't know. After close rule reading I am less in favor of it, though I really do think it'd be more fun for dual and mono color decks.

Edit: I would recommend to put the relevant rules in the main post as it is really helpful in understanding all the complaints.

Here they are in case you're curious:
107.4e Hybrid mana symbols are also colored mana symbols. Each one represents a cost that can be paid in one of two ways, as represented by the two halves of the symbol. A hybrid symbol such as {W/U} can be paid with either white or blue mana, and a monocolored hybrid symbol such as {2/B} can be paid with either one black mana or two mana of any type. A hybrid mana symbol is all of its component colors.

202.2d An object with one or more hybrid mana symbols and/or Phyrexian mana symbols in its mana cost is all of the colors of those mana symbols, in addition to any other colors the object might be. (Most cards with hybrid mana symbols in their mana costs are printed in a two-tone frame. See rule 107.4e.)

903.4. The Commander variant uses color identity to determine what cards can be in a deck with a certain commander. The color identity of a card is the color or colors of any mana symbols in that card's mana cost or rules text, plus any colors defined by its characteristic-defining abilities (see rule 604.3) or color indicator (see rule 204).
Note: I do also find it very interesting that the control over this rule is actually in Wizards' hands. If they change 107.4e it'd change the rule for commander. Just...very awkwardly.

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Post by MRHblue » 4 years ago

Snes wrote:
4 years ago
Basically, players should be allowed to play with hybrid mana cards as long as their commander includes at least one of the colors of the cost. It's how the mechanic was intended to be played, it's how the mechanic works in every other Magic format, and, in my own personal experience, it's how newcomers to the format assume the rules work. Asserting that, because the rules of the game say that they're technically both colors, they should therefore have the same color identity as gold cards of those colors is the rule's committee holding to the letter of the law over the spirit.
This just makes EDH less flavorful for a few playable cards.
Beseech the Queen is always going to be the card that breaks this idea. This cannot be played in Mono-Green in EDH, nor should it be. 'Basic Magic Rules' would allow this, and its against the spirit you speak of.

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

I have always been in favor of allowing hybrid mana to be either. The argument of it being against the flavor of EDH is kind of laughable to me as every colorless card that mimics something that a color does has the same problem. We also have scope creep of colors in terms of things like Chaos Warp and several others that bleed what colors are supposed to do.

I am aware that this is likely to never change I just think the justifications of why it won't are kind of weak. I accept that it is the way it is but if they had been allowed from the get go we probably wouldn't be making a big deal of it now.
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Post by FunkyDragon » 4 years ago

ISBPathfinder wrote:
4 years ago
I have always been in favor of allowing hybrid mana to be either. The argument of it being against the flavor of EDH is kind of laughable to me as every colorless card that mimics something that a color does has the same problem. We also have scope creep of colors in terms of things like Chaos Warp and several others that bleed what colors are supposed to do.

I am aware that this is likely to never change I just think the justifications of why it won't are kind of weak. I accept that it is the way it is but if they had been allowed from the get go we probably wouldn't be making a big deal of it now.
Hybrid is both, not either/or - the comprehensive rules are very clear on this matter. The fact that you use words like "laughable" and "weak" shows me that you simply don't like the ruling and are unwilling to be persuaded through logical debate.

As for "if they had been allowed from the get go we probably wouldn't be making a big deal of it now" - shouldn't that logic go both ways? This is how it has been from the get go, yet there are still people making a big deal about it.

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ISBPathfinder
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

FunkyDragon wrote:
4 years ago
ISBPathfinder wrote:
4 years ago
I have always been in favor of allowing hybrid mana to be either. The argument of it being against the flavor of EDH is kind of laughable to me as every colorless card that mimics something that a color does has the same problem. We also have scope creep of colors in terms of things like Chaos Warp and several others that bleed what colors are supposed to do.

I am aware that this is likely to never change I just think the justifications of why it won't are kind of weak. I accept that it is the way it is but if they had been allowed from the get go we probably wouldn't be making a big deal of it now.
Hybrid is both, not either/or - the comprehensive rules are very clear on this matter. The fact that you use words like "laughable" and "weak" shows me that you simply don't like the ruling and are unwilling to be persuaded through logical debate.

As for "if they had been allowed from the get go we probably wouldn't be making a big deal of it now" - shouldn't that logic go both ways? This is how it has been from the get go, yet there are still people making a big deal about it.
I am not arguing its not both. I am arguing that it was intended that they are playable in either. That was the design for the cards. They were not supposed to need to be played in a deck that had both colors and could produce them. They were intended to be played in either color. The popularity of commander came long after these cards were first designed and printed. Wizards never intended you to need to be playing both colors to play them.

I guess there are those who don't like that off color fetches can be played.
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