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).
702.113a Devoid is a characteristic-defining ability. "Devoid" means "This object is colorless." This ability functions everywhere, even outside the game. See rule 604.3.
Should Characteristic-Defining Abilities of Color be allowed to override the mana costs? It mainly applies to pretty much Devoid (and Ghostfire) for now, because everything else that uses CDA and/or Color Indicators (Kobolds of Kher Keep, Pact of Negation and Transguild Courier) have more Colors than their generic colorless cost, which gets "overwritten" by default.604.3. Some static abilities are characteristic-defining abilities. A characteristic-defining ability conveys information about an object's characteristics that would normally be found elsewhere on that object (such as in its mana cost, type line, or power/toughness box) or overrides information found elsewhere on that object. Characteristic-defining abilities function in all zones. They also function outside the game.
Let's say this card was printed.
Goblin-Summoned Bear
Creature – Bear
Goblin-Summoned Bear is Green.
2/2
Under current rules, this bear has Identity of no matter what. If we let CDA/Color Indicator override it, like it does in the Comprehensive Rules itself, it would be . It would feel awkward drawing and casting this in a mono-G deck although it is now possible, but at the same time functionally it is a green card you drawn and cast, perfectly unaffected by Barrenton Cragtreads, something you cannot claim for say, Boggart Ram-Gang .
So what I'm saying is, should Identity follow the same overrides that CDAs provide for identifying base color. It does not cover the rules text, so if the bear had firebreathing : Bear gets +1/+0, it would still fall under .
I've always seen Color Identity as two distinct parts, the first part being the base in which is determined by 202.2
But as we all know from the highlighted part from 604.3, that is overwritten by CDAs/Color Indicators. Problem is that most non-Devoid cards would have overwritten what was Colorless in the first place, and a card cannot be colored and colorless at the same time. We haven't had any cards like the Bear printed ever to provide contrast, other than Devoid.202.2. An object is the color or colors of the mana symbols in its mana cost, regardless of the color of its frame.
But instead of letting the CDA override the mana cost to determine "base color" like everything else that Color Identity follows word-for-word with the comprehensive rules (like 202.2d for Hybrid and Phyrexian Mana), it's feels randomly decided that "Colorless is weaker than Color", therefore Devoid's CDA override ability is not valid, but Transguild Courier is still 5C overriding colorless.
Granted, Devoid came out when Rule-4 was a thing, so there was no feasible way to cast Devoid spells in Colorless decks to begin with. That rule was scrapped the following set when Colorless Mana was given a specific symbol, because it now potentially can be used/required specifically. With rule 4 gone, so was the practical restriction on Devoid cards.
604.3 had to be unfortunately subverted because Rule 4 made it impossible to execute straight, but at this point of time that subversion stands out to be a sore thumb in what is otherwise a straight one-to-one agreement between the Comprehensive Rules and the base part of the Color Identity rules (the additional part of CI rules independent of the CR are all dependent on rules text, not the mana costs).
Visually, it looks out of place to play Dimensional Infiltrator in any deck, but at the same time what you drew was a colorless card, what you cast was a colorless card that could not be countered by Pyroblast and could be exiled by Infernal Reckoning, just like every artifact creature you played.
Long gone is Rule-4 and along with it the flavor that the Commander is disgusted you produced and spent off-color mana to cast something (and anyway Daxos of Meletis didn't care anyway), why is the special knot choking Devoid still there? In fact, if I read the website's direct rules:
I would assume from the first half Dimensional Infiltrator is colorless because 604.3 overriding 202.2 and because there's no colored mana symbol in its rules text, it stays colorless. It isn't until I go to 903.4 then I realize that 604.3 cannot override 202.2 because 903.4 invalidates 604.3 by combining them… and I can't get this information from the website."A card's color identity is its color plus the colour of any mana symbols in the card's rules text."
If I tried to "math" it, 903.4 is worded as [(Mana Cost + Rules Text Symbols) + (CDA + Color Indicators)] = Color Identity, but when read onsite it reads like (Color = Mana Cost/CDA overwrite) + Rules Text Symbols = Color Identity.
What do you think about this?