Color identity is a bad rule and should be removed

[BeneTleilax]

I highly doubt "every deck" becomes 3 color. Nothing is stopping people from already playing 3 colors but lot of people still play two color or mono color legends.

Yes, that is generally because of the color identity rules you want to remove. People usually find a commander first, because that commander looks interesting, and build a list around it. People are still interested in 1-2 color commanders, and don't mind playing fewer colors for them. If anything, this undercuts your assumption in prior posts that playing 1-2 colors is such a terrible burden. Also, I don't think anyone here ever said everyone would run 3+ colors, just that the number of people playing 3+ colors would increase significantly and archetypes would homogenize. Homogenization does not need to be total for it to be a loss for the format.

If you look at highlander (which is a competition driven format). It has wide variety decks that see play from mono to five color.

I'm not sure why you're looking at highlander when cEDH exists, and is much closer to casual EDH. Perhaps its because cEDH is dominated by 4 and 5 color decks, and has been since its inception. Highlander is two player, generally has 20 life, which incentivizes mono-color aggro decks and uses a different banned list. It's also much more amenable to non-basic land hate than casual EDH (just see the varied discussion on Blood Moon effects in another thread here).

Cyclonic Rift actually sees less play today than 3+ years ago. I remember rift being the second most played card after sol ring. Today it's not even in the top 5.

Which reflects the shift in this format from blue to green as the predominant goodstuff color. Cultivate and Kodama's Reach took its spot. If you look at the top 5 commanders in this format on EDHREC, you'll see that 4 of them are 3+ colors. All indicators show that homogenization is increasing in EDH, so if you're trying to say it's not a problem, you'll need to back it up better.

[Dunharrow]

If color identity were abolished, it would allow me to play Ramos, Dragon Engine in my Reyhan, Last of the Abzan deck. Sure, that could be fun.

I am not saying that there wouldn't be fun or quirky things we could do.

But I am saying that I would play Anguished Unmaking and countermagic] in almost every deck. I am saying that I would play Cyclonic Rift in Mina and Denn, Wildborn. I am saying that my mono blue and mono black decks will play green ramp spells. Kozilek, the Great Distortion could run green ramp and white wraths and blue card draw.

Color identity does a lot of work for the format. The most important is that it gives you downsides to building around a specific commander. I am choosing a powerful general but the tradeoff is that I am limited in what I can play in it.

Sure, I can play 5 color mill right now, but Golos is not really helping that strategy. So instead I play Phenax and I am limited to UB cards.
Most people see this as a positive about Commander. These kinds of restrictions really make deckbuilding creative.

I can see the idea that Jeskai Ascendancy would be fun in Phenax, God of Deception. But, the problem is less so the fun and quirky things, and more that my deck would also shore up all its weaknesses by playing white removal spells, and that my deck could play some very powerful cards like Gaea's Cradle, Dockside Extortionist and Teferi's Protection. There are a lot of powerful cards in magic and opening them all up to every general will cause a lot of decks to play the same powerful cards. It would make the format more repetitive, less creative, and would be an all around negative.

The format is the biggest and most popular format aside from 'kitchen table'. The real answer is that abolishing the CI rule would risk destroying the format, and for that reason they should never touch the rule.

If people want to build around a general but not be limited by flavour/CI, then the better solution is to make a new format. And you can get rid of CI, remove the 100 card limit, and make planeswalkers generals, and change life totals, and make a ban list. There is probably room for such a format.
I think the cEDH community would enjoy it, since so many decks are 4/5 colors anyway and often the generals are just there for CI. Instead of playing Vial Smasher the Fierce, you could partner your Thrasios, Triton Hero with Kodama of the East Tree and still play 4 colors.

[illakunsaa]

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If color identity were abolished, it would allow me to play Ramos, Dragon Engine in my Reyhan, Last of the Abzan deck. Sure, that could be fun.

I am not saying that there wouldn't be fun or quirky things we could do.

But I am saying that I would play Anguished Unmaking and countermagic] in almost every deck. I am saying that I would play Cyclonic Rift in Mina and Denn, Wildborn. I am saying that my mono blue and mono black decks will play green ramp spells. Kozilek, the Great Distortion could run green ramp and white wraths and blue card draw.

Color identity does a lot of work for the format. The most important is that it gives you downsides to building around a specific commander. I am choosing a powerful general but the tradeoff is that I am limited in what I can play in it.

Sure, I can play 5 color mill right now, but Golos is not really helping that strategy. So instead I play Phenax and I am limited to UB cards.
Most people see this as a positive about Commander. These kinds of restrictions really make deckbuilding creative.

I can see the idea that Jeskai Ascendancy would be fun in Phenax, God of Deception. But, the problem is less so the fun and quirky things, and more that my deck would also shore up all its weaknesses by playing white removal spells, and that my deck could play some very powerful cards like Gaea's Cradle, Dockside Extortionist and Teferi's Protection. There are a lot of powerful cards in magic and opening them all up to every general will cause a lot of decks to play the same powerful cards. It would make the format more repetitive, less creative, and would be an all around negative.

The format is the biggest and most popular format aside from 'kitchen table'. The real answer is that abolishing the CI rule would risk destroying the format, and for that reason they should never touch the rule.

If people want to build around a general but not be limited by flavour/CI, then the better solution is to make a new format. And you can get rid of CI, remove the 100 card limit, and make planeswalkers generals, and change life totals, and make a ban list. There is probably room for such a format.
I think the cEDH community would enjoy it, since so many decks are 4/5 colors anyway and often the generals are just there for CI. Instead of playing Vial Smasher the Fierce, you could partner your Thrasios, Triton Hero with Kodama of the East Tree and still play 4 colors.

"The format can be broken; we believe games are more fun if you don't." -rc

If you choose to run good cards and then your games becomes boring and degenerate then maybe it's not the removal of CI but you who is the problem. Nothing prevents you from following the CI rule after it is removed.

Rc "unbanned" uncards for a month and the format didn't implode. Why can't they just do the same thing with CI for the next 2-3 months?

[tstorm823]

Rc "unbanned" uncards for a month and the format didn't implode. Why can't they just do the same thing with CI for the next 2-3 months?

Perhaps because an individual card banning isn't 1/3rd of the format's defining features.

The existence of the commander, the 100-card singleton deck, and the color identity rules effectively act as writing prompts for deckbuilding. Restriction inspires creativity, that's basically what a writing prompt is. You tell people to write any creative story, they're gonna have a tougher time doing so than if you push them into a defined framework to start with. Color identity is part of commander's defined framework, and you should give it more credit for the creative deckbuilding people have done in the format.

[Dunharrow]

"The format can be broken; we believe games are more fun if you don't." -rc

If you choose to run good cards and then your games becomes boring and degenerate then maybe it's not the removal of CI but you who is the problem. Nothing prevents you from following the CI rule after it is removed.

Hilarious. You want to get rid of CI so people can run enchantment destruction in other colors, but that also means giving the best removal spells to every color combo. Why wouldn't you play Cyclonic rift everywhere if you could? Why wouldn't your green deck play white sweepers? So now it is my fault for following rules? How can you propose getting rid of CI and then blame me for saying I would play cards in accordance with these rules? How does Cyclonic Rift fall into me making the format broken? We aren't talking about me making a Kikki-Jikki commander deck with all the creatures that combo with it from white, blue and green. That would be a good example of me breaking the format.

Rc "unbanned" uncards for a month and the format didn't implode. Why can't they just do the same thing with CI for the next 2-3 months?

As I said - if Commander is MtG's most popular format, there is not way they will consider removing something as integral to the format as CI. Remember, a lot of people play commander liking the flavour. Just consider how controversial it is to consider playing Deus of Calamity in a mono green deck! There are pages and pages of arguments over hybrid and CI.

[pokken]

Just consider how controversial it is to consider playing Deus of Calamity in a mono green deck!

TBF I ran a ton of Golos decks that were mono colored and played some hybrid cards and it was super fun - or would have been without Golos' activated ability.

I'm 100% for fixing the hybrid rule myself, it's absurd to me as is that Wizards is consciously building hybrid cards because they think they are either color and commander can't take advantage of that.

[Dunharrow]

Just consider how controversial it is to consider playing Deus of Calamity in a mono green deck!

TBF I ran a ton of Golos decks that were mono colored and played some hybrid cards and it was super fun - or would have been without Golos' activated ability.

I'm 100% for fixing the hybrid rule myself, it's absurd to me as is that Wizards is consciously building hybrid cards because they think they are either color and commander can't take advantage of that.

Ya. I see both sides of the argument on hybrid. But since that rule doesn't appear to be changing at all, cutting CI entirely seems like a longshot.

[illakunsaa]

Rc has changed the ci begore. Originally you could only play the original elder dragons and during bfz. Each time rc relaced ci rules the format became better.

[WizardMN]

Rc has changed the ci begore. Originally you could only play the original elder dragons and during bfz. Each time rc relaced ci rules the format became better.

The BfZ change (technically Oath of the Gatewatch), was about removing Rule 4 which allowed every green deck running Birds of Paradise, except the ones that were 5 color, to produce colorless mana. They got rid of it because it became nonsensical with colorless costs. It wasn't a Color Identity change as nothing about color identity changed.

And the Elder Dragon was a pragmatic, necessary change which also was not a color identity change. It was an acquiescence to the idea that the format was growing and the Elder Dragons sucked. Again, nothing about color identity changed; they just opened up options for commanders.

In fact, the only Color Identity change that I recall was tightening it up. That is, it used to be that cards in the deck needed to have a Color Identity matching the "color" of the general. Which caused things like Memnarch and Bosh, Iron Golem to be illegal in their own decks. So, they updated the rules to indicate that the color identity of the general is what every other card needed to match instead of just the color, Or something like that. I know they used to not be able to be used as commanders due to the color identity rules so they updated them to make them blue and red.

[pokken]

I am fairly positive the rules were loosened to explicitly state that reminder text didn't count at one point? Something something Trinisphere.

[onering]

Rc has changed the ci begore. Originally you could only play the original elder dragons and during bfz. Each time rc relaced ci rules the format became better.

The Elder Dragon only limit wasn't color identity.

The one actual time they changed color identity, it was to change it from counting only the pips in the casting cost and stated color of the card to counting the pips in the rules text as well (and reminder text has NEVER counted, as reminder text, being in the parenthesis, is not actually card text as per the rules of the game, which is why it can be left off of wordy cards and rares).

And to be perfectly honest, I think the CI change that counts pips outside of the casting cost has proven to be a lateral move rather than a clear improvement. For every Bosh that was interesting there was a Memnarch that was groan inducing, and the format would be immediately improved by removing Golos and New Sisay as commanders, even at the cost of Alesha. At the time the rule was changed, it was a fairly minor expansion of commanders that could be run that mildly improved the format, with drawbacks, but since then with WotC designing legends with different pips in the rules text and casting cost, we've seen some genuinely good designs and some really big mistakes, and the harm caused by the mistakes breaks even with the good benefit by the good designs.

[onering]

I am fairly positive the rules were loosened to explicitly state that reminder text didn't count at one point? Something something Trinisphere.

Reminder text has never been considered rules text under the base rules. It is superfluous and exist to remind players what the mechanic does, and its removal from rares or wordy cards does nothing to change functionality.

[pokken]

format would be immediately improved by removing Golos and New Sisay as commanders,

This is a problem to be solved by banning not the CI rules. Golos could have easily been very cool and beloved by all if his activated ability wasn't so dumb.

Reminder text has never been considered rules text under the base rules. It is superfluous and exist to remind players what the mechanic does, and its removal from rares or wordy cards does nothing to change functionality.

There is an explicit rule for it (903.4c) so I feel like they probably added that at some point. I seem to recall it being added after the original change to CI?

[WizardMN]

Reminder text has never been considered rules text under the base rules. It is superfluous and exist to remind players what the mechanic does, and its removal from rares or wordy cards does nothing to change functionality.

There is an explicit rule for it (903.4c) so I feel like they probably added that at some point. I seem to recall it being added after the original change to CI?

They added that rule during the Mirrodin Besieged update. The actual change/update comment was this:

903.4
This rule introduces the concept of color identity. Color identity is a set of colors derived from your chosen commander before the game begins. It includes any colors of the card itself, including characteristic-defining abilities, and (in an extension from previous EDH rules) the color of any mana symbols found in the commander's mana cost or rules text.

Color identity is now revealed to all players when you put your general in the command zone as the game begins and it can't change throughout the game. Under the old rules, if your then-general was on the battlefield and changed color, it affected what color mana you were allowed to produce. This was insane and incorrect.

So, Bosh, Iron Golem fans can rejoice: he (it?) is no longer excommunicated from being a commander and can lead a red deck.

I am not going to do a lot more digging beyond this since the old forums are no more, but this statement suggests this is the point in time Color Identity was *created*. Regarding the Reminder Text rule: the specific rule in question wasn't so much added on its own but was added along with the color identity rules themselves; it was never an addendum to the original rules. Once color identity was created, and codified in the rules, the reminder text rule existed right away.

[pokken]

Reminder text has never been considered rules text under the base rules. It is superfluous and exist to remind players what the mechanic does, and its removal from rares or wordy cards does nothing to change functionality.

There is an explicit rule for it (903.4c) so I feel like they probably added that at some point. I seem to recall it being added after the original change to CI?

They added that rule during the Mirrodin Besieged update. The actual change/update comment was this:

903.4
This rule introduces the concept of color identity. Color identity is a set of colors derived from your chosen commander before the game begins. It includes any colors of the card itself, including characteristic-defining abilities, and (in an extension from previous EDH rules) the color of any mana symbols found in the commander's mana cost or rules text.

Color identity is now revealed to all players when you put your general in the command zone as the game begins and it can't change throughout the game. Under the old rules, if your then-general was on the battlefield and changed color, it affected what color mana you were allowed to produce. This was insane and incorrect.

So, Bosh, Iron Golem fans can rejoice: he (it?) is no longer excommunicated from being a commander and can lead a red deck.

I am not going to do a lot more digging beyond this since the old forums are no more, but this statement suggests this is the point in time Color Identity was *created*. Regarding the Reminder Text rule: the specific rule in question wasn't so much added on its own but was added along with the color identity rules themselves; it was never an addendum to the original rules. Once color identity was created, and codified in the rules, the reminder text rule existed right away.

Hmm, I might be misremembering. I just remember all the confusion around Extort at the time and thought that the reminder text clarification happened during RTR. Thanks for looking.

[Treamayne]

I believe the RTR hullabaloo (technical term) was because people wanted extort to mandate a WB CI, since the costs are in the rules for extort, even if the pips only appear in the reminder text on the card. The reminder text was already a thing, but the argument was that Extort should not be treated like Trinisphere; since the latter is obviously an explanation by way of example, and the former is actual rules text relegated to the reminder text area (e.g. Blind Obedience).

SPOILER

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702.100. Extort
702.100a Extort is a triggered ability. "Extort" means "Whenever you cast a spell, you may pay {W/B}. If you do, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain life equal to the total life lost this way."
702.100b If a permanent has multiple instances of extort, each triggers separately.

PS: I've been able to recover the first page of some threads from the official forums with WayBackMachine; but it is a crapshoot.

[onering]

Yeah, the extort issue was extort being unique as a mechanic, in that it buried a mana cost in the keyword rather than spelling it out. The need to pay W or B for the effect is defined by the word "Extort", and the reminder text serves to remind players of that. This created a new situation that hadn't existed before: Colored mana symbols being implied by a keyword without actually appearing in the rules text. Again, because its only in the reminder text, WotC could print one day print a new, wordy card with Extort that doesn't have the reminder text to save space, and it would work just fine. That means that if the rules counted the pips in the reminder text, then you'd have all the extort cards counting them EXCEPT for the new one without reminder text. That's an obvious contradiction, and a prime example of why reminder text doesn't count as real rules text. So when looking at whether extort should count for color identity, the question is really whether CI should look for actual pips, or also look for pips implied by abilities like extort, which by their nature require payment of certain colors or add certain colors. There's plenty of corner cases when it comes to pips in rules text, like Quenchable Fire, that end up with a counterintuitive color identity. Looking at pips, just the pips, and always the pips is the most simple solution to having the rules text matter for color identity. The RC has demonstrated that the lean towards simplicity and consistency in the rules and accept a degree of arbitrariness to achieve this, which is part of the format's idiosyncratic nature. They could, alternatively, make a more complicated rule, and exclude pips meant for the opponent of the card's player, and count any pips that are a necessary part of a cost even if they are not explicitly on the card, but that's a more complex rule that leaves room for interpretation, whereas the somewhat arbitrary current rule is very clear and easy to enforce.

[onering]

format would be immediately improved by removing Golos and New Sisay as commanders,

This is a problem to be solved by banning not the CI rules. Golos could have easily been very cool and beloved by all if his activated ability wasn't so dumb.

I agree, now that the CI rule is as it is the problem should be solved by banning. My point was that the rule change itself was not an absolute good, but rather something that had pros and cons. Personally, I feel like the pros and cons either cancel each other out, or the pros mildly outweigh the cons. I will say that it seems like WotC has a much harder time balancing 5 color commanders that are that way from activated abilities vs 5 color commanders that cost 5 colors to cast.

[pokken]

pros mildly outweigh the cons

Going to have to unequivocally completely disagree with you there. The huge variety of interesting commander designs we have now like Tasigur, the Golden Fang and Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest, etc. and that design space in particular just vastly outweighs the cons to me. I'd like to see a ton more Alesha, Who Smiles at Death.

[onering]

pros mildly outweigh the cons

Going to have to unequivocally completely disagree with you there. The huge variety of interesting commander designs we have now like Tasigur, the Golden Fang and Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest, etc. and that design space in particular just vastly outweighs the cons to me. I'd like to see a ton more Alesha, Who Smiles at Death.

And the only one of those that would be significantly changed by making the casting cost 3 color is Tasigur, because of delve. Yeah, Alesha et al would be slightly worse, because RWB is harder to get consistently early than 2R and you wouldn't be able to cast her turn 2 off an ancient tomb, but the effect is marginal, and if WotC were designing those cards with a 3 color casting cost, rather than a single pip with hybrid in the text for color identity, then they'd have given them a little more up front in terms of stats, or even making the activation cost a single hybrid or be colorless. Hell, they could have just changed one of the colorless mana in the cost to a hybrid pip, so Alesha would be 1(W/B)R and it would have been even less of a change. The design space opened up isn't really all that much, considering how easy it is to work around the old CI rules. It only matters for the 5 color activation legends, which have mostly been mistakes, 1 mana commanders that need the activation to go beyond 2 colors (which don't exist yet), and artifact commanders that don't want colored mana symbols in the cost (which don't have a reason to exist because colored artifacts are a thing now), and of color activation cost legends printed before WotC started caring about color identity.

Meanwhile, the difference between needing the rainbow to cast Golos vs casting him off of colorless to find the missing colors is huge, as is needing rainbow mana to cast Sisay 2.0 vs casting her for 2W and curving into her activation. Is Memnarch really a cool and interesting commander? I'd disagree strongly. It's not banworthy, but the format wouldn't have been any worse for it never having been legal.

So really, the change is a wash. A few major to moderate drawbacks, more mild benefits, but overall I think they mostly cancel out. I only give the change the win for allowing the off color activated legends that predated EDH really taking off, things like Rhys the Exiled that were designed when WotC didn't consider CI and thus were only unlockable by the change. In a no change world, Alesha at would have been printed.

[pokken]

And the only one of those that would be significantly changed by making the casting cost 3 color is Tasigur, because of delve. Yeah, Alesha et al would be slightly worse, because RWB is harder to get consistently early than 2R and you wouldn't be able to cast her turn 2 off an ancient tomb

Your Ancient Tomb example is a good one with Alesha. You can't turn 2 Alesha off a Sol Ring a lot of times either with your hybrid mana costing solution if you have a tapped land you want to play. Another sequence is Alesha with haste now costs an extra colored mana to activate. And I'm not even trying very hard to come up with scenarios, nor have I approached the aesthetic of Alesha, Who Smiles at Death being a red card which I just really like personally.

Putting more pips in those generals' costs is a huge hit to bad manabases as well. I hate how so much of the commander community assumes everyone is dropping $500 on a manabase before getting started.

Bottom line I think you'd find across the community that people would be happily willing to ban Golos for the opportunity to have sweet cards like Tasigur, the Golden Fang that play around with color identity in neat ways. The pros *vastly* outweigh the cons in my book because we have banning on the table for fixing problem cards.

And it's not like it would prevent more than a couple problem cards anyway. Chulane, Teller of Tales and Yarok, the Desecrated and Omnath, Locus of Creation are all plenty obnoxious.

[BeneTleilax]

I have not seen Omnath pop off much in my meta, and what use I did hear of was people just trying to salvage Standard collections. Is he really that bad in casual EDH?

[pokken]

I have not seen Omnath pop off much in my meta, and what use I did hear of was people just trying to salvage Standard collections. Is he really that bad in casual EDH?

Not to digress into an omnath hate, but...

While I'm not actively playing it's the most complained about deck amongst my circle of friends right now. Everyone has a lands deck with Omnath and everyone hates them. I imagine it'll taper off eventually. The word is that basically people play a fetchland then pop off with non-linear spam with all the extra mana, descriptions kinda remind me of my old The Gitrog Monster deck that had really stupidly long turns.

The point of course is that if Golos, Tireless Pilgrim cost wubrg the only difference would be that people'd need better mana bases to abuse him His problem is he's overpowered not his mana cost.

[BeneTleilax]

Yeah, I'd agree with that. Golos needs to cease.

[onering]

And the only one of those that would be significantly changed by making the casting cost 3 color is Tasigur, because of delve. Yeah, Alesha et al would be slightly worse, because RWB is harder to get consistently early than 2R and you wouldn't be able to cast her turn 2 off an ancient tomb

Your Ancient Tomb example is a good one with Alesha. You can't turn 2 Alesha off a Sol Ring a lot of times either with your hybrid mana costing solution if you have a tapped land you want to play. Another sequence is Alesha with haste now costs an extra colored mana to activate. And I'm not even trying very hard to come up with scenarios, nor have I approached the aesthetic of Alesha, Who Smiles at Death being a red card which I just really like personally.

Putting more pips in those generals' costs is a huge hit to bad manabases as well. I hate how so much of the commander community assumes everyone is dropping $500 on a manabase before getting started.

Bottom line I think you'd find across the community that people would be happily willing to ban Golos for the opportunity to have sweet cards like Tasigur, the Golden Fang that play around with color identity in neat ways. The pros *vastly* outweigh the cons in my book because we have banning on the table for fixing problem cards.

And it's not like it would prevent more than a couple problem cards anyway. Chulane, Teller of Tales and Yarok, the Desecrated and Omnath, Locus of Creation are all plenty obnoxious.

I think you're exaggerating both the impact of the change and what I'm saying. I'm not saying the change was such a major source of problems, or that adding a hybrid pip wouldn't make the cards a bit worse. I'm saying that it added some problems while adding some benefits, but that the benefits are much milder yet more numerous, and overall it adds up to a mild benefit. The tech of interesting color identity adaptions isn't groundbreaking or all that special. Yeah, not being able to cast Alesha with haste as easily, or turn 2 off of ancient tomb matters, which is why I said those cards would be slightly worse. And again, the part you ignored, I also said that if these cards were being designed with a slightly more difficult casting cost they'd have been pushed a bit more. Perhaps a Alesha would cost less to activate, or have an extra power, or extra toughness to survive a bit more. Perhaps Tasigur would have been a bit fatter or his ability a bit stronger (or cheaper to activate) had his cost included a hybrid pip). Hell, they could have even made them all slightly better by making the cards exactly like they are now except that the pip in the casting cost is trybrid.

And I hardly think that 1 colored pip and 1 hybrid is going to require a high cost mana base, especially in this day and age when there is a plethera of good, cheap mana fixing. The rule change didn't make these designs possible, it made them easier and slightly better, but it DID make Sisay and Golos possible. Again, the problems it enabled are less numerous than the fair designs it enabled, but they still exist. I'm absolutely not advocating a return to the old way, but rather arguing that this change has had a minor, and mixed, impact on the format that seems larger than it is because cards were designed with it in mind that could have just as easily been designed with the old rule in mind. They might be not quite as good at the higher tiers of play (or even slightly better if they used a trybrid pip to solve the problem), but they'd still be doing the same thing.