Hybrid mana

[schweinefett]

If the whole point of the current rule is to keep the format diverse, i'm all for it (even if i disagree with it on a more philosophical/design perspective).
Limiting the number of cards that could go in each deck is probably a good idea. There are so many so-called-staples that hamper the current diversity that every help is welcome, i think. I used to be on the other side of the fence, but having read the argument about format diversity, it changed my mind. The philosophical intent of a design shouldn't really be emphasised over the fun/health/diversity of the format.

I imagine that if the rules changed, then stuff like flame javelin would show up in many more decks that lack reach for example (not really).

I gotta say though, this is one of those occasions where i don't see the slippery slope argument. Playing force of will in a mono-red painter deck will still be a no-no, even if the hybrid mana rule changes, as i understand it.

[papa_funk]

I gotta say though, this is one of those occasions where i don't see the slippery slope argument. Playing force of will in a mono-red painter deck will still be a no-no, even if the hybrid mana rule changes, as i understand it.

Designer intent was that you could play Force of Will without paying blue mana for it.

[cryogen]

I gotta say though, this is one of those occasions where i don't see the slippery slope argument. Playing force of will in a mono-red painter deck will still be a no-no, even if the hybrid mana rule changes, as i understand it.

Designer intent was that you could play Force of Will without paying blue mana for it.

Especially if you pitch a blue/red hybrid card to pay the alternative cost.

[pokken]

Designer intent wasn't to play force in nonblue decks. Since it says blue on the card.

[ISBPathfinder]

Vince just had a nice youtube video on hybrid. I just thought I would share given I have similar thoughts on it.

[JqlGirl]

Vince just had a nice youtube video on hybrid. I just thought I would share given I have similar thoughts on it.

In my eyes, PK is conflating a deck-building rule with a gameplay rule. Hybrid cards are treated exactly the same as any other card both during deck construction and game play in commander. The issue arises in that only commander has the color identity rule and thus is the only format (or family of formats) to limit the cards that can be in a deck based on color information. In a format like Standard or Canadian Highlander, you can put whatever card you want into your deck regardless of its color, even if there's no way to cast it in your deck. Once you're playing the game, hybrid cards are played the same as any other card with no difference to how they're treated in other formats. You can still cast your Kitchen Finks for 1WW, just like in Modern.

Possibly more importantly, however, is the lack of any arguments as to why the rule should be changed. In order for the rules of a whole format to be changed, the change has to do something more than just be fine. There has to be a compelling reason for the change to be made. So far, myself and many RC and CAG members haven't seen such a convincing argument.
For example, the rule against adding mana outside of your commander's color identity was changed when Oath of the Gatewatch was released so that was supposed to be a drawback wouldn't now be a benefit toward playing cards with specific colorless cost. (e.g. Thought-Knot Seer) Before OGW, colorless mana was always strictly inferior to colored mana, but having specific colorless costs put colorless on an even footing with colored mana and so something needed to be done to keep a mono-green deck from going T1: Forest, BoP, T2: Forest, Matter Reshaper.

[Yatsufusa]

In my eyes, PK is conflating a deck-building rule with a gameplay rule. Hybrid cards are treated exactly the same as any other card both during deck construction and game play in commander. The issue arises in that only commander has the color identity rule and thus is the only format (or family of formats) to limit the cards that can be in a deck based on color information. In a format like Standard or Canadian Highlander, you can put whatever card you want into your deck regardless of its color, even if there's no way to cast it in your deck. Once you're playing the game, hybrid cards are played the same as any other card with no difference to how they're treated in other formats. You can still cast your Kitchen Finks for 1WW, just like in Modern.

Possibly more importantly, however, is the lack of any arguments as to why the rule should be changed. In order for the rules of a whole format to be changed, the change has to do something more than just be fine. There has to be a compelling reason for the change to be made. So far, myself and many RC and CAG members haven't seen such a convincing argument.
For example, the rule against adding mana outside of your commander's color identity was changed when Oath of the Gatewatch was released so that was supposed to be a drawback wouldn't now be a benefit toward playing cards with specific colorless cost. (e.g. Thought-Knot Seer) Before OGW, colorless mana was always strictly inferior to colored mana, but having specific colorless costs put colorless on an even footing with colored mana and so something needed to be done to keep a mono-green deck from going T1: Forest, BoP, T2: Forest, Matter Reshaper.

In fairness, Color Identity is a rule crafted and modified by the RC, so people feel like they have the opportunity to convince the RC to tweak it again to match the design intent of "hybrid cards". Once upon a time, colored mana symbols not in casting costs didn't contribute to CI and it was changed because the now-defunct rule 4 made a lot of these cards pretty much unplayable-by-rules (Memnarch that can't generate U just feels pointless).

That first change effectively added an invisible layer that Memnarch was a "blue card" in deckbuilding, but not one in gameplay. In theory, shouldn't be reverse be possible - that "hybrid cards" can be considered as a "mono-colored" in deckbuilding, but not in gameplay? I would admit that it is indeed not an unreasonable line of thought, but it's one I do not support, simply because color in gameplay is a functionality. I quoted "hybrid cards" because they aren't truly hybrid, they're functionally gold cards with easier casting cost, the same way Transguild Courier works.

Why do I deem "color as a gameplay functionality" as important is simple because the first change only "added" colors to cards, it never "removed" them. As mentioned earlier, addition means it's theoretically possible to remove, but in practice, removing colors creates a whole lot more unnecessary confusion - why does hybrid mana get a pass to remove colors, but phyrexian mana doesn't? "Design intent" doesn't cut it, we could say Surgical Extraction was intended as being able to payed for by any deck the same way Hybrid was supposed to be "or".

In the rules, hybrid mana is only defined for payment of mana. Even the comprehensive rules defines a color of a card as all colors in the casting cost and indicators and that is the base rule Color Identity plants itself on. If it were to add a clause that also took into account the definition of payment mana symbols that wasn't a straight add-on like the one we currently have, all other symbols, like Phyrexian and Mono-brid mana have to be taken into account, the same way some cards (Quenchable Fire) became "stupid" when the first change was implemented, because it was a blanket rule with no favorites.

And even then, it still stalls at cards with alternate casting costs, in the same "design intent" application of using mana symbol definitions over the comprehensive rules' definition of colors, the same way the current rule stalls itself at off-color fetchlands seemingly going against the spirit of the rule as well. I detested Rule 4 because it stalled at "you can spend mana as though as it were of any color", so Daxos of Meletis felt generally better than Sen Triplets back then.

No rule is perfect (or arguably, can ever be perfect, for that matter), the same rule change that helped Memnarch crippled the Bringers of the Dawn and there's a "logical" argument now that Rule-4 is defunct, we could actually reverse those Color Identity changes, but that's another topic I doubt people would be enthusiastic about especially now that many "Colorless/Mono 5C Commanders" have come to existence since then (and people already digested the loss of cards like the Bringers).

[Kavu Enthusiast]

I honestly don't think the Hybrid thing is wonky at all despite what I often hear. It's not complicated or confusing, it's straight forward. It's not just multicolor on the stack. It's multicolor on the battlefield, in your hand, in your GY, in your deck, in exile, outside the game. It's literally multicolor in all zones and in literally all ways that matter or count. It's only different from multicolor cards functionally in that it has a more flexible casting cost; that's it. That's how people should frame it in their minds: its a multicolor card that WotC balanced around making more flexible to cast. The application of color identity, therefore, is also pretty straight forward; it's never cared about the colors you use to pay for spells, it's always cared about the colors the card is in ways that other cards care about.

I understand that the intention was more of an either/or and not an 'and' by WotC but it's odd to hear that from them but know that the entire design from the ground up for Hybrid mana was within their control. Every aspect of design for Hybrid was theirs. If they meant for it to be 'or' and not 'and' then they had the power to make it function like that, to write the rules either at the card level or the game comprehensive rules level to make it function as one or the other color.

They didn't, and so the cards are all the colors in their CMC in so many ways and only potentially mono-colored in one specific way (how you pay the cost) that you have to fold into a logic pretzel to justify walking past all the ways it doesn't fit with the idea so you can see just the one thing that supports the argument for it. It's trying to force a square peg into a round hole and generally, it's only because the person arguing for the change really, really, really *wants* to play a card they can't. It rarely is more complicated than 'I want to change this rule because I can play this card and I *want to*. I want it I want it I want it!'. And usually, the reason they want to is rarely a cool or flavorful reason: it's just because it's powerful and they want their deck to be more powerful.

At a certain point, people need to a) accept that EDH is at its core a format defined strongly by its commitment to flavor and *theme* and that those things are always going to be overriding parts of decisions about how the format functions, not just what players want to make their decks better...

...and b) No single format should have to be all things to all people, nor (I'd argue) *can* a format be all things to all people and remain a healthy fun format. This is perhaps the single most recurrent lesson I feel that most magic players I interact with haven't learned but *need to* if they don't want to ruin the game and their favorite formats for those and those around them. There are different formats for a reason. There are different wants to experience the game *for a reason*. You play limited for a different type of gameplay than constructed; you play Legacy/Modern for a different reason than casual, and I'd argue there are even different play experiences to be had in 60 card casual vs EDH...if there weren't people never would have started playing EDH in between games of 60 card casual and it never would have completed replaced almost all casual play by present day. EDH was *supposed* to be an interesting and unique variant of casual magic that allowed for different play experience and opened up space for playing different cards than normal; it was never supposed to fill all the roles and playstyles of magic for a player so they could only ever play one format.

This is true for all formats and variants in MtG though honestly, the quickest way you can kill a format or playstyle variant is to iron out all its specific unique aspects and flatten out the format until it is more like any other format...because then there is simply no reason to bother playing a format that has nothing different about that format vs another and no reason to bother playing it. I watched Color Star and Emperor die this death in at least 3 playgroups as this or that player pushed to remove this or that restriction from the variant until it was so similar to normal free for all casual 60 card play that there was no reason to play them anymore because there was nothing special about the experience of playing them. The best tweaking and tuning of a format is done through the turning of dials, not removing or adding dials entirely, at least not without much more careful thought.

That is what trying to claw out the core rules of EDH like color identity or commander damage looks like to me. It looks like removing its vital organs for the sake of short term desires without paying attention to the bad long term consequences that will have for the format.

[Kavu Enthusiast]

Just as an aside, I am definitely not one of those people that think that nothing can or should change about EDH. I definitely have strong opinions about certain other things that should change in the format that could make it better (eg 30 starting life, pooled commander damage and 12 poison are things I think probably would have almost entirely positive effects on EDH; I think that allowing players to put their commander in the command zone after they enter a new zone like the GY instead of replacing the zone change would be a clean and intuitive way to let commanders with 'dies' triggers to work normally *and* would have the bonus of stopping weird unintuitive things that occur with abilities like Guile's or the current Banishing Light style effect wording that require explanations that people often raise their eyebrow to and sometimes disbelieve). Those changes just tend to be nob turns rather than switch flips/nob removal/nob addition style stuff. The more drastic the change the stronger the argument you need to make to justify it.

[illakunsaa]

Possibly more importantly, however, is the lack of any arguments as to why the rule should be changed. In order for the rules of a whole format to be changed, the change has to do something more than just be fine. There has to be a compelling reason for the change to be made. So far, myself and many RC and CAG members haven't seen such a convincing argument.

In Sheldon's State of the Format article Gavin said that he wanted to pair decks with similar power level together. One of the biggest difference between decks power level is color identity. Edh is a format where access to more colors = better deck. If you remove color id then decks with less colors get access to better and more "bread and butter" cards like signets and talismans. If your meta shifts to play more enchantress with you don't have to bin your Kroxa deck but instead you can play green or white for better removal.

By raising the floor you shrink the overall power level gap. Already good decks wont benefit from the removal of color id so much because they are already at peak performance or close to it. Removing color id also has no real downside. You can just try it for few months and then bring it back if it doesn't work out.

[pokken]

In Sheldon's State of the Format article Gavin said that he wanted to pair decks with similar power level together. One of the biggest difference between decks power level is color identity. Edh is a format where access to more colors = better deck. If you remove color id then decks with less colors get access to better and more "bread and butter" cards like signets and talismans. If your meta shifts to play more enchantress with you don't have to bin your Kroxa deck but instead you can play green or white for better removal.

By raising the floor you shrink the overall power level gap. Already good decks wont benefit from the removal of color id so much because they are already at peak performance or close to it. Removing color id also has no real downside. You can just try it for few months and then bring it back if it doesn't work out.

I will say that allowing off-color mana rocks would do a *lot* to fix problems with mono-colored decks. Not something I ever considered about color identity rules in general.

[MRHblue]

I will say that allowing off-color mana rocks would do a *lot* to fix problems with mono-colored decks. Not something I ever considered about color identity rules in general.

How so? There are plenty of mana rocks that fit colorless CI, so what colored ones are making a marked improvement?

[pokken]

I will say that allowing off-color mana rocks would do a *lot* to fix problems with mono-colored decks. Not something I ever considered about color identity rules in general.

How so? There are plenty of mana rocks that fit colorless CI, so what colored ones are making a marked improvement?

In a typical mono white deck, say, there are only a handful of rocks that make white mana and come into play tapped. being able to play:

• talisman of progress
• talisman of hierarchy
• talisman of conviction
• talisman of unity
• azorius signet
• orzhov signet
• selesnya signet
• boros signet

Would open quite a lot of doors, where currently they are limited to:

• arcane signet

As far as ETB untapped always produce white mana.

Sure, you can add:

• fellwar stone
• mind stone
• everflowing chalice
• prismatic lens
• thought vessel

But you're never going to get to critical mass of 2 CMC rocks required to ramp out a turn 3 4-drop commander like any 2-color or 3-color deck can, especially not with the same level of color flexibility.

[MRHblue]

I think the list is missing quite a few, so mono can make critical mass at under 2. EFC, Vault, Sol Ring, Arcane, Coldsteel, Fellwar, Fractured, Guardian Idol, Pearl Medallion, Marble Diamond, Mindstone, Prismatic, Sphere of Suns, and Though vessel. Thats 14, without hitting anything expensive and skipping all the mana dorks at 2. And you dont need anywhere near the color flex, its mono.

I get what you are saying, but I dont see that as a strong reason to upend CI.

[pokken]

I think the list is missing quite a few, so mono can make critical mass at under 2. EFC, Vault, Sol Ring, Arcane, Coldsteel, Fellwar, Fractured, Guardian Idol, Pearl Medallion, Marble Diamond, Mindstone, Prismatic, Sphere of Suns, and Though vessel. Thats 14, without hitting anything expensive and skipping all the mana dorks at 2. And you dont need anywhere near the color flex, its mono.

I get what you are saying, but I dont see that as a strong reason to upend CI.

Yeah I don't either but it is a thing. A lot of the ones you listed etb tapped which are a lot worse late game. I think I listed all the ones that etb untapped that are reliable (e.g. don't require a tribal or whatever).

A potential benefit of removing CI or even just allowing Hybrid is that it increases the power of low powered decks (mono colored). Again, no comment how much of a good thing that is just that it could be viewed as one.

[MRHblue]

Of course it would raise the power level, they wouldnt be mono-colored any more. It would also lead to homogenization, which I see as a huge downside. I dont think CI is going anywhere, but thanks for discussing it.

[pokken]

Of course it would raise the power level, they wouldnt be mono-colored any more. It would also lead to homogenization, which I see as a huge downside. I dont think CI is going anywhere, but thanks for discussing it.

Yeah I can see both sides of it for sure.

Generally speaking I think reworking color identity would be feasible without completely relaxing the color rules -- I generally feel that color identity is wildly inconsistent since they changed the mana production rules. See the earlier dialog on birds of paradise templated two different ways and how it violates CI one way and not the other, despite functioning identically.

Allowing birds of paradise to make W in an Azusa deck really makes one question why talisman of progress can't produce U in a Heliod deck.

If azorius signet read:
1 {T} add one of each azorius colors to your pool
Reminder text: Azorius is blue and white

It would be legal? Just wonky to me.

But yeah it's really all a matter of taste and I think you're right that it's going to be a while before anything happens, if it does