Monocolor-ish Tribal Commanders

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Mookie
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Post by Mookie » 1 year ago

A recurring issue I've seen with respect to tribal commanders is color identity - if someone wants to build, say, a hydra tribal deck, a tribal commander like Gargos, Vicious Watcher may be most thematic, but losing access to multicolor options like Hydroid Krasis is a bummer. On the flip side, commanders like Najeela, the Blade-Blossom give tribes access to five colors and effectively invalidate many lesser-colored options.

These cards are me brainstorming ways to thread the needle and allow players to include tribal cards they wouldn't otherwise be able to play, without encouraging 5C piles. Fallaji Wayfarer shows that it is possible to override color identity with rules text, so...

Angelus the Sublime 2WWW
Legendary Creature - Angel
Exemplar (as long as this creature is your commander, you may ignore the color identity of Angel cards in your deck, and you may spend white mana as if it were any type of mana to cast Angel spells and activate abilities of Angels)
Flying, double strike, ward
Other Angels you control have first strike and ward
3/4

Sphinxus the Quizzical 2UUU
Legendary Creature - Sphinx
Exemplar (as long as this creature is your commander, you may ignore the color identity of Sphinx cards in your deck, and you may spend blue mana as if it were any type of mana to cast Sphinx spells and activate abilities of Sphinxes)
Flying
Whenever one or more Sphinxes you control deal combat damage to an opponent, reveal the top card of your deck. If its mana value is less than or equal to the total damage dealt, you may cast it without paying its mana cost. Otherwise, put that card into your hand.
3/5

Hydraxis the Voracious 3GGG
Legendary Creature - Hydra
Exemplar (as long as this creature is your commander, you may ignore the color identity of Hydra cards in your deck, and you may spend green mana as if it were any type of mana to cast Hydra spells and activate abilities of Hydras)
Trample
Whenever another Hydra enters the battlefield, you may put X +1/+1 counters on Hydraxis, where X is that creature's power.
5/5

user_938036
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Post by user_938036 » 1 year ago

I like the idea of a tribal commander that bypasses color identity. Your reminder text is weird, why is it giving a choice? Like mid-game I can decide that my deck is illegal. Cleaning up the wording a bit

Exemplar (As long as ~ is your commander, ignore the color identity of other Angels you own. You may spend mana as though it were mana of any type to cast Angel spells or activate abilities of Angels.)

Removing the colored mana reference makes the ability less complicated without significantly increasing its power and allows colorless tribes to make use of it. The "other" is needed so cards like Commander's Plate function correctly.

About your cards:

Angelus, this is fine, it doesn't excite me but it's not bad.

Sphixus, this is great. I think you can make it cheaper by shrinking the body a bit and that would help a lot.

Hydraxis, another fine card that doesn't excite me but I like it more than the angel. At least it plays well with the common theme in hydras of +1/+1 counters.

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