Magic Mechanics Overview: Devoid

Posted on October 9, 2024

As far as mechanics in Magic go, devoid is... an interesting one.

The thing about devoid is that it's not even really a mechanic. Technically speaking, it's a characteristic-defining keyword. It's also a keyword that is near and dear to my heart, as I made the Top 8 of Pro Tour Oath of the Gatewatch with several devoid Eldrazi.

The first set devoid appeared in was Battle for Zendikar, which released October 2nd, 2015, but it sneakily made an appearance in the Zendikar vs. Eldrazi Duel Deck that came out about a month earlier, on August 28th. It showed off devoid on cards such as Forerunner of Slaughter and Dominator Drone.

But what is devoid? Great question.

Devoid is a keyword that has so far only been used on cards that relate to the Eldrazi. The keyword simply states "this card has no color." So in the case of the aforementioned Forerunner of Slaughter, despite having both red and black symbols in its mana cost, it is a colorless card for purposes of how it interacts with other cards. You can't exile it with a Celestial Purge, but you can destroy it with a Doom Blade. Kind of wild, right?

Devoid is kind of cool because it allows a card to be colorless for the sake of interacting with other cards, but that card still requires colored mana to cast.

The deck I played at Pro Tour specifically took advantage of the devoid mechanic.

Processor Eldrazi | Pro Tour Oath of the Gatewatch | Frank Lepore

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For starters, three of the deck's main mana sources favor casting colorless spells. Corrupted Crossroads specifies that its colored mana can only be used on spells with devoid. Both Eldrazi Temple and Eye of Ugin reference "colorless" Eldrazi spells, which lets you include things like Drowner of Hope or World Breaker despite their colored mana costs. In fact, every creature in the deck is actually colorless, even if they have a colored mana symbol in their casting cost.

Devoid feels primarily flavorful as far as keywords go, making sure that Eldrazi cards lack the "essence" of any of the colors, while also having a lot of interesting possibilities when it comes to designing cards around it, or how cards with devoid work with existing cards.

Creatures also aren't the only cards that can have devoid. There have been numerous spells with devoid, such as Kozilek's Return, Kozilek's Unsealing, Transgress the Mind, and Abstruse Appropriation.

We've most recently seen devoid in Modern Horizons 3, where 27 new cards with devoid were introduced, including two of those previously mentioned spells.

We should also mention that being colorless isn't all fun and games. There are several cards that specifically target colorless cards, with some of the most powerful being Ceremonious Rejection, Goblin Cratermaker, and the more recent from Modern Horizons 3, Consign to Memory.

A card specifically targeting a colorless card gives a much wider range than a card that specifically targets an artifact. A card like Goblin Cratermaker was neat when it was printed because it could hit colorless planeswalkers like Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and Karn Liberated, but also being able to hit devoid cards gives the little two drop a tremendous amount of versatility.

Devoid is a neat keyword, and I'm even more partial to it knowing that whenever you see it, the Eldrazi can't be far behind.

Frank Lepore

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