Originally titled: Sheldon Menery and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Last Friday, Wife and I were witness to something that had never happened before. Due to a conflict with a U2 concert, the interleague baseball series of the American League Seattle Mariners and the National League Florida Marlins was moved from Miami to Seattle. Because each team has to have so many “home” games, the Marlins were home team while in Seattle’s ballpark.

For those that don’t know about Major League Baseball, the teams are split up into two leagues: the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). There’s a certain oddity between these two leagues; no where in American professional sports does a division in their leagues have rule changes. In football, basketball, soccer, hockey, anything, they all play by the same rules. In baseball, they don’t.

In 1973, the AL adopted the Designated Hitter (DH) rule. Before this time, everyone who appeared on the field was in the lineup to hit, including pitchers. Now, most pitchers are horrible batters; they get to the Majors by pitching, not hitting. Most of the time they are basically an out for the team and are a huge detriment to try and score runs. The AL decided that they won’t have the pitchers bat but have a DH, someone batting for the pitchers.

This past weekend was the first time a NL team was “home” in an AL ballpark for a regular season series. NL rules were in effect, so the pitcher (Felix Hernandez in this case) had to bat in his home ballpark.

Even though it’s been almost forty years, there are fans of baseball who doesn’t like the DH rule. They say it ruins the purity of the game. Some of the strategy is gone when you don’t have a pitcher to bat and some of the things that make baseball “baseball” are lost. Fans of the DH respond by mentioning the games are more exciting and more players get a chance to play since they can be more specialized in their roles. On an NL roster, bench and relief players have to serve multiple roles since they’re used more often than their AL counterparts.

Purity of the game. Opening up different opportunities. Now, where have I heard that before?

Last week on DailyMTG.com it was Commander Week, so Mark Rosewater talked about our favorite format (It might be fun to do a theme week every once in a while on GatheringMagic. If you like that idea, tell Trick). While MaRo admitted he hasn’t played Commander (be happy to play against you sometime), he had this to say:

My problem isn't with color identity itself, but rather with how it's executed. Let me explain.

Let's walk through what this rule is saying. First, you are limited to cards that have mana symbols on them that match the mana symbols on your commander's card. The rule, though, applies only to mana symbols. Other indicators of color, such as basic land types and colors mentioned by name, are ignored. Second, if you somehow manage to get a permanent under your control that taps for another color of mana, it produces colorless mana instead…

…The other big thing this change would solve is my personal pet peeve with the format. Hybrid cards have both mana symbols on them, meaning that you can't play a hybrid card unless you are playing both of its colors. This annoys me, as the entire point of hybrid cards was that they represented an "or" state rather than an "and" state. A mono-white deck in another format can play the card Mirrorweave. Why, then, can't a white commander?

Finally, I feel the current rule has an execution problem.

Ah, the whole color identity issue.

MaRo is by far not the first one to bring it up, but certainly one of the highest profile people. Aaron Forsythe had been campaigning to get cards like Bosh and Thelon of Havenwood legal for actually being Commander and had successfully convinced Sheldon Menery and the Rules Committee to change those rules late last year. There are players who like the rule where it is while other want the rule changed to allow hybrid and other cards to be included in deck construction.

Purity of the game. Opening up different opportunities. Different game, same problems.

Let’s take a serious look at the issue.

Here’s what the rules say from the official Commander site:

A card's colour identity is its colour plus the colour of any mana symbols in the card's rules text. A card's colour identity is established before the game begins, and cannot be changed by game effects.

The Commander's colour identity restricts what cards may appear in the deck.

Cards in a deck may not have any colours in their identity which are not shared with the commander of the deck. (The identity of each card in the deck must be a subset of the General's.)

This is the backbone of the format and what gives Commander its most unique property. You can’t have a Green/Blue Commander and have a Red card in it. Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t cast it due to the next rule:

A deck may not generate mana outside its colours. If an effect would generate mana of an illegal colour, it generates colourless mana instead.

A City of Brass cannot produce Red mana from the same Green/Blue deck. These are basic rules for the format so everyone should be on the same page, right?

But where does this card go?

You don’t want it in your own Green/Blue deck since it will affect your own Blue creatures. But that’s the only place Thelon’s Curse can see play since the card, due to the color identity rules, is Green and Blue. This is just one card of many that suggests a rule change.

O Commander, My Commander

When I first started playing Commander, I got the flavor instantly. Here was a Legendary Creature (with the adapt name of General), leading your deck/their troops into battle against the other players. To me this was all about Nationalism, the Commander’s colors were the only colors that mattered. If your Commander was Green/White, screw the other three colors. This is what made sense to me and why you didn’t have cards that had other color’s mana symbols on them.

Sheldon Menery, the Godfather of Commander, explained his view on a recent forum post on MTGSalvation:

Thraximundar refuses to come armed with White or Green, and is simply incapable of generating mana of those colors. To him (and by the rules of the game), Debtor's Knell is both Black (which he'll use) and White (which he won't), so it is disqualified from his decision tree. He simply doesn't understand putting White into his arsenal…

…The strategic implications (Black has access to better reanimation targets, Blue can pretty much do whatever the hell it wants, etc.) are less important than the format design ones. We want to underscore Thraximundar's distaste for White and Green and his inability at a base level to even understand how it works, which is why even if he uses Aura Thief to steal Survival of the Fittest, he can't use mana from Eladamri's Vineyard to activate it.

This is nice, clean and efficient. It makes perfect sense flavorwise about why the restrictions are in place. It’s like Michael Bay not understanding that shots can be more than 2 seconds before he cuts to a different angle all while the camera is still moving (Transformers 3 out in theaters now, kids! Hasbro wants you money!). We’ll get into that in a minute; the Commander not understanding different colored mana, not Michael Bay’s motion sickness inducing filmmaking style.

And so far the format has thrived under this rule. People are playing in record numbers and the highly successful launch of the first Commander-based product proves that players like what’s going on. When you’re playing a mono-White deck, you know what to expect: White and artifact cards. There’s a little restriction of what cards you can use, but as Mark Rosewater always said: Restriction breeds creativity. You get to play with cards that you normally wouldn’t be able because you have to reach so deep into your collection.

If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.

Rules Are Meant to Be Broken

Over time you see the same cards over and over for certain colors. This impatience has grown and some people want to play with Hybrid cards. That’s understandable and natural; if you have some awesome cards that would fit into the deck you’re playing and if the rules were slightly tweaked, you would do it in a heartbeat. It doesn’t make logical sense that you can use Wooded Foothills in your mono-Green deck but can’t use Noble Hierarch. Something needs to be done.

But the color identity and restrictions are key to the format. You don’t want Jhoria suddenly being able to cast Terastodon or Wrath of God; Black decks reanimating Akroma or Red decks countering spells with Force of Will. There needs to be rules.

I would suggest not changing the mana producing rule; if that’s altered the format would falter. If you do have Noble Hierarch in your mono-Green deck, it can only produce or if you tap it. This does fit in with Sheldon’s idea of your Commander not understanding how the other colors of mana work. It understands Green, but the other stuff it can only translate into colorless.

As for the rules about what can be in the deck, here’s what I would change it to:

If the card has a casting cost payable with mana that is castable by the Commander’s color identity, it can be included into the deck.

The wording might be a little off and I’m sure that I’ll get told in the comments that what I mean to say is something else. What this essentially means:

No Phyrexian mana allowed. Sorry, but we’re not allowing Phyrexian Metamorph into every deck. That’s why the rule has to include the payable with mana line.

Hybrids are allowed. Since Debtors’ Knell can be cast using only Black mana, it can be played in a mono-Black deck. Since the Commander can understand the Black mana but doesn’t get the White portion, the Commander ignores that White part. It’s like when someone gets a computer and doesn’t care that it can also record TV, they’re not going to use it for that.

Cards that have different colored mana symbols than their text boxes are allowed. Now, this is the big one. Since you can’t generate mana that’s not of your Commander, the ability to fully use these cards become ignored. If you’re building a mono-White Kithkin deck and wanted to include this,

you could. But, you can’t used the ability since the your mono-White Commander doesn’t understand Blue. While it wouldn’t make complete sense to include this card if it does nothing, it might make more sense to include a card like this in your mono-Colored deck:

The argument of not being able to but these guys in your deck is ridiculous. Each one of the Bringers does something monocolored, but because of the alternate casting costs, they’re screwed in those decks. The argument about color bleed, not letting certain colors do off-color abilities, is a joke when it comes to Magic. If that’s the case, ban Psionic Blast for Blue direct damage, or Harmonize for Green just drawing cards.

Most of the hybrids and other “unallowed” cards fit within the color pie, but to get the full benefit from them you need all of the colors in the card. Not all of this change is positive as this solution would create some interesting situations:

The Future Sight Pacts could be used in any deck, you couldn’t pay the upkeep cost and will lose the game.

The Time Spiral “Suspend” spells couldn’t be cast unless you had some other cards that would let you cast them without paying their mana cost.

You could play cards like Bojuka Bog in a mono-Blue deck, but it could only be tapped for a colorless. This might be a more significant change in the format than the Rules Committee could want.

This change would actually open up deck design. You’re going to see more Debtors’ Knell and Unmakes in Commander, but you’ll get more Spiteful Visions and Rise of the Hobgoblins. Because players will venture out and try new things, you might get the opportunity to play a truly original deck. Cards that don’t see a ton of play, even in Commander, might see more play here. Restriction breeds creativity, but sometimes it can hamper it too much.

If you want a list of possible Commander cards that will be allowable in decks with this rule change, here it is:

All I’m asking the Rules Committee is to try it out for a little bit. I know that they test to see if cards needs to be banned, or if the Poison kill count needs to be raised, but just a little test to see if they like it. If they come back and say no, then I will stand behind their decision. The thing is- Hybrid and other similar cards will continue to get printed. More players will wonder why they can’t play their Red/Green hybrid in their Black/Red deck. And then they’ll complain.

You might think that I’m for the changes but really, I don’t care. I’m happy with the rules now because I think they work. If Sheldon and the Rules Committee does decide one day to come out and change the rules, I would be in favor of that too. The format isn’t broken, but there’s nothing wrong to see if we can make it better.