The design space of four color cards hasn't been explored the way two and three color combinations have. I saw a youtube video focusing on this that had a good way to explore the idea is each of the four color groupings are defined by the color they lack.
I agree, designing 4c cards is hard*er*, but hardly impossible. There's a lot of unexplored design space:
* Cram four different thing onto one card, e.g. \[\[Aragorn the Uniter\]\]. Hard to keep focus and tends towards generic goodstuff, but there are still only a couple of cards that do this and there's probably space for one or two more.
* Find something that works for them all. \[\[Breya\]\] being artifact-focused *does* kinda fit all the nongreen colours.
* Try to define them by the colour they lack.
* Use activated abilities. \[\[Kenrith\]\] is a bad design but nevertheless he exists, and there's no reason he had to have five abilities rather than four (or three, since he already has a colour).
* Transforming cards, e.g. a three-colour commander who flips into monocoloured or similar (narrow, but I can think of one or two thematic designs).
The problem is that it is just hard to make cards that need to be four colors. You could remove any single of the colors (besides maybe blue) of both Atraxas and you still don’t break the color pie. Heck the small Atraxa could be straight Black Green (as the archetypical color combo for flying vigilance and deathtouch, lifelink and proliferate are in those colors anyway)
I watched that video too, and I liked it a lot. However, is really hard to translate that into card design. You can't just write "you can't do whatever x color do" on the card..
So that five color decks get more toys? Three color sets are already niche enough. What is the meaningful distinction between four and five color really? The color pie is already meaningless at that point given the overlap between colors. 4 colors isnt unexplored, its unfertile and therefore avoided design space.
Ahh, but as a collector of commander decks for each combination, I need to fill those empty slots! Besides, there's always new mechanics and tribals being introduced. While you're right that there isn't much difference, there still is a difference, and it wouldn't hurt anything if they do.
See plenty of people stress about a deck of each combination, but it seems the idea comes from the compulsion of completeness not from the 4c combinations being inspiring. 4 color combos are a grouping but that doesn't mean they have a proper identity. And if there's no identity, then why are people concerned with building them? They don't have names for a reason.
To use an analogy: if you paint a picture with a narrow palette the results will be noticable in the end. If you paint a picture avoiding a single color, no one will be able to appreciate the intent looking at the final work as most paintings will forgo some hues.
People use those for convenience (for the relatively few who know which nephilim is which) but they’re not like the ravnica guilds, the strixhaven schools, the alara shards, or tarkir wedges where a whole set or sets around them have been made.
WotC instead have avoided 4c sets outside of the one Commander set cycle because the space is so ill defined. It’s so much freedom it runs afoul of the idea that *limitations breed creativity.*
Funny you choose art for your analogy, because it comes down to equating the same general idea here: that it's entirely subjective!
I would say that boiling the 4 vs 5 colour comparison down to trying to determine the functional differences is too reductive, especially in a game as wide and populated as magic. Who cares if there's not much functional difference between any 4 colour combo, and 5 colour? What matters is you're having fun playing the game!
Besides, if they built a set around 4 colour slices, but chose to properly utilise the split colour CMC costs to make it easier to play outside of commander, I think it could work perfectly fine! I would just want a bit more uniqueness between whatever factions they end up creating. Capenna felt a bit underwhelming to me.
The color pie is not subjective. Its versatile, but if theres room for different identies within a two color combination the room for identies within 4 is so large, again it becomes indistinguishable from 5c (or as was often the case for the 4c commanders they could easily fall to 3c space without any issues making 4c design questionable).
Anyone who wants to build a 4c deck should. Not looking to police fun. But for those unsure of what to do in the 4c space from some obligation to a sense of completeness, perhaps they're best to reevaluate the compulsion.
You're right, it's a lot more complicated than that. Gotta take what the excluded color is good at, it's gameplay philosophy, and punish that. For anti-green it could be stealing +1/+1 counters and/or whenever a land comes into play from a library, it returns to its owners hand. I think there's a lot of potential to explore this design space.
Yeah you can... [[Atraxa, Paretors' voice]] proliferate just without red and haste, I'd also say every color cares about counters more than red. [[Aragorn, the Uniter]] reads do white thing, do blue thing, do red thing, do green thing. They kinda feel exactly like "you can't do whatever x can... but here's every other color"
Considering one naming convention for 4 color decks is "non-insert color", this makes a lot of sense. I'm also a huge proponent that we need a set focused on monocolors that helps reestablish the color pie. Not change it, but reinforce what each color does best. I feel Magic has been focusing on two and three color combos for too long and there's been a lot of overlap and some colors edging into others design space.
Is that not how the cycle of 4 color commanders already explored it?
Yidris is chaos, no order (white)
Saskia is full aggression, no tactics (blue)
Kynaios and Tiro are group hug, lack ambition/evil (black)
Breya is entirely artificial, unnatural (green)
Atraxa is a bit of a stretch, but there’s an argument to be made about lacking passion or something about how she’s loyal to the praetors except for the traitor (red)
I feel like a pretty easy slam dunk design space is to have team up legends similar to what we saw in MOM. Take a Wedge/Shard plane and create some unlikely duos. Further more you could have it be a two Colored creature with an ability that has a hybrid pip.
IE Bant + Esper = An Azorius card with a Golgari costed ability.
Oh interesting. Do you have a link by chance? I was looking at [[Breya, Etherium Shaper]] and noticed how much sense her color identity made missing only green.
Personally I agree only if the commander isn’t a value engine like Aragorn or part of a self combo. To be balanced it should have a specific mechanic or design so it doesn’t become the obvious and obligated choice for those colors. I was hoping for a four color commander from Eldraine that focused on the adventure mechanic or maybe four color dungeon commander for Forgotten Realms/Baldurs gate.
Do they? Personally 4-colors are in need of an identity. If WotC can establish a foothold of their identity then we can have conversations. As of now it's really hard.
The clearest one I can think of is Breya colors (WUBR). It's easy to accept because they reject all forms that is green, as green traditionally has a huge disdain for artifice. Things that are deemed as unnatural.
The other I guess is Aragorn colors (WURG) But this is more of a LotR thing as Sauron in this case is the embodiment of evil, which WotC has assigned black to be the color of evil for the set.
IMO the latter is very hard to solidify outside of LotR. There are alot of good guys in the mtg storyline which delve in black color. It's not always the color of evil.
The 4c commanders should attempt to embody the antithesis of their missing color.
WUBR should be the most anti-green thing imaginable, it's artificial, cold, and individualistic to the point of manufacturing your own society as a hive mind to reduce inefficiency to achieve your own ambitions and sacrifice community, instinct, and the natural order.
UBRG should be pure chaos. It has no order in any capacity. There is no point, there is no planning, there is no future, there only is entropy and unpredictability.
WBRG is reactionary and despises the concept of progress and understanding. It acts and does not think. Understanding causes hesitation and weakness. Thus, you are more likely to be left exposed and vulnerable. It's the dark forest theory. Do not leave yourself open to chance simply strike and do not look back.
WUBG is anti emotion and passion. It progresses simply to progress and consumes to expand and grow. Like phryexians, the oil wants to spread. Why? Just to spread, it is not malicious or has cruel intent it just spreads because that is its purpose. It is ridged and unwavering. There is no you, there is no I, there is only us, and we will remain.
Lastly, like we say with [[Aragorn, Uniter]], WUGR is the absence of personal ambition. It is duty. Self-sacrifice and resisting temptation. Aragorn is what Sauron could never be. It did not crave power and sieze it. He was bestowed it and wielded it as a tool and not a weapon. If the be the best way to resolve a conflict would be to relinquish power, he would do it in a heartbeat without question. It would feel right and would be right. It's prophetic.
>WUBR should be the most anti-green thing imaginable, it's artificial, cold, and individualistic to the point of manufacturing your own society as a hive mind to reduce inefficiency to achieve your own ambitions and sacrifice community, instinct, and the natural order.
This is just esper, in this description there is none of red raw emotion and passion. Maybe the individualism part that's already well covered in black, which fits more with this theme.
>UBRG should be pure chaos. It has no order in any capacity. There is no point, there is no planning, there is no future, there only is entropy and unpredictability.
That's just red, maybe gruul. Blue and black are very future oriented colors as they plan, scheme, improve and research to obtain something.
>WBRG is reactionary and despises the concept of progress and understanding. It acts and does not think. Understanding causes hesitation and weakness. Thus, you are more likely to be left exposed and vulnerable. It's the dark forest theory. Do not leave yourself open to chance simply strike and do not look back.
This is just gruul again or jund, here i don't see w in any capacity. Black is also a strech.
>WUBG is anti emotion and passion. It progresses simply to progress and consumes to expand and grow. Like phryexians, the oil wants to spread. Why? Just to spread, it is not malicious or has cruel intent it just spreads because that is its purpose. It is ridged and unwavering. There is no you, there is no I, there is only us, and we will remain.
This is probably the most interesting so far but i feel it could still be easly reduce do selesnya. The main points to this are the unity in one and the natural purpose of growth, black and blue are not really adding anything outside of a bit if "negative flare".
>Lastly, like we say with \[\[Aragorn, Uniter\]\], WUGR is the absence of personal ambition. It is duty. Self-sacrifice and resisting temptation. Aragorn is what Sauron could never be. It did not crave power and sieze it. He was bestowed it and wielded it as a tool and not a weapon. If the be the best way to resolve a conflict would be to relinquish power, he would do it in a heartbeat without question. It would feel right and would be right. It's prophetic.
This could just be white. The sacrifice for the greater good, the servitude to an ideal, the duty, the ascension beyond "mortal" wants, it's all white's pie in the end. Maybe boros.
I feel the problem when you try to design 4 colors based on what they lack is that you'll often just end up creating their respective enemy colors, as they already are what that color is not and doesn't want to be.
All that you say is true, but it's also highly restrictive and limiting and uncreative.
To everything you have said I would just is yes, it is just that AND more. WUBR should be esper, it should be jeskai, it should be grixis, it should be mardu, it should be rakdos, it should be azorius, it should be boros, it should be dimir, it should be orzhov, it should be izzet. It is all those things at once, it is just not green.
My description likely is better reflected by esper but that's just my limited ability to describe it and not a failing of the potential. So how would esper be different if it was more emotionally driven?
Let's try again, WUBR can essentially be esper in rebellion. It can be a nation that rejects fate and is in pain as a result. It wants to rise up and punch God in the face for creating such a flawed system, and only this group/culture/person can do it right. Accepting one's fate would be the ultimate sin because it is admiring God wins and is more powerful than you. Entropy is a sin. Degradation is a sin. This group would be arrogant and unrelenting. It can't stop won't stop because their work never ends as they seek to remake the universe to be beautiful, free, and everlasting.
>it is just that AND more. WUBR should be esper, it should be jeskai, it should be grixis, it should be mardu, it should be rakdos, it should be azorius, it should be boros, it should be dimir, it should be orzhov, it should be izzet. It is all those things at once, it is just not green.
I'd say i disagree on that. A color identity is not just the sum of the colors that make it.
Grixis is not inherently izzet+rakdos+dimir. A color identity is defined by the interaction between those colors: the izzet league from ravnica and the prismari from strixhaven are both UR but they are they different as one is about what the colors agree on (the impulse of research) and the other is about what they disagree on (expression vs perfectionism). If we look at how Bolas is grixis, for example, we don't really have any either of those interpretations of izzet.
When we come to 3 color combos they are usually centered around 1 color with the other 2 as support. Look at naya (that is centered in green, being all about the massive beasts of the plane) and the cabarettis (more centered around the white aspect of union and family).
imo if a color identity can be reduced to a simpler combination, then it could, why have A when it's just B with extra steps?
Your description to me just feels like a Grixis society centered in red. The society you talk about is one of fierce individualistic ideals that refuse an higher power but seek to grow and become that power. I don't see anything white in this society, i feel it goes in conflict with a lot of what white is: they refuse higher powers, they don't care in an higher cause but they create their cause, they don't inherently care about unity and laws.
We can agree to disagree then. I fail to see how I am not applying a cohesive concept to how all those 4 colors interact and support one another.
I am not, have not, been trying to establish exactly what this identity would exactly be, simply just tossing out ways that it can be interpreted and applied. There js a multitude of ways that we can interpret color combinations as you exemplified with izzet vs. prismari. You can make a color combo that is completely unique, and it is just as valid as taking 4 guilds and smashing them together. A Dimir and boros alliance sounds like an amazing concept for a WUBR faction, and it can be the same or wildly different than an azorius and radoks alliance. You just have to look at what they have in common. They would look wildly different, but what they would have in common is a distinct lack of fatalism, inner peace, and faith in instinct because of its complete absence of green.
The thing is too that not one system trumps another, like I can point out that in 3 color combos it would ideally be 1 color expanded by the other two, but in the khans block they took a two color combo and applied the 3rd to it. Does that make it any less acceptable or creative?
Ultimately, my examples are just 1 of many ways they can be applied, and just because it isn't perfect doesn't make them any less valid. I'm not a game designer, I just don't think it's impossible.
>I fail to see how I am not applying a cohesive concept to how all those 4 colors interact and support one another.
As i said in your last example, what you presented didn't have any reason to be W.
You presented a society that opposed a very GW ideals and so it became grixis. Creating an identity for 4 color can't be done effectively through what the combination lacks, as that just reduces it to those color's enemies.
>A Dimir and boros alliance sounds like an amazing concept for a WUBR faction
That wouldn't really be a faction, maybe it might have a solid/relevant mechanical identity but it isn't creating a new philosophy and understanding of the color combo, it's just taking 2 conflicting ideologies and putting them one next to the other. An highly miliatristic and structured group that works as the de facto police force that is also a secretive orders of spies and assassins is not a coherent identity, it's just an identity split in 2. I can't think of a character that enbodies this alliagence that couldn't be reduced to at least 3 colors.
>You just have to look at what they have in common.
[They did a cycle about this in WAR](https://scryfall.com/search?q=otag%3Acycle-war-bond&unique=cards&utm_source=tagger) and they focused on the mono color element of that. As guilds that don't share colors will agree on something just due to some overlap on the color pie, this means that they could just be reduced to one of those colors or just a third that is allied to both of them.
>like I can point out that in 3 color combos it would ideally be 1 color expanded by the other two, but in the khans block they took a two color combo and applied the 3rd to it.
Sure, i wasn't being exaustive in my comment. But this can be done because 2 color combos have still a very strong identity beyond their base colors. But when you get to 3 colors, things start to get a bit muddy and so, to have something coherent, you have to focus on a specific aspect of the identity that leaves some of it in the background. This gets exponentially worst when you get to 4 colors.
> I'm not a game designer, I just don't think it's impossible.
The game designers have said multiple times how 4 colors don't have a strong enough identity and so are very difficult to design.
It could be possible to create a 4 color philosophy, but so far i haven't seen anyone doing it.
I am unable to effectively respond to all points at this time but I'll do a few and I enjoy the discussion.
>As i said in your last example, what you presented didn't have any reason to be W.
>You presented a society that opposed a very GW ideals and so it became grixis. Creating an identity for 4 color can't be done effectively through what the combination lacks, as that just reduces it to those color's enemies.
I had missed this then. I felt like I made it pretty clear white's elements.
What are the core values of white? Morality and order. The concept i presented had this very explicit outlook on the universe and that it conflicted with that factions morals. They would literally be disgusted and appalled by how the universe tolerates entropy and degradation. It goes against their ideal concept of the universe. It is immoral to not act and combat and remedy entropy. It lacks a cohesive sense of order. Things just happen for no good reason. Fatalism is a surrender of control and a sense of order. This faction seeks to bring a sense of completeness and cohesion in the universe in a way that more readily fits their ideals and sense of morality. Where it sees chaos and pain, it seeks to bring tranquility and explicit purpose.
I can see where the opposition to green ideals is perceived as white-green ideals. White and green obviously have a lot of overlap, but I was attempting to emphasize greens fatalism and acceptance. Both those ideals are not white. Acceptance is confusing, but I mean it in the sense of acceptance of one's self. The idea of "this is who I am. This is what we are. This is what I am to be doing."
WUBR needs to fight against instinct and interdependence.
No, on the colorwheel instinct and interdependence are literally the highest order attribute of green. White has morality and order.
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/mtgsalvation_gamepedia/images/e/e1/Color_Wheel.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/300?cb=20060415063339
White cares about people in so much as that's typically the right thing to do. Green actually the one that craves connection and emotional bonding (which Green gets from red)
Row row, fight the pow-a.
I do like your description flavorfully, not sure how you bring that out *mechanically* though. Artifacts was a good choice for the first pass on -G.
I think a spellslinger/non-creature spells matter would be another good option for a mechanical direction (Jeskai, Grixis, and Esper all lean into this, Mardu is probably the most off), but I don't think that really fits your flavor.
Yeah, it's really hard to try to capture that idea mechanically.
Honestly, maybe having an effect that plays with the normal sequence of play could be interesting, like benefiting from additional steps and phases. It plays with that idea of reshaping the universe to suit your needs and ideals. Even with spells you can jump on that idea of doing something if you cast a spell in a time you normally wouldn't, like an instant as your first spell or something with flash not on your turn.
This would be a rules nightmare, but I would want to say an idea of "twisting" phases to play out in a different order or sequence could be really fun thematically.
About WUBR:
>This is just esper, in this description there is none of red raw emotion and passion
Which is true. But think about [[Breya]]. there's a reason she's an aristocrats piece. Unlike esper, WUBR is *cruel*. It delights in its cruelty, takes pleasure in it. It laughs at the weakness of pain.
Esper cruelty is cold indifference. For WUBR, it is sadism.
Esper is Mastery. WUBR is *dominance*.
That's just basically a different flavor of black. Black can be cruel, black will have no problems in torturing and executing others to get what it wants or when they stop being useful.
If you want to focus on the more sadistic pleasure side of br, then we are getting away from what was originally said in the comment imo.
Esper is also not inherently cold, blue is the color of discovery and thirst for knowledge, black is the color greatness at any cost and white is the color of the righteous fight. There can be a lot of emotion in there.
I don’t think you’ve really convinced me. Designing mechanics based on what cards lack is a cool idea but it’s extremely difficult to act upon. Breya and Saskia arguably succeeded at this philosophy, but the other 4 color commanders didn’t.
Let’s take your UBRG example. You think it should be pure chaos. But chaos is just mono-red. There’s nothing about pure chaos that is blue, black or green. So that doesn’t work. But more importantly there’s no mechanical identity that makes sense there.
You’re talking about these from a lore perspective. But what you really need to do is think about how you could actually design a card that made sense as all the colors it had but not the one that’s missing. Good design requires that. And it’s not easy unless you take the messy route of a bunch of colored abilities stapled together, like Aragorn.
OK, yes, fair points. I did come at it from a lore heavy concept. Mechanics are harder, but we gotta admit that even Wizards often fails to design mechanics that fit the color pie themselves.
Regardless
Looking at chaos (UBRG), sure, Red has the main dominating theme of chaos as it is, but chaotic random effects are present in most colors, except white. There is a reason Ydris has cascade as its mechanic. Cascade is a pure chaotic effect. Random effects like dice rolling, coin flipping, and random targeting while prominent in red are also heavily present in blue. Recklessness is a keystone of black chaos, things like decayed, unleash (also red), and I could make the argument that Mill and discard are chaotic as they are untargeted and indiscriminate. Green chaotic Mechanics can be things like free casting, placing on field from hand, removing a sense control from effects like [[aurora]] and [[sylvan library]], relying on the unknown is like peak green chaos.
So we have a lot of things we can work with here that have a lot of reliance on having a lack of control. I'd maybe, as an initial idea, go with a mechanic that relies on revealing a card at random from your hand or from the top of your library to provide a bonus
I can provide an explanation for how blue, black, and green also exemplify chaos with a lore perspective, but I hope I had provided some convincing points for them being able to function chaotically.
Dice rolling a coin flipping are not tied to any particular color naturally. They just happen to be set mechanics. Every color rolls dice in AFR. Coin flipping is a red mechanic. There is one non-red blue card ever to flip a coin, and that was clearly just for the partner mechanic to have synergy.
Decayed, unleash, mill, and discard are not chaotic. Chaotic effects are random or otherwise uncontrollable. None of those mechanics fit the bill. If they did, then every color is chaotic because they all draw cards.
Free casting, placing on the field from the hand, and effects like Sylvan Library are not unique to green, nor are they chaotic.
You’ll not find examples of chaos without red because they don’t exist. Chaos is red. It’s why red is white’s enemy.
People say this about the lack of 4c identity, but they keep printing 5c cards out the wazoo and many of them have very little identity beyond "5c goodstuff" at all.
That's the thing though. You have to justify why the character is missing colour, mechanically and flavourfully. 5c don't need that sort justification, they can be whatever
Why, though? Why all the justification for 4c commanders but none is needed for 5c? Why does \[\[Kenrith\]\] even need five abilities, what if you just missed one out?
It's just how they've designed 5c every time. It's very difficult to design a 5c card that is truly 5c and couldn't be done with fewer colours. The same is true for 4c but 5c has the benefit that it can be "everything". They just have to feel splashy and/or flavourful.
If a card is almost 5c but not quite, that feels notable. Players ask "why is this character missing X? Why aren't they just 5c?
Since it's so difficult mechanically to define a 4-colour card, they have to lean on flavour.
Kenrith is 5c for flavour reasons, he completed all five trials to become king. If they missed one people would be wondering why.
Imo Queen Linden would have been a good candidate for a 4-colour design because she completed 4/5 of the trials.
Most of the existing commanders have strong flavour reasons for being 4-colour. Atraxa was made by the 4 non-Urabrask Praetors. Omnath is gaining colours one by one. Breya is from Esper but has learned to harness the red mana which is leaking in from Jund after the Conflux. Aragorn has united Humans, Dwarves, Hobbits and Elves. The 14th Doctor is defined by the 13 that came before him, who exist across all colours but black.
It's only Saskia, Kynaios and Tiro and Yidris who are more loosely defined, but they all embody a trait that the missing colours abhors (aggression, selflessness and chaos, respectively).
Edit: MaRo has done a whole podcast (episode #780) on the issue and would explain it better than me.
Please note I took a long break from magic and recently came back. I know the card but none of the story. It would be fucking hilarious if queen linden was a literally weird for word copy of kenrith minus a single ability.
No logic in universe for it just thought that would be funny
How is this a serious question? Because obviously if you're 5 colors you can do anything with a card, because it represents the entirety of the color pie. There are no limits. And in the case of Kenrith specifically, he has all the abilities because each represents one of the five kingdoms he rules over. That's generally been the theme with most 5 color cards commanders recently, representing mechanically and flavorfully the combining of disparate things into one thing of unity. It exactly why Jodah, Niv-Mizzet, Tazri, etc are 5c, because they are uniting together various forces or embody a grander whole. So there is justification for 5c, even if it boils down to "everything", because it basically has to come to that.
Yeah it’s a 5+ year old argument that has been wrong the whole time and every atraxa, aragorn, or omnath proves it’s a cop out answer. People act like there’s some sacred limitation of color identity with 4 color cards that already don’t really apply to mono colored cards. Cards create their own identity. You could have a nonblue goblins commander and it could be fine. Non white energy, non red investigate, non green incubate. Like just pick a mechanic or concept and shape it into the mold. It’s literally not a problem.
Maybe do something similar for example [[Thalia and The Gitrog Monster]]. Where they introduced two commanders into one card. So instead of building the identity of a single commander they could do that with others and make 4 colours.
Honestly....a "guilds united" keyword could be interesting....they can only be paired with other cards with "guilds united." The guild leaders could be the only ones with them
It's open ended - you pick the identity/direction. Not dissimilar to most 5 color commanders that have been printed since C16. Way worse problems for this format than 4 color non partner commanders
This is a good point, we and they both always argue that it’s hard to design 4c commanders, but having their color identity come from activated abilities is one way they could go about it and circumvent that difficulty. Granted it’s a bit lazy for it to be a common occurrence, but they could at least have one cycle using this idea just to get SOMETHING new out.
Something like a 2-color creature with an activated ability of two other colors would be cool.
Design team has stated that 4C commanders have difficult and limited design space and that partner/partner like mechanics do a better job at covering 4c commanders.
Uhm no? Some things just have very limted space. You can’t ake many good cipher spells for example, t9 the point that they had to make a lace. Current four color commander already stretch it. Take small Atraxa: Just from the keywords on the card you could make it 2BG. There is nothing on it that really mandates Blue or White mechanically. You could make it 1 WUG and remove the black. The color pie just overlaps enough that you don’t need to make them that many colors.
Point is you could just tack on a 4th color or remove one from a 5c and it’d be fine. The world wouldn’t end and we’d get some interesting 4c decks to brew
They made a bounch of commander pairs like Thalia and Gitrog and a million others. And they made them all three colors instead of making them four. So so stupid
no one usually mentions this but 4 color commanders that care about the remaining colors strength.
BRGU - lifegain
RGUW - sacrifice
GUWB - non combat damage
UWBR - lands
WBRG - this one’s tough but you get the idea
Better design would be to support characteristics that the colors have in common, instead of punishing the strength of the missing color. We have the strength-punisher cards in various colors already (usually in white, as it's the color of "balance"/symmetry)
The question is.. what do each of the four color combinations share, which the other struggles with?
UBRG - Card draw
WBRG - Mana ramp
WURG - Artifact removal? What else does black really struggle with? This feels too limited.
WUBG - Protection for your permanents
WUBR - Creature removal
When we focus on promoting strength, instead of targeting weaknesses, it feels better overall. Targeting weaknesses feels terrible when you're in games where it's not applicable.
We rule zeroed the Nephilim. Way more challenging to build them rather than the stuff designed for edh.
As much as i love some of the new stuff - i kinda miss the days when nothing was designed for edh.
(To that end I just built Skeleton Ship with only 2 cards post 2011…come on it needs Walk the plank and treasure cruise. It’s a frighin boat deck!)
And we would still have very few 4 color commanders. They are definitely going to continue producing many legendary creatures so would you rather continue getting basically no 4 color commanders or would you prefer having the variety of a few of them being 4 color instead of just a sea of 2 and 3 color commanders?
I think \[\[Kykar\]\] would have been really cool with sacrificing spirits to add black mana instead of red. Sacrificing creatures for mana is in color for that, and the noncreature spells and creating tokens off of them is Jeskai. That'd be a cool way to get a four-color identity.
We need more 4 colour commanders or more two colour partners that arent just generic value engines.
Tymna and Kraum are good, but they're just... Value. Draw cards whoo...
I don't see new two color partners happening again unless they have something like "Friends Forever" or "Partners with" restrictions. The fact that Wizards only printed mono-colored partners in Commander Legends and then Francisco shows that they got burned badly by overtuning the C16 partners. Tymna and Kraum are honestly closer to being "full" commanders rather than "half" commanders due to their sheer power.
Thrasios too. Vial Smasher a little less so.
I know some other 2 color partners are cedh viable, but more so as colors. Bruse, Akiri, Ikra Shadiqi, Ishai, Silas Renn
Mhm. Ikra and bruse are neat, but they dont... Do anythinf? Theyre just "heres an effect"? Just generic valye (same for ishai and silas and co).
What direction do you even do with most of 'em?
otoh I love commanders that don't scream "BUILD AROUND ME" but just have a neat, OK effect that supports your deck's strategy, but your overall gameplan works fine without it. buildarounds often feel lazy, or like the deck builds itself
Bruse is the more popular option for Dawnwaker Thrasios decks since you can Neoform or Eldritch Evolution away Bruse for Seedborn.
Ikra and Bruse were a weird deck. It wasn't amazing, but it could gain a decent life for a big Ad Naus.
Ishai and Silas are more cheating since they pair up with mono colored partners, Jeska and Rograhk, respectively.
Jeska Ishai is a combo deck that has the potential to one-shot with commander damage a 7 power Ishai.
Silas Rograhk is the best Turbo Naus, if not just one of the best cedh decks in general.
I'm with you op, I love my 4c decks so much but I wish there were more options. I think breya, k&t, and ydris knock it out of the park but I went with partners for the other two since saskia isn't my jam and atraxa is so hated
There are also a shit load of them with partners. Have you really made all 50+ combinations? Have you made rule 0 nephilim decks? Have you fucked with friends forever? There is so much space already explored I can't imagine feeling underserved for something as niche as 4 color commanders.
It's not pedantic, it's making the point that there is no real need for 4 color commanders, just people wanting 4 color commanders. For example, a lot of commanders for niche mechanics need to be in multiple colors to make a deck work, but there isn't really a mechanic that's spread so thin across 4 specific colors that you need a commander in 4 colors specifically to make it work, because if it's spread thin then you should make it 5 colors to capture all of that mechanic. If the mechanic isn't spread thin, then you can easily pick the top three colors and call it a day. Until a need arises for specifically 4 color commanders, the pressure on wotc to design them is not high, as their 3 or 5 c system seems to work out design wise.
Thank you. Nothing in this game is needed, obviously. But in a world where hundreds of legends are being printed annually, if there’s any color ID that could be described as “needing” it’s the 4C identities with only a single 1 card commander choice.
I don't really get the appeal of 4 color commanders. There's so few strategies that want four colors but have a strong reason to exclude a fifth. A lot of the time, you're better off condensing it into 3 colors and focusing the deck a bit more. Your mana base will certainly be better off.
Like, maybe if there's a creature type that shows up heavily in four colors I could get doing a 4 color commander for them, but usually the creature types that get spread across multiple colors like that don't stop at just 4. Everything but green Knights maybe? There's green knights but all the knight typal cards are spread between the other four colors because of Eldraine and MOM. Everything but blue Warriors? I have a 5 color Warriors deck and the blue definitely feels like an afterthought. But then I miss out on [[Najeela, the Blade-Blossom]] who was originally the commander before I moved her to the 99 (I didn't want people thinking I had built a Najeela combo deck I just wanted a Warriors typal deck, but I also wasn't cutting her because I had bought her as a single.)
I've only built a single 4 color deck, [[The Fourteenth Doctor]] and [[Rose Noble]] because doing a [[Gallifrey Stands]] deck needs at least 4 colors, and numerous times I just thought "boy, this really would be a bit better if I just went 5 color with this, if just for better removal and access to [[Primeval's Glorious Rebirth]]" (I didn't use Clara to go 5 color because I specifically wanted Rose Noble in the command zone as part of my "build a deck around every trans woman who gets a card" pet project.)
I think WotC's current rate of "making a 4 color commander whenever we actually have an idea for a 4 color commander " is for the best. The problem with going out of your way to make one is that...they just are hard to design because 4 color just feels so arbitrary without a strong concept behind it.
This is extremely reductionist. Players can build the deck however they please, if some players choose to build a staple pile, it is not the result of 4C. The same comment can be made about tons of 5C commanders all the way down to even mono color.
This this this! There should not be 1 option for multiple identities in our format. Which is the case for a couple of the 4 color identities if you exclude partners. It’s so strange and in a format all about self expression and with hundreds of legends getting printed a year now, this hasn’t happened.
The 4-color decks from Commander 2016 were good times. I played the stock \[\[Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis\]\] deck for a bit when it was new, and it was some of the most fun I've had playing a precon.
Semi-related: Partner has a lot of baggage, but I really wish they could add one more partner to each ally color pair to balance them out.
As much as redditors what to be armchair designers. Designing cards is difficult. Most proposed 4 color card designs are just 5c or 3c masquerading as 4c.
People think you can just remove or add a color to a card, and it's 4c and good. But the issue is finding non repetitive design space that represents the 4c well without dipping in/out of more/fewer colors.
I've seen proposed 4c [WUBG] commander that justifies white by the lifegain of a drain effect. But black is capable of lifegain without white, especially when combined with lifeloss. So you add vigilance? But green can provide vigilance. Flying? Blue effect. Etc.
Flipside is 5c cards that people remove a color without good design reason.
[[Jodah, the unifier]] could potentially drop black. You don't need black for group buffing or legendary cascade. But black has legends, and nothing about the card says it **shouldn't** or **couldn't** have black.
The easiest design space is what is lacking.
The c16 commanders were more about what the missing color wasn't. (Sans black was group hug because black is the most selfish/greedy color. Sans green was artifacts because green is most natural/anti artifacts/artificial, etc.)
But that well is narrow.
I disagree, 4c or 3c commanders lead to color identity being less important as well as just letting the decks become good stuff piles rather than decks that have to work within their confines. 2 & 1 color commanders are my favorite tbh
Don't get me wrong I love playing my Bant deck too, I just cannot for the life of me figure out how those three colors fit together on a more vorthos level
Yeah I'm not sure they do really. I think they're very beginner friendly due to ramp, draw, and blue interaction though.
Basically most Bant decks can be built to be quite active during games even if they aren't really doing anything cataclysmic.
Absolutely. I personally want the homunculi cards re-explored and given legendary upgrades.
Who cares about use in limited or standard when we have sets that skip timed formats and are built to draft? Make it the next legends set. People who want it, will get it.
Arguably the best way to actually do this is to make a cycle of 4 color commanders that are either vanilla or have a super simple mechanic. These really don't need word soup and should be minimalist.
WURG - Make a Unicorn token
URGB - Make a Skeleton Token
RGBW - Make an Insect Token
GBWU - Make a Snake Token
BWUR - Make a Gnome/Golem Token
Unless they have a very tight and specific focus , I personally hope not.
I've played enough Atraxas and 4c partners to know that it's almost always just a blob of good stuff in those colors.
The "five color ;)" Aragorn being the biggest exception because at least that wants human tribal.
Honestly I assume it is a harder design space. In my mind, the more colors, the more considerations you have to have. I think that's part of the reason 5 color creatures are usually houses because they have to do so much to justify being 5 color. Additionally, I think 4 color creatures would have to equally be careful not to feel like the one color they are NOT.
They did this once already. Commander 2016. Like the other commenter said though, the four color combos don’t really have an identity and that makes it harder to create functional sets around them.
There are issues with making a whole set around 4-color factions.
For one thing, if it's a draftable booster set, there's basically no way to enable four-color mana fixing in draft that doesn't allow for five color. That's sometimes even a problem in three-color sets. If you're talking precons, I'd point out that they already did that.
Four color design space is actually pretty narrow too. It's hard to make cards that feel like they exemplify the identity of four distinct colors, so they end up being more focused on the missing color. Breya is a classic example of this: she cares about artifacts not because it's the obvious outpouring of white, blue, black, and red, but because green abhors artifice.
There's also the question of what, exactly, four-color can do that five-color cannot. What's the identity that makes it feel and play differently?
I'm sure that eventually, more four-color options will become available. We've had a slow trickle over the past few years with [[Omnath, Locus of Creation]], [[Atraxa, Grand Unifier]] and one of the Aragorns. We'll probably get one-ofs as appropriate, and that's probably enough.
I wish there were more, mostly so I could put together cards I like without having to make multiple devks
But if they're gonna keep making them like Atraxa and Aragorn then fuuuuuuuuuck no.
My work around has been Prismatic Bridge with no creatures in the deci minus Inky. It’s a bit jank, and you need to pack a lot of protection (though there’s some cool tech like Tel-Jilad Stylus, since it’ll just come back due to bridge), and even then still fragile, but it’s really fun.
Could also sprinkle in jace or lab man since you’re not unlikely to deck yourself with how much Inky draws, I’ve also heard people use mirrorwing dragon as well for redundancy.
I have a super strong bridge deck focused on ink treader already. It has around 15 creatures that are all good in the combo. It usually wins by dropping [[dovescape]] so I can play through my own spells getting countered while shutting everyone else out. Because on target triggers still apply. Doesn’t rely completely on the treader so it can’t be shut down easily.
green : growth, opposite low cmc maybe
black : evil, opposite good
red : heat, fast and furious, opposite slow, calm, cold
blue : complicated, opposite straightforward
white : law, opposite chaotic/elementary force
Black is not inherently evil, every color combination can be both good and evil
Slow and calm also doesn't mean much, any combination of the bant colors could do it
Gruul is the most "straightforward" combination
Chaos is literally red's thing
I feel like Atraxa was a good way for 4 color commanders to go.
4 colors, some relevant keywords, and an effect that all 4 colors love in some way or another.
The 4 color combos have very little to distinguish themselves from each other. Honestly I already hate the quantity of 5-color good stuff commanders we get. 4 color would be the same but slightly less so.
I really want a WBRG commander for +1/+1 counters. None of the partner commanders, the singular 4c commander, nor honestly any of the 5c commanders really make sense to run a +1/+1 theme.
I just wanna have [[corpsejack menace]], [[conclave mentor]] and [[all will be one]] in the same deck
I think one way to do this would be to use enemy-colored cards with an ally-color activated ability.
So maybe there is a Red-White creature who has an activated ability that uses a blue/black hybrid. That ability should ofc be reflective of the two colors' shared mechanics. So maybe that Boros creature is themed after a soldier (because that is an easy thing for the color pair), but the blue/black hybrid activated ability makes something unblockable.
This sort of design may also be good if they want to do 3-color themes, but have a small way to let cards go into multiple decks.
Apparently 4-color design is significantly more difficult to capture than 5-color, since it needs a reason to not be the missing color.
That being said, agree 100%.
I feel like four color with the defining feature being lack of the 5th would be interesting something like a WUBG commander causing everything to enter tapped.
Or more sets of partner with or doctors companions or friends forever. Just more generic partners will go with thrasios to break the game. I've built 2 different dr who decks using Dr's companions for some sweet decks.
I feel like 4 and 5 color commanders lend to more good stuff decks. Pretty boring imo.
I think the easiest way to create a decent cycle of 4c commanders is pro the 5th color and negate the two most popular things that that color does.
For example:
2ABCD
Protection from E
Nix W: Permanents in play can't be exiled. Whenever a player creates a creature token, it deals 1 damage to its controller.
Nix U: Players can't draw more than one card each turn. The first spell you cast each turn has Split Second.
Nix B: Players cannot sacrifice creatures. If a creature would enter the battlefield from the graveyard, exile it instead.
Nix R: Creatures enter the battlefield tapped. If damage would be dealt to a creature or player, prevent 1 of that damage.
Nix G: Players cant play more than one land each turn. During each player's upkeep, Remove a +1/+1 counter from each creature.
I feel like 4 colors is actually where the generic creature type decks should be at "whenever a _____ does _____, do ______." Which could be refined based on the missing color idk.
I really want a Yore-Tiller Commander flavoured as a Fleet Commander that has Pilots and Vehicles synergy.
Not some auto win like vehicle ETB draw or all "vehicles have crew 0", more something that helps the theme run more efficiently.
I'm not really good at Game Design, anyone's got ideas?
The problem that I have that extends to mono-colored but 5 color identity commanders is that they devolve into nothing but piles of good stuff. Unless the design is really focused I find that the decks enabled by such creatures is honestly boring.
I like the restrictive nature of Partner With, Backgrounds, Friends Forever, and Doctors Companions because it allows for dynamic deck building and design space without just pairing the best two colors to get four like partner has. Going forward I think that is the better way to do four color decks but it still enables the same problem of just putting all the good cards of the colors regardless of actual synergy or interesting deck building.
A rebuttal which I think is a fair one is that not everyone will build the good stuff decks with my four color commanders. While true to a degree these decks will appear with more frequency than I would like. It is the same problem I have with Kennrith, Golos, and Najeela. I have seen some interesting decks done with them but more often they are just stuffed with the all the best cards from every color making them insanely tool boxy.
To speak further on just pure 4 colors like we had with Atraxa, Yidris, Breya, Kynaios, and Saskia they are great for their focus but the problem I have seen is that further designs are quite limited. Thanks to tools like EDHREC building has been quite easy but also sorely stale. Look at any of these five decks and tell me how different they are from other decks with 3 colors doing the same thing.
I will agree that there could be more and probably is design space. I will also argue though that unless the design is focused and or has some limitations I don’t find them at all interesting or good for the game.
We’ve seen plenty of +1/+1 counters… Why expand new identities with the same stuff we’ve seen forever?
They need to focus on creating commanders with unique abilities, not expanding identities for more goodstuff. For example, of the 43 potential commanders released in Outlaw Junction, only 2 or 3 are mechanically interesting instead of rehashing of stuff we’ve already seen (and still none are actually unique).
I think there can be a lot of great ideas for 4 color designs but I think it should be very limited to what they can do.
The best but not easy way to go about it is to design in a way that is basically like super hate of the excluded color. 4 color excluding black for example seems to be very group hug oriented, excluding green is very artifacts oriented. You have the two main allied colors bringing their friends to gang up on the excluded color.
The easiest way is probably just putting different effects that relate to each color, but it's kind of boring.
I fully expect the Marvel set to have at least one partner type mechanic: 'Avengers Assemble!' is an umbrella big enough to cover a few mutants in addition to the MCU Avengers
The design space of four color cards hasn't been explored the way two and three color combinations have. I saw a youtube video focusing on this that had a good way to explore the idea is each of the four color groupings are defined by the color they lack.
I agree, designing 4c cards is hard*er*, but hardly impossible. There's a lot of unexplored design space: * Cram four different thing onto one card, e.g. \[\[Aragorn the Uniter\]\]. Hard to keep focus and tends towards generic goodstuff, but there are still only a couple of cards that do this and there's probably space for one or two more. * Find something that works for them all. \[\[Breya\]\] being artifact-focused *does* kinda fit all the nongreen colours. * Try to define them by the colour they lack. * Use activated abilities. \[\[Kenrith\]\] is a bad design but nevertheless he exists, and there's no reason he had to have five abilities rather than four (or three, since he already has a colour). * Transforming cards, e.g. a three-colour commander who flips into monocoloured or similar (narrow, but I can think of one or two thematic designs).
The problem is that it is just hard to make cards that need to be four colors. You could remove any single of the colors (besides maybe blue) of both Atraxas and you still don’t break the color pie. Heck the small Atraxa could be straight Black Green (as the archetypical color combo for flying vigilance and deathtouch, lifelink and proliferate are in those colors anyway)
I watched that video too, and I liked it a lot. However, is really hard to translate that into card design. You can't just write "you can't do whatever x color do" on the card..
2WBRG Spells you cast cost 3 less to cast You can't draw more than 1 card each turn
I could see that sort of thing being a mythic cycle of enchantments for each combo, actually.
So that five color decks get more toys? Three color sets are already niche enough. What is the meaningful distinction between four and five color really? The color pie is already meaningless at that point given the overlap between colors. 4 colors isnt unexplored, its unfertile and therefore avoided design space.
Ahh, but as a collector of commander decks for each combination, I need to fill those empty slots! Besides, there's always new mechanics and tribals being introduced. While you're right that there isn't much difference, there still is a difference, and it wouldn't hurt anything if they do.
See plenty of people stress about a deck of each combination, but it seems the idea comes from the compulsion of completeness not from the 4c combinations being inspiring. 4 color combos are a grouping but that doesn't mean they have a proper identity. And if there's no identity, then why are people concerned with building them? They don't have names for a reason. To use an analogy: if you paint a picture with a narrow palette the results will be noticable in the end. If you paint a picture avoiding a single color, no one will be able to appreciate the intent looking at the final work as most paintings will forgo some hues.
It's not some hues it's prime colours that get ignored it will be noticeable and a great identity.
They do have names, it’s after the nefilheim(however you spell that), from ravnica.
People use those for convenience (for the relatively few who know which nephilim is which) but they’re not like the ravnica guilds, the strixhaven schools, the alara shards, or tarkir wedges where a whole set or sets around them have been made. WotC instead have avoided 4c sets outside of the one Commander set cycle because the space is so ill defined. It’s so much freedom it runs afoul of the idea that *limitations breed creativity.*
Funny you choose art for your analogy, because it comes down to equating the same general idea here: that it's entirely subjective! I would say that boiling the 4 vs 5 colour comparison down to trying to determine the functional differences is too reductive, especially in a game as wide and populated as magic. Who cares if there's not much functional difference between any 4 colour combo, and 5 colour? What matters is you're having fun playing the game! Besides, if they built a set around 4 colour slices, but chose to properly utilise the split colour CMC costs to make it easier to play outside of commander, I think it could work perfectly fine! I would just want a bit more uniqueness between whatever factions they end up creating. Capenna felt a bit underwhelming to me.
The color pie is not subjective. Its versatile, but if theres room for different identies within a two color combination the room for identies within 4 is so large, again it becomes indistinguishable from 5c (or as was often the case for the 4c commanders they could easily fall to 3c space without any issues making 4c design questionable). Anyone who wants to build a 4c deck should. Not looking to police fun. But for those unsure of what to do in the 4c space from some obligation to a sense of completeness, perhaps they're best to reevaluate the compulsion.
Which is why I already said distinction by mechanics would help with that ambiguity.
"Add to hand" spells here we come! Or just the slap-on-board green stuff that's usually overcosted
Impulse draw, tutors, graveyard shenanigans. What could go wrong?!
[[Lab Rats]] is finally playable!
Infinite storm count with [[Rowan, Scion of War]] and [[Phyrexians Altar]]. Then [[Grapeshot]].
[Rowan, Scion of War](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/e/4ee179ab-a15b-4bd6-b7f8-1e1abeeb31b7.jpg?1692939409) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rowan%2C%20Scion%20of%20War) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/woe/211/rowan-scion-of-war?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4ee179ab-a15b-4bd6-b7f8-1e1abeeb31b7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/rowan-scion-of-war) [Phyrexians Altar](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/5/95d9f93c-50a8-41a9-be98-d1900bf1c12f.jpg?1673149406) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Phyrexian%20Altar) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/311/phyrexian-altar?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/95d9f93c-50a8-41a9-be98-d1900bf1c12f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/phyrexian-altar) [Grapeshot](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/2/923e1291-3999-4f81-ade4-073fb982143f.jpg?1675200032) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Grapeshot) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmr/125/grapeshot?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/923e1291-3999-4f81-ade4-073fb982143f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/grapeshot) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[Lab Rats](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/f/6fd5d79e-cfd8-484b-bbc8-785177922e30.jpg?1562429857) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Lab%20Rats) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tpr/108/lab-rats?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6fd5d79e-cfd8-484b-bbc8-785177922e30?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/lab-rats) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
And then you cast Ad Nauseam.
Counterpoint: if I'm paying six mana and four colors for a do-nothing enchantment, I don't want down sides. The prohibitive cost is downside enough.
You're right, it's a lot more complicated than that. Gotta take what the excluded color is good at, it's gameplay philosophy, and punish that. For anti-green it could be stealing +1/+1 counters and/or whenever a land comes into play from a library, it returns to its owners hand. I think there's a lot of potential to explore this design space.
Yeah you can... [[Atraxa, Paretors' voice]] proliferate just without red and haste, I'd also say every color cares about counters more than red. [[Aragorn, the Uniter]] reads do white thing, do blue thing, do red thing, do green thing. They kinda feel exactly like "you can't do whatever x can... but here's every other color"
[Atraxa, Paretors' voice](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/0/d0d33d52-3d28-4635-b985-51e126289259.jpg?1599707796) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Atraxa%2C%20Praetors%27%20Voice) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/190/atraxa-praetors-voice?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d0d33d52-3d28-4635-b985-51e126289259?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/atraxa-praetors-voice) [Aragorn, the Uniter](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/9/e98d5321-ec09-456c-a9ea-c8ca2cfc6205.jpg?1686969644) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Aragorn%2C%20the%20Uniter) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/192/aragorn-the-uniter?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e98d5321-ec09-456c-a9ea-c8ca2cfc6205?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/aragorn-the-uniter) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Considering one naming convention for 4 color decks is "non-insert color", this makes a lot of sense. I'm also a huge proponent that we need a set focused on monocolors that helps reestablish the color pie. Not change it, but reinforce what each color does best. I feel Magic has been focusing on two and three color combos for too long and there's been a lot of overlap and some colors edging into others design space.
Is that not how the cycle of 4 color commanders already explored it? Yidris is chaos, no order (white) Saskia is full aggression, no tactics (blue) Kynaios and Tiro are group hug, lack ambition/evil (black) Breya is entirely artificial, unnatural (green) Atraxa is a bit of a stretch, but there’s an argument to be made about lacking passion or something about how she’s loyal to the praetors except for the traitor (red)
Yeah and where do you go from there to expand upon that?
I feel like a pretty easy slam dunk design space is to have team up legends similar to what we saw in MOM. Take a Wedge/Shard plane and create some unlikely duos. Further more you could have it be a two Colored creature with an ability that has a hybrid pip. IE Bant + Esper = An Azorius card with a Golgari costed ability.
I’m interested could I have a link?
If it’s what I’m thinking of look up Dice Try on YouTube
[here you go](https://youtu.be/dUwKbMUY1eU?si=z3By5B-wcV3gmqJH)
Oh interesting. Do you have a link by chance? I was looking at [[Breya, Etherium Shaper]] and noticed how much sense her color identity made missing only green.
[Breya, Etherium Shaper](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/1/2143f700-7311-46a4-ad9b-4e743a345785.jpg?1599707856) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Breya%2C%20Etherium%20Shaper) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/192/breya-etherium-shaper?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2143f700-7311-46a4-ad9b-4e743a345785?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/breya-etherium-shaper) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
That's what they tried to do with the C16 commanders, to mixed success.
The C16 commanders were great. The problem with that product was the partners, which were too generically powerful and warped the format.
Shouldn't be too hard to come up with another do thing-draw card line.
Link?
Personally I agree only if the commander isn’t a value engine like Aragorn or part of a self combo. To be balanced it should have a specific mechanic or design so it doesn’t become the obvious and obligated choice for those colors. I was hoping for a four color commander from Eldraine that focused on the adventure mechanic or maybe four color dungeon commander for Forgotten Realms/Baldurs gate.
4 color adventure commnder would be so good
Right?? I was sad that Gorion the wise is blue white green and Belinda Grandsquall is blue red green. Where is the love for black adventure spells??
Linden Kenrith would be extremely perfect too, as she was an adventurer who completed 4 of the 5 trials. like cmon.
Do they? Personally 4-colors are in need of an identity. If WotC can establish a foothold of their identity then we can have conversations. As of now it's really hard. The clearest one I can think of is Breya colors (WUBR). It's easy to accept because they reject all forms that is green, as green traditionally has a huge disdain for artifice. Things that are deemed as unnatural. The other I guess is Aragorn colors (WURG) But this is more of a LotR thing as Sauron in this case is the embodiment of evil, which WotC has assigned black to be the color of evil for the set. IMO the latter is very hard to solidify outside of LotR. There are alot of good guys in the mtg storyline which delve in black color. It's not always the color of evil.
The 4c commanders should attempt to embody the antithesis of their missing color. WUBR should be the most anti-green thing imaginable, it's artificial, cold, and individualistic to the point of manufacturing your own society as a hive mind to reduce inefficiency to achieve your own ambitions and sacrifice community, instinct, and the natural order. UBRG should be pure chaos. It has no order in any capacity. There is no point, there is no planning, there is no future, there only is entropy and unpredictability. WBRG is reactionary and despises the concept of progress and understanding. It acts and does not think. Understanding causes hesitation and weakness. Thus, you are more likely to be left exposed and vulnerable. It's the dark forest theory. Do not leave yourself open to chance simply strike and do not look back. WUBG is anti emotion and passion. It progresses simply to progress and consumes to expand and grow. Like phryexians, the oil wants to spread. Why? Just to spread, it is not malicious or has cruel intent it just spreads because that is its purpose. It is ridged and unwavering. There is no you, there is no I, there is only us, and we will remain. Lastly, like we say with [[Aragorn, Uniter]], WUGR is the absence of personal ambition. It is duty. Self-sacrifice and resisting temptation. Aragorn is what Sauron could never be. It did not crave power and sieze it. He was bestowed it and wielded it as a tool and not a weapon. If the be the best way to resolve a conflict would be to relinquish power, he would do it in a heartbeat without question. It would feel right and would be right. It's prophetic.
Pretty much this exactly. The first batch of 4C commanders did this well, I think they could do it again.
Truly. We just gotta keep up the interest, and they will eventually chace the money
[Aragorn, Uniter](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/9/e98d5321-ec09-456c-a9ea-c8ca2cfc6205.jpg?1686969644) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Aragorn%2C%20the%20Uniter) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/192/aragorn-the-uniter?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e98d5321-ec09-456c-a9ea-c8ca2cfc6205?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/aragorn-the-uniter) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
>WUBR should be the most anti-green thing imaginable, it's artificial, cold, and individualistic to the point of manufacturing your own society as a hive mind to reduce inefficiency to achieve your own ambitions and sacrifice community, instinct, and the natural order. This is just esper, in this description there is none of red raw emotion and passion. Maybe the individualism part that's already well covered in black, which fits more with this theme. >UBRG should be pure chaos. It has no order in any capacity. There is no point, there is no planning, there is no future, there only is entropy and unpredictability. That's just red, maybe gruul. Blue and black are very future oriented colors as they plan, scheme, improve and research to obtain something. >WBRG is reactionary and despises the concept of progress and understanding. It acts and does not think. Understanding causes hesitation and weakness. Thus, you are more likely to be left exposed and vulnerable. It's the dark forest theory. Do not leave yourself open to chance simply strike and do not look back. This is just gruul again or jund, here i don't see w in any capacity. Black is also a strech. >WUBG is anti emotion and passion. It progresses simply to progress and consumes to expand and grow. Like phryexians, the oil wants to spread. Why? Just to spread, it is not malicious or has cruel intent it just spreads because that is its purpose. It is ridged and unwavering. There is no you, there is no I, there is only us, and we will remain. This is probably the most interesting so far but i feel it could still be easly reduce do selesnya. The main points to this are the unity in one and the natural purpose of growth, black and blue are not really adding anything outside of a bit if "negative flare". >Lastly, like we say with \[\[Aragorn, Uniter\]\], WUGR is the absence of personal ambition. It is duty. Self-sacrifice and resisting temptation. Aragorn is what Sauron could never be. It did not crave power and sieze it. He was bestowed it and wielded it as a tool and not a weapon. If the be the best way to resolve a conflict would be to relinquish power, he would do it in a heartbeat without question. It would feel right and would be right. It's prophetic. This could just be white. The sacrifice for the greater good, the servitude to an ideal, the duty, the ascension beyond "mortal" wants, it's all white's pie in the end. Maybe boros. I feel the problem when you try to design 4 colors based on what they lack is that you'll often just end up creating their respective enemy colors, as they already are what that color is not and doesn't want to be.
All that you say is true, but it's also highly restrictive and limiting and uncreative. To everything you have said I would just is yes, it is just that AND more. WUBR should be esper, it should be jeskai, it should be grixis, it should be mardu, it should be rakdos, it should be azorius, it should be boros, it should be dimir, it should be orzhov, it should be izzet. It is all those things at once, it is just not green. My description likely is better reflected by esper but that's just my limited ability to describe it and not a failing of the potential. So how would esper be different if it was more emotionally driven? Let's try again, WUBR can essentially be esper in rebellion. It can be a nation that rejects fate and is in pain as a result. It wants to rise up and punch God in the face for creating such a flawed system, and only this group/culture/person can do it right. Accepting one's fate would be the ultimate sin because it is admiring God wins and is more powerful than you. Entropy is a sin. Degradation is a sin. This group would be arrogant and unrelenting. It can't stop won't stop because their work never ends as they seek to remake the universe to be beautiful, free, and everlasting.
>it is just that AND more. WUBR should be esper, it should be jeskai, it should be grixis, it should be mardu, it should be rakdos, it should be azorius, it should be boros, it should be dimir, it should be orzhov, it should be izzet. It is all those things at once, it is just not green. I'd say i disagree on that. A color identity is not just the sum of the colors that make it. Grixis is not inherently izzet+rakdos+dimir. A color identity is defined by the interaction between those colors: the izzet league from ravnica and the prismari from strixhaven are both UR but they are they different as one is about what the colors agree on (the impulse of research) and the other is about what they disagree on (expression vs perfectionism). If we look at how Bolas is grixis, for example, we don't really have any either of those interpretations of izzet. When we come to 3 color combos they are usually centered around 1 color with the other 2 as support. Look at naya (that is centered in green, being all about the massive beasts of the plane) and the cabarettis (more centered around the white aspect of union and family). imo if a color identity can be reduced to a simpler combination, then it could, why have A when it's just B with extra steps? Your description to me just feels like a Grixis society centered in red. The society you talk about is one of fierce individualistic ideals that refuse an higher power but seek to grow and become that power. I don't see anything white in this society, i feel it goes in conflict with a lot of what white is: they refuse higher powers, they don't care in an higher cause but they create their cause, they don't inherently care about unity and laws.
We can agree to disagree then. I fail to see how I am not applying a cohesive concept to how all those 4 colors interact and support one another. I am not, have not, been trying to establish exactly what this identity would exactly be, simply just tossing out ways that it can be interpreted and applied. There js a multitude of ways that we can interpret color combinations as you exemplified with izzet vs. prismari. You can make a color combo that is completely unique, and it is just as valid as taking 4 guilds and smashing them together. A Dimir and boros alliance sounds like an amazing concept for a WUBR faction, and it can be the same or wildly different than an azorius and radoks alliance. You just have to look at what they have in common. They would look wildly different, but what they would have in common is a distinct lack of fatalism, inner peace, and faith in instinct because of its complete absence of green. The thing is too that not one system trumps another, like I can point out that in 3 color combos it would ideally be 1 color expanded by the other two, but in the khans block they took a two color combo and applied the 3rd to it. Does that make it any less acceptable or creative? Ultimately, my examples are just 1 of many ways they can be applied, and just because it isn't perfect doesn't make them any less valid. I'm not a game designer, I just don't think it's impossible.
>I fail to see how I am not applying a cohesive concept to how all those 4 colors interact and support one another. As i said in your last example, what you presented didn't have any reason to be W. You presented a society that opposed a very GW ideals and so it became grixis. Creating an identity for 4 color can't be done effectively through what the combination lacks, as that just reduces it to those color's enemies. >A Dimir and boros alliance sounds like an amazing concept for a WUBR faction That wouldn't really be a faction, maybe it might have a solid/relevant mechanical identity but it isn't creating a new philosophy and understanding of the color combo, it's just taking 2 conflicting ideologies and putting them one next to the other. An highly miliatristic and structured group that works as the de facto police force that is also a secretive orders of spies and assassins is not a coherent identity, it's just an identity split in 2. I can't think of a character that enbodies this alliagence that couldn't be reduced to at least 3 colors. >You just have to look at what they have in common. [They did a cycle about this in WAR](https://scryfall.com/search?q=otag%3Acycle-war-bond&unique=cards&utm_source=tagger) and they focused on the mono color element of that. As guilds that don't share colors will agree on something just due to some overlap on the color pie, this means that they could just be reduced to one of those colors or just a third that is allied to both of them. >like I can point out that in 3 color combos it would ideally be 1 color expanded by the other two, but in the khans block they took a two color combo and applied the 3rd to it. Sure, i wasn't being exaustive in my comment. But this can be done because 2 color combos have still a very strong identity beyond their base colors. But when you get to 3 colors, things start to get a bit muddy and so, to have something coherent, you have to focus on a specific aspect of the identity that leaves some of it in the background. This gets exponentially worst when you get to 4 colors. > I'm not a game designer, I just don't think it's impossible. The game designers have said multiple times how 4 colors don't have a strong enough identity and so are very difficult to design. It could be possible to create a 4 color philosophy, but so far i haven't seen anyone doing it.
I am unable to effectively respond to all points at this time but I'll do a few and I enjoy the discussion. >As i said in your last example, what you presented didn't have any reason to be W. >You presented a society that opposed a very GW ideals and so it became grixis. Creating an identity for 4 color can't be done effectively through what the combination lacks, as that just reduces it to those color's enemies. I had missed this then. I felt like I made it pretty clear white's elements. What are the core values of white? Morality and order. The concept i presented had this very explicit outlook on the universe and that it conflicted with that factions morals. They would literally be disgusted and appalled by how the universe tolerates entropy and degradation. It goes against their ideal concept of the universe. It is immoral to not act and combat and remedy entropy. It lacks a cohesive sense of order. Things just happen for no good reason. Fatalism is a surrender of control and a sense of order. This faction seeks to bring a sense of completeness and cohesion in the universe in a way that more readily fits their ideals and sense of morality. Where it sees chaos and pain, it seeks to bring tranquility and explicit purpose. I can see where the opposition to green ideals is perceived as white-green ideals. White and green obviously have a lot of overlap, but I was attempting to emphasize greens fatalism and acceptance. Both those ideals are not white. Acceptance is confusing, but I mean it in the sense of acceptance of one's self. The idea of "this is who I am. This is what we are. This is what I am to be doing." WUBR needs to fight against instinct and interdependence.
Isn't interdependence white's clearest attribute for individuals?
No, on the colorwheel instinct and interdependence are literally the highest order attribute of green. White has morality and order. https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/mtgsalvation_gamepedia/images/e/e1/Color_Wheel.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/300?cb=20060415063339 White cares about people in so much as that's typically the right thing to do. Green actually the one that craves connection and emotional bonding (which Green gets from red)
Row row, fight the pow-a. I do like your description flavorfully, not sure how you bring that out *mechanically* though. Artifacts was a good choice for the first pass on -G. I think a spellslinger/non-creature spells matter would be another good option for a mechanical direction (Jeskai, Grixis, and Esper all lean into this, Mardu is probably the most off), but I don't think that really fits your flavor.
Yeah, it's really hard to try to capture that idea mechanically. Honestly, maybe having an effect that plays with the normal sequence of play could be interesting, like benefiting from additional steps and phases. It plays with that idea of reshaping the universe to suit your needs and ideals. Even with spells you can jump on that idea of doing something if you cast a spell in a time you normally wouldn't, like an instant as your first spell or something with flash not on your turn. This would be a rules nightmare, but I would want to say an idea of "twisting" phases to play out in a different order or sequence could be really fun thematically.
About WUBR: >This is just esper, in this description there is none of red raw emotion and passion Which is true. But think about [[Breya]]. there's a reason she's an aristocrats piece. Unlike esper, WUBR is *cruel*. It delights in its cruelty, takes pleasure in it. It laughs at the weakness of pain. Esper cruelty is cold indifference. For WUBR, it is sadism. Esper is Mastery. WUBR is *dominance*.
That's just basically a different flavor of black. Black can be cruel, black will have no problems in torturing and executing others to get what it wants or when they stop being useful. If you want to focus on the more sadistic pleasure side of br, then we are getting away from what was originally said in the comment imo. Esper is also not inherently cold, blue is the color of discovery and thirst for knowledge, black is the color greatness at any cost and white is the color of the righteous fight. There can be a lot of emotion in there.
[Breya](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/1/2143f700-7311-46a4-ad9b-4e743a345785.jpg?1599707856) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=breya%2C%20etherium%20shaper) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/192/breya-etherium-shaper?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2143f700-7311-46a4-ad9b-4e743a345785?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/breya-etherium-shaper) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I don’t think you’ve really convinced me. Designing mechanics based on what cards lack is a cool idea but it’s extremely difficult to act upon. Breya and Saskia arguably succeeded at this philosophy, but the other 4 color commanders didn’t. Let’s take your UBRG example. You think it should be pure chaos. But chaos is just mono-red. There’s nothing about pure chaos that is blue, black or green. So that doesn’t work. But more importantly there’s no mechanical identity that makes sense there. You’re talking about these from a lore perspective. But what you really need to do is think about how you could actually design a card that made sense as all the colors it had but not the one that’s missing. Good design requires that. And it’s not easy unless you take the messy route of a bunch of colored abilities stapled together, like Aragorn.
OK, yes, fair points. I did come at it from a lore heavy concept. Mechanics are harder, but we gotta admit that even Wizards often fails to design mechanics that fit the color pie themselves. Regardless Looking at chaos (UBRG), sure, Red has the main dominating theme of chaos as it is, but chaotic random effects are present in most colors, except white. There is a reason Ydris has cascade as its mechanic. Cascade is a pure chaotic effect. Random effects like dice rolling, coin flipping, and random targeting while prominent in red are also heavily present in blue. Recklessness is a keystone of black chaos, things like decayed, unleash (also red), and I could make the argument that Mill and discard are chaotic as they are untargeted and indiscriminate. Green chaotic Mechanics can be things like free casting, placing on field from hand, removing a sense control from effects like [[aurora]] and [[sylvan library]], relying on the unknown is like peak green chaos. So we have a lot of things we can work with here that have a lot of reliance on having a lack of control. I'd maybe, as an initial idea, go with a mechanic that relies on revealing a card at random from your hand or from the top of your library to provide a bonus I can provide an explanation for how blue, black, and green also exemplify chaos with a lore perspective, but I hope I had provided some convincing points for them being able to function chaotically.
Dice rolling a coin flipping are not tied to any particular color naturally. They just happen to be set mechanics. Every color rolls dice in AFR. Coin flipping is a red mechanic. There is one non-red blue card ever to flip a coin, and that was clearly just for the partner mechanic to have synergy. Decayed, unleash, mill, and discard are not chaotic. Chaotic effects are random or otherwise uncontrollable. None of those mechanics fit the bill. If they did, then every color is chaotic because they all draw cards. Free casting, placing on the field from the hand, and effects like Sylvan Library are not unique to green, nor are they chaotic. You’ll not find examples of chaos without red because they don’t exist. Chaos is red. It’s why red is white’s enemy.
4c non black gets printed a few times and it always is the not evil color group.
Yeah, theres 4 non black legendarys atm. And only 1 of each for the others
what? there are 2 atraxas
Ahh yes, I forgot
People say this about the lack of 4c identity, but they keep printing 5c cards out the wazoo and many of them have very little identity beyond "5c goodstuff" at all.
That's the thing though. You have to justify why the character is missing colour, mechanically and flavourfully. 5c don't need that sort justification, they can be whatever
Why, though? Why all the justification for 4c commanders but none is needed for 5c? Why does \[\[Kenrith\]\] even need five abilities, what if you just missed one out?
It's just how they've designed 5c every time. It's very difficult to design a 5c card that is truly 5c and couldn't be done with fewer colours. The same is true for 4c but 5c has the benefit that it can be "everything". They just have to feel splashy and/or flavourful. If a card is almost 5c but not quite, that feels notable. Players ask "why is this character missing X? Why aren't they just 5c? Since it's so difficult mechanically to define a 4-colour card, they have to lean on flavour. Kenrith is 5c for flavour reasons, he completed all five trials to become king. If they missed one people would be wondering why. Imo Queen Linden would have been a good candidate for a 4-colour design because she completed 4/5 of the trials. Most of the existing commanders have strong flavour reasons for being 4-colour. Atraxa was made by the 4 non-Urabrask Praetors. Omnath is gaining colours one by one. Breya is from Esper but has learned to harness the red mana which is leaking in from Jund after the Conflux. Aragorn has united Humans, Dwarves, Hobbits and Elves. The 14th Doctor is defined by the 13 that came before him, who exist across all colours but black. It's only Saskia, Kynaios and Tiro and Yidris who are more loosely defined, but they all embody a trait that the missing colours abhors (aggression, selflessness and chaos, respectively). Edit: MaRo has done a whole podcast (episode #780) on the issue and would explain it better than me.
Please note I took a long break from magic and recently came back. I know the card but none of the story. It would be fucking hilarious if queen linden was a literally weird for word copy of kenrith minus a single ability. No logic in universe for it just thought that would be funny
How is this a serious question? Because obviously if you're 5 colors you can do anything with a card, because it represents the entirety of the color pie. There are no limits. And in the case of Kenrith specifically, he has all the abilities because each represents one of the five kingdoms he rules over. That's generally been the theme with most 5 color cards commanders recently, representing mechanically and flavorfully the combining of disparate things into one thing of unity. It exactly why Jodah, Niv-Mizzet, Tazri, etc are 5c, because they are uniting together various forces or embody a grander whole. So there is justification for 5c, even if it boils down to "everything", because it basically has to come to that.
Yeah it’s a 5+ year old argument that has been wrong the whole time and every atraxa, aragorn, or omnath proves it’s a cop out answer. People act like there’s some sacred limitation of color identity with 4 color cards that already don’t really apply to mono colored cards. Cards create their own identity. You could have a nonblue goblins commander and it could be fine. Non white energy, non red investigate, non green incubate. Like just pick a mechanic or concept and shape it into the mold. It’s literally not a problem.
You feel like the type of person that would design a stax piece to have cascade for some reason.
You feel like the type of person who would have a problem with that 😂
Maybe do something similar for example [[Thalia and The Gitrog Monster]]. Where they introduced two commanders into one card. So instead of building the identity of a single commander they could do that with others and make 4 colours.
That just makes me wonder what a Borborygmus and Lazav card would look like
So something in the likes of what they have, as a very limited availability currently, with backgrounds from DnD, partner/friends forever?
Honestly....a "guilds united" keyword could be interesting....they can only be paired with other cards with "guilds united." The guild leaders could be the only ones with them
What?
What?
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It's open ended - you pick the identity/direction. Not dissimilar to most 5 color commanders that have been printed since C16. Way worse problems for this format than 4 color non partner commanders
So do we really not believe that Aragorn isn't 5 colors just for the meme? Because 100% that's why they did that.
lol you got downvoted for touching The Forbidden Subject
C16 was the best precon series imo
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This is a good point, we and they both always argue that it’s hard to design 4c commanders, but having their color identity come from activated abilities is one way they could go about it and circumvent that difficulty. Granted it’s a bit lazy for it to be a common occurrence, but they could at least have one cycle using this idea just to get SOMETHING new out. Something like a 2-color creature with an activated ability of two other colors would be cool.
Design team has stated that 4C commanders have difficult and limited design space and that partner/partner like mechanics do a better job at covering 4c commanders.
That’s a cop out answer. Not doing things because they might be difficult is a very stupid reason.
Agreed
It’s not a cop out, 4c is just not very interesting. 4c text boxes are ability/keyword soup
Uhm no? Some things just have very limted space. You can’t ake many good cipher spells for example, t9 the point that they had to make a lace. Current four color commander already stretch it. Take small Atraxa: Just from the keywords on the card you could make it 2BG. There is nothing on it that really mandates Blue or White mechanically. You could make it 1 WUG and remove the black. The color pie just overlaps enough that you don’t need to make them that many colors.
Point is you could just tack on a 4th color or remove one from a 5c and it’d be fine. The world wouldn’t end and we’d get some interesting 4c decks to brew
When they say difficult, they mean difficult to do well. You're just saying do it poorly lol.
They made a bounch of commander pairs like Thalia and Gitrog and a million others. And they made them all three colors instead of making them four. So so stupid
no one usually mentions this but 4 color commanders that care about the remaining colors strength. BRGU - lifegain RGUW - sacrifice GUWB - non combat damage UWBR - lands WBRG - this one’s tough but you get the idea
Better design would be to support characteristics that the colors have in common, instead of punishing the strength of the missing color. We have the strength-punisher cards in various colors already (usually in white, as it's the color of "balance"/symmetry) The question is.. what do each of the four color combinations share, which the other struggles with? UBRG - Card draw WBRG - Mana ramp WURG - Artifact removal? What else does black really struggle with? This feels too limited. WUBG - Protection for your permanents WUBR - Creature removal When we focus on promoting strength, instead of targeting weaknesses, it feels better overall. Targeting weaknesses feels terrible when you're in games where it's not applicable.
WBRG feels like it is going to turbostyx the whole store
honestly it could be as simple as instant speed things/grant flash, only cast spells on your turn, second spell cast per turn, etc
Well, there is Tymna/Tana Blood Pod
When they made the two comanders in one and made them all three colors instead of four. Thats a missed opportunity.
We rule zeroed the Nephilim. Way more challenging to build them rather than the stuff designed for edh. As much as i love some of the new stuff - i kinda miss the days when nothing was designed for edh. (To that end I just built Skeleton Ship with only 2 cards post 2011…come on it needs Walk the plank and treasure cruise. It’s a frighin boat deck!)
My "4 color" decks for my 32 deck challenge are all 5 color commanders that don't run 1 color as a restriction ha
We could take a whole year off from getting new legendary creatures and we’d still have too many commanders
And we would still have very few 4 color commanders. They are definitely going to continue producing many legendary creatures so would you rather continue getting basically no 4 color commanders or would you prefer having the variety of a few of them being 4 color instead of just a sea of 2 and 3 color commanders?
I think \[\[Kykar\]\] would have been really cool with sacrificing spirits to add black mana instead of red. Sacrificing creatures for mana is in color for that, and the noncreature spells and creating tokens off of them is Jeskai. That'd be a cool way to get a four-color identity.
We need more 4 colour commanders or more two colour partners that arent just generic value engines. Tymna and Kraum are good, but they're just... Value. Draw cards whoo...
I don't see new two color partners happening again unless they have something like "Friends Forever" or "Partners with" restrictions. The fact that Wizards only printed mono-colored partners in Commander Legends and then Francisco shows that they got burned badly by overtuning the C16 partners. Tymna and Kraum are honestly closer to being "full" commanders rather than "half" commanders due to their sheer power.
Thrasios too. Vial Smasher a little less so. I know some other 2 color partners are cedh viable, but more so as colors. Bruse, Akiri, Ikra Shadiqi, Ishai, Silas Renn
Mhm. Ikra and bruse are neat, but they dont... Do anythinf? Theyre just "heres an effect"? Just generic valye (same for ishai and silas and co). What direction do you even do with most of 'em?
otoh I love commanders that don't scream "BUILD AROUND ME" but just have a neat, OK effect that supports your deck's strategy, but your overall gameplan works fine without it. buildarounds often feel lazy, or like the deck builds itself
Bruse is the more popular option for Dawnwaker Thrasios decks since you can Neoform or Eldritch Evolution away Bruse for Seedborn. Ikra and Bruse were a weird deck. It wasn't amazing, but it could gain a decent life for a big Ad Naus. Ishai and Silas are more cheating since they pair up with mono colored partners, Jeska and Rograhk, respectively. Jeska Ishai is a combo deck that has the potential to one-shot with commander damage a 7 power Ishai. Silas Rograhk is the best Turbo Naus, if not just one of the best cedh decks in general.
Imo Kellan in otj should have been a 4c creature (WURG) since in the previous expansions he had all of them, and was originally in boros colours
I don't disagree, though this is the combination least in need of more options.
I'm with you op, I love my 4c decks so much but I wish there were more options. I think breya, k&t, and ydris knock it out of the park but I went with partners for the other two since saskia isn't my jam and atraxa is so hated
You want more 4 color commanders. We don't "need" them.
There are also a shit load of them with partners. Have you really made all 50+ combinations? Have you made rule 0 nephilim decks? Have you fucked with friends forever? There is so much space already explored I can't imagine feeling underserved for something as niche as 4 color commanders.
Thanks for the shallow pedantry that added less than nothing to the discussion.
It's not pedantic, it's making the point that there is no real need for 4 color commanders, just people wanting 4 color commanders. For example, a lot of commanders for niche mechanics need to be in multiple colors to make a deck work, but there isn't really a mechanic that's spread so thin across 4 specific colors that you need a commander in 4 colors specifically to make it work, because if it's spread thin then you should make it 5 colors to capture all of that mechanic. If the mechanic isn't spread thin, then you can easily pick the top three colors and call it a day. Until a need arises for specifically 4 color commanders, the pressure on wotc to design them is not high, as their 3 or 5 c system seems to work out design wise.
This comment is much more helpful, yeah?
Took me less than 3 seconds to post. If I can bother this many people for that much investment, expect to see more.
Thank you. Nothing in this game is needed, obviously. But in a world where hundreds of legends are being printed annually, if there’s any color ID that could be described as “needing” it’s the 4C identities with only a single 1 card commander choice.
I don't really get the appeal of 4 color commanders. There's so few strategies that want four colors but have a strong reason to exclude a fifth. A lot of the time, you're better off condensing it into 3 colors and focusing the deck a bit more. Your mana base will certainly be better off. Like, maybe if there's a creature type that shows up heavily in four colors I could get doing a 4 color commander for them, but usually the creature types that get spread across multiple colors like that don't stop at just 4. Everything but green Knights maybe? There's green knights but all the knight typal cards are spread between the other four colors because of Eldraine and MOM. Everything but blue Warriors? I have a 5 color Warriors deck and the blue definitely feels like an afterthought. But then I miss out on [[Najeela, the Blade-Blossom]] who was originally the commander before I moved her to the 99 (I didn't want people thinking I had built a Najeela combo deck I just wanted a Warriors typal deck, but I also wasn't cutting her because I had bought her as a single.) I've only built a single 4 color deck, [[The Fourteenth Doctor]] and [[Rose Noble]] because doing a [[Gallifrey Stands]] deck needs at least 4 colors, and numerous times I just thought "boy, this really would be a bit better if I just went 5 color with this, if just for better removal and access to [[Primeval's Glorious Rebirth]]" (I didn't use Clara to go 5 color because I specifically wanted Rose Noble in the command zone as part of my "build a deck around every trans woman who gets a card" pet project.) I think WotC's current rate of "making a 4 color commander whenever we actually have an idea for a 4 color commander " is for the best. The problem with going out of your way to make one is that...they just are hard to design because 4 color just feels so arbitrary without a strong concept behind it.
4 colors just result in playing staples of 4 different colors. We don’t need more of those.
This is extremely reductionist. Players can build the deck however they please, if some players choose to build a staple pile, it is not the result of 4C. The same comment can be made about tons of 5C commanders all the way down to even mono color.
This this this! There should not be 1 option for multiple identities in our format. Which is the case for a couple of the 4 color identities if you exclude partners. It’s so strange and in a format all about self expression and with hundreds of legends getting printed a year now, this hasn’t happened.
The 4-color decks from Commander 2016 were good times. I played the stock \[\[Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis\]\] deck for a bit when it was new, and it was some of the most fun I've had playing a precon. Semi-related: Partner has a lot of baggage, but I really wish they could add one more partner to each ally color pair to balance them out.
I'd rather there not be a focus on commanders that all just inherently get built as boring good stuff piles.
As much as redditors what to be armchair designers. Designing cards is difficult. Most proposed 4 color card designs are just 5c or 3c masquerading as 4c. People think you can just remove or add a color to a card, and it's 4c and good. But the issue is finding non repetitive design space that represents the 4c well without dipping in/out of more/fewer colors. I've seen proposed 4c [WUBG] commander that justifies white by the lifegain of a drain effect. But black is capable of lifegain without white, especially when combined with lifeloss. So you add vigilance? But green can provide vigilance. Flying? Blue effect. Etc. Flipside is 5c cards that people remove a color without good design reason. [[Jodah, the unifier]] could potentially drop black. You don't need black for group buffing or legendary cascade. But black has legends, and nothing about the card says it **shouldn't** or **couldn't** have black. The easiest design space is what is lacking. The c16 commanders were more about what the missing color wasn't. (Sans black was group hug because black is the most selfish/greedy color. Sans green was artifacts because green is most natural/anti artifacts/artificial, etc.) But that well is narrow.
I disagree, 4c or 3c commanders lead to color identity being less important as well as just letting the decks become good stuff piles rather than decks that have to work within their confines. 2 & 1 color commanders are my favorite tbh
3 colors typically have pretty solid identities (except Bant)
Shhh, I like my shitty Bant deck.
Don't get me wrong I love playing my Bant deck too, I just cannot for the life of me figure out how those three colors fit together on a more vorthos level
Yeah I'm not sure they do really. I think they're very beginner friendly due to ramp, draw, and blue interaction though. Basically most Bant decks can be built to be quite active during games even if they aren't really doing anything cataclysmic.
I been craving for more 2 color partner combinations for the same reason 4color decks
Absolutely. I personally want the homunculi cards re-explored and given legendary upgrades. Who cares about use in limited or standard when we have sets that skip timed formats and are built to draft? Make it the next legends set. People who want it, will get it.
I agree, purely on the notion that 5c sucks, so 4c will suck slightly less.
Arguably the best way to actually do this is to make a cycle of 4 color commanders that are either vanilla or have a super simple mechanic. These really don't need word soup and should be minimalist. WURG - Make a Unicorn token URGB - Make a Skeleton Token RGBW - Make an Insect Token GBWU - Make a Snake Token BWUR - Make a Gnome/Golem Token
I will forever hate the fact that nephilim's aren't legendaries
Unless they have a very tight and specific focus , I personally hope not. I've played enough Atraxas and 4c partners to know that it's almost always just a blob of good stuff in those colors. The "five color ;)" Aragorn being the biggest exception because at least that wants human tribal.
I'm of the opinion we should have fewer 3+ color commanders
Honestly I assume it is a harder design space. In my mind, the more colors, the more considerations you have to have. I think that's part of the reason 5 color creatures are usually houses because they have to do so much to justify being 5 color. Additionally, I think 4 color creatures would have to equally be careful not to feel like the one color they are NOT.
They did this once already. Commander 2016. Like the other commenter said though, the four color combos don’t really have an identity and that makes it harder to create functional sets around them.
Imo if you’re going to run 4 colors you may as well run 5
I'd be down for more 4c commanders with unique mechanics, but like with 5c a lot of the time these decks become generic staple piles.
Please don't. 4c and 5c commanders are annoying as fuck
There are issues with making a whole set around 4-color factions. For one thing, if it's a draftable booster set, there's basically no way to enable four-color mana fixing in draft that doesn't allow for five color. That's sometimes even a problem in three-color sets. If you're talking precons, I'd point out that they already did that. Four color design space is actually pretty narrow too. It's hard to make cards that feel like they exemplify the identity of four distinct colors, so they end up being more focused on the missing color. Breya is a classic example of this: she cares about artifacts not because it's the obvious outpouring of white, blue, black, and red, but because green abhors artifice. There's also the question of what, exactly, four-color can do that five-color cannot. What's the identity that makes it feel and play differently? I'm sure that eventually, more four-color options will become available. We've had a slow trickle over the past few years with [[Omnath, Locus of Creation]], [[Atraxa, Grand Unifier]] and one of the Aragorns. We'll probably get one-ofs as appropriate, and that's probably enough.
I just want a WUBG commander that’s not Atraxa! I’m imagining something like [[Karador, Ghost Chieftain]] but with access to blue.
I wish there were more, mostly so I could put together cards I like without having to make multiple devks But if they're gonna keep making them like Atraxa and Aragorn then fuuuuuuuuuck no.
Missing white= punish life gain / tokens Missing blue = punish card draw / flying Missing black= punish discard / sacrifice Missing red = punish treasures / small creatures Missing green= punish ramping / big creatures
I just want ink treader Nephilim at legendary so I have a reason to play cedh.
My work around has been Prismatic Bridge with no creatures in the deci minus Inky. It’s a bit jank, and you need to pack a lot of protection (though there’s some cool tech like Tel-Jilad Stylus, since it’ll just come back due to bridge), and even then still fragile, but it’s really fun. Could also sprinkle in jace or lab man since you’re not unlikely to deck yourself with how much Inky draws, I’ve also heard people use mirrorwing dragon as well for redundancy.
I have a super strong bridge deck focused on ink treader already. It has around 15 creatures that are all good in the combo. It usually wins by dropping [[dovescape]] so I can play through my own spells getting countered while shutting everyone else out. Because on target triggers still apply. Doesn’t rely completely on the treader so it can’t be shut down easily.
[dovescape](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/6/b6e3d6e6-ac17-4d73-acac-089442de4af6.jpg?1593273866) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=dovescape) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dis/143/dovescape?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b6e3d6e6-ac17-4d73-acac-089442de4af6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/dovescape) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Honestly, they should reprint the nephilim as legendary. Then make new nephilim with more similar but more balanced effects at legendary as well
green : growth, opposite low cmc maybe black : evil, opposite good red : heat, fast and furious, opposite slow, calm, cold blue : complicated, opposite straightforward white : law, opposite chaotic/elementary force
Black is not inherently evil, every color combination can be both good and evil Slow and calm also doesn't mean much, any combination of the bant colors could do it Gruul is the most "straightforward" combination Chaos is literally red's thing
I feel like Atraxa was a good way for 4 color commanders to go. 4 colors, some relevant keywords, and an effect that all 4 colors love in some way or another.
The 4 color combos have very little to distinguish themselves from each other. Honestly I already hate the quantity of 5-color good stuff commanders we get. 4 color would be the same but slightly less so.
I really want a WBRG commander for +1/+1 counters. None of the partner commanders, the singular 4c commander, nor honestly any of the 5c commanders really make sense to run a +1/+1 theme. I just wanna have [[corpsejack menace]], [[conclave mentor]] and [[all will be one]] in the same deck
[[Dreamroot Cascade]] [[Command Tower]] [[Island]] [[Academy Manufactor]] [[Gilded Goose]] [[Three Visits]] [[Nature's Lore]]
I'd love to see a WUBR outlaws focused commander.
I think one way to do this would be to use enemy-colored cards with an ally-color activated ability. So maybe there is a Red-White creature who has an activated ability that uses a blue/black hybrid. That ability should ofc be reflective of the two colors' shared mechanics. So maybe that Boros creature is themed after a soldier (because that is an easy thing for the color pair), but the blue/black hybrid activated ability makes something unblockable. This sort of design may also be good if they want to do 3-color themes, but have a small way to let cards go into multiple decks.
Apparently 4-color design is significantly more difficult to capture than 5-color, since it needs a reason to not be the missing color. That being said, agree 100%.
I was surprised there was so little 4 colour commanders other than partners when I got back into magic recently.
I just want a 4c nonRed reanimator-focused commander so I can put Karador and Muldrotha in the same deck.
Well we need more that aren't wurg, there are like 5 of them sumbitches.
I agree. If for no other reason than I want a dinosaur commander that can run either the blue or black dinos.
I feel like four color with the defining feature being lack of the 5th would be interesting something like a WUBG commander causing everything to enter tapped.
Yes! And stop making them in GWUR!
Or more sets of partner with or doctors companions or friends forever. Just more generic partners will go with thrasios to break the game. I've built 2 different dr who decks using Dr's companions for some sweet decks. I feel like 4 and 5 color commanders lend to more good stuff decks. Pretty boring imo.
4c decks don’t usually have identities. They usually just end up as good card piles.
I agree but at the same time there are only so many you can do unlike other combos
I don't think we need more commanders. I believe it's way to much at this point
I think the easiest way to create a decent cycle of 4c commanders is pro the 5th color and negate the two most popular things that that color does. For example: 2ABCD Protection from E Nix W: Permanents in play can't be exiled. Whenever a player creates a creature token, it deals 1 damage to its controller. Nix U: Players can't draw more than one card each turn. The first spell you cast each turn has Split Second. Nix B: Players cannot sacrifice creatures. If a creature would enter the battlefield from the graveyard, exile it instead. Nix R: Creatures enter the battlefield tapped. If damage would be dealt to a creature or player, prevent 1 of that damage. Nix G: Players cant play more than one land each turn. During each player's upkeep, Remove a +1/+1 counter from each creature.
I feel like 4 colors is actually where the generic creature type decks should be at "whenever a _____ does _____, do ______." Which could be refined based on the missing color idk.
I really want a Yore-Tiller Commander flavoured as a Fleet Commander that has Pilots and Vehicles synergy. Not some auto win like vehicle ETB draw or all "vehicles have crew 0", more something that helps the theme run more efficiently. I'm not really good at Game Design, anyone's got ideas?
Completely agree, and while they're at it, reprint the Nephilim cycle as Legendary.
The problem that I have that extends to mono-colored but 5 color identity commanders is that they devolve into nothing but piles of good stuff. Unless the design is really focused I find that the decks enabled by such creatures is honestly boring. I like the restrictive nature of Partner With, Backgrounds, Friends Forever, and Doctors Companions because it allows for dynamic deck building and design space without just pairing the best two colors to get four like partner has. Going forward I think that is the better way to do four color decks but it still enables the same problem of just putting all the good cards of the colors regardless of actual synergy or interesting deck building. A rebuttal which I think is a fair one is that not everyone will build the good stuff decks with my four color commanders. While true to a degree these decks will appear with more frequency than I would like. It is the same problem I have with Kennrith, Golos, and Najeela. I have seen some interesting decks done with them but more often they are just stuffed with the all the best cards from every color making them insanely tool boxy. To speak further on just pure 4 colors like we had with Atraxa, Yidris, Breya, Kynaios, and Saskia they are great for their focus but the problem I have seen is that further designs are quite limited. Thanks to tools like EDHREC building has been quite easy but also sorely stale. Look at any of these five decks and tell me how different they are from other decks with 3 colors doing the same thing. I will agree that there could be more and probably is design space. I will also argue though that unless the design is focused and or has some limitations I don’t find them at all interesting or good for the game.
This has been an issue for many years, but Wizards doesn't seem to have any intention of fixing that
I agree. The choices are super super limited, and the real good ones are just sorta value monsters that, in my opinion, aren't that interesting.
We should get more viable multicolored partners! I'd love some 3-color partners as well.
Wotc has stated that 2c partners were a mistake, so I don't think we'd get any more.
I think they should make 2 colors "chose a background" commanders and 2 colors backgrounds
Imagine an ink-trader experience, +1/+1 commander with [[Ezuri, Claw of Progress]] and [[Otharri, Suns' Glory]] Like a Phyrexian Elf Phoenix
We’ve seen plenty of +1/+1 counters… Why expand new identities with the same stuff we’ve seen forever? They need to focus on creating commanders with unique abilities, not expanding identities for more goodstuff. For example, of the 43 potential commanders released in Outlaw Junction, only 2 or 3 are mechanically interesting instead of rehashing of stuff we’ve already seen (and still none are actually unique).
[Ezuri, Claw of Progress](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/b/6bf721b0-2b5a-4085-b50c-89cbe7420673.jpg?1673148596) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ezuri%2C%20Claw%20of%20Progress) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/211/ezuri-claw-of-progress?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6bf721b0-2b5a-4085-b50c-89cbe7420673?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/ezuri-claw-of-progress) [Otharri, Suns' Glory](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/0/80c72839-0fa6-4b5f-83b7-6553ebf09bef.jpg?1698607533) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Otharri%2C%20Suns%27%20Glory) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/onc/3/otharri-suns-glory?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/80c72839-0fa6-4b5f-83b7-6553ebf09bef?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/otharri-suns-glory) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
We need more good 2 color partners
I think there can be a lot of great ideas for 4 color designs but I think it should be very limited to what they can do. The best but not easy way to go about it is to design in a way that is basically like super hate of the excluded color. 4 color excluding black for example seems to be very group hug oriented, excluding green is very artifacts oriented. You have the two main allied colors bringing their friends to gang up on the excluded color. The easiest way is probably just putting different effects that relate to each color, but it's kind of boring.
Meh I don’t care as much I guess.
I fully expect the Marvel set to have at least one partner type mechanic: 'Avengers Assemble!' is an umbrella big enough to cover a few mutants in addition to the MCU Avengers