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Can Your Commander Be Colourless? The Definitive Guide

Absolutely! A Commander can indeed be colorless. This opens up a unique and often challenging deck-building strategy within the Magic: The Gathering Commander format. Choosing a colorless commander restricts your deck to mostly artifacts, but it also allows for unparalleled mana consistency and a focus on raw power and strategic resource management.

Diving Deep into Colourless Commander Decks

Building a successful colorless Commander deck isn’t just about slapping together a bunch of artifacts. It requires a deep understanding of the format, careful card selection, and a strategic approach to gameplay. These decks often revolve around big mana strategies, overwhelming opponents with massive creatures and game-ending artifacts.

The Allure of Colorless Commanders

While limiting yourself to colorless cards might seem like a disadvantage, it presents several key benefits:

Mana Consistency: You don’t need to worry about mana fixing. Every land produces the mana you need, allowing for incredibly consistent plays.
Powerful Artifacts: The artifact card pool is vast and full of powerful options, from mana rocks to game-winning threats.
Unique Strategies: Colorless decks often rely on strategies that other decks can’t easily replicate, giving you a distinct edge.
Surprise Factor: Many players are unfamiliar with how to play against a well-constructed colorless deck, leading to misplays on their part.

Challenges of Colorless Commanders

Of course, building a colorless deck also comes with its own set of challenges:

Limited Card Pool: Your card choices are restricted to artifacts and colorless lands, significantly limiting your options for removal, card draw, and other essential effects.
Vulnerability to Artifact Hate: Artifact removal is prevalent in Commander, making your deck vulnerable to mass destruction.
Reliance on Artifact Synergies: Colorless decks heavily rely on artifact synergies to function effectively, meaning disruption can be devastating.
Difficulty with Card Advantage: Obtaining card advantage can be challenging, requiring specific cards and careful planning.

Building a Successful Colorless Deck

When building a colorless Commander deck, consider these factors:

Choose the Right Commander: Select a commander that supports your overall strategy. Commanders like Kozilek, the Great Distortion, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, and Liberator, Urza’s Battlethopter are popular choices for their raw power and strategic abilities.
Ramp, Ramp, Ramp: Mana acceleration is crucial. Load up on mana rocks like Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Thran Dynamo, and other efficient mana sources.
Powerful Draw Engines: Find ways to generate card advantage. Cards like Mind Stone, Hedron Archive, and Crawlspace are excellent options.
Effective Removal: Include artifact-based removal like Oblivion Stone, Nevinyrral’s Disk, and All Is Dust.
Game-Winning Threats: Pack your deck with powerful threats that can close out the game. Wurmcoil Engine, Steel Hellkite, and Darksteel Colossus are all excellent choices.
Synergy is Key: Focus on cards that synergize well with each other, creating powerful combinations and value engines.

Beyond Raw Power: Strategy and Subtlety

Colorless decks aren’t always about brute force. Some can employ more subtle strategies, focusing on control, disruption, and gradual advantage. Cards like Smokestack and Tangle Wire can lock down the board, while cards like Storage Matrix can disrupt opponents’ plans. The GamesLearningSociety.org website offers a wealth of resources to explore strategic gameplay within various Magic: The Gathering formats. Mastering these subtleties is vital for succeeding in the Commander format. Understanding the nuances of strategy and gameplay is vital, and you can learn more at the Games Learning Society website.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Colourless Commanders

Here are 15 frequently asked questions about building and playing with colorless commanders:

Are colorless commanders all colors? No. Colorless is the absence of color. A colorless commander has no color identity and therefore allows only cards that also have no color identity (colorless cards) to be included in its deck.
Can you put colorless cards in a commander deck of any color identity? Yes! Colorless cards with no mana symbols in their text can be included in any Commander deck, regardless of the commander’s color identity.
What is a colorless color identity commander? It’s a commander that has no colors in its color identity. This limits the deck to colorless cards, typically artifacts.
Does colorless count as a color identity? No. A card has a color identity based on the mana symbols in its casting cost or rules text. Colorless cards have no color identity.
Does Colourless count as a Colour in MTG? No. Colorless is not a color. The five colors are white, blue, black, red, and green.
Can I use Devoid cards in a colorless commander deck? No. While Devoid cards produce colorless creatures, they still have the color listed in the upper left hand of the card. A card’s “color” is not the same thing as it’s “color identity”.
Why are Eldrazi colorless? Eldrazi were made colorless to emphasize their alien nature and detachment from the color pie. The lack of color helps to mark them as entities from beyond the known planes.
Does Commander’s Plate protect from colorless? No, because Colorless is not a color. The protection provided by Commander’s Plate applies to colors not shared by the commander it’s equiped to.
Are there any commander cards that I cannot use in a Commander deck? Yes, there are many banned cards in the Commander format, including cards like Primeval Titan, Erayo, Soratami Ascendant, and Iona, Shield of Emeria, among others. The official Magic: The Gathering website maintains an updated list of banned cards.
What is the best colorless Eldrazi commander? Many players consider Kozilek, the Great Distortion to be a top-tier colorless Eldrazi commander due to its hand disruption and card draw abilities.
Can you choose two prismatic pipers as commander? Yes, you can choose two commanders with the Partner ability, even if they are the same card. In a Commander Draft, you can even draft two of the same commander with Partner. You will need to keep track of how many times each commander has been cast from the command zone for purposes of tracking the “commander tax”.
Are Phyrexians or Eldrazi stronger? This is a hotly debated topic! Both are incredibly powerful forces, but most agree that the Eldrazi have more raw power due to their ability to consume entire planes.
What are some strategies to deal with artifact hate? Some cards and strategies useful to deal with artifact hate include the card Darksteel Forge and the strategy of redundancy, in which you include numerous mana rocks and redundant sources of card draw.
What is the weakest color in Commander and why? White is often considered the weakest color in Commander due to its lack of card draw and mana ramp compared to other colors. However, white can excel in strategies involving stax and board control.
Can Kenrith, the Returned King, be a 5 color commander? Yes, Kenrith, the Returned King is a popular 5-color commander option, especially since he only costs one white mana and can provide different activated abilities based on your needs.

Can your commander be Colourless?