Is There a Colorless Commander? A Deep Dive into the Realm of Colorless Magic
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Yes, absolutely! There are indeed colorless commanders available in Magic: The Gathering. While they might be less numerous than their colored counterparts, these legendary creatures offer a unique and challenging deck-building experience. Choosing a colorless commander means navigating a different set of rules and strategies, as your card pool is restricted to cards with a colorless identity. This article delves into the nuances of colorless commanders, providing you with a comprehensive overview and answering frequently asked questions to guide you on your journey.
What Makes a Commander Colorless?
The key term here is color identity, not just color. In Commander, a card’s color identity dictates what cards can be included in your deck. A card’s color identity is determined by the mana symbols present in its mana cost and any mana symbols in its rules text. While many colorless cards exist, a card must be a legendary creature with no colored mana symbols to qualify as a colorless commander. Think of it as this: if there’s a red, blue, green, white, or black mana symbol on a card, it won’t be able to be in a colorless deck because it has a color identity.
Colorless Commanders: A Different Kind of Challenge
Playing a colorless Commander deck presents unique challenges and rewards. Since you are limited to colorless cards, you must master resource management and card draw strategies that might not typically be central in a colored deck. This often means relying heavily on artifacts and colorless creatures, leveraging their synergistic abilities to overwhelm your opponents.
Strategic Implications
- Mana Production: You’ll rely heavily on lands that produce colorless mana and artifacts that ramp.
- Card Advantage: Mechanisms for drawing cards will be crucial, requiring strategic use of artifacts and abilities.
- Creature Strength: Colorless creatures like Eldrazi become focal points for power.
- Interaction: Colorless interaction options may be less obvious, requiring careful selection and usage.
Popular Colorless Commander Options
While there are a limited number of choices, some colorless commanders have risen to prominence. Here are some notable examples:
- Karn, Legacy Reforged: A powerful planeswalker who enables artifact strategies and generates card advantage.
- Kozilek, The Great Distortion: An intimidating Eldrazi that counters spells and refills your hand.
- Liberator, Urza’s Battlethopter: Provides a unique ability to play cards off the top of your library at instant speed.
- Emrakul, the Promised End: A titan that can take control of an opponent’s turn and is a force to be reckoned with.
- The Peregrine Dynamo: Allows you to copy spells and abilities, giving your spells a huge impact.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Colorless Commanders
Here are some of the most common questions regarding colorless commanders:
1. Can Command Tower produce colorless mana?
No. Command Tower and other lands that produce mana of “any color” cannot produce colorless mana. Colorless mana is not considered a color of mana. This is an important distinction.
2. Can I use colored mana in a colorless commander deck?
Yes. While the color identity of a card restricts which cards you can put in your deck, it does not restrict what type of mana you can generate from any card on the battlefield. You can tap a land for blue mana and use that blue mana even though your commander is colorless. However, you still can’t put a blue card in your colorless deck.
3. Does “devoid” count as colorless for Commander?
No. Devoid only changes a card’s color, not its color identity. If a card has a color identity, even if it says “devoid,” it cannot go in a colorless deck. Color identity is determined by the symbols on the card, not a text ability.
4. Does Jeweled Lotus work with a colorless commander?
Yes. Jeweled Lotus is a legal card in a colorless Commander deck. You can tap it and use the mana to cast a colorless commander, even if it doesn’t have a mana cost of colored mana.
5. How do cards like Spectral Searchlight work in a colorless deck?
When you activate abilities like Spectral Searchlight or Gilded Lotus, a player chooses a color on resolution, not colorless. The mana is added to your mana pool as a colored mana.
6. Is Morophon, the Boundless, a 5-color commander?
Yes. While Morophon, the Boundless is a colorless creature, its color identity is WUBRG (all five colors). This means it can only be used as a commander in a five-color deck, not a colorless one.
7. Can I include basic lands in a colorless deck?
No. You cannot include basic lands in your colorless deck because of their intrinsic mana abilities that create colored mana. This is true for all lands with basic land types.
8. Can I use generic mana for colorless?
Yes and no. Generic mana costs can be paid with any type of mana, including colorless and any color. But when casting spells with a colorless cost, the colorless mana symbol has to be paid with actual colorless mana.
9. Can Fellwar Stone tap for colorless mana?
No. Fellwar Stone can only tap for a color of mana that a land an opponent controls could make. It cannot produce colorless mana.
10. Can Gauntlet of Power choose colorless?
No. Gauntlet of Power must choose one of the five colors for its abilities to have any effect. It won’t affect colorless creatures or lands that make colorless mana.
11. How does War Room work with a colorless commander?
If your commander is colorless, you do not pay life to activate War Room’s last ability.
12. Are all Eldrazi colorless?
Yes, most Eldrazi creatures are colorless and are ideal for these types of decks. They were specifically designed to be that way.
13. Is Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, banned in Commander?
Yes. Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, is banned in Commander. However, other versions of Emrakul and other Eldrazi like Ulamog and Kozilek are legal.
14. Can I include Unfinity cards in a Commander deck?
Yes. Unfinity cards are legal in Commander as long as they have a black border. Common rarities of unfinity are also legal in Pauper.
15. Is White the weakest color in Commander?
Many consider white to be the weakest color in Commander due to a lack of card draw, ramp, and limited creature strength compared to other colors.
Embracing the Colorless Challenge
Building a colorless Commander deck is a rewarding experience that challenges your deckbuilding and strategic thinking. By understanding the nuances of color identity, mana production, and card interactions, you can construct a formidable deck capable of holding its own against any foe. Although the options are fewer, the strategic depth and uniqueness of a colorless deck make it an exciting and satisfying choice for any Commander player.