Split Second #2: Color Cropping your Commanders

TappedOut Commander Series

Suns_Champion

18 June 2020

2034 views

Hello friends! It is I, Suns_Champion:

• TappedOut’s resident jank EDH brewer
• New commander trailblazer
• Part-time dead-Planeswalker
• Full-time Boros Legionnaire
• Author of The EDH Deckbuilding Process

Welcome to Split Second, a series where I tackle assorted mini-topics within MTG and especially EDH/Commander!

Today I’m going to talk about thinking outside the box of commander color identity… by thinking inside commander color identity.

But what is color identity? Let’s get some definitions out of the way.

Color Identity

A card’s color identity is its color(s) plus the color of any mana symbols in the card’s rules text (but not parenthetical reminder text). The cards in a commander deck may not have any colors in their color identity which are not in the color identity of the deck’s commander.

So Teysa Karlov has a color identity of . Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest has a color identity of .

That basically sums it up, but a full explanation and all the little corner cases can be found at the Ask A Magic Judge page, here.

With that under our belts, we can dive into today’s big idea!

The Idea

At some point in February of 2019, a time that feels like centuries ago, I was having a conversation with a friend about the Najeela, the Blade-Blossom. We were discussing how good she was in cEDH and normal EDH, and I mentioned how I didn’t like how she was 5 colors because that’s just not something I’m interested in as a deckbuilder. As conversations are likely to do when I am participating in them, the Boros Legion came up. It went something like this:

“Why doesn’t Boros have a great attacky/infinite/warrior tribal/token-making commander?”

“Huh?”

“Why isn’t Najeela Boros? ?”

“I dunno. If she was she’d be the best Boros commander by far.”

To that last point, remember: this is a time before Feather, the Redeemed, Gerrard, Weatherlight Hero, Zirda, the Dawnwaker, and Winota, Joiner of Forces. Aurelia, the Warleader had the dubious honor of holding the title of “best Boros commander.”

I walked away from that conversation with an idea. A desire. I wanted a Boros Najeela, but there wasn’t one. So instead, I’d make Najeela Boros.

A while later I created this. A synthesis of all my most jank thoughts, Boros zeal, and deckbuilding creativity. Boros Najeela.

The Labor of My Love | Najeela EDH

Commander / EDH Suns_Champion

SCORE: 14 | 3 COMMENTS | 890 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

The concept of this deck is to play only two of Najeela’s five colors, and . The goal of the deck is to get out Chromatic Lantern, Celestial Dawn, or use False Dawn to make Najeela, the Blade-Blossom 's ability usable in Boros colors, then combo off with regular Najeela combat steps.

Now, I came up with this idea on my own, and for that, I am quite proud of myself. But it should be noted that other deckbuilders have come up with this before and after me, without my help. It’s a great idea but not unique to me.

My Najeela deck introduces my new archetype or theme in commander decks: Color Cropping

Color Cropping

Key aspects of this theme:

• A commander with one or more colors in its color identity
• 99 cards that use fewer colors than the commander has in its identity
• Will fall under three loose categories: Hybrid mana, Activated Ability, or Landbase

Essentially, it is a self-imposed color restriction. I’m creating a new color identity within the original color identity of our commander. This is a way for me to satisfy an aspect of my deckbuilding philosophy, the part where I like to take a popular commander and do something very different or unique with them. Color Cropping is the perfect way to make my decks unique and interesting, as well as being a different sort of deckbuilding experience for that commander. You might like to try it out if you are looking for a creative deckbuilding challenge!

Types of Color Cropping

Activated Abilities: This is for commanders that have a certain colored cost and an additional activated ability that costs different or additional colors.

Najeela, as discussed, is the first one that came to mind for me. I wasn’t the only one to think of her as a Boros commander, check out 7xprototype‘s list here!

Another example: Golos, Tireless Pilgrim. Perhaps the easiest to imagine, Golos is perfect for Color Cropping because he himself is colorless, but his activated ability is all five colors, giving him a color identity of all five colors. This allows you to configure your mana base however you would like it: maybe the land base is all five colors but it only uses and spells, or both are just , and and you have to find other ways to activate that ability.

Golos, Tireless Pilgrim is where my story picks back up. For a while, I sat on this idea, content with my Najeela deck but had no intention of building another, until I listened to this episode of the Legendary Creature Podcast, where they showed off a very clever (Abzan) enchantment deck headed by Golos.

Made by archidekt user Ajani’s Gay Pridemate (which is, by the way, objectively the best username ever), Black Lives Matter (and enchantments) is the perfect example of a “Color Cropped” EDH deck. Ajani made it because he wanted an Abzan enchantment commander, but there was none to be found! So instead, he made his own out of the flexible 5-color Golos. Ajani’s deck doesn’t go out of its way to make sure he gets those five colors for the activated ability. There are no basic Mountains or Islands and only a few cards that give any color. It’s more of a secondary concern, whereas in my deck, I go out of my way to make activating Najeela’s ability extra difficult through False Dawn and the like.

After seeing this deck, I had my eye out for another Color Cropped commander, but I wasn’t expecting to find or develop different types of Color Cropping, but that’s exactly what happened.

Hybrid Mana: This is for commanders that have a hybrid mana cost, a hybrid alternative casting cost, or hybrid activated abilities, like Alesha, Who Smiles at Death. Now Alesha is , but has an activated ability of . That means you can simply choose to pay or and never bother with the other color, which is what my friend Bmbowdish did here, with a Boros Alesha deck. Why all the Boros? Again, this is back in the pre-feather era where Boros was doing way worse than it is now in the commander department. The point these decks were making was that Boros really just needed some good card-advantage on the commander to become way better.

What else can we do with Hybrid Mana? Well, sometimes commanders have hybrid alternative casting costs, like Vadrok, Apex of Thunder. The cost of Vadrok’s alternative casting cost is , meaning: even though his normal casting cost is (Jeskai), one could ignore and make an Izzet deck like my friend Daedalus19876 did here, or ignore and make a Boros version like I did here. You thought we were done with Boros eh? Think again! Also, note how I sorta cheat with Lore Drakkis.

The last and simplest way to deal with hybrid mana is with the normal casting cost. I have this last because I came to this realization last, but I was looking at all the new Companions from Ikoria and realized, hey! These all have hybrid mana costs! From there, it was just choosing what one I wanted to Color Crop. I went with Lurrus of the Dream-Den.

Soft Kitty, Warm Kitty... | Mono-White Lurrus

Commander / EDH Suns_Champion

SCORE: 36 | 21 COMMENTS | 2569 VIEWS | IN 5 FOLDERS

So Lurrus is of course , but similar to Boros back in the day, I wanted to prove that Mono-, which struggles in many areas of EDH, has what it takes to compete if it just got some powerful legends. I also really wanted a Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle deck that had a unique spin, so this deck solved multiple desires at once!

My Lurrus deck was in part inspired by another of Color Cropped deck of Ajani’s Gay Pridemate, which brings me to the final form of Color Cropping.

Landbase: I failed to find a catchy word to sum this version up, but this is for taking a multicolored commander, leaving the mana base relatively the same so you can easily cast them, but ignoring whatever colors you want for your non-land cards to get the Color Cropped effect.

In the case of Ajani’s deck, ironically named Simic Value!, he took Chulane, Teller of Tales and made him mono-, while keeping the mana base all 3 colors (but with a slant). Of all the types of Color Cropping, this is perhaps the most unique and most broadly applicable. Under this strategy, you can take any multicolor commander and Color Crop them. No need for a hybrid mana cost, activated ability, or alternative casting cost. You just build the land base normal and ignore the colors you don’t like.

And yes, if you were wondering, Chulane is still broken as just mono-.

So there you have it! Color Cropping: A new way to create an instantly unique version of many tried and true commanders, or even power down some absolutely bonkers commanders like Golos and Chulane. Color Cropping is the perfect way to make your deck stand out while also challenging the deckbuilder, and I’ll probably make more in the future!

I think the biggest takeaway for me personally, was that I learned to appreciate those busted, value-based commanders that I didn't like before. Chulane would normally make me roll my eyes, but hearing that it’s mono-? Now I’m interested.

So what commanders are you interested in Color Cropping? Maybe a mono- Korvold, Fae-Cursed King? A (Esper) Kenrith, the Returned King? A (Gruul) The Ur-Dragon? Or perhaps a (Simic) Yasova Dragonclaw? The possibilities are almost endless! Let me know in the comments below!

Until next time!

For the legion!

Suns_Champion