This week there was a massive drop of information from the Commander Format Panel. If you haven't read it, and you care about Commander, I highly recommend you read the post in its entirety. They covered a number of topics, and we here at CSI (and Commander content creators from all over the world) will surely weigh in on every single aspect of it. I'd like to focus on one very small piece, the last thing discussed before the wrap up: Hybrid mana.

A quick disclaimer - I am generally happy with the Commander Format Panel. I know there are a lot of frustrated voices around this governing body, and there are strong arguments to keeping Wizards' claws out of what has been, for most of its life, a community-run format. But they're doing it with humility and care, they are asking a lot of questions, and they are offering as much opportunity as possible to get feedback. (Now, if they would just ask me to join...) Give them a chance, and if you haven't tried it yet, really engage with the bracket system. It can actually save some headaches if you work with it.

Now, let's talk about hybrid mana and my thoughts on its place in Commander.

What is Hybrid Mana?

Hybrid mana is any specific pip which can be paid with more than one color of mana. There are basically two ways this has been represented:

The first is what's on Kitchen Finks - two colors, one on either side of the pip. That means "you can pay this with either or ." So, the Finks can be played with , , or .

The second is on Beseech the Queen, where it has one color on one side of the pip and a on the other. That means "you can pay this with either or ". So Beseech the Queen can be played with , , , or .

I suppose it's worth mentioning Ulalek, Fused Atrocity here, because it's the other version: colorless and a color. The colorless symbol means it has to be paid with specifically Colorless mana, not just any old mana like on Beseech the Queen.

When hybrid mana first debuted way back in Ravnica, I assume it was both to represent the various guilds and to smooth out challenges in draft, which was as popular back then as it is now, if not more so. A Golgari () card with a hybrid mana pip could be played in a Simic () deck or a Rakdos () deck without having to splash into a third color, which drastically increased the card pool for deck construction with a limited pool. And it did represent the Guilds - if you saw something with a hybrid symbol, you knew it was Azorius.

It came back with a vengeance in Shadowmoor, to the point Mark Rosewater himself admitted it overused Hybrid mana. Since then, it's used from time to time, and is considered deciduous.

According to the article this week, modern Magic cards with a hybrid symbol are cards which could reasonably be printed in either color - so a card like Gallant Citizen would make sense as a card, a card, or a card.

Why Does this Matter?

Because as long as Commander has been a thing, it has treated hybrid mana anywhere on the card (there's one weird exception to this with Extort, because the mana symbol is used in the rules text, but the rules text isn't considered part of the card so you can run Extort cards in Commander decks that have just White or Black, not both, if you want) as being both colors, and therefore only legal in decks led by Commanders containing both colors.

The case for change suggests that because the card was designed to be played in decks of one or the other as well as both colors, hybrid mana (for the purpose only of deck-building) can be treated one color or the other, so Kitchen Finks and Gallant Citizen can both go in your Elesh Norn deck. A card with two-brid mana (like Beseech the Queen) would be playable in any color combination, just without it will always cost . It's worth noting the change would only affect casting cost; if a hybrid mana symbol or a color different from the Commander's identity appears in the text box, it's ineligible. (The example Gavin gives is Deathrite Shaman.)

I fall firmly in the "I'm opposed to this change" camp.

It causes confusion. It's one more color challenge to track, and explaining the Extort exception is complicated enough. Imagine trying to explain to someone that yes, that Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest could go in their Talrand, Sky Summoner deck, except there's a hybrid mana symbol in the text box too, and that means it can't go in your deck.

Commander is ultimately a deck about constraints. In terms of restrictions, few formats have such rigorous requirements. We are locked to a precise amount of cards. We are severely limited in color selection for our decks. And we can only play one of any given card.

Part of that color selection part is because the challenge is what makes the format interesting. Maybe I want a ton of cheap, 1-Power creatures with cantrips in my Mono-Green deck, and Gallant Citizen looks pretty great. But Commander claps back. "No, friend. Time to get creative. The easy solution will not be yours today." The restrictions are what force us to stretch, try new things, and describe ourselves in cardboard. We don't care about your intent, we care about what makes our format great.

And that dovetails nicely with the last point. Commander isn't theirs. It's ours. We started it, we joined it, we developed it and play-tested it and made friends and massive plays and hilarious stories and became part of the story, and we used your thing to do it but we did it our own way. We didn't need your help, and we'd be fine without you.

Not that we're unhappy you're at the party. We love you guys. We appreciate all you do for us. We want you to stay and have a strong voice at the table.

But your intent will never be a reason for us to change our version of your game. We don't care that you intended Gallant Citizen to be in either a Green or a White deck - we care that it offers a challenge to us. We don't want barriers knocked down, we want them Constructed. We want to look at them and figure out 15 ways through, even though we have so many restrictions. It's what makes this format so great, and we don't want your intentions to take that away.

At least, I don't. To all my friends at Wizards of the Coast: Mark Wischkaemper, Commander player since 2008, formally requests no change to the rules regarding hybrid-mana cards for the above reasons. Thanks for all you do.

Here's Your Call to Action

Gavin wants to hear your thoughts, and if you care, it's important they be heard. He specifically linked to the Official Magic Discord, though I don't see a direct way to offer anything there. But comment somewhere. Post on social media. Let them know what you think about all the issues brought up. Does Rhystic Study deserve the ban hammer? Let them know.

I'm particularly interested in hearing your thoughts on this issue. If I get a few thoughtful responses, I'd publish them in a future article so they land on the radar of the Format Panel. Probably the best way is via CoolStuffInc's Instagram; I'm going to ask my colleagues to watch for responses to this and direct them to me.

Thanks for reading.