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Hope of Ghirapur has no assigned color, but I want to use it as a general. Can I use cards that are colorless that require Wastes in the deck, for example Deceiver of Form?

steenbergh
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user20128
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    Note that you don't need Wastes to fulfill the colorless requirement of mana costs - any card that generates colorless mana (such as [mtg:Sol Ring]) will do that. – TheThirdMan Mar 19 '17 at 09:32

1 Answers1

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Quoting from the Commander rules:

Cards in a deck may not have any colours in their color identity which are not shared with the commander of the deck. (The identity of each card in the deck must be a subset of the Commander's)

Colorless isn't a color, and since Deceiver of Form doesn't have any additional color symbols in its rules text, you are allowed to play it.

Examples of cards you're not allowed to play in a deck with a colorless color identity Commander:

  • Culling Drone (black color identity because of its mana cost, regardless of Devoid)
  • Boros Signet (red and white color identity because of mana symbols in the rules text)
  • Elbrus, the Binding Blade (black color identity because of its color indicator on the back face)

You also won't be able to use any lands with a basic land type, such as a Swamp, due to this rule:

Lands whose type includes swamp, island, plains, forest and/or mountain (basic lands, shocklands, dual lands, Shadowmoor special-basics, etc) also have the corresponding color identity. (...)

TheThirdMan
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    Dryad Arbor also has mana symbols in its rules text, via the standard Forest ability of "{T}: Add {G} to your mana pool." – doppelgreener Mar 18 '17 at 13:34
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    The standard basic land abilities are not part of the rules text. They are abilities granted by the rules to cards with specific types. It does not directly affect color identity, and there is an extra rule in commander to restrict what decks you can play which basic lands in (903.5d). However, because of this, there are actually two different reasons you can't play Dryad Arbor in a colorless deck. A better example might be Transguild Courier. – murgatroid99 Mar 18 '17 at 15:54
  • @murgatroid99: The reason I chose not to use that card is because the color indicator isn't shown on the printed card, as it's only granted by errata. I tried to avoid possible confusion with mentions of other color words in rules text, such as Pyromancer's Gauntlet, which may be included in any deck. Also, now that I edited the post, I find that Dryad Arbor works as a nice double-example, seeing as I originally hadn't thought to mention basic lands, which of course can't be played in a colorless deck. – TheThirdMan Mar 18 '17 at 23:47
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    In that case, another good example might be Elbrus, the Binding Blade, which has a color indicator on the back side, so the double-faced card rule and the color indicator rule both apply. Also, it's not really accurate to say that there is a "green mana symbol granted by the Forest land type". There is simply a special rule stating that you cannot play lands with basic land types except in decks with the corresponding color identity. – murgatroid99 Mar 18 '17 at 23:52
  • Oh, yeah. I did some checking on it -- Forest doesn't have any rules text (beyond a "G"?), and Dryad Arbor only has a {G} symbol mentioned in its reminder text which means that at least doesn't affect color identity. Apparently it's an "intrinsic ability". Thanks @murgatroid99 for pointing that out. – doppelgreener Mar 19 '17 at 11:58
  • What's with the "G" in Forest's oracle wording? – GendoIkari Mar 19 '17 at 14:19
  • It represents the large mana symbol. For example, Mountain has an R. Strictly speaking Dryad Arbor should also have that given its FTV printing, but it's not in the oracle text. – eyeballfrog Mar 20 '17 at 06:27
  • @eyeballfrog That's interesting; I always thought that the symbol on newer basic lands was just part of the artwork; never considered it text. Seems strange to consider it rules text, because it doesn't mean anything at all. The ability {G} is meaningless and weird. – GendoIkari Mar 20 '17 at 14:07
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    According to Gatherer, it's not even "{G}". It's just the letter "G". – murgatroid99 Mar 24 '17 at 15:14
  • @GendoIkari that's because you are correct, it isn't rules text, basic land cards have no text at all, it's more like the watermarks that have been on the text boxes of some cards. Except for Wastes because of the (IMHO terrible) way they bodged it into the game. – Andrew Nov 17 '20 at 15:00