The Evolution of Magic’s Rules and Flavor 
SEPTEMBER 14, 2015 COMMANDER BANNED LIST UPDATE
BANNED LIST
No changes
RULES UPDATES
Everybody buckle up, we’re tweaking how the rules for color identity work!
With the upcoming introduction of the devoid mechanic in Battle For Zendikar, we’ve had a lot of questions about what this will mean for the deck construction rules. Since devoid cards have the colorless color identity, they can only be played if your general also has the colorless identity. It’s as simple as that. Note that the restriction on mana symbols still applies.
There are three major points in how we arrived at this decision. None of them were individually enough to convince us, but together they managed to tip the scales. In alphabetical order:
A) After the controversy over hybrid mana costs, we needed to ensure that players around the world have a consistent play experience. Whatever ruling we would eventually make, we knew it would be important to decide before players had an opportunity to provide their own input.
B) The heart and soul of EDH is the flavor inherent in your deck. Your awesome general being restricted to only commanding cards of his or her (or its) color just makes sense to us. Similarly, restricting devoid cards to only colorless commanders feels like the most “right” decision. You wouldn’t see Nicol Bolas using eldrazi drones to do his bidding anyway.
C) This cleans up some corner case rules that confused players. We will be applying this rules change to previous cards with characteristic setting abilities like Ghostfire, Transguild Courier, and Kobolds of Kher Keep. Not only does this clarify the rules by explicitly listing all of the exceptions, we feel like it will have a positive impact on the power level of the format as a whole.
