Fairly sure devoid was a mana cost nerf while keeping eldrazi colorless. Slows down eldrazi into needing specific mana rather than "oh boy I have 20 colorless mana! Time to drop eldrazis without concern for a color!" From older sets

@Joker22593

2 ай бұрын

You're misunderstanding what Devoid is. Devoid is Not the new mana symbol. The new mana symbol can be paid for with any colorless mana, not just mana from wastes. Devoid means "This card is colorless". That's it. It has nothing to do with mana cost, other than overriding the card's color.

@demonkingt

2 ай бұрын

@@Joker22593 quote any where the words "new mana symbol" was used. Devoid gave eldrazi color while being colorless to slow down eldrazis from being pure generic/colorless mana. No where in there is anything about new mana. Maybe learn to read things properly before going off on weirdly made up info

@Mischievous_Moth

2 ай бұрын

@@Joker22593I think you might have either misread the comment or accidentally replied to the wrong one, friend.

@alexholker1309

2 ай бұрын

@@Joker22593 Literally, yes, Devoid makes a card colourless. But Devoid is not why these cards are colourless - all Eldrazi were already colourless, and were always going to continue being colourless. Devoid is why these cards have coloured mana requirements, despite coloured mana requirements not being a new mechanic.

I wouldn't say devoid was a failure, it was a flavor win and works for the creatures it was made for. Who have not come back yet.

@Weckacore

2 ай бұрын

Gavin who made the devoid mechanic also says it wasnt good enough.

@wandererfromblindeternitie9748

2 ай бұрын

hopefully it will return in the coming WUBRG eldrazi commander deck

@AngelusNielson

2 ай бұрын

@@Weckacore And therefore he's always right? The guy was responsible for Oko as well, was he not?

@nichan008

2 ай бұрын

@@AngelusNielson If the person that designed it says it was a failure, then their design failed to meet their goals regardless if a youtube commenter liked it. You can write a story that an audiences likes for all the wrong reasons, as you failed to communicate your intended message. That's still a failure for you, no matter how many other people like it. Try to understand the other party and realize there are multiple perspectives from which people are speaking rather than continuing to assume only you are right. You can easily both be right because you're not talking about the same aspect.

The point of Devoid was to stop Eldrazi from being a necessity in just about every deck. Because Eldrazi were colorless, they ran into the same problem that broken artifact decks did: you could overload them into ANY deck, no matter what color(s) it ran. So in the Alara Block, they introduced colored artifacts to make artifacts less universal, and in BFZ, they introduced colored Eldrazi for the same reason. The problem was, Eldrazi were supposed to EAT colors in the lore, so colored Eldrazi would have been a flavor fail even if it was necessary from a balance standpoint. Therefore, Devoid was a compromise of necessity.

@demonkingt

2 ай бұрын

Yea exactly. Seems odd this point wasn't addressed.

@aprinnyonbreak1290

2 ай бұрын

Yup It's a "bad" mechanic on purpose. It's a complicated drawback to colorless spells, by making them require specific mana but still be colorless

@Joker22593

2 ай бұрын

You're misunderstanding Devoid. Devoid is NOT the new mana symbol. Devoid only means "This Card is Colorless".

@sgjuxta

2 ай бұрын

Yea, I find it hard to consider a mechanic a "failure" when it accomplished the exact purpose WotC designed it for. They had a problem for BFZ block...they needed to print a LOT of Eldrazi cards, and they all needed to be colorless. 78 out of the 250 nonland cards in BFZ are colorless, that's about 1 in 3. Imagine trying to balance a limited format where 5 cards in every booster pack cost only generic mana and can be played in every deck...yea, sounds like a disaster waiting to happen for multiple reasons. So, they had two choices...either they don't print a lot of Eldrazi (defeating the entire lore purpose of the set), OR they essentially do what they did with devoid. Yes, most of the devoid cards were regular cards that happened to be colorless...that was the point. Now, could they have pushed a "colorless matters" theme a bit harder in the set? Absolutely, I think so, but that's less of an indictment of devoid, and more of a knock on the sets design not being the greatest.

@Mischievous_Moth

2 ай бұрын

@@Joker22593 Okay, nevermind my comment on @demonkingt's post, you just lack reading comprehension.

I wouldn’t say devoid is a failed mechanic. I wouldn’t be surprised if they experimented with that concept again with MH3 as we are technically getting 5 color eldrazi but also colorless. I wouldn’t be surprised if this means the deck and eldrazi as a whole in this set are loaded to the brim with Devoid cards

@Mischievous_Moth

2 ай бұрын

Honestly? I hope so. I really want to make a devoid themed commander deck, but the only available commander that really works for that at the moment is morophon.

@Blight-Knight9

2 ай бұрын

@@Mischievous_Moth what devoid does as a mechanic is that the card synergies with colorless stuff like mentioned mystic forge as even tho it has colors in its cost it’s still colorless because of devoid. Devoid cards also dodge spells such as all is dust because devoid makes them colorless.

@livedandletdie

2 ай бұрын

@@Mischievous_MothBiggest problem with Devoid in Commander is that the cards still have color identity so they're not purely colorless. They have color identity but no color, which means to play all of these devoid cards you'd still need a 5 color commander.

Honestly? I love devoid, but I just wish they'd given us a legendary 5 color devoid eldrazi so I could use that for my "colorless" eldrazi deck instead of morophon.

@chrisgebben2043

2 ай бұрын

Well.... You might want to look in the MH3 first look page and go to the bottom There's a 5-color Eldrazi precon coming

@BrassCandy

2 ай бұрын

Jodah 😈

@camoking3609

2 ай бұрын

Well your in luck

One interesting application: Color changing can be helpful in Voltron Commander for getting around protection effects. Case in point my Mutate Animar deck, able to get around a fair few pillow fort and toolbox defenses.

@TheUltimateRey

2 ай бұрын

This whole protection from colors in commander is the whole reason I use scuttlemutt! It’s a 3 mana colorless artifact creature scarecrow 2/2 and it taps for one mana of any color but it can also tap to change the color of a permanent! So useful for that and if you like to run removal that targets specific colors!

I'm glad more Eldrazi cost colorless specifically, so they can start giving them decent effects. I look forward to more cards in general costing colorless. Basically a sixth "color"

Okay this is officially just stretching the definition of "failed mechanics" to include things that were very clearly one offs and never going to return. Devoid wasn't supposed to be anything other than making them colorless in game while still letting them have colored mana symbols. Are we gonna call every one off mechanic a "failed mechanic"?

@chrisgebben2043

2 ай бұрын

Well technically as of modern horizons 3 There's clearly I high chance devoid is coming back especially since we're getting a 5-color Eldrazi precon

@macinnes800ad

2 ай бұрын

To be fair if you're familiar with his other channel TheDuelLogs, he does cover the most desperate stuff sometimes. Idk how familiar he is with magic. Even as someone who started playing long after devoid was added I wouldn't say it was a failed mechanic - it's barely a keyword. It's like certain 0-cost cards have text written on them to say they're a certain colour and devoid is pretty much the same. I'd also argue devoid was a hugely aesthetic thing to fit the eldrazi being aliens, and devoid cards got the funky border

@iamfat6164

2 ай бұрын

@@macinnes800ad if you look at his description it clearly says he's not the one who wrote the script (and most likely it has been seen by a few people else before us), but yes it makes no sense. Failed mechanics should be mechanics that were either too weak, too difficult to design around, or just generally bad ideas. Devoid clearly was none of these and nothing more than a set mechanic whose only purpose was flavor that was never gonna return. And yes I'm familiar with duel logs, I went wtf on the penguin video for wondering how the hell that qualifies as a failed archetype when the actual problem at hand is card pool

Funny thing is, Spiritmonger's creature type is neither Spirit nor Monger

My only issue with Devoid is how the Commander Rules Committee has handled it - if Sphinx of the Guildpact can only be played in a 5c deck, then Devoid should apply to color identity as well.

@Joker22593

2 ай бұрын

Colorless is not a color. There isn't a way to restrict devoid cards to certain commanders without breaking the game rules.

@AB-sw4kb

2 ай бұрын

If you and your friends are fine with it, who cares? I've been playing Magic for 11 years and commander for about 4 years and never once paid attention to anything the "rules committee" has ever said.

@franslair2199

2 ай бұрын

You don't understand the difference between colors and color identity. Devoid creatures have color identity of whatever manacosts but are colorless.

@nichan008

2 ай бұрын

@@franslair2199 Except OP is specifically pointing out that Sphinx of the Guildpact breaks this logic.

@franslair2199

2 ай бұрын

@@nichan008 sphinx of the guildpact's color identity is 5c

My Morophon/Eldrazi deck works entirely on devoid. It absolutely wrecks combined with cards like Spreading Plague and Mana Maze.

@pn6923

2 ай бұрын

Ui never seen those before but have the same commander deck as my favorite Edit my power pick is faces of the past as our tribal can decide when en Eldrazi dies

@chrisgebben2043

2 ай бұрын

Yep mine can absolutely stomp as well And it's just gonna become back breaking when MH3 comes out since it's inevitable devoid comes back in the set

Hoping that new eldrazi commander deck from modern horizons 3 will bring devoid back into the spotlight

@XYGamingRemedyG

2 ай бұрын

It doesn't, it's just colourless. Also it released last year.

@ZEDEX252

2 ай бұрын

@@XYGamingRemedyG not that one we're getting a new one in modern horizons 3

@evanmontgomery3062

2 ай бұрын

​@XYGamingRemedyG He means the modern horizons 3 Commander deck

@DerailedTrainofThought

2 ай бұрын

​@@XYGamingRemedyGI think they are talking about the modern horizons 3 commander deck that is also coming out soon.

@XYGamingRemedyG

2 ай бұрын

@@DerailedTrainofThought ohh, new NEW Eldrazi deck 👀 very cool, thanks.

Color changing is always something that needed support but would be too powerful if it got it, so it hangs around the fringe use which is fine. I didn't really like Devoid. It was something that is so narrow that it won't ever come back unless it was a very focused set. It did have a good flavor for that set.

Devoid was a control keyword. And if you wonder why the Old Zendikar Eldrazis were Colored, that's because they weren't true Eldrazi, they were twisted versions out of already existing creatures. Broodwarden, Emrakul's Hatcher, and the rest of the OG Zendikar brood, were just Eldrazi imitations of the actual fauna on Zendikar. Created from Ula, Kozi and Emrakul's influence twisting the very mana of the plane of Zendikar. The later on Eldrazi Drones, were not pale imitations, no they were proper eldrazis at this point, still twisted imitations but only retaining the mana from which they were twisted into being from. They are completely twisted creations. The true colorless beings in all of the Eldrazi sets are truly just created from the twisted realmspace mana and later on from already mana emptied regions aka wastes. And it's not weird because Ula, Kozi and Emeria all hail from the region between planes known as the Blind Eternities a region so strange, weird and dangerous that normally you can't survive it without the planeswalker spark.

I will say there are a few cards like Magical hack and Crystal Spray that I think are good examples of how Color changes effects can works as these can affect named colors but also color mana symbols too. As one who plays these and many of the other color change cards, these have been really effective at shutting down the ability of several powerful cards since you can change the color or mana symbol to something the opponent isn't playing which outside of secondary options like treasures, locks those ability down. It is limited due to the shallow card pool of these effects but effects like this can be game changers as much as any other card that can target something specific

Wizards could just print more protection from colors, Fear, etc. They don't want to, so color is pointless. The color pie has been broken by so many cards over the years, the fact that the only difference IS color is ironic considering the first fact.

New to the channel. Loving the content. Where are those background visuals from?

What I remember liking about devoid was how it theoretically got around Mother of Runes.

@williamdrum9899

2 ай бұрын

And Iona

I think you're forgetting how sick those card frames are for devoid creatures- worth it on it's own right there! :)

Devoid isn’t really a failure. It’s a lore based solution to a balancing and design problem. Making all the cheap Eldrazi only cost generic or colorless mana would mean that any of them could slot into any deck except colorless mana is a little harder to get. There’s also the fact that the different colors of Eldrazi do have the color pie of abilities themselves but with an Eldrazi twist in a couple cases. Green still ramps but instead of regular dorks or extra lands it deals with scions. Blue still has a lot of evasion but it’s more to get those ingest triggers to put cards in exile.

Devoid is fun because according to the rules they are always considered colorless. That being said, the new MH3 eldrazi commander makes it possible to have a five color deck that is TECHNICALLY a colorless deck as long as it's just devoid, colorless, and lands.

I find colour changing more helpful in commander when there’s lots of colours on the battlefield and someone having “protection from -colour-“ can make them really painful to play against *cough* animar

Would a 0-cost Distorting Lens with indestructible help? And fun fact: Eldrazi Displacer is the only W card with devoid. Poor W.

@AB-sw4kb

2 ай бұрын

The limited archetypes in that set didn't have white Eldrazi support. Eldrazi were UB, BR, and UR, with BG and GU being more mechanic (aristocrats and tempo) than typal (Eldrazi).

@kennydarmawan13

2 ай бұрын

@@AB-sw4kb I see. Still, it'd be nice to see Eldrazis that cost white mana.

@AB-sw4kb

2 ай бұрын

@@kennydarmawan13 yeah it feels in flavor

colorless matters affected land creatures too! battle for zendikar had a significant number of land creatures from the awaken mechanic. lands are colorless despite tapping for colored mana.

Sadly no mention of what I feel is the best color changing card, Eight-And-a-Half-Tails. Sure, it isn’t *every* color, but the effect at least synergizes with another of his abilities (giving a permanent ProWhite)

With all the impulse draw, adventure, fortell etc etc cards running around these days i just run a copy or two of some of the eldrazi processors in a few decks just for lols

I think the colourless spells did have one connection which could potentially be good: the fact that they exile cards, which a whole lot of eldrazi creatures and spells could combo great effects off of.

And now, you need to make the companion piece to this: the failure of _text-changing_ effects, which usually involved color.

Blind Seer + Spreading Plague + Cavern Harpy + Shifting Sky Fun way to lockdown. Play Cavern Harpy as an instant for a repeatable Wrath of God. White has useful cards like Teferi's Moat and most cards came from the Invasion Block. Was it good? No.

Couldn't stop thinking about Gozen Match throughout this entire video. I'm surprised color locking hasn't ever become a thing in Magic or else you could just Enchant the first monster your opponent dropped to lock them out of the game

Devoid needs work. It needs a little more design put into. Example. Aether Lighting R1 Deviod Deal 2 damage to any creature or player. Deal an additional 1 damage for each color that creature or player is. Technically the color check on players should only return value if they are under the effects of an enchantment like Form of Dragon/Dinosaur. So 2 mana shock on colorless, but up to 7 possibly damage. That might work in a future set.

I think the point of devoid was to impose the cost of needing to use colored mana and not just generic mana like normal colorless cards did. Of course, this issue was better solved by differentiating colorless mana from generic mana, which they quickly did.

devoid would be an deciduous mechanic if it was ruled that it removes colour identity allowing devoid cards to be played in any commander deck

all i really want is devoid to be used on some new eldrazi and the ruling changed to that it effects color identity. i just want to be able to make janky decks with out of color spells for weird niche gameplay

Darkest Hour also is pretty good and has it's own combos, albeit mostly in EDH.

Does Devoid override the ability of Painter's Servant?

@eldercleric

2 ай бұрын

This is a good question for a judge as it goes into layers. But guessing it will be a color since it effects it after it started. But im unsure

@williamdrum9899

2 ай бұрын

I doubt it.

@brianmartodam1114

2 ай бұрын

Painter's Servant beats Devoid. Characteristic-defining abilities like Devoid are always applied first, so other effects like Painter’s Servant will apply on top of them.

imo i tend to find a lot of gimmicky decks don't work out well in most TCGs unless they have a bonus effect on top of there main gimmick that's suitably sufficient, or else it never see's much play, if to doesn't help advance the game state while providing other utilities or is built in a way that's too convoluted, that doesn't help ether. shame about color changing really.

Devoid and color changing has a unique advantage against Protection, since most common sources of Protection protect from a *color*. But Protection is not common enough to justify running color changing just to counter it.

The only thing I hate about Devoid is how it works with color identity. Or rather, how it doesn't. You can't exile a "green" card with Devoid for something like Force of Vigor because it's colorless. And yet it still counts as green in it's mana identity for things like what commander deck you can put them in. As a mechanic, it just... doesn't work with any sort of rules. "I wanna put Abstruse Interference in my Red/Black Treasures Deck! But I can't because it somehow both is and isn't Blue."

Sleight of Mind can be really powerful!

Devoid wasn’t a gameplay mechanic as much as it’s a flavour mechanic. And having coloured eldrazi before this set doesn’t invalidate that argument.

@macinnes800ad

2 ай бұрын

Exactly! It's not like all cards that had devoid had their mechanics built around the 1-word keyword is it, they didn't get added or reduced mana cost for it. It was just so theyd get that funky border and synergise with other eldrazi

Devoid feels more synonymous to changeling.

I wouldn’t say color changing is a failed mechanic; for one magic doesn’t care about the color pie like it did. But in general you can build a jank deck with color hate and then just change your opponent’s spells to that color. That aside there are a few color changing effects that are insanely powerful. If your opponent is not running black or colorless then something like contamination or infernal darkness will just win you the game.

i always thought devoid was done to nerf eldrazi and make them less flexible, and as a flavor mechanic

Devoid was a marker for the tribe more than it was a mechanic.

Replacing the colorless matters with eldrazi matters in bfz would make the cards incredibly parasitic. Eldrazi are rare and don't show up often.

Amazing 🎉🎉🎉

5:00 is just describing contemporary magic and his bomby mythics

9:00 "...even if it *has colored mana in the casting cost*"

In my opinion youre viewing it from a very Yu-Gi-Oh oriented perspective. In magic the game is and still is a game about flavour being at the forefront of cards. The eldrazi were supposed to be the biggest threat in world that we had ever explored, printing them on normal cards wouldnt feel right. Youre going from the Yu-Gi-Oh perspective that every word on a card has to matter for it to be good, but like if Im just splashing Eldrazi cards with devoid, it doesnt really matter if that keyword does or doesnt synergise with the rest of my deck

But "Devoid" was only there for flavour???

I think MTG needs expanding colors. Eldrazi needs purple color, Artifact needs brown color.

i think devoid would have been fine had they just made all the cards around it just care about colourless cards it would have made them feel different and weird without being to much

Devoid did something. It destroyed the Eldrazi.

Devoid is great for Ancient Stirrings. Unfortunately, almost nothing with devoid is worth grabbing.

@Joker22593

2 ай бұрын

Also, the first devoid card and the first card with Ugin is "Ghostfire", a card from the future.

@Hanmacx

2 ай бұрын

For more obscure, look at Ghostly Flame 😅

People saying that Devoid achieving its lore purpose and being relevant in its original Standard disqualifying from a place on lists like this need to realize that isn't the criteria used by Logs' team in their 'Failed' mega-cycle of videos. By that definition both Shadow and Arcane would be considered successful mechanics.

@kait3n

2 ай бұрын

it still isn't a failed mechanic, shadow was succeeded by fear and later menace, arcane is an irrelevant spell subtype that doesn't interact with anything and will never be used in a standard set again. Devoid is neither of those and never failed because it served it's purpose in both gameplay and lore and will definitely appear again if eldrazi return in standard. these things are not the same.

4:45 pyaoff lol

Transguild promenade be like: ?????

To bad devoid failed. It looked so interesting

Well it's definitely not a failed mechanic I'm like 99% sure it's coming back in MH3

I disagree with the framework of treating every individual card that changes color as its own isolated interaction. For instance, Sylvan Anthem plus a color-changing effect like Painter's Servant isn't "Two cards to buff one card." It's two cards to buff every card you summon, plus draw you an extra card per summon, plus whatever other synergies you can build around that. It's not like you're discarding the Anthem after you summon a single creature.

@williamdrum9899

2 ай бұрын

Or you could just play all green creatures and get the bonus without needing Painter's Servant in the first place. Using two cards for an effect is so much worse than one. This is why multiple cards working together are allowed to be far, far more than the sum of their parts.

@Merlewhitefire

2 ай бұрын

@@williamdrum9899 I didn't say anything about how good or bad it was, I said that they weren't single-use cards so I didn't agree with evaluating them as if they were.

Color changing, a MTG mechanic most enjoyed by Rachel Dolezal

Another unintended downside of Devoid is in Commander. It locks out a LARGE chunk of the eldrazi tribe from eldrazi decks, because Devoid dosent change the color identity and pretty much every eldrazi deck is colorless...... Also for added frustration Sphinx of the Guildpact has pretty much the inverse of Devoid, and it's identity was ruled to be 5c.......

Devoid isn’t pointless Even if only for building commander decks

Distorting Lens and Spinal Villain is a workable combo.

Devoid is the best mechanic

Hard disagree. Devoid stopped Eldrazi from being in every deck. Eldrazi has always been too good.

Watch, mh3 will change that

ah yes, color changing... something something "Eight-and-a-Half-Tails"-comment

first?

Leave my devoid alone you handsome faceless voice