Failed MtG Mechanics - Color Changing and Devoid 

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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"?

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.

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"

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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)

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.

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

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.

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."

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Sleight of Mind can be really powerful!

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

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

Devoid feels more synonymous to changeling.

Amazing 🎉🎉🎉

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

Does Devoid override the ability of Painter's Servant?

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.......

4:45 pyaoff lol

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

Devoid did something. It destroyed the Eldrazi.

Color changing, a MTG mechanic most enjoyed by Rachel Dolezal

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

To bad devoid failed. It looked so interesting

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.

Transguild promenade be like: ?????

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

Devoid is the best mechanic

Distorting Lens and Spinal Villain is a workable combo.

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

Watch, mh3 will change that

Leave my devoid alone you handsome faceless voice

first?