Commander Supplement Update

I've been working on the product and trying to resolve some of the issues. First things first, I'm going to post the current state of the cards I've already shown.
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 I don't think that actual affinity is going to show up in Ein'Sof's deck, but if it does Binah is going to be rewritten as affinity for lands.

 Chohkmah was changed. It now does all the tutoring itself. That way you can block him and stop the effect. I'm still not happy with this one.
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Da'at being a tap ability felt weird since giving him haste was worthless. I rewrote him like this but if tap abilities become a focus of that deck then he can be rewritten easily.
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I am not overly happy with Netzach. I like the overall flavor, but the on-hit trigger could use some adjustment. I just haven't found anything that I like better for the idea of, "At what price glory?"

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Tiferet is probably going to lose the activated ability. The trigger has proven more powerful than I originally thought it would be.

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Hod got reworded to a weaker version. I couldn't use the intended wording of "Hod has all abilities of creatures on the battlefield." The game can't reconcile multiple p/t setting abilities, which is why he had the initial wording. It proved too confusing since p/t setting abilities are an odd bunch overall.
This version is still very strong and has a lot of build around potential.

Zadkiel is the most changed. I was inspired by a dark reflection of Trostani. The only real thorn in my side with this current version is that he reconverts the tokens into life after they die. I think the proactive nature of the current wording is better than relying on killing opposing creatures. I might be wrong though, and he should be reworded as Grim Feast.
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  After some time, I realized that the idea to include some number of cards in the sideboard and have only 1 four color card per deck was not the correct direction.

1 - Its unintuitive. Players, especially new players, would be confused by this decision. Even though the sideboard would make it easier to scope down to a smaller configuration, it would still require some amount of work.
2- Its a waste of potential. According to Maro, 4 color doesn't have enough room to be a whole set on its own. That was the initial impetus to do 4 color commanders. What that implies, which is what I neglected, is that 4 color is something they will only do once. So if I'm doing 4 colors, I should do 4 colors.
3 - It makes the task of designing the decks and cards significantly harder. Breaking the decks up by color that way pushes away from having three color cards, or even two color cards that aren't the center color pair. This was the last straw, as the decks obviously want to spread out color wise.

Once I made the decision to have another set of 4 color commanders, the question became, how many legends did I want to make? Previous iterations of the commander product have had 1 primary legend, one alternate of the same colors, and one minor legend, such as Basandra and company. I really liked the idea of having 1 shard legend and 1 clan legend. Especially since three color as a theme likely isn't going to happen again for a long time. If the decks feel too busy later on and I want more slots, then I'm likely going to have to cull either the shard legends or the clan legends.

Resolved to make another five 4 color legends, I realized that one of the tried and true ways of formulating a cycle is the iconics. Magic's iconic creatures exist primarily to be used as figureheads. To lean on when making big splashy creatures. It seemed a natural fit. The allied pairs are best for this, since these are more nonX cards. Nonwhite feels like it wants to be centered on B/R as a pairing. The previous cycle wasn't design with this in mind since at the time I wasn't planing on having more than a single four color card per deck. As such, Gevurah, Tiferet, and Uriel are a unit and are centered more on U/B. Pushing more toward the centered allied pair feels more correct for the new cycle, and might cause further changes down the road.
The problem is that since the new commander cards are iconics in four colors, there will have to be some overlap between them on potential creature type. I drew out a map of the possible options based on the allied color pairs:

B/R - Dragon/Demon
R/G - Hydra/Dragon
G/W - Angel/Hydra
W/U - Sphinx/Angel
U/B - Demon/Sphinx

Those are the two possible options if I hold to the allied pairings. I felt that was important since it preserves a sense of the color pairs nature. B/R's shared enemy is White, so it makes sense that the nonwhite card be a demon or a dragon. Its worth noting that both the demon and the dragon would include black and red in its mana cost, but also that whichever one wasn't chosen as the nonwhite card would be white. This means that there would be a demon or dragon that is partially White. I think that's an acceptable cost for the cycle. I chose to use the first set of pairings. I am not adverse to changing them later, but I liked this set.

Also of importance to me while making these cards was that they be very concrete. The Angelarium art lent itself to the abstract. I like value oriented engine generals and the first five 4 color commanders were very much in that vein. Where those cards are abstract and esoteric, these cards would be almost physical. They should have combat keywords and put the opponent under threat of death.

When looking over the history of aggressive cards in blue, it struck me that Psychotog's abilities were a great fit for a Dragon. Its essentially Firebreathing by using your graveyard. I didn't like the idea of pumping toughness though since that isn't the flavor of Firebreathing on a Dragon. The discard ability also fed Gevurah. It was originally a +1/+1 counter. I wanted to have a greenish feel to the card, and a +1/+1 counter for pump helped that. Over time, I realized that it only made sense as a +1/+1 counter it was on him personally, a la Lotleth Troll. The current ability feels much more aligned with a breath weapon. A corrosive, acidic presence on those he flies over. Mechanically, it resets our Undying creatures while functioning as a discard outlet and removal that's dependent on hand size.

I like Krometh the most of all these cards. It feels the most complete. The only thing I would consider changing is the keyword it grants. I choose Menace because it plays well with the power pump, and it pushes the card to be more toward Black. I'm not going for total color coverage, but if I can help  represent some of the inherently weaker colored aspects I'd like to. While on the surface Krometh doesn't seem to fit Hesed's deck, the fact that it's an X spell makes all the difference. Hesed is about accruing lands. Krometh rewards a high man count. Hesed wants to be aggressive. Krometh rewards aggression. The two cards dovetail while not appearing to be related.

The first thing that's getting changed about Ilikris is her name. Beyond that, she feels pretty strong. Complex but simple. You want to have enough spells to feed her, but enough token making that her trigger is worthwhile. Ein'Sof is about permanent accrual. It makes tons of permanents and tokens. Ilikris fits into that mold nicely, but also rewards you for playing spells. This feels like the most concrete theme of the decks. Red keeps getting cards like Flameshadow Conjuring, so having qualitative tokens to copy in Red and Blue is going to be an interesting directions to build towards.

Wold is a riff on Drogskol Reaver. I have always loved that card and wished it had been a legendary. It also felt like a solid place to land on the nonred card since both green and black appreciate lifegain to various degrees. I will say that he and Keter currently fightt each other a bit over creatures in the graveyard. They both need to eat those creatures for their effects. I don't think its too much of a problem, since its what you would refer to as a good problem to have. Wold provides the life for Keter to get creatures back and a huge card advantage train runs right over your opponents. Due to Wold drawing a card on trigger, there isn't much lost there in any case. 

                                            
Melkoth was the most difficult of my designs. The other creatures in this deck wanted to care about creatures. Melkoth wanted to care about reanimation and attacking for the sake of the other 3 color generals. Its very similar to Yore-Tiller, but honestly that's fine by me. While the other Nephilim were notable only by their lack of a Legendary supertype, Yore-Tiller was the real deal. Another card that fell flat to me was Atheros. I didn't get why it was your opponent that was paying the ferryman. So, Melkoth was born. He takes the dead on a journey to the afterlife, and takes his toll. As a Demon he shares a part in all deals. I initially wanted the growth ability to be an instead, and Melkoth would deal damage by milling. Unfortunately, while "instead of gaining life" would be fine...."instead of losing life," causes all manor of issues with the rules. I like the current execution, but it does feel somewhat awkward that the nongreen creature grows. It also lacks any combat abilities, but that's mostly because it is going to be super enormous almost instantly in a game of EDH.

The previous EDH products all had a political mechanic of some kind. The Tempt cycle and the Offering cycle rewarded the multiplayer nature of EDH. I decided to use the 4 color nature of the set and tie it to the political cards. I present - Mandate.

The actual text is going to be all development. In general, I wanted there to be two proactive options and two answers on each card. In addition, the answers are things like, "Target player sacrifices a creature." That way, it requires cooperation to solve problems that the table is having. Casting these should be an event that forms or splits alliances.

With multicolor being such an important aspect of the product, its going to be important to have a set of cards to smooth out color issues. Since there are about 60 new cards, cards like Command Tower get put into each deck. These three cards are going to be in the vein of Command Tower and appear in all five decks.

The names are clearly not final. These colorless fixing options should help alleviate mana problems since I am now dedicated to 4 color as the theme.
60 - 20 Legends = 40
40 - 5 Mandates = 35
35 - 3 = 32

32 cards is quite a bit left to fill. There probably isn't enough room for anymore 4 color cards, but there's certainly enough room for some more three color cards. The themes are starting to become clearer as well. I'm probably going to do a series of brainstorming articles on the themes of each deck and potential new cards to but into them.

Cheers!