See Colorless Spells: Their role, as well as Scour from Existence/Universal Solvent/Unstable Obelisk/Spine of Ish Sah etc, and of course Vindicate/Utter End/Necrotic Sliver/Ashen Rider etc.

Is this acceptable? gets to do this. Colourless gets to do this for 7 mana. I stated over at Colorless Spells: Their role that green definitely shouldn't get to do this, and this would be a pie-break at .

More precisely, I believe this would be clearly fine at ; and clearly fine at . Is it fine at ? Because the thing is, the card is still white-black even if you're using it in a mono-white or mono-black deck and paying or for it. Green can play Flame Javelin and Beseech the Queen for 6 mana, and Scour from Existence for seven. (Also remember the colours can use their own tools to get access to off-colour effects. Black can discard a Ashen Rider then reanimate it; white can discard a Necrotic Sliver then reanimate it.)

What do others think?

The reason this seems alright at the given cost but not at is that a colored mana symbol will indicate a card as belonging to that color even if that mana symbol does not need to be paid. This is also how Norn's Annex(which doesn't try to emulate a green effect or it would cost ) and co. should work.

An issue with phyrexian mana was that there was a blatant disregard for the balance. While monocolored hybrid mana gets cheaper when paid colored, phyrexian mana works the other way around and spells including it must be priced as colorless spells with a life loss which can be "paid off".

As long as each cost that is not working in-pie costs at least as much as the colorless version the monocolor hybrid mana costs on spells like this are justified.

I sure would like monocolor hybrid to use a separate frame though to drive home its special position regarding those situations.

There is probably a whole separate discussion to be had regarding the difference between a spell with multiple moncolor hybrid mana of the same color or different colors in its cost.

Good question. I mostly agree with your stance on colorless pie. My first reaction was that this card was fine. If it works according to the colour pie, I'm fond of playing in unusual spaces like twobrid.

But on reflection, I'm not sure this specific spell works.

My rule of thumb for how wizards choose mana for a spell is that there's two requirements. (a) color pie mechanics, "destroy target enchantment" can't cost or because it allows black to destroy enchantments for which it shouldn't be able to do. (b) color pie philosophy. "counter target spell" isn't green, and it would be wrong to print it even at , which isn't too strong, it's the wrong color.

(I'm not sure what I mean by "the color". It's partly what color you need to cast it, partly what color it looks like you need to cast it, and partly the color identity)

So usually dual color spells are doing something from both colours, or doing something either colour can do more cheaply than either could alone. In that case, replacing a coloured mana with a hybrid is usually fine in both senses (assuming the spell isn't too strong).

But in this case, it's doing something from one colour or the other. The balance may be about right, but it's not right that black gets a discount on destroying an enchantment when green doesn't.

Now you can push the boundary a bit if it looks right. I think there's a very slightly larger latitude allowed to hybrid spells than mono colour spells even though in theory there shouldn't be. Some people might include this spell. I think that's a stretch just slightly too far, although I'm not certain.

For a similar question, would you allow "choose one - draw two cards or target player discards two cards" for or ? That's costed about right, but it seems odd that any colour can do it for but you can make people discard for or can draw for .

Ooh. You're breaking Vindicate down into its component parts, Disenchant plus Ruinous Path plus Sinkhole? Interesting. That's not really how I think about Vindicate.

Neither do I normally, but I like it as an example of of how two colour spells can work with colour pie. How would you think of it?

Well, it probably shouldn't be too surprising that I think this is fine :p

I think one important reason that Scour can be fine while 5GG desert twister is not fine is a matter of what colors you're incentivizing other decks to run if they want this effect. In a format just with just Scour, a monoU deck that wants to hard remove any permanent type will just run Scour and stay monoU, and a G deck will play Scour and stay monoG. In a format with 5GG twister, the monoG deck just jams the twister and stays monoG, so no difference from Scour -- but the monoU deck needs to splash G and become simic in order to use the effect. It is not merely that 5GG twister is a pie problem because it lets green decks do that thing (generic costs already let them), but because it pulls other decks that want that effect into becoming more G to get it. A twister also pulls the monoU deck into Simic. Not as strongly as 5GG but I think that phenomenon of actively pulling you into G to get the effect is what makes Twister such a no-no.

This incentivizes you to play W and B to get this WB effect. If you do half of the work, it gives you half credit. In a monoW deck it won't perform any better than Scour for you, unless you dip your toe a little into producing black mana.

Using twobrid for modal spells like Consult the Necrosages is a little weird, but if you were determined to do so I think is okay but is problematic.

I would definitely appreciate a frame option for these that was somewhere between pure gold and pure hybrid.

--CF

I think the blue-black example mentioned above has the problem that it does not actually fulfill the "significant upcost" criteria I mention in the parallel discussion.

It also does not fit the criteria: "As long as each cost that is not working in-pie costs at least as much as the colorless version the monocolor hybrid mana costs on spells like this are justified." since the colorless (or better generic) cost shouldn't be below , so a converted mana cost of less than 4 for either monocolored payment is too cheap.

I addition (or as an effect of the above criteria in effect) there is a threshold when the minimum required cost gets too low when spells with multiple different monocolored hybrid mana symbols must be considered like a hybrid cost.

I.E. is closer to than to , but as you add more generic mana the fact that you have a lot of generic cost spells that cover effects softens this and can get you effects that would get if also would get them.

I don't know if I would actually agree that is closer to than . The hybrid cost is very happy being played in a monoR deck or a monoW deck. The goldbrid cost really wants to be played in a red and white deck, like the cost requires. Additionally, the hybrid cost functions like generic in a RW deck, while gold and goldbrid both require your lands to line up correctly to be played on turn 2.

--CF