Commander color identity: what counts and which cards fit

A card normally fits your Commander deck only when every color in its color identity is also in your commander’s identity. A green-white commander permits green, white, green-white and cards with no colors in their identity. Being able to pay for a spell does not make it fit.

Check a card in this order

1. Find the colored mana symbols in its mana cost and rules text, including ability costs. Add colors supplied by a color indicator or an ability defining the card’s own colors.
2. Include both faces of a double-faced card, both halves of a split card and the alternative characteristics of an Adventure.
3. Ignore reminder text: the italic explanation in parentheses. Color words such as “any color” do not add colors by themselves.
4. Compare the result with your commander, then check basic land types separately.

If your deck legally uses two commanders, combine their identities. Follow a card’s explicit deckbuilding exceptions when one applies. Passing the color check alone does not establish legality: the format’s other restrictions still matter.

Examples that settle common disputes

Card	Color identity	Why
Bosh, Iron Golem	Red	Its artifact mana cost is generic, but its activated ability costs red mana.
Blind Obedience	White	The white-black extort symbol appears only in reminder text.
Kitchen Finks	Green and white	Each green-white hybrid symbol contributes both colors.
Dismember	Black	Its Phyrexian black symbols count even if you pay life.
Civilized Scholar // Homicidal Brute	Blue and red	The back face’s red color indicator counts too.
Questing Druid // Seek the Beast	Green and red	The red Adventure contributes alongside the green creature.

Hybrid mana offers payment choices, not a choice of color identity. Kitchen Finks therefore does not fit a mono-green commander. Blind Obedience fits a white commander despite extort’s reminder text.

Color and color identity are different. Bosh is a colorless artifact with red identity. Birds of Paradise has green identity: “any color” in its mana ability does not add four colors. Transguild Courier’s ability actually defines it as all colors, so its identity includes all five.

Lands need one more check

A land’s basic land types matter under a separate Commander deckbuilding rule. Badlands is a Swamp Mountain, so you need both black and red in your commander’s identity. Do not treat mana text in parentheses on a basic-type land as permission to ignore this restriction.

City of Brass has no basic land types or colored mana symbols in its rules text; producing mana of any color does not give it a five-color identity. Polluted Delta names Island and Swamp but has neither type itself. Its identity has no colors; the lands you put in your deck still need their own checks.

For a green-white deck, Kitchen Finks and Blind Obedience pass the color check; Dismember and Badlands do not. Paying life for Dismember or finding a land with a fetch does not change deck construction.

Keep your planned deck together

In Scrytics, open New Deck, choose Commander under Format, and use Pick a commander. Give the deck a recognizable name before adding cards. Use the examples above when deciding what belongs in that list; consult current card text for an unusual interaction.

The official rules, especially 903.4 and 903.5, define these checks. The Commander format page covers the wider format. Color identity is established before play; changing a card’s colors during a game does not change which colors were allowed when you built the deck.