Hey mark, I'm in an argument with a friend. My friend says that Slaughter Games is a color pie break because it shouldn't be red, because it doesn't need red to do anything it does, since black gets surgical extraction, and black can get "can't be countered" if it needs to (eg: thought distortion.) I'm arguing that that isn't how the color pie works, a card is in pie if all its effects fit in its colors, that a card having too many colors isn't a break. Who's correct?

You’re correct, but there’s a little nuance to it. First, a two-color card is allowed if one of the two colors can do the effect. That’s not considered a color pie break. There some aesthetic reasons we don’t do it too often, but it’s allowed colorpiewise.Second, “can’t be countered” is primary in red and tertiary in black. Black really isn’t supposed to be doing it often, and on a two-color card, tertiary abilities aren’t supposed to be used. That means the “can’t be countered” is coming from red.

RE: White Sacrifice. White has several cards that can make a player sacrifice an attacking creature, and a couple boardwipes have been released that make players sacrifice creatures conditionally. Are Promise of Loyalty, Single Combat, Slaughter the Strong, and Tragic Arrogance bends or breaks?

White does have a little sacrifice, but all players sacrifice all their creatures feels black not white.

How do the devoid cards work with commander? Can I use forerunner of slaughter in my Ulamog deck?

I’ve been told that for color identity of Devoid cards in Commander you look at the colors in the mana cost. I assume it’s how Ghostfire has always worked.

Thanks for personally packaging my Born of the Gods booster box. Champion of Stray Souls; Chromanticore; FOIL Chromanticore; Mogis, God of Slaughter; Xenagos, God of Revels; and DOUBLE KIORA, THE CRASHING WAVE!!! I am a very happy player right now. =D

You’re welcome. I was able to package it on my way home last month. : )

Regarding Slaughter Games-like cards, how about "Name a card other than a basic land?"

We obviously have a template if we need it. Philosophically, I think we don’t like cards such as Slaughter Games to be going after mana resources. Stop the threat not the mana.

For cards like Slaughter Games, could you replace "nonland card" with "nonbasic card"? It seems to me that the "nonland" part is really only there to prevent silly things like ripping all the mountains out of a mono-red deck.

The term “nonbasic card” is not as clear as you might think.

How well were the Pacts (Slaughter Pact) etc received?

Mixed. People liked the power of casting spells for free but hated losing because they forgot to pay.

What about Slaughter Games (other than the name and mana cost) is red? I love the card, and pretty much any kind of lobotomy effect for that matter, but those effects have always been dimir-colored. It feels like it was made as a Dimir card, then design decided they weren't doing the uncounterable cycle in Gatecrash and just slapped a Rakdos name and mana cost on it with no consideration for flavor or color pie. What gives?

The “can’t be countered” is the red part.