Normally a card’s color is defined by the types of mana required to cast it. Devoid changes this default so that a card can cost colored mana while still being colorless.
This has a number of benefits when combined with various other cards. For example, Eldrazi Temple produces 2 mana, but it can only be used to cast colorless Eldrazi cards or activate abilities of colorless Eldrazi.
Herald of Kozilek has Devoid itself, and also makes other colorless spells cheaper.
Devoid also makes it so that from things with protection from certain colors don’t work. For example Goblin Piledriver has protection from blue. Without Devoid, Ulamog's Reclaimer wouldn’t be able to block the Piledriver.
Eldrazi by theme are colorless; but giving them colored mana in the cost makes them harder to cast, and makes it so that they don’t all fit in all the same decks. Devoid allows these cards to be colorless while still having those restrictions.
Note that it’s not only an advantage. It can hurt you as well; cards such as Honor of the Pure will not work with your Devoid creatures, even if they cost white mana to cast.
See this article about the development of the mechanic, which goes into more detail about the decisions they made.
Answer from GendoIkari on Stack ExchangeNormally a card’s color is defined by the types of mana required to cast it. Devoid changes this default so that a card can cost colored mana while still being colorless.
This has a number of benefits when combined with various other cards. For example, Eldrazi Temple produces 2 mana, but it can only be used to cast colorless Eldrazi cards or activate abilities of colorless Eldrazi.
Herald of Kozilek has Devoid itself, and also makes other colorless spells cheaper.
Devoid also makes it so that from things with protection from certain colors don’t work. For example Goblin Piledriver has protection from blue. Without Devoid, Ulamog's Reclaimer wouldn’t be able to block the Piledriver.
Eldrazi by theme are colorless; but giving them colored mana in the cost makes them harder to cast, and makes it so that they don’t all fit in all the same decks. Devoid allows these cards to be colorless while still having those restrictions.
Note that it’s not only an advantage. It can hurt you as well; cards such as Honor of the Pure will not work with your Devoid creatures, even if they cost white mana to cast.
See this article about the development of the mechanic, which goes into more detail about the decisions they made.
Lets look at each question one at a time.
What's special about devoid? - Devoid actually has a lot of things special about it. Devoid is what's known as a characteristic defining ability, an ability that sets something about the card differently from the way it is normally set, like how the ability Changeling sets creature types. Characteristic defining abilities are in effect everywhere, on the field, in the hand, in the grave and in the deck, this means that you can find a Devoid card using Eye of Ugin or Ancient Stirrings!
What advantages does it give? - One of the biggest advantages devoid gives is it counters most of the protections in the game. Protection from (color) is the most common form of protection in Magic, Blinding Drone isn't blue because of devoid, so protection from blue doesn't stop it from damaging, blocking or targeting.
Why is it tied to the Eldrazi creature type? - This is a bit of a lore thing, the Eldrazi are destroyers of worlds, they pretty much drain mana from the planes in the multiverse, leaving lifeless worlds behind. The big ones were always colorless, though with the return to Zendikar and the introduction of Devoid, the color has been drained from the smaller ones now too.
What does not having a color mean? - The color of a card is set based on the colors needed to cast that card, so without Devoid, Unnatural Aggression would be green and Ulamog's Reclaimer would be blue. Most of the benefits of being colorless are covered in the other parts, but there are downsides too. Green Sun's Zenith can't find Catacomb Sifter because it isn't green, and Bearer of Silence can be killed by Doom Blade because it isn't black. And of course just needing this Devoid ability is a downside for the colorless Eldrazi, if it has Devoid that means you need to spend colored mana to cast it, other than Devoid (or sunburst or converge), anything that was colorless doesn't care about the colors of mana spent on it, and that means they can go in any deck no matter what colors the rest of the deck uses.
Hi people. I'm new to MTG as in about 3 days into it. I just bought an Eldrazi Assualt (B/R) intro pack. I noticed that pretty much all the cards have the ability (I think) called Devoid (this card has no colour) I looked it up on the official site but being new this is somewhat confusing to me, does this mean that regardless of what colour mana is needs to be summoned it can be summoned by any colour so green/red whatever and can be potentially be played byany player regardless of what colour/s they play or does it something underlying that I'm not understanding? Thanks for the help
I just heard from a friend that [[liberator, urza’s battlethopter]] doesn’t work with devoid cards and I thought that it was strange that it doesn’t so now I’m just confused and wondering what else seems like it would work with Devoid but actually doesn’t
So if the card’s mana value is 5 of any color plus 2 blue, but has devoid, can I cast that card for 7 colorless instead?
No, the reason that you cannot use Devoid cards in a Commander deck with a colorless commander is that a card's "color" is not the same thing as it's "color identity". "Color identity" dictates what cards that can go in your Commander deck, not "color".
Devoid changes a cards color.
105.2. ...An object is the color or colors of the mana symbols in its mana cost...
Devoid does not affect the card's color identity.
903.4. The Commander variant uses color identity to determine what cards can be in a deck with a certain commander. The color identity of a card is the color or colors of any mana symbols in that card’s mana cost or rules text, plus any colors defined by its characteristic-defining abilities (see rule 604.3) or color indicator (see rule 204).
If the rules text for Devoid said "This card's color identity is colorless" then things would be different.
No
Color identity includes the following:
the color or colors of any mana symbols in that card’s mana cost or rules text, plus any colors defined by its characteristic-defining abilities
From the Comprehensive Rules (Commander 2017 (August 25, 2017))
While the card text states that the card is colorless it does include colored mana symbols on the card. These colored mana symbols will determine the color identity of the card.
The example of Extort you give doesn't apply to this because the mana symbol is part of the remainder text but not the mana cost or rules text of the card.
Since it has no color am I allowed to put this card in say a mono green comander deck without breaking the color restriction?