For the most part, each color in Magic: The Gathering can offer a powerful effect that the others cannot. Black, for example, is considered particularly powerful in Commander thanks to its unrestricted tutoring effects, capable of finding anything in the deck. White certainly isn’t as powerful, but it does offer one thing that can set up incredible win attempts.
Silence effects are, by far, the most powerful thing white is capable of providing. Slamming an effect like Voice of Victory or Grand Abolisher on the table demands your opponents blink first, or else all of their interaction gets turned off. After that, you’re free to throw out whatever devastating plays you have to get a massive advantage, as you can’t be interrupted anymore.
Interestingly, if you look back far enough, MTG Silence effects can also be offered in other colors. Way back from Visions, City of Solitude was printed and quickly forgotten.
City of Solitude MTG
For three mana, City of Solitude has a pretty generic, but powerful, effect. Just like the many white Commander super staples like Myrel, Shield of Argive, this enchantment will stop your opponents from being able to interact with you at all during your turn. Unlike the traditional Silence effect, however, City of Solitude affects every player, including yourself, preventing the entire table from playing spells outside of their turn.
This limits City of Solitude in a few ways. Playing this at the highest levels of Commander, for instance, is extremely risky since you’re essentially granting everyone free passage to win the game. You also don’t want to be interacting with opponents very much yourself.
Fortunately, a lot of Green decks are interested in doing exactly that. Any big mana strategies that are fully focused on playing gigantic monsters, like Omnath, Locus of Mana, or Selvala, Heart of the Wilds, can use City of Solitude to force their big creatures through. Opponents won’t be able to deal with them once they’re on the battlefield, either, allowing you to put some Swiftfoot Boots on your Kozilek, Butcher of Truth and completely annihilate an opponent’s board.
Alternatively, fast combo decks that can win the game on the same turn City of Solitude enters play can ignore the enchantment’s downsides. Storm-centric combo decks like Etali, Primal Conqueror and Korvold, Fae-Cursed King that can reliably win in one flashy turn both work great with this, for example. In both cases, these Commanders are notably missing White in their identities.
A Satisfactory Solution for Non-White Decks
Sadly, City of Solitude’s downsides are a bit difficult to overcome outside of White decks. Outside of using an effect like Stickytoungue Sentinel to temporarily bounce the enchantment to ignore its downsides, the only way to start interacting with opponents again in non-white decks is to destroy the enchantment outright. Sadly, because City of Solitude is a Reserved List card, it’s not cheap either. $15 is the absolute cheapest you’ll be able to find this card, meaning that it’s far from a budget inclusion.
As a result, City of Solitude is primarily for non-White MTG decks that really do not want their opponents interacting with their gameplan. It’s easy to follow up this enchantment with a win of your own, making City of Solitude an underrated choice for Green Commander players.
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