#painter's servant

Painter's Servant

Artist: Magali Villeneuve Set: Kaladesh Inventions

Shifting Sky is a less-broken (and not banned in Commander) version of Painter’s Servant. Where the Painter’s Servant affects all cards, spells, and permanents, Shifting Sky only affects non-land permanents. Common Cause works well for this, unless a land is animated, since it may then still be colorless.

Or, you could choose a color that you don’t have in your deck, so all of your non-land permanents gain that color. You know, if you want your creatures to be multicolor for some reason. Or maybe you just want them to be immune to Fear (by making them black) or Intimidate (since all creatures share a color).  Ignore this bit, as it makes all permanents one color, but not in addition to their current. Rest of the article is legit though.

Or maybe you’re using it a bit more offensively, to make all permanents a certain color that your deck is built to have protection from. Your creatures have protection from Black, and since you chose to make everything Black your opponent can’t block your creatures, and when they attack you can block without your creatures taking damage.

Painter's Servant

It gathers hues from the twilight mist so that its master can paint a better world.

Yes, if X is 8 or more and Ugin has some loyalty left after you activate the ability. If Ugin has exactly 8 loyalty before you activate the second ability for X=8, then he’ll go to the graveyard from state-based actions before the ability has a chance to resolve.

Right, so the basic combo is this:

Painter’s Servant makes all cards in all in-game zones the chosen color in addition to their other colors. This means that when you start to resolve Grindstone’s ability, the set of two cards from your opponent’s library will share a color so you mill the next two cards, which also share a color, etc., until your opponent’s library is empty. They then lose on their next draw step when they can’t draw a card.

In Painter decks, you’ll typically paint everything blue so that you can then use Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast as a one mana Vindicate or Counterspell. 

However, if you don’t have these cards in hand when the Painter enters the battlefield and you’re playing against a player who is playing blue, you probably want to name a different color so you don’t give your opponent free fuel for their Force of Wills. I usually choose white, green or black in these cases since they’re fairly neutral choices. Alternately, you can name red if you’ve sided in Pyrokinesis, and this will let you exile any card for it.