Candles are essential tools in witchcraft, enhancing rituals and achieving dreams. Each color has its own meaning and can be used to enhance the effectiveness of a spell. Blue crystals, such as Lapis Lazuli and Sodalite, are perfect for enhancing communication and calming energies. Green crystals, like Aventurine and Emerald, are ideal for prosperity, healing, and growth spells. Yellow crystals, like Citrine and Yellow Jasper, are great for spells focused on success, confidence, and creativity.
Choosing the right color for a spell can make all the difference between good results and extraordinary ones. Brown symbolizes grounding and stability, making it effective for protection spells and fostering resilience. Silver, reflecting the Moon’s light, is reflective of the moon. Gray symbolizes balance and can serve as a mediator to harmonize opposing energies. Red ignites flames of desire, making it suitable for love and lust spells.
Rune magic is typically associated with metallic colors, while wyldemagick is associated with vibrant forest green. Orange, akin to yellow, is helpful for creative endeavors and is recommended for writers’ block. Black is the perfect color for protection and security, with a deep grounding effect. White magic is defined as “good magic”, meaning that a spell is for protection, healing, or attracting positive things.
In conclusion, choosing the right color for a spell can greatly impact its effectiveness. By understanding the meanings of each color and their role in the process, you can create powerful and effective spells that align with your intentions.
📹 Which Magic: The Gathering Color Are You?
#magicthegathering #mtg #colorpie Looking for more affordable MTG gameplay? Purchase a complete 60 card Merfolk Battle …
Is purple a power color?
Violet represents royalty, nobility, luxury, power, and ambition, while purple symbolizes wealth, creativity, wisdom, dignity, grandeur, devotion, peace, pride, mystery, independence, and magic. As a rare, sacred color, purple is often associated with delicate and precious flowers like lavender, orchid, lilac, and violet. Its effects on the mind and body include uplifting spirits and calming the mind and nerves, making it a valuable symbol of wisdom, creativity, and wisdom.
What is the color of mystical?
Purple, the last color of the rainbow, connects psychism, mysticism, and magic. It opens channels between consciousness, sub-consciousness, and the divine, making it easier to know things. For those interested in supernatural phenomena, shades of mauve, indigo, and violet are often used. Silver is a magical color, similar to purple, for those who love mystical experiences. White is the colour of purity and peace, and can be worn to show one has nothing to hide or to promote clarity during times of confusion.
What is the color for protection from evil?
Black is often associated with protection and uncrossing, and can be used to ward off negative vibes. Witches often wear black tourmaline for protection, while white is useful in magick as a stand-in for any other color. All products are independently selected by editors, and if you buy something, Allure may earn an affiliate commission. Witches harness the power of colors in their magickal practices, such as using red lipstick for seduction or yellow and gold for absorbing the sun’s rays. To subscribe to Allure’s print edition for more beauty routines, recommendations, and features, visit their website.
What color is rare in magic?
The expansion symbol in a card set indicates its rarity. A red-orange symbol signifies mythic rarity, a gold symbol signifies rareness, a silver symbol signifies uncommonness, a black or white symbol signifies commonness or basic land, and a purple symbol signifies special rarity. Only the Time Spiral® “timeshifted” cards have purple expansion symbols. Prior to the Exodus™ set, all expansion symbols were black, regardless of rarity. A card’s rarity is indicated with a single letter following the collector number.
What color keeps evil spirits away?
Haint blue is a color believed to ward off evil spirits, originally derived from the term “haunt”, which refers to lost souls or restless spirits. It was first used by African slaves in the South and is believed to represent water, as evil spirits cannot pass over it. Gullah culture, a group of people from coastal areas of Georgia, South Carolina, and northern Florida, also uses haint blue to deter spiders, wasps, and other insects from setting up houses on porch ceilings. The myth is that the blue ceiling is an extension of the sky, causing the insects to move on instead of settling in.
What magic is purple?
Purple Magic is a Magic element based on will, spirit, and force of mind, focusing on ice. It attacks single targets or influences their minds. It becomes available before Vyse and Aika set out for Shrine Island. The first Purple spell learned is Crystali chain, costing 1 SP and dealing damage with a 140 base power rating. The cheapest attack in the game is a chunk of ice shattered away, tearing at the enemy.
Is blue an evil color?
Throughout history, colors have been linked to good and evil, with blue and red being the most common. Blue is associated with calmness, serenity, and spirituality, while red is associated with passion, love, vitality, anger, danger, aggression, and evil. In ancient Egypt, red was the color of Seth, the god of evil and chaos. In Christian culture, red is associated with Satan and the devil, often depicted with red skin or wearing a red cape.
The association of blue with good and red with evil can be traced back to ancient Greek philosophy, where Plato believed red represented the passionate, irrational part of the soul, while blue represented the rational, intellectual part.
Aristotle and Christian theologians later adopted these ideas, with red associated with the flesh and blue with the spirit. These concepts have also been incorporated into 20th-century film culture, where the hero wears blue and the villain red, implying a calm and rational hero and a passionate and irrational villain.
What color is the most magical?
The colors violet, white, black, and silver are believed to possess magical properties. Each color is said to represent a specific quality or attribute, including spirituality, wisdom, devotion, peace, idealism, purity, dignity, strength, stability, protection, and psychic ability.
What are the five colors of magic?
Magic: The Gathering is a game that uses five colors: white, blue, black, red, and green. These colors form the core of the game’s mana system and strategy. The color system, known as the “color pie” or “color wheel”, is a fundamental and iconic element in the game. It provides diversity in cards, effects, and play styles while preventing any one deck from having every tool. Each color signifies an ideological faction, whose culture defines the flavor and gameplay of its cards.
Each color has its means and motivation for battle, ties into its strengths, weaknesses, and unique mechanics. The color pie’s order, colloquially referred to as “WUBRG”, ensures that adjacent colors are ideological allies, while non-adjacent colors are enemies. The concept of having five colors originated from previous games designed by Magic creator Richard Garfield, inspired by Lyndon Hardy’s fantasy novel Master of the Five Magics.
Is purple the color of magic?
According to contemporary surveys in Europe and the United States, purple is the color most often associated with rarity, royalty, luxury, ambition, magic, mystery, piety and spirituality. ( 3 ) ( 4 ) When combined with pink, it is associated with eroticism, femininity, and seduction. ( 5 )
The modern English word purple comes from the Old English purpul, which derives from Latin purpura, which, in turn, derives from the Greek πορφύρα ( porphura ), ( 6 ) the name of the Tyrian purple dye manufactured in classical antiquity from a mucus secreted by the spiny dye-murex snail. ( 7 ) ( 8 ) The first recorded use of the word purple dates to the late 900s AD. ( 7 )
Purple first appeared in prehistoric art during the Neolithic era. The artists of Pech Merle cave and other Neolithic sites in France used sticks of manganese and hematite powder to draw and paint animals and the outlines of their own hands on the walls of their caves. These works have been dated to between 16, 000 and 25, 000 BC. ( 9 )
What color is the color of magic?
The Colour of Magic, a novel by Stephen King, is a parody of Jack Vance’s magic system from The Dying Earth. The magic system is a fluorescent greenish yellow-purple, visible only to wizards and cats. It is a parody of Jack Vance’s system, which requires memorizing spells from books and a wizard can only fit a certain number in their head. Rincewind’s inability to do magic is partly due to accidentally getting one powerful spell into his head.
The prologue foreshadows The Light Fantastic by mentioning A’Tuin, the great turtle that holds up the world. In the Light Fantastic, the turtle’s sex is not definite, but in the Discworld, it is clear that he is male. The theory that A’Tuin had come from nowhere and would continue at a uniform crawl is a pun on the “steady state” theory of explaining the size, origin, and future of the universe. The Big Bang theory in the Discworld involves turtles having sex, an obvious play on the slang term “bang” meaning to have sex. The language used to describe “turtle sex” parallels that of the Roundworld “Big Bang Theory”.
📹 Explaining the Magic Color Pie and What All Colors Are Good At
The color pie is one of Magic’s most well known and well beloved mechanics. Each of the 5 colors has their own mechanics and …
I loved this skit, oh my hell it was hilarious. Black does anything the others can do. Think about it, it might cost a little more, but you pay for it to get your way. Gain life? done. Exiling? yup. Ramping? terrifying. Direct damage? Card draw? Counter effects, big creatures, creature removal, token generation, and stack effects. So what if you pay in a little blood; everything is currency.
Going into this, my current deck is a mono black designed to keep any creatures I don’t want on the table…not on the table. Mostly though deathtouch and some destroy target creature stuff First deck I ever played with was a Blue/Green deck my buddy made This article hit it pretty dead on the money when it came to Blacks “death😐” vibe and blue/greens “ye just do both of us; we’re the best”
Blue Prof: “At least we get to find out where things go when they’re exiled.” Fellow exile: “Hey, you want to Goat format?” Blue Prof: “What format?” Exile: “Goat. The most skilled format in Yugioh. Nothing stupid where you get play play stuff outta your hand during the opponent’s turn.” Blue Prof: “Get me out. I want to go home!”
I’m primarily a Green and White player with a heavy slant toward Green, but I do agree that white doesn’t really have it’s own thing that makes it special anymore. The only thing that I can think of is that it seems to have more auras and cards that give temporary indestructiblility than any of the other colors.
White has always been my favorite color. Along with red. And well Black… I really like the Mardu colors. Mostly because of Enchantment Auras and all that but green has been getting some lately which is odd since they are not supposed to. Anything with Mardu colors I will use really. I like them all. The only exception is Bant and that’s because of my Wall’s and Gate’s commander deck.
My very first and now main deck anytime I play is white black life gain/token deck black for enchantments and spells white for life gain and tokens my favorite combo was getting lots of cheap tokens then using Prometheus rebirth and a artifact enchantment to give hast or using painful quandary with a card that I don’t remember the name of that gave me life anytime my opponent lost life
I like the joke about how Green Mana basically does all the stuff that the other mana does. Which when you think about it from a flavor perspective it makes sense. Green is the magic of Nature. Nature adapts and evolves to better deal with the changing times and environments. Green is really great because it can literally work super well with all the other colors. Green/White: Creates a giant creature army that overruns opponents Green/Blue: Mana ramps faster and helps acquire cards from your library for more complex combos Green/Red: Hits HARDER and with the addition of red into the mix you get to the big stuff FASTER or you also have the option of making the smaller stuff more threatening Green/Black: Expands your repertoire of resources by opening up your graveyard. Black already likes to use its Graveyard, and whenever you have green you get to Recycle, Reuse, and Repurpose.
in fairness to green, they do the same effects, in a somewhat different way. where White has a lot of lifelink and direct “gain an amount of life” cards (lifelink being an overlap with black actually) green usually does it out of non-combat, and is in some way on creatures stats (see Predator’s Rapport or Verdant Sun’s Avatar) Green does hit artifacts and enchantments quite well, an overlap with red and white respectively. (good luck sticking any artifacts or enchantments against a naya deck) Green has SOME card draw, again usually based on creatures in some way (See Soul of the Harvest), though Harmonize exists. I can think of a fistful of green haste cards, but not enough to really call it a theme, beyond a tertiary keyword for green. in a similar way to Haste in white (Akroma and a few others get it) i didn’t realize green can exile creatures (i know a few cards exist that just hit any non-land permanent, or sometimes any permanent, but it is uncommon) green doesn’t really fly, it stops things from flying. for the love of god, if i see another overpowered simic card in the next sets… hold up, did white just cast Merciless Eviction? also, to truely be in flavor for white, shouldn’t he have exiled himself (white sweepers have a tendency to not favor one side out of combat). also also, i thought he was fine with red?
i miss the simple times when green’s stick was big bodies, ramping, and artifact removal. they don’t have flying but that’s why they made reach; so those big butted monsters can catch birds. feel’s like nowadays green can do just about everything by itself and really doesn’t need another colour for anything. it just uses blue because together green gives the ramping fuel and blue gives the card draw gas that allows them to zoom,
I’ve always liked blue black, if we’re talking mono then it has to be blue. It seems like a lot of people and especially newer players pick black cause of the stigma around the undead and vampires. I could be wrong about that in some cases. I’ve always liked black because it capitalizes on using your health as a resource better than any other class imo. Combining that with blues control it’s just way too fun for me.
I had to retire my old UG deck back in the day because it was way more powerful and consistent than any of the other decks in our group. Jalira master polymorphist, Mycoloth, and Prophet of Kruphix was a hilariously broken combo… especially with two Stormtide Leviathans that were easily cheated out.
All that’s missing now is the song “Tale as old as time” playing in the background xD I feel like this argument has been, and most likely will keep on going forever xD And it’s not exclusive to MTG either. In any faction based game, there are some faction specific abilities in the start, and as the game progress, the abilities start swapping around. And /somehow/ it feels like one faction ends up taking home the jackpot, as if the factions went all in, in a poker game, betting their abilities and attributes, and losing them to one faction. Or the other posibility that the higher ups of the company favours one or two faction(s) over the rest >.>
I feel it necessary to point how just how red draws cards: Rather than the standard card draw, red gets what we call impulse draw – The ability to exile the top few cards of your library, and let you play those cards until a specific time limit is reached, usually the end of either this turn or your next turn.
A quick note on the names of the color pairs: Those names are not arbitrary. There was a block for Ravnica: City of guilds, and Ravnica had ten guilds associated with each color pair. That’s where the naming conventions came from. You’ll also run into names for color trios on occasion, though those are less common due to slightly worse mana-fixing available for tri-color decks. Those take their names from the Shards of Alara and the clans of Tarkir.
Long before the “formal” color pie (even dating back to the 1990’s), I always used to love the color rivalries that I always perceived as: Red (war) vs. White (peace) White (good) vs. Black (evil) Black (death) vs. Green (life) Green (body) vs. Blue (mind) Blue (water) vs. Red (fire) These are gross oversimplifications, of course. But even before this was made more explicit, I loved those contrasts and their symbolisms.
I think a better way to describe the color pie is not WHAT colors do, but HOW colors do stuff. Such as, blue just straight up draws cards, black usually trades life for card draw, green does creature-reliant card draw, red does impulse draws, looting, and rummaging, and white does almost no card draw. The same can be said for removal; green has fight spells, red has burn, black has destroy effects, white has o-ring and exiling, and blue has bouncing. The current way the color pie is set up, its less about what the colors can and cant do, but rather how they go about playing a whole game.
I think the defining weakness of red is that it has no way to play around enemy removal and board wipes. Red creatures are almost never hexproof or indestructible, and almost never have some sort of “sticky” effect. If your creature gets targeted with a murder, every color besides red has instants that can counteract that. Red has to bounce back from its hand.
I think something this is missing is that the color pairs also have “opposite” interpretations to what you said. For example, rather than blue-white being about slowly and peacefully achieving your goals, it can also be about strict order enforced by cold logic. There is no “good” or “evil” in the color pie; everything has a positive and negative side.
This article is a good basic explanation of the color pie, you on missed some things though. A top 10 list of color-pie breaking cards would be an awesome article. It would also be a good idea to to make a article that explains what a color does for each common archetype. For example, blue in a tempo deck helps build small evasive threats while resetting the opponent’s progress, while in a combo deck it serves more towards protecting against stack interactions & removals that break the combo and helps drawing cards to find it. Red in an aggro deck helps push out lots of damage and use small, aggressive creatures to push out damage, while in a control deck it gives more reactive decks additional removal and ways to win by using effective end-game threats such as huge dragons and expensive burn spells that can often bring you close to the end of the game.
Great article for new players, I think you gave a good overview to get people started. Quick note, rituals are named rituals because of dark ritual, which is black. Black doesn’t get as much of it anymore, but in the past they had the first few rituals with dark ritual, cabal ritual, and culling the weak.
Most of the things are right, and the color identity is definitely not exclusive to other colors, but there are some things that were glossed over. White’s playstyle comes in two main ways. The one in the article is what the community would call “White Weenies”, where you throw efficient early creatures and good board control on the field and start swinging. The other type is “Death and Taxes”, and it’s important how many floodgates/stax pieces white has that hinders a lot of faster formats like Legacy and Vintage. Older formats have larger pools of faster busted cards, and D&T is basically the way to make your opponents play “Fair Magic”, where the plan is putting 1-3 cards a turn at reasonable rates. Stuff like Thalia and Archon shutting down storm decks, Path and Swords to remove cheating creatures, Rest in Peace to stop Dredge/Graveyard, and Esper Sentinel to have some sort of continuous card draw. Only thing about blue that was missed is its tiny mill strat that none of the other colors really have. Not very important, but at least should be mentioned that it’s the only color that really uses this strat. Black’s focus is also with trading resources for other things, a high risk high reward scenario. Most common ways to see it are trading life for advantage (Thoughtseize, Necropotence) and sacrificing creatures for benefit, seen with zombie and reanimation. With Red, the article says a lot of what the color does, but an important thing about the color is how temporary and blazing fast it is.
It’s worth noting that the color pie has shifted a lot over time and is much less rigid than it used to be. For example, draw effects used to be nearly nonexistent outside blue and black, but they started adding in rummage to red and green draw linked to having big bodies on board (while black’s pay life for cards have dropped off a lot due to generally not being balanced in the past). Black, meanwhile, used to have no answers to artifacts and enchantments and green used to have no way to kill creatures before fighting type effects were added and blue used to have almost no permanent answers to stuff that had resolved and not been countered. Black used to be the fast mana ritual color also before that got shifted more to red and also now is just rare due to generally enabling silly strats. Also about Simic. Besides just turboing fatties, the blue side tends to add evasion and tricks to the fatties they produces while providing protection. Countermagic is great for forcing through your bomb that might otherwise be stopped or removed and also stopping your opponent’s bomb or answers. Green, meanwhile, gives the faster mana for more draw that blue tends to lack as well as some more ability to deal with resolved permanents. About Orzhov. They also tend to focus on either draining life and nickle and diming opponents with taxation sort of effects or combine white’s swarming and token production with blacks love of sacrificing creatures/gaining value from creatures dying. These both help them with the whole midrange thing, able to maintain a lead in the life point race both by draining enemy life and maintaining theirs despite not having the biggest bodies as well as not suffering losses as badly for losing troops.
I was trying to find more specific magic the gathering YouTubers to cover what you did, especially for the dual color However, most of them focus too much on the lore, not on the gameplay This article just proves that The___Logs is still the overall GOAT card game websites Can’t wait for you to make The Digi logs for Digimon TCG
When I was most into MTG, I grew very keen on Red/Blue (if I recall, Izzet was still rather new at the time, as were noggles) as a deck combo for the sheer number of counter and burn spells at my disposal. I really liked the idea of keeping an opponent at bay and damaging them at the same time while never really leaning much into creatures myself.
Laughs in Colorless. Colorless is generally devoid of emotion. It is beyond your petty mana. I’m a big fan of artifacts and the Eldrazi. Colorless has access to most effects that other colors have, just at a higher cost or very specific (Warping Wail is a counterspell, Scoured from Existence can exile anything, etc)
The design of Magic is amazing. Every single color has multiple meaningful choices and overlap with other colors, allowing multicolor decks to be not only possible but actively generally better than monocolors. And yet, despite that, there are enough mechanics in the game that each color still manages to be unique and have strong indentities, sometimes multiple depending on the color. White is good at both lifegain and high aggro. Blue is good at both counterspells and at using artifacts to gain effects. Black is good at low-power swarming with zombies, good at getting out big powerful monsters (specifically in effect, not stat line), and good at life drain. Honestly, black is just pretty good at most things. Red is good at swarming, burning, and combat, and is very good at being all around aggressive and dealing with the opponents before they can deal with you. Green is by far the most single-focussed of the colors, being generally based on getting out big monsters with big stat lines, as well as buffing those monsters, but it also has lots of effects to cheat cards out, recurring cards from the grave, and even decent at lifegain. Theres overlap, definitely, but somehow each can still feel completely unique depending on the situation. Truly amazing game design.
I never played White much when I was younger but it has gradually grown on me and is possibly even my favorite color now I love a nice White/Blue Tempo Soldier deck. You can get away with only having 20 creatures because the creatures are so efficient… Freeing up the rest of the deck to pump/protect my board while shutting down the opponent’s.
For all the talk about white not being good and black not being evil, the cards in print really don’t back that up. Red was supposed to be the color of independence, which almost never shows up in print. Green and blue have swapped which color embodies mysticism and have split curiosity and the pursuit of knowledge, which used to be blue traits. Understanding the color pie won’t help you understand the cards all that much.
Great article overall! Loved the interpretation and gave me some things to think about. One thing I think you missed on mentioning is Blue’s Mill capabilities and how that sorta dives into the “mind and sanity” (or whatever) aspect of blue. I also have to disagree on Green hating that Black brings things back from the graveyard. Green has tons of effects to return things from the graveyard to play or to hand. (Bala-Ged, Regrowth, Recollect, heck they have a card called Reincarnation). Also would mention that green is proficient at creating tokens (Saprolings, Plants, plus things like Doubling Season and Parallel Lives).
A future article idea could’ve going over the 3 color interactions, how the combos seem to hyper focus on what their individual colors have in common often times disregarding the other aspects. Like how Jeskai made up of red, white, and blue, is a very spell heavy trio focusing on casting instants and sorceries and caring a little less about the creatures they have. Red likes burn spells, blue likes draw and counter spells, white has removal spells, and when they come together there’s a big focus in casting non-creature spells, especially with the Prowess keyword on their creatures…
something that some of you guys might find fun/interesting is that Heroes of Might and Magic IV (and old-ass, glitchy PC strategy game) pretty much aimed at the MtG color pie for is faction design, albeit largely by squeezing the existing factions into fitting those roles. y’all can be the judge of how well this translation of the concept across genres of game has worked! -Life (White, but it’s purple in this), largely the humans’ faction, is a highly defensive faction; its slow creatures leave it reeling for control of the map and decisive offensive moves, but an abundance of long-range attackers and creatures that generally excel at keeping themselves safe, as well as an impressive suite of defense-oriented spells, makes them incredibly tough to break. -Order (Blue), a faction of crafters and patrons and magicians, has strong creatues and the single most impressive spell list in the game (focused preponderantly on control), but it’s on the slow side and those strong creatures are also generally expensive to procure, meaning they have an outstanding long-term plan that can fall apart if things don’t work out on the short term. Death (Black) combines necromancy and the highly hierarchical legions of demons to form a faction whose creatures struggle to be useful in the early-game, but as the game progresses, those early creatures accumulate strength in numbers, and outstanding late-game units start coming online as well. amusingly enough though, the efficacy of the faction’s debuff-heavy spell list runs reverse to this – some of their early-game spells can be utterly devastating, but their late-game spells are often not worth the while, and once everyone has built up at least to mid-game, it comes out that keeping buffs on your units is far easier than making debuffs stick to the enemy.
I feel one of the parts forgotten about Black is the fact that they also represent death to some degree, as where there is life there is death. however death doesn’t have to be an evil thing as it is natural, all things die. That is where the Golgari come into play with the death and decay of nature at the end of its life and how nature eventually turns that death into new life. After all, Lion King taught us all about this fact, it’s the circle of life.
Technically, there can be a guide for three color decks, because not everyone knows these archetypes as much as others. Grixis, for example, being a combination of red, blue, and black, has the abilities of chaos, prevention, and removal, making it an easy pick for some; even with the numerous Bolas decks that can be made. The bigger situation is that blue and red are usually enemy colors to each other, as black would be the only ally color to both.
10:53 @TheManaLogs, I think it would help elaborate on the flavor or Red if it were noted that while red is bad at specifically drawing a card. It is because card draw is seen as knowledge gain and that’s why blue is so good at by it. Red being impertinent and passionate has either impulse draw (this knowledge or this emotion you’ve drawn on can only be used in the moment), or looting (forget something, to learn something new). So while it is not real draw filling or adding to your hand, it is still effective card advantage.
Verry good explanation of the color pie. Liked the part about white not being the good guys. One thing id add is that each color represents a “thing” or concept. Like white and black are both two sides of the same coin human nature. Selfishness and selflessness. Both colors are willing to sacrifice themselves and others but white does it for the greater good or balance while black does it out of fanatical devotion or for greater power. Both colors gain life but black usually steals it from things and both have great creature recursion but white also does all permanets while black does creature reanimation the best. Black kinda does everything but for a cost and they usually demand some sort devotion to black. Black cards are the most pip dense cards they want to be played with other black cards and kinda make it harder to splash other colors. While they arent inheritly good like 90% of white cards are selfless heros benevolent angels healing clerics they really embody the stronger together mentality, and black doesnt see its actions as evil they dont believe in the traditional moral compass of right and wrong so they dont hate you nesessarily they just dont value life the same. Blue represents time and space not just like water or thought. They manipulate space by copying creatures changing characteristics of the card polymorphing things they can change anything about you and boucing permanents which they can hit lands and time through extra turns additional upkeep phases or other weird rule interactions and phasing untapping permanents countering spells ect.
Back when Ravnica came out it was wild to see all those enemy paired Guild but they do tend to stand out. The Boros Legion having angels fighting alongside goblins. The galaxy-brain madness of the Izzet. Golgari themes of life and death. Simics wonders of the unnatural. Orzovs’ crushing fist in a golden gauntlet. A really good primer article for this. Only thing I would have added is maybe some examples of the creatures that each color gets but that’s a minor thing. Hope we get a series of best of/most iconic card for each color pairing and maybe a article talking about shards and wedges later on.
Interesting article enjoyed it, the only thing I think that was really important that was missed is that Red lacks enchantment removal (I think you said removal but it wasn’t very specific) my friend plays mono red aggro and he loses constantly to me simply because he can’t deal with enchantments that change the game and give me the advantage, he has recently changed it to red/green so its improved but otherwise great content ty for sharing
Im relatively new to Magic and trying to find the combo i like best. So far i have two commander decks: a green white and a blue black. Ive had significantly better luck with my green white. Today i plan on purchasing a red green deck. After perusal a couple articles like this I’m considering making a three-color deck of red green and black. Thoughts from more experienced players?
So it seems that my preference could have changed while perusal this, I now have a keen liking for Simic and Selesneya not just off of their themes, but also their gameplay. Simic definitely aids Green by overcoming the slowness of Green’s creatures by complimenting them with Blue’s drawing and potent Instants that Green sorely lacks and definitely helps that Blue loves Flying. Selesneya takes those same creatures and amplifies them essentially having a mix of good small White creatures and good huge Green creatures and having a ton of creature buffing Instants and battlefield shenanigans like land destruction.
Which are the best colours/combinations of colours for 1. Low budget 2. Trying to outplay opponents by superior knowledge, theoretical understanding, and calculation 3. Being creative, unorthodox, unpredictable, and potentially confusing the opponent? (not according to what the colours are supposed to represent, but how they actually play, especially in combination with each other. It’s obvious that blue is the specialist in criterion 2 and the individualism of black is probably best suited for the norm-defying of criterion 3)
I have 5 decks one of which I made (my brother made the others or it’s my white/red commander premade) and the one I made was a white black life gain/lose deck where I make the trade of losing life sometimes but in exchange I have a lot of white cards that gain life, and when going against my family who play it a lot (especially my brother who makes decks a lot) I slap in a angle of destiny to help with the life gain (it’s a 4/4 I think that is flying and whatever damage it does instead both players gain that much, when I have 20 life over the starting life it becomes, any player I hit with it makes them instantly lose (and I think also gain life for me)
White stays back and heals you, Red is in the front line always attacking, Black is a glass canon with the insta-kill weapons, Green digs underground to bypass the opponent’s defense, and Blue is just on the side doing their own things but still having a tremendous effect on the battlefield for some reason.
Red+white give each other what both lack. Red: Burn, haste, impulse draw, loot draw, mana. White: Lifelink, indestructible, enchant/artifact, straight removals. Both tokens. Both flying. Sorry to say… My mages, much respect, Green, Blue, Black…are the best combination of colors we have ever seen. I would love to see a true “Dark Ritual” for every color! Red to finally destroy an enchantment(s). Unrelenting passion should be able to break or at least tie Force of Will in some way. Arcmage
So there is actually a singular card that is mono black that can remove artifacts. Gates to phyrexia, sitting at around 100 USD. At your upkeep you can sac a creature to destroy target artifact. Enchantment type card I cant remember the cmc off the top of my head but i know its really love like 3 or less
@4:31 Either I missed something, or this is completely misleading, or just pure ignorance because blue CAN bounce lands! Boomerang (with isochron scepter this can just win) Cryptic Command Wipe Away Upheaval Sunder (literally returns ALL lands) This is just a short list of the more common land bouncers in MTG. If you play commander at all (which most people do or have), then your odds of seeing a land bounced goes up dramatically.
You forgot to mention one of the most prominent white trait, that is to tax your opponent aka. force the opponent to pay more to cast spells or activate mana abilities. The effect delays the opponent turn correlates to white being the color of law and order, thus, somewhat oppose to progression. Blue isn’t the only color that get access to counterspell, other color can also do that, except they’re much more restricted and also involve color philosophy. Example, White has mana tithe and lapse of certainty, both serve to punish and/or delay opponent for being hasty, Black force you to pay life to counter target spell, and opponent can also pay their life to negate such effect (Dash hopes), Green has Avoid fate as a form of hex proof in the early days, and lastly Red has a bunch of counter spells that specifically target blue and involve RNG elements, reflecting its impulsive and unpredictability. Also, blue is by far the best color for milling.
There’s only 2 things guaranteed in life Death and TAXES. So White is also known for being the color that gets theses type of effects that is not tied to trying to counter something. And is 1 of the reasons you want to play the color. The tempo swings from theses effects is very good reason people consider playing White decks. This is more as a follow up to help with explaining things since you also have to look at a color’s “allied” colors meaning the colors that are next to it to see some of the effects a color gets in some ways and how it effects things.
white does literally everything… it’s great for aggro, it’s great for control, it has by far the most versatile removal being able to kill anything either one at a time or wiping the board, it’s got the best life gain, it can mess with your opponent’s hand, it can reanimate, it’s great at making tokens, it’s got big tough creatures and weenies, it’s the best color for using equipment, combos well with artifacts and enchantments, it can tap things down, it has good fliers and evasion creatures, good blockers, good efficient ground creatures, tutor effects… it even has some mana accel, mana fixing, card draw, direct damage, and counterspells.. though those are its weakest points, it’s still got them.
the best machenic to give you a feel for how white black meshes is exortion. white usually has tax cards which are cards the make it difficult to out value based on card ammount, their cards with effects like when ever your oppnent plays a land gain a treasure or when your opponent plays their second card for a turn it cost one more. exortion takes this kind of effect and instead of the takes evening the playing feild it when ever your opponent plays a card you can pay one mana to take a life from them it taxes your opponenent in a way thats sided twoard you in a press to win the game sence instead of a value sence.
Good article overall, but at 9:40 you said that red is the only color to get ritual effects, but this is pretty wrong. Dark Ritual and Cabal Ritual are both in black and are pay 1 black mana to add 3 black to your mana pool and 1 of any color and a black mana to add 3 black mana to your mana pool respectively. Similarly, Bubbling Muck costs 1 black mana and makes all swamps tap for an additional black mana the turn it is played, significantly increasing your mana production and High Tide does the same thing, but for 1 blue mana and for islands/blue mana instead of swamps/black mana.
red can actually draw lots of cards, almost as good as blue, but with the downside of being “indirect” card draw, usually in the form of exiling cards and being able to cast them during that turn or till the end of your next turn or something like that. If you can utilize this effect to it’s maximum, then it can draw just as efficiently as blue, but in practice, it can really do this feat that often as it often costs too much mana the turn you play these effects to cast or play every card exiled this way.
White seems to get pretty much everything every other colour gets lol. You can get trample and other generally non-white abilities pretty easily, you get counterspells that can rival some cheap blue counters, you get destruction and exile, you get damage dealing spells, tutors, life gain, artifact and enchantment removal, reanimation…. White seems to get everything lmao
A few expansions on random points: White is community… but also xenophobia. You do everything you can for those you care about, and often do your best to exclude anything you don’t particularly care for White and green also get along because they have dealings with life. Among black’s major themes is death, which would’ve been a better example for why it can get along with green: The natural cycle of life and death. When the time comes, all things rot; black and green agree on this point (Now it’s a lore reason and not a gameplay reason) Red’s draw often gambles, requiring you to discard before you actually get to draw your cards, so the new things you get may end up being worse Red does have big creatures, especially in the form of dragons. Most dragons are big red flyers Red is good at giving its creatures attack, but not good at giving them defense. Lots of +X/+0 to be found Green absolutely loves making things bigger. Lots of +1/+1 to be found, especially with hydras, but also just kinda everywhere
Instead of assigning philosophical attributes to colors, I prefer to look at how each color excels at certain type of violence within the literal gameplay. Like this: Red = Exertion (burning through your resources to overwhelm the opponent before they have a chance to respond) Black = Capitalization (extracting value from as many sources as you can while depriving your opponents of their resources) Blue = Deliberation (stalling the opponent long enough to enact your own master plan) Green = Investment (planting a seed to reap future profit/building momentum to punch above your weight) White = Reinforcement (building your defenses early so that you can attack with less risk) While these categories aren’t perfect, I find them useful while deckbuilding because it simplifies the colors into five key strategies that I can then mix and match.
I might have added that red, to me, feels a little soft in the mid game. It has a lot of potential for an aggressive early game, but burns out quickly… While it doesn’t have that many fliers, I’d argue dragons can be some of the most dominating, red’s hail Mary to finish a game that went on past the aggro. They’re normally bigger than white or blue fliers, less self destructive than black, often with a host of mana sink capabilities.
One detail I feel slipped from notice here is another trait of white-black; punishing rules. Combining white’s rule cards with black’s ambition and individualism, you create cards that, rather than putting both players under a restriction, force the opponent to “pay” the white-black player(I.e. smothering tithe). This is an important part of white-black’s identity, enough that the phrase “death and taxes” exists to describe these kinds of decks.
Why do I get the feeling this creator is mainly based in 60 card format? I would argue that white is far superior at removing artifacts and enchantments than Green. Does green have options? Yes, cards like Bane of Progress, Druid of Purification, Calming verse, and Krosan grip come to mind. But White has multiple options for board wipes which are unparalleled: Farewell, Tragic Arrogance, Austere Command, Planar cleansing, Cleansing nova, Slash the ranks, Heliod’s Intervention and Return to Dust (Obviously not a board wipe, but it’s basically a staple in commander.) Green has a few more removal options, but many of these are on creatures which means your deck has to be more geared towards them. The real rub of it is that these removal effects that white has usually include the creatures in addition to the artifacts and enchantments, and sometimes planeswalkers (although red is generally better at killing the planeswalkers.) So in summery: to claim that White and Green are tied when it comes to artifact and enchantment removal is nearly correct, if you don’t factor in that white kills the creatures too. Which you should.
Appolonian colors: White – Map, Christ, Rousseau, Rawls Black – Territory, Nietzsche, de Sade, Machiavelli Dionisian colors: Red – early Romanticism, Sturm und Drang, (abstract impressionist) painting, Caspar David Friedrich Green – Myth, mystery cults, excitatory gnosis, classical greek theatre, Aeschylus Blue – Classicism, Augustan Age, Decorum, (metaphysical) poetry, Alexander Pope
Blue: scinece, logic, knowledge, introspection, and perfection Aka: the only things that actually matter if applied truly perfectly Logic mixed with the rest is inherently the best of all worlds, Btw logic is litterally putting 2 and 2 together but for all things, and when done perfectly everything becomes perfect Although the cards don’t reflect that perfectly, Logically a person who embodies blue would use all colors because of blue’s imperfections to put it simply.
One word each: White;life Green,creatures Blue,control Black,everything Red,damage Overall they can mix fairly well without countering it’s mix. But, the more colors you have in your deck the more likely you are too mana-screw yourself. Six black cards in hand but only green and white mana is an all to familiar problem. I stopped playing new decks because it has gotten ridiculous, my favorite card when i started was leviathan; a 10/10 trample that that you had to feed two islands to untap. Cards these days come out with annihilator 6 or is indestrucible and gives all other cards of that player flight and life link. In short when i played it was a simpler game, now wotc has to keep one-upping itself to keep players invested. An issue to me but a successful plan. My favorite deck was a 5 color sliver deck, difficult but i usually pulled off a savage win have friends not want to play anymore against it. I liked that slivers shared their powers with all slivers. Then i played a sliver deck that had new flavor text saying they only share with slivers you control… Not fun when my opponent gets all my abilities but not vice versa. I just slowly phased myself out. If you still play, enjoy! It’s still a fun game, I’m just as outdated as my decks.
blue’s “counterspell” play may be limited to needing the “counterspell” when an opponent casts a spell, but having that AND great ability to draw cards means even without green you can ramp just as well if not better and your incentived to not use all your mana when it is your turn leaving you to cast maybe one spell a turn so if someone goes to cast something that would ruin your ability to win you can literally stop whatever it is. Most efficient counterspells can only target a “non creature” spell but then there are those spells opponents will cast that use most their mana so suddenly a counterspell that requires the opponent to pay one or two mana stops the spell from being cast no matter what it is. There’s respect for a removal card like Path to Exile, because at least you got to have the spell resolve and have the permanent hit the battlefield versus blue’s counterspells literally preventing the spell from resolving and going from cast to graveyard normally leaving to player who used the counterspell having used less mana to counter than the player who cast whatever the spell was. Saying “blue only really has access to counterspells and draw power” is underestimating how powerful just being able to do those two things are. Like any other game, no matter what format your playing, MTG is all about card advantage and having options. This is why planeswalkers are considered to be so powerful, if anything blue should had been the color to get the least amount of planeswalkers or if any be terrible comparatively.
How it is in real life Red: good at arggo and burn Blue: good at board control and mill Black: good at board control via removal and hand control Green: big smashy creatures also sometimes has effects from other colors White: good at everything, it littlery has stuff all the other colors do but better
Red/white: in yo’ face! Red/blue: need a spell? Red/green: trampling all over the world Red/black: DRACARYS White/green: So, I have 689 1/1 elf soldier tokens….. White/black: WE CONDEMN YOU TO ULTRADEATH White/blue: its our turn. Its always our turn. Black/blue: nothing is allowed on the table unless we permit it. Black/green: death is optional. Blue/green: wE cReAtE tHaT wHiCh ShOuLd NeVeR bE!
Black is not evil. It is the only one that compels self sacrifice to achieve greater goals. You pay your own life as do those who serve you, using the pain of willing death as a tool. It doesnt consider itself wise, or just, or knowing, only necessary. You serve death because that is your nature, but to win, you must hope it serves you.
Funny thing i noticed, if u compare the colors to the supposed aspects of the four alchemical elements, red and green are fire and earth obv., and white is air, but BLACK, not blue, has the characteristics most associated with water, i.e. death decay and transformation. Blue is more like the element of spirit
Overall this is a very well done article, and well representative of the colors and philosophies of the game. My critique, however, is that your tendency to speak in absolutes and generalizations lends itself to inaccuracies. For example, Red is not the only color to get rituals. Blue has High Tide, and Black has cards like Burnt Offering. Another is that black does in fact have a way to deal with established artifacts: a card called Gate to Phyrexia. In general terms, what you say is on point, but because of the phrasing of things such as “only (color) gets (effect)” this article isn’t as accurate as it could be.
Idea, go ahead and rate me. White/Red is fulfilled by Victory. White/Blue is fulfilled by Structure. White/Black is fulfilled by Control. White/Green is fulfilled by Preservation. Blue/Red is fulfilled by Ingenuity. Blue/Green is fulfilled by Growth. Blue/Black is fulfilled by Information. Red/Green is fulfilled by Authenticity. Red/Black is fulfilled by Liberation. Green/Black is fulfilled by Stability.
I wish there was more in White/Black that leaned more on the combination of White’s Idealism, and Blacks Individualism. Stuff with a focus on liberation from unjust rule, and the embodiment of laws which sanctify freedom and individual sovereignty. How do you do that? Cards which set down rules that prevent “Mind Control”, or Counter Effects, would be nasty to play against as a Blue player… though a spell that counters counter-spell, does sound a bit niche…
It’s a very basic article, all things considered. I would’ve preferred some more in-depth explanations over half-assing the dual colors – and some more fact checking. Red being the only color that gets Ritual spells while Dark Ritual is probably the singlemost well known Ritual and black ramp spell out there? Flying not being a Red staple while Dragons are the Red staple creature type (other than Goblins)?
My mono white deck has literally been called degenerate because it does everything that people don’t want mono white to do like counterspells and also land destruction lot of land destruction also board wipes and it just random stuff like winter ord while having smothering tithe on the table. or you know and I also have hokori dust drinker. My magic deck is basically designed to make everybody at the table have a terrible time. In fact my absolute favorite mono white card is actually called silence because somebody can think they’re doing something and then you can just shut them down for an entire turn. But the counter spells I run and my white deck are Dawn charm and rebuff the wicked I believe. And when all hell breaks loose I’m the guy who has the World Slayer just waiting to devastate the whole table. And guess who I put it on I put it on the soltari visionary because he’s got shadow” only creatures with Shadow can block creatures with shadow and when he lands an attack he automatically destroys an enchantment… I’m a bad man…😂😂😂 I also run lotus field because it’s indestructible land I believe it gives you three mana at once but you have to wait a turn to use it or something like that. And don’t get me started on a Emeria the sky ruin, that card has save the bacon a few times. I’ve actually been criticized about not having a straight-up mono white deck because I have a lot of artifacts in it too.
This is a great article but is missing how enchantments, sorcery and instants are more or less in a particular color and alos you are missing colorless, eldrazi & artifact only decks and how those would interact with the color wheel. Also, three color combos and their interaction with colors and colorless. otherwise a great intro article
I’ll try and summarize in my own words: ☀️White: Let there be life, and an army of my loyal minions and heroes to swarm you… for justice and order! 💧Blue: I know every move you’ll make even if I don’t know… and even if you succeed, I’ll deny it… with SCIENCE. 💀Black: Are you attached to a certain something or someone? Good, that will make taking them from you all the sweeter… and I got nothing to lose. NOTHING. 🔥Red: Hurry up, I got places to be! Oh, what is that supposed to be? Whatever, I’ll set it on fire! You got a problem with that? I’ll throw hands, b***h! 🌳Green: I come in peace. However, mess with nature, and nature will eat you alive… and leave your remains for the grass to grow. 🔣White-Blue: It is illogical of you to believe in something you cannot see… except for my counter spells and flying creatures. Those are understandable. 🥶Blue-Black: Do you believe in magic? The only thing I believe in is my victory, and your permanent death… by any means necessary. 😈Black-Red: Bwhahahahaha! Oh, it is gonna be so much fun destroying anything and everything you care for. Why? Because it is FUNNY. 💪Red-Green: See this? Even my pecs have pecs. You can’t measure up to me. I’m the strongest being ever, and I got at least 4 chads backing me up, small fry. 🥗Green-White: Life is grand, isn’t it? Let’s have some fun, but do not get carried away; We all need to eat and sleep properly, so we can work as hard as we play.
I wanted to note that I have seen 1 white counter spell in one of the magic games and I am sure it was printed but it was a rather weak counter spell but would be effective maybe cancel something that used all the players mana. I would say tho it might be the only white counter spell ever which is kinda sad. Also black not being nessarily evil I kinda laughed I would love to see somone put togther a less evil style deck that can win a magic match 😉
“Blue is the only color to get counter Magic.” 😬 someone’s never seen Mana Tithe, Withering Boon, Red Elemental Blast, Pyroblast, Lapse of Certainty, or Tibalt’s Trickery. Can’t tell you how many games I’ve ruined with a Mana Tithe and/or Withering Boon. Edit: “Red is the only color that gets ritual effects.” Bruh. Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Culling the Weak, Culling Ritual (yes it’s multi colored, but still not red), and there’s another one that sacs a creature and adds black based on something. I forgot what though.
I would argue Green loves graveyard even more than black does not for lore, but gameplay. They have a card called “Shigeki, Jukai Visionary”, which for the very little experience that I have, Ifeel that originally this card was supposed to be a yugioh card, considering that he can both mill and retrieving stuff from grave, including other green card that can retrieve Shigeki itself for mana-limited loops 🤣🤣🤣