(Progenitus || art by sansyu)

Which Color Of Magic Calls To You?

One of the coolest aspects of Magic: The Gathering is the five colors and how each represents different strengths, weaknesses, and playstyles. That’s why, no matter what sort of gamer you are, you can find a color or color combination in Magic that aligns with your personality.

Below is a section for each of the five colors, the basic concepts for each, and cards illustrating what each color can do for you in Magic!

White

White (W): Peace, law, structure, selflessness, equality

White is the color of Angels, Knights, Cats and Soldiers. The color is really good at deploying small but efficient creatures to the battlefield fast, and then boosting those creatures to make their attacks even more powerful. White is also good at destroying things that need destroying, often in a way that hits everyone equally, such as "destroy all creatures" or "destroy all artifacts and enchantments."

White - Small Creatures Working Together

Felidar Retreat has two modes that really illustrate what white decks often want. Do you need an extra creature when landfall triggers? Make a Cat. Already have a few creatures on the battlefield? Put a +1/+1 counter on each of them to make them a bit bigger.

Mentor of the Meek rewards you for playing smaller creatures by letting you draw extra cards. Regal Caracal enters with some Cat tokens, and then boosts all of your Cats a little bit bigger.

White - Setting Rules

If your opponent is playing creatures with haste (such as Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker) then Authority of the Consuls puts the kibosh on that strategy, and since they enter tapped they can't even block your attacking Cats! Plus you get a life to blunt those eventual attacks.

Hare Apparent sets a new rule for deckbuilding-- normally you can only run a maximum of four copies of a Magic card in your deck outside of basic lands, and in Commander you can usually only run a single copy-- but Hare Apparent lets you bend the rules in your favor.

Crystal Barricade sets two new rules-- giving you hexproof, and preventing all noncombat damage that would be dealt to other creatures you control.

White - Dealing Out Punishment

Day of Judgment is an excellent example of white's "fair" mass removal -- everyone's creatures die when you cast it, though nothing says you can't play a card to perhaps save your creatures from the effect, like Boromir, Warden of the Tower.

Cathar Commando's flash ability means you can play it at instant speed to either ambush an attacker, or just to surprise your opponent with a higher power creature that can then attack on your turn. And if there's an artifact or enchantment that needs destroying, it can sacrifice to take care of business.

And then there's Angel of Finality, which is the bane of an opponent who is heavily invested in graveyard shenanigans.

And there's a little taste of what it means to be a white mage. If you’re a fan of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Marge Simpson, or Superman, you should dig deeper into the white cards!

Blue

Blue (U): Knowledge, deceit, caution, deliberation, perfection

Blue is the color of Merfolk, Wizards, flying Drakes and sea creatures like Leviathans and Krakens. The color is really good at answering opponents' spells while they're on the stack, countering them before they resolve.

While opponents might get salty about you doing that, sometimes casting a well-timed Counterspell can make you a hero when you stop one opponent from casting a spell that wins your multiplayer game. It's also good at drawing extra cards -- and the more cards you have, the more options you have!

Blue - The Color of No

Negate and An Offer You Can’t Refuse are popular ways to say "no" when your opponent is doing something that hurts your position, or is going to put them too far ahead. And then there's cards like River’s Rebuke which undoes all your opponent's hard work deploying cards to the battlefield over the course of the game before you cast that powerful sorcery. And hey, why not attack in while they now have no blockers?

Blue - Knowledge Is Power

Arcanis the Omnipotent is a living embodiment of a power blue mage who can tap to draw three extra cards, and if an opponent tries to destroy it you can return it to your hand in response. Opt is a much smaller spell, but it's cheap to cast, at instant speed, and gives you a little bit of library manipulation to help ensure the card you draw is better than a completely random card.

And speaking of power, Omniscience is an expensive enchantment that then makes any spell you cast afterwards free from the constraints of mana!

Blue - Transformation

While blue isn't so good at destroying cards on the battlefield, it can transform them into something less harmful to you, such as Imprisoned in the Moon and the hilariously flavorful Eaten by Piranhas. And then there's Time Stop, which takes an opponent's entire turn and ends it, even if there's a spell or effect on the stack.

And that's a peek into what it means to be a blue mage. If you’re a fan of Sherlock Holmes, Lisa Simpson, or Sheldon from Big Bang Theory, you should dig deeper into the blue cards!

Black

Black (B): Power, self-interest, death, sacrifice, uninhibitedness

Black is the color of Demons, Zombies, and Vampires. Black is very good at utilizing the graveyard as a resource, with many cards evoking the power of necromancy. No other color kills creatures as well as black does, and it will even destroy or sacrifice your own creatures for profit-- more cards, or mana, or some other way to gain an advantage.

Black - Power of the Graveyard

Black has a lot of creatures like Reassembling Skeleton that comes back from the graveyard over and over again, and then there are spells like Zombify that can bring back a key creature from your graveyard to the battlefield. There are a lot of ways where you can toss into the graveyard a huge monster that normally costs a ton of mana to cast, but for four mana you can cheat it into play.

And then there are spells like Rise of the Dark Realms that bring back multiple creatures from graveyards and puts them all onto the battlefield in one fell swoop!

Black - Bringing Death to Creatures

Massacre Wurm is excellent at destroying all the smaller creatures your opponents have, and draining them of two life for each creature that dies, both then and creatures that die later in the game. Hero’s Downfall lets you kill a problem creature -- or planeswalker -- at instant speed.

Vampiric Rites illustrates how you can sacrifice your own creature for a life and an extra card. Remember Reassembling Skeleton? That makes a pretty good creature to sacrifice, over and over again!

Black - Draining Life

Black is also good at draining life from your opponents, with Exsanguinate being an all-star for that in a multiplayer game like Commander. Crossway Troublemakers gives your attacking creatures lifelink, which effectively drains opposing creatures or your opponents of life and adds that to your own life total. And whenever a Vampire you control dies, you can cash in some life to draw a card. Midnight Reaper lets you draw a card whenever a nontoken creature you control dies, but you take a life for the benefit which is usually well worth it.

So you can see sometimes it's fun being bad. If you’re a fan of Rocket Raccoon, Bart Simpson, or Lex Luthor, you should dig deeper into the black cards!

Red

Red (R): Freedom, emotion, action, impulse, destruction

Red is the color of Goblins, fire-breathing Dragons, and Phoenixes. It's good at dealing damage to creatures or opponents' life totals. If the phrase "Let's see what happens!" puts a smile on your face, you just might be a red mage.

Red - Let Chaos Reign!

When you attack with Etali, Primal Storm, you don't know what you're going to get to cast for free from the top of each player's deck. It could be anything! When you put Involuntary Employment in your deck, you don't know what sort of creatures your opponents will play that will make an excellent target to steal and bash with for the turn.

The first ability of Chandra, Flameshaper lets you exile the top three cards of your library and choose one to play this turn, along with three red mana to help you cast it or something from your hand. Again, who knows what might be there on top of your deck-- it could be the perfect card, or maybe three cards that really don't do anything. Let's see what happens!

Red - Dishing Out Damage

Slagstorm is an excellent example of red's damage dealing-- you can choose to damage all creatures, or all players. Then there's Boltwave which dishes out three damage to each opponent for a single red mana.

Goblin Negotiation is an X-spell that gets more and more powerful the more mana you have available. If you have more mana than you need to kill the creature you're aiming at, you get to also make Goblin token creatures for each point of excess damage. Huzzah!

Red - Make Haste!

Haste is an excellent ability to have in Magic, ensuring you can attack with a creature the turn you cast it, so cards like Carnelian Orb of Dragonkind and Axgard Cavalry are excellent in some decks. Some creatures have haste built in, with Ball Lightning being a classic where the haste, trample and it's self-sacrifice ability basically making it a burn spell on a creature.

As you can see, red brings the heat to a Magic game. If you’re a fan of Johnny Storm (The Human Torch), Homer Simpson, or Wile E. Coyote, you should dig deeper into the red cards!

Green

Green (G): Nature, wildlife, connection, spirituality, tradition

Green is the color of Elves, Treefolk, and huge woodland Beasts and Dinosaurs. It's very good at destroying "unnatural" permanents like artifacts and enchantments, and it has creatures that can tap for more mana, or spells that can find lands from your deck and put them onto the battlefield to "ramp" your land faster than your normal land drop each turn.

Green - Making Mana

Springbloom Druid is an example of land ramp, letting you sacrifice a land to search your library for two basic lands that could help fix your colors, and occasionally you may want to have lands in your graveyard for other effects. Elvish Archdruid is an example of green creatures that tap for mana, and it's particularly powerful in an Elf deck.

Loot, Exuberant Explorer lets you play an extra land on each of your turns, and once you have six mana available you can active Loot to dig into your library to find a creature to put onto the battlefield.

Green - Big Monsters

Ghalta, Primal Hunger is an impressively huge and scary creature that gets easier and easier to cast the more other large creatures you've already deployed to the battlefield. Garruk’s Uprising lets you draw cards in conjunction with large creatures, and if those large creatures don't already have trample, it helps give that powerful ability to them.

Preposterous Proportions takes your little creatures and makes them massive -- and it makes your large (hopefully trampling) creatures even larger, for hopefully a game-winning big attack!

Green - the Wilds of Nature

While green can't usually directly kill other creatures outside of combat, there are spells like Bite Down that can kill other creatures if you have a creature on the battlefield big enough to target.

All three of Vivien Reid's abilities are so very green: you can either search the top of your library for a creature or land card and put it in your hand, or you can destroy an artifact, enchantment, or creature with flying. And if you are able to use the "ultimate" ability, you get an emblem that boosts the size of all your creatures and gives them vigilance, trample and indestructible-- basically an unstoppable horde of woodland beatdown!

Spinner of Souls is an excellent way to ensure if all your creatures get killed by a mass removal spell, you can replace all your other dying nontoken creatures with random creatures from the top of your deck.

You can really feel the power of nature when you're a green mage. If you’re a fan of Groot, King Kong, or Maggie Simpson, you should dig deeper into the green cards!

Which of the five colors of Magic most appeals to you? And don't worry, if more than one sounds cool to you, there's no rule that you can't jam two or more colors together in the same deck!

Read more:

• Foundations: How to Build Mana Bases
• The Magic of Mechanics - Foundations

Bennie Smith

Bennie's played Magic since 1994 and has been writing about it nearly as long. Commander is his favorite format, but he's been known to put on his competitive hat to play Standard and Pioneer. Recently he's dabbled in Oathbreaker and Pendragon.