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Magic the Gathering Color Theory: Red

October 11, 2017 dan

And we’re back with more lore behind the colors of Magic: The Gathering! This time, we’re going to cover Red. The absolute definition of aggro, red is fast and to the point with its style of play. With cards such as Lightning Bolt, Goblin Guide, and more recently, Chandra, Torch of Defiance, red is synonymous with aggression.

Red wants freedom. Freedom from others, freedom from authority, freedom from personal restraint. Red is the color of passion and emotion, and believes that one should never let their emotions be restrained. Red believes that everyone is on a particular journey in life, and that the only way to go through this journey successfully is to let your emotions lead you to your destination. If you want something, you don’t wait for it to come to you — You go out and get it yourself. Right now. Live in the moment, and live to your fullest. Normally, people associate red with anger and love. In regards to the color pie, that is incorrect; It is a color of all emotions. Yes, it has parts of it related to anger and love, but on the other side it also represents happiness, sadness, camaraderie… Anything that one can feel passionate about. So when I say red is an “aggressive” color, that does not inherently mean that red represents only aggression. At the end of the day, red is about recognizing what makes you passionate, and acting on it regardless of what others may think or do.

Red, mechanically, is fairly simple to relate to its beliefs. As red is a color that lives in the moment and chases down what it needs in an instant, it is obvious that it’s going to have a lot of cards focused on getting from point A to point B as fast as possible. In this case, point A being the start of a game, and point B being winning. There are 4 major mechanics I see in this ideology: Haste, card draw, First Strike/Double Strike, and direct damage.

First off is haste, which is fairly simple to understand. In Magic, as well as many other card games, there is this thing called “summoning sickness”, which basically means a creature cannot attack the turn it’s summoned. Creatures with haste bypass summoning sickness, and can attack the turn they’re played. Haste represents red’s want to go out and do what it needs to right away, as opposed to preparing at all. Red lives in the moment, and the moment doesn’t involve waiting around.

Card draw with red is very different from card draw with blue. In blue, as I mentioned in this article, card draw represents the search for knowledge, where as in red, card draw comes with a price: Most of the time, when you draw a card, you must also discard a card along with it. This is because of Red’s mentality towards accomplishing its goals. If something you have in the moment isn’t helping you, throw it away and get something better. You need to win right now, and what you currently have isn’t accomplishing that.

First Strike and Double Strike are probably the hardest abilities to explain in Magic. When two cards fight each other, they deal their damage to each other at the same time. If a card has first strike, it means that when it fights another card, it deals its damage first, and if the damage is enough to kill, the opposing card does NOT deal its damage to the card with First Strike, because it dies before it can do that. Double Strike is when a card attacks with First Strike, and then attacks a second time at the same time as the opposing card. Basically, it does its damage twice in one attack.

How does this relate to red? Quite simply, it relates to red’s “shoot first, ask questions later’ mentality. Red is impulsive. Red acts on what it feels right from the get-go, so of course it’s going to be the one to swing first. As for double strike, well, who says it stops swinging after the first attack? That’s not how you win a fight.

Finally. there’s direct damage. Do I really have to explain this one? What’s a more efficient way of winning the game than hitting your opponent in the face or blowing up a creature that’s in your way? The answer: Literally nothing. Like I’ve been saying, red wants to get things done, and get them done quick. Direct damage is the purest example of this.

In relation to its other beliefs, there is one sub-theme of red that it touches upon: love. But not love in the romantic sense people tend to use it as. According to red, love is caring for anyone who is important to you. Family, friends, romance, pets, anything. If they’re important to you, to any degree, they’re worth keeping in your life. End of discussion. Red tends to get abilities that focus on camaraderie, such as Battalion, Bloodrush, and Battle Cry, and flavor in cards like Cathartic Reunion, shown above.

Well, that’s red in a nutshell. As always, I’ll leave you with the card I think represents red as a whole: Lightning Bolt, The Best Card in Magic™. I’ve mentioned it a couple of times in this article, simply because it’s too important and iconic NOT to be talked about. Lightning Bolt is simple and to the point: 1 mana, deal 3 damage to target creature or player. It can take out a creature early in the game for more damage, hit your opponent’s face for 3, or help take down a bigger creature none of yours can. Its goal is to help you finish the job as fast as possible, just like red wants to do. It’s also just a generally amazing card and if you’re in red you absolutely play it 100% of the time.

Magic The Gathering Color Theory: White

August 26, 2017 dan

It’s time for another Magic the Gathering color theory! Last time, I talked about MTG’s most iconic color, blue, but this time, I wanted to talk about white: The color of many iconic cards such as Serra Angel. Like I said last time, the colors of MTG each have different sets of beliefs and ideals, and each card in that color is created with these beliefs and ideals in mind. White is no different.

White wants peace, though its methods of attaining peace are rather militaristic. It believes that in order to attain peace, one must first abide by a strict set a laws to keep the peace, and second, put the majority above the individual. If the sacrifice of one means the success of the many, then that’s good. White is ultimately looking out for the greater good at the expense of individualism. It builds up huge numbers of followers through law and religion, and these numbers swear towards the ideals of white. Amass large numbers and fight for white’s ideals. If a few soldiers die in the process, that’s fine, because they’re just soldiers. So long as the end of furthering their idea of order is met, the means are justified. To say white is self-centered wouldn’t be far from the truth. This is shown by through one of white’s staple mechanics, token generation. As with blue and card draw, token generation isn’t an ability exclusive to white, but white certainly has the best. White generates more 1/1 tokens than any other color, mostly through cards that have some sort of religious affiliation or renowned war heroes. Note how even the renowned heroes such as Hero of Bladehold still aren’t referred to by name, again, showing the “just a soldier” mentality.

Hero of Bladehold, Captian of the Watch, Elspeth Sun's Champion

The tokens that are generated are nameless soldiers whose intent is to simply swing in and get damage. Because you can consistently make tokens due to effects like Hero of Bladehold and Elspeth’s +1 ability, you’re less inclined to care about your tokens dying because you can simply make more next turn. They’re just soldiers.

Keep in mind, this is not some Orwellian dystopia of a color like you may be thinking. Beings in white are in white because it’s their ideal as well, not because white is forcing them to think that. Gideon Jura, the current face of white in MTG, is literally putting the lives of the entire MTG multiverse before his own in the current story. Not because white is forcing him to, but because he believes that is what needs to be done to keep the peace. Prioritizing the many over the individual.

While white seeks peace and protection for all, it will prioritize peace and protection for its own. This is shown in its vast array of spells that either give its creatures protection from a certain color or source (A creature with protection from a color/source cannot be targeted or blocked by said color/source), or cards that give buffs to other creatures in white. The best token creation is in white, the best buffs for those creatures are also in white. At the end of the day, you’re either with white or against it, and if you’re against it, it wants nothing to do with you.

honor of the pure, avacyn angel of hope, brave the elements

We’ve talked a lot about what white does to further itself and how it protects its people, but what about those against white? This is where the other ideal of white comes in: Law. White believes that in order to keep the peace in the world, one must abide by a strict set of laws that keep everyone safe. A lot of white’s enforcement of these laws come from religious backing. White is the color of God, angels, priests, clerics, etc. because it traditionally represents purity. Divine intervention and religious figures is how white deals with those who oppose it. Most of these abilities involve keeping the opponent oppressed in some way shape or form, be it through preventing the opponent from using certain cards, keeping creatures tapped, or simply removing cards from play.

banisher priest, grand abolisher, imposing sovereign

There you have it, white’s philosophy. It used to be mostly just about protecting people and healing the weak, but as of late it has also adopted a much more militaristic, group think kind of approach to peace. A quick note, not all cards in a color symbolize everything about the color. White doesn’t have to exclusively be about furthering ideals. There are cards that just care about protecting those who can’t protect themselves, regardless of if they’re for or against white, like Gideon, for example.

As for cards that do fall in line with all ideals, there is one card that I feel symbolizes everything about white: Wrath of God.

wrath of god

It only has one effect, but that one effect symbolizes everything white is about. The advancement of peace for everyone at the expense of the few, through divine intervention. Wipes the board against white’s opponent, and while it also wipes white’s board, white doesn’t care because its units are expendable. The effect seems fair, but since it doesn’t cause white as much of an inconvenience as its opponent, it’s actually a move in white’s favor.

Magic The Gathering Color Theory: Blue

August 4, 2017 dan

One of my favorite games ever is good ‘ol Magic: The Gathering. I’ve grown a pretty large attachment to it over the years, to where I’ve reached a point where I’m watching deckbox reviews on youtube for fun. Though, when it comes to Magic, I feel like something that goes widely underappreciated about it, at least in my community, is the lore of the game. Especially when it comes to the meaning behind the big 5 colors of the game. A lot of players brush over the colors, thinking they’re just an arbitrary means of organizing different play styles, when they’re actually much more than that. The colors of MTG each represent different sets of beliefs and ideals, and each card in that color is created while keeping those beliefs and ideals on mind. This time, I’ll be talking about the most iconic color in Magic, blue. The color of MTG’s own posterboy, Jace Beleren.

In MTG there’s this thing called the color pie. It’s an image showing the colors in alignment/opposition with each other, and what each one represents in terms of ideology.

The Color Pie (via MTG Wiki)

Blue wants knowledge. Blue believes that the pursuit of knowledge is the most important thing in life. Blue believes that the world is ever-changing, and because of that it always wants more information. How will it know what to do in a situation if they don’t know every single possible outcome? Unlike other colors which hold things like morality, emotion, the self, etc. above all else, blue doesn’t care about that. All blue cares about is learning. What’s the most optimal move? What knowledge will it gain from this? So long as blue comes out in the end knowing more, it’s a good trade-off. Blue wants to know anything and everything about the world. This search for knowledge is shown in a lot of the staple cards in blue.

Drawing cards represents this search for knowledge. Each individual draw allows the player to gain more knowledge about the current game, allowing them to better assess the situation. While card draw isn’t an ability exclusive to blue (that would be way too powerful), blue certainly has the best (and probably just more) versions of the ability.

Cards: Ancestral Recall, Brainstorm, Jace Beleren

Blue is not just about the pursuit of knowledge, though. Keep in mind, blue doesn’t just look for knowledge; it retains all of it. By searching for so long and learning so much, it knows how to come out winning in many, many situations, to the point where blue has effectively solved Magic. Blue is incredibly smart; borderline omniscient in some cases. Knowing how to beat everything is exactly where another staple abilities of blue come in: scrying and counter spells.

Scrying is a mechanic that allows you to look at the top card(s) of your deck depending on how much the effect lets you, and decide whether or not you want to keep the cards on the top of your deck, or put them on the bottom. Looking at what cards you’re going to draw, and literally changing that if you please, is pretty much as omniscient as you can get in MTG, considering you’re more or less seeing the future. It’s also paired with other beneficial abilities a lot, like a creature with evasion or card draw.

Cards: Serum Visions, Augury Owl, Preordain

While scry looks into the future, counter spells are the definitive form of blue’s overwhelming knowledge. Blue is able to stop pretty much anything in its tracks because it knows exactly how it works and how to beat it, hence why you have cards that literally just prevent other cards from working. Scry still has to assess some kind of situation, hence why a lot of the time it comes out at sorcery speed (can only be played on your turn). It’s only used at a time where you have the time to assess what to do. Counter spells happen at instant speed (can be played whenever), meaning that blue already has the necessary knowledge to know how to deal with the situation.

Cards: Negate, Force of Will, Counterspell

There is one card that I feel embodies everything blue is about, and it’s a little card called Cryptic Command. For 4 mana, it lets you do pretty much anything you’d ever want to do while playing blue. Stop an opponent from hurting you, counter literally anything, draw a card… It’s great. And you get to pick two of the effects.

Card: Cryptic Command

And there you have it, blue’s philosophy in a nutshell. It wants to know literally everything. Because of this, it’s generally agreed upon that in terms of sheer consistency and power, blue is the best color in the game. It’s hard to beat something that knows everything about you.