The 5 colors of Magic the Gathering

Magic comes in five different colors: Weiss, Green, Red, Black and Blue. Which card belongs to which color is not chosen at random, as each color has its own characteristics.

White

White stands for light, hope and purity. This color includes the proud and beautiful knights and soldiers, but also the flawless angels. They draw their energy from planes.

The color white is typically used for damage prevention, life generation, or board clear (cards like Tag-Tag that destroy all creatures). White magic also often relies heavily on enchantments.

White is next to green on the mana circle, as they share their love of life, and next to blue, as they like order and planning.

White decks are a kind of all-rounder. They can have many small creatures, but also big strong ones. What white usually finds difficult is a middle ground, which is why they are often built together with other colors.

Green

Green stands for untamed nature. For this reason alone, they draw their mana from trees and forests. Green creatures can often be defenders (creatures that cannot attack), or simply the big, fat, expensive creatures that simply crush everything. Nature-loving races such as elves and dryads fight for green, but also the powers of the forest in the form of spiders, bears and the like. The trample damage ability is particularly common on green creatures, but so is reach (especially on spiders). The green abilities are designed for growth, so they can usually donate mana or make creatures stronger (Giant Growth is a classic: for one green mana, a creature gets +3/+3 until the end of the turn (spontaneous spell)).

Green lies between white and red. Green shares a respect and love of life with white, and untamed wildness with red.

Green decks usually play big strong creatures, making them especially vulnerable against fast decks (aggro / rush), or against even stronger creatures. Green can do little against creatures that are too strong.

Red

Red stands for wildness and emotions. There is no order here. They are represented by goblins, minotaurs and barbarians, among others, who draw their energy from the mountains. Red has a particularly large number of cards that can shoot damage directly, or abilities that deal damage to everyone on the field. Land destruction is also a characteristic of red.

Red shares wildness and untamedness with green, and destruction with black.

Red decks particularly like to build on aggro / rush, i.e. they play a lot of small creatures and end the game as quickly as possible. As mentioned, the whole thing is supported by direct damage spells.

But red is also the color you choose to simply confuse your opponents. There are cards such as Tohuwabohu, in which all remaining cards except lands are randomly distributed to the existing players.

Black

Black stands for betrayal and death. However, they are not evil per se, rather they play regardless of losses – no matter if friend or foe. Black plays cards that can destroy creatures directly, but also cards where you lose creatures / life points yourself in order to generate advantages. Creatures such as zombies and vampires, but also demons and their human followers, fight for the power of the swamps.

Black’s creatures are usually accompanied by fear, although this color doesn’t rely heavily on individual fighters. Depending on the strategy, there are a lot of mindless creatures that don’t stay dead for long, or the creatures are heavily supported by spells – the opponent can’t do you any damage if they don’t have any creatures.

Black shares a penchant for destruction with Red, and intelligence with Blue. Both black and blue don’t play creatures very strongly, but also spontaneous spells and sorceries.

Black is not only the color equivalent of Weiss in this game. Like Weiss, you can use black everywhere and combine it with everything. Only, unlike white, the color plays unfairly. Your opponent is happy to have just played his strongest creature? One spontaneous spell and you destroy it – and black has quite a few of those.

Blue

Blue is the color of scholars and magicians. The color stands for intelligence, but also everything that this entails: manipulation, intrigue and so on.

Blue, which is represented by islands, has only a few strong creatures, which are represented by wizards, sea folk, but also ghosts and birds. They make up for their lack of physical strength with abilities or the ability to fly. Blue is particularly unique with “countering”, i.e. preventing a spell played by the opponent. A card that can do this is also called “Cancel”. However, if a strong creature does get through, you can simply take it over with the appropriate abilities. Blue also plays very strongly with the library (which symbolizes memory in Magic) and the hand. Many spells let you draw cards and some creatures become stronger the more cards you have in your hand.

Blue and black do not only focus on the visible field and connect through their intelligence. Blue and white are linked by a love of order and peace.