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I have recently been trying to work with the color combinations in my decks, and I began to think about how it is that the colors work together. Now I came up with a few things, and I want to see what everyone here thinks. What I'm going to do is work through all the possible one and two-color combinations to try to see why they do or don't work and I also want to see if anyone out there has any ideas on how to make some odd combinations of colours viable. Comments are appreciated, flames are not.
White:
As mono-color decks go (now that necro has gone from the main set),
white is probobly the most viable. It has all the necessary components to
make a good deck: permanent destruction; good, fast weenies; defenses; big
nasties to deal the killing blow. What white doesn't have is great
amounts of speed (unless one is willing to go weenie/crusade/card drawing)
and no direct damage to speak of. Other then those two things white is
generally laughing.
Usual Deck styles: White Weenie, The Prison (though this _requires a
number of artifacts to function).
Green:
Of all the colors, green has got the long-term and short-term speed. If one is
playing a solid green deck and the oppenent isn't too heavy into permanent
destruction, one can easily have out 6 mana for use by turn 3. With this
kind of speed, green decks usually focus on summoning bigger/badder
nasties and beating the opponent up before they can get any defences up.
The problems facing green can be put simply and fall into one catagory:
the severe lack of permanent destruction. True, the destruction they do
have is usually unlimited (Desert Twister/Tornado), but also incredibly
expensive. And the destruction in which they are weakest is creature
removal. This is a weakness that seems to have left green in a support
role, though it is believed that with the help of recent sets, green can be
played as a central tourney viable color.
Decks: Stampy, Flaming Elves (with a little red)
Blue:
We all know what a mono-blue deck is most likely to do. Counter
everything that even remotely looks like a threat, and somehow do damage
with the few good creatures the color has. The main problems with blue
are that it is fairly slow, and that once something does hit the board it
has real trouble dealing with the threat apart from bouncing it, a purely temporary solution.
Decks: Counterspell/Millstone, Merfolk, Counter/Control
Black:
Black's big things are disruption, small lethal creatures and big
things with evil upkeeps. The first two are what Necro relied on, and the
third is usually what fun decks have a tendency to revolve around.
Black's main problem is that it has _no_ way to deal with enchantments,
very few ways to deal with artifacts, and few ways to deal with black
creatures.
Decks: Necro (in Extended), Graveyard Manipulation, Suicide Black, Hatred, Discard.
Red:
Burn, burn, burn. What else does one expect from a solid red
deck? It burns your land, it burns your artifacts, it burns your
creatures, it burns you. Not that this is a bad way to to go, it just
doesn't seem to make anyone like you. Red's only real weakness is that it
has no way to deal with enchanments, unless they're white. The massive amounts of goblins and other small quicj creatures with drawbacks makes Red a good colour for a weenie deck.
Decks: Sligh, Blitz, Land Destruction.
Two Colors:
White/Green:
This is a color combo to be feared. In the right hands, a deck of
these colors can do anything, mainly because the weaknesses of one color
are the strength of the other. Green supplies some much needed speed and
White covers Green's lack of permanent destruction.
Decks: ???'Geddon, Speed Green creatures under the cover of White, WW w/ 8-10 Green cards.
White/Blue:
This is the color combo of choice to those of us who are control
freaks. Using blue, one can keep nasty things from getting to the table,
and if they do, white is right there to clean up the mess. Almost every
lock deck uses at least a splash of these two colors. About the only
problem with this combo is that it is dead slow. It has next to no ways
to get a quick start, though Mirage may help that a bit.
Decks: Locks, Decking, Humility
White/Black:
An odd combination, and not one that is usually seen. But there
is some reason to believe that it may be valuable to try using these two
together. Black, like green, can be used to speed up White; while white
covers up black's deficiency in destruction. A well tuned white/black
deck should be able to handle anything that hits the board, while dealing
some heavy damage with their combined flying might.
Decks: Pestilence/CoP, Big Flyers
White/Red:
With the combined permanent destruction of these two colors
nothing is going to stay on the board long. Like white/blue this is a
combination that is prone to create locks, though of a much more painful
variety. Like the other popular combinations of colors, it can be seen
that each of these two colors covers the other's weaknesses.
Decks: Land/Creature Destruction
Blue/Green:
Another rarely seen combo, and another combo that looks on the
surface to be viable. Green can give Blue the speed boost it needs and
Blue's counterspells help to keep things from being annoying on the board.
But the main problem of these two colors is not addressed by this combo,
as it is the same problem: the lack of permanent creature destruction.
Decks: TradeAwake, Some combo decks
Green/Black:
Decks of these two colors can be wickedly fast. With both Rituals
and Elves, a green/black deck can have tremendous amounts of mana very
early. And the weaknesses of the colors are fairly well covered: Green
has good enchantment/artifact removal and black can get rid of those pesky
creatures that are driving the green player crazy.
Decks: Survival Death/Victimize
Green/Red:
These decks are very similar to the one above. The Red adds some
more speed and some much needed creature destruction. There are many
speed Red/Green decks that can empty a players hand in three turns. This
is itself perhaps the biggest problem of a green red deck: if it ain't
killed you by the sixth turn, it's probobly run out of steam.
Decks: Fattie Burnem, Land Destruction
Blue/Black:
Bruise decks. These are usually the decks which use blue to
control the envirionment just long enough for black to get out some big
nasty creatures and beat your head in. It is interesting to note that
early Necro decks were black/blue control decks. The main weakness of
these kinds of decks is that once an enchanment hits the table, the only
way for the deck to get rid of it is to kill the offending opponent.
Decks: Old Necro, Control/Discard
Blue/Red:
This is yet another little played, yet seemingly effective color
combo. Blue can be used to keep truly dangerous things (like
enchantments) off the table, while red is busy obliterating everything on
the board, including the opponent. Perhaps the only major weakness to
this deck is that if anything hits the board early which is out of bolt
range, or is a nasty enchantment, there is not much the Blue/Red player
can do.
Decks: CounterHammer or CounterPheonix
Red/Black:
This is the color combo chosen by those who love great amounts of
violence. It is swift and can put out some truly evil creatures fairly
early in the game. For an example of what this kind of deck can do, one
need only imagine a third turn Shivan Dragon when your not holding any
creature destruction. This can be very bad. And if one is not partial to
investing effort into a big creature, the land-destruction (heck,
anything-destruction) possibilities with these two colors are amazing.
About the only problem faced by these two colors is the possiblilty that
an opponent may get out a nasty enchantment in the six turns they have to
live.
Decks: LD, Mega Burn, Fast Creatures
So, anyone have anything to say about this? Oh, and I forgot to mention that this whole thing is done from a Type 2 perspective.
Christopher Shannon Zebarth (zebarth@sfu.ca) wrote:
> I have recently been trying to work with the color combinations in
> my decks, and I began to think about how it is that the colors work
> together. Now I came up with a few things, and I want to see what
> everyone here thinks.Good article. Just one thing -- what about artifact decks? Some mono-colored decks take on a totally different identity when they rely on artifacts heavily.
A quick sketch:
Red/Artifacts: With Urza lands, this becomes X-spell hell, while artifact creatures break through white's COP's.
Blue/Artifacts: Dangerous Recursion, with reappearing Jester's Caps and Helms of Obediance.
Black/Artifact: As fast or faster than black weenie, this deck always puts out at least one 3/3 flyer on turn one. (Ornithopter plus Unholy strength...next turn, Feasted 'thopters start hitting the table.) Or black could use the artifact creature generators (Hive, Serpent Generator) to feed the big black critters with nasty upkeeps.
Green/Artifact: Even more mana with the Urza lands, as if green needed it. But the artifact creature generators are better than thallids, and green has the mana to use them; green/artifact weenie can be formidable.
>> You're right -- I forgot about Song decks. Definitely worth mention.White/Artifact: These decks build impressive defenses with walls, then break the game open with an animated Snow Fortress or some big artifact critter. Probably the weakest of the color/artifact combinations.
Gotta treat artifacts as the sixth color when making a deck, sometimes. :) Unfortunately, in my opinion, not enough powerful colorless lands exist to make pure Artifact decks viable...though I hope someone will prove me wrong. :)
... ... Remus Shepherd (remus@netcom.com)
