About the five types...

[MattW]

First off, you probably haven't seen me on this board, at least not for a long, LONG time, but anyway, I've been playing Yu-Gi-Oh! for a while, and I'm also starting into Duel Masters, but I think I'm on the verge of quitting Yu-Gi-Oh!, for numerous reasons. Since I feel I can juggle two card games, I'm thinking of returning to Magic (even though my first time lasted only a month or two) in place of YGO!. But, I started thinking, and realized I don't know much about the play and strategy of Magic, I've only bought the 7th Edition Starter Pack and one of the Mirrodin theme decks. So, I have one particular question that I never thought to ask before...

There are five types in Magic, correct? I'm assuming they're Fire, Dark, Light, Water, and some kind of Nature/ green type, correct (besides special types, like Artifact Creatures and such)? Well, I was wondering what strategy does each color go for? Like, if you know anything about Duel Masters, you know that red (Fire) goes for big attackers, black (Dark) goes for creature removal, etc., like that, you know? But what do the different types in M:TG do? I really want to know this, so I can get an idea of what kind of deck I want to build before I jump in right away.

[Secret Squirrel]

Magic has always had a balanced color pie. It is made up of the following colors: Red, Blue, Green, Black and White are the five colors. There's also artifacts.

Red is weenie/burn. Rush with quick attackers, or big creatures with low mana costs that have a drawback. Red is typically very reckless "I have to attack now!"

Black is very flexible and is willing to pay just about anything be this flexible. Black has a wide aray of mechanics: drawing cards, discarding cards, destroying creatures, big creatures, etc. (Many people link black and evil together, but that is really a pointless arguement).

White wants to be in control. It also has a lot of weenies. It is the best at life gain. It also has a lot of cards that boost toughness.

Green likes big creatures. It has a wide array of creatures, from weenies to very high cc (8) beats. It's also good at artifact destruction.

Blue is the real control color. It is the best at card drawing. It also has a signature card: Counterspell, one of the strongest cards ever. It also has a billion broke cards (Academy, Time Walk, Force of Will, others.)

I would like to refer you to these articles by Mark Rosewater explaining the color pie:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/mr85

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/mr84

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/mr43

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/mr109

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/mr57

[MattW]

Thanks, those were pretty helpful... Now, I'm considerring doing either Blue and Black or Blue and White... I like Blue...

[zhouman003]

blue is probably the most popular color. I love blue too! but it's so strong that the man (wotc) always has to bring it down. Gettin rid of counterspell... what next? "Inspiration is possitively broken! Drawing 2 cards for 4 is way too cheap...and it's an instant TOO?"

but yeah, blue black is a very powerful combo, as is blue white.

In magic there are allied colors and enemy colors. allied colors work welltogether and usually have dual lands or gold cards of those colors. enemy colors usually have hosers (cards that hurt one color specifically) for their enemies

to recognise alied and enemy colors, the colors r laid out in a wheel (shown here in a row) the colors touching are allies and ones that don't touch are enemies:

Red - Black - Blue - White - Green - Red (the second red is used to represent that it's a circle)

The allied colors don't have to be followed of course. white/red slide is an amazing deck. so is green/black cemetary. but as a rule of thumb... white/green decks r usually really weak.

hope all this helped

[MajinUltima]

Red - Black - Blue - White - Green - Red (the second red is used to represent that it's a circle)

--*hiss* That's the wrong order, looking at all things with all 5 mana symbols on them.

White - Blue - Black - Red - Green - White(Repeat)

In any event, on to my own summaries of colors and their strengths and weaknesses.

White:
Str - MASS removal (all kinds), Life Gain, Weenie, Enchantments, Equipment, Creature enhancement, Protection from colors
Weak At - Drawing, Targetted removal

Blue:
Str - Drawing, Counters, Artifacts, Bounce, Deck destruction, Morphs
Weak At - Creature stats, Removal

Black:
Str - Life loss, Life drain, Damage, Stat reduction, Targetted removal, High power, Discard, Revival, Land destruction, Regeneration
Weak At - Low toughness, Slow creatures, Artifact/Enchantment removal

Red:
Str - Damage, Fast creatures, Artifacts, Land destruction
Weak At - Low toughness, Enchantment removal

Green:
Str - Land fetching, Mana production, Enchantments, Creatures, Artifact/Enchantment removal, Protection from Artifacts, Regeneration, Some land destruction
Weak At - Creature removal

Artifacts:
Str - Colorless enables splash with any color(s), Equipment, Affinity, Retrieval, Mana production, Indestructible, Some mass removal
Weak At - Targetted removal

[VolCanon]

Well Majin is a little wrong on that point.

White is:
Good:
Mass removal (Creatures/Arti/Enchantments. No more land removal)
Target removal (not as strong as black, however)
Enchantment removal
High toughness
Flying
Efficient weenies (lots of abilities/ PT for low cost)

Bad:
Expensive fatties (mostly angels and dragons)
Weak artifact removal (in Type 2)
Weak card draw (expensive and has drawback (Truce, Oblation, so on)

Blue:
Good:
Card Draw
Counterspells (Permission)
Removal for card disadvantage (they keep their card, but it's off of the field)
Deckout (not so much anymore)
Deals heavily with artifacts
Flying
Unblockable
Extra turns
Most broken cards are blue

Bad:
Weak win condition
Weakest creatures

Black:
Good:
Best removal for creatures.
Flying
Card Draw
Fast Mana (not anymore)
Graveyard (recursion of creatures, removal from graveyard, return to hand from graveyard)
Regenerate
Good creatures
Discard
Drain Life (As in take some from enemy/creature to add to your own)
Tutor (take a card from your deck and put it into hand or on top of deck)
Land Destruction (not anymore)
Sacrifice for speed (such as pay life to deal damage, pay life to make creatures bigger, pay life to draw cards, etc.)
Deals with artifacts well.

Weak:
No artifact or enchantment removal (must use artifact or another color. That's one of the reasons Black is so weak in T2 now)

Red:
Good:
Fast
Direct damage to creature/player
Artifact destruction
Land destruction
Creatures have high power, low toughness
Some flying (dragons)

Bad:
No enchantment removal (falls prey to CoP:Red)
No card draw (if initial attack fails, red might be down)

Green:
Good:
Land Destruction
Mana acceleration
Enchantment/Artifact removal
Creatures (good weenies, good fatties)
Regenerate
Block Flying
Trample

Weak:
Susceptible to removal - creature based color.
Weak creature removal (most kills are done with battle damage, or the 'venom' ability. However, Green has cards like Taunting Elf to make it easier)
Weak card draw.

Artifacts:
Good:
You can use any color
Recently given power (affinity, indestructable)
Gives colors abilities they otherwise wouldn't have
Weak mana production (usually colorless (Thran Dynamo) or colored if it's weak (myrs)
Creatures are typically weaker than even blue creatures to balance that anybody can play them.
Mass removal.

Weak:
No Target removal
Susceptible to removal

And so on. I probably didnt get them all.

[MajinUltima]

Vol:
Well Majin is a little wrong on that point.

--Ideally, you'd show HOW I was wrong... instead of just saying it and going on with a really long post. Anyway...

Target removal (not as strong as black, however)

--Yeh, I forgot about all the ones limited largely to attacking creatures.

Weak artifact removal (in Type 2)

--Disenchant, Altar's Light (bypasses Indes), Soul Nova (the secondary effect)... and what else?

Most broken cards are blue

--Tolarian Academy is a land, a technically colorless... but I won't bother arguing how many others are godawful broken, especially imprinted on a Panoptic Mirror.

Deals with artifacts well.

--Define "with". Do you mean Nim "with"... or do you mean... um... hmm... Relic Bane "with"?

(If the latter, then Black is only slightly better than Blue at dealing "with" Artifacts... but Blue deals with them pre-emtively by counters.)

No artifact or enchantment removal (must use artifact or another color. That's one of the reasons Black is so weak in T2 now)

--Ah, then you must mean Nim "with". Oh yeh, and ye olde Skeleton Shard-ish cards.

No card draw (if initial attack fails, red might be down)

--Shame that Browbeat was only of the only Red drawing cards. Fiery Gambit from Mirrodin has a chance though, just need some coin flips.

Weak card draw.

--Depends on the type of Green deck. Collective Unconsciousness draws quite well, but there's also Well of Lost Dreams now which works directly with 2 of Green's greatest strengths: Life Gain and Mana production.

A Nourish-Scepter with a Well of Lost Dreams... or just plain old aptly-named Wellwisher can give Green draw power that'd make Blue cringe. So, I wouldn't call Drawing a weakness for Green any more than I would for White, Red, or Black. Not everything can be Blue...

Gives colors abilities they otherwise wouldn't have

--Indeed. I forgot to mention how brutal Skullclamp is for a creature-heavy color like Green. Or Mask of Memory for a color that loves to Trample.

Weak mana production (usually colorless (Thran Dynamo) or colored if it's weak (myrs)

--Artifact Land, Darksteel Ingot, Color Myr, Gilded Lotus...

Because of the fact that Artifacts themselves don't really "need" colored mana (wait for Sunburst), it makes it really easy to just run 4 Cloudposts, 12 Urza Lands, and 4 whatevers to call it a day. Each of those 16 lands are likely to produce 2-4 colorless mana during the course of the game which, in fact, gives a purely Artifact (colorless) deck a very very good mana boost.

It depends on the deck, but colorless decks are by NO means shafted on mana production. And the first 4 I listed are great mana producers for any color.

And so on. I probably didnt get them all.

--No one's perfect.

[Sailor Mars Dragon]

I post something like this not long ago. Not as good as their's *points up*, but it's still someting.

Green-The 'fast' color as it has mana accelerators and big creatures left and right and ways to make them bigger. Aggresive.

Blue-This is the tricky color with counterspells and drawing cards, not to mention flyng creatures. When your creature has Flying it can only be blocked by flying or something that especailly says it can block it. A very control based color. Definately conservative.

White-Life gain/Damage prevention and little guys with ways to make them bigger. Not to many big creatures, but tons of small ones. Some people say conservative here, but I say aggresion is best with this color.

Black-Discard and Destruction. Some cards cost some of your life, but can really hurt your opponent. If you like destroying anything poossible, here you go. This color can be either aggresive or conservative.

Red-Famous for burn spells. Hurty your opponent's life or beat up their creature. Some small creatures and some big ones, but always a burning fury. A very aggresive color.

Personally, I like controlling the opponent as much as possible, so I have a Black/Blue deck.