Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1146: Color Weaknesses

Episode Date: June 14, 2024

I talk all the time about the strengths of each color. This week, I delve into their weaknesses and how those present themselves mechanically.

I'm pulling away from the curb because I dropped my stone off the college. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today is a topic that people in my blog have asked me to do. I've done stuff similar to it, but I haven't done this exact topic, which is I'm going to talk about color weaknesses. So specifically sort of philosophically on the weaknesses and then Mechanically, so I'm going to talk about each of the five colors and about what the weaknesses are

Okay, but before I get to that let me explain my larger my larger personal philosophy on weaknesses I've made this quote before but it really Hammers home today how I think about weaknesses So I believe that your greatest weakness is your greatest strength pushed too far. That sort of where a weakness comes from is that there's something you care about, something that really matters to you,

that in general is good for you, but from that strength, from you trying to do something, there's an offshoot of that. And that anything in excess can cause issues. from that strength, from you trying to do something, there's an offshoot of that. And that anything in excess can cause issues. And that a lot of weaknesses stem from the idea that, well, you do this thing well, but there's an offshoot of you doing it well.

And that is sort of how I think of things. And that is how I'm gonna present them today. So what I'm gonna do for each color is walk through the philosophy of the color, get into the strength of the color, and then talk about how that plays into the weakness of the color. Okay? I hope that sounds like fun, because that is what we're doing today.

Okay, let's start with white. We're going to go in Wuber Gorter. Okay, so white is about peace through structure. White believes that there are enough resources that you can provide, you can get everybody what they need. That there's enough that not what people want, but everybody can get what they need. But the key to making that work, the key to making sure that people have what they need, that you can eliminate crime and poverty and starvation

and all the great ills of the world is that you have to make decisions based on the group and not the individual. That if the group works as a group and makes decisions as a group and thinks about the needs of the group, you can have what you need. But what White realizes is that inherently,

people are kind of selfish and that left to their own devices, people will do things that benefit themselves over that of the group. So White realized, okay, I need to set up structures. I need to use structure to set up rules or laws. I will set up civil rules, laws, like you can't murder somebody, why?

Because you go to jail, and I can set up moral rules and laws, like religion. Why shouldn't I kill somebody? Because it's morally wrong to kill somebody. And between those things, I can guide people on the correct path, that between laws and religion, I can steer them to do what is right for the group So I want peace fundamentally in the end. I want everybody to live in harmony

I want people not either I want there not to be crime or like I want people to be happy But to do so I need to do it through structure. I need to make sure that people are orderly. Okay, so once again, your greatest, your weakness is your greatest strengths push too far. Well, what is White's greatest strength? White's greatest strength is its organization and that it plans everything. Well, there is a problem when you're all about advanced planning and

that is inflexibility. That white is susceptible to unpredictability. So here's how this plays out in white, for example. Okay, we give white a lot of answers. In fact, white has the most answers. White is the color that can address the most things. Other than pinpoint land destruction, white can deal with almost anything. But, and here's the twist, we give white a couple of vulnerabilities. Number one is that it's very pinpoint in its answers. That white, especially cheap, does not get universal answers. That most of white cheap, does not get universal answers. That most of White's answers are like,

I can deal with this or deal with that. And the way to think of it is, if White knows ahead of time the threats that are coming, if I know, if I could see a list of my opponent's deck, as I'm building my deck, I am well suited to deal with it. White has the most tools at its disposal. But the fact that a lot of its answers are situational means that you can often draw the wrong thing at the

wrong time. On top of that, White has one of White's big issues is its morality. Yes, it makes morality keep people from killing each other, but it does firmly believe in that morality. So for example, white is not big on killing creatures. It will, if it must, it can. White does understand sometimes you have to do what you need to do for the good of the group, but white also is the color that most has answers to its answers.

I'm going to arrest you and lock you away in jail. Well, if you have enchant removal, you'll get your creature back. So white's answers tend to be situational or be something that there is a lot of answers to or not a lot, but there's answers to. You can undo what white did. Yeah, I can oblivion ring your card, but if you get rid of my oblivion ring, you get your card back. So white is the color that is the most vulnerable to people answering it and undoing what it did. Now part of white having all the answers is we want to be very careful with how easy it is for white to get the answers. That is why card advantage is number five in white.

Now back in the day we just didn't give white any card or very very little card advantage. At least very little card drawing. Most of his card advantage was more two for ones and stuff. But with the rise of Commander and a need for a card drawing, we really sort of shifted around a little bit. White now plays the long game. So it's card drawing, like one of the limitations for white is any one card drawn white cannot net white more than one card per turn. And so the idea is that white sort of draws

in the long game. Like if white sets up its rules over time, it can generate the resources it needs, but it doesn't have them right away. And that is a lot of the way that white gets itself in trouble is that white is trying to do something, but it doesn't quite have the exact answer it needs because it's plans went a little bit awry. White is not good at the unpredictable. White is not good at the unexpected. Okay, move us on to blue. So blue is about perfection through knowledge.

What that means is, blue believes you were born a tabla rasa, a blank slate, and you have the ability to do whatever you want, to become whatever you want. You can be the best version of yourself. And through experience, through education, through tools, that you can become the best version of who you are. And the way to do that is you need access to knowledge,

right, you need the ability to sort of learn and make the right choices. Because if you make the wrong choice, you might lose out on potential. And this is how we lean into Blue's weaknesses. Blue is all about knowledge, but it's the fear of not knowing something that causes Blue its problem, passivity. So the idea is Blue's like, I don't want to make a wrong choice.

I want to think through my choices. I want to make sure that what I'm doing is the right thing to do. So I will think long and hard before I do anything. I will investigate. I will make sure that I have the resources possible so that I am making the right decision. The problem there is that Blue sometimes, because of a lack of information gets inactive. It's like I don't want to make the wrong decision so I won't make a decision. So what that leads to blue is that blue gets very reactive. That blue is the most reactive

of the colors. Blue is very much like okay I I'm going to I Will set myself up so I will respond to what you're doing and a lot of blues gameplay is really one of the following Blue is like I have the tools that once I take control of the game I can dominate once I once I am set up and I'm in control, I'm very hard to beat. But I have to get to that state. And because of that, because of blue's reactiveness, because of blue's sort of... Like blue, for example, has the worst curve when it comes to creatures. It both has the least number of creatures and has the worst curve. Like blue, everybody at common gets one in a colored mana for a two, two, except blue.

Do it occasionally at rare, but like blue just doesn't have as good a curve. So blue creatures aren't as good, and blue's tools are, because they're reactive, they're not something that are super effective early on. Like I have to kind of wait for you. Like counterspell's a perfect example. Counterspells are very effective.

I can counter any spell, but I have to not do something. And then if I don't have the right opportunity or you don't cast the kind of spell that I really want to counter, I haven't done anything. And so Blue's vulnerability is to speed. That if his opponent is very aggressive, it often gets under Blue's control. Because so much of what Blue is trying to do is maintain the game. Like Blue, most of what Blue wants to do is it wants to stall until it can gain control. Bounce is a very, very core Blue ability. Bounce says, or on summoning, is I'm not stopping the threat.

You have a creature. I'm not saying I get rid of your threat. All I'm saying is I delay the threat. And that blue is very good at delay, but there's only so much delay. It's only so many resources it has. Another inherent weakness of blue is blue does not directly destroy things. Blue has no actual destruction capabilities. That blue is the one color,

every color has things it can destroy, right? White, like I said, can destroy many things, but black, red, green, there's things they can destroy. There's vulnerabilities that they'll get to, but they can destroy things. Blue does not destroy things. Now it has other tools. It can counter things, but once again, that's reactionary. It can counter things, but once again that's reactionary.

It can bounce things, but that's a delay. Once you start getting a lot of mana, it can start doing things like stealing things. It can also change things, sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanent. So when it gets more mana, it has answers that are a little more permanent, if you will, but they're not cheap. They come later in the game. And so if blue can't get there, blue gets itself in big, big trouble. And that's a lot of blues issues is that blue is sort of set up for the long game, but it

makes it vulnerable in the short game. And that is blues and biggest weakness is it does not deal with speed. It does not deal with aggression. it does not deal with aggression, it just doesn't have great answers. Okay, that my friends is blue. So let's move on to black. So black is power through ruthlessness. So black is a color that says, look, I accept the world the way it is.

People are greedy, they look out for themselves, that's fine. I'm going to set up in a world in which people, like each individual's responsibility for their own welfare is their own. And I'm not going to worry about other people. They worry about themselves. I'm going to worry about me. And it is each person's individually the right to do the best they can for themselves. And ideally, what's the most important thing?

Power. I want the ability to do what I want to do. And so Black really works toward the idea that I'm going to get the things I need. Now, its major tool is ruthlessness. And what that means is Black says, I'm going to do what I need to do to get it done. Nothing is taboo to me. There are things for example other colors like death and disease that they're like oh that's off limits or you know whites like that's immoral like

there's other colors won't do things and black is like look nothing is off limits to me. I will use any resource any tool available and black is like I will take risks. Calculated risks you know I mean black is like, I will take risks, calculated risks. You know, I make the risks I take, I will think through. And there'll be risks that on average, I'm good. It's going to be beneficial to me. But black says, you know, it's ruthlessness is I'm willing to do what other colors aren't willing to do.

Now, mechanically, what that means is black actually has more access to more abilities than most colors but a lot of that access comes through at an additional cost. For example, blue can just draw cards. Black can also draw cards but it costs a resource. Usually life but sometimes sacking something a creature. And what that means is that blacks cost a couple things. One is we make blacks cost mandatory. Some of the colors can opt into doing things like, oh, you can do this extra thing and then get something. But black usually is no, you got to do this.

So the idea of what is the, what is ruthlessness pushed too far is you get compromised, right? That it can come back to bite you. That one of Black's problems is, hey, I'm taking calculated risks, but sometimes the risks are problems. That's why they're called the risks. And that a lot of times Black is like, well, if I'm in a place where I have the resources, very advantageous for me. But if I get behind or things don't go my way,

or I rely a little bit too much on this stuff, I get in trouble. Black is the color that through its calculated risks, often causes, like black can really come to bite itself. We used to do a lot more make deal with the devil things. We do less of that now. But that's a good example of the kind of flavor

where like, hey, you get power at a cost, but that cost can come back and that the idea that, OK, I can do this thing, but I have life. That's great early on when you have a life. But later in the game, if things don't go quite your way, it stops you from having access to them. Oh, I can draw cards if I pay life. early on when you have a life but later in the game if things don't go quite your way it can stop you from having access to them. Oh I can draw cards if I pay life. Well what if I'm so low in life I

can't afford to do that. So black is the color that most comes back to bite itself and black also tends to push you toward wanting to play more black. It's the color that actually makes you want to play more of the color. Black is the color that has the most colored pips in its costs. Green is second, but the difference between black and green is green is king of accessing mana, you know. So green is a little bit better at being able to provide

more access to green, let's say. So black, a lot of times when you play black to maximize what you're doing, black wants you to play more black. Oh it's cost BBB, three black mana? Okay if you're playing all black that's not as bad. And black just does a lot of things to lure you in. And black also gives you things that really, hey they're risky but they pay off in a big way. Like a good example of a really black card. What is Bob's actual name?

There's a card, Bob Marr made it for the Magic Invitational. I'm clicking on its real name. Basically, the idea is each turn, mandatory, not a choice, you reveal the top card of your library, you get a draw, but you have to lose life equal to its converted mana cost, to its mana value. And the idea is early on, it's really powerful. It's netting you extra cards, but it can lose you the game.

And that is a lot of where Black plays around with is we like the idea that Black has access to more things that black can push. Like we black just has a little bit more access to the color by than most colors. Now one of the things that we did early on is we said black has a little bit of an overreliance on death because death is a very powerful tool that everybody else seems afraid to use that black uses. And for quite a while,

death is good against creatures or planeswalkers, but we didn't let Black kill either artifacts or enchantments. Eventually what we learned was having two things that couldn't get rid of was causing Black problems from a play balance standpoint, so we decided to let him have access to enchantments. That changed a couple years ago. It's still a third in enchantments, but the idea was there were three colors that got rid of artifacts, red, white, and green. We wanted three colors that got rid of enchantments, so green, white, and black.

But anyway, the big thing about black is that we like designing black such that it lures you in, it tempts you, it makes you want to do things, but those things can't... Those things, by the way, real quick difference between black and red. Black is making calculated risks, and the idea is the majority of the time it's the right call. That what black is usually doing will in fact win it more games than it loses. But just because you will win the majority of the time

doesn't mean you'll win all of the time. Which is a good segue into RED. So RED is the idea of freedom through action. RED firmly believes that there's something internal that you have an internal voice that is telling you what to do. That the key to happiness is following the inner voice, is following your heart. Do what you like. Your body is telling you what it wants. When you're happy, laugh. When

you're sad, cry. When you're angry, go punch somebody. Like, read your emotions. Listen to your emotions. Follow through. That the way to live the perfect life is to be who you are and follow your passions and don't get tied up in things that don't matter. Just do what you want to do and that is a fulfilled life. Right? And then when I say action, the idea is Red says, if I want to do something, do it. If I want to go traveling, travel.

If I want to like, don't put things off. Red is like, the worst thing in the world is saying, well, I want to do this, this matters to me, but I'm going to do it later. And Red is like, no, no, no. Live in the moment. And the strength that comes from is Red is the best at spontaneity.

Red is the best at improvising. Red is really good at living in the moment. The problem for Red and the sort of you know Action pushed too far is recklessness that is reds weakness and that red does not think long-term Red is not good at red will do things that help it now But then it come to damage it later now Normally traditionally the way they handle the bread is red was the most aggressive color and red was really good at just storming and Winning before you get set up that a lot of his strengths was I'm so fast that my opponent can't even deal with me But if my opponent can deal with me if they have some answers if I stumble just a little bit

I run out of resources That was reds big thing now One of the things we realized was, especially with Commander out there, Red needed a later game. It was fine when I'm gonna burn through my opponent who has 20 life, and then we have a format that's really popular where I don't just have

one opponent, I could have three opponents, and they don't have 20 life, they have 40 life. So we needed to give Red some, but the thing that was really important was we wanna keep in Red's flavor of chaos, of anarchy, that Red, so for example, we did give it draw, but we gave an impulsive draw. The idea that I get cards, but I gotta use them right now.

I can't wait and plan with them. I have to use them in the moment. And another tool that we found was good for Red in late game was Chaos, which is I'm going to change up the board. I don't know what's going to happen. It's random. But if I'm in a losing position, hey, random will help me. Random could help me.

If it hurts me, well, I'm already in, and I'd be like if I'm in a bad situation Okay, I'm already losing I met as we'll try stuff. So we do give read a lot of big large random chaos effects That can happen And really the the core of oh the other big thing for red is Reds number one tool is destruction. I destroy things. I can destroy creatures. I can destroy artifacts. I can destroy...

I can even destroy planeswalkers. But enchantments don't... They're not tangible. I can't blow them up. And that's another vulnerability for red is the idea that red is very over-reliant on direct damage. And that causes problems. I cause the problems because you can't blow up non tangible things creatures that have

a high toughness are a little you know like black just destroys things for red does damage to them. So the bigger you get the more problem it can cause for red that you have a big enough creature sometimes red can't answer that and the other thing we like to do when red in general is Red is the color that tends to have and blue is number one in spells red is number two in spells Reds creatures usually tend to be a little more on the aggressive side or at least more I mean they tend to be on the cheaper side and or the aggressive side Red is the color that is the least amount of toughness,

for example, it tends to have power higher than toughness. It does have toughness from time to time, but usually if toughness is higher than power on a red card, usually there's a way to pump its power, usually. Okay, and that is red. Okay, that brings us to green okay so green is about growth through acceptance so what green says is the world is the way that it is that the key to life is accepting the world as it is it's not trying to change the world

it's not trying to deny the world so So Green is like, look, I have a place and a role in the world, my job is to understand that. My job is what natural gifts do I have? What natural role do I play? And that there is an adaptation, but that comes with time. And so Green is very much about its instincts, about living up to its potential, of being what it is, what it was born to be.

But one of the downsides of acceptance is complacency. That if you believe the world is fine the way it is then you get a little bit over reliant on that And the biggest way we showed that mechanically is green is just a little bit over reliant on its creatures Now green its two greatest strengths is it's good with land and mana and it's good with creatures It's got the best curve of creatures It gets most for its mana like blue gets released green the least, green gets the most. Now the difference between white and green is white is all about volume because white's about the group. So white tends to get more small things and there's more things that help it interact.

Like it has more spells that say, hey, the more creatures I have the better. My team gets plus one plus one. Put a plus one on my whole team. Like things that help out everybody, wait. Green is more about going tall, but vertical. I will get a lot of mana and I will play a large creature. Now back in the day, green was the creature color that went wide and tall.

We eventually said, okay, let's let white go more wide, green go more tall. But we do say that green definitely sort of... It's over reliance on creatures shows up in a couple of ways. One is the way green deals with other creatures, which is the number one threat of the game, is through its creatures. I can fight you with my creatures, my creatures can bite your creatures. So bite is what we call... Fight is when it's a fight.

You're like in combat, but outside of combat. But you know, I do damage to you, you do damage to me. Bite is I just deal damage to you. But the reality is if the thing threatening me is a 5-5, and I don't have a creature big enough that my creatures can destroy a 5-5, I get in trouble. That green does not have, you know, direct creature destruction. Green can't just say destroy target creature. It can get rid of artifact creatures, flying creatures, there's a few a few subcategories it can deal with, but more it gets rid of artifacts, it gets rid of artifact creatures, flying creatures, there are a few subcategories it can deal with. But more, it gets rid of artifacts, it gets rid of flyers.

That it just, normal creatures relies on its creatures. Also, for card drawing, which it's supposed to do, green is a color that we've most had misunderstandings over the years, and so it has the most color pipe breaks, which in internal formats is a big deal. But green is, its card drawing is supposed to be through its creatures. The idea essentially is, if I have no creatures on the board, I'm going to have trouble destroying

creatures, I'm going to have trouble drawing cards, my game plan really gets derailed. That green is the color that most needs creatures. Every color likes creatures, but you can play a colorless deck, I mean I said colorless, a creatureless deck in most colors. I mean it's a viable thing to do. Green is the trickiest to do it in because so much of what green strength comes in is relying on its creatures and leaning toward its creatures. But like I said, each color, you'll notice that each color has something that it has

trouble destroying. White is the least. White can't pinpoint and do land destruction. We don't really do mass land destruction white anymore. Blue can't destroy anything. Black can't destroy artifacts. Red can't destroy enchantments. Green can't destroy creatures. So there's just different things that each color can and can't do. And that's another general thing is part of making weaknesses for the colors is sort of balancing them out, meaning okay, you know, if I play an enchantment, certain colors like green and white are really good at dealing with enchantments and certain colors like red and some of blue have more problems with enchantments. And that is set up so that all the different threats in the game

have that balance. Like another big reason, I mean, sort of behind the scenes, the reason weaknesses exist. One, it's interesting. I mean, a lot of the color pie is giving an ethos to the game. And I like the idea that, oh, I'm playing this color, I'm leaning to what's good about this color, a string sense color, but that comes with weaknesses. And that's one of the reasons you play other colors. Like if I'm playing a red deck, what do I do when I run into an enchantment?

I don't have a lot of answers to an enchantment. But white does, green does, now black does. Like, you know, I can look at other colors that might help me fix my weakness. And that is a sort of a cool point, is that the weaknesses give a lot of flavor, and they also sort of set up this fun thing where, like, the mana system keeps you from playing a lot of flavor and they also sort of set up this fun thing where like the mana system keeps you from playing a lot of colors and the colors by having inherent weaknesses

make you think of playing colors in different combinations. And it's really neat to play mono color for example, we have to figure out, okay I got it creative, how do I deal with this problem? Like one of my all time favorite games ever against my dad was I was playing a mono red deck against my dad and turn to he plays circle protection red So super action read for those that don't know it's card and alpha It's an enchantment. You can spend one man to stop any red source So that's quite a challenge. I'm playing a deck of nothing but red threats

and for every one man that my dad spends, he can stop my red threat. And I did manage to win that game and it was through the idea that I just kept overwhelming him. I kept putting so many threats that he didn't have enough resources to stop my threats. Now I will say, Mono Red versus COP Red

does not win most of the time. It happened once in my life and I remember it so. It's a fun story. But anyway, that's the inherent weakness. The idea is it's the color sort of having its strength pushed too far that each color in doing what it does well has vulnerabilities that lie there. And I think that's a really cool part of the game.

The reason I wanted to do this podcast is I think it's neat to understand, hey, colors do things well, but colors do things badly. And that is a key part of really what makes Magic Magic is that I can lean into things that I can do things, and every color I add lets me do something, but every color I don't have access to,

there's problems there. That the vulnerabilities are there. So anyway, I wanted to do a podcast on weaknesses and I did. So I hope you guys enjoyed it, but I am now at work. So we all know what that means. Means this is my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic.

I'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye.