(orig. published Jan. 03, 2024)
While it’s important to not let any color in a set feel too one-dimensional, it’s also good to establish clear identities so that players can know what sorts of synergies to expect. This is especially crucial for draft and sealed formats, which is the end goal for this project. Players should be able to make on-the-fly deckbuilding decisions without requiring an encyclopedic knowledge of all the cards!
With that in mind, let’s look at some of the themes and mechanics tied to each color.
White
- Enchantments – auras, sagas, and enchantment creatures
- Equipment – buffs, equipped/enchanted creature payoffs
- Blink – protection, ‘enters/leaves the battlefield’ triggers
- Lifegain – clerics, lifelink, survivability
Blue
- Wizards – instants/sorcery/enchantment synergies, Concentration auras
- Hand Manipulation – scry/surveil, card draw, hand size matters
- Disruption – counterspells, bounce effects, stun counters
- Mill – grind decks down to dust, enable graveyard synergies
Black
- Hoard – dragons, steal cards, recurring value
- Sacrifice – death triggers, graveyard interaction, reanimate effects
- Transform Creatures – flip double-sided cards by meeting extra requirements, flashy greedy payoffs
- Removal – strong targeted removal, -1/-1 counters
Red
- Inspire – bards, Inspiration tokens, combat tricks
- Burn – wizards, direct damage, spellslinger
- Impulse Resources – loot draw, play from exile, Treasure tokens
- Goblins – swarm the board, expendable forces, typal synergies
Green
- Equipment – buff creatures, snowball combat advantages
- Tokens – flood out token creatures, Food token synergies
- Ramp – mana acceleration, big creatures, scaling X spells
- Multicolor – effects scale with # of colors you control, multicolor cards, green cards create off-color tokens
I’ve designed as much of the set as possible to synergize in interesting ways across these core themes. Read on to see some supported archetypes in each color pair:
Azorius Enchantment Control
Use removal, ward effects, and counterspells to protect your creatures and maximize long-term value from Sagas and Concentration Auras.
Orzhov Sacrifice Midrange
Use sticky minions to get steady sacrifice synergies and manipulate both sides of the board.
Boros Inspire Aggro
Secure an early board presence to snowball into Inspire-boosted assaults before the opponent has time to stabilize.
Selesnya Equipment
Stack equipment synergies to protect your creatures and dominate combat.
Dimir Hoard Control
Mill opponents to fill their graveyards with cards, then steal them with hoard counters.
Izzet Wizards
Play wizards to unlock additional effects on instants and sorceries, and manipulate your hand and library to sling spells and burn out opponents.
Simic Ramp
Combine green mana acceleration and blue card draw to quickly ramp into huge creatures and build an insurmountable board.
Rakdos Reanimate
Proactively trade creatures in combat, then pull them back from the graveyard to overwhelm opponents.
Golgari Tokens
Churn out creature and Food tokens to swarm the board and provide reliable fodder for sacrifice synergies.
Gruul Inspire Midrange
Pump bulky green creatures with Inspiration to trample over enemy creatures.
Many of these archetypes can benefit from splashing a third color for a few key cards! This may even be easier said than done…