Post by Xxsuperheroxx on May 3, 2019 7:24:44 GMT -6
One color
Most decks with a single color are not competitive in tournaments (due to the fact you're settling for the top ten cohesive cards in a color instead of two sets of the top five in two colors. The difference in power level between the top 1-5 and the top 6-10 can be massive and game deciding. The other colors also make up for each others weaknesses.) But they do exist, and are referred to as "Mono X".
Mono red
Mono black
Mono blue
Mono green
Mono white
Two colors
Each of these corresponds to a guild of Ravnica. Since the guilds were released (and especially now that we've returned) the color pairs have become common names for duo-color decks. Both allied and enemy color pairs are common to see, although allied more so (due to higher deck cohesion).
White + Blue = Azorius
Blue + Black = Dimir
Black + Red = Rakdos
Red + Green = Gruul
Green + White = Selesnya
White + Black = Orzhov
Blue + Red = Izzet
Black + Green = Golgari
Red + White = Boros
Green + Blue = Simic
Three colors
The first of these are the shards of Alara. They jive well because they give two sets of allied colors each. The less commonly used are the wedges, which involve two enemy color combinations: they're derived from the dragons of Planar Chaos, the volver cycle from Apocalypse, or more recently the five clans from Khans of Tarkir. Having only one allied color pair (the two enemies of a single color will be allied) limits deck cohesion, making their use infrequent.
More typically, enemy three color decks are not fully fleshed out in the colors. You're more likely to have an "Izzet splashed with green" deck than a "Ceta" deck.
Red + green + black = Jund
White + green + blue = Bant
Black + red + blue = Grixis
Green + white + red = Naya
Blue + white + black = Esper
Blue + red + white = Jeskai (clan on Tarkir), Numot (dragon from Apocalypse) or Raka (from Rakavolver)
Red + white + black = Mardu (clan on Tarkir), Oros (dragon from Apocalypse) or Dega (from Degavolver)
Black + green + blue = Sultai (clan on Tarkir), Vorosh (dragon from Apocalypse) or Ana (from Anavolver)
Green + blue + red = Temur (clan on Tarkir), Intet (dragon from Apocalypse) or Ceta (from Cetavolver)
White + black + green = Abzan (clan on Tarkir) Teneb (dragon from Apocalypse) Necra (from Necravolver), Junk citation, or Doran citation
Informal usages:
Red + white + black = Borzhov
Red + white + blue = USA/American/Patriot
(although note that Team America is actually black + blue + green)
Red + green + blue = Grizzet
(although it's usually Simic splashing red)
In addition, it's especially common for red + blue + green and black + blue + green to be called by their abbreviations — "RUG" and "BUG" — because these are names that are easy to remember and pronounce.
Four colors
Most decks do not have four full colors. As with three color enemies, if they reach this many colors, it's a shard with a splash of another color. So you're more likely to see something like "American splash black" instead of "Yore".
Names for four-color identities come from one of two sources:
The names of the Nephilims from Guildpact.
The names of the four-color “guild identities” defined during Commander 2016's design.
Reference the one color the four-color combination is missing, thus Non-(color).
So the four color identities' names are:
Blue + black + red + green = Glint-Eye, or Chaos, or Non-white
Black + red + green + white = Dune (or Dune-Brood), or Aggression, or Non-blue
Red + green + white + blue = Ink-Treader, or Altruism, or Non-black
Green + white + blue + black = Witch (or Witch-Maw), or Growth, or Non-red
White + blue + black + red = Yore (or Yore-Tiller), or Artifice, or Non-green
Five colors
Decks with all five colors usually revolve around a single combo that they hope to pull off. It takes a lot of mana fixing and a massive amount of playtesting to get a reliable five color deck. For this reason, you don't often find them in tournaments. You find them often in Commander (giving the player access to every card ever, greatly increasing the power level of the deck) and in skill challenges where a player just tries to come up with a crazy deck idea to see if he can make it work. Obviously there's only one five color deck, it uses all five:
Rainbow/Domain/Five-Color/WUBRG (pronounced Whoo-Burg)
Sometimes, four color decks will also be called Rainbow just because they have so many colors.
No colors
Sometimes, particularly in formats with a very large card pool, you'll see colorless decks as well. The most common name for these is a reference to the old card frame for artifact cards:
Mono brown (not to be confused with BrownTown which is a draft deck leaning heavily on minotaurs)
Some newer colorless decks have come to be referred to as "Diamond" decks in reference to the diamond-like new symbol for colorless mana
Most decks with a single color are not competitive in tournaments (due to the fact you're settling for the top ten cohesive cards in a color instead of two sets of the top five in two colors. The difference in power level between the top 1-5 and the top 6-10 can be massive and game deciding. The other colors also make up for each others weaknesses.) But they do exist, and are referred to as "Mono X".
Mono red
Mono black
Mono blue
Mono green
Mono white
Two colors
Each of these corresponds to a guild of Ravnica. Since the guilds were released (and especially now that we've returned) the color pairs have become common names for duo-color decks. Both allied and enemy color pairs are common to see, although allied more so (due to higher deck cohesion).
White + Blue = Azorius
Blue + Black = Dimir
Black + Red = Rakdos
Red + Green = Gruul
Green + White = Selesnya
White + Black = Orzhov
Blue + Red = Izzet
Black + Green = Golgari
Red + White = Boros
Green + Blue = Simic
Three colors
The first of these are the shards of Alara. They jive well because they give two sets of allied colors each. The less commonly used are the wedges, which involve two enemy color combinations: they're derived from the dragons of Planar Chaos, the volver cycle from Apocalypse, or more recently the five clans from Khans of Tarkir. Having only one allied color pair (the two enemies of a single color will be allied) limits deck cohesion, making their use infrequent.
More typically, enemy three color decks are not fully fleshed out in the colors. You're more likely to have an "Izzet splashed with green" deck than a "Ceta" deck.
Red + green + black = Jund
White + green + blue = Bant
Black + red + blue = Grixis
Green + white + red = Naya
Blue + white + black = Esper
Blue + red + white = Jeskai (clan on Tarkir), Numot (dragon from Apocalypse) or Raka (from Rakavolver)
Red + white + black = Mardu (clan on Tarkir), Oros (dragon from Apocalypse) or Dega (from Degavolver)
Black + green + blue = Sultai (clan on Tarkir), Vorosh (dragon from Apocalypse) or Ana (from Anavolver)
Green + blue + red = Temur (clan on Tarkir), Intet (dragon from Apocalypse) or Ceta (from Cetavolver)
White + black + green = Abzan (clan on Tarkir) Teneb (dragon from Apocalypse) Necra (from Necravolver), Junk citation, or Doran citation
Informal usages:
Red + white + black = Borzhov
Red + white + blue = USA/American/Patriot
(although note that Team America is actually black + blue + green)
Red + green + blue = Grizzet
(although it's usually Simic splashing red)
In addition, it's especially common for red + blue + green and black + blue + green to be called by their abbreviations — "RUG" and "BUG" — because these are names that are easy to remember and pronounce.
Four colors
Most decks do not have four full colors. As with three color enemies, if they reach this many colors, it's a shard with a splash of another color. So you're more likely to see something like "American splash black" instead of "Yore".
Names for four-color identities come from one of two sources:
The names of the Nephilims from Guildpact.
The names of the four-color “guild identities” defined during Commander 2016's design.
Reference the one color the four-color combination is missing, thus Non-(color).
So the four color identities' names are:
Blue + black + red + green = Glint-Eye, or Chaos, or Non-white
Black + red + green + white = Dune (or Dune-Brood), or Aggression, or Non-blue
Red + green + white + blue = Ink-Treader, or Altruism, or Non-black
Green + white + blue + black = Witch (or Witch-Maw), or Growth, or Non-red
White + blue + black + red = Yore (or Yore-Tiller), or Artifice, or Non-green
Five colors
Decks with all five colors usually revolve around a single combo that they hope to pull off. It takes a lot of mana fixing and a massive amount of playtesting to get a reliable five color deck. For this reason, you don't often find them in tournaments. You find them often in Commander (giving the player access to every card ever, greatly increasing the power level of the deck) and in skill challenges where a player just tries to come up with a crazy deck idea to see if he can make it work. Obviously there's only one five color deck, it uses all five:
Rainbow/Domain/Five-Color/WUBRG (pronounced Whoo-Burg)
Sometimes, four color decks will also be called Rainbow just because they have so many colors.
No colors
Sometimes, particularly in formats with a very large card pool, you'll see colorless decks as well. The most common name for these is a reference to the old card frame for artifact cards:
Mono brown (not to be confused with BrownTown which is a draft deck leaning heavily on minotaurs)
Some newer colorless decks have come to be referred to as "Diamond" decks in reference to the diamond-like new symbol for colorless mana