Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1077: White-Black-Green

Episode Date: October 13, 2023

This is the eighth podcast in my three-color philosophy series. In this one, I talk all about the philosophy of white-black-green.

I'm not pulling my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for other drive-to-work at home edition. Okay, so I've been doing a series on three-color philosophies, where I take three-color triplets and talk through the philosophies. I've done all the arc or shard combinations, and I'm in the middle of the wedge combinations. So today is white, black, green. Okay, so here's how it works. I will start by going through the single combinations. I will then go through the two-color combinations. And then I will talk about sort of how the three-color stuff works.

Okay, let's start with the three-color combinations. White. White is peace through structure. White believes that everything you need is here. There's enough resources for everybody that everybody could have what they need. Not what they want necessarily. People want more than they need. But if we are careful with what we have,

that there needs to be no starvation, no crime, no one needs to suffer, that we have the things we need in order to provide for everybody. But in order to do that, people have to act with the good of the group in mind, that they have to act in such a way that they are thinking about others before themselves. The problem with this is that people can be selfish and people can do things that put themselves before others.

So why does a big believer in structure? That if I make laws, if I make religion, if I make things that sort of teach people that this is the right way to be, you know, if you do something, you might go to jail or might feel like you're being immoral. If I set structures up and ways for people to think, to inform, to teach them that this is the right way to be, this is the right way to act, then maybe I can get people to act accordingly. And if we do that, we can have peace. Everybody can have what they need. Everybody can have what they need.

Okay, next up is black. Black is power through ruthlessness. Black is like, all I want is the ability to do whatever I want to do and have complete control and utter power. That's all I want. In order to get that power, black says the key to getting power is ruthlessness. What that means is the willingness to do what other people won't do. What black has realized is that if you look at the world, black fundamentally believes that people are fundamentally selfish because that's just how people are. And that it's okay because each person has themselves to look after.

And that the people who will succeed are those that are willing to do what it takes to succeed. That the biggest barrier is people's own self-restrictions. That things are taboo or somehow you're not supposed to do that. Black believes in no sense of morality. Black believes that, you know, might makes right that you do what you can do and that if you have the willingness and the stomach to do what you need to do and take according risks or pay associate costs, like if you're willing to do what you need to do, you can get what you want,

but you have to be willing to do those things and most people don't have the stomach for it. Green is growth through acceptance. Green is like, look, the world is awesome the way it is. The key is not to try to change the world. Everybody else is trying to change the world. The key is coming to understand and accept that the world is right in its way, that nature is the perfect form,

and that in order to let nature grow, in order to sort of, like, green is not against change. Green is just against unnatural change. What green realizes is you are born with a purpose. You're born with a role. You're part of society. You're part of the web of life. That your goal is to understand your role in the greater web of life

and then live it, be it, do it, become. And that by doing that, if you understand the role you live and you meet that goal and follow it, you can help the world achieve what it needs to do, which is basically letting nature take its course and stop interfering with it. Okay, so that is white.

That is black. That is green. Okay, now the way it works on any wedge is that you have a color and it's two enemies. So two of the three color combinations, two color combinations, are enemy combinations, and one is the ally combination. So with the wedge, I like to start with the enemy combinations. So white and black.

So white believes in the good of the group. That, hey, you want things to be, you want everybody to have what they need? Well, you have to think about the group. You have to put the group first. You have to think about the needs of the group and prioritize those over your individual needs. Black is all about the good of the individual. Black is like, look, everybody's inherently selfish, which means you got to look out for

yourself. And if you want to get things, you need to do the things you need to do to make sure that you get what you need. And black is like, look, there's not like, everybody can't have everything they want. I know white likes to say, well, what you need, but people want things. It's okay to want things. You know, there's nothing wrong with a merit-based society where people have the ability to achieve whatever they're capable of achieving. White just want, you know, Black feels White wants to handicap everybody and restrict them, you know, oh, with

these laws and this morality. Like, Black doesn't believe in morality. There is no such thing as morality. Black believes morality is a made-up construction by White. White looks at Black and sees total immorality, right? White looks at black and says this is, you know,

in white's words, black is evil. Black is feeding into everything that is wrong with society. That, you know, if you feed into people's selfish desires, they'll do things that harm.

You know, like white is all about, look, I'm trying to find a place where we can all have what we need. But to do that, we have to cooperate. And that black is spreading... Black is doing everything it can to undercut that. And white looks at black and says,

you are what's wrong with the world. And black looks at white and says, hey, life is tough enough already. Life is hard. Why are you making unnecessary restrictions? You know, inventing things that morality, there's no morality. You know, black believes that like, black doesn't believe in immorality. Black believes in amorality.

There is no morality. You know, and that, hey, you do what you got to do to survive. And that there's nothing wrong with you taking care of yourself. But white and black really come at that and really sort of argue with each other because, and this is true of any sort of enemy colors, is they kind of are one color doing what it wants to do is harming directly what the other wants to do. Like black looks at white. Like if you trick people into acting in the good

interest of the group, then people aren't fulfilling their own needs. And white looks at black and says, if you're tricking people into acting in their own self-interest, we're never going to get the things we need as a society to be able to make do and get what we all need. Okay, next up.

Black versus green. On the surface, the simple one is sort of life versus death. But that's not the philosophy I like to talk about, even though it's true. I like to look at it as free will versus destiny. That green believes you are born with a purpose and a role, and your job is to figure out what that role is and then do it. Black is like, no, no, no, no. I want to do what I want to do.

Black is all about personal freedom, a personal expression of finding out how to get what you want. As far as black is concerned, I can do whatever I want to do. There's no role I have to fill. There's no objective I must do. There's no, you know, that if I want something,

hey, I can use whatever tool is in my arsenal to get it. So where life and death come into play here is, green is all about growth, about life living its way. Not that green doesn't understand there's a natural cycle. Green's not afraid of death or anything. But green believes that death is part of the natural cycle, where black sees death as just another tool. Black sees death as like, hey, if something's in my way, ooh, I could kill them and then they're not in my way. Ooh, death is a very useful tool. But the problem there is green, like I said earlier,

is about natural change. But unnatural change, if something dies that wasn't supposed to die, if you kill something prematurely, that's a problem. And so green looks at black and says, look, there's a natural way and a natural system. Just let that system be. And it looks at black and goes, oh, my – you're completely disrupting that system. You are taking tools of the life cycle and abusing it and using it improperly.

But the worst part about it is you're breaking the natural system. You're going to cause things to fail. Black looks at green and says, hey, you are imposing roles that don't necessarily exist. This idea that you're born to do this thing or that thing. I can do what I want to do. I have the freedom to, you know,

that life is an opportunity for you to choose your own role. You pave your own path. You know, black's all about personal responsibility and doing what you need to do to get what you want. But here comes green and says, well, no, don't do the thing you want to do. Do the thing that is pre-prescribed for you. This idea that you have a destiny that you must fulfill. Black is like, no, I got free will.

I can do what I want to do. No one tells me what I got free will. I can do what I want to do. No one tells me what I need to do. I can choose what I want to do. So black looks at green and sees like, you're just, you believe that I'm supposed to have no role in my own life. And green looks at black and says, you are just an usurper that's destroying nature

and you are creating unnatural change. Okay, gets us to white and green. Now, white and green are allies. So unlike the other color combinations, they're enemies. So white is all about the idea of the good of the group. I want to make sure that we act in a way that all of us are helped by each other. And so as the way white thinks about things is, look, my welfare is based upon everybody else I'm with, that everybody's looking, you know, not only do I, it's not me looking out for me, it's all my friends and neighbors looking out for me.

It's my community looking out for me. Green, meanwhile, is all about sort of the cycle of life, and it really believes in this interconnectivity, the web of life, that I have a role. I have symbiotic relationships with other things, and if I don't do my role, it harms others. So white and green overlap in the sense of community, the importance of community.

The idea that, look, the role you play and the importance to you depends upon those around you. You don't live in a vacuum, that there is interdependency, there's symbiosis, there's a relationship you have with each other living thing. And that if you don't understand that relationship, it is harmful, it is dangerous. So white and green bond on the sense of community.

That the idea that if we're going to survive and thrive, we need to understand the role that we play with each other. And that we have to respect that. And we have to hold it high and dear, near and dear to our heart. Okay. Now, for those that have listened to this podcast before, this series, you know that my philosophy is that, and this is true even in two color, that one color, in two-color, I believe that one color is your end goal

and the other color is your means to achieve that goal. In three-color, one color is your ends, one color is your motivational goal, and the other two are tools you need to achieve that. So in my mind, there are sort of three different ways, philosophically, that a three-color triplet will play out. Okay, so let's start with black as the center. Ideally, by the way, the low-hanging fruit for wedges is that the center is the enemy color because that's the shared, it's got two shared enemies.

Cons of Tarkir, which was the first set we did, that did three color triplets, wedge triplets, actually centered it in an off color, because of the nature of the block, all three colors were in Cons of Tarkir, but we dropped out a color for Dragon of Tarkir,

and the color we dropped out was the enemy color. So we couldn't be centered in the enemy color and keep a through line through the whole block. So I will get to green centered in a second, but Sultai, which was the white, black, green... Oh, no, Sultai wasn't. Sorry. It was... I said the wrong thing. It's not Sultai. Sultai is black, blue, green.

White, blue, green is Abzan. So Abzan is... I'm sorry So Abzan is actually white-based. Is that right? Yes, Abzan is white-based. Anyway, we will get to that in a second. Okay, so let's start with a black means triplet. So black is about selfishness, right? Black wants what it wants. Black wants to get

the most power for itself. Okay, so what happens when black that wants the most power for itself starts working with white and green? So the interesting thing about white and green, like I said, is their love of community. That white is very good at structure, at creating rules, at creating, whether they be, you know, civil rules like laws or moral rules like religion, that white is very good at making structures and systems. Green is very good

at sort of understanding natural qualities, of seeing symbiosis and natural connections between things. Green is very good at understanding sort of what you were born to be. Okay, well, if black wants power, it can look at white and say, okay, I can use your structure as a means to get me power. How do I do that? Well, when white sets up a structure, mono white sets up a structure, it does stuff so that it's for the good of the group.

But you can set up a structure that's good for the individual. You know, you can set up a structure. Mono white sets up a structure. It does stuff so that it's for the good of the group. But you can set up a structure that's good for the individual. You know, you can set up a structure for one individual. If you can convince everybody that I... White already is convincing people not to think of themselves, right? White's already doing that. Well, black just has to tweak that a little bit. You know, what you're doing

is not in your own best interest, but it is in my best interest. And so black can use a lot of white's, the tool of white to get people to act against their own self-interest. The actual thing that black most admires about white is white's ability to get people to act outside of their own self-interest, which is interesting if you can get other people to work in your self-interest. So when black makes use of white, it's about using those tools of white in a way to say to people,

hey, it's for your, it's what you should be doing is helping me. You should be prioritizing me. So with white tools in a black ends, you create a system where people are working not to help each other, but to help the person in charge, which is black. Green,

the black make use of green tools is really understanding sort of natural strengths, and that if black has access to that, it can, you know, if you're manipulating people with the white part of it, you can figure out what people are best at with the green part of it and get them to act on their own, to your benefit, but play to their strengths. Like one of the things that when black mixes with green is that green has a better natural understanding of sort of the larger things around and it gets, it understands natural strengths of things.

And so when black uses that, and the funny thing about black using white and green is that white and green have sort of a purity to them that can be tainted by black. But in the vacuum, the people who are in a white-black, in a white-green-black group in which it's black ends, the people in it truly, to their heart, believe

what they're doing is for the importance. And even though it's helping, so like, imagine sort of a group where somebody who's a charismatic leader has convinced them all that what they want to do is help him, the charismatic leader. That's what happens when you get white, black, green with black centered,

is that you get a very charismatic leader that's convincing a large number of people to act in the interest of the charismatic leader. And not to their own best interest, but his best interest. Okay. Next, let's take white centered, so white, black, green. So white wants to create peace. White wants to have a world in which everything, everybody has what they need, because everybody's thinking about the group. Okay. Now, obviously, white and green work well together, because green already inherently has a sense of symbiosis, has a sense of the web of life, of things sharing.

So white and green have a natural relationship with each other. Green plays a little more into natural qualities, while white plays a little bit more into connectivity between groups. groups. Green is about recognizing natural strengths and abilities, where white is more about getting people to think how they think. So

with a white center with a green help makes a lot of sense. White-green, when just those two colors are working together, you tend to get large groups that are working for the good of the large group, where there's a lot of power in a lot of individuals that are working all together.

That's what you get in white-green. And by the way, that is why when you get a black-centered group, that you take the tool of white-green, the power of the individuals, and apply it to something else, apply it to helping you, why it's quite powerful. Now, of white-green, the power of the individuals, and apply it to something else, apply it to helping you, white's quite powerful. Now, in white-centered, it's using the green sort of natural connections and the ability to do that. But it also makes use of black's tools,

is that it understands the nature of systems, and it will abuse them for its own good. So when white and black get together, you get the sense of, I'm doing something what I believe is good, but I'll use whatever means I need to get it. Very Machiavellian. It's like, well, my end goal is really good. I want peace on earth.

If I have to kill people to get there, I will. So when white looks at black as a tool, it's sort of like, well, white sort of says, hey, in order to get what I need, maybe there's things in my way. And that white by itself is like, well, I got to find ways to solve that. But with black, white's sort of like, well, if this thing wasn't around, you know, I really am working at the best interest of the group. And maybe there's a member of the group that's really hurting it. And, like, you know what will help the group most? Getting rid of this one person.

With black as a tool, white is willing to do that. The white is willing to take some steps. And that's more of white with black influence is like, look, what I'm doing is for the greater good. It's very, very Machiavellian. I'm doing it for the greater good. But if I have to do some bad stuff to get there, well, it's for the greater good. And in a white system, you really want to get something like a white-centered system is one where I believe that the end goal is something that's very powerful and important. And I will take what steps I need to do to get there and so um white black green also sort of gets the sense of a group

that is working at whole toward a singular cause the difference of the black center cause it's to help the charismatic ringleader uh in the white one it is trying to help everybody it is trying to do what it can to help the group at large, but it is definitely willing to do things. It is willing to take steps that a mono white or a white green just would never think of, never do. That the black influence really allows you to sort of justify some things that you normally would not justify. Okay, let's get to green-centered. So green-centered, green wants growth. It wants acceptance. It wants the world to be the way it is, right?

It wants, like, I don't want you messing with anything. Just stay away from it. So when you get the structure of white, you can set up a lot of rules, and you can create systems that protect the natural growth. You know, for example, I could say, hey, it is against the law to chop down a tree. It is immoral to take any step that's against the natural order. Now, with green,

when green starts using the sense of black, it's the same similar sense of a willingness to do what it takes to get what you need. And same with green as with white is a green-centric goal could say, okay, what is the – I might have forces that are in my way. For example, green does not like artificial change. way. For example, green does not like artificial change. So in this world, you could see green saying, well, I don't want change to happen. I have tools at my disposal to stop that from happening. Okay, I guess I will have to do that. And it's interesting that both a green-centered and a white-centered combination, the existence of black really creates some rationalization.

It really allows them to say, well, what I'm doing at its core is important. So if I'm supposed to take some steps that might not be, you know, if I have to do the unthinkable, well, I'm doing it in the cause of a greater good. That mixing black into it really makes you sort of compartmentalize and rationalize a little bit. The one big thing about white, black, green as a whole, as a triplet, is there is a lot of resilience in white, black, and green. White very much is about having the stubbornness and the willingness to stay true to your beliefs.

Green is all about sort of resistance, you know, natural resistance and keeping the system as it is. And black is ruthless. It'll do what it takes. So white, black, and green, when they get together are very resistant. They're very, they'll do what it takes. So white, black, and green, when they get together, are very resistant. They're very, they'll live through anything. And the other thing that when you get

to white, black, green, you start getting into the power of the group through lots of individuals. And that a group in which all the individuals are working with a shared goal is a very powerful tool. And that white, black, green really taps into that and takes advantage of that. The one big difference is white, green will do that. But when you add that flavor of black, it adds a justification and a willingness to take on others in a way that wet green by itself will not. So it is a pretty, it is resilient and it can be pretty ruthless in the means of what it'll do to get what it wants.

And when you are willing to sacrifice component pieces, it becomes super powerful. That if each individual is willing to sacrifice component pieces, it becomes super powerful. That if each individual is willing to expend their life to get what is needed, that becomes a powerful force. And so white, black, green can be very powerful. The other interesting thing is white and green are the two colors that have a sense of spirituality to them, of the idea that I am doing something, but the thing I'm doing has a higher purpose. That dedication, that devotion

is very powerful in the hands of black. And so you get people, the thing about white, black, green is it's a devoted group. They believe. They're resilient and they believe what they believe. And if you can take that and point it towards something, it can accomplish a lot of things,

especially if you're willing to do whatever you need to do that. And so there is a, there's a strength that white, black, green has in the power of convincing every component piece to all be working in the same direction. There's a unity of purpose that is very strong and potent that you see in white-black-green. sort of a group in which somebody has convinced that group how they have a shared

larger goal and that every individual in that group must act toward that larger goal. It's potent. So anyway, I think white, black, green... It's interesting. One of the things I like to look at is

what is the conflict of the two colors that are not part of it. So blue and red are the two colors not part of white, black, green. And they are all about the conflict of sort of emotion versus intellect. They are all about sort of thinking versus feeling and stuff.

So what's interesting there is when you look at the wedge, they are not involved in that fight. The colors that are left out are the core of that fight. So they're kind of in that fight their enemy the colors that are left out are the core of that fight so they're kind of in the middle white black green is not necessarily about intellect but it's not necessarily about emotion

it's like it wants a little of each you know I want you to think some and I will use some intellect to try to convince you of what I want to do but I will use some emotion and there's a healthy balance there I'm not driving you through emotion will use some intellect to try to convince you what I want to do, but I will use some emotion. And there's a healthy balance there. I'm not driving you through emotion. I'm not driving you through intellect. There's a back and forth and a mix of those two things that makes white, black, green a very powerful, very, very good at convincing people. It's probably what white,

black, green is the best at is creating a cohesive message that it can absorb people in and and create large followings it is very good at that um like i said each one of them has their tools white understands group dynamics green understands individual strengths and and group connection black understand sort of the how to push people's buttons in a way that gets them, you know, it understands the need that selfishness can push. And combining those all together, and it's

just a very potent, very convincing, very dangerous that when that group gets together, it can be something that nothing will stand in its way. That it is, and this combination, white, black, green something that nothing will stand in its way. That it is, and this combination, white, black, green

is the most defensive of the three colors. That the tools they have mechanically, that they are very good at standing their ground. It's interesting, the colors that regeneration and, well, not regeneration,

now it's, sorry, it's the three colors that indestructible most show up in, white, green, and black. It's the colors regeneration used to show up in. You know, the idea that I'm hard to get rid of and I have a focus and a purpose definitely makes for a very hard to budge,

hard to move, hard to change the mind of. And so it is you sort of warp your thing, convince them of something, and then send them toward your goal. And they do that, and they do that very efficiently. Anyway, that, my friends, is white, black, green. So one of the things that's really interesting to me as I go through these is it's kind of fun how each two-color and three-color combination definitely have a feel for them. Like I said, I think you can shift things a little bit based on your motivations and stuff.

But it is fun to see the general sense and where you push things and how they function. Anyway, guys, that is white, black, green. So I hope you enjoyed the chat today. But anyway, I can see my desk. And we all know what that means. That means this is the end of my drive to work. Uh, so instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. Hope you guys enjoyed this, and there are two more coming.

So anyway, thanks guys, and I'll see you next time. Bye-bye.