Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #457: Color Pie: Dealing with Creatures

Episode Date: July 28, 2017

This is my first mechanical color pie podcast where I go in depth on one mechanical aspect. For my maiden voyage, I chose to talk about how the five colors handle creatures.

I'm pulling out of the parking lot. We all know what that means. It's time to drive to work. I dropped my daughter off at her internship. Okay, so today, last time I talked about the mechanical color pie and the article I made and sort of how it got put together. And I said, oh, maybe I would do a podcast talking about the mechanical color pie. I said, you know what? Why wait? I decided to make one. So what I want to do today is when I occasionally do this kind of thing I'll do every once in a while, is I'm going to take one slice of the color pie and go deep. Go deep on that slice.

So the one I decided to start with today is dealing with creatures. So one of the things the game needs is every color needs a way to deal with creatures. And so how do we do that? How do colors handle that? What exactly are the abilities that each color has to be able to deal with creatures? So my plan is what I'll do today is walk through all the different colors and then talk about what each color does, and then talk about where they're overlaps, and sort of run the gamut of, okay, what exactly can this color do to deal with creatures? Now, one of the things I'll say today,

I'm going to go in Wooburg order, so Wooburg is white, blue, black, red, green, because in our card coding, white is W, blue is U, black is B, R is red, green is G, and that's the order that we put them in. So, green is G. And that's the order we put them in. So we say woo-berg, that's the order they go. On the back of a magic card, it starts with white at the top. If you go clockwise around it, it goes in white, blue, black, red, green.

I'm also going to talk about all sorts of different things available to the colors. As I touch upon them, I'll talk about how often we use them and stuff. Okay, so let's begin with white. Let's say white wants to deal with creatures. How can white deal with creatures? Okay, so white has a number of different ways to deal with creatures. So let's start talking with some of the most common. Okay, so it has what we call pacifism effects.

So pacifism was a card that showed up in Mirage first, I believe, with Grak on it. For the first time in his life, Grak felt warm and fuzzy. So, the idea of Pacifism is it's an enchantment that keeps creatures from attacking or blocking. We also have a variant we call the Arrest variant, where it also stops activated abilities. And both of those are really just pacifism variants. One that's more tied to... One that just also includes activated abilities. So we tend to do pacifism at common in almost every set we do.

A passive effect has become a staple thing. The reason that we like pacifism a lot is we like white having answers that are answerable. That one of the things about white is white has the widest suite of answers, not just to creatures, but just to threats in general. And so one of the ways we try to work in and give white some weaknesses is the fact that a lot of white's answers themselves can be answered. Meaning, other colors, if they kill your creature, it's dead. But white, if you can undo the pacifism, it's an enchantment.

If you can get rid of it, then guess what? The creature isn't pacified anymore and you get the creature back. But we like using pacifism. We use that almost every set. Another thing we do most sets, often at Common, like using pacifism, we use that almost every set. Another thing we do, most sets often in common, is what we call sort of a something that

destroys attackers and or blockers. Usually white has sort of this the idea that I just don't attack people unless somehow they're doing something wrong. Sort of like Star Trek, the Federation, like I don't shoot first sort of feeling.

White considers itself to be sort of the goody two-shoes color, the color that's morally above the rest. And part of that is, well, I'm not going to willy-nilly go kill things. You know, I... So if you get involved, if you attack me,

or if I... You know, you get in the way of me attacking you, okay, then I can do something about it. So usually that is some sort of, you know, either destroy or exile. Usually attacking, either attacking creature or attacking or blocking. White technically can do just destroy, target, blocking creature. And it's done that in the past. Usually these days we make attacking part of it

because that's the more relevant thing. So, pacifisms are always on enchantments. Most often. I guess there's a weird creature of various. We'll get to that in a second. And then, usually these effects are instanced because you have to do it during combat. Almost always instanced. Now the difference between destroying and exiling is white is the color most willing to exile things. It comes from the flavor

of, well, I'm not going to kill you. I'm just going to send you far away. There's a nice flavor. The white's the color that doesn't like to kill if it doesn't have to. And sometimes the flavor... Ironically, in the game, exiling is more permanent than destruction. So the flavor...

There's a weird flavor disconnect there. It's kind of funny in that if I exile you, meaning I send you away, I'm actually making you harder to get back in the game. But from a flavor standpoint, I didn't kill you. I didn't put you in the graveyard. I didn't destroy you. And so we started using exile more in white.

Any color has access to exile if the set theme needs exiling. But white's the color that most often exiles, not if the set theme needs it, but just because flavor-wise it makes a lot of sense. Because exiling is a little more complex than destroying, we sometimes destroy, especially when making cards for core sets and things, we will use destruction effects when we know beginners are going to use them, just because teaching exiling is an extra step that we don't need to do.

But those stuff usually have to do with attacking or blocking. Now there's a subset of that category, which is we don't let white do a lot of direct damage, but we do occasionally let white do direct damage to attackers or blockers. It's actually the one area where we let white do direct damage. White does not do a lot of direct damage. But it's kind of a subset. We refer to this as range strike. The idea being that it's usually someone with a crossbow or something that like I can I have some

long-range attack thing and so in the middle of attack I can attack you. And we do that in white. We do a lot more just the exile or destroy than we do do damage, but damage is something that we can do. Those are the two things that we most often do at common in most sets. Okay, so let's talk about things we do at low-higher rarity.

Next thing is what I refer to as Oblivion Ring. Oblivion Ring shows up in a couple different versions. There is the enchantment version and the creature version. So what Oblivion Ring is, it says, I am either an enchantment or a creature, usually.

I'm a permanent. When I enter the battlefield, I remove something. We're talking creatures today, so I remove a creature. So the way it works is, I enter the battlefield, I remove a creature. So, the way it works is I enter the battlefield, I remove a creature. Now, white often can remove permanents, not just creatures. I'm talking creatures today, so that's the area I'm talking about.

But this ability can go beyond just creatures. So, white can remove something until the permanent is removed. So, sometimes it's an enchantment like Oblivion Ring. Sometimes it's a creature like Banisher Priest. And then, we've been moving more and more to these effects toward creatures because there's a little bit better gameplay. If I put it on an enchantment, not every color can deal with enchantments.

Red and black, for example, have problems with enchantments. So if I do it as a creature, as you'll see today, every color has some answers to creatures. Now, not all answers... Ironically, for example, some of white's... It doesn't do much good to pacify a banisher priest because you need to destroy it in order to get it back. So it's kind of ironic that sometimes elements of white...

White's not good at fighting certain elements of white, but there's some neat flavor there. So a banisher priest is what we refer to as a creature that does it, and, like, oblivion ring, I'm just giving our slang, is an enchantment that does it. White will do both of those things. We've also messed around with, sometimes we'll make creatures, for example,

that not only, like, normally it's an enter the battlefield effect, but sometimes we'll do things that say, hey, whenever I do a certain thing, I exile something until I go away. We've made creatures that sort of could repetitively do it and get numerous things. But usually there's a hoop you have to jump through, if that's true. You have to do damage to the opponent or something. It needs to be something in that realm. Another thing that white can do, and we've been doing this less,

is I trade. I get rid of your creature, but I trade it for something. I mean, source the plowshares and what's the one that trades for a land? You guys are, you know. Pass the exile. So the idea is White sometimes says, oh, well I will make you a trade. I will take away your creature, but I will give you something else.

Now, as a color pie person, I'm not a fan of Swords of Plowshares because I believe what you're giving up is not worth like, the idea that I can kill anything at any time to exile for one mana and I'm giving you life that just really doesn't matter much is is not worth, like, the idea that I can kill anything at any time to exile for one mana, and I'm giving you life that just really doesn't matter much,

is, I feel like crosses over a line. Because, like, one of my problems with white in larger legacy formats is, white just gets better at creature destruction than black, which is supposed to be the king of creature destruction. So, there's a big debate about the trading stuff. I'm not big on the trading removal, only because I find that often you tend to trade for things you don't

care that much about and so the ones that tend to be good, it doesn't really matter that you're giving them something. Pass the Exile is a little bit better because the land is a little bit more relevant than the life. Usually if you have command of the game and I'm just getting rid of your things that are stopping me the fact that I'm giving you some life

isn't really relevant. But white can also do that where it is trading something. The other thing we let white do and this is something that we allow. I'm not, once again, if it was up to me, there's things I would curb a little bit. We do let

white just straight up exile things for a lot of mana, five mana or something. Where the idea is that if white spends enough mana, it can just exile something. The reason I'm not a giant fan of that is I don't like white affecting things that aren't affecting it. Like if you're sitting there minding your own business, even if you're helping your opponent, but you're not hurting me, you're not doing things to me. You're just helping them. It's weird to me that white can just deal with those.

I'd rather white not have that. Okay, other white things. Another big one, now we're getting to rare, is wrath effects. Mass creature destruction. I destroy all the creatures. This is an effect that goes all the way back to alpha.

So the idea with mass destruction is like white has this thing about balance. About, I will treat everybody equally. Well, if I destroy my creatures as well as your creatures, then I'm doing something that's a balancing thing.

And white's mass destruction is big enough in white that we normally at rare, at least in large sets, we almost always will do a wrath variant. There are a bunch of different kinds of things that we'll do. But usually it's destroy all creatures and then maybe there's... Now sometimes each people get to pick a creature or two or, you know. But whatever white does its mass creature destruction, it's always equal, meaning whatever I'm doing to you, I'm doing to myself.

That one of the caveats of how white functions is when white does mass destruction, it is, I'm balancing things. It's all the same. Now, given white can build a deck in which its creatures can come back or it has less creatures because it's a control deck or whatever, there's plenty of ways to work around it. But that's the flavor of white does.

Other things that we will do in white to deal with creatures. We will do flickering or slash blinking where it removes creature. So there's two versions of it, one in which you come back immediately. The other ones you come back at end of turn. So the one at end of turn allows white to do stuff like remove blockers and stuff. We're like, okay, you're gone, and then you don't come back until end of turn so I can attack because you're gone for a while. White can also... In the past we've let white do a little bit of

stuff like humble, where it sort of changes creatures to a state that's not harmful. We've moved away from that. We've more made that just a blue thing. But we every once in a while mess around with kind of a white gets rule setting. So sometimes white can do something where everybody gets affected. We've messed around that space a little bit. Although most of the I transform you into a harmless thing,

really we've moved off to blue. White will also do this thing where, this is something that started in blue but moved to white, where I tax your ability to attack me. So we call it a propaganda-like effect, although propaganda was blue. But we tend to name things

after the card that did them first. So propaganda means you have to pay in order to attack. And so that is an effect that can sort of slow the opponent down. It doesn't really, I mean, it's handling creatures in that it's, you know, like white can do global rule setting. So white can do things to slow people down. You come and play tapped or you don't untap under certain circumstances. White can do sort of rule-setting things,

and white can do taxing things, which is if you want to do something, you have to pay mana or some cost. Usually mana. Or there's some sort of rule that affects things. But okay, I think that is all whites. I'm not forgetting anything. I'm doing these off the top of my head.

This material I know well, but because there's a lot of nooks and crannies, I might be forgetting some tiny nook or cranny. We have messed a little bit with white not letting things untap. Freezing is mostly a blue thing. White is down with a smidgen in it. Oh, we've also done stuff like circles of protection. We haven't done that in a while.

Sometimes there's some damage prevention stuff where white will attack with creatures. And it's not that you harm the creature, but you make the creature not harm you for some amount of time. White will do some sort of preventative stuff, which is sort of short-term dealing with creatures rather than a long-term dealing with creatures. And that, I think, is white. Okay, let's move on to blue. So in blue, in common in blue, the most common thing we do to deal with creatures is a lockdown, claustrophobia type effects, where I enchant your creature, it's an enchantment, it's an aura,

and your creature doesn't untap. There's two versions of this. There's ones in which it doesn't tap things itself, so I have to put it on something that's already attacked me, or already tapped. And then there's another version where not only does it not only does it it taps the creature when it enchants it and then keeps it from untapping.

That version pretty much is a lot like a passivism. Essentially it'll lock down the creature. The one that taps something that keeps things from untapping but doesn't tap it is more of, well, once you've used it, you get one use in before I am able to lock you down. That is done in blue. Blue will also do straight up, not just counter spells, but counter target creature spell. Usually for one in a blue, it gets a counter creature spell. So white, blue obviously gets the preemptive stuff with the...

Oh, I didn't mention that in white, by the way. Technically, for slow and never, white can do, like, meddling mage type effects where, like, I name something and you can't cast it. Um, so that technically can be used against creatures proactively. Uh, blue obviously has counter spells. There's lots of different ways

to do counter spells. It's got general counter spells that can counter creatures because it can counter anything. It's got specific things that just counter creatures. Um, it can counter anything. It's got specific things that just counter creatures. It also has bounce. So bounce means you put creatures back into the owner's hand. And if you combine bounce with counter bounce, sometimes you can remove creatures by I bounce it and then I can

counter it. Bounce comes in a couple different versions. There's the main bounce which just bounces the creature back to hand. And there's what we call super bounce, which it bounces to the library. Most often on top of a library, but we've occasionally done it a few down. The idea is I'm sort of super on summoning it. You're not going to get it for a while.

And top of library takes away a draw. So not only have I bounced it back to you, but now you have to waste a draw getting it back. Sometimes blue will do... We often do this thing where blue will have some mechanic that's an upgradeable thing, kicker-ish thing, and then what happened is we unsummon, but if you pay the extra, whatever, then you go to top of library rather than pick it back up. Okay. Blue also has transformation.

So something like Pongify, something in which... There's a couple different ways to do it. One is I'm an aura, and while the aura's on you, you're changed. More commonly, though, we tend to do spells that either destroy or exile you. Everyone wants a blue one, I think they put it in the bottom of the library. But then I give you a token to replace it. So the flavor we're going for

is a polymorphic style of thing where I'm turning you from something into something else. When we get to red, I'll talk about polymorphic. We've recently moved into red the wild,

what we call wild polymorphic, which means you don't know the outcome. It's random off the top of the library. Blue is always, I'm going to change you into something and I know what I'm changing you into. Blue has both individual transformation and team transformation.

Blue will have spells occasionally at higher rarities. They're like, your entire team becomes pigs or something where I'm changing all your creatures. If blue does it as an enchantment, it tends to change base power and toughness. What that means is, let's say I'm a 2-2 creature, or I'm a 3-3 creature, and I have—or let's say I'm a 5-5 creature with enchantment that's plus 2, plus 2, so I'm 7-7. If I then change you into a 2-2 creature, now you're a 2-2 creature that has a plus 2, plus 2, so you're 4-4.

The other thing transformation does is it obviously changes power stats, but it also tends to... The reason often we don't do the enchantment is it overwrites the abilities and takes them away because your creature's gone, now you have the replacement, which doesn't have those abilities.

Blue will also do the flickering ability, which will remove you until end of turn. Sometimes flickering is immediately, sometimes it't have those abilities. Blue will also do the flickering ability, which will remove you until end of turn. Sometimes flickering is immediately, sometimes it'll end of turn. The reason it could be valuable, even if it's instant, is if you've gained auras,

or plus and plus one counters, or things that are enhancing it, it'll knock off equipment. So sometimes you'll do that just to depower things, even if it's not until end of turn. Same for white. Blue also has freeze. So freeze as I tap you and you don't untap on your next turn. Actually, blue has a... actually, it's sort of white. I forgot this is white.

White can tap creatures, so white tends to have creatures that will tap creatures. Blue usually, when it's tapping, will tap or untap creatures. So white tends to have creatures that will tap creatures. Blue usually, when it's tapping, will tap or untap creatures. It twiddles them, we call it, based on a spell from Alpha. And then blue also has freezing. So if white taps a creature, it's just an end of turn. It'll untap

when it normally untaps. When blue freezes something, freezing means it taps it and doesn't untap. Although we occasionally give it twiddling effects where it can tap it or untap it, so it has those effects. What else can blue do against creatures? Oh, blue can steal creatures. That's another important one.

We used to do that uncommon. Now we mostly do it at rare or higher, just because it's so powerful. So blue can say, well, you have or higher, just because it's so powerful. So blue can say, well, you have a creature, but now it's mine. Sometimes it's done through auras, so it's reversible. Sometimes it's done on instants or sorceries.

Sometimes it's also done on creatures. So if it's done on an aura or a creature, usually if you get rid of the aura or the creature, they get it back. So it's only temporary stealing. Or it is stealing that can be undone. I guess temporary stealing, we'll get to that in a second. But sometimes we just do it permanently where you can't get it back.

It's a spell or something and you just permanently have it. The reason a lot of times we like to do it with an aura or a creature is change of control. We like to mark where we can just to remind you not only that you've taken the creature, but when the game ends, hey, hey, hey, that's not yours. Give it back to the other player. So blue can also, let's see. So it can counter you. It can change you.

It can unsummon you. It can steal you. It can change you, it can summon you, it can steal you. I always feel like I didn't write this down ahead of time because I'm doing it on top of my head. Anything else blue can do? I think that's the thing. If I come up with anything, I'll tell you. Okay, so we'll move on to black.

So black is king of killing creatures. So black has a lot of way to kill creatures. Like you'll notice most of what blue was, like blue doesn't have, other than the fact that some transformation says destroy so it can replace it with a token, blue doesn't do normally do destruction effects. It doesn't kill creatures. It can change them, it can steal them, it can you know it can do all, it can lock them down, but it doesn't tend to kill them. Black, no such problem. So first and foremost, black has Destroy Target Creature.

Sometimes there's riders on that. The funny thing is the very first spell Richard made in Alpha of Skull Terror, which was Destroy Target Non-Creature Non-Artifact. Destroy Target Non-Black Non-Artifact Creature. And Richard had done the riders on that mostly because of flavor. Well, if I want to scare you to death, can I scare something that's used to scary

things? No, you can't destroy black things. Can I scare things that don't even have emotions? No, you can't destroy artifacts. And for a while, we put that rider on, for like early magic, like black couldn't destroy blacker artifacts. And then eventually we dropped the artifact things like well I can try artifact creatures but it is trouble throwing black things and I'm actually

like why why can't black destroy black things black has no problem like philosophically black is no problem destroying black things so eventually we said you know what we like occasionally having riders and especially at low rarities just because it makes better gameplay there's certain skill spells just can't kill everything you You know, there's... It is... Magic is neater when everything, you know, having riders on things makes better gameplay

because you have to make choices and decisions. But anyway, we do now allow black to just straight up destroy a target creature. But we often, especially at lower rarities, will have, you know, sometimes it's not black or you can't kill zombies or you can't kill, whatever the theme of the set is that we want to sort of play up a little bit,

we'll sometimes do not that thing. The other thing is we tend to make it a little more expensive at common because it's priced more for limited and in limited we like construction to be a little bit more expensive. It's one of the things that has a big differential. In constructed you need it very cheap. But in Limited, you actually will play it much, much more expensive.

The idea being in Limited, or in Constructed, to do Creature Destruction, you really want it to be like one or two mana. But you'll play five, six mana Creature Destruction in Limited. Okay, so it can straight up destroy something. Next, it does minus n minus n effects, which means a target creature gets minus 1 minus 1 to let him turn, or minus 2 minus 2. Also, by the way, when I say it can destroy a creature,

it also will do mass destruction as well. It will destroy all creatures. It doesn't do as much as white, but it can do it. Black, it can do minus n, minus N to one creature, to multiple creatures, to all creatures. And that's usually flavored as disease or sickness or fatigue or a bunch of different things black can do. The nice thing about that is,

especially back when we had regeneration or we still have instructability, indestructibility doesn't stop you from being a 0-0 creature. So if I use minus 2, minus 2 on a 2-2 indestructible creature, it will actually get rid of it. Sometimes, usually when we're doing minus N, minus N,

we tend to keep it on the smaller side since once you get big enough, for all intents and purposes, it's just killing the creature. Sometimes, like on Tragic Slips, a good example was, it was minus 1, minus 1 but with Morbid it was minus thirteen minus thirteen. The original spell just did just destroy a creature. We changed it to the numbers because A, there's a thirteen theme, and we liked the flavor of it did minus n minus n to a bigger minus n minus n.

The intent was, yeah, basically it's a kill spell. That's why minus 13, minus 13 is okay. As a general rule of thumb, unless we're doing something cutesy like that, we don't tend to do much above minus 5, minus 5. Um, because, uh, you know, at that point, just do a kill spell. Oh, something I forgot in blue. Both blue and

black can do minus N, minus O. Um, blue, blue sometimes will do it as auras, and sometimes it'll do it as a spell. So black can do minus N, minus N, but we also let it do minus N, minus O. Blue does it a lot more than black. The idea is, we call it shrinking,

because the first card they did is a green card they call shrink. The idea is you can sort of depower. Blue has the ability to do that, and black. So blue will do that sometimes. Sometimes it'll do as an aura to sort of defang things, although defang is a different spell than black. Sometimes blue will do it too, or black,

will do it as a means to sort of weaken things. Black often sometimes will do minus N, minus N, where the first number is a big number and the second number is like one like minus four minus one where it's good for helping with the big creature but it can be used to kill something small if need be um another big trick with stuff like that is again combat i i do all but one damage to it and then i can use that for the final damage to kill it um black will also do drain effects.

What drain effects are is I will do damage to a creature or a player. Today we'll talk about creatures since we're doing creature destruction. I will do damage to a creature and then I gain life equal to the damage dealt. So deal two damage to a target creature, gain two life. The earliest version of the spell, which is called Drain Life, which was an alpha, how much life you gained was dependent upon how much damage you did.

We have since moved away from that. We tend to lock it now. It's like, I do two damage, I gain two life. What if I kill a 1-1 that didn't have two touches worth of life to get at? It wasn't worth the words for the flavor. I mean, there's some flavors there,

but most of the time when I'm doing two damage to something, I do something that has two toughness. And so the extra words for the flavor just didn't matter enough to be worth the extra words. Black will also... Oh, by the way,

when I talked about black killing things, there are some subcategories where black will do that. One that we see in black and occasionally in red is doing damage to things that have already been damaged. The idea that, or sometimes black will just kill something that's already been damaged. That is a way for us to do kill spells that are a little harder to use, a little more hoop jumpy. We like to use them in limited especially because that requires you to sort of do something beforehand.

Sometimes, for example, we'll do it as an enter the battlefield effect. So it's like, here's a creature and it can kill something but you kind of got to coordinate things first. Hold on one second. Let me take a sip of water. Okay. Other things black will do. Black will also do sacrificed,

where I make you sacrifice something, but I make you decide what to sacrifice. If you have only one creature, then, well, we know what's going to get sacrificed. But I will, you know, make you sacrifice something. There are also what we call Abyss-type effects, which is, that's a repeatable thing, that every turn someone has to...

Usually Abyss effects affect you and them. That every turn, on your turn, you must sacrifice something. Often in Black, Abyss effects have some rider-like non-demon or something, because often it goes on a demon. And then you can build your deck where you have some demons in it, so you don't have to sack your demons.

So there's sometimes some builds around these stuff. Black will also do things like No Mercy, which is sometimes I have a condition by which creatures get killed. For example, No Mercy is whenever you do damage to me, the creature dies. So those kind of effects in black are sort of, they're kill spells, but they're conditional trigger kill spells. You know, black, because black's allowed to kill things,

it can kill things in all sorts of different forms. It can kill them, you know, sometimes when this creature dies, it'll kill something. Sometimes it's enchantment that says whenever a certain thing happens, it'll kill things. There's a lot of sort of space in there. Black also will sometimes... What else can it do? It will... Oh, black has can't block as a rider. Every once in a while, we allow you

to put the cat rider block. We put it on aura so you can... The creature gets plus two, plus two, and can't block, but you can stick that on your opponent. I mean, it beefs them up, but then they can't block you if you're just a few points from winning the game, for example. What else does black do?

I think I got a majority of black pretty much black has carte blanche to destroy creatures like I said sometimes it lowers its power and toughness sometimes it just straight out kills them sometimes it conditionally kills them sometimes it makes them sacrifice them but pretty much black has, there's not much I kill creatures that black can't do. Okay, now we get to red. So red's number one thing is direct damage. That red deals damage to creatures. We really have moved away from black destroying creatures. Once upon a time, we usually would do like black and destroy target land

or target creature. We've tend to move away from that mountain we want red, we want high toughness to be a little bit of a problem for red that we want red's damage to sort of like well, I have easier time killing smaller things but bigger things, I might have to combine my direct damage or something, it's a little trickier to do um

red also does panic effects. A target creature can't block. And so blue, by the way, will make its creatures unblockable, which is indirectly affecting, but that's more enhancing your creatures than hurting your opponents. Red on the flip side will make the opponent's creatures not able to block. Most often for the turn, but sometimes there are repeatable effects or auras or something. But red is the color that will keep things from blocking. Red, as I mentioned earlier, also can steal things. Red does temporary stealing, like thread and tile effects,

where I get your creature for the turn. Usually those are sorceries, so they're not used defensively. They're used offensively. usually those are sorceries so they're not used defensively they're used offensively red also we said we started putting in the polymorphing style effects so that red can

change creatures into other creatures usually it's from top of library meaning it's not known I'm changing that creature into an unknown creature so for red it is a red has a little more of a So for red, it is a... Red has a little more of a chaotic feel to it. This is a more recent thing.

It will be reflected in products. I think we've made one or two already you guys have seen, but more in the pipeline is something we're doing. Red can also do a little bit of plus N, minus N. We don't do too much to the opponents anymore. Like, it's allowed to be on its own creatures, but every once in a while we'll make an aura. More meant for you to put on your own creatures,

but you can cavely put on the opponent's creatures. We don't do that a lot. Oh, something else that I didn't mention here in red. Minus one, minus one counters. Our rule on minus one, minus one counters is if you are allowed to do damage to a creature, we let you replace that damage with minus one, minus one

counters in a block that does minus one, minus one counters. So for example, we probably would not make an aura in red that is just enchant creature gets minus two minus two. Maybe it's in blue when we do that in red, but we wouldn't, for example, do it in white. But since white can do damage to attackers or blockers, we'd let it put minus one minus one counters on attackers or blockers. Any place where we let it do damage, we let it do minus one, minus one counters.

So in a set that has minus one, minus one counters, any place I'm talking about doing damage, we will often let the damage swap in for minus one, minus one. Also, and we'll obviously swap in minus N, minus N for if I'm willing to give you minus two, minus two until end of turn, or an aura that's minus two, minus two, I'm clearly willing to give you two, minus two, minus two until end of turn or an aura that's minus two, minus two I'm clearly willing to give you

two, minus two, minus two counters. So black has a lot more flexibility to how it uses minus one, minus one counters. So red can also we have been messing around a little bit with

trying to do temporary style things. So most of them aren't creature destruction. I mean one of the things where, I mean, this is the future, is we're kind of looking for things that colors get to do long term that we let red do short term. And so there's

some things that aren't official yet that we're looking at of are there some short term answers maybe that we give red as it means to deal with creatures a little hint of maybe where the future is going um anything else in Red um uh

oh I should say this about direct damage direct damage we keep I like to say direct damage and sound like oh it's just one thing when in reality it is probably the most robust of every mechanic I've mentioned today. Like, the ability for us to make a lot of cards with it is really high. And in some ways, whether red is doing damage to a single creature, to multiple creatures, to all creatures,

there's a huge sort of range difference there. Like, for example, red doing one damage to all creatures is a lot like black kind of giving everything minus one to end of turn, which is, in black, considered a different effect than destroy target creature, which would be kind of like, you know, do four or five to creatures, destroys most creatures, for example. So red has access to do damage to creatures, much like black has access to do creature destruction effects however it wants, red has access to do damage to creatures, much like black has access to do creature destruction effects however it wants.

Red has access to do damage destruction to creatures all at once. It can do, like I said, it can do a little bit, it can do a lot. Once again, we tend to tap out around five damage. Red doesn't usually, everyone's in a blue moon, but it doesn't usually do much more than five damage at a time. But it can do five damage to everybody. It can do five damage to a single creature. It has a full range of how it does sort of direct damage type stuff.

And once again, we also allow trigger stuff like whenever you cycle a car or whenever you use a certain mechanic. It's a very common thing we do at Uncommon, which is do thing X, which is very similar. Do a thing that this set is all about. When you do that thing, you'll get to do two damage to target creature or player. We do that effect a lot. So... Is that all?

Oh, red can force creatures to attack. It either can grant the must attack every turn ability on them, or it just can say, you must attack this turn. Red can also force things to have to block it. It can have the, this creature must be blocked, something we do in red and green. And so it also can do that to sort of force you to deal with it. Okay, that is red.

Green. So green's weakness is green is the worst at destroying creatures, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have answers. First off, two exceptions. Green can destroy artifacts. Oh, so red also. White, red, and green can all destroy artifacts, so that means it all has the ability to destroy an artifact creature.

Red, green also has the ability specifically to destroy flying creatures. Red does that when everyone's in a blue moon. Green and red, to a lesser extent, are the anti-flying colors. Like red has reach as secondary, where green has it first. But mostly green is the one that tends to do the plummets, the destroy target flying creature. So green, every once in a while we make enchantment creatures, like we do in Pharos.

Obviously, white and green are the enchantment destruction colors, so those can destroy enchantment creatures. So there's a bunch of things that green can destroy. Also, technically, red, green, and black all can destroy land, and occasionally we make animated land, so each of those can destroy land creatures. But once we get out of

the caveats of, okay, other things that are creature plus something else that green can destroy, because green destroy most non-creature things, let's talk about just creatures. So green's biggest means in which to deal with creatures is the fight mechanic. Fight usually says my creature and your creature outside of combat essentially fight.

I do damage to you, you do damage to me. We've more recently started doing one side of fighting green, which is I do damage equal to my creature, but you don't hit me back. We had done that ability for a while in red and finally decided that green just could use it more than red. It still required you to have a creature to deal with creatures, which is green's

big weakness, is green's bad at dealing with creatures when it itself doesn't have any creatures. Then it requires its creatures to deal with creatures, which is why it fights so big. And we decided to try one side of the fight just because we were trying to give green a little more answers to things but that thematically fit we also give green the lure ability

so I just mentioned that for red so lure ability comes in two forms one form is I must be blocked, somebody must block me and another is all creatures must block me. That's what lure was from Alpha. We don't do the lure ability very often, and we do, it's higher in rarity now, because it's pretty devastating.

Essentially, in Limited, what it means is, every other creature I have is going to get through, because you must block this one creature. So we don't do too much lure these days, and if we do, it's one-shot things, it's nothing repeatable, although, usually the lure guy dies, so I guess it doesn't really matter if it's one-shot things, it's nothing repeatable, although usually the lure guy dies,

so I guess it doesn't really matter if it's one-shot or repeatable. Oh, I didn't mention in red, I talked about how target creature can't block. That also can be masked. We do false-step type effects, which all the creatures can't block, which is a masked version of that. Usually, by the way, if a color can do something to one creature, we let it do it to all creatures on occasion.

So green has the lure stuff. It also has target creature must block the turn. So not just I'm a creature that must be blocked, but it can make a creature have to block. Green will do that occasionally as a means by which to deal with creatures. It says, oh, you must block, and my creature's going to deal with you,

but I'm going to attack with a big creature bigger than that creature, and I make that creature have to block, and, well, you've got to and my creature's going to deal with you, but I'm going to attack with a big creature bigger than that creature, and I make that creature have to block, and, well, you've got to block my one big creature, and then you're going to get destroyed. Green will also do that. Green, like I said, green is a bit limited on, like, creature stuff is tied to dealing with creatures,

so usually when we're messing with green creatures, it is how are my creatures destroying your creatures? There are a few effects out there that I don't consider on color. You know, I turn you into a wall, you know, Lignify, or Beast Within does sort of, I turn anything into a creature. Oh, green does get a little bit of transformation. Um, we, every once in a blue moon, usually though, green is transforming its own things and not so much transforming the opponent's things.

It's got a little bit of like, I have some adaptability, but we don't do a lot on you. Um, there are, green is the color that we probably have done the worst job at bleeding small things in because green's weakness... If I don't have a creature and you have a creature, green is... You're not an artifact or flying.

Flying creature is the only creature type that green can deal with that's not some other type of card that doesn't require having a creature. And that's because green's anti with that's not some other type of card that doesn't require having a creature. And that's because green is anti-flying, it's sort of the answer to flying because green isn't a flying, or not much. So we occasionally end up making these spells that aren't really supposed to do that.

So there's a bunch, green in like commander has a whole bunch of cards that really green is not supposed to have. So one of our problems in Commander is green's weakness with creatures has really been undermined by a bunch of... Like, one of the problems in general is R&D, each person was... I mean, this is what Color Consoles got made. People were like, well, I think this is the weakness.

And everybody's like, well, I can make this card because this isn't the weakness. And people kept shaving the weakness by thinking the weakness was slightly everybody's like, well, I can make this card because this isn't the weakness. And people kept shaving the weakness by thinking the weakness was slightly different from where it was. And now we have the problem in Commander where while it's not that hard to deal with creatures, there's a lot of spells that green's not really supposed to have that sits there

in green. I'm trying to think of anything else to deal with creatures in green. I mean, green is stuff like trample, where I'm... Oh, I didn't mention, red and black have menace. Actually, I didn't get into evasion

at all. I mean, evasion isn't dealing with creatures in the sense of destroying them, but it is dealing with them and maybe not making them matter. White, blue, black, and red at higher rarities and dragons and things have flying. Black and red have menace. Green has an ability called Daunt, where it can't be blocked by creatures with power two or less.

Green has trample. It's got super trample, where if it's blocked, it can put the damage through. Blue has unblockability. So there's a whole bunch of evasions that help creatures sort of say, it's not that I removed the creature from play, but hey, maybe you can't block me, and so I can deal with you because you can't block me. I'm going pretty broad today.

But one of my hopes, I'm almost at work, one of my hopes today is to show you that we really have tried to find slice, like, hey, how do I deal with creatures? There's all sorts of ways to deal with creatures, and we want to divvy them up and put them in different places. So, like, okay, well, the color that, you know, tends to have the best answers but is answerable is white. The color that, like, requires creatures to deal with creatures is green. You know, the color that's like, I can't quite destroy them, but there's a lot of other ways I can deal with them is blue. The color that's like, I can deal with them, but if they start getting too big,

I start running into problems, that's red. And the creatures, I got no problem with creatures, is black. Black really is the color that's supposed to be the best at it. And so the idea is, if you'll notice, in each way we kind of want to move in and say, where are the problem childs? Where are, for example, you know, green is gonna have problems if it doesn't have creatures. You know, red is gonna have problems if your creatures are just too big, too tough, to be fair. Blue is gonna have, for example, ironically, although blue has hexproof, hexproof is a big problem Too tough, to be fair. Blue's good at, for example, ironically, although blue has hexproof,

hexproof is a big problem for blue. Because a lot of blue's answers to creatures are like, I have to somehow do something to the creature, and if I can't do something to the creature, it's harder for blue to deal with. Back when, for example, we did more protection. Protection from blue was a real good answer to blue, because

so much of blue's answers to creatures, like white and black, for example, and even red to a certain extent, although protection stops damage, had non-target effects. I destroy all creatures or I do something to everybody where blue, usually its answers were more pinpoint.

Other than the occasional all creatures get minus N, minus O, that's for a turn. Pro blue would really stop Blue from being able to do that. And it's not like Hexproof does that now. Anyway, so I'm hoping you guys enjoyed today.

Like I said, this is one of the things, the reason I love the color wheel and the wheel that's so important is it gives a lot of nuance to the game, that it gives each of the colors personality and it gives the mechanics themselves a feel you know that when you're playing

red the the vulnerabilities in red or the weaknesses in red feel organic to what red is like when you play a giant toughness creature like oh I have to use direct damage that's a problem how do I deal with that well maybe I can do two spells you know like you have to start

solving things but it's not like okay red's got to solve its problems in a red way and green has to solve its problems in a green way and so I really like how that works with how it deals with creatures so anyway I'm now about to park my car so I hope you guys enjoyed it

if you would like more of these let me know um i think this kind of thing maybe i'll do again um i love talking color pie so why not talk mechanical color pie but anyway i'm now in my parking spot so we all know what that means means this is the end of my drive to work instead of talking magic it's time for me to be making magic i'll see you guys next time bye